WOODVILLE – Woodville City Council met for the regular monthly meeting last Tuesday evening and discussed a variety of agenda items for council’s approval.
Mayor Amy Bythewood opened the meeting with a proclamation in recognition of Native American Heritage Month for November. Moving on, council quickly approved a resolution authorizing the submission of a Texas Community Development Block Grant Application to the Texas Department of Agriculture for the Community Development Fund, This grant is for $750K, and there is typically a match, usually around 20%.
Council approved a final plat of 0.0997-acre tract of the property subdivided in the foregoing plat of the Copes estate, said property is located next to the city park on MLK. Council next approved the appointment of a committee to discuss options and potential funding of a proposed Trap Neuter Program (TNR) Cat Management Program for outdoor free roaming cats in a 3.1 square mile are located in the city limits of Woodville. Kathy Taylor spoke about the need for this at the October council meeting, bringing some furry felines with her to make her case. Council approved a committee of Alderwomen Paula Jones, Kelly Dillard and the mayor to the committee.
Council next discussed the need to approve a Tik Tok policy for the city. Bythewood prefaced this discussion by saying that TML requires every city in the state of Texas to have a Tik Tok policy in place by Nov. 20, 2024, according to a law passed last year, in 2023.
City Administrator Mandy Risinger explained “your best course of action to become compliant would be for Brad (Brad Elrod, the city’s attorney) to prepare a policy according to TML’s policy and bring it into effect. It will become evident down the road why we needed to do this. She added, “the auditor will come, it may not be this year, it may not be next year, and at some point will ask Terri (Bible) “hey do you have your Tik Tok policy”? and she will hand it to them, and they will check it off the list. In the end, council approved the motion to authorize Brad Elrod to prepare a policy in this regard.
Some items of community interest were brought up, and everyone was asking about the holiday activities at the courthouse. The annual lighting of the courthouse is scheduled for Dec. 6, and the 7 is cram packed with all sorts of fun activities, starting off with Rotary’s “Breakfast with Santa” that morning.
Although the election results had yet to be canvassed, Bythewood, Dillard and Mike Cabaniss all retained their council positions, serving another two-year term respectively for the city of Woodville.
