The new IC ISD bus facility at 5th and W. Fleming Ave. that is going in at this location will undoubtedly add more stormwater to the basin that drains at City Park.
Below is the agenda for this meeting, and underneath are my agenda analysis and meeting review.
A. Agenda analysis: 1. Meeting date: Monday March 3. The Council no doubt is trying to get back to its regular meeting times at the first and 3rd Mondays of the month. They had only 1 meeting last month because of problems of keeping a quorum. 2. Budget workshop, item 5: The term "workshop" on agendas sometimes forecasts that the governing body is just going to talk and no formal action is going to take place. I consider all budget discussions, however, as times when citizens especially need to be present. Citizens should be concerned with every agenda item that discusses the budget because, without citizen presence, the governing body will begin to think they have ultimate discretion to spend taxpayer dollars as they see fit. 3. Everything else: The rest of the agenda is the standard stock language seen on all of the City agendas. I expect this to be a leaner meeting because the Council met last only last week.
Here is an example of how another ISD, Brady ISD, is handling stormwater runoff. There is nothing extraordinary about my request to the City of Mertzon and Irion County ISD to manage stormwater. Stormwater management is something that happens in other cities and, as this photo shows, at other school districts. There's a reason for this: our Constitution and laws are clear that government cannot take private property by flooding it unless they first pay the landowner. Moreover, sovereign immunity is not absolute, so government officials who willingly expose citizens to injury without regard to their safety risk legal exposure in their official and personal capacities.
B. Meeting review 1. Here are the meeting documents for this meeting. Note in those documents that the Council approved several meetings worth of meeting minutes without changes.
2. Budget workshop, item 5: The majority of this meeting was spent on fiscal matters.
a. Budget surplus: The Council wisely agreed to commit to a portion of its surplus to paying down already existing debt in preparation for new debt on the horizon related to its upcoming wastewater treatment bond obligations. The discussions were dizzying at times, but the bottom line is that this Council is not a "robbing Peter to pay Paul" kind of council, a real problem of past councils.
b. Community drainage projects: The Council also approved that a portion of its surplus be dedicated to remedying community wide drainage at multiple locations throughout the city. This is notable for a couple reasons. First, it is acknowledgement that flooding is a community wide problem, something I've been preaching about since just before the 2019 IC ISD bond election when I warned that the school would be worsening the flooding problem if it built a new gym. Second, it is an acknowledgement that governmental immunity is not absolute, something I have also been publicly warning about since 2019. Mayor Stewart had this to say to new Council member Daniel Harper about the closure of the flooded street, Fleming Ave., in front of my home that is being flooded by IC ISD stormwater runoff:
"If you willfully turn an eye without doing something and harm somebody, then you are liable. So, if people drive around a barrier, that's on them, but if we do nothing and we leave the street open, then we are liable." Thus, as I have previously said here at A.4.a, the Tort Claims Act does not give the City Council, or IC ISD board members for that matter, a free pass when they exercise their governmental duties. Governmental immunity is limited.
And, third, don't forget the MOU with IC ISD. Way back on Sept. 16, 2024 Supt. Nikki Moore and the Gallagher Construction folks appeared at the City Council meeting to secure the closure of a portion of 3rd Street in exchange for doing water retention/flood control projects. Just this week through a PIA request of IC ISD I have received the final MOU, albeit unsigned final, and here it is. (The first draft of their proposed MOU can be found here at page 2.) I'll address some of the nuances of their final version in another post, but for now its significance is that, at last, there is a formal agreement between the City of Mertzon and IC ISD to remedy some of the flooding issues.
Finally, there is still a lot left to accomplish. Gallagher Construction just published a portion of the IC ISD bid package for the 2024 bond projects, but not that portion dealing with drainage.
The portion addressing drainage has not yet been approved by the IC ISD board. So, we are still a ways out before we see whether the community is going to achieve any flood relief.
3. Present at the meeting were Mayor Stewart and Council members Jayton Lindley, Randy Councilman, Danny Crutchfield and Daniel Harper. The key vote at the meeting, approving how to spend the surplus funds, was unanimous. The minutes in the meeting notes were approved without changes. I was the only member of the community present.
This photo shows how Brady ISD and the City of Brady coordinated the flow of stormwater in a detention pond to keep it off a city street. There is also nothing extraordinary about keeping city streets free of stormwater. Throughout this blog I have contended that IC ISD has neglected its responsibilities under the law to manage its own stormwater and it deflected fault by blaming the City of Mertzon for not having a stormwater plan.
Copyright 2025 G Noelke