Mineral Wells Area News

By David Montgomery/Special Contributor

The Mineral Wells City Council met on September 6th to finalize and prepare items before the upcoming meeting to adopt a budget and tax rate.

The Council meeting opened to a lack of Citizen Comment, both for the Public Comment and Public Hearing for the increases to line items in the annual budget. Those increases were a part of the Airport Fund totaling $227,000.

The remainder of the meeting was preparation for the September 13th meeting where the city is poised to adopt a No New Revenue rate. Agenda items included adopting rate changes for T-Hanger rates, engage with an auditing firm, and to review a new Master Fee Schedule. All of those items were approved by the Council.

“This has been years in the making,” said Council Member Shoemaker referring to the nearly completed Master Fee Schedule.

“This was the whole purpose of this Master Fee Schedule,” said City Manager Dean Sullivan, “so that this group doesn’t have to reconvene every time we have a necessity for a fee change.”

The Mineral Wells Chamber of Commerce presented a check for $1,239.01 to fund half of an electronic gate at Mineral Wells Fossil Park which will help extend the hours open to the public. The remainder of the cost for the gate was able to be absorbed by the Parks and Recreation Department’s budget.

“The tourists appreciate it,” said Rose Jordan, Director of Tourism & Marketing for the Mineral Wells Area Chamber of Commerce.

The City voted to table multiple items so that language can be clarified before the upcoming September 13th meeting. Among those items were the lease agreement between NSC Opportunity Fund, LLC and the City’s Main Street Department and The Chamber of Commerce Tourism Budget.

The Chamber is in the process of moving from their old location to the Poston building which is the former location of the County’s Courthouse Annex.

Among the reasons to table the approval of the Tourism Budget is managing details in the agreements for the new address.

“It’s mainly just housekeeping,” said Mayor Johnson. “We need to make sure we do this in the right order.”

Those “housekeeping details” are to soon be finished and the city is now poised to solidify the hard work of the City’s staff on the upcoming budget finalization.

While the agenda has not been set, the City is planning to adopt mboth a budget and tax rate on September 13th at 6pm in the City Hall Annex building.

About the Author: David Montgomery is a Mineral Wells resident passionate about local politics. He wants to see transparency in government and foster community involvement. Married for over 12 years with 3 children, David works full time at a church where he leads a team of volunteers in utilizing technology to spread the gospel. His hobbies include craft coffee and BBQ.