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The DeLeon City Council met in a called
meeting, Monday, September 11, 2006, with all members present except
for Avery Carlisle. The meeting was held on Monday, instead of
Thursday, because both Mayor Danny Owen and Karen Wilkerson, city
secretary, will be attending an employment law seminar on Thursday.
A presentation by Vince Viaille, of First
Southwest Company of Lubbock, regarding options for funding part of
the Festival Park project, was the primary focus of the almost two
hour meeting.
City officials contacted Viaille after
realizing that any funds borrowed from a local bank for the project
(approved in an earlier council meeting) would have to be reflected in
the budget for the coming year. As Mayor Owen noted on more than one
occasion in the past few weeks, “You can’t borrow against something
you don’t have budgeted.”
Viaille presented the council with a
detailed 18 page overview of the debt issuance process. After going
through such items as “professionals involved in the debt issuance
process, sources of capital funding, types of debt sales and
authorized municipal debt instruments” Viaille noted that he’d covered
a lot of ground quickly. The portion of the presentation devoted to
“authorized city debt instruments” drew the most questions, with
general obligation bonds, certificates of obligation, contractual
obligations, tax notes, revenue bonds and contract revenue bonds
discussed.
In addition to council members, Viaille
also presented information to Burl Lowery, DeLeon’s auditor; and Trey
Weaver, a representative of Farmers and Merchants Bank.
After the conclusion of the presentation
and some general discussion, Mayor Owen asked the council if they
wished to pursue any of the options presented by Viaille, but
Councilman Howard Gifford noted that he believed the council needed to
know how much money was needed to complete the park project before
making a final decision. Lowery agreed with that statement. Viaille
indicated he would need additional information from the city,
including financial information for the last five years, before
proceeding. Wilkerson said that was not a problem.
Eventually, the council voted to
“negotiate the financial assistance from First Southwest for the park
project.” Mayor Owen noted that this would not preclude the city from
obtaining the funds through Farmers and Merchants Bank.
In other business, council members:
• Approved a request by Lee and Emma
Childers to move a new manufactured home to their lot at 733 E. Ham.
• Tabled a request by Todd Griffin for
the city to pay one-third of the cost of repairing the electronic
scoreboards (which were struck by lightning) at city-owned ball
fields, pending further information.
• Approved a request for the DeLeon
Cemetery Special Projects Committee to install an entrance sign at the
cemetery and to pave and/or seal several cemetery streets. Councilman
John Holdridge noted that the Special Projects Committee had the money
for the improvements and that it would cost the city nothing.
• Approved Resolution #016-06, changing
Resolution #013-06. Wilkerson noted that this was simply to correct a
“typo” in the first resolution, which authorized the submission of a
Texas community development block grant application to the office of
rural and community affairs for the community development fund.
• Approved changes to the water bills due
to new postal requirements.
• Heard a report from Jamie Welch on the
Texas Parks and Wildlife grant for the Festival Park project. “They
began installing the masonry units,” Welch said, “the concrete masonry
unit blocks, on the stage building. We’ll have CMU blocks in the stage
building and in the restrooms. They’ve also been forming up the back
of the stage area, the bus lane and the transformer pads.”
Welch later showed the council a large
packet of pledge forms which had been turned in when the project first
began. “These are the volunteer sheets,” Welch said. “I’ve mentioned
them a million times, and you guys probably have never really seen
these sheets.” She then said that some of them were for equipment and
materials, and some were for time and specific skills. “A lot of these
are also volunteers to clean up, rake, mow, and even make lunches,”
Welch said. “I think we can stir up a lot more interest than even what
we have here. I think we’ll need volunteers to start calling these
people or writing them. Some of these people have passed on or moved
away, and we hope to replace those with new pledges.” |
