Apparently, the Bastrop City Council doesn’t need the blessings of our Lord at Special Meetings. Nor do they need to honor our Country and our State.
Last night, Bastrop Mayor Pro Tem John Kirkland opened the meeting and immediately moved to Citizen Comments. It felt odd and discomforting for elected officials to be conducting business without prayer and dutifully honoring our flag. The mayor pro tem and city manager need to modify their special meeting agenda template to include an invocation and the pledges immediately!
In ten years in elected office, I can’t ever recall starting a meeting without an invocation and flag salute. In our case, our Council President led the flag salute and an individual Council person offered the invocation, except for special occasions such as reorganization meetings or those where a new Council person was sworn in. There, we had invited guests.
Special meetings are simply council meetings called in addition to regularly scheduled meetings and for special purposes. They should open with a prayer and flag salutes just like regular meetings. But in the City of Bastrop, they don’t.
(Update 3/7/25) The “Rules of Procedure for the City Council and Boards & Commissions of the City of Bastrop, TX” revised on September 17, 2024, mandates the Pledges. It states “The Council shall recite the Pledge of Allegiance, first to the United States Flag, and then to the state Flag of Texas.” (emphasis added) That would apply to all meetings. It specifically refers to “regular” meetings of the City Council for invocations, making it optional for all other meetings.
I call on Mayor Pro Tem John Kirkland and City Manager Sylvia Carrillo to immediately add an Invocation and Pledges to the United States Flag and Texas Flag to all City Council meeting agendas. No special guests need be invited to do so. The special guests aren’t the point. The prayers and pledges are.
Not doing so sends a message that prayer is unimportant and that there is no reason for elected officials doing their jobs to honor the flags of this great nation and state. Not doing so is a slap to every single person who has served in our armed forces and who has died for the freedoms enumerated in our Constitution and under which this Council operates.
Let’s get this fixed immediately.