Mertzon City Council Meeting May 5 2025
- G. Noelke
- May 3
- 4 min read
Updated: May 6
A. Agenda Analysis 1.Budget amendments, item 5: If you are a regular reader, you know that I always point out budget amendments in public agendas. If meetings like these and at the IC ISD school board have no public participation, then the members too quickly forget that it is not their money. They are handling the public's money. Public attendance at meetings is a simple check on their fiscal authority, and governmental bodies like a city council or school board should welcome that oversight by the public. The City of Mertzon has always welcomed that oversight, in my experience.
B. Meeting Review 1. Here are the meeting documents for this meeting. 2. Ordinance 11.28, item 5: The Council approved the ordinance that addresses the transfer of contingency funds for re-use elsewhere. The matter had been formally addressed back in March. 3. Fleet leasing report, item 6: Probably way too expensive Ms. Chappell advised, and after a short discussion the Council agreed. 4. Administrative Reports, Item 7: a. The Greening of Mertzon: Ms. Rabenaldt reported that Supt. Moore had contacted her last week to let her know IC ISD was saving and replanting some of the oak trees on the lots recently purchased by them. I can confirm the same, as Supt. Moore reached out to me as well on this point.
Elsewhere in this blog, I have been highly critical of what appears to be a decades long, if not century long, practice of the District removing Live Oaks from its campus and adding impervious cover. This practice has unquestionably put more stormwater runoff into our entire community because there is less green cover available to take up the stormwater. Moreover, because the District has used a different architect and construction manager with each of its bonds, there has been no consistent approach to managing how the District's impervious cover is impacting our community during rainfall. (The architects are generally charged with moving the water away from the buildings, though an architect can't design a building on behalf of a school and expect to avoid the school's responsibilities under the Takings clause of the Constitution.)
I'm very appreciative of Supt. Moore's efforts at saving oak trees. For certain, there's nothing in her contract with the District that says she is to work cooperatively with the environment and make an effort at saving Live Oaks. This shows she is trying to remedy some past wrongs of the District, and that should be recognized by all.
Practice tip: I have planted and subsequently killed a number of Live Oak trees that I purchased from big box stores and planted on my property. I have since gone to searching out new growth oaks and watering them in place. They are thriving with the extra water. Just add water.
b. Mandatory reporting to TCEQ: There was an unauthorized discharge of treated effluent water on April 29, and you can find the City's mandatory reporting to TCEQ of the event on pages 10 and 11 of the meeting documents. Here's more on mandatory reporting to TCEQ. This is an endlessly fascinating area of the law, in my opinion. Counselors, nursing homes, day care centers and schools, for example, all have various legal obligations to report certain violations. Indeed, it was a mandatory reporting incident at IC ISD that lead to this situation with Jacob Conner.
c. Frontier brouhaha/kerfuffle: Mayor Stewart announced that Frontier had contacted him and rescinded their demand for payment from the City relating to a severed line. I covered the incident here at 4.a because it seemed to be out of character for this company to get so exercised over a roughly $1,000 fee. The amount they would have been paying in legal fees to extract this blood would have exceeded the fine amount in about 30 minutes of legal work. The good will Frontier needs with the City of Mertzon is well worth getting this incident behind them.
C. Commentary Nothing good can happen with this recent Executive Order from the Whitehouse, particularly this paragraph:
Sec. 4 . Using National Security Assets for Law and Order. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement. [Emphasis added.]
Do not overlook that I have previously said "Total party loyalty, for either party, is irresponsible in these circumstances," at my Commentary here. The military build up allowed in this Executive Order might be used in a martial law type situation. Please see my earlier Commentary on martial law. Consider this: the essential loss of rights during a martial law situation is a loss of due process under the Constitution. (Notably, one can be jailed without access to lawyers or civil judges.) This makes President Trump's recent statement that he "didn't know" if he had to uphold due process rights under the Constitution quite significant.
Copyright 2025 G Noelke
