City Council Meeting Jan 31, 2023 | City of Beaumont, TX

please take this thank you good afternoon and welcome to the meeting of the Belmont city council today is Tuesday January 31st and today's invocation will be given by associate pastor Brian Abel of Calder Baptist Church if you'll please come forward Pastor Abel and give us the invocation everyone please silence your cell phone if you so choose please stand remain standing for our pledge thank you please join me in prayer God we are mindful that service remains a worthwhile Endeavor and we ask that uh during this time uh we have a shared Spirit to elevate and improve the quality of life in Beaumont help the dialogue to be a productive one and energizing one full of discernment and wisdom and we are grateful for today amen foreign may I have the roll call please mayor mutton president mayor Pro Tim dorio councilmember gets president councilmember Turner president councilmember felshaw president councilmember Samuel president and council member Neal here thank you thank you today we have one presentation by Exxon Mobil regarding contributions funding for a local restoration project uh with Ms nakisha Burns and anyone you have with you please come forth she's public and governmental Affairs manager and Rosina Denny is the refinery plant manager if you please come forward for your presentation thank you good afternoon how's everyone doing today right awesome so we are here to make a quick presentation so we're not going to be before you long we would like for the council the city manager Parks and Recreation director to join us down if you could foreign so you want us to come down now yes yes so as you all are coming down I'll just give a little bit of information about our donation as the only playground in the neighborhood the Charlton Pollard Park serves as an essential role in our neighbor's lives especially our youngest ones who need a safe area to play and make memories with their friends and loved ones when our neighbors voice concern about the condition of the playground we listened and took action to collaborate with the City of Beaumont Park and Recreation Department to be a part of the solution for the last 120 years 120th year this year in May we have called Beaumont home we live here we work here and we're proud to do our part in this initiative that will help so many and Charlton Pollard who rely on the park as a place to gather host events and express Community Pride while we are the first publicly announced private donor to this project and I'm sure there will be others and we encourage others to support as well we recognize this effort will require involvement from throughout the Charlton Pollard community and we have some of our neighbors here today if you would all please stand we have the neighborhood association president thank you we know that it's going to take a collaborative effort we want to thank the city council for your support we worked really hard with Mr Kenneth Williams we met many times to just kind of iron out what it was that was needed and also now we've been working with your new amazing Mr ragette he's been awesome I've been bugging him I've called him I actually got in a city vehicle and a Truck and took a tour of the community with him so I can tell you that he's working really hard to improve the neighborhood the look and feel of the community and so thank you both and so we want to present and I'll give Roseanne an opportunity if you want to add anything she's our Refinery manager you know nakisha is amazing so she's always got all the perfect uh points but honestly this is for the community this is for our kids and this is for one that we've worked so well all together in order to present this opportunity to you so without further Ado let's give you a nice big [Applause] [Applause] and and not only not only do we have the vanity check just of course we want to get a picture but we also brought y'all a real check to deposit so we're really excited um I just want to encourage the community to give our city council the city manager as well as the Director of Parks and Recreation and opportunity to really get in do the groundwork it's going to take time y'all it is going to take time these folks are working really hard for this community and they will soon be talking about some more great things that's going to come but give them time I promise y'all to be coming to cap and they are going to come to the neighborhood association they're going to give you updates we've already talked about it and so um patience is needed is coming greatness is coming we are also working with the city manager and his team to do a collaborative Grant to educate our community about recycling Lamar University Lamar University has a recycling program and I'm not for sure if you all knew that there is actually a session this Saturday from 11 to 1 at the Montagne Center and you can recycling as you'd like and it's no cost it's at no cost and so this grant that we're working with the city on is a grant through the EPA and it's up to I believe four four million it's up to four million dollars that's at the discretion of the city to apply for how much ever but I know that there are a number of entities that are working to provide letters of support and so that will be coming hopefully soon Mr Williams and his team they're working really hard trying to get some funding so that we can educate our community on how to properly recycle because you know when you drink that nice cold Coke you just can't throw it in the trash can you actually have to wash it there's a proper way to recycle so this grant funding will give us the opportunity along with a number of neighbors to educate the community on how to properly recycle so I'm going to stop talking because I'm like a Baptist preacher I will talk forever okay thank you [Applause] water one two three Miss Robin's hidden behind that chest perfect can you stay in place and get our neighbors thank you right from here smile to save money yeah perfect [Applause] okay well again to Exxon Mobil thank you so very much we're so grateful for your participation and what you have contributed to the community of Beaumont um we were all surprised because we had not seen the check so we were just as surprised as everyone in the audience and so if anyone else would like to make a comment council member Samuel yes well I didn't know about the check but I remember several weeks ago when someone came up asking about what was going to be done about Charlton Pollard Park and Miss Burns I remember that look you gave me so I knew what was coming this is not new this is something you all have done year after year after year you've always been good neighbors good partners and you continue to do that Charlton Pollard parked where it is now is because of the efforts between it's on mobile and the City of Beaumont so thank you very much for all that you do those things seen and those things unseen so thank you councilmember Turner and then council member Phil show to Exxon Mobil thank you for stepping up and leading I remember when we recently were talking about industrial agreements and I made a comment about industrial companies stepping up and making donations to a park Enterprise fund the thing about it is we didn't even have to ask you guys you stepped up and led by example and that's the type of example I think we need in order to move this city forward and we appreciate you guys to the Jordan pilot family I look at you guys as family this is only the beginning of the new direction we're going to move this entire community in not just your neighborhood but the entire community so we're going to continue to work together and we're going to continue to lead by actions and not words thank you councilmember Phil Show yeah again just thank you but this is how we make Beaumont better the partnership between public and private business and Civic leaders this is how we get it done and it's going to take that partnership to really move Beaumont forward so thank you so much for the partnership thank you mayor Pro tem duria I just want to thank Exxon Mobil for setting the bar so high other folks are watching you see the example that they said I hope more people will follow thanks amen thank you and city manager thank you mayor uh cities are often not fortunate enough to have corporate Partners such as Exxon so Beaumont is truly fortunate and blessed to have such a carpet entity in its amidst and doing the things that they're doing it was a pleasure working with nikisha Miss Burns on this project and I look forward to the one on the recycling that's an even probably bigger project Dollar Wise than this one so it was a pleasure really good to work with and look forward to working with you again thank you also I would like to um we don't want to leave Mr ragett Out Mr ragette is a new director for parks and he came out of the gate just running and part of that is attributed to our new city manager who took that department of parks and rec and divided it to make sure that our Parks were getting the attention that was needed and Rosina and Lakeisha I love working with the both of you thank you so very much for everything that you do within the city within this community and we already know there's more to come for the south end of uh there's a lot a lot more to come so again thank you so very much for your partnership and for really for your heart for that community and for this city and again you've set the bar really really high and we're hoping somebody try to outdo you absolutely so again thank you so very much so at this time if you haven't already done so please fill out the green slip to the back of the room hand it to the clerk to the front of the room it is public comment time and if you haven't done so before you speak we need you to address the podium you will have three minutes the green light will come on when it's time for you to start speaking and the red light will be your indication that your time is up thank you I'm Steve Parker 3801 Dunn Groves Texas item number nine on the agenda we ready to go I'm Steve Parker I'm a United association's pipefitter and I'm here in favor of adopting the 21 2021 uniform plumbing codes thank you very much thank you Richard Lord 6906 Redwood Falls Pasadena Texas item number nine on the agenda thank you Council uh and mayor Mouton I really appreciate y'all giving me this opportunity my name is Richard Lord I'm a business agent for plumber's local 68 here in Beaumont uh one of the things I wanted to speak on is item number nine uh the adoption of the 2021 plumbing and mechanical codes the uniform Plumbing mechanical codes um as an installer there there's no Financial benefit to me on either code I come to you as a installer and as an installer you know a lot of times you know the surgeon he knows what kind of surgery you need the mechanic knows what kind of car or what you need picks on your car well this is the time when the plumber knows what plumbing and mechanical codes are better and the reason we like these coats is that they tell us to go from point A to point B and you'll hear a lot of Consultants a lot of people that don't have never turned a wrench in their life you know but as a person that's been a licensed plumber for 42 years you know I've I've been out in the field doesn't look like it right now but I have been out in the field I actually did turn a rinse for a while and and as a plumber I wanted to know when I walked on that job I would put the pipe in from here to there and it passed code I don't want the inspector to come and say well I think you ought to do it this way what that did was cost a contractor money cost us time costs us the effort of putting stuff in and with the uniform instead of codes we know exactly how to install these systems and I wish you'd just hear from an installer an installer in a plumbing contractor and mechanical contractor what they want and you're going to hear a lot of other people that like I said have no oh nothing in this business whatsoever except to sell books you know so I hope you all look at who actually does the work and listen and if y'all have any questions I'm more than happy to answer thank you thank you Jeffrey Nielsen 4910 dacoma Street Houston Texas item number nine on the agenda mayor council members thank you for taking the time to hear from me today I'm here representing Greater Houston partnership okay sorry sorry I got the wrong one associate builders and contractors for Greater Houston region we represent the commercial and Industrial Builders and I'm not here to really talk about and I'm here to talk about item number nine the codes but I'm not here to talk about the details of it because to be honest with you I'm not a plumber I don't know the details of it I represent the industry we deal with politicians I know at the last board meeting he had some mention of was the city of Houston what they're doing with their codes and you really need to look a lot closer at what the city of Houston is currently doing with their codes they're having a complete review of what their you know which codes you're going to be doing and typically what happens with something like that is or what the city is doing here now is they brought in a private contractor to facilitate these meetings to review all aspects of all the codes that they they have the River on the street their word on the street which is is pretty strong is that it's they are going to be moving away from the uniform plumbing code the uniform codes in general they're moving towards IPC simply because of the problems that they've had getting buildings approved that received Harvey Harvey funded Monies to reconstruct some of the housing that they had if you've read any of the papers you've seen the problems that they've had the bad press that they've gotten the the IPC is what uh um FEMA uses as a as their gold standard they're having difficulties because most of their all of well their codes are under the UPC and it's causing them a great deal of problems though you know Harvey was four years ago you never know when the next forum current is coming through I really want you to think about or go back and look at don't take my word for it go talk to city council member go talk to Carol haddick over in public works ask them why they're doing a review of their codes it's pretty clear from the first meeting they had that the unions are not happy this is the mayor this mayor Turner's final term this is his final year of his final term typically when you want something to go through that's not going to be favorable or not going to be seen well you do it during that time you know this is something you probably need as a council need to go look at so that you can make an informed judgment on how you should move move forward to the city yourself you know you elected or the you know the constituents have elected you these spots they've assuming you're going to do your due diligence and I'm just here to give you a little bit of information hopefully you'll take that and you know deal with it what you will thank you very much any questions thank you sir thank you ma'am Jeffrey and I apologize I cannot make out the last name at 604 West 13th Street Austin Texas can you pronounce your last name Tina uh it's Jeffrey tawawa uh and I am here on behalf of associate builders and contractors of Texas uh I wanted to come here and speak mainly from the state perspective because our state Association has been involved in this issue for a number of years I personally have actually changed three jobs over the course of the last 14 years and each of those jobs from the home builders to the Real Estate Council and now to ABC I've dealt with this plumbing code issue and you've heard about the practitioners the plumbers talking about how the effect that this might have on on their Nation the reality is that the reason why the international codes exist is because they are a symbiotic family of codes that all work together as a general contractor we don't just deal with one code we deal with all of them in Austin specifically we even have to deal with another one called the international Wildland Urban interface code which is something I would rather not bore you with but you know we have to think about all of them as a family and the uniform code is designed to work with the rest of them and something that I would point out is that if a plumber wants to plumb to the uniform code they will meet the requirements in the international code and will be permitted to to move forward I happen to serve on the city council in Dripping Springs again though I'm not here in that that capacity but when we've had plumbers come from they just go talk with our building officials and they get allowed to move forward if I'm a international code plumber and I want to to plumb in a uniform code area I will not be allowed to do it because I will not meet the standards in the uniform code and so I think that's something that's really important to acknowledge and that's partially why as my counterpart at my Houston chapter reference you have the challenges with the Harvey men the other thing I think it's important to note is that you know I've been working on uh with the ICC on getting more and more cities to switch to the international codes because of those challenges in Austin I've gone through at least four different code Cycles where we actually went line by line amendment by Amendment trying to find a way to make the two codes work and the reality is is they they don't um when you tried to force them that way but the way that you allow plumbers to still Plumb the way that they want to the way that they've been trained is you keep the international code because they will be able to meet the standards and still be accepted the last thing I'll point out is partially why this confusion exists is because the state licenses based on a test on both codes and so my Organization for the last three legislative sessions has been working on the bill to eliminate the uniform code from the testing requirements and so that is a bill that we are working on actively right now and will be refiling we've brought it last two sessions we intend to bring It Forward again and that's something that we're working on that I think think is important to to note I sent the letter in I think we'll be passed around I'm happy to answer any questions that that you all may have but we would urge you to either vote against the the ordinance today or at the very least take the time necessary to really look at the two codes and understand the complications between the two thank you thank you Mark Roberts 140 bigner Road Mandeville Louisiana item number nine on the agenda thank you City Council Members today uh again I'm Mark Rose a senior regional manager of government relations for the International Code Council I'm here today speaking in opposition to agenda item number nine to adopt the uniform plumbing code The Code Council the international co-counsel is an American not-for-profit organization with over 60 000 members Nationwide and those codes are adopted in every state we are dedicated to all aspects of building safety including Plumbing sanitation and resilience we have over 380 State chapters throughout the United States we have 18 chapters here in Texas and 4 200 members here in Texas uh we very much appreciate the work of the city's City staff in reviewing and plans to update the the international codes already adopted by the city including the international plumbing code or IPC it's my understanding that the city of beaumont's team of code professionals met with iatmo and reviewed the iatmos uniform Plumbing mechanical codes after their careful professional review your staff determined that the continued update of the 2021 International plumbing code International Mechanical Code was best for the city and for the local and Regional Plumbing Industry Texas Juris addictions with populations over 5 000 are required to adopt plumbing codes and 97 percent of those choose the international plumbing code and the international residential code for plumbing provisions this equates to the IPC protecting over 15 million citizens in taxes advancing this agenda item today would undo completed review work and require vastly more extensive review work by City staff because of the excuse me because the UPC is a different code and is not correlated with the other family of international codes um that the city is actually adopted for decades a passage of item nine would upend without justification Plumbing guidelines that have been in place for three to four or more decades it will create an undue burden on the plumbing industry and Beaumont staff as both will need training if you make this change plumbing and mechanical professionals would be faced with fewer design choices fewer design choices will drive the cost of construction up supporters of the UPC which is adopted in less than three percent of Texas municipalities attempted a similar in-run in the deliberative process in Laporte Texas last summer fortunately the port city council rebuffed those efforts in part because of opposition by Building Safety officials major retailers including Target Home Depot manufacturers like massive corporation uh associate if I could just close please get please um well vote against uh I'm sorry agenda item nine and I'd be glad to answer any questions and I hope to be able to speak to you during the workshop part of the community meeting thank you Richard Anderson 3069 Deering Lake Drive Loveland Texas item number nine on the agenda oh correction that's Loveland Colorado I just want the record to be right it didn't ask for a state so I just put the city in hello mayor and council members my name is Richard Anderson I am director for icc's plumbing mechanical and fuel gas efforts for Technical Resources or PMG for short I am here today to provide comments in opposition to agenda item nine I have more than 25 years experience as a licensed journeyman plumber Master Plumber licensed plumbing inspector with medical gas and piping endorsement I also hold an a refrigeration license with my combination endorsement so to Mr Lawrence point I was a contractor and I was also into the code enforcement or the building safety side of things serving as a chief Plumbing mechanical irrigation inspector for the City of Amarillo residential inspection supervisor with the city of Austin division manager over all of inspections commercial and residential for the City of Austin Deputy building official City of Amarillo and my last step with local government was Chief Building official with the city of Fort Collins my vast years of experience has afforded me the knowledge to understand things from both sides the contractor side and the compliance side having codes that correlate together are Paramount for Success now there have been some false and misleading statements made in reference to the international plumbing code to begin it is false that the international plumbing code is not a prescriptive code there are thousands of prescriptive requirements housed within this code in order for me to properly address those claims the proponent of the other code would have to point out very specific sections that are non-prescriptive in this code and I could handle that in a technical hearing I would not want to bore this council with getting down into the weeds of technical requirements all right next is the international plumbing code is the only plumbing code referenced in the FEMA resilient building code document means automatic approval for FEMA when you use our code otherwise you have to have an engineer analysis at the cost of this jurisdiction to prove five specific criteria within any other adopted code besides the ones listed here yes the IPC is the only plumbing code recognized by the Texas Department of Licensing regulations rules for plumbing codes and then this is the Texas administrative code any of you can search it the other thing I want to mention about FEMA is that we are in receipt of a document from FEMA to our utmost Hugo Aguilera stating that their codes were not part of the 2022 revisions of the document I just hold it up so in closing there are several other comments I would like to take the time to address in the proper form ICC requests the same opportunity that I Admiral had to receive and present there should be a fair and impartial opportunity for both organizations to prevent on their respective codes thank you for having me today and I am available for questions and anything during the work session thank you foreign 8596 Rice Drive Lumberton Texas item number nine on the agenda well good afternoon again Council mayor and staff you know what when I played baseball I used to like bat and fourth because there's a lot of people on base and got the chance to knock them in Let's uh let's reboot some of the things that y'all just heard these people threw it out there yeah yeah we got Home Depot on our team we got loads on our team a lot of you remember this because we all have relationships we talk a lot when we fought for our Texas State Plumbing Board not so long ago these are the people that weren't there with me those are the people that testified against us when you all City of Beaumont sent your inspector to be there with us this is the same conversation we're having then let's not pretend that this is new either I worked with Becky Ames I worked with Kyle the city manager before you Mr Williams worked with Chris Boone worked with Boyd we've had these meetings everybody's on board this is the first time I've ever had anybody throw the brakes on this personally I'd love to see this get done for the reasons that Rick lord gave you I'm an installer you want to talk about somebody as a plumber I'm best plumber in this room probably best plumber you know and I could say that I could say that because my skills are still on they'll splay today I should be building a school right now but I'm here trying to get our friends to remember who their friends are they've had the same four years that I've had to come up here and tell you about this and meet with y'all why drag this out any further this is why things are hard for us working type we can't take off work all the time to come up here and fight for what's right we try to man that gets expensive it really gets expensive this is what the installers want this is what the citizens want if you get any plumber and you ask them hey what kind of plumbing code do you like they're all UPC they're all of them now if you ask the builders to some people who are against having plumbing license and just want to throw up a whole lot of houses and use anybody to do it yeah they don't want a stringent plumbing code they didn't want licensing to get in the way and what's crazy about it and don't take this the wrong way I'm for everybody getting a fair Shake in this but the problem we can't move on and do the job that we need to do is because this open border that everybody wants to bring up and talk about that's the people they use to build those apartments and those big old home areas where they build thousands thousands of homes because it takes a long time to train somebody to do plumbing and to train them to do it right it takes a commitment do you know I was one of 30 people to pass my apprenticeship and plumbing and I wasn't the one that everybody picked either because it's a five-year process where you have to go and you have to say you have to not just work a 40 hour a week job but you got to go to school on the weekends to learn this stuff another thing they said is well you know what I'm gonna respect y'all's time I think I've said enough about this four years worth at least right I trust y'all make the right decision thank y'all very much for your time thank you please refrain John Mata 16303 Amber Brown Drive hawkeley Texas item number nine on the agenda thank you mayor council appreciate you giving us the time here John Mata senior director of field services for the International Association of plumbing and mechanical officials like we said uh we were here you heard our presentation we know what the plumbing industry wants some of the counts of people last week alluded that you know the contractors of the industry had it I understand I have my counterparts here addressing the home builder issue with the international residential code the builders code that is not affected here nothing residentially is affected here it doesn't replace this code we're merely saying the uniform plumbing code uniform Mechanical Code you can have for commercial application but we do have Provisions that address residential you had a plumber last week who came here uh been here a number of years in the Beaumont area told you his business is 100 residential what is he Plum to and even though the city has adopted the international plumbing code he still plunged to the uniform plumbing and he still gets his his permits passed his jobs passed so why not adopt it why put it off this is something that's been going on since 2018. now I also heard that the city of Houston is moving away from the uniform plumbing and code and Mechanical Code that have been adopted there since 1985. this is misinformation I was part of that same meeting along with some of the other colleagues here in the room and yeah they haven't made a decision on the codes but I can tell you this it's the same process that's been going on for years and years in City of Houston and for years and years they continue to adopt the uniform plumbing and uniform Mechanical Code now as far as Austin in filing a bill yes there's right there's been a bill filed the last two sessions to do away with iatman the uniform plumbing code because of special interest groups that are in this state that want to make not cause the fact that they're not worried about protecting the citizens of Beaumont they're more likely worried about protecting their pockets and that's fine but we worry about the protecting the health and safety of the nation and the citizens of Beaumont and that's what we should be here concentrating on now those two bills failed we defeated them with the help of industry and stakeholders from all over the state and just like Mr Pavlich alluded when you go down and you start looking at the end the plumbing and mechanical industry and you ask them what codes do they want they'll tell you every single time it's the uniform code it's uniform set of codes unfortunately their boss is usually in the plumbing departments in the cities usually somebody that doesn't agree with him so he's kind of a minority in that for a better sake but I'll close by saying that I know that they said that 97 of the jurisdictions are under the international Plumb code only three percent make up the uniform that three percent constitutes to roughly about 6.5 million people and I believe they said they were on 15 million so I thank you for your time and I'll be here to answer any questions or during the work session during item agenda number nine thank you thank you that's all I have mayor thank you at this time I will call for a motion for approval of the consent agenda may I have a motion please move to approve second I have a motion and a second on the floor is there any discussion all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed the motion carries may I have the reading of item number one please Mr city manager yes mayor council can set a request for a specific use permit to allow the expansion of a church and a GC md2 General commercial multiple family two District located at 5250 Helbig Road at a joint public hearing held on January 23 2023 the Planning Commission recommended 6-0 to approve the request for the sup uh for the church with the following conditions one construction plans must meet all requirements by water utilities for any water and Senators sewer improvements including any requirements of the city's backflow pre-treatment and or fog program two construction plans shall be in compliance with Section 28.04.006 landscaping and screening requirements and three construction plans must meet all building code requirements and with the recommendation approval of the ordinance thank you you've heard the reading of item number one may I have a motion please so move for approval second have a motion and a second on the floor is there any discussion council member Samuel I have a question yes uh in this when it states uh they have to meet the requirement I was a little uh confused with the language in in the uh staff report about the parking lot signs so they will have to make sure they adhere to the requirements of the code on the parking lot size yes sir so it's part of the ordinance already that you have to have a certain number of parking spaces for the size of the facility as well as the number of pews and so they'll they'll do that calculation so it's already in the ordinance but we want to restate it in this approval so that so that the applicant's clear thank you any other comments know the comments all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed the motion carries we have the reading of item number two please yes Madam mayor council consider a request to revoke pz 2021-321 a specific use permit to allow an automotive automotive shop in a NC neighborhood commercial District located at 1109 harriott Street and in in October 2021 city council approved an sup to allowance automotive shop at this address subject to the following conditions uh maximum or 11 vehicles to be on the property at any given time including customer employee parking and all repair must be conducted inside the shop and two well recommended for approval thank you you've heard the reading of item number two may I have a motion please move to approve may I have a second I have a motion and a second on the floor is there any discussion councilmember Turner uh to staff I noticed it says one of the first conditions was maximum of 11 vehicles to be on the property at any given time including customers and employees because somebody kind of explain to me how did we observe that to make sure they were not in compliance right so we continued to get complaints from Neighbors about there being too many uh Vehicles stored at this property again the council had approved this specific use permit back in February of 2022 but with the condition that there'd be no more than 11. again we continue we continue to get complaints that there were more than 11 even in the run-up to this revocation of the sup there continued to be more than 11 so that's why we're requesting the revocation okay so based upon the compliance we physically went out there and made the observation it was exceeding in living yes sir so planner and inspector went out to confirm that there were more than 11. okay thank you thank you mayor Pro Tim durian council member I myself passed by there uh at least once twice a month most time they have over 20 Vehicles there in that sense we came and said 11 and and they're uh they work on them outside they don't work on them inside the building it's almost like a storage area and we've given them plenty of chances and we'd explain to them uh Chris Mr Boone and code enforcement and they basically just kind of ignored it and said they was going to do what they want to do thank you councilmember Samuel yes I just also like to kind of echo that many times we hear that Beaumont is not business friendly and there are concerns about our code enforcement but this I've been by there several times and each time I go by there I see on the violations and this is something the neighbors don't want and because of that I'm not real fancy about revoking or taking someone's privilege away to do business but this is one that they've continually ignored and sometimes it has to be done and that's what I feel at this time thank you one other thing is it's a safety hazard that corner with all those cars parked there when you pull up on Park Street to Harriet you can't see if anything's coming down Harriet or not because all those cars that's parked there it's like a blind spot and so it becomes a safety hazard okay no other comments all in favor please signify by saying aye aye any opposed the motion carry may I have the reading of item number three please this mayor consider Council considering ordinance amending the fiscal year 2023 budget this is for the general liability fund it's an internal service fund that captures all costs related to lawsuit settlements and claims against the city and basically we're asking for an amendment the original budget was 914 200 with the 500 000 per post Amendment making the amended budget one million four fourteen two hundred thank you you've heard the reading of item number two may I have a motion please so move for approval is there a second second there's a motion and a second on the floor is there any discussion all in favor of approving item number three please signify by saying I uh any opposed the motion carry may I have the reading of item number four please Council consider an ordinance authorizing the participation and rate proceedings in 2023. on July 1st 2022 Entergy Inc found this statement of intent to increase rates with each City that retains exclusive jurisdiction over elected rates and services in their area this proposal would increase rates in this area in an estimated amount of 131.4 million and annually with the result of about 13.50 increase for the average residential customer using 1 000 kilowatts per per month uh at the time the council voted to deny the rate increase in a lot of student Committee of cities to research and assess proper rates where reasonable and should be accepted so the commit is reached in agreement with the ETI the parties in agreement in principle authorized 54 million 4.6 increase uh the committed efforts contribute significantly to reducing the initial proposal about 58.9 percent and it's a recommendation of approval of the ordinance thank you you've heard the reading of item number four may I have a motion please don't move for approval is there a second there's a motion and a second on the floor is there any discussion mayor Pro temdoria okay let's see on their first request when they uh would increase it to 131 million annually and it would uh the monthly increase would be 13.50 for the average resident what's the monthly increase gonna be on at this new 54 million well per for average residents what would that monthly increase be less than [Laughter] less than three are giving us a calculated amount yet but um it did reduce it so instead of it being like an increase of 13.1 percent it'll be 4.6 per 1000 kilowatt use so so it should be maybe a quarter of that maybe yes sir it should be about five and a half based on the ratio 11 54. love a good engineer foreign so what what would happen if we would deny this well it's a negotiated rate so if it didn't deny if you didn't want to agree to it we can go back and request something different um I can tell you that that most likely wouldn't happen I think that this is probably the best deal that's going to be made um as a part of our steering committees that are part of it they all kind of have to buy into it as well and so if one or more of the Cities decide to kind of pull out then we would have to pull out on our own if that makes sense um so this is not just Beaumont this is no there's several cities that participate in our um the city steering committee so there are several cities and like I said if the City of Beaumont decided not to accept the settlement then of course we'd have to pull out on our own and continue down a different path thank you councilmember Turner and then councilmember Phil Shaw City attorney can you kind of explain to the citizens the difference between us doing our own Works versus other cities similar kind of Houston having the different options can you explain to them why do we do this so the City of Beaumont regulates its own energy cities like Houston allow what's called free market so individuals get to kind of come in individuals meaning uh different companies get to come in and set their own rates whereas in the City of Beaumont we set the rate and that is the rate and so in cities like Houston where you have a free market customers have an opportunity to search or switch between companies um in the City of Beaumont we do the research and we do the search it's also why we didn't have any Interruption during the winter storm okay just a piggyback on that like you said the benefit is when you have a city like Houston if all those companies decided to go up it would be nothing the city can do to pretty much stop it correct correct but with us because we regulate our own rates we can control similarly what we're doing today how high we'll go like originally we were at what 13 y'all got it down to 4.6 percent so like you said a quarter of the negotiation essentially in order for energy to raise their rates in our city they have to request it we obviously have a chance to review or deny it in which case we do we you know we deny and then negotiate lower rates on behalf of the citizens okay and lastly uh if it's a way like we're like Roi return on investment but you know can you kind of explain the citizens we get a lot of calls about lights out Etc I know sometimes I bother you about it you don't work for energy but you are helpful and you point them in the right their way right direction because you can explain to them how do they report that yeah yes you can report an out street light either by calling Entergy you can also go through the Entergy app or the website and report it directly to them or you can call 311 and we'll pass it along to Entergy but Entergy does maintain all of those street lights on the city's behalf thank you councilmember felshire then mayor Pro 10. well actually I'm good but I will say this each time that this has come before the council I have found this Council to be hesitant no one wants to to to vote on this I mean we we hate to see an increase each and every time it comes before us but we understand that with inflation that's the cost of doing business but I was just wondering if the staff or maybe somebody on council could remember what was the last rate increase that we had Todd do you remember the percentage yeah I wouldn't expect you to but I thought maybe somebody would have that information but thank you mayor that's some information we could uh report back next council meeting mayor Pro tem duria um just to respond to something that Barton uh AJ was speaking about as far as replacing those light bulbs they they're um they're pretty fast about it I've caught this week I've spoken to Barton last week about some lights that were out in Ward four and they've uh all been already been replaced so they did pretty quick when they go out if you call into 3-1-1 and then we'll call it and then we'll call it in to Entergy and they they're pretty fast about going out and replacing them or even installing new ones that are not within the city ordinance as far as how far apart the light should be they're pretty fast about that also thank you councilmember Gibbs I just want to challenge energy to follow Exxon mobil's especially since they're getting a rate increase any other comments all in favor of a proven item number four please signify by saying I uh any opposed the motion carry may have the reading of item number five please Council consider a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute change order number two to the contract with King Solutions Services Inc of Houston for the city-wide pipe bursting contract phase one project uh proposed change order number two in the amount of 438 800 825 dollars and if approved the new contract amount will be four million 109 525 and this funding sources the American Rescue fund uh and recommendation for approval thank you you've heard the reading of item number five may I have a motion please I have to approve I have a motion on the floor may I have a second second have a motion and a second on the floor is there any discussion all in favor of approving item number five please signify by saying aye aye any opposed the motion carries may I have the reading of item number six please yes Council can set a resolution approving the renewal of an annual maintenance agreement with Azteca Systems LLC of Sandy Utah for use by several City departments City Works software is used by the city multiple departments we're managing and maintain work orders permits inventory and cases related to permitting code enforcement environmental health Etc so basically we're asking for renewal of the maintenance agreement which will be funded out of jail fund and water fund and staff is recommended approval of the resolution thank you Mr city manager you've heard the reading of item number six may I have a motion please I have a motion on the floor is there a second second there's a motion and a second on the floor is there any discussion no discussion all in favor of a proven item number six please signify by saying aye any opposed the motion carries may have the reading of item number seven please Council consider a resolution approving a contract to PM construction and Rehab LLC of Pasadena for the rehabilitation of storm sewer lines at 2145 Chevy Chase and 6365 Daisy Street Cinco was formed on the Storm sewer line in the in the backyards of these addresses uh the Public Works engineering staff recommends award in the contract to PM Construction in the amount of 102 840 a total of one week will be allocated for completion of this repair and work and this to be funded out of capital program and Stafford's recommended approval thank you you've heard the reading of item number seven may I have a motion please move to approve the resolution I have a motion on the force their second second there's a motion and a second on the floor is there any discussion all in favor of a proven item number seven please signify by saying I any opposed the motion carries Mr city manager will you please take us into the work session please yes mayor council consider resolution authorizing the city manager to send a letter supporting a maximum rate increase for the Southeast Texas groundwater Conservation District this District consists mostly in Jasper Newton heart and Tyler counties however we have some welds in Hardin County that there's impacts so the district is asking the City of Beaumont to support the district and to raise their maximum fee by by providing a lead of support and the districts need to address the session upcoming legislative sessions requesting a response by February 17 2023 I think we have a Mr Jack Martin John John Martin John Martin the general manager of Southeast Texas groundwater Conservation District is here to present uh to Council on on their behalf thank you please come forward sir council members I appreciate your time you guys are kind of in a unique position whereas you're not in the ground you're not in our groundwater Conservation District but as the city manager noted that you have three large Wells that are in Hardin County that are in our groundwater district and you are the second largest uh producer with it for our district and I'm here today to ask for your support um quickly I'm going to go through a few things just so you have some background on what we are what we do um and it's really hard I I normally give presentations like this that last about an hour hour and a half to get the basics in and I want to try and dram this in in about 10 minutes um please ask questions at any time I'll be more than happy but groundwater conservation districts came about in 1951 was the first time one was created prior to that with regards to groundwater management what the what what uh the way it was done was by the rule of capture it was a uh came out of the uh state supreme court decision that uh says if if you drill a water well and you're putting that water to good use you can pump as much water as you want if you drain your neighbor's Wells if you drain the whole County as long as you're putting that water to good use they can't hold you responsible for those for their water allow for their Wells being damaged um it's really bizarre there are very few instances where you can knowingly damage somebody's property and not be held liable for it but that was through the Texas Supreme Court in the 1940s the state considered taking over groundwater just like they managed surface water and I believe it was four or five consecutive sessions they tried to get that passed but Texas they loved their property rights and it failed every single time but in the late 40s they came to a compromise and what it was is they created the groundwater District act and basically they laid out an umbrella of rules and regulations that said if if the folks locally want to manage their groundwater resources they can under these uh these rules and regulations create a district then manage that resource they have to have a management plan rules and regulations put in place and they go from there um in 1951 the first groundwater Conservation District was created up in the high plains up in the Panhandle called the high plains groundwater Conservation District and they were very unique and one of the sponsors to try and get the state to Take Over Control because they they are part of what is the Ogallala Aquifer the Ogallala aquifers one of the largest aquifers in the world it stretches out into six other states the issue that Texas has with it is it gets so little recharge relative to the amount of water that they pull out up there for agriculture that it's essentially mining so the creation of groundwater conservation districts was very beneficial the most important aspects of that is it's stakeholder driven my district is the Southeast Texas groundwater Conservation District my board president is back there his name is Roger fossil we the district's been in existence since 2003 the rules and regulations are put together by the stakeholders we've got 13 board members three representatives from each of the four counties and one board president that has appointed uh upon agreement from all four Commissioners courts these guys have a wide array of backgrounds and they steer what is the rules and regulations for our district without a groundwater Conservation District the rule of capture prevails and if somebody wanted to if we weren't in existence somebody can come by the property right next door to one of your wells put a similar size well in it pump as much water as they wanted to out of it as long as they were putting that water to good use they can drain your wells or impact your your wells significantly and the city would have no recourse so having a groundwater Conservation District to protect your wells is very important this slide up here hopefully you guys got a printout of everything shows all the groundwater districts in the state our little four counties there to East Texas in that green that green patch uh it's kind of a sleeper um we are actually the 11th largest groundwater District in the state if you take into consideration the two subsidence districts and the Edwards Aquifer Authority this page here is kind of more drama than anything when groundwater is not managed properly subsidence can occur especially in the Gulf Coast aquifer we share the same this same aquifer with the Houston area it actually stretches from from Florida down to Mexico and it is prone to subsidence subsidence is when too much water comes out of the ground the Clays and the soils and everything Compact and the ground sinks this was a neighborhood a development in the Baytown area called the Brownwood subdivision it was began in the 1940s but by the late 70s it was completely abandoned because the ground literally dropped over uh nine feet I believe it was and the really dramatic part about it was is between 1960 and 1975 it dropped four feet all the homes that were in there none of them were on stilts at the time so the the green the picture you see with all the green there it is now actually a bird sanctuary now we're asking you to help us in a way that can financially impact the city and um I figure we should kind of walk through a few things before we actually ask you of that um groundwater conservation districts are funded in one of two ways property taxes which is the vast majority of them about 65 to 70 percent of groundwater districts get property taxes the other are by production fees and most of those base that production fee on every thousand gallons of water pumped our district has been increa in existence since 2003 and our production fee has been .007 cents per thousand gallons for 19 years only for the first time late last year did we increase our fee and that was only by three one hundredths of a cent the reasons we finally increased uh was essentially two-fold we've been managing this the 11th largest District now for just about 20 years with one employee the boards has determined that it is time to get me a second second person to give me a hand managing the district in addition to that over the last 20 years as we all have in fact somebody mentioned it here earlier costs just keep going up and if you see that little graph there our production feeds have actually gone down a little bit so we need to keep up with costs we need to be able to afford that second employee and because of that increase that we had to pay for that second employee we are now at one full sense when our district was created our enacting legislation and the subsequent uh Special Districts code codification of our district has a cap of one cent in it if we wanted to increase our fee a millionth of a cent per thousand gallons right now we couldn't do it we have to ask the legislature to do so so if we lose any production from our larger users we have no way to uh recoup those lost revenues so our district is has two main producers at parbi between 65 and 75 percent of our pumpage fees our production fees you guys being the second largest producer the evildale paper mill being the largest and anytime you guys have fluctuations and especially the paper mill our budget has to deal with issues and a good example of how it can be affected pretty radically is when hurricane Harvey came through your three well sites were inundated and were essentially down for three years which affected Us in the neighborhood of 15 of our revenue and we have we have a little bit of a reserve so we didn't need to come to you come to anybody and raise our fee at that time but now since we're at the maximum one cent if we need to raise it we have to have a permission essentially from the legislature first so keep in mind we're asking for an increase from one cent to seven cents as a maximum cap we're at one cent right now we went 19 years before we had any increase at all and it was .003 cents per thousand gallons we're not asking for anybody to approve and increase anytime soon and I don't suspect we will have an increase anytime soon we're here to ask you for to support us uh and join the other folks who have provided their support To Us by putting something on paper for so when we do take this and then Endeavor over to Senator Nichols office we can show them that uh we have support from not only the Commissioners courts in the area but our major users as well and can we go back one slide I kind of benefits to the City of Beaumont local stakeholder that's important when it's when something is driven by the state you have to go over to Austin we're up in Jasper anytime there's an issue if you guys if we're doing something you disagree with need a new well there's some sort of issue you hear about something that's going on over there we're in Jasper I can come to you either way you have local control you got 13 Representatives they will all be more than happy to work with you and without a groundwater District in place managing properly the state does actually have the ability to come in and create what is called a pigma a priority groundwater management area and when the state creates those you have very little flexibility on how they manage uh the groundwater when our district was created we issued groundwater Pro issued operating permits your three wells in southern half of of Hardin County are permitted for just under 17 000 acre feet of water you guys are in a unique position where you have I believe it's about 49 or 50 000 acre feet of your own uh by way of surface water this is a significant addition to that so having that volume permitted I believe to be a an extreme benefit also as mentioned earlier the sites that those Wells on are essentially protected with the groundwater District in place for another large well decided they wanted to be put in over there your guys having an existing well in place already they would have to come to us requesting a permit it would have to have a hydrogeologic study along with it which addresses all the impacts and we would know what that new well might do to yours and move forward from that point additionally even if the city weren't even to use a single drop of the water they have in those three Wells most of the surface water providers have a fee just to reserve water a surface water I'm not sure if you guys do Reserve any surface water okay if you do you're paying a quarter of the actual fee so right now eight and a quarter eight and a quarter cents per thousand gallons for the lnva just to have it sitting there if you wanted to use that water that rate goes up to 33 cents so having that 17 000 or nearly 17 000 acre feet and your back pocket is extremely beneficial and lastly again we're kind of hoping we can get your support we've got all four County Commissioners courts we got the paper mill I've got an email this morning from one of our other uh from the second largest uh producer in Tyler County the Tyler County sud will be supporting us as well and the last two slides are just kind of information to show you that our groundwater District isn't asking for anything that's too out of line I mentioned that most groundwater conservation districts are property tax base these are the majority of the ones that charge production fees these are actual fees that groundwater conservation districts are producing right now are charging right now as you can see we're far over on the right I know of no other District charging less than us and that very last slide on some of the districts I was able to find what their legislative caps were and as you can see us again on the end we have a one cent fee right now and a one set cap and that's all I have for you now but more than anything please take away from this is we're not asking for a fee increase we went almost 20 years without one we're asking for the ability to do so in the future should one of our larger users significantly reduce their production or cease all together so we can replace those revenues thank you councilmember Neal council member so you claim you're not increasing the price now which is fine but in the event that you need to increase do you have to come back before this Council for that no we we would have each year our board sets uh kind of set the the fee rate at a board meeting up in Jasper we have a monthly board meeting for the Southeast Texas groundwater District we would not but if you would like to we could make sure you get our agendas every every month and maybe more than more than happy to keep you in the loop maybe this is a question for Mr simoneau but how does their rate tie back into our water bill it's an operational cost currently we pay the one cent fee plus half a cent because we're outside of their County region so it's an export fee so if we run low our average daily demand is in the left hand column and what we would pay if we ran every single day of the year currently is forty six thousand seven hundred five dollars and ninety nine cents so if they increase to the max that we're giving them permission to do what would that do to our water rates even increasing to the max would not nudge it that much it'd be 233 000 um would be the Max cost 233 529. for a simple calculation that I was using for our commissioner's Court's visits on average household using 5 000 gallons of water an increase of six cents is literally 30 cents per thousand or 30 cents per home per month and I know that's an oversimplification yeah and in our case it his calculation doesn't apply quite as much because we pump out of lobe but we also pump out of pine so this rate is actually just it's brought into the system along with everything it costs us to treat the water in general so the cost per household is distributed across the system as a whole not just a small group that only uses lobe because it all Blends together but back to answering the original question so they increased to the max that they're requesting that would not affect us to the point that we had to increase water rates I don't think so this is not this is not really at the current rate of 46 000 it's one of our smaller costs in terms of operational costs in the system and as you could see from his chart if we would somehow magically move over to a West End water treatment plant and use lnva as a source we would be paying 33 cents per thousand gallons so even even if they did raise to seven cents a gallon comparatively speaking it's a bargain well thank you councilmember felchild and councilman return thank you for coming today we appreciate the information I have to be honest with you up until now uh dealing with this issue I really wasn't aware that you existed uh this is a new a new item for me so it's good to be informed but I'm not really concerned about the end game here the amount of money that we're talking about uh and I understand you have an increase in 19 years so it's not like you've been doing this uh annually but just curious typically where there's an increase in anything you try to go in increments why jump from one to seven that hard of a job why wouldn't you do it from one to three then one to six and I'm assuming there's a reason for that and I was just curious what that reason was we're not jumping our feet what we're doing is jumping the cap in our legislation so right and I just I apologize for interrupting the other point that I did here is that you do not anticipate uh increasing that and I understand that but you've raised the ceiling so it you do have the the potential or the freedom to do that but why would you raise that that ceiling so high considering that you don't anticipate ever doing that and it's been an increase since 19 years why would you not do it in smaller increments the the rubber paper mill completely closing if the paper mill the paper mill is not 60 70 years so you're taking that to worst case scenario absolutely and do you have a rumor that we don't have no none whatsoever although they have shut down one line since the district has been it since the district was created and just before covid um they were going to shut down another line I believe it was corrugated cardboard and I'm not sure the exact reasoning behind it but they did not end up shutting that line down but anytime they shut a you know essentially that would have been a third of their production there um that that would have impacted us again it's an old facility and we're just have to plan out because if they were to close but as what's the last day to file a bill is March 10th so if they were to shut down on March 11th we would possibly have to make do with a 65 to 70 percent loss in our revenue for as much as two and a half years and that's assuming the legislature you know didn't have had enough time to approve us okay thank you thank you councilman returner uh first of all thank you for making your presentation I noticed in your presentation I seen counties that were surrounding counties but I didn't see Jefferson County uh where are you at as far as Jefferson County the county Beaumont actually resides in Jefferson County does not have a groundwater Conservation District and that's such something to clarify they're what we call unprotected so if your three Wells were actually just moved south of my a few miles they would have no protection they wouldn't have a permit that says you that that guarantee I shouldn't say guarantees that says you've got set aside 17 000 acre feet of water somebody could buy the property right next door and start pumping water to impact yours or some you know industrial facility could come in you would have no protections okay thank you and to clarify that is like these wheels basically what we do with you guys they're a good backup agent if we ever run into a situation where we lose water or something to that magnitude in Beaumont correct at a day but you guys before before Harvey um you were using them to the tune of a probably what about 12 to 13 000 acre feet a year um during the 2010 through 12 drought you are actually using them near their maximum capabilities I want to say when I was looking at numbers that you were probably closer to 16 000 acre feet on those three Wells so um you know they they can be left and used as backup or you know like I said you guys have been using them and as I understand it the the idea is to go ahead and continue using them So yeah thank you I think it's important that people understand the need and the why so thank you thank you sir I'll answer councilman Neil's earlier question in terms of a rate increase judging by the numbers I was just given a rate increase even if they increased it to the max rate it'd probably take one-fourth of one percent of a rate increase to cover this extra cost so it's it's fairly minimal thank you thank you so very much for all of the information we appreciate you coming and explaining to us the importance of what you do thank you everybody thank you Mr city manager um okay I have the reading of item number eight please yes Council can set a resolution authorizing the city manager to send a letter supporting a maximum rate increase for the Southeast Texas groundwater Conservation District thank you you've heard the reading of item number eight may I have a motion please move to approve is there a second second there's a motion and a second on the floor is there any other discussion no other discussion all in favor please signify by cni aye any opposed the item carries Mr city manager will you take us into our second work session please yes mayor review and discuss the adoption of the 2021 uniform plumbing code during our last uh city council meeting we had a presentation on the uniform plumbing code and during that meeting there was a request to provide information more information from those on the other side of this issue and also get information from staff and what staff wanted to feel about it so we're providing that work session to provide that feedback input from staff and any information you might request from the opposite side which you've heard a lot of it today so we're going to have Mr Chris boom uh present this item thank you mayor and Council as you can probably see from our opening remarks there are some strong feelings on on both sides of this issue as to whether or not to adopt the international code council's International plumbing code or the IAT most and the uniform plumbing code you may have received yesterday a letter from ICC which referred to their arguments they also had included I guess 10 or 11 or 12 different letters of support of the ICC and this issue occur this discussion the same discussion we're having today over in LaPorte and I bring that up just to say that it looks like we're in the uh we're in the eye of that storm now in terms of trying to decide how to move forward I'm passing out there some that's the recommendation from our professional staff and you can see that from their perspective they would prefer that we stay with the international family of codes and you can see there are three points on there again you may receive some information from iatmo you may have received some information from ICC and if you if you looked at that and we can certainly share that information with you there's just a lot of arguments for and a lot of against you can see that each group is arguing the other is points and again I feel like we're kind of in the middle so we're trying to really boil it down to uh the bear argument for um why the why the staff would like to remain with the International Code Council um as we have been under that family of codes for the last 20 years having said that I know we had a presentation for Mr Mata last week we obviously had some comments made today and I suspect we'll have some more discussion today but you know it's on the agenda for the council to move forward with the UPC if they so choose but also a work session to further discuss this and hopefully give staff the administration some direction on how to move forward and then finally you'll see on that memo we just distributed at the bottom there's a bit of a flow chart and that's that's how we traditionally have done our code adoptions so every several years we will take not the latest edition of a code but um we'll usually let the latest addition kind of percolate through other jurisdictions because we don't want to rush out and adopt a code and then find out that there are issues with it so you can see at the bottom what we typically do is we will take the latest code review it we'll review it with our legal staff and then we will identify any local exceptions that we need to add to it so in you know if there's some provision for excessive snowfall or some provision for something that you know might be more relevant to our soils you know we'll have some local exceptions We'll add those to the proposed adoption and then what we do is we roll that discussion out to you can see here the association of general contractors homebuilders Association and then you know proposes technical changes to the trades so in the example the plumbers will identify significant changes from the prior adoption but we want to present that to these groups both to inform them but also to get feedback and input before we go to a city council Works Workshop to discuss and make our recommendation and then of course at a meeting following that we would bring back the the adoption of the final code again that's the way we've we've done it typically for the last 20 years but again this year is a little bit different because of as you can see we've we've we've got we've got a lot of interested parties in this focusing on on the City of Beaumont right now so if you have and again as you can see in this member we didn't touch on a lot of the arguments made by each side those Representatives can probably add additional information to that but on the technical basis we do have our professional staff we have Boyd Meyer our is our building official as well as Bo Hansen our Deputy building official and they can certainly uh answer on the more technical technical side of things so anyway I just want to provide all the information as we move forward in this discussion and my recommendation would be it may be up to you in the council course but maybe to bring back the representatives from each group to answer any questions but thank you council member Samuel um when did we first begin to review this as I recall it has been several years we have been so we were looking at the the latest adoption of the international codes within the last 18 months the plan was to move forward this time last year but we got sidetracked with some other things and I got busy with some other things and so we are now the goal was to now this spring move forward with this adoption process spelled out on the memorandum so this is not fresh we started about two years ago it was discussed we've been looking at the new codes um we've been we've been in meetings with iatmo and ICC discussing this uh you know really for the last 18 months okay and with that um did is there a cost of difference what would it cost the city if they if we were to change the direct cost to the city would not be that significant we will have to buy new code books we would have to train our inspectors to make sure they're certified we don't have that an idea at this point what that cost would be um no sir but we can provide that okay now because this has come up before and uh we've talked about it before I I tried to get an understanding now Texas is one of those that allows both the UPC and IPC yes and some states uh use this one many states they go by IPC yes sir and it's I it's something like 37 of the states use one code international code and then the remaining States uh you use UPC yes so let me look real quick yeah at the state level of the 50 states 37 have adopted the ICC 13 have adopted the UPC okay and the remaining use a little bit of both there are some that use both um this like I said this was discussed several several months ago and and talking with individuals I've not heard anything uh objective everything that I've heard well most that I've heard thus far has been subjective information or criteria as to why one person why one area chooses IPC to follow the IPC and the other the UPC I've not heard anything uh substantial substantive that I can make a decision on um and here we are now again faced with making a decision and I'm not certain um what the benefit would be to remaining with IBC or what would be the benefit to use uh the up UPC so I'm hoping that there can be some clarity brought to me as we discuss this something substantive I don't want to get into the politics of this I don't want to get into all of that uh who feels it's best I'd like to know some facts some substantive facts that can give me something to make my decision on so that's what I'd like to hear right and again just real quick so like you've heard from one side that FEMA doesn't recognize this code for recovery and then you've heard from the other side that yes they do and here's the and some of that we have not we the staff have not had the ability to kind of jump into some of that back and forth and so again kind of coming out of this it may be that additional time is required so that we can get you those answers the the the kind of the wise I I don't mean to interrupt but I do need to pause when you say additional time I I don't want just some something date out there I need to know how much time so in a normal adoption process it takes us three to four months given the obviously given the concern and interest in this you know I think staff we can we're committed to try to get back with Council within 30 days in other words try to do that Outreach and discussion with the trade groups with the AGC with the home builders and have that conversation and get back to council within 30 days Mr motto I'm going to ask you excuse me because I want to address this because I need to address it in stages as it comes up you made a statement that um it would be a cause for books and I Believe on last week Mr Mata said that they would provide the books Mr Marta could you please come and address that statement thank you mayor council John Mata hiatmo yes we City of Beaumont were to adopt the 2021 uniform plumbing and mechanical codes we're prepared to offer the books at no charge to the City of Beaumont and the training needed to provide and also if I may that's substantial being five books to one that's what that's what you're utilizing now for your plumbing and mechanical installations five books where we have one book and I have them with me one Plumbing one mechanical all Provisions in one book and yeah we're prepared to provide that to the city along with the training yes to your code abortion departments and provide the books actually I believe uh last year if I'm not mistaken we've given the books to Mr Meyer and Mr Hansen and a couple of his inspectors but we're prepared to do it again we met last April what kind of books uh the plumbing the uniform plumbing and the uniform mechanical yep so then therefore it would not be a cost to the city no with you providing the training and no no whatsoever no ma'am okay thank you so very much Miss uh council member Getz I'm not I am not so much concerned about the cost of the books I'm concerned about the time which time is invaluable I'm concerned about the time that it would take for our staff to learn the new codes as well as all the plumbers out there but I want to go back to something that you said Mr Boone and that is that we've been dealing with with this for 18 months or so when you say we are you talking about City administrative staff or you talk about us as a council right to be clear City administrative staff okay because I appreciate you clarifying that because I can tell you the last the first stop I heard about this was last week and you know so we as a council have not been dealing with this for months and months or yeah almost two years and I think that it is been rumored that we have and it's not us as a council it's it's staff and going to this flow chart that you provided us um we're being asked about on this today but you haven't gone through the steps of this flow chart if I understand you correctly you ordinarily would reach out to the association of general contractors the Home Builders Association and then technical changes to trades but you haven't had that done yet is that right correct and so you're advocating if I understand you correctly additional time which you say maybe could be done in as little as 30 days but you would like to have additional time so that you can go through the steps of this flow chart as the ordinary customary process is with your department is that correct yes thank you councilmember Neal and council member felshire thank you mayor the uh you know I kind of have a different um role in this discussion probably more so than the rest of you guys on Council there was six organizations that came up and talked today the AGC which on the past president of the ABC which my company is a member of plumber's local 68 which is the union Plumbing group around here that my company is a member of the ICC which we are currently using the IPC which we're currently using in the UPC which we're all friends with John the uh I say all this to say you know the UPC I don't want to be misunderstood is not a bad code and I don't think anybody in this room is saying is it's a bad code with that being said we've heard from both sides today that are telling us that Houston is in the process of going step by step through both codes to kind of line this thing out and tell us to present or tell them the pros and cons of of both sides which I don't think anybody in this room is going to give you the pros and cons of both sides and so with those guys spending the time and money to do that and us not being any rush to get this thing done I would like to Second Mike our councilmember gets his request and and delay this until after those facts are put on the table council member guess the next for a delay I did not officially ask that it be tabled but I will uh for the reasons that I stated but we're in the process of the workshop though yeah to get information yeah yeah when we get to that point I will okay I got some questions yeah and I'm Chris um I may have misunderstood but I but I do believe you answered my question and that is you can't answer it and that is uh in regards to FEMA I I thought I understood that FEMA is not in favor of the UPC now considering Who We Are in this area prone to hurricanes and floods for me that's a huge issue that we have to consider that but did I understand you correctly that the staff cannot speak to that at this time correct because we have information from basically an assertion by ICC saying you know UPC is not going to be covered by FEMA for disaster recovery and then we've got a response from Atmos saying oh yes it can and then there's a back and forth email so today I can't tell you that you know I can't recommend you know one side of the other well based on that again just I I want to support uh what's been said about let's pause for a minute let's take a breath and let's find out the facts concerning FEMA and others but FEMA for me is a huge issue just consider who we are and where we're at thank you councilmember Turner mayor Pro Tim duryeo then back to you council member all right just to make sure I'm following there sorry man just to make sure I'm following everything correctly I've been told we were y'all have been in discussion with this since 2019. and it's 2024 you just stated 18 months so I need Clarity is it 2019 or 18 months I Atmos been contacting us for years asking us to adopt their code adopt their code adopt their code and for years we've said we're on ICC we're on ICC we're on ICC so 2019 to 18 months I'd have to go back and look that's what I need to know for a fact because if we're going to talk about this I want to talk facts because right now we don't know the facts my second thing is this process that you guys are speaking of that you say takes up to four to six I mean three to four months yeah when was the last time we actually done this process probably 2016 2017. okay 2017 was the last time we've done this process uh my next question is if we've been discussing this for a couple of years a couple of years a couple of years you know at what point are we going to get to where it quits being the discussion and we have dates deadlines and accountability to get things done because you know since I've been on the council we do a lot of discussing and we don't have dates deadlines and there's no accountability to get things done at what point are we going to get to that where you could vote today I understand that but staff isn't ready and we've been discussing this for a few years so that's one of my bigger concerns because in any discussion any conversation I do want to lean on staff and we're the council we have to make these decisions but we don't make the money and we're going to provide the salaries to do these studies and make these commitments and that's a bigger concern for me if Council and it's been action and it's been communication for years why are we at a point now that way we still don't have the information to move forward and make a decision yeah and again as councilman Neal mentioned I think Houston is spending money to do the analysis and so I'm not saying we we need to necessarily wait on Houston but we would definitely be curious to try to follow that process yeah but you know once again I I kind of would really like the clarity of the facts is it 2019 is it 18 months that's the first thing I really would need to make an adequate decision because 2019 we talking 2023 that's almost four years yeah they've they've been asking for a long time and I do know I am aware even when I bid made my first bid it was brought up in 2019 and I did a 10 and I have been around I do know it has been in discussion for that long so that's why I just want to make sure we actually put the true facts on the table prior to making this decision and that's one of my biggest concerns if if the counselor has talked about it staff has talked about it since that day at what point are we going to have a hard deadline or goals to reach a decision I just don't think we can make decisions if we keep operating this way and it's been a kind of consistent pattern we got to have goals and deadlines we can't just keep saying a couple of a couple of months a little bit of time goals and deadlines because 2017 is the last time we did this process yes that's that's a nice amount of time as well right now we are three Cycles behind the actual code of what we're working on correct so we're under the 2015 state of Texas is also under the 2015. but we're in 2023 yes and we're working on 2015 code that's what we're operating under now just like state of Texas we're operating off the 2015. okay mayor Pro Tim Doria so if you've been knowing about this for for 18 months one one question if if staff say they're not prepared then why did you present this to us and say recommendation approval of the ordinance then today you give us this and say you've been having if if you've been knowing about this for 18 months why isn't this already done why aren't you presenting this then this whole flow chart should be done by now uh another question is uh a statement um everyone that's came up and spoke against this um uniform code one from Colorado one from Louisiana Austin Houston everyone that came up and spoke for it is from Beaumont not this area right here not true most of yeah everyone that came up and spoke for there they was they were from this area I don't think there was one from Beaumont that talked I'm talking about but you don't see these guys here it was at least two and they came and spoke last week also Taylor and this is not new I've heard about this since I've been on Council in 2021. this is not new this is we've known about this and like I said even the the staff has been knowing about this for 18 months and they failed to get this done he said this is the procedure for approving uh code and I haven't gotten done 18 months now they want another another 30 days and they present it to us in the agenda recommending approval and then when we come to the meeting we get this and we get a lot of these folks which are not from Beaumont not from this area and you know what uh you know I'm from the state area out of two people from not even in this state now you're from Texas you know to come up and speak against it and I just uh I'm what I'm concerned about Beaumont Texas I'm concerned about what's best for Beaumont Texas staff has recommended in the agenda that we approve this the people from today and the people from last Tuesday that were here recommend approval they gave us reasons why we should do it and then we have these other folks come up here today which they've been knowing about for a long time they come that's one thing about I do not like about this Council they like kicking stuff down the road you know we've been working with this for 18 months and we're going to kick it down another 30 days and then you come back and we might end up kicking it down another 30 days and we'll never get nothing done you know it's something and I saved this over and over and over and you know it and everybody out there knows we were elected to make these hard decisions not to just keep kicking the ball to carrying down the road make a decision and we move on to the next issue so I don't think we need I mean it hadn't gotten this done in 18 months what make you think you're gonna get it done in 30 days you know so I I think um I'm not forward to lay in this at all we know about this this is something we're we're under the codes from eight years ago things have changed in the building process I'm pretty sure I'm not a plumber things have changed in plumbing you know so we need to be with the times we need to be with 2023 you know and this this is we're eight years behind on that already councilmember Samuel councilmember gets and then council member now okay I want to make sure it's clear I'm not in a hurry to make a decision uh no but this is not the first time we've heard about this and I'm a bit concerned that when I look to find information myself to make a decision on what would be best for our citizens here in Beaumont it was difficult for me to get specifics as to what would be the difference but I've been around long enough to understand that yeah FEMA is gonna they will recognize that's a federal that's the federal government and um so they would like a federal plan a international plan um but with that I also recognize the people who put their hands to the plow many times know what's best for the workers and those that are actually doing the job and those are the ones that I've heard coming back again and again asking us to review it to make a decision that we can make move forward on yes many times this counts I'm not in favor of rushing into anything but we've had time I'm we as a council we don't have the expertise to understand everything that's presented to us and we rely on staff now uh Mr Williams you've just been here seemed like yesterday how long now almost five months okay so four and a half you understand the Dilemma that we're faced with today and this is not something we need to kick down the road um I you know I would like to hear your thoughts but at the same time something needs to be done a decision needs to be made and I don't want to make rash decisions based on political viewpoints or ideologies I need to see some factual differences between the IBC and the UBC UPC uh this is frustrating because I don't want to kick a can down the road and show not for another 18 months but I can't I don't have enough to make a decision um and if I had to make a decision I would decide based on the facts that I'm receiving from those people here that's putting their hand to the plow every day enough said well council member ornament councilmember Samuel of Europe you asked the city manager for his input so okay because that was a question uh dealing with codes I I got my starting government dealing with code so dealing with codes always a sensitive situation it's going to always be sensitive one because you're dealing with people typically with their private property and no one wants you to tell them what to do and two you're dealing with people's livelihood uh and and like the people that have stood at this Podium today to talk to you and three you've got the decision makers who've got the government and regulate all of that and dealing with it so it's never easy and it's always a sensitive situation you know I can't do anything about what happened 18 months ago I can only deal with what goes forward from this point and I'm glad to do that uh evidently there were some things done it could have been done differently up to this point uh for sure and dealing with code um it's always to be forthcoming and forthright and have those discussions that you need to have unfortunately you need to have them and let people have public forums for people to talk and people to express their opinions but after they do that you go ahead and Council vote make your decision you have to make a decision at some point uh so uh you know I don't know if that helped you at all but you know we you've had this before a year or to discuss uh talk about and nothing's been done so today you can either make a decision or or I can just give you tell you that from my point of view and from my word that uh if you don't I can say that six weeks from now I can have this back on the agenda for you to vote to approve or disapprove with the objective information you need to have to make a decision or or any questions you might have council member gets similar to what councilmember Samuel said and maybe you know we're we're both lawyers who are trained and you know trying to get objective information before us to make decisions to counsel our clients I'd like to hear from Boyd Meyer because as administrative staff you can address I think tell me if you can't but some of the technical aspects and differences between the uniform plumbing code and the international code how would it impact your department how do you believe it would impact plumbers out in the field those that actually do put their hand to the plow I can tell you just interestingly enough I had call to have a plumber do some work at both my house and my office in this past week and asked him about this agenda item knowing it was coming up and uh he you know I think the statement was made earlier by someone that all the plumbers are in favor of switching to the uniform plumbing code he's not uh he pointed out as I think has also been mentioned today it would require and necessitate a lot of new education to the plumbers out there in the field and our staff so Boyd can you address my question today are you able to do that first of all mayor and Council I'm Boyd Meyer most of you know me I'm the building official for the City of Beaumont um I've been with Beaumont since I started at Beaumont in May of 1991 I went up through the ranks I was a building inspector Chief building inspector plans Examiner Deputy billing official and now I've been the billing official for uh close to nine years in that process even back when we were on the Standard Building Code there is a process that we've always gone through for the adoption of the codes sometimes it went fast sometimes it took more technical work so the codes have a three-year code cycle and most of the time sometimes we adopted it every three years but sometimes here recently with the I codes we skipped a cycle and we went every six years and this what we do is like when the 2018 we we adopted the 2015 and 20 February of 2017. and we looked at the 2018 code and there were some things that we heard from the International Code Council with some of the code hearings that were being uh the word was getting out that there were some things in the 2018 code that may go back in the 2021s back to more like the 2015. so when things like that come through that we hear then sometimes we hold off to see well if you know we we adopted in 2017 so to adopt the 2018 we were already past that point where we said let's just wait to the 2021 and take a look at it and as far as the the technical part this time around it's getting a little bit more in depth than it has been before covid came around we went from paper to digital to City Works that took a lot and we got pushed back on that we got behind we got way behind on inspections on Plan reviews permitting we got behind and and so and we did over 11 000 permits in 2021 in 2022 we did over 12 000 permits and so between giving accustomed to the paperless with City Works before that covid there are a lot of things that got pushed back and and I'm not trying to make a bunch of excuses we need to work this we need to we need to we need more time for technical to get it out spell on both sides to put it out there for everybody to discuss and give us an opportunity with all of those differences to go back to the Home Builders Association associate General Contractors get the technicals out to our our trade groups like we've got listed on there and and give us a chance to go because it's getting more complex this I think is more complex than anything we have ever ever done over the years since I've been with the codes uh with the City of Beaumont and so I've got 28 and June will be 29 years and building codes in one department and uh this is uh this is the the most in-depth we will do and the reason it hasn't been brought to council yet is uh we're there's some things we're still working on and because we get to work on it a little bit and then we have to stop we get to work on a little bit and we have to stop because we got the same same staff that's doing all these permits inspections and everything as well as then stopping to because to stop and do all of this we still try to take care of customers first our customers are always first our contractors our pre-development meetings on Thursdays they have been booked up all 9 10 and 11 o'clock we go I mean when we're busy Beaumont stays busy and it's great it's great I'm glad to see you know all the the establishments we're getting in Beaumont with the in the industry and restaurants and everything that that's awesome but sometimes we have to stop to make sure that that's taken care of first and then we get back on it and and sometimes it's quick sometimes it it takes more time and that's what we're asking for and boy thank you for saying that because it's it's important for everybody in the room to understand that just because the advocates for changing to the uniform code have been coming and you know several times over the years asking for that to be adopted does not mean that we as a council have been discussing this the first time we as a council have discussed this I believe was last week so yes the advocates for changing may have approached various council members outside of a council session and ask you ask their support for this or that as a council we haven't discussed it and I'm hearing you with 29 years of experience say you need more time because of the complexity of this but also heard the mayor say that you know with three Cycles behind and you offer reasons why that is the case is it going to affect the safety of the public to be still using the 2015 plumbing code the international code when it comes out there you know putting your hands on is that going to have any material significance and I'll refer back to earlier what councilman Neal said we've got we've got two codes that that are used here the mechanical and and specifically a lot of things with deployment code now the technical part of that that is in depth that we're going to have to get into as far as the actual safety uh for individuals the way the plumbing is done I don't believe that's the case and we've got both sides here that could clarify that because there are some things that even I uh need to research more because of the complexity of all of the codes and not just the the mechanical and the plumbing but we want to look at more of how the correlation is with all of our other eye codes the international fire code uh um you know as far as the uh the building code and uh so on and so forth as far as all the correlation that that um that uh reference in all of the family of I codes and uh so that's again that's more of the research that we're asking for to for us to get that and we can get all that information uh for you but again the complexity that this time has been more in depth that was going to be presented the council than ever before it is that we before we have been able to do do our due diligence and then we bring do a presentation when we're ready we haven't been driven to push to do this the way it's happened this time around councilmember Samuel a great deal of respect I respect uh your words and what you say you will do I just asked two things one is I I realized that there's a lot of work being done with staff now and to do this we'll take additional time uh is there a possibility that there can be some collaboration with the city of Houston to find out and utilize what they've done thus far to get information as regards to the cold and its impact uh and how the two different codes are correlating would that be possible yes of course okay that was my first question and the second is what would be a realistic I'm not asking you for a time just specific but I don't want to say we can do this 18 months down the road I just want to know and if it's 18 months say 18 months but I'd like to know for you from you what do you think is a realistic time frame to look at being able to make a decision based on something substantive as opposed to just on feelings and emotions and what would be that time frame uh since we want to go back and get with uh once this research is done in more in depth some of the organizations that we already spoke with we'd like to go back so scheduling with them as AGC homebuilders and stuff as far as scheduling and getting a Time we feel like we had discussed that staff already started talking about a little bit what what would it take to go back and and go in depth technically more get the answers everybody needs and then present it then bring it back we were looking at May to June is what our first rough schedule was looking like so and it can be sooner than that it's uh and that's what we were looking at if if in fact it was going to take a little bit and it could be uh they could be sooner than that it's just that we look at the permitting the the the inspections and everything Plan reviews and everything the pace that we have right now we fit that in but if it needs to be sooner then we'll do our best to accommodate and work at it we'll work at it harder it's it's just it's it's typically uh what we're looking at now as far as a deadline right now we don't have a deadline but uh we do are interested in adopting the 2021 codes as soon as possible but we do not have an exact deadline right now but you do understand about kicking the king I do all right let me ask you a question do you have the Amendments from Austin for 2021 UPC and UMC I believe John Mata has sent that to me I had a couple of emails that was blocked and I believe I do have them you know in our meeting that we had after Tuesday on Wednesday with uh with John uh he said if I didn't have him then he would send them to me so we could review the amendments so were you able to review them I have not looked at the Amendments for Austin yet no ma'am okay one one question that is is present with me and I've allowed everybody to speak and so my question is we have a recommendation for approval today for this item what did you base are Mr Boone what did you base your approval your recommendation for approval for today for us taking a vote so we're going back kicking the can that we need more time we need to get more information but you base your approval on some information because here you say recommendation is approval for the ordinance to approve the UPC code uniform plumbing code for 2021 so you base it off of something and so I'm asking what did you base it off of because you're recommending to the council to approve it mayor just one point of clarification the recommendation came from me and it was to Simply get it before the council so that if because there there seems to be a based on and I think last week was the first time it's been presented to council but there soon to be a lot of interest so that if Council wanted to approve it it would be on the agenda to approve so that that's the reason for the recommendation so we have a recommendation for approval for today but prior to this we have not been the first Council to see this because it's been going on no man one point of clarification it has not been to the city council the first thing ever well not not the 2021 UPC no not the 2021 so just a point of clarification the first time discussion of the UPC to my knowledge has been before the council for this code was last Tuesday okay and just to give some history because it came up about 2019 iatmo has come to us and I assume sounds like they come to a lot of jurisdictions over time and usually that goes first to the staff to make recommendations on a professional basis then goes to the city manager which was our prior city manager where you look at it and say you know what do we think's best for our city at the the last 2017 we think staying with ICC is the best recommendation for the city so when you talk about 2019 that's how that process works so it was never presented to council to adopt the UPC so I think last Tuesday was the first time councils ever discussed it in the work session so again moving forward as you mentioned John and his group got us the Austin amendments Friday I think it was and so the idea was to try to have this work session today because again there was a tremendous amount of interest and then have the item on and case Council wants to move forward with adopting the UPC and with that being said your recommendation was for approval okay thank you um mayor Pro Tim duryeo and then councilmember Turner councilmember I'm sorry you could have gotten this put on the agenda with a recommendation to not approve it and it still would have been on the agenda and been up to us but staff recommended approval yeah my mistake another thing of course your process is part of the process is code significant change City of Beaumont legal Association of general contractors home build Association and Technical changes to the trade so none of that has been done for the UPC no sir okay and so the next one is city council Workshop that's where we are now um so what you've got at the bottom of the sheet that's the traditional process that we've used for decades but I'm trying to understand why are we having this workshop and why is it up for our review and and adoption if those other five steps haven't been done yet I'm trying to understand and again coming out of last where last week's Workshop there seems to be a lot of interest in getting it approved and so that's why it's on today and that's why it's out of order uh both of those codes seem to have good points but it seems to me that our the uh the local workers here are for the UPI the professionals the ones that's out there doing it also um they keep saying you know how much it's going to cost to educate the plumbers and the workers but that's a good thing it seemed like they'll be getting uh educated up to today's standards I mean I can't see where that but anything bad will come out of that you know as far as the technology and maybe the new Plumbing procedures and building processes I mean it seems like a good thing not a bad thing also um could somebody tell me they said that FEMA does not uh except UPI if if you UPC uniform plumbing code is that true I've heard people say they do I heard people say they don't if we get something fixed and using the uh the UPC and and it's something we supposed to be reimbursed by FEMA would they would they not reimburse us or will they not pass it right so as we talked about we've heard from both sides differing arguing that point we heard I think we had some information as late as maybe this morning to that effect so I would ask maybe a representative from both groups to try to answer that question okay that's okay mayor sure thank you again Madam mayor members Council Richard Anderson International Code Council once again licensed Texas plumber I hold in my hand the consensus-based codes and Sanders document from FEMA the actual document from FEMA that Council can read you can have we can distribute it to you within this document houses their consensus base coats the international plumbing code and the International Mechanical Code are the only two codes with blanket approval now I also hold in my hand that letter I mentioned earlier from FEMA to our Atmos Hugo Aguilera stated that um with a wide range of potential codes to be considered our other iatmoco our analysis of the iatmo codes and standards is not part of this update now they do go further on in this letter which I've been completely honest with everybody on that yes you can use a code other than the consensus-based code but in this letter it states that several sections of the intern policy note that these codes are eligible if they demonstrated to meet five criteria as implemented by the public assistance programming guide okay that's the requirement now that engineer analysis has to be done at the cost of the jurisdiction adopting those other Cuts John will openly admit I believe that we cover states that do homegrown plumbing codes that engineer analysis there's a cost to that when I was a building official anytime I heard the word engineer or tried to tell my customers engineer they cringed right that's an expensive and I can't comment on what that expense would cost this jurisdiction okay so I'd be happy to leave these with anybody or or send them to you an email you can give them to our club thank you thank you uh councilmember Turner quick question once again thank you for coming down but I noticed you said blanket approval the question is UPC has it ever been accepted through FEMA within engineer analysis proving five criteria all other codes are acceptable to FEMA according to their document okay and I am not a FEMA representative I'm only reading what's in their document in their letter so using UPC codes your opinion would not prevent the City of Beaumont from receiving reimbursement from FEMA if we use UPC codes to do some of the work that is a fact but FEMA will require you to have that engineer analysis done at your cost proving that it meets those five specific criteria outlined in the guidance document and but under the international code we would not have to incur the engineering costs because it's under the international code is that right correct we are listed in the appendix as consensus-based approved codes and I'm assuming that's per incident that we'd have to prove those five criteria you know I don't know the answer to that council member and I apologize because I'm not with FEMA um and I don't have to deal with it because our codes are in the consensus-based standard right so I don't know the answer to that question perhaps Mr motto does okay thank you thank you I appreciate that clarification thank you no problem councilmember thank you Mr motto thank you mayor council John Mata director of appeal services for iatmo I do have a document here the document that Mr Anderson's alluding to was dated in April 2022 the document I have and I will be glad to email also uh is a FEMA document and basically what it says it could it it relates to consensus-based codes which iatmo is not Performance Based like the International Code Council and it says real quick the purpose of the memorandum is provide clarification of FEMA's Public Assistance implementation FEMA has included appendix of the cbcc policy containing a list of approved codes specs and standards the list of approved code specs and standards outlined in the appendix is not exhaustive applicants are not limited to using these codes specs standards listed in the appendix to be eligible for public assistance funding applicants who use different state or locally adopted codes specs and standards with resilience criteria that are comparable to the more stringent than those listed of the appendix are eligible for funding and will be in reversed for natural disasters of these costs I'll state that you have City you've got cities like Houston we went through uh hurricane Harvey didn't have an issue you have the largest state in the country California to go through earthquakes fires and are under the uniform code Statewide no problem whatsoever so this information getting sent around and of course Mr Anderson alluded that Hugo is one of our employees that works for us that was last year early last year in April dated April this is dated in September and this came directly from FEMA stating that so the whole premise of ayatmo not being recognized by FEMA is totally false for a better word okay councilmember Gates thank you mayor I I don't think that I heard that I am was not recognized by FEMA what I think I heard was that there has to be an engineering analysis done in order to allow that to proceed is do you disagree and that's the that's the document he has I have not seen his document I've got the latest document that shows here now I haven't seen anything on engineering analysis that's first I've heard of it I'm not with FEMA I'm not sure what you know what it was but this has come up and time and time again and you know so anyway again you know this this might be just further reason why we need to have our staff hit pause and make sure we get this right because as was stated earlier by I think council member felshaw we we are subject to national natural disasters here just like in California and we want to make darn sure where we're getting this right so well like I said City Houston you know went through hurricane Harvey it didn't affect them and I'm glad you mentioned the city of Houston because it's also been alluded to that they are undergoing an in-depth analysis in comparison between the international code and the uniform code and it might be prudent as was suggested by council member Samuel I believe to reach out to them and Mr Meyer affirmed that we could collaborate with them and and use their information we don't have to reinvent them well Houston's got more resources than we do and so I agree you know if if our staff is tasked with doing everything that Houston is doing and still trying to provide constituent Service uh that's going to be hard to accomplish without hiring more staff so I I like the idea of collaborating with Houston and seeing what they do and wait until they have one thing I will caution you on is timeline there's a timeline in Houston and it is not in 30 days it is not and I'm on I'm actually up for one of the co-chairs of one of the Committees I just got informed this morning on the way up here what is their topic uh it was supposed to be the summer late summer or all the Committees I've gotten put have been pushed back at least 30 days haven't even started yet okay so I'm just letting you know Houston doesn't move very swiftly the government does no no no and I understand that but you got to understand just like you said that's the fourth largest city in the country that has adopted these codes for over 40 years they're getting it right and not only that I will state that our city our state's capital Austin adopts the uniform plumbing and Mechanical Code and those amendments that I sent Mr Boyd Meyer last April you know in in try to reconnect with him is there anything else we have to do we provided you the code books and the Amendments anything else this is the code that the plumbers want the industry the mechanical people not all plumbers sir my plumber doesn't you're talking about possibly less than one percent I heard one of the councilman last week say every plumber he's asked has not objected to utilizing the uniform codes has been patiently waiting councilmember felshire perhaps you can help me with this uh do you know the age of UPC 1926 and did I understand correctly that only three percent of cities are using this at this time 6.5 million people are under the population of that okay there's 330 million people in America no no we're talking about Texas he eluded to 15 million Texans were using it and 6.5 but on the IPC 6.5 under the UPC that's still in my book that's 21.5 the last time I checked that was 28 29 in our that's still eight or nine million unaccounted for okay so I'm just curious and I'm not a plumber no no honestly I have no loyalty to either one of these Foods my only loyalties to the people of Beaumont and just wanted to make sure we do what's best for them outside of that I don't I have no loyalty I understand I'm just trying to to to assimilate all this information but I My my what I was wondering if the age of UPC and why has if that's true only three percent of the cities have embraced it sure if it's so great why hasn't it overtaken IPC well a lot of politics involved a lot of politics especially at the city level just like Mr Boone has eluded we will go to the building official and we have in years past and a lot of times we great code but as soon as we were out of there our car gets thrown in the trash and everything uh the city concept the city the way the city structure is you have a building official then you have your plumbing department most of them I'm not saying that Beaumont is set up like that you'll have a cheap plumbing inspector Chief mechanical similar to a job site you have a general contractor then you've got a plumbing mechanical sub electrician sub those in the city structures those Chief Plumbing mechanical inspectors if you go to all of them in Texas I guarantee you the majority at least 90 percent of them will tell you we prefer the uniform set of codes but we have a boss that prefers the international family of codes with that I'll say this if they're the family of codes who does the electrical I can tell you it is an iatmo and it is an ICC it's NFPA a different code body altogether we're not going to get in that but we never hear correlation issues with the electrical code go ahead thank you sir and just I agree with councilman durial that we need to be careful that we don't kick the can down the road especially when it comes to projects Downtown Development uh the many projects that we look at as a council I we need to be decisive and we need to be very intentional and move forward for the sake of our citizens but I'm just wondering I don't know if Chris or maybe someone on Council can answer this question I do sense that there's a timeline a pressure point here to get this done today I just wondering why is that are we going to is something going to happen if we don't decide this today and wait until we get all this information what what's the pressure to do this right now that sense of urgency are we is there something I'm not seeing there's no hard and fast deadline I will say though that we the city we get audited periodically by the iso and they come in and they'll say what code are you under and they'll come in and they'll say I need to see all your training records for all your inspectors I need to see what your educational attainment is for your plan reviewers what are their experience so they do an audit of us and they give us an ISO ranking and so that eventually when ISO comes in and they and you know they usually give you ample amount of time to say look we're coming in July or we're coming in October so there is you know we we really do need to get this done do we know when they're coming we we don't but like I said they usually give you 30 days notice or a little bit more and so once we get that letter we know they're coming so so as of now they've not declared that they're coming so to answer your question there isn't there is a deadline eventually but there's not a hard and fast deadline thank you bear mayor on that issue the requirement for the iso rating is you are either under the current set of codes to obtain your rating which right now is the 2021 or the preceding code which would be the 2018. right now the city of beaumont's on the 2015. mayor Pro temduria uh keep hearing about the um Houston doing their study and they're trying to figure out their codes and I just want to know in your opinion would it be fair to compare as far as that goes compare a city the size of Houston with their resources to Beaumont nothing resource-wise no sir because even this whole thing I mean waiting for them and letting them do their study and all that to keep talking about Houston I mean it's just it's not even apples to oranges it's apples to raisins you know you said that the councilman I didn't but I will say this I Atmos here to offer the resources and help uh support City staff in any way we need with just like the Amendments like like we uh sent to Mr Meyer the amendments were done Austin is very Progressive City they actually adopted the 21 code in 21. so they pretty much have done all the legwork now I'm not going to say the same climate and actions that uh soil that you have in Austin is because the silk country is the same as in Beaumont I understand that but a lot of the legwork has been done and that's what we discussed last year in April to help facilitate this and push this along it's it's a code that the the plumbing and mechanical industry want it's a code that's best suited for the citizens of Beaumont and I think it's something that we really need to move forward with when you say amendments are is each City able to make amendments to the UPC particular to their City yes sir they each eat the codes it doesn't matter if it's the international codes the uniform codes they're Baseline codes that's all they are now each City can go above you never want to go below the code you want to usually go either right just what the code says or go above it now the the limiting of the Amendments which you really want now you're going to hear just like you said the correlation it doesn't correlate our code doesn't correlate it's been correlating in Houston pretty good for 40 years you know and uh it's it's also in Austin since the 1970s so all of those claims we we constantly hear it between myself Mr Anderson we've known each other for a number of years and we can go back and forth he was working under as a UPC but now he's on the other side and that's fine but as far as the correlation and seamless you know I stated some of the other states around the country and answer your question Mr Foxwell it's a it's over 100 million people that are on the UPC out of 300 so you're talking about over 30 percent of the population in the United States there's been some Talk of the Home Builders Association but then comments were made that it would not affect no ma'am the international residential code back in the legislature 2001 passed a bill uh requiring the minimum standards for residential construction be done under the international residential code and as I stated in the past and before we are not here to we don't have any of the beef with the home builders and this is not going to do anything to their code they're still going to keep the residential code we're talking about getting the uniform Plumbing uniform mechanical you have that for commercial applications you know but we do have residential Provisions in there and I'll I'll say this the City of Austin adopt the international residential code but they omit they replace the plumbing provisions of the IRC the international residential code with the UPC because in their mind all the plumbers are doing it just like you heard plumbers in the past and the ones that the councilman Neil uh pulled they're all put doing it now under the uniform plumbing code in in Beaumont so why not adopt it so it will not affect no the Home Building no matter no man okay yes ma'am any other questions councilmember Turner not a question for you just my last thing you know just a statement to our city manager and just with staff because I know we we bring up the word urgency and are we in a rush and things that it's magnitude I kind of think as a leader in his business if you don't set a timeline a goal and try to stay within your timeline and your goals it'll kind of always be on the Shelf so I don't look at it as urgency from a leadership standpoint I look at it as structure and like I said since I've been on the council we've asked for things such as salary studies that haven't been produced we asked for things such as a strategic plan which hasn't been existent we were told it was a capital plan these are all things that I've been dealing with since I've been on the council so for me it's not a sense of urgency it's just a sense of structure and accountability and timeline and goals and right now at the rate as you can see from this conversation we don't have that structure in place so I urge you based upon what you heard and what we discussed today that we kind of get some accountability timelines goals and structures together because it's not urgency for me it's just making sure we stay on path and we stay on consistent in improving our city and making things better okay making sure that was a question let me be clear before I say anything first I'm not advocating for any code I'm only advocating what's best for Beaumont Texas so let's be clear on that before I say anything but uh what you've just mentioned are things that we can control I mean we can control that I can't as I said I can't control what happened before but what goes well at this point from this point I can and if you if this Council chooses to want to have an objective View at this situation I can provide that objective View and I can give you a timeline to have that objective view if that's what what you want to do um and that's it's not easy to do you know if we have to provide more resources to do it within that timeline we can do it you know there are people you can hire to come in and do these things they can do the review for you if staff gets overloaded or whatever it may be uh but yeah we could do it I know uh Boyd had his timeline but I'm thinking I'm thinking we could get something done in six or seven weeks to for you to vote on if that's what you're saying I think a couple of weeks uh for staff review of WIC for legal then a couple of weeks for stakeholder meetings with the with the people in the in the crowd with the plumbers Etc then another week Council workshop and then another week for Council of vote on on who you want to go with and that's basically what would be about the second week in March now that's if you're just talking about the the plumbing code now I think there's a mix up here about all the codes sometimes there and then but I think I heard that coming from out there but we're just talking about the plumbing code I think the plumbing code only can fit within that time frame if you're looking at all of your codes it will probably expand that does that help sir yes that helps me tremendously it's kind of to the to the level that I was speaking to so thank you okay thank you Mr mother thank you councilmember uh Neil thank you mayor Mr manager when are we expecting to update the rest of the codes when will we originally planning on updating them uh I think Floyd has said that they've been working on them uh it's let me say this too it's coming for a city not to operate with the latest code okay usually about one code cycle behind first city to operate if it's 2023 we should be around 2021 or something like that nobody wants the latest codes because the latest code has bugs in it and let somebody else get the book to work out of it before you do so we I said it typically operates so I mean we could put in action put in put in motion to to uh put to start to work on updating all the codes it probably would take about that timeline but uh initially mentioned to do all of them so that's something we could put in motion how many cycles did you say were behind right now so we're under the 2015. so as Mr Meyer mentioned we looked at the 2018 we heard submit heard of some issues we didn't we wanted to wait for the 2021 and so that's where we are so roughly two if you're looking at a three year cycle so how much longer will it be before the uh we're we're trying to vote on 2021 do they come out every two years is getting ready to be a 2023 code well again if a new addition a new addition comes out we don't want to jump on the new edition we want to wait for the one that's kind of percolated through and with dentist fight issues so what I'm saying is uh if one is getting ready to come out 2023 that's gonna put us like eight years behind right well we were we would adopt the newest when we could we wouldn't just go to 17 uh 19 we would go to the 2021 if that's the case so it's what you're saying it's normal to be hind as far as on the code yes any other discussion any other comments okay I'm gonna close the work session and I'm gonna ask Mr city manager will you please give us a rating of item number nine please yes Madam here let me get to that page Council considered an ordinance adopting their 2021 uniform plumbing code based upon the discussion you've had consider for adopting 2021 Plumbing uniform plumbing code thank you you've heard the reading of item number nine and I would like to make the motion for approval of item number nine may I have the second please second any discussion yes ma'am councilmember Neal I'd like to make a motion that we table this until after the staff report second well we have a motion I have a motion and a second on the phone for the rules of the meeting the latest motion needs to be dealt with first yes can we have discussion sure I asked for a discussion councilmember Turner so this is once again for clarity we're talking plumbing codes only and you're saying that we can have something back from you within seven weeks as far as an action item for us to to actually vote on it with facts detail facts and comparisons yes and if I'm saying something that's online stuff you can't deliver tell me now yes sir I think there's plenty of attention so I feel like we can get those groups together so short answer is yes yes so to the mayor like you know like how do you feel based upon what we already did with how do you feel with that timeline would that be sufficient for you or what what are your thoughts what I feel about the timeline is that again we have kicked the can uh down the street um it almost sounded like in the debate that my dad can beat your dad my dad is stronger than your dad it's a lot of back and forth and I will say that I was elected to advocate for the citizens of Beaumont we've heard plumbers come last week and speak to the effect that they've raised their families here they've gone to school here raised their families here their businesses are here they took off from work last week to come and speak on behalf of their businesses their their clients that they service here in this city and that they are for the UPC code uh councilmember Neal who has stated that he's a part of several entities of the plumbing codes businesses in this city and he even stated the fact that he asked several plumbers how did they feel about the UPC code and they were in favor of it they did not object to it so if there is not an objection from the residents that we are here to represent the residents of this city not Colorado not Louisiana but the citizens of Beaumont who service each and every one of us in this city who support the city who tax dollars are based in this city then why are we kicking the can down the road and I will stand on that yes sir Mr nil thank you mayor and all the comments you just said that I said last week are true in fact they're 100 correct but there's a couple of answers that we could not get answered today like a like a pretty big one from my standpoint of what does this do to us with all of our FEMA agreements you know another one that you know I have a big problem with is we didn't get even give the common courtesy to pick up the phone and call the AGC or the ABC or any other stakeholders in this community and tell them what we're about to do this regardless of what either side just told you this is going to impact somebody somehow and I think that we owe it to them to sit down and talk with them the right thing to do thank you for your comments but every decision we make impacts someone every day as mayor Pro tem Dario say it's not going to always be easy but we were elected to make some hard decisions and not every decision will be easy but I will also say that in the statements that were given the statements were neither side had a true clarification of FEMA they both said that we would be reimbursed one said we would be reimbursed with an engineer opinion one did one said that we would be reimbursed across the board and so again we're going back and forth we as a council have gone back and forth on some issues and at some point with all of the construction that is going on in this city Mr Boone at a neighborhood association last week said we have had the largest permits approved in the history of this city in the last year and with us moving at that pace I don't want anything to stop us I don't want anything to stop the progress of this city this will not cost the city anything the training they're doing Plumbing work every day every day of their lives they do this Plumbing work and I would almost saying can't guarantee it but I would almost say that if you are a master plumber and you're doing Plumbing work every day I don't think this code is going to change or affect the way the plumbing is done on a daily basis and we've gone from rushing it to almost two years of it being discussed it's not affecting the home builders we again we've had someone from Colorado Louisiana Austin and you say they didn't have time every agenda is posted on Friday afternoon they could have attended last Tuesday it was posted it's public knowledge by law that it's posted it was posted this Friday but it's amazing after last Tuesday's meeting then there were a lot of phone calls that rushed in to contradict what happened last Tuesday and before last Tuesday it wasn't a lot said about it and so just when we get to the threshold of going through to make a final decision then we get a lot of pushback and then when you get pushback you don't want to make a decision and so the vote is on the floor and I say to each council member you vote how you feel will best suit the residents of Beaumont in this community councilmember felshaw yes thank you uh and I agree with the mayor that we've heard both sides one says FEMA will support it other side says FEMA does it so I guess this is a question I to the city manager to Chris I'm assuming we feel confident that we can bypass all these people and go directly to FEMA and get the get the answer directly from them and get you know get a under a better understanding of the FEMA issue I'm assuming that's true are you asking if we can ask FEMA the question well I'm just I'm assuming that's that is true that our staff can research this out with FEMA to get exactly the position to bring it back to us I can help address this so I've been working with FEMA since 2005. um starting with Rita um worked all the way through Ike Imelda Laura Marco Gustav I mean you name it we've done it all we're still working with FEMA on um on Harvey we have weekly phone calls with them we've had weekly phone calls with them for years now I don't think this has ever even come up in a conversation with FEMA which code we're using we've not been denied any claims by FEMA because of a code but but on the flip side I don't think we've had any claims of facilities that involve Plumbing so but we do have a weekly call with them every Monday and we can we can reach out next next Monday and get that answer thank you bear thank you Mr Simmons I appreciate that information mayor Pro Tem duria um one thing I hope doesn't happen again I'm still not happy that this was presented to council by staff and it seemed like all the work was not done it shouldn't have been presented to us like this all of theirs they gave us this flow chart and they skipped five steps and gave it to us to vote on and that's not I'm not I'm surprised the first time especially when you present something to us and recommend for approval and then when we discuss it you recommend not approving it but you know I don't get that another thing um whatever decision we make every every decision we make up here somebody's not gonna like it somebody's gonna be mad somebody gonna be happy that's that's just how it is yes one thing I learned about being on Council you have to have thick skin you do you know some you know hopefully one thing I do like about our Council we do disagree but we we move on you know we're still friends you know because Neil and me we'll still talk even though he don't like the Cowboys and uh we'll move on to our we'll but I say that to say we may disagree we may not vote the same but we'll vote our vote because the vote belongs to us because our constituents elected us to make those vote and we'll vote the way we think is best for the citizens of Beaumont and our constituents and then we'll move on to the next issue also um I thought I thought that Mr Motta had gave us the latest answer that he got from FEMA he said he got that answer in September you know that that we we will get refunded you know if if it's a plumbing issue that the the code doesn't matter you know we'll we'll get it so and and I'm I'm not one thing I don't like about the council we do tend to kick stuff down the road when it comes down to making a decision you know we hold up but most of the time that's if we have to spend a lot of money we don't want to spend no money on this deal here and the training that's good that's a good deal I mean you should always be up to Snuff you should be current on your training as far as plumbing and plumbing codes and all those things you know you should be current on that so that's that's not a bad deal even if we have to pay for our employees to be trained up to the current code that's that's a good deal so that's all I have to say mayor thank you councilmember Samuel um when I started out I said you know I wanted to make my decision based on facts not on emotions or perceptions um I don't want uh the only thing that I've received today that's different from last week is as I understand it uh FEMA will under a consensus-based standard approve those things if they're under the IPC and if it's not under if and those things are not that are not under IPC then there has to be an analysis engineering analysis but I also heard Utah I'd say that that is dealing with other issues coming to FEMA that is not dealing with plumbing and you're not you're not sure as to whether that would be the same thing in dealing with those things that are under the plumbing code is that correct right and and remember we file under Public Assistance like one of the gentlemen talked about I don't know how that affects individual assistance though if if they need to follow a certain code but but like I said we do have those calls every Monday we'll ask that specific question and confirm it okay so with that I want to make sure that whatever subject objective information that I'm making my decision on I want to make sure it is correct objective information and I I don't like kicking down the road I don't want to kick this down the road but I don't want to make a decision just based on what I feel um I don't want to vote against it because right now I feel comfortable about moving forward with the UPC but I don't have a pro I don't see the urgency that one week will make a difference and that's only to find out if that is going to be is this engineering analysis going to be applicable to other things other than the uh would it in cover the plumbing code if there's something that falls for reimbursement under that code um if that's my primary question now I guess my last question would be is if we were to move forward and this council did say okay we're adopting the uh uniform plumbing code and next week or two weeks from now we get information substantive information that tells me it's a bad decision what would be the detriment of then coming back and say well maybe we need to take this vote again Mr manager R Todd or uh City attorney somebody you could always re-adopt it or amend it um so yeah you have the motion on floor at the table we didn't give a definite time to table but obviously anytime you table the emotion you have to table it for a definite period of time or a certain period of time the manager has requested seven weeks I hear you ask for one week just for clarification for FEMA but obviously um I can tell you that we post on Friday so if the call is on Monday there could be additional questions that come from that that require FEMA follow-up so um I mean so there is a motion on the floor to table this for there's two motions on the floor the rules require that you address the motion to table the last motion verse was just the motion to Table Right There are two table two motions on the floor and the primary motion the one to be dealt with first is the motion to the table correct and there that would be to table the motion that was put on the floor by the mayor and I just it would be to table the item not to table her motion yes ma'am that's what I that was I was deluding so we got to be clear for the record for the public yes ma'am thank you mayor my question is what a one week period be allowable to you or two weeks one or two weeks so see just in in net breath it's gone from one week to two weeks well so Mr Seminole one moment Mr Seminole you said you talk to FEMA on a weekly basis so do you feel you would have the answer to our question in one week I do those calls that we have with FEMA include Representatives with FEMA and Texas Department of Emergency Management so if they can't give that answer over the phone Monday I don't I don't know why they wouldn't be able to do it but I would assume they'd be able to answer that I don't want a verbal answer I want it in black and white so that we don't have to go back and forth and that's a question they could give us give us the same printed uh Public Assistance guide that this gentleman was quoting earlier if that let me be honest with you as long as we've been discussing this we probably could have called Austin and FEMA and gotten that answer already I'm not even inclined to recess and so that we could do that it's 4 24. council member gets thank you mayor this this is easy the manager has already given us a timeline it's not just the FEMA question it's also going through the process that we always go through that hasn't been adhered to yet in in bringing in comments from the association of general contractors the Home Builders Association technical changes to trades but the manager has said seven weeks we can have all of the objective information that we need to make a decision just like council member Samuel has said that he's struggling with because we don't have objective information I am in this I am in the same position in seven weeks we can have that and we can you we can revisit this in seven weeks and I don't know if you put seven weeks in your motion to table but that's what I thought I was seconding uh you know again there's a motion to taper on the floor councilmember nil will you clarify for seven weeks one moment before you one moment one thing I want to say you said the Home Builders Association and general contractors the UPC code isn't affecting the Home Builders Association and the general contractors correct can somebody clarify that for me because say a homeowner I asked that question okay but what about developers that are doing residential neighborhoods how is this there's storm drainage tied into this and there's other things main water lines fire water lines other things that the Developers for these home editions are going to have to incur that's what I'm saying there's a lot more to it than what both sides are telling us that's what we need this other seven weeks for and mayor also with regard to that I just want to say anecdotally you know when my plumber was out of my office which was built in the 19 teens and had to discover lead lead water or sewer sewer lines underneath you know and he wants to replumb with PVC and everything you know these are the technical aspects of things that we need under column three the technical changes to the trades that needs to be evaluated so so anyway I'm gonna explain to council that during a work session you can have comments from other parties but doing an action item the time for public comment was before so we're now on the actual item itself and so outside of hearing from staff possibly it's inappropriate to hear from the public on an item that is already when the work session has already been closed thank you staff okay um the international residential code is strictly for one and two family dwellings but there are provisions also where it correlates over to the the IPC and uh so um there's a lot of things that are in a link together and again that can be explained more uh to get the technical information that you're asking for real quick back to our sheet which was talked about a lot this was just the benefits that we put down not to get into the technical battle that's going on between International Code Council and atmo these are just some things that staff was that we were putting down for staff and then also the adoption process that adoption process this here is that what we have usually done our staff has not come before counsel it was not it was not our staff we we could go Tuesday it was not our staff that put it on the agenda we have not put our our complete package to come before Council with a package to adopt all of the codes which we've done every time not not just the plumbing code or the Mechanical Code or the fire code we try to finish everything and come one time and and do everything at one time so we to say that we came and we weren't prepared you're correct because we did not do this we did not come before and get on the agenda to adopt or to to discuss or have a work session on all of the all of the I codes so I just want to clarify that on that part but as far as on the residential code it is a process we go through because it's all together with all of the codes when we go talk to the home builders agency and everybody yes we'll discuss the IBC more with AGC and then with the uh with the home but it's just the process that we go through to make sure that we get to all entities all all stakeholders involved here that we would want to go back to if there's any changes anything that we're going to change on the Amendments or any other significant changes we just want to get it out there to everybody and that's why we put this here that we would actually go back and we would get to everybody because I think that y'all would like to know everything that's going on whether it be the adoption of the codes or or Riverfront Park or whatever it might be if there's a change there's an amendment there's there's anything you would want to know and you'd have to sometimes have to discuss it again so we just wanted to show you our process but it was not a full recommendation on this because that's this is just the benefits that staff would see itself and not the technical side of it go ahead what you're saying is this is routine of what you would present to the council to make sure that we are aware that everyone listed here is aware of what's going on not that you were not prepared correct yeah once we're prepared this is this is what we go through okay yes ma'am okay council member gets so what I'm hearing from you is that the international family of codes inter meshes so that they correlate to each other but if you take the plumbing code out and substitute the uniform plumbing code they might not intermesh in the same way that it would if it was to stay under the international family of codes am I hearing that correct correct so that is going to require a little bit more technical analysis from your department and you can't do that in one week can you Arcania well it really depends on the extent of it again the Austin amendments that were sent to us that I'll have to get with uh Mr Boone and we'll have to look at those amendments and see how that's actually uh how they did it was the thing that's some of the time of part of the things we're talking about that we need to take a look at earlier today you said I think several months the manager gave you a more condensed schedule of seven weeks is seven weeks something you think you can make some Headway on into these technical analysis that needs to be performed yeah well I've tried to make it happen we'll do the best we can yeah pro team duria I keep saying one week realistically that's not possible you're probably going to get if you say one week for next council meeting you're really going to get two days like Wednesday and Thursday and then it has to be posted on the agenda for Friday so well I think the one week was was talked about for FEMA an answer for FEMA not everything else the the FEMA you say you speak to them uh every Monday Todd is it possible for you to call them tomorrow actually I was talking to his staff they were trying to call him now but they're not answering no okay you're working on it we got voicemail thank you Todd councilmember thank you I just I I would encourage the council to call for the question and let's let us vote on the motion that's on the floor to table uh until our city manager and staff an opportunity to research this mother and come back to us and give us a thorough report our city manager asked for seven weeks I call for the question uh and I have a question mayor the the original motion I didn't hear either council member say a timeline my motion for seven weeks and also can that motion to table for seven weeks and the question's been called there's a motion and a second on the floor all in favor of approving to table the motion wait for seven weeks let's please signify by saying I opposed no no no so I'm going to go back to the motion all in favor of approving all in favor of a proven item number nine but what point of work didn't the motion to table just pass no no it said it was 43. it was 43. so so I would I would like the amend the original motion and make a motion for two weeks to get the confirmation for FEMA and see if I can get a second on that that is already passed Ender failed okay so you can only make them you can remove it I'll make a new motion you have to make a new motion he's made a new motion for a two-week delay our table okay have a motion and a second on the floor to table for two weeks all in favor please signify by saying aye opposed the motion carries to table for two weeks okay now is the time for any citizen that would like to make public comment if you haven't already done so please fill out the green slip to the back of the room hand it to the clerk to the front of the room she will call your name when it's time for you to speak I'm Sorry Charlie crab 9 28 East Drive Beaumont Texas hello mayor council that was the best discussion I wish I had come prepared to join in okay to this afternoon I'd like to uh mention that on that past discussion I I would like to just inject that if it's not uh broken don't fix it because I didn't hear anything about safety uh mentioned and I've been involved in Plumbing on rent houses for 40 years and and there's been a lot of changes for safety and the code probably uh uh introduce that the safety part and uh anyway let's move on to the uh one of the one of the really major uh subjects now is uh is our school district as you know they've released the uh the scores and we did not do well and I noticed the city last the city council voted just to meet with the School District twice a year and I think we need to meet with them once a month to help them plan on how to improve our school scores and we need to work with bring in Lamar education department and say can you provide tutors for these classrooms and but anyway there is they really needs help in that direction and and education is the key for the city partially to grow and and last week I mentioned something about the buses and I don't know if mayor Mouton challenged me to ride the bus but by golly I went and rode the bus oh yeah yes and that let me move on down down the road down my report here now okay I went on the refinery bus on uh on Wednesday and and the when we got back to the dun and bomb station they changed the name to Magnolia so I got on the Magnolia bus and that was my bus when I was a kid and uh so then I came back on Thursday and rode the South uh 11th Street bus now that's an interesting Buzz because it tours Us South End quite a bit and ends up out at uh uh they called it Tinseltown but anyway it was out there Walden Road and there was workers that that were rode that bus and uh oh my God that's but anyway I had a good report here on the buses and it was enjoyable well look I have your no I've got no I am no I told you I would pay for you to ride the bus I'm a professed independently wealthy person and I've uh and I've joined that Association and and if I accept any any reimbursement I'll be booted out of that uh fictitational uh Association I don't want to boot you out there no no I see I I've been playing on this for years thank you mayor thank you William Shackleford 385 Manning Street Beaumont Texas mayor and counselor I'm kind of new in the neighborhood so uh this is my first meeting um what I'm here for today is uh I've been here since April so I've kind of been getting things together and I've been wanting to attend one of these meetings so thank you for and I got the opportunity to do so uh I'm concerned about Manning Street that's the street that I live on I built a new home there and uh it's a lot of shotgun houses there and it's a lot of wildlife live in these houses these houses should be torn down there I know at some point in time they will be torn down but look like it's kind of Taken a toll on our community I'm a type person that I work in my community I do a lot of things in the community that goes unnoticed and I'm not looking for any kind of a repercussion in other words uh no payback or anything like that these are just things that I do on a normal basis and when I say work in the neighborhood I go around the block picking up paper and doing these sorts of things uh right now you know we have a dumping problem it's not as bad as it used to be it have gotten better and so that uh I have asked some of the code enforcers that ride around in the cars too actually uh put up some no dumping signs people think they don't work but they do I haven't been in neighborhoods where they do work huh everyone is not going to pay attention to it but if you get one or two people out of five to pay attention to it that may draw attention to others and so uh I would like for that to be done and also something to be done definitely about these shotgun houses uh magistrate it's a street that's been redone over the years because I think they came in years ago and did some sewer work or some type of train his work so it's one of one of the best streets in the neighborhood and the community uses Street to travel up and down every day kids ride their bicycle down the street because it's a better Street and so uh but it's an eyesore and I just wish someone would pay attention to that I don't know who the Council on board to take care of that but uh you will hear from me in the past or I will be talking with you and getting to know you a lot better and I just hope that we'll I know it's a flood area flood zone but it's a community where a lot of people come back to to visit with me and I'm not even from this area I moved here from Houston but I'm originally from Alabama and so but I made this my retirement go ahead finish your statement I made this my retirement City and so that uh I just I just I just stop right there and give someone else opportunity well I will say welcome to Beaumont and thank you for your patience today of all meetings for you to come to uh this was a very intense meeting today a lot of dialogue but I think you see our hearts are in what we do and of course councilmember Samuel I'm sure you will be conversing with him thank you thank you Tony legon carry your 4240 Inez Street Beaumont Texas we can hear you thanks for a cup of water please um can you uh first I want to say good afternoon to everyone I just got back from California because I lost my best friend passed away and I've been going through a lot of emotional things because before that thank you so much thank you and please excuse me before I had left and went to my friend's funeral which was uh last week I just got back Sunday prior to that I was um at one of our meetings with with Parks and Recreations I'm on the committee and I'm very emotional right now and I know it's a lot to do with my losing my friend you know a lot of things have conspired you know so I'm gonna ask everybody here including the citizens of Beaumont to please forgive me for being so um um sad I'm sad right now but I'm I'm a little angry too I'm glad I'm glad that he spoke and and made me laugh you know because I needed to laugh a little bit but I'm very upset with uh one of the council members and I really really uh from Ward 2 I'm not gonna say his name because uh and he knows why because I believe that I deserve uh just like in the words of us Sojourner Truth ain't not a woman am I a woman am I you know and I consider myself a lady you know I am a woman you know this is this is true but I am a lady you know uh I was totally disrespected and the um at the meeting because I'm one of the members I was asked to I was speaking with the CEO of uh he's I don't know his name Neil Neil is one but the CEO and I were speaking when council member from Ward 2 walked up and was listening to us talk and when I was told when I when first of all let me back up we were supposed to go around and see how the Parks look because they have funds that they want to distribute out to see which Park needs what and I'm not from this area either so when I said well I thought that we were going to get together and have um you know on a bus and we all go see these various parks to see what needs what you know and uh I'm kind of nervous right now because I'm upset and I'm I'm upset and so um War II walks up while we were talking me and the CEO because I needed a timeline time limit because he said they wanted us to feel like which parks that we think that needed uh what kind of work which what money should go where and so um I'm sorry I know I'm out of time but I just got to get this out um she probably arrest me after this but I mean I just got to get this out I'll let you finish your go ahead and finish your study he walked up and I refused to say his name he walked up and when I said well you know what can we get a time later because only seven members here uh uh people here that are um that that that that that wrote down their um the parks that they wanted us to to pick to see what we need and I said Tara Park but because I don't know all the parts and um and and uh he suggested War too why don't you just drive around to the parks and I go you know did you have a car to go yes well why don't you drive around I said me go to different various Parks a Woman by myself and see I don't even know the parks you know where to go because we we had decided that we were all gonna I thought it was decided that we'd take a bus ride us all together and care you know and so when I said no I I I do have a car but I'm not going to use my money my money and ride around at various parks to see anyway long story short I said well can we get a time limit on when when we can get this back on uh which which Parks was chosen so get back to council and what where the monies will go because they said they got this monies and they want to know and he said well we'll have to we don't know I said was well it's not that many of us how long will it take you know so he walks up and I said well you know what I'll go to city council I come in sometime and I said his name and he said loud and I didn't have a voice because I just got back in town from Atlanta because my daughter had surgery so my I was sick so he said when I said his name I said well he knows me I'll come to council he said you're disrespecting me called me my not called his last name because I referred to mayor Mouton is mutant I call aldoin Samuels aldwin or Samuels because he's got two last names to me and I call everybody I call durio durio because he's my he's he said he's in Ward four so I meant no disrespect but he took me off guard and for me being born when I was born you know I'm a baby boomer it's almost like call me master master you know that really Disturbed me because I'm a woman and when I said wait a minute you don't talk to me like that you talk to my husband meaning a man he said go get your husband now wait a minute wait wait I'm sorry I got to go here he's I first of all I don't I for me it's like you want to go get my husband which I didn't mean it like that I'm saying you talk to a man like that not a woman the way he talked to me and I was very upset because men were there that could have stopped him which I was standing there with this man you know the way you're talking the way he talked to me you know this this is totally inappropriate when you told us when you told me when you told the city to suck your penis that was totally important moment okay so we've exhausted the three minutes we were way past her statement of time I think that we've gotten out of order for Council and I apologize let me apologize sweetheart let me apologize to this total to this total councils everybody know that I don't talk like this and I am very sorry but I've been very upset so I need to get that off my chest and I really apologize guys and if you don't ever want me to come back here I won't you know but I just wanted to apologize thank you okay look here look you're leaving your your inhalers on the in your water and I apologize again thank you to the whole Council San Marc Sean 640 Kennedy Beaumont Texas [Music] good afternoon mayor council um just after the meeting I have a I now have a new profound respect for the plumbers and the pipes to make the world go around I didn't think that we could sit here for an hour and hear so much informative discussion about the way the pipes work and I want to thank the plumbers in the audience for that that was extremely informative um I'm here to update you on the activities of the Beaumont youth advisory Council we've had a very productive series of meetings and we are extremely grateful for your support our operations would be impossible without the generous time and supporter Mr miles Haynes in the back and councilman Turner we're very grateful we voted so far to approve a group of us to attend the Texas Municipal League's youth advisory Summit in Dallas next weekend I got a group going the youth council is planning both a city beautification day trash pickup and a scholar a scholarship fair in the near future we discuss ways that youth can help Abate the homelessness problem and we'll hear from representative of the police department at our next meeting we also voted for our meetings to be live streamed on the internet on behalf of the youth advisory Council I'd like to thank those of you who attended our last meeting of course members of the public are more than welcome to attend our next session or watch from home on February 9th again I wish to reiterate our profound gratitude for your support and I thank you for my time Mr Marshawn thank you so very much I enjoyed the meeting on last week great dialogue great topic issues a lot of input and I just love the involvement of the youth we look forward to hearing from you at your next meeting everyone is welcome to attend thank you thank you Eddie Allen 9695 cross Beaumont Texas good afternoon Mr Mr city manager Madam mayor and Council and respect it could you raise up your mic please we could barely hear you I'm so sorry thank you can you hear me now yes ma'am um I stand before you with some concerns as I do whenever I'm here number one last week um I left here and almost was blown down by the wind and as you know I've stood before you several times asking uh whether we could have an auditable sound a siren in the event of an occurrence the last mayor we talked about um Stan telephones of course evacuation but the number one thing in an evacuation plan is an auditable sound to let people know I'm from Orange you probably all saw the people that jumped in a ditch to save themselves I was told that this is expensive now when we talk about the bun ratings when we talk about increasing the budget um that's for the good it's also good for the people of Beaumont to know I left here stopping at rails because I wanted a cookie they were closed but you were still here in Council and I did review Council where there was a sound and everybody still was sitting here that's unacceptable you know good thing the Lord spared us that no law lives were lost so I'm asking you again let's look at getting a sound if there is imminent danger of a tornado we're not used to that but we need to do it your management team should Emergency Management should know there was a sound in here and you kept on doing business that's not right people were put In Harm's Way so bottom line let's please address this issue please do it sidewalks we talked about that you talked about it if you don't get funding the ordinance does say the city is responsible strategic planning if we don't get the money are we not going to do the sidewalks last thing is I made a statement about self-insured versus uh insured the notes say that I said underinsured you've adopted the minutes incorrectly so let's pay attention um I'm just a concerned citizen I love Beaumont I love orange more because that's where I'm from you know and they really need it as well so thank you for your time have a good day God bless you everything must change nothing stays the same Ecclesiastes before you leave um I'm gonna ask the City attorney to respond to your comment that we stayed that we stayed during the the storm and there's a reason why so the the clarification to that is the audible noise that when I was an alert to shelter in place and so at the time that the alert went out it was notified to the council and to the members of the public who were here at the time of the meeting that it was recommended that they shelter and Pace Into the Storm passed I was gone when that happened because I saw that the weather was gone so it didn't apply to me so I was subjected to bad weather thank you that's all I have mayor thank you at this time it I will call for council member comment and I will ask councilmember Neal thank you mayor I'd like to start off by uh kind of reiterating what everybody else up here has previously said about Exxon Mobil and just saying thank you to you guys for what you all have uh continue to do year after year for for our area and the the true partnership that you guys have formed with Beaumont over the many years so thank you for that and then also kind of add to that say thank you to the council for the open Dialogue on the on the plumbing code changes I know it was kind of a uncomfortable discussion at times but it needs to be had and I just want to say thank you to you guys on on having that conversation today thank you councilmember Samuel I just want to add to that and say thank you Anton mobile for setting an example and creating high standards as partners thank you thank you councilmember yeah as most of you know Beaumont PD arrested a 26 year old man armed with an assault rifle who was drawing complaints near Saint Anthony and the temple Emanuel uh we we don't know what could have happened and so again as we've said many times please if you see something please say something in that situation a tragedy tragedy was diverted and we appreciate Beaumont PD and we appreciate the citizens that called those concerns in thank you mayor thank you councilmember Turner uh yeah I had a question uh I got a complain about in that area Saint Anthony Church I don't know if we have an ordinance or anything in the place where you know stranger it's a stranger he parks in his car and he kind of sits around that area the cops go out and address it but I don't know if we have any ordinance or any policy in place to kind of protect you know our churches and our schools in reference to someone being in that area and being reprimanded for sitting there so staff can look into it and kind of give me some clarification if we do I'd appreciate that uh the second thing I want to ask the community for your prayers for our traveling grace our youth Council we're making our first trip out of town this upcoming weekend we're traveling to Dallas and we're gonna the the conference is to educate the kids on how a budget process works so we're making traveling grace but why are we talking about Exxon Mobil not only did they take care of Charlton Park their neighboring Park they also were a sponsor for youth Council that actually gave us the fun into make it to this trip they were going on so I want to give kudos to Exxon not only for stepping up to take care of us at our park but they're investing our youth and once again I always stress you know I'm a big man of actions over words uh my next comment is I senior citizens uh talk to our City attorney about I'm not a City attorney a city clerk about this I've seen citizens are inquiring about mail ballots can you kind of speak to that I got a lot of phone calls can kind of explain to them how that works yes sir for mail ballots uh they can request it at the beginning of the year and the requests will take them through the end of the year for whatever elections we may have within the City of Beaumont whether it's a city election or if it's a county election but they do have to request a mill ballot every year so it doesn't carry from one year to the to the next and I think that's been the um the misunderstanding as far as requesting a mail ballot so they have to do it every January yes ma'am and I see the attorney in our city clerk I want to thank y'all for this Sunday and we did get the email I'll let y'all know I appreciate y'all listening and making sure that took place and lastly uh we increased our general liability fund by five hundred thousand dollars and one thing that plays into that is accidents uh we we had a lot of dialogue about accidents and the process and procedures that will take place to do preventative training to avoid those accidents so if you know we had some things taking place if maybe Mr Williams can kind of give us an update on what are the new powers and procedures we doing to kind of prevent that because at the last thing last thing you want to do is let these funds keep Rising so we kind of want to know what preventative measures are going on I know at one point I was told we were doing safety trainings and you know we got some documentation but clearly if the accidents are increasing and we're spending more money we might need to explore the options so if you can get us an update on it I highly appreciate that but outside of that thank you and I I do like the audible sound sign or sound siren I do think that will be beneficial especially for our seniors who can't watch television who may not listen to the radio who might not beat the phone savvy so I don't know the expenses uh the magnitude to that but we have a citizen that's keep asking about that I think it'd be suitable to see if we can at least address it uh and get some information on it thank you councilmember Gibbs thank you mayor again ExxonMobil thank you for stepping up uh your generosity to the community and your community support uh is beyond reproach thank you so much um I feel like I'm going to have to respond to the lady that made the comments about an incident that happened at a park and recreation advisory committee even though she has decided to leave you know we're here in the South and there is a certain decorum that is supposed to be afforded at at meetings and one of the things that has always irritated me is that somebody calls me by my last name just gets you know I don't think that's respectful you know mayor you wouldn't like it if I call hey Mouton that's not respectful uh and this particular lady persisted in doing this she calls AJ AJ and councilman Turner was at the meeting he can back up what I'm saying and it's not the first time I told her previously hey I would prefer that you call me Mike call me councilman Getz call me Mr guest but just don't call me by my last name but she persisted and when she persisted I called her down for it I said I've told you before don't address me that way I've given her other options and she took offense she said well in the military they call you by last I said we're not in the military she said well I'm from the north we call people we're not in the North so anyway that's what that incident was all about and you know it's unfortunate that she decided to come here and display her feelings about it in that manner but you know if somebody says something to me that is disrespectful I'm not going to sit there and take it so that's all I have mayor thank you council member duria mayor Pro tem durian sorry uh you can call me council member durio mayor Pro tem Dario or or durio I've been going by Julio's everybody in my family is called durio you know they'd be like which one are you talking about the short one okay which one you talking about are we all short thank you Chris we different Mike it doesn't bother me you know also um like everybody else I want to thank Epson mobile also but I also want to thank Chris Jones for his leadership with the Charlton Pollard neighborhood association and I like the relationship you've established with Exxon Mobil and also I'm pretty sure that councilman Samuel that's his Ward pretty sure you have some input on that and uh congratulations Exxon Mobil I think Ward 4 border some of y'all properties also so we got some parks and stuff too so okay I also appreciate that also um this past Sunday um people said they were watching football but to me no no cowboys even no football so I'ma keep going but I was uh watching had the game on and I was getting phone calls and Facebook messages about the flooding and the sewers and all that and it was the first time I had ever used a 3-1-1 app you can download that 311 app to your phone and it works very well you get an email back and they keep you updated on the process of your call and it worked good a matter of fact I'm still getting emails about some of the stuff that I put in to the 3-1-1 app but I tell everyone I don't mind them calling me but call 3-1-1 I mean the more reports the better and you'll have a record of that report when you when you call it in the 3-1-1 think let me see what else do I have in here I got some notes hurry up um everybody should feel like they're a plumber now you know but it was a lot of good information there was a lot of good back and forth um like um councilman Neal said and I said earlier we're not gonna always vote alike we all I have to vote in what we feel is in the best interest of our constituents that's but when it's over no matter how the vote came on we'll move on to the next item you know without killing each other or even being mad we just just move on to the next item I think that's it uh of course I made a lot of phone calls and and um emails to staff this week about different things going that my constituents called me about and um thank you guys for your prompt response you guys usually get back to me and and as the manager has told me I make sure that he's included on everything and I tell the guys I said look he was out of town I called you please don't snitch on me to the manager that I called you that's all I have mayor thank you mayor Pro Tim Mr city manager can we call you Tom Brady I think you're Tom Brady again thank you mayor and thank you and again I I'd like to also thank Exxon Mobil for what they've done in the work for nakisha and the dedication she's done to the community and to child De Paula neighborhood I look forward to the recycling ground again I've assigned miles Haynes to work with Exxon on that Grant uh project so we are looking for some exciting things coming from that is that Andrew let's wave at Andrew too because Andrew has been on that and he's working with that Grant uh yeah so so thank you uh councilmember Turner will get you to answer to your uh comments or either they'll come back to you and and excuse me and then agenda item uh for sure um just one note on the Strategic plan uh We've executed the contract they'll be contacting you at some point directly for interviews uh you they'll be doing direct interviews on the time of February 14th 17th and 18th so they'll schedule it to you they want the first Contact will be with individual meetings with you on what you want to hear what you want to see in the city what you want to do so you'll be contacted to set that up then we'll be coming back with a joint work session with the directors management and and and the councilman and Council during the time period of March 6th through the 9th so things will start escalating pretty quickly Lyle sumic and an associate will will do the work and so they'll work with you remotely then they'll come to town and start working with you so we're excited about that and getting that done um over the next it'll be finished before June we're saying June could be May hopefully and I think that's it maybe and I think those of you who made the HOA meetings I know mayor was there and help defend me in that case and council member professional attorney and Samuel was there too so it was good to see you out there thank you thank you mayor Pro tem durian hey two more things one on what councilman remember Turner said and PD might be able to answer this or uh attorney Reed isn't there a law that you can't be within so many feet of a school with the firearm isn't that a federal law yes but the the situation that happened with Saint Anthony's is he was parked on a public Street he wasn't parked on any private property they did um alert police after became aware that the vehicle had been there consistently for several days and when police made contact with the individual it was then determined that you know he had extra stuff going on and so that's why the arrest was made but it's not illegal to park on a public street it's not illegal um to live you know to do to do the things what was illegal was a he had a firearm within so many feet of a school so that that is a laws that you cannot have a firearm within so many feet of a school but more importantly it's that it didn't raise any alarms until he had been there for several days and so again parents were appropriately reporting into the school school officials they made contact with the police and the police made contact with him and determined that he was a threat to the to the community at that time well that's that's a good that's a good deal I mean it's no telling what was prevented by somebody saying something and saying something about it you know also uh Mr Boone came out to the Pearl Archer neighborhood association last Thursday done a presentation a lot of staff was there office tomorrow was there uh no officer Riley I think was there yeah but everybody they done really good it was a lot of questions it was uh very informative and one of the things I'm very very happy about most time we have a neighborhood association meeting we'll have 15 people from staff there and four people from the neighborhood well this time we had about 20 or 25 people from the neighborhood and and we got a lot of good information out there and uh that was a real good presentation that um Mr Boone did uh told him next time because he gave a lot of information out that Bart should have given out so we'll get Bart there in the next time he did a great job thank you mayor Pro Tim councilmember Turner yeah I know at the neighborhood association meeting councilman Sam we had a packed house right we didn't have like 20 30 we had about 50 in there huh so I just want to put it out there you know nothing is showing up and showing that [Laughter] for the reason everybody we didn't have that many parts because they called me on a daily basis so I give them information out all day every day they have my they have my cell phone number but they could just call and ask me and I'll let them know thank you Mr city manager would you like to address the Saint Anthony School incident with Chief Singletary called this yes uh yesterday and mayor happened to be at City Hall we were discussing something when Chief uh Singletary called to inform us about the situation as it was progressing with the uh Saint Anthony School situation he gave us an update let us know what was happening let us know what was going to happen so we thank Chief Singletary for communicating that and communicating with that one to myself and the mayor and letting us know before anything happened so that was well coordinated by PD that I commend them for their work a really good work at this point from from what we know at this point and uh we feel really grateful that they could have really uh mitigated a difficult situation also they um the FBI has been informed of the citizen and so it is um been taken care of locally and Statewide thank you City attorney Reid so I would also like to clarify um based on the comments that were made today that a councilman Getz has never made an inappropriate comment to me so that wasn't reference to me I know they would say that there was a statement that was made that he made a statement to the City attorney and so for the public that wasn't a comment that was addressed to me um I just feel like I have to say it the secondly I like to add thank Angie this is her last week with the city I want to thank her for her her years of service to us and everything that she's done with the city and I just like to publicly say that I fully appreciate her and her role thank you well hold up I'm so sorry yes I asked for everyone please stand and Applause Angela Angie Thomas on her retirement thank you thank you well that was first on my list oh my gosh sorry however uh Angie Thomas who has been employed for 29 years has been assistant to myself and to the new city manager her retirement party will be at the Event Center this Friday from three to six and Angie will be returning after 29 years many of you may not know who Angie is but if you call our office and if you have for many years that is the voice that you will hear before you ever get to us and so I would like to say congratulations on your retirement Angie um she's going to be missed she has really really taken care of all of us so I'm going to suck it up until Friday at the reception um I would also like to say this today I read a proclamation for Southeast Texas Workforce month beginning February and they reported that Bowman is looking really really great it is forecast that they will have to fill 49 000 jobs here in this area so that's a lot of jobs coming to Beaumont the Golden Triangle Southeast Texas there's a lot of plant expansion I'm sure we will have people near and far applying for jobs so um that's exciting news for our area absolutely Exxon Mobil can't say enough thank you so very much for your partnership for the work that you do in our city um in the South End and um we're just grateful we're grateful grateful for the work that you do with our city and the south end of town thank you so very much as I say we were really really surprised about the check we didn't know uh we Council didn't know about the check so we were just as surprised as the audience but thank you for the wonderful work that you do and again looking forward to the recycling uh program something that's well needed also on yesterday I was at Saint Anthony's school because it's uh a Catholic school week kicked off in yesterday so I read to a Pre-K class and it was so funny it was almost like everything I said uh we I had a cheering Squad and they was just so excited and I read just a Dr Seuss book but uh Angie I want you to come up to the podium so that we could uh give you your Standing Ovation because it's so deserved thank you thank you [Applause] thank you [Applause] thank you Americans [Applause] just sit here to make sure the mayor gets the last word I like to say uh thank you Angie personally for uh I couldn't have asked for a better person to to work with me coming into the situation and not knowing the city and everything you were there hand and foot for everything so thank you thank you for the sacrifices and the time you've done and for making my short time with you pleasurable thank you well we tried to keep it y'all we tried to tell her you don't want to retire but Her Mind Is Made Up and Friday will be her last day but I also want to say uh to both groups from uh that presented today on the plumbing codes it was a long dialogue but it was a good dialogue and I look forward to revisiting the situation in two weeks and I believe we will have the answers that we need to move forward on this I think all of you could tell by my vote that my mind was made up to move forward in the direction for the citizens and to the the plumbers and the business owners here in Beaumont but we always want to make sure that we're doing what's best for our constituency in this city and uh last thing if you know of a couple that has been married 50 plus years in Beaumont we want to celebrate them on Valentine's Day here in Beaumont City council meeting Council falls on February the 14th and so this year I would like to present anyone that's been married 50 years or more you deserve to be recognized so someone said amen so if you know of anyone please it will be on our website so or either contact City Hall someone will direct you we would like to have their name so that they can be recognized you deserve to be recognized after 50 years of marriage again thank you for coming and mayor mayor just for a moment I am so sorry thank you that's okay I just wanted to real quick thank everyone that sent the flowers were beautiful from the city um from Chief Earl white all of the phone calls the emails the Tex-Mex messages the cards on the passing of my mom so I just wanted to thank you and council member mayor Pro tem durio for attending her funeral and I wanted to also um address the comments that were made by Miss Allen earlier that I've been out in and out of the office but I will go back and listen to the minutes from the meeting that she referred to and if there was an error I've done this for 15 years and I think this may be the second or third time that I've had to go back and if there was a mistake made I will definitely correct that and I will definitely reach out to her to let her know thank you I just wanted to clarify that and I am so sorry before I adjourn uh Mr Boone do you have anything you would like to say I just want to Echo the comments on uh Angie's retirement she will be uh sorely missed absolutely Bart I'll let go Chris's comments on all of y'alls we will miss Angie thank you and Tim I said Tim I'm looking at you I'm sorry Todd Seminole [Laughter] I'm sorry and I kind of lost my place I I got a little emotional but on this weekend um I would just like to say that I met two well I'm I'm sorry I will be meeting the other one but I met a lady named Beth King on Saturday she turned 100 on January 27th went to her house and uh did a proclamation for her turning 100 and being a citizen of Beaumont of course you hear 100 years old and you're thinking I'm gonna see somebody's just sitting there not moving around no ma'am she beat us outside to take pictures and so I told Miss Beth to be watching city council meeting I truly truly enjoyed meeting her family and she had a great birthday party on Saturday and on tomorrow I will go out and meet Miss Annie Brazil who turned 104 on January 20th and so miss Brazil celebrated her birthday the news went out and I was trying to get there last week but I couldn't make it so she's expecting me on tomorrow at two o'clock so that's 104 and 100 year old I mean they're they're sitting there just they're waiting she's waiting on me so that's very very exciting news to have citizens in in our community 100 plus years old so I would just like to say again thank you for coming go out and spread the love we appreciate it bye-bye foreign