At one point the council decided it might not be the best group to decide on changes and agreed to seek an independent citizen group. Any new rules presumably would apply both to the council and to members of the city’s other boards, commissions and similar bodies.

The six-member panel includes a judge, a police officer, a businessman, a counselor and two members of the local clergy.Their charge is to tell the council if additional ethics rules are needed and, if so, what those might be.

Task force members include insurance agent Gilbert Solis, 423rd District Court Judge Chris Duggan, counselor Linda Seal, police officer Wuthipong Tantaksinanuki, along with Rev. R.D. Smith and Rev. Lisa Hines. Smith is pastor of Mt. Rose Missionary Baptist Church and Hines is rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, both in Bastrop.

Members were recommended by Council Members Julie Hart and Ken Kesselus, appointed by Mayor Terry Orr and confirmed by a unanimous council vote.

The task force will be advised by city attorney J.C. Brown and City Manager Mike Talbot. It will also organize itself and report back to the council later this year.

The project has drawn sharp opposition from county residents in the area, but the city is involved because the tract is part of Bastrop’s extra-territorial jurisdiction, an area where it exercises some development controls.

In a letter dated Feb. 1, City Manager Mike Talbot invited Austin developer James Carpenter and his group to suggest dates for a public workshop with the city council as a step toward “meaningful” talks on issues related to the $150 million project which Carpenter has claimed will create thousands of jobs in the next 10 years.

Talbot also charged that the city has heard nothing from the Carpenter group since a Nov. 9 meeting at which the council outlined its conditions for moving discussions forward.

“The council and I have been disturbed to have heard complaints voiced, over the past several weeks, in various forums (and directly by local citizens), to the effect that the City of Bastrop has been ‘non-responsive and/or obstructive’ to you and your team in your development of the project. In the city’s view, nothing could be further from the truth,” Talbot wrote to Carpenter.

Talbot’s letter was released Feb. 18 among materials distributed to the city council ahead of its scheduled Feb. 22 meeting, set for 6 p.m. at City Hall.

A move last year by Council Member Julie Hart for the council itself to draft and consider additional rules met resistance among other council members who suggested they might not be in an unbiased position to propose rules to govern themselves.

Apart from state law, Bastrop apparently has no special ethics regulations, as many cities do.

The council decision to create an ethics advisory group also included two charges for the panel. First will be to decide if additional city rules are needed. If the answer is yes, the group will be asked to draft proposals for council consideration.

Hart has argued that Bastrop needs more specific rules to prevent or curtail a number of potential conflicts of interest , not addressed by state law, in conducting the city’s public business. Others, including Council Member Joe Beal, have suggested that detailed regulations may prove troublesome to follow and enforce and have little effect in the end on making sound public policy and decisions.

The topic could come up again as early as the Feb. 22 council meeting.

Candidates have until March 14 to apply for places on the ballots.

City council members Ken Kesselus, Kay Garcia McAnally and Bill Peterson have all filed for re-election.

Former school board president John Eaton is seeking re-election. The other school board term coming to an end this year is the one currently held by Board President Johnny Sanders. So far no one has signed up to seek that seat.

Developers, led by Austin-based Carpenter and Associates, asked for Bastrop’s consent to annex the tract to an existing water control district and for support to change state law to give the water district additional powers when Texas lawmakers meet in Austin next year. Proponents said the airport will create thousands of jobs and boost tax revenues of the Bastrop and Elgin school districts.

After hearing from the Carpenter group and a number of opponents who live in the proposed airport area, the council decided it would consider the project only on certain conditions, including a requirement that proponents pay the city’s cost to engage expert consultants to evaluate the proposals.

In an interview today Bastrop City Manager Michael Talbot said the city has heard nothing from the Carpenter airport group since the November meeting. He declined to speculate on what that silence might mean.

Under current state law, the city’s consent is required for the creation of new taxing districts in Bastrop’s extra-territorial jurisdiction (ETJ), which includes the proposed airport site. The Legislature, of course, could decide to revise or revoke the city’s ETJ powers in some future session.

Talbot said the city would “respond appropriately” to any such effort in the upcoming legislative session beginning in January.

The city’s home rule charter makes the city manager, not the city council, responsible for naming the police chief, but Talbot said he reviewed the selection process Nov. 30 with the council during a closed door session. He vowed to keep the council informed about the progress of the process, he said in a telephone interview Dec. 2.

The initial short list forwarded to city officials by personnel consultant Ray and Associates included eight names, but one of them–a Houston area police chief–withdrew from consideration Dec. 2, apparently after being told the finalist list was being released to Bastrop-News.com The list of applicants was sought under the Texas Public Information Act.

The short list includes Bastrop Interim Police Chief Matt Wagner who took over the department after former chief David Board resigned earlier this year when he was charged with drunk driving in Austin. Wagner has spent his entire law enforcement career in Bastrop, joining the force as a patrol officer in 1994. He was assistant chief when Board stepped aside.

Others on the list include current police chiefs in Kennedale, Kyle, Trophy Clubs and Willis as well as veteran police leaders in Kerville and Round Rock.

Michael Blake has been chief of police in Kyle since 2008. Before that he served as chief in Tomball beginning in 2002 and Harlingen beginning in 2000. During a tenure with police in Garland beginning in 1973, he rose to the position of assistant chief.

Thomas W. Williams is another applicant. He has been chief of the Kennedale police force since 2006. Before that he spent more than 25 years with the Keller police department beginning in 1980. He was assistant chief in Keller when he was tapped for the Kennedale post.

Scott Kniffer was named police chief in Trophy Clubs in 2006 after service as police chief in Sunset Valley beginning in 1993. Before than he was an internal affairs investigator for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville.

James Nowak Jr. has been chief of police in Willis since 2005. In 2004 he retired as a lieutenant from the Lufkin police department after 20 years of service. Before taking up police work Nowak was part owner of an ambulance service.

Jeffrey Lee Wendling has been a captain with the Kerville Police Department since 2005. Before that he spent more than 30 years with the (former) U.S. Customs Service and after 1973 with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.

Kenneth Edward Evans is a lieutenant with the Round Rock police department, an agency he joined in 1999 after serving in the El Paso police department beginning in 1993. Previously he was a military police officer for the U.S. Army.

At the end of the interview process next week, up to three candidates could be invited for a second round of interviews, said Talbot. At the same time, all of them could be rejected and a fresh round of applications sought, he said.

After hearing from almost a dozen critics and listening to a brief presentation by representatives of developer Carpenter and Associates of Austin, the council retreated for just over an hour behind closed doors to discuss “economic development negotiations” with the Carpenter group.

At the end of that executive session the council approved without dissent a stance which said the developer proposals “in their present form” cannot be accepted, that the city’s review process will take far longer than the 30 days suggested by Carpenter, that the city’s review will include “full, rigorous” public involvement and that no financial incentives are under consideration.

The council approach, as explained by Council Member Julie Hart, includes a requirement that the development group also agree to pay any consulting and related fees the council deems necessary. The city will select its own legal and other consultants with the developers paying the tab, she suggested.

James Carpenter, the general manager of the development group, did not attend the Tuesday session, but representatives said the project will boost the tax base of the Bastrop school district and create an estimated 10,000 jobs over the next decade. Carpenter holds options to buy some 1,500 acres stretching southwest from the intersection of FM 1704 and FM 969 to near the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort and Spa on Texas 71 west of Bastrop.

The development group wants the city’s consent to annex the area to an existing Water Control and Improvement District and support for additional laws next year when the Texas Legislature meets beginning in January. The city’s support in these areas is critical because the property is part of Bastrop’s legal extra-territorial jurisdiction.

Over the past month, critics of the project have repeatedly called for more public involvement and more environmental impact studies of the proposed project.

“This is a process. It will take some time,” Bastrop Mayor Terry Orr told the crowd at Tuesday’s council meeting. “We can hold public hearings (on the airport issue). Our job is to learn the concerns of the people.”

The council will convene at the offices of the Tahitian Village water district (Bastrop County WCID #2) at 106 Conference Dr., just off Tahitian Drive.

The council’s meeting agenda also allows council members to act on economic development negotiations which take behind closed doors. State law requires any vote to take place in public.

Late Friday afternoon the meeting agenda was amended to include “economic development negotiations” involving the proposed Central Texas Airport project which has been the subject of sharp criticism from area residents for more than a year now, most recently last month at a meeting of Bastrop County commissioners.

The meeting agenda released after lunch Friday listed five specific topics for discussion which involve the airport development project proposed by Carpenter & Associates. Topping the list is an item which apparently seeks the city’s consent to include parts of its legal extra-territorial jurisdiction in an existing conservation and reclamation “or other special districts.” State law requires the city to consent to the creation of many types of special districts in its E-TJ.

The Cottonwood water district in eastern Travis County may be the existing entity Carpenter & Associates has its eye on, according to city officials.

More than a year ago the city council rejected a previous Carpenter request to allow creation of a special municipal utility district involving the airport and some associated industrial developments which are now being marketed as a green, high technology complex called “Green Corporate Center.”

The development group also apparently wants a promise by the council to support possible laws to be introduced in the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature “related to the creation of the Special Districts,” as well as additional unspecified “cooperation and assistance to the developer concerning the project.”

No additional details or copies of proposals for council consideration were released immediately. City Manager Mike Talbot said the documents received at City Hall for council review and negotiation were marked “confidential.”

Since last year’s contentious public hearing on the airport plan before Bastrop County commissioners in April and the subsequent rejection by the Bastrop City council, the Carpenter-led development promoters have not been idle. In June this year county commissioners signed off on a special agreement with Carpenter which allows the project a 30-year break on county property taxes once developers have sunk $150 million into the effort. Carpenter and the development group have also engaged the services of Bastrop lawyer Geoff Connor as a registered lobbyist in advance of the 2011 state legislative session.

Connor, a former Texas Secretary of State appointed by Gov. Rick Perry, has been in contact with Bastrop city officials and council members in recent weeks to push the project forward.

Carpenter has options to by some 1,000 acres for the project southeast of the intersection of FM 969 and FM 1704 in Bastrop County. According to news reports Carpenter also has a contract to buy more than 400 additional acres adjoining the original airport tract from Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in western Bastrop County near the Haytt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa.

In a telephone interview Saturday, Mayor Terry Orr said he believes there will be at least some public discussion of the Carpenter airport proposals at the Tuesday council session.

For much of this year Hart has been openly–and sometimes sharply–critical of individual council members as well as some appointed members of city boards and commissions.

Earlier this month, for instance, Hart accused Council Member Joe Beal of having a conflict of interest when he voiced objection to a pending resolution opposing a plan to pipe large volumes of groundwater from Bastrop County to a point near San Marcos. A principal partner in the pipeline plan is former Williamson County Commissioner Frankie Limmer, and Beal is an investor in another Limmer business which builds funeral parlors, including one in Bastrop.

Beal rejected the conflict charge, saying he was an investor only in the funeral home venture.

The council adopted the proposed resolution on a 3-1 vote with Beal voting no. Council Member Kay Garcia McAnally did not attend that meeting.

During the summer Hart once called on Beal, Council Member Ken Kesselus and Mayor Terry Orr to recuse themselves from discussion and voting on an issue involving both the Bastrop County Historical Society’s Old Town Visitor Center and Calvary Episcopal Church. Orr, Kesselus and Beal are all members of both organizations and should refrain from joining the discussion, she said.

In that case no council decision was required after the issue was referred to City Manager Mike Talbot for negotiation which resulted in the visitor center maintaining its presence in the Old First National Bank Building instead of moving next door into space owned by the church.

A separate controversy beginning earlier this year is perhaps less openly linked to Hart’s ethics campaign, but she has made her views plain from time to time concerning alleged conflicts of interest involving two veteran members of the city’s Historic Landmark Commission (HLC), long time chairman Bill Ennis and a business associate, Dan Hays-Clark.

Both had served on the commission for a dozen years until Ennis declined to be reappointed to a new term this summer and Hays-Clark resigned last month, citing the ongoing controversies as demanding too much city staff time and expense.

This issue first surfaced in early summer when Mayor Orr put the name of Hays-Clark forward for reappointment to the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment in addition to his seat on the Landmark Commission. Hart argued that a section of the city code bans, except for some defined situations, a resident serving on more than one city board or advisory panel at the same time.

Orr argued that Hays-Clark had been confirmed by previous council action to sit on both boards at once, and–barring new considerations–there was no legal reason to reject reappointment. On a 4-1 vote the council confirmed the reappointment. Council Member McAnally voted for the reappointment but said she would oppose Hays-Clark for reappointment to a seat on the Landmark Commission when his term expired next year.

By his own account, this debate drew the attention of Bastrop resident G.A. Lewis, a frequent city critic, who began a review of city records evidently with an eye toward possible conflicts of interest in the actions of Ennis and Hays-Clark in their private business activities as well as members of the Landmark Commission and related bodies. As a result on July 7 Lewis posed 20-odd questions to city attorney J.C Brown which arose from his inquiries.

Brown’s 10-page response is dated Aug. 11. In some cases, concerns raised by Lewis are clearly allowed by state law, she said. In a few cases, the city should have followed different procedures in dealing with issues involving Ennis and/or Hays-Clark and their private business interests, she said.

Her most common response was that the questions at issue are matters of city policy and rules which can only be answered by council action. Subsequently Lewis reviewed some of those issues in public at a regular council meeting.

At that time Hart said the Lewis concerns point to situations which “don’t pass the smell test.”

Orr told Lewis the council will review the issues he raised.

The change was recommended earlier this year by a charter review committee headed by Council Member Ken Kesselus. The study panel was named by the mayor and other council members.

The council, however, declined to ask voters to consider adding two additional members to the city governing board, saying there appears to be little public support for such a measure now.

As currently proposed, the charter change would limit the mayor and council members to two consecutive three-year terms. Those officers would be forced to wait a year before seeking re-election.

The Texas Constitution will force additional changes in current city election rules if voters endorse three-year council terms, said city attorney J.C. Brown. The chief change will require that council members and the mayor be elected by majority vote instead of the plurality currently required. That could force run-off elections in some cases, said Brown.

In a related measure the council agreed to ask voters to decide if a sitting council member should be required to resign in order to run for the mayor’s seat. At the same time a mayor would be required to step aside in order to seek a council seat.

Other charter changes to go before voters include changing the title of the presiding officers of the Planning and Zoning commission from “chairman” and “vice chairman” to “chair” and “vice chair.” The mayor would also become the city’s “chief presiding officer” instead of the city’s “chief executive officer.”