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Taxes, loose dogs top agenda
By Jacob Truchard, Staff Writer
Continued discussion of dogs running rampant in the city and the approval for publishing the upcoming year's tax rate were key items of discussion during the Eagle Lake regular city council meeting Tuesday, Aug. 26.
Prior to the meeting, council was given knowledge of the passing of former Eagle Lake City Manager Ron Holland who served as city manager from 1993-2008.
Council commended Interim City Manager/ City Secretary Sylvia Rucka for her work in preparation of the upcoming year's budget over the past month's budget meetings. This was the first budget prepared without the assistance of the late Holland in 15 years.
Further discussion regarding the budget will take place over the next few weeks with the approval date taking place Sept. 23
Council continued the discussion that began in July regarding the city's current animal ordinance and what needs to be done about the city's dog problem. Public Works Director Thurston Webb was asked to bring back some possible solutions to the ordinance for the Aug. 26 meeting.
Morales said the main concern is that dogs have been running wild in the city and have been attacking citizens' pets.
"It is an epidemic to our city," Morales said.
Webb said some of the main problems with the current ordinance are that the city cannot budget a full-time animal control officer and the part-time officer position is undermanned when it comes to catching and facilitating the loose dogs.
Webb added that Arnold Cardenas has resigned the position of part-time animal control officer. A substitute is currently being considered.
"We have limited resources," Webb said. "Also, our ordinance does not allow the animal control officer to be authorized to write violations."
Webb and council considered it a good idea to give the animal control officer authorization to enter private property to chase a dog running loose in the city and also have somewhere in the ordinance to designate the officer to appoint assistants in times of need or crisis situations.
"This way an officer can step in and cover for him," Webb said.
Public Works Director Dennis Ramsey said one of the problems is that citizens need to be more informed about where to bring their animals to get them neutered and/or adopted to control the population.
"It we don't stop the overpopulation, we will never solve the problem," Ramsey said.
Morales continued by saying that many important points were being brought up during discussion, but the issue on the table was that dogs were running rampant and violating people's safety and the safety of their pets.
"We need to move forward and solve this problem," said Morales.
Rucka suggested making numerous changes to city's animal ordinance including having the amended ordinance ready for discussion and action at the next meeting.
In other business, council approved an ad valorem rollback rate of .77590 per $100 valuation to be voted upon at the Sept. 23 regular city council meeting.
The truth-in-taxation laws require that council must vote to place a proposal to adopt the tax rate on the agenda of a future meeting as an action item. The proposal must specify the desired rate.
Council also approved setting dates for public hearings concerning the upcoming fiscal year's ad valorem tax rate.
The dates for the two public hearings are Sept. 9 and 16, both at 7 p.m.
Regarding the five-year annual report from Johnson Controls, Inc., council approved to cancel the planned service agreement.
"This is an annual agreement where, at the end of the year, JCI will review information we provide them to figure out if we sold the amount of service that they predicted," Rucka said. "In past years, they have been making payments to us since the sales have been lower than guaranteed."
Rucka told council JCI is now saying the sales are more than guaranteed and they do not owe the city.
"They think it will continue to be that way and they advised that we could opt out of the agreement if we wanted," Rucka said. "We have half of this year left and one full year after that."
Other items:
Holland's family requested council serve as honorary pallbearers at his funeral. The service took place Friday, Aug. 29 at the Eagle Lake Baptist Church.
Approved to proceed with demolition of condemned property on 816 East C Street. Also agreed to have final notices sent to condemned properties at 715 Clar, 403 Sixth and 604 East C Street for future demolition.
Approved an amendment to the agreement for engineering services between the city of Eagle Lake and O'Malley Engineers, LLP for the 2007 TCDP Sanitary Sewer Improvements. Rucka told council the has $30,000 remaining after sewer work that has been engineered and that O'Malley Engineers needs to design additional work for sewer improvements so the city doesn't have to give money back to the state. She added that O'Mally is requesting to move $2,800 from Project Representative Services to basic services so that the design can be completed.
Approved reimbursement for expenditures to the Eagle Lake Chamber of Commerce through hotel-motel funds in the amount of $1,816.70.
The next Eagle Lake City Council meeting is Tuesday, Sept. 23.
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