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Agenda Analysis  | Meeting Review  | Meeting Documents  | Commentary  | Last Meeting Sunrise over IC ISD on May 2, 2025 looking down Juanita Street. The tennis courts, completed in 2016, are on the left. The pavement was paid in part from 2019 bond funds. Juanita Street was unpaved prior to the construction of tennis courts, which were part of 2014 bonds. Agenda for this meeting. 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. What Juanita Street looked like prior to 2015. It was a caliche road. I took this screenshot in 2021, and I forgot about it until finding it accidentally this week. 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. My Public Information Act requests sometimes get quite specific, such as here where I obtained Parkhill's Lidar study of the IC ISD campus. If you know what I'm looking for, this part of their study that includes Juanita Street speaks volumes. 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, s hall 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. This October 2015 photo shows the tennis courts still under construction. The end of this caliche shoulder at the top left shows the intersection of 4th and Juanita. Noticeably absent is the new gymnasium. This shoulder was paved over in 2016 to the state it is in today - an impervious skirt on the east end of the tennis courts. See also the March 21, 2016 email from former supt. Billy Barnett . The District knew about the flooding even as they were putting more impervious cover around these courts. Copyright 2025 G Noelke

Agenda Analysis  | Meeting Review  | Meeting Documents  | Commentary  | Last Meeting A cowbird dive bombing an antlerless buck. The Irion County ISD board agenda for this meeting. A. Agenda Analysis 1. Approve the prime contractors, item 3 : This is a single issue meeting to award the winning bids for Phase 1 of the 2024 bond construction. 2. How to read an agenda: "Special" meetings, as I've addressed before, are meetings called because there is some deadline that has to be met before the next regular board meeting. I am aware in this instance that this is a tariff beating effort, and saving money is a certainly a good enough reason to have a special meeting. 3. More on how to read an agenda : Every "public" meeting where official business is conducted must have an open forum for the public to speak. See item 2. This includes "special" meetings. 4. Still more on how to read an agenda: This is obviously going to be a quick in and out meeting. One way to tell is that a closed session is not scheduled. But, even if a closed isn't posted, the Board can still hold one if there is a legal reason. See the paragraph immediately following the adjournment. This adds up to about 1.5” of rain since December, including the bugs. Perhaps Elton or Jose, who worked for my father and grandfather, were making a cruel joke decades ago and wired it shut so that it always reads 33 inches. B. Meeting Review 1. Approve the prime contractors, item 3: Here is the letter to the District from Gallagher identifying all bidders, scope and amounts. Below is from page 3 of that document and shows the contractors approved by the Board in this meeting. Winning prime contractors Attendance: Again, this was a "special" meeting, which typically means a bare quorum will be present. President Carlile and VP Rey both were absent, so the Secretary, Ashley Hill, managed the meeting. Discussion: The Board was spot on in its discussion of the bids. The question all taxpayers want asked was asked: Why weren't the lowest bidders being recommended in those areas where the more expensive bid was recommended? The Gallagher VP gave an adequate response, perhaps not as detailed as it could have been, but the point was made. Certain board members may at future meetings drill down and test Gallagher to make sure it is doing its job to analyze the bids and hold costs. Transparency: In contrast to the way the Board and Administration managed the spend down of the 2019 bond funds, this meeting was a bright sunny day. Realistically, the real number crunching happens in Supt. Moore's office, not in a board meeting like this one. But, there was some board member sentiment at this meeting indicating the board itself was relieved to have these numbers disclosed to them. The previous administration kept things under wraps and there was insufficient Board oversight. The type of detail in the image above far exceeds the level of detail ever disclosed during the entirety of the 2019 bond spend down. Tariffs: The Gallagher VP presenting was transparent with the pressure they had received from the bidders. The bidders could not hold their bids if their orders were not placed on or after May 1. This foretells the future, doesn't it? After May 1 the prime contractors are expecting to pay more for all that they need to do the build out. Noticeably missing from his presentation and the discussion of the Board was name "President Trump", as in these tariffs were initiated by President Trump. This is my jumping off point in my commentary below. Before the meeting: I had a few minutes with the Gallagher VP prior to the meeting. He asked some appropriate questions about flooding, and he was obviously concerned about what I consider to be the real dilemma they face: how do they add more impervious cover without adding more stormwater to the basin. I gave him a brief history of the school's growth since I was a student, where the water was coming from and the flooding of my home. (Yes, floodwaters have gone under my home, which is why I pay for flood insurance.) More importantly than all that, I identified the problem as a community wide problem - after the flood waters leave my property they flood other residences, the football field, the County's property in City Park and City Park itself. I also said that I have been saying this since 2019 before those bonds were passed. I am leaving nothing to chance here. Everyone knows, just as they did in 2019. Please read my commentary below . Typically, the does fight one another over food by rearing and pawing at one another. The bucks fight using their antlers, except in the spring when they are antlerless as these two are. Unfortunately, the two coons are having the last laugh. C. Commentary The purpose of this meeting was not just to award the bids, but to do it in a timely way so that the big ticket items like steel could be purchased before Pres. Trump's tariffs kick in. And, there's the rub. Not only did no one mention President Trump's name at this meeting, no one dared complain about having to be present to engage in this extra time sensitive meeting in the first place. The Board appeared either resigned to the inconvenience or perhaps just let silence set in because it might have been perceived as disloyal to complain. And, no one was present to speak at open forum to ask the painfully obvious: Why are we even here in the first place?! Who is taxing these contractors?! Why?! Is it possible we may not be able to afford this expansion?! I am at least hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually rule that President Trump does not have the legal authority to use tariffs in the manner that is impacting these 2024 bond projects. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution granting the President tariff authority. What statutory authority he is relying on is narrow in scope, and he is using that law without a sufficient emergency basis. But, it could take a couple years for the Court to reach such a decision. Moreover, there's very good reason to believe that once we reach that decision, there will have already been multiple decisions from the Court on other matters that he has outright disregarded. Yes, he is presently setting up multiple cases now to test how far he can go in defiance of the Court. Consider this essay about the limits to what the courts can do about President Trump by law professor Kate Shaw. These are terrifying times, indeed lawless times, if you believe in a constitutional democratic form of government in America. Frederick Douglass said, "The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those they oppress." This is to say that a tyrant's power lasts only so long as it is endured by those who are being oppressed. In context, these tariffs last until the public says, in the multitude of ways that we can , "No" to President Trump on tariffs. My message is this: Say his name. Say that these are President Trump's tariffs. Do not be silent about who is responsible. He issued these tariffs in his own name, without the cooperation or involvement of Congress. Total party loyalty, for either party , is irresponsible in these circumstances. This special meeting should have never been necessary, and we are acting like sheep if we fail to publicly call that out. Remember, it was Edwin R. Murrow who said, "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." Say his name, and don't be sheep. Copyright 2025 G. Noelke

Agenda Analysis  | Meeting Review  | Meeting Documents | Commentary  | Last Meeting Construction fencing at IC ISD The first of the construction fencing went up this week around the part of the elementary school that will be razed and replaced with 2024 bond funds. Two of the new classrooms will be designed for STEM learning, according to Supt. Moore in her report to the Board this week. Meeting Agenda A. Agenda Analysis 1. Ordinance 20.03, item 5 : This appears to be a revision to the new council pay ordinance passed at the last meeting. 2. Customer water line damage, item 6 : This is a first, at least since I've been following the Council. The City is going to consider requesting payment for payment for damage done by a customer to a City water line. 3. Meet Ms. Chappell: This is the first agenda signed by the City Administrator Assistant, Brittany Chappell. Now that she is full time, you'll also see her at the Council meetings. Everything to the left of the curb is 3rd Street, currently owned by the City of Mertzon. As a reminder, the closure of this street during construction is pursuant to an MOU between IC ISD and the City of Mertzon . B. Meeting Review 1. Here are the meeting documents for this meeting. 2. Ordinance 20.03, item 5 : This is an ordinance amendment limited solely to taking away a provision that allowed IC ISD to have a reduced "summer rate" for its water bill. The Council unanimously approved an amendment (see meeting documents) deleting the summer rates, without opposition from IC ISD. Recent significant water bill increases at IC ISD apparently brought this pay provision to the attention of City staff. 3 Water line damage, item 6: A city ordinance (11.2 at page 3 of meeting documents) allows the City to charge users who damage the city's property. In this case, a resident was turning off her water at the meter to save money in her bill from a leak in her home. The repeated opening and closing of the city's valve caused $300 in damage. Pro tip from the City: turn your water off on your side of the line and NOT at the meter. 4. A few more things: a. Call before you dig kerfuffle with Frontier: Frontier says the City cut a line, and the City says they did the "call before you dig" thing and Frontier said go ahead. An irate and unprofessional Frontier rep is trying to strong arm the City out of roughly $1,000. I raise it here because I was surprised to hear about Frontier's strong arm tactics and unprofessionalism over a penny ante to them $1,000 bill. Be a good neighbor, Frontier. The City has documented its good faith efforts. I'm a Frontier customer, and I'm embarrassed for them for the way they are handling this. (Referring it to their attorney?! Over a $1,000 fee?! ) They need to waive the darn bill and get on down the line. b. Spring Creek Pavilion Lions Clube project update: The Lions Club foundation pad for the new pavilion is going in at the river. I raised back here when it was proposed that no discussion was had about the Lions Club long term commitment to upkeep and improvements. Mr. Dolan, Club member, certainly didn't offer up any long term support in his initial pitch for the project. A discussion about the matter was raised by one of the Council members at this meeting. Perhaps one of the other Council members who happens to be in the club will be going back to the club and will get some commitments. It is clear to see from the location (near the baseball fields) that the facility is going to create long term drainage and road maintenance issues alone from the stormwater runoff and extra vehicle traffic it will bring to the area. And, without law enforcement patrol, it also has potential to increase loitering in the area. Commitments by the Lion Club need to be firmed up right away (before the cement is poured), otherwise the City is going to be burdened for decades to come. Public park structures like this one eventually become eye sores when neglected. (Don't think what it will look like in 2025 but in 2050 if it is not well tended to.) Taxpayers should not be burdened with upkeep and maintenance of charitable capital improvements like this one without a clear understanding on the front end of the charitable commitment. c. Next meeting: should be Monday, May 5. This Lace Hedgehog cactus on Cowboy Hill bloomed this week even though this drouth is now 5 months long. C. Commentary This week the Texas House voted to approve its version of the school voucher program sought after by Gov. Abbott. I have had on occasion addressed my opposition to the school voucher concept in these pages, even though my next door neighbor, Irion County ISD, has so aggressively pursued publicly funded capital improvements that are flooding my property. So, it is with a real sense of disappointment that this week State Representative Drew Darby of San Angelo voted for SB 2, the current Texas bill that will create school vouchers . You can read about my support of his primary race here , when I praised him for being a staunch opponent of vouchers and beating back Gov. Abbott's heavily financed efforts to see him out the door. I especially admired him for speaking the truth about vouchers when he said, while visiting Mertzon on a campaign stop, that vouchers were racist and would lead to segregation in our schools . (I agree with him on these points.) There is some indication that his change in heart on the issue was over a larger Hobson's choice involving rural school funding . Whatever the truth is on that point, it is equally important to put his decision in proper context of the political realities of the day. This week when addressing why Republicans in Congress were unable to stand up to President Trump, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski famously said, "Retaliation is real." (Gov. Abbott even posted his phone call with President Trump just before the SB 2 vote in the House.) If anyone knows about political retaliation, it is surely Rep. Darby. But, fear of retaliation is no excuse. I supported Rep. Darby even without an ounce of support from him. I expected him to be as much of a purist on school vouchers as I am a purist on how wrong it is for a public school to take its neighbor's property by storm water. Both are wrong, both have protections found in our constitutions, and both are worthy of staunch and unwavering advocacy. (Indeed, I might have also added to my Milestones page that I am continuing my advocacy notwithstanding the total lack of support from any of my elected officials, including Rep. Darby. In these 9 years, I have yet to find an elected representative to champion my cause. Elected folks will not speak out against a school district, even in situations where the district is not only flooding its neighbor but also flooding its community and itself!) Of course, Rep. Darby is also part of the institution - the Texas Legislature - for funding IC ISD. What school vouchers are certain to do is to take more from the wealth of Irion County than ever before. The District already turns over $9 - $15 million per year in recapture funds. (See page 5 of this document for the top 10 largest taxpayers in the county.) The community ought to be incensed that so much wealth is being transferred out of district, especially now that our local wealth is the process of being dedicated to private educational programs that are sure to undercut funding to IC ISD. Don't kid yourself. This all is nothing more than a transfer of local public wealth to private hands. One reason in Irion County that there has been no community uprising over this travesty of funding, as I have written before in this blog, is that the school board has failed to engage the community in its meetings. Why is that? Well, dissent is frowned upon in a small community of less than 1,000 folks. When folks want to challenge how public dollars are being spent it gets uncomfortable for the board members and administration. (See how far you get by challenging a $9+ million gymnasium!) The public, particularly parents, know that there will be negative consequences. Why even show up at board meetings and take that risk? It's not as if Rep. Darby himself is in the trenches at school board meetings defending taxpayer rights. He's not there, either. Senator Murkowski was right. Retaliation is real. And, it is hyper-focused in a small community like this one. Perhaps there is some hope on where to go from here, a place where cynicism breeds, in these words by Edwin R. Murrow: “The right of dissent, or, if you prefer, the right to be wrong, is surely fundamental to the existence of a democratic society. That’s the right that went first in every nation that stumbled down the trail toward totalitarianism.” Murrow also said these words: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty." And, finally, he said these words: "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." Don't be sheep. Copyright 2025 G. Noelke

Agenda Analysis | Meeting Review | Board Documents | Commentary | Last Meeting IC ISD Fieldhouse at OK Wolfenbarger Stadium This fieldhouse is going to be extended for storage as part of Phase 1 construction. You can see the plans here . Irion County ISD agenda A. Agenda Analysis 1. Meeting location: Cafeteria. 2. Administrative reports, item 6 d, 2nd quarter investment report: Ms. Lakey is a regular at nearly all the meetings now, but she isn't often listed on the agenda. To put this in context, this meeting is being held only 12 days after President Trump implemented the Liberation Day tariffs . Her report is not likely to be positive...and a lot is riding on investment returns. The District gets to keep in its own coffers the investment interest off unspent 2024 bonds. 3. Bond construction, item 5: This is the standard posting for the Board's construction. 4. Teachers, employee contracts, item 14 : This item comes at the end of the meeting after the closed session session and action items from closed session. 5. Closed Session, board training, item 11b: If all the Board members are Guardians, I suppose there are instances where board member training can be kept private. Otherwise, I don't know of an instance where training would be confidential. Cement jungle on IC ISD campus. Again, here's one source of our community's stormwater problem. This is on the south end of the District's campus. Each successive engineer has to address stormwater that originates at the beginning of this blue arrow and travels several blocks away, across my property and the private property of other landowners , to the fieldhouse pictured above. Thus far they have each built upon the errors of the ones that came before, while all have taken full advantage of the fact that the City of Mertzon does not have a stormwater management plan. Then they leave town. Well, mostly. SKG Engineering is out of San Angelo, and they worked on the new gym and are currently working on the 2024 bond projects for Parkhill . B. Meeting Review 1. Bond construction updates: From Supt. Moore's report, item 6c, the construction fencing and abatement around the old elementary building will start this week. The District received 50 bids (through Gallagher), and those are currently being evaluated. The acceptance of any bids will be done at next month's board meeting. 2. CTE dollars, item 6 c : Also from Supt. Moore's report, the District is more strategically targeting CTE dollars. The District has increased its revenue from $2500 in Perkins funds ( Title 1 from the Dept. of Education ) to $62,000. These dollars are not subject to recapture by the State, meaning the District does not have to return anything to the State. Here's more about CTE, Career and Technical Education, from the TEA website . Kudos to Supt. Moore for being more strategic about these dollars. My read is the the District has been leaving significant dollars on the table until now. Time will tell with the current administration in Washington (responsible for gutting the Department of Education, without congressional approval) whether these Title 1 funds will continue to flow without major concessions from states. From my vantage point, President Trump and Governor Abbott are both not friendly to education. My public information requests in the background include trying to get at whether the feds are already in the process of withholding money. 3. Investment Report, item 6d : I read this item to be an anticipatory report about the 2nd quarter, but this was a report on 1st quarter earnings. It boils down to this: there's a lot of interest earnings that stays with the district when there are millions of bond dollars. Indeed, Ms. Lakey reported there was $157,000 in interest off of $30 million in January alone. There are two reasons why these dollars matter. First , as has already happened in this bond cycle, the Board can on the fly adjust for construction budget shortfalls with projected interest earnings. Refer to item 2a in my Meeting Review where the Board approved additional square footage to the elementary totaling $1.7 million to be paid for out of anticipated interest earnings. Second , these interest earning matter when there is a budget mishap, as I wrote here where the District paid down a $800,000 budget shortfall with investment earnings. (Coincidentally, I learned from a recent PIA request that one reason for that shortfall is that the State and Board approved a very favorable tax abatement to the wind farm in their 313 agreement, but more on that later.) Here's my concern about this part of the meeting: Not a single board member dared ask what the projected earnings for the 2nd quarter might be. The economy, which is transparently in a downslide, was not discussed. There are potentially some troubled times ahead, and the impact is not readily known. The Board needs to worry about the future. 4. Census, item 6a: Principal Parker reported 210 in elementary and 134 in high school, totaling 344 for the district. Why am I monitoring this? Again, the District will not be able to afford an influx of new students . And, Texas, with its favorable business climate, is certain to grow. Consider this response to Pres. Trump's tariff war on China: Nvidia is going to produce its AI computers in Texas as part of a $500 billion US investment . Texas is going to continue to grow, and that means more and more pressure on rural areas. 5. Fairview, item 8 : The Board agreed to join the school cooperative Fairview, associated with Wall ISD , for its DAEP (Disciplinary Alternative Education Program) for $39,000 for 250 days of services. I will be learning more about this in the future, so stay tuned. 6. All the rest: The Board, at AD/Asst. Principal Morrow's request, approved a roughly $10,000 subscription for sports video services with HUDL . Hold the thought of whether AI will be used. The Board approved the probationary contracts at item 14, and there were no other closed session items voted upon. Otherwise, Board member Ashley Hill was the only member not present at this meeting. And, finally, don't forget to visit my updated Documents page . I've been neglecting it until this last weekend. I will post this meeting's documents in a few weeks after I receive them in my next PIA request. Horse Crippler Cactus in bloom It is spring in West Texas, and one sign - if you are lucky enough to see it - is a horse crippler cactus in bloom. This one is at the Mertzon Cemetery at the grave site of my Great Great Grandmother, Alice Patterson Blackwell Noelke, 1847-1912. I have posted photos of other horse cripplers in bloom here and here . C. Commentary Democracy is an ideal in progress made possible in part by an intangible faith that a rising tide should lift all boats. When our leaders, be they national or local, intentionally anchor some boats so that they necessarily flood at high tide, then it is only free and fair speech that can return the democratic ideal that we are all created equal with inalienable rights. Our Founders never promised us a democratic tomorrow. Speak up, speak out, be heard. Copyright 2025 G Noelke

Agenda Analysis | Meeting Review | Meeting Documents | Commentary W. Fleming and 4th Street in Mertzon facing south. This December 2021 photo of the new IC ISD gym under construction is a not so distant reminder of just how many resources are required to construct school facilities...and how timing is everything . The pandemic hit at just the wrong time during this build out, and costs skyrocketed and it went over budget. The first bid date for the 2024 IC ISD bond projects is this week, April 10, the week immediately after President Trump's world wide tariff effort ("Liberation Day") . What will the impact of the tariffs be on the bids and the time it takes to complete the build out? A. Agenda Analysis 1. Council pay, item 5 : The Council may be reaching back to its last decision on this issue so that it can formalize their pay with an ordinance. The prior ordinance, 3.01 , is dated. 2. Records retention policy, item 6 : The area of government records retention is highly regulated. Government created documents are the people's documents, and by law they have to be kept for a certain period of time before they are destroyed. A "custodian" is also required, and this person is typically charged with overseeing the records. Record retention made the news recently in the United States government group chat leak ("Signalgate"), where the chat conversation was set to delete in a matter of days. Retention periods differ according to the type of document, but they typically last for years. IC ISD campus facing east. The arrow points to an area slated to become a parking lot. As with other new impervious cover being added to the campus, this will ultimately send more stormwater runoff to City Park a few blocks away. B. Meeting Review 1. Here are the meeting documents for this meeting. 2. Council pay, item 5 : This was as I suggested above. The Council's purpose was to memorialize by ordinance their earlier vote on the amount of pay for the mayor and council members. I covered this issue at B.1. on this page . You can find the ordinance in the meeting documents. The vote was 2-1, with Lindley and Councilman "for" and Crutchfield "against". Mayor Stewart did not have to break the tie this time as Councilmember Holland resigned since the original vote. To be clear, the City of Mertzon Mayor gets paid $150.00 per council meeting, and the Council members get paid $100.00 per meeting. 3. Record retention ordinance, item 6 : The council approved the records retention ordinance, found in the meeting documents, as required by state law. Here's a suggestion: records relating to municipal real property will withstand the test of time in a retention policy only if such records are filed at the courthouse. (Lesson: sewage line easement documents that show a crossing over private property will not be forever lost if filed as a public document at the county courthouse.) 4. Administrative report, item 9 : The stench from the Waste Water Treatment Plant will continue. The necessary parts have been delayed, so the timeline has been bumped to mid May before a repair can take place. (No fault of the City.) C. Commentary You pretty much would have to be under that pile of limestone rocks next to my house in Mertzon to not see that our federal government is behaving differently than ever before. In part, this is because some in our federal government (less than a majority) are advancing what is known as the " unitary executive theory " as a way to increase the authority of our president. I have argued here (at Commentary) that our president has been engaged in a bullying effort to create dissent and disunity to eventually satisfy one of his ultimate goals: declaring martial law . This bullying is one of the tools being used to advance the unitary executive theory. To be clear, I am not predicting or desiring a federal declaration of martial law. Moreover, I am not a fan of the unitary executive theory. Our Founders created a system of three co-equal branches of government with intended checks and balances so that we never became a monarchy. Our Constitution spells this out. Some background: I became interested in martial law as IC ISD last year began to ramp up its Guardian program ( here at B. 5 ) that effectively allows for public tax dollars to pay for a private police force in the name of protecting school children...all perfectly lawful under state law. The secretiveness of this force has caused me to pay more attention to what conditions might have to exist for a larger scale civil emergency (state or federal level) that would form the basis for a declaration of martial law. One condition necessary to call marital law might be a violent citizen uprising. I make the point here that the elimination of DEI in the government setting is intended to create disharmony among citizens . The manner and methods being used to eliminate DEI in government, indeed, I view as inherently racist and misogynist. This racism and misogyny, in time, I fear will become key ingredients for civil unrest. There is reason to be hopeful that such will not be the case, however, with the recent peaceful protests, nationally and world wide, known as Hands Off . These first protests were peaceful . What about future protests? Consider taking some time to learn more about martial law. (Here is a Google search for martial law ; I urge you not to stop on that page with the AI interpretation.) Bear with me, as I intend to scatter a few posts about it here and there. I've learned about an instance in Texas where martial was used, and the consequences were shocking . I will share that in time. What other conditions might exist to justify a declaration of martial law? Who might benefit from a declaration of martial law, and who might pay the price? Why might we want to avoid it entirely and never go there? Copyright 2025 G Noelke

No matter how cold the winter or how dry the spring, in this part of West Texas each March you can count on the native Agarita bush to bloom. I've taken to occasionally watering the ones behind the gravestones of my Great Great Grandparents, Alice and Ferdinand Noelke, in the Mertzon Cemetery. As I wrote twelve months ago, I recognize two anniversaries each year in March . This website and my advocacy efforts to end the storm water flooding in my community are a year older. Government in the Sun has been online now for 2 years . And, I've now been working to end stormwater flooding in my community for 9 years . "Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely," said German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear ," said George Orwell . These two ideas capture the slow, steady and frank direction of my efforts in these pages this past year. Here are a few statistics for the year. I wrote 53 posts in the last twelve months. (There are now 140 posts total on the site.) Of those 53, the vast majority covered Irion County ISD Board meetings and Mertzon City Council meetings. Each post this year involved 1 to 3+ hours of attending the meeting, and another 2 to 4 hours of writing and analysis. Each post about an IC ISD Board meeting also involved a Public Information Act request each month to Dr. Nikki Moore, Superintendent. (I address her, and other superintendents, as "Superintendent" in these pages for historical convenience.) Each of those requests required 15-25 hours of writing, analysis and legal research. There were 3,755 post views of the entire site this last year . The top two most viewed pages were this post about former Athletic Director Jacob Conner and this post mostly about the IC ISD budget . I continue to manage the site entirely on my own. I have no staff, no editor (though on occasion I've used Chat GPT as an editor to tighten things up) and I do my own photography, including drone shots. I receive no subscription or advertising fees. The site itself has never been about earning an income, though my advocacy effort has certainly been about ceasing the economic damage to my property, my neighbors' property and the public property we all share and pay for with our taxes. I continue to avoid using social media to promote the site. I'm not interested in the anonymous swipes and extra grief that it will bring my way. Thankfully, fewer folks this past year have trolled me. This might be because my practice is to not engage in debate with folks who want to argue anonymously. (That would be anti-sun , maybe even cloudy .) My intent is to create a record of simultaneously supporting local government and public education, while at the same time being critical of it. If you are reading these posts as if I am a "hater" of government then you likely are misunderstanding me. The most important accomplishment for me this past year has been that my presence at public meetings and this blog have played some role in getting IC ISD and Irion County voters to dedicate over $800,000 of the 2024 bond funds to stormwater management. The Mertzon City Council has also been more proactive on flood issues than ever before. Their MOU with IC ISD is an example of their resolve to remedy flooding issues that have for too long been ignored. This also says a lot about the positive character of the leadership at IC ISD and the City, Supt. Moore and Mayor Aubrey Stewart. At the same time, the last 12 months have seen other factors at play initiating change. There is no doubting that the free market drive to get a piece of the tremendous ad valorem wealth of Irion County was one factor in the dedication of the IC ISD bond dollars to stormwater management. I wrote this year that there were still some on the IC ISD Board not wanting address stormwater flooding, and more likely it was Parkhill and Gallagher , the design and construction team, who initiated the change of direction. Private companies earning their way with public dollars want no part of construction projects that flood homes, and they especially don't want the reputation of helping government flood itself. It's bad business, isn't it, to live off of the public dollar while helping destroy government by flooding it? They don't want either the hit to their business reputation or the potential legal liability. Governmental immunity is not a sure bet when the dangers are so well known, as I've also written here and here . That said, since the previous IC ISD board, superintendent, athletic director, contractor and architect knew about the flooding before/during/after the previous bond (2019) build out and still made the flooding worse , I am compelled this upcoming year to continue to write about the construction at IC ISD. I continue to believe that citizens who sit on their hands when there is this much money involved ($18 million in 2019 and $53 million in 2024) will have their homes washed down to Spring Creek. Here's my post about the school bond industrial complex , perhaps instructive on my point that our community is but a drop in an ocean of money and special interests. In short, I fear our community is getting played , and there may be hell to pay for local taxpayers when we no longer have the income to afford to pay for all these school buildings and their maintenance. So, expect more posts about the construction at IC ISD in the upcoming 12 months. I would rather spend my time feeding the deer up on Cowboy Hill or biking down on the border . But, Irion County News (on Facebook) and The Irion County Newsletter (monthly, available locally only in paper) are not enough of a 4th Estate to challenge IC ISD and the City of Mertzon to do the right thing and be a good neighbor. And, that's really what I've been asking in these pages. Be a good neighbor . I also anticipate posting more documents from my monthly PIA requests to IC ISD . Of course, I will also continue to attend City Council and Board meetings. Time permitting, I will attend County Commissioner meetings. The County to date has been absent on flooding issues , but it may become an flood actor as it moves to rebuild the Community Center this year and next. IC ISD's football stadium is in the direct path of the County's stormwater runoff , so the time is closer to seeing whether there is yet another chapter in this government flooding itself story. This year I have also asked the County to be responsible about flooding issues . I will also continue inserting some commentary here and there about state and federal government in the upcoming year. For example, I recently opined that the federal efforts to abolish DEI was really a bullying effort to create public dissent because our President wants to declare Martial Law . I'm not going to ignore what I consider seismic changes currently taking place in our democratic system. As a lawyer by profession, I have a unique opportunity - and I think responsibility - in these pages to preserve the representative democracy currently under attack. And, let me be clear as I start up the next 12 months - I do believe our constitutional foundation is being challenged like never before. Thank you for reading these pages the last 12 months. “ The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself - always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity. ” President Jimmy Carter Enduring 10 -15 degree temperatures in January and no rain since mid-December, this Agarita still found a way to bloom this March. Copyright 2025 G Noelke

A new portable classroom on the IC ISD campus This week legal scholars have started debating whether our federal leadership in Washington have caused our country to go into a constitutional crisis. All of the talk to overturn DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, is in my opinion a very intentional false flag to ferment disunity so that we lose faith in our government and our fellow citizens . I'm not buying it. Remember, there are meritorious examples of "inclusion" everywhere, like this ramp that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act rules. Two decades of education in a public setting and two and a half decades as a public employee taught me lots of important lessons, not the least of which is that inclusion as a governing concept is a net positive. Below is the agenda for this meeting, and underneath that are my Agenda analysis and my Meeting review. Here are the meeting documents for the Board members for this meeting, received pursuant to my PIA request. IC ISD Agenda for this meeting. A. Agenda Analysis 1. Meeting Date and location : Note the meeting is on Wed, Feb 12. The location is the cafeteria. 2. 2024 Bonds, item 6 and 7 : Item 6 is the placeholder that allows the Board to approve an unplanned item. I'm less clear on 7 - is it to approve the process of electronic bidding of the projects, or are they approving particular bids that have already been reviewed? 3. Ideal Impact, items 8 and 9 : Ideal Impact is a private company being contracted with to help lower electricity costs. I covered this issue at the last meeting in my Meeting Review at B3 . I keep electricity costs on the front burner because they are an easily understood factor in increased maintenance and operation expenses after a bond build out...and these costs aren't disclosed to the voters before the bond vote. Think about that big yellow sticker on the side a refrigerator when you buy it that says what the annual electricity cost is expected to be... It's there before you buy. 4. Administrative reports, item 10, a-c : Always important. 5. TASB policy change 124, item 11 : Call me a board wonk if you will, but I think the most important role a board, governmental or nonprofit, can play is to help its executive implement and execute on policy and mission. Board members are supposed to be big thinkers, not big do-ers. I covered this extensively at B 4 here . I think these TASB items ought to be considered by the Board in a two step process. This month I found an example for this in the meeting notices for Hearne ISD , where they show the following on their agenda for their second reading: A screen shot of the Hearne ISD agenda for February 2025. This is an ideal posting because it shows both a two step process and notifies the public, staff, parents and students that these are the policy items up for a change. All of the policy items are important, but I've highlighted two. Certainly all school staff need to know in advance what changes are being considered. And, the community likewise needs to know their conduct may need to change. Though not shown here, these items on the agenda are under a topic heading called " Governance " suggesting to me this board understands it role in helping govern the school. Heady stuff? No, not really, so long as you accept that board leadership is a thinking role to assist the executive. Again, I think the greatest failure of the 2019 IC ISD board is that it passed an $18 million bond and then failed to build a single classroom . That suggests to me that they failed to execute on policy and mission. So much of the build out of City Gym can be attributed to raw unchecked self interest to have the best athletic facilities and the best win record in the district. No one was ever thinking about classrooms. 6. Closed session, items 16 and 18 : There's a lot of meat on this bone! I highlight item 18 to make the larger point that we'll know nothing about this closed session unless the Board votes on a specific matter. A few of these look like voting matters, and important ones at that, so here is my standard advice: always stay to the end of a public meeting in situations where you know or think a matter will be voted on after a closed session. This kind of advocacy comes with a price, and it is a steep one . Time . But a governing body that knows the public is apathetic will merge a closed session into a free for all and ultimately superintendent and board member self interest will reign supreme. The interests of the community becomes the last priority when the public is not present. Stormwater diversion done with 2019 bond funds. IC ISD board members may have some sticker shock when the bids for stormwater diversion start coming in April. The only 2019 bond money spent on campus for floodwater diversion was for this caliche berm along the alley and this cement wall along a new parking lot, the GMPL. It undoubtedly would have been cheaper to have done this right by using the 2019 funds on the front end. B. Meeting review 1. Closed session and action on closed session, items 16 and 18: a. Contract extensions : After a roughly 1.5 hour closed session, the Board came out of executive session and voted to approve an additional 1 year contract extension to Supt. Moore. My take is this in effect turns her 5 yr contract into a 6, thus giving her 4 more years with the District. (Here's a copy of her contract on the District's site .) Given the relative slow start up pace of the bond build out, this is likely a good turn of events because she will be accountable f rom start to finish for the expenditure of the 2024 bond funds. (A significant failure of the 2019 bonds was that then Supt. Brian Gray proposed and got the bonds approved, and then he left the District within a few months after the election . Then there was an interim superintendent, and then finally Supt Ray DeSpain was appointed...and he left under a budget fiasco within a few months after all of the 2019 funds and more were spent.) The Board also approved 1 year contract extensions for Principal Jessica Parker and Asst. Principal/Athletic Dir. John Morrow. This is likewise a good thing in that they, too, will spend more time being accountable for the the spend down of the 2024 bonds. They were present, though in different capacities, for the entirety of the spend down of the 2019 bond funds, so there is some institutional knowledge and relative accountability for those funds as well. b. Guardians : The Board approved the Guardians discussed in closed session, which is to say the names of the guardians were not stated in open session. This sort of secrecy is allowed under the law, but I think it is nonetheless troubling. First, guardian approved schools effectively have an approved secret militia paid for with public dollars . Second, since I monthly do a PIA request for the District's check register, I know that our tax dollars are being spent on ammo . (In Nov. 2024 the District purchased $1,665 worth of ammo.) And, third, I think our federal government and our constitutional form of government are currently becoming unstable . (Congress is not controlling the purse as it is obligated to under the Constitution.) So, knowing who is on the secret militia that is publicly funded in your community might be handy . For more reading, here's some info on Martial Law . You can see a photo of the District's warning sign about it being a guardian campus at the bottom of this page . 2. 2024 bonds, items 6 and 7 : No action on 6, and the Board voted to approve item 7 related to electronic bids. This matter was merely to accept the bidding electronically, as opposed to by paper form. The IC ISD bidding page is on this page . 3. Electricity, Ideal Impact , items 8 and 9: The District paid just over $20,000 for its December energy costs, so this effort to reduce energy costs is much needed. The Board approved the service agreement and payment plan agreement. 4. Administrative reports, item 10 : a. Supt. Moore: Plans for the band field and drainage should be complete by mid march, with electronic bids going out the end of March or early April. The elementary will likely not be ready for bid until May. Abatement of the current elementary is starting the end of Feb. Teacher raises update : the pending SB 2 potential raises are not going to be handed down through basic allotment but through teacher incentive allotment, which IC ISD does not currently participate in. The District will have to apply and be approved (a potential 2 year process) to receive these funds. The change here, essentially, is to base teacher raises on performance, not merely years of service. Otherwise, there is some legislative threat to the District's fund balance, so the fox is scratching on the hen house door. The District is going to lose a lot of flexibility if it has to hand over some of its fund balance to the State. The District has more in its fund balance than the required 3 mos. of expenses. More on this later. b. Principal Parker: Enrollment in elementary is 206, high school 133 = 339. Attendance 97.03%. 5. TASB policy change update 124, item 11 : I don't know what changes were approved, and I attended the meeting! 6. Fees for transfers, item 13 : The Board thought through aloud how to recoup bus expenses related to the transfer students. They approved a fee structure. 7. Miscellaneous : Board member Ashley Hill attended the meeting late and left early, so she didn’t participate in the closed session. Otherwise, Maegin Carlile, Ricky Rey, Tony Martinez, DJ Rainey, Taylor Douglas and Chad Koonce were present. Finally, keep in mind that as these projects like the bus barn and elementary go out for bid, the architects and engineers have already determined by mathematic formula what the water runoff will be. Here is an example of just how detailed these drawings have to be, Jeff Potter's drawing of City Gym . There is nothing mystical about how to protect our community from self inflicted flood damage. It's math. The roof of City Gym in 2021. That is a lot of steel. Will the new steel tariffs impact the costs of construction for the 2024 bond build out? Copyright 2025 G Noelke

2024 Bond Banner Below is the agenda for this meeting, and below that are my agenda analysis and meeting review . Here are the meeting documents provided to the Board members for this meeting, received pursuant to my PIA request. A. Agenda Analysis 1. Pending construction projects and square footage change, items 6 and 7 : These are the bond related items. 2. TASB policy changes, item 10 : My ongoing issue with the District's policy changes is threefold. First, a private association, TASB , drafts them, not the District, and the District appears to have no real involvement with TASB. Second, they aren't published either on the District's website or at the meeting so that if a parent, student or member of the community wanted to comment on them during open forum (before they are passed) they couldn't. Finally, typically board members don't read them in advance of the meeting and, instead, rely on the superintendent's cursory review at the same meeting they are passed. This means there is more often than not no substantive board discussion of what the policy changes mean and board members are clueless about the content of the policies. There's a lot of meat on this bone. Here's a link to the IC ISD policy manual . You might be amazed at what all is in there. Sometimes one can Google the policy update to see if another ISD has posted something online about it. Here are some explanatory notes I found from Katy ISD on TASB update 122 . Here are some explanatory notes on Update 123 from College Station ISD . Look, it could be that only a lawyer could enjoy reading and questioning policies (I do), but alarm bells should be ringing when there is simultaneous board member and public disengagement on policy matters...and a private association is doing both drafting and interpretive comments . Who is really in charge? Are school board members leaders or followers? 3. Closed session and action on closed session, items 14 and 16 : I always highlight this portion of each agenda. The District, as is apparently the case with most school districts, does not have a lawyer present in closed session to make sure that their discussion about personnel is within the boundaries in the Open Meetings Act. This part of the meeting is always a cloudy day if you are for government in the sunshine... or if you are a teacher . The Irion County Community Center is roughly 75 yards away (and slightly higher) from the IC ISD football stadium. The Irion County Commissioner's Court is considering whether to expand or rebuild the Community Center. Read my public comments about that at B1 here . There's good reason to be concerned about our community's self inflicted wound of local government flooding itself: If the impervious cover of the Community Center is expanded, then that additional stormwater will flood the IC ISD football stadium. The improvements made to the football stadium with the 2019 bond funds were minimal at best. See the last photo on this page to see how close it was to flooding just a few months ago . B. Meeting Review Open forum, item 5 : A truly inspired speech was given by an IC ISD student on how to re-purpose the turf at the football stadium once it is removed. He read from his prepared remarks, he was organized and he was concise about what he was recommending. We all recognize in some way that we have a right under the Constitution to petition our government. But we perhaps do not know that the interpretation of doing so to "redress grievances" has been given a broad interpretation. A grievance doesn't have to be a full blown human rights violation. Indeed, as it was here, it was a playground issue - the playground has stickers and the turf would cover them up. "Petition" has broadly been interpreted as a request that government use it powers to serve the interests and prosperity of the petitioner. Best of all, there shouldn't be a petition cop at the door of a school board meeting room telling citizens what they can and can't say in open forum. The general rule is that prior restraint of speech is illegal. (But see 551.007 of the Open Meetings Act for what speech is allowed.) So, kudos to this student for exercising his free speech rights. Read more on right to petition government here . Bond matters, items 6, 7, 9c and 11: a. There will be additional square footage (3,000 to 4,000 sf) added to the elementary design to accommodate potential future growth, at a likely cost of $1.7 million. It's not certain just yet where this money will come from. Hold that thought! b. Demo of elementary will start in mid-March. c. End of January will be when bids are published for construction of the bus barn, Estes Gym and cafeteria expansion. The drainage, detention pond and practice field for band will be a separate phase and those bids will be published in March. The band practice field location has been moved from the west side of the band hall to the east side of the band hall , which appears to explain why there has been a delay on getting the bids out on the drainage and detention projects. This also means that the City of Mertzon and IC ISD have not agreed to the MOU that closes a portion of the street . d. Football field turf and track : The Board accepted a $1.03 million offer from Hellas Construction for new football field turf and track. Here is the offer document . The Board approved Proposal alternatives 1 and 2 on page 2. e. Order of operations: The prayer fence needs some editing: Add " Don't pray for rain". Here's why. Like the build out with the 2019 bonds, the construction at the football stadium is coming first. That construction will start in May/June this summer (2025!) and will take only about two months. The football stadium is the IC ISD property at the lowest elevation, and it is the most vulnerable to flooding. See my topo map on this page . We typically get a summer monsoon in July or August, so the new turf and track are going to be vulnerable right away. Next up, according to the bid schedule as described by Supt. Moore at this meeting, will be bus barn, Estes Gym and cafeteria extension. I still can't report how much additional stormwater will be added to the basin from this construction, but there will be more runoff that will flood our streets, our homes and our new field and track. The next bidding will be the drainage and detention pond and the band practice field. (The timing of the bidding for the elementary and parking lot construction was not discussed.) Time will tell whether the flood control structures should have been built first, not third, to protect our streets, homes and City Park from flooding. And, as I explained to the County Commissioner's Court , I am suspending my opinion about whether the flood control structures will even be built. So, none of this is written in stone. Administrative reports a. Cost of electricity - I've been requesting the District's electricity bill via the PIA for some months now. My reasons are straightforward: One of the school bond reforms that needs to be adopted is that voters need to be informed what the additional expenses to the school's Maintenance and Operations (M&O) increases are expected once bond build out is complete. Those added expenses grow over time! The way these bond packages are presented to voters when they are proposed is that homeowners will not see an increase in the Interest and Sinking (I&S) taxation of their property value . What isn't discussed are the long term M&O costs that the taxpayers will have to bear. How much are we talking? The October 2024 monthly invoice from TXU for electricity for all the District's properties was the highest its ever been at $24,982.28. The same month back in 2006 was $11,330! Of course, electricity was cheaper then, but the District also had less square footage to heat and cool. Electricity for City Gym these days can vary from $2,000 to $3,000 a month! Add to that the expense of maintaining its specialty AC system, and over time the District has placed a huge tax burden on its citizens ...after having told voters before the bond election that they wouldn't see any increase in their taxes for I&S, the pot of money where the payment for the bonds comes from. b. Superintendent Moore's report at this meeting included an update on her work with Ideal Impact , a company that modernizes campus heating and cooling with centralized smart technology. She gets kudos from me on this issue. I was forecasting to her predecessor, Supt. Ray DeSpain, that the District was going to be experiencing high electricity costs for the new gym while it was still being constructed...and he ignored me. I'll be continuing to look at the M&O costs with the 2024 build out. If the District doesn't control its M&O budget, it can't pay off these or the 2019 bonds early. In hindsight that will make the whole rolling bond concept of always issuing bonds to have been one colossal mistake. That is, the District will not be able to pay off its bonds early if it can't afford its M&O expenses . Put another way, the Texas legislature's funding mechanism that permits wealthy school districts like IC ISD to keep its I&S wealth local will have backfired . c. Enrollment is at 203 in elementary and 134 at secondary, totaling 337 students in the District, according to Principal Parker. 4. TASB Policy updates 122 and 123, agenda item 10 : These updates were handled as I discussed above at A2 above . Supt Moore during her presentation explained that the District would have to send the proposed policy changes to their own attorney if there was to be any change by the Board. No doubt that would be added expense to the District. However, it is also important to consider the role of the Board. Is the board a doing board or an executive board involved in assisting the superintendent in evaluating and executing policy? One way to answer this question is to look at time management during the meeting. What agenda items do the board spend most of its time during its meeting? This meeting was a perfect example. The Board spent way more time discussing the new football field and track proposal, even going to the extent of physically handing and evaluating the field padding with the vendor, while spending no time discussing the TASB policy updates. I contend that it was the Board's doing of athletics in 2019, as opposed to executing policy (executive management), that caused it to spend most of a $18 million bond on a new gym and football stadium upgrades, while spending no money on classrooms. One solution here might be to adopt future TASB updates in a 2 or even 3 step process. Introduce the amendments one month, adopt them with board review the next month. Forcing a one meeting adoption process for complex policy issues ( and there was lots of complex issue in these updates ) is a lot to expect for the average board member. These are complicated changes that deserve more opportunity to read, comprehend and discuss intelligently. I will be reviewing these changes in the future with a PIA request. 5. Closed session, items 14 and 16 : My schedule didn't permit me to stay through to the end of this meeting, so I did not attend the return to open session at item 16. Supt. Moore has advised me that no action was taken. 6. Attendance : All members were present at this meeting, so attending were Maegin Carlile, Ricky Rey, Ashley Hill, Tony Martinez, DJ Rainey, Taylor Douglas and Chad Koonce. My RadRover bike cockpit view off a cliff’s edge at Seminole Canyon State Park. Copyright 2025 G Noelke

Agenda Analysis | Meeting Review | Tree Removal This grading plan page from the IC ISD bid documents for the new transportation barn definitively shows that the majority of storm water will be re-directed to flow east down the City of Mertzon alley between 4th and 5th streets. Some storm water will also be directed east down W Fleming Ave. IC ISD does not have to obtain a permit from the City of Mertzon to use the alley in this way. Click here to download the bidding plans document above. You'll find a higher resolution grading plan image at page 22. Below is the agenda for this meeting, and underneath that are my agenda analysis and meeting review . Go here for my Commentary on Regulatory Capture . A. Agenda Analysis Election cancellation, item 5 : In a rural city of less than 1,000 folks, its hard to find enough candidates to have competitive elections. State law allows the council to simply cancel the election if when there is no opposition. The previous two called elections, in 2023 and 2024, were cancelled. Our democratic system relies on debate and civil disagreement, however, so that ideally governance is always tested and challenged. I have covered this issue of election cancellations previously; see my Meeting Analysis at # 1 for the March 4, 2024 Council meeting . TXDOT and Oak trees, FM 72, item 7 : This might be the oak trimming proposal made recently by Ashley Hill at Brim's crossing. I don't think of FM 72 being within the city limits of Mertzon, so TXDOT involvement here is puzzling. Water and Sewer Ordinance, item 8 : I have no clue what this about. I went to the City's page for ordinances , and 20.02 is not posted. Perhaps with the recent addition of a full time office employee this page will get brought up to date? The blue arrow represents my estimation of where the storm water from new bus barn is going to flow after it leaves the paved surface surrounding the facility. Thus, it necessarily will flood private property. The red arrow represents a portion of the city owned alley. The bidding documents provide for no flood control barrier that will protect the private property owner. Whether Phase 2 construction (the next phase that is supposed to address flood control structures) will include a barrier has not been publicly discussed. Though not pictured, all of the water coming from this new source of storm water will cross my property a few hundred feet away. B. Meeting Review Here are the meeting documents for this meeting. TXDOT, item 7: The TXDOT representative was not present, but Councilman Randy Councilman, an employee of TXDOT, advised the Council that the purpose of the visit was as a public service to the community. The bridge at FM 72 (aka the "high water bridge in Sherwood") is slated to be torn out and a new one built by TXDOT. I'm not sure of the exact date, but I can confirm this because TXDOT has also appeared at a County Commissioner's meeting last year. New to the issue is that Councilman Councilman has been advised that 13 (thirteen) oak trees are slated to be removed to make way for the new bridge . See the photo at the bottom of this page. Advocacy tip for those that might want to take action: Councilman Councilman is the messenger only. (FM 72 is not in the city limits of Mertzon.) Neither he nor the City of Mertzon are toting the chainsaws. Likewise, while I recommend you contact Commissioner's Court for the latest, the bridge is not a county road. They too are not brandishing chainsaws. It is a State of Texas Farm to Market road. TXDOT . Here is a screenshot of the TXDOT project map, though the project appears to not be listed: FM 72 bridge north of Mertzon is west of Sherwood. The red arrow is my own. Cancellation of May 3 election, item 5: Mayor Aubrey Stewart and new Councilman Daniel Harper were the only two to file, so they get the nod and will continue to serve. No one filed for the open seat, so the Council is operating with 1 vacant seat. You can read the ordinance regarding the election cancellation on pages 3 and 5 of the meeting documents . Ordinance 20.03, item 8: The Council approved the repeal of 20.02 and replacing it with 20.03. You can find the new ordnance about water meters on pages 7-19 of the meeting documents. This change is about the discussion in the last meeting concerning the transfer of unused water meters; see my reference to Dead Meters on this page . Here are some of trees that might be the ones sacrificed for the new bridge: North side, east bank, of the High Water bridge on FM 72 at Spring Creek. Copyright 2025 G Noelke

A page from the IC ISD plans. Bidding documents for a portion of the IC ISD 2024 bond projects are now online at Gallagher’s site . Yes, you should download them (particularly the Plans) and check them out. The City of Mertzon does not have construction codes or a code enforcement department, so it is the Wild, Wild West for citizens who wish to protect their private property and public streets and park from stormwater flooding. Here is the agenda for this meeting, and below that will follow my agenda analysis and meeting review . I also have included some Commentary about the current state of government. IC ISD Board Agenda A. Agenda analysis 1. Teacher / Employee Contracts, Resignations, items 4, 11, 14, 16 and 17 : I'm a broken record on this point, but our community misses a real opportunity to support public education at this meeting each March when teacher contracts are renewed for the following school year. Look around...the Department of Education is being dismantled...and, our state leadership is on the verge of supporting the privatization of public education through school vouchers. The lack of support for public education is abysmal and discouraging. We are rapidly nearing a point of advancement with Artificial Intelligence (AI) where the discussion is going to turn to whether TEA trained classroom robots will be more effective and cheaper than hiring humans. (My reading says that in about 3 years AI systems will exceed human intelligence.) One part of an argument to oppose the anti-public education efforts could be to promote teaching and teachers at this meeting in particular when their contracts are being renewed. Stand up and thank a teacher for teaching and support their contract renewal...at a public meeting...in open forum. Learn more about the history of the Department of Education and how the current administration is changing its priorities: Listen to the NYT podcast The Daily for March 10, 2025 . (What’s your view? Reach out to me.) 2. What the heck is an "MOU"?, items 6 and 7: "MOU" stands for "memorandum of understanding". In a legal sense, it is simply a written statement of what the understanding is on a particular issue between two governmental entities. They take the form of a "memorandum" because they are not considered an enforceable contract. That is, you aren't going see the governmental entities suing each other over a violation of their agreement. Generally, they are a great tool to spell out which each side agrees to do. Their downside is that they are often forgotten about and go unused because, without enforcement teeth, they carry no weight. Sometimes, however, an MOU is vitally important to build trust after a period of disagreement or ill will among elected officials. Here is a recent example of that, the MOU between the City of Mertzon and IC ISD , which was necessary to recover from the rancor and fallout after the 2019 bond build out, something I have covered extensively in this blog. (The IC ISD Board and its allies pretty much told the City Council how high it needed to jump when they wanted a city street closed for a gym, and the Council did the jumping... thereby getting us where we are today using 2024 bonds for flood control structures that are necessary because of how imprudently the 2019 bonds were spent .) Note : The leadership at the City and IC ISD is different for the 2024 bonds than for 2019 bonds. Many of the legal issues, however, are identical. Moreover, the stakes are even greater. The 2019 bonds were for $18 million, and the 2024 bonds are for $53 million. This area at 2nd and Juanita on the IC ISD campus is slated to become a dual purpose band practice field and water detention structure. It was previously approved by the IC ISD Board as a site for the 2019 bond funded gym. Were it used as the gym site Government in the Sun would have never been created. B. Meeting review Note: I was not able to attend this meeting, and this review is from a recording of portions of the meeting. 1. Open forum, item 4 : No one spoke, thus yet another missed opportunity to create a community value around the importance of teachers. 2. Bond purchasing, items 5 and 10 : The Board, after much discussion concerning when to cycle out its current fleet of Suburban / suburban like vehicles, went with a bid offer from Jim Bass in San Angelo. There was also some discussion of putting some items up for auction, but it was unclear from the audio what was being auctioned. I'll come back to this if it is important. 3. MOU's, items 6 and 7 : The Board approved an MOU with ASU for dual credit. This may lead to a more rigorous educational environment than the current arrangement with Howard College. This is significant because of TSI and the additional dollars that come with compliance. 4. Admin Reports: Supt. Moore reported: - There will be an "intruder audit" in April, date unknown. More on this after April. - During spring break (next week) construction fencing is going up. -Legislation - bills that do not specifically provide for small or midsized school involve a funding bias for large schools. - Meetings with Parkhill are ongoing to identify the specific needs in the new elementary classrooms. Principal Parker: her report was limited to enrollment and attendance. AD/Asst. Principal Morrow: his report was largely limited to student athlete awards and upcoming meets. 5. Resignations, item 11 : Diane Heflin and Brian Tillman have submitted their resignations, and they were reluctantly approved by the Board. Mr. Tillman is a multi year state champion band director ( 3 years?), so this is quite a loss to the District. This past fall I had the opportunity to listen to him during a practice while I was waiting out the Board during a closed session. He was excellent, and there is no doubt this is a huge loss to the District. The new Director will soon enough enjoy a new practice marching field as a result of the 2024 bonds. I will be covering the construction of that field on this blog. 6. Closed session, action on closed and teacher/employee contracts, items 14, 16 and 17 : The Board in open session, without mentioning any particular teacher, approved a list of teachers for 10, 11 and 12 month contracts. 7. Not present: President Carlie and Tony Martinez were not present at this meeting; Ricky Rey, Ashley Hill, DJ Rainey, Taylor Douglas and Chad Koonce were present. Commentary Edward R. Murrow famously said, "A nation of sheep begets a government of wolves". As I watch our state move toward an approved system of educational vouchers and our federal government dismantle the Department of Education, both without any local public engagement at this school board meeting, I am forced to wonder out loud whether we are on the edge of some abyss. Government is getting broken , not to make it more efficient, but to redirect its vast wealth to serve the few who can manipulate it to serve their own financial ends. But, consider this as we watch other communities, states and countries begin to fester and publicly protest about what is transparently becoming a war among economic classes: Are we not being baited, no bullied , into a dispute amongst our fellow citizens, state and national government and our allied countries? Is declaring martial law one of the goals of these efforts to break our democratic system of government? Could be. After all, the declaration of martial law is the ultimate declaration that the democratic system is broken. Copyright 2025 G Noelke

Location of the new ICISD Bus Barn The new IC ISD bus facility at 5th and W. Fleming Ave. that is going in at this location will undoubtedly add more stormwater to the basin that drains at City Park . Below is the agenda for this meeting, and underneath are my agenda analysis and meeting review . City Council Agenda A. Agenda analysis: 1. Meeting date: Monday March 3. The Council no doubt is trying to get back to its regular meeting times at the first and 3rd Mondays of the month. They had only 1 meeting last month because of problems of keeping a quorum. 2. Budget workshop, item 5: The term "workshop" on agendas sometimes forecasts that the governing body is just going to talk and no formal action is going to take place. I consider all budget discussions, however, as times when citizens especially need to be present. Citizens should be concerned with every agenda item that discusses the budget because, without citizen presence, the governing body will begin to think they have ultimate discretion to spend taxpayer dollars as they see fit. 3. Everything else: The rest of the agenda is the standard stock language seen on all of the City agendas. I expect this to be a leaner meeting because the Council met last only last week . Two drainage barrels on the Brady ISD campus. Here is an example of how another ISD, Brady ISD , is handling stormwater runoff. There is nothing extraordinary about my request to the City of Mertzon and Irion County ISD to manage stormwater. Stormwater management is something that happens in other cities and, as this photo shows, at other school districts. There's a reason for this: our Constitution and laws are clear that government cannot take private property by flooding it unless they first pay the landowner. Moreover, sovereign immunity is not absolute, so government officials who willingly expose citizens to injury without regard to their safety risk legal exposure in their official and personal capacities. B. Meeting review 1. Here are the meeting documents for this meeting. Note in those documents that the Council approved several meetings worth of meeting minutes without changes. 2. Budget workshop, item 5 : The majority of this meeting was spent on fiscal matters. a. Budget surplus: The Council wisely agreed to commit to a portion of its surplus to paying down already existing debt in preparation for new debt on the horizon related to its upcoming wastewater treatment bond obligations. The discussions were dizzying at times, but the bottom line is that this Council is not a "robbing Peter to pay Paul" kind of council, a real problem of past councils. b. Community drainage projects : The Council also approved that a portion of its surplus be dedicated to remedying community wide drainage at multiple locations throughout the city . This is notable for a couple reasons. First , it is acknowledgement that flooding is a community wide problem, something I've been preaching about since just before the 2019 IC ISD bond election when I warned that the school would be worsening the flooding problem if it built a new gym. Second , it is an acknowledgement that governmental immunity is not absolute, something I have also been publicly warning about since 2019 . Mayor Stewart had this to say to new Council member Daniel Harper about the closure of the flooded street, Fleming Ave., in front of my home that is being flooded by IC ISD stormwater runoff: "If you willfully turn an eye without doing something and harm somebody, then you are liable. So, if people drive around a barrier, that's on them, but if we do nothing and we leave the street open, then we are liable." Thus, as I have previously said here at A.4.a , the Tort Claims Act does not give the City Council, or IC ISD board members for that matter , a free pass when they exercise their governmental duties. Governmental immunity is limited. And, third , don't forget the MOU with IC ISD . Way back on Sept. 16, 2024 Supt. Nikki Moore and the Gallagher Construction folks appeared at the City Council meeting to secure the closure of a portion of 3rd Street in exchange for doing water retention/flood control projects. Just this week through a PIA request of IC ISD I have received the final MOU, albeit unsigned final, and here it is . (The first draft of their proposed MOU can be found here at page 2 .) I'll address some of the nuances of their final version in another post, but for now its significance is that, at last, there is a formal agreement between the City of Mertzon and IC ISD to remedy some of the flooding issues. Finally, there is still a lot left to accomplish. Gallagher Construction just published a portion of the IC ISD bid package for the 2024 bond projects, but not that portion dealing with drainage. Screenshot of Gallagher’s bidding page. Click on the image to go to their bidding page and view the documents. The portion addressing drainage has not yet been approved by the IC ISD board. So, we are still a ways out before we see whether the community is going to achieve any flood relief. 3. Present at the meeting were Mayor Stewart and Council members Jayton Lindley, Randy Councilman, Danny Crutchfield and Daniel Harper. The key vote at the meeting, approving how to spend the surplus funds, was unanimous. The minutes in the meeting notes were approved without changes. I was the only member of the community present. Here are the same two barrels shown in the photo above, also showing the Brady city street, berms and exit point. This photo shows how Brady ISD and the City of Brady coordinated the flow of stormwater in a detention pond to keep it off a city street. There is also nothing extraordinary about keeping city streets free of stormwater. Throughout this blog I have contended that IC ISD has neglected its responsibilities under the law to manage its own stormwater and it deflected fault by blaming the City of Mertzon for not having a stormwater plan. Copyright 2025 G Noelke

Language in Hibbs &Todd geotechnical report Here’s the rub: the geotechnical reports recently done by Hibbs & Todd for IC ISD recommend dumping stormwater into “storm drains or onto paved surfaces” thus giving IC ISD an excuse (but not a legal defense) to dump its stormwater into the streets and flood our community. Hibbs & Todd, however, is also the engineers for the City of Mertzon. What gives? Is it a good practice to recommend dumping water onto paved surfaces when they also represent the City? See additional comments below .* Below is the agenda for this meeting, and underneath that are my Agenda Analysis and Meeting Review . Here are the meeting documents for this meeting . A. Agenda Analysis : 1. Date of meeting : This meeting has been rescheduled to February 24. 2. Dead meters, item 6: Again, this about equitably awarding the very limited water meters. The limit on water meters is a major factor on city growth, and it doesn't seem fair that folks would be sitting on them. 3. Spring Creek Pavilion, item 7: The location is being considered here, and TCEQ has a say because of the proximity to the wastewater plant and river. My concern is what the long term commitment the Lions Club, the donor, will be. 4. Spring Creek Beautification Project, item 13: Ashley Hill spearheaded a fundraiser to beautify Brim’s crossing, the bridge going over to Stringtown. Two of the original cement picnic tables. I remember the time in Mertzon when these two cement picnic tables and the 6 man grass football field with a caliche track around it were pretty much all there was at City Park in Mertzon. I recall hearing that these tables were put in by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) , a New Deal program designed to provide employment to millions of Americans during the Great Depression. (The tables at "Roadside Park" at Hwy 67 and Duncan may have also been WPA projects.) Can you imagine that such a thing as the WPA ever existed in light of today's US government where an unelected billionaire is involved in the allegedly illegal termination of millions of federal employees? B. Meeting Review ( Here are the documents for this meeting .) 1. Support of proposed legislation favored by Concho Valley Food Bank , item 9 . The Council approved a letter to State Rep. Darby, favored by the Concho Valley Food Bank, showing support of a pending state bill that will increase fresh produce for those receiving assistance from the Food Bank. You can see the letter at page 9 of the meeting documents . Here is more on the proposed bill: HB 2002 . Go here to reach Rep. Darby's office to tell him of your support . 2. Dead meters, item 6: The Council approved an amendment to its ordinances that will clarify that those not using their water meters will lose their meter and it will go to the next applicant in line waiting for a meter. This is a significant decision that shouldn't be ignored. Water meters are hard to get in Mertzon, and this makes the process of getting one more equitable. 3. Location of Spring Creek Pavilion, item 7 : The Council approved the location of the proposed pavilion immediately east of the baseball field between the road and Spring Creek. Note: See the meeting notes for the Hibbs & Todd engineer's interpretation of TCEQ rules. Because of the wastewater plant nearby, the TCEQ permit requires 17 acres of open land to irrigate the waste water. If you've ever wondered why there is no development of that area of the Creek, this is why. The pavilion is going to be placed in a flood prone area, so FEMA rules are requiring that it have a hard floor. No discussion was had regarding the Lions Club's long term commitment to the upkeep and maintenance of the structure. 4. Brim Crossing, Spring Creek beautification project, item 13: The Council approved Ashley Hill's request to beautify the bridge with a mural, plaque, trash cans, and tree trimming. The Council did not discuss the content or style of the mural, so it is unclear to me whether Mrs. Hill has been given carte blanche authority to install whatever mural she and her donors see fit...or whether there were some discussions about content in the background. Public art can be controversial, no doubt about it. I spent a good part of my formative years helping my father shear sheep and hauling shorn wool to the Wool House in Mertzon, so I have been amused at this 2023 PETA effort to protest sheep shearing by installing their own protest sheep in San Angelo . The First Amendment is an amazing legal concept, even as it relates to public art. 5. Spending money, items 9, 12 and 14 : The Council approved moving to a different emergency call program, paying for a new printer and new computers. They did a good job deliberating on how to spend the City's money, which is to say spending taxpayer money. Keep in mind that the City is in the black financially, something that has only been the case for the last 3 or 4 years. 6. Members present: The Council had a full house, excepting the one vacant seat. Present were Mayor Aubrey Stewart and Council members Jayton Lindley, Randy Councilman, Danny Crutchfield and Daniel Harper. I will update who filed for the open seat as soon as I have that information. More on Hibbs & Todd : *I review the IC ISD check register monthly, and in October 2024 the District paid $5,925 to Hibbs & Todd . I followed up with a PIA for the work product for that payment and received 3 reports for the boring done by Hibbs Todd. This language is from those reports. I became aware of Hibbs and Todd also being the engineers for the City of Mertzon by attending Council meetings. While I view this as a clear conflict of interest, this unusual role is not necessarily unlawful...but, it is at least professionally unwise and not taxpayer friendly. In any event, this language doesn't provide a legal defense to either the District or the City. The language does, however, highlight the origin of the permission structure that causes our local government to flood itself at City Park. Indeed, the quintessential topo map that I use to show that local government is flooding itself is done by…Hibbs & Todd for their client, the City of Mertzon. See the map on this page . The First Amendment at work: Support ranchers and shearers worldwide by wearing wool. Buy wool products at Pendleton USA by clicking on the map above. This map was my father's, M.B. Noelke, Jr., who spent most of his life raising sheep for their meat and wool. Copyright 2025 G Noelke