City Council Recap March, 8, 2023 by Council Member Hines and Approved by Mayor Rasco
March 8, 2023 Regular Council Meeting
Submitted by Councilmember Debra Hines and approved by Mayor Jeff Rasco
Councilmember Brent Pulley was absent.
Anita Collins spoke during public comments. She is the new liaison for the Hays County Judge. She stressed the importance of open lines of communication and shared a bit about her personal work history.
Consent:
Meeting minutes were postponed as there were no minutes attached.
Reports:
Planning and Zoning has two items on the agenda (numbers 14 &15)
Ordinance Review Committee finalized the Important Woodcreek Ordinances Document and moved on to review Health and Sanitation and portions of the Zoning code. They formed sub-committees to continue with that review with the goal to submit proposed changes at the April meeting.
The Parks and Recreation Board held a walking workshop and visited all three parks. They are reviewing equipment placement and possible tree removals. Next steps are to price equipment, purchase, and place utilizing the services of a contractor to do so. New underlay materials for playground equipment were discussed to save money.
Platinum Panel held their pre-bid meeting and plans to open bids on the 15th
The Tree Board discussed the damage caused by the freeze and plans to review the existing tree inventory for a possible update if needed. It was announced that the City of Woodcreek is now nationally recognized as a “Tree City” by the Arbor Foundation in their Tree City USA program.
The Hotel Occupancy Tax Committee held their first meeting. In their next meeting they have invited Scott Joslove who is the head of the Hotel and Motel Lodging Association and has been active in the writing of law concerning HOT.
Manager Report:
-Brush pick up continues. Waste Connections is still working. Over 100 dumpsters have been collected and disposed of at this time.
-Tree permits will be reinstated March 15th. They will remain sensitive to tree damage due to the ice storm. A full report on the ice storm clean-up is expected in the April Regular Council meeting. There is concern about Oak Wilt spreading.
-March is Emergency Preparedness Month and the County will host an event March 25th at the VFW. This will be a family friendly event and will be well attended by local entities like the Fire Department, City Officials, Sherriff, PEC, etc.
-There are Municode issues, but staff is working to fix them. All videos have now been posted.
No report from the City Secretary
Ad Hoc workgroup for Chapters 154+ stated that a revision of the site development code is complete. An application form was created to support these revisions. The Committee has begun work on an Environmental Protections chapter. Next week they will take up Subdivisions and ETJ regulations. A packet of these materials once completed will be brought to Council for decisions on next steps. Zoning will proceed separately. Discussion of the code restructuring and recodification has been postponed until the chapter work is complete.
Special Orders:
Discussion of the financial statements occurred prior to acceptance. This surrounded the new structure of the presentation created by City Manager Rule and there was a desire for the titles of some items to be changed and clarified. Of note, investment income has increased due to a change in interest rates and action by Mr. Rule to invest more of the City’s uncommitted reserve funds. Clarification was requested by Councilmember Bailey on an item under Engineering titled “projects” for the amount of $31,000. City Manager Rule has asked K.Friese to better define their invoices and expressed that he is still working on properly coding the financials and cleaning up accounts. An audit company has been contracted to conduct the annual audit.
Item 5: The Special Event Permit for the Colorful Changes Estate Sale was approved
New Business:
Item 6: The Spirit of Woodcreek award was presented to the full Parks and Recreation Board, past and present members since 2020.
Item 7: A report on the Off-Duty Officer Safety and Traffic Control Patrols was provided by Councilmember Grummert on behalf of Councilmember Pulley who was absent. Negotiations for additional patrols are still pending, but the staffing has been short for off-duty officers seeking additional shifts. Councilmember Hambrick expressed concerns over the amount of warnings rather than tickets and the fact that the patrols seemed to follow people outside of the Woodcreek city limits and pull them over rather than focusing on inside Woodcreek specifically.
Item 8: A contract for a new financial advisor was presented by City Manager Rule to Council. It is his desire that Council consider termination of the existing contract to work with STIFEL public finance rather than Hilltop Securities. The contract with Hilltop was set to expire next month and would auto-renew without action. Mr. Rule stated that he has worked with Brad Angst from the company for 10 years and believes that we will receive better financial advice from STIFEL. Mr. Rule cited his own experience in the industry as reasoning for the suggested change. Councilmember Grummert expressed desire in having the City Attorney review the contract prior to acceptance. Councilmember Hines expressed concerns over terminating with Hilltop after they worked to help secure the Bond package and will now not get paid for that service if the contract is terminated. Councilmember Hines also inquired as to whether there were conflicts of interest concerns with changing to the new company. Mr. Rule said no and that his reasoning for the change is based on advice provided by Hilltop and that he believe Council will receive better services from STIFEL. Questions about what other companies were reviewed or if the request for qualifications for the contract was ever pursued per Council motion in fall of 2022. Interim City Attorney Roger Gordon stressed that Financial Advisors by state law are precluded from the RFQ requirement. Councilmember Grummert asked that more information, like that which would be in an RFQ, be gathered about STIFEL and provided to Council in the workshop following next week. Mr. Gordon was to review the contract as well. No action was taken beyond direction to staff and postponing the final discussion and decision for the workshop.
Item 9: The concept of a Storm Relief Assistance program was introduced by Councilmember Hines to assist those in financial need and still needing help with brush clean up on personal properties. Discussion centered on how needs would be established and where the funds would come from. Council decided to direct staff to send out an email seeking information on the need for the program to first establish if there was a significant need for this direct assistance from the City.
Item 10: The Pending City Business report was moved to the workshop as it is pending the results of the Council survey intended to give staff direction on the priority levels for pending tasks passed by Council motions in 2022.
Item 11: Council approved the purchase of a new large document scanner so staff can continue digitizing City records.
Item 12: Council approved of the passage of the necessary policies to gain additional points towards the Community Block Grant application.
Item 13: Council approved the designation of signatories for the Community Block Grant. This is a formality in the process. These funds will be used to address drainage and road improvements on Deerfield Drive. Grant Works is the administrator of this application and staff does not have to do very much toward it.
Item 14: Council accepted the report from Planning and Zoning on the minimum lot sizes to be added to the zoning code. It was noted that an update to the Zoning code is pending from the Ad Hoc workgroup.
COUNCIL ENTERED EXECUTIVE SESSION. No action was taken during the session.
Post Executive Session:
Item 15: Motion was made and approved by Council to direct staff and Mr. Gordon to set up a regulatory permit process for residential short-term rentals.
Mr. Gordon’s statement:
“The recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission was for an ordinance which would create a blanket prohibition on short-term rentals in certain sections of the City. I have taken a look at the case law over the last few years and the legislation at the Capitol, and I have advised the City that there is a bit of uncertainty right now as to the validity of ordinances which create blanket prohibitions for short-term rentals. And, I have advised that an incremental step that I would certainly suggest taking prior to the adoption of an outright ban would be to create a permitting program, and create a little bit data before the Council would consider an outright ban. So, I am grateful for the opportunity to create some draft documents and bring that back before the Council.”
