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ccswks 07-29-1987 I 189 :- SPECIAL MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL JULY 29, 2987 The Schertz Ci ty Council convened in Special Workshop Session, Wednesday, July 29, 1987, at 7:00 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, Ray Stanhope, Adolph Aguilar and Ken Greenwald. Absent: Hal Baldwin. Staff present were City Manager Jimmy G. Gilmore and City Secretary June G. Krause. #1 HEARING OF RESIDENTS: Mrs. Ruth Tienor addressed Council concerning the Snake Dance, sponsored by the Samuel Clemens High School. She indicated they wanted to have it just like they did last year - starting at the Schertz Bank & Trust then down Main Street to Schertz Parkway, then on Elbel Road to the Bonfire area. Mrs. Tienor said they do stop about four times and they would like to have the entire street this time. Last year they only used half of the streets and it did not work so well. The bonfire will be under the direction of the Fire Chief, who lets them know how it should be buil t and what materials can and cannot be used. It is planned for October 15, 1987, leaving the bank at 7:30 p.m. e? 5~9 //6 Mayor Sawyer said the only misunderstanding last year was the use of the street and it was not well coordinated with the police. r- Mr. Gilmore asked Mrs. Tienor to contact him about a week before the event to complete final arrangements. We need to make arrangements to block off the side streets. #2 EXECUTIVE SESSION: Mayor Sawyer called an Executive d 1, ~q() Session at 7:08 p.m. in order to receive a briefing from the'1Jj;J1) attorney on the Green Valley Water Corporation litigation. The Special Meeting was reconvened at 7:43 p.m. Mayor Sawyer asked to go back to item #1 on Hearing of Residents: Mr. .Richard L. Howe, Chairman of the Appraisal Review Board, ~1,f;~1 advised they are behind schedule in getting the values back to / 1 ~ the various entities. The majority of the protests are from the Seguin area and all have been scheduled. Mr. Howe said he had purchased a copy of the City's proposed budget and had compared it wi th the one when he was on the Council five years ago and the budget has gone up about $215,757 a year actual operating expenses. He said he would like for the Council to really look the budget over. Mr. Howe said that somebody has got to start saying no to raising taxes and rates. The papers have stated that 40% of the people have gone bankrupt. He said he knows that a lot of improvements have been done around the city but our grandchildren will never be able to pay for what we have today. 190 ~~ ~\\ ~~ ~ \ Mr. Howe said he is proud that the Council put him on the Appraisal Review Board but this is his last year. He feels that the City really needs someone from this area on the Board. Mr. Howe said he felt Mr. Morris has done a miraculous job in putting all the material together. The District has gone from 35,000 last year to 59,000 appraisals this year. o Mr. Howe said he had studied the City's tax expenditures and he wishes the City had done what he recommended five years ago - put 25% of the sale tax receipts in escrow for street repairs. Mr. Howe said the Guadalupe County Appraisal Board is cutting their payroll by $8,000 or $9,000 this year. The biggest expense this year has been the increase in the people's salary that sit on the board, from $50 a day to $100 a day, in order to get people to sit on the board. Mr. Aguilar asked Mr. Howe what is going to be the figure difference or percentage difference in what the Appraisal District proposed in valuation and what the final figure will be. As Mr. Howe did not have that information, Mr. Gilmore said he had talked with Mr. Morris and was informed it looks like about 80% is going to be pretty close. Mr. Gilmore said Mr. Morris has worked really well with the City. Mr. Sharpe said he appreciated what Mr. Morris has done because n he has worked to identify property and try to get those that were undervalued up to where they should be. LJ Mayor Sawyer thanked Mr. Howe and said he wanted to assUre Mr. Howe that the Council were really looking into the budget. Mayor Sawyer then returned to item #1 Mr. Mel Hillert said he represented the East Randolph Residents Association and they were present to maybe give Council some information pertinent for their consideration. He said they were not against the landfill but did not feel the location was the proper type of site. He said they had made a study of every resident from FM 1518 to Schaefer Road to Hackerville Road down to Lower Seguin Road. Wi thin a 1/2 mile area they have a population of 88 people and 41 water wells, within one mile a popUlation of 159 people and 70 wells and within 1-1/2 miles a population of 9 people and 4 well. Summary of this would be 381 families with 167 water wells, with a total popUlation of 1082 directly affected with this landfill. If the landfill goes in, valuations are going to go down. Adj oining this landfill, Mr. Butler purchased 33 acres and he will not develope if the landfill goes in, and the School District will lose that tax revenue of about 30 homes. Mr. Hillert said that Randolph AFB has officially gone on record as being apposed to this landfill. o ;ralt:];-':r.;:, :;~:i1"-,,,_~~ /~t '..,. ';'" '~ GIIII': J 192 \ Mr. Larry Bauman also spoke as a representative of this group. He said most of the wells in the area are from 75 to 100 years of age. He said there are no wa ter 1 ines a t their ga tes or driveways and if anything happens to their wells, they will need immediate extension of the water lines - they cannot wait 4 or 5 years. Mr. Bauman said there are families in the area that have been there over 100 years and they have never had water problems. He said there are springs in the area that have never gone dry even in the draught years. He said that water is the issue and that the landfill will contaminate their wells. He asked the Council for their help in defeating the landfill. Mr. George Gillihan of Moonlight Meadows said he understood that the Council passed a resolution in 1986 supporting the landfill site. The resolution was based on two elements - one being the need for a landfill in this area to keep garbage rates down. Mr. Gillihan said the landfill application has gone through several modifications and he felt some of these areas were not taken into consideration when Council passed the resolution. Based on review of the application, this particular location is not a good si tee Their concern is that even if the engineering data is correct, if anything goes wrong - if it is not done right or if the engineering available today is not adequate - the seriousness of that is extremely critical. He feels the City Council should seriously look at this. Mayor Sawyer thanked them for coming in and giving their O. concerns. He said the final decision was not going to rest with the Council but with the State. The public hearing on this would be on August 11th at the Community Center. tift \\)1\ ~ ~cy \ Mr. Ross Greer, President of the Library Advisory Board next addressed the Council. Mr. Greer said the Board felt they need extra employees but had only asked for one additional employee and now hear that has been cu t from the budget. Mr. Greer reminded Council that they have a real good library and that the Librarian works overtime as well as the volunteers putting in long hours. Mr. Greer said they really need the extra employee. He said he realized that other departments of the city need help but wanted Council to know that they really feel the extra help is needed. Mr. Greer said there has been a question as to whether County funds could be could be a part of the regular budget because in the past the money could only be spent for capitol improvements. Mr. Greer said they did not know how long they would be getting these county funds. Mayor Sawyer said he did not feel they would be taken off once they got on the budget. Mr. Sawyer said some of the Council had problems with the disposition of these county funds. If it was brought into the budget, it could be account for as in other departments. o D . / r- Mr. Aguilar said Council did not want to utilize the County funds for anything but the library, regardless of where it is put. He said that as we accept money from the County, we also accept the people and our book requirements will increase. Mr. Gilmore said that in the past the County has been giving the Revenue Sharing money directly to the library. That money was given for the library capitol improvements. Now revenue sharing is no longer and this money is from the tax budget. 193 Mr. Stanhope said that SAFES get money from the County and it is shown in their budget. The Library gets money from the County and it is not shown in the budget. Mr.. Gilmore said that SAFES gets money from Guadalupe County and 11. Sf t Bexar County as well as from the participating cities, so that /4/ all money received are put in the budget to justify to other cities that we are serving these people and they are paying their share. Mr. Sharpe asked Mr. Greer the status of the building addition. Mr. Greer said the plans have been completed and specifications are being drawn for bid purposes. The bid specifications should come up at the next Board meeting. ~ ~ Margaret Riley advised that the grant for the Literacy Program runs out in September and they do not know right now if it will be continued. She said the Guadalupe illiteracy rate is 29.6% and the National average is one in five, with the State being the same. 43% in Guadalupe County have not graduated from high school. Mayor Sawyer asked to move to item #5 to not keep Mr. Gutierrez waiting too long. #5 WASTE MANAGEMENT ~UESTS: e 1),61~ / '3 ')- A. Consideration of their request for an extension of variance allowing mobile home on their property. the 111, ~~(, I'T Mayor Sawyer asked if anyone objected to extending the variance until October 31, 1987. Council had no objections but did ask Mr. Gutierrez if he was sure that would be the last extension request. B. Consideration of clarification of rate increases. r-- Mr. Gutierrez said that when they originally came to Mr. Gilmore they asked for a 20% increase across the board. He said Mr. Gilmore told him that this takes Council action and to be sure everything was in order to back up the increase. Mr. Gutierrez said they went back and checked and found that commercial rates were only in need of a 10% increase. However the problem arises ~1, 0 ~1 I /4 194 ~~~ ~~. ~ \\ '1~ ~l\' "- \0 \j\:J ~\~ '\~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~" \ in the terminology. Waste Management considers the small businesses with hand pickup in the same classification as residential and the dumpster pickup as commercial. All the hand pickup is in need of the 20% increase. There are only about 22 of the business hand pickup account. Council had no problem with this request. o Mr. Gutierrez advised that al though he had started the Buffalo Valley Landfill project he is no longer a part of it. Mr. Friesenhahn is the sole owner. He said the final project was signed last week, saying that it meets all requirements of the Department of Health. Also CCMA's engineer look at it and had no problems with the water portion. Mr. Greenwald asked why Waste Management had started putting the 90 gallon containers in Schirmerville. Mr. Gutierrez said that they did a survey and about 90% of the people requested them. #3 Discussion of City's PA systeDl and usage. Mayor Sawyer said the City is getting requests to loan our system and some members feel it should not be loaned out. Council decided the PA system should only be used for City functions and only inside the City. Something should be put in the rental portion of the application for building and park use that if they want the PA system, there will be an additional charge. . D #4 ORDINANCE: Discussion of final consideration of ordinances amend~ng the Water Ordinance allowing for cycle billing and increasing outside city limit water rates: and amending the subdivision ordinance by adding Exhibit - Flood Plain Study of Dietz Creek. Council had no further discussion on these two ordinances. #6 Consideration of P&Z request for amending the sign ordinance on Shopping Center and Mall signs. Mr. Greenwald said that this ordinance is more of a clarification of the sign ordinance than a change. Some developers were having problems with the ordinance and this gives them a little more latitude in the shopping centers. #7 BUDGET WORKSHOP: Mayor Sawyer suggested Council meet Monday August" "3rd at6 :00 p.m. for a budget workshop as it was already rather late to begin. Council agreed. #8 CITY MANAGER'S REPORT: Mr. Gilmore said that on the 11th and 12th of August there will be a Civil Rights Seminar in our Council Chambers, put on by the Justice Department. On the 11th, it will be from 1:30 to 5:00 and on the 12th from 8:30 to 12:30. Speakers will be from the Justice Department and the FBI. o ~- .M,~....,L .i\..,_.".....:.oi., / r- We have sent out invitations to surrounding police departments and elected officials. It will not only address the policeman's rights but also the perpetrator's. Mr. Gilmore said he had invited Attorney Paul Sexton to attend. #9 ITEMS BY COUNCIL: Mr. Aguilar asked who is responsible for the pipes under the low water crossing. Mr. Gilmore said he had checked and it is Universal City's responsibility and we have contacted them and offered to help. Mr. Sharpe said he felt the Department Head reports need revising. It would be more beneficial to him have reports on some of the major projects that were completed for the month and what is planned for the next month, preferably in narrative form. 195 ~ 1. 06~ IJ 1 /I; 1, &05 I~() Mr. Stanhope asked if all the street sweeper does is sweep ,L streets. Mr. Sharpe added that he sees him in Deer Haven and 161, tOT does not feel those streets, due to the type they are, need to be /$~ swept. Mr. Stanhope also asked if the City could look at putting ~ permanent speakers in the park. Mr. Greenwald said it was tried /;1, ~o and the speakers are vandalized. Mr. Greenwald said he had asked Or last year that money be put in this year's budget to expand our / present portable PA system by adding two additional speakers so that they can be spread out and cover more area. ,.-- Mr. Stanhope asked Mr. Gilmore to check out all the "for sale" and "garage sale" signs on telephone poles, especially on Lindberg. Mayor Sawyer said there is no reason why our pOlicemen cannot pull them down when they are patrolling and see these signs. Mr. Greenwald informed Council that Planning & Zoning members 41) &'()1 said they would like to schedule biannual meetings with Council )~I to discuss what Council perceives as plans for the city. ' t( 1 J,t;t, /?! Mayor Sawyer asked Mr. Gilmore to put them on a workshop agenda when there is not too much to discuss. Also put their ~?i ~O q recommendation of appointing Mary Marsh as a member on the next }~I agenda. Mayor Sawyer said there is also a need to discuss the Economic Development Committee and either expand it or give new direction. Mr. Greenwald said P&Z had asked what they could do to help attract new businesses. Mr. Sharpe added that Texas Lutheran College is suppose to do a survey of Schertz after school starts. Anything we can do to further this project will help. Mr. Sharpe added that with the County adopting a sales tax, our ci tizens should buy within the County. .--- ~ 1J"O 9 /:9.1 Mr. Sharpe asked if the lady that lives next to T<;>m McMorris got d1'-1 0 cited and Mr. Gilmore said three times and each t1me she appeals 0 '~ to the county. I 0 196 \t\\ ~I\, rr \0 \ ,'0 ~~l~ \\~ #10 ITEMS BY MAYOR: Mr. Sawyer advised that the following night he had been asked to welcome to Schertz the REACT International Convention delegates. Mr. Sawyer said he has received quite a few letters from people opposed to the landfill. Mayor Sawyer said he stills says it is the State that will make the decision. #11 ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, Mayor Sawyer declared the meeting to be adjourned at 10:12 p.m. ATTEST: cr~,' I t. t \ D D D