Anyone you know?

A Jack Russell terrier has been found in Poage Park by Woodway Animal Control, photo below. Anyone you know?

Results of the August 29th meeting

Mayor Bill Weber opened the meeting at 5:30, with Mayor pro tem Gil Lillard doing the invocation.

The first agenda item was to hear from visitors. Former Councilman Robert Humphrey came to speak about the parking ordinance. The City is requiring him to move his boat, which has been parked beside his house and behind the front edge of the house. He passed around photos of the arrangement, which showed a very well-kept yard and driveway. Mr. Humphrey was very eloquent in his appeal that boats be exempted from the parking ordinance. In the discussion that followed, City Manager Yost Zakhary said that about 90 violations (applying to boats, RVs and campers) had been identified in Woodway, and all but about 4 of those had been rectified.

Items 2-5 dealt with approving the annual budget, tax rate, employee compensation, and the master fee schedule. The short version is that the tax rate in Woodway is staying the same (actually going down very slightly) as it has for the past 10 years or so. Even so, with rising property values (more accurately, with rising assessments), the total revenue the City expects to bring in should be up by about 6.5% over the past fiscal year. Also, some slight increases in the fees charged for various things are happening. This includes slight changes in the water rates, but only by about $ 0.10 per one thousand gallons, which is roughly a 2-3% increase.

We then skipped to item 7, the proposed purchase of electronic voting machines. A recent change in federal and state law, and in the county's willingness to supply voting machines at low cost, had threatened to force major changes in the timing of Woodway elections. The best solution appears to be the purchase of our own voting machines, with the cost being shared by at least the Midway Independent School District and possibly by the City of Hewitt. The costs are not excessive (about $4600 now and some money each year for programming) and will keep our elections the same as they have been. The City Secretary Jennifer Canady did a lot of work to explore the various possibilities. She is extremely professional in all her work, especially when it comes to elections.

Item 6 was going through the recommendations for changes to the City charter recommended by the Charter Review Committee. This committee was headed by Linc Harris and put in a huge amount of time updating the charter and fixing possible problems. The Council went through the recommendations for something like an hour or more, aided by City Attorney Mike Dixon. The major change is that Council terms would be transitioned to 3 years. I believe the idea behind this is mostly to make it so that a turnover of a majority of the Council would require at least two consecutive elections. This would prevent what happened in the 2009 elections, where 4 incumbents were replaced, fueled by an anti-incumbent mood and allegations that proved to be unsubstantiated. The 4 who were voted off the Council that year were all good people. The proposed change would have no more than 3 up for re-election in any given year. In addition, a limit of three consecutive terms has been proposed in order to give more citizens a chance to participate in City governance. The charter changes will be voted on by the citizens of Woodway in the May 2012 election.

The meeting adjourned at 7:44 pm.

Family Movie Night THIS FRIDAY

This Friday (August 19th) is the annual Woodway Family Movie night, described on the City website here. The movie is "Despicable Me" and will be shown on a 28-foot screen at 8 pm at the Woodway Family Center lawn. The movie and even the concessions are free!

Agenda for the August 15th meeting

Due to travel, I missed the August 15th meeting, but the agenda is posted on the City's website here. If I learn of anything especially interesting happening, I'll post it below.

For the past couple of weeks, my blog seemed to be having technical issues (most of the content not displaying), but that problem seems to have resolved itself.

Results of the August 1 meeting

Mayor Bill Weber opened the meeting at 5:31 pm, and Mayor pro tem Gil Lillard gave the invocation.

The first agenda item was Yard of the Month awards, to the Reynold, Jennings, Stone and Cannon families. However, none were present to receive the awards.

The second agenda item was to hear from visitors, but no one wished to speak.

The third and fourth agenda items were to consider approval for a final replatting and for an application to develop in a zoned area near the Hollywood Theaters. These refer to a planned Christian Brothers Automotive repair facility. Jonathan Wakefield was present to describe the history and philosophy of the company, which has nearly 100 stores open and has never closed a single location since 1982. This is a light repair facility with unusually good aesthetics and very conscientious management. The Council approved both items, with Councilperson Jane Kittner abstaining.

For item 5, the Council voted to accept an application for a granite counter facility proposed along Hwy 84.

Item 6 involved consideration for approval of an agreement between Woodway and the Extraco Events Center (formerly known as the Heart of Texas Coliseum) to advertise for the Woodway hotels at various events. Mr. Wes Allison was present to discuss the details. It turns out that the Woodway hotels are the closest ones to the Extraco Center. The proposal had strong support from local hotel operators, and the Council approved it unanimously.

Note: During the discussion it was mentioned that the Woodway hotels increase their rates to $200-300 per night during Baylor football weekends. City staff knew of one incident where business was lost to the less expensive Hewitt hotels because of this.

Item 7 was renewal of a special use permit to operate the Verizon communications tower in Woodway. This sits on one of the highest points in McLennan County, and Woodway has a good deal of equipment that uses this tower. The Council approved this unanimously.

Item 8 dealt with adopting an ordinance that would implement a change in the rate that Atmos Energy had proposed to charge for replacement of steel natural gas lines within the City. The allowed increase was less than half of what Atmos had sought, and this was approved.

Item 9 was the consent agenda, minute of the last meeting and also an agreement with the Waco Humane Society dealing with the cost of holding animals at their facility. The cost has gone up to $75 per day, which will be charged to any Woodway resident who brings an animal to their facility or claims an animal from there or is ultimately found to be the owner of any animal taken there by Woodway Animal Control.

Item 10 was approval of the consent agenda.

Item 11 was acceptance of the 2011 tax roll valuation. The taxable property in Woodway was assessed at $832,950,416, and the Council accepted this figure.

Item 12 was agreement of what the Woodway tax rate should be for the upcoming fiscal year. For 10-11 years now the rate has remained at $0.4569 per $100 of valuation (or 0.4569% of total assessed valuation). Of course, total tax revenue has increased significantly over this period because assessed valuations have risen (especially in the last 2 years, in my experience) and there has also been new construction in the City, adding to the tax rolls. There was a good deal of debate among the Council about whether to make a slight decrease in the tax rate this year, in light of the fact that every year the City has a surplus of roughly $500k. But this surplus is always moved to the capitol projects fund (covers expensive things like road resurfacing, etc.), which in many cities would have been a budget item anyway. So there really isn't a surplus if you consider the need for long-term budgeting for expensive projects. In the end, the Council voted 6 to 1 in favor of the current tax rate. Councilperson Jane Kittner dissented, having favored a rate of $0.4565.

Interestingly, Hewitt has raised their rate by $0.03 last year and is expected to raise it another $0.05 this year to give an overall rate of $0.55, well above that of Woodway. The quality of our City planning has prevented that kind of increase in Woodway, with credit going to mostly to City Manager Yost Zakhary.

Incidentally, anyone who knows Finance Director William Klump would know that there could not be anything unscrupulous going on with Woodway finances. William is one of the most honest people I have ever met, and is extremely knowledgeable about the City's finances.

Item 13 approved placement on a future agenda for possible adoption the proposed tax rate.

Agenda item 14 set dates for public hearings on the proposed tax rate, chosen as August 15th (5:30 pm) and August 18th (8:15 am).

The Council went into Executive Session at 6:50 pm to discuss a personnel issue. This concluded at 7:31 pm.

Items 16 and 17 (City Manager's and Council reports, resp.) were dealt with in short order and the meeting adjourned at 7:34 pm.