Published: April 23, 2009 04:05 pm      

New city manager takes seat at first council meeting

EDC director points out gains in local economy

Royse City’s new city manager, Bill Shipp, attended his first city council meeting on April 14. He had actually attended his first gathering of the city council the Thursday before, as a part of the city’s pre-council workshop.

Shipp’s comments were brief, stating merely “I’m pleased to have this ship now to head on down the road.”

Mayor Jim Mellody related that he had gone to a residential fire on Easter Sunday and found that the new city manager was already on the scene. Mellody indicated that it was a sign of the type of commitment to the community that he hoped to find in a city manager.

As the council meeting progressed on a positive note, EDC director (and recently-relieved interim city manager) Larry Lott read a special report to the city council concerning the sales tax receipts in Royse City.

The request to put the report on the agenda came from Mellody. “We hear all the time that other cities are losing tax revenue and I think we’re gaining,” Mellody had said when requesting the item be placed on the agenda at last month’s meeting.

When introducing the item at this month’s meeting, Lott reminded the council that statewide, sales taxes were seeing a 2 percent slump. He added that from the receipts to date, Royse City’s sales taxes were up by 3 percent.

Royse City has collected almost $579,000 in the first six months of this fiscal year (which begins in October). As such, he predicts that it will total more than $1.1 million by the end of the year.

Lott read the totals beginning with 2001, in which the city collected $446,663. He ended with fiscal year 2008 in which the city collected $1.071 million.

“You can quickly do the math and see that we’ve had roughly a 20 percent gain per year in sales tax in the city,” Lott said. While the city will probably not gain 20 percent this year, the city is paced to exceed the surrounding area by about 5 percent.

Lott also pointed out that everybody sittiing on the council had served on the EDC board at some point in time.

Also during the same meeting, the city council approved the addition of Charles Hauk and Dena Elder to serve on the EDC board as the guidelines for the EDC require that city councilmembers leaving the council must also vacate their EDC seats.