City Council Meeting December 4

The Wilmer City Council instituted a new format for regular meetings where citizen comments can be made for the record. Thursday night's meeting was more pleasantly and professionally conducted than those in recent months. The appearance of progress is refreshing. We are publishing the new ordinance setting fees for city services.


Mayor Jeff Steele opened the meeting promptly at 7:30 and conducted the invocation himself as Eugene Lowe was ill. Mayor Pro Tem Matias Leal had a prior commitment and was also not present. The first order of new business: comments from the citizens.

Any person wishing to address the city council need only sign-up on the roster provided by 7:20PM (TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE MEETING). This is consistent with other governing bodies; Dallas County requires speakers to phone in at least 24 hours in advance. Speakers should note that this time is for their comments, not a dialog with the city council members. Under the Open Meetings Act, no action can be taken or issue resolved without proper notice - and as the subject of public comments aren't scheduled on the agenda, the council may not interact with speakers. So if your comments take the form of questions, they'll be considered rhetorical during the public comment segment.

Following the public comments, the agenda was dealt with smoothly and efficiently. Motions were made and unanimously passed to accept the minutes of the last meeting and pay the bills. Mayor Steele was added to the list of bank signature authorities for the City of Wilmer accounts.

Some brief discussion was initiated on the subject of substituting Friday December 26 for Christmas Eve (as mandated by city policy) in order to give the employees a four day weekend for Christmas. It was noted that this was not an additional day off, only a substitution on the actual days mandated by policy.

Ordinance 08-1204 was unanimously approved adopting a new fee schedule for city services, completely repealig and replacing the 2004 schedule. It was noted in the discussion that many of the service fees had not changed during the current millennium.

As a public service, Wilmer Public Citizen is pleased to publish the new fee schedule for city services in its' entirety. Click Here to View the Schedule of Fees for City Services in a new window. (We apologize that two of the pages may appear upside down in your browser - one of the hazards of document scanning. Your pdf viewer will allow you to correct this in your browser window)

The meeting was adjourned shortly before 8PM.