Village aldermen at their April 17 meeting tabled proposed ordinance 2025-13that repeals and combines ordinances concerning solicitation, itinerant vendors and mobile food trucks and adds regulations for Farmer’s Markets and so-called Mass Gatherings. However, it is back on the agenda for tonight’s aldermen meeting.

At the time aldermen tabled the proposed ordinance, Mayor Bert Henry said that he would form a Task Force of stakeholders affected by the proposed regulations to have meetings with them to work out the details of the ordinance before bringing it back to the board.
One meeting was held on April 23 with little public notice of it.
Yet, at the request of an alderman, it is back on the agenda for May 1, before the May 3 election in which three new aldermen will be elected. Reading the responses from all of the candidates to the Salado Village Voice question about the proposed ordinance, one could easily infer that the overall response is “Let’s not rush this.”
Yet, one alderman –– and we do not know which one because their name is not on the agenda item of having requested it, despite that being a practice that was followed at least until the 2024 election –– wants it on tonight’s agenda.
This begs the question….
Why? Why hurry a poorly written and severely overreaching ordinance to be voted on tonight, when it is very likely to be repealed by a new board of aldermen?
Other questions that beg an answer are these:
Why the exorbitant fees for so-called Mass Gatherings? Comparing this ordinance to the practice of virtually every other municipality in Bell County and Williamson County shows that somehow Salado is once again out of line with our neighbors to the north, the south, the east and the west.
Why the daily charge for Farmers Market vendors? If approved, every vendor at a Farmers Market (and it doesn’t matter whose Farmers Market) will have to pay $25 per day just to operate.
Proponents of this ordinance say it is about two things: public safety and recouping sales tax.
Hogwash.
Proponents of the ordinance, when mentioning public safety, cite Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to the unfortunate Houston Astrodome concert episode in which lives were lost because of a concert with tens of thousands of attendees devolved into violence and a loss of life.
Gov. Abbott’s task force came out with recommendations for safe concerts. The Governor’s Task Force’s definition of a Mass Gathering was 5,000 people. Not 250. Not 1,000. Not 2,000. Nowhere in those recommendations was there mention of Farmers Markets, small art fairs, or cultural events like the Highland Games or anything Salado has done for so many years.
Nowhere in the Governor’s Task Force recommendations was there a fee of $25 per day for each vendor at a Farmers Market.
This brings us to the other supposed reason for this bureaucratic and overbearing ordinance: recouping sales tax from Farmers Market and “Market Days” vendors, whatever a Market Days vendor may be (we will all have to wait for the Village to tell us what that means). Following their logic, a Market Days vendor, who is under the assumption of the Village bureaucracy of not paying or collecting sales tax to the Village, would have to sell at least $2,500 in goods in a single day to justify that fee. So would a Farmers Market vendor, the majority of which sell items (produce and foods) that are exempt from sales tax.
We suggest the following:
An ordinance that deals solely with Mobile Food Vendors and has permit fees that align with what other municipalities are charging.
An ordinance that deals solely with Mass Gatherings should address events that will have more than 2,000 attendees at one time, not 250. The fees associated with permitting these events should align with what other municipalities charge. A quick search of local municipalities shows that these fees are in the range of $100 for events with fewer than 5,000 attendees and $250 for events with more than 5,000 attendees.
An ordinance that addresses Farmers Markets and Market Days events. We suggest that the Village follow state law that sets a maximum fee for a Farmers Market vendor at $100 per year…. not $25 per day.
An ordinance that addresses events like 5K fun runs, bike rides etc. that will require advance notice to the Village so that appropriate routes and safety can be addressed. No one in Salado. Not a single citizen wants a kid walking with their mom to raise money for cancer awareness or anything else to be run down in the street. But we should not as a community punish those groups financially with the nonsense of this proposed ordinance.
An ordinance that handles special events in which the vendors operating under it are not unfairly punished with individual permit fees and regulations that seem punitive and personal. There should be a special event ordinance for fairs and festivals that require the organizer to verify that their vendors are approved at the county level for safety. This ordinance should include common sense mechanisms for parking and safety. This ordinance, however, should not be a shakedown of vendors.
Nothing in anything we have written should be misconstrued that we support bad actors. We do not. We never will.
However, we will defend good actors. We always will.
Tonight is not the night for rash action. Tonight is the night for Salado to come together and work together for our common good.
If you feel the same way, please let your voice be heard at the Board of Aldermen 6:30 p.m., May 1 at the Municipal Building.