Mayor Bill Weber opened the meeting at 5:32 pm, and the invocation was done by Mayor pro tem Gil Lillard. Councilman Don Baker was absent and Councilman Paul Scibielski arrived about 15 minutes late.
The first item was to hear from visitors. Reggie Richardson came to the podium to say that a water leak had been discovered near his house, and the City service personnel responded promptly and professionally, doing a great job. Mayor Weber asked the City Manager to pass this commendation along to the personnel involved.
Item 2 was acceptance of the Annual audit of the City finances for the 2010 fiscal year. A presentation was made by Diana Ward of Jayne, Reitmeier, Boyd and Therrell. The determination was that the City is in good financial shape, with about 6 months of operating reserves. One issue was noted in control over recording contributed capital assets, but corrective measures were already in place on that.
Item 3 was discussion and action of the Public Safety Building renovations, total estimated costs $761,400. This item has been in the planning stages for quite awhile, and now bids had been received and evaluated. Darrell (an architect with the firm evaluating the bids) described the process. Seven bids had been requested, and six received. These were opened last week in the presence of all the bidders, and then ranked according to several relevant criteria on a point scale. I questioned how systematically the points for base and total costs had been assigned, since I could not discern a simple, consistent relationship between the cost figures and the points assigned. However. My own point assignments based directly on the cost figures did not change the outcome, which was that John Erwin Construction was the most attractive bid. The Council voted unanimously to approve this choice, except Councilmember Jane Kittner abstained. Construction is expected to start in 2-4 weeks. I hope and expect that future bid evaluations will be accompanied by an explanation of systematic point assignments.
Item 4 was an update on the review of the City Charter. A committee being headed up by Linc Harris has been meeting every week or two and making good progress. Approval of a new Charter will require a vote of the Woodway residents (as well as prior approval of the Texas Department of Justice), planned for May 2012. So there is still lots of time to get everything in order.
Item 5 was an overview of the City Budget, this time dealing with the Public Safety Department part of the budget. This represents over 50% of the City budget, but I understand that is not unusual. Personnel represents about 85% of the PSD budget. Woodway has the remarkable response time of 3 minutes or less for police, and this comes at a cost. There are 26 sworn officers, near the upper end of the 1.3-3.0 officers per 1000 population that is found in most cities. Hewitt has, for example, 22 sworn officers for 15,000 residents, but their police are not cross-trained as firefighters; they also employ 15 firefighters. Woodway officers are all cross-trained as firefighters, and this improves initial response time. Mayor Weber asked about the SWAT team costs, and I asked for a justification of such a team in a city as safe as Woodway. City Manager/Police Chief Yost Zakhary gave what I thought was a good answer: the riskier calls in Woodway are answered by SWAT members, which provides a higher level of safety than if a general officer were to respond. And the SWAT costs are not extreme (as far as I can tell, not a separate budget line), being mostly equipment related and only incrementally involving personnel training costs. Woodway is part of a larger joint SWAT group that includes Hewitt and Robinson; Woodway contributes 13 specialized SWAT members, Hewitt and Robinson two each. Apparently relying on neighboring SWAT teams has been deemed unacceptable in the past. My sense is that the Council was satisfied with this explanation.
Item 6 was the "consent agenda", consisting of approval of minutes from two meetings, replacement of a concrete slab at the Greenbranch liftstation, and an issue with the Southern Trinity Groundwater Conservation District. Bills have been introduced into the Texas house and senate to allow the district to exist without requiring another county's partnership. Item 7 was approval of these (unanimous).
Item 8 was the City Manager's Report. Most notable was the idea of advertising Woodway hotels at Baylor sporting events.
The meeting adjourned about 6:40 pm.
