Back in July 2021, Somervell County voted on a resolution to have an election to create an Assistance District. (TX Local Govt Code Title 12, Subtitle B, Chapter 387, Sec 387.001)
Meeting from Sept 11, 2023 (I ran this audio through a denoiser, same with the next one. You can go the Somervell County website to hear the original recordings but they are difficult to hear.) (LINK from SomCo website
Sept 18, 2023 (Link to audio on SomCo website I put this here with a denoiser but it’s a tossup which one is better))
Jeff Harris in charge of preparing the proposed document
Here is the signed motion and proposed draft agreement on Revenue Sharing. NOTE that the city of Glen Rose did not sign this, only the Somervell County Commissioners. Saying that the commissioners went out of their way to try to find an agreement between the City and the County that would still fall within the legal boundaries of an assistance district.
Again, no one from the City took this up and signed it. Could the City have done its own question to the Texas AG’s office for an opinion? Yes. And in fact, the proposed interlocal agreement explicitly says that if there were provisions that were invalid, illegal or unenforceable, that would be added to the agreement but there is no apparent action by the City to determine that. This appears to be a proposed negotiating document that was ignored.
Apparently, the City of Glen Rose, in the case of annexations of land, wants the County to give the City the 2% tax and County Attorney Trey Brown, based on an AG determination, believes that would be illegal and has explained it as such a number of times to the City representatives. I could not find in any of the agendas where the City was on the agenda, ie, came to address the Commissioners Court to discuss in open court.
Thanks to Trey Brown for sending PDF of the Texas AG opinion KP-0365 (April 5, 2021) Particularly see page 4.
