Seven Thoughts for Seven Points

I walked into Seven Points City Hall on February 12th with one question: what's the occupancy limit of this room?

That question sent me down a rabbit hole I never expected.

Here are seven thoughts I haven't been able to shake since leaving that meeting. Some of them are funny. Some of them are not. All of them are real.

1. The Room Was Full, But the Budget Was Empty

Standing room only. People lining the walls. After months of cancelled meetings, citizens finally had a chance to show up and ask questions about their city. And they did.

The energy in that room told me everything I needed to know about Seven Points. People care. They care enough to pack into a small city hall on a Thursday night and demand answers about a budget that should have been adopted on October 1st. That was over four months ago. This city has been operating without an adopted budget since October while every other Texas city has had theirs in place for months.

Let that sink in.

But the room was full, and that matters more than any budget line item. You can fix a budget. You can't manufacture a community that gives a damn.

2. So Who's Running the Police Department?

Before the meeting even started, I found myself in the Chief's office with Mayor Betts and Deputy Chief Anthony Katsoulas. Not a chief. A deputy chief.

Seven Points is a general law city. Chapter 22 of the Texas Local Government Code spells out how police departments work in cities like this: the council appoints the chief. Not the mayor. The appointment goes in the minutes. The chief answers to the council.

Chief Wennerstrom resigned in early November. Days later, the mayor suspended the entire department on his own. No council vote. No special meeting. So who actually has the legal authority to run the police department right now?

I asked the Mayor about this directly and if he has consulted with the city attorney. During the meeting, on record, he said: "no comment."

I've already filed records requests with the city that should help clarify the department's authority structure, any formal appointments, and the city attorney's position on Chapter 22 compliance. When the city responds, I'll share what I find with the community. If they don't respond, that tells you something too.

3. Thomas Lauer: The Swiss Army Knife of City Employees

I have to give credit where credit is due. Thomas Lauer may have had the most impressive job description in the history of Texas municipal government.

According to council member Mary Wennerstrom, Lauer served as the mayor's assistant, a fill-in post office worker, street maintenance supervisor, city secretary assistant, planning and development coordinator... and "whatever else."

The man had keys to both City Hall and the Post Office. He had a city email. He worked 40-hour weeks billed at under fifteen dollars an hour. And despite all of this, the city still hasn't produced evidence that he had an actual contract.

Lauer was arrested for official oppression in early November. Within days, the mayor suspended the entire police department.

No special meeting. No council vote. No discussion. Lights off, everybody go home.

If you think that timeline doesn't raise questions, I have a bridge to sell you. It's probably in Seven Points, and nobody has budgeted for its maintenance.

4. "Beautification"

During the meeting, there was actual discussion about spending money on beautification projects and police cars.

Let me say that again. The city that has not passed a budget in over four months, the same city that allegedly has hundreds of thousands of dollars in road improvement funds currently "in question," was talking about painting things and buying vehicles.

I've seen some interesting budget priorities in my time covering small-town Texas, but this one might take the cake. It's like skipping your mortgage payment to buy new curtains. Sure, the house looks nice, but you won't own it much longer.

Get the budget passed first. Then we can talk about making things pretty.

5. One Out of Five

Out of five council members, to the best of my current knowledge, only one has gone on record in support of the mayor. Council member Charles Longacre publicly stated that he trusts Mayor Betts and believes he is "the right person for the job."

One. Out of five.

At least three of the remaining four are on record saying they're being shut out of decisions, blocked from the agenda, and kept in the dark. That ratio alone should tell you everything you need to know.

Council members have described a city government where the mayor tells the city secretary what gets put on the agenda and nothing else makes it. Where council members can't even access the building or the bulletin board where agendas are posted. Where bank accounts have been changed and council members removed from access without notice.

Whether you trust the mayor or not, these are structural problems that no amount of trust can fix.

6. The Parking Lot

After the meeting, I had a calm, respectful conversation with Mayor Betts outside City Hall. Two things can be true at the same time: I can respect the mayor for standing up for constitutional rights, and I can also say that certain decisions he's making feel very tyrannical. One point doesn't invalidate the other.

That conversation got interrupted by two women. One of them identified herself as being with The Monitor. The other was an older attendee who spent much of the meeting speaking over others. I told them I was in the middle of a conversation. The response wasn't "can I ask a question when you're done." It was entitlement and escalation.

The mayor used the interruption as an exit ramp and walked away. Then the yelling started.

The same people who were yelling and interrupting me were calling me "unprofessional."

I hope the irony is bleeding through your screen.

The woman from The Monitor picked up her camera and started firing photos with a flash so rapid I felt like I was on the red carpet in Hollywood. The older woman kept following and antagonizing me while the Deputy Chief and I tried to walk away. He told her to stop. She kept coming.

Here's the point: when residents show up to ask questions, some people treat it like a threat to their social pecking order. They try to embarrass you. They try to provoke you. They try to make you regret showing up. That is how you end up with a town where only insiders feel safe speaking and everyone else stays quiet.

7. Seven Points Has Something Most Towns Don't

Here's my last thought, and it's the one I want you to actually hold onto.

Seven Points has something that most of the small towns I've covered would kill for: people who give a damn.

I watched citizens pack that room and demand answers. I watched council members go on the public record criticizing decisions they disagreed with, knowing full well it would make their lives harder. I watched an anonymous citizen journalist file public information requests, get stonewalled, file a complaint with the Attorney General, and keep pushing.

Mary Wennerstrom, whatever you think of her, has been demanding budget discussions since October. She's been publicly documenting the problems with agenda control. She's been pushing for contract reviews, purchasing policies, and accountability. That takes guts, especially in a small town where everybody knows everybody and the social consequences are real.

LaJohnna Wells got stripped of her Mayor Pro-Tem role and removed from bank accounts. She still shows up. Valerie Bahm-Logsdon is on record asking why her agenda items never make it to the table. She still shows up.

And community members like Dwight Callaway Sr. are asking the right procedural questions. Not just complaining, but demanding to know what legal tools are available to hold leadership accountable.

Democracy is messy, loud, and uncomfortable. It's supposed to be. What I saw in that room was a community refusing to sit down and shut up, and that is exactly how things start to change.

One More Thing

If you've been thinking about showing up to your own local council meeting but you're worried it'll be uncomfortable, good. That discomfort is the point. It's how they keep the room quiet.

Show up anyway. Bring a friend. Speak on the record. Ask the boring questions. Ask the uncomfortable ones too. Record what you can. Stay calm, stay on topic, and be the adult in the room.

Seven Points, you've got problems. Big ones. But you've also got people fighting to fix them. That puts you ahead of more towns than you realize.

Get your budget passed and get your police situation sorted. If you can pull that off, I meant what I said. I'll build your city a modern, WCAG-compliant, mobile friendly website, at a cost you won't be able to beat, built by a team that has been doing software since before AI made it cool.

See you at the next meeting.