Council Meeting Minutes May 13, 2024 6pm  1. Opening Ceremonies:  Mayor Jolly called meeting to order at 6:00pm  Thosei in attendance were City Secretary Nacona Martinez, City Administrator Derek Stephens and Councilmembers S. Braddock, S. Henderson,. J.Craig, S. Overstreet and K.  Stone (Sworni in on agenda item #8) 2. Citizens Presentation:  Cyndi Abell- Ijust wanti to give y'all an update as to whatl Ihave been doing. So far, Ihave trapped, neutered, and spayed 50 cats. The majority of the cost has come out of my own pocket. I'mj just trying to see ift therei is a wayt thatlcould get donations from the community due to me spending about $5,000 on1 them as well ast food that p provide for1 the animals. AlL I'm askingi is for donations of $60. IC don't mind if you can't afford ite especially ify youare caring about) your cats. I've been told by several communities that they already see a difference. AlLI I'm askingi is for people to donate that $60 and ill cover the resty which includes getting the cat chipped, their rabies shot and another shot thaticantremember off the top of my head. 18 get their ear: snipped just soy you know thati they are vetted. With kittens that people find lam ablet to get them adopted pretty quickly.le either send them to Nebraska or wherever, Ihave 41 kittens at myl house right nowl I have woundsi to prove it. 806 has helped me withi the adoption process. Ijust wanted to lety'all know about whatlhave been doing. Itake cats every Wednesday andI Itravel on Tuesdays. Ijust wanted to have Cathy Ross- I'm sure you all have seen what happened yesterday with the dogs. And my question is, Iwast talking with Samantha yesterday and she said thati flowers aren'ta allowed at the cemetery, sol 18 guess we need al better definition of what is not allowed out there. Nacona- They can theyj just havei tol bei int the vase. Now the vase has to be on1 their plot soi if there is something thati is not on their plot likei ift the vase is not on their headstone, theni it Cathy- Yes, SO what happened yesterday with the dog at the cemetery was he wasj just playing andj just pulled everyone's flowers out and just chewed them up. So, we arej just making sure of the rules on if they can or they can't. Is there something that we can put Samantha- guess for clarification, Iwast told that we could not have fake flowers because they were beingt torn out of the vases andi torni to shreds all over the farm. So,lwasj just  everyone's supportt to be able to keep doing sO.  Ronny- Flowers are allowed out there.  Cathy- People are just wanting to know can they, or can't they?  willl be picked up.  online oft the rules for people to see.  going to clarifyt that.  Cathy- So are artificial flowers are, ok?    Ronny- Artificial flowers are ok. Nacona- Of course. 3. Department Head Reports:  Nacona- Both oft them are okj just as long as they arei ini the vase. Cathy- Ok, well thati is all the clarification that we needed. Thanky you.  Derek-I Iwas just going toi introduce everyone to Nick. He has a game to gol here in a minute. Nicks has been withi the cityi for at fewy years now. He is the only one that wantedi to take on Animal Control and the shelter. We are trying to dot the best we can with what wel have. Butl just wanted to give y'all ani idea of who was running it. Doy you have any other questions Derek- Another thing with the landfill, we are working on two new pits. Republic is starting to get low, we have about 21 hundred tons left, sO we are digging those and I'm looking at closing on Fridays because Paul is out, withy'all's approval. But let me look at it overt the next couple of weeks to see where we are, that way we can geti in front of those pits. That will give us at full day of running that scraper where we aren'tint the predicament we werei in lasty year. Byt the time we paid OT and the excavator: and the equipment, it was over $30,000 SO we can close down fort the day and maybe stay outi inf front of it sO we don'thave that Ronny- The excavator, just the equipment was $30,000. The overtime was way more. Does Derek- They arej just way way reduced right now. Andi that is one thing we could do, we can just let them know that on Fridays, and wel have done this in the past wherei they just told them we were open on certain days, and they just wouldn't come on those days. Ity would give us a day where we could just run that scraper SO we can try and keep that cost down. Derek- Anothert thing, something that Dale is doing, he is going around inspecting) your water meters like wel have talked about fort the Lead and Copper Revision, andy we are documenting that and taking aj picture ofit so ify you see him, he's not being nosey just digging around in your alleyi its actually something thati is mandated. We have tol have that documentation by October 14th. And that is something that hei is heading upi for us. We hired a new guy int the water department mainlyt to offset that right there. Ihave got to geti it done because they aren't goingt to bet tolerant anymore abouti itr not getting done. We are about to start getting into the mowing and other stuff sol I'mj just trying to stay on top of everything. To be honest, the water department has run reduced for a while now. And the landfill is still running reduced because Paul is out, and Dana is Part-Time. We hired Margaret just to runt the front so they can both be outi there. We are: still waiting to hear back from Zenner about our meters. We arel having to read about: 280 meters a month which is a complete waste of manpower but, Zenner can't get parts that we needi fori the actual meters tol be able toi fixt them. But as soon as they get those parts, and we can fixt them hopefullyit  about Department Head reports? Ronny-Idon't.  lease like wel had' last year.  Republicj just not come on Fridays at all?  Ronny- Sounds good to me.  will alleviate some oft that workload on our water department. 7. Election Canvass of the 2024 General Municipal Election.  Nacona-  City Council Place 2 (Stephen Overstreet) unopposed- 25 votes    City Council Place 4- Kent Stone- 110votes  Joe Craig- 77 votes  Therefore, Kent Stone will hold the Seati for Council Place 4 City Council Place 5 (Samantha Henderson) unopposed- 293V Votes Therefore, she will continue to hold the seat for Council Places 5  Ronny-Iguess we just accept that and then go on. We don'thave to vote on it or anything.  Nacona-No  8. Delivery of the Certificate of Election, Statement of Officers, and the Oath of Office to all  Candidates.  Ronny- (delivers Certificate of Election, Statement of Officers, and1 the Oath of Office to all While they are getting everything signed, Ijust wanted to Thank. Joei for his time asa  Candidates)  councilmember andlappreciate everythingi that you have done. 9. Discuss, consider, and take action on Variance 24-001R with Arthur' Whitley.  Ronny- Arthur, Donna, Derek, and Imet with Cal, and we agreed with the 121ft that was agreed on backi in 2022. In this' Variance they will get the 12Vftand be protected and the  other 10ft with the blanket variance. Shiloh-Imove ar motion to approve the' Variance. Stephen- seconded the motion. (motion passes unanimously) 6. Discuss Animal Control with Lauren Cline.  Lauren-ljust wanted to sayt that Nick is doing a goodj job. Ican see changes being made at the Shelter. Whatlwanted to talk about is last year sometime, Itook as small dog byt the name of Hailey, she was positive for distemper, she didn't get it from the shelter it wasi from somewhere int the community, unfortunately she passed away fromi it. With that being said it prompted met to write a grant. This was for the City of Tahoka and The City ofl Levelland and in that grant! Igoti it from the Community foundation of West Texas, andI Ireceived almost 600 vaccines for distemper and about 3001 for Bordatella (kennel cough), parvo distemper is very common here and its preventable buti its also quite deadly. So those vaccines andi the Bordatella, whichi is not deadly, but itj just helps with the upper respiratory. Those vaccines are freet for the City of Tahoka. Not necessarily for the Shelter but fort the citizens of Tahoka. So, with that grant lami to hold a vaccine clinic. I've done one inl Lubbock, and it lasted all of 21 hours sol P'm not sure how long this one is going to last here but, thet first one will be held in Levelland in June and the second one will be held here in September. Usually, we run them on a Saturday from 10ami to 1pm. The wayi it works is people will fill out some paperwork and then wej just vaccinate their dogs for1 free. know there has been vaccine clinics at the shelter and those haven't! been very good because you have pay, I'm not saying they weren't good, butl Ithink this give everyone a chance to vaccinate their dogs and we can tryt to prevent these diseases from coming into the shelter and out ini the community. We need top plan when would be a good time to havei it and ill advertise it on social media and get flyers out fort the communityt fort those that don't use technology. On another note, Ihave also received another grant fort the City of Tahoka ONLY    and what iti is, ist free spay and neuter vouchers fory your dogs ini the community in Tahoka. There are only 201 buti it covers rabies, heartworm, all their shots andi it also covers the antibiotics for any tick diseases which is also very common and so it's really great. But the only thing is it has to be done andi the animal clinic in Lubbock. How we get these vouchers out to the public is we havet to geti information out there. Maybe there is a certain area oft the community that could use the vouchers more ori ifit'sj just for the whole community. Ronny- We usedi to have a guy out of post that would come and set up at the Mini Park for the vaccinations. Someone did a dip as well ift thati is something else, we could do while we Lauren- Yes, Icould get something set up with that as well. lalso don't want to take having a vet off thet table, they can come and still charge whati they want for rabies. Since thati is something that they do at a clinic. We can give the parvo distemper and1 they can give the rabies. I have talked to Dr. Thomas in Slaton, and she said she will come, and she will charge fort the rabies, which is fine SO we can givet them in combination. Shiloh-1 Ithinki its better to get everything done all at once opposed to schedulingi it. Ithink it's great ifyouj just get with Derek and Nacona and even Nick to get something set up that Derek- Before she steps down Lauren has done at ton over the years, and we are fortunate tol have an asset like Lauren. None oft this would be possible without her. Idon'tthink anyone has spoken up that loudly about it or for her, but the community owes her al huge debt of service. She'sb been hugei inl helping Nick gets going and pointing us int the right direction int the steps that wel have had and quite! honestly with. Johnny as well before us too. There is lots of positives to take away from this and just wanted to Thank her and how much of at force she has beent for us. Doy'all want to talk about the animal shelter fora Derek-Thel bigt thing that people were wondering about was what we were, going to do about the weekends with Nick. One of the reasons! I put iti into public works is we already have people on call with public works, so they are already out and about, and the thought process was Iwas goingt to be able to manage my budget al little bit more byr not having to pay and individual person for being on call all the time. Soi that's whyv we didi it that way. Y'all knowt the: state oft things when we all got here. It's al business and that is how I'm trying tog go about this. That whyl talked to you guys early so we could just make it work withi the manpower we had and that was thet thought process behind it. The ultimate thingi is, ist that we are taking care of the animals. They are getting them vaccinated and adopted and IK know thati its not as fast as everyone wants but we are working hard. One of the things we are trying to do, and Sami is going to head that upi is working with the kids that have community service to get out there and help with the clean up witht the shelter. Sot thati is one of the things we are trying to get going. One of the things we are! battling with at the moment are Ticks. We aret trying to spray them and get that handled because wel had a momma dog and her pups that were infested with ticks. Icannot even tell you the number oft ticks these dogs had on them. When we got them cleaned upi it looked like the plague. Sot that's what we are Cyndi- havey y'all used Lyme before? Becauselknowi that the shelters in Lubbock, that is  dot the vaccines that would be great as well.  would worklam behind you. Samantha- Thank) youf for doing all of that!  minute. Ronny- Go ahead.  dealing with at the moment. whati they are using tol help with that problem. Derek- What are they doing withi it.    Cyndi- Its in a Bag and theyj just sprinkle ite everywhere andi it has seemed tol help them with it. Itkills the ticks and1 the larvae. I've never heard ofi it before buti it's working. Derek- I'm willing tot tryj just about anything at this point. It's been something I've Stephen- Correct mei if I'm wrong. But this position was supposed tol be a dual Derek-That's what plan on doing forward. We were inspected by the State, and we passed. The only thing they noticed was our SOP's. There was a miscommunication, wel had them and then we couldn'tfind them. They were being Ross- What are we doing tot those that havet their dogs running loose? Derek- We are working with PD right now. It would be great to get someone that can Ross- Derek told me this lady had been cited 5 or 6t times and it'sj just no big deal shej just keeps letting them run and that big dogi is getingpretyagesswe: nowso  personally have been working on. purpose to begin with.  updated and we are) just trying to get those done.  enforce that aspect ofit.  what is it that we can do to get her to comply. Derek- Ij just don't know the answer to1 that right now. Ross- is she paying her fine? Derek-Ic don't knowt that, Ross. Derek- Its should. Idon't disagree with it.  Ross- If she's not paying her fines then they need to go to warrant.  Stephen- Fort things liket this from our previous City Administrator to now, we asked that things liket that could bet taken care of withi the County. If we could dol like warrant round up and wei fell through to get to correct paperwork back tot them. That's on us. We want that to be done. Because you're right, slap ai fine on me and Ross- Yea, because there was that little boyt that was walking home for lunch, andi it went after him. If1 that ladyj just continues to get stuff liket this, something has gotto Ronny- Ift they write her a citation, does shel have to pay the citation before she can Derek- With itl being that aggressivel Idon'ti think that it gets to go back. Shiloh- IK know Chambry said that wel have authority to shut people's license down and that's something that we can dot first. Ifthati is what we got to do, then that's Sam- I'vel been doing research on1 this very thing. Because this has been an issue.I have been ablet to talk to Karen Cousins and Angela Means and my sister-in-law and she's from Australia and she says its like at third world country coming over here because there arej just dogs running everywhere. She said we don'thave that from where I'mi fromi they! have very strict policies, and they! hold people accountable and until we can hold the owners accountable this problem is goingt to be a revolving door. If we have to shut someone's license down because they are doing their due diligence, I'mi fori it. But we do recognize that this is a problem, and we: are actively Derek- City talked about this earlier. The way you can really get outi ini front of this is to slowt them down int their reproduction. It's a math problem guys.  there are no repercussions.  Samantha- And then no onet takes our officers seriously.  happen tol her.  get the animal out of the shelter?  what we got to do.  looking for a solution.    Cyndi- See with what l'm doing with cats) you can do the same thing with dogs. It's like $50 or $601 to get them spayed and neutered. Ihave people that tell mei that the reasont they don't doi iti is because they call the vet, and theyt tell them it's like $300.1 tell1 them they are just calling the wrong place.I Ifound this place andi they are awesome its called Pets clinic of Lubbock. And youl have to make an appointment. Derek- So, as fara as slowing things down. Wej just need to encourage people to spay and neuter their dogs. One thingl do want to highlight is that we have 7 dogs in our kennels right now and al litter of puppies. And they are reproducing faster than we can handle. We are overwhelmed ati this moment, and Iwant1 to lay this out here in front of God and everybody The Cityi is not responsible for these pets, it's the pet owner themselves and honestly everyone ini this rooms understands that. We want to do right by the animals itsj just overwhelming. Until we slow the population down Cyndi- ist there nots some sort of ordinance that people have to abide bys soO they Cyndi- maybe it should be an ordinance to have your animal spayed and neutered. Ross- you cani force someone to spay and neuter their dogs though. Sam- It's goingt to havei to take the community to1 figure something out. Derek- we are goingt to solve this tonight guys. Ideally, Iwould love to have some personi thati is a dual purpose int the PD and into Animal Control that has some level of enforcement and quite frankly someone that has been trained to deal with new Stephen- There is no way around this. In orderi fort this to worky youl have tol hold the people accountable fort these things ift that means putting their butt inj jail doing things that actually hold them to thet firei it's not going to change.  this is goingt tol be a continuingr problem. can't get away with this. Sam- Yes Ma'am  people.  Derek-lagree.  4. Approve and Accept April 2024 Minutes.  Stephen- Motion to approve Minutes as stated. Sam- Seconded (motion passed unanimously)  5. Discuss, consider, and take action on Resolution for Texas SmartBuy Membership  Program for the Tahoka Police Department.  Derek- it's a program that they can purchase theirt toxicology and blood kits from. We previously bought them from Comp Troller but nol longer can dot that. We were apart oft this program before its $100 ay year andi itsj just where PD can gett their  testing supplies. Sam- motion to approve it. Shiloh- seconded. (motion passes unanimously), 10. Discuss Financial and Auditors update.  Derek- The budget is Healthy. We should be at 58% of our budget and we are at    52%, everyone is well withint their budget. Admin is at 57%, PDs at 57%, Grounds and Streets at 51%, Parks and Pools at 48%, Fire Department is at 52%, Code Enforcement is at 56%. Revenue is upi from Water and Sewer we are upt to 60% of our budget. Water meter: sales there was a dip, but we goti it fixed. They are at 56% our budget there. Youd can looki in water and Sewer their expenses are down 6% and ifv we continue to go down that trend, we should profit $50,000 in! budget out of that account. We are at 81% of our Sanitation buti ify youl look at the type 1 accounti in 03- 301 we are at 68% of what wel budgeted for type 4, and we should be at 58%1 Ithink will more than pay out, knock on wood as long as our equipment stays up likei it has been. But I'm going to speak iti into existence. Ify you'l look, they are 53% of their budget as well, it's the same thing, just about! $50,0001 thaty you will look at coming in. Our payroll tax was over budgeti from YTD, there was a surplus their SO we moved iti into administration salaries. We made ar new expense account in' Water and Sewer, justf for facility maintenance I pulled it out of vehicle maintenance since we had to put some doors on the shop. Gary House was here Friday and he looked at things and was very encouraged by the numbers and he's willing to come to speak at a councilr meeting. would like him to come before we sit down and do our next year's budget. So, you don'thave to take me at my words it'llg get someone to Derek- As long as he' 's not busy with! his council. The only real budget adjustmentI have to make is through PD.1 They received a grant, not an adjustment and Amendment, PD's grant was $1974.78, Ijust need y'all to approve the amendment. Shiloh- Can you putt that ont the next meeting. We willj just discuss this for right now.  reinforce what I'm saying.  Shiloh- can he come to the. Julyworkshop?  Derek- P'UL puti it on at the next meeting. Derek- It's al budget amendment.  Stephen- Isi it over the amount you need our approval for? Ronny- Have youl heard from Caroline when she is goingt to come out? Derek-Isenty y'all ane email about the update. Laura actually spoke tol her. Her computer system quit and she was outi for a couple of weeks. She was waiting on her software to geti fixed. Caroline statedi that she should be done with 21 and 22 by the end of this month. She was waiting to hear backi from Bennett, Bennett and Trice, our previous auditor, she said she couldn'ts get in contact with them so Laura and Igot in contact with them and was able to get thati information over tol her. And now whilst getting all this information tol her she saidi that with her software messing upi that she had to get a new email. So, she says she still has not received that. It's not encouraging butl Idon't: seel her divingt this fari into ita and not getting the job done. She did say that she will be reducing the price from the original agreement to $17,000/) year which the original was $25,000. Laura reached back out tol Bennett Bennett and" Trice and Kim Barrington was unavailable. Laura reached out to her just to seei if she could forward the information to her new email address. l've went ahead and reached out to Bolinger and Sears to see ift they would do our audits) justi in the event she doesn'tdo them. They have not picked it up yet. Derek-I Iknow that's depressing news but our budget is healthy.  Ronny- anythingelse?  11. Future. Agenda Items    Sam- Discuss or possibly an action item on getting people to register their animals. Stephen- getting it back on the agenda withi they County to hold these people accountable. Becauser we were close, but we dropped the ball onit. Derek- It's justr money, I'mi not: sure where you are going toi find that int the budget. Stephen- I'm justs saying if we aret trending in the right direction, and we can find iti in next year's budget and we could possibly recoup from putting people is jail Shiloh- Walter had suggested that we pay quarterly. That way if we do have something come upi int the budget we are not committed to it. And oncei in that quarter they can do a round upy where we would bet fine for a couple months and and1 then in those downtimes and we notice others aren't paying then we do another Stephen- But how often do beds become available to be able to do that? Shiloh- That's just something we needi to discuss with the Sherriff's office. Ronny- Onei thingl Iwould liket to see addressed is at the cemetery. People are bringing Monuments, head stones, whatever you want to call them, andi they are putting them wheret they want. And they are no where near beingi in line. Maybe we Derek- we will look at it. Ify you canj just show me what you mean.  Ronny- its $65,000  and we could potentially offset that somewhat.  round up.  add $50to mark the headstone.  12. Adjourn  Kent- Motion to Adjourn at 7:05 pm Stephen- seconded. (motion passed unanimously)  These meeting minutes werel PASSED and APPROVED ont the l0 dayof June 2024  Yaome  ha al4y  Nacona Martinez, CitySécretary  Ronny. Jolly, Mayor  245