Good evening.

We're going to call this Monday, May 18th, 2026, special meeting of the City Council of the New Brunfels to order.

Mrs.

Wilkinson, will you please call roll?

Councilmember Carter.

Here.

Councilmember Capizi.

Here.

Councilmember Edwards.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem S Bradley.

Here.

Councilmember Lebowski.

Here.

Councilmember Ryan.

Here.

And Mayor Leonards.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Councilmember Edwards is going to lead us in the invocation, followed by the pledges.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you with our words of prayer and hopes that you will help us seek understanding and wisdom that leads us to confidence and courage to do your bidding in all our decisions.

Though in our search for understanding, know full well that there will be many positions to consider, many voices to hear, and in some cases, many words, facts, fictions, and beliefs to liberate and weigh in our path to actionable decisions.

May we live up to the task and stand by our decisions with conviction.

We pray you watch over our first responders, our city staff, our community to keep us safe and out of harm's way.

May you especially watch over the firefighters we have sent to assist in the wildfires in Texas.

As we sit before the citizens and you, Lord, let us use your gift of choice and free will to the following of your teachings.

May we choose love rather than hate, laugh rather than cry, create rather than destroy, persevere rather than quit, praise rather than gossip, heal rather than wound, give rather than steal, act rather than procrastinate, grow rather than rot, pray rather than curse, and live rather than die, and live your life with love.

For all these things we pray, amen.

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.

Honor the Texas flag.

I pledge allegiance to the Texas.

One state under God, one and indivisible.

So whereas New Bromfels City University was launched in 2011 to give residents more insight into the day-to-day operations of the city of New Bromfels and provide participants with a greater understanding of their local government.

And whereas in 2024, the city added a youth component and reserve spots in the class for a high school student from each council district.

And whereas City University promotes and enhances community engagement by providing a quality program that connects New Brunfels residents with each city department to learn about the services, programs, initiatives, and projects offered by these departments and the challenges and opportunities facing our community.

And whereas, with the graduating class of thirty-three students, more than three hundred and ninety New Brunfels residents have connected with their local government and increase their knowledge of municipal services by completing this enlightening course.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Neil Leonards, Mayor of the City of New Brunfels, hereby recognize and congratulate all our city university graduates.

And each one of you is going to get your own proclamation.

So this one, I guess we'll hang up somewhere, but you'll each get your own personalized proclamation.

Why don't we get together for a group photo centered under the seal?

Okay, the next item on our agenda for tonight is to discuss and consider the approval of the downtown parking revenue reinvestment annual plan as recommended by the New Bromfels Downtown Board.

And just to clarify, this is just to consider and approve the downtown revenue reinvestment annual plan.

This is not uh a discussion or action on any policy regarded regarding the plan.

Mr.

Jewel.

Economic and community development director.

Um

thanks for the opportunity tonight to talk about the revenue reinvestment plan.

Uh this was something that we've discussed as part of as part of our ongoing discussions around downtown parking uh to bring forward the uh proposed plan and projects and expenditures so that the council could consider how those revenues that are being generated out of downtown parking would be reinvested.

Um, Matt, but just a little bit of context first.

Um, managed on-street supply through pricing time limits or permits was one of the key recommendations that came out of multiple downtown parking studies that have been undertaken over the years.

These on-street spaces are some of the most valuable parking spaces in the system, but without a better way to manage those systems and those parking spaces.

Uh, we found ourselves without any on-street parking, um, really in key priority areas, especially during high demand areas.

So, where previous two-hour time limits existed, the council voted in 2025 to adopt an ordinance that that implemented a limited pricing plan on 253 spaces in the downtown environment.

Coincident with that shift, uh, we doubled efforts to address other recommendations from uh from studies over the years that meant uh addressing how to get uh downtown employees off of those on-street spaces and get them into uh some lots, making more clear that there was actually publicly available and free parking in downtown, both off-street and on street, uh communicating about the usage of other public lots, mainly the county lots that were previously kind of had signage that looked like they were not really available, but actually they are available after 5 p.m.

And on the weekends.

So again, uh making better use of the existing parking supply and addressing the very and confusing signs throughout downtown and really the very punitive nature that a lot of private owners employed in downtown, which was really telling, um, which has become pretty much I'm not gonna say doesn't happen, but it's very, very rare when that does happen.

And so we've continued to increase public awareness of available parking through the revision of signage communications.