With the beginning of his term just around the corner, Ector County Judge-Elect Dustin Fawcett is looking ahead. One of his goals is scheduling joint county commissioner, city council meetings.
With three new council members coming onboard along with a new commissioner, Fawcett said he plans to call for an introductory meeting within the first couple months of the new year. After that, various topics will be discussed.
“I think we’re going to have meetings regarding some of our inter-local agreements, whether it’s fire or the jail. We’re going to have some of those discussions regarding animal control. We’re going to have them regarding our courthouse, their city hall, our buildings and assets,” Fawcett said. “I’m a firm believer that we need to have these, one, for transparency for taxpayers, but also to make sure that we’re on the same page and that we’re operating efficiently. Those are just some of the big topics, but there will be other ones too that I think are gonna be important to hash out in these meetings.”
Meetings with all of the commissioners and city council members have been “extremely rare” and he talked about holding such meetings frequently while campaigning, Fawcett said
“On the campaign trail people often asked ‘Why can’t we just get along?’ I think that was something of a hallmark of my campaign and something I talked about often was us working together on issues because taxpayers are counting on us, versus working against one another against the taxpayers.”
While the relationship has been challenging, Fawcett thinks the two groups are closer on the issues than they are apart.
”I think it’s merely a matter of communication that we need to fix and this is one of those ways we’re going to open up those lines of communication,” Fawcett said. “It’s going to be something that is going to take some time. Rome wasn’t overnight, we’re not going to be able to just undo everything, you know, like I said, years of constraint, but we’re going to pick away at it.”
Odessa City Manager Michael Marrero, who has been with the city 28 years, said he only knows of a handful of joint meetings and he thinks it’s important to continuing having a dialogue with the county. He, too, mentioned the fire department, animal control and the jail.
He said he’s looking forward to discussions about improving local residents’ quality of life and economic development.
“I think the county and the city enjoy a good relationship now, but like anything, there’s always room for improvement,” Marrero said.
Fawcett hopes to find “low hanging fruit” first, small issues that can be addressed before taking on things like sales taxes, fire services and other inter-local agreements.
With the city expanding, these discussions need to happen, Fawcett said.
“We need it to expand, every taxpayer benefits from that throughout the county and every taxing entity benefits from that throughout the county,” Fawcett said. “I think it’s necessary and that’s going to be how we move this community forward and I’m very much looking forward to it.”
