KYLE — The Kyle Charter Review reviewed articles nine, 10 and 11 at its April 14 meeting.
Prior to the start of the charter review, a resident, Howard Connell, spoke in support of an in-house city auditor during public comment, citing a November 2023 dinner at Texican Cafe in Kyle, where city manager Bryan Langley used his city credit card to pay for several council members’ dinner, along with their spouses.
This possible auditor Connell refers to was discussed at the March 24 meeting, as commissioner Diane Hervol presented the idea, due to the city’s growth and ongoing “issues.” Ultimately, the commissioner made no motion to require an internal auditor and instead requested to add language for the option. Although the new section was presented at this meeting, commissioners opted to bring back language that specified the potential city auditor has experience with municipalities.
Other recommendations to article seven and article eight were unanimously approved by the commission.
“There was some discussion last meeting about the creation of a finance committee,” said city attorney Aimee Alcorn-Reed. “What I have done in response to that is some benchmarking. And so, [the] city of Kyle, we always start with our 10 peer cities. Out of the 10 peer cities, there are six that do have some sort of audit or finance committee.”
In addition to those, she looked at 15 other cities with a range of populations, from Katy and Grapevine to Dallas and Houston, of which nine had finance or audit committees. Only Dallas had a charter requirement for a standing council finance committee.
“My recommendation is to not include [a requirement in the charter] mostly because I’m concerned about putting requirements of a commission or board in the charter and not being able to fill those positions and not being able to change the requirements,” said Alcorn-Reed.
“We [used to] have a finance committee and it was not terribly effective and if the council elects to have an internal auditor, I don’t think it’s necessary to have this in the charter. They can always write an ordinance to add a finance committee,” said commissioner Lila Knight.
No motion was made to include a finance committee in the charter.
Article 9 Revenue and Taxation consists of: taxation, procedures, tax assessor-collector, property taxes and tax liens and claims.
The city attorney made no recommendations to this article, but Knight noted that the city does not have a tax assessor-collector, to which Alcorn-Reed stated that it is because Kyle has a contract with the county for its tax assessor-collector.
With no changes suggested, the commission moved onto article 10, which includes: purpose and intent; comprehensive plan; comprehensive plan adoption and amendment; planning commission; planning commission powers and duties; duties; planning and development department; board of adjustment; capital improvements program; and subdivisions and developments.
Section 10.03 Comprehensive Plan Adoption and Amendment is “wordy and has a lot of specific requirements,” according to Alcorn-Reed, including the language — “prepared and drafted by personnel and/or consultants authorized by the council” — that would allow council to direct city staff to prepare the comprehensive plan, which could be inconsistent with the city manager’s responsibility over staff.
“It may be that we need to make it clear that the ‘authorized by the city council’ is modifying the consultants [for the plan] and not the personnel,” said Alcorn-Reed.
Despite these suggestions, the commission opted to neither change the language nor shorten the three paragraph section.
“10.04 Planning Commission, the reason I’m pointing this one out is because the provision seems very weird. They’re appointed to two year terms, but cannot serve more than five years and the math isn’t mathing to me, so I’m bringing it up to talk about,” said Alcorn-Reed.
Knight stated that the language needs to be clarified, but that four years is “more than enough” for planning and zoning, as it is “heavy lifting.”
Commissioner Michael Walsh suggested the language be changed to specify that someone could fill an unexpired term and only be elected twice, with Knight adding that they would be consecutive terms.
In an effort to recognize the happenings in the state legislature, Knight recommended adding “in accordance with state law” to Section 10.05 Planning Commission Powers and Duties. The commission recommended adding a subsection “J” that would acknowledge that the commission does nothing that violates state law.
Knight also stated that she would like to see the Planning and Zoning Commission make comments or recommendations on development agreements, perhaps in a subsection “K.”
The only recommendation made to article 11 was to move Section 11.11 Election Required and 11.12 Contracts Concerning City Property, since it doesn’t make sense with the other items, according to the presentation.
After discussions of moving it to Article 13 General Provisions, or even Article 1 Incorporation, Form of Government and Powers of the City, Alcorn-Reed suggested she try it out in various sections and bring it back at the next meeting for final approval.
To listen to the discussion, visit bit.ly/4lEVbtZ.
