Bonham, Texas – The Bonham City Council met for a regular meeting on September 14 at Bonham city hall. Mayor Allen Sanderson called the meeting to order at 5:30 pm. All council members were present, including Clark Smith, Ernie Quintana, Wolf Laughing, Sam Fox, Jerrad Besch, Kevin Hayes and Sanderson.
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Citizen Opportunity to Speak:
Rusty Deets complained again of trash cans being left in the street and asked the council to consider putting a limit how long people can leave them in street. He also complained that the street sweeper has once again followed the garbage route, which caused the sweeper to have to drive around the trash cans.
Jade Custer also spoke and asked to be able to see an ordinance before the council approved it.
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Mayor Sanderson read a Proclamation for Autumn in Bonham, which first began 40 years ago. He declared October 3 to be Autumn in Bonham Day and presented the proclamation to the Bonham Area Chamber of Commerce.
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Presentation of Employee of the Quarter was given to Kayli McGlothlin, who is a firefighter and paramedic. She was nominated by the Fire Chief and praised for her help and attention to detail with updating the new protocols for EMS. The Chief also noted that he has received many reports from citizens who have praised her for her kindness, competence and care.
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Council approved the Consent Agenda, which included items that were considered routine and are recommended to the City Council for a single vote approval. City Manager Sean Pate explained to the council that if discussion of any item on the consent agenda was desired by any council member, then that item would be removed from the consent agenda and placed on the regular agenda for a separate vote. This month’s consent agenda included approving minutes of previous meetings, financial reports and authorizing the city manager to execute the FY27 Texas Department of Transportation Grant for the Routine Airport Maintenance Program (RAMP Grant).
Pate explained that the consent agenda was to help streamline things at the monthly meetings. Mayor Sanderson stated he requested that a consent agenda be used for routine matters. Besch questioned if financial reports should be on consent agenda. The city attorney said that every city she represents has a consent agenda and it always includes minutes, financial reports, police reports, fire reports and other routine matters.
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After several questions and some discussion, the Council approved ratification of a Memorandum of Agreement, 287(g) Task Force Model between the city and United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the Bonham Police Department officers to be trained and perform certain functions of an immigration officer under the direction and supervision of ICE within the BPD jurisdiction.
A representative of the police department said that 10 officers will be trained and there will be no cost to the city. The training will be 40 hours of online training. Sanderson expressed he was concerned for the safety of Bonham citizens and questioned if this agreement would pull Bonham officers away from their other work.
The Bonham police officer stated that they will only involve ICE when they are already involved with a person and they will not being going out looking for individuals.
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After a lengthy discussion and numerous speakers from the audience, the Council asked staff to draft an Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Bonham, Texas amending Chapter 3 (Building Regulations), within the Bonham Code of Ordinances for the purpose of adopting rental housing registration fees and rental housing regulations; providing for an effective date; and, providing for a penalty clause.
Director of Community Development Planning, Ross Altobelli spoke first and noted that this has been on agenda at previous meetings. He summarized what had previously been proposed and the objections that were raised. He then outlined a new proposal that took into account many of the previously raised concerns. He asked the council for direction as to whether he should draft an ordinance with the newly proposed plan or if this effort should be dropped now.
With the new proposal, there would still be an annual registration of rental properties, but this time the proposal includes no fee for this annual registration for single family homes and duplexes. There will be an annual fee of $15 per unit for multi-family units. The new proposal only calls for city inspections when a complaint has been made and not addressed in a timely manner. The proposal no longer includes any inspections between changes of occupancy but rather only when there is a complaint that is not addressed.
Altobelli outlined a proposed complaint driven flow which would start when the city receives a call from a tenant. The city will ask if the tenant has reported the problem to their landlord. If not, the city will encourage them to do so. If the tenant has reported to the landlord and nothing has been done, then the city will call the landlord to address the complaint and come up with a reasonable deadline for the repair to be completed.
Once the deadline has passed, the city will call the tenant to check to see if the problem has been addressed. If the repair has been completed, then the city involvement will end. If the tenant reports that the repair has not been completed, then the city will conduct an initial inspection. If the city finds that the report was a false claim, there will be no charge to the landlord. If the city finds that the repairs have indeed not been completed, the landlord will be charged $120 and there will be a follow-up inspection to insure work is completed.
Altobelli noted that the inspections will focused only on life, health and safety concerns. He said there are no plans to add additional staff.
Spanky Carter spoke in opposition to this ordinance. He said he is a landlord that supports safe housing but he does not support expanded government. He believes that there are already processes and laws that address the issues of bad landlords.
Lacy Bayham asked what code enforcement currently looks at. Altobelli said that code enforcement looks at the exterior of properties and they do not go into homes. Bayham pointed out that when a tenant has an issue with their rental, this is currently a civil matter and tenants only option would be to file a lawsuit.
Matt Titsworth claimed that only about 2% of cities in Texas have an ordinance like this. He also said he is for less government and opposes this proposed ordinance.
The City Attorney spoke up to provide legal information to the council. She stated that code enforcement currently has two ways to enforce codes. One way is through municipal court for health and safety violations and the court can fine a landlord $2000 per day, for every day a violation exists. The second way involves the city filing a lawsuit to get compliance. She stated that both of these ways are expensive and the proposed plan would gives the city an intermediate step before going to the expensive route of addressing problem landlords.
Several other local landlords spoke in opposition to the proposal. One citizen pointed out that nearly every landlord who was speaking does not live in the city limits of Bonham.
Rusty Deets said that he thought the city was doing the right thing in pursuing this. He said tenants cannot complain too much or they won’t have a place to live. Deets said while there are many great landlords in Bonham, but there are some problem ones.
HL Compton spoke and said there are houses in this town that do not have water. He acknowledged that there are many good landlords, but we do have some that are not good.
Mayor Sanderson said he thinks this ordinance is needed. Sam Fox said while we have many good landlords, the city also has some who are not and the city needs to help tenants with those problematic landlords.
Kevin Hayes said he likes the complaint-driven proposal better than the previous proposal and noted that this should not impact the good landlords. Hayes said he knew of many complaints by tenants and that this type of ordinance would help to protect the poor and elderly tenants who currently have no recourse.
Jason Wolf Laughing said that currently nothing is being done when there are problems and this type of ordinance would help.
Ernie Quintana said he grew up in rentals and his parents were afraid to complain to the landlord for fear of being evicted. He expressed that he was in favor of the city staff drafting an ordinance to address this topic.
Clark Smith said that for the good landlords, this won’t cause any problems. He noted that there are elderly people living in places that need help and that “we owe it to them to help them.”
Sanderson directed the city staff to draft an ordinance and bring it to the council for consideration.
Sanderson said he, other council members and city staff have been receiving disturbing communications. These have included ridicule for doing their jobs as well as physical threats. Sanderson said he believes that Bonham is better than that and made a plea for civility, cooperation and respect.
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Council approved Resolution 09142026.1 authorizing budget amendments for FY2026. Sarah Osburn explained that these amendments addressed the ICE funds for training, a generous donation for the animal shelter and other end of year budget clean up.
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Council approved Resolution 09142026.2 authorizing the City Manager to execute agreements for certain improvements at Jones Field Airport in Bonham, Texas and requesting financial assistance from the Texas Department of Transportation for these improvements.
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Council approved an Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Bonham, Texas amending the Code of Ordinances of the City of Bonham at Chapter 13 titled “Utilities”, Article 13.03 titled “Water and Sewers” Division 2 titled “Rates and Charges” Section 13.03.044 titled “Monthly Rates for Water Service” and Section 13.03.045 titled “Monthly Rates for Wastewater Service” to update the water and monthly water and wastewater service rates; Providing a Repealing Clause; Providing a Savings Clause; Providing a Severability Clause; Providing Proper Notice and Meeting Clause; and Providing for an Effective Date.
Osburn said that this was a long description of the increase water and sewer rates that has been previously discussed in budget meetings.
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Council approved the revised City of Bonham Personnel Policy. Osburn said that chiefs and department heads were included in a review of this policy that had not been reviewed since 2006. She said it was updated in a variety of ways and also added a social media policy for staff.
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Meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m.
