A group called “The Friends of Henly” has concluded that the Henly community would be best served by incorporating as a city and has taken significant steps toward that end by raising money, retaining an attorney, and setting a time line for an incorporation election. That’s fine, and I appreciate their willingness to engage in civic activity.
But at a public meeting on May 28 organized by the Friends of Henly, they operated under the pretense that no such conclusion had been reached. They only reluctantly admitted to having taken affirmative steps toward incorporation during the last five minutes of the meeting when pressed with unwelcome questions from the audience.
I attended the meeting with an open mind, hoping to hear an analysis of the costs and benefits of incorporation and why the Friends of Henly has concluded that such benefits outweigh the costs. Instead, the organizers’ meeting agenda dealt with nothing on the subject of incorporation and was conducted with the pretense that the meeting organizers themselves were undecided regarding incorporation. This approach is disingenuous and counterproductive.
Instead, the advocates of incorporation should straight-forwardly present the public with their view of the benefits of incorporation and why those benefits would outweigh the costs of the taxes, regulation, and bureaucracy which necessarily accompany incorporation.
Making Henly into a city in order to preserve its rural nature seems ironic. If not, they should tell us why not.
Steven A. Carriker
Henly, Texas
