Minutes of the Panhandle City Council – July 10, 2025
July 10, 2025
The Panhandle City Council held a regular session on Thursday, July 10, with the following items on the agenda for consideration and action and the following members present: Mayor Doyle Robinson and Council Members Dusty Sloan, Tim Roberts, Dustin Copenhaver, Mike Brandvik and Brad Fields.
Others present were City Manager Terry Coffee, City Secretary Veronica Willburn and Chief of Police Sace Hardman. No citizens were present for the meeting.
Hearing on the solution for Brandon Manning.
The hearing on the resolution was opened by Mayor Doyle Robinson who did the second reading of Resolution 2025-06 approving a project between the Panhandle Commerce Economic Development Corporation and Brandon Manning, including approval of the grant of funds in the amount of $29,560.25 and the terms of the performance agreement associated therewith.
There were no citizens present for the hearing. The hearing was closed, and the regular meeting was called to order.
Item 1. Call the meeting to order. The meeting was called to order by Mayor Doyle Robinson.
Item 2. Invocation and Pledges for Allegiance to the United States of America and the state of Texas.
The invocation was led by Council Member Brandvik followed by the pledges led by Chief of Police Sace Hardman.
Item 3. Citizens comments. A member of the public may inquire about a subject for whom notice has not been given. All comments will be held to three (3) minutes and limited to:
(1) A proposal to place the subject on the agenda for the next subsequent meeting or
(2) A statement of specific, factual, information; or
(3) A recitation of existing policy. Any further discussion into the details or questions about the subject is prohibited.
There were no citizens present, therefore there were no citizen comments.
Item 4. Minutes from last meetings. Action required.
A motion was made by Council Member Dustin Copenhaver and seconded by Council Member Dusty Sloan to approve the minutes of the June 26 Council meeting. With all members voting aye, the minutes were approved.
Item 5. Council Comments. These are comments about community interest or items of interest. There can be some discussion on an item of interest, but no discussion about City business. City business is an agenda item if to be discussed. Anything that would be city business, city hall must be contacted 72 hours before the meeting prior to the agenda being posted.
City Manager Coffee and Mayor Robinson commented on the upcoming Texas Municipal League (TML) meetings and needing RSVP as soon as possible.
Item 6. Discussion with action. Second reading on the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) resolution for Brandon Manning.
After the second reading of Resolution 2025-06, a motion was made by Council Member Roberts and seconded by Council Member Copenhaver to approve Resolution 2025-06. With all members voting aye, Resolution 2025-06 was passed and approved on this 10 day of July, 2025.
Item 7. Discussion only. Discuss Violation of Code of Ordinances (VCO) letters.
City Manager Coffee discussed the VCO letters sent out recently. VCO stands for Violation of Code of Ordinances which are set by the city. Letters were sent out on tall grass and weed violations with no response. Each one will be mowed and charged a minimum of $250 when the City has to mow a lot or clean up junk and rubbish from a property due to health and safety violations. The City Ordinances are on General Code and can be looked up by City or Code.
Leonard Neusch was sent a VCO letter to clean up his property, it has become a junkyard and reflects on the city. The properties surrounding this have had improvements and the area looks nice as you come through town, along with the expansion of the fire station and improvements in the near future. The old animal control building will be torn down soon and possibly fencing will be put around that property. Any junk needs to be out of sight of the public, fencing around such an area should be 6 feet to 8 feet. A meeting has been set with Mr. Neusch on Friday to discuss improvements required by the city. He has been very cooperative and wants to clean up and make it look better.
Ordinances are in place for many things including peddler permit requirements, junk, rubbish, tall weeds and grass, water, sewer and trash rates, building permits, setback requirements, zoning, safety issues, junk vehicles, line of sight on corner or any property, animal control, feral cats and many others. Vehicles are considered junk vehicles when they don’t have current tags and are not out of the public view or behind a fence.
A VCO letter was sent to Dan Ruff and later contacted Dollar General regarding a safety issue with the fence dividing the two properties. With the permission of Dollar General, the City cut back the fence to the required 36 inches to allow the line of sight required to safely exit onto Highway 60.
If these or any other violation is deemed a safety issue, the City may immediately remedy the violation at the property owner’s expense. A lien may be filed on the property if the fee or fine is not paid.
Council will discuss the ordinances at a future meeting and decide whether the ordinances need to be updated.
The next meeting of the Panhandle City Council is set for Thursday, July 24, at 7 p.m.
With no further business to discuss, a motion was made by Council Member Copenhaver and seconded by Council Member Roberts to adjourn the meeting. With all members voting aye, the meeting was adjourned at 7:38 p.m.
