On Monday, February 10, the City Commissioners began their bi-monthly meeting with employee recognitions for Barbara Stucker and Kimberlee Hughes who completed their certification for Texas Registered Municipal Clerks and Cindy Silva who completed the Texas Municipal Court Clerks Certification.
Shane Stokes read the letter from the Texas Municipal Clerks Association and congratulated Barbara and Kimberlee on a job well done.
“City Secretary Barbara Stucker and Deputy City Secretary Kimberlee Hughes completed their required professional education for certification as Texas Registered Municipal Clerk. They were awarded their certificates on January 23 in Round Rock. As officers of the City, achieving certification confirms their professional and personal commitment to their city by staying up to date on laws effecting municipalities in Texas. Certification in this program requires successful completion of approximately 200 hours of individual home study on a 4-course curriculum and attendance at 96 hours of professional development seminars. The certification program is recognized and endorsed by the Texas Local Government Code. Congratulations to the city council as well as Barbara and Kimberlee for their accomplishments. Thank you ladies, I know that took a lot of hard work and we’re proud of you.”
Financial Advisor Theresa Daniels then recognized Cindy Silva for receiving her Level 1 Clerks certification from the Texas Municipal Clerks Association.
“To earn this certification, a student must complete 40 hours of education and pass an exam that covers topics such as charging and pretrials, state and city reporting, trial processes and procedures, traffic law, court ethics, post-trial processes, and court professionalism. Cindy has worked in our Municipal Court for 20 years as a Court Clerk. We thank you for all that you do and we hope that you continue to increase your certifications. Thank you.”
Next on the agenda was to consider the approving the minutes of the January 27, 2025 regular commission meeting and excusing the absence of Mayor DeFever from that meeting; both were approved.
Next was to consider entering into a Joint Election Agreement with the Pampa Independent School District for the May 3, 2025 General Election, which was approved.
Next was to consider adopting Resolution No. R25-005 call the City of Pampa’s May 3, 2025 General Election that will be for the offices of Mayor, Commissioner Ward 1 and Commissioner Ward 3, which was approved. Early voting will begin on April 21 through April 29 at the Pampa ISD Administration building and Election Day will be located at MK Brown.
Next was to consider adopting Resolution No. R25-006 authorizing the submission of a grant application for the Rifle-Resistant Body Armor Project.
Lt. Brian Massey of the Pampa Police Department addressed the commissioners court in regards to the resolution.
“What you have before you is a resolution allowing us to apply for a grant that will allow us to purchase 30 rifle-resistant vests and plate carriers. These vests are to replace the ones that we purchased back in 2018. These types of equipment only have a 5-year shelf life. The ones we currently have were purchased underneath this same grant and we’re hoping we get refunded for it this year to be able to replace all of those with current and a little bit more modern equipment. The vests we are looking at are about 70% lighter than what we currently have. The ones we have are about 24 pounds and these are going to get us down to about 6-8 pounds allowing the officers to wear these on duty all the time as opposed to having to go to the back of a car and put them on if they’re under fire or something like that. It’s a much better solution for us.”
The resolution was then approved.
Next was to consider adopting Resolution No. R25-007 authorizing the submission of a grant application for the Active Attack Training Project.
“This one is the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, it’s been utilized in the past to purchase other equipment. This grant in particular is going to allow us to purchase an active shooter training kit. In the last legislative session, the legislature passed a requirement that all peace officers in the state of Texas receive 16 hours of ALERRT training. ALERRT stands for Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training which is pretty much active shooter training. They require it every two years and you can do this in multiple ways. The traditional way is to post a 16-hour 2-day course instruction. ALERRT will send a kit for that purpose, however with scheduling and everything else it’s really hard to get your entire department through that training without having to conduct a ton of those throughout the year. Having our own kit will allow us to break these training units into smaller sessions throughout the year that way we can cycle all our staff through it. The other thing it will allow us to do is utilize the same equipment for our school guardian training program that we created at the beginning of last year. That’s a program where the school teachers that have been appointed and selected by PISD to be school guardians-armed teachers-we work with them on state training where the minimum training on that is lacking and we have identified that issue. Our goal is to train them just like we train our officers. If they’re going to be responsible for responding to an event like this in one of our campuses, we want them to have the same level of training that we give our officers and having the equipment to do so would allow us to do that.”
The resolution was then approved.
Next was to consider adopting Resolution No. R25-008 authorizing a Lease-Purchase Agreement with PNC Equipment Finance, LLC for the acquisition of 40 golf carts for Hidden Hills Golf Course and authorizing the City Manager to execute all necessary documents.
“This is our next round of fleets,” Shane Stokes said. “About eight years ago, we decided to start leasing the carts for the golf course and this will be our third lease on these. They continue to go up on prices like everything else from when we first started this. The cost of a golf cart has gone up quite crazy. This lease will cost about $60,000 a year at the course and that’s made up with rentals of the carts. We’re asked occasionally why can’t we bring our own carts out to Hidden Hills and the reason is this: those carts are expensive and we have to pay for them so we have to make sure they are rented.”
The resolution was then approved.
The City Commission then went into an executive session regarding personnel matters and reconvened with no further actions to be taken and the meeting was adjourned.
