Magnolia's Council Will Pay an Outside Firm to Review Nine Years of Utility Transfers. Buck Perino's Seat Stays Empty Until May.
By The Magnolia Standard · October 16, 2026
Four items from Tuesday's regular meeting at City Hall on Buddy Riley Boulevard, what the city's own documents say about each, and the two votes the public record has not caught up with yet.
Magnolia City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday, October 13, to look for an accounting firm to review the city's finances. The review covers six months of the general fund, the account that pays for most city operations. It also takes a closer look at every transfer from the city's water and wastewater funds into the general fund going back to 2017.
Council member Raymond K. Gaskin III, who holds Position 5, placed the item on the agenda.
What the transfers are
Water and sewer bills go into utility funds. In some years the city has moved part of that money into the general fund to cover other costs.
This year's budget moves $295,000 that way, including toward engineering staff costs and the city's economic development corporation. In each of the two budget years before this one, the transfers came to more than $1 million, according to the city's budget overview as reported by Community Impact.
Gaskin described the practice as "basically taking money from your savings to your checking account, kicking the can down the road," Community Impact reported. He was the one vote against the city's budget when council adopted it on September 28.
The cost of the review will not be known until firms bid. City Administrator Bob Harvey told the council it could run up to $100,000. The city's regular annual audit costs about $24,000 to $35,000, he said, and he called those "simple" audits by comparison.
The empty seat
Buck Perino, the mayor pro tem, resigned his Position 2 seat on September 30. Voters elected him in May 2025.
Perino told Community Impact he had taken a job with a contractor that has done work for the city and did not want any potential conflict. He also said he wanted more time at home with his family, which welcomed a baby last year.
On Tuesday the council accepted the resignation, and the agenda item allowed the city to take applications for an appointment. Mayor Chris Blair said the plan is to leave the seat open until the city's next council election, in May. "We're going to leave the seat vacant at this moment and wait for a new election to come, unless something major happens where we need it," he said.
Until then the council has four members: Caleb Small, Position 1; Geoff Beyer, Position 3; Brandon Jacobs, Position 4; and Gaskin.
An ethics committee
Resolution R-2026-020 on Tuesday's agenda would create a temporary Ethics Policy Advisory Committee. It follows a July 14 vote in which the council agreed to form a committee of residents to review a proposed ethics policy for council members, appointed officials and city employees and recommend rules. Beyer cast the only vote against in July.
The outcome on Tuesday's resolution was not in any published report we could find by Friday, and the city has not yet posted minutes for the meeting.
216 homes at FM 1488 and Mill Creek Road
Ordinance O-2026-031 would rezone about 60 acres at the northeast corner of FM 1488 and Mill Creek Road from Rural to Semi-Urban Residential, for a subdivision called Pinemoor. Community Impact reported it would hold 216 single-family homes.
The land is part of a roughly 96-acre tract held by Magnolia Paragon, LLC. The city annexed it in July 2025, and City Planner Dana Berry told the planning commission that Pinemoor is the residential part of the development agreement approved at that time. The commission held a public hearing on September 17 and recommended the rezoning 3-0, according to its signed minutes.
Tuesday's agenda opened another public hearing on the rezoning before the council's vote. As with the ethics resolution, the result was not in published reports or city minutes as of Friday. We will report it when the record shows it.
The same tract came back on Thursday. The planning commission's October 15 agenda carried a public hearing on rezoning about 11 more acres of it, from Rural to Auto-Urban Commercial.
How to follow it
- The council meets the second Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. in the Sewall Smith Council Chambers, 18111 Buddy Riley Blvd. The next regular meeting falls on November 10.
- Agendas are posted at cityofmagnolia.com a few days ahead. Minutes appear after the council approves them at a later meeting.
- Anyone can speak during citizens' comments, three minutes each. The city's request-to-speak form is on the same page.
Editor's note: this ran as straight reporting because it covers votes the council has taken and the city's own agenda and minutes. Where a vote is not yet in the record, we say so rather than guess. Whether the transfers were sound budgeting or a habit to break is the question the review is meant to answer; we will report what it finds.
Sources: the city's October 13, 2026 council agenda, posted October 7, for the items, the resolution and ordinance numbers, the sponsors, the council roster and the meeting place; Community Impact's October 14, 2026 report on the meeting, for the unanimous vote, the transfer figures, Mr. Gaskin's and Mr. Harvey's remarks, the vacancy decision and Mayor Blair's quote; its October 12 preview, for Mr. Perino's reasons and election, the per-year transfer figure, the September 28 budget vote and the 216 homes; its report on the July 14 vote on the resident ethics committee; and the planning commission's signed September 17 minutes and October 15 agenda, for the annexation, the 3-0 recommendation and the commercial rezoning. Corrections to editor@themagnoliastandard.news.