CITY COUNCIL Ponlett WORK SESSION MINUTES T E XA - Our Vision: A well-planned lakeside community of quality neighborhoods, distinctive amenities, diverse employment, and cultural charm. Rowlett: THE place to live, work and play. Thursday, May 1, 2025 6:00 P.M. Municipal Building - 4000 Main Present: Mayor Pro Tem Winget, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Shinder, Councilmember Reaves, Councilmember Bowers, Councilmember Britton and Councilmember Schupp 1. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Pro Tem Winget called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. 2. EXECUTIVE SESSION 2A. The City Council shall convene into Executive Session pursuant to the Texas Government Code, $551.071 (Consultation with Attorney) to seek legal advice regarding housing finance corporations located outside ofRowlett and purchasing and attempting to provide tax exempt status to properties located within Rowlett, including discussion of possible legal action. Executive Session was moved to the end of the meeting. Mayor Pro Tem Winget adjourned the meeting into Executive Session at 6:42 pm. RECONVENE INTO OPEN SESSION AND TAKE ANY NECESSARY OR APPROPRIATE ACTION ON CLOSED/EXEXECUTIVE SESSION MATTERS Mayor Pro Tem Winget reconvened the meeting at 7:22 pm. No action was taken. 3. CITIZENS INPUT No Online Input Forms were received. There were no citizens input. 4. WORK SESSION 4A. Presentation regarding a new option to revise contract with Republic Services in relation to bulky waste service collection. This item was moved after Agenda Item 4B. City Manager, David Hall, presented this item. Mr. Hall introduced Rick Bernas, with Republic Services. Mr. Hall stated at the. April 8, 2025, City Council meeting, staff clarified the current service as well as provided two other options for bulky waste service collection. Itwas to collect bulky waste City of Rowlett 10827 every two weeks with either 6 cubic yards or 8 cubic yards maximum. They also came with a 20% to 30% increase in each option, and they were rejected by the city council. Staff is now presenting option 4, which is a weekly option. Bulky will be collected on the same day as waste and recycling. Iti is required to be out by 7 am on assigned collection day beginning June 30th. Bulky collection will be 2 cubic yards maximum, or two washing machines. Mr. Hall explained the difference between the complaint, uncompliant, and oversized loads. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Shinder asked how many customers have about 2 cubic yards bulky items now. Mr. Bernas stated quite a few. Councilmember Schupp thanked Mr. Hall and Mr. Bernas for all the work they have done on this. People are going to get used to having bulk pick up every" week and he is worried that they will start to overload the bulk. Mr. Bernas stated that the driver will take a picture of the overload, tag it, and send the picture to dispatch. Dispatch will have the address and send it to code compliance. The proposed raté is $1.30 increase to the city, that is not to the residents. City rate is what Republic charges us, currently $18.30 a month. The proposed rate increase would go to $19.60 that Republic charges the city effective July 1, 2025. The city charges the residents $20.36. Effective October 1, 2025, there will be a CPI adjustment of 4.98% to the rate. Our rate would then go from $19.60 to $20.58. He is proposing for the city to subsidize the rate increase for the remainder of this fisçal year. He gave options of rate charges for FY 2026. This will not be decided until FY 2025-2026 budget. We must have a minimum of a 5% fund balance. This amendment will be on May 6, 2026, City Council meeting agenda for approval. Mayor Pro Tem Winget thanked staff and Mr. Bernas for coming up with this option. This is a much better solution. He appreciates staff coming forward with the fund options. He is all in on this option. Councilmember Bowers stated that we can educate the residents and stay with what we have. The residents can learn how to manage their trash. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Shinder stated she wanted to do a survey to see what the residents want. She has spoken to quite a few people and has received very mixed reviews. She was not in favor of the price increases in the previous options. With this option the city would subsize the increase until the next fiscal year, which she is in favor of. Not going to find a perfect solution for this. Councilmember Reaves thinks that this is a good thing. Itis a small price to pay for a clean city. Councilmember Britton stated he is in support of this as well. He was not in favor of the previous options. He wants to educate the public. Councilmember Schupp stated that the biggest offender of the overloads is the lawn clippings. This option will take care of it. He feels that we need to add an educational part, and this will be an easy sale. Mayor Pro Tem Winget stated that there seems to be a majority in favor of bringing this back to the May 6, 2025, City Council meeting to be considered for approval. 4B. Receive an update from DART Board Representative, Mark Enoch, and discuss pending legislation related to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit System (HB3187 and SB1557). This item was moved before Agenda Item 4A. Mark Enoch, DART Board Representative, stated it meant a lot to him that the City approved the resolution supporting DART. He also appreciates the letters and Mayor Pro Tem Winget going to Austin to testify before the legislature. Mayor Pro Tem Winget stated he testified largely due to incorrect literature circulating that the City of Rowlett was in favor of the proposed legislation to defund DART. Mayor Pro Tem Wingetwanted to ensure that the legislature knew the City of Rowlett was not in favor of the legislation. Mr. Enoch stated the governance bill probably would not happen. The defunding of DART bill, which would be 25%, actually 34% of their budget, did get a hearing. City of Rowlett 10828 He was one of the 33 that testified, there were 4 that spoke in favor of the bill and 29 that spoke against the bill. DART has ordered new trains and have a good capital improvement plan for the next five years. Mr. Enoch feels that with the cities in favor of the legislation, it is more about budgeting than it is about transportalion. He also spoke about the guardrails that cross the road that seem to be going down a lot. Part of the problem is there are two sets of tracks in Rowlett, one is DART's and the other is DGNO. DART will have a new signal system in place by the end of May. He really looks forward to not having problems with those crossing arms and that's going to be good news for everybody. Mr. Enoch thanked Mayor Pro Tem Winget for going to Austin to testify. If City Council would like to send letters or emails, they should be addressed to the Texas Transportation Committee. 5. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Pro Tem Winget adjourned the meeting at 7:22 pm. Poe Jeff Winget, Mayor Pro Tem Deborah Sorensen, City Secretary Approved on: May 20, 2025 City of Rowlett 10829