Laredo City Council to meet for first time after elections

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - The Laredo City Council certified the election results, approving the winning candidate and the eleven propositions that passed, with one already being put into action.

Proposition 10 gave the council the power to put things up for a public vote. On Monday, November 18, one of the items sought to put this into action by addressing the question of whether or not the council should have pensions.

The City of Laredo's Mayor, Dr. Victor Trevino, was the first to utilize Proposition 10 with the intent to poll the public on whether the council should have pensions.

According to Trevino, "This is an issue that the public needs to be aware of, and they have to decide because we are public servants. That's important for us. This is what the people want or don't want, so we need to listen to the people, and getting a poll is a good way to do it."

Pensions were heavily discussed in early November with some councilmembers and the mayor being disgruntled at being unable to opt out of it .

A 2019 ordinance led to councilmembers and the mayor to be considered a department, and classified as full-time staff members, in order to meet the Texas Municipal Retirement System (TMRS) standards.

The mayor's poll would also ask the public whether they consider their elected officials full-time or part-time employees.

City Attorney, Zone Ngyuen, explained if people considered council part-time employees and the council put that into effect, it would disqualify them from participating in the plan.

Stating, "It would affect the new councilmembers, but it would stop any additional contributions by current councilmembers. The corpus of what they already have is already theirs, but they would not be able to contribute more."

Calling for a referendum requires a majority of the council to be in favor.

The mayor's goal was to add this to the upcoming run-off elections.

One of the other poll questions he plans on asking is whether the public wants a convention center or a similar venue.

However, the item has yet to be presented before the council.

This was also the first time in over 40 years that the mayor was allowed to vote.

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