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City of Mertzon December 15 2025

  • G. Noelke
  • Dec 12, 2025
  • 4 min read

Updated: Jan 3


The south end of the new IC ISD transportation facility as of December 10. The City's alley is immediately to the right of this facility and borders the IC ISD tennis courts, shown here by the light poles.
The south end of the new IC ISD transportation facility as of December 10. The City's alley is immediately to the right of this facility and borders the IC ISD tennis courts, shown here by the light poles.



A. Agenda Analysis

  1. Executive session, item 5: This is the same item posted last meeting - real estate, litigation and personnel. It's clearly significant, especially now that it has been repeated twice. Note that, unlike IC ISD agendas, there is no posted item for "actions items from closed session". In theory, since there is no voting in executive session and there isn't some form of the language "action items from closed session", then this is a "no action" executive session. In practice, however, "voting" in executive sessions can happen without the traditional voice or hand vote. Mere "discussion" during an executive session can resolve a whole lot in private. I treat every executive session as if significant matters are being resolved regardless of whether a traditional vote is taking place.

  2. Ordinances, repeal and replace, items 6 and 7. Go here for the City's ordinance bank. Not all are online. Chapter 14 deals with Municipal Court, and nothing is online. Nothing can be said about the content of 14.05.04. My interest is high because of the City's last meeting. As to 15.02, it relates to game rooms under the offenses and nuisances chapter. The only game room in town shut down a few years back, best I can tell.

  3. Training helps: From discussion over several meetings I have gathered that one reason we are seeing these agenda items on updating ordinances is that City Administrative Assistant Nate Padilla attended some TML training on ordinances recently. Hopefully this continues; the updating is sorely needed. And, this is difficult work - it takes attention to detail just to read ordinances, but to learn to read them critically is above and beyond. So, here's to Nate for his diligent efforts! Thank you.




The north bay of the new facility. Keep in mind that, well before this time in the construction, the design team knows how much stormwater runoff will occur from the impervious cover at this site. It's a math formula that depends on the porosity of the surface. The general rule of f thumb is that .60 of a gallon of water per 1 square foot of impermeable surface runs off with every 1 inch of rainfall. That’s a significant amount of water.
The north bay of the new facility. Keep in mind that, well before this time in the construction, the design team knows how much stormwater runoff will occur from the impervious cover at this site. It's a math formula that depends on the porosity of the surface. The general rule of f thumb is that .60 of a gallon of water per 1 square foot of impermeable surface runs off with every 1 inch of rainfall. That’s a significant amount of water.

B. Meeting Review

Pending. I attended the meeting, but I’m tending to other matters at the moment.

  1. Here are the meeting documents for this meeting.

  2. Ordinance 14.05.04 repeal and replace, item 6: Ordinance 14.05.04 wasn't online, but now it is - go to the meeting documents at page 4. It dealt with the disposal of excess property owned by the City, a subject of some controversy some 9 years ago when a brouhaha arose from alleged theft by a former City employee of City property. See this article as well.

    The new ordinance approved by the Council is 1.06, also in the meeting notes at page 2. I haven't done a side by side comparison between new and old, but the discussion during the meeting indicated the reason was to beef up who had authority to assess what was and wasn't excess property. The new law at Section 4 now provides that more than just the Operations Manager has authority. Now it must come from no less than 4 authorized officials: operations manager, city administrator, mayor, mayor pro tem or one city council member. Why the change? Read on...

  3. Repeal of Ordinance 15.02 with new Ordinance 10.01, item 7: This is a great example of how to read an agenda and still get it wrong!

    Ordinance 15.02 as posted on the City's site, as described above, in fact links to the game room ordinance. But, the ordinance repealed on its face is a) unnumbered and b) deals with the City's drought contingency plan. See pages 6 and 7 of the meeting documents.

    The stated reason during the meeting for the repeal was that the drought contingency plan was re-adopted as a resolution in 2022, and that resolution was intended to replace the ordinance related to the drought contingency plan at page 7 of the meeting documents.

    As I have addressed before, a "resolution" does not have the force of law that an ordinance does. The resolution cannot be enforced as a law against citizens. The 2022 resolution was not provided in the meeting notes, but I requested it and here is a copy. The civil penalty once provided by the ordinance (up to $2,000 a day, as provided by the Texas Local Gov't Code at 54.001) is no more. Even though the penalty is mentioned in the resolution (see Section X on page 14 of the resolution), a court would most likely toss out that charge since it is not in a properly passed ordinance. See my Commentary here at C for the last meeting to read how I took exactly the opposite position - that, above all, our drinking water was essential and should be regulated by the City. Let me emphasize: regulated by ordinance.

  4. Executive session, item 5: There wasn't an executive session. The topics for executive session this week were identical to the last meeting. As mentioned above, mere "discussion" during an executive session can resolve a whole lot in private.




I remember a day when you could see Javelinas within the city limits of Mertzon. You don’t see them around these days. My game camera took this photo recently.
I remember a day when you could see Javelinas within the city limits of Mertzon. You don’t see them around these days. My game camera took this photo recently.

C. Commentary

  1. I've written a couple paragraphs of commentary for this meeting, but the holiday spirit won over and I've tossed them in the trash bin. I hope everyone is having/has had a wonderful holiday season. Don't forget about the Kickapoo Indian ceremony at City Park on January 8.



Copyright 2025 G. Noelke

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