The City Council met in regular session on Monday, January 16, where they addressed their short agenda.
With no announcements being made and the minutes approved the Council moved right into the regular agenda.
Mike Arismendez with Mobilitie Intelligent Infrastructure gave a presentation to the Council on installing a 120-foot tower which will provide improved cell phone 3G, 4G, LTE, and Wi-Fi service to enterprises and real estate properties.
Data from cell phones is not the only enhanced service provided by the new tower, which will be constructed in the city right of way just south of Hicks Air and Appliances. Transport connectivity, Wi-Fi, Distributed Antenna Systems, Communications towers, and Colocation Management would also be greatly improved.
Even though Sprint data users would benefit the most from the new tower, Arismendez noted other cell phone carriers would also see improved data service.
An information booklet handed to each Council member showed different mobile data trends as well as 2020 data use forecast and how the average household is going more toward cell phone usage for their everyday needs and more landlines are being done away with.
Even though this was only an information presentation, most of the Council seemed to agree this could be something beneficial for the community. Arismendez will continue meeting with City Manager Stan David to work out specifics of terms for the proposed tower and will be back at a future meeting for more specific details.
The Council then looked at bids received for the sealcoat project planned for this year. The Council had allowed $200,000 for this project, but both bids that were received exceeded the budgeted amount.
Fuquay, Inc. of New Braunfels had submitted a bid of $247,147.50 and Liphan of Aspermont submitted a bid of $214,287.50. The city has used Liphan on previous sealcoating projects.
After discussions on if the Council wanted to stay within the budgeted amount by paving fewer streets or absorbing the cost over the budged amount with other areas of the budget the Council unanimously approved a motion by Councilman Robert Hanneman to accept the bid from Liphan and pave all the streets in the proposal.
A 2017 election calendar was presented to the Council for the upcoming election of three Council members as well as Mayor Tommy Hicks. In addition to Mayor Hicks, the two-year terms of Councilmembers Joan Breith, Ronald Weir, and Robert Hanneman are expiring.
City Manager David also presented the Council with a copy of the investment report for the quarter of October 1 through December 31, 2016. Included in the report were balances of the two investment pools, the checking account, and the Certificates of Deposit. The total revenue is $6,572,239.
David also included in his report the interest rate performance in each of those areas and how much revenue these interest rates generated.
And the last area of the report David covered was the book value and market value as of September 30, 2016, and what it was on December 31, 2016.
The Council went into Executive Session to discuss options for land leased by Corky Black close to the sewer farm. Black had been leasing the property for farming purposes since 1989. One of the terms of his contract is how the lease could end, including his death. Black passed away a few weeks ago, so the City needs to decide what to do with the land.
After coming out of Executive Session Councilman Clinton Bowman made the motion to allow City Attorney Warren New to draw up a new lease agreement for the City farm adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant south of Denver City. The land involved is the West one-half of section 42.
David indicated a few farmers had contacted him expressing an interest in leasing the land for farming purposes.
The Council then approved the payment of December manual checks that totaled $132,140.12, which included a $16,629.27 natural gas transfer for November, 2016, and regular bills that totaled $62,340.86.
Councilmembers Joan Breith, Ronald Weir, Robert Hanneman, Clinton Bowman, Mark Sherman, and Keith Mensch along with Mayor Tommy Hicks were all present.
The next regularly scheduled meeting will be Monday, February 6 starting at 7 pm.
