ccswks 10-13-1993
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SPECIAL SESSION OF THE CITY COUNCIL
OCTOBER 13, 1993
The Schertz City Council convened in Special Workshop
Session Wednesday, October 13, 1993 at 7:00 p.m. in the
Conference Room of the Municipal Complex, 1400 Schertz
Parkway, Schertz, Texas. The fOllowing members were
present: Mayor Pro Tern Ken Greenwald, presiding; Joe
Potempa; Hal Baldwin; Barbara Stanhope; and Mary Marsh.
Absent: Mayor Sawyer. Staff present were City Manager
Kerry Sweatt and City Secretary June Krause.
#1 HEARING OF RESIDENTS: None
#2 Discuss final consideration of an
clarifying the definition of side yard setbacks.
ordinance
After introducing the item, Mayor Pro Tem Greenwald reminded
Council this ordinance was consider on first reading at the
previous meeting. He then asked if there was any further
discussion. There was none.
#3 Discuss final consideration of an
establishing the Technos Reinvestment Zone.
ordinance
Again, Mayor Pro Tem Greenwald advised this ordinance was
favorably considered on first reading at the last meeting.
Mr. Sweatt added that this tract of land is owned by
Technos Corporation and situated along FM 3009 containing
approximately 4.39 acres in the Tri County Development Park.
There were no comments or questions on this item.
#4 Discuss final consideration of an ordinance
approving a Tax Abatement Agreement for Technos Corporation.
Mr. Sweatt said the basis for the request for the tax
abatement is the $350,000 capital improvement to the
property and the job creation for a payroll of $450,000 and
an estimated sales tax revenue of approximately $2500
annually. With those numbers, that qualifies under our tax
agreement for a total of a 36% tax abatement. This is on
the increased value only. It appears the City will receive
a net revenue of about $7600 and it will cost us about $500
a year for the abatement. It is a clean industry that is
deeply involved in environmental control matters. Their
prime products are large industrial fans. The firm is
currently located in San Antonio and they propose to totally
locate here.
There were no further comments on this ordinance.
#5 Discuss P&Z recommendation for term renewals for
three positions on the Planning & Zoning Commission.
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Mayor Pro Tern Greenwald called attention to the P&Z request
to reappoint Bob Andrews, Pia Jarman and David Richmond, who
have all expressed their desire to serve another term. Mr.
Greenwald recommended approval of the request, adding that
Pia Jarman went to the APA conference and said she learned a
lot in just that few days.
#6 Discuss resolution endorsinq efforts of National
Leaque of Cities and the Texas Municipal Leaque to inform
citizens about the impact of federal mandates.
Mrs. Marsh expressed reqret that this does not
state mandates, with other members of the Council
and wondering what good this would really do.
include
aqreeing
Mr. Greenwald said he just hoped they would not use this to
just raise taxes every time they wanted to put on another
mandate.
Mr.
city
and
you
Sweatt advised that TML had asked us and every other
in Texas to pass a resolution to express to Conqress
others the support we have in dealing with the mandates
are forcing on us. This is merely a show of force.
#7 Discuss official newspaper desiqnation.
Mr. Sweatt reminded Council that several questions
were asked at the recent zoninq public hearing as to why our
official newspaper is the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise. We
advised the citizens at that time of the reasons and that in
the past we had utilized the Herald in combination with
another paper that met the definition of an official
newspaper. He then presented a comparison chart showing a
list and a total cost that we have paid for official
publications from March of 1993. We have basically expended
$3,355.82 for various publications at the rate of $4.80 per
column inch in our official newspaper. We annualized that
as best we could and the annualized estimate would be
$3,892.23. We then have determined in this rate and the bid
rate to the Herald, which would be $4,419.41 if we
overcame the hurtle of the official designation. If this is
combined with the Commercial Recorder, in the manner in
which we had achieved compliance in the past, the combined
bidder rate would be $15.35 per column inch and annualized
at $12,337.34. The Express News, at their bidder rate of
$23.52 per column inch would annualize out to $19,072.40.
We currently are running those same notices in our
newsletter as a simple way to provide the citizens this
informationj however, the dates do not always coincide with
the newsletter publication dates.
Discussion followed concerning the definition of the
legal newspaper and the fact that Council did not believe
the citizens would want to expend the excessive amount of
money to designate either the Herald/Commercial Recorder or
the Express News.
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Mr. Sweatt remarked that last year the Herald
indicated they were going to obtain the necessary second
class postage permit to become official; however, when he
called them this year, they said they did not feel it was
required.
Mr. Potempa reminded everyone that the reqular Sequin
Gazette-Enterprise could be obtained at the Pic N Pac on FM
78 and that they also had the free copy of their paper that
includes our legal notices.
It was also suggested that Seguin might be willing to make a
house to house survey to see how many people in Schertz
would want to subscribe.
Mr. Sweatt summed it up by saying we are not trying to hide
anything. We have tried everything possible to get the
information to the people - our newsletter, the bulletin
board, phone messages.
#8 Discuss aqreement for hazardous material incident
responses.
Mr. Sweatt explained the proposed agreement with Combined
Emergency Services organization (CESO). The cities of Live
Oak, Universal City, Converse, Selma, Kirby, Windcrest, Fox
Country, Schertz, Bracken and New Braunfels formed this
organization to deal with hazardous material incidents.
They will have the equipment and expertise to deal with any
problem in any of the entities. Our annual contract fee
will be $2100 and we feel this will be much less expensive
than trying to provide this individually.
Chief Woodward explained that the equipment would be housed
in Converse. They already have two trucks donated that have
been refurbished and the equipment was also donated. Each
department will have three men trained in hazardous material
incidents to work with this organization. E9-1-1 donated
the radios for this organization. In case of a hazardous
material incident, all personnel would go to Converse and
then to the incident from there. Each of the cities
involved already has the three trained men on their force.
Chief Woodward said that Randolph Air Force Base will help
any time needed.
Mr. Baldwin said this is a great way to handle something
very expensive and will benefit everyone.
Mayor Pro Tem Greenwald asked that this be on the next
action agenda.
#9 Discuss chanqes to Water/Wastewater ordinance,
includinq rates and requlations.
Mr.Sweatt advised that we have completely revised Chapter 19
of the Code, which deals with this subject. Over the years,
there have been numerous changes and additions to the Code.
294
It has been necessary because we, as customers, have to
adopt the Cibolo Creek Municipal Authority Industrial Waste
Order and the New Braunfels Utility rules and regulations;
and they will be adopted by this ordinance. We have listed
the changes or wording and numbering in the front of the
ordinance for clarification.
Some of the changes were in deposits. In the past we have
not had a large enough charge for large deposit accounts.
We have also reduced the period for returning deposits from
five years to two years. Also under certain circumstances
the City Manager or Public Works Director can extend time to
pay a bill. Some minor wording changes in estimating bills
when a meter fails, and checking meters. Under
discontinuance of service for failure to pay, we added a
section requiring the posting of a 48 hour notice, and
changing the fee for reconnect ion to $20.00 or $50.00 if
they had to remove the meter. Section 19-24 concerning
water connection charges - these charges are based on our
current costs. Section 19-43 - this section establishes the
inverted block rate structure as we have discussed several
times in the past.
Mr. Sweatt said the effective date of this ordinance is set
for January 11, which will coincide with our billing cycle
dates.
Mr. Baldwin asked why there was no minimum monthly rate for
bulk rate users. Mr. Sweatt explained there would be no
benefit to them, even though they have talked about a
minimum. According to our figures, it would be very costly
for them.
Mayor Pro Tem Greenwald announced there would be another
workshop on this ordinance in two weeks and suggested
Councilmembers study this and have their questions ready
then.
#10 Discuss bids on surplus vehicles.
Mr. Sweatt advised that bids were opened on October 7th for
two surplus vehicles that were not sold the first time bids
were solicited. Three bids were received for the 1989 Crown
Victoria, with the best being from Mike DuPlantis in the
amount of $600. The 1981 Chrysler Wagon only had two bids,
with Burch Roofing giving the high bid of $100. We
recommend these high bids be accepted.
Mayor Pro Tem Greenwald called for a short recess at 8:15
p.m.
The Special Meeting was reconvened at 8:20 p.m.
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#11 EXECUTIVE SESSION: A. Mayor Pro Tern Greenwald
called an executive session at 8:20 p.m. under Section
551.041 of the Texas Government code, Section 551-071 to
discuss with the City Attorney pending or possible
litigation.
MAYOR SAWYER ARRIVED AT 8:22 P.M.
The Special Meeting was reconvened at 8:35 p.m.
B. Consider and take action, if any, on the above executive
session. No action was taken.
#12 CITY MANAGER'S REPORT: A. We have established in
the Mobile Villa Subdivision a water and sewer project. We
have delayed the project because we had an opportunity to
submit a grant application and have received a Community
Development Block Grant in the amount of $100,000 toward the
cost of improvements to water and sewer in that subdivision.
We have now received a notice from the Bexar County
Department of Community Resources that it is necessary to
resurvey the residents in that subdivision to establish that
the project qualifies through the guidelines of the low to
moderate income. The survey asks some very personal
questions. We will write a letter ahead of time and explain
but it is of such a personal nature, it is doubtful if we
get a very good response. The other side of the coin is
that Bexar County has notified us that CDBG funds may not be
used for sewer improvements if the City does not require the
residents to hook up to the new sewer line immediately. He
said he explained our policy is that we do not make new
people hook up if their septic tank is working properly.
This would not only be talking about the plumbing costs but
the capital impact fees, to both us and CCMA, of over $1200.
It does appear that we might be able to switch over and do
the water improvements with the CDBG funds and do the sewer
improvements with our own funds. First we must conduct the
survey to be sure that they qualify. It is very important
that we do the complete project at this time: however if
the property owners do not respond, we will have difficulty
completing both water and sewer on that project.
#13 ITEMS
mentioned awhile
going to have the
to the trail ride
BY COUNCIL: Mrs. Marsh said
back, the Schertz Business Club
Jamboree so will move their silent
in February.
as she
is not
auction
Mr. Potempa mentioned that in the newspaper there was an
article saying our council would be meeting with Cibolo.
Mayor Sawyer said they have not told us anything yet.
Mrs. Stanhope said she had a call from a man living in the
apartments across from the school complaining about kids
stereos so loud. She said she could not find anything in
the code that would cover this during the day time hours.
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#14 ITEMS BY MAYOR:
A. Received a letter from the Mayor of Hollywood
advising that the United Suburban Cities would have a
at TML and wanted to know if Schertz had anything
wanted to contribute.
Park
booth
they
B. He will be swearing in the last member of the Housing
Authority Board on Monday.
*15 ADJOURNMENT:
Mayor Sawyer declared the
There beinq no further business,
meeting adjourned at 8:55 p.m.
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LjJ "//'/2u~f~
rMayor, City of SCher~ Texas
ATTEST:
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Ci~y-~;;;taiY, City of Schertz
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