I’d like to share some thoughts about the management of subdivision platting in the extraterritorial jurisdiction of cities. These are obviously my own opinions and they will not be shared by everyone but hopefully the open expression of our differing points of view may assist us in resolving the current impasse between the City Council of Bulverde and the Comal County Commis-sioners Court.

At issue, of course, is resolution of which of the two governmental entities will be responsible for these decisions in the one-mile area outside the city limits of Bulverde. In 2002, both the city and the county signed an inter-local agreement in which the county ceded this responsibility to the city, as we did with most other cities where we share boundaries. During the ensuing years, our county engineering department determined that some of the county rules had not been administered effectively by the city in some subdivisions. Therefore, the county engineer recommended to commissioners court that subdivision platting in the Bulverde’s ETJ become the sole responsibility of commissioners court, thus revising the inter-local agreement which expires on Dec 31. Adherence to our county’s subdivision platting rules and Bulverde’s restriction on lot density are the reasons that this issue has been an important topic of discussion between the two governmental entities for over five weeks.

In subsequent City Council meetings and commissioners court meetings, discussions continued with the hopes of finding a compromise so that both entities could continue to support a viable inter-local agreement. On Dec. 13, commissioners voted not to accept a City Council proposal that was passed on Dec. 11. The court voted, in a 4 to 1 decision, to declare the city of Bulverde in breach of the 2002 inter-local agreement, thereby injecting commissioners court into all platting actions in the city’s ETJ. While I did not concur with the other four members of commissioners court that a declaration of a breach of the agreement was the most viable option available to us, I fully respect their considered opinions and their ultimate decision.

This issue is but one of the many challenges of rampant growth that we are all experiencing in the Hill Country. Unfortunately, space precludes me from providing a more detailed discussion of all of the many points of view on this important topic.