Staff Reports
The fate of City Hall was up for discussion at two different times during Tuesday night’s City Council meeting.
Initially City Administrator/Secretary Melissa Boyd presented council with a $158,000 proposal to renovate the Jefferson Transportation and Visitors Center into a more permanent City Hall while still maintaining the ability to use the building as an event center.
When Boyd proposed walking Council members through the proposal, Mayor Patricia Finstrom interrupted and encouraged Council to just take the proposal home and review it there, then come back in the future and discuss the proposal.
Ward 3 Alderman April Taylor Johnson objected stating she wanted to hear the walk-through. Finstrom voiced her objection citing the time it would add to the meeting. Audience members added to the support to hear the proposal and the discussion continued.
The proposal involves creating a permanent Council chamber in the space at the West end of the building, adding storage areas, and reconfiguring the current building’s office and conference rooms into additional offices, and adding onto the building an area for the Tourism department office and storage. The existing lobby would also be divided into a City Hall lobby and a Foyer for the event center portion of the building.
During executive sessions, a soundproof accordion wall could be extended so Council members nor audience members would have to move from their seats.
Council members were tasked with reviewing the proposal before the next meeting and to make suggestions and ask questions.
Council also briefly discussed what to do with the old City hall at the corner of Polk and Austin streets.
“Now moving along on things we’re not doing anything about,” said Finstrom, opening the discussion. “We need to do something [with the old City Hall].”
Ward 1 Alderman Bubba Haggard called it a “chicken and egg” situation due to the location of the fire station and how it would be difficult to do anything with the old building until a new fire hall was built.
Finstrom re-iterated her point that Council needed to start thinking about it and at least form a plan – whether that included tearing down the old buildings leaving the fire station, or working to sell the property “as is” and using those funds to put towards a new fire station.
Haggard also suggested that a town hall might be needed to get public input on what to do – including Boyd’s proposal on redesigning the Visitor’s Center.
In the end it was a discussion item so Council was asked by Finstrom to think about options.
In other building related items, Council tabled a proposal from the Willdan Corporation for Building Inspector services until the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission has a chance to review the proposal and provide feedback.
The proposal outlines the services to be provided including the potential for plan reviews as well as three inspections for residential construction, six for commercial construction, and the full modernization and creation of a building department for the City.
Willdan further indicated the estimated average cost for the inspections would be $630 for homes with no rechecks or re-inspections, or $840 per home with one recheck and one re-inspection. The inspection fees would be paid to the City and passed through to Willdan. Any permit application fees required by the City would be in addition to the inspection fees. Currently the City does not collect a permit application fee or require any inspections.
The modernization is a requirement for Willdan to begin providing services, and that had a two-week implementation timeline and a flat rate cost of $12,801.
During the first of four planned public hearings on Zoning, the P&Z Commission received feedback against any type of inspection. P&Z has two additional hearings scheduled for 6p on January 30 and February 6 at the Transportation Center.
Council also discussed the location of the City Limits and if JEDCO had ever approved any funding for the City to have a survey done.
Alderman Robin Moore stated that the City should identify what properties they own inside the City Limits and put some of those up for sale to help fund the various projects.
Finstrom mentioned that she had been in discussions with Brookshire’s about annexing their new location so the City could keep the sales tax revenue. She also stated she learned at a seminar that annexation did not have to be contiguous with the existing limits and that it should be explored to just annex the new Brookshire’s property. She indicated this was now possible due to changes in State Law but did not elaborate.
Council approved applying for the TxDOT 2025 Transportation Alternative Grant to correct an omission from the waterfront park. When the park was constructed a Right-of-Way permit was not requested to allow the construction of pathways underneath the Big Cypress Bridge.
Ward 1 Alderman Hollis Shadden requested the application and suggested the funding could be used to correct the oversight, as well as possibly build or improve sidewalks along Dallas Street for the park, and a landing area behind the concrete retaining wall for boats who have traveled up river to visit the City.
Lastly, Haggard proposed using a portion of the City’s 2025-26 Streets campaign to seal coat the streets which have been recently resurfaced. Haggard said this maintenance was important so the streets done in the last 10 years wouldn’t deteriorate. Any additional funding available could be used to identify and work on resurfacing additional streets.