Webster escalates war with Tenorio

"Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride."

There seems to be a battle between opposing philosophies shaping up on the city council. On one side you have Mayor Todd Webster, who favors the notion that providing too much information to the public is a dangerous proposition. On the other is newly elected council member Daphne Tenorio who seems to believe in the idea of keeping the public informed about what the city is doing.

For example, at Tenorio’s request, City Manager Scott Sellers offered a well crafted and fascinating presentation on shared municipal facilities, meaning a single building that could house offices of the city, the county, the school district, etc. Mayor Webster felt the presentation was "premature."

Because of a family tragedy, Tenorio did not attend Tuesday night’s City Council meeting which Webster took advantage of by taking some swipes at the absentee, without, of course, mentioning her by name.

Section VIII of Tuesday night’s agenda was "Council Requested Agenda Items" and that section included an unusually large 10 items. Because the council took four hours to get to Section VIII — nearly half of that time in executive session — the council wound up tabling all but two of those items, one involving a roundabout and another about a request for a traffic study in the Waterleaf subdivision, which as it turned out, was already being conducted. Those two items had already been discussed out of agenda order.

Tenorio requested three of the items in that section: (1) "Overview of City’s share of costs for Phase 1 water supply associated with capital improvement projects planned to be incurred by the Hays Caldwell Public Utility Agency (HCPUA) during fiscal years 2016 through 2020:" (2) "Status report on all five road bond projects including latest project cost estimates;" and (3) "Update on Goforth Road repairs."

Webster also had three items on the list, one of which was "Discussion concerning frequency of City Council requests for staff reports and direction given to city staff." And although he was the one who first mentioned the eight items in Section VIII that hadn’t already been discussed should be put off until the council had more time, he took the time to talk about his above mentioned one by saying he didn’t want items placed on the agenda such as the ones Tenorio offered because council members were regularly updated on them anyway.

Now I have not talked to Tenorio about this, but I’m guessing the reason she had these items placed on the agenda was not for her personal edification, but so that they would receive a public airing, so that the residents of Kyle who might be sitting at home watching this circus on Granicus or reading about it later or possibly those few actually attending the council session, could be better informed about the status of those items, i.e. road repairs, that are of most interest to them.

Another item in this section the mayor placed on the agenda was "Discussion on electronic device policy." I’d be willing to bet if you took a poll of Kyle residents, far more of them would want regular updates on the repairs being made or not being made to Goforth Road than one discussion on an electronic device policy.