This is a shorter agenda than the marathon meetings of the past two months, but two items carry real policy weight. Item 6 opens a new front in the city’s campaign against data centers: Councilmember Contreras is proposing subdivision regulations in Willow Park’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) aimed at keeping data centers out of the areas surrounding the city. Item 7 is Mayor Palmer’s proposed new City Code of Conduct — a governance ordinance setting standards of professional conduct for the Council, staff, boards, and commissions.
The data-center theme now runs through nearly every layer of city policy. Over the past two meetings the Council has moved to restrict data-center water use by ordinance, directed staff to strip data centers from the Beall-Dean Ranch planned-development entitlements, and — at the June 23 meeting — voted to have a charter commission appointed and tasked with adding a data-center prohibition to the proposed Home Rule Charter. Item 6 extends that same objective outward into the ETJ, and Item 13 continues the charter commission work the Council began on June 23.
The Lea Young park dedication (Item 5) is back on the agenda at Councilmember Wright’s request, after being tabled in June. The executive session carries the same litigation and personnel items that have recurred all year: the Halff Associates and Fort Worth/Aledo lawsuits, the charter legal review, the Police Chief position, and the City Manager agreement.
Presiding: Mayor Teresa Palmer. Council: Eric Contreras, Chawn Gilliland, Buddy Wright, Scott Smith, and Nathan Crummel (Mayor Pro Tem). City Manager: Toni Fisher. Proclamation: Aledo High School Baseball Team. Agenda posted: July 8, 2026 at 6:00 PM (72-hour requirement met).
A brief recap for continuity; a fuller June 23 recap will follow separately. All five Council members were present on June 23, and every vote was 5–0. Council approved the expanded West Oak HB 500 water-grant application (Resolution 2026-30) ahead of the July 30 deadline, and approved the digital pylon sign SUP for The District at Willow Park after residents raised concerns about the sign’s 8–10 second message-change timing.
Councilmember Contreras outlined a Squaw Creek financing path built around a roughly $6 million tax note for roads, timed to next year’s debt rolloff, with the water portion dependent on winning the HB 500 grant. And the Council voted 5–0 to have a charter committee appointed with a specific charge — correcting election dates and creating a section prohibiting data centers — reflecting Contreras’s argument that a charter-level prohibition would be the strongest protection. The ordinance calling the November 3 charter election was tabled a third time.
Routine approval of the June 23 minutes, summarized in the recap above. Consent items are enacted in a single motion unless a member pulls one for separate discussion.
A discussion item, likely framing an employee recognition or service-award program. No vote is anticipated.
A proposed park dedication honoring former council member Lea Young. The item was tabled at the June 9 meeting; at the June 23 meeting, Councilmember Wright asked in future-agenda requests that it be placed back on the agenda, which is how it returns here.
This is the substantive new policy item of the meeting. Councilmember Contreras is proposing that the city consider subdivision regulations in its extraterritorial jurisdiction — the unincorporated area extending one mile beyond the city limits — as a tool to keep data centers out of the areas bordering Willow Park. The ETJ matters because development there can eventually be annexed into the city or can affect the city’s infrastructure, roads, and water; controlling how land is subdivided in the ETJ is one of the traditional levers a Texas city has over growth beyond its borders.
A city’s authority over its ETJ derives from Chapter 42 of the Texas Local Government Code, and subdivision platting authority in the ETJ has historically been shared between cities and counties under Chapter 212. Willow Park’s ETJ extends one mile beyond the corporate boundary — a distance set by the city’s population being above 5,000, as reflected in the city’s own code.
Cities have far less control over their ETJ than over land inside the city limits, and the Texas Legislature has been steadily narrowing what control remains. There is no zoning authority in the ETJ, and recent state laws — including Senate Bill 2038 (2023) — let landowners and residents petition to remove their property from a city’s ETJ entirely, while other measures have restricted how cities apply subdivision and land-use rules there. So while subdivision regulation is one of the few levers Willow Park has beyond its borders, it is a limited one, and the specific rules the city could adopt — and whether they could actually stop a use like a data center — are questions for the city attorney. This item is worth watching not because the goal is unusual, but because the legal tools for it are narrow and shifting at the state level.
Whether the Council directs staff and the city attorney to draft specific ETJ subdivision regulations, or treats this as an exploratory discussion. The interaction between this ETJ approach and the parallel effort to prohibit data centers in the Home Rule Charter is worth noting — the city is pursuing multiple, overlapping legal avenues toward the same objective.
Mayor Palmer is bringing an ordinance to adopt a new City Code of Conduct establishing standards of professional conduct for the City Council, staff, and members of boards and commissions. The stated purpose is to increase public confidence and promote efficient, respectful governance. Codes of conduct for municipal officials are common in Texas cities and typically address civility in meetings, conflicts of interest, treatment of staff, use of city resources, confidentiality of executive-session matters, and the roles and boundaries between elected officials and staff.
The material attached to this item in the packet is not a draft of Willow Park’s code itself, but a reference paper on how Texas cities write municipal ethics codes — a 2018 Texas City Attorneys Association conference paper, “Drafting Municipal Codes of Ethics,” by municipal attorney Alan Bojorquez. In other words, the specific language Willow Park would adopt is not in the packet; what’s provided is the framework the city appears to be working from. That framework treats a few decisions as the ones that matter most: who the code binds (the Council alone, or also staff, boards, commissions, and even volunteers and vendors), what it restricts, and — the central question — whether it has real enforcement or is only aspirational.
The central question is enforcement. As that reference paper frames it, a municipal code of conduct can be purely aspirational — a statement of values with no real consequences — or it can be enforceable, with an ethics board or commission, a complaint process, and sanctions that range from a public reprimand up to removal from a position. Which of those Willow Park adopts, whom it applies to, and whether the ordinance actually passes at this meeting or is discussed and carried for revision, are the things to watch. A code that binds only the Council is a very different instrument from one that also reaches staff and appointed board members.
The Council will recess into closed session under Texas Government Code Chapter 551 to discuss five items. Any action must be taken in open session after reconvening.
Item 8 — Halff & Associates litigation. Continuing consultation on the Fort Worth Water Project engineering cost-recovery lawsuit.
Item 9 — Fort Worth/Aledo litigation (CV26-0175). Continuing consultation on the annexation boundary lawsuit, with the case caption naming Beall-Dean Ranch and Parker County. At the June 9 meeting the Council voted to invite Aledo to a joint resolution meeting; any update on Aledo’s response would be discussed here.
Item 10 — Charter and Charter Commission legal issues. Continuing legal review of the charter process, now directly tied to the open-session charter action in Item 13 and to the August 17 deadline for calling a November election.
Item 11 — Police Chief position. Personnel consultation on the Police Chief position. Quincy Hamilton has served as Interim Chief since the removal of Ray Lacy and, by Council direction on June 23, is to receive a back-dated stipend to the date he became interim. This item may address the process or timeline for a permanent appointment.
Item 12 — City Manager agreement. Personnel consultation on the City Manager agreement. Toni Fisher was confirmed as City Manager on June 9 with her contract directed to be finalized; this item likely concerns the final terms or execution of that agreement.
This is the open-session continuation of the charter work. The agenda frames it carefully: “possible City Council appointment of a Charter Commission and assigned tasks.” That word — possible — is worth noting. Despite voting 5–0 on June 23 to have a charter committee appointed with specific tasks (correcting election dates and adding a data-center prohibition), the Council has now tabled the actual November election ordinance at three consecutive meetings. The “possible appointment” framing leaves open whether the Council will finalize the commission and its charge at this meeting, or continue to hold — which could reflect unresolved legal questions, a wait for the commission’s own recommendations, or simply that the pieces aren’t yet in place. It is difficult to read firm intent from the agenda language alone.
The ordinance calling a November 3, 2026 election on the Home Rule Charter must be adopted by August 17, 2026 — the statutory cutoff for placing a measure on that ballot. Counting July 14, only about three regular meetings fall before that date, which is what makes the commission question consequential. A newly appointed commission would have to organize, complete the assigned corrections — the election-date fixes and any data-center language — and return the work in time for the Council to still adopt the election ordinance before the deadline. At the June 23 meeting, the previous commission’s chairman urged the Council to reappoint the existing commission precisely so the corrections could be finished within about two weeks; standing up a brand-new commission instead is the slower path.
If the Council acts, watch first for whether it reappoints the existing commission or names a new slate — a choice that directly affects whether the corrections can be finished in time for the August deadline — along with the exact tasks assigned and any date set for the commission to report back. The data-center provision is the substantive wildcard: whether it is written as a firm prohibition, and how it is worded, will matter both legally and at the ballot box.
Items 14 through 16 are informational: City Manager comments, Council and Mayor comments, and future agenda-item requests. Under Community Interest, National Night Out is set for October 6, 2026 at The District at Willow Park.
