Loading...
ccswks 10-13-1993 ~~~ 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. ,-) (I c:' ~ ~I _-J 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. 0f~' 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. ~ ------ oq~)- ~v~ #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. 296 #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. ~ LjJ "//'/2u~f~ rMayor, City of SCher~ Texas ATTEST: f1L_~ -- Ci~y-~;;;taiY, City of Schertz --------