City Council - Regular Meeting

He's here. Got it out fast. Fire chief.

Oh, so you made it. Oh, that must be binding man. Did you blow on me like Superman? It's that fireman. Did you blow that fire out? Did you do like Superman?

Blew it out. The way you do it, you're probably in hell.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the city council, or city of Crockett, believe it or not. We're so glad that you joined us. At this time, we will be opening our meeting. And we will open with an invocation.

Heavenly Father, we come before you this afternoon in Jesus' name, thanking you for this opportunity to gather here at City Hall. We ask you today for wisdom concerning all of the issues and things pertaining to the business of the city tonight. And we just ask you for your help and your guidance and your strength to make the right decisions. We give you all the praise and glory in Christ Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. At this time, it has been open. We're going to recognize our visitors. Thank you so much for coming. We should have an interesting meeting tonight. We have a lot to cover. And with that being said, that brings us to Our public comments, and I'll just read you the information. At this time, members of the public will be allowed to speak on city-related matters only. No personnel matters or matters under litigation will be allowed. The length of time may not exceed three minutes. City Council shall not speak under this item in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act. The Council may not deliberate or take action on matters except as properly posted in accordance with the law. And with that being said, we do have one person, Colleen. Girl? Gill.

Gill.

Gill. And Kayla? Susser. Susser, I'll say.

Kyle Gill has not made it yet, so he is the president of Crockett Merchant Girls Softball, and I'm the secretary this year. We heard of an agenda item at the last meeting regarding an installation of turf on the softball and baseball fields. Our board got together and we think it would be an amazing idea to install turf on our fields here in Crockett. Crockett Merchant Girls Softball and our volunteers have put in more than 50 hours of work on just the fields alone. Installing this turf would be beneficial not only to our volunteers and our equipment, but also to the girls of Houston County that we serve here in town. Thank you. Thank you.

With that being said, it brings us to our next item, approval of minutes, regular session, August 3rd, 2026.

I'll make a motion we approve the minutes of August 3rd, 2026. Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Discussion? All in favor? Well, she cares. Opposed. It wasn't any closer because he raised. Okay. I thought he raised it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Then it brings us to item number two, police department, manpower and criminal incident report for July 2026.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, City Administrator. The Police Department Manpower and Criminal Activity Report for July of 2026, a total of 16 officers, worked 2,875 hours, responded to 444 calls for service, investigated 12 traffic accidents, made 49 arrests, issued 244 traffic citations, completed 76 reports, responded to 15 alarm calls, 12 of those were false alarm. Below you'll see a breakdown of our other reports, and I'll entertain any questions you have on our report. If there's no questions, you'll probably notice there's a new face here with me tonight. Matthew Milliken, he was our lieutenant just recently. Recently, his last week was promoted to, or week before, promoted to captain. He's filling Captain Blake Gates' spot, who you all know, left and going to work in the Dallas area. So Matt's been with us for a little over seven years, and he's been with us for a long time. just, like I said, recently moved into that position. So you'll be seeing his face a lot more.

So we thank him. He's been great for us. Would he like to introduce himself?

Congratulations. Amen.

Did he want to say anything? We wouldn't want to not allow you to say something. OK, thank you so much. All right, Mr. Fire Chief.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. My July report, we had a total of 27 calls, 17 of those being inside the city, and 10 in our county response area. We had a relatively slow month, but... It's starting to pick up a little bit for us, so I almost missed this meeting. We had a call, so I had to go help them. So our fire season is starting to pick up, but I will give kudos to the citizens for obeying that do not burn. So we've been fortunate, so I just hope it stays that way. But in front of you all, there's a further breakdown. If I've got any questions on that, I'll be more than happy to answer them for you.

Okay.

Well, we're glad that we respect her. Thank you, Chief. Because it's been dry for quite a while. Yes, ma'am.

And it's getting drier by the day, especially with these 100-degree days. I'm going to excuse myself so I don't run your audience down, because I know I smell like fire. I'm going to get some water so I'm not being rude, but I'm going to excuse myself. Thank you so much. You're excused. We appreciate it.

Thanks, Chief.

And it brings us to item number four. present charter amendment proposition from charter commission and discuss dates for council charter workshops.

Mayor and council, I have before you the charter proposition, the booklet that we've prepared. This is coming out of our charter committee. We've had some meetings this past month, went through all the propositions. I am grateful for all the work that the charter committee members put into it. This has been a lengthy process, really looking into the details of the charter and discussing the what's, why's, and how's of the charter and making recommendations. I can say that the charter amendments that are in this booklet before you were all voted on unanimously by the committee. looked into it in detail enough to address any of their concerns, any of them that were for or against, to where everybody unanimously is presenting these changes and propositions to council. So I have a copy of that. The directive was to submit these to council prior to September the 1st. and that's what this is the next step in this process as i mentioned before the first step is getting it out of committee goes to council for workshops and depending on council's direction due to the lengthiness of it and the amount of the amount of propositions after council has