BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Research Center S.B. 1040
81R5979 SLB-F By: Duncan, Seliger
AUTHOR'S / SPONSOR'S STATEMENT OF INTENT
For more than 50 years, the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority (CRMWA) has worked to serve its member cities and all citizens of the Texas Panhandle and South Plains by providing a dependable and safe source of municipal and industrial water.
CRMWA supplies raw water to 11 member cities (nearly one-half million people) in the Texas Panhandle and South Plains via a 358-mile aqueduct system. CRMWA's current source of water is Lake Meredith and the John C. Williams Aqueduct & Wellfield in the Texas panhandle.
CRMWA was created by the Texas Legislature to provide a source of municipal and industrial water for its eleven member sites: Amarillo, Brownfield, Borger, Lamesa, Levelland, Lubbock, O'Donnell, Pampa, Plainview, Slaton, and Tahoka. The headquarters of CRMWA is located at Sanford Dam about 37 miles northeast of Amarillo, Texas. The project was built and financed by the Bureau of Reclamation in the mid 1960s.
CRMWA was created specifically to provide services to its member cities. Therefore, actions taken by the board of directors (board) should reflect the desires, goals, and needs of those cities. When circumstances justify a closed meeting of the board, it is important that the positions of the member cities be taken into account during the discussion. It is not always possible for all circumstance to be known in advance so that member city officials can be adequately briefed before such a meeting.
As proposed, S.B. 1040 provides that a closed meeting of the CRMWA Board of Directors is authorized to include officers and employees of constituent cities of CRMWA.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS
SECTION 1. Amends Section 5(b), Chapter 243, Acts of the 53rd Legislature, Regular Session, 1953, as follows:
(b) Provides that a closed meeting of the Board of Directors of the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority that is authorized under Chapter 551 (Open Meetings), Government Code, is authorized to include officers and employees of constituent cities of the district. Makes a nonsubstantive change.
SECTION 2. Effective date: September 1, 2009.