RECAP...COSB City Commission Mtg. Nov 2, 2011

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Public Comments:

Velma de los Santos spoke against the new Ordinance for Water Rates and the additional $10 for multi-users on a single meter! Not sure who she represented, but she spoke about MH and RV parks.

Mr. Jim Holt from UTB Workforce Training spoke about creating a Police Training Academy in San Benito in concert with the City. They will be creating a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding); I will try to obtain a copy of the MOU.

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EDC Board Appointments:

Three member of the EDC board were up for reappointment. Commissioner Rene Villafranco tried to table the agenda item because he had a concern regarding just extending the appointments for the current members. He felt other citizens (some already on a volunteer list) should be afforded the opportunity to serve. However, his motion failed for lack of a second! I tend to agree with Comm. Villafranco. Despite what the Mayor says, this has to be addressed sooner or later in a workshop!

Celeste Sanchez was reappointed to the EDC board. However, the Mayor’s appointees, Pete Claudio and Lorenzo Sanchez failed for lack of a second to a motion by Comm. Gonzalez.

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Housing Authority Board Appointments…

Three people were appointed to the Board. Larry Leal and Linda McKinney were unanimous. However, Joe G. Gonzalez received two nay votes from Commissioners Elliott and Sanchez!

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FHAST Work Group

This was bad news for those of us citizens who experience flooding and were counting on Phase or Round 2 of the Disaster Recovery Project to alleviate that flooding.

Apparently, the City’s application for funds from the Council of Governments was not approved.  The majority of the money was allocated to Hidalgo County! At the advice of the COG, the city created a FHAST Work Group, (State Fair Housing Activity Statement) to work on acquiring funds from the COG.

In my opinion, this is nothing but all talk and no action. We have been waiting for 5 years for the city to do act on our flooding problem and all we get is “We are working on it!”Just more of the same BS.

I am also not sure if appointing this “group” without an ordinance is legal per the City Charter. I need to do some research, stay tune!

Item 18. Manager’s Report.

This same Agenda item appeared on the last (October 18) City Commissioner’s meeting. I knew this agenda item as written is a direct violation of the Texas Open Meeting’s Act. I emailed the Mayor and City Manager regarding the violation. 

To date, I have not received a reply! I will post the email and the link to the request for a legal opinion and the actual legal opinion by the Texas Attorney General later on a separate post. This opinion has been in effect for years. 

Later!