the August 16th meeting

The meeting began promptly at 5:30 pm, with perhaps 10 visitors and Erin Quinn of the Waco Tribune Herald present. Mayor Weber asked Councilman Don Baker to give the invocation. The Mayor then gave brief update on the review by outside counsel, basically to say that there would be a special meeting the next night (Tuesday, August 17th; see previous post) to receive the report from Mr. Knight and to make a public statement.

Item 2 was a Quarterly Presentation by the Finance Department. Finance Director William Klump presented the current City financials. These were given mostly in terms of where the City was at in the fiscal year (75% would be expected) and compared to last fiscal year's numbers. One interesting fact was that water sales were down, with the year-to-date figure at 52% of what was expected for the entire year even though we are 75% of the way through the fiscal year. Mr. Klump attributed this to (a) some rainy weather, keeping yard watering down, and (b) a poor economy and trying to keep water costs at a minimum. Woodway sold about $3.3 million in water last year. All in all, the City is doing OK.

Item 3 was an update on getting video recording in place to make the City Council meeting proceedings available on the internet. Assistant to the City Manager Natalie Edwards is in charge of researching this. To survey public opinion on whether to have streaming video versus simply viewing the proceedings afterwards, she sent out requests in 3700 water bills and has maintained a request notice on the City Website. This survey has resulted in a total of only 12 responses, 9 of which were in favor of the streaming video and 3 who didn't care. I voiced opposition to hiring anyone to do this (one of the options) or to paying Swagit Streaming Services (see July 12th meeting post) to do this, the second-most expensive option. Councilman Scott Giddings then voice his opinion that any video would be a waste of money, since it was really only requested by Mike O'Bric or by a few former Council members (see the May 24th meeting post) as a result of Mr. O'Bric's allegations, and virtually no cities the size of Woodway seem to record video of their meetings. The Council discussed the simple and cheap solution of making the audio file that has always been recorded available on the City website. There was some concern that the City's bandwidth would have to be increased, and Natalie was tasked with finding what costs might be associated with that approach, to be discussed at the next meeting.

Items 4-6 related to the proposed budget for the next fiscal year, which begins October 1. City Manager/Police Chief Yost Zachary went through several slides of financial information. The proposed budget is balanced, but this required the General Fund to be 3.14% below last year's value. Costs associated with the Utility Fund are anticipated to be 4.2% higher than last year, which will be covered by an increase in water rates. It looks to me that the water rates will go up by about 10% next year. Another problem is increasing health insurance costs, which were initially going to be 46% higher than last year. With extensive negotiations and some drops in coverage, this figure was wrestled to only a 14.5% increase. Mayor Pro Tem Gil Lillard commented on what an accomplishment that was, having experience in that type of negotiation. Mr. Zakhary said that he expects 1-2 more difficult years before things get better.

There was an opportunity for public comment on the proposed budget. Only former Councilwoman Dee Smith came forward to state her appreciation for the City staff coming up with a balanced budget, and while the lack of raises was unfortunate this year, it was good that the City was able to avoid the layoffs that other municipalities have resorted to.

This section concluded with some figures from the Master Fee Schedule, which is basically all of the charges the City makes for various things (like building permits, etc.), a rather extensive list. Some of these were being increased somewhat for the next fiscal year. For example, being a "friend" of the Arboretum will go from $5 per month to $8 per month, but this has the benefit of reduced rental prices when booking the facility.

Item 7 was Hearing from Visitors. The only one to speak was former Councilwoman and current P&Z Board member Dee Smith, to say that she wants not one more penny spent on anything Mike O'Bric wants. She would like to see "more on the streets" instead of video recording equipment, too much having been spent on one person's opinion already.

Item 8 was the Consent Agenda, consisting of (a) the previous meeting's minutes; (b) field lighting for the Woodway Family Center ball fields ($9,800); (c) a walkway repair at the Arboretum ($4,500); (d) renewal of a Special Use permit; and (e) continued membership in the Atmos Cities Steering Committee. All were approved (which was Item 9).

Item 10 was Board and Commission appointments, with nominations from the Nominating Committee. Eleven middle- and high-school students were nominated for the Woodway Youth Commission, one person (Charles Burns) was nominated for the Planning and Zoning Commission, and one (Barbara Grandy) was nominated for the Arboretum Board.

Item 11 was the City Manager's Report. Among other things mentioned was the possibility of stationing an East Texas Medical ambulance in Woodway for quick response. The Household Hazardous Waste event was not funded this year, and City staff will be thinking about a solution to this. There were a couple of non-compliance type issues discussed.

Upcoming events of interest:

(a) Saturday, September 25th: Public Safety Association Annual Barbeque, 11:00 am to 7:00 pm, Woodway Elementary School.

The meeting ended at 6:40 pm.