Preview of the 5/18/2010 Meeting

You can find the agenda for the meeting here: Agenda for 5/18 Waco City Council Meetings

Remember that I LOVE comments....any kind of comments....anonymous comments are accepted and welcomed. If they are just plain mean for no constructive purpose, I will delete them.

Since this is the first council meeting after the election, the schedule is changed. The work session will be at 3:00 pm. They will go into executive session at 3:30 pm. The business session starts at 4:30 pm. All of these meetings will be at the Operations Center at 1415 N. 4th St.

At 5:30 pm in the Phoenix Ballroom at 401 S. 3rd St., there will be an election ceremony.

In the work session they will discuss the process filling the District V vacancy created when Jim Bush was elected mayor.

In the business session, there are several public hearings about changing the Comprehensive Plan land use designations.

RES-265: The contract for the MLK Drive Sanitary Sewer Rehabilitation project is being raised by $186,840.25 so that the total amount will be $1.761,011.15.

RES-266: The contract for construction of the Runway Safety Area and Runways 1-19 and 14-32 Rehabilitation Projects at Waco Regional Airport will be increased by $116,306.47.

RES-267: Amends a contract with SCS Engineers for engineering work and compliance assistance at the 1419 Landfill which is now closed. They will provide contruction phase services and materials testing. The amendment will be for $28,340 bringing the contract total to $88,340.

RES-268: This will extend the contract with Krishna Ram, Inc. for the Staybridge Suites Hotel Construction Project for a maximum of 3 years. This is at the 700 block of South 5th and 6th Streets.

The next two items are about assigning residential tax abatement rights. I do not understand this yet. It will definitely require more research. If anyone knows what this means, please educate me or direct me to a resource that can explain it.

RES-269: Will approve the assignment of residential tax abatement rights of Edanbra Development, L.C. to Eddy and Sylvia Gomez.

RES-270: Will approve the assignment of residential tax abatement rights of Edanbra Development, L.C. to Terry Ridge and Melissa Washington.

The next three involve supplying the police department.

RES-271: This will allow the City Manager to submit an application to the US Dept of Justice for reimbursement of up to half the cost of purchasing bullet-proof vests.

RES-272: Authorized the purchase of ammunition under an existing contract for $64,123 for FY2009-10.

RES-273: Approves awarding a 12-month contract for supply of police uniforms with an option to renew for two additional 12-month terms. The amount is not to exceed $46,500 during FY2009-10.

RES-274: Authorized the purchase of a breathing air refill station for $52,460. I would guess this is for the fire department and other public safety uses. I can see how it would be better to have an onsite refill station rather than sending bottles out for refill. I do not know what the city is currently doing.

RES-275: Allows the City Manager to accept bids for services to process refuse derived fuel (RDF). From what I could gather quickly on Wikipedia, this is AWESOME! Maybe it's only awesome to people who like to take trash and make it into something useful (i.e. me). I don't take Wikipedia as a primary source, but I do use it to give me the basic idea and as a jumping-off point for further research. Non-combustible materials like glass and metal are removed. The remaining material is treated to remove heavy metals and pollutants. What remains can be shaped into pellets, bricks, or logs that can be used in coal power plants to produce electricity. This article states that RDF is a new concept so the financial advantage cannot be known.

Is this related to RES-267 about the engineering services for the landfill?

Link to the Wikipedia article about Refuse Derived Fuel: Refuse Derived Fuel on Wikipedia

RES-276 and RES-277: Nominates Owens-Brockway Glass Container, Inc. and Mars Chocolate North America as Enterprise Projects and submitting the Enterprise Zone application to the Office of the Governor Economic Development and Tourism's Texas Economic Development Bank for improvements to their respective properties.

RES-278: Authorizes the sale of a tax foreclosed property to a citizen.

RES-279: Invites and requests the Bellmead Development Corporation (BDC) to participate in the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC) Project and grants permission for BDC to act in support of BRIC. This permission is required since the BRIC Project is within the city limits of Waco.

I wonder if this is related to the action taken a few weeks ago by the Bellmead City Council to change the status of their Economic Development Corporation. This is an example of why it is helpful to keep up with the activities of all the cities in the area. They often work together and the action of one body may have influence on another.

Since this is the first meeting after the election, a committee to canvass the results of the election will be appointed. After a short recess, the committee will report its results.

At the Election Ceremony, the oath of office will be administered to the new mayor and they will elect a Mayor Pro Tem. There were will be presentations by several groups including the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, The Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the Cen-Tex African American Chamber of Commerce. A reception will follow.

Here is the WacoTrib's take on yesterday's city council meeting

Waco City Council seeks bids to put GPS devices on city buses | Wacotrib.com

Preview of the 4/20/2010 meeting

NOTE: Unlike certain local newspapers, I LOVE feedback and comments!!! I accept anonymous comments or there are several ways to login without having to create a new account. Lately, I've gotten more comments in person than I get on the site. That's VERY cool, but hopefully people will have comments about the items  I discuss telling me what you like and don't like. Let's start a conversation.

Most of all.....start a conversation with your council member. THEY represent YOU! They really like it when you ask them for information. I'm not sure they like it so much when you call or write to gripe about something, but if I were in their shoes I would prefer that to silence.


Here is the link to the full agenda: http://www.waco-texas.com/meetings.asp Click on the date to get this meeting's agenda.

I apologize for missing the last meeting. I did not see anything of great importance and the rest of my life got in the way. Although I'm still very busy, there are several things I would like to call attention to. I have learned that once it gets on the agenda it's pretty much a done deal, but we should still be aware of what our city council members are doing and tell them how we feel about it.

I'm short on time, so I can't go through every item. I also won't be able to attend the work session today. It's getting hard for me to miss work. I will try to catch it online or on TV and give an update.

PH-202 - This is approval of a permit to raze a building so that a new animal emergency clinic building can be built. This will be at 3901 S. Jack Kultgen Expressway. No money spent and not infringing on our personal liberties, but I thought it was cool and you might like to know about it.

PH-207, 208, 209, 210 - Several alleys are being abandoned. What is interesting about these is that the Planning Commission did not unanimously vote to approve all of them. There may be issues behind this.

PH-211 - Section 28-577 in Chapter 28 Zoning of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Waco will be changed to allow retail sales from 7pm to 12 midnight and from 5am to 7am by special permit in the O-3 Office-Limited Commercial District.

RES-213 - Authorizes the City manager to execute a 12-month lease agreement with Enterprise Rent-a-Car for nine lease vehicles with the amount not to exceed $90,000. There will be an option to allow renewal of the agreement for one additional twelve-month period. There may be reasons for leasing rather than purchasing a car. My calculations say this is an average of $833 per car per month. That sounds high to me. I suppose that maintenance is included, though.

RES-214 - The Waco McLennan County Economic Development Corporation will be giving $5 million to the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative. This is the renovation of the old General Tire facility. There are news stories available online about this. $2.5 million will be given by the City of Waco and $2.5 million by McLennan County. It is contingent upon a $20 million investment. I believe this to be a good investment, but citizens should know it is happening.

RES-215 - There is a change of amount from $944,900 to $890,100 on the contract with Kimley Horn and Associates, Inc. Irving, Texas for design services for the Ritchie Road Street Construction and Water Transmission improvement project.

RES-216 - The Waco Community Development Corporation is providing funding of $60,000 to World Changers 2010 Waco Roof Rehabilitation Project. It is not clear what roof will be rehabilitated. I searched for World Changers and found a Baptist church that does a lot of mission work. I'm not sure if it is the same entity. It sounds like something they would do. I have a question about this in to my councilman, Randy Riggs.

RES-218 and RES-220 - These two talk about a "Loan Committee", "Interim Construction Loan Program", and "New Acquisition Loan Program". I wrote my councilman, Randy Riggs, requesting more information about these programs. It almost sounds like the CoW is funding the building and purchasing of homes and protecting home buyers who are forced from their homes by condemnation. Does this bother anyone else? This is not the business of government. I may be wrong.

RES-229 - The city is going to purchase mobile data computers and docking stations from PCS Mobile of Denver, Colorado. The amount is not to exceed $84,212. It does not state what the computers are for.

RES-230 - Approves a resolution reappointing Christopher D. Taylor as Municipal Judge for a two-year term.

Remember: I LOVE feedback and comments, especially when you have more information to add to my understanding.

Churchill quote says how I feel about local government (editorial)

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. ~ Winston Churchill 

This has been my thought all along, but this morning on Twitter (hat tip to @HenryJennings) I saw the sentence that said it succinctly.

I don't have studies by social scientists to back this up. I'm sure they are out there somewhere. These are my own thoughts based on my own feelings. In any situation where there are too many rules, I feel like I there is no way I can obey them all so I just give up. That's fine if it's a game or even a relationship. It's quite different when it's laws instead of rules and we are talking about life.

We've had civilized society for awhile now. There has to come a point where we have enough laws. They may need tweaking from time to time as new technology comes along or as attitudes change, but I think we pretty much have it covered. For example, we already have laws about reckless driving. Do we really need one against texting while driving? Are we also going to make laws against putting on make-up, reading, or eating while driving?

Bottom line is this....I hope we never get to a point where I'm afraid to leave the house because I might do something wrong that I forgot was illegal and get a ticket or a fine or worse yet go to jail.

Additional $500,000 grant to Waco Regional Airport for Safety Improvement

Click here to see an article about improvements to the Waco Regional Airport. I had questions about what was going to be done. This pretty much describes it.


http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices-us-federal-government/14204899-1.html


Highlights:

1. The Waco Regional Airport will receive an additional $500,000 in grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Airport Improvement Program.
2. The alpha taxiway will be separated from the two other taxiways. As it is now, planes must make a hard left or hard right at a certain time or risk going on the wrong taxiway. 
3. Add air conditioning and ground power units to the passenger-loading bridge - This eliminates the need for large generators on the ramps now used to cool airplanes during boarding and deboarding.
4. Some overhead utilities in the runway safety areas also will be relocated underground on the airport's two runways to keep them from interfering with approaching airplanes.

The airport received $13.1 million in federal funds last year for major runway improvements and safety enhancements. That funding will be used to extend the airport's main runway by 500 feet, rehabilitating both runways and regrading runway safety areas. Those improvements are expected to be completed by 2011.

Notes from Waco City Council Meeting - March 23, 2010

I'll just hit the highlights for this update. The agenda can be found at this link CLICK HERE and everything passed. 

RES-143 and RES-144: My commentary can be found on an earlier entry, but I'd like to add the new information I learned. AHP exceeded their first contract's requirement for jobs. The contract called for 136 jobs and they ended up with 151. In response to my email, Ms. Herbert asked whether foreign ownership was a consideration. Mr. Groth indicated it is not currently, but it could be in the future if the council wishes. A question arose about the jobs created being local jobs. Mr. Groth answered that at least 40% of the jobs were to be filled local employees. They audit to check this. The city will be giving up about $78k in tax abatements, but there will be $325k in receipts.

I'm not thrilled with this money going to a foreign-owned company, but it will create local jobs and increase the tax base. The more money we collect from companies reduces the chance that property taxes will have to increase.

An interesting fact came to light during this discussion. I learned that at least one of the city council members either reads or has seen this blog. My first reaction was to freak out a bit. I'm used to sitting in the background and having my writing read by my circle only. My second reaction was that this is a good thing. It demonstrates that the council members are interested in knowing what the citizens think about what comes before them. Ms. Herbert brought up another point on a different subject that I had received a comment about. I do not know if the person who left the comment also contact Ms. Herbert or if she saw it on this blog. Either way, the council DOES care about what we think. We should do our duty and tell them what we think and ask questions when we don't understand.

Related to ORD-172: I'm totally fine with the dropping of the speed limit in the area covered by this ordinance. There was MORE discussion about dropping the limit on the section of New Road that was left at 40 to 35. I drove this road today to see what I thought. I think this is ridiculous. This section of road is much wider and in better condition than the other section. There is NO residential and no back out drives. More than that, it was VERY busy and I believe that dropping the limit would cause congestion - assuming people obeyed the limit (which they don't). Actually, I wanted to see how many signs would have to be changed. This is not as big a deal as I thought it might be because there are only two on that stretch of road and both of those were on the overpass. I think only one would be in Waco's part. The city limit is not clearly delineated. I don't think that's enough signs. In fact, I don't think there enough speed limit signs in this city anyway. That's a fight for another day.

One last note about Chief Brent Strohman. When I returned for the business session of the meeting, Chief Strohman commented on how many notes I was taking. He told me that he would be glad to share his public safety presentation with me. I don't know if he knows about the blog or thinks I'm merely a concerned citizen, but I was very encouraged by his openness and willingness to share this information with a citizen and the public. From what I have seen, the Chief is a well-respected man and we are lucky to have him.

Spay or neuter law in Waco - may charge to keep pets not spayed or neutered

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/88891967.html

This will be discussed at the 3pm city council work session.