Sundown City Council held a regular meeting on Tuesday to get answers on their follow-up questions about a potential USG water meter project.
At a prior city council meeting, the members heard a presentation from water system consultant John Hoffman about the project for the city of Sundown.
The council approved to proceed with a site survey at the October meeting and have Hoffman return to answer questions asked by the council members.
Courtney Thompson joined Hoffman during the meeting.
A clarification made was in regard to solar panels on the meters’ data collection units.
Thompson said solar power is meant to be a backup for the data collection units. So, if the data collector does go down, it can recharge itself.
The system is built on triple redundancy, Thompson said: If two data collectors go down, one data collector can still read the entire system.
Another question from the council was hard water in the city. Thompson said the water meters are designed to handle hard water and include a self-cleaning technology for cleaning stainless steel reflectors.
Thompson reminded the council about the 15-year warranty for the meters, meaning they could be replaced if there’s any issue with them.
The city is working on getting a few of the new meters installed prior to committing to the project. City Administrator Billy Hernandez said he was considering high usage areas to place those.
Thompson said the site survey for the project would look at the size of the meters, as well as other potential issues like excessive digging, in order to determine what the project would look like.
The council and USG personnel discussed that there would be ways for the public to know the site survey is happening in the city.
The council approved a resolution for the submission of a community development block grant program application. Hernandez said they were awarded a $500,000 grant for water projects in the southeast area of town.
The block grant mentioned in the action item would be for the next cycle and amount to $650,000. After the council applies, they will know where they fall in terms of approval and can proceed with considering projects that the money would be used for.
Hernandez said the project might have to be neighborhood specific rather than for the whole community.
The council revisited a rightaway discussion at the last meeting, where a resident asked the council to clean and own an area next to his property.
Hernandez said the right away-could not be given up to just one person, considering it’s on two property lines. However, since it’s the city’s right-away, they can help clean it and give Lewis access to what he needs.
The council approved a motion to help clean the area and allow Mr. Lewis to use it without giving ownership.
Also concerning land, members discussed an action item about the lease of city property.
Hernandez said he received a question about leasing and cleaning an area of the city, but Hernandez found there was no paperwork on whether the council leases city-owned land to people.
Councilmember Ron Holson said city property could get into possible liabilities, and they have to be ready for other prospective lessees.
No motion was made on the action item.
A lot item discussed at the previous meeting was revisited.
Hernandez said it’s possible to place a deed restriction on lot bids that could prevent the use of travel trailers on lots.
However, the restrictions must be upfront and will be enforced through a court system.
The council said deed restrictions could also address things like build dates, permit fees and size restriction. The council tabled the item, which asked for an action to set a minimum bid for Carter addition lots.
Another agenda item concerning Collins lots brought about a financing update.
Hernandez said they met with Government Capital, and the company could potentially help them break down financing for local projects and provide the council with payment options.
As it was just an update, no motion was made on the item.
The council approved another resolution that adopted Texas policy under Senate Bill 1893, in which TikTok and other applications would be banned on city-owned technology.
Hernandez said the resolution is a requirement. After it is passed, a handbook informing employees would be distributed, and TikTok would be removed on city-owned devices and banned on servers by information technology teams.
The last action item approved a budget amendment for the 20232024 fiscal year.
Hernandez gave a city administrator’s report, in which an update on the cemetery was given. He said they signed a contract for $15,000 of surveying work, which includes staking the road, plots and trees on the property.
Multiple Sundown organizations presented updates to the council.
Police Chief Jeff Foster presented the police department update. Captain Isaac Garza got off field training and is now able to patrol alone.
Foster said the two are working on splitting shifts to better cover the days.
Police camera equipment was also discussed during the update.
Foster mentioned an Axon contract for cameras with cloud storage for the footage and synced activation across Axon devices.
Hernandez said the item wasn’t put in the budget, but they’ll find room for it due to state requirements.
In the community, Foster said they’re working on addressing some recent instances of theft.
The fire department update was presented by Cole Mulloy. Fourteen medical and two fire runs were completed this month.
Mulloy also brought up the lack of a task force for the south plains for handling events like panhandle fires.
During a public works update, Hernandez said a lead inventory report was done for TCEQ. One customer was advised about possible lead due to the material used on the service line.
The library update involved a recap of their fall festival and upcoming open house Dec. 9.
The council approved the minutes for its previous meeting, as well as paid monthly expenditures.