The Brownfield City Council met Thursday morning Oct. 19, 2023, with several items of business, including discussions on the new utility rate increases and the Brownfield Sports Complex. After the invocation and pledges, the Council would hear public comments. Two citizens would speak during this time.
First was Michael Tackitt on the Parks & Recreation. Tackitt told the mayor,
“I wanted to compliment you and Jeff especially on the on the culture y’all cultivated on your managers (supervisors). You have department managers that are involved in the city… you have Lions Club, Rotary, Cemetary Foundation. If I see Israel (City Inspector) out, Cat (Electric Dept. Supervisor) out they are doing good. James (Water Dept. supervisor) … is an amazing human being. Woolard (Fire Chief) and Kotzur (PD Chief), they are new and integrated into the city… they are doing what they are supposed to do, being a part of the community. You have one leader that does not match the culture that y’all have built… one leader when you see him on media, he’s not doing this town right. When I was in that chair over there, I couldn’t do anything about it… innocent until proven guilty. You have guilty, oyu have something to do about it. Find someone who matches the culture to be filled… someone who represents this town. Thank you.
The next public speaker was Eric Horton talking about the Brownfield Chamber. Horton told the mayor,
As a member of the Board of Director there (Chamber of Commerce) We have had an awesome year… financially, things have been going great. We also could not have done it without prefunding and postfunding through HOT Funds and that is very important to the ability for the chamber of commerce to do some of the work on behalf of the citizens and for those who actually come into town. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who do come to the chamber of commerce for the visitors informations center, becuase we know part of the HOT funds go to that.
The Council then approved the minutes from the previous meeting.
After the approval of the minutes, Mayor Tom Hesse moved item 8 ahead. Item 8 was an informational item explaining the new utility rate increases. During the September 21, 2023 city council meeting, the Council approved the 2023-2024 fiscal budget, which included a 2.6% electricity rate increase each year for the next five years, plus a 13% rate increase on water and sewer. (related story) On Friday, October 6, 2023, the City of Brownfield sent out its first round of monthly utility bills to the customers. On those bills, there were two new line items added. One line is the “Power Cost Adjustment” amount and the other is the “Meter Fee”. Some customers were confused about these two new items and felt like their bills were increased. However, according to City Manager Jeff Davis, that is not the case.
Davis explained that the City was trying to be more transparent with the bills. He told the Council and audience that the “minimum bill”, also considered the “meter fee”, was $15.03, but is called the “service availability charge” which is now $15.42, a 2.6% increase. On commercial rates, the meter fee was $20.39, now with the 2.6% increase it is $20.92. The cost per kilowatt hour (KWH) was $0.1503 for 400 KWHs, then after the 400 KWHs the rate was $0.1196 per KWH, and over 500 KWHs, the rate was $0.1036. Now the new charges are $0.0539 per KWH and the power cost adjustment is $0.0604 per KWH, totaling $0.1143 per KWH. Davis also explained that all the electric charges and fees were lumped together and not itemized like it was on the October bills. The second cycle of utility bills will go out on Friday, Oct. 20, 2023, and that will be the last time the city uses the postcard style bills in November 2023 the new utility bills will be in an envelope and will all breakdowns of each charge.
Concerning the rollout of the bills, Davis said,
“Currently we are doing everything on the postcard that everybody gets in the mail. Here next month we’re gonna send out a paper, an envelope with everything broken down with an explanation. It was just kinda hard… you know we adopted this (budget) on the first, and the bills went out on the 5th and we just didn’t have time to do everything we needed to do to explain this right. I feel like we probably dropped the ball as a city. I think next month everybody will understand.” Davis also went on to say, “I would like to say that i’ll take the blame as far the public not knowing… we shouldve done better. We cant look back now and so we gotta move forward. This is something that souldve been done years ago… we shouldve been on paper bills years ago.”
The Council moved back in line to item 3 and 4 which is the monthly financial and investment reports. According to Davis, the September 2023 report, which is the last for the 2022-2023 fiscal year shows a deficit of $(313,834.26). Although there is a deficit, the collected revenue is 93% and the final 2022-2023 fiscal budget is unaudited. Turning over to the investment report, there is a total ending balance for all accounts of $7,025,199.50 for September 2023. This is $4,224,800.50 more or 62% over the amount needed to keep in the accounts for up to three months. Also, there was $29,212.80 of accrued interest in September 2023.
Moving to item 5, Brownfield Police Chief Chris Kotzur gave his quarterly report to the council. Click here for the story.
Next, the Council would address Jeremy Franco about an issue concerning a canceled softball tournament that was to have taken place on Friday, October 6 through Sunday, October 8, 2023. Davis began the comment by talking about how the City of Brownfield received four and a half inches of rain Monday night into Tuesday, October 2-3, 2023. Davis also pointed out before Franco would comment, that the city has some blame for how the cancellation was taken care of. Franco approached the podium to comment on his issue of the cancellation. He first spoke about being one of three tournament directors who deal with the Brownfield Sports Complex (BSC) and that he has had about 20 successful tournaments on the new BSC. Franco then told the Council,
“Beginning in July (2023) I’ve had issues with the maintenance of the fields… getting access to the facility to start the concessions in a timely manner… upkeep of the restrooms during the events and disposal of the trash during the events weekends. I feel like now its been a battle to be able to continue to host events. Each event regularly brings in revenue for both hotel and motel businesses, as well as the city as whole. My most recently cancelled event, which was the 6th of this month caused Holiday Inn Express to lose 45 multinight reservations and Best Western to lose six multinight reservations as well as a full RV park. My loss… my personal loss expenses amounted to aropund $5000 in toument shirts that I lost… I cant get back. $700 in awards and over $1500 in concession stand. I had an event scheduled for the weekend of October 7th which was approved months in advance… Brownfield saw many inches of rain on Tuesday. I tried to keep in contact with Jeff (Davis) and Brad (Wise, Parks & Rec Director) throughout the week. There was never any clear communication what the final decision on my event was and on Friday at noon I received a call from Jeff Davis stating that representatives from the city deemed the fields unplayable less than 16 hours before my event. I appreciate the ability to rent the facilities but I feel the recent lack of communication or willingness to help see that my events are able to run smoothly is affecting the success of my events. I hope to continue to host events in the future, however I would like help from the city and parks staff to find a better way to work through the issues we face the last couple of months.”
Franco then read a couple of emails from coaches whose teams were to play in the canceled tournament. Franco then showed the Council pictures he had taken of the fields. Pope asked Franco, “What day were these pictures taken?” Franco responded, “That was 30 minutes after I received the call from Jeff Davis.” Pope then asked, “Which would of been on what day?” Franco said, “That was Friday, October 6th.”
Garza said, “Jeff I have a question, does the city representative that went out to make the initial…”
Before Garza could finish his question, Davis chimed in and said, “Let’s go back Wednesday… we notified Mr. Franco that we had several inches of rain and the fields are flooded… which is what our contract says. Friday morning I contacted the mayor and Kelly (Burris, City Secretary), and Brad and they all met out there that morning and determined the fields are unplayable. After they notified me, that’s when I contacted Mr. Franco.”
Hesse then said, “The fields were spongy… they looked good but you know…”
Davis then said, “I was not in town y’all and I had to live with what the mayor said, so that’s what I kinda went with. Brad said they weren’t playable and the mayor said they weren’t playable, so that’s what I live with y’all.”
Garza then said, “I was just asking if the city has pictures on their behalf to show…”
Again before Garza could finish, Davis jumped in and said, “I have pictures of the mower stuck out there, I’ve got pictures of the fields underwater.”
Garza said, “But not here… not with you?”
Councilwoman Kelli Mendez said, “I think the city has more than their fair share of pictures because Harvest Festival was going on.”
Hesse then said, “I visited with him (Franco) and I told him that the Harvest Festival was priority… that we had to get that taken care of first.”
Franco said, “So yes the Harvest Festival was going on, but I went out to the fields the week before and I believe it’s just time management on the parks and recreation director. Everything thing has always been last-minute on doing things. The field has deteriorated… I think its just time management. This event was planned two months in advance. I wrote Kelly the check the Wednesday before, so they knew the Harvest Festival and my tournament were going to be at the same time. So it was poor time management… it wasn’t right… they waited too late. We’ve cured fields the day of when its rained. You know rain and baseball go together… we’ve cured fields the same day that its rained and go the park ready to go. I spoke to Mr. Davis and I told him, hey… motels are full, RV parks are full, I have too much invested in this to just call it. It just really seems like they don’t care and its very disheartening. I plane six to eight weeks in advance and its very hard to plan one of these things when you got coaches, umpires… people planning their weeks months in advance for this tournament to come to Brownfield Texas. I love my home town, but we’ve failed these kids, these coaches, myself and these businesses and these motels.”
Hesse then told Franco, “We also had 4 1/2 inches come in that was not on the schedule… so that has a lot to do with it to.”
The Council then spoke about making it right for Franco. City Attorney Matt Wade told the Council that they need to look into what they can do for Franco.
The next four items of business dealt with the renewal of the contract between the Brownfield Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors Information Center (VIC) which is operated by Hotel Occupancy Tax Funds (HOT Funds). The Council approved the resolution for the continuation of housing the VIC at the Chamber of Commerce. The other three items of business were for the council to approve the post-funding for HOT Funds for the Chamber of Commerce from the Vineyrad festival and harvest festival.
The Council then went into executive session and there was no action taken. All Council members were present.
