City Council Regular Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 x VERAE % OPENING AGENDA 1. Call Meeting to Order, The City Council Regular Meeting of the City of Montgomery was called to order by Mayor Countryman at 6:00 p.m. on February 11, 2025, at City Hall 101 Old Plantersville Rd., Montgomery, TX and live video streaming. With Council Members present a full quorum was established. Present: Mayor Sara Countryman Mayor Pro-Tem Casey Olson Council Member Place 1 Carol Langley Council Member Place 4 Cheryl Fox Council Member Place 5 Stan Donaldson Also Present: Chief Anthony Solomon, Interim City Administrator Corinne Tilley, Code Enforcemen/Panning & Zoning Administrator Ruby Beaven, City Secretary Diana Titus, Deputy City Secretary Caleb Villarreal, City Attorney, Johnson Petrov, LLP Chris Roznovsky, City Engineer, WGA 2. Invocation. Council Member Donaldson led the Invocation. 3. Pledges of Allegiance. Mayor Countryman led the Pledges of Allegiance. PUBLIC FORUM Mr. John Fox, 821 Stewart Street, Montgomery, Texas stated he wanted to talk briefly about item #6 on the agenda. He had the opportunity to look through this closely. This deals with the subdivision standards. To give you a little background my wife insist I tell you this. I am not trying to pat myself on the back. My experience goes back to 1970 where I had affiliation with the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration. We built 318 houses in 18 months and was: noted as setting the standard for acceptable housing in Houston. That is where I started and I ended after several years in The Woodlands as Director of Residential Construction Technology February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 1 of11 and in charge of the building programs in 2007. With this background he read through this and some things just really stand out. There is one that says that the Planning and Zoning Commission will review drainage plats from a PDF. Anybody who has ever reviewed a drainage plat knows that doing SO off a PDF is totally impossible. He said he knows the people intended well but it is more obvious that some ofthe standards were written without any experience. We have plagiarized this from some other place and came up with this. What is scary about this is he knows that uphill drainage in Montgomery has been the number one issue of people calling here on the phone since he has been involved with the City since 2010. It continues to be an issue where the developers did not identify what was going to happen down hill and provide for and we all suffer from it. He said all he is going to ask is for God's sake in this review get those that know in a semi-circle and review this. Do not sign to anything again until we know what we are talking about. This really concerns him. The last chapter of this in the tree preservation is just crazy. In his time in Houston building in these woods, Mr. Mitchell himselfjust almost beat you to death ifyou tore down a tree. We have tried everything to save trees, not compact even here in our own City we allow weekend after weekend everybody to gather under the oak trees down at the community building. In fact, we have lost trees down there because ofthat. It is an issue, but unfortunately ifyou track building you do not have the time, the space, and the money to do that. You have to go on with the plan, tear down whatever you need to tear down, but reinvest instead of all the fencing and things you will be asked to do. Take that cost and put it back into putting together a quality reforestation plan when the house is finished. Ifyou do any research at all into this, Texas A&M provides a lot of good information about home values. Home values in 10 years with good vegetation will far exceed the value of the one with the sunny side look over the hill. He is asking to slow the roll down about reviewing this and make sure that we know what we are doing when we go forward with this. Ms. Alisa McCorquodale, 657 and 661 Old Plantersville Road, Montgomery, Texas. Today she is speaking as a business owner of Bride and Bloom 21123 Eva Street, Suite 100, Montgomery, Texas. She came tonight to publicly report what she believes to be retaliation against her as a business owner in the city. Many of you have a handout that she has prepared, but wants to highlight bits ofit for the record and for those who might be watching remotely. On January 31st Mayor Countryman posted on Facebook many things that had been happening throughout the prior week. On Thursday it reads she hosted a State ofthe City meeting where all downtown businesses were invited to hear how the City is working for them etc. She commented how were business owners notified oft the State ofthe City meeting? She does not recall Bride and Bloom getting an invitation. We had some back and forth. Alisa, an email was sent out from City Hall I will follow up. Then Mayor Countryman said Alisa what is your email address? City Hall does not have it and that is why you did not get the invite. Ms. McCorquodale said she received all emails from Mr. Gary Palmer and she still receives emails from the Event Coordinator SO this is very odd. Mayor Countryman said she checked with her before responding to this message and she stated she did not have an email address for you. Ms. McCorquodale said she is assuming she is Stephanie Johnson. She went to her email inbox because she is thinking I know I am not crazy and sure enough when she searched for City ofMontgomery several emails came up from the City. The last one was on November 26, 2024 from Stephanie Johnson. The facts here are herhusband Mr. David McCorquodale was fired by this Council on November 18, 2024 and a lawsuit was filed by her husband Mr. David McCorquodale against the City on November 28, 2024. The last correspondence she received as a business owner from the City was November 26, 2024. She February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 2 of11 spoke with her IT guy today and asked him if how all of that would transpire if she was not just manually removed? He told her unless the City changed email carriers and lost all email addresses her email address would have had to be manually and intentionally removed from the email list. She said she is going to allow everyone to make their own conclusions about what happened here. She is not here tonight asking you to promote her business. She is not asking you to support her business, but rather for you not to make it more difficult for her to do business in this town. We all have to coexist and you need to do better. Mayor Countryman said typically they do not respond to that but she is going to take a moment and respond to you. She said she did ask Stephanie Johnson. She has very limited information from the previous City Events Coordinator and she was going off of that list. She was brand new and she may have sent you but it may have been a different list. I did call her and she did state she did not have your email address. All of that is fact and truth. Council Member Olson said point of order Mayor. We do not reply. Mayor Countryman said we can and she wants it on the record that she did do what she said that she did. Ms. McCorquodale asked you do see the copy of my inbox where I have an email from Ms. Stephanie Johnson? Mayor Countryman said she does but does not know what list that was pulled from. CONSENT AGENDA 4. Consideration and possible action on the City Council Workshop Meeting Minutes of January 13, 2025. 5. Consideration and possible action to close Jacobs Properties parking lot for the Montgomery Mardi Gras Special Event for March 1, 2025. 6. Consideration and possible action to call a public hearing concerning proposed amendments to Chapter 78, Subdivisions, ofthe Montgomery City Code, said hearing to be held on February 25, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. at the Montgomery City Hall. Council Member Langley asked when we hold the hearing on February 25th at our next City Council meeting, will she get any updates on this amendment beforehand? Chief Solomon asked if she was talking about the amendments from KKC? Council Member Langley said she is not sure. Chief Solomon said yes we will have updates. Council Member Fox said her question would be primarily on 78 the subdivisions. She has requested and printed out what was said because she did not quite understand it when they were at the meeting. Actually Council Member Olson and Council Member Langley were not able to make that meeting due to work, but hopefully we will have a lot more discussions even doing the public speaking because she finds it very confusing and hard to digest everything that is in there because it is fairly long and she wants to make sure that they have good ordinances versus ordinances that they cannot enforce, February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 11 Motion: Council Member Donaldson made a motion to accept the consent agenda items #4, #5, #6, as presented. Council Member Fox seconded the motion. Motion carried with all present voting in favor. PUBLIC HEARING 7. Conduct a public hearing concerning a petition for voluntary annexation filed by Tri Pointe Homes Texas, Inc. Mayor Countryman convened the City of Montgomery into a Public Hearing at 6:13 p.m. Speaking For: None Speaking Against: None Mayor Countryman reconvened the City of Montgomery into a Regular Meeting at 6:13 p.m. REGULAR AGENDA 8. Consideration and possible action on the first and only reading of an Ordimance of the City of Montgomery, Texas, adopting the annexation of certain territory located in the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the city ofMontgomery, Texas, to wit: a tract or parcel containing 32.24 acres or 1,404,464 square feet ofland situated in the Benjamin Rigsby League, Abstract No. 31, Montgomery County, Texas, being part of and out of the residue of a called 94.889 acre tract of land described in deed to Norman R. Stewart, Jr. and wife, Jennifer H. Stewart as recorded under Montgomery County Clerk's file (M.C.C.F.) No. 9357628, and part of and out ofa called 67.820 acre tract ofland described in deed to CMC Partnership, Ltd. As recorded under M.C.C.F. No. 2022130572 and being more particularly described by metes and bounds depicted in Exhibit "A"; providing for incorporation of premises, amending of the official city map, and acknowledging a service plan; requiring the filing of this Ordinance with the County Clerk; prescribing for effect on territory, granting as appropriate to all the inhabitants of said property all the rights and privileges of other citizens and binding said inhabitants by all oft the acts, ordinances, resolutions, and regulations of the City of Montgomery, Texas; providing cumulative repealer, severability and savings clauses; providing for engrossment and enrollment; and providing an effective date. City Secretary Beaven wanted to state for the record this is proposed Ordinance 2025-03. Motion: Council Member Olson made a motion to approve Ordinance 2025-03, as presented. Council Member Donaldson seconded the motion. Motion carried with all present voting in favor. Council Member Langley - yes Council Member Olson - yes Council Member Fox yes February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 11 Council Member Donaldson - yes 9. Consideration and possible action regarding adoption of a Resolution of the City Council of the City of Montgomery, Texas consenting to the creation of Montgomery County Municipal Utility District No. 255 in Montgomery County, Texas and establishing conditions applicable to the creation of the district. Council Member Olson asked which MUD is this for? City Attorney Caleb Villarreal said Tri Pointe, same development. Council Member Fox asked if they have any other MUDs in the City? City Attorney Villarreal said very similar to Red Bird they did in the Pulte homes. Mayor Countryman said Town Creek Crossing. City Secretary Beaven said for the record this is proposed Resolution 2025-05. Motion: Council Member Olson made a motion to adopt the resolution as presented. Council Member Donaldson seconded the motion. Motion carried with all present voting in favor. 10. Consideration and possible action on approving a new HR & AP Specialist position. Chief Solomon said during his time as the interim he took an assessment of what we were doing and took an assessment of each department. He said we looked at HR and we have at least eight or nine files that are missing. We have got other files that things are missing from those file. We looked at finance and looked at some ofthe things that we were doing in finance. Some of the things that like the escrow management accounts, the 380 agreement, and in the tracking management. Those systems were lost at a point to where now they're going to have to be redone SO we looked at some of the invoices. The coding of the capital instruction and projects and the engineering invoices, along with legal invoices, those things have been way behind for a very, very long time. Catching with those things we started to process each department and we looked at Planning and Zoning and looked at the way they can start reprocessing they way they do things with Planning and Zoning. We came up with some new procedures on how to make those things work and then last we looked at permits. The City last year at this time did 117 permits and to date, we are at 238 which means we are getting more and more permits, with more and more businesses, and more and more subdivisions that are being built. The Permit Technician has to take time to take care for those permits SO we have looked at all those and have looked with coming up with a position that can handle the help we need in HR, the help we need in finance, and also the help we need at the front office in the utilities department with this position here. We have a position of an assistant city administrator that is never going to be filled again. We would like to use some of these funds to fund a position that would help us carry out the things that we need in each one of these divisions. We took a very long, hard look at this before coming to Council because he was not in this position a year ago, but he knows we came to you last year with this position. This position is very February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 11 much needed to help us to continue to get great again SO we are asking Council to approve this position. Council Member Fox asked ifthis was for one person? ChiefSolomon said yes, one person. Mayor Countryman asked internally or externally? Chief Solomon said internally. Council Member Donaldson asked how did you decide to combine HR and an AP position which is accounts payable and put it under City Secretary? Chief Solomon said we looked at HR and we also looked at financing. In financing right now we have one person that understands how to do payroll. That one person in a couple of months is going to Europe for two to three weeks sO we need to get someone in here that we can get trained. We looked to combine that position and we looked to get someone in here that could handle each ofthese positions as that department needs them SO that is why we decided to combine them. Council Member Olson said this is a position he has wanted since he got elected he has been pushing for an HR position as it is something we direly need. In a traditional corporate structure payroll is handled by HR. Council Member Langley asked where is the report that we have been waiting for from Evergreen Solutions that tells us when we could go to the budget workshops that we would know what new positions we wanted to fill? She is not comfortable tonight voting on this at all. Council Member Olson said he would like to see that also. Council Member Langley asked do you know where that report is? Chief Solomon asked which report? Mayor Countryman said it is Evergreen comp study. Chief Solomon said the comp study is not back from Evergreen yet. When we are looking at a comp study that comp study also is going to look at the positions that we have now and says that this position here should be at this point right here SO it is not just necessarily going to be looking at any new positions that we want. This is a position that is very much needed now. The comp study will mainly tell us you have a guy who has been at this position for six years when you look around the industry this is what this person is making at this particular time. Council Member Olson said absolutely and he totally understands that but from a budgetary standpoint, we need to know where we are going to land come summer time when we go to do our budget, SO I am with Council Member Langley and whoever else wants to agree that we would like to know. Give us an idea of how much money we have right at this moment SO we do not over extend ourselves when we do the budget. Mayor Countryman said but if we have eliminated that six-figure position and this is not a six-figure position. Council Member Olson said we do not know how much of that six-figure position we. are, going to eat up to compensate for our comp study. Chief Solomon said this is a position that starts in the range of $52,000 - $62,000. Mayor Countryman asked to support this we have talked about redundancy. We seem currently today we have people that do their job and they are the only people that know how to do their job SO in having that redundancy, do you have a secondary and even potentially a third person to know what is going on should that person not be here? Chief Solomon said we. just talked February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 6 of 11 the position with payroll. He said there are a lot oft things that we looked at. There are a lot of things that need cleaning up, but there are also some things that need to be done constantly to keep it on track and this is where that position will come in doing that. He said he understands when you talk about budget, but that is why we are asking you with the position that is not funded at this time to use those funds for this position. Council Member Fox said it says that the assistant city administrator is vacant at this point. She thought it was totally deleted at this point. Chief Solomon said it is deleted and that is a position that you were talking about that was a six-figure position. It is not a vacant position. It is a position that has been eliminated by Council. Council Member Olson said he would like to elaborate just why they reference it that way and it is because it is budgeted as that position. It is budgeted in SO until we get to our new budget and we take it out it is going to be listed in there. Yes, we have all voted and agreed that we do not want that position, but when our new budget comes out that position will no longer have a budget for it SO it will go away. Council Member Fox said she did not understand exactly why the accounts payable would not be actually reporting to the finance director. Chief Solomon said most of the time all that falls under HR. We have not had a standard HR here at any point. I tell you; you have to look from where we are at when we are looking at a day-to-day process and how that day-to-day process is working and how that day-to-day process is keeps us doing things and we need to have that person moving on to something else. This is where a position like this comes in. Council Member Donaldson asked SO you are saying Council Member Olson that ifwe approve this position tonight we. have to do al budget amendment to put the money in the budget? Council Member Olson said we would have to move it because we cannot call our HR specialist our assistant city administrator SO Finance Director Carl would have to move it over for this position. Council Member Donaldson asked is that an issue? Chief Solomon said no it is not an issue. It is the money that is there now that has not been used since those vacancies of the city administrator and the assistant city administrator. Council Member Langley asked where did these essential duties and responsibilities come from? City Secretary Beaven said she created them. Chief Solomon said some of these are the ones that we created for this position and we put it together according to the national skills of what a person in this position needed to have and what we needed here as a city from this person. Council Member Langley asked about the price that you came up with do you know where you got that from? Chief Solomon said when they looked at the price ofthis we talked about someone who is HR SO we looked at people that would be assisting with HR ifi that person is moved to that position as HR and also as finance and covering the utility window. We looked at the process ofhow that person was paid and the pay range went from $52,000 to $62,000 SO it will fall somewhere in the middle of that. Council Member Langley asked SO having to watch the front window, that is that last one that says February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 7 of11 perform other duties as assigned including special assignments and to cover absences or relief? Chief Solomon said yes. Council Member Langley asked do you know how much this position would be at the front window instead of being able to do the HR and the AP that you are saying we really need. Chief Solomon said what we have now is a temp lady and we also have a permit person that is working the window. He said he went in there to see how they work. When they are doing permits it is almost hard to get to the window especially when you have a temp person who leaves at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon and then you have people coming in. He said the permit person'sj job is increasing with permits and it makes it harder. This is going to be probably about 15 percent of their job. Council Member Langley asked what are we paying the temp person now? Finance Director Carl said her wage is $18 an hour but of course we pay more than that for the temp agency. Mayor Countryman said that is close to $1,000 a week she thinks. Council Member Langley asked is that all the hours she can work? Chief Solomon said those are the hours she works. He said he thinks a month ago she came in three days for an eight hour span but when you are looking at day-to-day process folks trust me, the position is needed. Mayor Countryman said she sees how hard everyone here is working especially since the changes and it was a mess and you have straightened out a lot. Your recommendation I value and see how much Finance Director Carl is tied to her desk too. HR was an area that we were lacking here and SO for what it is worth I am in support of this. Motion: Council Member Donaldson made a motion to approve the HR and AP Specialist position as presented. Council Member Olson seconded the motion. Discussion: Council Member Olson said if we are going to hire an HR person we want someone who has HR experience. Chief Solomon said yes. Council Member Olson said he has two daughters who both are going to school to be HR and it is not an easy course. Chief Solomon said absolutely. Council Member Olson said it is something we have the educational experience to be diploma or GED and then the experience is somewhat low SO if we are going to go low on the degree, then we have to go high on the experience. Chief Solomon said that is what we looked at because we looked at other cities and other areas who had HR people and then they had an HR assistant and where those HR assistants land at when it comes to education. Council Member Olson said but we are not hiring an assistant. ChiefSolomon said no we are. not hiring an assistant, but when we bring someone in here we want them to have some type ofHR because we can teach them payroll, we can teach them utility, but they need to have some type of HR. Council Member Olson said that is fine with him. Motion carried with 3-Ayes and 1-Nay vote by Council Member Langley. EXECUTIVE SESSION 11. Closed Session February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 8 of 11 City Council will meet in Closed Session pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, in accordance with the authority contained in: A. 551.072 Deliberations about Real Property concerning potential sale of City property. At 6:33 p.m. Mayor Countryman convened the Montgomery City Council into closed session pursuant to provision of Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, in accordance with the authority contained in Section 551.072 Deliberations about Real Property concerning potential sale of City property. 12. Open Session City Council will reconvene in Open Session at which time action on the matter(s) discussed in Closed Session may be considered. A. 551.072 Deliberations about Real Property concerning potential sale of City property. At 7:08 p.m. Mayor Countryman reconvened the Montgomery City Council into an open session pursuant to provision of Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code to take any action necessary related to the executive session noted herein, or regular agenda items, noted above, and/or related items. Motion: Council Member Olson made a motion to approve the letter of intent and authorize the city attorney to negotiate the purchase agreement. Council Member Fox seconded the motion. Motion carried with all present voting in favor. COUNCIL INQUIRY Mayor Countryman said she received a call from the HOA President ofTown Creek Village. We will not take in their streets until Sudden Link comes out and removes their few inches of cabling that has gone into their drainage. He has called and called and they have made appointments with him and no one has shown up. The President told her it is not even under one of the roads. It is 23 feet away from a road and it is two to three feet down. He said he wanted to know if we could still take in the roads and help him, maybe via our attorneys send a letter to Sudden Link to get their attention because they are not responding and they are standing him up. The President said he would be willing for the HOA to be in a 10 year agreement that if anything were to happen ift these cables cause something that the HOA would pay for the remediation and not the City, or would we be open to allowing them to hire someone to patch it because basically he thinks you can pull up the cable and there is probably enough slack to pull it out and then patch over the pipe. Council Member Olson said that is a question for Mr. Roznovsky. Mayor Countryman said she is just throwing it out there because it is holding up us taking them in and we voted on that almost a year ago. Again, it is not affecting any of the roads. Council Member Olson asked Mr. Roznovsky if February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 9 of 11 that is corrugated pipe. Mayor Countryman said she thinks it is. Mr. Roznovsky said there is a lot of corrugated plastic out there and thinks it is in the pictures. Council Member Olson said structurally it is integrity, obviously it has a hole out of it. He asked if a patch will work? Mr. Roznovsky said they can patch it or it is plastic pipe SO just cutting out a section and replacing it with couples on the ends that way you do not have the patch sitting on top. You are not talking a large expense. They can take a look and get with staff on where it actually stands and see what it takes to move forward and come up with options. Mayor Countryman said as you can imagine he is getting beat up by the homeowners asking when, when, when and they have been waiting for years before it even got to Council without Council's knowledge it was even desired SO whatever we could do to speed up the process that would be great or get help with Sudden Link. Mayor Countryman said she held a Mayor's Round Table here. There were 13 different cities invited and six or seven showed up which was great. She got some great ideas. The trash idea of having community trash actually has been happening in other cities and it has been successful. Having locations at the city, everyone, all the businesses take their trash to a specified location instead of having all those green cans out on the road. She has taken some pictures as oflate and it is atrocious. It makes the City look really tired. Council Member Fox asked if the cities pay for those? Mayor Countryman said the City would pay; we would reimburse. They would pay through their water bill however many businesses divided by what that cost is. Council Member Fox asked if we would do away with dumpsters? Mayor Countryman said it would be probably dumpsters or bins that we would have to have fencing around, like decorative, green fencing and the businesses would take their trash to those. Instead of one day a week service it would be two days a week service and they all split the cost. Council Member Fox said originally the City would actually install what we would use for containers. Mayor Countryman said she does not think SO. She thinks they would want to install it, but they have not gotten that far. She said she just knows if everyone is interested and thinks that is a great idea, Waste Management is happy to start moving forward and getting an understanding of everyone's trash and doing the mathematics on how many and what the capacity is. Council Member Fox asked how would we make the business owners who already have dumpsters to comply? Council Member Olson said we would have to pass an ordinance. He asked what about the downtown's opinion before we move? Mayor Countryman said absolutely. She said she has talked to them at one of those meetings. She has talked with the Mayors and some downtown businesses and everyone is open to looking at what it would cost and what it would look like. She said she would make sure first they would want to do that. Council Member Olson said the restaurants would be or at least one of them would be very happy for the opportunity to have a place to dump their trash. Mayor Countryman said and they do. They partner with another place and they are using that, but again, she thinks they can come up with something that would be much more aesthetically pleasing and cleaner than what we have today. CLOSING AGENDA 13. Items to consider for placement on future agendas. February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 10 of11 Mayor Countryman mentioned a trash survey. 14. Adjourn. Motion: Council Member Olson made a motion to adjourn the Regular Meeting ofthe City of Montgomery at 7:16 p.m. Council Member Donaldson seconded the motion. Motion carried with all present voting in favor. APPROVED: - IA - buhy Sara Countryman, Mayor ATTEST: - ly 6 Ruby Beaven, City Secretary CVV s 1 7A February 11, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 11 of1 11