In response to concerns raised by some Odessa City Council members and Odessa City Manager John Beckmeyer during the Tuesday, July 23rd City Council meeting, the ODC began making immediate plans to host a joint meeting between the Odessa City Council, the ODC Board, and ODC Attorney Jeff Moore.
Questions were raised at the meeting by the City Council and City Staff regarding the duties, objectives and fiduciary responsibilities of the ODC Board that we welcome the opportunity to fully address. As it has always been the desire of the ODC board to ensure that we are responsive to of our elected officials, while staying well within the legal framework and guidelines provided by the Texas Legislature, we wanted to move quickly to have open public meetings to ensure that all entities are on the same page and following the same rules. ODC wants to make sure that the public is well-informed regarding the operations of ODC, which currently manages a fund of some $80 million in taxpayer dollars.
The ODC believes that open public meetings that lay out all of the issues and concerns will allow Odessa taxpayers, whose money ODC manages, will be the best possible way to bring the openness and transparency requested by the Odessa City Council and City Manager Beckmeyer.
We are hopeful that this meeting will be able to be scheduled as early as next week in response to the urgency expressed by Council during Tuesday’s meeting.
Jeff Russell
Acting ODC Board President
