No reason was given during the council meeting for tabling the RSI agreement, an action the council took at the behest of City Manager Scott Sellers. After the meeting I asked Sellers why he made the request and he replied: "I think we just needed a little more time to get everyone comfortable with it." When I asked "Who is not comfortable with it," he just gave me a "C’mon, I can’t tell you that" smile, but added "You’ll know soon enough."
It was really the only unexpected event of the entire 28-minute meeting.
The blank spaces on the agreement template will be filled in and signed by all parties whenever a property owner outside the city limits wants the city to provide utilities to that owner. The agreement basically says that, in return for providing the utilities, whenever the city blows the whistle that property will be annexed into the city limits.
Sellers told the council the agreement applies to "utilities extended within the city’s CCN, meaning our service territory for water/wastewater, another neighboring jurisdiction’s CCN, a neighboring jurisdiction’s ETJ or in their corporate municipal limits. But what this agreement stipulates is any time those services are extended to a property owner they would need to sign one of these pre-annexation agreements which basically states they would dis-annex from whatever territory they are in and, in exchange, annex into either the city of Kyle’s corporate jurisdiction or sign an agreement that says at the time the city of Kyle desires or has the ability to annex that area that it will be a voluntary annexation."
Sellers said the city has extended utilities to some of these areas in the past and when the city tried to annex them, "there are times when we are fought for that annexation. Yet they are taking advantage of that city service we have already provided to them.
"So this basically states," Sellers said, "if you’re going to receive city services that you will annex in at the time that annexation is called upon." He said that annexation might not take place until three to five years after the utilities are provided, "but at the time that annexation is the logical next step for the city, that property owner will annex into the city of Kyle."
Mayor Todd Webster said the template came about largely because of recent annexation efforts.
"We had property owners receiving utilities who didn’t want to be annexed," the mayor said. "They said they already received all the benefits of being within the city without having to pay city taxes, so why should they be annexed? I could see from where they were coming from why they would feel that way. I think this policy will resolve a lot of future disagreements. And it wouldn’t apply to anyone unless they made the choice to ask us for utilities."
As predicted, the vote on the final reading of the proposed budget was 6-1 with council member Daphne Tenorio casting the lone vote in opposition, presumably for the same reasons she gave for opposing it on first reading last Wednesday. The vote on the lower tax rate was unanimous.
In other action tonight, the council:
- Officially welcomed the city’s new recreation division manager, Jason Miller, who comes to the city after having worked for the city of New Braunfels, as well as Sarah Watson, who will become the city’s new programs and events specialist. Watson is also the staff liaison with Kyle Area Youth Advisory Council (KAYAC) and she told me after the meeting she plans on retaining that liaison position in addition to her new responsibilities.
- Unanimously approved the appointments of seven high school students — Jude McClaren, Skyler Gold, Mia Padron, Dharma Heaney, Raymond "RJ" Navarro, Anna Holsonbake and Samantha Martinez — to KAYAC.
- Unanimously approved Ryan Browning, council member Travis Mitchell’s nominee, to the Ethics Commission.
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