June Important City News & Information

Dear Neighbors,

I’d like to thank everyone who came to City Hall last week for the swearing-in of our two new council representatives, Omar Roman and Richard Jackson, and for my send-off. Your messages of appreciation for my six years of service were overwhelming and truly appreciated.

I promised to stay in touch with you and keep you informed on things happening in our city.

Be sure to stay in touch with me as there may be some exciting news coming in a few weeks.

In the meantime, please take a moment to read further and see what is happening in Farmers Branch…

SPECIAL CALLED CITY COUNCIL MEETING, TUESDAY, MAY 31

The Mayor has called for a special meeting of the City Council on Tuesday, May 31, at 3:30pm, at City Hall to discuss two items.

To authorize an agreement with the Town of Addison for Jail Services.

The agreement is for Farmers Branch to intake prisoners from Addison and provide jail services for an initial period of 10 years. Addison would pay Farmers Branch for this service. The fee for this service will be $300,000 for the first year with escalations built into the contract.

To conduct a public hearing to discuss changing the City’s retirement plan to make employees eligible to retire after 20 years of service instead of 25 years of service as is currently in place.

COMMENT: Farmers Branch and Richardson are the only two cities in the area that are currently 25 year retirement cities. The change would put our city on a more level playing field with other cities for hiring employees. However, this changes comes with a very significant cost, about another $300,000 a year in additional contributions to the city retirement fund by taxpayers.

The Mayor has proposed using the money received from the contract for jail services with Addison to pay for this increased cost.

While that is certainly possible, I do not understand what the rush is to approve the change in the retirement plan. There have been no public discussions to this point and having one meeting in the middle of the afternoon does not give residents enough opportunity to weigh-in on the issue, in my opinion.

I have reached out to my council representative to express my views on this and offer another suggestion for how to pay for this change. I expect there will be discussion about this on Tuesday.

The public is invited to attend. If you wish to speak on the issue, you will need to fill out a Comment Form in advance and submit to the City Secretary.

JUNE CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS

Upcoming City Council meetings for June will take place Tuesday, June 7^th and 21^st, at 6pm, in the City Council Chambers. The meetings are open to the public. The Study Sessions will take place at 3:00pm prior to each meeting in the upstairs meeting room.

Citizens are always welcome to address the City Council on any topic during the Citizen Comment portion of Council meetings or on agenda items at the proper time during a Council meeting provided they have signed-up in advance per the Mayor’s order. Citizen Comment Forms must be submitted no later than 5:30pm on Council meeting days. Citizens are given 3 minutes to speak to any topic as long as they are cordial and don’t make disparaging remarks to Council or staff. This is your time to bring issues to the attention of Council and the City.

CITIZEN COMMENT FORM

The agenda for the Council Meetings and Study Sessions may be found by clicking on AGENDA.

Call 972.919.2503 or send an email to Amy Piukana at amy.piukana@farmersbranchtx.gov for more information about speaking.

FREE MEAL FOR ACTIVE ADULTS AT TBC

The First Monday Breakfast for June takes place Monday, June 6, at 8:15am at The Branch Connection and will be limited to the first 100 people. Free for TBC members and $5 for non-members. Come join us for some good food, meet new neighbors and see what all is happening at TBC!

See all of what is happening by reviewing The Branch Connection NEWSLETTER.