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HomeMy WebLinkAboutGary McKamie Correspondence 1999-2011T H E C I T Y O F T T S S L To: Mayor and Council Members From: Gary L. McKamie Date: July 26, 1999 Re: Resale Shops We have recently looked into Councilman Hogg's request for an ordinance regulating business transactions, which occur in a resale shop. The proposed ordinance would have required a resale shop to identify a person from whom they purchased property, keep records of such purchases, and then hold merchandise for a specified period prior to resale. These regulations are common in the pawnbroker and gold and silver exchange industry. The City of Euless adopted ordinances regulating Gold and Silver Exchanges as well as Pawn Shops in 1964. These ordinances remained in our code until 1993 at which time they were deleted in lieu of Texas Law. The state now has regulatory authority over these industries. I have spoken with Councilman Hogg to determine his interest in having legal research completed to assess our local authority to pass a regulatory ordinance specific to a resale shop. He did not see the need in pursuing the matter any further. Therefore, we do not plan any further action unless the council should desire more research. GLM/kar Cc: Joe Hennig, City Manager Susan Crim, City Secretary 201 N. Ector Drive, Euless, Texas 76039-3595 817/685-1400 ® Metro 817/267-4403 e Fax 817/685-1416 T H E C I T Y O F EULI! S -� To: Mayor Council Members From: Gary L. McKamie Date: August 11, 1999 Re: Sign and Banner Printer Per your request at the budget retreat I have investigated the proposed usage of the Sign and Banner printer requested by the Community Service Department. Rick estimates the annual expense for signs and banners to be about $7,000. This estimate would be for a typical year and could certainly be higher depending upon the number of special events we host. He believes that he will be able to produce these signs and banners for about 20% of the cost we currently pay. Signage at events such as Arbor Daze has always been a challenge. A comment each year at our critique of Arbor Daze is the need for more signage. We feel confident that the capability this printer will provide Rick and his talented people will allow us to provide a higher level of promotional and directional signs at a lower cost. Cc: Joe Hennig, City Manager 201 N. Ector Drive, Euless, Texas 76039-3595 817/685-1400 • Metro 817/267-4403 • Fax 817/685-1416 T H E C I T Y O F EULESS To: Mayor Council Members From: Gary L. McKamie Date: August 10, 1999 Re: Pass-Thru Ordinance A question was asked at the budget retreat regarding the ability to pass-thru an increased cost of water from T.R.A. with no council action. Loretta has researched that issue and found that our pass-thru ordinance does allow such action. However, the fee ordinance must be amended and that does require council action. We will be bringing an amended fee ordinance to the council for consideration sometime prior to November. I hope this fully answers your question. Please call if we can assist you further. 201 N. Ector Drive, Euless, Texas 76039-3595 817/685-1400 o Metro 817/267-4403 • Fax 817/685-1416 T H E C I T Y O F S S $T To: Mayor and Council f From: Gary L. McKamie Deputy City Manager �./ Date: October 8, 1999 Re: Council Requests for Info>mation I. Engineering has been in recent contact with TXDOT regarding traffic signals on S.H. 360 at Midway Drive. TXDOT has approved traffic signals for southbound 360 at Midway. Funding is expected in December with a contract letting expected in June. TXDOT continues to decline our request for the northbound lanes. We will continue to seek approval for the northbound side. 2. Traffic loops have been restored at the intersection of North Main Street at Harwood Road. They are temporary loops to be replaced with permanent loops when the intersection is reconstructed. 3. The 60-foot section of sidewalk that has not been constructed at South Euless Elementary School will be a part of the 2nd phase of construction scheduled to begin in January. I hope this provides the information you had requested. Please call if you need or desire additional information. 201 N. Ector Drive, Euless, Texas 76039-3595 ti17 1-QQ -1400 , Metro R17/267-4403 Fax 817/685-1416 T H E_ C I T Y O F i� j �'p, { � Mgr. �{ - { ^.^ss. .r.'�4 J S 1 DATE: April 23, 2004 TO: Council Members FROM: Gary McKamie SUBJECT: Council Parking As we discussed at your last meeting, the first three parking spaces past the handicap spaces on both the north and south rows of the City Hall parking lot will be marked for your use on Council days. This will begin at your next meeting on April 27, 2004. GLM/trg CSO DISTRI DT[D ON 201 N. Ector Drive, Euless, Texas 76039-3595 817/685-1400 • Metro 817/267-4403 • Fax 817/685-1416 www.ci.euless.tx.us Page 1 of 1 Becky Null - New City Manager Named From: Betsy Boyett To: All Users Date: 7/11/2007 3:32 PM Subject: New City Manager Named The City of Euless is pleased to announce the appointment of Gary McKamie as the next City Manager. McKamie has served as Deputy City Manager of Euless for the past eight years. The final selection of the City Manager was made by City Council and was made official during last night's Council meeting. The Council also officially accepted Joe Hennig's resignation and he will serve until Oct. 1 as a Consultant for the city. McKamie has been with the city since 1973, when he began as a dispatcher. He became Chief of Police in 1993 and has been instrumental in several accomplishments including the passage of the crime tax, the establishment of the Citizens Police Academy and the building plans of the new police and courts facility. Along with this appointment, Loretta Getchell, has been promoted to Deputy City Manager for the City of Euless. Getchell has served as Assistant City Manager for the City of Euless since November, 2004. As Deputy City Manager, Getchell will supervise Finance, Purchasing, Utility Billing, Municipal Court, Human Resources, Information Services and Public Works. In addition, Vicki Rodriquez has been promoted to Finance Director. She has served as Finance Administrator, Budget and Treasury Manager and Accountant. She has worked for the City of Euless for fourteen years. As Finance Director, Rodriquez manages the city budget, budget preparation process and annual city audit. In addition to the Finance department, Rodriquez will oversee Purchasing, Utility Billing and Municipal Court. Let's wish them all a warm welcome to their new positions in Euless! Betsy file://C:\Documents and Settings\beckyn\Local Settings\Temp\GW}00001.HTM 7/11/2007 T H E=h C I T Y O F - n r r;. a O lc' ,ot it Manager To: Directors and Adminis ators From: Gary McKamie /Z Date: January 16, 2009 Re: Upcoming City Elections At the January 27th City Council meeting, the May city election will be called. As we approach the election season, I want to share a few thoughts with you about what I believe to be proper conduct for us all during a city election season. I believe that in the past couple of years, we have become a little lax in our objectivity during city elections. I will take much of the responsibility in that I have not set a good example in recent years and have let my emotions overcome my better judgment. The good health of our city and the position of respect our employees hold in this community are due in large part to our long history of remaining neutral in city elections. Unfortunately, in the past 2 years we have, at times, not played as neutral a role as we should. Again, I will take responsibility for that because I have not set the example that I should. I plan to set a more proper example this year and clearly convey the expectations I wish for you to uphold for all of our employees. Any employee who lives in Euless is certainly encouraged to cast a vote for the candidate of his or her own choosing without influence from management. Any non -contract employee is certainly free to support a candidate in their off -duty hours. There should be no support expressed by any means of any candidate while on duty. No campaign materials should be distributed, no campaign calls should be made, and no campaign buttons or shirts should be worn while on duty. This very clearly extends to persons volunteering for the city, or any department of the city, within city -owned facilities or vehicles or at a city -sponsored event. We are very fortunate to have a great City Council. Each of them is very supportive of our community and our employees. The relationship we enjoy with our City Council is based in large part on mutual trust. I call upon each of you to assist me in maintaining that trust by continuing to provide the very highest levels of service possible to our community and insisting upon a workplace that remains totally free of political involvement. Please convey these guidelines to your staff. Thanks for what each of you do each day CC: Mayor and Council Members 201 N. Ector Drive, Euless, Texas 76039-3595 817/685-1400 • Metro 817/267-4403 • Fax 8171685-1416 www.ci.euless.tx.us T H E C I T Y 0 1 S S Office,City Manager 4. To: Directors and Admmis ators From: Gary McKamie Date: January 16, 2009 Re: Upcoming City Elections At the January 27th City Council meeting, the May city election will be called. As we approach the election season, I want to share a few thoughts with you about what I believe to be proper conduct for us all during a city election season. I believe that in the past couple of years, we have become a little lax in our objectivity during city elections. I will take much of the responsibility in that I have not set a good example in recent years and have let my emotions overcome my better judgment. The good health of our city and the position of respect our employees hold in this community are due in large part to our long history of remaining neutral in city elections. Unfortunately, in the past 2 years we have, at times, not played as neutral a role as we should. Again, I will take responsibility for that because I have not set the example that I should. I plan to set a more proper example this year and clearly convey the expectations I wish for you to uphold for all of our employees. Any employee who lives in Euless is certainly encouraged to cast a vote for the candidate of his or her own choosing without influence from management. Any non -contract employee is certainly free to support a candidate in their off -duty hours. There should be no support expressed by any means of any candidate while on duty. No campaign materials should be distributed, no campaign calls should be made, and no campaign buttons or shirts should be worn while on duty. This very clearly extends to persons volunteering for the city, or any department of the city, within city -owned facilities or vehicles or at a city -sponsored event. We are very fortunate to have a great City Council. Each of them is very supportive of our community and our employees. The relationship we enjoy with our City Council is based in large part on mutual trust. I call upon each of you to assist me in maintaining that trust by continuing to provide the very highest levels of service possible to our community and insisting upon a workplace that remains totally free of political involvement. Please convey these guidelines to your staff. Thanks for what each of you do each day CC: Mayor and Council Members 201 N. Ector Drive, Euless, Texas 76039-3595 817/685-1400 - Metro 8171267-4403 - Fax 817/685-1416 www.ci.euless.tx.us Betty L. Boring 1406 Woodvine Dr. Euless, TX 76040 June 15, 2009 Mr. Gary McKamie City Manager- City of Euless 201 N. Ector Dr. - City Hall Euless, TX 76039 RE: Power Outage Dear Mr. McKamie: J iJ N 1 7 2009 f ._.) r C,I i), of= On Thursday June 11, your secretary contacted ONCOR on my behalf due to lack of electricity on my street. Our outage was from Wednesday June 10 at 7 p.m. until Friday June 12 at 11:30 a.m. On Friday June 12, at approximately 10 a.m. , I again contacted the City of Euless regarding my having no electricity and asked for assistance in this matter. I appreciate the City of Euless' concern for the welfare of me and my family during this time. Your thoughtfulness for sending your representatives to my home and checking on me is greatly appreciated. You are a great asset to this City. Sincerely, Betty L. Boring CC: Mayor Mary Lib Saleh and Council jISTRIBUTEL L" , Wager September 23, 2009 City of Euless Employees: It is with much sadness and regret that I am writing this letter to announce what many of you probably know by now. Throughout the day today, 8 employees have been released from the City of Euless due to financial conditions. The decision to take this action was mine and mine alone. I take full responsibility. In no way should you look toward the City Council, the Finance Department or your Department Head to place blame. If there is blame, it should be laid at my feet. While I have known for some time that this was a remote possibility, we have diligently worked to avoid it and prayed that this day would never come. There is nothing that can be said to ease the pain of today's action, particularly for these 8 employees and their families. However, I will explain why this has been done and what I believe our financial future holds. As I am sure you are aware, the economic recession that has gripped our nation for over a year has dramatically impacted Euless for several months as well. We had hoped that the downturn would ease some in August and September. However, that has not occurred and we no longer believe it will make any dramatic turnaround this calendar year. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve reported recently that he believed the recession to be over. However, he went on to say that the recovery would be very slow and that the unemployment rate would likely rise. The City of Euless has become increasingly dependent upon Sales Tax receipts in the past 10 years. The blessings we have enjoyed from the increased Sales Tax levels have come in the form of increased salaries, services, and employees. In the past 12 months, those Sales Tax receipts have plummeted. Our total Sales Tax collections for the fiscal year ending this month will be nearly $2.3 million less than our revenue budget. While we had budgeted an expected increase in Sales Tax for the upcoming fiscal year, the drastic reductions of the past few months collections would indicate that is not likely to occur. Additionally our property values took an unexpected dip causing a decrease in next year's projected property tax collections. The voluntary Retirement Incentive program we held earlier in the year helped us achieve considerable savings (and hopefully 201 N. Ector Drive, Euless, Texas 76039-3595 817/685-1400 • Metro 817/267-4403 • Fax 817/685-1416 www.ci.euless.tx.us made those new retirees quite happy) but was not adequate to avoid more drastic action with our continued downturn. We fully expect a slow recovery in 2010. However, we are so far down now that a slow recovery from this level will take us many months to achieve full recovery. I'm sure the biggest questions on your minds right now have to do with what this means for you and for the future of the city. I am confident that the action I have taken today is adequate to limit the threat of any further reduction into the foreseeable future. Can I guarantee that? No, but I am very confident. We are making additional cuts to our line -item budgets across the city. The philosophy we are following is that we will take this action today, and then commit to continue to provide a high level of salary, benefits, and security to our workforce. While some cities have chosen to make across the board reductions in salary or required furlough days to be taken without pay, our philosophy is to make the required reductions by eliminating jobs so that we can take better care of the remainder of our employees. In this limited space, I'm not able to offer much condolence or explanation. Therefore, I'd like to invite you to attend one of two meetings this Friday here at City Hall. We will hold a 9AM session and a 2PM session. Directors and Administrators will help coordinate the attendance so that we can insure coverage in all our buildings. We will offer more explanation Friday but most importantly we will look ahead to what we expect in 2010 and 2011. Sincer �Yx Gary L. McKamie City Manager MEMORANDUM TO: Gary McKamie FROM: Wayne Olson RE: Dual Office Holding DATE: March 30, 2011 You asked whether it is legally permissible under Article II, Section 2 of the City Charter for a current City Council member to be employed by another city as an Emergency Management Coordinator. The specific provision that you asked me to review states, "Neither the Mayor nor any member of the Council shall hold any other public office except that of notary public or member of the armed forces of the United States or of the National Guard or naval or military reserve or as a retired member of the armed forces of the United States." In reviewing this provision, I researched relevant cases and opinions addressing whether such a dual office holding would be prohibited under 1) the Texas Constitution; 2) the common law rule against incompatibility; or 3) the City Charter. Texas Constitution Article 16, Section 40 of the Texas Constitution provides that no person shall hold or exercise at the same time, more than one civil office of emolument. This provision has been interpreted to apply to the holding of more than one "office" rather than merely serving in more than one position of public employment. A person holds an "office" as opposed to mere employment if he or she exercises a sovereign function of the government largely independent of the control of others. Aldine Independent School District v. Standley, 280 S.W.2d 578, 583 (Tex. 1955). In Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. JC-0054 (1999), the Attorney General concluded that a County Attorney could simultaneously serve as a City Attorney. Specifically, the Attorney General concluded that since the position of City Attorney is appointed by and serves at the will of the city council, the position did not exercise a sovereign function of the city largely independent of the control of others. Here, a City Council member is currently employed by the City of Haltom City as an Emergency Management Coordinator. Based on the Attorney General opinion above, and the duties of Haltom City's Emergency Management Coordinator as described in Haltom City's Code of Ordinances, it appears that the position of Emergency Management Coordinator is not an "office". Section 26-1 of the Code of Ordinances reads as follows: Sec. 26-1. - Organization. (a) There exists the office of emergency management director of the city, which shall be held by the mayor in accordance with state law. (b) An emergency management coordinator may be appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the director. (c) The director shall be responsible for a program of comprehensive emergency management within the city and for carrying out the duties and responsibilities set forth in this chapter. He/she may delegate authority for execution of these duties to the coordinator, but ultimate responsibility for such execution shall remain with the director. (d) The operational emergency management organization of the city shall consist of the officers and employees of the city so designated by the director in the emergency management plan, as well as organized volunteer groups. The functions and duties of this organization shall be distributed among such officers and employees in accordance with the terms of the emergency management plan. Subsections (a) and (b) above clearly state that the mayor serves as the Emergency Management Director of Haltom City and may appoint an Emergency Management Coordinator, who serves at the pleasure of the director. This relationship is analogous to the City Attorney/City Council relationship described above. Although the Emergency Management Coordinator provides an important service to the city, the position is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the director, and accordingly does not exercise a sovereign function of the city largely independent of the control of others. Common Law Rule Aeainst Incomvatibilitv The common law rule prohibits a person from holding two positions where one position might impose its policies on the other or subject it to control in some other way. There are three aspects to the rule: 1) self -appointment; 2) self-employment; and 3) conflicting loyalties. Self - appointment and self-employment are not applicable in this case. The question that has been posed could be based on the possibility of conflicting loyalties between the City and one who holds public employment with another municipality. As with the dual office prohibition in the Texas Constitution, the common law rule regarding conflicting loyalties has been held to apply only when both positions are "offices". See Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. JM-1266 (1990), LO-96- 148, LO-95-052, LO-95-029 and LO-93-027. In this instance, the position of Emergency Management Coordinator is not considered an "office", as discussed in detail above. Consequently, there is no issue of conflicting loyalties or incompatibility. Citv Charter The City of Euless operates as a home -rule municipality under Article 11, Section 5 of the Texas Constitution. Article 11, Section 5 provides that "no charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent with the Constitution of the State, or of the general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State." Section 26.041(3) of the Texas Local Government Code also grants a home -rule municipality the authority to prescribe the qualifications, duties, and tenure of office for officers. In Tex. Att'y Gen Op. No. GA-0362 (2005), the Attorney General concluded that although Article 16, Section 40 of the Texas Constitution would not prohibit a municipal judge (an "officer") from also serving as a justice of the peace (an "officer"), a home -rule city charter provision that prohibits such dual office holding is not inconsistent with the Texas Constitution. The opinion explains that the Article 16, Section 40 exceptions for certain officers are merely exceptions from the constitutional dual office holding prohibition, but the exceptions do not grant the excepted listed officers a right to hold two offices. The opinion further states that Article 11, Section 5 does not preclude a home -rule city from adopting a charter provision that is stricter than the common law doctrine of incompatibility. Article II, Section 2 of the Euless City Charter states that "Neither the Mayor nor any member of the Council shall hold any other public office except that of notary public or member of the armed forces of the United States or of the National Guard or naval or military reserve or as a retired member of the armed forces of the United States." As stated above, the City has the ability to restrict its officers from holding dual offices as long as it is not inconsistent with the Texas Constitution. Article 11, Section 2 of the City's Charter is not inconsistent with the Texas Constitution because it does not allow a person to hold or exercise at the same time, more than one civil office of emolument. However, nowhere in the Charter is the term "office" or "public office" defined, nor is there any indication in the Charter of what "any other public office" is intended to prohibit. Without any specific evidence that an opposite interpretation was intended, it would be logical to assume that the Charter's prohibition on holding any other public office would only apply to those positions that are defined under state law to be offices. Because employment as the Emergency Management Coordinator for the City of Haltom City would not be considered under state law to be holding a public office, it is my opinion that the City Charter does not prohibit a City Council member from serving in that position. Summary A City Council member's current employment with a different city as an Emergency Management Coordinator is not prohibited by the Texas Constitution or the common law rule against incompatibility. Due to a lack of any indication in the City Charter that the scope of the Charter prohibition was intended to be broader than state law, I cannot determine that the City Charter forbids a City Council member from serving as an Emergency Management Coordinator for another city.