Results of the March 14th meeting

Note: The audio of this meeting is available here.

The meeting opened at 5:30 exactly, with Mayor Bill Weber announcing "Welcome to daylight savings time". Councilman Don Baker gave the invocation, which included a rememberance of the sufferings of those recovering from the tragic earthquake in Japan.

The first agenda item was to hear from visitors. First up was Carl Bennett. He came to speak on several things, and did a remarkably good job despite the 3-minute limit. He stated (a) that he was glad the Council spent the money necessary to prove what he already knew, that the accusations against Yost Zakhary were groundless. He expressed his appreciation of Mr. Zakhary's past 30 years of service to the City, and despite two occasions where they were in opposition, he wished Yost another 30 years. (b) He thanked me for my piece in the latest Woodway Today (available here), referring (I believe) to the parts where I praised Mr. Zakhary. (c) He said (if I understood) that the baseball that goes on near City Hall should be moved to a park for safety reasons. (d) He deplored that the street gutters in places were clogged with dirt, with weeds and sometimes even trees growing in the debris. "This is Woodway, not East Waco." He even said he would bid on street cleaning if needed. (e) He has trouble getting his RV under some of the trees and even phone lines, including on Estates Drive. (f) He expressed frustration that he has been required by the RV/boat/camper parking ordinance (see here) to rent two sheds at a storage facility while a contractor across the street from City Hall has a commercial vehicle and fuel tank parked openly. (g) He stated his pride in the Woodway Public Safety Department, the Woodway firefighters and in the City Council, saying that he respects each and every one of the Council members.

That makes seven points, each eloquently stated, in only about 3 minutes. I don't believe I have heard a more efficient presentation since joining the Council! There followed a bit of discussion among the Council and Mr. Zakhary, the upshot being that these issues would be investigated.

Next was Bonnie Finstead, who came to tell the Council about the very unsightly trash at the apartments on Shadow Wood. She said that Hewitt has an ordinance about storing trash cans out of sight. Councilman Scott Giddings said that Marble Falls also had an ordinance. Some of the Council said they would go by to check it out, and Mayor Weber suggested that the Ordinance Committee would be asked to address this.

Agenda item 2 was a presentation by Carl Dorton, Executive Director of McLennan County 911. He gave information about the county 911 system. For example,

(a) the service is entirely paid by charges on telephone bills;

(b) in 2010, there were 4363 of 911 calls placed from Woodway, and 161,000 county-wide;

(c) the system has been able to identify the location of wireless calls since 2003, and is being upgraded to accept text, photo and video feeds from callers.

The Council voted to enter into an agreement to have 911 equipment placed in the Public Safety Department.

Agenda item 3 was about the Hwy 84 well. You'll recall from past posts that this well is being rehabilitated after a rather short operating lifetime. However, the process has been problematic at nearly every step. The latest problem is that the water is failing the "total coliform count" test, a measure of bacterial abundance. Background on this test can be found here. The Wallace Group (our consultants/contractors? on well-related matters and sometimes on major project bids like the renovation of the Public Safety Building) recommends that we have a lab in Ottowa, Kansas (not Canada!) do a detailed analysis of the bacterial content. The idea is that knowing what bacteria are there might indicate either the source of same, or perhaps that these are harmless bacteria. If the latter were the case, the City could apply for a waiver of the coliform count requirement imposed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Mr. Wallace is wondering if these are "iron reducing bacteria" (info on a similar bacteria here) that thrive in high-iron environments. Mayor Weber cleverly noted that "we keep coming back to the well", which has two meanings here. But the Council voted unanimously to approve funds (up to $6k) for the tests, the idea being the this is a tiny amount of money compared to the possible value of a functional well.

Item 4 was a discussion of budget matters, deferred until the end of the meeting.

Item 5 was the "consent agenda", items that are voted on as a group. These were (a) the minutes of last meeting; (b) appointment of Municipal Court judges; and (c) approval to seek an easement to optimize routing of pipelines associated with the Business Acres well.

Item 6 was a vote on Item 5, all approved unanimously. Incidentally, Woodway Municipal Court is held each Tuesday at 3:30 pm in the Public Safety building (moved elsewhere? see below), in case you'd like to watch the proceedings.

Item 7 was the City Manager's report. Renovation of the Public Safety building is now underway, and hopes to be completed in October. Meanwhile, people and communications have been dispersed among other City facilities.

We returned then to Item 4, discussion of the 2010 budget. Of interest: about 53% of the City budget goes to public safety, and 29% to Community Services (like road and other infrastructure maintenance). Sanitation (garbage service ) was contracted out to Eagle Disposal a couple of years ago, and service is much improved, especially in brush-pickup times.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:41 pm.

Agenda for the March 14th meeting

The agenda for the March 14th meeting has been posted at the City website here.

February 28th meeting

Note: The audio recording of the meeting is available here.

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.

Agenda for February 28th meeting

The agenda for the upcoming meeting has been posted to the City website here, as well as at City Hall itself. Items of note are:

• Discussion and consider action on acceptance of the FY 2009-2010 annual audit.

• Discussion and consider action on sealed proposals received for City of Woodway Public Safety Building renovations and authorize the direct purchase of miscellaneous items not included in the base bid.

• Update on progress of the Woodway Charter Review Committee.

And of course a time to hear from visitors at the very beginning. Maybe see you there?

Unwanted guests...

Woodway has an abundance of wildlife. But raccoons like to find attics to move into. Over the years I have caught several raccoons living in my attic, most recently the little guy shown below. One really nice feature of Woodway is that Animal Control officer Albert Lopez does a great job of relocating such animals (but not skunks) if you trap them. And the City will loan you a havahart-type trap if you put down a deposit, which I did once. But after that I bought my own trap at Tractor Supply.

There is an interesting page on raccoons at Wikipedia here. They are remarkably intelligent, have very dexterous hands, and account for about 38% of rabid animals (in 2006).