Go ahead and get our seats and get comfortable.

I do want us to be good stewards of your time tonight.

We're going to go ahead and get started.

Typically, when we have these meetings, I like to go around the room and have you stand up and tell us what neighborhood you're from and all that fun stuff, but I do want us to stay on track tonight.

I want to make sure that we get everybody out on time.

So what I do want to do though is I want you to rep your neighborhood.

Tell us what neighborhood you're from.

I mean, who's proud of their neighborhood?

Tell us what neighborhood you're from.

Okay, okay.

I didn't hear you in the back.

Okay, Corinthian Point.

I see you in the house.

Okay.

Thank y'all for all being here.

Uh good evening.

I do want to say again, thank you all for being here.

I know that it's always difficult on a weekday.

Uh, folks are coming from work, making sure they are prepared to go back to work on tomorrow.

So I know that this is a sacrifice.

But I have to tell you, it's always exciting when I know we are pulling our neighborhood leaders together.

It takes a community of civic club leaders, HOA presidents, super neighborhood presidents to really make this district work.

And I know what it takes to lead the way each of you are leading in our district.

I know what it takes to answer the call when something's not right on your street or something's not right in your neighborhood.

I know that a lot of these issues don't come with easy solutions, but we are excited that you have stepped up as a president of either your civic club, your HOA, your super neighborhood, or an organization in District K.

Because the folks in this room today, you really are the backbone of District K.

You are the ones who organize when no one else wants to step up.

You know how you've been in the meetings, and somebody says, Will somebody take the notes?

Nope, no one raises their hand.

It's always the folks in this room that always step up.

You are the ones who notice when things begin to slip or change in your neighborhoods.

You are the ones that are constantly in communication with our team.

And like I said, we know it's not easy, but I hope you know that our District K team, the mayor and I are here to work alongside each of you every day as you are continuing to make your neighborhoods better.

Tonight we are here and we are going to talk about uh short-term rentals.

That has been a big topic that we've talked about in our civic clubs.

We're going to talk about prohibited yard parking, and we're going to get an update from our director of Solid Way.

So these are three of the top topics that y'all have said you wanted to talk about.

We've pulled our team together tonight so we can answer your questions and hear from you.

At City Hall, when we make policy, when we make public policy, we don't do that without the public.

And so we are listening to you.

We want to hear from you, and we are encouraging each of you to use your voices and participate and engage with us as we are making these policies.

So tonight is a work session.

I want you to relax.

There, this is a safe space.

Everybody relax.

We are a kind, gentle group.

When the mayor comes up, I want y'all to remember we're a kind, gentle group.

When the directors come up, don't y'all embarrass me.

We are a kind, gentle group.

No, I say that in jest, but I do want you to know that we are listening to you.

We hear you, and we are very honored to work alongside you.

Um as we continue our conversations today, I think that it will be important for you to know that we are also recording on HTV.

We will have a link for all of our presidents to share with their civic clubs and HOAs when you have your meeting if you want to watch it, fast forward to the parts that are important to you.

And then we will also link it in our newsletter next month so we can have that information, all this information throughout the district.

Tonight I'm super excited that we have been joined by Mayor John Whitmire.

Uh, when you see us on the news, I'm sitting to his left.

Um yeah, I'll just leave it at that.

He we we meet on a weekly basis.

Um he shares his heart, and I will tell you, I have a front row seat at watching him toil over decisions for the city of Houston.

And so I'm very honored that he came to be with us tonight to hear from you and to share his thoughts with you.

Uh, ladies and gentlemen, help me welcome to District K, our mayor, John Whitmire.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim.

You know, one of the major responsibility of mayor is appointment to positions of importance, certainly boards and commissions, advisory groups, but also the responsibility of choosing a mayor pro tem.

It's the first appointment you make.

And I had watched Martha with her fellowship and activity in the municipal league when I was in Austin.

She would testify, but I didn't really know her.

But let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I really know her now.

And I don't regret one day the choice that I made councilmember Martha Castic Tatum, the mayor pro temp.

She's been an invaluable advisor, and I don't make major decisions without the input and advice of Martha.

And I'll also share with you one of my pet peeves is I don't like elected officials or even candidates that show up, have an opportunity to greet you, and then leave.

But I have no choice tonight because at 7 o'clock at U of H campus, they're going to roast and toast Dr.

Murray, a longtime political science professor that I'm sure many of you have observed through the years.

He was my college professor in 1972 at U of H, and I needed more time for a paper.

So I went by his office for more time, and he was looking at a redistricting map.

In 1972, the first time we'd run from single member districts.

Before that, you ran countywide.

So it was pretty much an influential white male.

You either were on a slate or you had your own money.

But the Supreme Court said no, that doesn't work for communities.

We have single member districts, which later we did for council and certainly the school board.

So Dr.

Murray looking at this new map, and he said, where do you live?

And I showed him Oak Forest.

He said, Well, there's no incumbent in that district.

So I looked at my church, my high school was there, and I said, Look like they drew that one for me.

So I went home and told my parents I didn't want to go to school in the spring.

I wanted to run for the legislature.

And I did it knocking doors.

I had saved a couple of thousand for law school, but I did it knocking doors.

And that works then and it works now.

And I've observed Martha's relationship with her district.

She knows who makes a difference.

I've driven the district with her.

And she is a model for a single member district.

And I'll even say she could carry her model citywide, any type district she chooses to run for.

And I'll certainly uh be there supporting her.

But she's a very valuable and the concept that we're witnessing tonight.

I've been a state rep and senator for 50 years.

I worked with each individual president, but the idea of having a team and coming together is one heck of an idea.

So I'm stealing an idea tonight.

But let's talk about the city of Houston.

First of all, I was enjoying being a state center, the longest serving state center, chairman of criminal justice.

But I was asked by Houstonians to come to Houston to help fix some some things that had been neglected.

I can remember on the streets as a Houstonian, we're not in the condition that we allowed them to get there to neglect.

Broken water means public safety.

So it was a tough decision, but I never regret that I made the decision because we have a strong city, and it's getting stronger each and every day because we're going in the right direction.

Now I know your concerns, solid ways, public safety, our streets, our drainage, our water, and I just want you to be assured if things were working, I would I'd still be back in the Senate.

I know that we have challenges, but like all major cities, we have challenges.

The difference is we're meeting our challenges.

I'm so proud of the team.

If you ask me what am I most proud of, it's the team, it's the directors that I've brought to City Hall.

They're diverse, they're intelligent, they're compassionate, they're honest, and you'll witness some of them tonight, and I thank them for their public service.

But you're only as good as the people that you surround yourself with.

We have challenges like all major cities, but we're meeting our challenges, but we need help.

We need your input.

We need you to share with us what you hear on the street.

Because I can tell you from being in public office my whole adult life in nearly most parts of Houston because of redistricting through the years, it's shifted me from the east side to certainly my base has always been Northwest, Acres Home, Oak Forest.

But you can go across the city and tell where there is a strong civic club presence, where there's civic involvement.

There's no doubt, and I I said that for years and years.

You can go into a neighborhood that is unkept, stray animals, grown up, and you know they do not have a strong civic association or homeowner association or super neighborhood.

So let me just tell you keep it up.

You're making a difference.

And my door, Martha's door, is always open.

The directors, they're passionate, they're competent.

Many of them came out of retirement to work for me.

And uh I don't have a lot of patience.

I'm I'm willing to give eight years of some of the best remaining years of my life to the city of Houston.

So we are we're in a hurry.

We want to get it done.

We have our critics, but that's part of the business we're in.

That it helps you even be better.

So thank you.

I'm gonna excuse myself, but I will stand here long enough to answer any uh question that somebody wants to stand up and anybody have a burning question.

If I see the bed today, I'm gonna address it.

Yeah, please do.

Public safety is still my highest priority.

If we're not safe, nothing else matters, and then infrastructure and certainly the city services.

Yes, ma'am.

I have a burning question, but I've been on the house for a long time.

With the warehouses that are going up, is there any way for any community to know that any of these warehouses will be housed with the mainframe computers for AI that could increase our electricity costs?

Or being his live in Quail Run.

Obviously, without zoning and property rights being so reinforced at the state level, it's really hard for us to block those developments.

But that's a good first question because that's something that has not crossed my desk.

But I will work with planning.

Certainly Martha being familiar with that development, I'll yield to her and her knowledge of that area.

Thank you, Mayor.

We know you got a good journal on the feature that got him in the minute.

So on your question, I will tell you that um, you know, when they build those warehouses, they do have to pull a permit.

There's a way that you can actually look those permits up, and then we can see what's actually going to go into those um warehouses.

So we'll work with our chief of staff.

We had that as a note for us to have a working session to show presidents how to look up those permits so you can actually find them online.

All right.

So before we get started on our presentations, I do need to ask: is there anyone in the room that you became a president of your civic club, HOA, or super neighborhood in 2026?

First time president in the room.

Come on up.

Okay, all you presidents who've been presidents for a long time.

You meet some of these new presidents, and we want to wrap them with love and kindness because what is one of the hardest jobs that we have ever done is to be a neighborhood, civic club, HOA, super neighborhood president.

So let's give them a hand.

Thank y'all.

What neighborhoods?

Chasewood.

Super neighborhood board.

And Ms.

Barber, what is 287?

Precinct 287.

Congratulations and welcome to the hard work.

Okay, our first presentation tonight is going to be an update from the director of Solid Waste.

We get a lot of questions about solid waste in our communities.

We get emails about trash not being picked up, our heavy trash being behind.

But I want you to meet director Larryus Hassan.

He has been with the city now for one year.

He had to wrap his arms around.

Well, he's been the director of Solid Waste for one year.

He hasn't been with the city one year, but the director of Solid Waste for one year.

He's had to wrap his arms around what was happening in the city of Houston.

And he is here tonight to give us an update on Solid Waste.

We'll take about uh five or ten minutes to hear from him, and we'll open it up for a few questions on solid waste.

So, Director Hassan, thank you for joining us in District K tonight.

Good evening, everyone.

Yeah, I'm gonna take it off.

We're gonna start off with exactly what Mayor Pro Tim said.

We're gonna be kind.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Larry Assassin.

I have the honor and privilege of being uh the director of solid waste management.

I just want to come by tonight to give you an update and answer some much needed answers to some questions that I know a lot of you that have.

So, in the beginning of about roughly about a year ago, I had the honor and privilege of stepping into this role in which uh it seemed to be very challenging from day one that we stepped in.

The moment we stepped in, we found our streets laced with black and green cans for several, several, several days.

The first thing that the mayor uh and mayor pro tem challenged me with is we have to be better at public service.

So the main thing that we needed to be is accountability in our department.

It was a lot of excuses, a lot of things that said, oh, we can't do it without trying different methods.

And the first thing I'm gonna tell you is that sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I do not have all of the answers just yet, but we're working diligently to get to render a service that not only does the city employees want to give, but the services that you all deserve.

The first thing we did was we tackled the green and black hands, the trash and recycling.

We were days and weeks behind on it with the help of city council, Mayor Pro Tem, Mayor Whitmar, leading those efforts.

We were able to get approximately 38 trucks on our city streets, which helped tremendously.

We went from working 16, 17 hours a day to shorten to 10.

Sometimes now we're getting most of 80% of our staff off in eight hours so they can have a proper work-life balance.

What that means is they have a proper work-life balance, that means the productivity will increase.

What we had to do was change from an operational standpoint from routes.

I have our assistant director here, Mr.

Shiva Singh, who we brought over from our brothers and sisters from public works to assist with route optimization, which means we get trucks on the streets in time to pick up these cans to get drivers home to be with their families.

We're at about a 98% uh collection rate with trash, and we're about 94, 95% with recycling.

The tree, the green cans and black cans that lined our city streets are dwindling down to we're almost at 100% complete.

That is something that I don't think no one knows how hard that was to accomplish their goal.

As soon as we thought that we could breathe a little bit, we got a very big shocking discovery on the news, and that was about delivery cans.

Let me be the first to tell you when we got the cans and the green cans and black cans picked up, and they I remember the mayor called me's like, you can't pick up the cans, you can't deliver them.

I was like, we're picking them up.

He's like, You're not delivering them.

Like, oh God, we can't deliver cans.

We had a backlog of about 5,000 SRs of people that were waiting on cans.

When we got there, believe it or not, only I cannot get these six numbers to line up on his lottery ticket, but I can get a job where we can't deliver cans, and the contract expired today, two weeks after I got there.

So we were working diligently to put the contract in place.

Of course, we have one in place, and now we've shrunk that backlog in half on delivering cans.

One thing I'm most proud of is now it's been a week and a half, and I know you guys don't know this, but we have breaking news.

The solid waste management department now has a customer service line.

We have a line now where you can not only call 311, once you get your SR, you can call Solid Waste Management and get a live agent from 7.30 to 4.30 Monday through Friday.

We take all the wins we can, Ms.

Emerson.

So this gives an opportunity for residents to call in to speak to a customer service rep.

If you have a 311 case number, you can get an update on that case number.

Whether it's heavy trash, miss recycling, miss garbage, can delivery, you can get a live update so you don't have to wait for 311 to give you a call back.

So now we're gonna jump into the meat and potatoes on why I'm here.

Heavy trash update.

What is going on with heavy trash?

About two or three months ago, I had the bright idea to go with the program that was on demand simply because I felt not pressure from Mayor Pro Tim or the mayor.

I felt the pressure on myself and staff that we were trying to turn something around very quickly.

I wanted to do something right now, right now.

Before we decided to launch this program, I wanted to make sure that we did everything right because the new program that I had mentioned will require several months of education on how the program will work.

Mayor We're my armor, Mayor Pro Tim had great questions like, hey, what can we do with the current program?

Have we took a dick dive and looked at it?

I had not.

What do what happens when today was the day that you were coming to pick up, but you were here last week on the residence that did put out today.

What do we do?

We have a truck that's coming behind.

We're currently under a new program that we're using.

I come before you humbly asking that I for help.

We need your help.

You are the leaders of your civic clubs, I mean your HOAs, your neighborhoods.

We have a lot of people that are not placing residential trash in front of them homes.

That slows us down tremendously.

When we come out to a house and it's over eight cubic yards, that requires multiple loads from one location.

We need to get the residential trash to eight cubic yards or less and move.

When we come in out and we're seeing a home that has about, we're gonna hypothetically say 1,500 square feet, and we're picking up seven toilets, three uh bathtubs, five sinks, and the drivers calling me like, hey, this didn't come out of that house.

And we know it didn't come out of the house.

So we received calls from several constituents saying, hey, I see a Dodge RAM out here there.

Uh they got two traders unloading, and I remember I didn't get a name.

I was like, ma'am, I need you to call the police because that's illegal dumping.

But we need your help.

You know the neighbors that are coming out and they're dumping trash every week.

I don't know how many people can remodel their home seven times in one year.

Our services are for residential trash.

If we get the eight cubic yards, we can come get it.

So the update is we're currently on the same program that you have.

We're about six to seven days behind because we implemented this correction of the current program.

We've been doing it by two and a half weeks approximately.

Miss DD does a fabulous job.

If it's no person that I know is Miss DD, because she calls me and emails me with all the concerns, all of the neighborhoods that said they have not received heavy trash in three to four months.

We've been monitoring and we've been responsive.

It's one thing that we're not gonna do as the new solid waste management department is neglect and not hear your concerns because we're here to serve you.

We're here to make sure that when you have a family gathering, holidays, that it's not a pile of trash in front of your home that drives down property value, and just quite frankly, no one no one wants to see a bunch of trash in front of their homes.

But we need your help.

Those neighbors that you know that are currently have you know their cousin who's a contractor that comes and dumps their work in front of their home and then call us and say, we haven't seen you in three months.

We now have a system of work with a system where we come by, we'll be able to take pictures before pictures and after pictures from accountability accountability piece on our end and also the residents in because it's not fair that we're going to the same homes picking up a lot of commercial garbage and debris simply because they don't want to pay the fees at the landfill.

So we're here to serve the public.

We're gonna be held accountable because there's some things in our department that we needed to change.

We're never gonna run away from the accountability piece.

So that's the update for our department.

Are there any questions for us?

We're gonna be kind.

We're gonna be kind.

You are doing a great job.

My name is Robin Allen.

I'm the president of Hell the Quest Postal Village.

Yes, ma'am.

My concern is enforcement enforcement enforcement.

That is not happening with these neighbors that we are turning them in.

5427 Heatherbrooks look like a landfill on Sunroad side, and that's ridiculous.

We constantly call 311 service request numbers.

You ought to see get tired of seeing Heatherquest, because I'm gonna tell you, I go take a picture and send it in.

I know Eric tired them because he just took pictures today of it.

That's that's ridiculous, and that's what we're having.

A lot of people putting that trash out at that time, and I send newsletters out, we send warning to the people, we do everything, but it is no enforcement from the city of Houston, even though a lot of other people are doing their job.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you for that comment.

Um Mr.

Singh is uh now uh in charge of the inspection enforcement team.

We are currently having you will see inspectors on the board.

We have to beef up that side of the team so that we can go out and give those tags to get it enforced because that is a major problem, and I appreciate that comment, ma'am.

Hi, I'm Michelle Starbuck, Glenshire Community Center Community Association.

We're right here, our neighborhood is divided by the beltway.

We're at the tail end of District K.

And uh we have Glenshire East, which is on this side of the beltway, and Glenshire West.

We are between West Belfort and West Airport.

Um, West Airport, aka Road Raceway.

I know you're not that guy, but I'm gonna say it right now.

Somebody has to do something about West Airport.

We have homes that drive their driveways, and it's Russian roulette to back out of your driveway.

It's very dangerous.

My dad was hurt really bad coming out of my subdivision crossing West Belford by a young driver with no lights on because he was driving about 60 miles an hour and a 30 mile hour zone.

So just saying that, but you made a statement that you're about a few weeks behind or about a week or two behind.

Um we haven't seen heavy trash since November.

Um Eric has driven on the east side, um, and I have called.

We have lots of SR numbers.

Um we had the trucks from Florida that came in.

They did come this year, but they only came and picked up trash for people who had SR numbers.

And I kept saying, please drive the neighborhood.

Please drive this neighborhood.

And they said, ma'am, we have a map we have to follow.

So um, so that's happened.

Um the trash delight.

Oh, all over East and West.

Mostly the West.

We have a lot of homes that have renters, they don't read the newsletter, they are not on town square, and they don't really care.

Um, so that's kind of our problem.

Um, I'm HOA board president, and I don't care that they don't care.

I'm gonna send the homeowner a letter.

Yes, ma'am.

Um, so the other question.

So my concern is is that we've been ignored.

Um, we have asked continuously for people to come out.

There's lots of houses that they just leave their stuff.

If you come in and you look on our Glentire West for homes, there's a lot of commercial, a lot of commercial.

Um, we are doing our part by sending the letters and saying you can't put that there.

All of that concrete did not come from that house.

All of those pool cleaning containers that didn't come from your house.

So we're doing our part.

That's ma'am.

And so I just want you to know that Glenshire is we're doing all that we can do, but we need someone to come and get our trash.

Um, and it's been there.

Um, the other thing that I have a question about is um the black trash bags.

Is there any way that somebody can come through and just put those red tags on those?

I tell them all the time, you can't put black um trash bags on your curb, they're from their leaves.

We are beautiful neighborhood of oaks and pines and elms and all different kinds of trees, and they're leaving their debris, and we pick it up because that's what we do in our neighborhood.

But some people won't take it to the dispensary over here that we're less than a mile from, um, and they just put it out.

Their lawn people won't take them.

And so, again, we send letters, they sit there.

So, is it possible for those things?

Red tags on commercial, like something.

Tell us what we can do.

I mean, I we have a security company.

If they can legally put red tags on things, I I'll get them to do it.

We just we're ready to clean up, we're tired of looking at the trash.

And I I think I gave you my card earlier.

Send me an email.

I would love to come out and do a drive with you to look at your area, because that's really really hurtful to me that you say you haven't received service since November.

That's the first time I've heard it since I've been here.

The truck, and that's yeah, that's our contractors.

Yes, ma'am.

But I do want to say I want to also say thank you to public works because we had an illegal dumping situation.

We're still dealing with that home.

They cleaned out their home and put it on the um community property.

Martha was part of it.

There were other community um leaders that were part of this illegal dumping.

Yes, ma'am.

Um, so all of that was an and it took a village to get that area, the two areas in on Glen Char West to get cleaned up.

So I personally want to say thank you to those of you who are here tonight who helped make that cleanup happen.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Uh let's see.

I'm Al Jamon Lubari with Southwood Place with Fondren and West Alport and uh and West Balford in that area.

Um, first of all, I'd like to say thanks for picking up our trash.

It was, I guess contractors came by.

Finally, so that's good.

Uh but we have a question in that we have like a uh community area, like it's condominiums, and they have green belts.

So we have only maybe three areas that we put the trash, you know, because they have the they don't really face the street.

So do we call different numbers?

Do we call based on that address?

Yes, sir.

Uh are you meaning heavy trash or the cans?

Uh heavy trash.

Heavy trash, okay.

So it's a certain area, and we have to come out and look at the area.

It so wherever they're placing it right now, we haven't gotten any complaints about not being able to access to pick it up, but we just need an access point because we have certain equipment that has to have certain dimensions to be able to pick it up.

So if it's not if it's not a complaint, wherever you're putting it right now, it's fine.

Yes, sir.

Awesome.

Thank you.

What the AQ size of a pickup truck bed, yes, sir.

How are you doing, sir?

Okay, good evening.

Good evening, everyone.

I would like to uh make a suggestion about the problem when she mentioned about the enforcement.

First thing popped in my mind is can or is there an agency that would write the citation or can we have um public?

Oh, it is one orbit.

Right out right citations, you know, we you know won't be law enforcement, but we can write out a ticket, put it on there, and be able to do it.

I like I like the way you're thinking about that.

Okay, I like the way you think I will tell you that we have gone to um previous administration and and we wanted to do it from the district A office, and because uh you would not be a certified inspector, uh you would not be able to do that.

But I like the way you're thinking.

Um, but because I do know that we are hiring more inspectors, and we should be able to beef up our enforcement throughout the community.

So we are look now.

If y'all know people that want to be inspectors or drive for solid ways, uh they're hiring.

So make sure they get on the city website.

Uh we we need more drivers, we need more inspectors.

So thank you.

Thank you for thinking about a solution to the problem.

Okay.

Um because we're recording.

The people you're bringing in to hire to inspect, are they going to be assigned to a particular community or will they randomly because it seems to me if they're assigned to a particular community, they'll be familiar with who's a repeated offender.

Um anyway, just so what I need you to do is be my friend.

I have been putting in a budget amendment year after year for our district to have our own inspectors, and it has not been able to get to work.

So I think that if these presidents went down the city hall and said, I would like for my district to have our own inspector because it would be so much more efficient.

I would support that.

I agree.

I agree because one of the problems that we have is that people never pull in their recycle cans.

So if recycle is tomorrow, they just leave it out there.

Like Buffalo Speedway is just mined from week to week with recycle cans.

And if we had an inspector out there, they could write tickets to the law and can bring in a lot of money for the city to help with that deficit.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

My name is Elizabeth Bell, and I'm from Windsor Village, Civic Club.

Uh we ride our neighborhood once or twice a month, and we have these yellow pieces of paper of do's and don'ts.

And we circle the first one for the first offense.

We and we see it again, we circle for the second offense, third one, it's a citation from the city.

And they usually follow that.

So if any other civic clubs want to create your yellow piece of paper and put it on their can, we tell them what day they pick up their can.

And it works.

Thank you for that.

I like the ingenuity.

Absolutely.

Well, Director Hassan, thank you very much.

What I heard you say is continue to put your heavy trash out on your regular schedule.

Um, your tree waste on your regular schedule.

I'm going to ask our presidents if you know that there is a repeat offender in your neighborhood, shoot us an email.

Uh, and we'll start keeping a list because I when I ride to um you know my mother's house, I see I know the people that do uh carpet.

I can tell who's a plumber in the neighborhood, I can tell who is um doing fence repair in the neighborhood.

They have a lot of fence material with no new fence.

Um so I I think we should we should have a running list of the people we suspect are taking advantage of our heavy trash uh in the city of Houston, and then we we can just kind of circulate that to you so as we have these inspectors in the community, they can double check and make sure our suspicions may be correct.

Yes, sir.

One last question.

Uh again, we do want to commend uh solid waste for the improvements.

You are correct.

The the black cans, green cans, it's it's on schedule.

My question is when can we anticipate uh some further instructions on the heavy trash?

When are you estimating that you will have a program in place to address that issue?

Thank you.

So the main goal is before we switch up any program and have to do an education piece.

I need about at least three to five more months with the current program that we're on, because it's now I'm finding ways to improve it, and I think I think that we can make it much more efficient with the right system that we have and implement it uh today.

Just be patient with us, Director Hassan.

I have a question.

Can District K be the pilot district for your rollout?

She's putting me on the spot and she's not.

We're gonna do everything we can to highlight district K.

Miss BD should be able to attest that it's been working because you've seen a lot of our trucks in District K over the last two and a half months.

When she gives me a neighborhood, we come and clean it up.

So we're gonna do everything we can to add here to district K request.

Go ahead, ma'am.

My concern is not it, it's kind of outside of the residential area because you guys are pretty good.

We appreciate it for taking care of the neighborhood.

But what about the entrances and the exits to the neighborhood?

Because our problem is, and it's at that courtroad in South Post Oak, the dumping there.

Now we have a sofa, we have a love seat, we have uh a mattress, a box spring, and some fencing.

You guys just cleared it up, and that fast is is there again already.

So you guys keep doing the same thing, expecting a different outcome.

So citations and step up the I mean if it's Jack in the Box, then let us know, and we'll go after Jack in a box.

So I will tell you that um y'all give it up for Eric because he is managing our hot team, and they are picking up so much trash.

They worked with Frontier um last week, and how many tons of uh illegal sixty tons of illegal dumping they picked up last week.

They cleaned up Holmes Road, and then this week we found a dead horse on Holmes Road, a couple of boats, and all kind of stuff.

So it is an ongoing issue, and we understand that.

So we do need enforcement.

I will tell you, we are setting up a meeting in Fort Bend because of what's happening at the Jack in the Box.

We clean that illegal dumping up at that jack in the box, and then they bring it back, but we are actually trying to pull the neighbors together to boycott the jack in the box until they clean up their own property because we don't want businesses in our community that don't want to keep their space clean.

So uh I'd love to make sure you girl, feel free.

Yes, yes, we'll we'll get you the contact information.

Somebody Google it right now.

Um, the contact information to Jack in the Box because we want the businesses to be good neighbors.

We want them to be good partners, and I know they're frustrated too, but we have gone and picked it up time and time again, and they either need to put a fence up there when it's closed, or they need to do something um to prevent folks from dumping there.

And part of the problem is there used to be a donation box there, and then people would bring stuff and supposedly to put in the donation box, but we got the donation box removed, and now people I guess still think that that's that's a space for them to dump debris.

And uh Monday there was a gas truck park there, and there was an HP truck behind the gas truck.

I don't know what happened.

I couldn't get that long out long.

Well, we'll we'll we'll definitely make sure we get together to talk about what we can do with the jack in the box for sure.

Hey, Miss Melva, hey, um all of that trash that that you said the hot teams been picking up.

I'm sure it was all on homes road.

I know I was a little bit late, just in case nobody said this.

I'm in hopes that you will um let homes road be a regular and have somebody out there to pick it up until we can find a way to get some lighting out there.

Um we need, I mean, you know, we dead horses and boats and trash.

Yes, too many boats.

So I mean, I'm just in hopes that you your um this Holly Waste would assist us because we're helping too, but um, we need help with Homes Road.

Absolutely.

Um, we have a couple of businesses on Homes Road that are putting up cameras.

We gotta work on getting the trees cut because they put some cameras up, but the only thing we saw were leaves.

Um, so we gotta we gotta get the trees cut.

Uh and those businesses want to see Holmes Road clean.

Where are the trees?

Because I can get trees cut.

Hey, I can't trees cut get with Eric.

Give with Eric.

See, that's why I like to bring all the presidents together.

Because that's how we get no president, but I can get solutions.

We have solutions.

All right, uh director, for in the essence of time, we're gonna we're gonna say thank you very much, and we appreciate you being here today.

Our next presentation is actually going to be on prohibited yard parking.

I know that many of our neighborhoods have worked diligently to make sure that you are PYP neighborhood.

I know that many of our neighborhoods have worked diligently to make sure that you are a PYP neighborhood.

There have been some changes in the way we are operating PYP, and so I am going to ask uh HPW, HBC ARA, who is handling the PYP presentation.

It is your turn next.

Come on down.

Come on down.

Good evening.

Uh I am over the BCE investigations and CCE, and my team does all the investigations.

And I also have the prohibited yard parking portion of that.

And I'm actually not gonna talk on the on that scenario.

I'm gonna allow my supervisor to come up here so he can give the presentation for you guys.

That way he can get the and that's gonna be Mr.

Brian Rice.

Good evening.

My name is Brian Rice.

I'm with the uh Houston Permitting Center or Houston Public Works, Houston Permitting Center Community Code Enforcement Section.

And the way David Almer, who just stepped down, said that he's actually my supervisor.

He met one of his supervisors.

That's what he meant.

So I'm here to speak tonight on prohibited yard parking.

This is a responsibility that we've just taken on here at uh HPW HPC.

Uh we formally did not do this under the previous iteration of what we are now, which was a Department of Neighborhoods Inspections and Public Service, which many of you are probably familiar with.

There's no longer an inspections and public services now, community code enforcement under HPW, uh HPC service line.

So I'd like to start out with uh if you can change to the next slide for me, please.

I'd like to start out just going through this presentation.

I'm gonna answer some questions if you have them to try to give you a little bit more detail than maybe the presentation does give, but to kind of explain, you can flip it over to the next one if you could, the slide.

Okay, so prohibited yard parking falls up under chapter 28 of the Houston uh code of municipal ordinances.

It's actually something that's been in effect for several years, many years in fact, but it was uh primarily enforced by the police department, um, sporadically done by the police department.

Also, part of that is under uh or fell under uh what was then called neighborhood protection, which hasn't really existed for some time, but also the parking official or parking management of Park Houston, commonly known for most of you.

It's again under our banner canal under HPC.

The ordinance basically specifies if you can change to the next slide for me.

I'm gonna kind of roll through the slides because I I find it more easy for me just to explain to you what this is all about.

So the offense is uh if you park a vehicle on an unapproved surface in front of or on the side of a single family residential property.

Okay, that is the offense.

The primary focus of this ordinance is one aesthetics.

Of course, we don't want to see a bunch of cars parked on people's lawns and grass, but the main focus of it is to protect the infrastructure below the ground.

As most of you know, we have uh there's some old infrastructure here.

A lot of the homes and and uh properties have uh you know power lines as well as well, not so much power lines, but gas lines, water lines that run beneath the surface of the ground, and they're not very deep.

And if you put a heavy-weighted vehicle on these properties, it has the potential to sink into the ground and damage that infrastructure and then cause major problems.

Gas lines in particular.

Uh, you can realize or come to understand if you have never seen a gas explosion, they are quite devastating, and we don't want open gas leaks.

So the offense itself is basically basically parking those vehicles on those properties.

The penalty is a citation.

Okay, that's how we remedy this as best we can.

We write tickets for these type of violations.

You can go on to the next slide for me, please.

All right.

So there's some rough numbers up here.

I can't quote them off the top of my head, so I'm not gonna pretend.

But uh basically, this is not for the entire city.

There are very specific qualifications that these particular ordinances are enforced, and they have to be basically the process you would submit an application, a community organization like a homeowners association or civic association would submit an application to uh planning and development here in the city of Houston.

That application would be reviewed.

There's a uh you know, lengthy criteria for that for those of you who are interested in more information on that.

You can go to the Houston Planning and Development website, just put prohibited yard parking in, and it'll show you what that is.

But there's several communities that participate in this.

Basically 221 have been approved to date, and that's basically running numbers from April of 2009 up until November of 2025.

Uh as of 2024 and uh 2025, apparently there's no information basically on the what applications have been approved.

Uh, could you hit the next slide for me?

You can go one more for me.

All right, so the primary way how to report these things would be through 311.

The caveat to this is you have to call.

This is not one of those ones where you can put in an application or I'm sorry, put in a service request via the portal, or you can put it in yourself on an app or anything like that.

You have to call and actually speak with an operator on 311.

One of the main reasons that is it has to be vetted.

They have to ensure that the area that you're calling in is part of the area that where this enforcement actually takes place because again, this is not citywide.

This is very specific to neighborhoods who have applied and who have had applications approved for this area to be considered under prohibited yard parking, of course, with a vote of the council as part of it.

I'm sorry, ma'am.

You had a question?

Uh, because you're working AGOA DD Committee in the community.

If the community does not have HOA or a civic association, can you participate in this?

It can be done, but you have to have a certain amount of people.

I believe it's 80% of the community that's gonna be enforced that participates in it.

So it's a it's a concerted effort, it has to be the community as a whole has to apply for this.

Okay, there you go.

Come on up with this one.

Um I'm Rose Farmer, and I president of the Meredith Manor, and the police department says they are not going to uh come out when we call them.

311 can we can put this in with 311, but they won't be coming out.

They are not part of that you know program they say in.

No, we enforce it.

So the police department no longer enforces it, we do.

And if you submit a 311 service request, it actually comes in and gets routed to community code enforcement, and one of my team members will come out and address it.

Oh, so it comes to code enforcement.

Yes, okay.

Well, we've been doing it through the police department before due to DRT, but what we call it then, so they're not doing it anymore.

Right.

So they actually revamped the whole system so DRT is no longer responsible for it.

Okay.

So they actually put in a whole routing system through 311 so that it would come to community code enforcement, and we address them as individual uh service requests as they come in.

Thank you.

Are you from uh planning and development?

Come on up, say something for these folks.

Good afternoon.

I am Sanya Sawyer with the planning department, and I am the project manager for the prohibited yard parking.

And to answer your question, ma'am, you said that you don't have a HOE or a civic club.

You can apply as an individual property owner.

That means that you would have to go and get petitions and signatures at 60% of the boundary area that you want to protect.

And do know that we do reference HCAD to verify property ownership, so you can apply as it as the property owner.

Thank you for that.

So it's 60%, and the property owner can apply individually, but you have to get petitions to have to get positions and it have to total 60% of your boundary that you want to protect.

Thank you.

Right.

Um we have done that process, and I want to know has the process changed because that is a lot of work to get that PYP set up.

Yeah.

And so, and and now that you took over, how do we make for sure that our civic clubs, HOAs are still a part of it?

Or what do we have to do to prove it?

Because we did the work.

Yeah.

So planning and development is the ones who are actually who actually push it through to get it to the city council to be voted on for the area.

If you have a question about it, you can verify it on the map itself.

You know, you can go to prohibit yard parking map or on the planning and development site, and they'll show your neighborhood.

Well, I want to make for sure you know that our neighborhood is and the PYP.

So the way it works is we do the enforcement aspect of it.

Because 311 has to verify that your neighborhood is part of it before they even route it.

Once they route it to us, it's part of it.

It's part of it.

We go out and we do the enforcement.

So it shouldn't even arrive at us unless it is part of the program.

So I asked it.

Yeah, you still on the list.

If you're on the list, yeah, that's what he said.

Yeah, once they're approved, I believe it's it's uh so are you encouraging us to make for sure when we do see this um illegal, I mean our PYP being violated that uh we call 311 because you're gonna be inundated because I I know my community, we're gonna make for sure that we call um 311 because we got some chronic violators because there hasn't been anybody uh working our PYP.

Thank you, sir.

You're welcome.

So thank you.

And I will say this is and and like I said, I I don't think it's much more to this presentation anyway.

We're gonna roll through this last little bit.

But I'll say this again, I'm responsible for directly supervising the team who actually does this.

And um I'm a code enforcement officer here in the city, uh, code enforcement officer with the state of Texas, but I've been doing code enforcement here since 2018 in the city of Houston.

Um we ain't scared.

I mean, if you give it to us, we're gonna go out there.

I would ask that you be patient with us because there are not thousands of us running around here, despite what people's perception is.

We are limited in the force, but we are like solid waste hiring and beefing up our numbers as well.

But if you report it, someone's coming to deal with it.

So if you if you could if you think you can in the date us, in a date us.

What I suggest you do is report it as any violation, not just creative yard parking, but anything you have, report it because they say the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

If you don't get any squeak, you ain't getting the oil.

All right.

So report it, we'll come out, we'll address it appropriately.

Question statement.

Yeah, be kind to me, because I'm a kind guy.

Is that a Calvary on your calf?

Uh-huh.

All right.

Old military.

I know you know.

All right, I was in the army.

I know about Cav.

All right.

All right.

Communication, because we've been told so many different things with this PYP.

Hellercrest post-oak village is a long-standing PYP recipient.

Okay.

First was police, like you said, and it was department of neighborhood, then it was public works, then it went back to the department of neighborhood.

So now it's you guys.

If just to clarify one thing, the department of neighborhoods never did PYP.

When the Department of Neighborhoods was created in 2011, they never did PYP.

But that's what we said.

Okay, we're going to be able to do that.

That was prior to 2011.

Either one.

So you're telling me every time someone has to look at the documents to see that Hillercrest is a part of the PYP violation notice.

If I call 311, so someone from 311, because I use the app and I didn't know that.

I thought me using the app, taking pictures, getting license plates, because it gives you everything that needs to be.

So you have that documentation.

So you can't use the app.

Well, I'm finding that out now.

So now I'm having a call in.

I don't have a problem with it.

But sometimes you got people that's in 311 that are not educated on this, and we have to go through this whole scenario, and it frustrates some of our my seniors in that area.

So that's the first problem I get.

I can understand that.

And the fact that this is a new process because it is truly new.

This is something that again, uh Houston Public Works is just taking on under Houston Permitting Center.

But as this thing begins to flow and these service requests continue to come in, they'll be addressed accordingly through 311.

Because just like we have to train our folks to get them up to speed and how this works, because there was nothing in place.

So does 311.

So as they become more familiar with them, I encourage you to continue to report them.

I can assure you that if you were reporting to the department of neighborhoods, nothing was getting done because they had no responsibility for it.

Um police department, another story, DRT, another story.

I appreciate DRT.

We work with them a lot.

But as far as what's happening now, when you make that call to 311, the only verification they have to do is look at the map that they have access to and verify yep, your neighborhood is in there and route that through.

That'll come through 311, it'll get routed to again to CCE.

And we get a we have a queue where we basically assign these things out to individual inspectors, and they go out there and they see what they have.

If they have something there, there's a process in place, and I'll just touch on it a bit if I do finish this part of it.

But then we have a process to make notification to the folks that have the have the violation.

Keep reporting it.

We'll keep coming and we'll keep writing citations because the way these way this ordinance is written, each individual day is a separate violation.

It could be a separate citation if necessary.

Now, what happens with citations beyond us, I have no control of.

We probably need to get some municipal court people up in here and talk about that.

But in any event, we are writing tickets.

That's our enforcement mechanism that's in place by the ordinance as it's written right now.

So report them, report them.

You send them through, they'll get addressed by an inspector going directly to the property.

And we have to go to the property.

We can't take photos and just say, okay, there's nothing there, because we've had people want to send video, excuse me, send videos in and photos.

No, we need you to go ahead and report it to 311, and someone's gonna physically go to that property and they're gonna check and see if it's in violation.

And if it fits the criteria, they're gonna take photographs and then they're gonna return back.

No process as it stands right now.

We give the people 48 hours to correct the violation.

And if they don't correct it in 48 hours, they get a citation.

And if we get another service request for that very same property, we'll start it again, give them 48 hours.

We try to make contact with the folks, we try to educate them.

We have brochures now that we give out to these folks that let them know what the problem is, because the truth be told, most of the situations that I've seen when I do go into the field to support my team, is people don't even know this is a thing because it hasn't been enforced.

I might can agree with that to a point.

We notify them.

We put any information that's on the city, we try to stay updated with that information.

So we've been having a PYP since the pretty much the existence of this ordinance, and so we've been told a lot of different things.

So I'm gonna try your way this time.

From my mouth to your ears.

Yeah, I won't I won't your number because what I'm gonna do is call you and give you a list because I'm going for it.

All I need you to do is, like I said, report it, get in the 311.

I'm okay.

Because as they come in, we send them out.

There's no delay in them.

As much as I have the staff to do it, we respond to them.

My team is also responsible for other type of violations, but PYP has been taxed with us, and under my leadership and guidance, we're going to take care of it as best we can.

And if we need more people, I got some people in the room here to responsible to make sure we get some more people.

So we're gonna need some more people, we're gonna ask for more people.

Yes, ma'am.

I got a card.

Again, I ain't scared.

Well, I'm gonna start off by saying I'm so pleased that somebody is finally going to start enforcing PYP violations again.

Thank you very much on that.

But but my question is um when it was being enforced, no matter how sporadically, one issue is a lot of these violations happen in the evenings and on weekends, but in the past there was no inspection on those times.

Will your apartment have inspectors in the evenings and on weekends?

So that's a question I'll have to address with moving it up the chain up into upper management to discern if that's something that we're gonna do.

And uh looks like we have uh director Marino coming up here now.

Um but as you've heard pretty much all all night tonight is we're limited.

We have limited resources, we have limited staffing.

We're trying to hire.

Uh, unfortunately, we're having to do this during typical office hours, but this is not an uncommon thing that we hear, which is happens on the weekends, it happens after hours, it happens.

It's the same situation with clubs and bars and that stuff.

So we're exploring it, but it it's I think as you've probably heard all night, bear with us.

It's gonna take some time for us to be able to get that enforcement.

So I would be happy to put forth a budget amendment um for weekend in the evening.

I'm going to need these presidents to come down to City Hall for public session and say that they support having weekend and evening inspectors.

Your voice matters.

Thank you.

Okay, my question to you is you you're coming out during the day, and the car is not there.

But you can see that the car has been there.

It's ever dead that it's been tracks in the front yard and all of that.

So what do you do about that?

I know what they've done in the past because they said they had to physically see the car there.

Right.

And that is true.

We have to actually have the violation present when we arrive in order to enforce it.

We can't enforce the evidence of a violation that has occurred previously.

But one thing that I did implement with our team, and part of it is we just gotten again this educational material.

When we do respond to these properties, we're gonna leave education material to let people know that this is an issue for those of those who would claim you know some plausible deniability.

I didn't know.

So we leave this material so that people be aware not to do it until such time when we can get outside of the regular scope of ours.

Because the truth be told, I understand the situation.

I've seen them a couple of times on some of the cases I personally put my eyes on.

You have people that have work vehicles.

Well, during the day, they're working.

When they come home in the evening, they park the work vehicle in.

We come out during the daytime, they're at work.

Right, unless we catch them on a sick day, right?

Yeah.

So what I will say is that we're the this the plan moving forward is to educate the people who we do have contact with and let them know that this is a violation, and you know, kind of address it that way through education.

Okay, yeah.

Oh my last question.

Houston is a big city.

It is, and I um how many square miles I'm not it's about six hundred something.

650 square miles.

How many inspectors you got?

That part I'll I'll I'll uh I'll say we don't have enough to cover that much area to have everybody have their own inspector.

Right.

But what we do have, and I can speak this directly from my again, my mouth to your ears.

I have a team of people who are public servants who believe in public service, like myself.

I have about 28 years of public service under my belt.

That's not including my military service, and I will tell you my inspectors are motivated and they want to get the job done and they care, and that's the part.

I have a team of inspectors who care about the outcomes, not just going out there and going through the motions.

So I'll tell you this is that we're we have enough zeal to get out there and hit the ground running, and as we get more staff, we'll get them motivated the same way.

Hopefully get quality people in and address these issues as they you know as they can present themselves to us.

Oh, okay.

But I I want to know how this district K can be a priority.

Yeah, so the difficulty in that, and I'll tell you that just from the fact that um like I said, I was previously with the department of neighborhoods.

One of the things that is the challenge is the staffing, right?

When you don't have people, we can't devote people to specific areas because again, we do have 650 something square miles of city where maybe PYP isn't there all the time, but there's other violations that we enforce, so we have to address those.

Everybody's got to get a slice of the pie.

They might not get a whole piece of pie, but they get a slice.

So, with that said, the best we can do right now is respond to when you call it in and address it as it comes in.

It would be ideal.

When I first came on, we had a lot more inspectors with the again with the department of neighborhoods when I first started, and we were able to have specific areas.

I used to work sunny side, I used to work South Union, OST, that was my area, and then they moved me up to Trinity Gardens, Houston Gardens, that was my area.

But as the numbers dwindle down through attrition and people, you know, things happening, okay.

Now I'm everywhere, right?

Right.

So I I I'm jumping in the car, I'm leaving here, and then I'm going, you know, 15 miles across town to do something over there, and then another five miles over here.

So that's the conundrum that we deal with.

But I will tell you that the people who are working are working for you, and I can say that honestly for my team.

Okay, so if we inundate you with um 311 requests, how are you gonna handle that?

You've already told me you do not have enough people.

So now, because I know these people in this room, we're fixing to end in date 311 with our requests.

So, oh, one thing I want to know.

Do you refresh every year your 311 requests or do you handle them?

No, we have to do all our 311 requests.

I don't know about refreshing.

No, as they come in, we handle them, and I we haven't been in the data to this point.

I'm just gonna make that clear.

Well, you would and again, if it's if if you would it's a relative term, you you call it in the data, we call it workload.

Okay, so I'll say this to you, and and and again in full transparency, as the need develops, as the demand comes, then it's a responsibility of leadership to get us some people, and that's the way it's gonna work.

And that leadership starts at the top.

The mayor, the mayor was here, and he and when he hears calls from his directors and his executive staff about what they need, he's here to make make it happen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, sir, for coming.

My name is Keith Taylor.

I'm the president of the Hymer Clark Civic Club.

Um the lady here made an excellent point.

Part of the issue is people are gaming the system.

Okay, they're they're parking on the weekends and after hours.

So when you guys are at work, they're at work, as you said earlier.

So to alleviate that catch 22, if we were to take pictures and report the time, like you know, cell phones have all of this, these neat characteristics, that would provide the evidence that you need.

So we're willing to help you, but we have to have the tools, and we have to be a little bit creative in terms of how we enforce it.

So it's no doubt that the that the violation is there, and just a little bit about my background.

I'm a former police officer in another state.

Um with evidence, right?

It still requires someone to physically witness this occurrence of the violation.

Like I can get evidence of you flying down the street, right, in a car, but if no one's there to clock it and see how fast you were going at that time, they can't do anything with it.

You know what I'm saying?

So it's not that we don't know this stuff is happening, but these citations that are issued are issued as Class C misdemeanors here in the state of Texas.

So these are criminal offenses here in the state.

And like every other criminal offense, there's a burden of proof for us to prove, right?

And it's an expectation that we can prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, and the onus is on us as the agency that enforces this, right?

So the requirements for criminal offenses are higher than say a s, you know, a civic violation or something, but you can just go preponderance to the evidence.

Now we have to have hard facts, we have to articulate probable cause, and we have to be able to justify that before a judge if we're gonna issue a citation or even send a send a notice or place a notice.

So photographs and stuff really they they are evidence of it, but they have to be our photographs that we observed it right at the time.

Because you're here right now, and if you did something right here, right now, we got you, right?

But if you did something here, you know, four months ago, you know what I'm saying?

So it's it's one of those type of deals.

So it's not that we don't know what's happening, but what I do encourage you to do is continue it.

Well, now that you know that there is something in place and it is working, to report them, let us handle how we get the people to actually do this and handle this inundation that we're supposed to be getting.

Like I said, I'm not scared, neither is my team.

We'll work as best we can, and after that, we'll start pushing up the chain and say, hey, listen, this is just not enough people to do this.

And and last point I want to mention, uh, because I've personally called in uh some PYT violations, and some of the 311 operators claim that they that we were not protected, and that was incorrect.

So we need to make sure that all the staff is properly trained about the areas, so when they get these calls, they're not rejecting them, thinking that we're not.

And I think as the as they continue to come in, I I do have some contact with 311's leadership at times, and that may be something that I um that we I'm responsible for training too, so we may do some type of training with them to ensure that their staff is aware.

But like I said, as these things continue to come in, I think they become more familiar because again, they're handling millions of service requests throughout a year.

So this is something fairly new to be routed to us, so as that becomes a regular regular function of this system, we'll be able to handle those.

I think I'm getting uh is the music plan, okay.

I thought you okay.

All right, yes, ma'am.

Okay, you mentioned citations.

Yes, ma'am.

And you did you weren't able to tell us how many citations would be issued before there'd be some type of consequence.

So if this if they're not any kind of consequence, you can issue a thousand citations, they're gonna continue to do what they're doing.

So where is where do you draw the line as far as the citation become where they're prosecuted in some type of form um with that?

Because right now, if I you're not gonna do anything, and I continue to do that, I don't care how many citations you give me.

I'm gonna just continue to ask them how to have consequences.

As with any ticket, right?

Um, these are tickets, right?

We write them, but we can't adjudicate them.

That's the responsibility of the court, city attorney's office, the prosecutor's office to it to you know prosecute these things.

But I will say this, and uh, and I and I'm not trying to be funny with it.

Some people ain't gonna ever do right.

I'm gonna tell you that straight up.

I've had as a police officer, I've written some people the same ticket for traffic violations, the same person stopping them.

Some people don't really care about consequences, we don't really worry about them.

But the majority of people, when they get tickets, and these tickets are not cheap tickets, and they have to go to court and they have to answer for them, they get enough of them, they'll stop doing what they're doing.

And that's the that's the truth right there.

Now if they're rich and they can do it.

You have to disagree when it comes to that, maybe other uh violations like um parking violation, motor vehicle violation.

I can agree with that.

But again, Martha, um, where do we draw the line as far as these individuals being able to having to come into court, having the uh having their cars told or some type of situation like that?

I'm not sure you keep saying, but I need to know what the court system is gonna do, Martha.

So the you can't answer me that, I understand it, but now I'm asking Martha.

So here's the thing what the court system is gonna do about it.

So it's not just the court system, there's a law.

Chapter 28 specifies how this thing is done.

What you're talking about is actually a different change in the law.

So if there's gonna be a consequence worse than what it is right now, that's gonna require a change in the ordinance.

Enforcement, I'm sorry.

Right.

So enforcement is enforcement, the tickets are the enforcement.

Well, if you're if you continue to write tickets and nothing getting done, and we still have the same situations in our community, where do we draw the line at?

So we say if they don't get, if yeah, if you don't show up in court, you get warrants for failure to appear, but that's a warrant for failure to appear.

But the tickets are the tickets of the consequence until the ordinance is changed to make it something else.

It's like we again we can't we can't make the law be what we want it to be, right?

If the consequence for shoplifting is you get, you know, get a ticket, you get a ticket, they're not gonna execute you for it.

So it it's it's what the law specifies and what we have to enforce.

So right now we have is what the law says, and we're constrained by the law.

We can't make up our own version, we can't make it any more severe.

The law calls for a citation.

We issue the citation, we trust that the system as it exists is supposed to work that citation through so these people are held accountable.

But again, um, when you start talking about that, that requires more of a uh you know counsel decision to make the ordinance a little bit more teethy, but that's something that they would have to do.

So if a person shows up to court, then do your department shows up also if they end up having to show to court because of um repeat repeat um citations.

Yeah, so we have to go to court for every ticket we write.

We have to go to court.

Yeah, because we're the complainant witness.

These people are entitled by law to face their accuser, right?

So they show up.

How many violation uh citations do they have to have before they are actually having to go to court?

They have to go to court for every citation unless they unless they plead guilty and spit, they have to go to court for it.

The citation requires a court appearance for every citation that we write on first.

First one.

The second one they have to go to, third one, every time they get one, they have to go, unless they pay.

Now, if they pay, they pay.

Some people got money like that.

I don't.

Some people do, they'll pay.

And one more question on West Airport in uh Westbury, because the houses are on the main thoroughway on West Airport, they are constantly parking in the meter, media of the uh the center of the property.

So who's the case?

So you mean the median in the middle?

Oh, yeah, that's a part of the.

Yeah, so that's gonna be that'll be a police issue or park park Houston issue, because that's a traffic, you know, violation, the parking violation.

That wouldn't be the same thing, but you can call that and they shouldn't be parking on there, and they can come out and issue tickets for that on the spot as well.

And they can probably tow for those situations as well.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

All righty.

Yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon to you.

Hello, my vice mayor pro town.

Good to see you.

My name is Carol Guest, and I serve as vice chair of the Terrace Nine Board.

And this is my chair, Maya Carroll.

I just wanted, I was listening to everything that everyone is saying, and I just wanted to support Martha on what she was saying about you all showing up to City Hall.

It is a must.

Just like we want people to come to our Terrace Line Board meetings and tell us what they think about things.

You have to show up in numbers at City Hall and stay with it.

If you want stricter ordinances, help Martha write it, or whomever's gonna write it, because you're living it every day and no one is affected like you are.

And I know it's time consuming, I know it takes time, but that is where change is made.

And so I would encourage everyone, yes, in on day 311, but you also have to show up over and over and over and over at City Hall, unfortunately, and just stick with it.

It is disheartening to me to hear how many concerns you have.

But if you if we have to catch inspectors in the act on a weekend, that means they have to be hired and added to the budget.

You have to tell your representatives that you're willing for money to be spent to hire these inspectors to show up on the weekend.

And the only way they know you're serious is if you show up over and over and over again to tell them that you may not feel like doing it, but that's what's necessary.

Martha and this gentleman are doing everything that they can with what they have.

We cannot continue to make demands on these folks without giving them the monetary support and the community support that they're asking for.

So I would just ask, please show up at City Hall until they're just sick of you.

Yes, sir.

Um I appreciate your patience.

Both of y'all patience.

Um I'm coming with another suggestion.

On the pictures and stuff that you take.

No, they might know, they might not know.

So Kim, you sent a letter with the city letter here, your letter here with the picture saying this is a violation.

And you know, whatever consequences it is, you know.

But that letter would get to the person, these they would know that they might not even know.

Like you say they might not cure too.

Yeah, so part of that again is like when we arrive at a property when we do have a violation.

Could you could you switch on to the next slide?

I'm sorry.

I want to just show you guys an example.

These are these are illustrations.

You can go again for me.

Okay, so what I want to tell you is that the one on the left, you can disregard that.

We don't send a physical notice because it's such a short turnaround.

The one on the right is the one we use, and it's going to be changed with color wise and all of that because it's too closely resembles another type of notification we use.

When we go to these properties, we present this to the to the homeowner by way of leaving this at the property, right?

We actually said it's a like a door hanger type thing.

They don't show that here.

We also have again educational materials to it has the ordinance, specifies, it has pictures for examples and specifies these things.

And I believe we're getting them in Spanish as well as English.

So we supply these at the residents when we go.

So when the people come, they've got to go on their door to get in the house.

When they see these things, there should be no surprise as to what we're here for, right?

Because it specifies in the language that's on the on the notice itself, as well as the the educational pamphlet that lays out the ordinance, the pictures and examples.

So that's our way of informing them.

Hey, your problem is this.

So when they look over and they see their car sitting on that lawn and they see this notice that we coming back and that this was a problem, this is why we were there.

We would hope that people would move the vehicle off the property.

Or if they leave it there, leave it so we can come back and get you with a citation.

All right.

But I'll I'll just say this, and again, not to not to minimize the effect of what we do because we're again we're constrained by what the process is under law.

Um what do they say?

Locks are for honest people.

They're gonna be people who are just not gonna, you know, they're not gonna comply.

That's just the nature of humanity as a whole sometimes.

But what I will say is they won't be uninformed, because when my inspectors leave these, we also leave a phone number with the inspector's phone number so they can call the inspector directly and get some clarity as to what the problem is, right?

So there's no so there should be no surprise or shock if someone receives a citation for these types of violations, and they should be informed enough with the material that we leave at the property.

So again, good suggestion.

But as these things move forward, hopefully we have situations where we can actually uh you know tighten up the ordinance a bit.

The gentleman mentioned about uh photos taken by the community or individuals.

Uh why can't that be a part of your file to confirm that this existed, the car on the lawn, whatever?

Because if it was a criminal case, trust me, they would confiscate that phone or use that photo photo as evidence.

So is there a way that you can change that, or is there a legal problem involved here?

So again, that has to be uh there has to be a change in the law.

Uh due process is due process for criminal criminal offenses.

This is a criminal offense, but it's a class C misdemeanor.

It's the lowest misdemeanor in the state of Texas, but it is a class C misdemeanor, which is a which is a crime, okay.

But due process is due process, it's it applies across the board.

That's the way the system works.

If at some point, like the young lady that came up with the that that uh DAPA looking jacket that she had on them, sorry if she's still here or not, but the suggestions she made, um, the best way to get changes to you know kind of push for change, and you guys have the power to do that as you know, as citizens residents or whatever.

Um, the best way to get changes to you know, kind of push for change, and you guys have the power to do that as you know, as citizens residents or whatever.

I just want to switch.

Could you switch this to the last thing with the contact us because I won't I don't be remiss yeah?

All right, one more time, one more time.

Okay.

They have a QR code after this one if you guys yeah, there you go.

Um, you guys can always access uh the social media for uh uh Houston permits, Facebook X, Instagram, and YouTube.

And we also have uh again that main well, that's well yeah, that's the main permitting number there, with any further questions you may have.

I wonder how you want to have any because I have a lot of names.

So we thought either English or Spanish.

Yeah, we haven't.

All right, there you go, right from the mayor pro tem ourselves.

It's okay.

Um thank you for all you're doing.

I feel a little bit sorry for you.

Maybe you have a problem you're not able to solve.

If the biggest um issues are weekends and nights, is it the only way to get more budget?

Could you switch hours for someone to start at 12 and work till 8?

I know we want quality of life and work-life balance, but we're working weekend instead of a Tuesday.

Mm-hmm.

So just to just to be clear as well.

I I have to I just have to say this because I am a supervisor and the leader of the team.

One of the concerns with working certain hours is our safety as well.

Okay.

My inspectors are code enforcement officials, right?

We're not police officers.

We don't have firearms, we don't have radios, right?

So part of the reason why we work the hours, particularly we work now.

This may not account for weekends, but the hours we work is for safety.

We had an incident not too long ago with a couple of our inspectors got shot at just a couple of weeks ago, and they were just doing their regular inspection job.

We weren't going in kicking anybody's doors down, anything like that.

So when you start getting into the later hours of the day, when law enforcement isn't is readily available to assist if we need help, or it's dark, um, it becomes an issue.

Um, so I'll say that part.

Now, the weekends thing, that's again that's something for leadership to make those determinations.

I'm not leadership.

Um, I'm leadership in the terms of leading the team, but I report to people.

But I will say to you that one of the primary concerns with our activities again is is safety, number one.

Again, we're we're uh I used to be a cop.

I'm not anymore.

I don't carry a weapon, and we don't get that level of training to be able to deal with some situations we may encounter during the later hours of the day.

Okay, so not to say that we're not gonna get out here and work, but I just want to make that clear is that to that point, right?

I still feel like we need a budget amendment for weekends and evenings, but uh thank you.

I do want to also recognize the other members of the planning committee, if you'll stand so uh everyone can see the planning and development team that's here, uh public works.

I see uh Chris Butler in the back.

Raise your hand, Chris.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you for the entire team uh for being here.

We have one more presentation and we'll get some questions answered, and then we'll just open it up for some final uh comments.

So I'm going to ask Miss Ershad if she will come forward and she will be presenting uh from ARA and we will be talking about short-term rentals.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pretend.

All right, well, thanks for having me here today.

My name again is Maria Ershad.

I'm with the administration and regulatory affairs department, and we oversee uh permitting and business licensing.

Our newest permit that we've taken on is short-term rentals, which is what I'm here to talk about today.

I also work with the Park Houston division, so I heard uh median on was that uh come see me afterwards, the median parking, so we can uh look get that looked at.

But let's go ahead and go to the first slide so we can talk about um short-term rentals, and I can give you an overview of what we've been doing in the city as far as short-term registration goes.

So we're gonna talk about uh the short-term rental registrations, the regulations, enforcement, and then we'll do some QA.

So the short-term rental regulations were approved by city council last year in April of 2025 with an effective date of January 1st, 2026.

We went live with our registration platform in October to try and encourage anyone who had a short-term rental to start registering early.

We didn't want to have a huge influx right at you know the last week of December where we get a thousand applications.

A short-term rental in the ordinance is defined as uh a dwelling, it could be one room in a dwelling, it could be a single family home, it could be a duplex.

That has uh it it you cannot stay any more than 30 days, it's 30 days or less.

At least one night up to 30 days.

That is a short-term rental.

Those are the things that we are trying to get into our platform and get them registered.

We're not concerned with anything that's over 30 days, that's considered long term.

Those have generally not been the problematic locations.

This ordinance was in response to uh public outcry.

We heard from council members, we heard from the public, we heard from neighborhoods about short-term rentals that were creating issues, party houses, things like that, loud noise.

So we wanted to kind of take that bull by the horns.

Let's see today.

Um, so all uh STRs from the city of Houston have to have a registration certificate, and the cost for that is about 275 dollars a year, and they have to renew that annually.

So, in a nutshell, what are the short-term rental regulations?

The first is the owner or the operator has to comply with all city code.

Now, they always had to comply with all city code.

This is nothing new, but it's reiterated in the short-term rental ordinance that you've got to be in compliance with noise, solid waste, you know, trash ordinances, uh building codes, fire codes, all of these need to be um kept in compliance.

Uh, you are not allowed to put out your short-term rental for less than one night.

Like I said, it had to be at least one night up to 30 days.

You must be paying hotel occupancy taxes.

Now, short-term rentals were somewhat kind of already mostly doing that if they were on specific platforms.

The one new thing that was added is that if you are going to be offering a short-term rental, you cannot advertise it as a party house.

You cannot say weddings can happen here, bachelorette parties or bachelor parties can happen here.

None of that advertising is allowed.

They have to display also the maximum occupancy that they can have in the in the short-term rental per code.

Um, the public listing, like if they're on Airbnb, verbo, booking, whatever the case, has to display the short-term rental certificate registration.

We have an enforcement mechanism in the ordinance that if they do not have a short-term rental certificate number from the city, the platform has to delist them.

You have to take that, take that STR out.

Don't let them offer it up for um short-term rental.

Uh, one new thing is the emergency contact.

Uh, operator must provide a 24-7 emergency contact uh information, and that is a phone number, an email and the name of a person or an answering service, whatever the situation may be.

And that's important.

I'll get to that in a second, but that's new, so they have to provide that to us.

They also have to display that in the actual short-term rental, and they have to post the certificate.

So that's just some of the big regulations they have to fall in compliance with.

Oh gosh, can we go to the next slide?

I thought two slides, sorry.

Yeah, right here.

Okay, so what do you need to do if you want to register your short-term rental?

The city needs seven pieces of information.

We have an online portal where you can go.

Our website is Houston STR.org.

It has instructions, we have guides on how to uh submit your application.

We have uh online videos that show you how to walk through the system.

We have uh guides that detail every single document that's required.

Uh but it's seven pieces of information.

So we need the registrant or the applicant, and we need their contact information.

We need to know the property address.

We also need to know the um emergency contact.

Sorry, I need to put my glasses on.

We need to know which platforms this STR is operating listed on.

So is it Airbnb, verbo, booking?

We need all those links.

We need proof that you're paying hotel occupancy tax for that short-term rental.

We need property owner authorization.

So this is important.

What we need to see, because there are some people who own the property and then they put it up as an STR.

They take the property owner authorization form that we've provided and they sign it.

The property owner matches what we see in the HCAD property database, right?

So we see Maria Irshav is submitting an application for an STR, Maria Irshad owns the property, that is the property in question.

What we need also is for operators to do the same.

And what's been really interesting is the operators have to take it to the property owner and get the property owner to sign it, or they can show us a valid current lease that has the provision authorizing the short-term rental use in that location.

So one of those two documents they have to show us.

And they were not able to get a certificate of registration from us because unless the property owner authorizes that, we are not going to give that certificate of registration.

Because at the end of the day, per the ordinance, the property owner and the operator are liable for any issues that could happen in this location.

So that's why it's really important to the city that the property owner be aware, know that this is happening, because they could also be liable if something happens in that location.

And then finally, they have to take human trafficking awareness training.

It's a short 20-minute online course, and they have to take that training and keep the certificate.

Can we go to the next slide, please?

So this is the information that we've put out.

If you go to our website, Houston STR.org, we have a map of all the certificates of uh registration that have been issued so far.

We have it broken out by council district, so you can go to district K.

You can zoom into your neighborhood, you could um up in the corner, you see the little magnifying glass, you can type in a specific address.

If you think someone's operating an STR next to you, you can look it up, and if it's not there, you can report them to us for being an unauthorized STR.

So the numbers uh for today are this is actually a slide from last week.

So we're at about 4100 um registrations in the city of Houston that we've issued.

We've identified about 6200 STRs, and that number is not static, it changes every day, right?

Today I list it, tomorrow I take it off, and he puts his on.

We got two more on, three more off.

So it's it's not a it's not a static number.

But we have received about 5200 applications.

So we've got a little bit of a backlog right now that we're working on, but that's about 93% of identified STRs have registered.

So that's good.

That's good that we were able to get that.

Um, but on the next slide, if we can go there, I want to show you about the complaints.

Okay.

So this is also on Houston STR.org.

You'll see a blue button on the side that says submit complaint.

What I don't want you to be under any assumption is that you're gonna get a response from this complaint.

We will, if you ask for a call back, we'll call you.

But we're not going to look into the trash incident, or we're not gonna look into the noise incident because we see this after the fact, right?

We will we will send a 311 to Solid Waste if someone reports a trash issue.

But what's really cool about this functionality is remember that emergency contact I told you about?

If you submit something in any one of these complaints, it will automatically be forwarded to that emergency contact so that they can address it.

We had a property owner reach out to us the other day because someone complained about trash being left outside.

They got a text because the the neighbor complained over here, they got a text, they resolved it, and they wanted to make sure that we knew that they took care of the problem.

They heard and they took care of it.

So that that tool is one to get to be at the emergency contact, so maybe they can take care of it.

Two, that tool helps us identify the problematic STRs.

Because we know a majority of these STRs, they're good operators.

They're not here to make trouble, they're not here to throw parties.

A majority of the STRs are pretty good.

We want to take our limited resources, you guys have heard that all night, our limited resources, and target what are the problematic locations.

So we've already seen since this has been up, this has been up since October, and I think we've got 300 and something complaints.

So we're averaging about a three a day.

And um, we've already we're already noticing repeat addresses, repeat addresses, repeat addresses.

Um this is gonna help us, you know, focus in on those problematic areas and and figure out how to tackle those versus worrying about all the STRs in the city because as you can see from the map before, they're everywhere.

Okay.

Um, so that's Houston STR.org, and so you know, keep that in mind.

Next slide, please.

So enforcement.

There it we do have mechanisms to enforce, right?

We um require them to uh register with the city, we send them four notices.

Every time we see a new one, our system scrapes the databases and looks for STRs that are listing.

We start sending notices.

They get a stream of four.

We also red tag.

So we will go out.

We know that there's 6200 out there.

We know that 5100 have submitted an application, so there's that delta.

We will go and red tag them with hey, you're operating an STR, you need to register.

Here's here's how you do it.

You have this much time to do it.

We have the ability to issue a citation.

Now that's to the property owner who may or may not be at the STR in question.

So that is an option.

We can do that.

The other tool that we have is delisting.

So if we see an STR that has not obtained a certificate of registration, that we find is continuously getting complaints on our on our um complaint log, we can reach out to the platforms and say, take this uh STR D list them, take them off.

They can't they can't list right now.

Um I sent, I mean, we've already been sending some locations to the platforms saying, can you look into this?

They were having a party.

Their listing says that they're you're not allowed to have parties.

Is that a violation of your terms and conditions?

So we're working really closely with the platforms to try and mitigate the challenges that come out of this.

Uh, one issue that we've seen is deed restrictions and HOA civic associations.

Some of y'all have rules that prohibit short-term rentals.

Report it, report it to us as an unauthorized STR.

Tell us about your deed restrictions.

We'll uh coordinate with the legal department to confirm that yes, in fact, there are deed restrictions.

And if there are deed restrictions, whether or not they're registered with us, they can't offer that.

So we'll we'll at least get them off the platforms.

And if they have a certificate of registration that was issued to them, well, that was based on false information, and we can revoke that certificate at that time.

So there's different routes and there's different scenarios on how we can enforce uh the you know, those bad actors, and we all have them.

Do you all have STRs in your neighborhoods, or do you have any bad actors that you know of?

Okay.

So you want to know this site then.

Um, and then uh I will now take any questions.

We're on the last slide.

I'm just wondering with FIFA and other short-term events going on in Houston.

If somebody complains that something seems to be leased out, can the city react that fast, or will it all be over with by then?

So we we do anticipate a surge in uh STR activity for FIFA, most definitely.

It really each issue is different.

You know, when we get a noise complaint, we come in the next morning and see the noise complaint.

There's very little we can do about that at this time, but we can look at our records and log it and say, Oh, it looks like they're having parties.

We got this same complaint last Friday here.

Um so it really depends on what the situation is.

Now, if there's violence and stuff, of course, HPD is there, and we knew we saw that um the week of New Year's.

I think there were four uh gun gun incidents at four different STRs.

And you know, we as soon as we got a work we were informed of that, we reached out to Airbnb and Booking.com and Verbo and said, Do y'all know this happened?

Did you all see this?

And they're they don't want that to happen at their um host places, so they're pretty proactive too.

So it really depends on the situation.

I can't tell you they'll respond right away, or it'll take time.

I'm sorry.

Yes, sir.

Hi, I'm Ajumon Lubari with Southwood Place Civic Club, and we have some STRs.

Um with those complaints, are they also a way that the like the potential residents would be able to see it like a BBB type rating or like reviews?

Oh, do we have a review system based on our complaints?

Yes.

There is not, but if we see an excessive amount of complaints, we can reach out to the platforms and let them know about it and kind of bring them up to speed.

I can't revoke a certificate because of complaints.

I can follow up with the appropriate city department.

So if it's a trash thing, we'll send it to the solid waste management department, ask them to look into it.

Um, but we can't revoke or delist them just based on complaints.

So is that like uh is that like a uh like a one through five review?

How do we yeah?

No, there's no review system, it's just to complain about an STR that's operating in your neighborhood, that's maybe doing loud noise, leaving trash out all night, parking is creating a problem on the street.

So it's one of those uh there's six categories unauthorized STR, loud noise, party, uh solid uh trash issue, parking, and then other thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Yes, sir.

Just to kind of answer your question, you can go on Airbnb and you can scroll and do the map and find it in your neighborhood, and then you can contact Airbnb about that particular short rental as a host.

We don't want for bad information from either our neighbors where my Airbnb is from the city or from Airbnb themselves because they do take us off the platform.

They will remove your listing if you have too many complaints.

So the complaints can come from the neighbors associated with the house that's on the listing, or it comes from the people who are occupying your unit.

So a lot of times, unfortunately, because you all don't know this information, Airbnb has gotten a bad rep.

And so now, as Airbnb owners, I may have got to pay a fee to the city simply because they're trying to control something that unfortunately, no offense, that program is not going to fix.

So if you all just would contact Airbnb about the listing in your neighborhood, you're gonna get a lot more effectiveness.

I agree with that with contacting Airbnb.

Yeah, absolutely.

So Rashad Gambrell with the legal department and Genesis Jimenez with the legal department are here today, too.

To your point, sir, the city of Houston isn't going to be in the business of issuing reviews.

Um, and and we really shouldn't be in a position of effectively endorsing one Airbnb or one STR, and in turn looking like the city's in a position where it's not endorsing because that creates legal liability for the city potentially.

So that idea was brought up when we were developing the ordinance, and it's just not something that the city should do, and we don't do it in any other fashion either.

Yes, ma'am.

Did you have a question?

Can you can you come to the microphone though?

Hi, I'm Lindsay McLean.

How are you?

Um so my question is for our president who I'm stepping in for for Brayswood Place neighborhood association.

Um, what is the shortest term allowed in for this?

Do we know nightly weekend and weekly?

Is there restrictions on that?

Because we do have a neighbor that moved across the street from me, and actually she reminded us to ask this for her because she said those were she moved from her part of our neighborhood to across the street from us because of that very issue.

There was uh the weekend rental or the nightly rental where they could run by the night, and there would be 40.

We actually drove with her with a bunch of neighbors at 10:31 Saturday night to see the 40 or 50 people just coming out doing all sorts of business in the garage and hold a sack too with children and the owner was in a different city.

Anyway, a short-term rental is at least one night, no more than 30 days.

So it could be one night, two nights, three nights, a weekend, 30 days, anything over 30 days is now out of uh out of ordinance, does not need to complain.

Any other questions?

If there are no more questions, we do have a couple of announcements.

I do want to tell you that public session is on Tuesdays at 2 p.m.

You do have to sign up in the city secretary's office.

I'm sure everyone knows how to do that.

If you don't call justice, she's happy to walk you through that process.

Um public session, Tuesdays at two o'clock.

We want to hear from you.

Uh the last Tuesday of the month is a night session, and the meeting starts at five.

So let us know if you're coming.

We'd be happy to support your comments at City Hall.

And then we've got tomorrow we have a press conference with Clear Channel.

We're doing an illegal dumping campaign.

You'll see some billboards around the district that talk about illegal dumping and then the fines and cameras and all those things.

So you'll see those up around.

I think there's gonna be one off of 59.

There's gonna be one in Hiram Clark.

So we've got a couple of billboards going up thanks to Clear Channel for helping us get the word out about stopping this illegal dumping.

Um Keep Houston Beautiful Day is on Saturday.

Uh super excited that a lot of our District K churches have gotten together for a faith cleanup, and they have um pulled their church congregations together and volunteers, and they are going to do a massive cleanup around all of their facilities.

Um, we've also got some churches that have already decided to adopt the Esplanades in front of their churches.

So we've got a lot of good stuff happening.

Uh Westbury is hosting a Keep Houston Beautiful Day uh event on Saturday at the Butterfly Garden.

So if you have volunteers that are just looking for something to do, um we've got those cleanups happening.

Any other neighborhoods hosting events on Saturday that we don't know about?

Well, we hope to see you come volunteer with the others.

Anything else that you just want to talk about tonight?

I do want to thank you all for giving us the suggestions of the topics that you wanted to discuss.

If there's something else happening frequently in your neighborhoods that you want to talk about, we'll get together again and we'll pull the appropriate people together to talk about it.

So email us, call us, uh, let's keep working together and making District K a place that we can all be proud of.

Thank you all for being here.

Y'all give a big round of applause to the District K team again for the great work that they've done tonight.

All right, take some sandwiches and some chips home.

Thank y'all all for being here.

We really appreciate it.

Good night.