Here's a 2022 photo of City Park as the parking area was being paved. The 547 acre basin shown on a topo map here at # 2 empties all of its stormwater into the 4 barrels (in the yellow circle) that pass under State Hwy 67. IC ISD's engineer and architect acknowledged during the 2019 bond build out that the barrels were too small to adequately handle all the stormwater. The blue arrows represent the direction the stormwaters are flowing as they arrive at the IC ISD football stadium. The field itself is lower than where these waters collide, thus explaining why the field is so vulnerable to stormwater flooding.
Below is the meeting agenda for this meeting, and underneath that are my agenda analysis and meeting review. I also have some Commentary on the US Constitution.
A. Agenda Analysis 1. Accepting resignation of councilmember and swearing in council members, items 5 and 6: The Council, with the resignation of Ms. Holland earlier this month, now has two vacant seats. Gone but not forgotten Micah Elliot resigned back in May, 2024. His seat has not been filled since. Then, at the last meeting Ms. Holland resigned. With 2 vacant seats, a Council of 5 plus the Mayor is a governmental body precariously close to not being able to function if there were an absence; a quorum of 4 would not have been present. 2. New Pavilion at Spring Creek, item 8: The river running through Mertzon, Spring Creek, is really the gem of the city. This is an item not previously discussed at a Council meeting, so this will be worth paying attention to.
Here's a closer view of the barrels. Even if they are replaced with larger ones, as the State of Texas has said it will do eventually, only a few hundred yards further down stream are the barrels that go under the railroad. Those barrels are even smaller than these, and the railroad has never committed to improving them. The best way to manage this storm water is to decrease the quantity at its sources and to regulate current and future growth. To accomplish this the local governments (school, city and county) must cooperate with one another. If they don't it is mutual destruction because they will flood one another.
B. Meeting Review. (Here are the meeting documents for this meeting.)
1. Accepting resignation of councilmember and swearing in council members, items 5 and 6: Daniel Harper was sworn in to fill one of the vacant seats as council member. There remains one seat unfilled. The Council also formally accepted the resignation of council member Holland, who submitted her resignation at the last meeting. 2. New pavilion at Spring Creek, item 8: Michelle Rushing, Mike Dolan and John Young were present to request that the Council approve a donated 40’x60’ pavilion to be built with Lions Club efforts/donated funds at the river. The Council approved, conditioned on site approval by the City’s engineers. The initial plans can be found at page 3 of the meeting documents.
3. Administrative report, item 8: there’s a lot of interesting things to report on. Two things caught my attention, though. The recently hired part time office staffer will go full time in February. This will free up Ms. Rabenaldt to do more traditional municipal management work. Second, I’m always impressed with Mayor Stewart’s and Ms. Ms. Rabenaldt’s efforts to stay out of TCEQ’s enforcement crosshairs. The City, under previous leadership, paid a hefty administrative penalty to TCEQ a while back for violations at the wastewater plant. It appears that the lesson was learned. Our local tax dollars should NEVER be transferred to the State (TCEQ) in the form of administrative penalties.
Commentary:
To paraphrase President Lincoln, laws that aren’t enforced are nothing more than good advice. The concept of desuetude, that laws become unenforceable over a long period of their being unenforced, does not, however, apply to the US Constitution. (See reference to Walz v Tax Commission City of New York.) Put another way, that local government has flooded its community for years without landowner complaint doesn’t mean that the Takings Clause of the Constitution is merely “good advice.” Our government never achieves a vested right to flood its citizens.
The Community Center (tan roof) is especially vulnerable to the stormwaters that exit the IC ISD campus at 2nd Street and Juanita. The District (via Gallagher Construction and Parkhill) is currently designing a stormwater detention site at 2nd and Juanita that hopefully will limit the flow shown here that threatens the Community Center. The entrance of the stormwaters here is at N. First St. and Duncan.
Copyright 2025 G Noelke