The Early City Council discussed many new items of business at their monthly meeting. The first item on the agenda, the council approved a Memorandum of Understanding regarding selling a used police vehicle for the city of Venus for $3,000. The council then approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Talpa Volunteer Fire Department to transfer a surplus of radios the city of Early had in store. The council recognized that Talpa mutually aids the City of Early Fire Department. The transfer of ownership was at no cost.
The council then approved to authorize the award of a professional service provider contract to Grantworks, for the 2023-2024 Texas Community Development Block Grant Community Development Fund. The city is using this for the road construction project on McDonald Drive, including the reconstruction of the entire road from Early Boulevard to Longhorn Drive. Part of that process is having an administrator for the grant that will also do the grant writing. The grant is up to $500,000. The city of Early’s scoring committee requested that the contract go to Grantworks. The council approved this decision.
The council authorized awarding and designating a professional engineering firm for the 2023-2024 Texas Community Development Block Grant Community Development Fund. An engineer was required to help through the grant process and be awarded to design the project in the future. The council approved awarding Jacob&Martin for the project.
The council approved the award for professional engineering services for the Transportation Alternative Grant Project to Volkert. This is the sidewalk project for the City of Early. The city has already been awarded the grant but they needed to select an engineer.
The council approved Jacob&Martin to be the engineers overseeing the Crescent neighborhood Sewer line rehab project. The Texas Water Development Board required the city to go back out for the engineers to oversee the project already designed. Jacob and Martin already designed the project and were then approved by the city to oversee it.
The council then discussed, without making decisions, directing the publication of a Notice of Intention to issue Combination Tax and Revenue Certificates of Obligation. This is the beginning of issuing the certification of obligation in an amount not to exceed 4 million for the Town Center project. However, City Administrator Tony Aaron made clear that this is not the set number yet. This is the process of notifying the public of the intent to discuss the number. The public notices will be going out through the City’s website and news. February 14th is when the City Council will approve the final terms and the final issuance of certificates is February 14th.
Issuing this debt would be for the city’s contractual obligations for the city’s waterworks and sewer system. The city will also be using these funds to construct infrastructure, streets, landscaping, park improvements, etc. Also, it would cover amenities with the boardwalk for the Town Center Project.
The majority of what they were talking about was for the construction of the first North/South Road up in the Town Center off Kelcy Wade street, as well as the Town Center boardwalk that will run parallel to the lake and next to the first row of restaurants set to be on the boardwalk. Anywhere between now and February 14th, the city can discuss the final amount needed. All the projects listed in the notice are eligible for the dollars spent. The maximum repayment term in the notice is Feb. 15, 2044. They cannot exceed that repayment term but can shorten it.
The council went over how they want to structure paying off the debt. City Administrator Tony Aaron talked about the possibility and benefits of making the grant callable at three years. That means that they are designating that can be paid off earlier than the maturity date. The typical callable schedule is about 10 years. But Aaron talked about how much in the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands the city would save paying off the debt early by avoiding interest rates over a period of 10 years. If the city chooses the three-year callable date, the city of early will pay more in interest rates, but the higher rate may be worth it if the debt is paid off quicker.
In a question, if the city can refinance, the standard bond issue would be 9 or 10 years from now. Then the city would have the opportunity to refinance then.
Different scenarios were discussed on how to buy down the debt service rate, which would include contributions from the city if the city wanted to keep the tax rates level and/or lower. How much the city contributes to the debt service will depend on how much the tax rate lowers. These projections they made, however, were done without projecting any growth. If they have a lot of growth, the tax rate will go down anyways.
The council will further discuss this in the January meeting
The council then held an executive session, in which they considered two items. The first was approving an agreement between the Early MDD and Humphrey Pete’s, awarding economic sales tax funds to Humphrey Pete’s in the amount not to exceed $20,026.25 for fiscal 2022-2023 and authorizing the Director of Economic Development to execute the necessary documents and provide an effective date.
Then, the city moved to read an agreement between Early MDD and Pates Hardware Inc., awarding economic development sales tax funds to Pates in the amount not to exceed $30,000 for the fiscal year 2022-2023 and authorized the Director of Economic Development to execute the necessary documents and provide an effective date. No action council could be taken that night
In the Administrator’s Report, Tony Aaron discussed that the city needs the final numbers for the city to finalize the final plat for the Town Center Project. The Council will decide that in January.
The city is still waiting on Oncor to provide power for streetlights for the new street yet to be opened and they have had more construction to do in the area.
The lake construction is going well despite the rain and winter weather.
Construction has built the site for the batting cage. The MDD went out for bids on the batting cage for $300,000. But now the MDD is rejecting all bids and the city will be able to generally contract the construction themselves and stay within budget. Construction is hoping to start by January.
Finally, the city locked in numbers for the Town Center monuments which are 4x4x14. That will be at Buena Vista and Kelcy Wade which will say “Early Town Center.” They will get construction on that in a couple of weeks.
In Announcements, the City Christmas party is on December 15th at the Visitors and Event Center at 6:30. You must RSVP to Brenda Kilgo at bkilgo@earlytx.net.