Talk of the Town Podcast: Annexation Confusion in Pearland

One word can set a whole city on fire, especially when that word is “annexation.” We’re Cameron and Kevin, and we sit down to untangle the real story behind Pearland’s MUDs 2, 3, and 6 after a City Council agenda item triggered confusion, public backlash, and a packed speaker list. If you’ve heard rumors about the city pulling neighborhoods into the limits, we lay out what’s true, what’s legally possible, and what’s being misunderstood.

We walk through the history of these Municipal Utility Districts, why some MUDs were annexed years ago while 2, 3, and 6 stayed in the ETJ, and why the overlap with Manvel’s ETJ makes everything more complicated than a simple map redraw. We also get practical about municipal finance: MUD debt, city tax rates, and the sales tax agreement tied to the major retail corridor in MUD 6. This stuff matters because it drives the incentives and the limits on what any council can realistically do.

Then we explain the process under Texas annexation law after the 2017 changes: petitions, resident votes, and the key detail most people miss, neither a city nor a neighborhood can force the other’s hand. We also connect the dots on fire and EMS funding, ESD property taxes, and the ongoing cost study that could shape future negotiations and service expectations.

If you care about local government transparency, clear communication, and how ETJ services get paid for, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share the episode with a neighbor, and leave a review.

Transcript

Why MUD Annexation Is Back

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Welcome to the next episode of the Talk in the Town Podcast, where we bring to you local leaders, local stories, and local impacts. I'm Cameron. This is Kevin, and we have uh officially completed our first month of podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Kind of uh monumental. Um I think we uh we had some we had some good episodes in the month of July, and uh can't wait for uh for this coming month and beyond. And you know, uh as we discussed in the first you know episode and laid this out, it's the talk of the town. What are people talking about? And I think today's topic is something that's uh that's gonna be really good. Uh recently we've had some discussion at City Council about, you know, MUDs two, three, and six, and what does that look like if they came in the city, if they didn't, all of those kind of things. And uh we've had some people reach out directly to us. Both living in the MUDs and in the city. And in the city asking us to weigh in and and have an episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Yeah, so I'm gonna quickly apologize to you guys. We ended last week's episode saying we're getting away from parallel politics, and as you can as everything happens in politics, just wait a day and something changes, just like the news cycle. And well, we're gonna be sticking around just for a little bit longer. Uh we're gonna talk about what happened this past week on Monday night with the annexation uh topic. Topic. Uh we're gonna go through the history of MUDs 2, 3, and 6. We're gonna kind of talk about the process of what does annexation even look like. Right. Uh, and then we're gonna kind of talk about what happened and occurred in the meeting. So yeah, we're gonna jump right into it. So give us a little background and history of MUD 2, 3, and 6. And while we do that, if we can pull up the Municipal Utility District PDF that's uh up here, we'll kind of take a brief look at just the whole city and quite a bit of muds.

The Origin Of MUDs 2, 3, 6

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah, so uh it's interesting because uh originally out off of 288, um, and this is the map that that's coming up that that shows all the different muds within the city, but specifically we're gonna talk about uh uh those muds that are on the east side of 288 uh that are in the cross-tached area. Right there says two three and six. And so to really talk about the history of this, uh way back when, I'm gonna go back into the early 80s, uh early to mid-80s, uh, was there were six mud districts, municipal utility districts, six mud districts that were created uh out here off of 288. And and so if you can just imagine in the early to mid-80s, where the city limits was like at O'Day Road. Right. Okay, so way in towards the old town site, and there was literally nothing out here uh from a from a development standpoint, from people standpoint. And so there were six MUDs created, MUDs one through six. Um, and since that time, MUD one, which was up and down Cullen uh Parkway, uh the old Southwick, uh has been annexed into the city. And then MUDs four and five, which are north of 518, north of Broadway, uh have been annexed into the city. Uh I'm gonna get the numbers wrong, but it was the South Down area and the country place area uh area.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Everything that's that's circling around Dawson High School today, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

And annexed into the city, and those over time, you know, those came into the city um and and and and knew this, which left two, three, and six uh still out here um uh in our ETJ, uh cities ETJ extraterritorial jurisdictions.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

So what's different about these ETJs versus the other ones is that part of each one of these, two, three, and six, are also in Manville's ETJ. And we'll get into the complex complexities of that later, but people have to understand it's two cities here.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Trevor Burrus, Jr. So two, three, and six have been have been out in this situation for a reason. Right. They are very complex in in how they uh have been developed. They've been very complex uh in what jurisdictions they fall into. And so naturally, if that's a big I, big F, uh they were to be annexed into the city, if they were annexed into the city, how that goes about being done, um these complexities have to be have to be talked about. So I have some personal history in two, three, and six, uh dating back to some of my days on city council. So we actually had had some discussions with these mud districts back in the mid-2000s. Uh we really didn't have much discussion with them in the in the uh mid to late 90s when I was on council uh because they were uh you know they were still developing, they were still moving.

Debt, Tax Rates, And Sales Tax

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Uh so if anybody wants to know if a if a if a district is coming into the city like this, here's what happens. Um their debt, if any, right, let's assume they've got, you know, whether it's a penny of debt or $10 million worth of debt, the city absorbs and takes on that debt. So they absorb the debt. So uh and for that, their tax rate on their mud goes away and it's replaced with the tax rate from the city. So uh so ideally you want to have a mud district coming into the city with either zero debt or such a low number that their taxable value and their taxes easily absorbed. It certainly offset it and it's a it's a net positive for the city, right? Um and so two, three, and six, so today, MUDs two and three have no debt. MUD six has some debt. I I don't remember the number, but they do have some debt. But also back in the early 2000s, you gotta remember this was in our ETJ, extraterritorial jurisdiction. And back in those days, the city covered its entire ETJ with with fire and EMS. Most of that obviously was under a volunteer structure, but we covered it. We covered the cost of equipment, we covered the cost of any, you know, structures and and those types of things. And so that was kind of quote, paying it forward for future annexation, right? It was giving them services. They didn't pay for it, they didn't pay for those services, so the taxpayers in the city paid for those services. And and so in your mind as a policymaker, you're sitting there going, okay, I can justify that because one day they're gonna come in and they're gonna be a ratepayer just like anyone else. And so, but along those lines, I I can't remember the exact date, but it was in the early 2000s, a sales tax agreement was entered into with MUD6. Right. And so MUD-6, for those that that obviously were showing this online.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

If you if you see the if you're looking at the blue striped area on the screen in front of you, there's a little tick that kind of goes north of 518. And that what what's in that little tiny area?

SPEAKER_00 7:41

So anybody that's maybe listening to this as opposed to seeing it online, uh, so the Target Center, the Targets, the Walmart that's out there, Best Buy.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

What about all those restaurants that are linear?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

JCPenney's lineup, the restaurants that are out there on the frontage road of 288, both north of uh Broadway as well as south of Broadway, the movie theater uh that's out there, all of that is inside Mud Six is in Mud Six. Not in the city limits. Not in the city limits. And so, but the city collects sales tax as though it's in the city. And that's to help offset the fire and EMS costs. Right. So they're they're paying their freight. Does it pay it fully? You know, any given year it might, any given year it might not. Uh but at least we're collecting some tax dollars off of that area for services that are being rendered by this by the city of Parland. So back in the in the in the late 2000s, uh 8, 9, 10 time frame, uh, we had actually discussed possibly annexing this area. Okay. Just just full-blown, let's, let's, let's talk about it. And and in order to do that, the the MUDs had to have been notified by the city uh and put into a uh three-year annexation plan. Okay. And so we did that. We actually notified the MUDs of our intent. Didn't didn't mean that it would fully come about, but we at least informed them of our intent, and then we started those discussions um and put them in that three-year plan. Okay.

Why Pearland And Manvel Overlap

SPEAKER_00 9:27

And then somewhere along the way, we discovered, as you've already mentioned, all three of these MUDs have jurisdiction in both City of Pearl Land and the City of Mamble, ETJ. Right. So if you're if you're thinking about it, and if you've driven Magnolia Parkway, okay, Magnolia is the dividing line in that particular area for these MUDs, up until uh it I think it's either County Road 90, I think it's County Road 90 is the is the north-south. So if you're coming off of the 288 freeway and you're headed east, the uh Big Star uh Ford dealership is in Mamble, ETJ. The the bank or the credit union that's on the corner there, I can't remember the name of it, uh, is is in Parelands ETJ. Okay. That's the line. So as you're going down that way, and then when you pass County Road 90, uh everything east of there is in Parelands ETJ. Uh and then obviously you move into the city and as you move further further east.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

And in fact, we actually talked about this a couple weeks ago about the annexation uh annexation strip that the city of Parrand did back in 5960. Correct. And well, when we did our strip, we did it around what is now known as Parryland City Limits and its ETJ. Right. And Mamville actually did the same thing around the same time frame. Correct. Except they instead of doing a hundred-foot strip, they kind of went to 10-foot strip. So here's Parryland, here's Manville's line. Right. So their line follows our line through this area.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

And and so what made this difficult is the lines were drawn with the county roads. Correct. So if you look at a map. And again, this was back in the 60s when they drew the line. And and and county roads, you can set a ruler to a county road. They are straight as an arrow. And whether they go east or west or north and south. So if you look at County Road 90 and you look at Magnolia, you know, those were county roads way back in the day. County Road uh 59 was Magnolia. And then you had County Road 94, and then you had County Road 90 over here. Straight as an arrow. Well, when development comes in and a master planned approach, they relocate those roads. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

That's why you see if you're looking if you're looking at a map, how Magnolia kind of dips a little bit south now.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Right. It dips south there, and then County Road 90, see the curves through there. Yep, and 94 still straight as an arrow. And and that exacerbates then the city limit line, the city lines, that hundred-year, hundred-foot strip, ten-foot strip. And just imagine, you know, if you you go back, this was all done in the, like you said, early 60s, uh, on the on the annexation of you know the strips, and then here comes 20 years later, here comes development, and you're not thinking this is way off the beaten path. The the city limits is three, four miles away. This is way out here. The city doesn't have the wherewithal to service them from a water and sewer standpoint. So that's why the MUDs were created to create their own, you know, water and wastewater facilities and everything else. And so then they now they've just been operating out here on their own. On their own. So that gives you some history. So the history ended. So in about 20 uh 10, uh late 09, sometime in early 2010. I left council in May of 2010, but I was on the council when this happened. Uh, we actually had set up some meetings with with Mamble about maybe do we do a ETJ swap. Right. So we put these MUDs into the city of Pearland so it's not complicating the multiple city, you know, aspect of it. So we had some conversations with uh with the city of Mamble um and uh we got a report back that Mamble wanted a cool million dollars uh to do the swap. And Tom Reed said And we said no. And we said no.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

And so uh then fast forward, we we had taken them off the annexation plan, and then in 2017, so I'm gonna make sure everyone heard that they were taken off of the annexation plan because there was at one point where there was a you can call it a 20-year, 25-year, or 30-year eventual plan to annex in a city. Right. But then of course the city at that time said, nope, doesn't make sense to take them off to take them in.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Because if you annex one of these MUDs, that means the city of Mamble would have to be ready to annex as well. At the same time. And they weren't ready to annex. And so it it just became obvious because of the multiple jurisdictions that the annexation of this area just just wasn't ready. Right. Okay. I'm not gonna say it was feasible. Anything's practic, you know, feasible, may not be practical, but anything's feasible to happen, but it just wasn't ready. Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

And so fast forward to 2017 for us, what occurred, let's talk

ETJ Swap Talks And Plan Removed

SPEAKER_02 14:40

about it all. What occurred here in Perryland, what occurred at the state. Um this was really the last time we had this discussion about annexation was 2017.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah. So before I do, neither of none of these MUDs, even two, three, uh, two, four, and five, had what they called a strategic partnership agreement.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

One, four, and five.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

One, four, and five that were annexed in. One, four, and five. One, four, and five. So one through six, they were created so far back that none of them had what they call a strategic partnership agreement. Typically, you're gonna hear us say SPA. Or SPA. And so what the SPA does is it sets a future annexation date. It can be annexed by right, and the citizens don't have a say-so. Right. Okay. So it's annexed on paper and it usually gives a date, and it's any time after that date. It doesn't necessarily have to be on that date, but it's any time after that date. Uh as an example, MUD 16, Avalon Terrace, which which comes all the way out to uh Broadway, uh just um uh just east of Cullen west of 1128, right in that in that area. That was a little donut hole in our in our city limits because it had a mud. Remember, I said it had debt, it had a certain amount of debt, but it had a spa with the mud. And so just recently uh that area was brought into the city under annexation uh because it was feasible, practical, and made financial sense for both the city and the residents. Those residents were already on our water, paying one and a half times because they were in the in the ETJ, uh, and their MUD tax rate uh was right at the city tax rate. So, and taking in and absorbing their debt was a positive cash flow to the city. So it made sense. And the further you go out there, that that you uh law of diminishing returns, if you will, you know, for the city to do that, as well as the residents. So MUD-16 was actually brought into the city uh about a year and a half ago, and they are there now. They got to vote in their first elections this last May. Um, and so that is an example of really an involuntary annexation, but it was done through paper when it was created. So must most MUDs created today in an ETJ somewhere will have a spa already attached to it, so it can be annexed at some future date. Doesn't mean that it will. It just means that it can. So two, three, and six did not have a spa. Right. Okay. And

The 2017 Law That Changed Annexation

SPEAKER_00 17:40

so 2017 comes around, legislation, it was actually a special session on it, um uh uh after the session, and they completely redid the annexation laws where no longer can you have involuntary annexations. Right. Okay. So in other words, the city can't just reach out whether you like it or not, we're gonna take you in and bring you into the city. It requires uh a vote of the people living within uh the the annexed area or proposed annexed area. So, and in fact, it requires the proposed area to submit a petition. So it actually would mean that these mud districts would have to come together and say, I think it's better for us to be annexed. They would have to go get a petition of their people, uh, and that petition has to be presented to the city. The city would Parry Land and Mamble. And in this particular case, Parland and Mamble. And the cities then there's an election held within the MUDs for the people to vote on, and the city of Paryland and the city of Mamble have to pay for that election. So the MUDs don't even pay for the election. Right. So the city would have to pay for that election. So I don't know what that cost, probably you know, twenty or thirty million thousand dollars to to hold that election. Uh and that would be split between the two cities and everything else. Now keep in mind I I'm not even sure legally if we can even accept the petition. Because even if the people had said yes, we want to be annexed and vote affirmatively yes, we want to be annexed, the city of Pearland and the City of Mamble still have the power to say by resolution, we are not annexing it. So say no. To say no. Okay? They can say yes and they can say no. So forced annexation both directions. An area can't force itself on a city. And the city can't force out. Right. Okay, force uh the other direction. So in this particular case, uh Mamble as well has already sent uh the word they they don't have any interest in bringing these areas into the city. So that is the history of two, three, and six. Now,

Fire And EMS Funding Through ESDs

SPEAKER_00 20:06

talk about fire and EMS service for just a second. Yep. This is this is a very important part of it. So when the law was passed in 2017, uh again, remember I said early on that the city of Paraland had been kind of paying it forward, covering our entire ETJ with fire and EMS service. So the city taxpayers had been paying for services that are being rendered in the in the in the ETJ because at one point in time those areas will be in the city paying it as well. Okay? It's kind of being a good neighbor, making sure that we we did it that way. Well, when the law was passed, the council, I think they did the right thing and said, we are no longer covering our ETJ with fire and EMS. You need to go and set up your own emergency services district. The only exception to that was MUD6. MUD-6, because we were covering their fire and EMS coverage with the sales tax dollars, we didn't force that issue. Right. Okay, because they're paying their freight. Uh but two, three, and the rest of six that's in Mamble, okay, had to go into an emergency services district or an ESD. You hear those terms, you know, out there. So they had to vote a uh they had a vote in that particular area, and they created it was either ESD four or ESD five. I can't remember. I think it's five. Most of Mamble is covered by ESD three, uh, which is a very large district, starts in Mamble and goes way south into our county. It's about 600 uh square miles of the of the county. Um but so you had this area, and then you have another area within our uh city's ETJ over around Parliament Regional Airport. Uh same thing, it was in our ETJ. They went into uh an ESD as well. It's one of, it's either four or five. I can't remember uh the the number. And so they pay a property tax, like 10 cents or something like that, for their fire and EMS coverage. And we no longer we cover them. We do still cover them, but they're now paying for it through their ESD. So we contract with their ESD, so we're getting payments for that. So city taxpayers are are are kind of whole, if you will, uh that they're they're not just paying into a uh a black hole out here that we'll never have anything off of it. Um and then there's an actual study going on right now to make sure that what we're services rendered, that we're actually getting paid back for the services rendered. So there could be some adjustments to that over time. Um but the hope is you're you're paying your way. So that sets up for the history of where we are.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

And yeah, you went through the process of annexation, so I'm just gonna reiterate kind of what you mentioned. The mud boards through petition come to the city, not the city to the mud boards. So if and then at the same time, if in fact the residents that live in MUDs two, three, and six want to be annexed, the city also has to be on board with it. Correct. Just making sure that's completely clear. And not just the city of Parliament, but also the city of Manville with it. Correct. So

Mayor’s Agenda Item And Social Media Fallout

SPEAKER_02 23:25

um I know there's been some this was a bit of a hot topic about a week ago a week or so ago, um, because we the this was shown on a discussion item for the upcoming meeting, which was this past Monday night on the 27th. And um well, there's seems to be some confusion around it. Uh a lot of residents, they see the word annex, so they automatically assume that the city's talking about annexation. Right. Well, and then we have our mayor who is then saying, No, that's not what this topic is about. This topic is just about discussion on emergency services, which you just laid out and other things. So I want to talk about kind of words matter.

unknown 24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Words matter 100%. And I want to talk about real quick just how did we get here? How do we get to this confusion? Um, so first, if if uh Raul, if you can, uh pull up the annexation discussion part one. I just want to listen to the first 45 seconds or so of this. I want you to listen to the mayor's words on what he says. Uh the other one. Yeah, this is part two. Excuse me. Yeah, so this discussion took place uh towards the end of the meeting on Monday night. So if you are wanting to took at it at its whole, you can always go back to YouTube and look at it.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

So while b before we before we show this clip, real quick, um to to further set up the meeting and the item that being placed on here. So the mayor has the right to place anything uh the mayor wants on the on the agenda. Sure. Applicated. And uh that's that's part of the duties and the and the privileges that the mayor has. If a council member wants to put something on the agenda, then they have to get another council member to second it and and put things on. In this particular case, uh not a single member of council was consulted. Not a single member of council was aware until it dropped into their um agenda. Um and so and not a single member of council even wanted to discuss anything about annexation of two, three, and six.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

Because of the process we just laid out, it has to come from the mud board to the city. Correct. Yeah, right. So um play, yeah, go ahead and hit play and and um y'all listen to his words here.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Oh what I wanted to do, um, because it's pretty thick, I want to clear the air. Um I think it's important. There is obviously um uh information that God distributed beyond the context of the actual uh council issue for a city council discussion. Um and I I had to really think back heavily when I put this on if I even mentioned that the city of Pearland was annexing any part, any part of anything that did not belong to the city of Pearland. And I had to do some searching and some searching, and it seems like uh because of some of the comments that were made, uh that that there's secondhand information.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

So uh what I would like to do, I put together So you just mentioned there um that the discussion that was put on the agenda was simply as a discussion. And he went on uh and spoke 10 minutes straight uh saying that this was about the fire and EMS, this was about the study, this was about water and sewer, and never once was it intended to be about annexation. Now that's what he says here in the video, but his social media account says otherwise. Uh put up one of the Facebook replies, either one, it doesn't matter which one, because we're gonna go through both of them. Uh this this is a Facebook uh post straight uh that he posted on Thursday night and in the comments. This is Thursday night before the Monday council meeting. Correct. Uh this was a response back to our uh to Buck Stevens. A lot of people apparently apparently know Buck Stevens. Uh I'm going to read the middle portion of this comment. It says the uh this is a quote from Mayor Quentin Wilts. The people apparently are more than capable of speaking for themselves, and they deserve the space to do so respectfully, which is what this is about. This, this is about, whether they are in favor of an annex or not.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

And this this meaning the act the item he placed on the agenda.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Correct. Go to the second um second Facebook reply.

unknown 28:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

So I'm gonna go ahead and read to everyone what this says. Yeah, there's a couple people here. An individual, it appears that this person lives in one of the areas, MUDs two, three, and six. I don't know 100 percent sure, but the question was asked: would this go to a vote by the residents of these communities, or would it be decided for us? If this was not about annexation, this is where the mayor could have said Right there.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Right. This isn't about annexation.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Instead, he says it depends. Number one, no, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Because the process states in state law, the mud board comes to the city. There is no it depends.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Now, if this was not about annexation, he had a chance saying right there, it is not about annexation. We just want to inform you of what's going on between the fire and EMS and ESDs. Right. So then a person asks, so if it isn't something we can vote on, will you still listen to what we're saying? You made a Facebook post, we spoke clearly, and they stated that they will be at the meeting ready to speak. His response, Mayor Quentin Wilch, says, I will always listen. The community has a right to be heard whether you are in favor of the annex or not. So here he has here in a video at the start at the meeting, he's saying, This is not about annex. I don't know why people are hearing this information, why they're saying or gathering misinformation about annexing in the city. But his words on social media say otherwise. Pretty clear. Now, I am willing to bet that he saw the the comments on social media. If I remember correctly, there's a hundred or so comments on this thread that were in opposition of annexation. I know council received a couple of dozen emails about opposition of annex. There were 18 individuals who were present at the Monday night meeting. Right. 17 of them were in opposition. Opposition. So I'm not going to speculate. I'm going to let those viewers that are watching at home say was this a pivot by the mayor at the last minute because he saw where this was headed?

SPEAKER_00 30:20

But you may not say it, but I will. This was a in the moment, I am getting major pushback. This was never about annexation when it was. When it was. And and I'm I'm going to be a little critical. Okay. Okay. I'm going to be a little critical. Because, again, as an elected official, words matter. Sure. As an elected official, when you put something out for people to see, you need to be very clear what that intent is. Now, he put this out on social media, inviting people to come to the meeting. At no time in the body of that message did he say this is only about looking at emergency services or water and wastewater and how we can better connect as people across this community. He didn't do that. He did a poor job of putting that out to the community, which fired up the speculation about annexation, and in his own words, within the thread, alludes to annexation. Right. So this was a game time pivot at the dice.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

If I'm not mistaken, um the the he went through a five-slide presentation on what he was intended to do during this discussion. And this supplement that he spoke from was turned in that afternoon.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Monday, Monday before the meeting. So if if this was truly something that he was for, you know, had the foreknowledge of saying, oh no, we're going to speak about EMS fire, this would have turned would have been turned in much sooner.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Which, by the way, a supplement for the agenda item that night has a deadline of noon. And correct. And he did it after noon. Well past that deadline. Which, you know, makes me wonder if he got special treatment on the um on the uh supplement. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

So and and and uh it doesn't stop there. Uh throw up the resident concern. I went ahead and and uh redacted some of this information because this is a person who lives in our ETJ. I do not want to share their information. Right. So I went ahead and cut off some of the information. But uh I want to read I want to read the last part instead of number nine. This so this so if you are living in the city of Parrand and you want to be able to submit a comment to council, there is a way to do so online. That's where this is from. Um this gets directly sent to the mayor and council. So this is where this is coming from. And it's all public information once sent. So this was public document. This was legally obtained. Right. Uh it says, as a near 30-year resident of MUD 3 ETJ, we do not want to be annexed. In fact, I find it very suspect the pla the mayor placed this on the agenda without appropriate notice to the MUD, City Council, and ETJ residents. Even if it is just for discussion, it follows a trend that bodes poorly in how the mayor conducts himself regarding transparency and fairness. And then here's the question he he puts out. Is this for our revenue or is it for Democratic votes?

unknown 33:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Makes me wonder. And you can't help but speculate and wonder.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

And and that's all we're going to do on that is speculate. Right. Um, but but I will say um that this if he wants to have a discussion about those areas and how we interface and how we work together and those types of things, then there is a whole different way to do that process. Right. This is not how you do it. What I do hope from this uh uh outcome, if you will, for now, uh I hope the mayor learned a lesson on how to do certain things and how not to do certain things.

Vetting Agenda Items And Closing Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 34:16

I will tell people, I'll say, I'll say it here. Um he and I had uh a lunch discussion on June the 15th. Yep, you mentioned it before. I mentioned it before in a in a previous broadcast. And we had uh we had a lunch meeting, and um he asked me about the power of placing things on the agenda. And I said, it it is a power that the mayor has because they don't have to go get a second. They don't have to talk to anybody from council, they don't, you know, nothing with staff. You just want to put it on there, you have that right. I said, but it comes at a price. Okay. And I said, my advice to you is anytime you want to put something on the agenda, you can legally, without getting into Texas Open Meetings Act violations, the mayor can talk up to three people, three council members. You get to four, the mayor plus four equals a quorum, and you've you've broken the law. But you can talk up to three. My advice to him was anytime you want to contemplate putting anything on the agenda, I don't care what it is, I don't care if it's controversial, have a conversation with at least two, if not three, council members to judge how that goes. And I even gave him a story, funny story, I even gave him a story of uh Mayor Reed. When I was on council, Mayor Reed brought something to council, zero, zero input from council members. He just put it on. It had something to do with with uh doing some resolution for the lottery or something like that. And and we said no, and and across the board was no, we're not gonna weigh in on this. No, we're not gonna weigh on this. He did not vet it with any members of council prior to placing it on the agenda. And in fact, Mr. Tetons, Richard Tetons, um didn't say a word, sat over there, and he looked and he said, Well, Councilmember Tetons, do you have anything to say on this issue? And Councilmember Tetons just very softly said, You'll hear me loud and clear with my vote. And it was a 5-0 vote. We're not going to do this. So even Mayor Reed learned the lesson that you need to vet things before you place things on the agenda. I vet anytime I put something on the agenda, I I would have a conversation with my mayor pro Tim at a minimum, okay, if not one or two other members of council. And there were things that I wanted to discuss that I didn't put on the agenda after I had discussions. Because you Yep. Okay. Um and and and and not that we didn't need to discuss them, we may need to do it in a different format or a different way. And so uh this could have been avoided had he simply talked to some of his council members. And quite frankly, his staff, the staff at City Hall knows this process very well and and predicted this wouldn't go where. And so if anybody really wants to know, you go watch the entire discussion, the 18 people and uh speaking and the mayor's you know comments and everything else. Council really didn't have anything to say afterwards because again, they know this needs to come from the MUDs to the city. Right. They quickly, you know, let's just move on to our next item and and and dispense with it.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

Right. Yeah. And no, I'm glad you you shared your perspective on uh on vetting with council. Uh it's very important to to build those relationships on council, uh even if it's just with a handful just to get feedback on on discussion items. Yeah. Uh that way you can avoid something like this happening on council. So but uh for those living in MUDS 2, 3, and 6, we hope you understand and learned a little bit of the process. If you didn't already know, a lot of people in MUDs 2, 3, and 6 are very informed with this process. They they know this process um very well. And they are quick to stand their ground if this process was going to come back up.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

In the Silver Lake, Silver Creek, you know, area. Southwick. In Southwick of our of our city, uh, it's a great, it's a great community. It's a great area. A lot of great people out there. Uh it's very well established, great people, well entrenched in the community, in the schools, within organizations throughout our city. They just don't live in the true city limits. And so it is what it is. We can't change the past. Things happen for a reason, and here we are. Um and so, you know, hopefully uh everyone's learned a little bit of a lesson, you know, through this process, um and and we can do better, you know, in the future. Um but it this discussion shouldn't have come out the way it did. Yeah. Um and I think once we have the disc the data back from the cost of firing EMS services into the ESD areas and into MUD 6, uh then hopefully there's proper notification of those MUDs and let's discuss how that looks.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Right. Yeah. Moving forward, there's still going to be some negotiations, still some talks between the city and those MUDs, because like you said, that study is going on right now. So no, the annexation process is not moving forward, but conversations regarding these MUDs will continue to still uh be present.

Next Week Water Billing Tease

SPEAKER_02 39:51

So, but um that is all we have for today's episode. Next week, we're going to get a little um we're gonna hit another hot topic in the city of Parrand. Um go ahead and let the cat out of the bag.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

If you want to know our thoughts on water billing, water rates, water billing, and and why we have been experiencing seeing some of the rate increases over the the X years that we've been doing this, uh tune in.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

You may want to know some history. Um you have been talking about water billing for pretty much your entire term as mayor, and we're gonna kind of dive into it. Hopefully, you guys can join us for that discussion. Uh that is it for today. We appreciate you guys here with us. Give us a like, give us a share, give us a follow, subscribe. That is it for today's Talk of the Town podcast, where we bring local leaders, local stories, and local impact. Thanks. Have a good one.