Wednesday, October 2, 2024
RENO — After a brief hiatus, the disincorporation movement has returned to Reno.
In 2022, former Reno Mayor Eric Hunter collected what he thought was enough petition signatures to trigger an election over dissolving the city. However, then-Mayor Sam White disagreed that all the signatures were legitimate and did not put the issue on the ballot. In response, Hunter was part of a lawsuit against White.
In May 2023, Hector Bas Jr. became the city’s new mayor, and as such, the lawsuit ended.
“Since we elected a new mayor, our attorney said you probably have to drop the lawsuit because Sam is no longer mayor; he can’t call an election,” Hunter said.
The initial reasoning behind disincorporation is because the city does not have the resources or revenue needed to support its infrastructure, Hunter said, and his concerns have not gone away after Bas was elected.
The former mayor has started collecting signatures again for the new disincorporation petition, and he is confident that he will get the required amount before the deadline. Hunter needs 400 signatures of qualified voters to trigger an election, and he hopes to turn in the petition around late October or November to give enough time for signatures to be counted. Elections for municipal disincorporation are supposed to be held on the same day as the next general mayoral election, according to Texas Local Government Code Chapter 62. Therefore, the next opportunity to vote for disincorporation is May 2025.
“It’s going much faster the second time around than it did the first time around, because not only do we have more people that want to sign, we also have everybody on the list that signed last time,” Hunter said.
Pushback against disincorporation is also forming. Parker County Judge Pat Deen spoke to locals at Reno Elementary School last month about what may happen if the city disbanded. Deen said he could not tell Reno residents how they should vote but spoke negatively about disincorporation. He said people in abolished cities lose protection that local ordinances provide, like rules about how a place should be developed, which can impact property values. He also said the city’s water system would be privatized, leading to much higher rates.
The audience laughed and groaned when Deen brought up Reno’s current water system, which is said to need infrastructure upgrades.
“It can be fixed,” Deen said about Reno water. “If there's something wrong with it, it can be fixed, but if you de-incorporate, it goes privatized, and you have no say whatsoever in that. The ownership of it is private, and your rates will at least triple.”
Deen said he would start attending some Reno City Council meetings and working with the mayor to find solutions and resources for the city’s water issues.
“You have a city right now with good leaders that can work with you and deal with these issues, whereas if you don't have that, then there's nothing there,” he said. “There's nobody going to come to your rescue if you don't have a city.”
As far as roads in Reno, Deen said disincorporation would put the roads under the county’s control. Specifically, they would be the responsibility of Precinct 1 Commissioner George Conley, who already has about 310 miles of roadways to maintain currently.
“If you do this, Commissioner Conley has 60 more road miles to maintain,” Deen said at the meeting. “I can guarantee you now, he doesn't get enough money for the roads he has.”
If disincorporation happens, Conley said he will have to take care of Reno roads like he does for others in his precinct.
“I've got the worst roads in Parker County, so Reno will fit right in,” Conley said, sparking laughter from the audience. “We'll do what we can do, if that's the way the voters vote.”
Police services in Reno would be provided by Parker County Sheriff’s Office if the city was to disincorporate. Though county response times have decreased, Deen said the county’s deputies wouldn’t arrive as fast as city officers would.
“You’re probably going from about a four to six-minute response time to maybe 10 at best, maybe nine or 10 to 12,” Deen said. “That's a big deal. You're talking life and death here.”
Parker County Sheriff Russ Authier specified that the sheriff’s office has a 9 ½-minute response time on average for priority one calls across the county’s 900 square miles. If a deputy were to be stationed in Reno, the response time would be comparable to Reno Police Department’s time, but Authier said it’s not likely that a deputy would be kept in Reno.
“I'm not saying that we won't get there. We will,” Authier said. “It’s just probably going to take us a little bit longer, but we'll come running.”
Also, there’s a chance that Reno could be annexed into another city’s boundaries or extraterritorial jurisdiction if residents choose to disincorporate, Deen said.
Hunter did not attend this meeting and said he was out getting petition signatures at the time. From what he’s heard about the event, he said Conley and Authier came across as fair and just presenting facts. However, he thought Deen was only presenting “scary worst-case scenarios.”
“I feel like it’s trying to discourage people from signing the petition,” Hunter said. “Everybody else that wants the right to vote - he’s trying to suppress that right.”
Hunter added that some residents are signing the petition because they believe that locals should’ve been given the opportunity to vote on the disincorporation issue last year. Also, plenty of signers just want the city to “go away.”
“That’s been a large percentage of the consensus of people,” Hunter said. “They’re not worried about losing zoning. They’re not worried about the county taking over, which I’m not worried about the county taking over.”
Hunter added it’s possible that Parker County’s tax rate may go up a few cents to cover a disincorporated Reno, but he doesn’t think that would be nearly as expensive as the city’s property tax.
During the meeting, Deen confirmed that the county tax rate would likely have to increase to cover public safety and road maintenance in an unincorporated Reno.
Former mayor and longtime Reno resident Lynda Stokes helped organize the meeting with Parker County officials and moderated the event. Stokes was surprised by the high turnout of people that filled up the cafeteria at Reno Elementary School. She set up the meeting after hearing that the pro-disincorporation folks were starting to meet again.
“Finally, I called a friend of mine, and I said, we have to do this,” Stokes said. “If we don't do it, we're going to wake up not in a city one day.”
Stokes was especially appreciative of Deen, Authier, and Conley for coming to the meeting to give their two cents.
“We needed to hear from them, because people are being told, ‘Oh, the county will take care of you. The county is going to do all this stuff for you. Oh, it's no problem,’” she said. “I think the sheriff was real generous about his timing (on) getting here, but actually, before we had a police department, we'd wait 45 minutes to two or three hours for a sheriff to show up, but then again, we were a city, and we should have had our own police department.”
Moving forward, Stokes wants to see leaders in Reno who will work for the city’s best interests. For her, Reno is home. She loves her neighborhood and wants the city to get back to being a community.
“We got to start getting people in here who really love the city and will make decisions for the city based on what's best for the city and the citizens in general, and not what's best for me or what's best for you,” she said.
