In two split decisions Monday evening, the Bonham City Council authorized the sale of city-owned property located at 1800 Highway 121 North and approved the 2009 proposed tourism operating budget of the Bonham Area Chamber of Commerce.

The Bonham City Council unanimously approved: the contract with Veolia Water to operate and maintain the City of Bonham Wastewater Treatment Facility; a lease agreement between the City of Bonham and Fannin County for a Sports Complex Soccer Field; a request to advertise for bids for materials for the STEP Grant project, and Change Order No.2 for Contract B Water System improvements.

The meeting opened, however, with an impassioned plea for the city to moderate animal nuisance procedures and have a professional dog trainer evaluate a dog before classifying the animal as a dangerous dog.

"It is my opinion that being employed as an animal control officer for a number of years, or a judge without the expertise of a professional animal handler, should not entitle either one to sentence a dog to death," said Bonham resident John Underwood.  

Mr. Underwood also asked for a provision that would allow the owner of a dog destroyed by the animal control officer, veterinarian or animal shelter personnel the option to retrieve and dispose of the body of the deceased dog.

"I think it is time to address the aninal control issue," stated Donna West.

"I agree we've been talking about this too long," said Bonham City Councilman Wayne Moore, adding the city and county have worked together to devise a good plan, but now it is time to implement the plan.

Betty Campbell also addressed the city council to make sure everyone was aware Stephenson School had been broken into twice over the past weekend.

Bonham City Council accepted the financial report for the month ending May 31, 2009.

"We're on track with expenditures and revenues for this time of year," remarked Bonham City Manager Corby Alexander.

The proposed tourism operating budget was discussed at length by the city council, Bonham Chamber board member Lisbeth Eschandia, and a spokesman for Fort Inglish Village, one of the local tourism entities that has traditionally shared revenues from the hotel & motel tax.  The major concern was in regard to the complaint by four tourism entities--Red River Theatre Company, Creative Arts Center, Fannin County Museum of History and Fort Inglish Village--that their portion of the hotel & motel tax had not been dispersed by the Bonham Chamber for the last two quarters.

In what seemed to be an effort to get past this troublesome issue, the council voted 6-1 to approve the Bonham Chamber proposed tourism operating budget despite concerns about the lack of payment to those four tourism entities.  Glenn Taylor was the dissenting vote.

The Bonham City Council went into executive session to discuss the proposed sale of a 300'x300' lot in Hwy. 121 just north of Bonham High School.  The lot was sold to the City of Bonham by Bonham ISD several years ago and is currently the site of a softball field.  The city council invited Bonham ISD Superintendent Sonny Cruse and Bonham ISD Trustee Press Cox to attend deliberations in the executive session. 

Bonham City Council reconvened into open session at 6:59 p.m.  Councilman John Burnett made a motion to enter negotiations with Braums to sell the 300'x300' lot for $275,000, with the stipulation that the city manager would meet with representatives of Braums and TxDOT officials to determine the safest entrance to the business. The city council voted 5-2 to approve Mr. Burnett's motion, with Joe W. Clark and Ruth Ann Thomas opposing the motion.