By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
County commissioners court meetings will continue being held in the mornings, at least until late September, county officials told a group of activists who want the meetings scheduled after work hours.
The court considered the time change during its most recent meeting Feb. 14.
During the citizen comments portion of the meeting, Sandra Fuentes, co-chair of The Border Organization, told the court she wanted to address an item on its agenda, a discussion of and possible action on “moving commissioners court meetings to every other Tuesday at 6 p.m. beginning Feb, 28, 2023.”
“I ask you to keep your commitment that each and every one of you, at one time or another, have given to The Border Organization throughout the years, of changing the meeting time from the morning to the evening,” Fuentes told the court.
“It’s been said that if people really were interested in any given issue on the agenda, that they could make it happen, they can not go to work that day, they can ask for the morning off and come address the court. It’s not that easy. Either their boss or their workplace will not give them the time off, number one, or maybe they can’t afford to ask for the morning off because they need every dollar,” she continued.
“As commissioners, as judge, you have a set salary, whether you come and have this meeting in the morning or you have it in the evening. You get paid. People that would have to ask for the morning off, they won’t get paid that morning. They won’t get paid, and it’s hard. We’ve had some leaders here who’ve asked for the morning off, and they have to make it up some other way. Please, again, we need to remind you of your commitment to The Border Organization on changing the meeting time,” Fuentes said.
She also told the court evening meetings make it easier for other citizens to participate.
“I was talking the Mr. Esser (county grants administrator Carl Esser) right before the meeting, and I said, you know, the (Community Development Block Grant hearings are) mandated by the state to meet in the evenings (for its public hearings). Why is that? ‘Well, they just want more citizen participation,’ he said. There you have it,” Fuentes said.
“You would have, perhaps, more citizen participation. This entity is a governmental entity, and it’s here to do business with its citizens, and it makes it very hard when your meetings are in the mornings. We cannot do business with you in the morning.
“Commissioner Wardlaw asked Judge Owens to have an evening meeting to discuss the route from the POE. Why? Because we all know that you have more participation in the evenings.
“That’s not to say that if this commissioners court decides to change to evening meetings, and two months from now, you come and there’s not one citizen here, it’s probably going to happen, but at least you give citizens a choice. That’s the point. You give them a choice whether to attend or not,” Fuentes said.
After Fuentes finished speaking, Owens said he would like to move up discussion of the proposed meeting time change.
“The reason that I put this on the agenda, we had several people in the last two weeks asking to change the meeting time. My last discussion with one of them was I didn’t think we could unless we did it toward the end of our fiscal year, and I did speak with a member of The Border Organization yesterday, and like I told her, we talk about it and we talk about it and talk about it, but at the end of the day, before I put this item on the agenda, the last person I talked to, I tried to explain that we have a calendar year and a fiscal year, and we set the meetings at the end of the fiscal year, and we actually publicize it and take a vote on it, so I didn’t think we could change it,” Owens said.
“That individual that I talked to got mad. ‘You can do whatever you want to; you do whatever you want to anyway,’ and then I listened to that for about two or three minutes. Not from The Border Organization, just somebody else, so I told her I would put an item on the agenda, and we’re going to take care of this now and get it over with. That way, we just don’t keep having the phone calls, and we’re going to do this, whatever it is, and then we’ll either take care or it or not take care of it again sometime in September,” Owens said.
Owens also asked Assistant County Attorney John Clemmer to speak about the issue.
Owens asked Clemmer, “John, can we change it now or do we need to wait?”
Clemmer replied, “According to the Texas Local Government Code, essentially, it’s mandatory language that we shall set the date and time and location of the meeting at the last meeting of the prior fiscal year, so moving forward, if you want to change the date or time, or possibly set up a secondary date, we have that option, but it would have to occur the last meeting of the fiscal year.”
“So, in my opinion, there is no action to be taken on this item because I can’t change the meeting, so we’ll look at it towards the end of September or the end of our fiscal year,” Owens said.
He told Fuentes and The Border Organization members, “So at that point, if you all want to continue to hammer on us, at that point, that would be the time, in August, September.”
County Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton said the court’s last meeting of the fiscal year is set for Sept. 26.
“I’m not opposed to a 6 p.m. meeting. I don’t think both meetings need to be at 6 p.m. I think one of them needs to be at 6 p.m. and one at 9 a.m. We have a lot of housekeeping stuff that we do that I don’t think would require us to meet in the evening,” Nettleton said.
In response to another question from Fuentes, Owens said the court could in the meantime schedule evening meetings about topics of wider public interest, such as the meeting on the proposed international bridge route.
County Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” Flores said he had a comment about the issue.
“I’ve been a commissioner 12 years, and I have never received a call from a constituent or a taxpayer of Val Verde County wanting the meetings moved to the afternoon. Never have I had one call. That’s all I want to state,” Flores said.
The court took no action following the discussion.
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