Meeting Notes: General Membership – August 25, 2025
Attendees: See sign in sheet
Minutes:
Call to order: 7:03 PM
Andrew Epps welcomed everyone and called the meeting to order.
Officer Updates:
- City Council District 9 Representative
- Anthony Rojas is in attendance.
- Budget season is ongoing with community engagement
- Balancing Act – 2026 Bond workshop
- September 8th at 6 PM at University Christian Church is the session for District 9
- Downtown library going through programming – 2 sessions (downtown and near southside locations) to figure out what programming will go on what floor
- There are a couple of active zoning requests in the neighborhood:
- A5 Community Facility application in Fairmount
- CUP for concrete batch plant (see later notes)
- All zoning changes require a meeting with Councilwoman Beck and her office reaches out to neighborhood leaders to get the neighborhood perspectives. If you have anything you want to share with the office.
- NPO
- Officer Karna and Sergeant are in attendance.
- Karna is still filling in for Officer Moore – who should be back in two months.
- Crime trends uptick on car burglaries. Reminder to not leave doors unlocked.
- Julio was picked up recently.
- When you send a text to the NPO number, you should get a response back, but don’t rely on this alone, especially when in an active situation. Also reach out to 911 for tracking.
- Karna will be reassigned soon due to redistricting to the west side of Fort Worth, but not sure on the next officer yet. FW PD will reach out once this is known. Karna will be promoted to Corporal Detective.
- Code Compliance
- Officer Orr is in attendance.
- Reach out if you have any issues.
- Received an increase in area to the beat also due to redistricting.
- Please put any items in the app. If it in the app, code has between 24 and 48 hours to respond.
Neighborhood Updates:
- Infrastructure
- Update on Fairmount Park trees and repairs – The city public arts department is working on securing funding and allocating money to fixing the public art installation – middle table repair and putting a bag over the tree to try to keep it alive.
- The other trees in the park are maintained by the parks department.
- Update from the neighborhood
- The caretaker/ representative for the transgender person in the neighborhood with the big wheel bike is in attendance to make an announcement.
- Her current housing is no longer safe due to mobility issues and has found new housing in the neighborhood by Samaritan house but it is a shared living space that does not have space to store her bike.
- They will be posting a neighborhood fundraiser to acquire a Tough Shed (approximately $3,800 fully installed) to the neighborhood Facebook page soon.
West Nile Virus Found in Fairmount Update – City of Fort Worth Environmental Services
- There has been another positive test at Fairmount Community Garden.
- There needs to be 2 consecutive positive tests to spray again.
- Last month’s meeting notes have lots of info from the city on how to prevent mosquitos.
Representative from 2000 South Main, LLC
- This company (JBL Management) is seeking a Conditional Use Permit to operate a concrete batch plant at 2000 S. Main that would otherwise be prohibited by existing Medium Industrial zoning. There will be a city council vote in September, but were invited to come speak to the neighborhood as well in advance. So far, city staff have recommended denial of the CUP.
- This is at the old grain silos that have been condemned and have a lot of homelessness activity.
- JBL runs a batch plant in Dallas currently and they do a lot of work in the city of Dallas and want to expand to Fort Worth with all the growth that is happening on this side of the metroplex.
- This is a 9 acre site with a tall fence and 3 large steel silos
- The plan is to enclose the batch plant inside the silo to keep all dust inside. Dust collectors will be included as typical in a batch plant. The plan is to provide 2 dust collectors as opposed to the typical one.
- They have met with councilwomen Martinez and Beck ahead of everything to create relationships so that they are not trying to push their way through the city’s process – they want to come in and be a partner to the neighborhoods.
- Pre-written questions from the neighborhood:
- TX commission air quality permit has not been applied for yet since this is just in the planning phase.
- Equipment to limit carbon (TCEQ mins)?
- The two dust collectors.
- Diesel and gas options are available. Electricity is the most efficient and is the plan. No gas on site. They will not consider gas or diesel.
- Oncor facility extension agreement?
- Diesel will not be an option.
- There is existing power and have worked with the city to get some permits already (fence and power).
- Filters are not required by law.
- Share modeling results with filters (one vs 2)?
- Would not run into this. TCEQ requirements are highly stringent. They are not sure how they could get modeling for this done.
- Chapter 312 Abatement filing?
- Have not looked into this yet.
- Local tax implications to neighborhoods?
- Not aware of any implications.
- Jobs created in Fort Worth? Market radius?
- Project planned for Sendero Ranch and others in DFW. Already hired local people and will be hiring more mixers, drivers, etc.
- Councilwoman Martinez has asked them to paint the silo and get local artists to collaborate on the design.
- Questions from neighbors in attendance:
- Safety measures for employees?
- It only takes 3 people to run a batch plant – plus drivers, accounting, etc. who will be located in a different building.
- Employees inside the silo will have PPE, in addition to the air circulating system that will clean the air.
- How are they getting concrete out?
- Mixing truck drives into the silo, loads up with concrete, and drives out.
- Plant footprints have gotten a lot smaller than what they have been in the past.
- Any other plants with this kind of set up?
- 3 manufacturers have done designs for this plant and the one they are going with has 3 currently operating in California.
- Rinker Materials in Fort Worth has 9 or 10 of these systems operating. You can see the silos but would never know what is happening inside.
- This system is also popular in the Northeast due to weather.
- City Council’s concerns of air quality and water run off issues. “We all know the issues” but lets be clear on what the issues are.
- There is no water there that can be contaminated.
- Do you have a permit in another city?
- No. This is the first application in Fort Worth. Purchased the land in July 2024.
- Noise or traffic study?
- No. But all equipment would not make any more noise than Union Pacific operating. Have not done a formal study.
- Lots of work to get permits in the city – yes, the neighborhood knows this and is presenting opposition because we are expecting more content and information and presentations. Need to show the positive benefit overall and present due diligence more thoroughly. Conditional zoning could stay with the property and we cannot know that the next owners will be similar “good guys.”
- Operating hours would be based on what the city will allow.
- Will anything be coming out of the silos?
- No – all sound and dust will be contained inside.
- Maintenance will need to be done to make sure that everything is functioning properly over time. This is often not done as well as it should be.
- Safety measures for employees?
- Contact Info – BJ Johnson, CEO of J Imperium [email protected] 469-262-5219
Representative from Always Best Care
- Richard Soliz is the owner of Always Best Care Senior Services and introduces his company’s services of in-home non-medical care for seniors.
- They have a certified dementia trainer on staff to prepare all caregivers to pick up early signs of dementia.
- They have a fall risk assessment tool to use to see if you show any signs of this.
- Always In Touch is a free service where the company will call daily to create a relationship with a senior.
- Private pay or long-term care insurance only
- Contact information was made available via brochures and business cards. Richard Soliz of Always Best Care Senior Services [email protected] 817-704-2021
Fairmount Neighborhood Association Look Ahead
- FNA Board Nominating Committee – Andrew Epps
- 2026 open FNA board positions:
- President
- Membership
- Communications
- Promotions
- Administration
- Infrastructure
- If you go to the Fairmount Neighborhood Association website, under By-Laws it goes into detail for all of the board positions.
- If you are interested in any of these positions, but don’t want a 2-year commitment, then you can help out on a committee.
- Per the FNA bylaws, the board nominating committee needs two general members to be on, and Gabe and Kelly Moreno volunteered for this.
- Vote for Gabe and Kelly to be the general members on the nominating committee. Motioned by Andrew Epps and seconded by Taylor Staniford.
- Passes unanimously with a voice vote.
- We will elect the new board next month and will need current active members to vote.
- Reach out to [email protected] and we can validate if you are a current member or not. Note that you need to renew your membership every calendar year.
- Mail in voting? Will look into it and send voting protocol in advance of the next meeting.
- 2026 open FNA board positions:
- FNA August Social
- Yesterday was a big success
- Pool party at McDermott house
Adjourn: 8:01 PM
- Share