All right, good afternoon, good afternoon, everyone.

I'm the technical director of communications for the city of Kaleen, and each year we come together to look at the accomplishments and successes of the previous year are also looking ahead to the challenges and opportunities and all that is good and great for the year ahead.

We want to make sure that everything we're doing is for the citizens of Kleene and it benefits you.

So we are going to in turn to our state of the city address.

Before that, we just want to let you know that there's no formal portion where you will have a QA, but if you have questions, you can just like each year you can write them down.

We have uh paper uh right here um handles out, and each year we decide to sit right questions, and we turn it into our team, and we turn right into me, and we will respond to those questions as we do every year.

Um but we'll go ahead and introduce our mayor, Dave Nash King for the 2025 State City Pressure.

And we want to make sure that everyone knows you are literally this as well, and we do have a scientist interpreter, Mr.

John McDonald.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Janelle.

Thank you all for coming.

It is indeed an honor and a pleasure to stand before you today.

As I bring to you our state of the city from a mayor's perspective, I will be highlighting some of the great things this city has done and also opportunities that we have in the future.

By lining it up with our comprehensive plan 2040 moving forward, and as you all know, especially for the residents at home and the individuals that this may be your first time coming into our chambers, that our comprehensive plan is just a working document.

That is what it is.

That things will shift.

Because we got input from residents, the colleges and uh uh leadership, we also KISD, Fort Cavassos, military leaders, our community partners, excuse me, I'm trying to fight a cold, our community partners.

So that is what makes this comprehensive plan so significant.

In downtown Colleen, they call me downtown Debbie.

I take ownership in that because five, ten, fifteen years from now, when our downtown, just like any other downtown, start to grow and boom, I want my name to be on that because we took OPA funding, and we put that money to work on our north side of town.

We have so many complaints that we do nothing for the north side.

They say genocides.

We just try to take them out.

And the moment this particular all-minority council with their mayor being me, along with our staff.

Not that councils before us did not want downtown Kleene to grow, but we were truly blessed to have those resources to make it happen.

And we put our money where our mouth was.

You never know, depending on who running.

I might be back.

But that's not my intent.

But I want to ensure that we do the right thing for all people, regardless of how they look, regardless of their income, we should take care of our home.

Somebody said, take care of your own.

We are taking care of our home.

It's not that the council did anything wrong.

Because every council before us had a choice, and the council that comes after us will have a choice.

But as long as we're within that comprehensive plan, then we're doing what the majority of the people of Kaleen wanted, and our partners and the entities that work with us.

I want to lay that foundation because everything I say today will be surrounded by our comprehensive plan.

The city of Kaleen, we're growing.

And these are the items that I want to overview.

Now I brought my own personal notes because there are some things that this is a teachable moment for individuals that don't attend our meetings.

And the reason I'm saying this, you're getting a lot of information.

And a lot of that information that's been put out, it's not correct information.

One, the council cannot steal money.

It's virtually impossible.

We don't even touch money.

We make money decisions, it's gonna be right here from this dais.

That's one thing.

We have an auditor, Mr.

Grady, who does a tremendous job.

He works directly for the council.

He has working relationships with the city manager and department head, but he's his own entity.

He's a he's a man, an upright man.

And he goes in periodically and look at different departments.

They don't give him permission, he goes.

I said on that audit committee.

Councilmember Board said on that committee.

Councilmember Alvarez is the president of the audit committee, and we have two residents.

You can't be more transparent than that.

People say we're not transparent.

Every time a council member opened up their mouth on this dais and they raise up their hand to vote on an item, how transparent can that be?