ccswks 11-30-1983
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SPECIAL MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL
NOVEMBER 30, 1983
The Schertz City' Council convened in Special Workshop Meeting, Wednesday,
November 30, 1983, at 7:00 P.M. in the Conference Room of the Municipal
Complex, 1400 Live Oak Road with the following members present: Mayor
Earl W. Sawyer, presiding; Charles B. Sharpe; Hal Baldwin; Ross Hoover;
Adolph Aguilar and Ken Greenwald. Staff were City Manager Jimmy G. Gilmore,
and City Secretary June G. Krause.
#1 Presentation by the Guadalupe County REACT. Mayor Sawyer welcomed
everyone to the meeting
and announced that he had requested this item be placed on the agenda as he
would like the Council to hear the presentation by Mrs. Dickie George,'
President of the Guadalupe County REACT.
To begin the presentation, Mr. George - Vice President of the organization -
showed some slides giving a little of the background of REACT~ Mrs. George
then gave their proposal to the Council, which included the following items:
1. Neighborhood watch program; 2. Central Base Station ( to be in the Police
Department) 3. Traffic Control - to assist the City whenever needed in
traffic/croud control; 4. Disaster Coordination with City; 5. Highway Safety
Breaks and 6. Future plans for the acquisition of various vehicles and equip-
ment. In answering some of Council questions, Mrs. George said that to become
a member of REACT, one must have a CB that can be used as a base station. She
also said that although they primarily work in Schertz, they are not consider-
ing changing their name from Guadalupe County REACT. Both Mr. and Mrs. George
emphasized that their organization would only go out when called out by the
Chief of Police, that they do not do anything on their own initiative.
Mrs. George said this is the beginning of an idea and thanked Council for
their consideration.
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Mayor Sawyer called a recess at 7:54 P.M.
The Workshop session was reconvened at 8:02 P.M.
#2 HEARING OF RESIDENTS: Mr. Art Young spoke with regard to a mini
storage facility that he had planned for
1.167 acres of land behind and north of Goofy Golf on Pecan Drive. He
stated he had contacted the City about amonth ago and was told the zoning
was correct so he made financial contract for construction. Now he finds
that the engineered slabs must be one foot above the 100 !leal' flood plain.
He said that if he cannot get a variance, he would have to put eight foot
of fill in and that would cause flooding to other properties in the area.
It would put his slabs above the roof of the Lone Star Ice House.
Mr. Gilmore said the law states that Mr. Young's engineer must prepare an
elevation report and the means of construction and that there are several
ways this could be done.
Mr. Young said he understood that if one builds in the flood plain without
complying, they would not be eligible for flood insurance. He went on to 0
say that on mini storages, the owner insures the building and the contents
are the responsibility of the tenant. Mr. Young said he would build without
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insurance and would sign anything necessary to ho(ld the city not responsible
for flooding because they granted a variance. Mr. YounO said that he under-
stood perhaps the flood plain maps need reevaluation.
After lengthy discussion with Mr. Young by the Council, Mayor Sawyer stated
that if the City has the necessary report from the engineer and the disclaimer
statement, action can be taken at the next regular meeting of the Council.
Mr. Sawyer said we need to make sure the City is in a hold-harmless situation.
#3 Discussion of prohibiting glass containers in city parks.
Mr. Gilmore said that the City does not have an ordinance with this prohibition;
and his concern is that if we pass such an ordinance, how can we enforce it.
This would include such things as pickle jars and other picnic supplies; and
once you have such an ordinance, you have to enforce it without prejudice.
Mr. Hoover, who had requested the discussion on this, mentioned that he has
small children that use the park frequently, and BVYA brings in tournaments
with huge crouds. The broken glass in the park is getting to be a large
problem. Granted it may not be totally enforcible.
Mr. Greenwald brought out that we already have a littering ordinance. Mayor
Sawyer likened this to thesqueaTingtire ordinance, saying we have not had a
judge or police officer that thinks that ordinance is enforcible.
Mr. Hoover said that maybe we can think of it as another mark in favor of REACT.
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#4 Discussion of 'over 651 exemption on city taxes.
Mr. Baldwin asked that this item be discussed as this is something that should
be looked at occasionally since every time any rates are considered to be raised,
the first cry is what about the senior citizen or fixed iiFlcome ci~tizens. He
asked what the current 3000 exemption is doing to the tax roll and what would
result if it was raised.
Mr. Gilmore said that in 1981 we had 161 eligibles, 1982 - 181, and 1983
there were 190 eligible property owners - for 1983 this equates to $2,394
in taxes. The 3000 exemption now in effect is worth $12.60 saving to each
property owner. Calculations based on 200 eligible property owners for 1984
at the 42~ tax rate would equate to $4,200 for a $5,000 exemption; $5,880
for $7,000 exemption and $8,400 for 10,000 exemption. Mr. Gilmore said he
thought either the 5,000 or 7,000 exemption would provide a significant
savings for each eligible owner without destroying the city budget.
Mr. Baldwin recommended taking the $10,000 exemption under consideration at
the next meeting of Council.
After further discussion, Mayor Sawyer advised this item would be on the f~rst
workshop in January, with possible action at the second meeting in January.
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#5 Appointments to the Housing Authority Board. Mayor Sawyer advised
that appointments to the Housing Authority Board can be made by him alone but
he always like to bring it to Council for consideration. The HA Board is
recommending reappointing the three people whose terms are expiring as they
have agreed to serve another term. These being Paul Thies, Isabel Pellerin
and Kenneth Place.
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Mr. Sharpe suggested Council allow the Mayor to make these appointments,
with Council agreeing.
Mayor Sawyer also called attention to a recommendation from the Planning l~U. \
and Zoning Commission that Mr. Tom Yarling be appointed to fiJl:the
vacancy on their Board. This to be on the next agenda.
#6 Briefing on warrant procedures. Mr. Gilmore explained that in
accordance with Article 999 of
Vernons Texas Civil Statutes, the warrant officer's primary duties is to
serve all papers for the City. In small cities, this is done by the police
department with the Chief signing all documents. In 1975 and before although
warrants were issued, very few were served - there were litterly boxes of
unserved warrants on hand. The State fee for serving warrants was $7.50
at that time and the Council must have felt that wasn't enough to create
an interest in anyone serving warrants, so they passed an ordinance raising
the fee to $10.00, which meant the city kicked in $2.50 to add to the State
fee. In 1982-83 total warrants issued were 498 with 220 served and left
still pending were 283. Of these pending 12 were out of state and 40 out
of City'~ 121 Bexar County, etc. with 72 unserved from Schertz. Our present
Chief does serve warrants. This was brought to Council shortly after he
made Chief and Council said for him to continue because he was doing a good
job. In doing research on warrants, it was found that serving warrants is
the most dangerous job - not only to the officer but to the city if they are
not served properly. Live Oak has a Warrant Officer who does nothing but
serve warrants and Universal City has a woman officer who serves half her
time as warrant officer and the other half as regular officer; in Cibolo
the senior officer serves them; and of course San Antonio has several '-1
warrant officers. Right now as far as our new officers serving warrants, U
would be a jeopardy to the City and the older officers did not want to .
touch it with a ten foot pole. In answering Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Gilmore said
our percentage of collections is high for the State. Mr. Gilmore said we
can serve in Bexar County without going to the Judge first, as you normally
do as a courtesy; and anything out of state and you put on the teletype, then
the City has to pay to go get them.
Mr. Baldwin said that he thought Chief Keith has done an outstanding job,
even before he was Chief. The reason he asked for this briefing is that
the newly passed ordinance authorizing $25.00 for serving warrants, a guy
could make an addition $500 or $600 just serving warrants and he wondered
if the Chief has the time to do this now. The other complaint he has heard
from ex officers is that even if they served the warrant, the Chief would get
the fee~ Mr. Baldwin said he did not know if this was true but if so he did
not feel that it was fair. Mr. Gilmore said that some of our exofficer did
get the fee if they served the warrants. The problem comes in when they
pick up a person and then just drop it there and don't follow up and the
Warrant Office has to do all the paper work.
In the discussion that followed, Mr. Gilmore said that the only officer we
have now that he would assign this job would be the two senior officers and
they do not want it. Mr. Aguilar stated that he thought Council should
trust in the Chief to maintain the integrity or fire him - if someone says
they want to serve the warrant and follow through, let the Chief decide.
#7 EXECUTIVE SESSION: None was needed at this time.
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#8 CITY MANAGER'S REPORT: a. Mr. Gilmore said that when the city put
in the 811 water line on FM 1518, it had
a payback stipulation. He now has water servfce requests from two people
(Mr. lund and Mr. Williams) for water service. They will both have to pay
their portion of the line for 100 foot frontage with Council approving the
sale of water outside our city limits. There followed discussion about the
County allowing septic tanks in the area and people in voilation for filling
in the creek. Mr. Gilmore said a protest is being prepared - that he has
talked with both the County and State on this. Mr. Baldwin suggested the
City annex this area.
b. Mr. Gilmore announced that the new sign is completed and up on 135 and
looks very nice.
c. Our Fire Chief has had a call from Bexar County. It seems Universal City
has refused to service fire calls on FM 1518 in Bexar County, and the County
is requesting that we handle those calls after the first of the year. It would
add $3600 a year to the Fire Department budgeted income. Then we might could
go to Guadalupe County and say see what Bexar County is giving us.
d. the cleaning of the drainage ditch is proceding well
e. the Highway Department is staking out Live Oak Road. We may have to ask
the School Board for 10 to 15 feet for right of way. Three or four telephone
poles will have to be moved and we are working with GVEC on this.
f. Mr. Gilmore said the Council needs to get in very serious discussion at
workshops on water distribution, especially with Cibolo. Mayor Sawyer said
r-- what Mr. Gilmore is referring to is that Cibolo is planning on a lot of growth
I and we need to get them to participate on capitol improvements.
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g. Mr. Ed Ford has beem advised by geologists that even if we h;t good water
south of Schertz, the cost of bringing it out of the ground would be prohibitive.
They suggest looking for 5 to 10 acres in the acquifer area and getting some
individual to look, not Schertz, or the price of land will go up. Mr. Gilmore
said we just cannot afford to slow down on water.
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#9 ITEMS BY COUNCIL: Mr. Sharpe announced the annual Chamber of Commerce
Christmas dinner and program for December 11 with
guest speaker Richard Howe and a slide presentation by the South Texas Chamber.
Mayor Sawyer said he thought we should do like in the past and let the City
pay for these tickets.. Mr. Sharpe also announced the Business Club party
on December lOth at Buffalo Country. He also announced the ground breaking
for the Sycamore Apartments on December 5th
Mr. Hoover asked the status of the road paving machine left on FM 1518.
Mr. Gilmore said it is definitely on the Church property and they can file
on him to have it moved. We have given them two weeks to move it or we will
but the question is still unanswered as to how we would move it.
Mr. Hoover also asked the status of disannexing Maske Road. Mr. Gilmore said
he had not started anything as yet.
Mr. Greenwald said that at the last BVYA meeting, they were questioning the
roof repairs that are direly needed. He said that BVYA also talked about
the Mustang World Series - they are bidding on it and if they get it, they
will need some extra help from the city.
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Mr. Greenwald had been questioned about the low water pressure on I 35.
He said the people said that when Northcliffe turns on their water, they
have no pressure. Mr. Gilmore said this is the area we have had trouble
with - we had suggested they get a pressure pump last year.
Mr. Sharpe said that the Deer Haven area is also experiencing low water
pressure. Mr. Gilmore said he would look into it and check with John
Bierschwale.
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Mr. Greenwald said he had talked with Mr. Gilmore about some people moving
away and leaving an old refrigerator and junk in' the back yard. A neighbor
lady said she caught three children playing there - this is so dangerous.
Mayor Sawyer suggested looking into an ordinance on that sort of thing.
Mr. Greenwald said that aL,man had moved into our city, which was highly
recommended to him, and ended up paying about $900 in deposits. Mr. Gilmore
explained that the City's water deposit is $60.00 and can be paid in three
payments.
Mr. Aguilar reminded everyone of the Library dedication on December 3rd.
He also said that their furniture had come in and they could use some more
help in unpakcing and arranging it.
Mr. Aguilar announced another 135 Corridor meeting for December 13th in
New Braunfels at 10:00 A.M.
Mr. Sharpe reminded everyone of the Christmas Tree Lighting and Program
at 6:00 P.M. on December 6th.
#10 ITEMS BY MAYOR: Mr. Sawyer said he had communication that the
Texas Economic Development Commission is sending
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a group to Germany.
He also announced the Ground Breaking ceremonies for the Sycamore Apartments
on December 5, 1983 at" 10: 00 A. M.
Mayor Sawyer said there is an ultralight airport in our ETJ that we might
look at for annexation.
He also said he had a call from a man about a fence that is enfringing on
the right of way of the drainage ditch. The Mayor said if we force him to
move it then there are others that would also have to move fences. The man
wanted to know if he could move his fence back about six inches form the
property line. He suggested the City Manager look into it and see if we
could not give him the 6".
#11 ADJOURNMENT: There being no further discussion, Mayor Sawyer
declared the meeting adjourned t 10:36 P.M.
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