June 5 City Council Meeting

The extensive twenty five item agenda lead to an unusually long meeting - with a few surprises for the citizens in attendance. Internet Explorer users click here to view the agenda.


Mayor Don called the meeting to order at 7:30PM, Eugene Low gave the invocation, and the consent items were approved without discussion. City Attorney Bob Hager announced that at about 7:10PM Officer Tony Shaw withdrew his appeal of termination by Chief Wells and eliminated the first two agenda items.

A public hearing on a 50% 10 year tax abatement on Sunridge Business Park property on the North side of Pleasant Run Road drew only one question: the planned building improvement value is $27 million. The hearing was closed and the measure was passed.

Matias Leal presented a proposal to purchase new Tasers for the Wilmer PD, which drew some discussion among council members. The measure was approved to purchase two Tasers with maintenance contracts.

The creation of a southern sector planning group consisting of representatives from Lancaster, Hutchins, Wilmer, Dallas, NTCOG, and Dallas County was tabled after several minutes of discussion. The proposed Atmos Gas rate increase was rejected with no discussion. In these two instances, Mayor Hudson broke with parliamentary procedure rules by directing the motion in the first case (Tiny Lange had first moved to reject the NTCOG plan) and recommending that the council reject the Atmos rate increase.

A Planning and Zoning Commission of five members and two alternates was approved consisting of Bertha King, Victor Pena, Stan Bell, Dennis Vandygriff, and Rolando Leal. Roy Wickliffe and Ron Miles were the approved alternates. Eugene Lowe nominated Windy Johnson (Mayor Hudson's daughter) to the commission, but was told by Mayor Hudson that she could not serve.

Matias Leal was unanimously approved as the only nominee for Mayor Pro Tem.

The hiring of a consulting firm to recruit a new City Administrator was approved in the night's only 3-2 split vote, with Eugene Lowe and Dean Rolison voting against the measure.

All other measures were approved unanimously and without discussion. All five proposed hirings were approved after the executive session. The meeting adjourned at approximately 9:00PM.