October 15th, 2024, meaning to order. It is now 7.03 p.m.. Miss Hall, would you please call the roll. Council Member Bethel. Council Member Moore. Council Member Wilson. Mayor Scarot. Mayor Pro Tem, Green. Council Member Sutton. And Council Member Aubret. Mayor, there is a quorum and the required charter officers are present to conduct the meeting. Thank you. Item number three is our invocation and pledge of allegiance. I'm going to ask Councilman Wilson to lead us in our, in our, uh, invocation and Councilman Bethel to lead us in our pledges. Please stand and join me in prayer. Other God, thank you for this day and for bringing us all together tonight. The good of this city Lord, we thank you for all the blessings that you bestowed upon this community in this city And we thank you for those who give so much of their time and their talents and their funds to to the betterment of our community Lord, we thank you for the privilege of public service and we thank you for public servants Be with us tonight. Give us your guidance and wisdom as we do the business of this city. Forgive us for where we fail you. We ask this in cross name. Amen. Amen. We are here to be valid for all the stands. One nation under God, individual, with liberty and justice for all. On the other side, I pledge allegiance to the Texas. One state under God. One in individual. Thank you, gentlemen. Our next item, our genusus are formal announcements and presentations and the first one's going to be Assistant Chief of Police Promotion Ceremony. Thank you Mayor. Come on up. Amanda, if you want to come up also. So here this evening for a promotion to the position of assistant chief for the Portland Police Department. We haven't had that position in many years and Lieutenant Owen is about to be promoted. Just a little bit about Lieutenant Owen, he graduated from GPISD in 2009. Upon graduation he attended Texas A&M University in Corpus and got his bachelor's degree in criminal justice. Shortly thereafter he went to work for Randes' pass. We'll hold that against him for a very short time before we pulled him over to Portland about 10 years ago. He promoted to Corporal, to Sergeant and Lieutenant and during that time, he obtained his master's degree from Tarleton University in public administration. So Lieutenant Owen is highly qualified for this position and we're very excited. Take this opportunity to promote you. So I'm going to have, if I'm on over Amanda. you I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. So this is the last time I'll call him Lieutenant Owen and now he is Assistant Chief of Police for the Portland Police Department, Ronnie Owen. opportunity to be the assistant chief of police. Again, I started over to Randes' pass. I got cold feet, called chief said, hey, I'm good where I'm at. And he said, how about an interview of 80 a.m. on Monday morning. So he's really the reason why I'm here. He's been a great mentor for me, and I look forward to what the future holds for us. the chief maybe you can tell us a little bit about the history of the pinning ceremony and what we just saw or who So this is Ronnie's family, wife Amanda, the two twins that are three and in the five-year-old there you go. There you go. I think we're very lucky tonight that we have such a large crowd here for some other events that are going to occur. But I think everybody for being here. And congratulations on assistant chief Owen. He's going to do a great job, and I'm very excited for his future. Thank you. Thank you. I'm trying. Don't know what they Congratulations, Ronnie. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. It's always good to see a promotion and Portland's had a long history of promoting from within and recognizing talent so this is a good day for the City of Portland. Congratulations, Assistant Chief, Rionne Owen. Our next is a presentation by the Texas Municipal Retirement System otherwise known as TMRS. We have several representatives from TMRS or at least one. Good evening Mayor City Council. I'm here to introduce Mr. Anthony Mills. He's here with TMRS to give the city, give you guys an update of the city's current plan, any updates or changes and the financial status of that plan. Thank you. Thank you Madam Mayor, members of the council. Anthony Mills, director of education services at the Texas municipal retirement system. I know I speak for our executive director, our Board of Trustees and all the staff at TMRS when I say it's a pleasure to be here this evening. I just want to start out by saying when I speak to a governing body like yours, I want you to know that we recognize that you sit square in the intersection of trying to make sure that you're providing for your workforce a competitive benefits package when you look at the comprehensive benefits. But you're also trying to make sure that you can respond and be good stewards for the community to make sure that the benefits that you're offering, that they are responsibly administered and appropriate. And what I'd like to say to you this evening is that TMRS as a system, the 938 cities that participate in the 75 years that we've been doing business, we can say that TMRS has become the model public retirement plan, not just here in Texas, but around the nation. Other systems are beginning to model what TMRS does. And at the outset, I'd like to say to you that there are some distinguishing characteristics about TMRS that any governing body needs to know. When you hear about public pension plans that are broken, public pension plans that have problems. Usually that's because they promise benefits that they cannot figure when they're ever going to pay for them. In TMRS that's not the case. Each of the 938 cities that participate, abide by the actuarial funding policy that undergirds our program that ensures that regardless of the plan design and the benefits that you've promised in your plan like you have here at the city of Portland. Regardless of that plan design every city is on track if you're not already at 100% funded ratio the difference between the assets that you have accrued and the liabilities that you have in your plan, if you're not there, you head it there. And a third of our cities are already there. And those that are not again, they are headed toward 100%. Couple reasons why. In TMRS there are no pension contribution holidays on the part of the employer. Since the city joined TMRS back in 1989, you have along with all the other cities in TMRS made the appropriate contributions toward funding your plan to get to that 100% funded ratio. That's what you've been doing. That's where you are today. The funded ratio itself doesn't tell you a whole lot if you don't know where you've been and where you're headed. In TMRS, all of our cities again are trending not away from 100% but toward 100%. And that is because we have a fixed amnesty schedule for the liabilities that you have in your plan. Not only do you not take a holiday from contributing toward funding those liabilities, you have a set schedule on when it's going to be fully funded. So we can accurately predict for the benefits that you have and the very transparent liabilities that TMRS lays out for each of our cities. We know when that plan is going to be fully funded. And I mentioned the actuarial funding policy that we use for each of our cities. That funding policy is the entry age normal methodology. So what we're doing is we are looking at our city's work forces and when an employee comes to work at Portland, we know when he comes in based on the salary, based on the age, based on our requirements for qualifying for retirement benefit, we can project what that future benefit's going to be. Whatever that present value of those future benefits are, we know on that fixed amortization schedule where Portland needs to be in starting to help fund that benefit for that employee. So that when he gets to the finish line, you will have done your part. You will have contributed what you need it to. You will have the assets accrued to fund that lifetime retirement benefit. That is really the overall design of TMRS. I wanted to say that at the outset, before we actually look at, in a bit more detail, the actual numbers for the city of Portland's plan. Each year, TMRS, we conduct an actuarial valuation, system-wide valuation, and just so that, I'm on the record, is pointing it out to you. TMRS, as a system, we're about 90% funded. Meaning, we've got 90% of the assets for the liabilities that are on the books at TMRS already there. We've already got it. We're continuing over the next 20-year amnesty schedule for any new liabilities that are added to the plan to make sure that those liabilities are fully funded. And that's the same for every city. I mentioned the 938 cities that participate in TMRS. Our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families and families, our families the TMRS trust, each of the cities has a share of it. And what we do each year, as part of that valuation process, is we conduct a valuation. And in that valuation, if you wanted to know what Portland's numbers look like, and here's what we're doing, we make assumptions about what will happen with your plan experience. That is looking at your workforce, looking at the average age of your workforce, the salaries of your workforce, the turnover rate, who's going to quit, who's going to refund their TMRS accounts, who's going to retire and how much that benefit is going to be, how long they're going to be how long they're going to live, what the inflation index is going to do, we make assumptions about all of that. But we have to reconcile to figure out, well, here's what we thought would happen, but here's what actually happened. And what we provide for our cities each year is what we call the contribution rate letter. And in it is the reconciliation for what happened in the plan experience for each of our cities. I've provided for you in your packets this evening your 2025 contribution rate letter. And it shows line item by line item. What has happened with the city of Portland's plan? Now when the city joined TMRS back in 1989, you had 92 active employees when you came in. Today you've got 188 active employees who are working in paying into TMRS, and you've got 91 employees who retired from here and are drawing a lifetime retirement benefit. And what I mentioned to you earlier is that TMRS is funding policy. We want to make sure that cities have been accruing the assets that are needed, that by the time an employee gets to the finish line, that benefit that was promised, that the assets are on the books. And that's been the case for all the employees who have retired from here. When we break down your contribution rate, you can see what the rate looks like for the active employees and the inactive employees. You have employees who once upon a time worked here, quit, but did not refund their TMRS account. Maybe that's because they were vested employees or maybe they went to work for another TMRS account. Maybe that's because they were vested employees, or maybe they went to work for another TMRS city, or maybe they went to work for one of the other statewide retirement systems that state law allows a TMRS member to use that time credit to help qualify for proportionate retirement benefit from the two systems. Whatever the case, they still have an account here and they're eligible to keep it, but you've done your part for those employees who have left. Those accounts continue to grow with interest, but your contributions that you make for them stays on the books until they actually retire and then will convert it to a retirement benefit. All employees who work here, the 188 employees who work here, pay in at the same contribution rate and the city has elected a 7% employee contribution rate. It hasn't always been 7% back in 2021. May of 2021, the city improved the contribution rate to 7%. The city is a 2-1 match city. It wasn't always a 2-1 match city. When you came in in 1989, pardon me, 1989, yes, 1989, when you came in, you came in as a one-to-one matching ratio and you eventually improved that to two-to-one back in January of 2001. We have tracked all of the plan improvements that you've made. We have tracked what is happening with your demographics, the number of employees, the number of retirees, the amounts of the benefits. It's all included in your rate letter. And I wanted to make sure that I left that in the package so that at your leisure you're welcome to comb through that rate letter and you can see some of the items that I'm mentioning to you tonight and how we arrive at that contribution rate. But more than anything, I wanted to make sure that you knew that the contribution rate that you're making, it satisfies not just the matching ratio that you've set aside for the employees, the two to one match, but also what you're paying for are the cost of living adjustments that you have in your plan. And to a lesser extent, you've got your updated service credits for active employees. Some of you are probably not very familiar with the updated service credit, but it's a feature in TMRS that takes a retroactive look to help look at an employee's benefit over the years to see if there's been an improvement in the plan, or substantial improvement in salary. What if anything would be the additional credits that that member could have earned over the years? And the updated service credits will grant additional cash credits toward that member's retirement benefit. That's the updated service credit. A cost of living adjustment, it's pretty straightforward. When a member gets to retirement, his benefit would stay flat for the remainder of his lifetime without the cost of living adjustment that this council has in place in its retirement plan. You have this on a repeating ordinance, which means it's automatic. The council does not have to do anything, it's automatic each year. As I said to you, our liabilities are transparent. We make sure that you know the cost of the features of your plan. And we show you the timeframe in which these ladders of liability will fall off your plan over this 20-year schedule, this 20-year amortization schedule, all included in the rate letter that I provided for you this evening. But that contribution rate is funding not just the current 91 retirees who are receiving colas, but of the 188 employees that we project to retire in the future. You're also funding those future colas in advance of getting there. That has not always been the case. So I want to be very clear about that. TMRS, as I said, we are a model pension plan for others around the nation. But we've made some tough decisions to put us in that position. A bit over a decade ago, I would have stood in this council chamber and have would have told you that TMRS has made some difficult decisions about our plan for cities that had repeating colas and updated service credits. We wanted to make sure that you understood that the actual funding policy that we had in place then was the unit credit methodology. And while that unit credit methodology did a good job in accru was the unit credit methodology. And while that unit credit methodology did a good job in accruing the assets for the base retirement benefit, for some of our cities that were no longer growing as rapidly as they had earlier in their history in TMRS, think of cities like in the Dallas Metroplex, some that come to mind, the city of Carrollton, the city of Garland. Those had been cities that had grown rapidly in the 1970s and early 80s and into the 90s, but then Lannwap no longer growing as rapidly as they had, but all of those employees that they had added in the 70s and 80s, they began to retire. And when they did, you started to see more retirees coming out than income coming in because the member who's contributing and the city that's contributing on behalf of that member, if that income is less and the benefits are higher, the rate has to be higher for the city. And what was happening was the cost of living adjustments that they had in place were not being advanced funded at that time, that unit credit methodology that I mentioned. It would take a one year look at the cost of those colas. And it would say, okay, here's the cost of your cola this year. Pay for that cola and we'll tell you what it is next year. Even though you have the base retirement benefit covered, the colas were starting to increase for some of our cities. So we saw the rates going upward while the funding ratios were going the opposite direction. So to correct that, we moved to the projected unit credit method and finally the entry age normal method. Put that in on a fixed standardization schedule. And what you saw was city's rates increase more than they ever had in their history in TMRS. And what I stood in front of a lot of councils and said around 2008 was this is a bitter pill. But I'll be able to come back to your decade from now and tell you that TMRRS is solid. TMRS, again, we're making the decisions that we need to put our cities in the best position. And that's exactly what we've been able to tell them. That's exactly where we are with each of the 938 cities. That's why I've said it several times tonight. The reason that you're trending toward 100% funded ratio is because your advanced funding every part of your plan, the same way you do that base retirement benefit. I also want to make sure that you understand about your contribution rate. When you break it apart, and this is something that Portland, benefit. I also want to make sure that you understand about your contribution rate. When you break it apart, and this is something that Portland, that I want to make sure that you look at when you look at your rate, if you were to break it apart, you would see that your normal cost, 11.57%, think of that as the cost of the future benefit for the employees who are working here today, for the base benefit that they are going to accrue including future cost of living adjustments, future updated service credits, that 11.57% that normal cost, that's it. That's what you're paying for. You're paying for the next year for those employees that you have in your workforce who are working toward retirement. Your prior service rate, the 6.65%, here's what that is. Any time you've made a plan improvement or in the case of those updated service credits and cost of living adjustments, any portion of that that has not yet been funded is an unfunded actual accrued liability and here's where it shows up in your rate, the 6.65 percent. And somebody would probably ask, well, is it going to always look this way? It will not. Because we have our liabilities on a fixed amnesty schedule, if I were to run your rate out several years into the future, there's going to come a place where your rate will start to wind its way down toward zero, not your total rate, but your prior service rate, the unfunded actuarial accrued liability. That's where the assets and your liabilities are flat. You've got as many assets or more than you do liabilities. That does not mean that you won't have a contribution, right? You will. The normal cost will always be there. As long as you have a workforce and as long as someone will retire in the future, you'll have the next year's cost for that base retirement benefit. But there will come a day where your prior service rate will go to zero. And that gets back to the methodology that underlies this program. Part of your rate also includes the supplemental death benefit, which is a lump sum death benefit over and above any retirement benefit that your retirees will draw. If an employee here at Portland were to pass away having for bid while actively employed, we would pay one times his annual salary to the beneficiary. If he's an active employee, someone who retires from Portland, you're covering retirees as well. It's not one times annual salary. It is a flat $7,500 lump sum death benefit for retiree from Portland. The cost 0.28% of your rate. That's what it will be in 2025. And when you look at the total combined contribution rate, the 18.5% that's where you are for 2025. And again, inside the rate letter is the reconciliation for the actual plan experience that has happened for Portland in full of books that closed December 31st, 2023. There's a lag between the time that we conduct evaluation, run the reconciliation, and then push the rate to you for the upcoming year. The books closed December 31st. We've already got your rate in place for 2024. That was for the books that closed in 2022, but for 2023, that's your 2025 rate. So what you're looking at inside the packet, you're comparing possibly the 2022 experience to the 2023, okay? And that shows you where you are today. Also included in your packet, I wanted to make sure that you could see that portrait page on the right side of your packet shows a projection of future valuation results. Now, this is assuming that everything that we assume hits dead-owned target, that never happens. It never happens quite that way, but it's usually pretty close. It's usually pretty close. That's because we also conduct experience studies. Our actuaries do experience studies and that is that they go in and assess the assumptions that they're making to make sure that what they're assuming is still accurate and they look at what's actually happened in actuality to figure out whether or not to continue with those assumptions. One of the changes that came out of our last assumption, some would think, well, inflation had been so high coming out of the pandemic. You would have changed the assumption that you make about inflation. We did not. We did not because we hadn't seen long enough experience even though the colas were much higher than they had ever been before because of inflation. We did not make that change because we did not have enough data, enough history to tell us that that was going to be an ongoing issue. In fact, it looked like it was going to be a transitory issue, and that turns out to be about the case. Because right now we look like we're trending back in the 2% range. we make an assumption of 2.5%. But something that we did change was payroll growth. Payroll has changed. We're in a different environment than we were over the previous 10 years. So that had to be accounted for in the assumptions that we make about payroll growth. That was something that came out of the last experience study. Those are the types of things that the actuaries look at when they're looking at actual history. Something that I've mentioned to you several times this evening about are your cost of living adjustments. And I'll say it, cost of living adjustments and I'll say it cost of living adjustments it's a major commitment on the part of the city. A lot of what you'll see in your prior service rate are related to paying for those future colas. Keep in mind you're paying for multiple generations you're paying for the current retirees and you're paying for future retirees and there will come the day where someone else will address the Portland City Council because I will be retired where someone will come here from TMRS and they'll talk to you about your normal cost there won't be any prior service rate to talk about because you will have reached the end of that amnesty schedule to fund those benefits and then everything that's in your normal cost is already paying for future coal. Now something about the coalists, I keep talking about them. In the last legislative House Bill 2464 passed and it allowed cities in TMRS to adopt a different type of repeating cola. Our traditional repeating cola, like the one that you have here at Portland, it is a retroactive calculation and by retroactive what I mean is this. Every year we go back to the original retirement annuity that the 91 folks who have retired and we figure out what the cumulative impact of inflation has been on their benefit over the years. And whatever the change is in inflation, you're granting 70% of the change in inflation. So looking back to the first annuity, their first retirement benefit, we figure out how much that benefit's going to be. The only people who are going to get the same percentage are the people who retired in the same calendar year. If a city had never adopted a cola and chose to adopt a brand new cola, here's how TMRS works. Traditionally, in the first year that you adopt a cola, those folks who have been retired for one full calendar year, they can get a cola. And here's what we do. If you have someone who retired in 2023, they've been retired all of 2024. And if the city adopts a cola for the first time, they're gonna get a cola in 2025. We're gonna look at what happened with inflation between 2023 and 2024 to figure out what that 2025 increase will be. Whatever the change is in inflation, that person who's getting their first COLA, let's say the inflation had gone up 4%, and you've got a 70% CPI COLA here at Portland, they're gonna get a 2.8% increase in their retirement benefit, 70 times the 4% increase. We're only looking at that study period. Keep that in mind, because in this new non-retroactive cola, that's the way that we would calculate the cola for everyone. Everyone would get the same percentage. No matter the year that they retired, they'd get the same percentage. No matter the year that they retired, they get the same increase. Most of your retirees, if I were to talk to them, they probably think that's the way that COLA has already calculated, but it's not. Our traditional COLA goes back to the original retirement annuity to figure out how much it's going to be for each person who's retired in each of the years that you've got on the books here at Portland. But everybody would get the same thing. What does that mean? That cola is less expensive for the city. But what it also means is that for the folks who have been receiving 70% Colas, they're already caught up for the cumulative effect of inflation from the past. Somebody may ask, well why did this bill, why was it even written? You recall that I mentioned to you that a bit over a decade ago, when we stood in front of councils and said, here's what's happening to the cost of living adjustments that you've got on a repeating ordinance. And here's why they're going to be more expensive than they used to be because we want you to advance fund them. They cost more than they ever did. Some cities turn them off. Some cities reduce the percentage, the CPI percentage. But over time, as more retirees have come back to City Hall to say, hey, you know what, my benefit has not increased in the last decade. We especially saw that coming out of the pandemic with the high inflation that we were in. When cities like Amarillo that turned it off, Longview turned it off, Garland turned it off, Abeling turned it off. Those cities have said if we did not have to go back retroactively and catch everybody up for the colas that we haven't granted, it wouldn't be so cost prohibitive for us to grant a new repeating colas. That's what the bill was written for, to try and allow these cities to get back into the colas business. But the byproduct of it is it would allow any city that's granting repeating colas to adopt a non-retroactive cola. And in the case of Portland, you've already caught everyone up with the cumulative effect of inflation. And going forward, you would have the more simple calculation, the more equitable calculation, and certainly easier to explain to any of your retirees and future retirees. And I just wanted to make sure that I at least mentioned that to you and inside your packet on the left side of your packet, the back of that packet behind that popular annual financial report, I don't know how popular it is, but it is the financial summary. You'll see the comparison of what would happen to your plan and the impact that it would have, and you can see the dynamics at play. How would affect your rate? How would affect your normal cost? How it would affect your prior service rate? And ultimately, your unfunded actual accrued liability. And you'd also see inside the packet, the projection projection and what it would mean to you in dollars when you compare it to The rate that you would pay in 2025 with the traditional cola it looks like about a $60,000 savings that year But it's about an 800 $1,000 unfunded actual of crude liability savings ultimately for the city. And I thought I would at least mention that to you. Okay? I know it's a lot to listen to when you don't hear this all the time. But what I wanted to make sure that you heard of nothing else is that the plan that you have designed here locally at the City of Portland, we have a methodology in place that ensures that that benefit is going to be fully funded for the members that you've promised it to. And that's been the case, and it will be the case going forward. And with that, I'd like to open it up for any questions that you might have for me. Explain it very well. Thank you so very much. I was watching kind of the audience and they're like, I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. I'm going to go to the committee. and it's about actually making sure that things that we've promised our employees will be in place when they retire. So thank you for that update. It's glad to hear we're on the right track. And we look forward to, we'll go through all this stuff and I'm sure if we have any questions, we have an excellent director finance that will answer any questions. I guess if we have, once we review the packet. Absolutely. Anything that we can do to assist if you have questions don't hesitate calling. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. We got another great presentation. Fire Department poster contest awards. Fire Chief Morrison is assistant fire chief pender. Yes ma'am. Mayor and council it's a it's a pleasure to come for you tonight to to really put on a very special presentation. This is something in my career is very near and dear to my heart which is fire, and specifically fire education for our kids. We tend to really believe that fire prevention begins at the smallest and youngest age, and we hope that they carry that through their lifetime. When it comes to house fires and things that are so destructive, education is just such a paramount thing for us to do. And for the Portland Fire Department this was groundbreaking for us. When Chief Pinder came on board a couple of years ago, one of the things that we sat down and talked about that was a personal goal and professional goal was to get fire education back out there. And with a lot of collaboration and a lot of planning, we got that to come together with the help of the fire crews and getting out in the schools this year. I'll let Tommy tell you a little bit about that, but we had a super successful year. Did it work? There you go. Thank you, Mayor and Council Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for participating in our first year. This year we went to the four elementary schools within the city limits. Steven F. Austin is going to be coming soon with our new fire safety house. We saw over 2,000 students at every single school. Last week was very busy for a fire prevention and for the crews and everybody that helped out. So I'll go ahead and get started for the evening. So we had a class between second and third grade was one group and fourth and fifth is a group. So this is going to be third place for the second and third grade. Maria? Thank you. Have them just stand up there. Yeah, have her stay up there with you. What's her all up there? All right. Second place. Miss Harris. Okay. That was the only one that didn't make it. Yes. First place. Miss Abigail Choppa. Miguel Chapa. Congratulations, sweetheart. All right, we're going to go to the fourth and fifth graders now. Third place is Bri. Briley. Thank you very much. So, for second and third place, there was a tenth of a point difference with the judging. So it was that close with this one. So this is second place. Holly. Thank you. All right, hold on a second. I'll have to say this one. Mayor, will you please assist me with this one? So a different agency I worked with We had what we called the mayor's choice the mayor got to pick out of every poster in there And I forgot to mention we had over 681 entries this year So we had a lot for our first year And this would be for Mayor's Choice of Mayor when we slick that you would you give it to the winter police. All right Mayor's Choice Miss Garcia And if we could, let's get a picture with all of them. Well, all the winners come up. the There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. There's four. I encourage you all to enter and get this year. Thank you. Thank y'all. Thank y'all very much. We'll give you all a moment to kind of make your way. We'll continue on with our council meeting now and we'll go into council comments. Let's begin with council and all break. Thank you mayor. Always great to see a full chamber. I'd like to say congratulations to all the award winners and to Assistant Chief of Police Owens and I won't be long-winded since we're starting a little later. Councilman Sutton. I'm going to echo the same comments. Love the contest. That is great. You're getting the kiddos involved. They're learning at the same time. So hats off to you and also assistant chief Owens. That's awesome. He's a great individual. More than capable of performing those duties. So we're all happy for him and his family. You're a good Tim. Same here. I've got a chance to watch Ronnie grow up. I knew his parents very well growing up. I went to school, actually with his mother. And it says a little bit about my age. And he's really a great young man. And I think you'll do well in Portland as well deserve promotion. So that's really, really cool that we did that. Pending ceremonies are also very, very special as well. And to get to see that with the family out here, it's nice. And congratulations to the youngsters that came out here as well, Chief. I can appreciate that too. Seeing the public involved in things like this is just, you can't match it. Not to mention we are a family community and we strive to we strive that we publicize that and this is what brings us together so it's really nice to see. That's what we'll listen. Echo the same comments congratulations to all of our winners and I thank you to the Fire Department for putting that on and I know that that's a lot of work 600 plus entries that's pretty amazing just to just to jury want and pick one is a lot of work and we appreciate that. And of course congratulations to Assistant Chief and I didn't although I did not get the rank of his spouse who clearly is outranks him, but she got to put the pin on. Yeah, I think the fire program was really neat and I commend you guys for putting that together. I think that that just really kind of helps bring the community together and get the youngsters engaged in something that is that's very healthy. So I like that. And more than anything, I really like promoting from within. So congratulations, Sister Chief Owen. I mean, that's awesome. We very well deserve. And then lastly, I'd just like to recognize some of our Portland, what leadership Portland class. So yeah, I'm happy to recognize some of our Portland leadership Portland class, so yeah Everyone here. Hopefully this is a good council meeting for you guys to observe Councilor Beth. Yeah, I'll congratulate assistant chief Ohin as well. I guess one of the Responsibilities it comes with that is getting to stay for the rest of the meeting while chief had told him so congratulations on that. I do want to say too, I know they're all gone but I was you know I don't I'm not the most patient person I don't sit still very well but I was really impressed with the kids sitting through that presentation because you know that was dense and a lot and they were so well behaved and quiet and I just was sitting here thinking like man good for them that was really great and leadership Portland I think Councilman Green and I are going to be helping facilitate the city government in January so you guys are way ahead. And I know that the MO usually is trying to pick the council meeting to go to that seems like it's going to be the shortest. And gotcha. So I thought you had it. But thanks for being here. And I'm sure we'll be seeing a few of your classmates here in the coming weeks and meetings as well. And look forward to to that class in early January. So let's start off and just remind everybody that today is actually White King Day the actual day October 15th last Council meeting October 1st we did a proclamation of course we also had a community celebration at our farmers market earlier in the month, but today is the actual day. And remember, the white cane is a tool that is used to give visually impaired individuals their independence. So, one again, want to thank Tommy Rodriguez for all that he did to highlight this in our community. Assistant Chief, Pinder, good job pulling that together. I know that when he asked me to judge, I said, well, how many do you think there's going to be? How many entrance? I don't know. This is our first year. Awesome, awesome. Six hundred. And that was just, and I was so pleased to see that you can only imagine the job I had. And I was pleased to see that some of those that I actually, I had, you know, keep pulling them out. Okay, this one, this one. And I was happy to see that some of those that I thought were really good. I mean, and every one of those that won something I recognized. The theme was, of course, about the smoke alarm and the message of the smoke alarm, smoke alarm warning. So that was a great message to get out to the kids. And my only kid encouraged you to keep doing this year after year. For those of you that got to go to the first annual, I'm hoping annual open house, it was really good to go through the pretend, I don't even know, a house that you can go into and learn how to get out of your house and there's actually some pretend smoke and the kids got to crawl and learn the things that they needed to do to be safe It there was a fire in their home. So great program continue the continued effort and that was a great day and the chief even cook breakfast for his crew. So one a great day Mr. Wright do you have anything? I just kept items, Mayor. I just wanted to remind you that this weekend, starting Saturday, we have Boo Bash, and this is used to be kind of secondary to Christmas in Portland. And I think it's actually surpassed Christmas in Portland. We just have a lot of people turn out for this, Saturday, 6 p.m. 69th Community Center. And then the following Friday 25th, we've got the Great Pumpkin Float. They're at Sunset Lake. That starts at 7 p.m. And then finally, on Sunday the 27th, we've got the Boobash Tri. And for those of you that want to do that, check in as a 630. Ray starts at 8 and you can register at www.athleteagle.com. And then one final note too, just to let you know, I've been kind of keeping you up to date on the progress of our led copper rule inspections that has finally been finished. And Dr. Banks said said we would have rather done a space shuttle launch than having to get this done, but it took a monument left on the part of the staff and our contractors and that's done now so that reports being a QAQC through our engineering firm and then they'll submit it to the EPA for. So this is a requirement of all cities in the United States, or deadline of tomorrow. And we were very fortunate because of the contribution of public works and our advance to get this done. So that's done. That's all I have. Thanks. All right. Thank you very much. Our next item is public comment. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make public comment? That was your chance. Come on up to the mic please. Please give us your name and address for the record. My name is Joel Martinez, 2111 Escondilo. I just wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself to everybody. I'm with Leadership Portland Class 18. I'm the Vice President of the class. Over there is William Burkins. I'm going to introduce all of you. So here comes William Burkins. He's the President of our class, 18. Peggy. Peggy right here. Suzanne, yes. Nicole, Kelly, see? I'm looking on the names as well. I'm terrible with names so far to me. We got Sandy, yes of course. And Lauren, Lauren, I'll break what you know her. And also, classmate of mine, assistant chief here, Ronnie here. I wanted to congratulate you, sir. That's excellent. I'm proud of you. That's all I got. Thank you. I'm very nervous. I don't know the decorum up here. This is my first council meeting. So thank you. Hopefully not your last. We expect good things from our future leaders and our community and thank you all very much. This is an important initiative and program and I can what say the best class ever? Is that okay? The best class ever? All right. Thank you very much. Ms. Hall, do we receive any online comments? There were no comments. All right. Thank you very much. Ms. Hall, did we receive any online comments? There were no comments. All right. We'll move on to our action items. Minutes of our previous meetings. The City Council will consider approval on the minutes of its September 17th, 2024 workshop and the regular meeting September 23rd, 2024 workshop and special meeting. And the October 1st, 2024 regular meeting. I'll entertain a motion. I'm most to improve all of the mentioned. Second. Oh, that's easier. So motion made by Councilman Mayor Pro Tem Green, seconded by Councilman Sutton to approve the minutes of the September 17th workshop and regular meeting, the September 23rd workshop and special meeting and the October 23rd workshop and special meeting in the October 1st regular meeting, is there any discussion on this motion? Mary, now we'll begin with Council and Bethel. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. Motion is approved. Item number 9, request for renaming of College and Ninth Streets. City Council will consider renaming, referring a request for the renaming of College and Ninth Street. So an ad hoc committee appointed by the Mayor for review and recommendation. Mr. Wright. Mayor thank you. Earlier this year, the City Council passed ordinance 2291. And what that ordinance does is establishes a process by which the city council, the city can consider requests for changes in the name of streets, city facilities, other public infrastructure. It's important because when you name something, it should be enduring and changes to those names should be rare, they should be very judicious. And so this ordinance sets up a process by which it takes it out of the political realm, puts it into consideration from the staff and then has the mayor appoint a committee that will make a recommendation back to the city council. So in this particular case we have a request from the Jose Trevenio family to rename College Streets and Night Streets to in memory of their relative Jose Trevenio. And Mr. Trevenio was a long time resident of Portland, he moved here in the early 1900s. He was a landowner or a farmer rancher. He actually made great contributions to the city, to the local church, and donated a lot to the community. So they're asking that these streets be renamed, and so the process is, the city council to consider that request and then to authorize if it so chooses to have the mayor appoint a committee, an ad hoc committee to review that, that committee then has 60 days to get back and report back to the City Council and make a recommendation to you. So that's where we're at tonight and so the item this morning or tonight is just to request the council make a motion to refer this to an ad hoc committee. I'll answer any questions by the other. Any questions? All are at the end of motion. Motion to refer the request to an ad hoc committee appointed by the mayor. Second. Motion made by Councilman Sutton, seconded by Councilman Moore to refer the request to rename College and Ninth Street to an ad hoc committee pointed by the mayor. Is there any discussion on this motion? Hearing now, we'll begin the vote with Councilman Albrek. Four. Four. Four. Four. Four. Mr. Right, I have not finalized who that may be at, but I will be giving you the name so you can send that out to Council so they will know who the committee will be made up of. Great, thank you Mayor. Item number 10, purchase of fire vehicle. The City Council will consider approving the purchase of a fire department pickup truck. Chief Morris. The consideration to purchase a F250 pickup truck, this truck is what we call our squad too. It is an essential vehicle we use in the fire department to respond to both fire and EMS calls. Primarily it does respond to nearly every EMS call that comes into the city. So it runs about 1,600 close to 1,700 EMS calls a year. Approaching 12 years old in our depreciation schedule, it's due for replacement. So it served us well, but it's time to retire. I have to answer any questions. Any questions? This is a budget expense. It is a budgeted expense. We, I worked with the purchasing manager. We searched by board, came up with the best price through a cooperative contract. And as a comparison, looked at a local vendor and had them bid it, the cooperative contract was still cheaper. Thank you. I do have a question. The accessories go into the truck, you know, the back all that, is that budgeted or is something moving over? Yes sir. It's budgeted in the total package out of the total capital package, $52,000 as for the vehicle. The remaining funds are divided up for emergency lights, radio installs, cap for the back and those type of things because they come from different vendors. Okay. Great. Another question is all entertained motion. Motion to purchase 1.24, 4.50. I'm asking for the motion to motion. clearing now we'll begin the vote with councilman Bethel. four four four four four all right when when will it be available to us when you're going to get it today. yeah that's exactly yeah that they had it is not perfect thank you very much. item number 11 executive session the city council will conduct an executive that they had it inside. Thank you very much. Item number 11, executive session. The city council will conduct an executive session according to government code is authorized by Texas government code sections 551.071 consultation with attorney 551.072 deliberation regarding real property 551.073 deliberation regarding perspective gift 551.074 personnel matters 551.076 deliberation regarding security devices and 551.087 deliberation regarding economic development negotiations. It is 809 PM. We're going to recess our city council meeting go into executive session. We do anticipate after our executive session and further discussions on the candidates that we interviewed this evening for boards and commissions we will we do intend to make some appointments after executive session. We'll be back. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you All right. All right. It is 9.10 p.m. and we have concluded our executive session so I'm going to reconvene our city council meeting. We will now go into item number 12, appointments to boards and commissions. City council will consider appointments to boards and commissions. Is there a motion? Yes, Mayor. I'd like to make the follow-on motion to the boards. For the board of adjustmentsments for regular members. To what term expires, 2026 would be Charles West and Romero Rainia, alternate being Zach Simmons so expiring in 2026. For the construction Board of Adjustment, regular members expiring in 2027 would be Hannah Poe and Charles West and Robert Shelling, expiring in 2026. For the Historical and Cultural Commission, regular members expiring in 2026 would be Tom Bridges, Esther Camacho and Robert Warwick with the term expiring in 2025, Mascendi Moore and Natalyn Sargett, Alternates, Robert Shelling, expiring in 2026, and Zachary Simmons, expiring in 2025, for the Community Recognition Commission, expiring in 2026 regular members would be Brittany Williams, Beverly Moore and Michelle Cosima. Expiring in 2025 would be Amy Traylor and Christopher Butler. Second. Motion made by Mayor Progym Green, seconded by Councilman Sutton. I just have, can you go over one more time to construction board of adjustment with the terms please. I need to do that again. Yes. Okay. Wait one. Construction board of adjustment. I'm going to say you turn it over the wrong way. Instruction board would be expiring terms of 2027 would be Hannapoe and Charles West expiring in 2026 would be Hanipoh and Charles West Expiring in 2026 would be Robert Shelling Motion and a second is there any discussion on that motion? Hearing none will begin the vote or any discussion. Okay. We'll begin the vote with Councilor Bethel. Or abstain. Or. Or. Or. Or. Okay. Motion is approved. Okay. Now 913 PM being no more, no further business on our agenda I call the meeting adjourned.