08-03-2017Northeast Partnership for Economic Development
City of Marion
Council & Court Building
307 S. Center Street
Marion, Texas 78124
I. Call to Order and Establish a Quorum.
Mayor Carpenter called the workshop to order at 6:32 PM.
Members present were:
Mayor Michael Carpenter, Schertz
Mayor Bill Seiler, Marion
Mayor Larry Thompson, Garden Ridge
Mayor Nick Milanovich, New Berlin
Mayor Jeff Hunt, Santa Clara
Mayor Al Suarez, Converse
Mayor Tom Daly, Selma
Others Present:
Donna Schmoekel, Deputy City Secretary ( Schertz)
Catarina Gonzales (Legislative Advisor)
II. Introduction
Mayor Carpenter welcomed everyone who was present.
III. Old Business:
1. 85th Texas Legislature Special Session update. (Catarina Gonzales)
Mayor Carpenter recognized Ms. Gonzales who updated the group on the current ongoing
special legislative session in Austin. She provided everyone with a copy /summary of some
of the bigger bills that are being looked at. In the Senate, all of Governor Abbott's items
have passed except SB 12 which is the super vesting bill and then SB 18 which limits local
government spending. The Senate will begin hearing House bills tomorrow, one of which
is the tree bill.
The House has passed the Sunset bills and the Senate will take those up as well. They
passed the maternal mobility bills on Monday and the retired teacher bills on Tuesday.
Tomorrow they will take up school finance. There has been no hearing yet on the bathroom
bill but they did set for hearing some bills related to minimizing the penalty for marijuana,
and those have a hearing even though they aren't on the call. Also, today they did some
water bills that had been vetoed by the Governor. They also passed a bill that would restore
the Medicaid cuts for therapy for disabled kids. Also, today, there were some property tax
bills that were passed on third reading by the House, one of which has to do with the
administration of the ad valorem tax system. This will cause a lot of changes for adopting
the property tax rates. There are also some on board appraisal review changes, tax appeals,
etc. There was one potential constitutional amendment regarding doing a property tax
exemption for purple heart recipients or their surviving spouses. There was a lot of
opposition to that so it wound up getting recommitted to a committee.
Also, today the House Ways and Means Committee kicked out a bill that would send a
constitutional amendment out for election where people could decide to get rid of school
district maintenance and operation ad valorem taxes; it had a $4.8 billion dollar fiscal note.
S 1 was passed out with the 4% rollback rate and has gone over to the House. They kicked
it out with a 5% rollback rate, and then sent SB1 out with a 6% rollback rate. Water bills
they did today were with the regulation of ground water.
Another interesting thing was they had a bill exempting from ad valorem taxing precious
metals held in the Texas Bullion Depository. It will be passed today in the House.
The other big thing going on are the annexation bills. The Senate bill passed and the House
had a hearing on Wednesday but they left it pending. One of the biggest fights about that
is the buffer for military bases; right now it is at 1/2 mile and the Joint Land Use Study says
it should be at 5 miles.
There are 13 days left in the session —they will be done on the 16th of August.
There are some cities that are going to sue over the small cell legislation that was passed
that goes into effect on September 1 — and McAllen is kind of leading that. Mayor Seiler
relayed his experience with a vendor wanting to put one in Marion. Per Ms. Gonzales, a
city can put together a design manual and the company would have to go by that. She
offered to call and get an update where they are in the litigation efforts.
Ms. Gonzales offered to come again to the October meeting and would meanwhile keep
sending some updates on the upcoming legislative activity.
IV. Discussion and possible action regarding the renewal of the CD with Randolph
Brooks Federal Credit Union.
Mayor Carpenter recognized Mayor Seiler who said there is a CD ($10,232.98) that is up
for renewal (24 months) but in looking at the current balances in the checking ($25,111.3 8)
and savings ($5,091.35) accounts, we don't need it right now so he recommends we just
renew it again.
Mayor Carpenter made a motion to renew the CD, seconded by Mayor Daly. All those
present voted yes, no one voted no. Motion passed.
V. Items of Interest by the Member Cities.
City of Garden Ridge -Mayor Thompson spoke about some Jehovah Witness followers
recently in the city trying to entice the local enforcement officers to run them off and violate
their citizen rights. There were also some other individuals recently walking around the
city taking some pictures (with open carry) not cooperating with officers inquiring what
they were doing, not providing any information, etc.
Some other communities have gotten in trouble with this because you can't run them off
or ask them for their ID unless they are brandishing their weapon about. This individual
that came to their city actually belongs to an organization that does this on a regular basis
to try and trip up different cities and then post it online.
City of Selma -Mayor Daley stated `Caf6 Zinho' opened up in front of the Catholic Church
— they sell coffees, wine and sandwiches. Also, `Total Wine and More' is opening up next
month. Everything is good. We also may be getting another Fortune 500 company coming
in as well as two other quality restaurants. We have low taxes for the eighth year in a row.
Mayor Carpenter remined everyone that Friday, August 18, is the TML Region 7 meeting
in Blanco, TX if anyone wants to go. The current president is choosing not to run again
and so he (Carpenter) has decided to run for that position.
City of Marion -Mayor Seiler spoke about the parade last year and some changes they are
making for this year; it is being held this weekend and he invited everyone to come and sit
with him and his council to watch the parade. In addition to the good food, there is an
auction at 4:00 p.m. and a band will be playing music for dancing at the Biergarten.
City of Converse -Mayor Suarez spoke saying their city hall is underway, same with animal
control, library, fire station, and FM 1516, the telephone poles have been pushed back to
make room for five traffic lanes —lots of projects being worked on. They are building three
different subdivisions, 785 homes in the $200k range. They have already moved on their
annexation and are close to IH -10 now. He asked the others present who they used for their
City Attorney and if they recommended them. More discussion ensued regarding city
attorneys, their style of operating and changes they have suggested as well as their costs.
Mayor Daly left at 7.15 p.m.
City of New Berlin -Mayor Milanovich spoke how they are taking FM 775 down to FM
467 and FM 467 all the over to Seguin's ETJ and going up FM 775 to Cibolo's ETJ and
Seguin and then over the creek to FM 2538 over the creek and into Bexar County —two
people are wanting to come in. Mayor Carpenter commented that when that loop is closed,
Cibolo and Seguin can't cross. Mayor Seiler said that is what Marion did by going out FM
465 towards IH -10. Discussion continued among members about past and present
annexation and ETJ processes.
Mayor Seiler said he wanted to add one more comment, that the Marion Sausage Supper
coming up this weekend which is their 81" annual event. It used to be operated by the
firefighters, but then the Chamber took it over. He spoke about the social event and how
the local people come and volunteer to do different tasks and get all the food processed.
It's really a great small -town event.
City of Santa Clara -Mayor Hunt stated their road project is nice and open, and yes they
have speeders (as predicted) – the budget, 12 cents again —what we are shooting for
hopefully. There was a taxing error in the Harvest Hills area which he had to get
straightened out – they were taxing about 60 homes for the city that weren't in the City of
Santa Clara. Reluctantly, he had to call the tax office and get it fixed.
City of Schertz -Mayor Carpenter stated because of some depreciation and reduction in
some personal property in some of their industrial areas, the overall valuation has decreased
just slightly. Our current tax rate is .4911 and the effective rate is .4510. Also, Comal
County had made a big error ($45 million) in valuation, which has since been corrected.
Additionally, hotels five and six are going up right now.
VI. Establish a Date, Time, & Location of the Next Meeting. (Next up is the City of
New Berlin to host for September 7, 2017.
Mayor Carpenter confirmed that the next meeting will be held in New Berlin.
VII. Review and discussion regarding the Agenda for August 10, 2017, regular meeting.
No changes were made.
VIII. Adjournment.
As there was no further business Mayor Carpenter adjourned the workshop at 7:58 p.m.
PAS ROVED THIS 14th DAY OF SEPTEMBER 2017.
Mayor Michael R. ent r, NEP Chairman