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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN OCT 19 1982 REGULAR SESSION CITY COUNCIL - CITY OF BEAUMONT HELD OCTOBER 19, 1982 BE IT REMEMBERED that the City Council of the City of Beaumont , Texas , met in regular session this the 19th day of October , 1982 , with the following present : HONORABLE: William E. Neild Mayor Bill Cox Councilman, Ward I Evelyn M. Lord Councilman, Ward II Joseph D. Deshotel Councilman , Ward III Wayne Turner Councilman , Ward IV Hugh Earnest Asst . City Manager Kenneth Wall City Attorney -000- The Invocation was given by the Reverend Edward Hughes, St . Michael ' s Orthodox Christian Church. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Mayor Neild. -000- The following proclamations were issued: "Head Start Week in Beaumont" October 18-22 , 1982 ; "National Business Women' s Week" -. October 17-24, 1982 (B.P.W. Club of Beaumont presented a "Certificate of Merit" to Coun- cilman Lord as "Outstanding Business & Professional Woman of Beaumont" ) ; "Homecoming Day at Lamar University in Beaumont" - October 30, 1982 ; "United Nations Day" - October 24 , 1982 ; and "Camp Fire Camp Niwanals 30th Anniversary Celebration Day" - October 24, 1982. -000- Presentation of Employee Retirement Plaques and Service Awards was made : Those receiving pins for 15 years service were : Bill Fondren , Fire Department ; David A. Fontenot , Fire Department ; Joe B. May, Fire Department ; Raymond J. Rice, Fire Department ; Jackie L. Sturrock, Fire Department ; David L. Turner , Fire Department ; Joe P. Walker, Fire De- partment ; Bobby G. Foxworth, Street Department ; Robert B. Hayes, Police -De- partment ; Edmund C. Woodsmall , Police Department , John U. Davis, Sewer Maintenance, Leroy J. Clark, Street Department , Isaac Wilridge, Street De- partment and Tommy May, Fire Department . Those receiving pins for 20 years of service were: Gerald W. Waits, Police Department ; Olen Green , Street Department ; Everett M. Sells, Street Department . Those receiving pins for 25 years of service were: Geraldine Barthell , Water Commercial Account Clerk; J. P. Traylor, District Chief of the Fire Department ; John V. Barnett , Captain of the Fire Depart- ment ; Robert T. Elie, Street Department Maintenance Worker ; Lester Tyler, Street Department Senior Equipment Operator,; John R. Kirby, Traffic Techni- cian of the Traffic & Transportation Department ; and Forrest M. Craigen, Construction Inspector of the Water Commercial Department . George F. Moses, Jr. , Customer Service Worker of the Water Commercial De- partment , received a service pin for 40 years of service. Retirement Plaques were given to: Jack D. Frederick, Fire Engineer of the Fire Department , retiring with 22 years of service and James E. Hobson, Senior "Equipment Operator with the Street Department , retiring with 13 years of service. -189- October 19, 1982 The following Consent Agenda items were considered : Approval of the Minutes of the regular City Council session held October 12 , 1982 ; Resolution 82-389 granting an underground electrical distribution ease- ment to Gulf States Utilities Company for lighting on Guseman Park; and Resolution 82-390 authorizing the release of $215 ,000. 00 in securities pledged as collateral for city bank deposits by Texas Commerce Bank of Beaumont and accepting a pledge of $420,000. 00 in other securities (total pledged­ $45, 700, 000. 00) . The Consent Agenda was approved on a motion made by Councilman Deshotel and seconded by Councilman Turner. Question : Ayes : All Nayes : None An ordinance changing the zoning from RS to GC-MD for about 9. 6 acres on the east side of Keith Road about 349 feet north of Highway 105 (request , made by Brack Jones for property to be used for storage of lease/rental oil field equipment ) was considered: AN ORDINANCE ENTITLED AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 30 OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF BEAUMONT , TEXAS , AND IN PARTICULAR THE BOUNDARIES OF THE ZONING DISTRICTS AS INDICATED UPON THE ZONING MAP OF BEAUMONT, TEXAS, BY CHANGING PROPERTY PRESENTLY ZONED RS (RESIDENTIAL SINGLE FAMILY) DISTRICT TO GC-MD (GENERAL COMMERCIAL - MULTIPLE DWELLING) DISTRICT FOR A 9. 6 ACRE TRACT OF LAND DESCRIBED HEREIN; PROVIDING FOR SEVERABILITY; PROVIDING FOR REPEAL; AND PROVIDING A PENALTY. The ordinance was denied on a motion made by Councilman Lord and seconded by Councilman Turner. Question: Ayes : All Nayes : None -000- Resolution 82-391 authorizing a right-of-way purchase of Parcel #30 for the Phelan Boulevard TIP Project from Norris Hardy, Jr. , and Andrew Owens at $1230. 00 was approved on a motion made by Councilman Cox and seconded by Councilman Turner. Question : Ayes : Mayor Neild Abstained: Councilman Councilman Cox Deshotel Councilman Lord Councilman Turner _000- Resolution 82-392 authorizing eminent domain proceedings to acquire a drainage easement for the Phelan Boulevard Extension TIP Project . (Parcel #3 from Sam C. Parigi , Jr. ) was approved on a motion made by Councilman Lord and seconded by Councilman Deshotel. Question : Ayes : All Nayes : None -000- Resolution. 82-393 authorizing a payment of $22 ,200. 00 to the Beaumont Art Museum for janitorial and grounds keeping services at the Wilson Art Cen- ter was approved on a motion made by Councilman Deshotel and seconded by Councilman Lord. Question : Ayes : All Nayes : None -000- -190- October 19 , 1982 Resolution 82-394 authorizing Change Order No. 1 to the contract with McCullough Associates for construction of a 24-inch water main and im- provements to the pump station at Well No. 1 (C.O. #1 proposed to furn- ish and install a transition pipe between the mechanical and flanged ends from the 36-inch existing pump suction tee and the proposed 36-inch suc- tion line at a cost of $2,029. 00) by increasing the total cost from $1, 144,796. 00 to $1, 146,825. 00 was approved on a motion made by Council- man Lord and seconded by Councilman Deshotel. Question : Ayes: All Nayes: None -000- Resolution 82-395 authorizing employment of Mehaffy, Weber, Keith & Gon- soulin as legal counsel to represent supervisory employees named as in- dividual defendants in the lawsuit styled as Greathouse v City of Beau- mont et al , fee not to exceed $15,000. 00, was approved on a motion made by Councilman Deshotel and seconded by Councilman Turner. Question : Ayes: All Nayes: None -000- Resolution 82-396 authorizing execution of an agreement to arbitrate unresolved contract issues with the International Association of Fire- fighters, Local 399, appointing Charles Kothe as a member of the arbitra- tion panel; and authorizing the hiring of Coopers & Lybrand and other expert witnesses and the payment of arbitration fees and expenses not to exceed $65,000. 00, was approved on a motion made by Councilman Turner and seconded by Councilman Lord. Question: Ayes: All Nayes: None -000- Mayor Neild welcomed students from Westbrook Senior High School to today' s meeting. -000- A public hearing for consideration of the UDAG Application for Kyle Build- ing ,Restoration Project was held: MR. HUGH EARNEST, Asst . City Manager : The next item on the agenda is a public hearing for the purpose of consid- ering a UDAG application for the Kyle Building Development Project . I think it might be appropriate to point out a few principle points that we ought to keep in mind as we go through this. We met with Bruce Rick and . . . this morning. What they are really involved in here, I believe, is putting together the project and what they are going to be speaking about today is a concept of a program which is crucial and essential to the City of Beaumont . I don 't think they are prepared to speak to the speci- fic details. What they are really asking for is just one component of it and a relatively minor component - that is , the UDAG application and the money that ' s available from the UDAG program. The process itself on the federal side will require an extensive review and any questions relative to financing that would be required to get the UDAG money will be answered in the UDAG application itself or in the process that the federal govern- ment goes through so that any concern that might be expressed relative to financing will be answered in great detail or will be questioned in great detail in the UDAG application process itself . This will occur probably in the month of December so that any questions on financing will have to be resolved by the developers before the application is submitted. The reason that we are going through this process right now is that we are operating under a very short time frame as far as submitting the applica- tion. That deadline is October 25th. Finally , the City Council itself will have further and extensive review time if and when the project con- tinues and IRB bonds are asked for so you will have a further time to re- view the project and express any concern that anyone might have with re- spect to this project and its impact on downtown Beaumont . With that , Mr. Rick, I am assuming that you are going to make the presentation. Bruck Rick from Bruce Rick & Associates in Austin. -191- October 19, 1982 MAYOR NEILD : Let me at this time then open the public hearing for application for UDAG grant for the Kyle Building Development Project . Those of you that would like to come to the podium and give your name and address and would like to speak for it , do so. And, then , I will afford time for anyone that would like to come and speak in opposition to it , so those who would like to come forward at this time and speak for the project , please come and make your presentation. MR. BRUCE RICK: My name is Bruce Rick and I would like to just give some preliminary in- formation. We own the Kyle Building itself and the surface parking. I would like to confirm that at this point except for the basic project it- self , the specifics are preliminary. We are still working on it and, but for the deadline which is the end of this month, I probably wouldn ' t have presented a proposal that wasn ' t any better formulated than this. The basic idea is for the restoration of the Kyle Building. I 'm primarily involved in restorations around the state with an interest myself in all of the ones that we are involved in and my initial interest in this came about because I came down to make a speech to the Beaumont Heritage Society on the tax benefits of restoration and while I was here got so excited about the whole thing that I purchased part of the Kyle Building and since then I have been trying to figure out how to redo it . The general idea still is to redo the Kyle Building. I guess the specific idea is to redo the Kyle Building. Generally, I feel that that can probably be best done with the additional development and that involves an office building which would be a free-standing structure on the site, parking facilities to serve the Kyle Building and the office building and of course the all-out restoration of the Kyle Building. The usage would probably be office in the adjacent structure and some sort of retail or ground floor-type office in the Kyle Building. The project is nominally set at something less than $20. 0 million. We would anticipate most likely using Industrial Revenue Bond financing and as was pointed out earlier ya' ll will get another look at this thing with respect to that . It appears to me that the project depends in large part on the availability of some help like UDAG funding and the Industrial Revenue Bond type finan- cing. And, because of the Udag deadline at the end of this month, we need to get our application in and that ' s why we are here at this point . As I said, some of the things are fairly preliminary but I would like to men- tion as you are probably aware , the Kyle Building is presently completely vacant and is really not in a condition to be occupied. It looks like the project will create something in excess of 500 jobs or so in the office part of the project and probably in excess of 60 or 70 jobs with respect to the retail part of the project . Those would be permanent jobs of course and would theoretically be new jobs since there really aren ' t any jobs on that site now. In addition , we are talking about substantial amount of construction and of course the contractor will employ a significant amount of people - probably in the range of 75 to 100 during the construction period. That is really about all that I have to say . other than to be willing to answer any questions that you might have with the admitted problem that some of these plans are somewhat preliminary and we don' t really know a lot of specifics. MRS. YVONNE CRAIG, Beaumont Heritage Society: Perhaps a little bit of what I wanted to say might be obvious to some but I just wanted to reiterate our interest and concern about this project . We are thrilled to death that they do plan to move forward. We would also like to say that we are very interested in the new building that they do propose and I do think Mrs. Lord' s question about the intrusion a very pertinent one and I don' t really have to worry about it . I think with Bruce involved be- cause he has been so involved with Historic restoration before they will have to .come up with a building that is compatible and that will not detract from the Kyle Building that I just wanted to go on record that we are going to be very interested in seeing this new building and we wish them great luck and really hope this will go through. -192- October 19, 1982 MAYOR NEILD: Is there anyone else that would like to speak in connection with the appli- cation? If not , I will call the public hearing closed. -000- Resolution 82-397 authorizing the filing of UDAG Application for Kyle Building Development Project in the amount of $2 ,250,000. 00 was approved on a motion made by Councilman Deshotel and seconded by Councilman Lord. Question : Ayes : All Nayes: None -000- Councilman Lord told Council and staff that she had received calls from citizens complaining about broken glass and trash in City parks, especially Rogers Park and the Municipal Athletic Complex and asked for better main- tenance. Councilman Cox complained about the poor condition of the barriers and humps along the railroad tracks on Railroad Avenue and requested these be repaired. -000- Mr. J. T. Johnson , 1408 Johns, again addressed Council to complain about the noise created by the Atchison , Topeka and Santa Fe trains' whistles. Mr. J. C. Leggett , 1849 Washington Boulevard, addressed Council in support of the need to sound the train whistles and to complain about the condi- tion of the pavement at the intersection of Washington and Houston Streets. -000- There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. -000- I , Rosemarie Chiappetta, Deputy City Clerk of the City of Beaumont , Texas, certify that the above is a true copy of the minutes of the regular City Council session held October 19 , 1982 . Rosemarie Chiappetta Deputy City Clerk -193- October 19, 1982