City appoints water liaisons

Former mayor, Riverbend chief to represent city in corps dealings

Two local officials now represent Texarkana, Texas, to the Army Corps of Engineers on water issues.

At its regular meeting Monday, the Texas-side City Council passed a resolution naming Steve Mayo and Elizabeth Fazio Hale as the city’s official points of contact with the corps.

Hale is executive director/CEO of Riverbend Water Resource District. The council appointed Mayo, a former council member and mayor, as the city’s regional water liaison in 2015.

A 2010 agreement already let Riverbend act as the city’s agent in negotiations with the corps over Wright Patman Lake water matters. The resolution passed Monday went further, naming the individuals authorized to negotiate on the city’s behalf.

“This resolution adds a level of transparency and accountability on this very important issue. As we enter a phase of more detailed and serious negotiations related to our water resources, it is imperative that we have the right people at the table, people who have a strong

water acumen and a strong commitment to our region’s interests. … I am honored to be a part of the team,” Hale said in a news release.

Also at the meeting, Fire Chief Eric Schlotter briefed the council on proposed changes to the Texarkana, Texas, Fire Department’s “swap time” policy, which he said has not been revised since 2009. The policy covers how and how often TTFD employees may switch shifts and work for each other.

The new policy would require firefighters to switch only with others of similar qualifications and to swap only time for time, not for cash or other compensation. It would also forbid firefighters from trading overtime shifts and restrict how many trades each can make in a year.

Because of firefighters’ unusual schedule—24 hours on shift followed by 48 hours off—allowing them the flexibility to trade shifts is important to the fire service, Schlotter said. But the process must be reined in.

“It’s something that certainly needs to stay in place. It has to be controlled, and it has to be in compliance with the law,” he said. The council will conduct a public hearing on the policy at its next meeting.

Members also heard a first briefing on a proposed policy governing use of the council’s community relations fund, a new account from which the city pays to participate in activities sponsored by nongovernmental organizations.

The resolution says that the fund is not meant to provide contributions or donations, but to fund participation and provide services, and that the city manager must get council approval for any expenditure of more than $2,000 from the fund.

City Manager John Whitson presented a staff update about the firefighters’ collective bargaining measure to be decided in November’s general election.

Whitson presented a series of facts about the fire department’s performance, resources and compensation without collective bargaining, careful not to cross the line into active campaigning, which is prohibited for city employees.

“That’s what I tried to very carefully do here, is to make sure that everything that’s in this presentation is factual and not a summation on my part or trying to assume something. … I just tried to make sure it was factual and not an opinion on my part,” he said.

The presentation included several graphs showing that Texas-side firefighters’ salaries, after the pay raise recently approved by the council, are above the median household income in the city.

The council’s next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 10.