Results of the first meeting of the new City Council

The City Hall meeting room was packed by 5:30, standing room only (or nearly so). Three of the outgoing Council members (Robert Humphrey, Jerry Don Mathis and Barbara Tennison) did not show up for the meeting. Of the incumbents who had been voted out, only De Smith was there, and she graciously spoke words of encouragement to the new Council members. I have no doubt that the departing Council members are all fine upstanding people. I wish I knew each one better, and wish each of them the best.

The Council proceeded, as required by ordinance, to elect a Mayor and Mayor pro tem. Both current Mayor Don Baker and Bill Weber were nominated, and it was a "party line vote". All four of the new members voted for Bill Weber as Mayor, and Gil Lillard was unanimously* selected as Mayor pro tem. All this required some seat-switching. The new Council members felt that a new Mayor was necessary to accomplish the change that Woodway voted for.

*I added this word on 6/12 to clarify the outcome.

Note added 5/31: To date, two individuals have taken offense at my use of the term "party line vote" above, so I will clarify here. There have never been and are not now any political parties in Woodway politics, hence my use of quotation marks in the original. I was simply seeking a term that would quickly express the vote of the older versus the newer Council members. It was never my intent to promote non-existent political divisions.

The next items were Adopting Robert's Rules of Order (deferred until June 14th!) and a presentation of a donation of $1765 from the Woodway Youth Commission to the Family Abuse Center. The presentation was touching; this group of kids had hosted a dodgeball tournament to raise the money. Then four well-deserved Yard of the Month awards were presented to the Shannon, Kroll, Perryman and Morris families.

The next agenda item was a presentation by Oncor of the "smart meter" program. This was a good presentation, though (as Don Baker pointed out later) some of the take-home message was left unsaid: the new meters will allow different electric rates to apply at different times of the day (electricity at peak hours will cost more). Later, the City Council members decided to see if we could try out the meters in the near future and report our experiences. I'll keep you posted. But Oncor will be giving a public demonstration at the Woodway HEB on June 17th, so you might want to check it out. The meters are supposed to be installed in Woodway by the end of the summer.

Then there was a time for hearing from visitors. First Mike O'Bric spoke, presenting two requests to the council (that free access to public documents be granted, and that the Police Chief/City Manager be investigated) as part of a 10-minute list of alleged improprieties by the PC/CM Yost Zakhary. Then two volunteers (Bert Hernandez and Ben Selman) spoke of the dedication of the City personnel, especially the police and fire fighters, and what a special place Woodway is (which is certainly true). The new City Council members were invited to attend a training drill. Finally, Rodney Kroll (himself a previous Council member) thanked the City for allowing the Southern Trinity Groundwater District to use the Woodway facilities free of charge, and commended the Public Safety department for outstanding professionalism, especially with respect to response times.

Note: No outrage that the new Council members were going to "shut down the arboretum" materialized. That rumor was apparently untrue. I thank everyone who showed up to support the new City Council. I enjoyed meeting Mildred Taylor of the Sugar Creek area.

The appointments to Woodway councils and commissions were deferred until next week. Some applications appeared to be missing. These will be provided this week and I believe appointments will be made at the next meeting, which is only one week away (May 24th). The approval of the last meeting's minutes was done with abstentions by the new members, since none of us were at that meeting.

The City Manager gave a report that included four items. There were no City Council reports to be presented.

The Council then went into Executive Session (~ 43 minutes) to discuss pending litigation.

The meeting concluded with an Open Meetings resolution and adjournment.