Little bits of big news
Gordon maintains mayor pro tem status HUTTO — With a full field of seven council members voting, Peter Gordon was elected for another term as mayor pro Tem at Thursday’s meeting. At the previous City Council meeting, with only six members present, the council tied with three members nominating Amberley Kolar and three for Gordon.
“Last time, there was a lot of discussion about me nominating Kolar,” said Mayor Mike Snyder. “There is nothing Mayor Pro Tem Gordon has done wrong. It has nothing to do with views, opinions, anything that’s happened with the current mayor pro tem, only that I believe in a diversity of board, a diversity of experience.”
Snyder noted that the other veteran council members had a chance to serve as mayor pro tem, so in his opinion it was Kolar’s time.
Gordon won the nomination four to three, with Kolar herself voting for Gordon. He was then elected unanimously.
City eases access to financial disclosures
A controversial policy that made it difficult for community members to check up on council members’ potential financial conflicts has been reversed. At last week’s meeting, council voted 6-1 to remove sections of the city ordinance that had generated a number of public complaints with only council member Brian Thompson voting against it.
“If a person reaches out to the city for your financial disclosure, to me it ought to be just emailed to people. We shouldn’t have a process whereby they can only take a glance and then go back home,” said Mayor Mike Snyder, who brought up the agenda item.
Financial disclosure statements for council members are not mandated by state law for cities with populations under 100,000, but Hutto has chosen to add the requirement to city policies.
The original ordinance was approved in April last year. In September, council amended the ordinance to require an open records request, that a log be kept of each requester and that they could only be viewed in person so no photos or copies could be taken and “mishandled.”
City Attorney Dorothy Palumbo confirmed to council that private information on the disclosures including address, phone number, social security number and family members is redacted before the forms are released to the public.
Council member Randal Clark said the reason for requiring disclosures was to be able to verify whether a council member had voted on an item they should have recused themselves from due to financial conflict of interest, but that the restrictions were added because of misuse.
“There was an issue where it was posted out on Facebook for other people and it wasn’t redacted. That’s why this came about. Because other council people weaponized people’s information publicly and put it out there on Facebook,” Clark said.
The public can still view the documents at City Hall, or can now choose to receive redacted financial disclosures via email by submitting a request online at huttotx.gov.
Improvements to water billing coming City council has approved a five-year, $196,280 contract with VertexOne Software, a new system that will be rolling out to the 7,800 customers using Hutto city water.
Once implemented, the system will alert customers to possible leaks and guide them through finding where the problem may be located, tell them how their water usage compares to similar households, give personalized water-saving suggestions, track daily usage and allow customers to view and pay bills online.
Monica Burke, utility billing supervisor, said the new software will interface with the current systems for utility billing and meter reading.
“There is a payment portal that we are looking into also being part of the interface we could use to eliminate credit card fees,” Burke said.
Large credit card fees have recently been a topic of concern within the council.
“This will not affect how your paper bill looks. This particular software is just for people who like to go online and see their data,” she added.
Public Works Director Rick Coronado described the product as a best-in-class solution, and said it was used by a lot of major cities.
“This software is an engagement portal. It’s a onestop shop for how you access your information, your data, but also how you pay. It’s also going to help on how you’re being charged. It will break out to daily usage so your bill estimator will be enhanced by this portal.”
