The uh City of Murphy regular City Council meeting time is 6 p.m.

Uh August 19th.

Rise with me as I offer the invocation and lead the pledge of allegiance.

Permanently Father bless us as we consider the agenda in front of us tonight.

Give us the wisdom to act with compassion and vision for what is best for the community.

Bless and watch over our public safety officers and the community they serve.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for our turn the time over to City Secretary for roll call and certification of the quorum.

Mayor Scott Bradley?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tim Elizabeth Abraham?

Here.

Deputy Mayor Pro Tim Janay Butler?

Here.

Councilmember please two Scott Smith.

Councilmember, please three, Andrew Chase.

Councilmember please four, Ken Oldman.

Here.

Councilmember Place Five, Laura Dill.

Here.

Mayor certify the presence of a plan.

Thank you.

All right, we do.

All right.

We're going to move on to public comments.

This is the time we set aside on the agenda to allow residents to address council and item not on the agenda this evening.

We do have three public comment forms.

I'll call them up first.

Got a fourth, but uh anyone who hasn't filled one out will have an opportunity to speak with counsel tonight.

Uh first uh on uh on the list is uh Mary Lane.

Is it on?

Yeah.

My name is Mary Mang.

I'm a board member of the Murphy Veterans Tribute.

My address is 804 Easter Drive in Wally, Texas.

I am in a Vietnam era Air Force Veteran.

I served from 1968 to 1972.

Good evening, Kenneth Altman, Mayor Scott Bradley, Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Abraham, Scott Smith, Andrew Chase, Laura Deal, Deputy Mayor Pro Tim Janae Butler.

I'm here to give an update on the Murphy Veterans Tribute.

President Mary Pat Elage and the board members, board members Debbie Brummett, Larry Hawkins, and myself met with City Manager Aretha Adams Monday, August 18th, 192025.

The Murphy Veterans Tribute Board has considered the unique requirements of the tribute dedicated to veterans and it's concluded that the location adjacent to the fire department presents several challenges.

Proximity to emergency services, limited accessibility for larger gatherings and educational programs, hinders our goal of community engagement.

The site selected by the City of Murphy does not support our goal of creating a haven for remembrance and gratitude to many generations to come.

We presented an alternate site to the city manager Aretha Adams.

We believe this site would be acceptable to the supporters of the Murphy Veterans Tribute.

The contact contract that the Murphy Veterans Tribute has with the Collin County Parks Board for matching funds of 109,000 may be lost because of the change of location from the original site in the park.

We are requesting to be placed on the agenda for the second September 2nd Murphy City Council meeting.

We understand that the only way to be placed on the agenda for a Murphy City Council meeting is for a member of the Murphy City Council to request his action.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you.

Mary Pat Ellich.

Hello, I'm Mary Pat Elledge with the Murphy Veterans Tribute 150 Shelby Trace in Murphy.

And I just wanted to make a statement here today.

The current situation of losing our Murphy Veterans Tribute side in Central Park is unfortunate and has taken three months now away from our fundraising activities.

According to the letter we received from City Manager on June 6, 2025, stated in the best interest of the city, we rescind the previous verbal commitments, including the land designated in Central Park for the memorial.

From that point, we have lost three months of fundraising opportunities.

I do hope that we can keep the lines of communication open to find an agreeable side for both parties.

We're hopeful that we can work together within the next few weeks because we are in jeopardy of losing valuable resources towards our fundraising activity, including a grant from Collin County Parks.

Many residents of Murphy and beyond are hopeful that we can be proud to offer a downsized tribute to the City of Murphy to not only touch our Murphy residents, but those veterans beyond our community who were looking forward to a tribute to veterans in Murphy, Texas.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Robert Cain.

Good evening.

My name is Robert Kane, and my wife and I live in the timbers in Murphy.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak briefly here this evening regarding the city's decision to withdraw their land for a veterans' tribute memorial in Central Park.

I myself am a six-year veteran of the Marine Corps Vietnam era, and I also spent nearly 30 years with the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C.

My wife and I were quite upset when we read the August 14th issue of the Murphy monitor.

You've all seen it, I'm sure.

That the considerable efforts of the Veterans Committee to achieve this goal have been derailed.

Also, at the moment, the city seems to be or enjoy a strong fiscal standing standing, so money is no issue.

And that, my friends, was on the front page of the paper.

Here are a few key points about the proposed tribute to consider.

We agree that the so-called alternative location at the fire station is inadequate and potentially dangerous for our citizens due to traffic and parking.

It would not be a quiet place for deep reflection and remembrance of our veterans.

We are simply puzzled about how this rescinding of the Central Park plot of land was accomplished.

There does not appear to have been any public notice or opportunity for citizens to weigh in on this matter.

Was it a feta complete?

The maintenance of the memorial, if and when it is built, will be handled by the parks and recreation department.

But the park board was never consulted about this rescinding of the land site.

Then what's the point?

Central Park is a large park with plenty of open space.

The park board has repeatedly discussed ways to expand the park's attractions and features.

So why would the Veterans Memorial not be considered for this goal?

City Manager Aretha Adams is quoted as saying, quote, despite your considerable fundraising efforts, the project has not met the financial goals required to bring it to fruition.

Was there a clock ticking down to a deadline?

When has this been decided after years of donations, fundraisers, special events, picnics, photography sessions, and more?

Why is the rug suddenly being pulled out from under it now?

Ladies and gentlemen, cities and town across Texas and indeed America have a heartfelt way of honoring and respecting their heroes, and the Veterans Memorial in our area is no exception.

At this time, it is high time that we in Murphy show our community respect and honor our own veterans by allowing this project to move forward as originally planned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Come on now.

Thank you, Mayor and the City Council.

I appreciate this opportunity.

I'm Bobby Tillman and reside at 6314 Benn Road in Saxe, Texas.

I'm a foreigner.

I don't live here in Murphy.

Obviously, I'm not a resident of Murphy, but I have been active in this area as a member of the Murphy Chamber of Commerce for several years and a board member of the Murphy Veterans Tribune.

One reason that I have been active in active in the Murphy in Murphy results from such a great reception I received in 1996 from the Murphy Chamber of Commerce and the Murphy Police and Fire Departments.

I was a president of Saxley Historical Society, the organization that brought the Vietnam Moving Wall to Saxe.

I traveled to all the surrounding cities to promote the event and to see if any police, fire EMT, or other groups would participate in the motorcade as the wall entered the city.

The city of Saxe.

Your fire chief did not hesitate to offer some vehicles, with the only possible exception if there was an emergency in the area, which makes sense.

There were nearly 90 vehicles total, including motorcycles, vintage vehicles, regular family cars, and police emergency vehicles.

George Bush Freeway was shut down from Jupiter Road to Miles Road eastbound for this the duration of this trip.

Murphy sent vehicles to participate in the escort all the way into Saxe to its designate to its destination at Saxe City Hall.

Because of such a warm reception I personally received and this event received, I continued to attend Murphy events in Murphy.

I joined the Murphy Chamber of Commerce and not long after became an ambassador for the Chamber.

I have continued to participate in numerous events here in your city.

Most of you have probably seen me taking pictures and doing videos of different things around.

And several of you have offered videos.

Let me do interviews.

All this started because of the support of the event to honor all American veterans.

But Mary Pat Elich asked me to help with the Murphy Veterans Tribute.

Not only was an honor to be asked, but I felt it would be another way I could help, at least in some small way, to honor those who served our country.

My father was a veteran of World War II and served in some of the fiercest battles in the Battle of the Welch.

He was the first infantry division, 26th Regiment, the Big Red One.

He's deceased now, but he was he was a special person.

Our grandson, currently in the Navy, will also be someday a veteran.

I have already included my father in the circle of honor.

When our grandson finishes his Navy career and then becomes a veteran, I plan to honor him as well.

It seems to me that having a tribute to honor a veterans here in Murphy would be something that would be such an asset to the city and would be something that would show this area's thanks for all those who have helped make America such a wonderful place to live.

I hope that the city will have the Murphy Veterans Tribute become a reality.

Thank you and God bless.

Thank you.

Anyone else want to have a comment with the city in public comments on that item?

If not, do I have anyone else who wants to address counsel in public comments tonight?

All right.

Seeing none, uh move on to mayor's report.

I don't have anything on the mayor's report this evening.

Uh move on to presentation.

6A, presentation.

Water and wastewater rate study update.

Chris Elke.

The C has contracted with the UGM strategies and solutions since 2014.

And we have a presenter here tonight who does an amazing job of taking that information that's high-level uh analysis and breaking it down in later first.

We're happy to uh allow him to do this one presentation.

So the next um time that you will be discussing about rates, it will be on the adoption in September the second, which is the next council meeting.

And I wanted to uh make sure that you knew that there's two scenarios being presented tonight.

There were three that we discussed in the July budget meeting.

One of those was omitted tonight due to the fact that it was too impactful for residents based on our opinion.

So for confusion's sake, we're um he's offering um scenario one and scenario three with those explanations and any questions that you may have for him.

Thank you, Chris, for coming.

Thank you so much.

Well, good evening, Mayor Council, Chris Eckert with New Gen Strategies and Solutions.

Pleasure to be with you again this evening.

Uh, do want to be respectful of your time as always, but as we go through this, if there are questions, if I if I fail to hit on something that you have a question about, please feel free to stop me at any point.

As I start out with you, uh when I've been with you before, we start by looking at the cost of purchase water from North Texas municipal water district.

Again, the city purchases treated water from North Texas.

You send your wastewater to North Texas to be treated.

This represents a significant cost relative to your water and wastewater utility.

As you can see on the screen right now, last year we were estimating that the cost of water this year would be about 7.14 million dollars.

That has actually gone down by about 100,000 year over year as we've looked at North Texas estimates.

So they've been able to hold hold that down a little bit, but you are still looking at about a 481,000 dollar increase year over year in the cost of water, going from about 6.56 million to a little over 7 million.

That is about a 7% increase in your cost of water.

I will remind you that as you look at your wholesale water expense, your wholesale wastewater treatment expense, that represents to you as a business, ultimately, it represents to you the cost of goods sold.

We always recommend that the city pass that cost on through to customers.

Failure to do that ultimately means more of your internal dollars that are intended for your distribution system and your collection system go to end up paying the cost of wholesale service.

So again, that is always our recommendation that you look at passing that cost through as you experience that cost every year.

I will note as you look out into the future.

We do have projections going all the way out to 2030 from North Texas right now.

They are estimating that cost of water on a per thousand gallon basis to be over $6 by 2030.

That represents the capital investment that North Texas is making in acquiring new water supply and making sure we can get that water supply to citizens.

So again, uh about a 29 cent uh per thousand gallon increase from North Texas, a little over seven percent overall is what you're seeing on the cost of purchase water.

On the wastewater side, uh again, last year we were estimating that the cost of wholesale wastewater from North Texas would be about 3.6 million.

That unfortunately has gone up year over year.

We're looking at about 3.7 million uh going into fiscal year 26.

That's an increase from 3.2 million to 3.7 million.

It's about a little over 450,000 increase year over year.

That represents an over 14% increase in that cost.

Again, as we look at wastewater, uh wastewater is becoming more and more expensive to treat.

It becomes more and more difficult to treat as federal requirements increase, as state requirements increase.

Uh but again, you are you are seeing a sizable increase here year over year uh in your wastewater treatment expense.

As we break that full budget down here, you see the North Texas cost up at the top, 10.7 million total.

You see the other expenses of the city broken down broken down by department.

Uh total other expenses, the total city expenses 7.65 million, total budget 18.4 million dollars as you go into next year.

Uh 58% of that budget is associated with North Texas.

So again, as we talk about that being the cost of goods sold, a significant portion of your budget is associated with your wholesale provider.

So the prices, the 14% increase, all cities saw that?

All cities that take or that send their wastewater to North Texas saw that.

Now it now on wastewater, it is more systems specific.

Uh so as you look at your systems that you're on, I believe Wiley is on those same systems, uh again, subject to check.

Other cities are on different systems, so they may have different levels of increase.

Uh when you look at water, all of the cities, all 13 member cities, all 26 customer cities are on the same regional system.

Wastewater is more system specific.

So would that mean more specifically, the Muddy Creek processing plant?

Yes, sir.

And is ours more expensive than ones in the area?

I would have to go and look, honestly.

Those systems require capital investment at different times.

Uh-huh.

Uh so while your specific systems may require more substantial capital investment now, others may require capital investment later.

So it really is system specific, and I'm I'm off the top of my head, I'm not sure where each of those systems is at the moment.

Who decides when that capital investment uh needs are ultimately it's decided by the North Texas Board of Directors, uh, which again, the board of directors, the member cities make up the board of directors.

Uh, but ultimately they are following and making sure they comply with regulatory requirements.

Those regulatory requirements are promulgated by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

So ultimately it's coming down from the state of Texas.

So those are garantices of the debt, the member cities that sit on the board for North Texas Water Municipal District.

Can you explain for the people at home listening what the difference is between a member city and the customer city?

So there are two different classes of customers, if you will, at North Texas.

There are member cities, there are customer cities.

Member cities have been generally around longer than customer cities.

There is also a five cent per thousand gallon differential in the rate between member cities and customer cities.

Now they're there pardon currently.

And that's only water, nothing.

This is water.

Yes, ma'am.

This is water.

On the wastewater side, again, everybody is system specific on the sewer side.

This is this is the water side.

But there is a price differential between members and customers.

Now, as the mayor indicated, that price differential right now is five cents.

There was substantial litigation that occurred between the member cities at the public utility commission a number of years ago dealing with what we refer to as the take or pay clause.

It's an it's an annual minimum.

I won't go get into the contract nitty-gritty details here.

But ultimately coming out of that, there was a settlement amongst the member cities.

And the one element that the member cities could agree on is that the customer cities weren't paying enough.

So that ultimately has led to continued discussions as to how that price differential should change going forward.

And should it be increased that price differential should it be increased between members and customers?

I am not a part of those discussions, so I can't speak to where those sit today.

But all of my all of my clients that are customer cities of North Texas are anticipating an increase in that price differential.

Does that appropriately answer your question?

So do we in the projections for the sewer for the next few years?

Because it looks like there's a high projection next year as well, like a big differential.

Am I reading this right?

So your your cost right now, as we look next year, there's a small increase in the interceptor, but it really is the wastewater treatment plan, going from 36 million, 3.6 million up to 4.5 million next year.

Right.

Again, North Texas looks at these every year.

Right.

They come in and revise these every year, but they are anticipating a fairly sizable increase in the cost of service at the Muddy Creek plant year over year from 26 to 26.

I mean, that looks like more than a 14 percent that we're anticipating next year.

And we think this is all capital investments on that system.

Yes, ma'am.

These are all capital investments on that system.

Okay.

Again, there are operational increases that occur, but it really is driven by capital increases.

And just to be clear, Muddy Creek is shared by the city of Murphy and the City of Wiley.

Um is that it?

I believe that's it.

Yes.

And uh neither of us are member cities.

Um I want to say Wiley is a member city.

Yes, sir.

So the board is they're on the board.

They do have a representative.

Yes, and the city of Murphy is but that's just for purchasing water.

This is wastewater.

So this is all in our bucket, right?

We we're paying for it as a combination of percent of what we have, but we don't have a voice in, you know, when they make a decision to do enhancements to grow uh to take on debt to increase their rates uh in order to do that maintenance.

Uh I assume it's all uh a valid, you know, multi-year plan that they've got going on.

We're not on that, we're not at the table with that.

I would like to do that.

Aretha, I would like to see uh a presentation or or just information sent to us on Muddy Creek.

When when this expansion because we we've been talking about Muddy Creek for years, so it's this it's nothing new.

Um we knew that they were going to be expanding it.

I would just like to know where we are with the expansion, what is the what is the debt on that that the um the entities that use it are are paying on it specifically.

I will mention that North Texas does publish what they call strategic financial plans every year.

And so there is substantial amount of information available on their website specific to this system.

And so you can go out and see these same projections I'm showing you tonight, are available from North Texas.

They also list their capital plan in that so you can see what is planned and what the dollars are anticipated for that plan.

Okay.

Other questions about North Texas before I move on here.

Okay.

So again, the city has made uh annual rate adjustments.

These have varied over the years.

I think they've been, I think during COVID, we had one year where we did not increase rates, but there have been small increases up to larger increases.

But these increases have been intended to properly manage the finances of the utility.

The utility is in good financial shape right now.

You have a solid available fund balance right now.

When we look at how you are generating revenue, you generate a stable revenue stream.

Again, all of that is reflective of the action the council has taken historically to manage the utility well.

It has put you in a very good financial position.

And so as we look at that financial position, I want to emphasize that before we start looking at numbers that you see on the screen here.

As we look at current rates, performance under current rates, your total revenues, this is rate revenues as well as other non-rate revenues, a little over 16 million dollars.

Your expenditures next year, as I previously showed you, 18.4 million.

So you would be under recovering revenue by approximately 2.34 million dollars next year.

That is about a 14% under recovery.

So explain that more in layman's terms.

Okay.

So again, as we look at the enterprise, so a water and sewer utility is an enterprise.

It is a business type activity of government.

When we are coming in and assessing your current rates, we like to see you in a revenue sufficient position.

Meaning we want to see that your revenues match or exceed your expenses.

Under your current rates right now, your current rates do not put you in a revenue sufficient position.

If you did not change rates and performance occurred as anticipated, we are estimating you would lose approximately 2.34 million dollars next year.

So this is if we don't change our rates.

If you do not change rates, that's correct.

And sometimes it's okay, right, to run a deficit because it's not the city's policy to for lack of a better word, hoard money.

That's okay.

We want to make sure a utility fund is healthy.

We want to make sure that we have a long vision on the maintenance of our uh of our infrastructure.

Uh but collecting too much money from the residents is not in our policy.

That's correct.

All right.

So as you're looking at this assessment, um, where do you see us standing as the health of our um of our fund?

Yes, sir.

We are looking at the health uh of the overall fund.

Uh and again, it is not unusual in certain years to be above or below.

You run a not-for-profit business.

You do not have a profit motive.

Your goal as a utility operator is to set a service level and then set pricing to achieve that service level.

There are some years where uh we may be a drier year.

There may be less rainfall.

People use more water in that year, you may overperform.

There may be more revenue than anticipated.

We may be in a wet year where rainfall is higher, and in that case, you're selling less water.

When we are looking at the utility, when we look at managing a utility, we want to plan for quote normal weather.

Now, anybody that has lived in Texas longer than about five minutes knows we do not have normal weather.

When we are doing a rate study, this is based on assumptions, it is based on projections.

I will say we are conservative, but our goal in being conservative is to look out for the health of the business and make sure you have a financially stable enterprise, which you do right now.

This council has made some hard decisions over the years that has put the utility in a good financial position.

I will note for you, your fund balance right now in the utility fund, about 12.6 million dollars.

So you are in a position you could go through and not raise rates and lose 2.3 million dollars next year and still be okay.

I do not recommend that because ultimately, as you look out into the future, your costs will continue to increase.

I've shown you what your wholesale provider is looking at going forward.

You as the city will have increased cost in your distribution system, in your collection system.

So our goal here is to be measured with our rate changes.

What we are trying to do is make small incremental annual changes while you pull that fund balance down.

And so what I'm going to show you here in just a minute, we're proposing that under normal conditions that instead of losing 2.3 million dollars next year, you would only lose 1.4 million dollars next year.

This is by design.

Every time that we've come before you, we've talked about fund balance and we talked about pulling that fund balance down, but doing it in a measured way over time.

Alright.

So again, we do have two scenarios for you this year.

Looking at scenario one.

Scenario one has increases in both the fixed charge and variable charge.

And let me explain that a little bit.

You have what we call a two-part rate structure.

There is a fixed charge every customer pays every month, regardless of use.

There's a variable charge.

On the water side, that variable charge is structured as what we call an inclining block rate.

It's a conservation-based rate structure, such that the more you use, the more you pay.

On the wastewater side, it's just a flat uniform volumetric rate.

But under scenario one, we are increasing both of those components.

As we've heard council feedback over the years, we've also prepared scenario three for you this year, where we would hold that fixed charge constant.

We would not increase the fixed charge year over year, but we would load the increase into the variable component of the rate.

The difference in the combined fixed charge, water and wastewater, between scenario one and scenario three is two dollars and eighty-eight cents.

So if you go with scenario three, that fixed charge, that base charge on a combined basis is two dollars and eighty-eight cents lower.

One reason that you may want to select that is that fixed charge.

Customers cannot avoid that fixed charge.

They pay that every month.

And so as you look at increases to that fixed charge, that can have a more significant proportional impact on customers that use less water.

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes customers that use less water are also lower or fixed income customers.

So it's our opinion, scenario three may be more advantageous to lower volume users, and that's why you have scenario three in front of you tonight.

So as I said, under both scenarios, both of these are deficit scenarios.

We are anticipating under our assumptions, under normal weather conditions, you would still reduce your fund balance next year by about 1.4 million dollars.

Is that guaranteed?

It may not be guaranteed.

You could be in a summer next year, you know, this summer has been a little bit more mild.

Uh but if we get into a period where we're in May and we're already hitting 100 degree temperatures, water use will be higher.

And you may be in a situation where you actually generate a little more money.

It all depends on the weather, it depends on how our residents respond to conservation.

It depends on how much water is used.

So with that said, what is the customer impact?

Scenario one, what we are doing in these scenarios here in these customer impacts, we are looking at the average customer within the city.

You have customers below that that use less water, you do have customers above that that use more water.

Your average customer over the course of a year right now uses $12,700 gallons of water.

That is a higher level of water use.

Generally, we see for a single family home being closer to about 5,000 gallons.

Some communities that's 4,000 gallons average use.

Here in the city, you're at 12,700 gallons.

You have some customers that very much like to water.

But again, your average customer, 12,000 gallons, 12,700 gallons of water, 7100 gallons of sewage.

Right now, the water bill 1142 for that level of use.

We're proposing under scenario one to increase that a little over $7 a month.

Under the sewer side, 7100 gallons, 56.57 is that bill, our proposal that increase that $2.68.

Now again, we are seeing more increases on the sewer side in terms of cost.

We are continuing to increase sewer rates as well.

But let me remind you when you look at how we structure rates.

And so when you're seeing this and you're going, shouldn't that sewer bill be going up more?

There's a volume difference here.

This is $12,700 gallons of water versus $7100 gallons of sewage.

So again, our volumes are different as we look at this.

But overall year over year increase under scenario one, the current bill $171.19.

Under scenario one, we'd recommend to take that to $180.92.

That's a $9.73 monthly increase.

Again, this is a higher scenario that increases both the fixed and the variable charge.

Under scenario three, where we do not increase that fixed charge, we're looking at the same gallonage level here, $6.99 is the monthly increase on the water side, $2.48.

On the sewer side, $9.47.

But let me take you to this slide.

And again, before I jump into these comparisons, I'm pretty sure I say the same thing every year.

When we're looking at regional bill comparisons, you have to be careful.

These are not apples to apples comparisons.

Every community is different.

And so what we're looking at here is a comparison of that minimum bill.

So again, this for the city of Murphy does not include any usage.

You do have some communities that include a volume allotment in the minimum bill.

The city chose as a policy a number of years ago to not include a volume allotment.

That aligns with the pricing recommendations that are provided by the Texas Water Development Board through their organization, which is called the Texas Water Conservation Implementation Task Force.

That body publishes a best management practices guide for water conservation.

And in their pricing strategies, they recommend that municipal providers do not include a volume allotment in the minimum bill.

And the reason for that is around conservation.

If you have a community, and I'll just I'll pick on uh I'll pick on Sunnyville right quick.

Uh they're a client of ours.

I apologize to them if if they're watching.

Uh but they include 2,000 gallons within their minimum bill.

A customer there is not encouraged to conserve 2,000 gallons because they are paying for that, regardless of if they use that or not.

It's a take or pay.

Very similar to some of the litigation we've seen on a wholesale basis at North Texas.

So that is why we do not, and the city has not, as a policy, included a volume allotment in the minimum bill.

It really is based around conservation.

But again, scenario one would increase that minimum bill from 5463 up to 5751.

Scenario three keeps that bill the same, no increase in the minimum bill at 5463.

So want to be clear on the difference in those two scenarios.

As we look at this same comparison, but we go to that average customer.

$12,700 gallons of water, $7100 gallons of sewage right now, $171.19 is that bill, you see there's really not a lot of difference here for the average customer.

Because that average customer, there's not a significant impact when you're not changing that minimum bill.

If we don't increase the minimum bill, the volumetric rate has to go up slightly.

And so for the average customer, not a big difference.

But for your lower volume customer, scenario three could be impactful.

And so uh it and I've had these conversations with people over the years, and I think it's um it's worth kind of stating.

Uh, and I know you've gone over it, but the way our bills are worked is a fixed rate and a volumetric.

Yes, sir.

And a fixed rate is a fee that you are charged simply for being connected to the service.

A volumetric rate is based on the amount of the volume that you use.

The total dollar amount that we project to earn has to cover the total budget that we set for the utility.

So you reduce one, you have to increase the other.

Staff loves the fixed rate.

Why?

Staff loves the fixed rate because the fixed rate is a known dollar amount.

There's no, there's no variability in it.

Uh council and residents, they like the volumetric rate because it allows residents to, you know, if I want to save money, I can use less.

If I am uh, if I'm an empty nester the way I am, you know, I don't use anywhere near as much water as you know, people with a full house.

Uh, you know, so my bill can, you know, my volumetrics are much lower.

Um so there is this this push and pull to say what is the right mix.

How do we how do we drive uh you know the right mix between volumetrics and uh fixed costs?

And different cities do different things and come to different conclusions.

But at the end of the day, the one thing that doesn't change is the dollar amount that we need to capture in order to pay for the services that we're responsible for.

We can hoard too much money, I don't like doing that.

We can take in too little money, and then we become uh it becomes a problematic.

So that's a measure that we always have to have in place.

But the model that we create always has to keep that utility fund secure, safe uh in healthy.

Healthy is the word I'm I'm using.

And I want to also mention the utility fund is unique.

It is uh it is standalone.

It is outside the the operating budget that the said the city operates to do the streets and everything else.

So it doesn't get money directly from uh uh property taxes, it doesn't get money through uh through other fees.

It is self-supporting.

So when we set these rates, however we push that volume metrics versus fixed rate, and we have to model it to make sure that uh that we have we can predict the revenue that's coming in, and we need to make a decision on what a healthy budget looks like.

And this is uh this is a push and pull that happens on every city in this in the state.

So I just wanted to make that as clear as possible.

No, absolutely.

It is about balancing competing objectives.

It is about balancing different policy points of view.

Uh we have seen councils change over uh at times, and when that happens, policy changes and rates change at that time because different councils have different policies.

Um I would applaud this council.

You have been incredibly steady.

You have been very steady over the years.

You've made some difficult decisions, uh, but you have put the utility in a very good financial position where you can come in and say, we're okay in a deficit spending position because we do have a strong fund balance.

The other element that you have to consider is as a standalone uh enterprise, you are also, if you get into a situation where you need to borrow money to make improvements on your system, which often happens for utility systems.

Utility systems, we've got pipes, plants, pumps, these are a lot of these are million dollar projects.

We can't just go cash fund that.

Generally, we have to issue debt to fund those large projects.

And when you go to the debt markets, debt holders are looking at this same information.

They're looking at your financial information, they are looking at what kind of credit risk you are.

And the lower you are as a credit risk, that can help lower your cost of borrowing.

So by making tough decisions, by adjusting rates as necessary, you can actually lower your long-term cost to customers by keeping those interest rates low when you're in a borrowing position.

So it's not just looking at it from what is our fund balance, it's also looking at it from an outside credit rating perspective.

Are we maintaining our rating so that we are maintaining a low cost of borrowing and maintaining a lower cost of service long term?

One other thing I would note about this chart before we leave this chart.

Uh I've provided you a projection of your bill under scenario one and scenario three.

But that is your future bill.

I'm comparing your future bill to everybody else's bill today.

Uh cities all over the Metroplex, and if you look at my calendar, I can attest to this, cities all over the Metroplex right now are looking at rates.

They're going through the same exercise you are going through, and they are adjusting rates.

There are communities on this list that have announced rate increases for next year.

And so if you look at this in October or January, it will look different.

That average bill next year will increase, even if you do nothing.

That average bill line will increase because other cities are going up.

So please note that when you're looking at this.

This is this is a static snapshot in time.

I've not come in and increased other cities.

I'm showing you their current bill today, but they will be increasing as well.

Chris, uh, while you're talking about that, I have a question for you.

And and for those in the audience and for the listeners at home, if it wasn't mentioned before, you know, Chris with um New Gen Solutions is an outside company that we that we hire to come in and provide us uh data.

They've got no dog in the fight.

They just like their job is to help us better best plan.

Um but if you can go back to the slide where it shows like the yearly increases, and sorry, it's maybe a couple back.

Um yes, this one right here.

So total year-over-year increase.

I mean, for just for the city of Murphy, this is under the scenario three, and the other scenario too, that doesn't matter so much.

Roughly, we're looking at ten dollars more per month per additional per year.

So after five years, we're looking at fifty dollars more on someone's utility bill on for the average.

That is it's an it's crazy, you know.

Is every other major city looking at spending $50 more per bill or 40%?

To the extent that they are taking service from North Texas, they are looking at the exact same water cost increases that you are looking at.

Other providers in the area, so uh I'll just use Trinity River Authority right now.

I was with some of their clients uh a few weeks ago.

They're looking at a 91 million dollar capital investment next year.

Um I recall the city, uh they were going up about 8% on rates every year, and we anticipate that going forward into the future.

Uh we are seeing major growth in our area.

When you look at North Texas service area, if I remember my numbers correctly, they are adding 75,000 people a year.

When you look at water supply, that is some level of water supply, whether it be a reservoir, whether it be a well system, regardless of what it is, that is adding a major project every year to keep up with that growth.

Not only are we having to keep up with the growth, but the things that were built, North Texas started back in the 1950s.

The things that were built back at that time need to be replaced, they need to be rehabbed, they must be re you know, they must be reconstructed.

There's dollars associated with that as well.

We have a number of indices that we use in our business.

One is is published by the Federal Reserve, another is published by the National Association of Clean Water Agencies.

And when you run those indices out, you actually see them increasing every year more than inflation and more than median household income.

Why is that?

Well, our utility systems for so long have been out of sight, out of mind.

You can look at all of these studies that are published by the uh National National Engineering Association.

I don't remember the exact acronym.

Uh but every time they come out with that, I believe our water systems get a D, our wastewater systems may get a D minus, our roads get maybe a C at best.

We have not adequately invested in infrastructure in this country.

And so we are behind the eight ball.

We are trying to get caught up, and even as we get caught up, those federal regulations change.

You've heard of PFOS, I'm sure, on the news, these forever chemicals that are in the water that now the EPA is saying we have to remove those.

Well, that wasn't in the plan five years ago.

That wasn't in the plan 10 years ago.

It's now in the plan, and we have to spend those dollars to make those improvements.

And I don't know how the technology is going to change in the next five years and ten years, and we find something else that we need to remove.

So while we're behind the eight ball, we also have all of these other things that we're trying to do.

And it is expensive.

It is expensive to provide utility service.

I attended a uh a meeting at North Texas a couple of years ago, I guess now.

Um what was interesting is it was similar presentation to this, uh a group that was presenting to that board.

And what came across to me very uh interestingly was the concept that there was plenty of headroom in the rate structure for water and sewer in the Metroplex.

Meaning that they that we receive that that the water costs are discounted when compared nationally.

And so we from their perspective, whether we agree or not, or if North Texas agrees or not, I don't know.

But from their perspective, we are um there is room in the rate structure to push up uh in on the on the on the uh on the expense side uh to uh without putting us outside of uh normal range uh for a major metropolitan areas.

So that was the perspective from them.

That was the consultant that was reading back to them.

Um I didn't get a feedback from them if they agreed or disagreed, but uh it did hit me in a different way listening to that conversation.

Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry, Chris.

No, no, go ahead.

There's one last follow-up for mine, and then we can get back on track.

I hope that what the Texas legislature did this year with earmarking money for um water resources.

I hope that we get some trickle down from that.

I really hope so.

I don't know if you have anything to add, you know, that's unintended.

Upon intended.

You know, I I don't have a lot of faith in it.

No, you know, but uh hopefully some of them.

There are definitely funding opportunities that will come from that.

Unfortunately, again, and I I stand here in a different position.

It's not enough.

It is not enough.

A billion here, five billion there.

We need more billions, frankly, when you look at the cost, because we are we are behind.

There are actually communities, as I look at that regional bill comparison.

I found this out the other night.

There's a community on that list that still has substantial amounts of clay sewer pipe in their city that is currently providing service to citizens.

Clay sewer pipe went out a long time ago.

We still find concrete water pipes.

There's actually the uh there's a uh a community that's not here in the state of Texas.

Uh they dug up water pipes, they were using what uh wooden water pipes to provide service.

Uh so again, when you think about the fact that you can go into your house, you can, and again, I apologize if I'm getting passionate here, but you can go into your house, you can turn that tap, and you can take as much water, 24-7 clean water that you can trust, you can drink, and you can take as much of it as will flow from that faucet.

And you compare that to what you're paying for that versus what you pay for a bottle of water at the convenience store.

It's still a heck of a deal.

It is still a very cost effective product, even though we do see these prices going up and the prices will continue to go up.

Uh not even Amazon does that in terms of making sure you have everything you need in your house right when you need it on demand any time, day or night.

Uh so you know, as we think about utility service, it is uh we are blessed.

We are blessed by the utility services that our cities provide.

Yes, that cost is increasing.

I know nobody wants to pay more for that.

Uh, but it is an incredible service that is provided.

And I apologize for editorializing there.

We apologize for wailing your.

No, this is the this this is a good discussion.

I I I appreciate it.

Uh it's always good.

We don't talk enough about water and wastewater.

We don't talk enough about what our what our water and wastewater operators do.

Uh so I appreciate that opportunity.

Again, as we look at financial performance under projected rates, as I said before, 1.4 million dollars is the anticipated deficit spend position, but we can accommodate that.

We can handle that under both scenario one and scenario three.

I do want to wrap up just high-level questions, again, frequently asked questions.

This is what people want to know.

Why are my water and sewer bills going up so much?

Uh again, I've I've talked at length tonight about North Texas.

That water cost going up 7.3%, sewer cost going up over 14%.

That is your cost of goods sold, and it is our recommendation that you continue to pass that through.

Uh, what is the city doing to control cost or reduce usage?

You have priced your service with conservation in mind.

Uh we do this every year.

We look at the budget every year.

I know this is not, you know, city staff doesn't do this in a vacuum.

There's a lots of effort that goes into this to look at that cost every year.

And as I said, customers here in Murphy use a lot of water compared to other communities.

So we do need to be good stewards of the water resources we have.

How do our rates compare to nearby cities?

I showed you that graph earlier.

Again, if nobody else changes, which is not going to happen, but if nobody else changes, your rates next year would be slightly above the average.

But we do know that cities are going to change.

That average is going to move.

I believe, my opinion that your rates are still comparable with others in the region.

You are not the lowest, you are not the highest, uh, but you are still comparable as we look at other communities.

Uh what happens if you don't raise rates?

As I said, you could go through and not raise rates this year.

That is not my recommendation.

Because ultimately, you're making a decision today that could, in my opinion, harm you tomorrow.

I recommend, as I told you before, small increases every year if possible.

Pass along the cost increases you experience.

You can be in a deficit spending position.

That's okay.

We do want to pull down that fund balance, uh, but we do want to be cognizant of the future.

The council has done that.

You have made wise conservative financial decisions over the years, and I'd recommend that you continue that going forward.

And again, the the question with a healthy fund balance, which you have, why are you not offsetting the rate increase by larger amounts?

That is certainly an option.

But again, this council many years ago set the policy that we continue to follow today of those measured increases.

Uh so we are following that policy.

If that policy is changed, we will answer to council, we will listen to counsel, and we can construct whatever scenario you may be interested in.

But again, we recommend that you stay the course with that policy because it has served you well over the years.

I appreciate the robust discussion tonight.

Are there other questions that I can answer for you this evening?

I have a question.

Yeah, as soon as we're done, I'll bring you up.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Anything else for an answer?

All right.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

Public comment?

Come on up.

Well, I come on up.

Not a public comment.

It's questions I had for the present.

That's not how this works.

You can ask us questions, and if if we have an answer, we can answer it in this in this uh if we go to slide two, which I can't, the rates given there for FI uh 25 and 26 are incorrect.

Incorrect top.

Second?

Incorrect top.

Well, if you go, can you can you take us to slide two?

Are you suggesting that the numbers are maliciously being provided to us wrong?

That we're being told something inaccurate on purpose?

No, I don't think it's on purpose.

Um, but if you look at the projected uh the FY25, that's using a projected rate, the actual rate was was 395.

The uh Northwest uh or the district has already announced what FY26 will be, and that's 419.

That was announced July 31st.

So again, that's a projected rate, but all that does is skew the numbers clearly, okay.

And my a question I had was how is how is the take or pay if the cities if cities use less than their allotted amount, their take or pay guarantee you know that they have to come up with, and you you that's what you're trying to catch with that 1.6 billion gallons.

Okay.

So if you use less than that, does this do the cities get a credit against the usage they didn't that didn't occur?

They don't get a credit, there's there is a reduced cost for the additional gallons after uh that we do receive um uh above the uh uh the cap.

Well, according to the district last year, which uh we uh Murphy, the city of Murphy, total usage was uh 1.71, and they were and Murphy received a check for 254 K.

Okay, which was part of the district credit.

Yeah, yeah, they reduced credit.

Okay, and then this year, well last year's consumption was 95% of the take or pay, and they got 250 grand.

Okay.

This year the consumption, the water uh consumption for the what's called the water year by the district is eighty-five percent.

Now, what I want my question is was the credit was a credit estimated for that under usage, and is that part of the study?

That's a question.

Okay.

Okay, another question.

Go ahead.

Okay, over the last seven years, despite having an ordinance for water conservation, and an ordinance, actually a water master plan or conservation plan, and an ordinance in 2019 was passed in 2019, said water loss should be 12 percent or less of the total total consumption.

Okay, over the last seven years, water loss ranged between 20 and 30 percent, and it costs the ratepayers an additional 8.5 million dollars.

How does the study, that's my question?

How does the study incorporate and how is it incorporated water loss?

How's it accounted for?

Okay.

Go ahead.

I'm gonna I'm I'm tracking your questions and now.

Okay.

No problem.

Um I guess I'll I'll quit there.

Uh last year the average rates were, and I still want to know why mediums aren't used.

Because last year the average water use was uh uh 12.4 and 7.5, and then we've changed them a little bit, but what was presented in the budget meeting was 10 and 5.

And so the the increase when you went to look at the increase was much less than it's going to be per household per month.

Okay.

That's it.

All right, those are your three questions.

Thank you.

All right.

Let me see if I can uh um we can we can hit some of these.

Um Chris, do you want to address was the credit uh was the credit that we received used in the uh in the assessment?

So any time you receive a credit from North Texas, and again what that represents is a credit for the variable cost.

It is a variable rate credit.

Uh what that does is ultimately if you don't have an expenditure for that, if you don't have a capital expenditure, that's just gonna fall to fund balance.

So if there are credits over the years that you have received that have not been spent, that falls into that fund balance number.

Okay.

I'm gonna jump to the third question.

Why do we use uh median uh averages instead of medians?

Uh in in determining our rate.

So the the 10 and 5 that are used, those are common metrics used by the uh Texas Municipal League.

Texas Municipal League does a survey every year of cities in Texas.

It's a voluntary response, uh, but they measure uh bills for five and ten thousand gallons.

That's why you see a number of cities in their budgeting process using five and ten thousand gallons.

We prefer to use an average customer.

Again, I can show median, I can show 25th percent percentile, I can show 75th percentile.

The customer impact will vary based on what your actual use is.

If you are a lower volume user, you will see less of a bill increase.

If you are a higher volume user, you'll see more of an increase.

Uh if you'd like, we can show you what the bill is per thousand gallons from 1,000 gallons to 20,000 gallons.

There's there's any number of ways to look at that.

Uh I'm I recognize that when I come before you I have limited time.

You have limited time to consider and digest all this information.

Uh so if we are if we are too summary level, let me know.

We can definitely provide more information, but that's why we use an average.

I'll give council an opportunity uh to provide me feedback and staff feedback if they'd like to see um these numbers broken down in a different way, averages based on what we see here where we are in the average, versus median versus other things.

If you guys have any comments, just let uh let Aretha know.

And uh we uh I'm sure Chris would be happy to regenerate those numbers for us.

All right.

The third question, and I don't really believe it's for you, it's probably for me and Aretha, uh the water loss um uh calculations.

If I can address it just structurally for you before you jump into water loss, um when we come in and develop a rate, you take dollars divided by units, billed units.

And so ultimately your build units that charge to customers are different than what you purchase from North Texas.

You purchase more water than is delivered to your customers.

So our denominator of our rate calculation is reflective of build units.

That's how cost or excuse me, loss is accounted for.

We're using build units, not what we're purchasing from North Texas.

So structurally, that's how the math works to account for the loss.

Okay.

All right.

But it still reflects our total usage.

So your your cost represents what you're purchasing from North Texas.

We are dividing by what you provide to your customers.

Right.

Right.

Very good.

Umside, um, as council knows this has been something that has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time.

I've been made very passionate speeches from up here on the need to uh address water loss.

I think it's a significant cost to the residents of the community.

Um, and it's something that I wanted to get a handle with handle on.

Um it was one of the things that when we interviewed Aretha, that it was something that we wanted her to target very specifically.

Uh and in this year's budget, another thing that's a pet peeve of mine, but we did fund a process that is uh that is uh uh targeted at reducing significantly that water loss.

Water los water will always find a way.

Water will always find a way.

You never have zero loss.

We have more loss than we need.

Do you want to talk about the project?

Sure.

And our and and just to be clear, our loss has come down.

So we are we are much reduced from that 20 to 30 percent that we were at over a year ago uh when I got here.

However, we have tried several different things to track down where this significant water loss is coming from.

What we believe the issue is after trying and and trials and tests on many different uh objectives.

What we find is that we have service lines that are leaking.

They were not embedded properly, the material is eroding.

There are leaks that are happening under the ground every day that do not surface, that we do not know unless a resident calls us and says, hey, my water water pressure is low and we go out and investigate.

I've had two pipes come to my office in the last week from our public works director with humongous holes in them.

Um so the project was recently approved through a CO by this council just last meeting.

So we will receive those funds here at the end of the month, and that project, we will start getting on that project immediately.

So we hope to see some significant decreases over the next year as that project takes way, and we'll give you updates along the way as well.

Now, Chris, um the new contract, I don't know how familiar with it you are with North Texas uh that the member cities are trying to press through.

It does have a change in the take or pay.

Historically, the maximum amount of water you ever used in a single year was your cap.

You have to pay for that.

Ninety percent of the people in your community moved out and you were a ghost town, you were still responsible for that maximum amount of water you ever used in a single year.

It changes in this new contract.

Right?

So it goes to a five-year rolling average.

So ultimately, the district would look at what is your uh what is your use in the prior five years, and that's how we they would set that average.

So it's gonna fluctuate.

Now, one thing I will note is as there is conservation, as those amounts fluctuate.

If you get into a period where everybody conserves, everybody reduces, the dollars are somewhat fixed.

A dollar is a dollar, no matter how you cut it.

Yeah.

So if our dollars stay the same, our units shrink, the rate has to go up to generate the same level of cost.

Right.

So I completely I was part of the negotiation team that came up with the settlement to go to a five-year rolling average.

So ultimately we would we've addressed that.

We do want to encourage conservation, but conservation is a long-term cost savings.

It is not a short-term cost savings.

It is meant to delay that next unit of water supply.

But if the city of Murphy uh being static, we're not, but uh if the city of Murphy were static and we were able after this project to see a 20 percent reduction in our average water usage in a five-year period of time, that would start to reflect in our in our rates because our variable rate would be going down.

Yes, sir.

Right, exactly.

So yeah, so that's that's the hope is that we have a long-term payoff from fixing this uh the this water loss issue.

Yes, sir.

All right.

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you.

All right, when are we when does council need to provide guidance to staff on which scenario?

We'd like to hear it tonight because this is coming back before you for consideration on September 2nd.

All right.

Uh can you give me the uh the slide that has the scenarios broken down, one, two, and three.

One and three.

Ten and eleven have no two.

No two anymore.

Slides ten and eleven.

Ten and eleven.

There isn't there.

I thought there was a there was uh we got rid of uh scenario two.

That's what Bernard was talking about in her own.

Yeah, there was a slide that was there's slide eight.

Go to slide eight.

Slide eight.

Uh yes.

There you go.

All right.

And uh council, any discussion, any recommendations to staff on this.

I am leaning towards scenario three.

Um I think that's fair for our residents that don't use a lot of water, and for those that do, because boy, that's my son running in a darn shower like crazy.

Um, but I think that that is fair for our residents and also know that we all live, everybody that's up here lives here.

We pay the same water rates as everybody else.

Now I'm happy about it when I get that bill, no.

But I understand that we're not just planning for now, which would be the easy thing to say, nope, we're not changing anything.

We're gonna keep it as is, but we've got to think about the future.

And when we're not sitting up here, the future of the city, and then you guys are the residents then not having a huge impact to try to right the wrongs of us, you know, trying to do the thing that would be favorable to most.

Um so I think that we have to keep that in mind, you know, going forward, we have to plan for the future and um do what's best.

And no one likes it, but I think that scenario three for me would would be the best, especially since we're in a healthy place and I want to keep the city in a healthy place.

I'm also for scenario three.

I like that we can um encourage some conservation.

We can um give a minimal impact to the people that are already using a lower amount and are more cautious um about their water use.

Um but I also do really think that we should be increasing rates to compensate for at least some of the costs that are being passed on to us, and I know they've got a lot of water and sewer projects over the next year that we're trying to do to get um the water loss as well as keeping like our sewer pipes under um in a good state.

We don't want to be a city that sewers burst and people can't flush their toilets, so I think we're doing the right thing.

No clay pipes, right?

Uh I hope not.

We'll probably find some.

I'm also in favor of scenario scenario three.

Um I I do think we we have a lot of folks on uh fixed income that live in the city, and we gotta be mindful of that, and I think scenario three um takes that into account.

We have to take a lot from North Texas municipal water districts, we do, which we have no control over, and so I do think that we we have to manage this utility fund to the best of our ability, and not just for today but for tomorrow and in the future.

So that's just my stand on that.

Albeit my husband is not gonna like scenario three on the watering the grass, but I also agree with uh scenario three.

I think uh we're healthy, our fund balance is healthy.

I think we uh this will help the uh it has already been stated.

The uh fixed income and I think it's just a good uh good balance, a good scenario for this year.

Andy, can you have any uh scenario three?

I mean, you know, let's not stick it to the fixed hand people and help them out.

All right.

All right, they're still gonna see an increase.

All right.

With that, I think you have very good.

Thank you for a very robust conversation.

Thank you.

Um Chris, thank you.

All right.

We're moving on to item seven, city manager staff reports.

Mayor and Council have a few event updates for tonight.

So uh on September 5th is Food Truck Friday.

It will be happening at 5 p.m.

in Murphy Central Park.

Uh, and then we have the Moonlight movie series that is continuing September 19th at Travis Farm Park beginning at dusk will be the movie Minecraft.

Uh and then our big capstone event, the annual Mays Days Festival is happening on October 4th at Central Park beginning at 12 p.m.

and ending at 9.30.

There will be a fireworks show at the end for schedule of events, uh parking and more information.

Please visit the website www.maysdays.com.

The fire department open house is also happening in October on October 11th at 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

Activities will include include station tours, medical helicopter landing, extrication demonstrations, fire safety movies, uh, and Sparky the Fire Dog will be there.

Inflatable fire truck obstacle course, fire bounce house, lots and lots of fun for the kids and the whole family.

Also happening on October 11th earlier in the day is the cleaning green from 9 a.m.

to noon.

Please stay tuned for more information in in specific location information.

Scalibration is coming up on October 24th at Murphy City Hall Complex from 6 p.m.

to 9 p.m.

Our trunk or treat event will have a variety of activities, including an inflatable face painting, a walk through the haunted alley, and a costume contest.

So bring out the kiddos.

If you want more information, go to our website, Murphy TX.org.

The police department will be hosting its annual drug take back event on October 25th from 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

at the police department.

That's 206 North Murphy Road.

And then we will also be having a low-cost animal shot clinic on October 25th from 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

at the animal shelter located at 203 North Murphy Road.

And lastly, the next council meeting will take place in this room at 6 p.m.

on September 2nd.

Thank you.

That's a lot coming up.

All right.

Very good.

All right, we're going to move on to consent agenda.

All consent agenda items under considered be routine by the city council be enacted by one motion.

There'll be no separate discussion of those items unless council member so requesting which events the item will remove from the consent agenda and voted on separately.

Would anyone like to remove an item for from the consent agenda at this time?

Seeing none.

Move on.

Item nine.

Oh yeah.

Sorry.

Got something else.

I'll take a motion on these.

All right.

Mayor, I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented.

I have motion secondals in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Motion passes unanimously.

Item nine, individual individual consideration.

Consider under act on a resolution adopting the fiscal year 26 proposed tax rate of.357514, establishing Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 as the public hearing date on FY26 proposed tax rate and the FY26 proposed budget.

And providing the final tax rate is scheduled to be adopted on September 16, 2025.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, Mayor.

Good evening, Council.

So I wanted to start by saying that this budget season started in January when we actually started building that budget calendar.

You're sad about that?

No, I'm just like, wow.

It's a year, it's a year-round process.

So we then go into February and we start looking at those positions and getting ready for the budget calendar to be brought to you in March.

So on March the 4th, you approve the budget calendar.

On March the 5th, we started the kickoff of the budget meetings.

As they brought forward what they needed in their in their department itself.

That happened in April and May.

We then did um three budget work sessions with council.

We did that in um May, June, and July.

During those July June and July meetings, we also discussed the fee schedules.

So we had determined on based on your direction that the voter approval rate is the rate that would be um presented into the budget, and that is the rate that is provided with to you tonight.

Um the the total budget is at 63 million is for the expenditures for all funds.

That largest fund is the general fund, and it is at 21.2 million expenditures.

Um that has increased 10% over last year, and the general fund has increased around 4% over last year's budget.

I'll take any questions that you might have.

Any questions?

No, all right.

I'll take a motion.

Oh, and this is a record vote.

So I will have to call.

Okay.

I'll ask the city secretary to call a roll.

Mayor Scott Radley.

Oh, wait a minute.

I need a motion.

I'm a motion.

You ready?

I need a motion.

Mayor, I move that we approve uh the resolution adopting the FY26 proposed tax rate of 0.357514 establishing Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 is a public hearing date on the FY26 proposed tax rate and the FY26 proposed budget and providing that the final tax rate is scheduled to be adopted on September 16th, 2025.

Second.

I have a motion to second.

All those in favor.

Oh, and I'll take a record vote.

Go ahead.

Mayor Scott Bradley.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tim Elizabeth Abraham.

Aye.

Councilmember Ken Ullman.

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Janay Butler.

Aye.

Councilmember Scott Smith.

Aye.

Councilmember Andrew Chase.

Aye.

Councilmember Laura Dill.

Aye.

Mayor passage unanimously.

All right.

Very good.

Motion passes.

Moving on to item B.

Hold a public hearing.

Consider under act on ordinance for case 2025 007 and application from Langford Property Companies for a specific use permit for amusement arcade for the Timber Ridge Center for property described as block A lot 3, the Timber Ridge Center Edition, Murphy, Texas.

And located at 222 East FM 544, suite 206.

So this is a public hearing.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

I realize that I do have a trilogy of items before you tonight, so I will try to hit the high points.

Please interrupt me if you'd like me to go into any further detail.

This first request is item 9B, which is a request for a specific use permit for an amusement arcade located in the Timber Ridge Center as shown here on the map.

The current zoning is a plan development with a neighborhood services underlying zoning.

This is the location of where the proposed use is to go or the uh business is to go that is requesting the SUP.

Again, it's an uh for an amusement arcade, a slightly unusual use to request.

Um just after careful consideration of the uses within our zoning ordinance.

This uh to me seemed to be the most appropriate use that this particular business fell under, and that would uh it of course does require an SUP.

The next closest would be like an indoor amusement use that would also require an SUP.

So generally the safe uh guidance that I determined would be to bring this to you for your consideration.

The applicant has provided a very articulate summary that was a part of your packet.

This is just a brief overview of what is going to be here.

It's a it's a simulated racing uh arcade where individuals can pay a membership and come and and race and enjoy, I guess, fellowship who enjoyed doing that, places for them to buy merchandise and uh relax.

Uh from what I understand, there's no food served there, no restaurant, just a place for them to come and enjoy this with the hours.

Uh, with the SUP approved tonight, it would be subject to these standards that have been provided in your packet.

So it would have to uh operate under these general standards that have been provided to us tonight.

Um there was one form and opposition in your packet, but since then we've received two in favor.

That's before you at the DIES tonight.

Those are from tenants within the same building.

They just wanted to show their support.

Uh at their August 7th meeting, the planning and zoning commission approved recommended approval of the request 7-0.

The applicant is here tonight, but are there any questions for me?

No questions for you.

Oh, one question for you right now.

Sure.

The one form that was sent in as opposed.

Did they give a comment or do they just protoposed?

All right.

Any questions?

All right.

Then I'll open the uh public hearing.

The time is 7.21.

Anyone like to address counsel on this item?

Please provide your name and address for the record.

Yes.

Uh good evening.

My name is Boston Blake.

I'm the owner of Pixel Speed Sim Racing.

My home address is 1912 Damianita Drive in Royce City.

So the purpose for this meeting, as you know, is to get the approval of this unique business as an amusement arcade.

Uh, but I want to point out right away that it is very different from any arcade that you've ever been to.

Uh we are not an arcade with a bunch of pinball machines and a bunch of loud noises and dinging, you know, a bunch of rough housing and crazy things happening.

Instead, uh we are trying to help provide an opportunity for those who love motorsport to participate in virtual racing in a relaxed environment in a community-building environment.

Uh, as you can see from what we've put together in terms of visuals, we will have 10 high-end uh racing simulators.

Uh they will not have any kind of motion or other kind of noise-making piece.

They are they're you know very well contained.

They also each have their own headset, so there won't be a bunch of racing noises coming out of those machines that are going to impact neighbors.

Uh in fact, those who are a part of the location can have you know friendly conversations while those who are racing uh can participate.

Um I'd imagine that the reason there was somebody posed, they saw the word arcade and they didn't want a bunch of noise and tickets fluttering around everywhere again.

That's not what we're trying to do.

Um we recognize that you know, especially in a place like Texas, people love cars, people love racing.

It's a part of this area with the uh we've got the the Texas um racetrack nearby, and so this is an opportunity to help bring that to this community.

Um as I also mentioned in that packet, there are quite a few of these very successful sim racing centers, venues uh throughout Texas and throughout the nation.

Uh Austin and Houston each have a couple of them.

Um are very large and very successful.

Uh this would be the first one in the DFW area.

And we anticipate that we would be bringing in uh customers from uh surrounding cities.

As I've spoken to other SIM racing owners in places like North Carolina and Iowa, they have people come as far as two hours away to participate in events and races and uh the general uh community that this provides.

So happy to answer any questions that you have.

So you offer it looks like memberships where you can do this as well.

So 30, 60, 90, how what's the time frame?

Yeah, so uh the way that we've set this up is that customers can come in and have a an experience that's been uh tailored for them, right?

If they are interested in NASCAR, sports car racing, uh formula.

Uh we have a few options for them to come in and experience through our commercial accounts.

We have uh a partner called iRacing.

They are the official motorsport partner of like eNASCAR and others.

So they provide a very high-end, uh very realistic simulation experience.

So customers can come in, they can experience that 30 minutes, 60 minutes.

We're toying with whether or not to make it 90 minutes, but we have these uh kind of predetermined and selected options for them.

Uh but we also allow those who have their own iRacing account to participate in races not only within the community but online against people around the world.

Um of our goals as part of that is to encourage uh youth to participate.

Um I've uh my plan is I of course want to get approvals first, but my plan is to work with local high schools for esports teams.

There are numerous esports um events that happen within sim racing with Formula One and others with iRacing being one of them, where students can participate with other students, other high school students in esports events around the nation.

Um and there are even events that uh I am working to set up with other SIM centers from around the nation and around Texas for competitions, tournaments to help build that community, some of which uh one that I've had a conversation with.

The intention is to provide one uh racer among many uh to win an opportunity to go race at a real racetrack for an attempt to become a real race car driver.

So it's very much a community that I love.

I've been a part of for many years, and I'm hoping to help bring that uh community to uh to the Murphy area.

I've got a quick story.

No, I was just gonna make a comment that it's become Facebook official because I see Wiley has already what's new in Wiley.

They know it's like what's new in Murphy.

That's right.

They know about things before I it is crazy.

Oh go ahead.

Uh so is this on an appointment basis?

I mean, I'm I guess before I'm going with my question is is do people come to this and do a lot of waiting outside or waiting for a for a simulator to become available, or do you come in and you have an appointed time when you're there?

Uh that's my first question.

Yeah, so we will uh have an online booking um resource.

So those who are interested can go to our website and can book a time online.

That way when they come in, we they you know are sure that they'll have a simulator available uh for them.

We will also allow for walk-ins, um, but generally I would anticipate that most people are going to want to do you know the online booking.

Um as part of the memberships, uh the way that'll work is you know, people can again online or in person, those who have memberships can you know uh request a time or or book a time and then come in for for their appointment uh to race.

Okay.

And the other was about uh you I think you touched on it about youth being able to you're wanting to get the youth uh active you know in the area of schools around.

So are you gonna have like a minimum uh age?

I I I guess what I'm going with this question is is a loting or a lot of a big kid hangout, and there's kids all up down the sidewalk.

I just didn't know uh Yeah, so so uh the gener my general recommendation for use of these simulators just because they are fit for adults um would be to recommend for youth 14 and older uh to be using them.

So definitely my my 10-year-old, when she reaches really far, can reach the pedals and kind of look over the the screen, but uh the one I have at home is actually designed to allow her to be much closer than the ones that I would have at the Sim Center.

So yes, it would be uh it would be mostly for older adult uh older youth and adults.

Yep.

Great.

Um I I will point out I know that uh you know concern of a bunch of youth in a place getting rowdy um or or you know getting um I I guess getting rowdy about the the the type of racing.

So part of the reason that I chose iRacing as a partner is because uh what they have for those who have their own accounts, uh they actually follow a racing code that's similar to what you would find in real world motorsports, in that those who attempt to you know intentionally wreck others or ruin other people's experience within the within the game uh can actually receive uh uh 24, 7, 24 hours, seven-day or permanent ban.

Uh so they highly encourage people to take it much more seriously.

Um and so those who participate are generally uh those who care about the the sport itself and and the community um around that uh simulated racing.

Well, I'm sorry I had to jump through all these hoops.

I think it's very exciting.

I do too.

Thank you.

Very exciting that Murphy has the opportunity to have this type of esports business here.

I think it's it's something that is one of the many options.

I know it's a lot of yours is for adults, but you know, on the on the high school age side of things for esports, it's just one more thing, and to bring kids to bring people together and out of the house I think is great.

So I'm glad that you're brought this here.

Thank you.

I wish you the best.

Thank you.

Sounds like fun.

Yeah, I hope you're successful.

I love that it's a place for kids to do what they love, which is being online and playing video games, but it puts them in a place where they might meet new people and have a gathering space and get out of the house.

I think it's great.

Certainly, yeah.

All right.

Thank you.

Very good.

Anyone else want to address counsel on this item during the public hearing?

Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing except third.

Uh any other conversation on council?

No, I don't think a motion.

Mayor move that we approve an ordinance for case uh two 2025-007 and application for Langford property companies for a specific use permit for amusement arcade for the Timber Bridge Center for property described as Block A Lot 3 Timber Ridge Center Edition, Murphy, Texas, and located at 222 East FM 544 Suite 206.

Second.

I have a motion second, I was a favorite.

I motion passed unanimously.

I am going to uh move to item D just in respect for uh our young family who is here.

Uh item D, hold a public hearing and consider act on case 2025.008, an application by Crimson Landscape for variance to Article 26.03.

Fences in front yard to permit the construction of a screening wall fence to be built in the required front yard for property described as track 44, abstract 0579, Henry Maxwell Survey, Murphy, Texas, and located at 112 South Maxwell Creek Road.

Good evening, hope I didn't get you all uh ready, ready to go.

Thank you, sir.

Uh so again, this is as you've stated, a variance to Article 26, our section about screening in the city.

Again, the zoning for the site is SF-20.

It's a low density residential land use is located at 112 South Maxwell Creek Road.

Um this is a relatively, I hope self-explanatory image that shows with the new alignment uh kind of the direction cars uh uh could and uh in a worst case scenario we hope would not travel, however, we wanted to give you an image of of why I believe the family is bringing this uh concern to our attention.

As you're aware, uh with the acceptance of the new alignment of South Maxwell Creek Road, uh you know um this uh straight line that we once had on South Maxwell Creek is now a more of a gentle flowing uh curve in order to be at a 90 degree square angle with FM 544.

The uh resident of this property, of course, when the zoning case was before us, uh I believe came and spoke on the zoning uh for the pro uh property to the south, which ultimately became the Toll Brothers development.

Now all these years later, they're here asking uh four variants to place a screening structure, a fence, whatever we like to call it, uh, in the front yard, so um it could uh block um I believe uh lights from the cars, or in a worst case scenario in hopes that hopefully this would not occur.

But if a car were to leave the roadway uh for safety purposes.

This is the um proposed design uh of the uh screening device, the fence, uh however we want to call it.

I do want to point out that a fence is any structure which exceeds 18 inches in height above the nearest grade, which encloses partitions or divides any yard.

Uh, this would be the front yard, of course, of the property.

Um I do want to say that I looked long and hard at this, trying to find a way in the ordinance to consider this some kind of decorative feature or something, but I was very concerned of granting such an administrative approval and it unleashing other individuals to say, well, this is not a fence, and it moved forward.

So that's really the only reason it's before you tonight.

Um you speak to why it's before us and not Board of Adjustment.

Because it's a chapter 26 variance.

Chapter 26 is a development code requirement and development code or variances come before you.

If it were in chapter 30, it would go for the Board of Adjustment.

Thank you.

When I first saw it saw this, uh my fear was that we were going to have a you know 12-foot wood on wood fence.

This is three and a half feet.

This is very masonry uh with landscaping, uh, you know, it's a very modest look.

Yeah.

No, it's very very handsome.

All right.

Uh any other questions before I open the public hearing.

All right.

I will have to open the public hearing on the this item at 734.

Would anyone like to address counsel on this item?

Howdy, thank you all.

Travis Steele, resident at uh 112 South Maxwell Creek, the property we're discussing here.

Appreciate y'all shifting around the schedule.

I think the girls have been awesome.

Uh I don't know how you get well.

Very patient.

So hopefully this last time we were we we got to come here with them.

So yeah, so uh like you said, um really we've looked at a lot of options for this, right?

I mean honestly, I don't want a wall in our front yard at all.

I love it to staygrass.

Um the realignment kind of necessitated this.

Uh we brought forth the safety concerns when we did the uh the toll brothers development there.

Since then, you know, finally the the alignment has been completed so we could see exactly where cars would wind up uh if something were to happen.

Um it's something that has happened.

It hasn't happened on the new alignment yet.

It's rare, uh, but it has happened twice already since the time we've lived here on a curve just two houses down there, right?

Uh one car flipped over three times in uh our neighbor's front yard, another one flipped over, um started in you know, on fire, caught on fire right there.

The mailbox still shows evidence of the fire there.

Um so it's not rare enough for me to give me uh you know peace of mind that my daughter sleeping in the front bedroom are not going to be injured uh or or worse, right?

So um that's what I want to say about the the necessity of this wall.

It it's to me it's non-optional to to not do something to mitigate this this threat.

Um I will point out something else here.

This rendering doesn't do a great job.

This is this is a rendering taken from maybe 16 or 18 feet in the air.

If you're driving there, our our house is on a slope, right?

So the road is just below the roof line there.

So as you're coming up to our house, if you were to drive over there, um we've we've kind of staked out where this wall would would be located.

You'd only be able to see about the top 12 inches of it, you know, as you come up to it.

So it's set down in the yard low enough where you're not seeing you know a three-foot wall, you're seeing just a top little fraction of it over the road line.

Um so I'd say we've been really accommodating with the toll brothers development.

I mean, there's been you know a lot of road closures and large equipment and stuff.

I mean uh we worked really well with that developer.

I think they've done an excellent job across the street.

Um so we're looking for accommodation here.

There were several accommodations made uh by the developer.

We're looking for one here.

Um say at the time that was brought before the council several years ago when the when the uh that development was approved.

Um, you know, we were told at that time it made it through planning and zoning, came to the committee.

There's nothing that could be done at that time to accommodate our safety concern, but this is a time where you can accommodate that safety concern for us.

So I'm asking that y'all uh would grant this variance for us and help me protect my family.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other uh anybody else want to comment?

Name and address for the record.

Mayor, um, council members.

My name is Clint.

I represent Crimson Landscape.

I live at 909 Blue Sky Lane here in Murphy, so actually own the company in the where I live in Murphy.

Um I just want to talk about uh this project.

Uh I challenged my team to come up with a design that actually looked like something that was purposely built that would match the neighborhood and the aesthetics of the neighborhood.

So we we made an effort to make sure that whatever we designed for the uh the property owner that did look like it was purpose built and not just an ugly wall.

So it'll be it'll be a nice color of tan.

It looks very natural to the landscape uh and and have plants in front of it.

Um so it looks like it's natural part of the landscape.

Uh one other thing that we uh that he did not talk about that we didn't incorporate with it is it will be lit up at night so they will know that this wall is present, so it'll be a nice and bright at night so they know that this obstacle is there, so if somebody does see it last minute, they have an opportunity to veer away.

Uh pinning any questions about the structure of the wall, anything like that, that's all I have to say.

Thank you very much.

Any other uh uh public hearing comments?

Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing at 739.

I love this.

I think it's just absolutely uh uh it it's additive to the home.

Uh it's additive to the community.

I don't see any reason why uh this wouldn't just be uh easy one.

Any questions?

Safety part, you know, is what I'm I'm thinking about, you know, for them.

We've had that come before council before.

Um so anything that we can do to stop, you know, and be like, oh, we should have done that, you know, to go ahead and just do it up front.

So I'm in agreement with it.

Good.

Yeah, um kudos.

Go ahead.

Kudos to um Crenson Landscape.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, the homeowner and to the landscaping company.

Well done.

I mean, I mean in the concept, well done.

We'll see how it looks in the end.

Um I won't question y'all don't kill me for this.

For Reagan.

Left Field question.

So I know years ago we used to have a matching funds program.

Do we still have such a thing?

Would that would that be something that would apply to this?

From a community and the MCDC has a community enhancement grant that tends to be more focused to organizations.

Yeah.

They have to be yeah, there may be a requirement they be available.

But for a residential that would be unusual as to no more questions, I'll take a motion.

May I move that we approve case 2025-008, an application by Crimson Landscape for a variance to Article 26.03.003i.

Fences and front yards to permit the construction of a screening wall fence to be built in the required front yard for property described as track 44, abstract 0579, Henry Maxwell Survey, Murphy, Texas, and located 112 South Maxwell Creek Road.

Any opposed.

Thank you.

All right.

We're going to move on to item C, hold a public hearing and can consider and/or act upon an ordinance for case 2025 003, an application from Kimley Horn for a specific use permit for a hospital and amended concept site plan for Baylor Scott and White to include a variance to the tree preservation ordinance for property described on as lot 2R, Block A, Baylor Emergency Medical Edition, Murphy, Texas, and located at 511 West FM 544.

Good evening again.

Here's the location and its adjacency to the residential neighborhoods and its location along 544.

Effectively, the purpose of this request is to again amend the 2012 concept plan.

When this SUP was approved in 2012, the language explicitly stated that the uses on the site, etc., to the expanse of how it is developed shall be in conformance to the concept plan.

The concept plan shows a pretty large amount of open space that remained and a maximum impervious coverage, a maximum building size.

So effectively, what the applicant is act asking to do is to increase the parking area.

That's an increase in parking use on the site.

And what gave me a little bit of concern is when you're looking back in the records of those days, there were some pretty uh there were some conversations regarding preserving some of this open space due to residential adjacency.

It seemed best practice to bring this SUP back to you to allow you to review this again as it was an expansion of use on the site.

Again, this is the site plan that's being proposed.

Worked very closely with Kimley Horn to uh minimize the impacts of the impervious coverage uh the impervious coverage uh not exceeding uh too great of an amount.

Just to let you know the maximum impervious coverage that would be permitted in a neighborhood services district is 80 percent.

They're still nowhere near that.

They're about 69%, so there's still a good amount of open space to help alleviate the trees.

Oh, again, this is a uh difference between what is there, what is what was approved and what is proposed.

Um as you can see they are removing some trees on the site.

Uh the negative caliper negative credits seems really major.

It's roughly a hundred inches uh of uh caliper trees that are being removed, which equates to roughly 300 negative credits.

That would require the applicant to plant three hundred caliper inches of trees on the site to mitigate that removal.

That's pretty significant.

I'm not sure where uh 103-inch trees would go on the site.

So the applicant is requesting uh a variance to that.

However, they do propose to add 11 4-inch caliper trees back to the site to help make up for this loss.

You can see some larger circles here on this proposed landscape plan that shows the location of these new trees in order to help mitigate the reduction of the trees on the site and uh the view.

And you can see a pretty significant increase here as this is the only immediately adjacent residential home.

Yeah you can see there's one across the street in the northwest sorry the northeast directly to the north is actually the school daycare center.

Yeah.

And actually they seem to be pleased that some of the trees are going away to reduce um I think you know leaves blowing at the yard that's what I've heard anyway.

So again they are taking some steps to again not pave over everything try to add a few additional spots for the doctor's offices.

I will say the reason they've asked is the uh practice the practices on site are doing very well they're asking for additional parking uh above and beyond they've done better than they expected over the years and surprisingly received no responses either for or against from the surrounding property owners as a meeting time.

Okay.

And uh PNZ approved it recommended approval 70 is presented.

All right.

Yes sir uh can you maybe have said I may just have any tools parking closes for the I let's see I I had that number in my head and then it's 40?

It was about 26 I thought it was in our packet but I they have to remove uh four parking spaces and then there's there's a net gain in the um I believe 23 or 26 I'm sorry.

Should know that.

23.

It's a net gain of 23 parking spaces.

Yes sir because they do have to remove three to add this new driveway.

26 new I move three.

Are you good?

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

There's no more questions from council I'll open the public hearing time is 747.

Would anyone like to address counsel on this item thank you.

Uh I live at the house that's immediately adjacent.

If you don't mind your naming dirty Shelby trace my name is James Steinwright.

I was not intending to speak tonight.

Uh the hospital has been good to me uh when they originally built it uh so I don't really have any problem with the hospital but I am a little concerned about the trees that they're putting right next to the to the wall with more leaves over on my side of the wall and the parking spaces being so much closer to my house I don't know if I'm going to hear a lot of traffic people talking but my house is immediately on the other side of that wall.

So I'm a little concerned about it.

But I also would ask has anybody looked at the drainage because there are some drainage lines there.

I'm very familiar with it because um I can't build anything down on the bottom of my property because of it.

So it looks like the the paving is going to be right over that drainage.

I'm sure they're putting pipes in but I would hate to have a drainage problem end up on my property.

Yeah they're required by law to not uh drain on your property.

So my question to you is going to be you know generally the use of the trees creates a sound buffer between the neighboring property and um so you get the vegetation and that it that absorbs it.

Are are you more concerned about the leaves in your backyard or the the noise that might come from from this party.

I I get your point and that's why I I just don't know I came up here to speak so that I could represent that I am that neighbor.

Okay.

And I don't necessarily oppose this.

Yeah.

I'm just concerned and I'm trying to figure out how it's going to how you feel about it.

Thank you.

So hey quick quick question because wait for a map to come up.

So when I was driving around checking things out the the trees that are immediately on your fence line on their side like closer to the school those are those are those evergreen trees they are evergreens and they are flowing over on my side I've never tried to cut them but the good thing is they don't drop leaves.

Yeah.

I'm not sure what type of trees they're going to be putting along that wall and if it's going to change things for me.

Well that's my that was my thought when driving around it.

You know, like this was, I don't know how long ago they we built this 15, 20 years ago.

Like there was a lot more impact to the homeowners because these trees that they planted weren't tall yet.

But now these evergreens that are there, they're tall enough to provide the sound barrier, you know, and light barrier and and and visual side, you know.

So like it makes a big difference today versus then.

So I'm really glad that you came to speak about it.

Thank you.

But how many of those are being taken out?

They're not.

Those are those aren't.

Those aren't.

It's the others.

They should be the existing.

All right.

Any other com uh uh questions from council before I close the public hearing?

You're gonna have chance to talk afterwards.

Yeah.

Anyone else on adjust council at this time?

Time is 7.50, a closed public hearing.

Any discussion from council?

Yeah, I will.

I watched the the planting and zoning meeting, and I know that it looks like the representatives from the hospital or from you know the office hospital complex aren't here today to speak on their behalf.

But they they are there's they're engineers here, and I did not note that, but they're engineers here to speak, if you all would like.

Yeah.

But you have any questions?

No, I didn't have any questions, but I was just gonna maybe say a few things in uh on their behalf because um what it sounds like is they just don't have enough parking to support the needs of their facility.

And I know for me personally, my wife um has uses that office and has done physical therapy there, and it at times it's there's just not enough parking, and there's been a lot of a lot of issues with that.

That really hurts that business.

Um but I want to say that for them.

Now on my side, you guys know I'm a huge like a tree fan, open space fan, um, open space fan.

Um but in this case, uh you know, I'm for adding this this parking lot.

I think it I think it helps the business.

And again, part of the reason for all those trees is to is to provide cover for the for the homeowners.

And I think that the trees that they're leaving, you know, are are are going to do that.

Um I will throw one thing out too.

When I was doing my research on this, it looked like in 2017, they may have come to us or come to planting and zoning and asked for a parking lot at that time that was denied, and it was actually like twice the size.

Um it looks this looks like it's a a smaller, a little bit smaller footprint.

Um that's all I had to all I had to say.

It's a necessary resource, you know.

Um we need that hospital system.

That's the only one that well we have the other one that's by subway.

Um, but lots of people use it.

I use it.

Great about the business, but it for me it's more about the people in the community that use it and for them to have access to care.

And the parking lot is getting very busy.

Took me a while to find a parking spot um there as well.

So I I do hate to uh lose my my trees there, but it is a necessary um resource for the community.

And I'll add too it looks to me like a lot of those trees that they're taking out, they had a plant whenever they whenever they built that facility.

So it's like they're just kind of eating this cost.

Um that's all I have to say.

How long is it gonna take if approved?

Like how long is it gonna take for that parking lot to be completed?

Is that for which one?

There's still a few steps, obviously, permitting and further review of the engineering of the of the drainage that's already been noted.

Um it's been preliminarily reviewed.

The city engineer had no concerns uh in in what was proposed.

But it's to begin construction, it would be at least probably several more months of approvals and permitting.

I also use this uh facility uh quite frequently, and it's uh always a parking issue there.

My concern is this this area that's gonna be close to this gentleman's home, is this going are they pointing to a uh have uh illumination there or not?

There's no proposed elimination that I know of for that parking lot.

Should be a daytime only parking.

Yeah, I was gonna ask that.

So since it's the the doctor's offices that seem to be driving this need, then the overflow parking that like we y'all are talking about not being able to park.

That's typically during the day, not ER scenarios at night, right?

So at night, when he's trying to sleep, most likely they're parking closer to the building.

I mean, I know you can't stop them from parking there, but they're not being pushed to the outside.

And part of my just general theory as well is this could be more or less used for staff parking.

So they would have less turnover.

Hopefully you'd have staff parking in that region.

Yeah.

And then more turnover would occur close, right?

Yeah.

But but the crunch situation at this business is during normal business hours and not during their ER hours.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

I'll take a motion on this item.

Mayor move that we approve the ordinance for case 2025-003 and application from Kimley Horn for a specific use permit for hospital and amended concept site plan for Baylor Scott and White to include a variance to the tree preservation ordinance for property described as lot to R Block A.

Bailey Emergency Medical Center Edition, Murphy, Texas, and located at 511 West FM 544.

Second.

Aye.

Any appeal?

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously.

All right, moving on to item E.

Consider under Act on a resolution authorizing city manager to execute a contract, the amount of 181,815 with PACE Turf Solutions for the fiscal year 26 mowing contract for medium right-aways, cemeteries, parks, and open space.

Matt.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

During the FY26 budget conversations, we discussed the uh proposal to increase our mowing contract from just medians and right-aways to include some parks areas in the city.

Earlier in FY25, we added the cemeteries in the city to that contract.

And then we're also proposing to add for FY26 to add seven of our smaller parks.

City staff would keep City Hall, Central Park, the MCC, North Hill, and the timbers.

The smaller parks throughout the city would be contracted out on a weekly basis for mowing, wheat eating, edging, and boiling.

City staff would still take care of tree trimming, bed planting, uh maintenance, spraying, fertilizer, things like that.

The main reason for this is there are so many other projects in the parks that need to be taken care of that get pushed off till the winter time, and then the winter doesn't allow us to get them all done.

And so this is going to be able to allow us to provide a higher standard of customer service to the citizens.

And so that's that's our goal.

Um PACE turf solutions was our low bidder.

We had five bids come in.

Um we've researched their references.

Um all of those came back uh really good.

They've got uh two of those were cities, one was a school district, and so they had good reviews from those.

Um this would start October 1st, and as in the past with these contracts, this is a pay per service.

This is not a lump sum contract where they get paid no matter what.

If they don't mow a week, they don't get paid for it.

So we're able to control the budget for this.

So any questions.

No, that answered it because I was worried about like, oh goodness, if we uh don't have two mow, like when we get into those winter months and you get out there with the soil, we're gonna blow the soil around.

Well, we basically have it structured where they mow weekly from March through October, and then we go biweekly or monthly through those winter months, so that there may be a couple months where they don't even come on site.

So Matt, um two questions.

Or clarifications, I guess.

Will they who will be mowing the timber sanitaire preserve?

They'll still be us.

Okay, good yeah, that'll be internal.

Very good.

And then the other one.

Remind me about cemeteries.

Are we taking care of all the cemeteries?

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other parts?

And this is more of just a technical thing, and I don't know why it caught my attention, but as I was reading through the resolution on this, it says that, or what is stated here, the the contractors for median's right-away, cemeteries, parks, and open spaces, yet the agreement with them only says right-aways and medians.

Okay, I'll have to check that.

Yeah, I just wanted to uh the the agreement does not show the others listed here.

So I said it's kind of a tailwind.

That's the only thing I move.

All right.

Any other questions?

I'll take a motion.

I move the authorize the city manager to execute a contract in the mountain of 181,815 with PACE turf solutions for the FY26 mowing contract for median's right rights of way cemeteries, parks, and open space.

Seven.

All right, motion second and a second, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, Matt.

10, executive session, in accordance with Texas Government Code Chapter 551, sub chapter D, City Council will now recess into executive session to discuss the following.

Item A 551.074, deliberation regarding the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer employee.

Reference to veter veterinarian position on the animal shelter advisory committee.

And item B, consultation with the attorney on a matter in which the duty of the attorney to the governmental body under the Texas disciplinary rules of professional conduct, the State Bar of Texas clearly conflicts with this chapter.

In reference, Murphy Code of Ordinances, Chapter 2, Article 2, Division 3, Youth Advisory Council.

The time is 8 p.m.

Oh, I know.

All right.

Texas government code to take any action necessary regarding item A, 551.074, deliberation regarding and the appointments, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer or employee.

In reference to the veterinarian position in the animal shelter advisory committee.

And item B, uh 551.071 consultation with the attorney on a matter in which the duty of the attorney to the governmental body under the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, State Bar of Texas, clearly conflicts with this chapter in reference to Murphy Code of Ordinances, Chapter 2, Article 2, Division III, Youth Advisory Council.

There was no action taken in exec.

We do have a action take uh so the time is 812.

We have action coming out of exec, and I will take a motion.

Yeah, and I'm going to do two different ones.

Very good.

I move to remove the current veterinary appointee from the animal shelter advisory committee and appoint Dr.

Jim Mobius to that position.

I have a motion.

Go ahead.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Motion passes unanimously.

Give me your second motion.

I move to appoint the following list of applicants to the youth advisory committee.

In Inara Pabnou, Aidan Tran, Etherea Takani, Mohammed Sayed, Benedict Kremlin, Fid Youth, Fanad.

I have a motion and a second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Very good.

Motion passed unanimously.

Uh with that, we are moving on to future agenda items.

Uh council members may request topics for future agenda meetings.

No member of the city council may discuss any of the acquested subjects until such a matter has been properly placed on the agenda.

Would anyone like an item on a future agenda item agenda meeting at this time?

Can we get an update on like uh McPray and McMillan and all the other trails that go through the city that why don't we get a full project update?

So on the trails?

Well, yeah.

Just uh okay.

Any uh national night out to see if we're gonna do anything uh that's not a council meeting night, so um yeah, just to see if we're gonna do anything with that.

You just want staff update on national night out, yes.

Staff update on national data.

Anything else?

All right, seeing none time is 814.

We are joining