Pies, ethics bookend council meeting

Last night’s City Council meeting began, for all practical purposes, with City Manager Scott Sellers announcing his intentions to make Kyle the center of the pie universe and ended, for all practical purposes, with Mayor Todd Webster Sellers announcing his intentions to completely rewrite the city’s ethics code and to completely reshape the city’s Ethics Commission.

Sellers also announced a Labor Day weekend hot air balloon festival to officially inaugurate Kyle’s designation as the Pie Capital of Texas.

In between discussions on pies and ethics, the council routinely and, even more importantly, harmoniously dispensed with mostly routine agenda items. Of the 12 items requiring council action on last night’s agenda (I’m grouping the three consent agenda items into one since they were dispensed with a single unanimous vote), 10 were approved unanimously. In fact, last night’s meeting, even including an astoundingly brief 18-minute executive session, lasted only two hours and five minutes, way below the average length of council meetings during the last 2½ years.

"We have applied to become, by trademark, the ‘Pie Capital of Texas’," Sellers revealed immediately after the Citizens Comment period at last night’s meeting. "We looked at doing that legislatively, but just to make sure we didn’t pit one community against another we thought we’d go this route. Part of that designation means we actually utilize the brand, utilize the trademark."

Interestingly, a Google search of "Pie Capital of Texas" turned up zilch (except for magazine articles on where in Texas to eat great pies) and another search for a "Texas Pie Festival" only brought to my attention an event reserved for pecan pies only that is held annually in Tatum, about 280 miles northeast of Kyle. Sellers didn’t mention the possibility of a pie festival, although I’m betting one is in some form of a planning stage. He did say:

"So we have several events that are coming up that would involve pie to one degree or another. One of those I’ll announce right now is a first ever — as most events are right now in Kyle — our inaugural hot air balloon festival. That will be over Labor Day weekend this year. And the event is entitled Pie in the Sky. We’re very happy to have several balloon aficionados that have joined us to plan the event. It should be a great destination and we’re looking forward to that being a success.

"Some of our other events that are already planned involve some sort of a pie-eating competition," Sellers continued.

Just a suggestion, but something like what’s depicted in the following video could be a lot of fun.

Seriously, however, I have been giving this a lot of thought since Sellers’s revelation. One thing that came to mind is the fact that when the word "pie" is mentioned, most people here think of a desert treat. However, in Europe, especially in Great Britain, pie, especially some form of a steak pie, is considered a primary dinner entree option. If you’ve ever attended a Premier League game in England, you know the halftime routine consists of visiting and purchasing a pie and a drink from one of the many various meat pie concessionaires in the stadium. Nothing beats a hot, good tasting meat pie and come coffee or hot chocolate during a chilly English day at halftime of a football game. So why not, in some way, introduce meat pies to Kyle, perhaps trying to coax a restauranteur to open an eatery downtown devoted to English cuisine?

Another thought was to try to convince ACC to open and operate a culinary arts school in downtown Kyle devoted to the teaching and training of pastry chefs.

"Kyle has been looking for a destination," Sellers said. "There have been no shortage of meetings to discuss ‘what is our destination’. We sent out a survey to all households in the city, had focus groups, talked to the chambers. When it came down to it we realized our main destination right now is people coming off the interstate to enjoy our downtown and specifically to get a slice of pie. It seems like just about every meeting we have here at the city — and, granted, proximity helps — adjourns to the Texas Pie Company immediately thereafter or just prior to the meeting.

"It’s not our intention to support just one company," he continued. "It’s our intention to support an industry and a current destination. We feel we have a built-in destination. Brands and destinations are earned, not given, and one we have earned at this point is ‘the pie capital of Texas’. Here in Kyle, we’re very fond of our pie."

Just before the start of the comparatively brief closed, executive session which was nominally the last item on the agenda, Mayor Webster, who was obviously battling the effects of what he called a serious case of the flu, said that illness prevented him from preparing a revision of the ethics code in time for last night’s council session.

"My intention was to come in here with a list of (ethics) items I had identified," Webster said. "There are four things right off the top of my head that I think are big bucket issues that need to be addressed."

Those "big bucket issues," according to Webster, included "the way we make appointments — having each individual council member make an appointment to the Ethics Commission has created a situation where you could end up without a quorum."

Under current procedures, if one city council member filed an ethics complaint against another council member, the Ethics Commission members appointed by those two council members must recuse themselves from deliberating on the matter. Only last month, the council was faced with a situation in which as many as four council members were prepared to file an ethics complaint against another member, which would have effectively eliminated five of the seven commission members, rendering the entire exercise moot.

"There’s a conflict with the City Charter with respect to the City Attorney," Webster continued. "I think the charter says the Ethics Commission is supposed to have independent counsel for a meeting and I don’t believe the ordinance says that."

The mayor also said he believes the current ethics ordinance is too complex and "has created a condition where technicalities and procedural issues could create situations where there aren’t substantive reviews of issues."

Webster said he wants to make a list of all the things he thinks should be changed, but his illness prevented him from getting that job finished. As a result, the council voted 6-0 (council member Daphne Tenorio, citing family conflicts, was excused from attending last night’s meeting) to postpone the discussion of "revisions needed to strengthen" the ethics code until a later meeting, probably the one scheduled for April 18, but no date was actually specified.

"I think we need to simplify this a great deal," Webster said. "It’s a very complicated ordinance, which, in itself, could make enforcement of it difficult."

In response to a question from Mayor Pro Tem Damon Fogley, who wanted to know if the mayor planned to collaborate with the Ethics Commission on a revised ordinance, Webster said he planned to do come up with something to offer the council on his own.

"The ordinance itself has some process in it that says that they (the commissioners) are supposed to rewrite it," Webster acknowledged. "But I’m planning on starting from scratch."

He added he believes other cities may have ethics ordinances that would be more appropriate for Kyle and that he might use those as resources.

In other action last night:

• Council member David Wilson presented a plan that would provide homeowners an option to purchase sidewalk repairs at a discounted price. Under the city’s ordinances, all residential sidewalk repair costs are to be borne by residents and not the City.
• The council confirmed the city manager’s appointment to the Civil Service Commission and two appointments to the Planning & Zoning Commission.
• The council approved the second reading of three proposed zoning changes. One was approved unanimously. Council member Travis Mitchell voted against one to rezone a proposed residential neighborhood adjacent to the Amberwood subdivision since the current zoning was identical to the one currently applied to Amberwood and he saw no need to change it. Council member Becky Selbera voted against one to rezone property located in her district from agriculture to retail services because of concerns she has expressed previously concerning flood mitigation in those areas roughly bounded by Scott Street and Old Stagecoach Road.
• The council awarded Halff Associates the contract to develop a Stormwater Master Plan, approved an interlocal agreement involving the construction of a water line extension, approved the wording of and individually signed a letter of appreciation to the Hays CISD Board of Trustees for its vote last week to grant qualifying businesses a freeport exemption, and approved a resolution indicating support for the realignment of FM 2001.
• The council approved Mitchell’s suggestion to spend $2,500 to help defray the cost of the construction of a wrought iron decorative fence to separate the historic Kyle Train Depot from the Union Pacific tracks — an expense item Mitchell said has been contained in several recent budgets — and granted the required permission for the Hays County Historical Association to begin soliciting private funds to pay for the restoration of the caboose located immediately north of the depot.
• Sellers announced a new city survey is available online to receive resident input as part of the preparation process for next fiscal year’s budget. Residents may access that survey by clicking here.