EVERMAN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING

EVERMAN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING Tuesday, October 18, 2022 at 6:30 PM 212 North Race Street Everman, TX 76140 MINUTES 1. MEETING CALLED TO ORDER Mayor called meeting to order at 6:30pm. PRESENT Place 1 Linda Sanders Place 2 Carolyn Renfro Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Susan Mackey Place 5 Judy Sellers Mayor Ray Richardson ABSENT Place 6 Miriam Davila Others Present: Mindi Parks, City Secretary Craig Spencer, City Manager Susanne Helgesen, Director of Finance Landon Whatley, Fire Chief Beverly Patton, Director of Communications Gilbert Ramirez, Director of Public Works 2. INVOCATION 3. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 4. CONSENT AGENDA A. Minutes September 6, 2022 Special Council Meeting Minutes September 6, 2022 Regular Meeting Minutes  September 20, 2022 Regular Meeting Minutes Motion made by Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Seconded by Place 1 Sanders. Voting Yea: Place 1 Sanders, Place 2 Renfro, Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Place 5 Sellers, Mayor Richardson Voting Nay: Place 3 Allen Motion Carried B. Financials September 2022 Motion made by Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Seconded by Place 1 Sanders. Voting Yea: Place 1 Sanders, Place 2 Renfro, Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Place 5 Sellers, Mayor Richardson Voting Nay: Place 3 Allen Motion Carried 5. PRESENTATIONS A. Boys & Girls Club of Fort Worth Matt Sinclair and Marcus Hicks are here for the presentation to council. Matt Sinclair approached council and introduced his self and thanked them for their time. Matt started off by introducing Marcus Hicks, which began with Boys and Girls clubs in 2021 with 20+ years of Operations Corporate Strategy experience. Matt also stated that he, his self has been with the Boys and Girls Club since 2007, and held several positions such as Gang Prevention Coordinator, Gang Programs, and many more. He also stated that he is from Everman Texas and a proud graduate of Everman, Class of "98". Matt also mentioned to council so they can keep this in mind through the presentation his history here and his family and that the City of Everman holds a special place in his heart and he has been bugging the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club to come to City of Everman. Matt also commended the city for all the good changes going on in the last couple years. Matt started out with the history of the Boys and Girls Club on his Power Point slide show. Showing that the Boys and Girls Club started in 1926, in Fort Worth known as the Panther Boys Club. By 2018 BGC of Greater Fort Worth and BGC of Arlington merged from Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Tarrant County. Matt stated that they have a scope that runs from Las Vegas Trail to Mansfield. Matt then stated when you talk about expansion you think about where it is needed to help the kids with affordable resources and youth programs. He stated that today, Everman ISD currently serves over 5,600 students with most lacking a safe, positive place to go after-school and summer. Also, it is a widely reported need for youth development services in the Southern Tarrant County, especially south of the I20 corridor. Everman identified as optimal location due to high density of youth, socioeconomic challenges and lack of quality, affordable after-school/summer care. With the recent growth in both City of Everman and Everman ISD only will contribute to increased demand for accessible youth programs. Matt stated that all this has been identified in conversations with the EISD Superintendent, Chief Academic Officer, Everman Youth Association, parents, Youth, and the City Manager Craig Spencer and Mayor Ray Richardson that the BGC not only furnishes the safe, positive place to go but also provides the members with Academic Success, Healthy Lifestyles, and Character & Leadership. Also, the themes in these conversations are Quality, affordable afterschool and summer programs, Mental health  support for youth, workforce development & college readiness, and intervention & prevention support. At this time, Matt displayed the different Models and the cost of these Models and how many members that it would address. The three Models that they have displayed would focus on the afterschool care. The Models consist of the School Site Model at 60 memberships at a total cost with staffing at $79,646.00. Next, The Facility Model with 400 members and staffing at $241,236.60. Last, there is the Mobile Model with 200 unduplicated youth and 3,300 participations with staffing at $106,520.45. What dictates the number of children they can serve is the space, and the staffing on site. City Manager Spencer stated that he knows the crisis that Everman with the gang problems and it would cost more hiring gang specialist then to collaborate with BGC and the EISD, Tarrant County, and possibly Foresthill to keep the conversation going and see about teaming up to talk about what is needed for all of us. Council loves the idea and is in consensus to move forward with this idea. 6. CITIZEN’S COMMENTS LaJuan Murduagh is so tired of seeing Go Fund Me for Deaths and people need to be educated about having life insurance. She would like to spread awareness on this and get people protected. She stated that people have car insurance, phone insurance, and home insurance but no life insurance. She would like to spread this awareness to the citizens to get protected. She would like to use the city parks to do this and as well as offer free financial game plans and educational documentation. LaJuan stated that as a financial Strategist, she helps families understand the importance of managing their finances, reducing their debt, and budgeting their income properly. Craig stated that there is no permit process for this in place at this time. If council would like to discuss this then they would need to put it on a future agenda and discuss what process they would like to take with this. This is definitely something we would like to have at our Special Events so Craig took their business card and will be in contact with them. 7. DISCUSSION ITEMS A. Upcoming City Events - C. W. Spencer Craig listed the events coming up for council to write down and put on their calendar. Second Senior Citizen's Meeting on October 20, 2022 at 6:30pm at Civic Center Anniversary for Sargent Alex Arrango 's passing October 22, 2022, just his family will be in the city that day. This is not a public event. Early Voting start on Monday, October 24, 2022- November 4, 2022 with Election Day on November 8, 2022 at the Civic Center and this will go on for two weeks. Forest Hill is having a Town Hall Meeting at the Forest Hill Civic Center on October 27, 2022 at 6pm to discuss the South East Connector Project and how it will go. This is open to public and TXT DOT ill be there. Halloween Festival October 29, 2022 at Civic Center starting at 6pm to 9pm. Daylight Savings time is Sunday, November 6, 2022. Veteran's Day November 11, 2022, nothing yet planned but council would like to move forward with the breakfast that they usually hold for the Veteran's. This is always at 8am to 10am as a come and go event. Annual Christmas Tree Lighting December 1, 2022 at Civic Center starting at 6pm. B. Consideration of Appointment and/or Re-Appointment of citizens to select Boards, Commissions, and Committees Several Board Members are up and expired. Also, the City Attorney has recommended that the Board of Adjustment needs to be appointed as another Board separate from Council. Council can set the regulations for these boards if there is problems with them having set meetings and the rules. The council would like to make sure they are active and having meetings to help people stay active. The November 1st meeting these will be re-appointed. Nobody has signed up for the Senior Citizens Board. City Secretary will send current Board list to all council. This will go on the agenda for November. C. Review of a proposal for restructuring of the Public Works Department City Manager Craig Spencer stated that as the council knows, Jeff Reed retired and he served as our Director of City Facilities. He also served as our Building Inspector, which we must have on city staff. Craig stated that there is two options that we can take to fill that spot. Those options are to hire a full-time Building Official on staff, or hire a third-party to do it. We are exploring all of our options and we do not think that the work load is sufficient for a full-time position. For someone that holds all of those certifications it could potentially cost the city $80 to $90 thousand dollars a year to fill that spot. Craig stated that the Director of Public Works, Gilbert Ramirez put in a lot of work researching a third-party vendors for this. Craig stated to keep in mind when Jeff was out we were already utilizing a third-party vendor for this with a temporary contract which is Bureau Veritas. It has been great working with them and it has been a tremendous operation. Racheal has been very satisfied with working with them and Landon and Gilbert both have been satisfied with them also and it has been a good opportunity with a test run that has been very positive. Craig stated that Gilbert was so satisfied that he went and asked Bureau Veritas what they would cost to do this for a year. That number came back at $40,000 a year which is less than half of what a full-time Building Official position cost. This would include all the same services that we would have by having a full-time Official and some since they will include Fire inspections, C/O inspections, and plan reviews. They have a very fast response time and are usually out here the same or next day. Sellers stated that she has notice the time frame for inspections was from 8am-5pm. That is very wide time frame and Craig stated he would see if that can be narrowed down. This is a company and always someone available stated Craig but we do have a representative that is assigned to us but in his absence there is always someone available. Craig stated that with the Hanna Ranch Project when those inspections start it will be a lot but they would have multiple inspectors out and doing the inspections that they all specialize in at once rather having our one full-time Official on site trying to do all 204 homes. The Proposal is that we would like this company, Bureau Veritas to contract with us that would replace the Building Official and Director of City Facilities. Craig did state that there are fees that are considered pass through. So, when we do Plan Reviews for certain developments and inspections, those are all pass through fees. That means when they bill us for things like that, we turn right around and bill the developer for those cost which is called a pass through fee. The budgeted amount for $40,000 that the council sees is just for standard operations for our normal day to day stuff. Anything beyond that amount that we are billed for, we are charging the developers or the person requesting that inspection. So, the Proposal is to eliminate Director of City Facilities position, eliminate two full-time laborer positions and create Parks & Streets Superintendent positions. With that utilize third-party for Building Official Services and create Part-Time Administrative Assistant Position. As also discussed previously this includes the savings from going with a third-party mowing company for $50,000 a year. The council recalled that price being at $40,000 and asked why it increased $10,000. Craig stated that it was $50,000 and went online to the website to verify that and it was. Also, Council wanted to know why this is only coming up now and they did not get to discuss this in a work session regarding this restructure of Public Works. Craig explained that they did not have a lot of time  and the contract with Bureau Veritas is about to end and we do not have a Building Official on staff so we needed to act quickly. Craig stated by doing this it will save the city anticipated savings of $28,284 and this is in the budget also. There is no request for an increase only a savings within this Proposal. Council also wanted to get the needs from Gilbert for the Administrative Assistant. Gilbert stated that he would have her keeping up with reports, such as with the state and helping us stay compliant and with TCEQ. She will also keep up with all paperwork and filing and keep his guys on task with certifications and any required classes they may have to have. She will also keep in close contact with the third-party vendors and make sure they are here on their scheduled times. She overall will help Gilbert stay organized. At this time Craig did show council that the budgeted amount for the mowing was and is $50,000. This is on the agenda for tonight for approval. D. Staff Report - Proposed Regional Communications Center - Chief C. W. Spencer Craig stated that we have talked about this numerous of times before, regarding Reginal Communications Center and the discussion with Tarrant County Fire Alarm and what we are doing over at dispatch. That is coming to fruition very quickly and we need to talk about the finalize information on it and how this is going to be beneficial for us when we structure it out. Craig explained that currently Everman Police Department is a Primary PSAP, which is a primary dispatch center and when someone calls 911 they are routed straight to us. Agencies like Med Star and Tarrant County Fire Alarm are considered secondary centers. Currently we have one dispatch on duty at any given time and we don't have multiple on duty and Craig is pointing that out because they do not get lunches, or breaks. With that one dispatcher it does not take much for them to get overwhelmed especially if there is a structure fire or a shooting although Craig did state that he has been impressed with the dispatchers handling the 32 calls coming in at one time. Craig wanted to also talk about what is needed in Infrastructure of Dispatch Center. This would include Dispatch Consoles, 9-1-1 Vesta Systems, Radio Links, IP Based Recorders, Ultra-grade Internet with Fail-safes, Computer Servers, software, licensing, and UPS & Generator Backup. Craig also showed the council on the slide with other agencies how much money it would cost them individually with not consolidating together and that is a big ongoing cost for them. Consolidating to us being the Regional Communications Center, consolidates the infrastructure cost down to one saving all that money and now splitting that cost with all the agencies. This is how we reduce the cost of operations and improve operations all at the same time and not just for us but for all participating agencies. Craig also stated other additional benefits with this and their as listed; Improved Capabilities, Higher quality services, lower ISO ratings, On-site backup for large scale incidents, Provides ability for Dispatchers to take breaks, increased funding opportunities as a Regional Dispatch Center, and increased job growth. We would have two Police Dispatchers on at one time as well as two Fire Dispatchers. They will be qualified in Emergency Medical Dispatching which will help lower our ISO Rating. At this time Craig displayed the layout of the new dispatch center. Showing seven dispatchers so they could have up to seven on at any given time, but primarily with four. He then showed photos from back in January or February of the start of the IT Room which was part of the expansion with the Fire Department and more photos of the furniture that has been installed and one completed dispatch station that is currently in there right now that the dispatchers are operating with. Craig also displayed the current agencies that are included and they are as follows; Everman Police Department, Everman Fire Department, Forest Hill Police Department, Forest Hill Fire Department, Rendon Fire Department, Azle Fire Department, Eagle Mountain Fire Department, Edgecliff Village Fire Department, Briar-Reno Fire Department, Benbrook Fire Department, Saginaw Fire Department, Haslet Fire Department, Crowley Fire Department, Mansfield Fire Department, and Kennedale Fire Department. Beverly, once job description is approved tonight will be the Director of Communications and the goal is to have 2 Dispatch Supervisor Positions. With all that, Craig stated that since we will no longer only service Everman, we are looking to change the name to Tarrant County 9-1-1 Regional Communications. He displayed the new name and logo. Craig is hoping to get some Interlocal Agreements to council soon and as soon as those get approved we can start staffing and training by the middle of next month. Craig wanted council  to know about all this ahead of time before the ILA's start coming in. Council has no further discussion on this at this time. E. American Rescue Plan Funds Proposed Allocations Review - C. W. Spencer Craig explained that there are some proposed allocations and a couple of them are very basic. He did want to mention that he did send out the spread sheet of the last allocations as requested by them. At first he allocations were $731,525.09 and we have only spent $690,000 of those allocations. The Police Officer Staffing one is no longer needed and needs to be reallocated. We may need to come with some allocations at year end with budget overages also so that does not require us to dip into the Reserves. The page they have in front of them , shows council what has been spent so far on ARPA Funds. Craig just wanted to update council on some of the allocations that have been approved but not yet spent. He has some allocations on the agenda tonight as follows;$6,000 for new laptops for council. Then you have $30,000 for the Police Department and Public Works Facility repairs and improvements, which council has seen the pictures of Public Works building. Craig stated that City Hall will require a full roof replacement also. Gilbert has had a couple of contractors out to access that and both have came back at $90,000. Gilbert also had the Public works building accessed and that came in at $1800 to seal coat the roof that will last up to 5 to 10 years and in Craig's opinion, that's all we should invest in that building but at some point we have to do something about that building. The Police Department roof, we anticipated that costing about $5000 but when the inspectors came out they said it would require a replacement or a significant repair which is $40,000. He just wanted to put those on their radar, he is not asking for any approval on those tonight. TML does not cover roof replacements so no insurance can't pay for the roofs in need. Craig stated that we just received the second trench of ARPA Funds and that total is $769,778.69 and we have about 79,000 not used from the first one so that gives us as of now about roughly $850,000 in ARPA Funds. We have received a total of 1.5 million dollars and it came in two different trenches. We received the first one a year ago and it has been allocated already which is the paper in front of council and we just received the other one which nothing has been allocated besides the $60,000 for Public Safety staffing and the $140,000 for the fitness resolution. So that leaves roughly about $500,000 that has not been allocated. We have until 2025 to spend this money so we have plenty of time to do so. Craig then just showed pictures of the Police Department showing all the things that need to be fixed or upgraded with this new Dispatch Center also. This will also importantly increase the moral in the Police Department and they need it right now with these allocations. Also, last we have the allocation for $72,000 for document software implementation. This is huge and very much needed. This would mean going paperless. This also means not searching down records and having them at you fingertips. This is for the first two years and scanning of documents up to $5,000 and we can scan our own. Some things will be historically kept and some destroyed once scanned. This is a cloud base software so our data is save and backed up. Johnnie Allen stated at this time that she wants to add the Library on an agenda to get some ARPA Funds allocated but Mayor did add that there are other more bigger projects that are in big need so we do need to make sure we look at all projects for the ARPA Funds. There are no more questions on this discussion item. 8. CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION A. Approve Interlocal Agreement between the City of Everman, Texas, and the City of Forest Hill, Texas, for Rabies Control and the Shared Use of the City of Everman Animal Shelter Motion made by Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Seconded by Place 5 Sellers. Voting Yea: Place 1 Sanders, Place 2 Renfro, Place 3 Allen, Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Place 5 Sellers, Mayor Richardson Motion Carried. B. Approve the creation of a Parks & Municipal Maintenance Superintendent position and proposed Job Description as presented by the City Manager Motion made by Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Seconded by Place 1 Sanders. Voting Yea: Place 1 Sanders, Place 2 Renfro, Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Place 5 Sellers, Mayor Richardson Voting Nay: Place 3 Allen Motion Carried. C. Approve the creation of a Public Works Administrative Coordinator position and the proposed job description as provided by the City Manager Motion made by Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey with the removal of Executive from the job description, Seconded by Place 5 Sellers. Voting Yea: Place 1 Sanders, Place 2 Renfro, Place 3 Allen, Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Place 5 Sellers, Mayor Richardson Motion Carried. D. Approve the allocation of $6,000.00 of American Rescue Plan Funds for the procurement of latop computers designated for use by the Everman City Council Motion made by Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Seconded by Place 1 Sanders. Voting Yea: Place 1 Sanders, Place 2 Renfro, Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Place 5 Sellers, Mayor Richardson Voting Nay: Place 3 Allen Motion Carried. E. Approve the allocation of $30,000.00 of American Rescue Plan Funds for Police Department and Public Works Facility Repairs and Improvements Motion made by Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Seconded by Place 5 Sellers. Voting Yea: Place 1 Sanders, Place 2 Renfro, Place 3 Allen, Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Place 5 Sellers, Mayor Richardson Motion Carried. F. Approve the allocation of $25,000.00 of American Rescue Plan Funds for Police Department Furniture Motion made by Place 5 Sellers, Seconded by Place 1 Sanders. Voting Yea: Place 1 Sanders, Place 2 Renfro, Place 3 Allen, Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Place 5 Sellers, Mayor Richardson Motion Carried. G. Approve the allocation of $72,000.00 of American Rescue Plan Funds for implementation and first two years annual costs of electronic data storage system and conversion through Terralogic Document Systems. Motion made by Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Seconded by Place 1 Sanders. Voting Yea: Place 1 Sanders, Place 2 Renfro, Place 3 Allen, Place 4; Mayor Pro-Tem Mackey, Place 5 Sellers, Mayor Richardson Motion Carried. 9. EXECUTIVE SESSION Did not convene into Executive Session. 10. CITY MANAGERS REPORT Craig reported that there has been a sewer line collapse on West Barron and Russell road. Crews have been out there the last two days working on this and have tried every possible solution to keep cost minimal but unfortunately we are going to have to contract out on this. Anticipated cost is less than $50,000. If that is the case, Craig can approve that but he wanted to make sure they know and if it does go above that we will have to call a special meeting for that approval. Craig stated he had a meeting with local churches, a Faith based meeting. He would like to work with them more and there will be another meeting and this one went so good he wanted to inform council that it is on the 17th if they want to attend. The goal is to have better partnership. Currently, Craig and Susanne are in the S&p review process which is our credit rating essentially and we will keep you informed on how that goes. Craig also wanted to inform council of the staffing crisis at the Police Department. We hired one and they resigned the next day for better pay, and one just put in their notice yesterday. Another one is moving on a path to Fort Worth and that is coming up quickly. With that, we are looking to be 5 to 6 officers short. We have advertised as much as we can Craig stated and we have one going to hiring events to try to recruit. We are not getting applicants. Also, the salaries where there are it is hard to compete. Craig just wanted to inform council of this crisis. 11. MAYOR’S REPORT Mayor had nothing to report. 12. ADJOURN Mayor adjourned the meeting at 8:31pm. I hereby certify that this agenda was posted on the City of Everman bulletin board at or before 5:00 p.m. on Friday December 31, 2021. /s/ Mindi Parks City Secretary Citizens may watch city council meetings live on YouTube. A link to the City of Everman YouTube channel is provided on the city website at: www.evermantx.us/government/citycouncil/ Pursuant to Section 551.071, Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, Council reserves the right to convene into Executive Session(s) from time to time as deemed necessary during this meeting, to receive advice from its attorney on any posted agenda item, as permitted by Law. Additionally, Council may convene into Executive Session to discuss the following: A. Section 551.071 - Pending or Contemplated Litigation or to Seek Advice of the City Attorney. B. Section 551.072 - Purchase, Sale, Exchange, Lease, or Value of Real Property. C. Section 551.073 - Deliberation Regarding Prospective Gift. D. Section 551.074 - Personnel Matters. E. Section 551.087- Deliberation Regarding Economic Development Negotiations. F. Section 551.089 - Deliberations Regarding Security Devices or Security Audits. Citizens wishing to submit written comments should e-mail the City Secretary at mparks@evermantx.net. Comments that are received at least one-hour prior to the start of the meeting will be provided to all council members. According to the City of Everman Policy on Governance Process, individual citizen comments will be restricted to three (3) minutes unless otherwise determined by a majority vote of the Council. The mayor is responsible to enforce the time limit. Citizens may address City Council either during the Citizen Comments portion of the meeting or during deliberation of a listed agenda item. City Council is only permitted by Law to discuss items that are listed on the agenda. Citizens wishing to make comments should notify the City Secretary as soon as possible. City Hall is wheelchair accessible. Parking spaces for disabled citizens are available. Requests for sign interpretative services must be made 48 hours prior to the meeting. To make arrangements, call 817.293.0525 or TDD 1.800.RELAY TX, 1.800.735.2989.