Good afternoon, everybody.

It is uh roughly 17 till four o'clock on August the 11th, and I call to order the community development committee meeting.

Order.

So, first item of business, the approval of the June 9th, 2026 meeting minutes.

Oh move.

Motion moved.

Second from Deborah.

Is that you, Deborah?

That's me.

Okay.

Any discussion, corrections?

Seeing and hearing none, all in favor decay by saying aye.

All right.

Nays.

No nays passes.

Gets us to our briefings.

Uh, who is the lucky individual, Chris, uh, to give us uh something uh along the lines of egret mitigation.

Can you hear me?

Thank you.

Okay.

So maybe we'll bring the tone down after that lengthy budget presentation.

All right.

So uh so maybe not because they're all over my neighborhood.

We will definitely get to that in the areas they are.

So, mayor pro timing council members, thank you for having us today.

My name's Chris McAllister, assistant code compliance director, specifically for animal control.

Behind me, we have Teresa Thomason, she's the deputy director for parks and recreation.

Uh, and her and I are going to be pitch hitting this together.

So move right in.

So here's a purpose overview.

Uh today we're gonna talk about seasonal egret impacts, how they affect the neighborhoods.

We're gonna summarize briefly the coordinated mitigation efforts, review some legal legal framework uh what guides our response, uh and then highlight some activities that we've done for this 26th season.

So a little history.

Uh each year the egrets fly in.

Typically, we'll see the night herons come in, they come in as scout birds.

What they're doing is they're looking for the thick canopy trees, uh, some water sources, and they will start nesting, and then the other egrets will come in and kind of follow suit.

Um we typically see them come in around February, March.

They will leave September, August time frame.

Uh, and then those those that overstay their welcome leave around October.

Uh, and so this year we are hoping to get them out sooner than later.

Um what they're attracted to again is the mature trees.

Once they do nest, our efforts are our mitigation uh opportunities uh go down.

Uh but the the impact of the neighborhoods that you see on the slide is the odors, the noise, the damage to private property, uh, and what we see with those is increased complaints uh from the citizens and the residents.

Okay.

So moving on to legal framework.

So our response, the city's response is guided by legal or by state and federal uh framework, uh, specifically the federal migratory treaty act, uh, as well as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Code.

Uh once the once they nest, which is eggs or hatchlings, uh, again, our opportunities uh become limited.

Uh at that point, it is simply maintenance, uh, if you will, much like we did uh in some properties for the 26 and the 25 season, uh, which is why deterrence is always key.

We do hold a federal permit.

I have one person in the city, it's Christopher Lorette in animal control.

He is the only permit holder.

Uh, every year we apply for that permit uh and we receive it sometimes a little longer than we like to see, but we do receive the permit, and that establishes how many nests and eggs that we can disrupt that year.

Uh our goal is always deterrence.

Our goal is never to rely on the permit.

Because what we'll find is what happened in a few years where we run out of the permit.

Uh you and I, sir, we had that conversation, you know, a year and a half ago.

Uh so again, even the federal government, when they're issuing these permits out, it's very clear in the application the deterrence is key.

We can't get the permit unless we have deterrence plan in place.

And so that's one of the things uh leading into this season.

Uh and you and I talked extensively, Councilman.