City Council Meeting Recap by Councilmember Hines
Woodcreek City Update - Council Meeting December 8, 2021
Following is a recap of the Council meeting held December 8 at Camp Young Judaea. We will be providing these routinely after each Council meeting, and apologize for this first one of the new Council year being a bit delayed as we worked out the details. Jeff Rasco, Mayor
$5000 donation to the Wimberley Village Library Foundation for the expansion of the public library approved with a 3/1 vote of the Council (operating without the appointed member to fill Mayor Jeff Rasco's vacancy) - it was pulled from the consent agenda by Councilmember Brizendine in order to give opportunity for further discussion
Chrys Grummert was nominated by the Mayor for the open Council position and was voted into office with a 3/1 vote of Council
Mayor Pro Tem: Aurora LeBrun received this designation with a 5/0 vote, and will continue in the role.
Summary of discussion with Constable Don Montague:
- To contract with his office for Mon-Fri 8am - 6pm would cost $65,000 or more
- He supports Woodcreek keeping the contract or ending it and he would not be hiring or firing an officer to cover the position - it is literally up to us to decide what we want
- A contract can be terminated with 30 days notice and the proper paperwork filed/procedure followed
- He cannot provide half or part-time coverage because of benefits and wage concerns involving the collective bargaining agreement in place
- If we are looking for night or weekend coverage, his office cannot provide this.... and in place of this he would recommend a Woodcreek Peacekeeper for whom we have direct control over OR employing off-duty sheriffs through the sheriff's office
- Sheriffs cost approximately $50 an hour with $10 an hour for the car
- Without a contract we will still have coverage from the Constable's office through daily and weekly drive throughs, hotspot coverage for speeding or other traffic concerns (where Brenton calls and says "we have a problem in a certain area, please station an officer there for a couple days/hours) and response to 911 or other similar calls for crime
- No action was taken by Council on this item. It was simply presented for public information with the plan being for further discussion/action to occur with Council at a later date
- Traffic patterns and concerns were discussed: between the hours of 8AM - 6PM Mon -Fri we see the most traffic, Woodcreek Dr. (where our radars are currently placed) averages about 2000+ cars on these days, and on any randomly sampled day we have around 100 or so high speed alerts of over 31 MPH or more which at its minimum threshold for reporting exceeding our speed limit of 25MPH by 6MPH with some topping out around 40MPH or more
- A constable under contract would typically be the same one 4 days out of the 5 day work week assigned to running traffic control in our City and the 5th day would be filled by another office which may rotate. Constable officers work 4/10s
EXECUTIVE SESSION TO DISCUSS:
- Pulley lawsuit
- Short-term rentals
- Brookmeadow 1 acre minimum for subdivision overlay
POST EXECUTIVE SESSION:
- Recommendation to advise staff to begin the process to create regulation and permitting for existing short-term rentals passed 5/0
- Tabled Pulley lawsuit for the next Council meeting
- Tabled Resolution of the City Council for adopting rules and procedures for the next Council meeting
- Brookmeadow overlay: No action could/should be taken as it was scheduled for discussion only on the agenda in order to receive legal Council as recommended/requested by P&Z
Approval of Bond Counsel passed with one abstained vote. It was clarified by City Manager Brenton Lewis that this Bond Counsel contract did not mean that we were approving moving forward with the Bond process and simply that our previous Counsel had switched firms, and to maintain that Counsel we could approve this new company Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP for consultation. No payment would be due unless Bonds or Tax Notes were issued.
Alpha Paving contract application for payment approved 5/0 with some discussion as to why $6000+ was designated for replacing stop signs AFTER the contract was approved. It was discussed that many signs within Woodcreek do not meet current requirements and that more similar work should be expected in the future. Some discussion occurred over the limit or cap for discretionary spending power for the City Manager and when these items should be brought before Council for transparency purposes.
Items 19, 21, 22, & 23 concerning parking spaces, parking of items in covered areas such as garages where they may be seen from time-to-time, building across adjacent lot lines with single/same ownership for items such as fences, and the subdivision ordinances concerning lot size (155.43 and 155.44) were all recommend for review by the Planning & Zoning Commission for them to edit and discuss, and then send recommendations back to Council. Council can then further fine tune, and then move toward possible approval. These all passed 5/0
Shared by Councilmember Debra Hines
Approved by Mayor Jeff Rasco
