# Suburban City Govt and the Env

**Channel:** Bradley Turner
**Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG7_vJ91FxE
**Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/WG7_vJ91FxE

## Chapters

- 0:06 — Introduction to Huitt and the Lab
- 4:57 — Why City Government Matters
- 9:42 — Parks, Floodplains, and Green Space
- 17:42 — Zoning and Commercial Development
- 23:52 — Rolling Hills and Sewer Problems
- 34:35 — Trash Collection, Landfills, and Recycling
- 49:17 — Huitt Water Supply and Treatment
- 54:31 — Growth Limits and City Funding
- 1:04:32 — Depot History and Civic Lessons

## Transcript

**[0:06]:** well howdy and welcome to Suburban government and local environmental science now for this lab I admit I have a little bit of a personal attachment to this one this one's one that's really near and dear to my heart for this lab we have gone today to huitt City Hall and we're here specifically because when it comes to mlon County Hitt is the largest suburb in mlon County it's also the second largest city in mcclinon County second only to Waco so when it comes to studying Suburban government it's really one of my favorite places to go but I admit to you I also have a little bit of a personal attachment to huitt you see this lab isn't going to be set up the same as some of your other Lab videos or other videos you may have in this course for this one I have a guest speaker who I'm very partial to but it's

**[1:03]:** a little bit tricky because my guest speaker isn't able to present today I'm going to be sharing screen time with somebody who was mayor of huitt for 19 years had served on the council or the board of adjustment or mayor mayor protim had served the city for 40 years and also happens to have been my dad when I first recorded this video it was in the fall of 2013 and when I did I shared a lot of screen time with my Dad we went around the city we covered all kinds of very cool and special topics and since that time my dad has since passed away but the things that he said and the way that he presented it was done in such a great way that when we redid this lab I wanted to go ahead and include him in this version so this is an updated version of that original lab uh some

**[2:10]:** of the questions are going to be answered by him and some of the questions are going to be answered by me and but again I wanted to sort of preface it for you that's why things may look a little differently you may see me from the past make a cameo appearance in the lab instead of just redoing the whole thing with just me I wanted to include my special speaker now my special speaker again the former mayor for 19 years uh I'm not just including it because of the fact I have a personal connection to him he really was and knew tons about local government and that's why I feel like his knowledge is so powerful to include now anyway just prefacing that's why it's going to sort of split and chop and have all these different aspects to it some questions will be answered by me some questions will be answered by my dad

**[3:07]:** so let's go ahead and get started with some of those questions right now hello as Brad said before I am his dad and also my name is Charlie Turner I've been associated with the city of hu since 1981 when I won my first election I've been on committees before that but really my involvement started in 1981 I'd like to invite you to come visit our city today because we have a lot of things we'd like to show you I want to go through and tell you how a city impacts you in an environmental science class today and the best part about it of all is you get college credit for this you get to go see our town you get to meet our people you get to see how things have been made better and in some cases maybe a little worse but for the vment of everybody you got to look at that big

**[3:57]:** picture so I invite you to come with be today and go around with me to hu we'll stop off at several places and I'll tell you fun facts about it as well as introduce you to why city government and your local city government is so important to you and your environment because just like where I'm standing today my first trip out to hu was in 1971 when a friend of mine bought a house out here I didn't even remember hu being here cuz it was just a farm community but I'll tell you this much I was dove hunting right here where I'm standing standing and if I tried that today well the police department's just right there and let's just say I'd be U visiting on the county for a while which I don't want to do that so come join me today and let's go have some fun let's look around let's learn some

**[4:44]:** things and let's see how hu has changed from the 1880s when it was founded as a little farming Community to right now past the Millennium so that we know how our environment gets impacted by all the things that

**[4:57]:** your local city government does so come on let's go say hu now whenever it comes to local city government a lot of times people don't think about it but city government is some of the most Forefront people involved in environmental issues and environmental science in fact I would argue that short of maybe the tcq itself local city deals with environmental issues more than anyone else they ensure your safety for many different ways one water quality reports your water quality reports have to be filed and provided by your public water supply city does that the city has different building codes that they put into place to guarantee your safety sure they're a bit annoying whenever you're building your house but fire safety making sure your electrical is done to code that's all done to make sure that your house won't randomly catch on fire dealing with sewage hey we all make it right and if if

**[5:59]:** we all create sewage someone's got to deal with it and if you cluster a lot of people together the city deals with it in bulk meaning all the citizens have to be have to have their sewage dealt with and we'll talk more about that later in this lab other great examples you're dealing with storm water what happens whenever it floods the city has to have an A conveyance system for storm water to make sure that everything gets out of the city as soon as possible the does lots of different things not even police and fire protection though I kind of talked about fire with code they make sure you can't build in a flood plane so your house won't flood the city does all kinds of things to sort of protect you and your property and they do this through ordinance and enforcement of code okay so one of the biggest things environmentally that local

**[6:54]:** cities have to deal with are trash are like sludge Waste Water waste providing us with clean water providing us with all of these different uh just basic human needs that maslo talks about the city does this in different ways usually by negotiating contracts with either surrounding entities or by dealing with private companies the city's main job is to provide it citizens with a better life or with the opportunity to not worry about those basic needs and so cities group together people group together as Citizens to sort of cluster and approach these topics at the same time when it comes to trash which all of us produce the city has to figure out what to do with that trash and we'll talk about that here in this lab what to do with that trash so that it doesn't just pile up like it actually kind of started to do in the case of Rolling Hills many

**[7:52]:** years ago as my guest speaker will talk about the city is here to make sure you have clean water when you turn the tap on the city is here to make sure that whenever you flush a toilet or run the garbage disposal or take a shower or wash your clothes that that water has a place to go that is properly treated to guarantee the rights of all of us to clean water the city handles all of those things and its main job is to make sure that all of its people are treated well and have a right to these different needs cities are required to provide you with a safe place to live that's their main goal but safety is a lot more than police and fire safety also means safe from environmental hazards like flood planes safe from floods safe from poor water quality safe from lots of different things the primary goal of

**[8:48]:** a city is to create a safe environment for its citizens and cities do that through regulation through ordinance they do it through police and fire but they also do it by making sure that you have clean drinking water making sure that your trash is properly handled so that it doesn't become an environmental hazard these are many of the different things that a city is required to do and they're required to do that by federal law and state law whenever a city incorporates it is required to meet certain needs of its citizens according to the Charter which is approved and different cities function and do that in different ways but those similarities between protection and safety and safety of different things not just from Criminal mishap but from also environmental hazards those are consistent all the way across the

**[9:42]:** board well here we are in Warren Park Warren Park was the first Park that you had ever received and we got it around the mid 1980s and actually how all parks develop because cities love to have Park it's the area that we leave naturally for the environment and all the little displaced animals and all and all the things that were taken away from their home when we develop our housing and all but it actually benefits people as well because most Builders go out and buy a large track of land and then buying this large track of land it's like buying a whole house full of furniture there's going to be things in there that you really love and they're going to be keepsakes and heirloom and then there's going to be stuff that you really didn't want and what the builders find out is when they buy the Family Farms is usually how it gets

**[10:34]:** started when everyone's ready to split up the inheritance they get a lot of land that they can develop and put people's homes on it but they also get a lot of land that they can't sell and they can't develop and they can't do anything with because it's called a flood plane now let me explain how a flood plane Works a flood plane is the kind of area and as you can see behind me there are trees here there's actually a Castleman Creek running through as well and it is areas that you could not build a house even if you wanted to because banks will not loan money because it is prone to have problems with flooding and all the other problems that come along with that so Builders being the smart guys they are decided there is a way we can both have a winwin situation actually it would be a win win win the

**[11:36]:** Builder wins in that he gets full value for his property the city wins in that people have a nice park to bring their families and picnic like this big Pavilion we're sitting uh standing under at the moment and then it's a wind for the environment because the places that were displaced for the small animals and the native grasses and the as you can see the Woodland and the water well it now has its place in hu as well and that's how most cities acquire their Parks huitt has been fortunate in that we had this park developed and usually a town of our size and we're approximately somewhere under 25,000 population which will be our Max buildout when we're through but huitt has been very fortunate in that we have Warren Park and then you probably have seen huitt park over on huitt drive or Highway 1695 for you map people but they we received that

**[12:38]:** one in the same way that we received this one it was in a flood plane and the Builder gets a full value of the land where before it might have been just a worthless purchase to them now let's take a look at a few things here in this part like Castleman Creek Castleman Creek serves the city in that when it rains and everything because there's been so much development the ground can't take all the water in quickly cuz there is concrete where I'm standing there's asphalt there is a road there there are all sorts of things that people have put here to make our lives better and I there's even a restroom up there which we definitely don't want that floating down inside the ground but people it makes people's lives better and if you take a look out here at Creek you have the water drainage where it can all go and flow naturally

**[13:34]:** out of the city without damaging the homes without damaging people's lives in any form or fashion destroying their property or God forbid even one of them getting injured or killed the flood plane areas though they sound bad when you're first talking about them Builders are actually something very very good for the environment and the city and the people that live in it if I can take a moment I'm going to give you a couple little quick facts and I'll be giving you a couple more about hu Park here now some of y'all are most of you probably too young to remember drive-ins I remember drive-ins cuz they had a big screen there you would pull your car in you park on the side of a what looked like a little Hill put a speaker on the side of your car window which y'all probably wouldn't want to listen to cuz it was you know like

**[14:22]:** that but they'd watch movies and they broadcast at one time and instead of going into theaters you just stayed in your car well there's here's a little fact you might want to know about hu down in Warren Park down over here in the playground are some old merry go rounds and they came out of what was the Waco drive-in theater for those of you old enough to know there's where they came and this is where their home is for those who are too young to know come out and re experience history here a part of Waco but I'd also like to turn your attention for a moment if I could over here to caman creeks and as you can see the flood planes prevention the water control we don't just want the water to run in there because the worst thing you can do about water is allow it to pick up speed as it

**[15:11]:** picks up speed that's where you get your most erosion from and so Engineers designers and nature itself has designed the little ruts and and uh ripples you can see going down through here so that it slows the water down but still allows the water to leave the city and do it in a safe way so that it doesn't erode our whole Countryside here as you'll notice even on the bridges there is a lot of concrete to slow the water down so that it doesn't erode and undermine the structures of everything yes we even have another park across the street if you happen to come here across the old Temple Road called glaze Park when it's finally going to be finished and that Park was donated for the same reason this area was developed and there was some land that couldn't be used for that purpose but it is perfect to allow the environment to retain

**[16:06]:** its natural state and let people have a way to come in and out and interact with having to without having to drive 50 Mi out in the countryside to find it parks are a wonderful place no City should be without one and every city that thrives has a part of one kind or another hu has been trip blessed in that we have two that have been developed already and one potential here and so parks are an essential part for Builders for Citizens for cities and for our environment it allows our little animals to have a place to live and still call home it allows our Birds trees to nest in we still have some of the indigenous grasses and trees that are a part of this area even back when it was in the 1800s and mainly just a flat black prairie so the next time you're in your Park have fun with your family

**[17:00]:** have fun with your date if that's what you choose to do or have fun with whatever you're doing there take pictures enjoy the playgrounds and everything but remember the little animals live there too and we all live together tell you what parks are a great place to be but you know what that's only one part of how a city in in impacts your environment and so tell you what come along with me and let's go to the next place so that you can see how your city changes and how the changes change you so join

**[17:42]:** me so welcome to Commerce Park here in hu Texas now Commerce Park is not like a city park Commerce Park is for our businesses here we have to develop areas for businesses to come in because it's important that the city have some businesses in them it helps cut back on the tax rate for the homeowners and that's always a good thing but although that's a good thing there are some bad things that come along with it and these problems have to be worked out our businesses are important to us so what we have to do is see they require more water they require more sewer to be treated they require more electricity they have more resources that they have to have in order to develop their products and make their profits so that they can come in and pay the taxes that help our homeowners so that they don't have to pay as much but

**[18:37]:** how do you control all of this do you allow a business just be in the middle of town anywhere no we came up with a solution as everyone else did in the past with zoning and Zoning is important to your environment for this reason there are different kinds of zoning in the city of huitt there is zoning for light industrial Manufacturing commercial and then there is what they call a control commercial we have multif family and then finally just regular old family homes like you were probably raised in and like you one day will buy yourself if you don't already have one of those the zoning is important because it allows things to develop in areas and it tells us how to future plan where all the resources would be needed because businesses do require more than just a regular homeowner but of course they're willing to pay more for that we have here in

**[19:32]:** Commerce Park a nice commercial park and that's good because we're we have plenty of land to develop for the businesses here and Zoning is critical because with zoning it allows you to put like say a manufacturing place here that would make a lot of noise and create more pollution next to an industrial area which might be where things are warehoused kind of like the Walmart Warehouse where it isn't built there but it's held until the store next needs it then you have what's called light industrial which would be maybe like a hotel or a motel or something on that order and then you have the business line which is like your grocery stores your your gas stations and things like that that provide the services and of course offer you the things that you wish to have commodities for example then we have what's called a multif family that's where you could have apartment houses

**[20:23]:** cuz some folks can't afford the price of a home but they still want to live in a nice place so they could rent an apartment or they could rent a duplex or they could rent a Triplex or a quadplex even in some places and then we have the homes that are usually used as rental homes there is an area for those and finally there's what's called an R1 or a single family dwelling and that's what most people in hu have most of them have a single family dwelling where they raise their families and it's the regular neighborhood that well like I grew up in and you grew up in too it's important the city has all of this cuz it allows us to plan for the future and see how much we're going to need how does that impact the environment you asked me well if we were manufacturing widgets here but widgets needed iron

**[21:13]:** ore and widgets needed a lot of heat and widgets needed a lot of water and widgets needed a lot of just extra widgey the city would have to provide all those things if they wanted the businesses to locate here but also in turn it would give people jobs and it would cut down on our tax base it is important that you have a commercial area it is important that cities divide themselves through this zoning so that we can plan more for the infrastructure here you'll probably notice if you could see them there's some water towers around here cuz there's extra water needed but also that extra water is a storage place for our homeowners as well and the water is an extra storage place so when we have droughts in Texas or something we have extra water to come in and use so that things don't get overburdened sometimes so you ask me about commercial

**[22:08]:** Parks commercial parks are fine they're not like going to the playground in the city park of course and they're not like going into a neighborhood park maybe if there were some but you it only has one true commercial park and this is it and so remember zoning is critical because zoning is what keeps the people and the businesses and the environment like with our Parks cuz the parks if you noticed are not here in the business area they're over in the residential area it helps keep everything friendly there's a lot more runoff water that has to be dealt with here because businesses have a bigger footprint on the environment where they have maybe Concrete where we have a driveway they have a parking lot where we have a home they have a building and of course it taxes our fire Department too in that there may be two or three stories in a building that

**[23:02]:** would not be there in a home so resources have to be available so you know what zoning is critical zoning infects your environment but it does it in a good and sometimes not a good way but it all works together so that the big picture as they say turns out to be beautiful and benefit everyone so that's what we talk about when we come to our commercial park which there's land here if some of you entrepreneurs want to come build we'll be glad to talk to you catch me after class you might say but tell you what we're going to move on now and see what happens if maybe you do a little as they say trash talk or something we'll see what comes up come on and join

**[23:52]:** me well welcome to Roland Hills a subdivision of the city of huitt I'm here at Glen Lee and Rolling Hills Drive and we're going to look at neighborhoods and see how they develop and how that impacts your environment for this environmental science class now if you look behind me you'll notice that there's a road that goes up a hill it looks like because this is a this subdivision is called Rolling Hills because it is Rolling Hills and back in the beginning there were a lot of places here where water could drain and we didn't have as many hard surfaces well the improved surfaces create a problem that causes flooding and it causes flood planes be in here remember we talked about those a little bit in the park so I want you to look behind me and notice that as the road goes up if you'll look to the left hand side you see what

**[24:48]:** you know as a curb the curbs are there to make it look pretty and pristine yes but it also keeps the water out in the middle of the road where it won't be all over everyone's home or in their front yards making a sloppy mess so to speak if you look to the right you'll notice it's a different kind of curb these are called a rural kind of curb setting they're made different and they're designed different for a specific purpose and their purpose is this they allow more water to move faster and so that the water can drain quickly and move on to where it gets out of the way and it doesn't cause any damages now initially when Rolling Hills was built a lot of it was not in the city developers tend to go out to the edge of the city sometimes and what's called the extr territorial jurisdiction or the etj and

**[25:41]:** they develop these housing markets people want to buy then because the cost is a lot lower but then you don't have as well the city control you might have if you were in an area where say the city got to regulate everything as it was being built this addition of hu originally had what was called septic tanks because everyone knows you got to have water coming in and you got to do something with it once it's polluted to get it out so these houses were built on septic tanks and it was great because the septic tanks handled the problems and all we're fortunate in Texas in this sense that it stays dry a lot because septic paints work well but 364 days of the year it's yippy but one day it's oh my gosh and oh my gosh means when it raining so much the ground became saturated the septic tank is you know it

**[26:44]:** is a big round concrete tank that is placed underground and the piping from the house goes in there the sewer lines as it would be called and it CS all of your waste water like from your washing machine your dry uh washing machines your dishwasher your sink your bathtub everything and including your toilets all that water goes down into the ground and it collects there and as it collects there are lines that go off from it called lateral lines these lateral lines go straight out and they split off from it and they form a base for the water to go out and slowly disperse then within the septic tank itself sometimes they have to be pumped as they call it because the big pieces or the chunks as you would have it gathering collec in there to the point it stops it up so great idea worked great for hundreds of years but then we

**[27:43]:** realized there was a problem so what was the problem well the problem was the house at the top the house at the top if you'll look cost $110,000 more than the house that was at the bottom and how do I know this cuz I looked at buying a house myself here before I purchased the one that I did and I couldn't figure it out and then it came to me when a friend of mine bought a house where we found out why cuz when you're up at the top of the Rolling Hill you're in a great spot even on rainy days because what they discovered were those lateral lines that came out were like soda straws and you know how two people can share the same drink with a soda straw well two septic tanks can handle the same drink with a soda straw only theirs went from the guy on top to the guy

**[28:35]:** on bottom to the guy on bottom to the guy at the very bottom so not only did you have all the water run off there you had the soda straw effect there and so the house in the bottom a problem began what was the problem well the problem was this as the water be to collect and there was nowhere for it to go because you got rain runoff coming in youve got sewers coming in as everyone started flushing their toilet well it all went somewhere and water finds the lowest spot and the lowest spot was the lowest house at that time and so the only thing in there and we will talk about this later the difference between a water line and a sewer line is pressure there's pressure on a water line so that the water can't back up it has to go One Direction but a sewer line does not have that same

**[29:28]:** luxury and so when the water would collect down there guess what there's a nice bathtub that'll hold a lot of water there's a nice toilet that's going to help hold a lot of water cuz there's nothing there resisting it so the house at the bottom became flooded and it came out into the house and it ruined the house and in some cases because a friend of mine bought one of these houses it actually impacted the walls and everything where he came home one day and a lot of his paneling had fallen over into the floor the water in there had actually leached up through the sheetrock and all and yes it was a mess is the only way to say it and so he discovered why his house cost a lot less than some of the others this was a problem it impacted the environment it impacted people and we had to do something about

**[30:18]:** it so what can we do there's only one solution we are not in a rural area there's not enough land to absorb the water when it rains we or even now when it dries so the answer was we had to put them on a sewer line and build things like the new W Mars plant where it can be treated properly and things can be done to it it can be purified and so it can return to our environment without affecting us personally and without polluting our environment around us and so that's what we had to do we walked and even I and another man named Bill Tillman and Brad's Mom we walked and got a petition sign so that everyone here in Rolling Hills could be put on the sewer line and it was a lot of money that had to be spent to get the line here but it was for the benefit of

**[31:07]:** the city it was the benefit of our environment and so it had to be done so we walked it and I'm not trying to Champion my cause I'm saying people needed it and a lot of times you'll find when you go to buy your home you need to ask about these things cuz it's going to impact you and your family but also the places that loan the money because a lot of people didn't have like $5,000 to put this sewer line in and hook up well the places that had loaned them the money were more than happy to loan them extra money because it enhanced the value of the house if you know your houseing you're going to come home one night and be waiting in sewer you'll gladly pay a little more for that house and as you can see the homes behind me it only enhances your biggest asset you'll ever own the

**[31:54]:** value of your home but more importantly it protects FS the health and well-being of your family by not polluting your environment so cities involved in the environment affect you the person more than you can imagine more so than just taking a test on what this unit it's all about the city is the city because people want to be together and have all these things that they can work on cuz out in the country you couldn't afford to have your own treatment plant even if it was the best thing for your family no that's why cities develop that's why people want to live in them and that's why property vales stay high now I want you to also notice that in this city we're looking at in Rolling Hills and give me a moment if you'll notice up where the curbing stops becoming the flat curbing goes up higher that's where the storm drainage had been

**[32:49]:** developed that's so the water can quickly get out of the Rolling Hills addition and move on down into what's called bullhide Creek so it can move on eventually to the brazus river and be absorbed in the river and and taken out so that it's safe for everyone because you don't see any parks here there's not that much flood plane a lot of the houses could be developed because of the Rolling Hills effect it allowed the water to move quickly and not pool so that places would loan money to build homes like you see behind us but remember when you buy your largest asset think about your environment think about what's around you and think about the houses near you also I want you to pay attention to one other thing look at these houses strongly because at our next stop I'm going to bring another fact to you that you may not know and it's

**[33:42]:** going to be kind of a humorous story so I want you to take a good look cuz it happened in this Edition as well there's nothing wrong with Rolling Hills Edition it's a great asset for the city of hwi there's a tax base here there's an environmental impact here there is a solution here and at the end of this lecture I'm going to ask you a question and it's going to involve two words so be thinking about what it could be while we're looking at everything we've done I have watched 30 years of development in this town and this was a big part of one of them so having said that why don't we go now and let me show you the next one and bring you a funny story in on it so come along let's go see where our next stop takes

**[34:35]:** us so welcome to the hu Richie Road wellsite and where we have our trash pick up huitt in the beginning didn't have anyone picking up the trash except for a couple that had lived here for many many many years and they were named the Clifton and it was an elderly couple and the elderly couple had a couple of trash trucks and when I say older they were probably in their late 60s early '70s and you have to remember it was the two of them going out and collecting the trash well in hu that was great except there were some problems that came up and the problems that came up were this the couple didn't really keep records as well as I guess they should have or could have well at that time they didn't have computer available so they would charge a nominal fee to come get your trash $2 or $3 a month and

**[35:31]:** what would happen was some of the neighbors got together and let's say we had a neighborhood that had 12 houses six on either side of the street and the neighbors came up with this creative idea that well I'd pay for January My Neighbor Next Door would pay for February uh you'd pay for March uh Mr Turner would pay for April and you get the picture everyone would put their trash in my yard if it was my month to pay and then they put the trash in the other yard now although there wasn't a law on the book saying you can't do that it really wasn't right and this couple worked hard for it but there wasn't a whole lot anyone could do and of course they suffered for it a little bit well if you remember when we were talking about Rolling Hills there was an interesting story and I told you I was going

**[36:20]:** to tell you a good one about it there was an interesting story that came about out there and the story was this there was a young man that had rented a house in the area he was single and he subl it to five of his friends so there's like six guys living in this house and the six guys decided they needed to have the trucks out there so they can't put them all in the driveway obviously so what they did was they lined them up across the front yard just like you had them for sale in a car all they needed was the signs out front well what happened then was the neighbors began to complain because it not only being in an eyesore ruining the yard I mean it's just it's just not the right thing to do so there was a law that said you could not Park in your front yard cuz

**[37:07]:** your front yard wasn't there as a parking lot if you had it paved or if you had it improved that would be fine but this one didn't it was just a standard single family home so when the neighbors complained the police came out and told them they would have to not Park their trucks like that anymore and so this angered this young man and his friends and so they okay we're going to do a tit fortat for the neighbors and so what happened was we had people that were buying houses and roling hills and all over hu a lot of them young couples and everything they remember our Topic's about trash and so there wasn't a law in the books that said you have to have you have to pay a trash pickup so what happened was as the trash accumulated there was nowhere for them to take it hu doesn't have a landfill landfills

**[37:54]:** are owned by private entities and they take care of them now some cities have them but primarily it's private entities that have them they are for profit they're not a nonprofit and they're regulated heavily by the state and our friends at the Texas commission on Environmental Quality so what could we do well the problem was the trash is building up all these new homes that have been built since probably the 1970s and on have one unique feature about them and that's a fireplace and what do you do with the fireplace you burn things in it you're already ahead of me aren't you yes they started burning their trash in their fireplaces buying new homes and burning trash in them like it was some kind of a garbage dump which in fact that's what it was the problem wasn't so much they burned some of the stuff in there though the Embers get out and that

**[38:51]:** could be a fire hazard and all and not to mention the liability but the problem was the young families had young children and young children create you're already Ahad of me again aren't you dirty diapers I tell you what I'll talk Mr Turner into giving you an extra two points on your final grade if you'll go out to the lake and build your nice fire and put you about four or five dirty diapers in there I'm talking about with the good stuff in it and stay downwind of it for more in about 20 minutes without passing out yeah you get the picture it wasn't a good picture piure it wasn't a clear thing it wasn't anything good in a new home it really destroyed part of the value not only for that home but the homes in the in the area so the tip for Tat comes back the guy that couldn't Park his truck

**[39:40]:** starts complaining about the guy burning his baby's diapers now the guy said but I burned them all up well but there were 10 cans that wouldn't burn there are things in there that would not burn and they've been burying that in the backyard so we've got air pollution we've got pollution where they're burying these metals may have been burned that have a chemical coating on them that could react with our environment we have dirty diapers we it's just it's getting out of hand so what do you do well you pass a law that says it is mandatory now that everyone has to have their trash picked up and that was a good thing but it could be better because the trash pickup worked out great we made it mandatory so that the cliftons didn't have to pick up everybody's trash for one payment a year out of them the city took over the responsibility of

**[40:29]:** making sure the trash was picked up but the city didn't have a place to take it and didn't have trash trucks and everything remember I told you that's contracted by private entity and they do it as a business profession just like people building cars or bringing groceries to the market or whatever there is a cost involved now the odd facts you may find is that a city's landfill or the closest one to it because the closest one here is Waco doesn't necessarily mean that's where your trash goes in fact in Hue it with the contracts we have it doesn't go to Waco it goes to other places miles and miles away so that you can't just assume your trash will be picked up and taken to the closest place now the reason you can't assume that is because first of all it's not owned by hu it's owned by private company secondly to put a

**[41:30]:** trash dump site in like that it's millions of dollars cuz it has to have a hole dug in the ground it has to be lined with Clay I mean there are regulations from our friends at the Taxas Commission on Environmental Quality that issue licenses for this so it's inspected so that it doesn't pollute our groundwater it doesn't pollute the ground around it it doesn't pollute our air because all of them if you know after they get covered build up a meth thing gas in there and that could be deadly if it collected or like you've seen in the news sometimes a house just explodes well you don't want a landfill to explode not only do you not want the damage it would cause you don't want what it would scatter all over your town so there are reasons why your trash has to be picked up and it has to be done in a certain

**[42:18]:** way as you can see behind me are two big dumpsters these are used to take the overload where people come in on a Saturday that may need to get rid of some extra things that they pay for it's part of the service that's provided for us but just because Waco has the landfill doesn't mean those two dumpsters are going to go to Waco they go where huitt has had a contract with a private company to go and take care of our trash now the next problem comes around we're filling them up too quickly these trash these trash landfills are filling up entirely too quickly so what is the solution to the problem Mr Turner I was even asked that I said simple recycling recycling paper can be recycled aluminum can be recycled tin can be recycled there are a lot of things in your trash you throw out and take for granted that could be

**[43:14]:** recycled if you're smart you can collect your 10 cans your paper and stuff and if you get enough what's it worth to you well you could be digging in the old pocket and pulling out money to take your date out tonight or maybe this weekend or to pay for whatever it is you might want to do or perhaps to just buy your next hamburger hey feed yourself money money is a is valuable because they can take I'll use an example like the aluminum cans it's one of my favorite facts I learned when I was in learning all of this to create that aluminum can cost a certain amount let's say it cost a dollar to create it to recycle it only takes 5 cents 5 sense and it's not in our Landfield and it's not polluting our environment because if it was we would have to go dig out the new or we would have

**[44:06]:** to have this huge process that goes about this can be smelted down reformed in and reused 5 cents versus a dollar which would you rather spend which would you rather have coming out of your pocket not to mention if you get enough of these aluminum cans together uh I know at one time they were up to 50 cents a pound you can be paid to take them in so they can recyc and you save save save and get paid for saving a winwin combination now we like to think about that because we have to realize that landfills are filling up number one number two trash has to be picked up but all the trash doesn't have to be put in the landfill most of it if you'll look at what you have in your trash can I will be willing to bet you 75 to 80% of it can be recycled so only 20% needs

**[44:55]:** to go out there so a land P that had 20 years with full impact might have 40 years if we all learn to recycle and that keeps the cost down for now while we're here I wanted to point out one other thing to you can you see these pipes laying on the ground remember we talked about over Rolling Hills two things there are sewer pipes and there are water pipes water pipes and sewer pipes are different in one way anyone care to guess come on give me a guess huh you may have gotten it may not it is pressure water must be put under pressure before it comes into your home that's why the big metall looking pipes are some thick wo they're iron and they're thick because there's a lot of pressure against them to force that water to come into your house and you say well why do you have to put so

**[45:45]:** much pressure on it because we don't want anything in the environment coming into your drinking water once it's been purified once it's been put up here in our Tower once it's been purified and it comes to your house we do not want to have any kind of contaminants in there that could make you sick or create a problem for your family water is a precious commodity you can live without food longer and you can live without water and water is a very valuable commodity for the State of Texas as well cuz there's not an endless supply of it there is enough to meet our needs if we take care of it and watch for the future see the white pipe the white pipe is like a sewer pipe notice how thin the walls are on it because it doesn't have pressure on it we don't want anything in there coming out we want everything in

**[46:34]:** there to stay in it and so that pipe isn't as thick as the other pipe it isn't metal if you'll notice it is plastic because it can be done that way the other thing was we had once in hu we wanted to find out how much was getting into our sewer lines cuz to pay for water runoff that's just rainwater is very expensive and anything that goes in a sewer pipe has to be treated as you can find if you ever go out and look at what's called the WW Mars plant it's a new treatment plant go see a sewer treatment plan and you'll understand what I'm talking about go visit one if you don't even get to go in and see it just drive by and you'll understand it's a very expensive process to purify water but anything that goes in that sewer pipe under our friends at the Texas commission on Environmental Quality

**[47:23]:** has to be treated so we ran what was called an ioni it stood for infiltration and inflow which meant we were finding out how much water was seeping in from rainwater and other places that had to be treated like it was coming out of your toilet and that's expensive where the rainwater wasn't going to have to be treated as well and we found when we started monitoring this they filled up all the pipes with the smoke and even though we handed out flyers we had people calling in the city all saying oh my God you it's on fire I'm seeing smoke coming up out of the ground they must have thought that we had a a volcano breaking out or or someone was underground burning up everything our coal mines had finally caught on fire which no one even knew we had coal mines cuz we don't but the inii showed us where the holes

**[48:12]:** were in the system so it could be taken care of cuz the smoke comes out and the smoke comes out very thickly so we fixed all of that and what we found and discovered was a huge percentage I think it was like 25 or 30% % of what was being put in what was seeping into our lines before we had them repaired and fixed was actually wasn't necessary to have to go through a sewer treatment plant so we were able to cut some of the expense that way so keep in mind one thing there's one word that tells you the difference between a water pipe and a sewer pipe and what's that one word pressure you have pressure on a water pipe you do not have it on a sewer pipe and go out sometime and take a look at them or walk through your neighborhood Low's or Plumbing place or whatever and look at

**[49:06]:** the difference in a water pipe and a sewer pipe and you'll understand what I mean I appreciate you being out here with me this afternoon and I tell you what we're going to move on and do some other

**[49:17]:** things as well so come on and join me we got some more things to learn about hu how cities impact the environment and everything you're doing great and we're almost almost there so don't doze off on me hey you wake up so huid obtains most of the water that it sells to the public from a well and from an aquafer system the Trinity aquafer system directly behind me you see one of hu's water towers and actually though you can't really see it there's a pump at the bottom too that pumps one of the water wells that the city of hwi uses to provide water now sometimes during the summer during a drought hu might purchase its water from Waco off of Richie Road right behind me there's a big man that they switch off and on and hu will buy the water from Waco to provide for its citizens but most of its water comes from an

**[50:13]:** aquafer system right behind me this process is far less complicated than the one Waco has to go through for treating water before it goes to the public between two huitt has a far less complicated process that's required to get its drinking water ready for you to use Waco has to undergo the daff plant the either Riverside or caramel treatment it has to go through this huge process huitt doesn't have to do that because most of hu's water comes from a well the well water that hu uses is hundreds of feet below ground in a place where virtually no microscopic organisms live when it comes up it only has a handful of contact residuals that have to be applied to it and one or two things just to zap it and to check its water quality for tcq but otherwise it's pretty much safe to drink straight out of the ground Waco's water isn't like that

**[51:16]:** though Waco has to treat it with the daff plant Riverside or Mount Caramel that's because Waco's water comes from a lake and in that Lake are tons of other things that are living fish algae microscopic organisms things that can make you sick so Waco has to remove and filter all of that stuff out before it can go into the tap water system huitt doesn't have to do that because huitt has a smaller population an aquafer like the Trinity is all is needed to provide its citizens for water that's why the water also tastes differently a lot of times in a smaller Community people talk about how the water tastes better here or if you're in a big city like Fort Worth Houston Dallas or Waco sometimes you hear people say how the tap water doesn't taste very good the reality is the tap water meets all of the standards just fine but it comes out

**[52:16]:** of a lake or a reservoir lakes and reservoirs have other things living in them and they have to undergo more treatment as opposed to something like to it where it's pumped out of the ground where there's virtually no microscopic organisms that can live there the primary reason is because of the sun the sun and water together provide a living environment for algae and fish and microscopic organisms there's no sun 2,000 ft down there's just water and so life can't really exist down there without the sun hence you don't have to treat the water system as much so a suburb like huitt has many of the same problems a city like Waco does it has to provide the same basic things like we talked about in the introduction it has to provide for protection and safety of its residents that be it through Environmental Compliance of clean resources uh police protection fire protection it does all

**[53:21]:** those same things however a city like Waco because of its population will have have greater responsibilities on many other issues because the per capita of people living in there creates a bigger strain on the environment a city like Waco for example will have an entire division dedicated just to storm water whereas both cities have to comply with storm water from the federal government and through the tcq a city like Waco will have a specific division set up just to deal with that based upon its population a city like huitt still has to have storm water compliance but its program isn't nearly as complex because the city is smaller it has less businesses it has less industry it has less residence so therefore it has less of a strain on environment to answer the question both cities have things they're responsible for it's just some may have trickier well some may have bigger challenges addressing them

**[54:31]:** because of the large population so huitt is in a situation where it cannot grow meaning it can't acquire new land without a couple of complex Maneuvers that's because it's surrounded and it's what's called landlocked I35 marks the boundary of huitt on the Northbound Lane is Robinson southbound lane is huitt it can't grow any other direction unless it takes land from Robinson and jumps over the interstate the other boundaries are all set by Waco Waco surrounds huitt on all the other boundaries and Waco very rarely gives up land directly behind me is one acre of land that was recently obtained by huitt uh by the land owner filing to get removed from Waco and added to hu the land owner owns the the other adjacent lots and wanted them all put together also Waco had trouble providing services to here it was difficult for Waco to run a water line to here it was difficult for

**[55:38]:** Waco to put sewer lines in for here whereas huitt already has as you can see from a water tower hu could easily provide those services so the land owner petitioned had this piece of acre this one acre of land removed from Waco ET J and added to hu it etj is something known as extr territorial jurisdiction and it's the way in which Waco controls places like China Spring China Spring is kind of weird because it's it's part of Waco yet it's not part of Waco it's not necessarily part of Waco city but Waco Services it Waco May provide for its trash pickup certain parts of water uh police protection but yet certain parts of Waco are not necessarily in the city limits per se that is etj extra territorial jurisdiction behind me is the newest acre of huitt at the time of this video and outside of that huitt can't obtain any other land it

**[56:49]:** can only obtain Land by trading it off with Waco or Robinson it can't just Annex it or pull it in from further out in the country like Waco which means that if hu wants to grow it has to either grow vertically by building taller buildings or build out the existing structures that it has so over the decades standards and laws have changed and that's because laws are reactive by that what I mean is you don't generally pass a law until something bad has already happened the main goal of Law and ordinance is to prevent things from happening again that sort of impair or make the rights make it more difficult for us to experience our natural rights or safety so a lot of times laws and ordinances are passed as a response to something and naturally as the decades pass as new new hazards are identified as new problems are identified that's whenever laws and

**[57:50]:** ordinances are updated they're updated to reflect new knowledge and new findings that we have if a new substance or if a new uh location or thing is determined to be a problem law will update to reflect that to protect the citizens and to guarantee equal quality of life for everyone so most cities have advisory boards these advisory boards are groups of citizens who serve a specific purpose for example the parks for a city may have an Advisory Board a group of citizens who are interested in the Parks and how they function and and different policies there different services that are offered do they have a disc golf course do they have a playground do they have a pavilion that can rent for people uh usually there's an Advisory board that goes to that Park and makes recommendations this is where a lot of times citizens can get involved in local community is in these various

**[58:50]:** City boards these then go to the overall city council and make recommend to them about different things that can either be improved or dealt with so advisory boards vary by City some larger cities like Waco have an entire Advisory Board just involved with sustainable life and sustainability Waste Management energy things like that cities like huitt have advisory boards on adjustment of building code uh they have them for Planning and Zoning how land is used in different ways they have them for the Mar s they have them for the library these are different advisory boards that that are concerned citizens or involve citizens that get together and make different suggestions about what the city should do so it doesn't fall on just one group of citizens and I'm going to be honest with you one of the things that you can do as a citizen in your community is reach out and try to apply to

**[59:51]:** be on one of those different boards it takes a lot more than just a handful of five or six elected citizens or seven in the case of huitt on the council it takes a lot more you need dozens of concerned and involved and supporting community members who aren't elected who serve on boards who support all these different public entities to make a better life for everyone so here's a tricky one for you A lot of times people get confused because while we pay property taxes you may ask if I pay property taxes or if you rent you still pay property taxes you just pay them as rent to your land owner or your landlord they're still paying property taxes and you're still paying them you just pay them as rent so why do we have property taxes and then turn around and have a bill from the city telling me how much I owe them

**[1:00:49]:** for water or telling me how much I owe them to deal with my my trash isn't that why I pay tax taxes no property taxes are designed to handle some completely different parts of the city they handle costs like police and fire they might handle a library they might handle the maintenance of a park the difference is these are all services that me and you and businesses and everyone else all use at an equal level by that what I mean is is all of us use those equally businesses aren't going to use police more than we are businesses aren't going to use the library more than we do we will all use it at an equal status businesses and us we use the streets we use we all need equal flood protection that's different but when it comes to water usage I might not use as much water as you you might use more water

**[1:01:56]:** than me a large business might use more water than all of us combined I shouldn't have to pay for a large business to use all that water neither should you so those are what are called Enterprise funds Enterprise funds are based upon the use so if you generate more trash like a commercial business you pay more money if you use more water you pay more money if you create more sewage you pay more money those are not based on property taxes and yes you pay more property taxes if you have a larger property that's worth more money but it's based upon use just like a business just like electricity or any other process that's how those things work they are instead based upon usage that's why property taxes don't involve them the same way so property taxes cover your basic needs of police fire city services streets whether or not you might live in the

**[1:03:00]:** county you might live in the Suburban City it doesn't matter wherever you live those are all equally provided through property tax Enterprise funds based upon use is how you determine how much you pay for water sewer and trash so along the same lines of what we just said you pay for drinking water you pay for sewer treatment trash pickup you pay for all all of those things whenever you pay your monthly utility bill when you pay your monthly utility bill you'll notice the amount changes now some of you may live in apartment complexes or locations where it's all bundled together and you just pay a flat rate what that means is wherever whoever you have your lease with they're paying that for you on an average once a month when you live in a city that's whenever you pay for your water your sewer your trash on your monthly utility bill now if you live

**[1:03:59]:** in the country or out in a rural area that's not Incorporated you might own your own water well so you don't necessarily have to pay for that but you probably have to pay for trash pickup you still pay property taxes for public safety for the sheriff's department or someone to come out and help you but as far as basic utilities water sewer and trash you pay those monthly whenever you do your utility bills

**[1:04:32]:** so here we are in front of the huitt depot one of the oldest buildings left in huitt Texas there's one other building in our town the hood Depot was built back in the 1800s and it sat in this very spot for many many years and then when it was no longer functional for the MK te out here the railroad that comes through town it was sold and it was moved out near Interstate 35 and sat out in the field for many many years and then it was sold from that area and moved to an area over near Woodway where it sat for many years as well but while it was in Woodway it caught on fire and this beautiful building was almost totally destroyed we had a group that got together that was called the repo the depot and we went over and reclaimed our Depot and we brought it back over here and we

**[1:05:32]:** raised the funds and we had all kinds of things going on in hu to get money so that we could restore what is one of the only two buildings left in this town that was original and that is the hu Depot behind me so we brought it here and we restored it and as fate would have it we even got to put it back in the same place it came from and we're very proud of it cuz it is the home of the greater huitt Chamber of Commerce and as you can see they do a very fine job taking care of it for us there's a couple other fun things you might want to know about hu and they are huitt is 10.3 square miles and we are landlocked on all three four sides I should say because we can't grow any bigger than we are right now hu's as big as it's ever going

**[1:06:29]:** to be and why because the city limits of other towns keep us from moving out any further hitt's average citizen is a mere 33 years old now obviously it's younger than I am and did you know another fact about huitt is most of the structures in this town out of all all of them if you added them up together 82.2% of those are single family homes and that's a nice thing the tax rate here though it's not the lowest tax rate in the county there's a misconception that we're the most expensive place but if you took your tax bill and looked at the city's taxes you would realize that we don't have the lowest rate but because we still implement the homestead exemption we pay one of the lowest rates and that's what counts it's not how much you charged it's what you got to pay at the counter also you probably didn't know this

**[1:07:39]:** but huitt had a high school yes three-story high school they used to sit down on land and I'd love to take you there and show it to you but it is not there any longer it was built in 1921 you'll go to the corner of first and Wall Street there is a piece of concrete there with brick around it it has hu High School cut into it but if you walk around to the back you'll see in big letters 1921 or I should say big numbers right and that's where it used to sit now there are duplexes there also huitt was a community that was agricultural mainly and there was only one lumber yard there just one and a lot of the folks here who had the original homes got their land sold to them if they promis to buy their lumber from the lumber yard because his family control most of the land nothing

**[1:08:40]:** wrong with that it's just that's what you had to do but you know what if you're dying to get into hu don't do it here cuz H's one of the only small towns that does not have a cemetery I mean we we don't have one open today we don't have one that was open back then hu does not have a cemetery the closest one is Waco Memorial Park out near Interstate 35 so in the years I have lived here and I've lived here over 30 something years I've watched hu grow I've seen what's happened in hu I've seen people come and go and I've watched things get better so what do you think think important I can tell you what's important the amount of money it costs you to move into a place the resources that are available for you the things that you need for your life that are controlled by the city government

**[1:09:42]:** there's two things you need to remember and it's my slogan there are two ways to handle your problems no matter if it's personal or the city or a church or whatever even the school that you're pretending you can be proactive and plan for things and plan out the future so that things go well or you can react and be reactive which is always more expensive it was reactive to have to go find our building rebuild it take care of the damage move it and know the cost was astronomical but worth it because we preserve the history it would have been better if they had had a proactive thing that just brought it back here and set it up for us proactive is always best you also need to remember another thing you can get to know your local officials and your local officials affect you more than the national government does Believe It or Not

**[1:10:41]:** the national government may take more of your money but the local people in they're the ones who control your life more and there's one thing you can do to make sure that your Life's a good life that your life has quality life that your environment is protected because all the things that happen that affect you as an individual happen right here not in Washington DC not in Austin Texas for our Capital it all happens here and how do you control all of that as an individual well you can't just come up to City Hall and tell them do it you're not the general running the Army but you're vote on Election Day for who you put in there totally changes what does or does not happen to you environmental science environmental the environment however you want to phrase it and local government what have they got to do with each other everything everything in your

**[1:11:43]:** life is affected by those so make sure the people that run your city make sure the people that you have there are looking out for you and looking out for your environment recycling water sewer zoning remember all the things we've talked about cuz every one of them it's like putting a puzzle together yes you can still have a puzzle without it but without the piece you don't see the whole picture and it's not something you'd want to have well that pretty much sums it up for me Charlie Turner and I've served many many years with hu remember I was elected the first time 1981 before my son was even born actually but I want to tell you I appreciate you being me with me here if it's late at night hey grab you some coffee if you got to stay awake or catch you some sleep before you have to be up in the morning

**[1:12:41]:** so I'm going to say bye and wrap my part up now so thanks folks welcome to hu it come see me sometime