David Pope urges caution.
At May 21st Commission Meeting, Commissioner Lewis objected to his earlier motion, which had passed, to include the items that Commissioner Robbins had requested be placed on the Agenda, including the discussion of the City's financial responsibilities to Waco through the Waco contract. His reasoning:
Commissioner Lewis: "Mr. Mayor, I made the motion that we put these on the agenda tonight, but I didn't realize the extent of the meeting or the magnitude of the three things that we are going to discuss. The Norwood deal I think we can discuss now, but I don't think we can do the contract with Waco tonight. I don't think that would be fair to Waco or to the citizens, because we didn't advertise it on the agenda. The city attorney, I don't know what she want…"
Mayor Coerper said "One thing we have been fairly consistent with, when we come up with things like the Waco Contract… People aren't here to get opposing views."
Commissioner Robbins stated "It is not necessarily to sit here and debate what the contract actually says. We all know that city is obligated financially through this contract. My efforts are to bring this open to discussion to assess what the City's financial obligations are through this contract. That's it. It is not to decide whether it exists or not, whether it is legal or not." She said she has been asking for information on this but hasn't received any. "I feel uncomfortable in this position, I think the citizens are uncomfortable not knowing what the obligation is through this contract. I think we need to get it underway and get it researched so it is on the table and we know what it is."
Commissioner Lewis: I say again I think anything of this magnitude needs to be advertised properly. "A lot of people like the contract we have. They don't have a chance to be here to discuss this side of the issue." He went on to say "I think the Commissioners should abide by the same rules the citizens have to abide by in getting stuff they want on the agenda in on a timely basis."
Commissioner Robbins replied "I am not interested in starting a debate on who likes the contract and who doesn't. We need to have engineers looking at what we are obligated to period. It isn't an opinion thing. I don't see why Waco has to be here to defend it. It is about our city, and what we are obligated to."
Commissioner Lewis: "I don't see an engineer here tonight that's going to discuss this thing. And I don't think legally do anything like this unless we advertise it properly and the proper people are here…"
Mayor Coerper broke in. "One thing that I think has happened before is I think that number has surfaced, on what our obligation could be." He asked if the staff could bring those numbers up.
Commissioner Robbins said that she wasn't looking for a number tonight, but that she just wanted to set this process into motion and set a timeline when the engineers could present to the Commission their findings.
Traci Cain spoke up. "Staff did meet with our Engineers and representatives from Waco a few weeks ago to discuss just this." She related that they are in the process, and that in a couple more weeks they could present those numbers to the commission.
Neil Malphurs said "Mr. Mayor, I just really cannot sit still here. To have a meeting, and this is a legal document, and I was not invited to be there and give my interpretation of the agreement. I don't understand what engineers might come up with what might be, but wouldn't be important to know what we are legally obligated and the ramifications of it?"
Traci Cain: It wasn't an interpretation of the contract, it was to provide costs for infrastructure.
Mr. Malphurs: Even Waco doesn't even know what is going to be built on the industrial land at the present.
Both Ms. Cain and Mr. Paulsen spoke up, saying that "Waco was there!"
Mayor Coerper said "We are asking for a figure, a possible cost here. I suppose that is open to interpretation as far as you go down the road that figure might change, but right now if you were to build that piece of property out to its maximum, there is probably a pretty close dollar figure you can put on that." He continued by saying that that was something they probably needed to look at.
Commissioner Robbins made a motion to schedule this presentation for the next commission meeting.
Commissioner Lewis said that the projected revenues to the City should also be presented. "What it costs you, and what you are going to make on it."
Mayor Coerper said that he understood.
Ms. Cain stressed that the engineers were going to have to get information from Waco, so they might not be done. Commissioner Robbins said that she would be happy with a progress report.
Commissioner Lewis said "We have the Fishkind report. It does most of the stuff we are trying to find out now. We need to get the Fishkind report out…"
Mayor Coerper said that he didn't think it dealt with infrastructure and what the actual City's obligation was.
Commissioner Hills reminded everyone that there was a 1.7 million dollar payment the City had to give Waco if "we don't do it."
Commissioner Lewis said "If we are going to have some kind of discussion, we are going to discuss both sides at the same time. Not just lead the City to think that we got 8 million expenditure or something like that and don't go into the revenue side."
Finance Director Anthony Morgan asked to speak. Mayor denied him, and said "We have a motion on the floor, and we need a second"
Commissioner Burgess seconded it.
Commissioner Lewis amended the motion so "we can get involved in the Fishkind report." Commissioner Hills seconded it.
They voted on the amended motion first, with it passing unanimously.
Robert Perez broke in again, and asked "What about public comment? We need to do it right."
Robert Perez suggested that if the Commission was going to look at the costs and the revenues, they should also seek outside legal help because Mr. Malphurs "was the attorney when this contract was signed!" He said that if the costs were one penny more than the 1.7 million the City would forfeit if they did not honor this contract, the should just go ahead and forfeit it.
Waco Representative David Pope got up during Mr. Perez's speech. He asked that the City Staff and the Commission be careful with what the engineers give them. "We have discussed several different things that they were going to give us. Infrastructure costs the City needs right now with or without Waco. Infrastructure that would be associated given to Waco, and specifically, at Ms. Robbins request I think had more to do with the contract and the cost of infrastructure on industrially zoned lands. I don't think that was tasked specifically. I think you also need to consider that whatever that cost is is over a period of time." He said the period of time was up to 10 years. "I would like you all to be careful so that we don't end up misleading the public or misleading the commission either."
Ms. Cain said she didn't realize that the deadline for items on the agenda was this Thursday, and she didn't feel that the staff would be ready by then. Commissioner Robbins said that she would like a report, even if the final numbers weren't available.
Mayor Coerper felt that that could be misleading.
Commissioner Robbins said "That is progress! At least you know where it is going!" She said that she had put in a request for this information a while ago, and was unable to get information from staff on this. She just wanted to know what is going on. "I am being left out of an information loop that I don't like." She stated that even if this item was continually on the agenda for the next two months, that would be fine with her. At least there would be an update."
Mayor Coerper said that all she had to do is to talk to the City Manager.
"I did." Commissioner Robbins said.
Mayor Coerper felt there was a danger in allowing reports of incomplete data. Commissioner Robbins said that if that was the only way to get information, then that is what she wanted to happen.
Anthony Morgan: "Can I make a comment? Ms. Robbins? Commissioner Robbins? We've had quite a few requests from you and other commissioners. It is almost impossible to fulfill all the requests on the time table that you desire it to be on because we have other tasks to do as well."
Commissioner Robbins stated that two weeks was ample time.
Mr. Morgan stated "I am the one who had to do one of your public requests and it took about 5 or 6 hours on a Saturday to do it. Now that is only one of the request that you made. You're basically the only one who has made a request. It has taken quite a bit of time of City Staff. We are trying to get to those as quick as we can, but there is other things a city has to do. We have to pay its bills, we have to manage its bank accounts, we have to audit work and do all the other items. I think you are going to have to kind of bear with us some what so we don't make some little mistakes. One other item, I think this is very unfair when a Commissioner adds this to our agenda at a time when we really can't tell you how much longer this process is going to take. If you had done this through the normal process and time, like every other Commissioner has to do, or every other citizen has to do, to be on the agenda properly, we could have taken the time to assess how much time this would have taken."
Commissioner Robbins said "Well thank you, Mr. Morgan, for that input. But it is a Commissioner's prerogative to be able to amend the agenda at the time of the meeting."
Mr. Morgan made a reply that was impossible to make out.
Susan Murray said "I want to make a comment in Commissioner Robbins defense. She is asking for a simple cost assessment. Not even a cost assessment, but a project report. How difficult can this be?"
The motion was passed unanimously. In two weeks Staff was going to try and present the costs in two weeks. | 
