By William Hoover Anvil Herald Correspondent

Castroville City Council on Tuesday, May 10, approved awarding a recruitment service contract for chief of police. The city received three proposals for the services: one from Strategic Government Resources, which provided Castroville’s city administrator; one from the national search firm of Baker Tilly; and one from the Texas Police Chiefs Association, formally known as Public Safety Solutions. “They each put together a proposal,” City Administrator Scott Dixon told council. “Sometimes, by state law, you have to pick the lowest bid. This is not one of those cases. There is a range in costs. Baker Tilly and SGR both cost in the $25,000 range. The TPCA is considerably less, at around $10,000.” “Based on your experience, what do you recommend?” asked Mayor Darrin Schroeder. “I think any one of them would do a good job,” said Dixon, noting Public Safety Solutions’ focus is on recruiting for police departments. “They have a lot of really strong contacts among the police chiefs in Texas,” he added. “Do we want a national search or a statewide search? If it’s a statewide search, Public Safety Solutions is as good a choice as any other.” “Texas is pretty big,” said Schroeder. “It also has a different spirit than a lot of the other states. I think it would be a mistake to open the search up beyond that.” “I like Public Safety Solutions too, because look at everything going on at the border right now,” said District 1 Councilwoman Sheena Martinez. “Texas police chiefs would know who they have to call. They have the contacts. We have high speed chases all the time now with all the illegal immigrants, so it’s good to have someone who understands what we are going through.” “Public Safety Solutions did provide our interim police chief (James Kohler),” said Dixon. “When we were going through the issues with our prior chief, they were recommended to us as someone who could help us out. Within literally two days, they had three candidates for us.” “We ended up choosing James,” said Dixon. “He has done a phenomenal job and really got up to speed quickly.” District 3 Councilman Phil King offered the motion to award the proposal for police chief recruitment services to Public Safety Solutions. District 2 Councilman Paul Carey seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. “This is a very important search,” said Mayor Schroeder after the vote. “Thank you for taking this seriously.”

In Other Business • Council approved the purchase of three replacement vehicles for the Public Works Department. The vehicles are two 3/4 ton utility trucks and one half-ton pickup truck from Nyle Maxwell Ram Dealership, which spending had previously been approved as one of the city’s Capital Improvement Projects. The cost of the three trucks is not to exceed $215,000. • Council received an end-of-meeting presentation from City Planner Bryce Cox, of the law firm Denton, Navarro, Rocha & Bernal, regarding design standards, such as lot size, setbacks and other criteria, for the creation of a Unified Development Code. According to Cox, the UDC would simplify the development process by containing all development requirements and building standards the city now has spread out in various codes and ordinances, which often complicates and slows the development process for developers and city staff. “Creating a UDC can be a slow and expensive process and requires a lot of community input,” explained Cox. “It creates regulations for the community for both existing residents, business owners and property owners, as well as future residents, businesses and property owners. It’s a really big process. It does take time. The fastest I’ve seen these be approved is about nine months.”