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Minutes - 03/05/2013 TH MINUTES FROM THE HUNTSVILLE CITY COUNCIL MEETING HELD ON THE 5 DAY OF MARCH 2013, IN THE CITY HALL, LOCATED AT 1212 AVENUE M IN THE CITY OF HUNTSVILLE, COUNTY OF WALKER, TEXAS, AT 5:00 PM. The Council met in a regular session with the following: COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: James Fitch, Lydia Montgomery, Don H. Johnson, Joe Emmett, Tish Humphrey, Ronald Allen, Clyde Loll COUNCILMEMBERS ABSENT: Mac Woodward, Keith Olson OFFICERS PRESENT: Matt Benoit, City Manager, Leonard Schneider, City Attorney, Lee Woodward, City Secretary____________________________________ WORKSHOP SESSION [5:00 PM – LARGE CONFERENCE ROOM] – City Council met to discuss updates to the City Council Rules of Procedure. The Council met for initial annual reviewed and discussion of proposed updates to the Rules of Procedure. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson thanked Councilmembers Montgomery and Humphrey for their work on the document. Councilmember Montgomery noted the broad groups of changes such as Council comportment and bringing motions more in line with Robert’s Rules of Order. Councilmember Allen expressed discomfort with sections of the document he declined to identify prior to the 6:00pm meeting. Councilmember Loll suggested further review at a Saturday workshop to be scheduled. Note: An audio recording of every workshop is available through the City Secretary’s office and is held as a permanent record. REGULAR SESSION [6:00PM] 1. CALL TO ORDER - In the presence of a quorum and in Mayor Woodward’s absence, Mayor Pro Tem Don Johnson called the meeting to order at 6:00 pm. 2. INVOCATION AND PLEDGES – Councilmember Humphrey gave the invocation and Girl Scout Jennifer Spinks led the pledges. 3. PRESENTATIONS AND PROCLAMATIONS - Mayor Pro Tem Johnson introduced the 2013 Miss Capitol of Texas Ameera Swaiden and she in turn introduced Miss Sam Houston and Miss Allen, Texas. They sang Happy Birthday to Councilmember Ron Allen. - Proclamation for Texas Week - Proclamation for Severe Weather Awareness Week 4. PUBLIC COMMENT A public comment was submitted in writing by John Kerr Smither for distribution to the Council thanking them for their action on the mural on his building and inviting them to come view the work. 5. CONSENT AGENDA (Approval of Consent Agenda authorizes the City Manager to implement each item in accordance with staff recommendations. An item may be removed from the Consent Agenda and added to the Statutory Agenda for full discussion by request of a member of Council.) Approve the minutes of the City Council Regular Session held on February 19, 2013. [Lee Woodward, City Secretary] a. Approve Ordinance 2013-17 to amend the budget for FY 12-13. [Steve Ritter, Interim Finance Director] b. Approve purchase of ½-ton extended cab pickup, ¾-ton extended cab pickup, and cancellation of previous purchase c. order. [Billie Smith, Procurement Manager] Councilmember Humphrey moved to approve the Consent Agenda and was seconded by Councilmember Loll. The motion carried unanimously, 7-0. 6. STATUTORY AGENDA a. Presentation, discussion, and possible action to authorize the City Manager to request participation in the HOME Investment Partnership Program Reservation System with the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) and approve Resolution 2013-04 in support of same. [Dr. Sherry McKibben, Community Development Specialist] Councilmember Montgomery moved to authorize participation and approve Resolution 2013-04 and was seconded by Councilmember Emmett. The motion carried unanimously, 7-0. b. Presentation, discussion, and possible action to consider an engineering contract with Klotz and Associates for the budgeted Town Creek Horse Branch Tributary Watershed Study. [Aron Kulhavy, Director of Community and Economic Development] Councilmember Montgomery moved to approve the engineering contract and was seconded by Councilmember Humphrey. Councilmember Emmett asked Aron Kulhavy, Director of Community and Economic Development, for a brief. Mr. Kulhavy said this was the next phase of the drainage master plan and was part of evaluating the Town Creek watershed. He reminded the Council that the plan was to do two such studies a year to be combined in the fifth year for a plan. Councilmember Montgomery asked about the fiscal impact and noted the contract was coming in just over $10,000 less than budgeted. The motion carried unanimously, 7-0. 7. MAYOR/CITY COUNCIL AND CITY MANAGER REPORT a. Presentation, discussion, and possible action to approve Mayoral nomination of Devon Olivier to an unexpired term on the Youth Advisory Board. [Mayor Woodward] In Mayor Woodward’s absence, Mayor Pro Tem Johnson nominated Devon Olivier to the unexpired term on the Youth Advisory Board. The motion carried unanimously, 7-0. b. Discussion of the proposed updates to the Rules of Procedure. [Councilmember Allen] Councilmember Allen, reading from a prepared statement, said he had read the proposed updates and had concerns that he felt the policy attempted to dictate private conversations conducted by Councilmembers, reading from Section 4.01 “in private conversations that the same level of respect and consideration of differing points of view that is deemed appropriate for public discussions shall be maintained.” He said that he may want to disagree with someone else’s point of view and did not want to be censored. Councilmember Allen also read from Section 4.02 on Council relations with the media that “the best advice for speaking with the media is to never go “off the record” and said it “reeked of censorship.” He said that the policy referred to sanctions, suggesting that sanctioning should perhaps begin with him. Councilmember Allen said the Bill of Rights assured freedom of speech and asked the City Attorney if the proposed changes violated freedom of speech. Some of Councilmember Allen’s concerns, expressed under more control in Council than in the preceding workshop, were addressed by various Councilmembers during the workshop. Proposed changes to the Council Rules of Procedure were borrowed from a similar document from the City of Hutto, where officials have invited other city councils to adopt their successful internal rules of operation. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson said a workshop on the document had been held at 5 pm and that the Rules of Procedure was an internal document the Council reviewed annually for their own conduct, and not to be confused with the City Charter, currently under review by a citizen committee. He said the Council had chosen to work further on the document to discuss concerns, noting general Council circulation for the past five or six weeks. The Mayor Pro Tem said Council input on changes had been sought but not received and that there was no hurry. Councilmember Montgomery said, the changes were from “large, wordy paragraphs” reduced to lines to allow for discussion and part of a fluid document intended for change and open to input from all Councilmembers. She read the next two sentences from the proposed media section, “Many members of the media represent the highest level of journalistic integrity and ethics, and can be trusted to keep their word. However, words that are not said cannot be quoted or misquoted.” She noted the point was that anything said could be reported and that while Councilmembers were free to say whatever they liked, “off the record” should never be strictly construed as such, as anything said could be reported. She said she was glad Councilmember Allen had brought his concerns forward but wished they had been offered sooner so they could be addressed. Councilmember Montgomery urged all Councilmembers to review the document, describing the need for them to work together.”I just want to say that these were large, wordy paragraphs that were reduced to single-line sentences so that we would have a broad area to discuss, and this is a working, fluid document intended for change and input from all Council members. It is the intention of this committee to bang out a document that we could all live with. I do have to make note, in reference to the media, the rest of that statement says, “The best advice with speaking with the media is never to go off the record media. Many of the members of the media represent the highest level of journalistic integrity and ethics and can be trusted to keep their word. However, words that are not said cannot be quoted or misquoted.” I do want to make note that the point of that was that you don’t necessarily speak to anybody thinking that your words will not ever be used, so you can speak freely, say what you will, but off the record is really not necessarily true. People are free to print whatever you say and that was the point of that. If that language needs to be cleaned up, we’re certainly open to cleaning it up, and anything else in this document. The point of this committee was to bring here, to the Council, everything here for to review. From there, we will come up with the best terms, the best policies and we will move forward. That is my input, I’m glad Mr. Allen has shared with me his concerns, I wish he had brought it to me sooner. We would have discussed that issue in particular tonight in the workshop. It was not brought to me sooner, and that’s okay, now I know I can address it, not only me but all of us. I want to urge everybody to go through this document because what is written may not read with the true intent of what it’s meant to say, so we need to clean up the language. We’re a council, we’re sitting here together, we’ve got to work together. Working together ensures the best outcome for the community and I appreciate everybody doing that.” With no call for action by Councilmember Allen, the issue received minimal other discussion from the Council. Councilmember Montgomery made needed clarifications and corrections (above) to assumptions and omissions of Councilmember Allen’s presentation. The issue was closed with the intent that concerns would be discussed and resolved in another workshop before official action is placed on the Council agenda. c. City Manager’s Report 1. Updates on City construction, grants, studies, City projects, City purchases, and economic development. City Manager Matt Benoit gave follow up on the Beautification Board Golf Tournament, noting Joseph Wiggs, Parks Superintendent, had made a hole-in-one, and that about $2,000.00 was raised for beautification projects. He added that the City would have eight booths at the March 7 Chamber of Commerce Trade Expo from 4:00-7:30pm. Mr. Benoit announced Becky Rowley, Budget Manager, had enabled the City’s receipt of the Government Finance Officers Association budget presentation award, for clarity and legibility in the budget document. Mr. Benoit said the City had received the Texas Comptroller’s Gold Circle Award and said the City did a very good job in this compared to some others. 8. PUBLIC COMMENT There were no public comments. 9. MEDIA INQUIRIES RELATED TO MATTERS ON THE AGENDA Brandon Scott of The Huntsville Item asked about the process of adding the proposed media wording in the Rules of Procedure. Councilmember Montgomery and the City Secretary noted the material considered was from the City of Hutto’s Council Relations Policy and an addition to the document. Councilmember Montgomery expanded upon this, saying there was a lot of information condensed to the form now being considered, again urging the Council’s participation in refining the document.”I just want to clarify that there was a lot of information, this is a boiled down, condensed version of the information. Because it’s a lot of information, it definitely needs to be discussed and we need everybody’s input, because these are our rules. This is what we make a decision on, if we want these rules or not. The council may get together and strike anything that they don’t want, or change the verbiage or change the wording or whatever, or decide that, you know what, we don’t really need this. This is a working document, not intended to be a finished product whatsoever, and this was presented and obviously we still need work and still need to talk about many of the issues.” 10. ITEMS OF COMMUNITY INTEREST (Hear announcements concerning items of community interest from the Mayor, Councilmembers, and City staff for which no action will be discussed or taken.) Mayor Pro Tem Johnson announced the Lion’s Club Raven Ride on March 9 and that it was MS-150-sanctioned. He reminded everyone of the April 6 E-recycling event to occur at the City Recycling Center. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson reminded all of the many events occurring with the Festival Inspiracion for the next two weeks. He noted Chick-fil-A LeaderCast would be held at SHSU on May 10, calling it one of the most positive days of the year in the community. Councilmember Montgomery applauded the students who participated throughout the community in All Paws In last Saturday, saying they were incredible and made a significant difference through their efforts. 11. EXECUTIVE SESSION a. City Council will convene in closed session as authorized by Texas Government Code, 551.071 and 551.087 – deliberation regarding economic development negotiation involving project, and to receive legal advice on development negotiations and contracts. [Matt Benoit, City Manager, and Aron Kulhavy, Director of Community and Economic Development] b. City Council will convene in closed session as authorized by Texas Government Code, Chapter 551, Section 551.074 - personnel matters regarding the evaluation of City Secretary Lee Woodward, part 1 of 3. [Mayor Woodward] Mayor Pro Tem Johnson adjourned the Council into Executive Session at 6:39 p.m. 12. RECONVENE a. Take action, if necessary, on items addressed during Executive Session. Mayor Pro Tem Johnson reconvened the meeting at 7:53 p.m. He said there was no additional business to be conducted. 13. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Pro Tem Johnson adjourned the meeting at 7:53 pm. Respectfully submitted, Lee Woodward, City Secretary