Feb 2024 Update: This photo above has had two updates, and you can read them here. Each address potential remedies if you are experiencing flooding caused by the government and your property has been taken from you.
Here is the agenda for the January 16, 2024 meeting of the Mertzon City Council, with my agenda analysis below and my meeting analysis below that.
Agenda analysis:
Probably the most important part of this meeting, if it happens, will be item 8, the daily operations. Mertzon is under a severe weather storm alert, with temps forecasted to about 10 degrees on the day of this meeting. This temp puts the City into emergency mode, as it not only has to deal with its own infrastructure but the possibility of city wide electricity black outs.
Note the joint election agreement topic at item 5 announces a May 4, 2024. ICISD has not formally announced its bond, but for all practical purposes you can assume there will be a school bond election on that date.
Note the first appearance of Jayton Lindley as Mayor Pro Tem signing this agenda. The Lindley's have been ranching in these parts for over a 100 years, and I recollect that his grandfather and my father served on the ICISD school board together back in the 1970's.
Meeting analysis:
First time available: Here are the Council's meeting documents that were attached to the agenda above. The first page are the minutes from the previous meeting of January 2, 2024, and were approved at this council meeting.
Closing of Third Street as requested by ICISD: According to those approved minutes, here is the current status: "Councilman Councilman made a motion to table the decision of closing Third Street between Fayette and Juanita streets. The council has decided to wait on a decision until they see if the school bond is passed by the voters and the school meets certain stipulations in the plans to deal with ongoing issues of flooding and parking issues. Councilman Holland seconded. All in favor. Motion passed." So, procedurally, when a motion is tabled it will have to put back on the agenda in order to be considered again. You can be sure that I will be watching for this matter to reappear, and in the meantime I hope both the City and the District will coordinate with me and other citizens and taxpayers impacted by the 2019 bonds. I applaud the Council's leadership in their efforts to begin addressing flooding originating from the District's campus.
But wait: The District's 2024 bond proposals are taking shape, and some of the earliest proposals being considered clearly would drain more stormwater into the streets. So, the jury is still out on how President Carlile and Superintendent Moore will lead the Board on flooding issues. What is their comfort level with flooding the District's football stadium using new bond money?
Water use. After going through the bad 2021 winter storm in Mertzon, I was anticipating a doom and gloom City Daily Operations update at item 8. So far, so good in 2024. We haven't lost electricity and the City's operations appears to have operated without any interruptions. There is, however, the looming issue of the availability of underground water. Overnight (Jan 15 - 16) the City used about 120,000 gallons of water, probably due to the low temp (14 degrees) and our citizens dripping their faucets. (Normal night time usage varies, but might range from 50-90,000 gallons a night. It has trended higher lately.) This caused private well # 1 (owned by Loye Tankersly) to start "sucking air", meaning the water table had dropped low enough that the pump was drawing air. City Operations throttled it down so that it was pumping only 10 gallons a minute. Citizens might be surprised how our community is tempting fate with our water usage. Were the City's wells to fail then our house hold pipes would freeze and burst. Constant access to water is critical even in the winter months.
The cost of water. One reason for publishing the meeting documents is to start addressing the costs we are paying for water. Look on page 2 of 3 of the Statement of Revenue and Expenditures for the Water and Sewer Fund and note Water Well Usage expense. The City draws from several sources, including two private wells, Tankersly and Robertson, that are budgeted at $27,500 annually. That's too much, and now that at least one of those wells is sucking air (and also running constantly) during a critical weather event, the City should start looking for more water. In the long run it is going to be less expensive and more secure to own and operate its own water wells. (I say "more secure" here because we should be considering water a strategic natural resource, much like oil and natural gas.)
The radar sign has been received and will be put out soon. The Council discussed where to locate it and how often to rotate it to new locations. Watch for it on a hill near you soon.
*Clarification: There is an administrative rule that is supposed to force school districts who are in a municipality where there are building ordinances to adopt ordinances of a nearby municipality for new construction. While TEA appears to not enforce it, I believe the failure to follow this rule creates exposure for government officials and their agents. Refer to 19 TAC 61.1036(f)(2)(A). The import here is that the school will not be able to point to any code permitting the wholesale dump of stormwater into city streets because no city will ever allow such a thing. More to the point, the City of San Angelo does not allow it, and it is thereby impossible for ICISD to rely on any code that authorizes dumping of runoff into a city street.
**Even more clarification: Of course, one can bring an unconstitutional "Takings" claim, along with other legal claims, as well. There is a lot of taking by flooding litigation out there that favors landowners. There is even a current case that made it to the US Supreme Court involving the State of Texas, Devillier v. Texas. The law is well settled that the sovereign cannot take your property by flooding you without just compensation.
Copyright 2024 G. Noelke