Little bits of big news
Capital improvements go interactive
HUTTO — Interested residents can now follow the progress of the city’s capital improvement projects on a new webpage that provides live and interactive information.
“It’s a very dramatic improvement,” City Manager James Earp said. “What this allows is for the public at any point of time to interact with an interactive map, to click on a particular project and bring up more information about that project. It will show a general location of where it’s at, it will show the budget for the project and where it is for the various different steps of planning for the CIP.”
Earp said the dashboard functionality was tied into the ClearGov software which is also used for budgeting and other accounting, so the dashboard will receive live updates as budget changes are made. The dashboard also features ways to contact city staff for more information on each project.
The city currently has 38 capital improvement projects in the works. The dashboard link can be accessed online from Huttotx.gov/cip.
“It may not seem like a big thing, but from where we sat a year ago, we really didn’t even know what CIP projects we were doing and now we actually have the map and all the info gathered in one place that’s easy to see and easy to access as we continue to improve our transparency,” Earp said.
New council member takes his seat City Council responded to the resignation of council member Dana Wilcott and her official withdrawal as a candidate for re-election by swearing in Evan Porterfield as Place 5 City Council member. The newly-elected official was sworn in by Judge Lucas Wilson directly after the public comment portion of the May 16 meeting and took his seat on the dais for the remainder of the evening.
The low-key change to council heralded a shorter than usual meeting with little controversy. A couple of council members took a moment to thank Wilcott for her service during their comment period.
Ordinance to discuss ordinances
City Attorney Dorothy Palumbo told council members that the recent charter election gives council options for publication of ordinances.
“Ordinances now do not need to be published in the newspaper,” Palumbo said. “You can provide for publication typically if there’s a fine or a penalty, you could publish the captions. The charter committee recommended any ordinance that the city passes is posted on the website. The charter committee thought that posting on the website would get more attention to what the council action was rather than posting the caption in the newspaper.”
Proposition F on the May 4 charter ballot read: “Shall Section 3.13 Ordinances In General of the Hutto City Charter be amended to remove second reading requirement so that ordinances may be enacted by one reading, as allowed by state lay, and that the Caption of the Ordinance shall be published in the Official Newspaper as required by state law?”
The proposition passed with 52.15% of respondents voting in favor.
Council questioned whether each ordinance would need to be voted on independently to determine whether it would be published, then requested Palumbo work on an overarching ordinance for a future agenda item determining how council would publish ordinances going forward.
City collaborates to solve sewage issues An eighth application for a “package plant” to handle wastewater outside of city management has been filed. This one is in a development near the Samsung Austin Semiconductor plant known as Prairie Crossing Municipal Utility District.
Hutto has been fighting to gain control over the evergrowing issue of neighborhood sewage disposal facilities, though the final determination of whether a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit is accepted lies with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
“The city manager (James Earp) and I met with the city of Round Rock on Monday and had a very good meeting,” Mayor Mike Snyder said. “We’re working on ways to resolve some of our issues on the western side of Hutto.”
The city has hired an outside legal consultant, that is helping the city try and control the number of new neighborhood sewage plants being built, both by meeting with developers and by interfacing with TCEQ, according to City Attorney Dorothy Palumbo.
Prairie Crossing Municipal Utility District is just west of city limits near the Cielo Ranch development which is also applying for a wastewater plant permit.
“The Cielo group was talking to (Prairie Crossing) about them putting in a package plant, which is actually going to be a very large plant, to serve not only the Prairie Crossing but the Cielo group as well. So basically they were trying to form their own little wastewater conglomerate south of Taylor,” City Engineer Matt Rector told council members.
“We are actively meeting with not just developers – anybody that can help with the situation. This isn’t something we’re just blowing off,” Snyder said.
