Mertzon City Council October 6 2025
- G. Noelke
- Oct 3
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 7
The beams on the new storage room for IC ISD's fieldhouse at City Park.
A. Agenda Analysis
Council pay, item 6: I neglected to post, though I attended, the September 29 meeting to approve the 2025 tax roll. Like the IC ISD meeting, it lasted for only a few minutes. Every chance I get I like to point out when the City Council, who is lawfully allowed to receive pay for their Council participation, decides to waive their own pay. It is a good thing.
TxDot maintenance agreement, item 5: A major Texas highway, Hwy 67, goes right down the middle of Mertzon, so this item is always an important one. Highway bridge projects on 67 west of the city are creeping along at a snails pace, so consideration of any maintenance agreement inside the city should be prefaced with, "What are the project timelines?"
B. Meeting Review
Here are the meeting documents.
Council pay, item 6: The Council, at Mayor Stewart's urging, voted unanimously to waive its pay for the September 29 meeting. See my commentary below.
TxDoT Maintenance agreement, item 5: The Council approved the document, and it is provided in the meeting documents. Note paragraph 15 of the document makes TxDoT responsible for “bridges, culverts and drainage pipes”. This has been the impediment that has kept improvements from being made at the Hwy 67 bridge next to the IC ISD stadium at City Park. Those barrels are too small and stormwater backs up into the park and stadium. There are also a number of culverts not being maintained along the highway within city limits that are worsening the flooding.
C. Commentary
When something good, right or just happens as a consequence of the actions of our elected leaders, citizens need to reinforce the heck out of it. Citizenship requires some degree of positive reinforcement; it is more than merely exercising the right to vote.The constant complaining about how government is broken is tiresome, nonproductive and ought to raise our suspicions. So, this particular City Council meeting is an example, a small but important example, of principled government leaders who waived their pay. But for their 15 seconds of fame (10 seconds? 5 seconds?) that they might get in this blog, they received no attention from the public for doing so. Their actions, however small, are an affirmation of a working and effective democracy.
One might think that our Congress needs to similarly waive their pay during this government budget shut down. Perhaps that would bring a quick re-opening of the government. But, that is a complex issue because many of those folks are independently wealthy; they won't feel it. Or the President. Perhaps he should waive or give away his pay? He has done so before. But, the U.S. Supreme Court gave him immense immunity so that there are essentially no consequences for him for turning the Whitehouse into a profit center. So, his salary is peanuts compared to what he is earning on the side from the office; he won’t feel it.
We should all be wondering about now whether we are learning a lesson in civics that we should not trust government leaders that incessantly claim government is broken, saying things like "I alone can fix it", and who then take disruptive actions (like sending the National Guard to our cities to ferment race and class disputes) to purposefully make government dysfunctional. Are we learning from this national experience? As I've said before, it is time to dispense with party labels and focus on the "We" part of "We the people..."
All of government is not broken. Professing that it is broken over, and over and over again is a gimmick, a ploy, and the ultimate tool for gaslighting. There's never been one person alone who can fix the parts that are broken. That's where the "We" comes in. We are all responsible, regardless of our political ideologies.
Copyright 2025 G. Noelke
