Juneteenth omitted from holiday calendar as council weighs utility billing and meeting schedule
Bandera City Council on Tuesday, Dec. 9, approved revisions tied to a Texas Department of Agriculture Texas Community Development Block Grant Program and RED program project aimed at adding sidewalks in several areas of the city.
The proposed work includes sidewalk improvements along Cedar Street, 12th Street, Cypress Street and Main Street.
The plan also includes adding lighting to public parking along Cedar Street.
Project officials told the council the original proposal included a switchback from new parking adjacent to 12th Street to Maple Street, along with a sidewalk and retaining wall on Maple Street.
That element was removed, they said, because part of Maple Street falls within a FEMA regulatory floodway and would not be eligible for approval through the grant.
Project Manager Jessica Daidone of Traylor & Associates, working with professional engineer Samuel Leighton of ARDURRA, presented an alternate sidewalk plan intended to “improve the overall connectivity to the downtown area.”
The council also heard from ARDURRA area engineer Jonathan Teatatiller, who discussed broader upgrades planned for the 12th Street area.
“The proposed plan is including the parking and street approvements for the 12th street area,” Teatatiller said. “These are desperately needing rehabilitation from the base. Full depth reconstruction.”
During public comment, Bandera resident Patricia Moore raised concerns about lighting needs citywide and suggested prioritizing the Methodist parking area.
Daidone said expanding lighting beyond what is proposed would likely exceed the project budget.
Teatatiller said the city could work with TDA in the future to identify areas where existing poles and electrical connections are already in place, which could reduce costs.
He added that any broader lighting effort would need to be pursued as a separate project because of the RED grant’s budget limits.
The council voted unanimously to move forward with the revised proposal.
Council members also approved a resolution to keep the city’s holiday calendar as it currently stands, omitting Juneteenth.
Later in the meeting, an agenda item brought by newly elected Council Member Tammy Morrow renewed discussion over city garbage rates. Morrow questioned a 2026 budget line item labeled “sludge removal.” City Treasurer Allyson Wright said the line item was not for the removal process itself, but for the city’s monthly rental on a sludge removal box from Republic Services.
Wright said the sludge removal box was a $38,000 purchase by the city that would be paid off over 15 months.
Morrow argued sludge removal should be billed through residents’ water service rather than the garbage service. Mayor Denise Griffin agreed.
“I understand,” Griffin said. “The sludge fee should be sewer — a sewer fee. It makes sense. A slight fee on the sewer bill to cover the sludge removal, albeit it does go to the garbage company, it is a sewer fee.”
Because the 2026 budget had already been approved by the previous council, Wright said the city could consider restructuring the fee in the future, keeping a line item to cover the monthly rental cost while shifting the funding mechanism to a modest increase to residents’ sewer bills.
Wright and Morrow also revisited the contested 30% increase to garbage bills.
Wright said, “It’s not thirty percent,” while Morrow disagreed, saying, “It will be if we don’t go back to the original numbers. Because the original numbers were marked up from day one.”
Wright said the city faces rising costs regardless of council action.
“But if we don’t do an increase and Republic does, the city will be paying more,” she said. “They will increase regardless of what we do.”
Council Member Lynn Palmer warned against freezing rate increases long-term, citing a previous council’s experience.
“You can vote not to increase for your whole term,” Palmer said. “I have sat on a council that did that one time for four years. They didn’t increase taxes, utilities, sewage, and the city was in the red. We had a forensic auditor come in, and they said if we did not increase every year on something, the city was going to be in the red for quite a long time.”
Wright echoed the concern.
“I don’t want to hurt the city,” she said. “We cannot afford a water plant without revenue. I’m just concerned about the wellbeing of the city.”
The council also voted to accommodate Council Member DeAnna McCabe’s request to move regular meeting start times to 6:30 p.m. from 6 p.m., citing the need to close her business, MisFitz Emporium: Resale Boutique, at 6 p.m.
In another vote, all council members except Jeff Flowers supported holding three meetings each month: on the second and fourth Tuesdays, and on months with a fifth Tuesday, adding a fifth meeting.
Those months will be January, May, July and October.
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