During a quick, 40-minute meeting Tuesday night, the Odessa City Council hired a design firm to help update the city’s landscape ordinance and signed off on purchasing some new police vehicles.
Jeff Fisher, strategic policy manager, told the council the city’s landscape ordinance is outdated and other cities have more thorough standards.
“Being in West Texas, the sensitivity to irrigation standards to what types of trees and shrubs can go, including a plant list that businesses can pick from when they’re putting in their Walmarts or their Chick-Fil-A’s or any other development would be helpful,” Fisher said. “But it’s not just about beautification. It’s also about making sure that there’s an efficient process for review.”
Nineteen firms were sent requests for quotes and two firms responded, Fisher said.
The bid committee is recommending Dunaway and Associates because they have a lot of qualified staff, Fisher said. While the current ordinance is primarily text, Dunaway would like to include graphics.
Dunaway plans to have stakeholder meetings and will absolutely include the city council throughout the process, Fisher said.
The council unanimously agreed to hire Dunaway, which anticipates the project will cost, at most, $58,000.
On Tuesday night, the council also voted 6-1 to purchase 24 white and one black Ford F-150 police responder 4X4 trucks from Phil Long Ford in Denver, Colorado for $1.3 million.
The purchase of the trucks is the latest round of purchases for the police department and according to city staff will “finalize approximately 95% of the PD vehicles having been replaced.”
When Councilmember Gilbert Vasquez expressed a desire to buy locally when possible, City Manager John Beckmeyer said staff spoke with the local Ford dealership, but their pickups were all black and weren’t as readily available.
The Denver dealership was offering a good price, he said.
“I’m just going to be pretty candid here, it’s generated more heat than light as we’ve tried to buy every set of vehicles. We’re going to go out, from now on, with a (request for proposal) process and whoever meets the qualifications and has the best price with the delivery gets it, if they’re in Kalamazoo or they’re here locally,” Beckmeyer said. “We’re going to make it fair and go out like that and not have to go through this every time we buy cars.”
The council also heard work is still being done on a memorandum of understanding for the development and financing of the city’s new 140,000 square foot multi-use sports complex and surrounding fields with the non-profit The Centurion Foundation.
The cost of the park, which will be located near Faudree and Yukon on 100 acres donated by the Bell family, is expected to be about $80 million.
The park will be developed by Sports Med Properties and operated by Radd Sports. Its construction is expected to take 18 months.
During the city’s equally short work session, Beckmeyer told the council staff will be sending out requests for quotes for the aging Bob Derrington wastewater treatment plant. Johnson Controls and Performance Services have visited the plant and have ideas on how to improve matters, but Beckmeyer said they’ll probably be adding one or two other names.
The city council also heard from Odessa Fire Rescue Chief Jason Cotton who is asking the city for roughly $201,000 to purchase exterior cameras for fire stations 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and Central. Cameras have already been installed at fire stations six and nine.
The council also briefly discussed the possibility of seeking changes to the city charter regarding term limits.
