By George Slaughter
The Katy City Council will again discuss and decide what to do about appointing a new mayor pro tem at its Monday meeting.
The meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. at Katy City Hall.
At its last meeting, on July 8, the council voted 3-2 to reject Mayor Bill Hastings’s nomination of Council Member-at-Large Chris Harris for the position, replacing the current mayor pro tem, Ward B Council Member Durran Dowdle. The nomination requires council approval.
Ward A Council Members Frank Carroll and Janet Corte opposed the nomination, expressing concern that it was better to have a more senior council member as mayor pro tem with all but one council member—Dowdle—in office for 13 or fewer months.
Dowdle abstained from that vote, which is registered as a “no” vote. Harris and Ward B Council Member Jenifer Stockdick voted for Harris’s nomination.
The mayor pro tem serves in the mayor’s absence and must be a council member. City Attorney Art Pertile said that under the Katy City Charter, a mayor nominates the mayor pro tem but the council must vote to approve the nomination. Pertile said a mayor cannot either appoint or remove a mayor pro tem on his own.
Dowdle was elected to the council in 2014 and has been mayor pro tem since March 2017. He cannot seek office next year due to term limits. He remains mayor pro tem until the council votes for someone else.
Harris and Corte were elected in May 2018. Carroll was appointed to fill a vacancy in 2018, and was elected to a term in his own right in May. Hastings and Stockdick were also elected in May.
Hastings said after the July 8 meeting that he was not surprised by the vote, and that he expected to nominate Harris at every subsequent council meeting until approved.
The council is also expected to consider an ordinance that if passed would update the city’s water conservation and drought contingency plans.
In a memo to the council urging passage of the ordinance, City Administrator Byron Hebert wrote that the city is updating both its water conservation plan and the drought contingency plan per the Texas Water Development Board and Texas Commission of Environmental Quality.
“The water conservation plan is based on promoting water conservation, specific targets, and goals that will reduce the water usage and water loss in the water distribution operation,” Hebert wrote. “In order to continue to achieve these goals, the city will continue maintaining accurate records of water usage and support programs to educate the public on water conservation. The public will also continue to be notified through the city’s website, press releases, and public notices printed on the water bills.”
Hebert wrote that the drought contingency plan is to conserve the available water supply in times of drought and in emergency conditions.
“The plan is also to help protect the integrity of the city’s infrastructure for domestic water supply, sanitation, and fire protection, as well as protect and preserve public health, welfare, and safety,” Hebert wrote.
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