Thursday, May 22, 2008

Post-Election Changes at City Hall

There are a few changes in the works at City Hall following the May 10 elections. From what we've heard so far, all of the changes are in a positive direction.

(Former) City Administrator Thom Lauer was terminated from city employment on Monday, May 19. According to the Ellis County Press, Lauer was told his "services are no longer needed".Click her to view the full ECP story. No plans to recruit a new City Administrator have been disclosed at this time. Assistant City Administrator Bobby Jo Martinez will be taking on Lauer's responsibilities in the interim. (ED NOTE: Lauer's dismissal is the best news we've reported on City Hall since Mr. Lauer's rehiring last year.)

Mayor Don Hudson, in an interview this morning, expressed his commitment to reduce crime in Wilmer. He is working through the Wilmer PD to "clean up the drug houses and bootleggers in town". Hudson also said that he wants the city government to be more open and honest with citizens - "a more friendly City Hall".

The Planning and Zoning Committee Public Hearing on the voluntary annexation of 95+ acres scheduled for tonight (May 22) at 7:00PM will most likely be cancelled and need to be rescheduled if a quorum cannot be seated. The tract of land is North of Belt Line between Summers and Mason, just west of "downtown" Wilmer. Readers planning to attend the meeting may want to confirm with City Hall before attending.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

To the re-elected mayor Don Hudson, I just was wondering why the fire department apparently felt that only they should be the ones to respond to fire and med calls in the city. You recently had a structure fire in your city and one person was burned and another found dead by the door and no firemen around but an ems crew from Hutchins.Why was the volunteers not toned out to this at the least they coud have started fighting the fire and possibly got the person who was found dead out. ( maybe ) It seems to me the volunteers were fighting fires long before the department went paid and had no problem with doing so.

Anonymous said...

To answer your question:"Why was the voluteers not toned out" (dispatched).The Wilmer Fire Department, both Volunteer and Career Firefighters, are toned out on the same pagers at the same time.There isn't a separate page out or tone for the volunteers.Currently the volunteers are free to respond as they see fit. To quote the great Forrest Gump,"Thats all I have to say about that" . . .

Anonymous said...

The paid department was on another EMS call, transporting a patient to the hospital...THAT'S why Hutchins was on the call. It's called Mutual Aid. If more fire personnel was hired at Wilmer's Fire Department per shift, incidents like this would be less likely to occur. I would also like to know...where WERE the volunteers? Was it too late at night? Or was the fire just too dang hot?

Anonymous said...

This is a shame. How can we become a better city with all this bitterness between two departments (paid and volunteer) when it should have been one all along. They both have their faults and instead of working on what you are doing wrong you want to complain about the other. GROW UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Work together everybody else has to why can't you. It does not make you better to be paid. Stop trying to run everybody off by saying this he said she said crap and get over yourselves work TOGETHER. Volunteers the same can be said to you come to the station work your fires go to your training and stop looking at who did what. Look at what you can do together for this town. Isn't that after all why the fire department is here. And just to give all the bitter people a head up this article was not even about the fire department. Can we even stay on topic just once.