The Silesia City Council is meeting. Slaughter to Levit 2,025, 353,000. Go on us. Welcome to the meeting of the Sbelton City Council this Tuesday 11th at 531 and 35 seconds. We are one minute and 35 seconds late. I promise we will make up that time. We will start off with the John Holmes leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by Larry Burns' pledge and invocation to ask for forgiveness for me by Dave Covey to my great-grandfather. Please join me in the pledge of Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. On the next slide, I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God, one and indivisible. Please bow with me. Father, we love you. We thank you for the beautiful weather. We thank you for what blessing it is to live in Belton. Pray that you visit him in Justice tonight as we consider the business of the city. Keep in front of our minds that everything that we say and do should honor you. Thank you most of all for your sin, Jesus. And his name would pray amen. Amen. Amen. will call this meeting to order. The first item on the agenda is public comments. Anyone who wishes to praise the city of Belton, they're welcome to walk up here and share what they think. There being no public comments, they can say other things too. But no public comments. All right, we'll move on to the next item on the agenda, which is the Consent Agenda. It's two items. The first one is adopting the minutes from the February 25th Council meeting, and the other is mending the memorandum of ending between the city of Belton and the Belton area citizens of seniors regarding senior center patients. The chair would entertain a motion. Oh, and let me say what this is. The Consent Agenda by one motion by the council and they can withdraw any one of these items for separate consideration if they choose. Move, we approve the consent agenda. It's ready. We have motion of second. Proof items three and four. All those in favor say aye. Those opposed. You may. Item five, hold a public here hearing on the resultant's comment act. The new certificates of obligation series 2025 in a maximum principle amount not to exceed 17,700,000. Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Tonight's the public hearing for our upcoming dead issuance. You'll recall there's five projects in this bond issuance, three utility projects by far the biggest ones, the wastewater treatment plant, and then two general government type of projects, a fire engine, and then public safety center. So as you said mayor the maximum price bonds is 17.7 million, maximum maturity is 20 years. The utility bonds are going to be paid off with utility revenue. We included this debt issuance in our rate increases when we and our rate. So we should be good there. And then the general government projects should kind of be paid for with general fund revenue. Should be limited tax increase out of this issue, even though it's a very large issue. So here we are on the calendar for further moving along there. Today is our public hearing. On April 8th is the bonds will be priced. We'll come back that night at that council meeting with a recommendation to award the certificates on that night and then a month later we finally close and we receive the proceeds from that bond sale. I'd be happy to, well this is a public hearing so if you have any questions for me I'd be happy to answer any questions yet. All right so before answering questions we will close deliberations we will open the floor for public hearing for anyone who wishes to speak about our certificate of obligations in the amount of $17.7 million. They're being none from the floor, does not guarantee, there will not be any from the newspaper and columns and Facebook, but I wish those people would come and address their concerns about borrow it. Hopefully we'll have low rates. Our bond, what's our double A. We're double A. We're upgraded to double A. That really, and then we do that because we don't ask for money very often. That's correct. So, all right, so we'll close the floor and reconvene for consideration of these certificates. I'm never excited about debt, but I am excited about this issuance is that we had the ability to tag along on some water and sewer revenue bonds and do some sensible financing for a fire truck and then also purchase of a new building and grounds. And the majority of that should be paid off in ten years or not, thirty-year debt rates are still very attractive even though they're not at all time lows they are very low and for this is a very very sensible move for the city and excited about it we put in a lot of time and effort on whether everything qualified or not and very confident and you know hopefully we can do some early payoff on these but it does make sense very efficient for the taxpayer and fully support it. All right. Any other comments or the chair would entertain a motion? I'll make a motion to approve. Oh, there's no. Yeah. You've had your public. Oh, it's just. Thank you. The block. There you go. Thank you. Well, I had a comment. Will said, John. Yeah, I think just well said. I think we support. I mean, echo what John just said. It's very exciting and well done and good stewards. And just a lot went all behind the scenes with Mike and our public finance people talked about premium bond issuance versus par versus discount. Shortening up the maturity on a portion of this there was really a lot more involved than just number five states right there. So thank you Mike and city staff for working so hard and diligent this to make sure that it is very, very sensible for the taxpayer. there. We're good. Awesome. Thank you, Mike and city staff for working so hard and diligently to make sure that it is very, very sensible for the taxpayer. Very good. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Six, receive a presentation and consider authorizing the building's life safety grant program. All right. Bob. Mary, thank you very much. I'd like to discuss this program with you and hopefully you'll agree with it and adopt it. So here we go. Just a little bit of background. The beautification committee met back in 23 and recommended that we consider some grant programs and they also suggested that we have a building structure grant in which they recommended that we budget about $100,000 which we did. It's in our turd budget currently and that we would grant about $4.25 grants. In late 24, the economic development subcommittee met and talked about this and we had since retitled the grant title name to building life grants. And at that meeting actually they suggested that we can send raising the grant amount from 25 to 50. And then also add more money to the pop to get it done. So they said maybe 150 in terms and maybe 150 in the VDC budget, that kind of thing. So that's kind of a little bit of the background that we have right here. The summary of it is right here. It's intended to fund interior non-residential building life safety improvements. And these are included to, these include those things that you see on the screen. But let me also say that the Imagine Belt and Plan anticipated substantive programs along with the standards that were recommended in the Imagine Belt and Plan. I was adopted back in 22. And so far, the city has adopted the revised FIG program, the facade improvement grant as well as the mural grant program And also enacted this is not necessarily related to the imagined belt but also the welcome to Belt and Sign top top things you've made some progress in that area this particular Improvements are related to things like businesses that are coming to, let's say, the downtown area, the near downtown area that encounter some developed obstacles or some costs associated with their entry cost into the marketplace. And so some of the things that we identified that may be obstacles to these things are things like fire suppression, sprinkler systems, as best as abatements, some environmental issues like asbestos, lead, mold, things like that, energy conservation, ADA accessibility improvements and so on and so forth. The grant is intended to possibly provide some gap funding to close the gap between what the owner had anticipated spending and when they come to the city and then they encounter the building codes and other requirements, whether it's local state or what have you, then it usually boils down to these things right here and so we thought it would be a very good way to address those concerns and close the gap so to speak. Let's talk about geography very briefly. The blue line that you see on the map is the Imagine Belt and Plan area. The red hashed area that you see right there is the Turs District. And the black lines that you see there are three of the Imagine Belt and Zone. So in the middle, you can maybe you can see it. This area right here, ah, look at there. Now you can see it, it's not known. I didn't know you could do that. How about that? And then we see the uptown area, which is right here. And then scattered on the north and south, You can see, where's I get this? There we go. In this area, for instance, well, it's not working. Okay. So on the north side, you see the main street areas. And you may recall from the map in the Magin Belt, and it extends down main street. And it goes all the way from the railroad tracks, hugs the outer side, you know, pearl and that kind of thing, along the UMHB campus on down to the highway, you can see 35 right there. Originally, the geography for the grant was intended to be the entire imagined belt in the area. However, that, as you know, covers a pretty big chunk of real estate. So we thought maybe we'd pare it down for several reasons. One, we looked at the central downtown area, the uptown area, and then the Main Street area. This is a reason why we have them all of that. And for several reasons. One, it pairs down the grant area. And two, those are some of the areas that probably see some of the activity occurring that's anticipated in the image plan. Redevelopment may be some structures being rebuilt into restaurants and other things like that. Of course, there's a lot of things we can't think of that the private sector and their creativity will bring to the community and they may look to this grant program to make that happen. Yeah. So let's give you the summary of the project that we have so far. We're suggested a max of $50,000 per project, a one-to-one match. These includes 18 improvements that I mentioned earlier, fire suppression, and that could be anything from sprinkler systems to fire walls to things like that, riser rooms, whatever. Even fire alarm systems, things like that. So mitigation of asbestos, lead, the mold, energy conservation, which could be windows, insurers, mechanical system, solar systems, you name it, it could be like that. And of course you mentioned ADA accessibility, which is suggesting design and hard cost, so design and construction cost, and any other kind of similar items. try to be comprehensive but we know that we can't always be full. You know, thank you everything. So, you know, for instance, the chief asked me, say, what about structural items? If somebody's structural stuff, well, that's health and safety because our business is to make sure buildings don't cave in on them, right? So that's health and safety. So probably yes. We're also suggesting that the program is restricted to non-residential again kind of limiting the scope of the spending. Although if you had some mixed use development, we probably look at the commercial act of the mixed use aspect of that project. We would, I mean, we suggested we follow a lot of the same guidelines as we do with the FIG and the other grant programs that the funding source would be one thing and then we would come to the Council for final approval that kind of thing. So you see all the details there. In terms of budget that kind of thing, we have some funds set aside in this year's TURS budget as you all know. And then kind of building on the recommendations for or on the recommendations of the Economic Development Subcommittee, we might have to engage in some conversations about upping those dollars either in this year or next year. And we would have to begin the conversations with the BEDC in order to make sure the program fits well with their objectives and things like that. And so our recommendation is that you approve the safety grants. And if you have any questions, we'll try to answer those. Any questions, comments or motion? Thank you. It's exciting times. Partnership between city and developers are investors into the downtown area or uptown, wherever that may be. A little bit of near term investment could surely benefit long term or development of those areas, especially thinking about fire remediation or fire suppression requirements as best as or lead paint. And just one other note, you know, what we're like for every citizen to know this, that we're not taking property tax dollars using this. These are proceeds from BEDC, which are sales tax, of course the sales tax, and then turns the reinvestment zone. And so I think it's a very $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the next $1 million in the with the building and not the business, so it's there to stay. And I think this is just a continuation of what you can walk downtown or ride downtown and see has been very successful programs that are already paying dividends and I think good return on investment. I'm very supportive. We get touched on this but I just wasn't completely clear. or say a building you're going to put a department on top of it exists or would that be excluded because I know that we're not targeting residential but if like you said a mixed-use building would that be excluded? No, just the residential portion. So we would focus on the activities in the commercial side, a non-residential side. And that's what we're suggesting at this point. Okay. I think what I think in some of the areas that are typically more residential, you're going to have a little box, wood frame homes. That's what you're mainly trying to exclude. I think it's a lot of that. But then you may have downtown, you may have to have a three-store building where one story is one thing, and the third story is something else, which is something we're trying to do. And so if we're looking at the downtown district, if we conclude what we're trying to encourage and say, well, we want you to do this, but we can't find it because somebody's going live upstairs. I think that's for me. That was my concern. Is that enough? Well, I meant that if you to do this, but we can't find because somebody's going to live upstairs. I think that's for you. That was my concern. Is that enough? Well, I meant that if you had a three-store example, and the first floor is all retail, that kind of thing. And they needed some help to get the project off the ground. We would help that. We just wouldn't invest in the residential. unless the council wants us to do the mixed use development. And so that's okay. I think if it's in that region, and if you've got Asbestos on the first, second, or third floor, or you need a risers for your sprinkler system on your first, second, or third floor, if it's helping health and safety in one of these older structures, regardless, I think regardless of use. I would hate to exclude that completely, given a two or three story building downtown. Some of those older buildings. Fire suppression is... I agree. Because they've also got to get it to the fire safety level of a two hour burns room and that kind of thing. That often does need some help to do that for the upper floor. That was the most thing. Well, would it, if you just include the residential as a part of a mixed use facility and not just to not get the, to not incorporate houses that it might be in between? Yeah, no, that's fine. That's fine. We only suggested that just begutation of the Sundays. Yeah. Anticipated, elimination of the Sundays. But that's all good. An intended consequence that we got. science good. And Bob, some of the funding. Yeah. Anticipated. Elimitation. That's a good. An intended consequence thing. Yeah. Exactly. So that's good. Yeah. And Bob, some of the imagined built-in plan area that we're talking about is not within her's boundaries. Yes. With this we limited to properties that are in both imagined built-in and turns. You got it. You got to be in both check both boxes to get you to Check both boxes to get you to ball paper funds. No, no, they're going to be areas outside the turd district. And... that are in both Imagine Belt and Anne Teres. You've got to be in both check both boxes to get to ball paper funds. No, no, there are going to be areas outside the Teres District. And so the challenge is, is we need to kind of, we need to prime that pump. We need to put some monies in those areas outside the Teres District that you can see there are in the upstown and parts of the Main Street area. So we wanted to get that taken care of now. So that's what I'm going to worry about. So to be clear, what you're saying, this is restricted to the Main Street area. But we wanted to get that taken care of now. So that we don't have to worry about that. So to be clear, what you're saying, this is restricted to the Main Street area, which is three zones, the central downtown and the uptown districts. And this is only for those three areas and not the blue area. That is correct. OK, that is correct. If the properties in the the mainstream district like on South Main there, but it's not within the Teres boundary, they would still fall behind for this grant. The orientation right now is that the only money we have set aside right now is Teres dollars. So you'd have to be in the Teres area or Dallas of this year or the six months or so. We hope to bring additional recommendations to you for the budget upcoming would be supplementing those dollars some additional terms dollars 150 in charge dollars and then hopefully 150 from BEDC. So there's some flexibility in the future but if we for any applications that come between now and October 1, we're limited to the charge boundary. Do we need to, in a motion, speak to, including mixed use to clarify that, to address the concern of those? That would be fine. I'll be valuable because I think there was a limitation on that. I've got another question. If somebody is building a new structure from the ground up or if they're tearing down the old structure and rebuilding a new structure like that, sort of a project called a five-footed screen, does this specifically for remodels and renovations? I think it's for new and remodels. Okay. There's the same challenge exists, you know. That's my answer. If you all agree then. Let's move in that direction. I don't feel as strongly that funding new construction. I don't think that the nature of this is whenever you purchase an old building or if you have an old building and you want to renovate it and bring it up to code, there are some additional costs involved, whenever you can have those hundred-year-old problems in these areas. And I think that that's kind of what this is more for. Not that new construction is cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Right. I would probably be interested in excluding new construction or tear down a new construction. And what we've seen is that boy a surprise when it comes to this best removal or lead paint or fire suppression, a huge surprise to most of you who are wanting to redo a building downtown. I think for somebody who's doing construction, that's just normal and everybody's close to doing business. So I'm sorry, I'm just a question to them. Do this. That's good. That's good. Pay or you know, the DDSA, any of the D requirements. Right. Yeah, I mean, I've got a lot of comments. I'm going to wait until motion and then discuss it after the motion. God, I want to influence the motion. But okay, so a couple of things. I think one is there are definitely some hazards with structures that are much more than a hundred years old in downtown. Nancy Boston's building is the thing that comes to mind. And the fact that she was trying to do it on the cheap led to a construction of a historic structure, because they didn't prop it up properly. It wasn't manageably. And then it also dominated the sidewalks and the parking spaces around that for a long time. So I think one of the things we should do is work with those developers that are wanting to do that on the fund, help pay for engineering services and that kind of stuff to make sure it's done correctly. And to potentially not talk to Matt about this, I think maybe you can say him. Look at some of the larger cities like Chicago and New York, they've got these structural scaffoldings that you can put on sidewalks, so the sidewalks are still usable while people are doing construction. I think it would be really good for Belton to own some of that, because we've got some construction right now where you block off the sidewalk. And if you're on a wheelchair or it's hard on mobility, you can't get from one side to the other side. And so I think that's something that we should look at that's not just a match, but let's spin some, and the next thing that kind of gets into the... you can't get from one side to the other side. And so I think that's something that we should look at that's not just a match, but let's spin some, and the next thing that kind of gets into the tear down is that new construction, is it not new construction. But he would you define Austin's building? Is that remodel? At this point. Yeah, at one point, at one point, you're under the arm. And like the new, what's gonna be a steakhouse? It was a remodel, but for them to do they're wanting to do safely to remove the break so they could go and put it in up to code so it's solid. Well is that a brewed nuke? I've got a building that the front is separating from the walls the side walls are all strong but the front is separate. We'll probably have to take that down. Is that new construction or is that remodel? I think that I think the intent is that that's a remodel. The remodel is you have to take the old awning down and throw it in the trash and buy a new awning. So it'll be safe. So anyway, so I think that this is probably going to morph a little bit. I think some of it may need to be led by the city to make sure that people as they take on some of these old structures that were guiding them. So we may want to be led by the city to make sure that people as they take on some of these old structures that were guiding them. So we may want to put in something to go along with us to compel people to redevelop safely. Because right now, we have that and it's there if they ask, but we can't proactively work with them. Like when you identify like there's a structure downtown that somebody I think is bought or I and it's got holes in the roof and windows are missing and doored in. Nobody's doing anything. So that's where I think our intent is to work with developers to do it right. But I do think that there's some broader safety things that we could potentially use this funding for to be developer friendly for downtown. Because some people, they're not going to go figure out that they need structural scaffolding to allow pedestrians to use it. There's a couple of walkoff. We have a press event for what you're talking about, I think, for whether it's a new remodel. The presence of a house gets burned by wind damage or something. And I'm not saying it's that mob. Some percentage of it is the knockout. Yeah, 60% percent. Remember, but you might want to model it something like that if that's the direction you all know. I think that's probably good because like what they're doing, like what the L3 did is it was an empty lot and it was all new construction but what they're purchasing they basically knocked out the back and knocked out the front and they'll redo that and so that's probably less than 50% but I get I don't know how you define but it's weird you're saying emphasis modeling as opposed to brand new construction from the roundout basically so we'll have to just draft some criteria and it's like you said let it kind of morph and evolve and evaluate some applications and bring those forward to you to kind of. Yeah because asbestos for all is easy you know spring-wish systems are easy but then when you get into structural type things and like taking out old wind is putting in new wind is was that it the historic district didn't like it but we're paying for it anyway. So it just, it does get money. Do we have any developers who were planning to come to the office for a $50,000 check? I mean, that's a really thing. Like it's not the amount of money. Not the amount of money we're worth. If they're wanting money tomorrow, they're gonna have to wait. I think it might be good instead of trying to mull together a motion is to postpone this to the next meeting. Now that you've heard our feedback and have kind of a more complete package so that we can criteria. Right. We're all always have the final say similar to the Tertis grant that you know, it's done mostly done by staff but nothing gets done without your approval. We can sort of do that. Develop some criteria and come back with an application packet basically. So just to a future meeting or to the next meeting. Okay, I'd like to move to both of you to meeting. I'll second. Sir, we have motion a second to pose a poseone these building why safety grant program future meeting The other discussion. I was just gonna add a comment. I can echo David on Wind is a tear down become a new construction. I think I think I'd be a hard line if it's empty lot We're kind of not Grant work on this more to throw that in there because it kind of yeah, yeah Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I think it's great though. Yeah, it's a good, good program. I do think it does need to have a Corporation of mixed use in some way. Yeah, we'll cover that in the comments that we heard this evening Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, all right all in favor for postponing say I Those unanimously. Item seven, consider authorizing BDC executive director to execute an amended real estate contract and related documents with acquisition and purchase of approximately 62 acres from Jay Lever. Let's sit down. All right, good afternoon mayor and council. I appreciate you all clearing the agenda so I could be very thorough with all of the items. As you know we're in need of property. Belt and economic development corporation is in need of property as we have limited inventory in the Belt and business park. So we've been searching for opportunities to acquire property and so tonight I'll present two different parcels to you that we hope to acquire. So I will start with a 62 acre track on I-14 in December the Board of Directors secured this piece of property under contract. The owner of the property is a Dvern. And we have secured it with the sales price of $2,907,000. We have a 90 day feasibility period into the contract. And so typically the Board approves the contract We bring it to you immediately and then we go through our feasibility period doing our due diligence So we've tweaked that a little bit We really wanted to do our due diligence streamline the process come back to you tell you what we know and then Make the ask and so with that let me talk a little bit what we've learned about the property. So going to start with just this particular aerial the orange line represents the Belt and City limits so as you can see the majority of this property sits outside of the city limits 51 acres would have to be voluntarily annexed and brought into the city. It would also need to be re-zoned to light industrial for BEDC's intended. What we know is that the property is in the Dog Ridge Water Service area. Brief highlight over the contract, which I've already talked about the sales price, the feasibility, which ends at the end of March. We've negotiated that the property owner will pay for a has survey and all of our contracts are contingent upon city council approval. And I didn't know one thing here. In your memo, I stated that the EDC was going to pay the 4.5% commission on the sale of this property and that is incorrect. We did negotiate the commission but it was in an effort to ice that was good for everyone and so the seller is in fact paying the commission on this on the sale of this property. So let's talk a little bit about the evaluation. This is the TOPO evaluation that we conducted on the property. Of the total site, about 41 acres of this is suitable for light industrial development. There's an additional 15 acres in the yellow that can be developed, but it's going to take significant dirt work to do that. So I don't think that's likely going to be a big industrial building, maybe dizz or something smaller. And once it's brought into the settlements, there will be some tree mitigation that'll need to occur on that area as well. And so that's kind of a high level of our topo review of this property. We did conduct a phase one environmental. As you know, we have a lot of experience with environmentally safe sensitive properties. So we just wanted to be sure we were not acquiring another piece of property that needed further evaluation. The phase one revealed that no further analysis is needed for this site. There are few areas that need to be cleaned up. Some ago on the side, a couple of piles of scrap metal and brush that needs to be cleared. And I think there were three wells on this property. Recommend we plug in abandoned. And talking with clear water, clear water also had the same recommendation. Just letting you know that we did conduct a phase one environmental in the property. We explored the power capabilities, and we reached out to Encore. They've indicated that phase three is available close to the site, and so that's suitable for light industrial development. And we also evaluated the utilities. This is still a work in progress. I've shared with you already that it's in the dog ridge water service area and so we've reached out to them conducted an analysis. We know that there's a six-inch water line at the property but we also know that it will need to be improved to an eight-inch or is 12-inch in order to provide the fire flows that the city of Belton will require for that site. We thought developed cost estimates for that yet and we would have to work with the city to identify what options are available to serve that site for fire protection. Is it working with dog rent, working with the city? We still need to analyze that. In addition, we've also analyzed the wastewater and so you can see the red line there. That represents our initial alignment of what it could look like to serve this property with wastewater. That costs estimate there is about $800,000, but that's not the final alignment. For a couple of reasons, one, we need to work with the city of Belton to ensure that our alignment is consistent or as close to consistent with the wastewater master plan that the city has for Belton in addition to that we need there will be a two-and-through requirement for wastewater extension and so we need to work with the city to determine the best alignment So in summary with regard to utilities, we don't have a final estimate for that. We understand there will be improvements required to serve the site. We know that it's possible and so it's a matter of further collaboration with the city and then just determining the timing for this. And I'm happy any questions about utilities or any of the evaluation as I'm talking through this. Fiscal impact of the property. I've talked to you about the sales price, the survey. We'll share the closing costs, utilities. I don't have a final sticker price for you yet, but we'll make those determinations and figure out how to phase into that. Just in terms of can we afford this property, we currently have $11.2 million sitting in fund balance that's allocated to anything. And so we are able to purchase this property without having to go out for a loan or issue any kind of debt. And currently the estimates for the 2025 revenue are at $4 million. And that may be a little higher or a little less, but it just represents that we do have the fund balance. And we are expecting additional funds to come in to help cover the cost of this purchase. So the Board of Directors approved the court in December. We've spent January and February working with the city and with KPA and MRB doing our due diligence on this and in February, no, in March. The Board met last week actually to go through the due diligence and make a decision on whether or not we intend to move forward. And so at this time the board does wish to move forward with the property acquisition and our ask is for council support and approving the contract for BDC's purchase of the 62 acre track. Any questions? So, side volunteer work with BEDC and excited about this project. BEDC has a great cash balance. Over $11 million in the back pocket and good monthly cash flow coming in. We've been on the hunt for property to purchase. Really with the, I think the board's long term goal is to see more light industrial opportunities for Belt and really focusing on I-14, I-35, that corridor access south, access north. And I just recently drove down to San Antonio to 130, and the number of really, really impressive, nice looking, till all buildings under construction and that area of, area of our Jay Z. And that was, I just have envisioned that for Beltown for a couple of years now and we're excited about it. The other thing that you noticed from that little utility slide was that we're usually required to do utilities not just to but through. And the opportunity that opens to the west and to the north, really, really impressive. So I'm excited about the project. I think BDC's put in a tremendous amount of work. Wanted to bring to council a term key proposal, all in cost, done all the leg work, EA or NA from you guys. And so Cynthia's done a great, great job. We've been hunting. There's more activity in the Belt and Business part right now with some additional purchases going on lame clearing Avenue D expansion I just feel like we're really on the cusp of some of these things coming to our community and so I'm Excited about Well It's an action I have. So we can continue discussing. Well, I have a quick comment I just wanted to make. So when we talk about the reserve funds and that the 11.2 million, you know, I wanted to just make a comment that that's purposeful. that's not just something that's been building with no plans. These are purposeful to be available for opportunities such as this that meet the vision and goals of false set. So I think it's exciting that we're able to have those funds available for opportunities that have been planned for. So with that, I'll make an emotion to approve agenda item number seven is presented. Second. We have a motion in a second to prove a agenda item seven. In comments or questions? Good job. I'll share my comment. It's going to be the same for this item and the next item. So as mayor, I've been able to serve as an ex officio member, a non-voting member with economic development. And so you're always kind of torn, is how much should you say if you're really not a voting member? And so I will say I try to keep a lot of my personal opinions positive or negative at Bay as much as I can so the board and the commission can do what they're called to do. I'll just share my personal thoughts on expenditures and where do we do, where we grow and how we go with the city. When you get into these kind of purchases, these are strategic. And they're either good strategy or bad strategy. But it is strategic. It's not just wake up in the morning and go to work. It's been doing it different. And so we've done some things strategic, then we just talked about it like investing in downtown and using the turrets so that's been very good I think one of the things that and Stephanie said it very well You know our cash is strategic having a cash balance us to act when a company wants to come in and we can use incentives Build we can build stuff we can work on infrastructure and buying a piece of property when it available is strategic. So I think this is very much a strategic thing. I'll just say from our standpoint, when we look at it, we have to look at there's a cost to doing this more than just the cash. And so we just need to understand and consider the cost. What are the potential implications of water and sewer? And I'm glad that they did the work to say, well, this is what the cost would be. What's the cost as far as are we potentially abandoning something that comes to the door tomorrow? And could we have used that money tomorrow? But we've already committed it today. So I just want to share that regardless of, I really look at it. And I go with strong towns as a model for economic development. And what they typically do is they map, what's the investment per acre, and what's the return for acre. And you're gonna see downtown's investment is low and return is huge. And you're gonna see things that are things this, is investments are high and returns are new. Now, that's today. Now, and I was talking to John about this earlier, if you think about barges property in 1940s, you could probably got it for nothing, because you know, you're on cattle on it, and you can't plow it. And so it doesn't bring any money. And there's no water, you know. I mean, you know, and so today you'd look bad saying man, if I would have bought that in the 40s That'd probably be the best thing, but people probably thinking well, that's crazy you buy that thing I think it's one of those things that we just need to weigh the cost of these two tracks, because, and John's mentioned it multiple times, we're running out of land. You're going to have to have something. And so, anyway, that's my comments, I'll be a tie vote on either one of these. Any other comments or questions? All right, all in favor say aye. Those opposed. Passes unanimous. All right, item last, eight. Consider authorizing the BEDC executive director to execute an amended real estate contract and related documents for the acquisition and purchase of approximately 165 acres from Janet L. Rand. Thank you. Thank you. So this parcel, this is a second parcel and it's slightly larger and a little further from the last one. But let me talk you first through the contract and then we'll talk about the site just just to give you, I guess, a location. So this is South Beltan East, I'm sorry, West of I-35. And if you're familiar with the Soleto Business Park on Amity Road, it is adjacent to the light industrial zone Soleto Business Park. So about the contract, actually there are two contracts. It's 165 acres, but there is a resident on the property currently. And so the property will be divided into two parcels. One is the five acres for the home, and that's 1.5 million. And then the property, the 160 acres, the price for that is $3 million. We've made the earn a deposit for the two tracks and we are currently within the 90 day feasibility period. With both contracts we did negotiate an extension if needed. We don't think that that's necessary at this point. And again, the contracts contingent upon City Council approval. And for this particular contract, our paying the 3% commission, we are working with which would properties, we work with them to secure this site. And in our event, the seller will pay the commission unless something differently is negotiated. In this case, we are reimbursing the seller for the commission fee. So let's talk about our due diligence and we'll start with the topo of this property. So let me note 165 acres of this total property, be a hundred and it's outside of the city limits. So this is another parcel that would need to be brought into the city limits. Resoning would need to occur. We've already had conversations with city staff about future land use and the plans of the city is currently updating. But it's not currently, it is not all inside the city limits, so it would need to be brought in. With regard to taxing jurisdictions, this does sit in Soleto ISD. This is so far south that it's actually in the Soleto ISD for our property taxes. And with regard to developable, 112 acres is suitable for industrial development. 31 acres sits in the floodplain which you can see is illustrated in blue. What I want to know and you all know this you can't build a structure in the floodplain but depending on the topography it could be used for parking in some cases depending on how the property flows, sometimes it can be for drainage and lieu of like on-site detention. So to say that it's not usable, there are some functions still within a floodplain. This is me selling the property to you. So let's talk about our phase one ESA. We did do a phase one environmental on this as well. Like with the first track, there were no recommendations to do further investigations. Like with the first track, a couple of areas that need clean up some scrap metals and brush piles. Also some wells on this property that they recommend both bronze and butter recommend that we plug and abandon the wells on this property. And this site as we explore utilities does sit in the city of Belton's water and sewer service area. And so we did extensive, I say extensive, but we did a lot of work on this property because of the distance and because of the challenges or the opportunities that presents for the city of Belton. So what we know is that Central Texas water has a line there on Amity Road at the property. What we also know is that the best solution is to extend the City of Belton's water line to this site. So if we had a project and it was something that had to move quickly, we could possibly serve them off of Central Texas, but ultimately the would be to bring city water to this site. We do have cost estimates for the water. Let me look at my other notes here. So depending on what the city required, it's 12 inch line. It would be about a $2 million investment water to the site. BDC at this time again a lot of work still needs to be done with the city of Belton and I don't know that we're in a hurry to bring infrastructure to the site immediately. We're already talking about it because we have a contract I've been in meeting with site selectors and we're pitching the site. Um, if a project came quickly, we'd want to move quickly, but I think just in terms of funding, um, and other things that the city has to evaluate, like when you extend water all the way to that location, you're opening up a whole lot of dirt for development. And the city has been very and their growth and so we want to do this at a pace that the city is comfortable with also. With regard to waste water we ran some costs estimate as it take to just serve this only and we know if we if we just wanted to force main all the way up that is a $3.5 million investment. I don't think that's the best investment for Belton. I think ultimately the win-win for everyone is how can you open up property along the way to continue to grow Belton. And so we have those cost estimates also, and they range from $4.8 to $6 million to bring down sewer that can serve other sites. The work that would have to be done with the sewer is to ensure that it aligns again with the city's wastewater methane. And so when you see the red line on this property, the reason why it doesn't just go down I 35 is because the fall of the topography and and the city's plan for that so On the city side there's still some work that needs to be done in terms of policy Where do we open up areas part of this extends outside of the city limits similar to our I- project So it's not an easy answer of just install the sewer because you're Going in and out of the city limits in various areas But we understand what the cost are we've done kind of high-level work with that Let's see what else don't talk Okay, so I think on the end the other option, which is not always desirable, but it is an option, and it is being done as on-site sewer or septic. There are some industries like that. The other thing that I wanna add that's attractive about this location is its location to the on-course switching station on I-35. We've had calls from firms asking if we property in this area of Belton just because of the power availability here. So we think for future is a strategic location that will serve the needs of some industries that we see growing currently in Texas. With regard to the fiscal impact, again, the price, total price, 4.5 purchase, we're splitting the costs of the survey with the property owner, we are paying the commission utilities, we don't know the final cost yet, and we don't know the timing for that. Maybe we phase with phase in, with just design and acquisition, maybe a project comes along versus everyone to move quickly. And again, our fund balance, 11.2 million and UCR estimated revenues coming in at 4 million. Any questions about this? Again, the board, as with the other contract, they approved the contract in December. We've spent our time doing due diligence in more to met and after reviewing all of this, they want to move forward. And we're excited about the opportunity to have two sites that we can start putting in front of people and in the background planning on how to serve them. Any questions? Thank you, Cynthia. Any comments or questions? I think we said it all on the first one, but if there's any cash balance, I think we was talking about. It's a teacher. The board, I think, I speak for, feels as though this is the very end of our development area and with utilities being two and through, interesting the Wagner tracks, some other from I-35, you know, that's an all-end utilities cost for us to do that, which I do not think would be the case. We would wait for other development to happen, share costs with that, and hopefully have a developer site that Hamden Road access to I-35, I-14, very accessible and a great property that backs up to the Seleno business park as well. All right, Chair, would you entertain a motion? I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. Second, we We have motion a second to approve agenda item eight. Any other comments or questions? All right. They're being done all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed passes unanimously. Mayor. That is the, I really did want to thank Cynthia and BDC staff in the process that we went through. I really think the board made some significant changes into doing like before bringing it to the City Council. And I feel like it worked really, really well. And I appreciate it. And if you have a great job. I think I appreciate the not coming to us so soon to ask to do it like versus being like I said missing out on some and getting some of that work done first. Yeah we do appreciate it. Anticipating all the questions that might come up and having those answers really helps the council make a decision. It's good to have John there to ask questions and participate too. I've got the vision that we need for the long term right there. I think that I have no idea between the Council and BEDC. We're terrible. Anybody serve here? Well, enjoy the sunshine. Thanks to daylight savings time. We are adjourned.