Arlington City Council Special Meeting - September 8, 2026
Arlington City Council Special Meeting - September 8, 2026
The Arlington City Council held a special meeting on September 8, 2026, starting at 1:00 PM with an executive session, followed by work session discussions on the housing annual report and financial stability, and an issues session covering budget, voting locations, and other items. The meeting concluded with committee reports and future agenda items.
Discussion Items
- Arlington Housing Annual Report (3.1): The Housing Authority reported on its FY27 budget of approximately $52 million, serving an average of 3,200–3,300 families. The Housing Choice Voucher program is projected at $55 million. The Family Self-Sufficiency program graduated seven families, with 103 currently enrolled. One family achieved homeownership through the voucher program. The housing rehab program completed over 40 rehabs using HOME and CDBG funds.
- Preserve Financial Stability and Resilience (3.2): CFO Spencer Slater presented the third-quarter update. Key projects include the North Place substation (completion spring 2027), e-builder software integration, AI-enhanced call center for the Action Center, e-discovery software for the city attorney’s office, new budget software vendor (UNO), and upgrades to police e-citation and parks mobile app. The challenge grant program is complete with 16 of 22 positions resolved.
- Capital Improvements Program Advisory Committee (4.1): Council took no action; the semi-annual report was presented without discussion.
- Community and Neighborhood Development (4.2): Councilmember Hogg reported that the C&D committee reviewed the PY2025 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER), which detailed $4.5 million in investments benefiting over 28,000 residents. Staff recommended ordinance modifications for single-family shared rental properties, including permitting requirements, adoption of the International Property Maintenance Code, and limiting one lease per rental property. The committee supported these recommendations and requested further stakeholder outreach, including a town hall meeting.
- Budget (4.5): City Manager Trey Elberton presented modifications to the FY2027 budget. The only new item is an increase of $195,000 in hotel occupancy tax revenue to support the CVB's rebranding campaign. Staff recommended adopting the tax rate of $0.6298 per $100 valuation (the no-new-revenue rate), rejecting higher rate options. The budget includes 3% across-the-board employee raises. Water rates are increasing, but Arlington remains one of the lowest in the region. Council will hold a first reading of the budget and tax levy that evening, with final adoption on September 15.
- Tarrant County November Election Polling Sites (4.6): Discussion centered on the County Commissioners Court’s decision to reduce election day polling locations in Arlington from 64 to 42 (a reduction of 22 sites) and early voting from 7 to 6. Councilmembers expressed strong opposition, noting the disproportionate impact on minority and lower-income neighborhoods and the closure of the UTA polling location. A resolution was proposed to formally oppose the reduction, request restoration of the UTA site, and continue free VIA transportation to polls. The resolution will be voted on at the September 29 meeting.
- Future Agenda Items (4.9): Councilmembers requested updates on the HEAT team, a holistic approach to street naming, a discussion on Flock cameras, and a potential parking ticket enforcement study.
Key Outcomes
- Council will hold a first reading of the FY2027 budget and tax levy at the adopted rate of $0.6298 (no-new-revenue rate) with a final vote on September 15, 2026.
- A resolution opposing the reduction of Arlington polling locations will be drafted and voted on at the September 29, 2026 meeting. The resolution will include a request to reinstate the UTA polling site and a commitment to provide free VIA transportation to polling places.
- Council accepted the annual housing report and financial stability update as presented.
Meeting Transcript
It's fun, it's community, it's comradeship, it's I'm doing something useful, and I enjoy it. We're actually doing something for something that needs to be done, animal shelters and helping take care of the little critters that wander through here. We're gonna go ahead and call the afternoon session of the Arlington City Council meeting to order. Mindy, before you get going. I love doing this. When the city attorney freaks out because I go off real. Come up here and help me with this. But a number of council members have come to me. Lauren has been here all summer long helping us as an intern. So we're going to do a little something special for her for Lauren Viegas in recognition and sincere appreciation of your outstanding volunteer service and dedicated contributions as an intern with the office of the mayor and city council of Arlington. Your professionalism, commitment, and spirit of public service exemplify the values that strengthen our community. This is a housing authority annual report today. This is just the agenda that we're going to go through. The housing authority supports, as you all know, low-income families throughout the year. We had about $52 million budget. You can see the budget for the various programs there. Our housing choice voucher program for FY27 is going to be about $55 million, so a three million dollars more than it was in FY25. This here shows our balance sheet and our revenues. And our total revenues were 50 almost 56 million. We're projecting 60 million in FY27. We were serving about an average of 3200, almost 3300 families throughout the year. On the right hand side, I think that's really important. We're charged with making sure that all of our programs and the clients that we serve follow the regulations and our administrative plan. And when they don't, um we call them on the carpet. So about 30 families were terminated for violation of program rules over the over the course of the year. This shows the number of inspections that are done throughout the year. And our inspection team is a team of three. Two full-time inspectors and a supervisor that also supervises housing rehab. So they're a very efficient group. They do a lot of work and they're led by Jessica Perry, sitting right behind me here. For folks that have decided that they don't want to be in this position all their lives. They want to improve their situation and whether that's their income or their credit score or their education. We have a team that supports them through the family self-sufficiency program. And they set their goals. They have five years to achieve them. And we had seven graduates last year and have had over 175 since the housing authorities have been there. Currently, we have 103 families. Those families can also use their voucher to purchase a home, and the easiest way to build wealth for an individual or a family is through homeownership. So we have set a goal every year of four of four families achieving home ownership. Last year we had one achieve that. And if you think about these are folks that are very low income to start with, right? So they have to have the same credit employment history savings as anybody else that's buying a home. So it's a really difficult thing to achieve, so we're always happy to celebrate when we can do that. This slide shows our many, many homeless programs. So they all these programs here, nurse family, shelter plus care, they serve different populations of homeless. So they each have their own individual eligibility requirements and program requirements. So lots of small programs, which honestly makes it more difficult to administer, and all these programs plus FSS are administered by Ms. Jimmy Sandberg, sitting right behind me in the red. So I'm gonna go back to that real quick. Some of these programs because HUD has been sued twice now over the notice of funding availability.
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