The council approved authorizing city staff to post an application form on the city website, along with issuing a press release to The Community News, offering interested residents a chance to serve on a Home Rule Charter Commission.
“I’m excited. That’s what I ran on, to give the citizens their voice,” Palmer said. “I’m following through as fast as I can.”
If formed, the commission’s duties will include reviewing examples of charters from other cities before a proposed charter is created for Willow Park. They will also study and assess the costs of making the change to a home rule city.
If all moves forward the vote by citizens can be added to an upcoming ballot. Given the time frame, the most likely date would be May 2 of next year.
However, Marcy Galle, a former Willow Park council member and current legislative director with State Representative Mike Olcott, encouraged a push to put it to a vote on the upcoming Nov. 4 ballot.
“I just want it to be a quicker process, not a long drawn-out process,” said Galle, who added she is in favor of the change to home rule. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We’re long overdue.”
All meetings of the commission will be recorded and posted on the city’s website.
A basic difference between general law, the current structure that has served Willow Park for years, and home rule is:
Home rule cities derive their power from the Texas constitution and possess the full power of self-government. They have the inherent power (not specifically granted by the state) to do just about anything that qualifies as a public purpose while not violating the constitution or state laws.
In a home rule city, the mayor can have more power than in general law, depending on the type of charter drawn up. The mayors of many home rule cities also vote at council meetings, along with having veto power and the ability to force reconsideration.
Under the current system in Willow Park, the mayor can only vote to break a tie — which isn’t often considering the council has five members. The mayor is a CEO and budget officer for the city.
Other things a switch to a home rule city would bring include the ability for citizens to remove officials through recall elections, allowing for the removal of council members for such things as absences and intentional violations of the charter, and term limits.
General law cities have no right of recall. They must file a petition in the district court and have a trial to remove officials.
However, home rule cities are subject to preemption. This is a higher level of government, such as the state legislature, eliminating or limiting the power of a lower level of government — something they have been increasingly doing with home rule cities.
At the July 8 meeting, the council is expected to address how the members of the commission will be chosen once all the applications are in. Palmer noted three possibilities: council, mayor, or citizens themselves.
Hydro vac upgrade
The council voted to approve the purchase of a hydro vac truck for the purpose of safely exposing utility lines during leak repairs and minimizing the risk of infrastructure damage.
The city’s public works department has been using a hydro vac trailer for this work, but that trailer is 11 years old and starting to experience mechanical challenges.
“We got a lot of life out of it. It’s an estimated $40 to $50 thousand to fix it — if they even have it,” Willow Park Public Works Director Chase McBride said.
McBride said that switching to a truck-mounted system would streamline operations by reducing the number of equipment units required on-site. He said it would also better equip the department to respond to large-scale line breaks, such as a 12-inch main break on El Chico Trail recently that took about 11 hours to repair.
“It’s a larger unit. It’ll cut down on time,” McBride said, describing it as “basically an enormous shop vac.”
In addition, the proposed unit can function as a sewer machine or high-pressure hydro jetter (a piece of equipment that uses high-pressure water to clear blockages and debris from pipes and sewer lines).
The cost of the truck is a little more than $365,000. City Manager Bryan Grimes said sufficient funds are available in the water reserves account.
Budget talk
Grimes led the first budget workshop of the summer as the city prepares to launch the Fiscal Year 25-26 budget. He addressed enterprise funds, which include water, wastewater, and drainage.
General funds, which include all other city departments, are scheduled to be discussed at the July 8 meeting.
Grimes said the plan is to have a preliminary budget on the city website by July 9, 60 days before the proposed adoption date of Sept. 9, with Sept. 10 as the proposed date to adopt the city tax rate.
“Twice as much as the state requires,” he said of the preliminary posting and adoption.
The city’s fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
Other upcoming dates connected to the budget include:
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