The city council meeting started off with a farewell to retiring Municipal Court Judge Jack G. Redford. Mayor Roger Pinckney read a proclamation, proclaiming June 2 to be Jack G. Redford Day, honoring Redford for his years of service for the City of Llano.

“It’s a real honor to me to read this proclamation,” said Mayor Pinckney. “Jack Redford and I have been friends for many years and the City of Llano is awfully lucky to have somebody with the dedication and love of community like Jack.”

After reading the proclamation, Mayor Pinckney presented Redford with a plaque honoring him on behalf of the City of Llano and the Llano City Council.

After a short good-bye and approving the minutes, the council appointed Jim Dear to the position of Llano Municipal Court Judge. Dear had been serving in the position since illness had struck Redford.

“Llano was blessed to have Jack and is blessed to have Jim,” said Mayor Pinckney. “He comes with more experience than you can imagine.”

The council went on the discuss the City of Llano Finance Department report. No comments were made but Mayor Pinckney said the report would be discussed later during financial workshops.

The council finally approved the ordinance authorizing the issuance and sale of City of Llano combination Tax Revenue Certificates of Obligation. This item was suppose to be discussed and considered April 7 but the council couldn’t reach a quorum.

Councilman Mike Reagor posted an item on the agenda to be discussed and considered, which requested the council to consider the City of Llano obtaining a temporary beer and wine permit for city events.

The initial idea for this item was to help control the consumption of alcohol and help bring in extra income for the city.

Upon discussing this item, Councilman Reagor withdrew his request because the committee changed their minds and at a later time will probably reconsider this matter. Instead the committee will promote responsible drinking at these events.

The Llano Christmas Lighting Committee asked for $1,000 for advertising the Rock’n River Fest. Councilman Reagor commented that the event was still initially in its infancy and really needed the money. The council approved the amount.

The council also approved the issue of completing the City of Llano codification of city ordinances through the Municipal Code Corporation.

This has been an ongoing project and it is the opinion of the staff that the completion of this project is necessary to insure that the citizens of Llano have instant access to city ordinances.

Councilman Reagor commented that Fredericksburg, Marble Falls and Burnet all have their codifications online, you can click on a subject and read the ordinances on that particular subject.

Another item the council approved was the resolution to make certain improvements to the Llano Airport. The airport will use entitlement funds for a project to place a game fence on the perimeter of the airport and build a Jet A fuel farm.

The council also approved a Llano City Council Code of Conduct policy. The policy is to set guidelines on how members should behave. Councilman Mike Hazel commented this policy was past due.

The next item on the agenda, which the council approved, was presented by the City of Llano Utilities Director Josh Becker, requesting the purchase of a used excavator for the water/wastewater department.

Becker said that the purchase of this equipment would save the city money because the city could do more projects in-house, plus this piece of equipment would allow the city employees to complete projects faster.

“A used excavator is a very marketable piece of equipment,” said City Manager Finley deGraffenried. “We’re looking at one with 700 hours on it, so it’s basically new.”

Becker also added that the employees are familiar with the maintenance of this equipment and has a two-year warranty.

The last issue on the agenda was amending the ordinance regarding the deposit procedure for renting Robinson Park facility.

Due to an unusually messy rental of Robinson Park that took 15 man hours to clean up, Mayor Pinckney requested the council review the amount of the deposit and the possibility of raising that amount.

City Manager deGraffernried passed out pictures from this messy incident to the council. Mayor Pinckney commented the scene looked worse in person than it did in the pictures.

The council discussed what could be done to prevent this type of thing from happening again. The council decided to table this matter for the time being. Mayor Pinckney assigned the City Secretary to research what other cities have done in this situation.