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Presenter seeks Temple consent to include city extraterritorial area in proposed emergency services district
Summary
A consultant and fire chief presented a proposal to form an emergency services district (ESD) spanning parts of several jurisdictions and requested Temple’s consent to include a portion of the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. Staff said consent would be brought back as a future council action and saw no major impact to the city.
Temple — A proposal to form a multi-jurisdictional emergency services district that would include part of Temple’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) was presented to the City Council, and the presenter asked the council to give staff permission to allow that portion of the ETJ to be included in the proposed district.
Robert Cunningham, who described himself as a resident and said he was hired in 2023 to help develop a paid fire department in a nearby city, outlined a map of a proposed district covering several communities and their ETJs. Cunningham said the proposed district would put professional firefighters and additional stations in parts of the county now served primarily by volunteers, and that the district would be placed on the November ballot for residents in the proposed boundaries to approve or reject. He noted the commonly used property-tax rate for ESDs is 9 cents per $100 valuation; state law caps the rate at 10 cents.
City staff told the council that, should the council give direction to work with Cunningham, staff would return the matter as an action item on a future agenda. A staff speaker said staff has reviewed the petition area and does not see a major impact to Temple because the targeted area is not in a growth corridor the city expects to annex. If the city does not consent, Cunningham said the petitioners could still place a district on the ballot but the portion inside Temple’s ETJ would be excluded unless petitioners follow another process.
Council members asked several technical questions about existing mutual-aid agreements, operational overlap and what would happen if the city later annexed the land. Staff and Cunningham explained that existing mutual-aid agreements would remain in place and that, if annexation later occurred, state law provides mechanisms for the city to assume service responsibilities and make payments to the ESD as required by statute.
No formal council vote was taken at the workshop. A city staff member said the next step — if the council provides the requested direction — would be a council agenda action item within roughly the statutory timeframe for responding to a petition. Council members expressed general support for giving staff authority to work with Cunningham and indicated staff would return the proposal with formal documentation and any recommended conditions.
Cunningham said the proposed ESD would likely use existing volunteer stations supplemented by professional staff, with the governance and tax rate ultimately set by a board elected by residents inside the district.
