Council postpones draft agreement for rodeo arena membership fees

  • The Yoakum Rodeo Arena in late April. Photo by Hans Lammeman.
    The Yoakum Rodeo Arena in late April. Photo by Hans Lammeman.
  • Lisa Kaul presents trash collected at the rodeo arena on Monday, June 13, during last Tuesday’s City Council. Photo by Hans Lammeman.
    Lisa Kaul presents trash collected at the rodeo arena on Monday, June 13, during last Tuesday’s City Council. Photo by Hans Lammeman.

     

    Following the rodeo events at the Tom Tom Festival, the Yoakum City Council limited discussion on public access to the city’s rodeo arena to their executive session at their regular June meeting.

     

    While Council took no action on the arena’s access at the June 14 meeting, Councilmember Michael Brandt explained afterward that the potential agreement still required time for adjustments with legal counsel.

     

    “Council, staff and legal counsel will be) making some adjustments to the contract that we are trying to (create) as far as insurance – coverages that the city has versus what the group could have…” said Brandt. “Our lawyer is making some different verbiage, and we’re still going to put the contract together and try to get it back to the guys.”

     

    At the May 25 meeting, Council and staff directed Brandt to mediate between the new group of five individuals who wanted to restrict public access to perform maintenance on the arena and some area users who didn’t see eye-to-eye with their plan. 

     

    “We had the session with the new guys…,” said Brandt last Tuesday. “The other guys, we didn’t really include them yet because we wanted to be certain what the new group wanted before we put the two groups together. It’s still in question what we’re going to require and what they want to do.”

     

    He emphasized that he plans to hear both sides' input after the draft agreement is presented. 

     

    During the meeting, members of the group looking to instate membership fees told Councilmember Glenn Klander that the Tom Tom rodeo events recorded about 300 attendees on one night and significantly more on the next. 

     

    Brandt said the event’s success indicated the public's interest in using the rodeo arena for similar events. 

     

    Near the end of the meeting, just before the executive session, former Rodeo Club member Lisa Kaul presented the council with trash collected from the arena two days after the event.

     

    “They asked the bull-riding guys how it went, but nobody considered the aftermath. This is the trash that I picked up just in the arena Monday morning,” said Kaul. “They had all day Sunday to clean it up, and nobody did.” 

     

    She added that the council might want to perform background checks on the group members before taking any action.

     

    Brandt said that Council will have to look into background checks and that a draft agreement could be presented as early as the July regular meeting.