The regular meeting of the Granger City Council was called to order at 6:35 p.m. Monday, January 12. All were present.

Rita Marburger of Granger told the Council she had a few questions she would like to ask. The first question she had was if the Council vacancy had been filled. Mayor Jerry Lalla told her the vacancy had not been filled and that it would placed on the ballot for the May election. She also wanted to know about a Senior Citizen Center. The Mayor told her that was a good question, the City really did not have the funds to operate one and there had been only one person to volunteer to help with operating the center and for only one day a week. Ms. Marburger said she would be willing to check with Taylor since they had just received some grants and see how they had gone about doing this. She asked if she was able to find a building, would the City be willing to lease it. Mayor Lalla and Mayor ProTem Scott Murrah both explained to Ms. Marburger, from the City side on finances that COG does not have anything right now to budget from. The lease of the building and expenses would have to be paid for by reoccurring grants or some outside sources. Ms. Marburger had suggested maybe the building next to the SPJST would be available for lease even though the building is in bad shape. Murrah told Ms. Marburger he felt this was a good idea if everything could be put together and nothing come out of the City Budget

The Mayor and Council reviewed miscellaneous correspondence which included a letter from Time Warner Cable confirming as of December 1, 2008, Time Warner Cable has transferred ownership of the cable systems of Bartlett, Granger and Florence to Windjammer Communications LLC.

Mayor Lalla asked Murrah if he knew why Walton was paved? Murrah told the Council he was not aware the Street was paved and the city would need to tell the Contractor about this. The contractor was just supposed to grind it up and repack it. City Secretary, Margaret Doss told the Council she was working on an updated report on the expenses of the project and would leave the report in the Council boxes. Murrah told the Council one thing the city needs to take care of is the change order to finish up the streets which will be paid from the interest on the CD. The contractor had been putting down more asphalt then we had in the plans and the Engineer had called and wanted to know if we wanted to pull some patching and leveling up from the project to make sure we cover everything we planned to cover. What it would mean instead of doing every part of the street we would just pull back and only do the major ones. Doss and Scott Murrah had discussed using the interest to pay for the Change Order. The directive would be to go ahead and do it right and use the interest which is more than enough to cover the change order.

Jess Mayfield, president of SOS Companies introduced himself, Jason Breithaval, Operations and Carter Mayfield, Chief Financial Officer to the Council and told the Council a little about his company. A Preliminary Proposal was presented to the Council.

SOS Companies is considering Granger for its center of operations for the Austin/Central Texas area. In order to establish operations in Granger, SOS will pay to upgrade Granger’s wastewater treatment plant with a Type VGG (Grit, Grease and Septic) Processing Unit. SOS will then pay Granger for received waste and will contract plant operations at a substantially discounted rate.They told the Council the financial benefits to Granger are expected to be in the low six figures annually (pending further diligence) with no financial risk to the city and substantial upside benefits. SOS believes that it can help the City of Granger to manage its Wastewater Treatment Plant in an efficient manner and turn the plant into a cash generator for the City. SOS has been operating WWTPs since 1976 and has operated 15 plants over the last 20 years. SOS will pay for all sludge disposal and will pay the City for received waste. Rates will be based on type of waste received and volume. The item was tabled until the next meeting.

City Secretary Margaret Doss told the Council she had talked with the Auditors concerning the procedure to change the fiscal year. She had also talked with the City Attorney about an ordinance changing the audit year. The City would need to do a short budget from April 1, 2009 through September 30, 2009 and then a new budget from October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2010. After some discussion, everyone agreed this would be better for the City. Mayor Pro Tem Murrah made a motion to change to change the fiscal year from April 1 through March 31 to October 1 through September 30. in favor.