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Judge Mike Towers swears in Bandera City Marshal Nancy De Foster, who recently earned her commission as a Master Peace Officer in the State of Texas.
Photos by Jessica Nohealapa’ahi
May 9, 2023
Bandera City Council Notes
By Jessica Nohealapa’ahi
The Bandera Prophet
Bandera City Council members agreed to move forward with the development of a proposed commercial and residential tree preservation ordinance. Meant to define, identify and protect heritage trees, the ordinance could map out rules and restrictions for trimming and removing trees within the city limits.
During council's regular meeting last Tuesday, City Secretary Jill Shelton said the matter was brought to her by a previous administrator, and City Attorney Dan Santee advised her to take the research to council before directing staff to work further on it.
“In my opinion, it’s over-government. I can see an interest in preserving heritage trees, but other than that, as a property owner, if I want to trim a tree in my yard, I absolutely do not want to get a permit to do it,” Council Member Lynn Palmer said.
Remarking many San Antonio communities do not have heritage trees, Council Member Tony Battle said the way to protect them is to establish an ordinance.
“It might be worth investigating with the community…and talk to more people,” Mayor Rebeca Gibson said, adding she saw value in laying out reasonable guidelines to prevent the spread of oak wilt.
Palmer said she agreed with the preservation of heritage trees, and with educating property owners on the proper times to trim trees, but she was not in support of enforcing an ordinance that does not allow tree trimming or removal.
Staff was directed to move forward with a proposal, which will be presented to council.
~ In other business, Marshal Nancy De Foster reported to council that, prior to April 24, the city was not compliance with state-mandated TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) crash reporting.
She said COPsync, the mobile reporting application on patrol car laptops and the marshal and chief deputy’s desktop computers, was installed in 2015. At that time, the software did not automatically upload crash reports.
“If the previous marshal was aware, I’m sure he would have manually sent the reports to Austin via the post office,” De Foster said.
Fast forward to 2018, COPsync became capable of uploading crash reports, De Foster said, however, “that didn’t happen, for whatever reason.”
The last report manually uploaded to TxDOT was in January 2016, and after a couple of uncompleted upgrades in 2019 and 2022, a tally of 339 reports remained delinquent.
De Foster said as of April 24, the proper credentials were in place, and the past-due reports have begun to upload. She said the city would not be sanctioned by the state, however there were missed opportunities for government funding to fix roads, and other grants for city improvements.
“We’ve lost a lot of opportunities due to the fact that we’ve been delinquent for eight years,” De Foster said, adding the city would also eliminate 20 to 30 open records requests per month once all the reports are filed.
~ De Foster was sworn in during a special meeting on May 2, after passing her TCOLE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement) test and becoming a Commissioned Master Peace Officer in the State of Texas.
During council's regular meeting last Tuesday, City Secretary Jill Shelton said the matter was brought to her by a previous administrator, and City Attorney Dan Santee advised her to take the research to council before directing staff to work further on it.
“In my opinion, it’s over-government. I can see an interest in preserving heritage trees, but other than that, as a property owner, if I want to trim a tree in my yard, I absolutely do not want to get a permit to do it,” Council Member Lynn Palmer said.
Remarking many San Antonio communities do not have heritage trees, Council Member Tony Battle said the way to protect them is to establish an ordinance.
“It might be worth investigating with the community…and talk to more people,” Mayor Rebeca Gibson said, adding she saw value in laying out reasonable guidelines to prevent the spread of oak wilt.
Palmer said she agreed with the preservation of heritage trees, and with educating property owners on the proper times to trim trees, but she was not in support of enforcing an ordinance that does not allow tree trimming or removal.
Staff was directed to move forward with a proposal, which will be presented to council.
~ In other business, Marshal Nancy De Foster reported to council that, prior to April 24, the city was not compliance with state-mandated TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) crash reporting.
She said COPsync, the mobile reporting application on patrol car laptops and the marshal and chief deputy’s desktop computers, was installed in 2015. At that time, the software did not automatically upload crash reports.
“If the previous marshal was aware, I’m sure he would have manually sent the reports to Austin via the post office,” De Foster said.
Fast forward to 2018, COPsync became capable of uploading crash reports, De Foster said, however, “that didn’t happen, for whatever reason.”
The last report manually uploaded to TxDOT was in January 2016, and after a couple of uncompleted upgrades in 2019 and 2022, a tally of 339 reports remained delinquent.
De Foster said as of April 24, the proper credentials were in place, and the past-due reports have begun to upload. She said the city would not be sanctioned by the state, however there were missed opportunities for government funding to fix roads, and other grants for city improvements.
“We’ve lost a lot of opportunities due to the fact that we’ve been delinquent for eight years,” De Foster said, adding the city would also eliminate 20 to 30 open records requests per month once all the reports are filed.
~ De Foster was sworn in during a special meeting on May 2, after passing her TCOLE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement) test and becoming a Commissioned Master Peace Officer in the State of Texas.