Okay, I'm going to look at the right page here.
That's the next thing on the agenda. >> Okay, consent to the agenda items.
Maybe approved by council member. Motion.
» Second. >> All in favor.
» Aye. >> Aye. Nice.
» Yeah, that was included in the packet. And
any detailed financial report will be provided by Andrew at that.
» Okay. All right. Uh
any uh community interest items anybody wants to talk about?
Coming up. Want to know about.
Thanks. All right. Uh-oh.
Yes.
» Why don't you do that at citizen participation in just a minute? Yeah,
that's coming up right now. >> That's That's right now. So, we're going
to be any uh community interest items to speak about, so we'll go straight to
citizen participation. So, if you'd like to come up
and >> Yeah, you do.
» Yeah, you do. >> And then, please give your name.
» My name's Jack Brooks. I'm the new
Republican Party Chairman, Franklin County.
And the 25th of August, we're going to have two state representatives
and a lady named Krista Shields, who is a expert on this Islamic movement,
coming to give a speech and give a program
at 7:00 at the airport here in Franklin County.
Would love to see some of y'all there. Good citizen participation.
» [clears throat] >> Thank y'all.
» Thanks, sir.
Anyone else?
All right. So, we'll move on to be
items to be considered. Uh number four here is consider request
for re-plat of property located at 811 Miller Street,
Mount Vernon, Texas 0.465
AC Gabriel Keith Survey A- 261 Mount Vernon
City of Mount Vernon, Texas. >> Mr. Lester?
» Mr. Lester, you want to talk about? >> Would you please come up?
» Yeah, so My name is Alex Lester. So, basically I
need to replat uh piece of property to two lots and
we're going to build some single home families here
um for starter homes.
» Okay, on on this replat, the zoning will not need to be changed. It'll still
remain um um R2 zoning and and it meets all the
minimum uh setback requirements and meets the
minimum square footage. He's taking a lot that is basically 19,000 square foot
and cutting cutting it in half. And on R2, you have to have a minimum of
5,000 square foot to the lot. So, it
you won't need to come back to change the zoning is what I'm telling you.
» Okay. >> Okay.
» Yeah. >> All right.
» Um that's all. Is that about it?
You know. >> Yeah, I need that or that for a motion
on that. >> For motion.
» Second. >> I'll second.
» All right. Mayor seconds.
On to the next. Uh number five, in accordance with Texas Tax Code.
» Uh so, we've had new numbers which y'all have been provided and the new uh
uh voter approved rate is 0.58
um Help me there. 102,
correct? Which is 0.000014
um since less than what was originally published.
The net effect of that is about $2,800. But given that this document has been
put out there according to uh we need to go ahead and
redo this next week. And and the council doesn't take any action
on this. They will uh they will propose a rate
next week after we have had this just out in the public again. Okay? So, I'm
grateful for all the work that Melissa's done on this and Andrew's done on this.
And folks, this is a very complicated calculation. It's very time-consuming.
And um you know, I I wish everything could be perfect
when when
we put it out there, but sometimes it's just not. So, um Melissa gave us the new
numbers or the correct numbers today at about 4:00. So, they're out there.
The good news is is that they the tax rate has actually dropped.
So, that's always that's always a good thing.
Anybody have any questions on that?
» We have a motion on that one there? >> No No action.
» No action needed. Okay. I didn't hear it.
I apologize. Uh
Six from six. Yes. Uh number six, consider contract for the
municipal judge uh I believe Mr. Sears. That's you.
» That's me. >> Would you mind giving us a little
background about yourself and kind of let us know
» I know a lot of people My name is Stacy Sears. Uh
I grew up here in Mount Vernon. Went to East Texas State University,
graduated with a bachelor's degree there at Texas A&M
Commerce now. I was working for the Sheriff's Office.
I spent about 5 years working at the Sheriff's Office.
Got employed by Texas Department of Public Safety. Was a state trooper there
for about 25 years and then after retiring from there
managed the Preifert Logistics safety department for them for about 10 years.
Been retired for about 5 months now from that and of course we
my wife and I own a real estate company here
in Mount Vernon. They approached me about doing this and
I thought it might be a good fit for me and be able to help
the city of Mount Vernon also, so
that's kind of where we are today. I'll answer any questions if anybody has
any that I can answer. >> I I have a a couple things that I want
to say. We searched for months to find somebody that we felt would be a good
fit for this or was qualified for this and I'm just very grateful that Stacy
stepped up with his experience as DPS trooper
experience in law enforcement and his connection
with the community. I just felt like he is a great great fit for us and we
really look forward to working with him.
We met with him, Christie has met with him and we're you know, got a plan ahead
of us and we're looking forward to having you
calling you your honor, okay? >> [laughter]
» Leanne's going to do that now, too. >> Yeah, yeah.
» You know how far that'll go. >> [laughter]
» That ain't happening.
So, yeah, so Council, do you have any questions on
the agreement?
» I'll make a motion to approve that. >> I'll do a motion to approve.
» I'll second. >> Motion approved.
All right, on to number seven. Consider suggested ordinance amendment. Ordinance
number 2026-03
regarding officers appointed by council. In order to make day-to-day operations
more efficient, this amendment does not create any entitlement
or take away from any existing roles.
» Uh if you look at the proposed changes to
the ordinance, you'll see that um the appointed officers of the city um
will include a municipal judge, a city administrator, city attorney, chief of
police, and other officers that the city council deem necessary.
The big change here is that it has removed the city secretary from being
appointed by the council uh and placed her uh
uh in the organizational chart under the
city administrator. And that is the only change on this on
this ordinance.
» Anybody got any questions about it? Motion to approve.
Motion. >> I'll second.
» That's two motions All right, number eight. Uh
Consider the ordinance amendment amendments ordinance number
2026 -04 regard regarding defining and
clarifying the role of city administrator.
This role has been a job held in the city for at least 20 years. This
ordinance serves to memorialize and codify those roles.
So, it kind of goes to the same thing, right?
» Right. The The city has budgeted and paid for a
city administrator for at least 20 years, but it's never been in the
ordinance to have a city administrator. This actually officially creates the
position of city administrator. And as you saw by the ordinance that was just
that y'all just passed, the council has the authority to appoint whoever they
want to to that position. Uh if you've read through this, you'll you'll see
that the city administrator serves at the will of the council. And uh the
ordinance also describes the the duties and authority and responsibilities of
the city administrator. So it it basically codifies the position. It
makes it legit. So Um once this is done, I will actually be
legitimate instead of being illegitimate. So
» I should motion to approve that. >> I'll make a motion to approve that.
» I'll second. >> Second. All right. Motion approved.
» Thank you. I feel so much better. >> You're official.
» That's it. Um yeah, I will bring up I'll I
Council, I wanted to bring you up to speed on where we are with the Little
Creek Park project. Um I want to get a little background out there in the
public about this. Um just to kind of maybe clarify any any concerns or
questions that that folks may have about this. Uh those of you that have been
serving on the council for a while uh know that uh back in 2024
uh we applied for a grant for what was phase one of the Little Creek Park uh
project. And that basically was some straight shade structures, new
playground equipment. And that was pretty much it uh on that. Um the grant
was approved. Um we actually uh got notification of the uh approval of the
grant. We had applied for this probably in September
of 2024. That's when the application was
submitted. It was we were notified that there would be a
forthcoming award in January or February of 25. We got the award notification,
the official award notification where we actually it said an award date of 9 15
25. That's when it was actually awarded to
the city. The performance period for the phase one
project began starts on 10 1 2025
and runs through 9 30 2028. During that period around October of
2025, we were approached by the representative of the Texas Parks and
Wildlife program and encouraged to apply for phase two of
Little Creek Park project during the 2025
consideration of applications. We submitted that. We
were not awarded phase two. Our plans We didn't begin construction in 2025
because we were told go ahead and apply and then you do construction at one
time. Get better bids. Everything's done at
once. Save on engineering costs and everything.
We submitted that. We were notified in earlier this year that we were not
awarded phase two. So, that kind of went out the window and
so we got back with the grant and decided to go ahead and start
planning just to do phase one. Good news is is that they have actually started on
the design on phase one. They were here Saturday doing surveying at the park.
Identifying where everything was going to be.
The design period will be approximately four to six months. At which time once
that's done, um, they will bring the preliminary design
to council and we'll have a public meeting and everybody give their public
comment about that. If y'all want anything changed, you can tell them,
they'll change that. Um, they'll take that back. Two months later, they will
start going out for bid on the actual, uh, construction of of the park project.
Uh, I've got a map for y'all's purposes here to kind of take a look at what has
actually been going to be done and what is actually going to be cut. Um,
and as you can kind of see that that we've gone back basically just to some
shade structures and to relocating the, um, playground equipment from, um,
uh, down by the tennis courts to up by the splash pad, which makes a whole lot
more sense. And, um,
that will be, uh, um, you know, they kids can run from the
playground to the splash pad. That just makes it a lot of sense.
Um, and then they'll be adding a couple of shade structures, but that'll be all
that's in phase one. Now, we've been encouraged to reapply possibly this next
year for phase two. Phase two included the, uh, resurfacing of the basketball
courts, resurfacing of the tennis courts, and also, um,
um, the amphitheater. Um,
we'll we'll see how that goes. We'll apply and see see how that goes out, but
we're not going to slow down the construction on these,
uh, and wait another, um, you know, period of time. Um, we're
going to go ahead and get this playground built as rapidly as possible.
So, that's kind of where we're at, um, with grants, I think it's important for
the public to understand that it is not unusual to write a grant
and uh, and then finally see the money 3 years
later. Cartel and Arrington is a perfect
example of that. We actually wrote the grant for car that
was actually submitted in September of 2021.
We finished the project, completed the project. Um
and that's everything. All the finances going back in in March of 2026.
So, that's the that's federal grant money and this is federal grant money
and this is it just it doesn't happen fast. I'm sorry. I wish it yeah, I wish
it did, but there's a whole lot of hoops to jump through and it just takes time.
The the the thing to know here is that on the Little Creek Park, we have until
9:30 2028 to finish this project. This will be finished sometime in 2027.
So, I want to bring everybody up to speed on
that. Anybody have any questions on it?
» Not on that. I got a I got a separate question. You probably answer this
pretty quick. Um I got a the email from the TDA go about
the Oscar. About that
that What was that grant for? Did we get that
or did we not get that? >> That that was a that was a C that was
still working on that CDBG project. >> Well, it said something about how
you had to fill out the Oscar in order to get the Oscar or something or
» The Oscar close out documentation. That was about
our audit. >> Okay.
» And the Oscar has to do with if you receive more than $500,000 in 1 year
uh of federal funds, it has to it has to be audited. We didn't receive more than
$500,000, so we're exempt from that. But you you you
» I didn't read into it. It just said something about it was going to be on
hold. I I hardly we read through those, but that one just kind of struck down. I
didn't know if >> And if your funding would be on hold.
But I think we've received all the payments on that grant already.
But future funding would be on hold, but that's been taken care of.
» That's a perfect example though. The closeout was
» March. Yeah.
And it's you're dealing
with federal money, you're dealing not just with the feds, but you're also
dealing with the state agency that handles the money for the feds. So, it's
triple layer of bureaucracy. And it's just jumping through a whole
lot of hoops. So, um
and even on our criminal justice grants, it takes a while.
And there's a lot of paperwork, Leah. Is that not correct?
Even if it's a $10,000 grant.
Can't think of anything.
We'll call it in. >> Motion to adjourn.
» Motion to adjourn? >> Second.
» 6:21. Motion
to adjourn.
» Thanks, Mark. >> Okay.
» We'll see you.