The meeting opened at 6 p.m. with an Invocation, and pledge of allegiance. As the meeting commenced, there were no citizen comments at the time, and the Council moved to other items on the agenda.
Before attending to the matters of new business, the Early City Council gave a special recognition of service for recently retired Public Works Director Wade Walker. Walker was not present at the meeting but was still recognized for his 37 years of service to the City of Early. Walker began his career here in 1985 and retired this year in July.
“He went beyond the basic requirements very quickly and got his set Class C water license in 1987 and his wastewater license in 1989,” said Mayor Bob Mangrum. “[He] moved on to Director of Public Works in 1997. Very much involved in a lot of projects, changes, improvements…Major projects that he was involved with was the water treatment facility, the elevated water storage tank, the treated water pump station, 2 million gallon water storage tank, wastewater treatment facility…several residential multifamily developments, and agriculture irrigation and heat production,” continued the mayor. “We wanted to put that in the record that Wade has served the City [of Early] long and hard.”
The Early City Council followed up with more special recognition of two members who were in the Early Municipal Development District. The Early MDD wanted to recognize Stephanie Johnson and Missy Ryan who served on the board. Those two were known as excellent directors and contributed greatly to the city of Early’s development.
An applause was given for Wade Walker, Stephanie Johnson, and Missy Ryan for their excellent service to the City of Early.
In the items of new business, the Early City Council moved quickly through the agenda. First, the council considered the appointment of three board members to the Early Municipal Development District. The council reappointed Benny Alcorn (The Board’s President) and Alisha Newton (Co-Owner of Shearly Southern Salon). The City Council also appointed Joel Johnson as well.
A motion was made to approve all three candidates and the Council unanimously approved.
The Council moved to consider the appointment of two board members to the planning and zoning commission. The council reappointed both Joe Baucom and Scott Byrd. The motion was approved unanimously.
The Early City Council also considered reappointing Brent Moseley to represent City of Early and Early ISD as member on Brown County Appraisal District Board for 22-23 term. Without any discussion, the council unanimously approved.
Early City Council then moved to consider nominees for TML Health Benefits Pool Region 6, 2022 Board of Trustee Election. There were three nominees total, and the council could only pick one: Brownwood Mayor Stephen Haynes, Cisco City Manager Darwin Archer, and Connie Thorton of the City of Clyde. The Council went ahead with Mayor Haynes, and unanimously approved.
Furthermore, the Early Council approved street closure and barricades for Early ISD Homecoming parade and 5K on Wednesday, September 21st at 6 p.m.
The Council moved on to the consideration of approving Resolution 2022-R09, approving the negotiated settlement between Atmos Cities Steering Committee and Atmos Energy regarding the 2022 Rate Review Mechanism filing. The company Atmos had requested a rating increase. Early had original jurisdiction and denied Atmos’ request. The City of Early sent the request to the Steering Committee who had reached an agreement with Atmos, settling at 115 million.
The Council approved a Resolution 2022-R10, approving an application for the Bullet Resistant Shield Grant Program. The grant that comes through the Governors’ office comes after school shootings this past year. Early, TX Police Chief Mercer has requested to apply for this. He is asking for two bullet resistant shields, and they will be 100% paid out of this grant. They will be additional to the bullet proof vest already given. The bullet resistant shields give officers the ability to approach a barricaded suspect. The City Council approved Mercer’s request to apply.
The City Council then moved to discuss and consider approving a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City of Early Police Department and Texas Department of Public Safety for use of Texas Statewide Interoperability Channel Plan (TSICP). Currently, the city of Early operates on a channel through the LCRA, Texas DPS is also involved in that channel.
Early has an existing MOU with LCRA and other local agencies. City of Early Police Chief Mercer has already reviewed the MOU with TxDPS and talked to LCRA representatives. They have recommended moving forward to be on the TSICP. It is about operations and how they operate on the statewide channel. This is an operational agreement. A motion of approval was granted, and the city council unanimously approved.
The Early City Council worked on considering who to award a bid proposal for their Bank Depository Contract for October 1st — September 30th, 2027. Currently, the City of Early has a contract with MC Bank. But the City of Early conducts bid proposals every five years. Early received four proposals. The council members decided to continue with MC Bank. The members noted that there was not much difference between the other proposals, and Early is already settled with MC Bank, the signature cards are already done, and the checks are already printed, and it will require a lot less to change over.
Consideration to approved ordinance 2022-13, amending the 2021-2022 Fiscal Year Budget. This was part of the city of Early needing to amend their budget before the next Fiscal Year before audits. There were unforeseen budget changes that the Council needed to amend. The 2021-2022 Fiscal Year had Early collected 2.4 million in sales tax revenue, when they originally had it set at 1.355 million. There were different expenditures and expenses the city needed to amend in their budget such as the Total Revenue, setting it at 1.734 million dollars, and amending Early Fire Department salaries. Overall, this proposal was just to clean up the budget and amend some things before auditing. There was a motion to approve, no discussion, and the proposal was unanimously accepted.
The City Council set to re-agenda a Consideration of Ordinance 2022-14, amending the procurement policy within the Comprehensive Financial Management Policy, to a later time.
There were no executive sessions or Administrators report.
Announcements included the Lawmakers Luncheon on September 14th in Cisco Texas; the West Central TX council of Governments Sub-Region V Meeting September 28th in Abilene; National Night Out October 4th; Early Chamber of Commerce Banquet Oct. 17 at 6pm at Prima Pasta; Petco Ribbon Cutting on the 21st of September and Petco is having a family funday, food, games, pets and more on September 24th.
[Story by Jacob Lehrer]