[1:59] Mhm.

[3:54] » Mhm.

[5:33] » We're going to call this meeting to order. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to

[5:36] the special meeting today, being August the 20th of 2026, the time being

[5:42] 10:03. We're going to proceed Uh

[5:46] uh with the invocation. Commissioner, if

[5:49] you might be >> Yes, no, of course.

[5:54] Dear Lord, we thank you for allowing us to gather here today. We ask you to

[5:57] bless every mind and heart that fills the presence of this room.

[6:00] We ask for wisdom and discernment as we make decisions that affect our city.

[6:05] Special prayer to all those that are working outside, especially in these

[6:08] very hot days. Please watch over them and protect all everyone in our

[6:11] community. We ask these things in thy name. Amen.

[6:14] » Amen. >> And now, pledge of allegiance, please.

[6:18] » I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the

[6:22] republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and

[6:27] justice for all. >> And now, the Texas flag, please.

[6:31] » Honor the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state

[6:36] under God, one and indivisible. >> Thank you.

[6:43] At this time, I'm going to move to item 1B, which is a roll call. Commissioner

[6:47] Ben De Leon is uh absent. Commissioner Adela Barera, present. Mayor, present.

[6:51] Commissioner Olivarez, >> Present.

[6:53] » Commissioner Barera, is he connected to the

[6:58] » Uh no, he's not. >> Okay, fine.

[7:03] Having uh two commissioners and myself, at this

[7:07] time, I'm going to find that that we do have quorum to proceed forward with

[7:09] today's meeting. Uh ma'am, do we have anybody signed up

[7:13] for public forum? >> No, sir.

[7:15] » Okay. We shall move to item 2A, discussion

[7:18] possible action to ratify the approved contract with Real Delta Engineering for

[7:22] engineering services related to the International Drive project, AFA ID

[7:27] number Z uh 00009113.

[7:33] Do we have a presentation on that?

[7:36] Anybody or

[7:40] » Um Mr. Ivan Garcia will

[7:43] um give an update on the >> There what?

[7:46] » Yes. >> Good morning, sir.

[7:48] » Good morning, uh, commissioners, mayor. Um,

[7:51] buddy, Ivan Garcia with Rio Delta Engineering.

[7:54] Uh, was we are basically, uh, ready to roll with the project, uh, right now.

[7:59] After the contract gets, uh, executed, the next step is to set up a kick off

[8:03] meeting with TxDOT. Uh, we talked about it at the last meeting that we had with

[8:07] them. So, they're basically just expecting for today to happen,

[8:11] basically, so they can schedule that meeting. At that meeting, we're going to

[8:13] go over details on deliverables, milestones, uh,

[8:18] and different things that they're going to be requiring throughout their

[8:20] process, so that we can be on the same page. Uh, the other thing is that, uh,

[8:25] we will be setting up, uh, bi-weekly coordination meetings with,

[8:30] uh, Ms. Landers and Ms. Melinda and the staff to make sure that, uh, I guess the

[8:34] city is aware of everything that's going on and we can distribute action items as

[8:38] as we need to and responsibilities and everything to push the project forward

[8:42] and make sure that, uh, we're not, uh,

[8:45] uh, basically extending any timelines or anything, uh, unnecessarily, right? Uh,

[8:51] the other thing is that we have our sub-consultants basically on standby, so

[8:55] that as soon as, uh, we have the kick off meeting and they give us some

[8:58] guidelines for some deliverables for them, they can start working on traffic

[9:01] studies, completing environmental, uh, assessments and everything else. So, uh,

[9:06] we understand this is, uh, and we know this is a uh, priority for the city, uh,

[9:11] so it's a it is a priority for us as well and we'll try to meet the project

[9:15] deadlines, uh, as best as we can. Yes. Thank you.

[9:18] » Do we have a motion on this? >> I move

[9:21] to approve item number two, the contracts and

[9:24] agreement that is, uh, as presented.

[9:27] » I second. >> Motion has been seconded.

[9:30] Uh, it's on the floor. Does anybody have any

[9:32] questions or concerns now that we have a representative from Rio Delta?

[9:36] » I do, mayor. And uh, like I mentioned to you, Mr. Garcia, on last

[9:42] night's meeting with the EDC, which was also part of these

[9:48] uh great project, we expect nothing but the execution and

[9:54] fast execution of these project. And this is just to uh I want to inform the

[10:00] community that this is a project that had been in the oven

[10:06] for 8 years. So, the baby, it's 8 years old. He's

[10:11] walking, running, he's riding a bike. And after a very

[10:19] difficult uh you can say process to make it

[10:23] happen, uh thanks to the mayor's involvement, the commission,

[10:29] city manager, assistant city manager, our projects department director, our

[10:35] CFO, the private investors, and uh TexDOT,

[10:41] and many others that got involved on these,

[10:45] like we always say, rest assured that this city, under this

[10:50] administration, will not have any single project in a delayed mode or on standby.

[10:58] And I said it many times, if

[11:03] being a neglected elected official was a crime,

[11:08] some of the previous commissioners and mayors should be in jail for a long time

[11:14] because this is unacceptable. What happened with this project is

[11:19] unacceptable, and it's not because of you, of course. You just uh you're a a

[11:23] vendor, right? But the way it was handled from the city, it was just

[11:28] neglected. So, I I thank the mayor and again, for getting

[11:33] things into uh urgency the way they're supposed to be, and for everybody who

[11:38] participated, the EDC as well, uh you know, putting these special meetings

[11:43] just so that we can be in compliance with TxDOT, and that these $4 million

[11:48] that were secured for this city to help with traffic and with the growth that we

[11:54] are experiencing, that were on standby, and again,

[11:59] this is this was unacceptable, but I'm glad that finally we are coming with

[12:04] solutions, and this project will be made in a very short period of time.

[12:11] So, again, thank you for for everybody to everybody who participated.

[12:17] » Yes, sir. All I want to say is I want to thank uh

[12:20] staff, uh our leadership, um Mr. Belant, thank you so much for

[12:25] working on this project. Miss Sarah Hernandez, thank you uh for putting up

[12:29] with me. I know we've been dealing with with this

[12:32] project, and obviously this is uh we got an urgent matter

[12:38] in our hands, and and we've been addressing uh and last but not least, I

[12:42] want to thank personnel from Rio Delta for for

[12:46] taking our phone calls, for addressing our needs, and for being there when we

[12:49] needed you guys. Uh

[12:51] we sincerely appreciate that. Obviously, you know that this is an important

[12:54] project. We don't want to lose the grant. Uh we're trying to do our very

[12:58] best to be successful in this project, and uh

[13:03] I just want to say thank you to everybody that's participating in making

[13:07] this thing a reality. >> You're welcome, mayor, and I'd like to

[13:10] also thank our assistant city manager and our finance director for their, you

[13:15] know, efforts, you know, that they put in this bring this project back into

[13:19] operation, and definitely, uh without them it'd be impossible to

[13:23] move some of these things forward. >> Thank you.

[13:27] Anybody else? Any other questions? Okay.

[13:32] Having no further questions, this item is up for approval and vote. Before I

[13:36] move on, Ms. Garcia, I'm assuming that you reviewed the

[13:39] contract. Everything good with the contract?

[13:41] » Yes, sir. >> Okay, very well.

[13:43] Having no further discussion on this matter,

[13:46] the item is right for a vote. All of those in favor in favor for

[13:49] approval of the ratification of the contract, say aye.

[13:52] » Aye. >> Aye.

[13:53] » Aye. >> Motion carries.

[13:55] » Mayor, before you continue >> Yes, sir.

[13:57] » Can you explain what these process what these project is about because maybe the

[14:01] community doesn't know. This is going to be the International Drive and what

[14:06] what's going to I mean, can you explain it perfectly in a few words?

[14:09] » um This is a project that had been in the

[14:12] works and what's going to happen is we have a small loop that's coming in from

[14:19] the port of entry. And what's significant about this is

[14:24] that it's going to be targeting the commercial traffic. So, commercial

[14:27] traffic is going to be rerouted directly to 755.

[14:32] Obviously, our 755 now is here in the corner of

[14:36] Walmart and the idea is that with this with this loop, we're going to be able

[14:40] to reroute the heavy traffic which is going to be mainly the 18-wheelers or

[14:44] commercial vehicles that they are going to be rerouted around Walmart and

[14:48] they're going to have a straight shot at 755. Obviously, the idea is that the

[14:54] heavy traffic is not roaming around within

[14:57] within the community, right? Those are heavy truck Those are heavy trucks.

[15:01] They're In my opinion, they're fairly dangerous.

[15:05] So, we want to try to keep them away from our community and obviously

[15:11] they also affect tremendously our traffic the traffic that we have. So,

[15:15] being able to reroute the commercial traffic up to 755, that's

[15:20] going to obviously complement 755, but that's going to ease the traffic problem

[15:24] that we have. Uh further north as the majority of the

[15:28] community knows, there's there's that Loop 195 that's being

[15:33] constructed right now by TxDOT. This Loop is also going to complement

[15:38] that in that from there, rerouting traffic, right? The heavy traffic is

[15:43] going to be able to decide whether they're going to go north, east or west

[15:47] from there without having to interfere with our local

[15:50] traffic here. Uh this project had been pending for

[15:54] some time. There's a lot of of of delays that we had on the project. Um

[16:00] Yeah, obviously it's a complicated project,

[16:03] but it got to the point where we needed to really take action. Otherwise, we

[16:07] were going to lose the grant, and that's what we're doing here today. We're

[16:10] making sure that that the project

[16:14] is a successful project and that we finalize the project so that we can

[16:18] continue to improve um

[16:20] our traffic and our road system that we have here in our community. Thank you.

[16:24] » The grant is for how much? >> The grant was for $4 million, correct?

[16:31] » Yeah. $4 million, and then the city and EDC will participate.

[16:35] » Yeah, the city and EDC is going to participate with a share of the funds.

[16:40] Uh Obviously, right now we have some

[16:44] projections. We believe that it's going to be

[16:47] anywhere from half a million to a million dollars, but the EDC and the

[16:51] city should be able to cover this, but it's it's a

[16:54] it's an 80/20 grant, I think. Something like that.

[16:57] » Okay. >> But it's $4 million that we have on the

[16:59] table, $4 million that we need to put to good use.

[17:02] » Okay. >> Uh and we have a small match that we

[17:04] have to do there, but the city and the EDC are

[17:08] are able to to come up with those funds to to make sure that

[17:11] » lose this close >> This close

[17:15] to lose >> those $4 million just so the community

[17:19] can understand why it was so important. It's an urgent

[17:22] matter. The baby was going to be a doctor. Yeah,

[17:27] I mean it would have been in middle school, imagine,

[17:30] with no money. So, yeah, somebody else was already asking for that money. Some

[17:35] other cities, some other communities, right?

[17:37] Rightfully so because if we don't use it, I mean, it's just sitting there

[17:41] where it could be of some use for somebody else that's ready and willing.

[17:45] But we are ready and willing to take those funds and put them to good use.

[17:49] So, thank you for everybody for

[17:51] participating.

[17:54] We had a vote on that. The the motion was approved, so the

[17:58] contract is approved. Do we have anything for executive

[18:03] session? >> No, ma'am.

[18:04] » No. >> Okay, I believe that concludes the

[18:08] business that we have today.

[18:11] And the time is 10:16, so at this time we stand adjourned.

[19:40] » Mhm.

RGC Special Commission Meeting August 20, 2026

Transcript