Mertzon City Council January 26 2026
- Jan 27
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 5
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
Public Comments, City right of way, items 4 and 7: My intuition was correct - this was about political signs in the right of way. See these meeting documents. It is against state law to place signs in a public right of way. A candidate for Justice of the Peace and her supporters came out to protest the removal of the signs and ended up receiving a warning from the City Attorney, Jeff Betty. The Council took no action. See my commentary below about this brouhaha.
New City Council Member, item 5: David Olivan, a resident of the city for 20 years, was sworn in to fill a vacancy. And, an apparent nuance in the resign to run statute has allowed Council Member Lindley to return to his seat, at least until such time as he wins his school board race.
Administrative report, item 8 b, and Daily Operations Report, item 9: If you don't attend the meetings it is easy to overlook the importance of this part of the meeting. A few things worth noting; a. City water during major freeze: Operations staff is literally restarting a faulty valve every two and half hours, around the clock, so that the water tower level stays up. Folks, these guys are working really hard. Temps have gone at least down to 9 degrees and the City continues to have water. Truly amazing dedication to their jobs. Thank you. b. The City passed its 3 year water inspection by TCEQ without any deficiencies. This is really significant because successfully staying out of TCEQ's sights in any enforcement matter counts as a win. It is time consuming and costly to deal with TCEQ when things get off track.
c. The Mayor reported favorably on the joint operations efforts among the City, Irion County, Irion County ISD and the Irion County Sheriff's Office to address weather related issues and emergencies. This is significant because local government in the area tends to operate in silos and personal conflicts get in the way of serving the community. (I've been saying this since my efforts in 2019 to get the City, County and IC ISD to coordinate with one another about stormwater.) Their cooperation is all the more critical now that Washington has so hamstrung FEMA.
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 acknowledging stunned silence.
I'm not going to get bogged down in the politics of campaign sign issue raised in the open forum and item 7. The candidate, her supporters and even the City's attorney said some unfortunate things that, if published here, would only elevate tensions. (I am publishing the meeting documents, but I do that for each meeting.) I started Government In the Sun by posting audio of the public meetings I was attending. When someone said something controversial I often elevated it. While stirring the pot was fun at first, in time I realized I was missing an opportunity to teach the community about the law, ethics and civics. Those things are more intellectually challenging to me than being a muckraker. So, here's the lesson on civics and the law for this meeting: Do not ever forget that the open forum and the meeting itself is public. That means if you are a candidate for public office anything you say about anything can and will be used against you. Since I'm not posting the audio, all the opposing candidate has to do is appear at City Hall and ask to listen to the audio tape. The audio is available to anyone. Perhaps a better approach to the sign wars is this simple: The candidate should appear before the Council and say something to the effect of: "If there is a valid complaint against my campaign for public office, I certainly regret that it has taken up your time. It has not been my intent to violate the law. I look forward to talking to your staff about it after the meeting to resolve any misunderstandings."
A bit more on the vagueness of item 7 on right of ways: After this meeting City Manager Ms. Rabenaldt visited with me and said, "You know, George, just call me up if you don't know what something is about." And, of course, that is what everyone should do when confused about a public meeting. Call the governmental body up. I blog about vagueness to hopefully get my readers out of neutral gear when they read about public meetings. One should not accept agendas for face value, especially when a conflict is brewing. Agenda drafters choose their wording very carefully. Where it really matters is where the governmental body is taking a property right (a professional license) away. But, that's not the case here. This all falls in my "how to read an agenda" bucket. Word choice on agendas matter. Call the government body who posted the agenda if you don't understand it.
A bit more on Alex Pretti: Now is a good time to revisit the old saw "The way to get rid of bad guys with guns is to have more good guys with guns." Suddenly open/concealed carry laws have a troubling wrinkle. What if a lawful citizen's weapon is used as a pretext for state sanctioned murder because their exercise of 1st Amendment speech is opposed by the government? Exactly who is the good guy with the gun and who is the bad guy with the gun? Being in a situation where everyone is armed may not be the solution some think it to be, particularly when the government is claiming it has absolute immunity.
Copyright 2025 G. Noelke
