ccreg 09-01-1992
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REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL
SEPTEMBER 1, 1992
The Schertz City Council convened in Regular Session,
Tuesday, September 1, 1992 immediately following the Board
of Adjustment meeting, in the Council Chambers of the
Municipal Complex, 1400 Schertz Parkway, Schertz, Texas.
The following members were present: Mayor Earl W. Sawyer,
presiding; Councilmembers Joe Potempa, Hal Baldwin, Barbara
Stanhope, Mary Marsh and Ken Greenwald. Staff present were
City Manager Kerry Sweatt and City Secretary June Krause.
#1 APPROVAL OF MINUTES: A.
B.
Regular Meeting of 8-4-92
Special meeting of 8-12-92
Mrs. Marsh moved to approve the minutes of the Regular
Meeting of August 4th and Special Meeting of August 12,
1992. Mr. Greenwald seconded the motion, which carried
with the fOllowing vote:
AYES: Councilmembers Potempa, Baldwin, Stanhope, Marsh and
Greenwald.
NAYS: None
ABSTAINING: Mr. Baldwin for the meeting of August 12, 1992.
#2 HEARING OF RESIDENTS: A. Mrs. Dorothy Coons said
she would like to know the reason why they can not build the
building they requested. She said this is for her husband's
hobby and the Council just took his hobby away from him by
not approving the request. She then polled the Council as
to whether they had hobbies and what they were. She said
she had moved to Schertz in 1987 as a widow, then met and
married Mr. Coons. She said she did not need a bUilding
such as this prior to getting married, that Mr. Coons had a
hobby building at his old address but sold it.
Mr. Coons said that after knowing the whole story, he could
not believe Council turned them down.
Mr. Greenwald said the reason was explained at Planning and
Zoning Commission meeting. For one thing, the building
really is not portable and if they intend to make this into
a workshop, how would they get power for his tools without
electricity.
#3 ORDINANCE: Mayor Sawyer introduced an ordinance
and read the caption as follows:
ORDINANCE NO. 92-M-19
AN ORDINANCE BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY
OF SCHERTZ, TEXAS AMENDING THE CODE OF
ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF SCHERTZ TO REQUIRE
INSTALLATION IN CONVENIENCE STORES OF
SECURITY CAMERA SYSTEMS, SILENT ALARM
EQUIPMENT, COMPLIANCE SIGNS, ILLUMINATED
PARKING AREAS, HEIGHT MARKERS, CASH
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MANAGEMENT POLICIES AND WINDOWS WITH CLEAR
AND UNOBSTRUCTED VIEWS; PROVIDING FOR
ROBBERY PREVENTION AND AWARENESS TRAINING;
CREATING AN ADVISORY BOARD; PROVIDING FOR
PENALTY; AND ESTABLISHING AN EFFECTIVE
DATE.
Mr. potempa_moved to approve on final reading the ordinance
requlating convenience store security. Mr. Greenwald
seconded the motion.
Mr. Sweatt advised that the corrections had been made
changing parking "lots" to parking "areas".
Mrs. Marsh referred to Sec. 10.95.9, saying she could not
find anywhere in there that said the Advisory Board would
make recommendations to City Council for possible adoption.
Mr. Marsh also said that the City Manager could dismiss the
Advisory Council and she felt that should come under the
City Council.
Mr. Sweatt said that under (d) that if the Board was not
taking any action, it could be dismissed.
Mr. Potempa suggested it should properly read "The purpose
of the Board shall be to advise the City Manager and the
City Council," etc.
Mrs. Marsh said to add "and make recommendations".
Mayor Sawyer then called for a vote on the motion and the
motion carried as follows:
AYES: Councilmembers Potempa, Baldwin, Stanhope, Marsh and
Greenwald.
NAYS: None
A gentleman from the ordinance said he had appeared at the
previous hearings but would like to make some remarks. He
has consulted an attorney who is a specialist in Municipal
Government; and he can find no authority under State
Municipal laws for a $5,000 civil fine. He said they also
noted that the ordinance has no provision for a trial. He
said they feel $50 maximum cash is not reasonable. They
feel the provisions of this ordinance are dangerous to the
convenience store employees and customers. They had
previously pointed out several suggestions and only one was
taken. He advised that Council was writing a "road map" for
the criminal. He said the next time he would see Council
would be on paper.
#4 TAX PUBLIC HEARING: Consider and take action on
setting the time and place for a publiC hearing on a
proposal to increase total tax revenues.
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Mr. Sweatt said this was required under the Tax Code to
clarify action by the City Council. We are asking that
Council set a public hearing on a proposal to increase the
tax rate. We suggest that we set the date at 6:00 p.m. on
September 10th. This will allow our minimum dates of
publication and anticipates a public hearing on the budget
no later than September 15th.
Mr. Baldwin moved to set the date for public hearing on the
proposed tax increase for September 10, 1992 at 6:00 p.m.
in the Council Chambers of the Municipal Complex, 1400
Schertz Parkway. Mr. Potempa seconded the motion, which
carried with the following vote:
AYES: Councilmembers Potempa, Baldwin, Stanhope, Marsh and
Greenwald.
NAYS: None
#5 CITY MANAGER'S REPORT: A. We sustained some
damage to the City Hall today. One of our customers hit
another vehicle and knocked the vehicle into the side of the
building. There was no structural damage. The difficulty
will be in finding matching brick for replacement.
B. We are saddened to learn that Mr. Jim Shriver is still
in the hospital and in extremely bad condition.
#6 ITEMS BY COUNCIL: Mrs. Stanhope said she had
attended the Jamboree Sunday afternoon on behalf of the
Schertz Humane Society and was very pleased to find a lot of
people present.
#7 ITEMS BY MAYOR: Mayor Sawyer said he had received
a invitation from LaFarge, saying they would like to give
Council a tour of their plant and have a video if anyone
wants to view it.
#8 BUDGET WORKSHOP: Mayor Sawyer called a recess at
7:28 p.m. in order for the Council to move to the
Conference Room for the budget workshop.
The Regular Meeting was reconvened at 7:35 p.m.
Conference Room of the Municipal Complex.
in the
Mayor Sawyer said that the City Manager had some answers to
questions raised at the last budget workshop.
Mr. Sweatt said the first question concerned changing the
Dispatchers from a Service Grade 6 to a Service Grade 8. We
have calculated those three ways - the minimum cost would be
$5,236, the middle ground (which is more advisable) would
cost $7,736 and the maximum would cost $10,002.
The next question was to determine where we might transfer
funds to the Street Department for street repair purposes.
There are three ways that you might revise funding without
making other changes throughout the budget. One - use some
or all of the contingency fund in the General Fund, in the
amount of $3l,800. Two - you could raise the tax rate up to
slightly below the rollback rate to produce approximatelY
$19,000. The third way would be to delay the proposed
salary change in classification value for one, two or three
months into the fiscal year. In General Fund the one month
delay would produce a non expenditure of $6,043 - two months
would be $12,086 and three months would be $18,129. Mr.
Sweatt said that while he concurs that all of our personnel
are underpaid. we have suggested to Council a provision in
our overall classification and he said he could not
recommend the revision of one select group at this time. A
change from SG6 to SG8 for these four of the employees,
using the middle group, would produce a average salary
increase of 19.5%. He said he felt this would create
extremely bad moral problems to single out one group of
employees. He said, as pointed out earlier, the 5% change
in value of the pay scale is only the first of several
changes that will have to be made to bring our salaries up
to a comparable rate. We propose, next year, to do a
complete reclassification and task study that will result in
a major change in our classifications for various work
positions.
Mrs. Marsh asked when staff would be doing this study.
Mr. Sweatt said we would propose bringing that to
during our next budget process, along with another
increase. As you know, from our comparisons, this
us just slightly off the bottom of the comparisons.
Council
4% or 5%
5% moves
Mrs. Marsh said Council is not picking out one pay grade
for specialized treatment but are trying to rectify what
they perceive as having been a wrong all the time. The
dispatcher positions have in the past and do now deserve a
higher service grade than they are now in.
Mr. Sweatt then explained how he arrived at the minimum,
middle and maximum for the increase to a grade 8. He said
the maximum would move all dispatchers who have not reached
their maximum to the corresponding step in SG 8. That would
maintain the integrity of the relationship of their time to
each other. Their place in the service grade scale is
predicated on tenure.
The least expensive way would be to move each of the four to
the first step in the beginning of Servcie Grade 8.
However, if an employee leaves they would be hired in at the
same basic level as these who have tenure.
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The third alternative is to try to move them into some
relationship to each other keeping some separation between
them according to tenure.
Mrs. Marsh said that makes sense to her and Mr. Baldwin
said this should take care of any inequity and seems to be
what Council is asking for.
Council then discussed the various ways of reclassifying
positions in relation to Civil Service.
Mr. Sweatt assured Council that the reclassification of
positions would be brought to them before being implemented.
After lengthy discussion, Mr.
the position of Dispatcher to a
as explained by Mr. Sweatt
study and reclassification.
Baldwin recommended raising
Grade 8, using the mid level
and then next year have the
Mayor Sawyer polled the Councilmembers, asking if they
agreed with Mr. Baldwin's recommendation and all agreed.
Most of the Council was not in favor of delaying the salary
increases to meet the monetary needs for this service grade
move.
Mr. Sweatt advised that one way to raise the money needed
for this change would be to raise the tax rate to just under
the rollback level or use the contingency monies.
Mrs. Marsh said we could take the money needed out of the
Non-Departmental contingency and look at the sales tax at
mid year. Council agreed with this concept.
Mayor Sawyer then suggested Council look at ways to raise
some additional money for street repair materials.
Mr. Sweatt said he did not have the full answer on the bond
money that is still unsold but he felt it could be used for
street purposes. The amount of unsold bonds in the 1987
series amounted to about $500,000.
Mr. Baldwin said he was concerned because we need to do
some long-term major rebuilding of streets so we really need
to sell some of the bonds.
Mr. Potempa reminded Council that $102,000 is needed to the
water lines in Mobile Villa and it would be senseless to
redo the streets and then go back and put in the water
lines.
Mr. Sweatt said some of the 1987 bonds were to fix streets
in Mobile Villa but we have not done the streets because we
do not have funds to relocate and replace the water lines.
He is still checking on this.
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Council agreed to wait until the City Manager gets a reply
on the bonds and then get to work on that. They decided
they would wait to add anything to the street department
materials and try to use bond money to rebuild streets.
Mayor Sawyer ended by saying we need to think of ways we can
bring money into the city and the sales tax seems the best
way.
#9
meeting
motion,
ADJOURNMENT: Mr. Baldwin_mQy'~g to adjourned the
at 8:28 p.m. with Mrs. Stanhope seconding the
which carried unani.mo /UZ'/~la~~~__
~~yor, City of SChe~z, Texas
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