City council addresses RVs within city limits, several other items

September 28, 2021 at 1:03 pm Updated: September 28th, 2021 at 5:05 pm Derrick Stuckly

Ray Tipton speaks to the city council regarding the Hotel Occupancy Tax during Tuesday’s meeting. [Photo by Derrick Stuckly]

The Brownwood City Council on Tuesday amended an ordinance on first reading to address recreational vehicles within the city limits. The ordinance will appear again another city council to be approved on second and final readings.

The changes include:

A person may not stay in, reside, and/or occupy a Recreational Vehicle on private property other than in a designated recreational vehicle park as specified in Sec. 98-582(a), except on a temporary basis, not to exceed 10 days.
A person may not connect a Recreational Vehicle to City supplied utilities (i.e., water and/or sewer) for the purposes of staying in, residing and/or occupying a Recreational Vehicle, other than on a temporary basis, not to exceed 10 days.
A resident who owns a Recreational Vehicle may park at their residence for parking purposes only. Electric service may be connected to the Recreational Vehicle by an extension cord for conditioning purposes only (heat, cool, appliances), to work on the Recreational Vehicle or for temporary use as permitted herein. The Recreational Vehicle shall at no time be used as a permanent dwelling and shall not be considered a permissible accessory building or structure.
No person shall hook up a Recreational Vehicle to electrical utilities, water, city sewer, septic systems, telephone, or place a receptacle for receiving mail or any other service or device which would indicate more than the temporary use of the Recreational Vehicle as permitted herein.
Property owners are responsible for Recreational Vehicles and their uses while placed on their property regardless of the ownership of the Recreational Vehicle.

Other items on the city council agenda Tuesday included:

HVAC MAINTENANCE

A bid of $95,855 was approved and awarded to Heart of Texas Mechanical for a two-year HVAC Maintenance contract to maintain and conduct routine maintenance on HVAC systems belonging to the City of Brownwood.

The cost will be paid out monthly over the two-year agreement and services include basic maintenance such as cleaning of coils, drain lines, placing biocide tablets, replacing filters, checking freon levels, belts, electrical connections, and overall operation of the unit.

In the HVAC Maintenance contract, it requires the contractor to first contact the City Development Service Director for approval before any part replacement or repairs are conducted. The HVAC Maintenance Contract also requires any parts or repair work that exceeds the cost amount of $5,000 be required to seek additional bids for the repair from other contractors. The HVAC maintenance contract allows the City to terminate the contract with the HVAC Contractor if the City finds the maintenance of the HVAC Units do not meet the requirements of the contract.

Currently the City of Brownwood has a total of 113 HVAC units that are active and servicing City owned buildings. Out of those 113 units, 19 of them are 20 to 30 years old. Over the past years the City has not had a maintenance service contract with any HVAC Mechanical Contractor and the maintenance work that has been performed in the past has not been invoiced in a way that staff could track maintenance cost of each unit to help determine whether it was cost effective to keep maintaining the unit or to replace it.

POLICIES FOR HOLIDAYS, MENTAL HEALTH LEAVE AND QUARANTINE LEAVE

During a recent salary survey of comparable the City of Brownwood discovered it provided the least number of paid holidays of the other cities. In a budget workshop, staff recommended to Council adding two paid holidays – Juneteenth and Veterans Days – to be more in line with other cities, which was passed by the city council Tuesday.

Also, the State Legislature passed a bill this session regarding paid mental health leave for police officers. The City desires to provide the same benefit for firefighters. The policy allows up to ten days of paid leave per calendar year, based upon specific conditions and Chief approval. Additionally, the State passed legislation regarding paid quarantine leave for police officers and firefighters due to exposure to a communicable disease while on duty. The policy allows for police officers and firefighters to have paid leave while on quarantine without using accrued sick or vacation leave.

Council member Ed McMillian expressed the same leave options should be afforded to all City of Brownwood members, which will be examined going forward, according to City Manager Emily Crawford.

HOTEL OCCUPANCY TAX

The city council approved a Resolution adopting the Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) budget for the fiscal year 2021/2022, and approved another resolution to authorize event funding procedures for Hotel Occupancy Tax.

This is the first full Hotel Occupancy Tax budget managed by the City to be approved under the new tourism management structure and agreement with the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce. Under this budget, funding will be allocated, in accordance with State law, for operation of the City’s Visitor Center, marketing and promotion to attract visitors to Brownwood, re-establishing event funding, sporting event support, and allowable costs related to the new multi-purpose event center. Revenue projections have slightly increased in this final version of the HOT Funds budget to reflect increase in local hotel occupancy and HOT Funds revenue over the last two months.

Included in the new Hotel Occupancy Funds (HOT) budget is the reimplementation of event funding. To properly administer funding requests, staff has requested to create procedures to accept HOT funding requests, review the applications and process these funding requests – in accordance to State law. Through these procedures, the Executive Director of Economic Development would be authorized to accept, process, analyze, and approve/deny event funding applications. A detailed application has been developed to collect information related to funding requests.

COLISEUM GRANT UPDATE

Work on the new sidewalks and lighting around the Brownwood Coliseum is expected to be completed in eight weeks, city council members were told.

The City of Brownwood received a Grant Contract 7219062, for the amount of $350,000 funded through the Community Development Block Grant, via the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Texas Department of Agriculture, for the purpose economic development in the form of sidewalk improvements in the downtown revitalization area.

TDA and HUD instituted new Section 3 policy requirements on July 1, 2021, for all existing and future CDBG grants. As part of these requirements, each grant recipient is required to review and discuss a Section 3 Presentation during a meeting of its governing body.

EIGHT NEW CAPITAL LEASES

The city council passed a resolution approving eight new capital leases with Citizens National Bank and assigning a property tax pledge.

The 2020-21 budget included the purchase of various pieces of equipment for the Street, Water, Sanitation, Landfill, and Technology departments totaling $1,592,700. These purchases were budgeted as capital leases. Actual costs came in under budget projections and the City had budgeted for current year payments on these capital leases which reduces the amount the City borrows. As a result, the City will only need to borrow the following for budgeted items:

Street – Bomag Pneumatic Roller $128,996
Street – Kenworth Dump Truck $101,754
Sanitation – Peterbilt Side Loader $228,773
Landfill – JD 724P Wheel Loader $252,548
Landfill – JD 410 Dump Truck $489,080
Water – Kenworth Dump Truck $101,702
Technology – Computer Hardware & Software $104,473

Subtotal $ 1,407,326

On April 27, the city council approved an additional capital lease in the amount of $808,513 for the purchase of 2,701 meters of various sizes. Actual costs of these meters came in under the authorized amount which reduces the amount we need to borrow.

Water – AMR E Series meter replacement $760,574

Total amount to borrow $ 2,167,900

CIVIL SERVICE PAY

The city council approved an ordinance on first and final reading updating the salary, longevity pay, and certification pay for all Civil Service – Firefighters and Police Officers.

CONSENT AGENDA

Items passed on the consent agenda included:

An ordinance on second and third/final reading setting charges for fees, rentals, licenses, and permits for the City of Brownwood for the 2021-22 fiscal year.
An ordinance on second and third/final reading setting charges, fees, rates, and deposits for customers on the Brownwood water, sewer, and sanitation system for the 2021-22 fiscal year.
Approval of the Meet and Confer Agreement between the City of Brownwood and the Brownwood Municipal Police Association for a two-year termfrom October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2023.
Ratified the Brownwood Municipal Development District Board approval of a Building Improvement Incentive Program (BIIP) grant to Porf Dubon for an amount not to exceed $16,200 for a property located at 300 N. Fisk.

AUDIT REPORT

Tony Krischke of Krischke CPA presented the audit report for year ended September 30, 2020.