Welcome as I call to order the uh March 17th, 2026, or Igualar City Council meeting.

Time is 6 p.m.

Rise with me as I offer the invocation to leave the Pledge of Allegiance.

Our husband 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's best for the community.

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

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 all right.

This time we'll turn time over to City Secretary for roll call and certification of court.

Mayor Scott Bradley.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tim Elizabeth Abraham.

Here.

Deputy Mayor Pro Tim Janae Butler.

Here.

Councilmember place two Scott Smith.

Here.

Councilmember place three, Andrew Chase.

Here.

Councilmember place four, Ken Oldman.

Here.

Councilmember place five, Laura Deal.

Here.

Mayor certified the presence of a form.

Thank you.

All right.

Moving on to public comments.

Time we set aside on the agenda to allow residents to address council on an item not on the agenda this evening.

I do have a couple of public comment forms that we will work with.

Michael Padilla.

Good evening.

Councilman, Councilwomen.

It's a pleasure to see you this evening.

The citizens of Murphy have four tax jurisdictions as it relates to their property, their home.

Collin County is one, City of Murphy's another, Callin College is another, and the last one is why the independent school district.

Each of these tax jurisdictions have their own process and policy when raising or when increasing or decreasing taxes or setting tax rates.

So there's an interconnectivity between all four, all four jurisdictions and one uh appraisal board.

I'm gonna elucidate uh briefly the six points of Governor Abbott's tax proposal.

Point one, eliminate school property tax via a state constitutional amendment.

That's my favorite.

Point two, limit local government spending to the lesser of population growth or 3.5% annually.

Point three, require two-thirds voter approval for any local property tax increase.

Property tax rate increase.

Empower the voter to force a property tax rollback via a signed petition.

And the requirement would be 15% of registered voters in the local area.

Point five.

Require property appraisal once every five years instead of the annual appraisal.

And the last point is reduce the cap on annual appraisal from 10% to 3%.

And of that 3%, include all types of property, retail, commercial, your homestead.

I encourage the citizens of Murphy to visit Governor Abbott's website, review these six points, and consider their merits as it relates to their own property, the pros and cons.

Does it help you?

Does it help your budget?

Does it help your finances?

Does it help your savings?

I again encourage the citizens of Murphy to contact Governor Abbott, contact your state rep Candy Noble, or Katrina Pearson, and give them your opinion.

If you're for his plan, if you're against his plan, this allows our legislatures to govern according to the will of the people.

And on a personal note, if we get one of these six items passed, it's a huge win for property owners.

Thank you.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

All right.

Next uh Joanna Alviso.

She here.

Joanne.

Name and address for the record, please.

Um yeah, I kind of came with my neighbor.

We're gonna speak together.

Um you got you guys want to speak together.

I got three public comment forms.

Okay.

Can all do it together.

Yeah, um, I mean, we're talking one afternoon and we're talking about the uneven sidewalks right near was between Ridgeview and sunset.

And sunset near photos that you receive from us.

And um they're so bad that it's like people have even putting like a wooden ramp there to like cross with their bikes or whatever, and um I was out there biking uh one day, and like it I went over the ramp, and then the next one was was a really high, like you know, I don't know, like four or five inches, and so I went around it, tried to come back and fell and broke my elbow.

And I was like, that's right where I broke my elbow.

We need to call attention to this.

Also, we've seen a neighbor who's uh in a wheelchair, she goes up and down kind of Murphy Road, and we've noticed how she likes goes to the other side of the street now.

So she crosses Murphy Road, not necessarily at a crosswalk.

No, she doesn't.

Sometimes people get out of their cars and help her across.

Um, because I don't know, I haven't talked to her, but I have a feeling that she's probably avoiding that at the end of Ridgeview.

She crosses there, Murphy Road.

I've seen it.

Yes.

And she goes down to the Walmart, that small Walmart, and she goes on the Richardson side because she cannot use that crosswalk.

She's afraid of tipping over.

And on the sidewalk on our side sidewalk, yeah.

And it's very dangerous for anybody on that sidewalk.

Whether you are riding a bike, you're you're you're running, you're walking, or you're in a wheelchair.

And and she doesn't have any other transportation to go to the store.

And that's how she does.

And I and even um just riding my bike to the the donut shop down there near the neighborhood Walmart with my daughter, she doesn't want to ride there anymore because it's like we have to like cross the street and go to the other side.

We can't just zip on down on our side of the road.

And so we bite the other direction and go to the bagel shop, but not as cool as a donut shop.

On the same on the same area uh where I sent you the pictures at.

There is also a lot of wires hanging from those poles that are just flapping loose.

Um there's a lot of trash there.

There's a lot of tree limbs that are cut, but they're just stacked up there.

There's a lot of trash around that area.

Murphy Road.

On Murphy Road, and the lens are very low.

It's very hard to even walk underneath them.

And I've noticed that all the way up to 544.

Those lands are very low.

You can't even ride a bike or hardly even walk underneath them.

Yeah.

I want to address how this got in this condition.

And this is the jab, but the sidewalks were low bid, and it's substandard construction.

Anyone who knows anything about concrete construction knows you dial in adjacent slabs to keep differential settlement from slabs, doing exactly what this is done.

There's no dowling.

The concrete work is substandard, and it was done years back, and it has deteriorated to the point we're at now.

And it's the old saying, if you can't pay to get it done right, how are you gonna pay to get it done correct later?

And now we're in the later.

And the sidewalks are dangerous and need to be fixed.

And it does not need to go out to low bid because that's what happened to it before.

And they were low bid, and I watched it before, and I should have said something whenever it was done.

I have a little bit of experience in construction, and so that's all I have to say on that.

And the other thing, my point on this, is we seem to have a lack of code enforcement going on, especially in our area, Travis Estates where we live, and we've been there a little while.

I bought my house in 1988.

Quick math tells you that's 37 years ago.

So I've been a resident of Murphy for 37 years, and I would like to see our neighborhood code enforcement brought up to standard, and there's a house at the end of Skyline Drive that has two shipping containers sitting in the front yard, and they've been there for months.

We all know about it.

Now, if you drive by and look at it, code enforcement, look at the roof.

Shingles are blowing off, there's holes in the roof.

I know the house is condemned.

It's gonna fall down.

Who pays for that?

I saw.

But it doesn't look pretty on to our houses.

You know, it affects the value of our houses.

And it it's been there for a long time, and it's it's too long.

It's too long.

It's all heavy selected.

Thank you.

Thank you for speaking about it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, uh, and I have uh why don't we call um Dr.

Chocolate up before we do the uh uh the uh veterans tribute?

Dr.

Chocolate?

I don't see her either.

She's here.

She's don't hit the oh you're you're very you're hidden by patriotism.

Oh you're you're very you're hidden by patriotism.

Uh yeah.

America.

Okay.

Uh Laura Chalkley don't live in Murphy anymore, but had the vet clinic here for a while.

Um so on the veterans memorial that's ready to go up finally.

Everybody's really happy about that.

Um we're able to acquire a little donation here that uh hopefully will hang in City Hall to give maybe some directional information.

Um I met the art this the artist, uh Tim Yankee, actually probably five or six years ago on the American Queen going up the Mississippi River.

Um American artist, he does um some American Indian things, things like flags, nature, few abstracts.

Um he got involved in this thing called moving canvas.

So under this little drape here is an American flag with first stanza of the star-spangled banner written in the stripes.

You take your phone if you have the app moving canvas on it, and I think this might appeal to younger people that can work this technology anyway.

You point your phone at it, and lo and behold, fireworks start going off, the flag starts moving, and the star spangled banner plays.

So I think it might be an attractive thing to get younger people to direct them toward the memorial that's getting ready to go up.

Um I happened to run into him again just by chance up in Detroit, and uh couldn't get near him because everybody was uh kind of had him swamped, but I knew I'd met his wife before, and I said, There's this project going on in Murphy, Texas, and I couldn't believe it about 90 seconds later, they had donated this very nice um piece of artwork for your project here.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

All right.

And we will call up the uh veterans tribute now.

So I think I'll be safe.

Mary Pat Elliott with the Veterans Tribute.

I live here in Murphy 150 Shelby Trace.

And uh tonight, along with the Murphy Tribute, uh Dr.

Chalke is donating this beautiful work of art.

Uh Yankee Doodle 2012 is the name of it, and he is a master of blending nostalgic energy imagery with tones of Southwest.

Tim Yankee is the artist's name.

And his this is his Yankee Doodle series, and it shows the U.S.

flag with a whole new light.

His music-inspired abstract canvases are filled with energy and movement, and uh we are just so happy to be a part of this donation, and uh we give it to the city of Murphy, and we really appreciate all of you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Awesome.

All right, we'll have to go down and take a look at it.

All right.

With that, um public uh gonna move on to um presentations.

We are not gonna do 6A.

I'm gonna table that to the April 2nd meeting.

Um and uh we're gonna move on to 6B proclamation national women's institutions.

Wait, wait, wait.

What?

We missed five.

Mayor's report.

Oh, I do not have any update.

Do you have an update?

I do have an update.

Uh I would not want to skip you to that.

That's okay.

That's okay, especially in my green.

All right.

So I am uh one of the board managers uh for the North Central Texas Emergency Communications District Board.

So I'm here to provide an update um from the meeting that we had on March 11th.

So we had several action items.

One of them was the approval of the December 10th meetings.

So NCT 911 recognizes the incorporation of 911 artificial intelligence translation and transcription tools can provide critical support to both telecommunicators and 911 callers.

So in December of 2025, the board managers approved a one-year pilot project to implement and evaluate rapid deployees radius plus mapping and related AI enabled capabilities in order to measure operational impact, system performance, and overall value to the district.

And so in subsequent negotiations, NCT 911 staff secured uh preferential multi-year pricing for up to four additional years.

Should the district determine that continuation of services is beneficial following the pilot year and staff sought 911 Board of Managers to endorse that multi-year contract and the amount not to exceed 810,000, which we did.

The next important thing out of that was our resolution supporting a statewide wireless 911 service fee adjustment and sustainable funding model for next generation 911.

So the North Central Texas Emergency Communications District operating under Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 772 is responding is responsible for providing reliable 911 services to residents and visitors throughout our region.

So emergency communication districts do not have authority to levy property taxes and rely solely on state authorized service fees to fund the operation, cybersecurity protection, maintenance, and modernization of critical 911 infrastructure.

The fee has remained at 50 cents per device since 1997.

Despite significant increases in technology, cybersecurity and operational costs, as well as the legislature's mandate to implement next generation 911 statewide by September 2025 without a corresponding long-term funding solution.

So in preparation for the 90th Texas legislative session, we're asking, I'm asking, um, that uh that we look at adopting that resolution that was presented, uh, have a copy that we can give to council post if we need to.

Um we want to adopt a similar position, um, and so it is intended to provide a consistent regionally coordinated approach for member jurisdictions to formally express support for funding strategy that ensures the continued operation maintenance, cybersecurity protection, resiliency, and modernization of the regional emergency communication systems, um, including ongoing next generation 911 enhancements and technology upgrades.

Um, so we will see.

I have also sent this to Candy as well in support of this.

Um, and so I will have the uh add this to our future agenda item.

Um the next was just all the nice good stuff of looking at our annual financial report uh for the fiscal year ending in September 30th of 2025.

We elected some board manager officers.

Um we had a FIFA update, so we all know FIFA's coming here.

Um so uh NCT 911 has been looking at their international calls, found that we had some deficits there, so we're working through that to make sure that anyone that's coming internationally will be able to access 911 services and not have any um deficits there.

Um and also looking at those choke points where we will have um well they had some people on there for soccer.

I'm trying to remember Ronaldo, Messi, whatever.

All those folks, um, and just trying to have areas where we are providing um uh not armed forces, goodness gracious my brain today.

Um police services, emergency services for those areas where we're gonna have large gatherings of people.

And I think that is it.

Let's can you get this to city staff so that we can get this on the April 2nd agenda.

All right.

Uh then we'll move on to item 6B, proclamation, National Women's History Alliance.

Ladies.

We're gonna do this proclamation together, all the ladies here on council.

Uh whereas American women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways.

Uh whereas American women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways, whereas American women have played and continue to play critical economic, cultural, and social roles in every sphere of the of the life of the nation by constituting a significant portion of the labor workforce working inside and outside of the home, whereas American women have played a unique role throughout the history of the nation by providing the majority of the volunteer labor force of the nation.

Whereas American women were particularly important in the establishment of early charitable, philanthropic and cultural institutions in our nation.

Whereas American women of every race, class, and ethnic ethnic background served as early leaders in the forefront of every major progressive social change movement.

Whereas American women have served our community, our country, courageously in the military.

Whereas American women have been leaders not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and other movements, especially the peace movement, which created a more fair and just society for all.

And whereas despite these contributions, the role of American women in history has been consistently overlooked and undervalued in the literature, teaching, and study of American history.

Now therefore I, Janae Butler, Laura Deal, Elizabeth Abraham, on behalf of Scott Bradley, Mayor of the City of Murphy, Texas, do hereby proclaim March 2026 as women's history month.

I need to bother those.

All right.

Moving on to item seven, City Manager Staff Reports.

Jared.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Uh just a few announcements for you.

Uh next week, our next food truck Friday is happening uh here at Murphy Central Park from 6 to 9 p.m.

Uh so please we encourage all of our residents to come take advantage of that fun uh entertainment option.

And then uh our annual hopin' hunt is happening Thursday, April 2nd from 6 to 9 at Murphy Central Park.

Tickets are free, but registration is encouraged uh to do that beforehand.

Uh but you can do uh registration on site.

So there's more information on our website at Murphy TX.org.

Then the following day, Friday, April the third, city offices will be closed in observance of Good Friday.

And then our spring clean and green is happening the following weekend on April 11th, uh front here at City Hall from 9 a.m.

to noon.

Uh again, more information is on the city's website for that event.

And then early voting begins for the May election at the Murphy Community Center across the street.

Uh and that is from running from April sec April 20th through April 25th from 8 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

And there's several exceptions in there, but you can residents can go out to Collin County TX.gov and look click on the Collin County elections page for more information on the elections.

And then April 25th, this is drug take back, uh sponsored by the police department annually, and that'll be over here at City Hall again from 10 a.m.

to 12.

I'm sorry, to 2 p.m.

And then our Murphy's Backyard Barbecue is happening April 25th, that same Saturday from 12 to 3 p.m.

Uh there's two competitions, the brisket battle and then the people's choice showdown.

Um so if you're interested in participating in that and becoming a team, again you can go out to Murphy TX.org.

Uh and then there are tickets available for that as well.

And your next city council meeting is Tuesday, April 7th.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh item 8 consent agenda, all consent agenda items will be considered to be a routine by the city council and will be enacted by one motion.

There'll be no separate discussion on these items unless a council member so request, in which event the item will be removed and consent agenda and voted on separately.

I have received a request to remove item B.

Thus, uh I will take a motion on item eight A.

May I move that we uh approve consent agenda item eight A as presented?

Second.

I have a motion second all the paper.

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously item 8B, consider under Act and Ordinance amending the fiscal year 26, general and public safety donation and grant funds to recognize adjusted revenue and to increase the budget for unanticipated expenses.

Good evening, Mayor.

Good evening, Council.

Is there any specific Yes?

I've got two questions.

I'm the one that asked to pull this.

So first the uh I don't have right in front of me, but my first question had to do with, I think it's listed as cable TV, but that's that's the franchise fee for cable.

And that how much is that?

That's this is shortfall.

That is the $22,000.

It was over budgeted.

So we're decreasing the revenue line item.

Is there do you have any background information on that?

I don't have any.

I am not gonna be able to give you all the stacks from memory, but it had um been anticipated to because the cable fees and some of the fees of the franchise have decreased, and there's people moving away from cable and going to your Netflix and that type of thing.

So we have seen a decrease in the financial fees.

So we get those quarterly, I believe.

I don't think that's the annual one.

And so just in the course of reviewing it, um, it looks like we're not gonna receive it.

So because we were gonna be bringing and recognizing revenue that was not anticipated, and because we needed to uh move some funds for um the inspections, I like to do it all at once so that we can go ahead and and not overestimate the revenue.

If there already looks like there's a trend, that's gonna be the decrease, and the decrease is just related to history, and so that's the reason why.

Um we tried to just do that net so that you'll see we received more money at the same time we decrease money, at the same time we moved over some funds to be sure that um a vacancy and some assistance that was needed in the inspections would be available.

So overall, you'll see that net impact to the fund was an increase of eighteen thousand dollars.

So I was just asking about the the uh franchise fee in particular was my first question.

Um generally franchise fees are passed through fees that people have to pay, and that just kind of gets passed through.

Um it's very interesting that with the franchise fee for cable, it's not a franchise fee for telecommunications.

So, like there's no like there's no taxes or you know, there's no like franchise fee available for that.

Um it's a you know, it's a we don't have the authority to do that anyway.

But we just need to be careful when we're budgeting for the for these uh franchise fees, you know, especially in the case of cable.

Uh my other question, and this may be more for um police, has to do with the opioid um funds that we're transferring over.

I believe the state has very strict restrictions as to what those can be used for.

That is true.

So can we talk about just briefly like what they're what specifically they're they're being used for at this time?

So that there was some funds that was already budgeted this year, and there was some additional interest that had been incorporated into it that was not um known at the time that we had done the original budget.

So as we are looking to do that spin down of what the opioid is being able to be used for.

Um we have been looking at it for the past couple of years, and they do have the restricted list of exactly what those capabilities are.

And so there was some medical identification that had been um identified.

So this would be all spent on that medical equipment that will help with that opioid um identification in the field.

But I'm happy for police to come down and do that additional explanation.

Yeah, it doesn't have to be lengthy, but I you you've answered my question pretty good, but I know Chief might want to add a few things.

Yes, come on down, come on down.

I said not ranking.

No, I'll be very brief.

I'm starting the timer.

Okay.

This is for a very robust piece of equipment that articulates illicit narcotics well within the spending authority of these funds.

And we just didn't have enough money in the account to purchase it.

Because it's relatively uh expensive.

So there was a transfer of a $900 roughly uh for us to be able to to purchase that equipment.

Very good.

Thanks for that, um chief.

I will clarify there was enough money in the account, it just wasn't budgeted at the in the appropriation.

But the all the funds are coming from the opioid funds.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right.

With that, I'll take a motion on that item.

have enough money in the account to purchase it because it's relatively uh expensive so there was a transfer of eight nine hundred dollars roughly uh for us to be able to to purchase that equipment very good thanks for that yes um chief i will clarify there was enough money in the account it just wasn't budgeted at the in the appropriation but the all the funds are coming from the opioid funds okay thank you so much thank you all right with that I'll take a motion on that item may I move that we approve consent agenda item B as presented second I have a motion second all in favor aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously with that there is no executive session tonight future agenda items council members may request topic future agenda meetings no council member uh or city council may discuss any of the requested subjects until such matters been properly placed on agenda would anyone like to place an item on a future agenda at this time we got yourself will we have um an update on where we are with our sidewalk project before the 21st I know we intend to have a contract for the annual sidewalk I sent you an email I believe that was early this morning on that so that'll be on the April 21st agenda to award a contract for the annual sidewalk program if you're willing we can wait till that moment and be able to give you a more comprehensive report.

Is the prioritization list up to date the director of public works is nodding at me yes so prioritization list is up to date and it's posted online correct I don't believe it's posted online I'm sorry I I don't believe it's posted online but we can make sure it gets there.

Yeah let's make sure the prioritization list gets posted on I want to correct one thing uh I believe the construction will probably start um sometime in May but I'm not a hundred percent sure what when it'll come before council just want to make sure that that that expect expectations out there just depends on contracting and you know and all of that so okay all right all right very good with that we're adjourned 631