ccswks 02-24-1988
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SPECIAL MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL
FEBRUARY 24, 1988
The Schertz City Council convened in Special Workshop Session,
Wednesday, February 24, 1988, at 7:~~ p.m. in the Conference Room
of the Municipal Complex, 1400 Schertz Parkway, Schertz, Texas.
The following members were present: Mayor Earl W. Sawyer,
presiding; Charles B. Sharpe, Hal Baldwin, Ray Stanhope, Adolph
Aguilar and Ken Greenwald. Staff present were City Manager Jimmy
G. Gilmore and City Secretary June G. Krause.
#1
anything
members.
attorney
attorney
BEARING OF RESIDENTS: Mr. Ty Brisgil asked if there was
new on the lawsuit that involved the Planning & Zoning
Mr. Gilmore said this suit is handled by our insurance
out of Austin. He says it is still on hold and the
is not interested in pushing it because it may go away.
Mr. Greenwald said he informed P&Z members that they should have
been invited to attend when the Council was br iefed by this
attorney on the suit and if another briefing is held, they surely
will be invited to the Executive Session.
Mr. Willman asked if the pavilion is going to be painted this
year. Mayor Sawyer said that was not in the budget.
Mr. Willman also said that about six months ago he had asked
about packages for prospective businesses coming into town. He
asked if they had ever been finalized. Mr. Sharpe said they have
the draft copy now and the Chamber has a meeting the next day to
finalize the material before publication. It will contain a
composite profile for each of the cities and then it will be set
up so that each city can pullout information on their city so
that they can have it available to mail or hand out. Anyone that
has a client can get the information and mail it out.
Mr. Sharpe said that on the painting of the pavilion, he did not
know exactly what money is available in park bond monies. Mr.
Gilmore said this could be included in the park grant
renovations. Our application was turned down but we have re-
submitted it with additions.
#2 Consideration of P&Z recommendation of approval of
request from J.D. Marks for a variance to Ord. 87-B-25 on
Enclosure of a Junk or Salvage Yard.
Mayor Sawyer advised that P& Z has recommended approval of this
request.
Mr. Greenwald said Mr. Marks has the entire front of his property
lined with trees or natural type shrubs. This is to assure that
he keeps it like it is and does not cut the shrubs down.
Mayor Sawyer requested this item be on the next agenda.
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#3
Discussion of generator purchase.
Mr. Gilmore said he still has people trying to come up with
recommendations, as there are several routes that can be taken.
During the emergency blackout our generator blew and we had to
bring in a fire truck generator to operate our emergency
facilities. We also needed generators for lift stations and for
the administrative side of the Municipal building to operate the
Emergency Operating Center. We have two or three routes we could
go and have a team working to corne up with the best route to go.
Mr. Gilmore said his concern was with the emergency
communications.
Mr. Aguilar asked if Mr. Gilmore was talking about a diesel
generator and was told yes.
Mr. Stanhope asked if more than one would be needed. Mr. Gilmore
said yes that we would need a portable one to be mounted on a
trailer and it could go from lift station to lift station. We
would need one for the Community Center for SAFES and to set up
an evacuation center and one for the EOC in this building.
Mr. Aguilar asked it a generator would run about $5~~ and Mr.
Gilmore said the small one would but of course the large ones are
much more. What we would like to do is to set up the EOC in the
large conference room with about three desks with at least three
jacks for rotary type phones for the base station. We have two
base stations at the utility yard and Street/Parks has one. We
could put Water/Sewer on 24 hour broadcast and bring Street/Parks
up to this location so that we can communicate without going
through the dispatcher.
Mr. Gilmore said we have talked with Universal City for backup
and they have the same problem we have if they lose power.
Universal City did offer any help needed during the blackout.
Mayor Sawyer advised that Council needs someone to tell us just
what is needed and Mr. Gilmore wants Council concensus to study
this problem and give Council advise as to what is needed.
Mayor Sawyer asked that this item be put on the Bell Ringer list
and for the City Manager to report back in two to four weeks.
#4 Discussion of including the Housing Authority in the
City's Emergency Plan.
Mayor Sawyer said that during the power outage it carne to Council
attention that we did not have the Housing Authority in our
Emergency Plan except for evacuation.
Mr. Warren Klebig, Chairman of the Housing Authority Board, said
they are in the process of prepar ing an Emergency Plan and of
getting a generator. He said they have the money but felt it
important for Council to know what they had done, making sure
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that every resident was taken care of. He said the Board was
planning on being there as long as needed to see that their
residents were taken care of.
Mayor Sawyer said what amazed him was the lack of a plan. He
said that Council cannot let our city be unprotected for one hour
or more.
Mr. Klebig said they will be working with our Emergency
Management Coordinator.
Mr. Gilmore said staff had a debriefing
and it was brought out the need of
Coordinator can make sure that everyone
then can go to their stations.
Mayor Sawyer said Council needs to be notified as soon as
possible when an emergency occurs.
meeting the day before
the EOC so that the
has been notified and
Mr. Klebig asked about the Housing Authority being included in
the City's plan as far as evacuation is concerned. Mr. Gilmore
said that is in the plan and he will see that Mr. Klebig gets a
copy.
#5 EXECUTIVE SESSION: Mayor Sawyer called an Executive
Session under Article 6252-17, Vernon's Civil Statutes, Section 2
(f) to discuss obtaining additional park land at 7:28 p.m.
The Workshop meeting was reconvened at 7:57 p.m.
Mayor Sawyer advised they had discussed the purchase of park land
and concensus was given for the City Manager to proceed.
#6 CITY MANAGER'S REPORT: A. Staff has started to build
folding tables for making the conference room into the Emergency
Operations Center. We will be putting in phone jacks and
purchasing rotary phones. We are going to have to enlarge the
dispatch office area. Mr. Aguilar said that whatever is bought
in the way of a generator, to buy one large enough to operate
everything that is needed.
Mayor Sawyer said in this type emergency, we would not want the
City Hall open, just the EOC. We had the EOC in the police
department before but there just is not room.
Mr. Greenwald said that GVEC should be able to come over here and
tell us just exactly what is needed.
B. On the well site we are purchasing in Schirmerville, it will
cost $16, 281 to have CPS to install the service to the water
well. Mr. Greenwald suggested getting someone to give us a cost
of installation.
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C. Within two weeks we should be testing the Helms well to see
what type drawdown it has. We have talked with him and he said
he will deal with us on the well. Mark Industries has two wells
out there and has 16 acres available. We are going right along
with wells in Guadalupe County.
Mayor Sawyer said that Guadalupe County is the magic word as it
is not in Edward control and we need one well out of it.
D. Have been working with the Highway Department on the Urban
Road System. They said they have about $150,000 they could
possibly put out here. Lower Seguin Road is what they have
zeroed in on. Lower Seguin would cost about $19~ ,~00 but we
believe they could c,ome up with the rest. We are working on it
right now and it looks pretty good.
E. Will probably be accepting the rest of Schertz Parkway next
week, they had a few things they needed to complete. We would
like to keep the road closed until we finish with out part of it,
then we will be doing the striping of the entire road.
Mr. Sharpe asked if there was going to be a ribbon cutting and
inviting the developers in the area and prospective developers.
F. Mr. Gilmore said he had an interesting talk with Bob Sohn of
New Braurtfels Utilities. They had a meeting on February 18 and
said something about if we go with them on surface water, we did
not have to pay for water until we started taking it out of the
lake. Also mentioned sewer again to him and told him we are not
interested in giving up 135 and he wants to consider that again.
Pat Brown is corning down the following week and has contacted New
Braunfels but he has some plan he wants to talk with us about.
G. We did send a letter to all the people on East Live Oak Road
about the name change and received three letters back saying they
do not want to change the name. We sent five and three answers
carne back.
Mr. Aguilar asked why Schertz didn't change the name on the part
on the other side of Jack Hays. Mayor Sawyer agreed, saying the
only address that would have to be changed was CCMA.
Mr. Baldwin asked if Schertz had the power to change on that side
of Jack Hays. Mr. Gilmore said the road is in Cibolo's ETJ, not
ours. Mr. Aguilar said then we could ask Cibolo if they would,
all they can say is no.
H. Lewis Borgfeld now works for the Schertz Bank & Trust. There
is a meeting in Austin from 9:30 to noon Friday put on by the
Lower Colorado River Industr ial Development and Mr. Borgfeld
wants to know if someone from the City will go with him.
I . Mr.
consisting
Melton said
of about
the
200
State
cots,
has a field hospital
blankets, sheets, two
unit
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generators, plus surgical instruments and wanted to know if we
wanted it. It takes about 1200 feet storage space. It is
located in Beeville in about 459 cartons and is free but we would
have to store it. Mr. Melton can go look at it and see if it is
any good if Council wants him to. Mayor Sawyer said he did not
see any harm in checking into it.
J. Our health inspections are becoming quite costly. Mr.
Gilmore said he found out that we can get our own people
certified to do that. If we get our own people certified, we
could do the inspections in-house. There would be no cost to
getting them certified. Mr. Gilmore said he was not questioning
what our inspector was doing but would like to have better
control of it. Our people would be qualified by the State to
inspect restaurants, etc. The inspector has to come to us before
he can shut someone down as it is.
Mayor Sawyer said to check our ordinance because the follow up
inspections should be charged to the property owners. If our
ordinance does not say that, then we need to change it.
K. Mr. Gilmore passed out some sample logos. The one who drew
them works for the Recorder Times. He said if Council had any
ideas or changes, just to let him know.
#7 ITEMS BY COUNCIL: Mr. Greenwald said that or ig inally
the Railroad said the repairs to the bridge would take about 90
days and now it will take about six months. He said what scares
him is the drain buildup. He was told nobody knew in advance
about the dam they are building. Mr. Gilmore said we have
notified these people and hope they will do something about it.
Part is in our city and part in Universal City.
Mr. Baldwin reported that he went to the Housing Authority
meeting, delivered the letter from the Mayor, and they were very
concerned. They are work ing on an emergency system and Mr.
Baldwin said he thought they will do a good job. They will take
the necessary action to deal with staff.
About two weeks from now will be Education Week. Mr. Baldwin
said each Councilman would be getting an invitation to lunch at
Northview school.
Mr. Stanhope asked if we had anything on seal coating the
streets. Mr. Gilmore said not as yet, we have to advertise and
then give them time to get their bids in.
Mr. Stanhope asked if we got with CPS about looping our
electr ical system. Mr. Gilmore said GVEC is suppose to be
looking into it. Mayor Sawyer said that New Braunfels is tied
into CPS and he thought they were going to tie us in with CPS
also. Mayor Sawyer informed Council that the City Manager is
compiling a list of expenses incurred during the outage to be
presented to GVEC.
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Mr. Stanhope asked if anything had been done about the sprinkler
system out front. Mr. Gilmore said Mr. Bierschwale has plans but
has not brought them in as yet - the old plans were drawn on the
drip system.
Mr. Stanhope said he had heard rumor that someone had offered the
City some plants and they were turned down. Mr. Krause said the
City accepted the plants - 4 annuals - and at the gentleman's
suggestion had placed them at the library.
Mr. Sharpe had the following announcements:
A.
he has tickets for SAFES dance and raffle.
Samuel Clemens basketball teams plays this Fr iday at
B.
Uvalde.
C. March 10
New Braunfels.
& II, the Texas Legislative Committee meeting in
Mr. Aguilar reported that the house at the corner of Curtiss and
Randolph with the black paper siding looks as if he is operating
a second hand store. It has been bad for years but is getting
worse - keep monitoring this.
Mr. Aguilar said he received an anonymous letter and what puzzles
him is it the truth and if so, how does the information get out.
Mayor Sawyer said Mr. Gilmore will check on it but he feels the
letter is degrading. Either the person works at City Hall or
talked to someone at City Hall.
#8 ITEMS BY MAYOR: Mayor Sawyer received a letter from
Leon Valley and he went to a meeting over there. What they are
talking about is trying to equalize the franchise fee paid by
CPS. Converse has been operating without a franchise contract
for three years. They want to file suit and they want to know if
Schertz wants to join them in the suit. They have invited all of
the area cities to join. San Antonio is getting 14% while the
other cities get 2%.
Mr. Baldwin said the School District filed suit because that is a
tax. They filed a class action suit and it went on for years in
Court but finally got a favorable decision and no longer pay the
tax. Mayor Sawyer said they will go and listen and corne back
with the information gathered.
Mayor Sawyer said he had received a letter from Mark LaCombe
about the Knights of Columbus property. Mr. Sawyer said he feels
this guy knows this is the wrong way to approach the Board of
Adjustment. They are requesting an extension of the var iance
time. This has oeen talked about before and Mr. Sawyer said he
is sure our p&Z told them what had to be done and that is one of
the reasons this item is not on the agenda.
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Mr. Gilmore said the request should come from the Knights of
Columbus. Mr. Simonson spent over one and half hours with Mr.
LaCombe outlining what they had to do.
Received a letter from a Rittimann Addition resident wanting to
know what they can do to expedite help. Mayor Sawyer said they
need to get with Bexar County Commissioner and tell him they want
something done.
Mr. Sharpe said in regard to the Spring Clean Up, if the
gentleman gets organizations together and cleans up the roads
etc, do the Council want to get together in the park for cokes
and hamburgers. Mayor Sawyer said he was all for it but that we
would need to know how many would be involved.
Mr. Stanhope asked if anything was being done about planting
grass on the hill at the Gutierrez landfil. Mr. Gilmore said Mr.
Gutierrez is still moving dirt up there.
#9 ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, Mayor
Sawyer declared the meeting to be adjourned at 9:1~ p.m.
ATTEST:
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