Changes made to environmental health services
Wimberley City Council unanimously approved on Nov. 21 a renewed interlocal agreement between the city and Hays County for floodplain and environmental health services.
This interlocal agreement aims to renew the existing agreement with Hays County with some minor changes.
Mentions of on-site sewage facilities (OSSF) have been removed; according to the city of Wimberley, state statute automatically allows for counties to have jurisdiction over OSSF if cities do not have their own OSSF ordinance.
“We don’t need to have an interlocal agreement with them [for this]. It automatically does that,” explained director of development services Nathan Glaiser.
Additionally, the amended agreement adds language to allow the county to perform health inspections for daycare and foster facilities, as well as conduct its mosquito surveillance program within city limits.
“We added some services that the county is performing for us that they have been, but we wanted to have it here in writing on the interlocal [agreement],” Glaiser said. “The price is staying the same; right now, it is $3,000 a month that the city is paying the county for these services. I will say, after talking with them, that for the next fiscal year, they are going to be asking to raise those prices somewhere, probably around $5,000 a month.”
Council member Rebecca Minnick questioned why the cost is going to be raised “so much, I mean, that doesn’t seem very incremental.”
There is an increase in food establishments in Hays County as a whole and the county is facing challenges keeping up with it, Glaiser explained. For example, the city of Wimberley — including all of the churches and buildings that have a commercial kitchen — has approximately 60 food establishments.
“It is a big job for them to handle that and they did some math about what it would cost us to do it and that’s where they landed at that number,” he said.
Wimberley City Council meets next at 6 p.m. on Dec. 5. For more information, visit www.cityofwimberley.com/292/Public-Meetings.
