Mertzon City Council April 7 2025
- G. Noelke
- Apr 5
- 4 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
This December 2021 photo of the new IC ISD gym under construction is a not so distant reminder of just how many resources are required to construct school facilities...and how timing is everything. The pandemic hit at just the wrong time during this build out, and costs skyrocketed and it went over budget. The first bid date for the 2024 IC ISD bond projects is this week, April 10, the week immediately after President Trump's world wide tariff effort ("Liberation Day"). What will the impact of the tariffs be on the bids and the time it takes to complete the build out?
A. Agenda Analysis
1. Council pay, item 5: The Council may be reaching back to its last decision on this issue so that it can formalize their pay with an ordinance. The prior ordinance, 3.01, is dated.
2. Records retention policy, item 6: The area of government records retention is highly regulated. Government created documents are the people's documents, and by law they have to be kept for a certain period of time before they are destroyed. A "custodian" is also required, and this person is typically charged with overseeing the records. Record retention made the news recently in the United States government group chat leak ("Signalgate"), where the chat conversation was set to delete in a matter of days. Retention periods differ according to the type of document, but they typically last for years.
B. Meeting Review 1. Here are the meeting documents for this meeting. 2. Council pay, item 5: This was as I suggested above. The Council's purpose was to memorialize by ordinance their earlier vote on the amount of pay for the mayor and council members. I covered this issue at B.1. on this page. You can find the ordinance in the meeting documents. The vote was 2-1, with Lindley and Councilman "for" and Crutchfield "against". Mayor Stewart did not have to break the tie this time as Councilmember Holland resigned since the original vote. To be clear, the City of Mertzon Mayor gets paid $150.00 per council meeting, and the Council members get paid $100.00 per meeting. 3. Record retention ordinance, item 6: The council approved the records retention ordinance, found in the meeting documents, as required by state law. Here's a suggestion: records relating to municipal real property will withstand the test of time in a retention policy only if such records are filed at the courthouse. (Lesson: sewage line easement documents that show a crossing over private property will not be forever lost if filed as a public document at the county courthouse.) 4. Administrative report, item 9: The stench from the Waste Water Treatment Plant will continue. The necessary parts have been delayed, so the timeline has been bumped to mid May before a repair can take place. (No fault of the City.)
C. Commentary
You pretty much would have to be under that pile of limestone rocks next to my house in Mertzon to not see that our federal government is behaving differently than ever before. In part, this is because some in our federal government (less than a majority) are advancing what is known as the "unitary executive theory" as a way to increase the authority of our president. I have argued here (at Commentary) that our president has been engaged in a bullying effort to create dissent and disunity to eventually satisfy one of his ultimate goals: declaring martial law. This bullying is one of the tools being used to advance the unitary executive theory.
To be clear, I am not predicting or desiring a federal declaration of martial law. Moreover, I am not a fan of the unitary executive theory. Our Founders created a system of three co-equal branches of government with intended checks and balances so that we never became a monarchy. Our Constitution spells this out. Some background: I became interested in martial law as IC ISD last year began to ramp up its Guardian program (here at B. 5) that effectively allows for public tax dollars to pay for a private police force in the name of protecting school children...all perfectly lawful under state law. The secretiveness of this force has caused me to pay more attention to what conditions might have to exist for a larger scale civil emergency (state or federal level) that would form the basis for a declaration of martial law.
One condition necessary to call marital law might be a violent citizen uprising. I make the point here that the elimination of DEI in the government setting is intended to create disharmony among citizens. The manner and methods being used to eliminate DEI in government, indeed, I view as inherently racist and misogynist. This racism and misogyny, in time, I fear will become key ingredients for civil unrest. There is reason to be hopeful that such will not be the case, however, with the recent peaceful protests, nationally and world wide, known as Hands Off. These first protests were peaceful.
What about future protests?
Consider taking some time to learn more about martial law. (Here is a Google search for martial law; I urge you not to stop on that page with the AI interpretation.) Bear with me, as I intend to scatter a few posts about it here and there. I've learned about an instance in Texas where martial was used, and the consequences were shocking. I will share that in time.
What other conditions might exist to justify a declaration of martial law? Who might benefit from a declaration of martial law, and who might pay the price?
Why might we want to avoid it entirely and never go there?
Copyright 2025 G Noelke