Hello Friends!
getaway vacation and we're both back feeling refreshed! The picture of us is with Ms. Pearl the squirrel outside of a pecan shop near Bastrop, Texas called Berdoll Pecan. It was really windy when we took the picture but it was fun.
Getting down to business for the week. I scanned in the draft minutes from recent city meetings for your review. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A9HqG8pzedAKY1WW57ysbLnad4Wk9Y4E/view?usp=sharing
There is only one meeting and briefing scheduled so far for the week,
but it's a huge Council agenda with many items that will be covered. Please feel free to check back on the city's calendar to see if any other meetings are posted. http://www.waxahachie.com/calendar.php
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Monday, November 16, 2020
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6:00 PM - City Council Briefing Session
Council Conference Room, City Hall
This briefing will discuss items for the 7:00 PM regular Council meeting. This briefing session will be extremely informative.
The briefing will not be live-streamed, but it is open to the public, should you wish to attend.
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7:00 PM - City Council Regular Meeting
Council Chamber, City Hall
Agenda Packet: https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/document-uploads-001/uploads/video/agenda_file/107113/11-16-20_City_Council_Agenda_Packet.pdf
5 - Accept Ms. Tiffany Duran's Certificate of Withdrawal of the runoff Election for Council Member Place 2 (due to the fact that she has moved and is ineligible to serve on Council)
6 - Cancel the Runoff Election for Council Member Place 2.
7 - The City Secretary will administer the Oath of Office to Council Member Place 2 - Doug Barnes. (I believe that there should have been a runoff between Mr. Barnes and Mr. Souter, as Ms. Duran was ineligible to be on the ballot.) Our charter states that candidates must win by a majority of the vote and Mr. Barnes and Mr. Souter each held less than 30% of the vote. Having a candidate win with less than 30% of the vote does not follow the intent of the charter amendment passed in November 2019.
8- Organization of City Council - This is where the Council decides among themselves who will serve as the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem for the City. I advocated to have the position of mayor elected outright by the people when we were approving the charter amendment for November 2019, but had no other support on Council to add that to the charter change. I can understand that others feel our current way of doing it is better, but we will just have to have opposing views in this instance.
9e - Consider WCDC expenditure and award of bid to Sports Fields, Inc. for Sports Complex synthetic turf improvements for three softball fields (infields only).
28 & 29 - Waxahachie RV Park & Secure More Storage - the applicant requested to withdraw this case on 11/06/20.
The following 3 cases involve tax abatements, which I am generally not a fan of. Let the free market dictate what the businesses can do. I'm appreciative of their operations in Waxahachie, but I don't think it's necessary that we give them tax abatements. I will, of course, hear all the information presented at the meeting before rendering any final decisions.
32-34: Requesting a tax abatement agreement in support of an expansion of business operations for Nutrenare-AG, Inc.
35-37: Requesting tax abatement agreement in support of an expansion of business operations for Timco Logistics Systems.
38-40: Requesting a tax abatement agreement in support of expansion of business operations for Kinro Texas, Inc.
42 - Consider professional services agreements for Architectural Services and Project Management services for the City Hall Annex project. $1,686,645 has been allocated within the FY 20-21 budget for both professional services agreements. The budgeted amount also provides for printing, contingency, as well as other miscellaneous expenses that will likely be incurred (per the agenda packet). This is an awful lot of money for architectural services and project management. I will be asking at the briefing if we went out to bid for these services before choosing Architexas and the Vidaurri Management Group.
This meeting will be live-streamed here http://www.waxahachie.com/government/city_council/city_council_meeting_live_stream.php but will also be open to the public should you wish to attend.
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I hope that everyone has a great rest of your weekend and a wonderful week ahead!
Your Friendly Councilmember,
Melissa Olson
molson@waxahachie.com
(text) 817-507-5162
