Mertzon City Council January 26 2026
- G. Noelke
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Agenda Analysis | Meeting Review | Meeting Documents | Commentary | Last Meeting
A. Agenda Analysis
Meeting date: Note that this falls on the last Monday of the month. The Council's regular schedule is on the 1st and 3rd Monday of the month, unless it falls on a holiday. Last Monday was MLK.
Appointment of City Council Member, item 5: Former Mayor Pro Tem Lindley resigned at the last meeting so he could run for school board. This leaves two seats open on the Council.
City right of ways, item 6: Here's the posted wording, "Discuss and approve any action necessary for city right of ways". What does that mean? It says "any action necessary", which could be anything. This piques my curiosity in the same way the posting last meeting by IC ISD that read "Discuss next projects". See A 4 here. I don't understand this agenda item, so I'm interested in it. This matter could be about anything, and when a governmental body so generally describes an agenda item citizens should take note. For the sake of considering whether this agenda item is too vague under the Texas Open Meetings Act, I'll intuit here that this matter is about campaign election signs being placed in the City's right of ways by candidates for public office. Then the question is: Does this agenda item have to give specific notice to identified candidates that the City Council is about to take action concerning them?
No. "The intended beneficiaries of the Act are not individual citizens, but members of the interested public. City of San Antonio v. Fourth Ct. of Appeals, 820 S.W.2d 762, 765 (Tex. 1991). If a reader is given adequate notice of the proposed governmental action, the requirement of the Act is satisfied." City of Houston v. 4 Families of Hobby, 702 SW3d 698.
Administrative Report, other announcements, and Daily operations update, items 8b and 9: I highlight these items because they are typically where City staff report about operations during weather events. At initial posting of this page on January 25, Mertzon has had about 1/4 inch of snow and the temp is 14 degrees.
How do cities with real snow issues manage? Check out this page for the City of Ames Iowa.
B. Meeting Review
Pending
C. Commentary
I don't want to dwell on the death of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on January 24, but I also don't intend to fail to recognize the horrific nature of the event. I think there are times when events involving our government are so impossible to understand that, at least for a moment, silence is appropriate. In this age of constant distraction, perhaps we have lost sight of recognizing the stunned silence within us.
Pending
Copyright 2025 G. Noelke
