[0:00] oh
[0:10] [Music]
[0:28] we have a forum
we need to approve the minutes of the
[0:32] previous meetings
we've got those in your packets
[0:36] are there any let's see
[Music]
[0:57] no one against but i can tell all right
good deal
[1:00] um all right via zoo
uh
[1:03] mr david mendez is here joining us he's
going to give us some
[1:08] uh talk to us about the packet they sent
to us
[1:25] thank you mayor i hope you can hear me
all right council members is this uh
[1:28] okay volume
can you hear me all right
[1:33] can you guys hear okay
no i can hear you all right mr memphis
[1:39] okay uh i'm gonna share is it okay if i
share my screen
[1:44] yes you can go ahead and do that okay
let me uh i'm gonna i'm gonna see if i
[1:49] can get this going here
uh and uh let me know
[1:55] if you can see the front slide uh a
slide that says initial assessment by a
[2:00] city of sea grave 2021 can you hear can
you see that
[2:07] okay so
uh uh council
[2:10] what i want to do this evening is a
couple of different things with you i'm
[2:14] gonna i'm gonna try to cover three main
points
[2:17] here
uh about the city's redistricting
[2:20] and again i'm david mendez i'm with the
bigger staff firm you probably remember
[2:24] me we we've visited before i i do some
of your bond transaction work and i
[2:30] worked with dan and the mayor as we as
we sold some bonds last year you're
[2:35] working with some of the other members
of my firm right now to finish up the
[2:38] usda deal but
every decade and this is my fourth cycle
[2:43] of doing these projects i started in the
1990 round but every decade as a census
[2:49] comes out we serve about 125 different
county cities schools and colleges
[2:56] hospital districts others that have
single member districts to help them
[3:00] realign their boundaries and so what
we're going to do tonight is go over why
[3:05] the why why you the city of sea graves
has that obligation
[3:10] what the census shows about the city of
sea graves and then i'm going to propose
[3:15] a process whereby we're going to fix the
the
[3:18] the imbalance that exists so uh if
you'll bear with me and then i'll take
[3:23] questions on the back side because of
the audio from your end i think uh i'm
[3:28] going to need uh dan to interpret
because i i get a lot of feedback on the
[3:32] when you talk so i'm going to have dan
give me the questions from you as we
[3:36] finish but here here's the the deal is
you
[3:41] uh have
uh uh what i'm what i'm what i'm doing
[3:45] tonight is presenting
uh an initial assessment
[3:50] david
just a second we're going to move closer
[3:53] to the microphone
having trouble hearing it give us just a
[3:57] second okay
the council's going to orient themselves
[4:01] a better look at the at the presentation
david and to hear you better just a
[4:06] moment
awesome okay
[4:17] maybe better off on this side
[Music]
[4:31] okay i think we're in place david all
right okay okay this is gonna be like a
[4:36] mini law lesson here for you guys and so
uh but essentially what i'm going to do
[4:42] is tonight is this initial assessment
i'm going to explain the problem i'm
[4:45] going to show you some guidelines and
criteria that i want you to adopt that
[4:49] i'm going to recommend you adopt to make
us go through the process easier i'm
[4:54] going to then and that's gonna allow us
to develop a plan to solve the imbalance
[4:58] among the districts
obtain some public input and then we can
[5:03] get to analyzing and adopting a final
plan and so that's the in a nutshell
[5:08] what we're gonna do but i want to
explain why we're doing redistricting
[5:12] you guys are the legislature of the city
of sea graves you as a council make the
[5:19] laws that apply the ordinances that
apply to the citizenry there and back
[5:25] in the 80s or whenever you converted to
single member districts what what the
[5:30] the
that process of electing each council
[5:34] member from a single member district
caused you to be subject to the one
[5:39] person one vote requirement and i'm
going to explain that here in a minute
[5:43] and so i'm going to explain that how one
person one vote works and then why the
[5:48] voting rights act and these other
constitutional law cases like shaw
[5:53] versus reno and section 5 of the voting
rights act apply to us in certain
[5:58] respects and so
the reason that we're redistricting and
[6:02] we're looking at the census in the first
place is because you like the
[6:07] legislature make the laws for the
citizenry and the law says that you
[6:13] folks must come from equal size
districts if one of the council
[6:17] districts has
too much population a lot more
[6:20] population than the next one then
effectively the people that are in that
[6:25] overpopulated council district are under
represented at the council they don't
[6:30] get as much bang for their political
buck
[6:34] or bang for their for the buck by voting
a council member to the chamber because
[6:41] they only get to pick one representative
plus the mayor to the council and a
[6:46] district that has few people and the
fewer people in it gets to elect the
[6:51] same thing so that those people in the
underpopulated district actually have a
[6:55] greater voice at sea graves government
and so what we want to do is have each
[7:00] of the districts be balanced and so i
have an overly simplified example here
[7:06] of how this works this is a town that
has four districts it has 40 000 people
[7:11] and just for simplicity
uh the
[7:15] the the population in the census was
forty thousand so each district has to
[7:20] have ten thousand people and in this
example then uh the district one has
[7:26] eleven thousand people so it's ten
percent overpopulated district d has
[7:31] only 8 000 people so it's 2 000 people
underpopulated and so it's 20 over and
[7:38] so the maximum deviation the way the
port looks at and it is at one a and b
[7:45] are 30 percent out of balance and that's
too much difference between one district
[7:50] and the other so what we're required to
do
[7:53] is change the boundaries
of the districts to bring them under 10
[7:59] deviation and we'll show you how how
that looks for sea grapes here in a few
[8:03] minutes but
once you're triggered it and i and your
[8:07] city the census shows that you've
triggered this 10 percent you're over 10
[8:12] deviation then once we've triggered it
we got to look at the voting rights act
[8:17] because
the law the voting rights act says
[8:21] that if we have districts from which the
minority members elected whether it's a
[8:26] hispanic group
of citizens that make the majority in
[8:29] the district or a black
group of
[8:33] voters that make up the bulk of the
district we cannot crack or pack that
[8:39] population
as we redraw the boundaries we want to
[8:42] make sure we protect those groups
to keep their voting strength up in the
[8:48] in the districts and so that's a lot of
of the work of this
[8:52] now the flip side of that process is the
law says we can use the voting rights
[8:58] act to protect those minorities but
that's it that's the only reason we can
[9:02] look at race to make sure we've narrowly
tailored our solution to make sure we
[9:07] didn't uh we didn't uh adversely impact
them under the under the voting rights
[9:12] law but then we move on to dealing with
the stuff that you're interested in
[9:16] which is
uh
[9:18] which territory do i serve which
potholes and streets do am i responsible
[9:23] for or which uh parks am i responsible
for in my district and that's what the
[9:28] bulk of redistricting has to be about so
um uh the courts have said that for us
[9:33] to navigate this tightrope between race
and the regular business of
[9:41] drawing of doing city work we should use
criteria to draw the districts that have
[9:47] these kind of factors as i've got up
here on the board identifiable
[9:51] boundaries we want to make sure we don't
draw
[9:54] the the districts down back alleys or
property lines that nobody can see but
[10:00] that we use identifiable boundaries like
the streets and roads in the community
[10:05] or you know different kinds of
geographical factors like that if you
[10:09] have streams or things like that that
flow through the city we also want to
[10:13] make sure that we keep the neighborhoods
together if you if your neighborhood is
[10:17] what elected you as a council member
then you know what territory
[10:22] your your voters come from and we want
to make sure that as we redraw the line
[10:26] that we don't draw out your constituency
so that maintaining communities of
[10:31] interest is important we want to we
can't use whole voting precincts here in
[10:36] sea graves because every voting precinct
is too big
[10:40] to encompass one council district
probably so but we'll try to take those
[10:45] into consideration so that if a voter
votes in precinct one for all other
[10:49] purposes and they can vote for council
members in in a council particular
[10:54] council district we'll try to keep them
together if we can
[10:58] i'm not sure how that works and we'll
work there in a small town but we'll try
[11:02] to fit it we also want to work from the
plan and the districts you currently
[11:07] have so we don't want to start throw out
all the districts the way they are we
[11:10] want to work from where you got elected
and just tweak it to the minimum extent
[11:15] necessary to bring you back into that 10
deviation
[11:19] we want to make sure the districts
follow the census and are of equal size
[11:23] that they're compact and contiguous and
don't look uh bizarre-shaped or with
[11:30] fingers uh sticking out to go gather a
particular person or draw somebody out
[11:35] of the district the other things is we
want to keep each of you within your
[11:40] current district and your current
constituency to the extent possible and
[11:44] again we want to make sure we don't
adversely affect anybody under the
[11:47] voting rights so
i have a policy i gave that that my team
[11:52] gave to
dan and he'll present that at the end of
[11:56] this for adoption but it basically
adopts those rules you're going to say
[12:00] we're going to follow those rules when
we draw
[12:03] so
the other policy that i have provided
[12:07] him with is a policy for public
participation and to the extent we can
[12:13] we got to do this pretty quick because
we've got to be done by the end of the
[12:16] year
but certainly by the middle of january
[12:19] but to the extent that we draw a plan we
want to put it up on the city website or
[12:23] post it inside city hall so that folks
can come look at it and give you some
[12:28] feedback and see and make sure that they
give you uh guidance if they have or
[12:33] concerns that they may have about the
plan you draw and so
[12:37] i have a policy for that that that uh
dan has there that says that people will
[12:44] uh that we're gonna make this available
that people can provide comment that
[12:48] we're gonna have a public hearing at one
of the drawing sessions and people can
[12:52] provide comment by the time we finish
that drawing that uh public hearing and
[12:57] so we'll talk more about that when we
get to the actual policy but i i i'll uh
[13:01] i just wanted to give you lay that
framework i'm ready now to kind of go
[13:05] into
your council district this is the shape
[13:10] if you will of your current council
districts very compactly drawn and what
[13:14] we did is we took these territories and
the city limit lines that dan provided
[13:20] and we applied the 2020 census to them
and that's what's in your report
[13:25] is this sheet
really kind of is the key
[13:30] to the process so what it shows is that
the the population of the city
[13:38] is now 2154
[13:42] 2154. if we divide that among the five
council districts the the ideal size
[13:49] of each district is just 431 persons
and so
[13:54] that
if you look at the current population of
[13:58] district 1 the way it's configured
it has a 403 people in it it's uh just a
[14:04] couple uh you know with 28 people under
the
[14:08] the ideal size and it's six percent
underpopulated
[14:12] district number two at
427 persons it's almost exactly it's
[14:16] within a
four persons of the ideal size district
[14:21] number three is overpopulated it has 499
people so it's got 172 men here i mean i
[14:29] mean
70 too many so uh
[14:33] district number four at 369 is is about
the same size under
[14:39] under the ideal
uh five
[14:42] and uh district number five uh is uh
uh again at five percent overpopulated
[14:50] with about 20 people or so
over
[14:54] so it's fairly
easy
[14:57] to fix
the the population and you will notice
[15:03] that the predominant
the the reason i have so so we're using
[15:08] this total population to to
to redistrict
[15:12] but i have here some information about
the racial and ethnic makeup of the
[15:18] citizenry and uh 73 of the citizenry in
sea graves are hispanic so 70 so you can
[15:26] see that all of the districts are
majority hispanic third time uh they
[15:31] have uh each of the districts has
some anglo population uh ranging from a
[15:38] low of 12 to about 30 percent uh from
one district to another but that's a
[15:44] that's the second largest group african
americans comprise uh about five percent
[15:50] of the population of the city and so
each of the districts has between
[15:54] uh three and ten percent of the
population two and a half and ten
[15:57] percent of the population but
so there really aren't going to be any
[16:02] voting rights issues
of any significant nature because every
[16:07] district you draw
is majority minority it's their they're
[16:12] all minority districts so
we can concentrate on just getting this
[16:16] in balance states
and it is a very very minor set of
[16:22] changes probably moving a city block
here and there
[16:26] uh
to make the the changes work
[16:29] now
the charts that i gave you have a lot of
[16:32] other detail but it's kind of difficult
it's not very meaningful like for
[16:37] example i provided a chart which shows
the hispanic concentrations and almost
[16:42] every block has
hispanic population in it so it's it's
[16:46] like that
likewise if you look at the
[16:50] african-american
concentrations they're spread out all
[16:53] over the city almost every block has
some but uh with a couple of blocks
[16:58] within the city that have a little bit
larger population in a big city this
[17:02] would matter a lot in c graves it really
comes down to a simple simple math
[17:09] problem i i'm going to back up to this
slide and this really kind of tells
[17:16] us what how minuscule the fixing of this
problem is
[17:22] we probably can fix
uh uh if we can find a city block
[17:28] uh to add population to district one
from one of its neighbors let's say if
[17:34] it joins three uh you're going to be
able to fix it with by adding 20 or 30
[17:40] people and it'll be close to the ideal
size and by that adjustment uh but
[17:46] district number two you don't even have
to
[17:48] mess with if you don't if you don't want
to so the primary change is going to be
[17:53] between three and four
once almost exactly the same amount over
[17:58] populated that the other one's under so
if
[18:02] uh district number three has
60 people too many
[18:07] this district number four needs those 60
people and we can fix the imbalance
[18:12] right there uh
you know five is again a fix of uh uh 10
[18:19] or 20 people so very very
straightforward and
[18:24] but
you have to do this you have to go
[18:27] through this process
in order
[18:30] to
to
[18:32] not get sued
under the uh one person one vote before
[18:37] you hold your next round of elections so
i've done this presentation for you
[18:42] tonight
i'll tell you i did a meeting last
[18:46] week in montgomery county they have
650
[18:52] 000 people it's one of the fastest
growing counties
[18:55] in the country but
uh they they were
[18:59] 11
their maximum deviation was 11
[19:04] so i met with them and i had actually in
that case set up a drawing session with
[19:09] them at the same meeting because we knew
the balance was very small and
[19:14] uh i
uh we they took the commissioners told
[19:17] me move that one precinct over there
from from precinct one to precinct four
[19:22] and we're done and i did that and
they're going to adopt that tomorrow in
[19:27] commissioner's court and be done with
this process and frankly if
[19:32] dan and i had had more time i probably
could have organized something like that
[19:36] with you all here but i didn't know if
you could hear me well enough
[19:41] and we could do this uh if the if your
setup worked well enough there but
[19:47] what i'm going to propose today is that
dan and i get together and set up a work
[19:52] session where you guys can sit
closer into the machine you get good
[19:57] audio i hope you're getting good audio
of this and i will have my computer guy
[20:02] instead of us having this presentation
that i have up i'll actually put up the
[20:06] map
of
[20:09] sea graves on the screen
and you can tell me which block you want
[20:14] me to move from your district into the
neighbors district so that we can get
[20:18] this fixed and we can have i bet you it
would take us
[20:22] 20 minutes 30 minutes of time
sitting here at you guys over there at
[20:27] your desk and me here at my desk and we
could fix the imbalance and you could
[20:32] have the hold it as a public meeting
like this
[20:36] and then the public can watch us fix the
imbalance and then you could adopt it at
[20:40] a the next city council meeting
you could you could have a public
[20:45] hearing
after we drew it and or before the
[20:48] council meeting so that in case anybody
wanted to give you any any feedback
[20:54] dan told me that you all
have a regular uh council meeting on the
[21:00] 13th
and i bet you that between here and
[21:03] there
uh working around thanksgiving that we
[21:06] could get this done so that's what i
have for you guys tonight the first if
[21:12] you uh
first i want to answer any questions you
[21:15] have and then second i would like to see
if council is ready to
[21:20] uh consider and adopt those two policies
that i described the gaia dynastic
[21:26] criteria so that we can get in that so
that dan and i can get to work on a on a
[21:31] work session schedule for you
do we have any questions
[21:36] folks
no
[21:39] all right there are no questions david
[21:44] um
you know
[21:46] uh
considering the level of imbalance
[21:50] that's there
you know is there if i put the map
[21:55] and let me see if i can get a good uh a
bet if you had a few minutes tonight and
[22:00] i put up a good sized map would it be
worth us having a little bit of
[22:05] discussion i don't know you got who's in
one and who's in two and three four five
[22:09] but if you went around the table a
little bit
[22:12] could you guys maybe we could get this
thing moving by just getting a little
[22:17] input from you all about you know hey my
district has
[22:21] uh
too much population
[22:23] maybe we could look at this city block
or that city block and then dan and i
[22:27] could take some notes and maybe we could
kind of get some of the work started on
[22:33] do you guys want to do that
we got the maps
[22:39] you're ready
you want to try it
[22:42] sure okay let me uh pull up a different
i'm going to pull up a different
[22:49] uh
screen
[22:51] do you want to go
[22:57] yeah and if you all pull your maps out
and then let me let me get my world doc
[23:01] stuff
[23:09] i'm going to stop sharing for a second
and pull up a different deal here
[23:13] [Music]
[23:22] [Music]
[23:30] [Music]
is
[23:43] [Music]
[23:49] okay and
lorraine is three
[23:52] oh you're mine oh i own you now
[23:58] reuben five
deborah's two charles is one
[24:07] so
so let me let me see if i can make this
[24:12] work for us here
this
[24:14] is the chart that shows your current
imbalance
[24:19] so
maybe if we start for example with
[24:23] district one and if you help me
on your side of it i want to go put up
[24:28] the picture of the council districts
here in a second but thinking about
[24:32] district number one
that it needs about
[24:37] uh
it it's 30 it's 28
[24:42] people
underpopulated so we need a city block
[24:47] or something like that maybe to move in
that regard
[24:51] out of coming into
district number one and let's when you
[24:57] look at district number one it abuts
three two and five
[25:03] and if we look
at
[25:06] uh just to make this simple i'm going
back if you look at the chart the the
[25:12] guy the the district that has
the population
[25:17] uh
that is almost identical
[25:20] that that to what one needs
is
[25:24] five
district five has essentially about the
[25:29] same number
about 25 people or so
[25:33] over populated so i'm just taking the
those two districts which above each
[25:38] other
and for example one way to solve it is
[25:43] along the edge down here on the south
side of the map and i'm going to try to
[25:48] zoom
into that part of the map here and
[25:52] this is not a live map you know i'm just
got a pdf i've got the same thing you
[25:56] guys do over there
but what i'm going to do is
[26:01] just show you
how easy this is to fit so down here in
[26:06] this by the park
on uh near the chamber of commerce
[26:12] if there was a block
in
[26:16] along avenue
j
[26:20] and between
5th and 2nd street that we might
[26:23] consider adding into for example
district number
[26:28] one
uh it there might be sufficient
[26:31] population in a couple of these blocks
to
[26:35] get
get
[26:38] get number one straightened out
[26:45] any thoughts in that regard or and
certainly
[26:48] you can also see
that likewise district number three a
[26:53] budget and it's got 60 extra people in
it that need to be that that that it's
[26:59] going to have to shed some of
so you could
[27:03] look at any of this area right up here
between 12th street
[27:08] and avenue k
uh and
[27:13] and add some of that territory into
number one and fix the problem
[27:22] does that make sense i mean
[Music]
[27:27] so we need to move out of three and five
and put in one and four right okay
[27:33] well i mean and i'm just suggesting i
mean i you you can take it from any of
[27:38] these because look look you've got
options for one yeah numbers three and
[27:42] five are give you some some some places
you can add
[27:55] [Music]
[28:02] going down to the bottom david please
yeah and one thing i can do
[28:08] guys that would really be make it easy
for you all is i can print this map and
[28:13] i can tell you exactly i can put a
number
[28:16] on each of these city blocks and say
this one has five people this one has
[28:20] ten and just show you
you know exactly what the census shows
[28:25] for each block and then you guys could
in the in the privacy of your own home
[28:30] each of you kind of look at the map and
say well you know i can i can see you
[28:36] know sharing that territory with the
district five or three or whatever and i
[28:40] could send that along to y'all and do
your homework and then we could when we
[28:44] put this up on the screen for you all
we we would have it live and we'd run
[28:48] the numbers here and you could see what
the the actual numbers were on each
[28:53] district when we modified it
david let's do that
[28:58] we all seem to like it
if you do that
[29:01] okay that'd be pretty cool and
yeah i think this would be a very simple
[29:06] exercise and i think you'll find it
enlightening i think the public will
[29:10] appreciate you know hey well i get some
voice over in district one or three or
[29:15] whatever you know
but uh but that's what i had for you all
[29:20] tonight and and then and i could send
you circulate that to you all and then
[29:24] you all can tell me when you're going to
get together and we can get to the next
[29:27] step
okay thank you david
[29:31] wilson you're welcome
need anything else for me tonight
[29:35] well you need that amendment are you
we need to pass the permission to sign
[29:40] those documents yeah i i think mayor if
you guys are comfortable with what i
[29:45] presented in the process that i've
outlined i recommend that you adopt the
[29:50] policy that that i've provided
to uh and let me put that slide back up
[29:56] if you have a moment let me just pull
that back up here
[29:59] uh well i'm gonna pull the actual policy
up if you're good with that let me do
[30:03] that
yeah if you have a second
[30:08] yeah let me let me actually pull the
slide up that i want you to adopt i mean
[30:13] the actual document that is how it looks
[30:45] so um
let me know if you can see hold on let
[30:50] me move this over to this
can you see that uh order number blank
[30:54] that i've got right there yes okay so
here's the critical part of the order as
[31:00] i mentioned when we were going through
the presentation section number one says
[31:04] to the extent practical we're going to
use easily identifiable geographic
[31:10] boundaries to draw the disk so we're
going to go down city streets we're
[31:14] going to you know work around the parks
and other
[31:17] major therapists we're going to have
communities of interest maintained in a
[31:22] single district so if your church group
all goes to one church or if you have a
[31:27] neighborhood that is comprised of a
certain
[31:30] set of people you need to let us know
that we're not splitting your
[31:33] neighborhood you know where that these
are your your people and then council
[31:38] districts should be composed of whole
body pieces i i am fairly certain we're
[31:42] not going to be able to stay within
whole voting precincts dan can correct
[31:45] me but i think you're probably the whole
town's comprised of one or two
[31:49] uh election precincts in the county
isn't that right dan
[31:53] just one i believe
since
[31:57] the county precinct happening
[32:08] the county to where we're just in
precinct one now right that's what i
[32:12] thought so you're going to be in one
election preaching so number three
[32:15] doesn't really we're not going to be
able to practically avoid that but
[32:19] that's a that's a policy that the courts
like to see you adopt also is that that
[32:24] we're going to have uh
kept the basic
[32:30] single member districts the way they are
we're just going to change them to the
[32:34] minimum extent necessary to get the
numbers straightened out to get them in
[32:38] balance that's number four
that we're going to configure them a
[32:43] relatively equal population we're going
to use the census and i'm
[32:47] i'm telling you we're using the census
data for this so we don't have any other
[32:51] data to use other than the 2020 census
that each of the districts is going to
[32:55] stay compact you have some of the most
compact districts i've ever seen and i
[32:59] want to make sure that when we finish
they're going to continue to look nice
[33:03] square chunky
districts we're not going to they're not
[33:07] going to have lines going all over the
town uh and then
[33:11] they're gonna be uh we're gonna make
sure that you can uh that we're that
[33:15] your voters stay in your district you if
you are uncomfortable that you're losing
[33:20] some of your
tried and true voters and keep getting
[33:24] you elected you need to
make your voice heard on council to make
[33:29] sure your district stays with your
voters and then we want to avoid any
[33:34] racial
gerrymandering i don't see how we we get
[33:38] into any racial issue everybody in town
the the predominant groups as we've
[33:43] identified or all over the city so
whatever changes we make are going to
[33:47] affect everybody the same way
and that's a policy this is kind of out
[33:52] follows those little blocks that i had
on the powerpoint so that's the first
[33:56] one there
[34:02] and if you all you can adopt it by
making a motion in a second to adopt
[34:07] that policy and then then can
informalize it for your signature
[34:12] okay while he's looking can i have a
motion guys
[34:16] one of you
i've got a motion for room in a second
[34:19] from cindy all in favor
[34:23] okay
where are you next
[34:25] here's the second one mayor so these are
guidelines for in case there's a person
[34:30] in the public that wants to provide you
with some input and comments and what
[34:34] this policy says after the whereas is is
that if somebody wants the
[34:39] the city
is going to go through the process and
[34:43] if somebody wants to
provide you with input they should
[34:48] propose plans in writing and that we can
read that are legible so i don't want
[34:52] them on the back of the napkin or
something where we can't read them so
[34:56] uh that we they need to give them to you
in a quick in a clear fully articulated
[35:04] uh manner they need to show the total
population voting age population of the
[35:10] different races and all and this is
something that we want to make sure if
[35:14] somebody wants to make a suggestion
that they
[35:17] uh that they use the same data we're
using and we can tell them what we have
[35:21] and most people if they're into
providing you with this kind of input
[35:25] are going to have this kind of debt we
want to make sure that anybody who gives
[35:29] you a plan or an example that they want
you to consider redraws the whole city
[35:34] we don't want somebody to come and say
well i want to run for office in council
[35:38] member not district number three so i'd
like you to draw it like this so i can
[35:42] get elected because i can get my
mother-in-law in there and all my
[35:45] relatives
you know so you don't want to you you
[35:48] want somebody to draw all five districts
and that's what number three is about
[35:53] there the next one is that plans will
conform to the criteria that you adopted
[35:57] so that you have to follow those
criteria you just voted if you want any
[36:02] everybody else to follow them as well
and then they should if they just want
[36:06] to give you comments instead of writing
a plan they just they need to do the
[36:10] comments in writing
and
[36:13] uh what we're asking people
uh is to provide those
[36:17] uh
to provide their name and address an
[36:20] email if they have one so we can follow
up with them
[36:26] uh to get back more feedback if we need
more information for them and finally
[36:30] number seven
says that all comments and proposed
[36:34] plans will be submitted to the council
by the close of the public hearing and
[36:39] that public hearing that i'm talking
about is a public hearing either right
[36:43] before you adopt or right at the last
work session ben and i need to figure
[36:48] out where to schedule your public
hearing but basically those are the
[36:53] rules in case somebody wants to
participate with the council and say
[36:56] i've got some ideas council members
here's how i want to draw it and they
[37:00] can give you that so that's the basic
blueprint and you can add things to this
[37:04] if you
would like to make it more liberal i
[37:08] mean less less difficult or more
flexible or however you want to do it
[37:11] but that's that's what my cities have
been adopting generally
[37:19] okay
i need a motion to adopt this order
[37:25] i have a motion from cindy second from
lorena all in favor
[37:30] aye
unanimous
[37:33] thank you david
mayor council members it's been a
[37:36] pleasure i'm gonna go cook dinner now so
[37:41] good for you
anyway but uh dan and i will be back to
[37:44] you shortly with the map with the
population so you can do some homework
[37:50] and then we'll schedule a work session
or two for you to get through this
[37:54] process i look forward to seeing you
guys then
[37:59] thank you david good night
good evening guys bye i'm going to log
[38:03] out dan
[38:10] and i got to stop sharing i think
[38:13] let me see if i can figure out how to do
all that
[38:18] [Music]
[38:30] might take
[38:36] [Music]
[38:54] [Music]
[38:57] i mean
it is just a simple matter
[39:01] moving a couple of walks and
this
[39:04] should not impact
any of the great but it does not look
[39:07] like it impacts the racial balance of
our districts
[39:11] um
we just need to balance industries
[39:19] from 16th
to 16th
[39:32] all right we'll meet on the 18th
and then we have to have a second one to
[39:37] meet the following
monday or tuesday that's thanksgiving
[40:08] that kind of information since i get it
from him
[40:12] i'll sure
okay all right so i have i have a motion
[40:16] that we
uh
[40:20] set the date for the initial drive
session
[40:22] the final is redistricting on the 18th
at 6 30 here
[40:27] and it'll be a zoom meeting
[40:31] okay
all right i have a motion
[40:36] i see ascending i heard a voice
marina okay
[40:40] and then uh all in favor
okay
[40:47] so it's 18. all right all right
now we're going to consider and take
[40:52] action as necessary
um it's your turn bring that chair up
[40:57] here i've got to help you dance recently
had knee surgery
[41:12] [Music]
[41:15] so talk to us about texas communities
group
[41:24] um
[41:27] [Music]
[41:38] i've been with the law firm for 38 years
[41:59] [Music]
[42:13] and
so i was bouncing ideas off him
[42:17] for some time
when we started
[42:24] we kind of did a pilot project for about
a year
[42:43] property service contract one is trust
properties which are properties that
[42:47] have gone to taxable votes
did not sell for the minimum bid and so
[42:52] now you all know what your school
district accounting and trust
[42:57] trust properties kind of double negative
you don't get tax revenue on them
[43:16] [Music]
[43:38] after we started texas communities
through here looking for ways we get a
[43:42] lot of calls from city management
and hey what can you do to help us with
[43:45] this problem
uh it's vague and abandoned or
[43:48] dilapidated structure and we notice that
if we put taxes on
[43:53] can you
sell
[43:56] well we would go through the process
and generally the average cost of the
[44:02] tax law to report fee
by the time you get the sale it's about
[44:06] eleven hundred
[44:14] and a lot of times those properties
because they
[44:19] were bad
[44:24] [Music]
and so it was a cumbersome way a costly
[44:32] way of going networking
and so tcg came from that experience
[44:37] and one of the things we do is work with
city city staff in identifying
[44:42] properties that need a tax requirement
for real property taxes
[45:16] and what that's designed to do is those
properties where
[45:20] maybe a family ended some years ago they
died no probation
[45:25] [Music]
[45:44] required
[45:54] and so many of our towns
[46:11] situation is we fully
[46:27] uh
maybe they had to lift that property
[46:30] seven eight years or something longer
[46:35] and that's something i think
but it's been very effective
[46:40] [Music]
[46:47] so it's been a really good program
that without doing a lot on city staff
[46:54] um going through a list we try to put it
in certain division
[46:59] or somebody uh
published works or
[47:04] police or accounts
the textbook allows for anyone's
[47:26] [Music]
[47:37] [Music]
he lives in odessa now i think you know
[48:03] is
[Music]
[48:18] uh
[48:32] properties we've created an online bid
system it's still a single bid process
[48:39] you would still have approval over every
prop property episode
[48:45] city would have to prove
[48:52] [Music]
[49:01] uh we put out signage we tried to do a
lot of advertisements
[49:06] but not very many people know about
trust properties
[49:10] i've ever bought
[49:14] two houses
[49:28] and what that means is that properties
might have sold for 200 or 500
[49:33] we feel like we can give you 400 or a
thousand
[49:37] in addition to that
we've gone in and done your local
[49:41] agreements because not only does the
city own the property
[49:46] so your own property
ownership
[49:50] taxes
clean up and maintenance
[49:54] uh what we've done with the
international agreement
[50:06] and what that does is
all the other entities without having to
[50:10] check out their
[50:19] [Music]
[50:51] we started this
you know we live out here in west texas
[50:55] and some of these properties
[51:04] but it's worked
and i think our advertising thank you
[51:12] so when we started this
i hope we can i think we can we're going
[51:16] to
[Music]
[51:19] be
[51:27] [Music]
[51:33] previously
[51:42] [Music]
[51:48] and
[51:52] [Music]
[51:58] um
[52:20] [Music]
[52:31] [Music]
[52:42] you know i feel like if we own it
[52:59] uh communication is a big deal
um
[53:03] if we know what property is bothering
you
[53:07] your community we can tell you something
[53:12] um so we have a phone app that we make
available for android and apple users
[53:17] stand in front of the property take a
picture of it it's
[53:22] it comes to us
it tells the gps address gives you a
[53:26] comment section
[53:39] [Music]
ownership
[53:53] you know we've got five years
[54:18] [Music]
[54:21] there's less work for your coding credit
enforcement where they can concentrate a
[54:25] little bit throw their resources at
because some of those properties where
[54:30] the owner is not existing really hard to
do
[54:34] they're not going to comply you can stay
[54:47] um
[55:21] for some reason if we were unable to
create that they're not responsible for
[55:26] any shortfall so say we go through
we acquire some properties and turn
[55:32] around we're going to sell
[55:42] so it's designed to do a little bit more
work
[55:52] uh
[56:01] [Music]
[56:13] so that's what's before
[56:27] is
[56:36] if we know something that whatever you
guys can still say no
[56:41] but
we're not
[56:45] [Music]
[56:54] and both of them will talk to me about
mobile controllers they know
[57:00] [Music]
[57:09] but there are
many of our flighted properties
[57:15] have been ignoring us
our public works folks and our judge has
[57:19] been
doing all sorts of things like them to
[57:23] do code enforcement actions to clean
[57:37] um
[57:53] it to the right person
how long does that losses take
[57:57] that property has been making for
i'm 42
[58:00] probably boys one more than a year
and
[58:04] we'll get back back so
that is a great question and that's why
[58:12] if you look at a piece of property where
um there's
[58:16] say ownership is disease
you know everybody knew him yeah
[58:43] [Music]
we have to find as many as possible
[58:48] potential
[59:01] and you might end up having to
serve a personal service
[59:06] january 11 12 different individuals
you would cost about a hundred dollars
[59:13] per show for a cycle
and
[59:16] the costs feed up
the the ability to do that
[59:20] what the real property tax
is if we have somebody like yourself
[59:25] that says that property's been
vacant for
[59:30] power long but as long as it's over the
last 12 months
[59:34] we don't have to serve them with service
personnel we post it in the communities
[59:40] we'll have it posted at the courthouse
city hall
[59:57] website
[1:00:06] [Music]
and so they move fast and so from the
[1:00:15] moment we filed that
[1:00:20] vacancy
and applied for the warrant two to three
[1:00:23] months later
[1:00:26] and once it goes to sale you know the
property owners
[1:00:29] their rent needs to pay the taxes they
pay the taxes
[1:00:34] um
we tell them it's a cleanup effort and
[1:00:37] you have these properties
[Music]
[1:00:54] knowledge of the property it doesn't
have to be a counterfeit
[1:00:58] it doesn't have to be a city staff
person
[1:01:01] [Music]
and if you know this this
[1:01:06] code
section in the tax code came out of the
[1:01:10] metroplex in harris county
[1:01:16] um
[1:01:36] does look at each one's cleanup
[1:01:42] eyesores
[1:02:03] okay
[1:02:09] [Music]
[1:02:17] we go from the process
[1:02:32] and what it is is kind of those
properties that have been forgotten
[1:02:37] and out of the economy basically
nobody's paying taxes
[1:02:54] [Music]
[1:02:59] [Music]
[1:03:09] how many years i mean i personally have
bought
[1:03:28] some of them you know are 15 years okay
and some of them would just be a few
[1:03:33] years
what what values
[1:03:39] uh
[1:03:46] [Music]
[1:03:53] one of the reasons is
[1:04:22] you don't see all the ones that don't go
to sale you kind of see the
[1:04:27] [Music]
[1:04:39] and then like say if someone is not paid
for five years did they just add that to
[1:04:45] it yeah
[1:04:56] um
there's not a ton of that that's not
[1:05:01] in some sort of agreement or some sort
of referral yeah
[1:05:06] [Music]
[1:05:11] um
[1:06:02] the person
[1:06:05] [Music]
[1:06:16] so
i mean i didn't know how that worked
[1:06:31] but yeah have a certain figure like
once it becomes a thousand dollars
[1:06:37] [Music]
[1:06:48] [Music]
[1:06:57] [Music]
[1:07:10] collected
[Music]
[1:07:26] someone has you know her taxes
say four thousand dollars a year versus
[1:07:34] five hundred dollars a year
[1:08:22] and
[1:08:31] uh
[1:08:36] [Music]
[1:08:44] because
you know if it doesn't sell
[1:08:48] taxes get paid
[1:08:55] [Music]
take these properties and do something
[1:08:58] with it
[Music]
[1:09:17] we've executed some more
[1:09:26] uh out here kind of on the western side
[1:09:36] uh
[1:10:02] i made a notation on this contract for
that last paragraph
[1:10:24] [Music]
[1:10:39] and uh
[1:10:48] [Music]
[1:10:59] [Music]
[1:11:04] thank you very much
[1:11:09] [Music]
[1:11:34] awarding an engineering
contract related to the american
[1:11:37] wrestling plan
[1:11:40] [Music]
[1:11:48] west texas consultants
[Music]
[1:11:51] i mean they were all fairly close
points but in terms of familiarity with
[1:11:56] west texas water
and the things we want him to try to do
[1:12:01] uh
uh
[1:12:02] dean one and the sentence so i need your
permission to sign
[1:12:07] resolution from secrets texas authorized
professional service provider selection
[1:12:12] for broadband's local official recovery
fund programs
[1:12:16] to the american rescue plan act of 2029
and we selected
[1:12:49] you have everybody's detailed reports
i'm hoping you're finding those helpful
[1:12:55] to you a couple things i want to point
out on what the chief of police can talk
[1:13:00] about
government
[1:13:09] [Music]
um
[1:13:15] [Music]
[1:13:23] [Music]
[1:13:31] so dan's gonna post it again and see if
we can get some more money for it
[1:13:36] uh
real quickly um
[1:13:49] [Music]
[1:13:57] this unit is one of the
very last ones that's available
[1:14:02] they are having to
transit in
[1:14:06] the ships
[1:14:16] [Music]
[1:14:26] several local uh
leaderships
[1:14:31] again
charges are usually the cheapest thing i
[1:14:36] picked up the rank from
pick up to run about
[1:14:40] 50 to 60 000
and so
[1:14:44] you know i've talked to the mayor
talking down a little bit
[1:14:47] uh my bill is
[1:14:56] it's going to cost us about
um and it all depends on what you all
[1:15:00] want
with anything that's on the side
[1:15:04] it's going to cost us about four to
forty five hundred dollars
[1:15:21] [Music]
everything
[1:15:32] [Music]
[1:15:35] um
[1:15:50] and so i talked about for me the mayor
talked about didn't wrap
[1:15:55] uh i called uh
[1:15:59] and i called uh
[1:16:11] [Music]
[1:16:30] [Music]
[1:16:47] we signed the uh
notice to proceed on the
[1:16:52] uh
usda
[1:16:55] sewer infrastructure project starting
this week
[1:16:58] by all accounts
until they immediately refunded us on
[1:17:03] four hundred and
twenty five thousand dollars
[1:17:06] so that's the money we hadn't
encountered
[1:17:09] this year's we've got it
and that money's available to establish
[1:17:21] [Music]
[1:17:27] so they're going to look at it tomorrow
but the chief did an awful lot of work
[1:17:31] advantage got deals
to
[1:17:34] make sure that
track would all be proceeding and
[1:17:37] actually realizes
more money than we expect so
[1:17:42] bernays i think he's gonna start using
gun deals
[1:17:46] at some point here she's got some clean
vehicles
[1:17:49] um i might be able to realize some money
what i'm asking is for a motion to log
[1:17:54] in by its car
and and to get it obviously
[1:17:59] fixed up with all the police stuff and
whether you want to wrap it up
[1:18:18] [Music]
[1:18:21] well it's part of taking care of
our capital
[1:18:34] [Music]
[1:18:55] [Music]
[1:19:06] buildings diligently as everybody knows
and their report
[1:19:12] shows a number of things tagging yards
et cetera et cetera
[1:19:17] i have met with ryan lawson 361
commissioner
[1:19:32] ryan has three houses if you guys have
previously condemned about your address
[1:19:41] he's hauling dirt right now he's usually
always required to do that
[1:19:45] but
[Music]
[1:19:47] they're going to come down
before four years in so that's the
[1:19:51] business and then
what what at least to me sort of the
[1:19:55] exciting news is that chase music
has given us permission to tear down
[1:20:00] the motel
um not the redwood park redwood park
[1:20:05] says that's the old cafe apartment with
the other stuff
[1:20:09] so he signed the documents
what i need is a motion for you guys
[1:20:22] [Music]
is
[1:20:30] [Music]
[1:20:37] [Music]
right
[1:20:54] [Music]
[1:21:01] okay uh
[1:21:05] i have an email sent to the city from
bergeron
[1:21:11] saying that he wants to have a christmas
tree lighting
[1:21:16] uh ceremony from the hotel
on december 1st
[1:21:21] and uh alternative schedules from 5 30
to 7 30.
[1:21:26] there'll be some free hot chocolate
microfighter music there's going to be a
[1:21:29] bridge in santa claus
they can be the same
[1:21:34] grief walking in the introduction
benediction pledge of allegiance
[1:21:39] we're going to light the tree
and then
[1:21:42] and then
gareth is going to let me throw up a
[1:21:46] switch and one more thing
[1:21:49] and some children are going to help so
when he has asked that was a close
[1:21:56] [Music]
[1:22:08] running
[1:22:15] december 2nd we bumped it one day after
some feedback from the community okay so
[1:22:19] december 2nd
[1:22:27] [Music]
[1:22:37] celebrating c grades i assume they still
work
[1:22:40] so
i i made a motion that you guys are good
[1:22:43] with this
[1:22:50] uh
[Music]
[1:22:59] okay
[1:23:08] [Music]
[1:23:16] okay so december 2nd we're going to have
tree legs ceremony i think that's neat
[1:23:21] you've done a really good job with the
hotel it's nice thank you sir it really
[1:23:24] looks nice
a lot of us have a lot of history there
[1:23:29] my uh
my
[1:23:32] wife's great grandparents stayed there
the night before parents prepared
[1:23:36] somebody that's a very special place
yeah so
[1:23:41] okay emotion
[1:23:45] all right
for both of those
[1:23:48] and i have a second from cindy all in
favor
[1:23:52] okay i don't think i finished the
administrative department head reports
[1:23:58] did anybody have any questions before i
go on
[1:24:01] one
[1:24:22] yes
[1:24:27] [Music]
[1:24:34] [Music]
[1:24:46] they're going to start and they'll be
spreading of course
[1:24:50] um
there's some equipment out there we need
[1:24:53] to get out of that but we may have to
move to the rodeo
[1:24:57] [Music]
[1:25:10] [Music]
[1:25:22] county
fire department
[1:25:37] just along that line this afternoon
i
[1:25:42] got a proposal
from a an auction company leaves and
[1:25:48] something i didn't have a chance to look
at it
[1:25:51] but they will do live auctions no charge
to the city auction anything off scrap
[1:25:58] iron
they'll auction off the water tower once
[1:26:02] it comes down
they'll handle that for us
[1:26:05] and live auction
and uh i'll give i'll pass that
[1:26:09] information along to the council as soon
as i have a chance to look forward okay
[1:26:13] thank you man
anyway we're going to compare that stuff
[1:26:16] somehow so
just
[1:26:19] clean up
[1:26:25] [Music]
[1:26:33] and that can be costly
so
[1:26:38] anything else
all right i'm going to move on then
[1:26:42] public comments maybe public comments
okay
[1:26:46] um
any other words of discussion we'll
[1:26:49] actually take it this time
first uh
[1:26:53] pastor video martinez senior
celebrating his 58th anniversary
[1:26:59] at their church on sunday
and uh i've been asked to uh
[1:27:04] recognize that and um
i'm suggesting that
[1:27:08] i make him an honorary mayor today
i'm going to take a bunch of pivotal
[1:27:13] forms but
[1:27:20] and the council is invited to be there
in the church
[1:27:30] um okay so just so you guys have that on
your calendar
[1:27:35] uh
pastor martijs has been a wonderful part
[1:27:38] of our community
[1:27:41] first and friendliest people i ever met
in this family
[1:27:45] um
our water project the freshwater project
[1:27:49] uh he's working hard on
specs and other things like that you've
[1:27:54] already seen the
eagle water tower doing soil samples
[1:27:59] because the new watercolor is going to
be bigger heavier needs more ground
[1:28:04] support so we're trying to make sure
that we have the support of them we need
[1:28:07] and you're going to start seeing a lot
of activity like that he has not yet
[1:28:11] done
bids on things but that's coming
[1:28:14] um and uh you have the money i know
um so it's just a matter of
[1:28:20] um well i mean you know really it's kind
of
[1:28:25] sad before
[1:28:30] [Music]
[1:28:40] he's pressing on real fast
and then i talked to mark pelletier
[1:28:46] today
[1:28:49] he's been held up because
it's an epa i think it is
[1:28:54] i can't tell you what the real
floodplainer's secrets is
[1:28:58] um and and john perkins is insisting
that
[1:29:02] uh the new city hall is about one player
we have insurance
[1:29:07] and perpetuity and
flood insurance that's the same street
[1:29:11] you're on gareth by the way
they're they're saying it might be what
[1:29:15] i don't
i don't there is no definition of a
[1:29:18] floodplain in that area we've never seen
yeah yeah i asked for a canoe for
[1:29:22] christmas so we'll be all sad
[Music]
[1:29:28] so john had sent him about 10 questions
and said
[1:29:33] and
the floodplain issue is the biggest one
[1:29:36] so what he's probably going to do is
build a city hall up
[1:29:39] a foot
and then slope the sides away from it
[1:29:42] and then we'll probably have favorite
blood insurance before it's all right
[1:29:46] that's going to be the answer to john
has a conditional
[1:29:50] [Music]
[1:30:08] they contacted me today they have the
servers for both police department and
[1:30:13] city hall
however with the audit going on i told
[1:30:17] them they'd better postpone till next
week for that
[1:30:22] we have talked to them zach it's their
one who is working with us and
[1:30:26] uh dan and his staff are very impressive
zach i'm very impressed with zach he's
[1:30:31] doing what he's telling us
needs to be done so
[1:30:35] we've been very pleased with the service
we're getting we're on their contract
[1:30:39] now
you can call me
[1:30:42] voice over internet so i'm always
celebrating
[1:30:47] we've got two different bids one from
verizon and then one from cpsi
[1:30:52] ctsis on a third of the cost yes and
quite a bit more capability
[1:30:59] it's actually less money per month than
we're paying right now
[1:31:04] it makes sense for us
[1:31:08] so ours is currently a firm in georgia
or alabama
[1:31:13] yeah
so
[1:31:15] we have police have these guys but
so
[1:31:19] okay
anything else
[1:31:22] all right i'm sorry mayor did item 11
get addressed
[1:31:27] oh
[1:31:35] okay
[1:31:40] [Music]
main street segregates llc
[1:32:04] [Music]
um
[1:32:12] [Music]
[1:32:30] well actually i i don't have it
memorized okay exactly well there is a
[1:32:35] 60-day period
[1:32:38] it sounds
[1:32:55] [Music]
[1:33:08] [Music]
[1:33:15] [Music]
[1:33:23] [Music]
[1:33:48] since he
[Music]
[1:34:02] yeah uh but he's you know he did a list
you know last week according to the
[1:34:08] process
but
[1:34:17] the city council um have to approve the
agreements
[1:34:20] and pass a resolution so i think that's
what we
[1:34:24] need to do can we do that on this
meeting on the 18th you could do that
[1:34:30] tonight
[Music]
[1:35:00] [Music]
[1:35:11] so we can put it
yeah we can we can put it on the 18th
[1:35:16] i'll get you copies of the agreements
what she's
[1:35:19] reading from movement
is on the agreement
[1:35:25] so that's part of the contract
[1:35:44] okay
[1:36:00] [Music]
[1:36:17] [Music]
[1:36:25] [Music]
[1:36:36] okay
[1:36:46] you're basically going to endorse
the
[1:36:50] economic development board is a branch
of government so
[1:36:55] you have to approve anything they do
so she's recommending these agreements
[1:37:02] if you feel comfortable with them then
you would endorse those agreements being
[1:37:06] signed
once they're signed we publish a notice
[1:37:10] of the newspaper
saying that these agreements have been
[1:37:14] approved by the council
and they're going to wait for 60 days to
[1:37:18] see if citizens organize some protest
circulate a petition that's to give them
[1:37:25] time to organize and circulate a
petition
[1:37:28] to call for an election
[Music]
[1:37:32] if that doesn't happen after 60 days
then
[1:37:37] we go ahead with the last part of that
whatever the stipulations
[1:37:48] so these minutes that
i'm wanting to get i'll make those
[1:37:52] available to you these are public
documents
[1:37:55] you all will get a copy of these minutes
where to discuss what you said all about
[1:38:02] and
the agreements themselves
[1:38:15] [Music]
[1:38:20] [Music]
[1:38:29] from the last business that was given
them
[1:38:32] from hey
[Music]
[1:38:35] so
we kind of
[1:38:37] love it
yes and that's what i told
[1:38:40] you
this is my first time
[1:38:44] [Music]
[1:38:56] to go
[1:39:20] [Music]
[1:39:24] 11 18 at 6 30
is our meeting to do the
[1:39:29] blind
redistricting and then we'll deal with
[1:39:32] this
economic development issue
[1:39:35] and then
december 13th
[1:39:38] correct
[1:39:45] [Music]
[1:39:48] these are your districts
[1:40:06] yes
[1:40:21] well in life
[Music]
[1:40:40] [Music]
[1:40:45] is
[Music]
[1:41:03] ethnicity population
[1:41:06] when someone examined it there
moved it there
[1:41:15] maybe not
imbalanced
[1:41:20] um
[1:41:43] all the way down
to 180
[1:41:46] and then east of seminole
there's a little bit of stuff around the
[1:41:50] edges of the symbol various precincts
appreciate the ones
[1:41:56] so we've got
[1:42:07] [Music]
i don't think
[1:42:28] thank you guys