8/7/2019 Willow Park-United Cities second forum Part I

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By Dominic GenettiThe Community News

About 60 citizens came out to Los Vaqueros Banquet Hall in WillowPark Tuesday, July 27 to hear Willow

Park Mayor Ken Hawkins talk abouthis united cities proposal that wouldcombine the six cities of East ParkerCounty.

It was never really intended to be a topping down, a change, inmunicipal code in this area, Hawkinssaid in regard to his plan. Its alwaysbeen my hope that if this could catchour imagination, this would be agrassroots movement from the bot-tom up where people would starttalking to their elected officials and

start encouraging them to thinkabout this.

Before he took questions fromthe crowd made up of mostly WillowPark residents (about 30-plus paid$10 for the taco bar) Hawkinsaddressed what he called importantkeys to uniting Aledo, Hudson Oaks,the Annettas, and Willow Park underone municipality. The plan proposesthat the cities come together underthe Aledo name.

There is a loss of efficiency if youconsider were paying salaries, we arepaying retirement plans, were pay-ing for buildings that these people sitin, were paying for air conditioningand all of these costs to the citizensare being duplicated across a smallenclave of people that have their ownspecial interests, Hawkins said. Wereally need to stop and think, evenat the local level, what we can doto improve the efficiency of govern-ment and to reduce the costs to the

citizens.

Since his proposal became public,Hawkins has warned of a tsunamithat is coming toward East ParkerCounty. He attributed statistics tostate and local government authori-ties that have told him a vast waveof population that is going to hit usin the next business cycle.

Hawkins said accompanying thisgrowth is traffic and crime and thatthe cities must act quickly.

Right now, there is not a singlereason I can think of why we shouldunite our cities, the Willow Parkmayor said. We have a very peace-ful lifestyle, we have very low traffic,our homes are unlocked, theres nocrime, its absolutely a wonderful

community to live in, the people arealmost universally fantastic people weve got a few strange ones hereand there, but by and large most ofthe people are very nice.

Our infrastructure is going tosuffer. Were going to see a lot ofapartments built into the area, thesepeople are not vested home ownersin the community, they are moretransient, they have more dynamicsthat effect their lives and any analy-sis of this type of influx of people will

indicate that youre going to have anincrease in crime.

A cut in taxesOne of the many questions asked

by several citizens has been Whatsin it for me? One citizen asked itat Los Vaqueros and the Aledo CityCouncil discussed that topic at theirregular meeting July 22. Thats aquestion Hawkins said people needto stay away from. He mentioned

that citizens could see the benefit of

tax cuts if the cities come togetheras one.

Whats in it for you, is you havea reduction in your tax credibility,Hawkins said to a citizen who pro-claimed he only has 10 to 15 years oflife left. I think, projecting, that ifthis plan was implemented, that wewould see approximately 30 percentin reduction in the tax liabilities inthe citizens in the county every yearfor about 20 years.

Weve got to get away from thismindset of whats in it for me, wereally have to think like a commu-nity. If we think like a community, we can really do something incred-ible here, we have maybe one of the

best lifestyles in the entire UnitedStates.

But some of the cities in the EastParker County region have certaintaxes and others dont.

Property taxes is one of the rea-sons why Hudson Oaks Mayor PatDeen sent an e-mail to Hawkinsrequesting that his city be removedfrom any discussions of a merger.

I am working on a presentation,not one like this, with the attor-ney general of the state of Texasin which the cities can join, and keeptheir current tax status and onlyhave a change in that tax status trig-gered to you by a calender event; two years, five years, 10 years down theroad, or a by a population increase.

This (presentation to the attor-ney general) is a very complicatedframework, its been worked on andI dont have it to where I can giveit to you tonight, but I can tell youthat I am serious about the idea of

promoting this.

Yet mayors from two of the cit-ies have backed out of discussionsinvolving a merger.

I will tell you up front that therewasnt an invitation that we visit in asix-town meeting, Hawkins said, sothe fact that they opted out of some-thing I didnt even invite them to isnoteworthy and interesting.

In my own mind, I thoughtmaybe theres a 10 percent chanceI could get this done because of theresponse that Ive had, I think maybeIm up to a about 25 percent chance,but still statistically its unlikely thatit will occur.

Aledo Mayor Kit Marshall, begsto differ.

He asked us (the area mayors)for a response to his idea, Marshallsaid. Thats talking out of both sidesof the mouth.

Why would you hand out anidea if you didnt expect a responseback, especially when you asked forthat response?

Combination of servicesunclear, reduction in staff

would save dollarsMaking a surprise address to the

citizens at Los Vaqueros was WillowPark Police Chief Brad Johnson. Nextto the questions involving taxes andcitizen benefits in merging the cities,questions about local law enforce-ment and emergency services havebeen raised.

I dont know all the answersabout emergency services, Hawkinssaid. All I can tell you, the three(fire) chiefs together could probably

find the right solution.

Aledo, Willow Park and HudsonOaks have fire departments. WillowPark and Hudson Oaks supply theircities with police departments while Aledo and the Annettas are ser-viced by the Parker County SheriffsDepartment.

No matter what happens, wheth-er there is a united mega-city, if you want to call it that or not, I thinkthe city of Willow Park will prosper because I think that everything onthe interstate from the (FM) 1187corridor all the way through to FM-5, that belongs or will belong to thecity of Willow Park will grow and it will grown substantially, Johnsonsaid in his impromptu speech.

There are some errors to thisplan. There are some benefits to joining the cities and in some waysI do agree with what he (Hawkins)has to say. Vote for what you think isright, thats all you can ever do.

Hawkins went on to say that join-ing the cities would save the citizensmoney by cutting down the amountof staff members. A city with up to12 people making the decisions, hesaid, would be easier than the cur-

rent cities working separately.We would like to have our fire

department (Willow Park) under acity umbrella so that they can partic-ipate in things like a retirement planthat our police and public worksdepartments have, Hawkins said.So I think the goal would be to havea whole city, a paid staff with morefire stations and we need to havemore emergency services around theAnnettas.

Turn to HAWKINS, page 3A

WILLOW PARK

Round 2: Hawkins holds second meeting pushing united cities proposal