During the Levelland City Council regular meeting Monday, City Manager James Fisher provided an update regarding the Red Flour Beetles and Ag Storage Commodity ordinance.
Fisher began the meeting with informing the public and council that traps have been placed surrounding the Kauffman Addition.
“We have asked the Texas Department of Agriculture to continue placing traps within our community,” said Fisher. “Originally, they were going to be out in March but after the last council meeting there was a concern of getting them out now. We worked with them and the traps are out.”
Fisher is hopeful the city will get updated information within the next week or so about what the traps are showing.
“We know from our residents that the Red Flower Beetles are moving again and it may be that they’ve been dormant for a while,” said Fisher. “This warm weather has them coming out and starting to get into not only the community but in other areas.”
Weather permitting, the city will begin spraying Wednesday night. Fisher added that if the need arises for further spraying, they will follow up within a couple of days.
“We are trying to be extremely proactive in this,” explained Fisher. “I’m not an entomologist. I’m not an Ag person. I just know that our residents are tired of dealing with this. We will be targeting the Kaufman Addition on March 23 to pick up the dumpsters and get them clean or replaced. We will also walk the alleys and try to clean up any areas or other spots within there that may have rubbish or whatever to mitigate as much as we can.”
Fisher added that the city staff are currently looking for grant funding that could possibly help the residents who have been affected by the infestation.
“I made a statement last Fall that I’m committed to avoiding this as much as we can come this summer,” said Fisher. and I’m still on that commitment that we’re going to do everything we can to get this knocked down. Unfortunately, the weather’s not cooperating, but we’re ready. We will spray as much as we can to to knock down what we can.”
While the traps are currently out, Fisher added that a formal letter from the council to TDA Commissioner Sid Miller requesting the full weight of the Texas Department of agriculture is necessary to help the city get in front of the issue.
“I think we felt pretty comfortable at the end of last year,” said Fisher. “As this weather is getting warmer, we’re seeing the concerns expressed by residents. We have to move faster, quicker and harder. That’s what I’m going to be recommending, but we are on top of this and we’re going to keep pushing as hard as we can to move forward on this.”
TDA’s placement of the traps is currently surrounding the Kauffman Addition but Fisher will be looking into if they can adjust the perimeter.
“We may ask him to go further out and place them in other locations because there are people saying we’re seeing them in other neighborhoods or even outside of our city,” explained Fisher. “I think they need that data to understand that this is an issue and our residents have dealt with it long enough. We need to do whatever we can, but there are some things that are outside of our purview and there are some things outside of our jurisdiction.”
Council woman Breann Buxkemper asked Fisher if it would be possible to gather other professionals such entomologist from Texas Agri Life to offer their assistance once again as the outside sources the city referred to before showed some success in getting the process going in the Fall.
Fisher explained that it would be a benefit to gather additional resources who are experts in the agricultural field as the issue could potentially become a regional issue if the area of concern continues to spread outside of Hockley.
Following the Red Flour Beetle update from Fisher, public comment was held with multiple citizens using the time to address their concerns.
Mary Engledow voiced her displeasure with the use of general funds to aid Penny Newman in the removal of the almond hulls in the Fall.
“I can’t help but to wonder why we spent taxpayer dollars to move almond hulls for a billiondollar company like Penny Newman,” said Engledow. “All the while knowing they were bringing in more almond hulls to continue the current problem. You say you were extending an olive branch, yet Penny Newman has never apologized nor extended a hand to any of the residents in the Kauffman Addition or anyone else that was affected.”
Claudia Maldonado posed a handful of questions regarding the drafted ordinance dealing with the storage of agricultural commodities and what type of necessary documentation the companies need to provide the city code enforcement for compliance, infestation mitigation and overall progress of the ordinance working with the companies.
Stan Lee spoke to the council regarding transparency and highlighted that Fisher’s update offered a lot more clarity on what the process has been since the city began dealing with the issue. Lee explained that if the city had be more transparent throughout the entire ordeal that more people would be more understanding of the situation. Lee also highlighted that there are three companies at the rail park and he has spoken to several individuals who feel that paying Penny Newman to move the almond hulls in the fall was not the right decision.
Following public comment, the council moved forward with holding its first reading of the ordinance. Fisher also provided comment before the reading giving the council and public a refresher on how the ordinance that was being proposed become to be.
Part of why this isn’t very specific is because we drafted this ordinance so we we be able to manage any kind of infestation,” said Fisher. “It wasn’t targeted to just Red Flour Beetle’s or something else. It is an ordinance that gives us the tools to be able to address various items that may occur in the future so those are the changes.”
Fisher also touched on the city and possible lack of enforcing the ordinance if passed.
“I’ve heard people say the city is not going to enforce this, but we’re not going to draft an ordinance to just do it,” explained Fisher. “The previous ordinance we had did wasn’t strong enough that we could stand on and again that was part of the reason of paying dollars because of the risk assessment of getting those almond hulls removed versus going through the legal process. It was better to get them out of here and begin mitigating this then as opposed to going through the other long route.”
The council conducted the first reading of the ordinance with the second slated for the March 4 meeting.