A joint press release signed by seven former mayors of the City of Katy was provided to the Katy Times on April 7 by Skip Conner, who was mayor of the City of Katy from 1991 to 1995. Connor has served as chairman for the City of Katy Charter Review Commission from 2024 to 2025 and was previously a member Charter Commission in 1979-1980


“Although we may oppose all of the Propositions, our main concern is the way the councilmembers decide to propose changes to the Charter,” Connor said in an email to the Katy Times. “They did so after approving the Charter Review Commission’s report, which recommended that no changes be made. During the Charter Review Commission term, no member of the city council presented any recommended changes. In fact, no council member attended any of our meetings.”


Here is the full press release sent to the Katy Times on April 7:


A group of seven former mayors of the City of Katy have issued a warning in a jointly signed press release to voters that a proposed charter change doubling the term limits of city council members is a very bad idea that could harm accountability and stability in city government.


"Our beloved city has grown enormously and prospered financially over the past four decades and for a quarter of a century managed that growth with a very effective 'city administrator' form of government under the direction of the mayor who has had the management job of making sure that city departments are operated efficiently," the mayors said.


"We are not personalizing this, but the notion of increasing the power by doubling the term limits of individual council members (only one of which is elected citywide) while weakening the mayor's management authority is potentially a devastating idea that could harm day-to-day management," the joint statement said.


"From the all-important Chief of Police to major department heads in streets, finance, drainage, water, parks, and others, need to be able to look to the city administrator who is directly accountable to our strong mayor form of government as their boss to whom they are rigorously accountable," the

mayors said.


These former Katy mayors include Hank Schmidt, Don Elder, Doyle Callender, Chuck Brawner, Fabol Hughes, Skip Conner, and Bill Hastings, who also served as Chief of the Katy Police Department in his career. Combined, they served over 25 years as mayors of Katy.


In addition to strong criticism of the substance of doubling council members' term limits to 12 years while weakening the authority of a mayor to hold the city administrator fully accountable, the mayors' statement also criticized "the process that led to placing the proposed charter changes on the May

ballot."


The mayors explained that past Katy voters overwhelmingly approved a very rigorous process of well-publicized review and citizen input into any debate changing Katy's charter. The process allowed for public input from October to December 2024 and January 2025. These proposed changes were not proposed until mid-February by Council during a City Council meeting just days before the election deadline. That's not the way citizens wanted this process to work," they said.


"The current effort that led to these charter changes being moved to a voter election literally ignored and rejected that highly public process," the mayors said. "The result is that these proposed charter changes absolutely did NOT have the due diligence review of the Charter Review Commission and the public before being sent to voters."


"This proposal is contrary to the history and culture of how the citizens of Katy have chosen to govern themselves successfully during our challenging years of high growth and prosperity while controlling property taxes and imposing strong accountability on the system," the mayors said.


"Any notion or allegation that, as former mayors, we are trying to hang on to power or prestige by taking this stand is absolutely not true," the mayors said. "We all agree that one of the greatest honors in our lives has been the trust and respect that citizens gave us when they elected each of us mayor." "We owe it to the citizens who gave us their trust and confidence to inform them that our experience feels that this proposed change is a really bad idea," their statement said.


"We strongly encourage citizens to reject all proposed charter changes until there is a full public review and comment as the charter itself outlines, including a full review by the public and the Charter Review Commission," they concluded.


Skip Conner 1991-1995

Hank Schmidt 1995-2001

Doyle Callender 2001-2007

Don Elder, Jr. 2007-2013

Fabol Hughes 2013-2017

Chuck Brawner 2017-2019

Bill Hastings 2019-2022