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2019 10 24 WS MinutesMINUTES OF THE REGULAR WORK SESSION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BAYTOWN OCTOBER 24, 2019 The City Council of the City of Baytown, Texas met in a Regular Work Session on Thursday, October 24, 2019, at 5:32 P.M., in the Hullum Conference Room of the Baytown City Hall, 2401 Market Street, Baytown, Texas with the following in attendance: Laura Alvarado Council Member Charles Johnson Council Member Heather Betancourth Council Member Robert Hoskins Mayor Pro Tern Chris Presley Council Member David Himsel Council Member Brandon Capetillo Mayor Rick Davis City Manager Ignacio Ramirez City Attorney Leticia Brysch City Clerk Keith Dougherty Sergeant at Arms Mayor Capetillo the October 24, 2019, City Council Regular Work Session with a quorum present at 5:32 P.M., all members were present with the exception of Council Members Himsel and Betancourth who were absent. 1. DISCUSSIONS a. Discuss the City's utility extension policy and possible revisions thereto City Manager Rick Davis presented the item and stated that some months ago an issue arose involving an un-incorporated community, by where folks that were either cut off from water supply or have some catastrophic failure to their water system. Staff has looked into options that would allow the City to provide water for these folks and will present said options to the Council which would include some policy changes. Director of Public Works and Engineering, Frank Simoneaux stated that as Mr. Davis noted, there may be some cases wherein it makes sense for the City to provide utility services outside the city limits. If the area needing service is in close proximity to the City, in other words, if the City has lines that are close to the people requesting service, there could be a way to extend services to them. In order to do so, the City would have to change its current procedures with an ordinance to allow the City to be able to provide service in certain cases. So, the proposed revision to the ordinance would allow the City to provide water service under certain circumstance without having to make significant investment. City Council Regular Work Session Minutes October 24, 2019 Page 2 of 5 Mr. Simoneaux presented the Council with a chart outlining the proposed policy revisions and noted that in general, the City does not provide wastewater services if it is not also providing water services because it requires some mechanism to know how much wastewater is being used. Mr. Simoneaux noted that the proposed policy states that if an owner requesting service pays for the extension of a City line that is within a thousand feet of a City line, and pays the appropriate impact fees, the City will provide water service, which would then be paid for like any other customer. Requests for wastewater service is similar, but the City would only provide said service if there is also water service; in other words, a person could get water service and not have wastewater service, but they could not get wastewater service without water service. Mr. Simoneaux noted that this proposed policy is for specific circumstances and are different and apart from the policies related to the introduction of a new residential subdivision. They would have to request annexation or enter into bulk agreement, which is in the current policy. He noted that the same is true with a new commercial site, industrial district agreement and other development agreements. Mr. Simoneaux noted that there was one question that staff wanted to bring to council, and is not included in the current proposal and that is, if the requetinr, is a single residency that is adjacent to the city limits, would the City require them to request annexation or not. Assistant City Manager Nick Woolery noted that the question at hand is if the person requesting service is or able to be annexed, does the City want to require them to be annexed. Currently, if they are able to be annexed, then we require them to request annexation in order to receive water and sewer services. Under the proposed policy, the City will be providing services that are not in the city limits and so the question is, does the City still want to require that annexation if they are available to be annexed. City Attorney, Ignacio Ramirez, Sr. noted that the Council may not want to annex every person that request service. For example, the Lynchburg area has requested to be annexed several times. The city has never annexed the area, which does have the attention of the Justice Department. So if the Council does not require the annexation of these people, there needs to be extra caution on the selection process/policy as to how and when to decide who is required and not required to be annexed. In response to a question regarding the legality of providing water and sewer service to locations outside the city limits, Mr. Simoneaux noted that generally cities do not want to do that because you want people come into the city where you collect monies not only for the water and sewer services, but also those related to the taxes on their property, because if you give water and sewer services that is generally all they want, and they will not want to come into the city. The Council discussed this item and noted that they would like to have more options as it relates to the annexation requirement. Mr. Davis noted that in taking the Council's comments into consideration, staff will write something into the policy to allow the Council flexibility on the annexation thing, and that it may require long -tern[ aunexations, edition of extension of utilities, etc. City Council Regular Work Session Minutes October 24, 2019 Page 3 of 5 b. Discuss the Supplemental Environmental Project agreement with TCEQ for the Baytown Residential Sewer Line Repair and Replacement Program. City Manager Rick Davis presented the item and noted that years ago, Assistant City Manager Nick Woolery began a process with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) in regards to a new policy that would allow the City to utilize environmental penalty money to subsidize the replacement of private waterlines. Director of Public Works and Engineering Frank Simoneaux noted that in 2013, the City entered into an agreement with TCQE to undertake certain work within the city that would help reduce the city's sewer overflows. Since that time, the City has undertaken a number of projects that have upgraded and enhanced the City's public water and wastewater infrastructure. However, the other part of the system, the private side, which goes from residences; i.e. homes, into the City's city main system still have a number of issues; such as cracked pipes or dislocated joints that are negatively impacting the City's water and infiltration system resulting in sanitary sewer overflows. Because the public system is taking a lot of inflow from the private systems, the City started a program in 2007 that inspects private sewer lines. These inspections are done from the main road with a camera that is sent through the private lines to help identify defective pipes. The City identified the private lines that needed work, directed qualified residents to the City's CDBG program for financial assistance and put a $25.00 fee on water bills for those residents that have not made any repairs to their defective private lines and do not qualify for grants. Mr. Simoncaux noted that residents are given a one-year grace period to make the necessary repairs to the defective lines, but if they don't make them within said year, then a charge of $25.00 per month is added to their utility bill in order to cover the additional water that has to be used to treat their extra water. In 2018, the City submitted a proposal to TCEQ to allow the City to use the fees from environmental violations for the creation of a program that would use these monies to provide financial support to residents that need to repair defective private lines. This program would be a SEP fund for the replacement of the private sewer lines; specifically for those that do not qualify for CDBG funds, but still need to replace their lines. The City's proposal was accepted by TCEQ and staff has the proposed agreement for Council's approval at tonight's regular meeting; however, the City cannot begin to use the funds until there is money in the fund as there are no contributions yet. The contributions for this SEP fund would be collected by TCEQ as one of the state-wide approve projects that environmental violator can contribute to; the City has companies who have these types of violations, so ideally these fees would be used to help the community. Staff gave the Council an overview of the CDBG program and noted that the new SEP fund program would start where the CDBG program stopped. Mr. Simoneaux noted that there would be a tiered payment system and income based. City Council Regular Work Session Minutes October 24, 2019 Page 4 of 5 The Council requested that staff undertake an extensive and aggressive education campaign to give residents a full understanding of their options to repair their defective water and sewer lines. The Council discussed increasing the monthly fine for those residents that do not repair their defective lines from $25.00 a month to $50.00 a month. Staff noted that the details of the financing and system are not yet finalized, but they are estimating that the cost for residential line repairs run from $3,000 to $6,000 and the City would finance the cost of the repairs for a 12-month period. However, these details are not yet finalized and at this time, staff is asking Council to take the first step in setting up this program and that is to pass the proposed agreement with TCEQ in order to then establish the account. The Council thanked the staff for their hard work in getting this new SEP fund approved by TCEQ and look forward to the aggressive promotion of this program to help those residents in need of these water/sewer line repairs. C. Discuss the continued receipt of the share of bingo prize fee funds collected on charitable bingo activity that occur within the city limits of Baytown. City Attorney, Ignacio Ramirez, Sr., gave Council an overview of the bingo agenda item and noted that the state legislature passed a bill that said, starting in January in order for the City to continue receiving the charitable bingo fees, the Council had to state whether it wanted to opt -in or opt -out via resolution and send those results into the state by November Ist. The fee in question is basically 5 percent of the prize money that the Bingo operator in the past up until now has been sending to the state. The state would then rebate that fee to the county and the city, with each getting 2 1/2 percent. So, in the future, to continue that, both the county and the city would have to say, "we want to continue doing that and opt -in." However, the City recently got a letter from the state that further explained what was going on because there was a lot of confusion. Mr. Ramirez noted that as he understood the information, it would not make any difference to the operator if the city opted -out and said, "we do not want to collect your money anymore, do not send it to us.", because the new law would require them to send the entire 5 percent to the county. So, the end result of the operator would be nothing. From the last meeting, it appeared the Council wanted to let the operators keep the City's portion of the money; however, if the City opted -out, and the county opted -in, the county would just get the windfall. Apparently, the state was made aware of that issue and issued an additional letter clarifying; therefore, the recommendation is for the City to opt -in before November 1st, by saying, that we want to continue receiving that money and that is what is before the Council. Then, follow through with Step 2, which allows the City to opt -out of receiving the monies after November 1 st; this way, if the county opts -in, the county will receive their portion, but they will not receive the City's; if the City opts -out the second time, then the county will not get the City's portion, only their own. City Council Regular Work Session Minutes October 24, 2019 Page 5 of 5 d. Discuss any or all of the agenda items on the City Council Regular Meeting Agenda for October 24, 2019, which is attached below. Council Member Presley requested an update on the empowerment zone. 2. ADJOURN With there being no further business to discuss, Mayor Capetillo adjoumed the October 24, 2019, City Council Regular Work Session at 6:17 P.M.