Citing the unusual and unforeseen condition that the City of Teague is suing the City of Fairfield and the ever increasing excessive costs of litigation as grave public necessity, Fairfield City Council unanimously approved an ordinance to amend the 2018-2019 fiscal year budget in the amount of $130,325.00 in order to pay off the Certificate of Obligation for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) wastewater facility. “It is believed that acceleration of payment on the debt service will facilitate the end of the litigation,” stated Mayor Kenny Hughes. Councilmen made this vote following a Public Hearing on the matter, in which not one member of the community spoke, during the Tuesday, March 26th regularly scheduled meeting. Money to pay off this Certificate of Obligation has been set aside and is available in the budget to do so. Councilman Place 1 – James Tyus, requested possible action on the addition of two selected citizens to the Project City Hall committee. He explained that currently, the committee is made of up three members, Mayor Hughes, City Administrator Nate Smith, and Councilman Place 4 – Landis Bayless; and that he would like to see two Fairfield residents, to be chosen by Council, to be part of this committee. Councilman Tyus explained that as he is not himself a member of this committee, he has done his own due diligence to try to discover costs of purchasing land and building a brand new City Hall versus purchasing the Navarro College – Fairfield Campus and making some upgrades to fit it to the City’s needs. With his findings, he believes that the Navarro College – Fairfield Campus is the smarter way to go. He states that the public has expressed concern over this matter and has many questions, and that adding to the committee could potentially help alleviate some of the anxiousness of the town’s citizenship. “I think our next step should be to have a town hall meeting to hear the citizens and to answer their questions,” stated Councilman Place 3 – Keith Daniels. “A lot of those questions are already answered,” states Councilman Bayless. “There is a lot of sensitive information and we can’t release all that just yet.” Councilman Bayless also said that he would be ok with adding citizens to the committee if they were chose by the three members, to insure that they could all work well together; while Councilman Place 5 – Jason Bosley stated that he believes that Council should have say over who sits on the committee. Ultimately, Councilman Tyus withdrew his motion and no vote was taken on this matter. See more from Councilman Tyus in his letter to the editor on page …. Concerns voiced by Councilman Bosley, regarding the renewal of agreements with Fairfield Fest, LLC and Trade Days coordinator David Fairly led to a bit of confusion. Councilman Bosley was questioning the legality of utilizing Hotel/Motel monies for the purpose of running the two events. Due to this, he reached out to the state board over Hotel/Motel Tax Revenue via email to ask their opinion on using the funds for this purpose. Once he explained his concerns and reasoning for questioning this, Administrator Smith thanked Councilman Bosley for the clarification, to which Bosley replied, “I expect no attitude from you, thank you!” After a bit more discussion on the two contracts, Council approved both agreements for another year, to end on March 31, 2020. If Council finds that Hotel/Motel funds cannot be used for these events, money from the Community Development Fund will be used instead. Council members were given a presentation by CPA Frank Campos for the Fairfield Economic Development Corporation’s (FEDC) 2018 Financial Audit Report. “The EDC has had a good year. I’ve given them a clean opinion,” explained Campos. “They keep a good set of books over there and stay on top of it.” Fund Balance for the 2018 Fiscal Year was $3.4 million. Council also approved the appointment of Warren Davis to the FEDC Board for a three-year term. Davis has previously served on this board and has a great resume. He will be replacing Will Hallmark. Council also unanimously approved an agreement renewal with the Fairfield Softball Association for use of the softball fields located on Oak Street next to the Rodeo Arena, as well as a purchase order in the amount of $15,245 for a module assembly UV3 upgrade for the Mims Creek Wastewater Plant. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Fairfield City Council is set for Tuesday, April 9th, beginning at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall. Nicole Schaefer reporting
