Smiley sells fire station land to ESD 2 for $50,000

Smiley City Council voted 4-0 with one abstention to accept an offer for the land on Farm-to-Market Road 108 on which the Smiley VFD fire station sits from Gonzales County Emergency Services District No. 2 for $50,000 at a special called meeting Wednesday, April 30.

ESD 2 is working to combine the Nixon Fire and Rescue with the Smiley Volunteer Fire Department into a single entity — Gonzales County Fire South — which would have jurisdiction over the entire southern quarter of the county. The department would keep stations in both Nixon and Smiley and report to a single fire chief, Mark Mendez of Nixon, in order to streamline operations.

There had been concern that the ESD 2 would be forced to look elsewhere in the county if they were not able to work out an agreement with the city for the existing fire station site — if the city kept the land for itself or sold to someone else. That could have resulted in higher response times and higher insurance rates for Smiley residents if a new station had to be built elsewhere in Smiley or even possibly closer to Westhoff.

Mayor Pro Tem Ellis Villasana and Councilmembers Lori Price, Melva Childress and Diana Moreno voted in favor of selling the property to ESD 2 while Councilmember Daniel Benavidez announced he was abstaining from voting.

The city owns all of lot 208 from Pouncey Street to FM 108 beginning at the driveway next to First Baptist Church. What is being sold to ESD 2 will be all the land the fire station and its helipad sit on extending about 200 feet outward from the station towards Pouncey Street. The rest of the parcel remains with the city.

Mayor Lisa Benavidez said a second item on the agenda was to discuss possibly leasing to the ESD 2 the remaining land next to the fire station that the city owns so the fire department can continue to use the property whenever it holds its own fundraisers or events for groups like the Smiley Bantam Activity Group (SBAG).

“They won’t have to be asking us to use the remaining part of the property,” Benavidez said. “If Chief Mendez tells an organization, ‘Yes, you can have your function there.’ They’ll be using their property and instead of them having to come in and ask us for permission for the remaining land and the liability of the city, we can take care of that.”

Villasana suggested putting up signs that would indicate the city is not responsible for any accidents or damage to vehicles which park on the land during something that is not a city function.

Mendez and Smiley Marshal Jason Torres, who is also on the ESD 2 board, suggested instead having a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the city and the fire department that would allow the fire department to use the property for events as long as the city is not held liable.

“It’s a legal binding document between governmental agencies so they can work with each other and it specifies what each party will do,” Torres said. “I think that is a better direction because the liability and everything else is written in there.”

The council then voted unanimously to approve drafting the MOU with the fire department regarding the use of the additional land.