Jefferson City Council discussions splinter into heated exchanges

City of Jefferson

 V. Hugh Lewis II/Jefferson Jimplecute

Old habits die hard, and Tuesday night’s lengthy, and sometimes hostile, discussions of agenda items proved that fact.

Ward 3/1 Alderman Richard Turner kicked off the evening’s discussions by moving two building permits and all 10 stop sign requests from the consent agenda to action items to facilitate further discussion.

“I have some issues…but it’s not necessarily I’m not approving, but I want some of my discussion,” said Turner.

Regarding the building permits, Turner said, “The issue I’ve got with that… I just want to make it plain that we should not make a habit of approving permits after its completion of construction. We allow these people to continually do this. We should issue stop orders and I’m not saying we shouldn’t approve them, but the method of approving them is totally backwards. This sets a very bad precedent. I just wanted to air this in public because it annoys me.”

 Turner then moved the discussion to determining where the City was in hiring a building inspector. Jefferson Mayor Rob Baker stated that a general job description discussion was had several months ago, but Council had not moved forward with posting and hiring one. Baker also said he would get that description back in front of Council.

The installation of solar panels also prompted a discussion from Turner.

“We haven’t really had to deal with solar panels in this sit yet. There’s nothing in our ordinances keeping us from approving solar panels, and I don’t have an issue with solar panels. I do have an issue with solar panels on the fronts of houses and what our existing historic map says. If it’s in the historic district, putting solar panels on historic homes it’s not historic.  I just want to bring that out as something we really need to discuss,” he said.

Ultimately the installation of panels on a home at 206 N Bridge Street was approved with a motion by Turner.

Jefferson Police Chief’s request to place 10 stop signs at intersections which were all described as being “blind” intersections was Turners next point of discussion.

“I know I’ve talked about this many times,” Turner said. “There’s a book, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. We need to be following that because it’s a national standard. My issue is to better flow the city we need to have one way for traffic. A lot of time people submit these things and they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Perez said he was provided a list of locations by Alderman Ward 1 Hollis Shadden; reviewed them; and determined some of the locations had had signs in the past and others were needed to help with public safety. He also stated he had looked at the existing traffic flow.

Ward 3 Alderman Will Thomas asked why these 10 stop signs had been made a priority when the ones provided by other aldermen back in August.

Baker explained that he had not received a list from all aldermen so he had not brought the list to Council. He also said that he would have the list of what he had to council at the next meeting.

“These 10 open intersections with no signs at all. Tino was proactive in [getting these to council] outside of the other lists,” Baker said.

“I agree that we need to take care of the entire city, but we have here these 10 intersections that we’ve already identified and Tinos’ done his study. If we can get these 10 knocked out at today’s meeting and then move on down the line,” Shadden said.

“I didn’t have this discussion to say I’m not going to approve it, I just wanted to point out the book,” Turner said.

In the discussion portion of the meeting the December Town Hall on a Quiet Zone drew the next line of fire.

Thomas suggested that a focus group or the City’s Planning and Zoning Committee should be tasked with reviewing and obtaining any needed information. Thomas also suggested the whole matter could be put on the May ballot to get an idea of what the public wanted.

“We need to start putting a timeline together on the things we’re doing, not just speaking idle words,” Thomas said.

“If we move forward with it, it needs to be known what the public needs and wants,” Turner said. “It’s not just a quiet zone, but what the costs are.”

Jefferson resident Jim McIntosh had signed up for public comment on the topic and said the “city shouldn’t have to pay for this. There’s work that has to be done in the form of research and I’m willing to do the work for Council. I’m willing to put forth the effort and report back the information to Council.”

Turner immediately said he did not want McIntosh working on it because he had an interest in making a profit from the quiet zone. When McIntosh questioned Turner about how, Turner did not have a response beyond saying McIntosh had a farm, which is a type of business.

“For Jim this is a priority, but for me it’s not. We’ve got to focus on running this city and not a quiet zone,” Turner said. 

“There’s nothing wrong with allowing Citizens to help,” said April Taylor-Johnson. “If he’s willing to help we should let him. I think it’s really sad for [Turner] to say to [McIntosh] ‘you know where you stand’. We are elected to listen to people. We have to be respectful of our citizens.”

“He can do all the leg work he wants to, but I’m not going to vote for that,” said Turner.

In reviewing a discrepancy between Turner’s responses to the online survey conducted by the Jimplecute about a QZ in which Turner had been in support of a QZ with or without public funding, and Turners comments about not voting for a QZ. Turner told the Jimplecute that he was in favor of a QZ but not for Macintosh to be in charge of getting the data for the City.

“I am a citizen who is bringing a problem and I have a solution in tow,” McIntosh said.

Baker said there needs to be a group to put together the information.

Ultimately the discussion ended with no clear direction from Council on how to proceed.

A brief discussion was held on the report provided by Texas A&M’s Texas Target Communities Program on a Strategic Plan for the City.

Ward 2 Alderman Robin Moore said that A&M is working on another contract for the next phase of the project and that it should be ready to sign as funding has already been approved from JEDCO.

The last discussion item was on how soon Council members receive information on topics on meeting agendas. According to Baker, Moore had expressed a desire to get information sooner so they had more time to review it.

Baker said he discussed the matter with Texas Municipal League (TML) and there were two options. The first was do continue doing as is done now, which is to provide the information in a packet, giving Council about five days to review the material. The second is to provide the information as it comes in, but that TML indicated the city should be ready to be sued as there is a much higher risk of Council members discussing the items outside of a meeting and potentially setting up a walking quorum situation. No indication of changing the process was made.

Baker also discussed that he would be compiling a list of appointments and elections that Council does so that they could better track longer term appointments and be prepared in advance when they come up. Council had a deadline of December 31 to make their appointment to the Marion Central appraisal board, but didn’t do the appointment of Ken Tomlinson until January 3.

In other business, Council heard from Wesley Traylor of Traylor and Associates on a required presentation on civil rights opportunities on the current sewer improvements project; Baker indicated the City would open filing for a place on the May election ballot on January 17 and it would close on February 17; and event application approvals for Woofstock Run/Walk in May, Big Cypress Corvette Weekend in June, Battle for Jefferson in May, MLK parade on January 15; and a building permit for Angie Hudson.

The entire almost two hour meeting can be watched on the Jimplecute’s FaceBook or YouTube page.

Council will meet again on January 17.