And we will now go into an executive closed session pursuant to be TCA Government Code Chapter 55.

Okay, we're gonna go ahead and call the afternoon session back to order.

We're gonna move on down to discuss the work session items.

Uh starting with 3.1 with Deputy City Manager Jennifer Wick.

Thank you, Marin Council.

Jennifer Wickman, deputy city manager.

I'm here to bring you an update on where we are with our preparations for the World Cup.

So you can see this is a lot of the information that you've seen before.

So match schedule, the venue, base camps, and all of that.

One thing I did want to point out is under the um the fan activation locations, it says TBD.

Um on the map, FIFA's been circulating.

There are a couple of fan activation spaces that are on the map now.

One is at Sundance Square and one is in our entertainment district.

We're not sure what that uh means yet, but we're certainly going to keep an eye on it.

So that might be an additional element that would be coming to Arlington.

This is information that our folks at the CVB and also Carrie Parker Berry, who's at our eSports um uh stadium are very familiar with.

These are sort of stats on how long people stay, where they're coming from, the demographics in general.

Um the probably one of the most important things in that chart is the 9.7 days on average of international, you know, sort of visitors are staying, because so many of our folks will be internationally international visitors traveling uh to Arlington for this, they will tend to stay longer.

We're working to see how that compares to a typical stay, but I can tell you on the general, um, generally looking at it sort of hits the higher end of the length of time that people will stay.

So this is very this is very encouraging.

We're excited we want to retain as many of those folks in Arlington as we can.

So some important dates, some of that have already passed.

Uh this last month, the volunteer registration has opened.

Um should be a really exciting opportunity.

I'll have a little bit more on that later.

Uh September 10th, you may be seeing um information about tickets go on sale at that point.

What happens at that point is there's sort of a nine-day period where people affiliated with the visa credit card can sign up for a pre-sale draw and that will give them the opportunity to buy the tickets.

So things that are for sale now are hospitality um deals that you may see out there.

So this will be a long and phased approach to purchasing tickets for the world cup.

So there may not be there's not really gonna be a single date we'll probably be able to point to that says here's where they went on sale.

But one of the most important dates that we have on there is December 5th, and this is where there's going to be a big event in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center, and they're gonna draw for which teams are playing in which matches for all the group the group phases, the group uh team stages.

So this is when if I'm a fan of Iceland, I will know where my team is playing during the whole uh event.

At that point, that really kicks off a cascade of decisions.

Uh base camps will be selected.

Ticket sales will be will be um tickets will be uh purchased by fans of of these teams.

And additionally, they'll start making travel plans, lodging reservations, all of that.

So a lot of things are gonna come from that December 5th deadline or date, and we'll know a lot more.

Things will really start picking up speed as if they you know there are they're pretty going pretty quickly, but they'll go even faster then.

So I want to give a brief tour, and Matt's gonna be my um my mouse on this one.

But Arlington Welcomes the World is the website that Cynthia Lemus from our office communication has set up.

We showed this to you recently, or we talked about the concept and you were asking many things about will this be included, will that be included?

You can see it's a it's a great looking website.

Um it has really three categories.

If you scroll all the way to the bottom there, uh Matt, it has all of our all of the news that happens, um, videos that have been loaded, all of that.

Uh Cynthia tells me that the our World Cup articles when they are published are consistently the week's highest rated article, most clicked on.

It's this is a high um high interest area uh for a lot of folks.

So you can see uh the they have a uh page for residents, you can click there, just talks about city services, um safety information, scroll down if you want to volunteer, what to do with short-term rentals, the schedule, all of that.

Um and then if you go back, Matt, and then we've got um visitors information.

This is great because it not only talks about cat um schedules and matches, but how to get around, what to do, like how to explore Arlington.

This is really keying in on how we want folks to connect with and be a part of Arlington when they're here, spend their dollars here.

And then permits, like if they're interested in like how do I do a short-term rental or health permits, alcohol permits, those sorts of things, easily accessible so they can get to that.

Thanks, Matt.

We can go back to the presentation.

So a little more detail on the volunteer program since that has kicked off last month.

This is going to be a very exciting program, an opportunity for folks in Arlington and others, obviously, to get involved.

A few things I would mention is that first, which seems to be very interesting to a lot of people, there is a whole outfit that comes with this.

Everything from your shoes to your hat, a backpack, shirt, pants, jacket, all of that is included.

Now, what you get in return for that is that the FIFA will get you to work probably eight to ten shifts, and these are long.

These are eight plus hour days, but really an exciting opportunity, very much like an Olympic experience.

You probably have seen that coverage of Olympic volunteers and what they do.

So we're hoping a lot of folks from Arlington will take part in that.

Working all over, not just at the matches, and additionally, people who speak multiple languages are very much in demand because that will be very helpful to the visitors that are coming.

Okay.

Um a little more in the North Texas Business Connect program.

Um this is for we've had a lot of questions from businesses say how can I do business with FIFA?

So they the one opportunities to register here with the North Texas Business Connect program, and this list can go.

There's just a few, you know, kind of criteria that we're looking for locally to register for that.

I will mention that there not a probably not the majority of people will actually sign a contract with FIFA itself.

They have a lot of other people working for them.

First of all, we are one of them.

The city's going to be buying a lot of things through our usual means.

And so folks who are interested in doing business with the city to help support us in this effort, whether that means how to feeding first responders who are out on the stage or providing some sort of other element we might need.

Please register on our vendor portal page with at the city's website.

We would suggest that.

Secondly, BAM, which is the group that worked to set up the All Star Village.

That's the same group that's setting up the postage stamp around the around the stadium, and we'll be doing all of that work.

So making connections with with them, that will also be something very good.

And additionally, um, the host committee may also do some direct um connecting.

And I I will just mention a quick um some of you may know Montez Jones, and he owns an executive sort of coaching and a consulting firm.

He was at one of the recent town hall meetings we had, and we were sort of all brainstorming about like, well, how can businesses connect?

And he had a really brilliant brainstorm that he would take some of his, some of his the work he's done is sort of like fun and entertainment type things and hosting and like games and things like that.

Once he understood that there might be a lot of people staying in hotels, staying in the area for long periods of time.

He was like, Oh, I can connect with the hotel and maybe see if I can do that kind of business there.

So, really, that kind of creativity is what we're trying to help our businesses see and understand.

It most likely will not be a direct, I want to, you know, I'm gonna sign a contract with FIFA to do something, but it might be a way that you can help attract visitors to your restaurant or enhance a hotel's services that they're offering.

So we're really working with our community to help help with that.

Um so one thing that is going to include some council action coming soon to help us prepare is how we're gonna deal with special events and temporary outdoor events, particularly in the area around the stadium during the World Cup.

You all are aware of how many resources that will be dedicated to this effort.

So we're gonna be working with not only our own first responders, we'll have to hire some from outside.

We don't want to unduly burden them during this difficult time.

So we we we are what we would like to do is take any additional temporary events where are within the stadium footprint and the vicinity, wherever they are, and and put a prohibition on that just during this time, simply for public safety reasons because we don't want those resources stretched too thin.

So the perimeters for the suspension of permits that we're looking like, and it would be for the day before the match and the match day, would be Center Street to Lamar to Ballpark Way and Division.

Um we'll be working with um staff to come up with the legislative findings and all that you all would need to to uh pass something like that, but really the focus is to make sure that our public safety resources are able to focus where they're needed to focus, which is primarily in our neighborhoods, doing the regular policing and protection of our our community, but secondarily for the event to make sure that we have all those resources that are needed.

So we'll be bringing that to you all soon.

I'm at an upcoming council meeting.

Want to also talk a little bit about um, these are our World Cup town hall meetings.

Carrie Parker Barry has really been heading these up, bringing them together.

We've worked with a bunch of different um groups to help them understand what is um what's coming, how they can anticipate it.

People have all sorts of questions about this, and it's really helpful to have these monthly opportunities to gather different groups, different business groups together to answer those questions.

So we've had a number of departments that have come out and presented everything from sort of like um what's going to happen from a public safety perspective to how do I get my restaurant you know up to snuff on this on its health permits and all of that.

So that's been very very helpful and very successful.

They're very popular.

We usually pack the um the CVB hosts, and we usually pack that little indoor uh theater that we've got, which has been which has been great.

Um the next one we're gonna have is later this month, and we're really looking for businesses in and near the stadium footprint because they have a lot of questions about closures, hours when these matches are going to be happening.

What can they do?

Can they park their location?

Do they have can they operate?

I will emphasize again as we've been telling groups that FIFA has a business as usual standard.

So I always use the Panda Express as the example, which is kind of caddy corner across from the stadium.

If that if that restaurant wants to continue to operate as a rest at a as a restaurant, they can.

No one's gonna shut them down, but they're not gonna be able to do something very different, like set up a soccer, mini soccer pitch in there in their parking lot and sell admission to that because that's not their normal course of business.

Um that's not what they normally do.

They serve food normally, they don't do that.

So we'll be working with businesses to help them help take some of the fear of out of it and hopefully build an excitement and anticipation of how they can make better connections with this um with this event.

And with that, I'm happy to take any questions that the council has.

Questions or comments for Jennifer.

Very good.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate you.

3.2 Keith Brooks.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Keith Brooks, Director of Public Works.

Here to talk to you today about our street maintenance program.

Um also have Sydney Kelly here with us.

Also, today's our assistant director uh over operations, and we'll walk through our strategy, uh street conditions and current challenges we face in sustaining our street maintenance uh infrastructure and uh and then discuss our updated uh pavement management uh strategy.

So Arlington voters have consistently supported the quarter six quarter cent street maintenance sales tax uh since 2002.

Uh it was previously previously renewed every four years, but since 2018, it's now on an eight-year cycle.

Our next renewal and street maintenance sales tax election will be done in May of 2026.

Uh this funding is crucial to preserving our street maintenance network.

The city maintains three over 3,000 lane miles of the majority uh being a hundred and I mean eighteen hundred and forty six lame miles are residential, uh 1,171 lame miles categorized as arterial arterial collector streets, and additionally, 165 lane miles are yet to be built to complete the thoroughfare development plan.

Our current street maintenance strategy targets red and yellow streets.

We use three main approaches asphalt reclamation, concrete panel replacement, and asphalt mill and overlay.

Each targets a specific uh condition severity.

Here you see a graphic of our typical street maintenance uh uh techniques used.

Uh the red line shows the projected lifespan of a street with no maintenance if no maintenance is done.

The blue line shows the various maintenance techniques used to extend the life of a street.

So, like crack sealing prevents moisture from from penetrating the pavement and reduce and reduces potholes.

Uh, asphalt reclamation rebuilds the the full pavement structure, and then of course the asphalt mill and overlay restores uh surface condition.

These allow us to extend street life and prioritize uh based on condition and funding.

So here we are our main uh funding sources are divided between our quarters sales tax and of course our general obligation bonds uh below is a table showing our various street maintenance techniques and the cost per lay mile.

Uh the sales tax and general fund together provide 25 to 30 million annually, while our uh geobonds contribute 27 to 38 million annually for street maintenance and uh street reconstruction.

This chart shows how street maintenance sales tax funding is programmed.

We projected our FY 2027 and FY2028 budgets based on the current funding levels.

Larger street maintenance projects like our mill and overlay, asphalt reclamation, and concrete panel replacement work are contracted out.

This is our street condition map.

It'll illustrates the conditions of our city maintained streets.

It excludes tech stuff and private streets.

It helps us prioritize our maintenance and capital projects based on real-time data.

This map here illustrates our red streets or what we consider our streets that are below 50% of our overall condition index.

We'll talk a little bit more about that.

So this chart it shows all our red, yellow, and green street uh percentages.

Uh today, about 20% of our street infrastructure are red streets and have an OCI below 50.

The graphic shows that our street maintenance infrastructure, how it's aged over over the last 10 years, and we've been working to try to flatten the curve.

This table shows a breakdown of our red, yellow, and green streets.

Uh, green have an OCI of 70 or above, yellow streets between 50 and 70, and red streets uh with an OCI below 50.

As you can see from the data, our residential streets have an average OCI score, uh 58, considerably lower than our thoroughfare development plan streets, which are our trial streets and collector roads.

We are able to improve, we were able to improve 42 lane miles of streets in FY25 so far.

This graphic shows projections of our red streets with current funding through 2020 2035, and the red street uh lane miles continue to increase.

The flat line is our baseline of 459 lane miles, which is approximately 15 percent of our red streets, in which anywhere between 10 and 15 percent red streets would be an ideal goal with the with the nature of uh maintaining roadway infrastructure.

We'll always have a portion of red streets uh just by the nature of maintenance, and you're gonna always have some red streets, but we want to make sure that it's reasonable uh at a reasonable level to manage.

Looking ahead, all of our current green streets are projected to degrade to yellow streets by 2036.

Unless we increase funding, around 56 lane miles will drop below or from yellow to red each year, exceeding the 22 lane miles we're currently able to treat with uh our asphalt mill and overlay program.

So this table basically shows the funding we currently have budgeted uh for to specifically address red streets.

So not not the red and the yellow and the green, just specifically red streets, and we rely on a mix of street sales, street sales tax, street bonds, and of course, community development block grants.

So looking at our future roadway build-out, as mentioned before, we have approximate we still have approximately 165 lane miles to rebuild and complete our thoroughfare development plan, and we are projecting it would take approximately 450 million to construct uh the rest of it.

This is our current this chart shows our current uh street funding strategy uh through FY 2028, which includes a combination of sales tax, general fund, general obligation funds, and impact fees.

Without sustained increased investment in street maintenance, we'll continue uh to fall behind.

So we took a look at our 10-year forecasts with the increased annual uh funding that we would need in order to kind of level the uh level the curve, if you will.

So it would take a budget of about 135 million per year to flatten the OCI curve and get us closer to our baseline that I mentioned before.

The gray line below that shows it would take approximately 165 million uh to not only flatten the curve but to start a downward trajectory uh to get us below 10% red streets.

So some of the challenges that we face.

Um we're needing an additional uh $30 million annually to maintain the yellow streets that are projected to turn red.

Of course, street rebuild costs have doubled since 2015 and continue on the upward trend.

With uh rising construction costs, it reduces the number of lane miles maintained or rebuilt each year and accelerates the percentage of streets turning red.

Uh we also do a lot of coordination, coordinating with uh our street maintenance priorities, locations with water, uh the water department, and also with our stormwater infrastructure with our RWD committee.

Um so funding might not always be available for water and sewer and also stormwater at the time that we're needing to do that street.

So sometimes we'll have we have to defer a little bit till everything's ready to be funded and to be done.

And then to avoid major roadway failures, a significant funding increase are needed to address roadway maintenance.

So we propose a shift in focus.

Um our focus would be primarily on residential street rebuilds annually in our future bond elections for red streets and emphasize and less emphasis on arterial and capacity projects uh for the next three bond elections.

Uh the main graphic or data that we're looking at is 81% of our red streets are actually residential streets.

Most of the phone calls that I get from residents is people wanting their street in front of their house uh rebuilt.

Uh so increase funding significantly significantly for asphalt reclamation projects in the future bond elections to address uh red streets.

So in the 2025 bond election, this was the first bond election where uh we included asphalt reclamations, and we wanted to do that because it's a more robust uh rebuild, and instead of using street maintenance funds, we want to kind of start shifting that to a capital as a capital expense.

So we believe that's gonna help us.

Um, and then allows this allows our street maintenance fund to focus mainly on asphalt mill and overlays and concrete panel replacements on our yellow streets.

So we want to address the red streets.

We want to attack those really hard with our bond elections, have more focus on residential rebuild bills, and then with our street maintenance, we'll also attack the uh the yellow streets.

And then we don't want to forget about the green streets.

Um we you know, pavement pres preservation is is key.

So more focus on preservation measures uh like uh crack sealing of our green streets, and then last, we want to identify future scenarios where lame miles could potentially be reduced and or converted to private streets.

That's all I have for you today.

And if uh if you have any questions, I can address those at this time.

Any questions, comments from council?

Yes, Councilmember Vellante.

Thank thank you so much, Keith, for putting together this overview.

Very well explained.

I know it takes a lot of work to get the data out there.

I personally was the one uh suggested to bring it out there.

I appreciate I appreciate it uh everything you guys do.

I'll know it's a hard work out there.

So basically what we see here, we need uh 65 million dollars extra in funding per year in order to go back to 10 percent uh of red streets like we have in 2016, correct?

Uh yes, sir.

So you see from 2016 to 2025, the red streets went from 10 percent to 20 percent.

The yellow streets went to from 40 percent to 60 percent.

And the green streets reduced from 40 percent to 60 percent.

So, in order to reverse that curve, and you would probably take another 10 years to go back to 10 percent, like we were in 2016, which is right, reasonable number.

You said reasonable.

What is a reasonable number for red streets?

I think 10%.

Yeah, I would we would like to get it to 10 or below.

Uh, but you know, if you're if you're around 15, um that's that's not a bad number uh when you consider that 85 percent of your your the rest of your streets are in pretty good condition.

Uh but we would like to get it to 10 if if not below that.

That would be the goal.

Uh but we also understand you know you have to be you know reasonable as far as you know uh how much funding we can actually put into this.

So that's why we looked at various scenarios.

Uh the 135 million was to let's flatten the curve and let's not make the anything worse than what it is today.

Okay.

Um, and then of course, if we want to put more money into uh towards that, that's where that 165 million goes.

Basically, we need today's 65 million dollars extra in budget for uh road construction.

Uh in five years, we can get 15%, 10 years back to 16 numbers, right?

Yeah, and we're and we're taking a look at, of course, our strategy.

That's what I was talking about our strategies.

A lot of our bond elections we've been really focused on, you know, we do residential rebuilds, but we have uh big focus also on our arterials and collector streets.

If we can shift to putting the majority of that money towards residential rebuilds for the next three elections, which would be nine to ten years, uh, that would help us, we believe, with the strategy because like I mentioned before, 81% of our red streets are residential streets.

But we need a it's a combination of changing our strategy, adjusting our strategy a little bit, and also increasing funding is is what we're needing.

Focusing on on uh residential pavement, yes, sir.

Uh on the next three bond elections, where is it gonna put us?

What what where does it gonna put us on the red numbers?

Um and that's the that's the the funding that we're talking about.

That that's all we're we're assuming that we're gonna be able to do that.

So when I when I showed you the graph, I guess I can go back to that.

Yep, go ahead.

Yep.

So when I show you this graph, you can see um it starts to go down in the next couple of years, and then it starts to pick up it, you know, around 2029, 2030 starts to uptick a little bit.

And this is just uh, and that's just probably just uh more yellow streets are still because we still have a ton of streets that we're having to constantly, and you got to keep in mind, even if you're doing this, you're still gonna have some of your yellow streets still go to go to red.

So you're trying to catch up, and that's what we're doing here.

We're trying to play catch up, and eventually you see it just kind of flattens out and hopefully stays flat.

Uh but that that would be us train changing our strategy, like I was talking about, in addition to the additional funding.

Right.

Thank you.

I'd look forward to the city manager.

What the strategy we have.

So if I might, Mayor, uh one of the things I want to make sure is clear to everybody is the reason you see those red and and yellow grow compared to green, isn't because there's a lack of investment.

And in fact, if you look over trend, there's more and more investment every year.

But what you're seeing is the pace of aging of the streets is faster than the pace of investment.

And so when these look roads are built in the 70s and are maturing at their life cycle, those 70s, 80s streets are what are now showing up as in our as our bubble, right?

And so we're trying to flatten out that bubble is what Keith's talking about.

That's correct.

And a lot of like Trey was mentioning, you had a lot of our streets, like the residential streets, they were built by the developers.

And so they were built back in the you know, 30, 40 years ago, and now all of those streets are aging at the same time.

And now we're having to, you know, we didn't build them, they were built by developers.

Now we're having to rebuild them.

And so obviously we have reach constraints with our uh you know, funding and resources and things of that nature.

So it's trying to catch up, stop the bleeding, kind of hold, and then kind of, and then we can check our strategy, see if that's actually working, and that that's part of what this takes.

It takes it's kind of like steering a big ship.

It takes a while to get it all going in one direction the way you want it.

Um, but that's that's that's the strategy what we're trying to do.

Yes, sir.

Councilmember Boxel.

Oh, sorry.

Councilmember Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Keith, uh, thank you for looking into this.

I mean, that's the number one thing that we hear from citizens, especially at the budget hall meetings that we had.

Um, they understood what we were doing, but they really were concerned about this.

So uh I'm glad we're looking at that.

So once again, I mean everybody talks, where does all the money come from?

So I I want one thing that always comes up is they always think all the sales tax money goes to the streets.

How much of the sales tax goes to streets well?

I had a graphic here.

Let's see.

So right here.

So we're averaging, let's say, anywhere from 25 to 27 million a year.

Uh you can see some of that is going towards our field crews, personnel, materials equipment.

Uh so for the things that we're doing in-house, so the the the our field crews are out there working, the equipment that it takes to do the work, uh, some of the minor repairs that you see us doing out there, and then we also have street maintenance contracts.

So um, so another let's say 16, 17 million to 18 million is actually going out there physically in the street in contracts, but we're also uh doing the work too.

Um so 25 million a year.

And sales tax is I mean, sometimes considered other people's money, is that correct?

That's part of the the stadiums and all that.

Is that this is a quarter cent sales tax that is all uh you know imported dollars based on what we've seen, it's typically 50 percent outside of Arlington and 50 percent inside of Arlington.

So to your point, a lot of this money comes from non-residents.

Okay, thank you, Trey.

Thank you, Keith.

That's definitely council member Boxel.

Thank you.

81% of our streets are residential streets, 81% of our red streets.

A red streets, okay.

So this is a chip typical uh trajectory of a of a city with our development pattern.

And I'd be interested in comparison to other cities that have a similar development pattern as ours, and what what kind of strategies they're employing to keep up with their street maintenance?

And what what kind of strategies they're employing to keep up with their street maintenance?

Because right now it looks like what we're it's ballooning.

And we have to come up with some way to deal with that.

And also I had a question about you said slowing or suspending capacity increase.

Is that correct?

On our arterial streets.

Right.

So um, so you know, some of the our arterial streets, we're either rebuilding it because of the condition of it, or we're expanding it because we need more mobility or you know, more uh traffic flow.

Um so instead of taking a look at some of those projects, we've always traditionally had those projects in our bond elections.

Uh what we're looking at is kind of shifting the flow focus a little more so that we're not focused as much on our trials and and collector streets, more focused on residential rebuilds, because that seems to be where most of our red streets are.

And and and I agree with that in terms of the need, but in terms of a strategy, that doesn't seem to be that doesn't seem to get us where we're going long term.

Or we need the arterial streets to be able to support the tax base to be able to keep up with the other streets.

So I I would really like us to look at that and see if that's if what I'm saying is correct, or if other cities have looked at it that way, but that's the way just on the surface of it sounds to me that uh do we have the tax base to really focus in on just the residential streets uh rather than maintenance but also capacity uh increasing capacity on our arterials.

Right.

I would just say so.

When I when I talk about the uh the focus on the that's just the red streets, we're still gonna be maintaining our other streets like our arterials and our and we'll still be maintaining them.

That's what we're talking about, the uh uh the uh concrete panel replacements and things of that nature.

A lot of those are happening a lot of our on our arterial streets and our collector streets, so we'll still be doing that type of work, but as far as the red the full rebuilds, not just the panel replacements or the mill and overlays, the full rebuilds will focus on the a lot of the residential streets.

Okay, so but it but it's the same really that you're putting more emphasis then on that or more money towards that.

That's what you're proposing, and I and I don't have a problem with that, but it's just that if we're going to put the focus there, then that it necessarily has to come out of the arterial streets unless you're gonna increase the budget overall.

Um so I just like us to compare different strategies with other cities that have our similar development pattern that have and have the similar type of situation.

Even your own your own graph showed that the red streets are increasing, and it seemed to be like an kind of an exponential type rise, and that's concerning.

How are we going to deal with that?

So yeah, I'd like to see how other cities are are dealing with that that are similar to us.

Um then you also mentioned uh a strategy of returning or turning some residential streets to private streets.

How would we do that?

And what what measures would we take to do that?

I think the I think the easiest the the one of the easiest things is looking at new developments, of course, uh where people are not used to having a public street.

They go in, they buy their house, they know immediately that whether it's gated or not, it's a private street, they're gonna be responsible for the maintenance, they'll have an HOA that'll be responsible for collecting the fees to maintain it.

Uh that would probably be the easier route.

Um, and yeah, like you're talking about taking a public street that people are used to being public and convert it to private, uh or uh yeah, convert it to private.

That that would probably be the harder sale.

Um and then too, we also deal with and we have a lot of uh residents that do live on private streets, they want to convert them back to public, and we're like, no, because you haven't been maintaining them, we don't want to take those streets because they're basically mostly going to be red streets.

Uh so that that's something we can take a look at.

I think it'd be you know, it it would be a tougher sale uh to take a public and make it private.

Um, but I think probably the easier thing would be look at the new developments as they come in and say, hey, this these needs to be private streets type of thing.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Hogg.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Um and thank you, Keith.

That you you've got a tough job.

We you know we all admit that, and we all know, and especially if you see a city that had such growth in the 70s and 80s, as y'all said earlier.

Well, those are all hitting those numbers, and that's when we built the most around a road.

So it's not none of this is surprising.

But uh is you know, I always say public safety is always gonna be number one, but boy, roads is probably what we hear about the most from residents.

Um, because it's a quick, easy uh see something they see from their city every day.

I always tell residents be worried about your water also.

You don't hear about it because it's going really well.

Um, but we hear of other cities that don't.

So let me ask on on this.

So with Ms.

Boxfalls, so is it's coming up just to confirm we have a renewal coming up on May 2026, correct?

Correct.

So that's a big piece.

So I do believe this strategy has to somewhat be in place to convince our residents.

Here's what our strategy is for our roads.

So I think our timing is perfect.

Um, we're of course not going to reach a solution today.

I think it's probably we need to have a a work session or a retreat or something to go over this because this is big.

Um, I have some, you know, arterial versus residential.

Um, I think increasing the bond for roads is a great idea.

Um, I think it shows residents here's exactly what we're spending money on.

Um, and you let the roads residents and the citizens actually have a vote on something they're saying, and I think it and you can see our history when we show them streets in a bond election, it does really well because they want to see that that money is being spent there.

So I think if we have to consider something of that to get us to that stage, I probably have a little concern I'd really have to be convinced on arterial versus residential and and a scale back in arterial.

As Miss Boxall was saying, I probably would agree with her um somewhat on that.

Didn't mean I'm opposed, but residential is really tough when it's your street, right?

And I've seen some of these as I've driven down, I'm like, look at this road, and I've looked it up, and then we can send it in to have it reason rescored on some of those things, but then I also think of the huge number that are traveling on arterial roads um from where it is.

So I would probably I'm gonna have to have some real convincing to understand how I really move some of these residentials above arterial, whereas I'm gonna look at what has the most number on there on there on that piece.

Then let me ask one other um question.

Is there any with the large change in now commercial vehicles that are driving on residential and arterial roads?

And I'm talking about Amazon, FedEx, UPS, um, you know, the amount of Amazon trucks we see in everyone's neighborhood, is that causing faster deterioration of roads?

The most over your mostly your most of our roads are designed to take that type of, especially like your box trucks and things of that nature.

Uh, where we have the most concerns and a lot of you know, and we do have truck routes within our city, and they're mostly on the state roadways, uh, like your your Coopers and your you know uh your divisions, your pioneer parkways, where we've had some uh some concerns, uh it's kind of like in our uh great Southwest Industrial District where you have a lot of like warehouses and things of that nature, uh streets like uh let's say um uh Timber Lake uh Drive, uh we actually uh increase the thickness uh Avenue E, Avenue H.

Wherever we have uh rebuilds in that area, instead of doing our typical nine-inch uh pay thick pavement for uh those streets, we actually went with 10 uh to help with some of that truck traffic because we know it's gonna be more concentrated.

Uh, but there's always anytime there's an increase in truck traffic, and it's really the heavy truck traffic that we're worried about, not necessarily the Amazon trucks, but usually the your 18 wheelers, that's that's where our more of our concern is no real concern for box trucks and things.

Yeah, and then I I guess I would ask two other things.

Is there anything on an educational system that residents can do to help uh prolong our roads, right?

I always think of that.

Is there, you know, I don't know if there's anything on that, but then the last piece I'd ask, and you don't have to answer, um, is there any other funding mechanisms?

Is there any kind of street fees or other alternative funding mechanisms like charging some of these commercial vehicles extra fees or anything within the city when something comes to that or funding um when an apartment goes up or some a large commercial um I don't know, I haven't explored it kind of popped up today, and I was like, if there are other funding mechanisms, but we should be exploring everything because we do have to get catch up because like we've talked about with employee salaries, streets are little the same.

If you get behind, you're really in a bind.

And so we've got to be diligent to not get too far behind.

We're already a little behind.

We're not catastrophically behind yet.

Um, and we've we've got to be diligent um to make sure we don't get that bind.

So I I would just ask us, I think we're gonna have to have a work session over this again.

Um, but if there's any other funding mechanisms, I think we need to explore all options about how it can be done.

Yeah, I see your look on your face like there's not, but let's explore.

There are a couple that I want to make sure um y'all are aware of.

I mean, of course, grants are always things that we go after if we can get grant dollars.

We've used some CDBG money in certain qualifying areas, for example.

Umpact fees, to your point about development carrying part of their burden.

Anytime something new comes onto a site, they pay a roadway impact fee, which is 50 percent development and 50 percent the city.

So those working together put money into more the capacity build as opposed to the rebuild.

Um, and then the other thing that we're seeing out there amongst some cities, uh, I think Fort Worth uh talked about it.

I'm not sure if they did it or not.

Um, but uh just a street fee in general, right?

On on like a like a water utility bill where you have a stormwater fee, there's a there's a road fee, and it's dedicated 100% to roadway maintenance and or rebuilds, and there are cities that can do that, uh have done that.

What's a little unique about us is we've got the street maintenance sales tax, so that would be a a double barrel, if you will, but uh, but nonetheless, we're we're woefully short of where we need to be.

So if you use one to get one spot, one to get to another spot, that is a legally authorized way that we have not uh done in the past.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from council?

Dr.

Odom Wesley.

Thank you again, Keith, for this very comprehensive look.

Uh I'm starting to hear questions about preparation for the Grand Prix, and what is that gonna do to our streets?

Uh I don't know, it might need to be a future agenda item to bring that up.

Okay.

Um the answer to that question is any kind of uh impact to the streets relative to that as a is a cost of the event and or repair of the event.

So um if uh if you had something that kind of broke apart or peeled up, we'd be talking to those guys about fix our street.

You know, you put a you put a damage on the street, you need to fix the street.

So that's how we would handle that is it's a cost of the event, just like running you know World Cup is a cost of the event.

It's uh we've built a stadium and we provide police officers, but the event pays for security, the event pays for the activities, all of these events run similar situations.

So the Grand Prix is gonna pay to repair our streets.

Yes, ma'am.

The project the project will pay for for any repairs that are necessary there.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Before I closed before close, can I ask for a follow-up on exploring funding options on this?

Like like a council member hog suggested.

I think you just did.

Uh thank you.

Follow up to explore uh funding uh funding options.

Okay, thank you, Keith.

Appreciate you.

4.1, Mr.

Buskin.

Any appointment to boards or commissions tonight?

No, sir.

No appointments this evening.

Thank you.

4.2 council member external committee and training reports, Mr.

Hogg.

Let me pull up my mayor notes, Mayor.

Hold on, I don't have okay.

Can you jump to the next one, Mayor?

Then I'll come back.

Sure.

Sure.

Legislative update.

Natalie Ralson.

Good afternoon, Natalie Rawson and our governmental relations manager.

I don't have much of an update over the memo and the table that's in front of you, except to say that on SB 10, um, the conference committee uh repealed or pulled off the House amendments and sent uh sent that report out to both chambers.

And the House failed to adopt the the report this morning, so the bill's basically dead.

There's still a few procedural things left, but um that's really all I have is today as far as an update.

If there are any questions, I'm happy to answer those.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Hogg, are you ready?

Or I can't find my notes, but I'll go off some memory off North Central Texas Council of Governance.

We just had it.

Um, one real quick, I want to bring up and I appreciate I saw him in here.

I think he's hiding back there.

I see him Chief Sitham back here.

Um we had a uh a change on a policy, and it it's about a little of the fire code of what they're going, and then chief and a couple other chiefs came back and made some recommendations to council of governments um and chief pulled me aside, and so we got that approved so that it gives the city some flexibility on what we approve and what we can go with and move forward.

Um, council of governments is about to embark on a new strategic plan, which is a big piece of going on.

We have a new leader, um, an executive director that's over there.

Uh former Ellis County judge Todd Little is now leading the council of governments um from that perspective.

That's all I'll go with without my notes, and and it's the main majority of what we covered.

Thanks, sir.

Mayor 4.4 fiscal year 2026 budget, Mr.

Trey Elverton.

Mayor.

Yes, sir.

Can I just do a quick report on RTC?

I I mentioned last time that I applied to be on the subcommittee for their transit uh RTC transit.

I was selected.

I'm one of five non Transit Authority non-member cities, so I'm proud to represent Arlington.

Thank you, sir.

Mr.

Elvin.

Uh yeah, thanks, Mayor.

Members of the council trying to uh bring kind of our budget discussion to some kind of um uh you know uh close here as we get to the last uh stages of what we're talking about uh as just a quick reminder where we've been since November of last year.

It's been uh a road, right?

We've wrote you know, really been a long way down this road of trying to solve uh the challenges that we've got again, just referring to everyone all the various presentations we've talked about during that time, as well as the benchmarking of data when we compare ourselves to other cities, all still very relevant.

Um I do have a few couple of uh follow-ups from our last conversation that I want to uh hit on.

Um new, some some a little bit of good news, and then we'll talk about kind of where we're at.

But code compliance or continued discussion there relative to how fees and revenues are collected.

What I had the staff do was basically look in the code department and look at all revenues and all expenditures.

Um, and so when you take a look at the various types of fees, so we run a multifamily program like we were talking about last time, multi-family inspection fees, pay for multi-family inspection programs.

What we did is expand out all the revenue.

So it's weed and grass liens that are recaptured, nuisance abatement fees that are collected, registrations for duplexes or securing properties, et cetera, as well as the projection of code violation um citation revenue of 115,000.

Basically, when you tag that against the uh expenditures that are there, it's about a 37% cost recovery uh in totality.

Um multifamilies, 100%, but the rest is less so, right?

As we get back into the broader neighborhoods, um, just um uh context for the overall cost of uh code compliance.

Um positive news in uh garbage rate.

Um we've had some continuing discussions with um republic as it relates to the information that they've conveyed to us, and while it's not significant in uh in a in a huge way, nonetheless, it's still in the right direction.

We've been able to uh get a little bit of a uh uh rate reduction here.

We were at 99 cents per month.

That's gonna drop to 91 cents per month, so eight cents a month.

You know, it's a little little uh a little over a dollar a year, but nonetheless, again, in the right direction as it relates to progress there.

Um, and then as we talked about last time as it relates to the proposed budget, we've got in here some proposed adjustments based on what we talked about uh previously, uh, some fire inspection fees that Chief Stidham uh has proposed that uh are uh able to be accommodated with y'all's approval, as well as changes to the Terran appraisal district based on their modifications to their budget and and downtown.

It's around 244,000.

It is uh a seven-tenth of uh or.07 of a cent on the tax rate.

Um, and so would want to get some clarity on how you would like to apply that savings, whether or not it's something that we take and we put it just into the street budget, like you just heard from Keith.

It's really pretty straightforward, just roll it that way, or no, this is something we leave with taxpayers, and we go ahead and go from three to two point nine three and pull that down a little bit.

So that would be helpful to um get uh a little bit of wisdom uh there.

So for example, on this next slide where we've been showing you the rate, if we left it where we at is course is the rate that's under consideration, and here instead of 6298, it would become 629 if we applied that seven one hundredths of a point there, so we'd be slightly down in that category.

Um, but would you all have a preference on leave it at three or pull it down and apply the difference to streets or facilities or anything like that?

Mr.

Fam.

Uh Trey, I think we should leave it three in the leptal, but we can put the fixed road, like we guess some issue.

I think that's the right thing to do, and most constituent would not complain, you know.

This everybody in agreement with that.

I see yes.

Okay.

Several.

All right.

There you go.

Um, that was kind of one of the clarifications I wanted to get.

And then just as uh an overall reminder on everything about how we've how we've tried to build this year.

It started with the foundation of maintaining exemptions for property owners, right?

So uh tax exemptions, homestead, senior tax freeze, $51 million worth of relief uh reauthorized as part of the budget.

Um hearing the uh council's concern and desires to like let's let's look at fees, uh eight million dollars worth of fee adjustments and increased fees to try to minimize taxpayer investment here.

Um various reductions, you know.

Last year we reduced 5.8 million dollars of expense expenses and 22 positions, and this year is another 7.7 million dollars, 42 general fund positions and 22 other fund positions for a total of 64.

And then you know, uh unfortunately still uh uh tax adjustment of increase of 11 million dollars to kind of close the final gap.

Interestingly, even though this is higher than it's been the last two years, it's actually the least impactful to people on an average homestead.

That's part of what's so confusing.

Two years ago when the rate went down, it's actually more impactful than this going up.

It's it's just how this um system that's built works.

But again, not taking it uh from me or what I say, but what others say our investment community says recognize this as a strong growth and robust position, broad, sophisticated management system of which I include you all in that because we follow your policies.

Moody's talks about our strong financial management or adherence to formal policies that you all have adopted that enables stable performance.

Uh with some of the nonprofits and the other governmental entities out there, the GFOA, governmental financial officers of Texas has this as a triple triple crown winner, one of 28 in Texas.

Um Texas Comptroller has us one of fewer than 20 in the state that have all six transparency stars, and then government uh observers, truth and accounting has us and Plano as the only cities in Texas with a letter grade B or better, most others are C D or below.

And Wallet Hub has us with pl with um behind Lubbock as it relates to something the mayor was talking about being second best, not best.

We'll strive to be best, but second best.

So uh sharing kind of spotlight with Lubbock and Plano in those areas, but a lot of different people, a lot of different observers, a lot of different organizations who look at the city constantly and make observations.

So while this tough, this has been a long road that we've been down since November of last year, you know, uh good solid nine nine months of budgetary processes, uh a 25 million dollar budget challenge um solved through all of the collective work that we've put together.

I also believe that should we um you know conclude things the way that um we've kind of got teed up, because I I hear this concern a lot too, and not to say that future years won't be a challenge or that they won't need to be managed.

This year is a is a fundamentally restructuring and recalibration year.

25 million dollar adjustment is significant.

Uh and I don't think we'll have a 25 million dollar judgment or adjustment next year.

I hope that what we're gonna find is more of a sideways approach to where two years from now we're actually looking at a sideways to upward trajectory.

So in my mind, what we've done this last almost year is solve a structural budgetary imbalance that has been created around us.

Will we need to continue to sustain?

We will.

We'll need to be vigilant and we'll need to sustain and we'll need to stay focused so that we don't find ourselves uh in a different situation.

But knowing the rules as they are, and we know those change occasionally, but where we're at, I hope that we can start talking about the glass being half full and as opposed to being half empty uh after we complete the budgetary process here in the next couple of meetings.

So that's kind of how I wanted to uh leave it with you all, and then take whatever other kind of uh observations or feedback you'd like us to have, because we'll be ready for uh actual consideration and votes for tax rate and budget uh consideration at our next meeting.

So if there's anything else you need me to try to adjust or work in, I really would appreciate some feedback today on that because when we we start having to do motions and counter motions and all that, it'll get really confusing really fast.

So I'd really like to have it as smoothed out as we as we can.

Any suggestions, changes?

This is one of those speak now or forever hold your peace type of thing, because next week is the first vote on the budget and tax rate, and it will be too late to be doing stuff then.

So as far as I'm concerned, I have nothing additional, Trey, other than a huge thank you to you and your team for doing what y'all have done to help bridge this gap.

And uh nobody does it better than y'all do.

So thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

Neil's uh collective wisdom on this whole effort.

Councilmember Hogg.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

And and I agree with the mayor.

Thank you, Trey and staff for doing this on the same note.

I'm trying to cut till the very last second of figure out some of these and get clarification more, Trey, on some of these.

Is I I had some residents uh reach out with some extra questions and I didn't have the answers off the top of my head.

First off, um, can we just get a report on the you know 550,000 additional for cops hiring cash match, like how that's gone.

Has that been successful?

Because I I didn't have that answer.

So say again, the 550,000.

Yeah, I think in our in our budget, we allocated another 550,000 for the cash uh cops hiring cash match.

Okay.

And then a question I had on our one time, it's about 4.7 million dollars on our I uh request department under information technology.

It's about 4.7 in one time cost um for IT updates.

And I always until tell the residents, everyone IT updates are eventually gonna have to be done.

It matters if you can delay them, how long you can delay them.

As someone who's been on that other side of the vendor, I understand delays can occur with those.

Are those set in stone or are we at, you know, sometimes IT vendors will tell you you're at terminal failure point if you don't upgrade and this program's going away.

Um in a tight budget crunch.

If it's not and there is a time to delay, those are things, and those are one-time costs.

We're gonna have to have them.

But I'd like to know.

I see Enrique walking in.

Yeah, right there.

Yeah, he can maybe talk uh more specifically about some of the things that are in there.

There's about five or six as I recall.

Yeah, it's like five or six, it comes up to like four point six, four point seven right now.

And those are we typically we fund them out of one-time dollars because they're they are a change out of a system like in the past, it's been work day, or it's gonna be the permitting system for the Amanda replacement.

We don't kind of have that money in our budget every year, but we we take one time dollars and we we buy Amanda this year and then we sustain the license, or we buy it in Questa for water the next year and we sustain the licenses.

But he can talk in more detail about what's exactly made up in those numbers.

Keep it on a higher level for us, but yeah, please that will have it.

Good afternoon, Enrique Martinez, the IT director.

So um, what particular line item are you talking about there, Councilmember Hog?

Uh projects.

The project FY26 IT project, like increasing the video surveillance expansion is what is that 627,000.

Then you've got IT log electronic document storage 193, logistics inventory management for fire 141, and then the big one, um, the Amanda replacement for 3.8 million dollars.

Yes, sir.

So we can start with the Amanda replacement.

That system's been in place since early 2000s, so it is up for modernization.

So a lot of the funding associated with that particular project are one-time cost to buy into the system, but also the implementation services.

Um, the video surveillance, that is a continuation of a project that we started in fiscal year 25 to outfit our parks and rec facilities with modernized security cameras.

But I will share that some of the monies that you're showing there in FY26.

That particular project and FY25 came in under budget.

So we're rolling over some of those funds for a continuation of the expansion.

We do face a lot of damage and vandalism across our facility.

So we're in that in essence protecting our assets.

The um so on that one, should we expect that?

Is it a one-time, or do we think that's gonna have to build in some recurring cost?

That is one-time cost, and that is for the cost of installation provided by our managed service provider, along with buying one-time costs of the security cameras.

Okay.

And what about Amanda?

Is there is that you know that's the bulk of it of your cost?

Is there is there is that a drop dead we have to be done, or is that because in essence you could lower the tax rate by a cent for this year and not increase if you delayed that Amanda.

I know that's all that's a big it is it is a very uh it is a it's a much needed investment, but I would ask if I could come back in a future agenda item.

I do believe that we'll come in under budget with that, but we are currently in negotiations, and so that is a budgetary estimate by which we evaluate the market, but it is due for modernization.

A lot of the functionality that we can currently provide to developers in our community is very limited, and there is no continued uh modernization of the system as we know it today.

Okay, so it's the one we gotta either spend this year or next year, no matter what, it's gonna have to be done.

Ideally this year, and so as I mentioned, we will bring back um a council item in early October, no later than November to request authorization for that investment.

Okay.

Trey, I see you.

I'm just gonna comment.

This was probably of of most of the new investments and the amanda replacements one of the highest because after you hear about employee concerns with uh comp and roads, developer feedback is right up there as far as the modernization and current technology and how we're compared and contrasted with other cities of electronic uh submissions and electronic and AI type review.

So it's our hope that some of the tools that would come in here would lead to some AI type improvements, which might uh let us be much more efficient.

You're selling me on efficiency.

You you should have led with that from the start, because as we've reduced employees, y'all know from long time I'm willing to invest in technology every time if it can show efficiency.

The goal is that these plan reviews that take a person to actually look at them.

I mean, we'll still need that, don't get me wrong, but if I can get the classic 8020 or 9010 rule where the computer does a good nine tenths of the work and then it's finished off by by human to clean it up, that's exactly what we would want to do.

Y'all should lead with that.

I I appreciate that.

Let me two more questions, Trey.

Let me ask.

Um, what's the change on the police SRO?

Um, because I think that's a 3.7 million dollars that we're now pushing to um AISD, if I'm correct.

So is that just a we talked about in the past, is that a budget negotiation of allocation of dollars?

Because they'd always paid 85% and 15, but we hadn't really adjusted in the past.

Is that where that's coming from?

They do the same, it's the same uh share.

As far as I know, there's not a fundamentally a difference that's been made there.

It's all about what's the cost of the program and how it's gone up, but the cost share of them doing nine months and us doing three months is the same.

So then looking through the budget, and someone brought this up to me, and I'd missed it in my first review.

Um, it's a 3.7 million dollar savings to us that I would assume is going to AISD.

I think it's a $3.7 million program cost that's reimbursable by the AISD, that proportion.

The overall program is probably more like four and a half, whatever the 25% would be.

They reimburse us the 3.7.

The difference is what we pay for.

Gotcha, thank you.

And then crossing guards, I thought so.

We're pushing that cost to AIC, correct?

It is.

Um, that's gonna need to be a supplemental um uh interlocal agreement and working with the schools.

They didn't want to commingle the SRO ILA with the crossing guard LA, so we're gonna be separate.

However, I do want to be clear too, it's a that's a broader discussion as it relates to other costs that the that the that the uh school has relative to uh cost of doing business with the city.

And so while they're gonna take more of our general fund obligation and split it roughly 50-50.

Um, there is an offset for fire line fees from the water utility that helps keep them whole relative to that.

Gotcha, that's helpful.

I know they will ask that question.

And last question, Trey.

Um Arlington on demand um via help me, and you've talked it through before on on the funding mechanisms of what we have from transportation, and it's the largest portion of our transportation funding.

Um as we've seen, you know, 23 actual of 772, and then it it's it's going in the wrong direction.

It's going from 772, 579, to then we estimate 500,000, and we're only estimating 475,000 riders.

So, what has our cost done based on just what we provide Arlington on demand?

And I know we've got some funding mechanisms that are tough because we get federal grants from that also.

Yeah, um, can y'all talk me through that that spending mechanism?

Because last I thought was about $8 million is what the city contributed.

It's probably it's probably a little less than that.

Now I think the total program is in that eight to nine million dollar range uh and around three and a half, three and a half to four is federal.

And I think it's more like uh we probably effectively uh pay around 55 to 60 percent of it, where the feds pay around 40 to 45 percent of it.

Um, and the reason you're seeing some of the numbers I think go a little uh sideways or down is candidly, we are um we're providing less service because we've had to constrain the system in the sense of we can't we can't continue to just let it go grow, grow, grow.

So we have built in a little bit of obsolescence in that to where it's maybe a little slightly uh not not quite as convenient.

So you might have a uh uh 18-minute wait time instead of a 15 minute wait time, those kinds of issues.

So as a result, people opt out to not choose that product because we haven't made it that convenient, right?

So you'll see a lesser demand.

I could make it, I could make the demand go off the chart through modify through modifications that are much more friendly.

But what we really tried to do is make a safety net here, right?

And an essential service, but not not one that's providing a ride for everyone to all, you know, it does certainly provide for anyone who's willing to pay for any part of town, but it's not optimal, it's not as optimal as it used to be, I guess is what I'm saying.

We've built in a little bit of uh demand mitigation so that we can we could manage the cost of the program.

And help me did we, and I know we've talked about did we increase our fees to be able to ride that one some places.

We have in the past.

We are in the process of doing that again.

So the maximum ride today is five dollars from anywhere to anywhere in town.

We'll be bringing to you it'll be in October, maybe even early November, a modification that would probably take that up to seven dollars, depending on the length of the ride, right?

Because it doesn't make sense if you're coming from far south near Mansfield and you're going to the airport that you pay five dollars when seven would be a fairer cost for that kind of ride.

So we are making some modifications to the fare, but we've got to go through some public notices and things like that under FTA that will work their way to you guys.

And I don't think that's not directly affects our budget and the mayor's talk in this, so it's not we have a clean budget next week, but I I asked this question because this is a perfect time to ask these type of questions.

Um, and then as it's coming forward of what we're doing, because we've got to start working on the budget for next year.

Absolutely.

Um never too early.

December 16th when that second vote goes on.

Um, and and I I get a little worried on those numbers going down, but also you heard me say multiple times.

I want to make sure sure people are paying their fair share for sure.

Um, those that really need it, we should be helping as much as possible.

But also there's some that don't need it who may not be paying their fair share, which would be my biggest concern.

So that's all the questions I have uh currently running on this budget.

Thank you, Ms.

Trog.

Anybody else?

Thank you, Trey.

I appreciate you.

Uh 4.5 evening agenda items.

Any questions or comments on this evening's agenda items?

Councilmember Boxel.

Thank you.

I have a couple of questions.

One is uh item 6.2 um contract for concrete repair services.

Um I would like to know where, but uh the main thing that I'd like to comment on that is that if we could in general have more specificity in these items, we so that we don't have to do this every time.

So uh that was the main point I had on that.

Uh do we have uh do we know where that's gonna be?

So this uh this con Alex Whiteway, director of water utilities, this concrete contract is basically in place.

So we do small repairs in-house.

This is just doing an annual requirements contract, our large concrete work whenever we dig up water main breaks, fire hydrants, whatever.

This is gonna cover our main thoroughfare contracts.

Okay, so this is just having to do with repairs.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay that's it.

It's not actual, yeah, just repairs out in the system.

Okay, and it's good that you're here because the next one on one second.

And it's not it's not specific because it can't be.

It's it's anywhere in the city wherever the repair is needed, it could be on your block or on my block or really any block.

Okay, but I didn't even know that it had to do with water main repair or anything like that.

So that a little bit more specificity there would be great.

Okay, and then the next one would be 6.9 and 6.16.

Both of those having to do with the Pierce Birch water treatment plant and backwash improvements.

Uh I'm wondering why there are two separate items on that.

Um, and could you explain those a little bit more?

Yes, ma'am.

And you don't have to get super technical because I wouldn't understand it anymore.

Yes, ma'am.

So uh 6.16, that's the actual uh contract for the construction work with Archer Western.

So that is going to replace we have 20 filters out at the Pierce Birch Water Treatment Plant.

We're replacing granular activated carbon.

It's part of the treatment process, don't want to nerd out on you, but um, so it's doing a lot of work on piping out there.

A lot of that stuff's about 40 to 50 years old.

And then 6.9 is the construct is the um inspection contract with plumber to do to inspect all the work.

There's a lot of complex um work that's done when you're working at a water treatment plant.

So that is then for them to be out on site for about two and a half years doing inspection every single day.

Okay, and on both of these items, were they expected items or unexpected items?

They were expected.

This has been in our master plan since 2017.

Okay.

That's great.

Thank you.

And let's see what else I have here.

Um the next one is 6.25 modifications to the interlocal agreement with UTA for the Rapid Project.

My understanding the Rapid Project was discontinued.

Is that correct?

Um yes, and Foss uh planning and programming manager for the transportation department.

The service ended in May, but there was a large research component that went along with the service.

Uh and so UTA has requested some additional time to complete that research, make sure that they can um publish that information, and that often takes quite a long time to go back and forth through the case.

So that's the only the that we're just extending the the contract just so that they have time to put the research together.

That's correct.

It's just uh a few extra months, no change in cost.

Great, thank you.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

Um let's see what else I have.

Uh nope, that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Boxell.

Just so council will understand.

I'm gonna pull 6.18 from the consent agenda.

Um, because that was addressing relocation of uh the field or square project over there, and we're gonna uh need a motion to table that uh for a later time until we get that complex and those issues figured out.

Anyone else on this evening's agenda item?

Okay.

Uh we're gonna move on down to 4.6 issues relative to city and tech stop projects.

Seeing non-future agenda items 4.7.

Council member Pham.

Well, Mr.

Mayor, uh recently uh a couple of small business owners, they own a small restaurant here in uh Arlington.

They're approaching me.

Uh their citizen here in our city, uh cooking food and settled online, and they would undercut number one.

It it help has us.

They don't pay food inspector, they don't they don't pay for the uh permit and they don't pay for the the CO.

But uh they heard some of the business um around David Dang area.

And uh I tried to place them and I contact uh uh co-compliant uh Mr.

Guska C say you look into it.

I want him to do a study, see we can do something, and uh maybe um I wouldn't lobby our state legislature sponsored a bill that we need to correct our enough because they what they do they take the cell tax and do stuff illegally cooking food just like I cook food at my house and I sell it.

I don't I don't pay sale tax, I don't have food inspective fee that I pay, I don't have to pay for CO and other kind of stuff going on right now in the city.

Okay, and are you wanting some type of report on how to see if uh co-compliant can do some digging and uh see what we can do and I might contact uh my state representative Mr.

Chris Turner and then ask him to do something about it in the future.

We can we can see if uh our our co-compliance folks can give us any report on where we're at with something like that.

Anything else?

Future agenda items.

Okay, with that, we're gonna adjourn the afternoon session, and we'll see everybody downstairs at 6 30 this evening.

Appreciate y'all.

For something that needs to be done, animal shelters and helping take care of the little critters that wander through here.

I'm Jay Warren and welcome back to Piecing It Together.

The City of Arlington is facing a challenging fiscal year 2026.

Throughout the next several months, we'll be providing a high-level look at the economic and situational factors shaping this year's budget.

Now back in 2005, Arlington voters approved a senior tax freeze, which caps the amount homeowners age sixty-five and older pay the city in property taxes, even if their home values go up.