Mayor Duane Crocker and City Manager Jesús Garza appeared on the City of Victoria’s Town Talk podcast to discuss the recent boil-water notices, including the findings of the City Council subcommittee as well as next steps.
Following the first boil-water notice in July, the mayor appointed a subcommittee to thoroughly assess the City’s water system with the goal of providing concrete recommendations for improvements. Council and staff recently provided an update on the subcommittee’s work during a specially called City Council meeting following the second boil-water notice in August.
During the podcast, the mayor emphasized the critical role of the subcommittee in ensuring a robust analysis with sufficient oversight from elected officials.
“When you bring in a committee, you’re actually bringing in different perspectives,” Mayor Crocker said. “Everybody has their own ideas; they may have their own pressure points … and when you bring in people who aren’t necessarily part of the day-to-day operations, then you do guard against that organizational bias.”
The two guests responded to common questions and misconceptions from the public. For example, Garza clarified that improvements to the City’s utility system are funded through the utility rate and are not correlated with property tax revenue or the property tax rate.
Garza also explained some of the steps that the City is taking in the areas of “people, process and technology” to ensure the integrity of the water system, including greater oversight, additional staff training and software upgrades. Future improvements could also include automated flushers to reduce dependency on staff to conduct flushing.
“I certainly do take it upon myself to ensure that we learn from this and that we will be better at ensuring that people have the tools and the resources they need to be successful,” Garza said.
To learn more, watch or listen to the latest episode of Town Talk on YouTube at Victoria Texas Videos or on Spotify at Town Talk (City of Victoria).
For more information about both boil-water notices and the work of the water system review subcommittee, visit www.victoriatx.gov/water.