KENDALL COUNTY, Texas – Kendall County officials have paused a proposal to consider establishing a new city based around an American-themed school.
County Judge Shane Stolarczyk expressed his concerns in a letter regarding the legality of a petition to incorporate 177.6 acres of land as “Constitution City.”
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Stolarczyk said in the Aug. 15 letter to Rick Green — the owner of Patriot Academy, where the city was proposed — that the petition will be placed on the back burner for the time being in order to request an opinion from the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
Patriot Academy is an education and training campus with an emphasis on civics and the Constitution.
KSAT had previously reported that Kendall County Commissioners approved a motion for the proposed city to appear on the November ballot.
However, Stolarczyk’s letter pauses the decision so that the county can pursue clarity on legal issues related to the Texas Code.
Therefore, the proposed “Constitution City” won’t appear on this year’s ballot.
“After careful consideration, I cannot say that satisfactory proof has been made that the community contains the requisite number of inhabitants,” Stolarczyk said in the letter.
Stolarczyk stated that the Constitution City proposal does not meet Section 8.001 (a)(2) of the Texas Code, which requires 201-4,999 “inhabitants” to be established.
In a presentation to the Kendall County Commissioners Court earlier this month, Green had said the school campus has more than 200 people living on the property.
Stolarczyk described an inhabitant as “one who resides actually and permanently in a given place, and has his domicile there,” he said, in part. “In situations where the terms ‘resident’ and ‘inhabitant’ have been held not synonymous, the latter implies a more fixed and permanent abode than the former, and imports privileges and duties to which a mere resident would not be subject.”
He added that the Kendall County Commissioners Court will contact the Texas Attorney General’s Office for clarity on the resident-inhabitant concern, as well as Section 8.001 (a)(2) of the Texas Code.
“It is my hope that this endeavor will give us guidance regarding the ambiguous language of the statute so I can better evaluate future petitions,” said Stolarczyk.
Aug. 18 was the deadline to submit items to appear on the ballot for the November general election.
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