Rollingwood Women’s Club
1/24/23
7:00 p.m.
Emily Burns’ Home
Call to Order/Opening Remarks (President Marnie Fitzgerald)
Presentation: Mayor Gavin Massingill presented his second annual informal “State of the City Address”
· Judicial Branch is made up of Judge Sarah Teten and Kimberley Wood, Court Clerk. There have been a 124% increase in citations, mostly code enforcement (weekend work, holiday work). There has also been a decline in offenses in special events parking. The Legislative Branch is made up of the City Council that makes policy in the form of city ordinances. The Executive Branch is led by the Mayor, with the help of City Administrator Ashely Wayman and her team. They administer and implement the Council’s policy decisions.
· Updates:
o Abel Campos is our Director of Finance for the City. The City has transitioned into a new financial system and the reserve balance is growing.
o Police Chief Krystal Munoz put on the First National Night Out since Covid. (Women’s Club donated the bouncy house.) The P.D. has been trained to use Narcan during opiod overdose and has been trained to respond to shootings.
o Desiree Adair is the City Secretary. She conducts elections and handles public information requests. She is working on strengthening human resources policies and processes. She has also implemented My Permit Now which is an online permitting system.
o Ismael “Izzy” Parra is the new Superintendent of Public Works and now has a full team.
o Veronica Hernandez is Manager of Utility Billing. Since January 2022, the City collected $147,000 in outstanding water bills. E-bill statements and auto bill options usage are increasing.
o Mayor’s Main Goals this past year were all met:
1) Hired and developed staff to build out teams.
2) Developed needed bond packages and both Prop A (water lines) and Prop B (city facilities) passed.
3) Emergency Services District 9 will match our financing of up to $1.5 million to get shared space located in our community so that we have quicker response times.
o The City also developed more Succession Planning so that City governing is sustainable with the least amount of disruption.
o There is a new City Council Message Board for discussion between meetings. All citizens able to access to watch conversations between city council members, mayor. On website: https://councilforum.rollingwoodtx.gov/.
o This year’s goal: Systems review/performance review where we provide a guidebook or user manual for the next administration. Modeled on the Gantt chart, it’s an operations timeline.
o Question from Attendees: Are we fully staffed? Answer: Much better than where we are and we are now offering more competitive pay and benefits. But still working on this.
Announcements (President Marnie Fitzgerald):
· Thank you to hostess Emily Burns.
· New Members: Sylvie Gates
· Thank you to Gilda Tirado and Gabriele Wertheimer for managing the Gifts to City of Rollingwood employees.
· Easter Egg Extravaganza: April 8th, at 9:00 a.m. Lower Park. Petting Zoo, Egg Hunt, and food and drink for both kids and adults. Goes super-fast and please don’t be late. If you have a High Schooler who wants to volunteer, we can provide service hours and extra service hours for the volunteer who serves at the Giant Bunny for photo etc. We’ll prepare eggs at Marnie’s house again. Last year we had 3,000 eggs and they were gone in 2 minutes.
· New: What’s App group message capability for all women who live in Rollingwood.
· Westies (awards for Westbank citizens, businesses, etc) coming up and a few Rollingwood WC members are nominated, including Pop-Up Birthday, founded by Laila Scott.
Treasurer’s Report (Pari Schatt)
· $29,547 in our bank account. Exceeded our donation goal by $2500. But we are in the red because we haven’t brought in any donations for fundraising or sponsorship and therefore, we are at negative $1328 for this year. We have not spent as much as we expected overall (the holiday party was way under budget) but we’ve had a couple of expenses we didn’t prepare for – bouncy house for National Night Out, etc.
Proposed Projects to Fund (Marnie Fitzgerald)
· Two proposals for grants from RWC. Both were sent to members via email in advance. We have enough money to cover both of these.
1) Improve Butterfly Garden, proposed by Mary Elizabeth Cofer, Member of the Park Commission: We are trying to build a sustainable butterfly garden that will be here years from now. RWC gave a grant last year for a butterfly garden and we used the funds to get new plants, some stone and doubled the size of the garden. This year’s grant proposal asks for funding to compost and mulch, new native pollinator plants, two sustainable benches (50 year warranty), and two plaques. Total ask is $3,935.50.
Motion made and seconded.
Discussion: Our mission includes the beautification of Rollingwood. We’ve done a lot over the years to enhance the Rollingwood experience. We don’t usually budget for projects but we also prioritize and save money to spend on things like this. And we usually keep about 5k for expenses. Other projects – beautifying the entrances to our City, new chairs, A/V equipment, playscapes in the park, etc. Is there anything to prevent an individual funding this? No, but this is exactly what we are supposed to use our funds on.
By show of hands, the Butterfly Garden project was approved.
2) Upgrade our Community Garden, proposed by . Replace the broken cedar gates, safer and better compost pile, soil bags, mulch bags, allowance for plants and delivery charge. Total cost is $3153.00. Glen Starnes and Becky Combs are managing it.
Motion made and seconded.
Discussion: We need to have someone to commit to manage and maintain garden before funds dispensed.
Motion tabled until the time when someone can come present to the group about plans for management of the garden.
Fundraising
Several ideas to fundraise presented. Not doing the 5K this year. Will have meetings about this in the Spring.
Meeting Adjourned.
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