City Council Regular Meeting

Minutes of Regular Meeting The City Council City of Richwood A Regular Meeting of the City Council of City of Richwood was held Monday, March 16, 2015, beginning at 6:00 PM in the Richwood City Hall, 1800 N. Brazosport Blvd. Richwood, Texas. I. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Clint Kocurek, Mayor and presiding officer. II. INVOCATION The invocation was given by Glenn Patton, City Manager. III. PLEDGES OF ALLEGIANCE The Pledge of Allegiance and the Texas Pledge of Allegiance were recited by those in attendance. IV. ROLL CALL OF COUNCIL MEMBERS Roll call showed the following present: Clint Kocurek, Mayor and presiding officer Paul Raymond, Council, Position #1 and Mayor Pro Tem John Pitts, Council, Position #2 Jarrod Beaty, Council, Position #3 Sarah Harris, Council, Position #4 Chris Hardison, Council, Position #5 A quorum was declared. Others present included Glenn Patton, City Manager, Karen B. Schrom, City Secretary, Jennifer Beaty, JB Harris, Lauren LaCount, Kevin Cadenhead and Lijie Liu, Kennemer, Masters and Lunsford. V. CONSENT AGENDA Councilman Hardison asked that Items. G, H, I and J be removed from the Consent Agenda.  On motion by Councilman Pitts, seconded by Councilman Beaty, with all members present voting aye, the remaining items on the Consent Agenda were approved as presented. A. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meetings B. Payment of bills C. Authority to let bids for the Storm Debris Removal - Annual Contingency Contract D. Authority to seek Requests for Proposal for Debris Monitoring, Recovery and other Related Services E. Proclamation - proclaiming March 16, 2015 as Savanna Lee Garrett Day in Richwood F. Proclamation - proclaiming April as Fair Housing Month in Richwood G. Ordinance No. 131B - Wrecker Ordinance - pulled H. Ordinance 194-2015, Regulating the number of cats - pulled I. Ordinance No. 398 - Regulation of Outdoor Lighting - pulled J. Ordinance No. 399 - Ethics Ordinance - pulled VI. DISCUSSION AND ACTION ITEMS A. FY 14 Audit Presentation Kevin Cadenhead and Lijie Liu presented the FY 14 Audit to Council. Mr. Cadenhead commended Ms. Schrom and her staff for their help stating they are always prepared. They are seeing continuous improvement in the City. He did mention the Fund Balances are low and is glad the City has implemented a plan to increase that. Over all, the City received a clean opinion again this year. B. Request to add front fencing at 101 Cottonwood Drive. Natalie and Jason Davis, 101 Cottonwood Drive, came before Council prior to applying for a variance to determine if Council would be agreeable to allowing them to fence their front yard. They have approached their neighbors and showed Council picture. They are requesting this for safety and security of their children. They don’t have a large backyard since the house sets so far back. Across the street is a day care. Councilman Raymond stated he’d visited the property and several of their neighbors have fences. It’s on a dead end road. Councilman Pitts  also visited the property. On motion by Councilman Hardison, seconded by Councilman Harris, with all members present voting aye, Council agreed that fencing the front yard would be agreeable. C. Community Block Development Grant funding The City will received $190,000 in funding from the Community Block Development Grant. We do not currently have an estimate on the cost of either repairing or replacing Lift Station #4. We plan on using the bulk of the money to rehabilitate or replace Lift Station #4 and possibly add the two new water wells to the SCADA system. This item was tabled until we get the engineer’s report. D. Ordinance No. 324-15 - Comprehensive Zoning Plan Councilman Hardison expressed concern that B1, C1 and Industrial zoned areas do not have setbacks. He feels that if it backs up to residential areas, it should. He also stated that section 8 h conflicts with 8 j and should be removed. This item was tabled until the next meeting. E. Retail Coach Council was brought up to date on the telephone conference recently held with Aaron Farmer, Retail Coach. Those presented were very confident in their work but were disappointed in the communication, feeling more updates should be presented to Council. They have sent out packets to more businesses than originally contracted for. They are very receptive to other things we wish to pursue such as a CD or flash drive with information about Richwood, with a short letter about where Richwood is heading. We need to insure businesses realize the area can handle future growth. Retail Coach has agreed to do an addition 12 months of data updates and drop the price to $10,00 0 and cap the fees at $750. This will include updates to the data, continued recruitment, monthly updates as well as keeping the Interactive Mapping Application up and running for another 12 months. On motion by Councilman Raymond, seconded by Councilman Harris, with all members present voting aye, the contract continuation was  approved. F. Personnel Policy Councilman Raymond stated that a lot of quality effort and time went into the Personnel Policy. He credit Chief Corb and his committee On motion by Councilman Pitts, seconded by Councilman Hardison, the Personnel Policy was tabled. Final approval is scheduled for the meeting in April. G. Executive Session pursuant to Chapter 551.0745, Personnel Matters to deliberate the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer or employee or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee. 1. City Manager Council entered executive session at 6:52 p.m. Council exited executive session at 7:46 p.m. H. Action as a result of Executive Session No Action was taken. I. Approve items removed from the Consent Agenda G. Ordinance No. 131B – Wrecker Ordinance Councilman Hardison asked who would be responsible for the inspection of the wreckers. Chief Corb explained that will be the responsibility of the City. On motion by Councilman Hardison, seconded by Councilman Harris, with all members present voting aye, Ordinance No. 131B – Wrecker Ordinance was approved as presented. H. Ordinance No. 194-2015 – Regulating the number of cats Councilman Hardison asked why this had come up. Councilman Beaty stated the City has a quantitative number of dogs. Councilman Pitts stated he did not want the City to have a feral cat problem similar to the one experienced by Angleton. He feels this is a problem of public safety and health. We have quite a few neighborhoods with a large  number of cats. Councilman Harris feels that it would be a lot harder to monitor cats than dogs. Current ordinance states that cats must be tagged and not allowed to run lose. On motion by Councilman Pitts, seconded by Councilman Beaty, with Councilmen Raymond, Pitts, Beaty and Hardison voting aye, Ordinance No. 194-2015 passed as presented. Councilman Harris voted Nay. I. Ordinance No. 398 – Regulation of Outdoor Lighting Councilman Hardison asked why this ordinance was necessary. Mayor stated there had been complaints in the past about flood lights. Councilman Raymond explained there are no current regulations to prohibit someone from shining a light in your window. He agrees this is something we need. Councilman Beaty questioned how this would be enforced and questioned some of the definitions. On motion by Councilman Raymond, seconded by Councilman Pitts, with Councilmen Raymond, Pitts, Harris and Hardison voting aye, Ordinance No. 398 – Regulation of Outdoor Lighting, was approved as presented. Councilman Beaty voted Nay. J. Ordinance No. 399 – Ethics Ordinance On motion by Councilman Hardison, seconded by Councilman Beaty, with all members voting aye, Ordinance No. 399- Ethics Ordinance was passed as presented. VII. REPORTS A. Finance Reports Par for the period ending February 28, 2015 is 58%. Revenues are exceeding expenditures. B. Police Department Chief Corb told Council they’d just completed an independent audit of evidence. Sergeant Munley is now in charge of evidence. They are doing a feasibility study to determine if it warrants an incinerator to destroy evidence. All officers are now up to par on their training and Officer Smoot completed the intoxilizer training. He has visited and worked with each officer to determine their strengths and allocate  responsibilities accordingly. There are 15 members in their first Citizen’s Police Academy and they are getting a lot of good feedback. Every officer has been involved. They hope to have a graduation ceremony at the Council meeting in May. They have also met with the schools and done a program on Internet Safety. Brett Schilhab has also been promoted to Sergeant. They are working toward inspections on the game room and are working with the state comptroller on bringing the jail up to code. Lake Jackson dispatch will go up in October 2016 and they are looking into the feasibility of at least part time dispatching in house. Rotary is buying body cams for the department. Council stated they appreciate the bi monthly reports and they like what is happening in the Police Department. VIII. CITY MANAGER’S REPORT Mr. Patton explained the Brazos Crossing apartments construction have been held up by the weather. They are also looking at another apartment complex in an area in town and will bring the information to Council soon. IX. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS . Community Block Development Grant Funding Public Hearing – Comprehensive Zoning Plan Personnel Policy Report on new Water Meters Engineer Report on Lift Station #4 X. COMMITTEE REPORTS City wide garage is this weekend. XI. COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS & REPORTS Councilman Harris is thankful for all the FYIs she’s getting from Mr. Patton and department heads. XII. MAYOR’S REPORT Mayor Kocurek reminded everyone the garage sale is this weekend, Easter Eggstravaganza is next weekend and the cookoff is the weekend after that. XIII. PUBLIC COMMENTS Ms. LaCount addressed Council on the recently enacted ordinance restricting the number of cats. She feels this has nothing to do with feral cats and reminded everyone the SPCA has a program to neuter and release feral cats. All that will happen in her opinion is that people will have to get rid of their cats. XIV. ADJOURNMENT With no further business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned at 8:18 p.m. APPROVED BY A MAJORITY VOTE OF COUNCIL ON APRIL 13, 2015. ____________________________________________ Clint Kocurek, Mayor ATTEST: ____________________________________________ Karen B. Schrom, City Secretary