The West City Council Met on June 2 and Had Everyone in Attendance

MAYOR’S MINUTE – JUNE 2015

The West City Council met on June 2 and had everyone in attendance.

With a 3-1 vote, the council approved to allow Jay Gerik to remain on the council until her term expires in November.I want to thank Jamie Allnutt, Emanuel Mitchell and Karen Mackenzie for showing an interest in this position. I hope to see your names on the ballet in November.

Cheryl Marak reported on the current zoning map and she, along with Al Vanek and Mike Sulak, will be working on the completion of this map.It has not been updated as it should have been so a number of properties are incorrect.They will come up with suggestions for council approval at the next meeting.

Speaking of the next meeting, there will not be a regular council meeting in July due to budget workshops. Our next meeting will be on August 4.

The council membersshowed that they are in favor for a new digital billboard to be located on city hall lawn. We are working with Glenn Browder on this as his company will control the advertising. The city/chamber will have a spot for public announcements, birthdays, etc. Also, if needed, the entire board can be allotted to the city for emergency purposes. I will have more on this soon but this will be an awesome board and a much-needed improvement over the aging board we have now.

We are allowing Chief Hudson to install some stop signs on South Harrison Street due to the vehicles traveling at excessive speeds. We have had some comments from citizens who live in that area and think this is the best way to keep speeds in control in that stretch of road.

Suzanne Hack reported to the council on the West Foundation and their new mission to help with the economic development of the city.As she pointed out, the vision of the foundation will focus on obtaining grants for various projects to entice businesses to move to West and also to help retain the existing businesses here.Most progressive cities have what is referred to as an EDC, or Economic Development Corporation.This is a 501c2 nonprofit corporation that works to help cities secure new businesses and retain existing ones.Since The West Foundation is already a 501c3,we’re already halfway there and I think it’s a perfect way to use this foundation’s talent and abilities.

Another action that was taken was the approval to authorize the publication of notice of intention to issue certificates of obligations. Here’s the deal on this. The city has aging infrastructure; most pipes around town are in pretty bad shape. Let’s face it, if the city waits until we have extra money in our annual budget to fix these problems it’s never going to happen. We met with Specialized Public Finance during the meeting and they went over the steps the city needs to take to issue Certificates of Obligations. In short, we would borrow money. The amount is yet to be determined but we have a priority list of water and wastewater improvements that total around $11.3 million dollars. Don’t worry just yet, though; we are going to have a look at what the city can afford with a minimal rate increase in water and tax.

We also still have around $3 million in debt from the Waco water pipeline, which we would include in the new note.The good thing is that rates are low right now so if we’re going to have to borrow funds now is the best time to do that.

I think we’ll be able to look at a $5 million project spanning the next five years and work on paying that back over the next 20 years or so.We will be having public meetings on this issue and I invite everyone to come to these meetings and voice your comments and concerns.

The city has received over $7 million from the great State of Texas for the street project on the north end of the city. This is out of the $8 million we were promised. We have an opportunity at this point to make some major improvements to some very needed infrastructure and I feel it’s the right time to accomplish this.

This weekend will be the opening of the new History of West Museum.I want to thank the museum board and all the volunteers that made this happen.Come out and help celebrate this great event.Also, there will be Coffee with a Cop at the Village Bakery that morning so drop by and meet your city policemen!

A big congratulation to Coach Cory Beckham and the West Trojan baseball team!This is a great group of young people and what an awesome job you guys did in securing a second state championship in class 3A baseball.Go Trojans!