Smiley City Council discusses animal ordinance, water construction project

The Smiley City Council met for its regularly scheduled meeting Wednesday, Jan. 17 at Smiley City Hall.

The council talked about three big agenda items: changes to the animal ordinance that was passed in the last meeting; a construction contract for the city’s water treatment and well improvement project and a new city website.

Water Treatment and Well Improvement project

Jerry Shepard of Southwest Engineering spoke to the council about two bids for the water treatment and well improvement project.

The two bids were from J&K Utility Services of Creekmore, and TTE of Spicewood, Shepard said.

“The first bid was about right before Christmas, and we only got one bid and it was over the amount of money that we had available, so obviously you're likely to reject that bid and switch around some stuff and rebid the project,” Shepard said.

The councils approved unanimously to award the construction contract to J&K Utility for the water treatment and well improvement project.

Animal Ordinance changes

Concerns about the new Animal Ordinance that was passed during the Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023 meeting were brought up by Councilwoman Lori Price.

Price brought up concerns about how the ordinance was written about the number of chickens a resident can have.

“The prior ordinance was you can have six [chickens] per acre. So if we go with the new one, we have several Smiley residents who have more than six chickens. They either want to be grandfathered in or they would like for the ordinance to change,” Price said.

Smiley Mayor Lisa Benavidez said she spoke to the city attorney and was told that residents cannot be grandfathered in.

“This is one that affects not only myself, but another council member, but there are several residents in the city of Smiley who have more than six and have several acres,” Price said.

City Secretary Scott Jewett explained the new ordinances about owning fowls (chickens) to Price.

Jewett said that, in section one, subsection B, residents can have up to six fowls in a 50-foot by 100-foot building or pen, or they can have up to 12 if the enclosure is greater than 100 feet.

Price said the problem is about residents with free-range chickens.

“Both ordinances talk about free-range and they both say the same thing — that in a way, you can free range, as long as your animals don't cross into your neighbor's yard, they don't cross an easement, they don't cross into the street,” Jewett said.

The council approved, 3-0, (with Price excluding herself from the vote) for residents to have six chickens per acre.

New city website

The council lastly talked about changing technology support, city website, and adding dot.gov or dot.org to the end of the city emails.

The talk of changes to emails was brought up by Smiley Marshal Jason Torres, Jewett said.

“It's my understanding that, and the marshal will correct me, if I'm wrong, there are certain things, equipment information that he's trying to obtain as himself as marshal as well as that for his deputies. However, with his DECE email, he can only go so far with state and federal agencies without a dot.gov [in his email],” Jewett said.

Benavidez said one of the main strategies for changing the website is to put water applications and more city items for people to have access to online.

“We do have younger generations that are moving into the city of Smiley, and they say, ‘Oh, we've been looking on your website. And there's no application,’ so it makes it hard for those that live in San Antonio to drive over here to take a day off when they can do it online,” Benavidez said.

The council approved changing technology support, city website and adding dot.gov or dot.org email addresses.

In other business, the council approved changing the Feb. 21 meeting regular start time from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. to allow all candidates to attend drawing for place on the ballot. On the ballot for this year will be the mayor position and two council seats.