The Round Rock City Council convened at 6:00 PM on Thursday, March 12, 2026, at City Council Chambers, 221 East Main St. The meeting included a citizen complaint about emergency notification failures, two proclamations, an Information Technology department update, unanimous approval of the consent agenda and four resolutions, and the first public hearing on a right-of-way annexation. The council entered executive session and adjourned without further action.
All consent items were approved unanimously.
Tonight's invitation will be given by Pastor Breck McDonald of Central Baptist Church. Pastor, come on up. Thank you. Let's pray. Father, we come before you and we ask for your help tonight. I pray for my city, and I pray for the leadership of my city. I pray for righteousness and justice and wisdom for these leaders. I pray, Lord, that you would keep our city safe and secure and prosperous. Amen. Thank you, Pastor. All right, I'll call the six o'clock meeting to order, and please call the row. Mayor Morgan. Here. Mayor Pro Tim Stevens. Councilmember Lee? Here. Councilmember Flores? Here. Councilmember Fleming? Here. Councilmember Ortega? Here. Councilmember Montgomery. Here. All right, if you'll stab me for the pledges. I pledge allegiance to the flag. Under God. Liberty justice. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas. One state under God, one individual. All right, citizen communication citizen wishes to speak, wishing to speak during citizen communication garden item on or off the agenda may do so after completing the required registration card. All comments must be no more than three minutes and linked per section 2-26B5 of the Round Rock Code of Ordinances 2018 edition. Any comments card and items not on the postage and may not be discussed or responded to by the city council for state law. Gary Elden. Like others, I immediately checked my flight radar app and found no nearby aircraft. It sounded like a jet right overhead. I then checked the city's numerous social media accounts on multiple platforms and found no information there whatsoever. Finally, my wife and I began checking other social media platforms and uh uh next door Reddit, etc. Essentially crowdsourcing information about an emergency situation occurring in our city. People on social media reported hearing this intensely loud roar all the way from Ryan's Crossing to Georgetown, particularly Paloma Lake and Avery Center, Avery Center. Some residents in Avery Center had posted that they weren't going to wait any longer for official word and fled their homes and their neighborhoods, self-evacuating because of this intense noise, with no source explained. Some people on Reddit said they called Round Rock PD's non-emergency number, and they were told it was a gas leak, and that the fire department was out looking for it, which gave a little bit of uh at least information. Others reported they would called 911. They were told the same gas leak story, except the callers to 911 were told to stay inside their homes. That is a shelter in place advisory, but one that was only given to those people who called 911. No proactive outbound notification was made at any point. We never have heard anything from our city about this event. The community members, not the city, were able to determine last night that a massive release of natural gas by Atmos had taken place near County Roads 112 and 117, immediately north of Avery Center. We still haven't heard anything from the city about this incident.