Groveton council discusses petition to change council

GROVETON — The Groveton City Council will take no action regarding a petition that sought to upend the council.

City Secretary Dorrie Cotton said that in February, she was given a anonymously sourced petition seeking to change city government from a mayor-council to a city manager-council form of government.

The matter was discussed at the March 24 meeting.

Mayor Ralph Bennett was given the petition; state law states the city has 10 days to respond. However, the council researched the matter, and after talking with the Texas Municipal League and city attorneys, the petition was ignored.

Cotton said she did not know who started the petition.

According to city attorneys, the petition was deemed invalid because it lacked “pertinent information,” and it did not contain the required number of proper signatures. Statutes indicate that at least 20 percent of the signatures must be from registered voters who participated in the last city election.

In a separate matter, several city residents expressed concerns with water system failure and questioned the city on what was being done to prevent that from happening in the future. While there was no action, the council did later approve water conservation and drought contingency plans.

In other business, the council:

• approved Librarian Cathy Czajkowski doing janitorial services at the library instead of hiring additional staff;
• tabled a contract approval related to a downtown revitalization grant of $500,000;
• approved several resolutions required for the $4.2 million water grant the city received;
• approved payment of $8,752.60 to Inframark for water and sewer services;
• approved an increase on water service costs to go into effect April 1. Cotton said the change will have no effect on customer’s water bills, it’s just an internal matter to cover the cost increase on supplies used during administration of water and sewer systems;
• approved seeking bids for cybersecurity services;
• discussed a Texas WorkForce program to provide employees;
• discussed updates for the city project of drilling a new water well; and
• and heard a presentation from Larry Jones with Texas Rebuild on digital water meters.

At a special meeting March 6, the city tabled any action regarding a notice of rate increase from Centerpoint/Entergy, and approved a resolution for community wildfire grant application.