ccswks 08-10-1988
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SPECIAL MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL
AUGUST 10, 1988
The Schertz City Council convened in Special Workshop Session,
Wednesday, August 18, 1988, at 7:80 p.m. in the Conference Room
of the Municipal Complex, l49B Schertz Parkway, Schertz, Texas.
The following members were present: Mayor Earl W. Sawyer,
presiding; Earl Hartzog; Hal Baldwin; Ray Stanhope and Adolph
Aguilar. Absent: Ken Greenwald. Staff present were Interim
City Manager Steve Simonson and City Secretary June G. Krause.
II BEARING OF RESIDENTS: A. Mrs. Ruth Tiernor advised
that they are gearing up for school to start and just a month
later will be the Home Coming and bon fire, along with the snake
dance. She asked Council for help as in the past years with
police cars in front and back of the snake dance. Mayor Sawyer
advised that the City would provide help on the same lines as
have been provided in past years.
B. Mr. Tony Paulson, Library Board member, said he would like to
bring two items to Council's attention. He said the Library Board
had formed a five-year plan and tried to get a list of the things
they would need to do within this time frame. The first is a
security system for their circulation. They are in the process
of getting estimates at this time. The second is to start
putting in heating and air conditioning in the new addition. He
said they have about $1199 they can use on these items and feel
this will be sufficient for these two items.
He said they have identified other things such as furnishing the
new addition, work toward keeping up with the population on video
collection and automation for check-in and check-out.
Another area of concern was salar ies. One way would be to
compare salaries with other cities or they could compare against
comparable department heads within the city. Using either
method, our librarian comes out on the short in - being about
$2899 lower than other librarians. Also there are two library
clerks who are the lowest paid in the city. Mr. Paulson said our
librarian puts in about 6999 supervisory hours per year, attends
numerous meetings and seminars and workshops where she represents
the City and provides an excellent library for the citizens. He
asked the Council to think about restructuring those salaries and
suggested the librarian should start at a 19-B and top out at 16-
B. He suggested Council increase the librarian salary to at
least $19,009 per year. He proposed the clerks range be from a
3-C to 7-C. He further proposed that the senior clerk be
promoted to a 7-C for the 88-89 budget.
C. Mayor Sawyer said he had asked Mr. Doyle Hines of Guadalupe
Valley Electric Cooperative to come to this meeting and discuss
problems of the recent outages in electrical service.
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Mr. Hines said they have had problems in 1988. Their service
transmission line served from Marion with two circuits on the
same structure. It is designed to have two feed lines into the
City to have 188% continuancy. He said as Council would remember
back in 1982 there was a plane that went through one of their
lines and we were out of service for an extended time. This year
one of their poles collapsed. He said they are going through an
analysis of that to do what is necessary and hope to have all 28
miles of lines investigated. He said they had talked about
looping into the community and in July had two outages that were
not related to the first outage. They were under weather
threatening conditions both times. Mr. Hines said they had both
investigated physically and had flown an infrared, which is
Suppose to be able to pick up any hot spot. He said they had
been out at night when there is dew and they still did not find
any leakage, so they are stumped. After February, they upped the
aistribution at Cibolo and brought in a tie to the FM 3009 area
So that they could feed that area. He said they could take care
of that area off the distribution. Mr. Hines said they have been
looking at what would be involved in putting in another
aistribution line but with that, we are looking at large
~xpenditures. He said they are continuing to look at what they
can do to utilize the money in the best way possible. He
explained that there would be two work session with their board
this month. They will hopefully get on a route to having a loop
system into the community in a decent length of time. He said as
they grow, they would have to build express feeders so that it
could feed both ways. Any utility needs stress to know where the
weak spots are. Mr. Hines mentioned that this date was the all
time peak period for this system. None of the happenings have
been a factor of capacity but failure of equipment or materials.
Mr. Hines said they are going to try to resolve this situation
and do better. He asked for Council's indulgence and patience.
Mr. Hines then answered questions of Council, one being
l>urchasing from City Public Service. Mr. Hines said they had
ponsidered that but it would cost much more money. He said they
had looked at any number of methods and putting in the one line
is most cost effective.
Mr. Hines said they are mindful of the need for 180' continuity
and asked that they be kept advised of life support needs in our
area. He said he would hope to come back in the very near future
with plans or time frame.
12 COOPERA'lIVB AGREEJlEBT: Consider and take action on
Cooperative Agreement with Bexar County to requalify for Urban
County Status.
Mr. Simonson explained that the City is part of Bexar County and
need to be a part of this.
Mr. Aguilar moved to go ahead and join the cooperative agreement
with Bexar County. Mr. Stanhope seconded the motion, which
carried with the following vote:
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AYES:
NAYS:
Councilmen Hartzog, Baldwin; Stanhope and Aguilar
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Mayor Sawyer explained that Council very rarely vote at Workshop;
but this item needed immediate action.
13 Discussion of avarding bid for 12 band beld radio units.
Mr. Simonson advised that three bids were received, from
Communication Professionals, Motorola and General Electric.
Communication Professionals is the kind the utility Department
has been using for years. We have learned from other police
departments that they have gone to this type. This company does
meet the specifications that were required.
Mr. Aguilar mentioned that we had asked for 12 units; but Chief
Starr has listed 14 units. Mr. Simonson stated that with this
bid we can get 14 with the money available.
Mayor Sawyer asked that this item be on the next agenda for vote.
14 Discussion of Second Pbase Street Seal Coating Proposal
Mr. Simonson said this is for Council consideration. Council can
delete items or add to the list. He said that Council had
indicated they wanted to do as many streets as we could with the D
money available. The only streets left out are Main, Beck and
Colony and we could go with the whole city at one time.
Mayor Sawyer stated that this has been a really good seal coating
this time.
Mr. Hartzog asked if any streets would be cut short. Mr.
Simonson said both Mitchell and Aviation from Oak to Randolph.
Mr. Stanhope asked if they would go back and repair the
intersections that are bleeding through. Mr. Simonson replied
yes, our crews would respread gravel at these points.
Mayor Sawyer asked that this be on the next agenda.
15 Discussion of appointing '.roa Dovey to calculate the
effective taz rate.
The City Manager stated that this is a formality of law.
This item is also to be on the next agenda.
16 Discussion of Capital Recovery Pees
Mr. Simonson said the original fees were set back in 1981-82. n
Now we are having a lot of people coming in to discuss things
they would like to do and we feel that we would like to work on a
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master capital improvement plan and capital recovery plan. The
way it is set up now, there are some inequities built into the
system. Mr. Simonson said what they are ask ing is can they
proceed in this direction. This is partly brought about by the
state law that changed - one thing is that what is collected has
to be spent within three years. Of course staff would go back to
I Council before any engineering etc. it done.
Mr. Simonson said we are putting in the water line on Ware-Seguin
, Road and are getting several requests to tie on to that line.
Staff would like to bring this back to the next workshop.
Mr. Baldwin asked if we are getting complaints from the
Shirmerville area and Mr. Simonson said no, but from people that
want to bring business in.
Mr. Bierschwale asked for about four weeks and he would be able
to tell how much is being spent on this line and how many
connections we can supply off that line.
Mayor Sawyer asked that this be on the first workshop in
September.
#7 Discussion of Annual 4th of July contract vitb Scbertz
Business Club.
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Mr. Simonson advised that this is what Mr. Graham had talked to
Council about previously. There are just a few changes involved.
Mr. Graham reminded Council that he had been asked to run the
parade and he found there is nothing in the contract about having
a par-ade. He said he had divided some of the expenses between
the City and the Business Club. Mr. Graham's theory was that
there should be something in the contract giving the authority to
use the City Streets.
Mr. Hartzog stated that this 4th of July Jubilee was started
several years ago to give people a place to go to keep them in
the community. It was turned over to the Business Club with the
cooperation of the City. We have recently received a listing
from the Business Club showing the donations they have made back
to the City.
Mr. Stanhope said he feels the same, that the City should budget
for this.
Mayor Sawyer said he thought we had a contract everyone was
comfortable with sharing. Mr. Sawyer suggested having the
Business Club look at this 'proposal, have the. Council study it
and then bring it back for d1scussion at the next workshop.
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17-A EXECUTIVE SESSION: Mayor Sawyer called an executive
session under Article 6252-17, Section 2 (g) Vernon's Texas Civil
Statutes to discuss personnel matters relating to the police
department and the hiring of a City Manager at 8:12 p.m.
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The Workshop meeting was reconvened at 9:85 by Mayor Sawyer.
17-B 'Consider and take action on aatters discussed in
preceding Ezecutive Session, itea 17-A.
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Mayor Sawyer advised that Council had discussed the police
department personnel and had no action to take on that.
Mayor Sawyer advised that last Saturday Council held a meeting
with the Selection Committee and selected five people to be
interviewed - Bennett, Boudreaux, Morgan, Simonson and Sweatt.
These people will be interviewed the following Saturday morning
and then Council will take the candidates to lunch at the Kountry
Kitchen. Anyone is invited to attend the luncheon. Mr. Sawyer
said Council would be making their selection from these five
people.
18 BUOOft WORKSHOP:
Mr. Sharpe had reserved time for this item and asked several
questions concerning the budget. (1) was there sufficient funds
for the acquisition of right of way for Jack Hays Boulevard (2)
he also would like to see some funds set aside for purchasing
right of way for F.M. 78 (3) sufficient money for proper traffic
control signs (4) extra money for Economic Development.
Mr. Hartzog said he would also like more money in the budget for D
Economic Development but right now we don't have sufficient staff
to work with him on this project.
Mr. Simonson suggested going over the tax rate he is submitting.
He reminded Council that last year the tax rate was .247 cents
and he was proposing .2576 for this year, stating that this would
be right under the roll back limit or 1.06 cent increase. He
then gave some comparison figures for residences, showing the
increase would only be from about $4 to $18 depending on
assessment of home. The Senior citizens exemption would make it
even less for them. This increase would include the employee pay
increases he had discussed previously.
Mr. Baldwin said he would really like to see the pay for the
Assistant City Manager increased to at least the level of the
people he supervises. He suggested a scale from a 16-A to a top
of l8-D. He said he felt the librarian should also be
commensurate with other department heads. Mr. Baldwin also asked
if any serious consideration had been given to going back to a
Public Works Director or an in house engineer.
Council discussed the possible qualifications of an engineer,
suggesting the engineer should also have surveying, drafting and
planning background. Mr. Aguilar stated then they would be 0
talking about another department. ,
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Mr. Hartzog questioned the number of people it takes to patch the
streets. Mr. Simonson said they have crews of three but
sometimes you will see more people if the have on the job
training going on. Mr. Hartzog was concerned about the size of
the Street/Parks department. Mr. Simonson explained that we have
a number of subdivisions going on line, several large drainage
areas and a very large area in Schirmerville.
Mr. Baldwin said he felt the City had gone overboard
Schirmel'ville - way beyond what Council had promised them.
said he felt other more densely populated areas should
precedence over this area. Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Hartzog were
I concerned about the size of the Street/Parks budget.
Mr. Stanhope asked about the $18,099 for chemicals. Mr. Simonson
explained that chemical supplies in the Park were cut way back
because we did not need them this year; however there is a super
wet season, it would take more.
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In further discussion of this department, Mr. Simonson advised
that we get numerous complaints about Eckhart Road. Mr. Baldwin
said that here again we have very few people living on that road.
I He said he just did not know if it was necessary to put that kind
of money out there.
Mr. Aguilar said one of the things that was understood by Council
is it would be some time before we could do much out in these
areas - control safety but not aesthetics.
Mr. Baldwin said it seems to him that the Council is inflating
the budget to take care of roads where people live miles apart.
Mr. Stanhope questioned the $10,900 for replacing signs. Mr.
Simonson said we lost 22 signs the past week.
Mr. Stanhope asked Mr. Graham about the line item for BVYA. Mr.
Graham advised that this item was put in the budget by Mr.
Gilmore last year and was approved. Mr. Graham said he takes
BVYA's figures and put them in his budget.
Mr. Hartzog asked why they use lights on the practice field,
since there are a lot of practice field in the area, why can't
they practice during daf light hours. Mr. Hartzog said he would
like to see the Streets/Parks budget the same as last year.
Mr. Baldwin suggested that the animal control should be under the
police department and to put the Assistant City Manager as Public
Works Director. Mr. Hartzog disagreed, saying there is too much
work for the Assistant City Manager for him to be public works
director also.
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Mayor Sawyer asked Council if they would like to go with this
budget' and then work out the public works director and animal
control with the new City Manager. He said Council needs to come
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up with a budget within the next few days. Mr. Sawyer said he
felt the budget reflects good leadership on our Interim City
Manager.
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Mr. Baldwin asked the Tax Assessor/Collector for the effective
tax rate. Mr. Dovey replied it is .246946648.
Mayor Sawyer summed up Council's desires by saying they need to
raise the Assistant City Manager salary and the Librarian salary
and the two library clerks salary.
Mr. Baldwin said there are some positions in the City that we
cannot hire capable people because of the salary and just pushing
the scale up is not the answer. There are a few positions that
need to be looked at and make sure that is a good beginning
salary for the position.
Mayor Sawyer suggested calling a recess of this meeting at 10:23
p.m. and reconvene the following day - Thursday, August 11, 1988.
The workshop session was reconvened at 6: 00 p.m. on Thursday,
August 11, 1988 in the Conference Room with all Councilmembers
except Mr. Greenwald present.
Council continued there discussion of the Streets/Parks budget D
and agreed to reduce the BVYA line item to $9,000 in Parks and to
reduce chemicals, sand & gravel and traffic controls in Streets.
Mayor Sawyer advised that the BVYA contract is up for renewal in
December, at which time Council can advise them we do not want to
pay electricity for practice.
Under Municipal Building, Council agreed to add $1,089 for
beautification.
Under Animal Control, Mr. Simonson advised that the salary line
item is going to be held down by prioritizing over time - make
sure they are called out only for emergencies.
Mr. Baldwin suggested raising the workmans comp line item under
Administration by $10,000 as the overall rate has increased by
25%.
The Library salary line item was increased to allow for the
upgrading of the positions in that department.
When discussing Water/Sewer revenues, Mr. Baldwin asked to check
with the auditor to see if the capital improvement item of
$59,000 should be a separate fund or should it be shown also
under expense.
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Mr. Simonson said there were no water rate increases planned and
Mr. Weaver of CCMA has advised there will be no sewer increase.
Capital Improvements - Mr. Hartzog asked about improvements to FM
3889. Mr. Simonson said that money was used for Schertz Parkway
and there is only about $8,099 left. He said he had talked with
almost every property owner involved and he did not anticipate
any trouble getting the land for the right of way donated, except
for two owners.
Going back to general fund revenues, Mr. Baldwin was concerned
about the Municipal Court fines.
Officer Tacquard said the patrolmen do not feel they are being
put on a quota and it is not hard to write just five tickets,
some shifts some officers write as many as 20 and then the next
none at all.
Mr. Baldwin expressed his feelings as being that most people
expect from pOlice forces is security. He said he has just never
been in favor of a car sitting on FM 78 or FM 3909 running radar.
Mr. Tacquard said when patrolling and they find a violator, they
write tickets but they do not just sit and run radar.
Mr. Baldwin said then if all this ticket writing is in
r- conjunction with good patrolling of the City, he could go along
with it. Mr. Simonson said he has been asked to set up sporadic
radar in some subdivisions.
Mr. Graham said he had talked with the Chief and they hope to get
the reserves built up to help relieve the officers for patrol.
Mayor Sawyer said we will be getting back with our Judge. When
we hired him we wanted him to tell our officers what they were
doing wrong on their tickets that were being thrown out.
Mrs. Tiernor asked if she wanted someone to go over to the school
and talk with her kids about drugs what should she do. Mr.
Simonson said to just call the Chief and he either he or one of
his men would take care of it for her.
Mr. Hartzog asked to add a line item designated "Newsletter"
under the Council expenditures, in the amount of $3,fiJ88. Mayor
Sawyer agreed and said he was letter Mr. Hartzog work on this.
Mr. Baldwin recommended increasing the Management salary line
item to $155,448 to take care of the City Secretary, Assistant
City Manager and new City Manager salaries, in addition to those
I others included.
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Council then discussed the police department salaries. They
1 agreed to increase the patrolmen range to 9_B to l2-B, Corporal
9-D to 19-D and Sergeant ll-D to l2-D. The agreed to max the
Chief's salary at a l7-C.
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Mr. Aguilar said he would to consider looking into getting a
warrant officer. Mayor Sawyer said that cou~d be looked at when
the new City Manager gets on board.
Inspection Department - Mayor Sawyer suggested looking at those
lots where we have had to clean numerous times and have several
liens against the property; and maybe take action to take over
the property.
19 CITY MABAGER'S REPO~: Mr. Simonson asked if Council
generally agreed that the City needs a tax increase to support
this budget as amended.
When asked this by the Mayor, Council agreed.
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B. The Water Department has laid over 1888 feet of line on the
Ware--Sequin project in just two days.
C. We are going to start road striping next week.
D. Every year the Herald puts out a football ad for all cities
and businesses - does Council want to participate? 1/8 page ad
is $120 and a 3X5' ad is $80. Council agreed to go with the 1/8
page for $120.
E. In 1985 the Council voted to sell the lot at the end of Elm 0
and Aviation. Mr. Simonson said he was asking if, since this
once voted on, could we sell the lot and get it on the tax roll
and out of maintenance. Council agreed to sell.
118 I~ BY COORCIL:
Mr. HartzoQ - A. Is the paint striping of streets going to be
finished before school starts. Mr. Simonson said it was.
B. Concerning the entrance to our city on FM 78, the whole
bottom needs to be mowed and the area cleaned.
Mr. Baldwin added that we need to get the railroad to open the
road under the bridge. Mr. Simonson said they will not open that
road until the finish with their work.
C. The United Suburban Committee has a controversy with Bexar
County Council of Mayors, who feel the committee should be
dissolved. The Committee feel it should be continued.
Mayor Sawyer said the Bexar County Council of Mayors never did
show him much and this co~ittee does a lot more for cities. Mr.
Hartzog said he feels 1t is a good committee and gets both
Councils and staff involved.
D. Concerning the proposed changes to the
contract, he said he feels it to be unfavorable.
Business Club
Mr. Shriver has
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furnished listing of what they have contributed to the community
over the years. Mayor Sawyer said when the contract was first
signed, it was meant to be a mutual effort. If either Councilor
,the Business Club has any recommended changes, it should be
'discussed at contract renewal time. Mr. Shriver said they could
not continue if the proposal by Mr. Graham was adopted.
: Mr. Stanhope - Council needs to consider something about the
i sewer for 1-35.
Also the CCMA sewer plant is stinking again.
Mr. Aguilar - suggested making contact with Universal City to see
if something could not be done about the underpass at the
railroad bridge.
B. the previous day on Channel 9 Cable TV there was a program
that was very detrimental to the City of Schertz and some of our
'business establishments. Mr. Simonson said he had contacted them
to either get a copy of the tape or to view it, in the light of
liable.
III I'rBMS BY IlAYOR: Mr. Sawyer said he received a call
from Mr. Forbes, who owns 5 or 6 acres on 1-35, he talked about
sewer. He said he will contact us and New Braunfels again around
the 17th of August. They are interested in Schertz going with
New Braunfels. We are going to pursue with New Braunfels on 3/4
mile sewer line. We do have a permit to allow us to dump into
the Dry Comal. New Braunfels does not want us to do that.
B. There is going to be a breakfast at the VFW from 7 to 11 a.m.
. Saturday and everyone is invited.
112 ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, Mayor
Sawyer declared the meeting to be adjourned at 8:53 p.m.
ATTEST:
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