Seven Points Finally Passes a Budget After 170 Days of Crisis

After 170 days of operating without an approved budget, the Seven Points City Council finally passed a balanced budget on March 24, 2026. The vote was unanimous. But the path to getting there was anything but smooth.

Before the gavel even dropped, Council Member Kevin Reynolds told me to get "straight the fuck away from us." I hadn't said a word. When I tried to introduce myself and asked his name, he said "none of your fucking business" and "don't even talk to me. I don't want to hear your shit." Completely unprovoked. Inside, things weren't much better.

A City Divided

During public comment, a local resident who identified as a property owner and taxpayer in Seven Points delivered a lengthy attack on three female council members: LaJohnna Wells, Valerie Bahm-Logsdon, and Mary Wennerstrom.

"Two ladies on the city council, LaJohnna Wells, have conducted themselves in an unprofessional manner on several occasions," the resident said. She accused Wells and Bahm-Logsdon of unprofessional conduct, claimed Wennerstrom "does not want to lose her power on the council and over the city," and said the city "is considered to be the shithole of the lake."

She described council meetings as potential "episodes of Jerry Springer" and said "people have even brought popcorn, and this is for real, they have." She claimed that "as long as she has LaJohnna and Valerie in her pocket and voting with her, she has the majority. That means total control on her agenda."

She also turned to the upcoming May 2026 election, warning citizens that "a vote for Raymond would be a vote for a figurehead mayor," claiming "Raymond only does what his wife tells him to do, in my opinion." She urged citizens to "consider the two men that are running for the city council" and argued that "the mayor is trying to make improvements but has been stopped due to no current budget."

She referenced a January incident in which Wells told the mayor she would "shove that gavel up" a particular part of his anatomy. What the resident did not say, and what I can confirm from firsthand observation, is that Mayor Keith Betts had first picked up the gavel and moved it toward Wells' face after telling her to be quiet. That is what started it.

Wells was upset because she had just listened to someone retell that moment in a way that put all the blame on her while leaving out what the mayor had done first. The fair truth is that Wells never would have made that comment if the mayor had not put the gavel in her face. Having that thrown back at her publicly, stripped of its context, in front of a room full of people, was more than she could take.

Wells left the room in tears. I left shortly after to check on her. I'm not entirely sure what happened in the meeting room while I was gone. What I do know is that Wells was not alone. People followed close behind her and stood by her side in a moment of complete loss.

She pulled herself back together. She came back into that room before public comment ended. That takes something most people don't have.

What is happening in Seven Points right now goes deeper than politics. Real people are carrying real weight, and when the public forum becomes a place where one-sided versions of painful events get thrown around in front of an audience, it does damage. I watched it break people that night.

A retired military veteran also spoke during public comment and urged all parties to handle their disagreements behind closed doors. "When they get something wrong, or they disagree with me, I will bring them out. And we will hash it out," she said, drawing on 15 years of Department of Defense leadership experience. "I'm never, ever embarrassing none of my airmen in front of people. Never. So please, I ask you, be professional."

Respect

Wells came back into the room. I came back into the room. And then I spoke.

I addressed the council because I was appalled. I was appalled by what I had just watched happen. I was appalled that a council member had cursed at me unprovoked before the meeting even started, and that a citizen could stand at that podium and tear people apart with a one-sided version of events while a room full of people sat there and let it happen.

I corrected the record about the January gavel incident. And I confronted Council Member Reynolds directly about what he had said to me outside.

"Do you want to tell the room what you said to me outside?" I asked him. He acknowledged part of it but would not repeat everything. "For the record, that's not all that you said. Say everything that you said," I told him.

"I'm not trying to sit up here and defend or attack anybody, but we need to be factual in what we're saying," I said.

"If one council member is unprofessional, Mr. Mayor, your whole council is unprofessional," I told them. "And when you sit up here and you allow other council members to be criticized, she leaves in tears. And we don't take a recess to figure out what happened."

I ended my remarks by asking everyone to come together: "Please, everyone, let's be professional tonight. Let's get our budget passed. Even if we don't agree on the budget, let's get a non-deficit budget passed. We can pass amendments. You can call special meetings. You can call emergency meetings. There's things you can do. Let's take care of business for your constituents so that our water pipes are not crumbling and we have a productive city government."

I had to step out of the room again after that to compose myself. Watching a city government fall apart like this hits harder than you'd expect. Multiple people were in tears that night. I was one of them.

The Budget Fight

Once the meeting turned to the actual budget, things nearly went off the rails again. Council Member Kevin Reynolds made a motion to accept the budget as presented. The same council member who had cursed at me before the meeting was now trying to push through a deficit budget. No one seconded it. The motion failed.

The room tipped toward chaos. It felt like the council was about to walk out again, like they had in September and October, and Seven Points would be right back where it started: 170 days without a budget and counting.

I asked to speak. I told the room to take a moment and breathe.

"If someone makes a motion and the motion fails, you're stuck on the item until you can either make a motion that passes or you take a motion to take no action," I said. "You're stuck until you figure it out."

I told them the motion failed for a reason. "So let's talk about why the motion failed and let's make a new motion that has a better chance of passing. That's how government works."

The budget as presented had a $156,000 deficit. Revenue projections from September workshops were no longer accurate. Fine revenue had collapsed. Where the city once projected tens of thousands of dollars from citations, actual collections had dropped to a fraction of that, with citations falling from hundreds per month to single digits.

A more fundamental issue emerged: road fund revenues totaling $378,000 were co-mingled with general fund expenses in the proposed budget. Council members caught this and explained that road tax revenue must be segregated and spent only on road improvements. Adopting the budget as presented would have allowed those funds to be spent on anything.

"Are you basically saying Keith has misappropriated our funds?" one council member asked, before clarifying: "He hasn't done anything yet. But what I'm saying, we can't sit here and say that this is okay when we know it's not okay."

The council went line by line. Ad valorem tax, franchise fees, mixed beverage revenue, rental income from the post office and county, equipment purchases, holiday lighting, code enforcement, police department, maintenance. Everything was examined.

When asked why the mayor wasn't leading the budget discussion, Mayor Keith Betts responded: "I present it to the council, and they fully discuss it. They vote. I don't vote."

When asked why these corrections hadn't been made sooner, the answer was familiar to anyone who has followed Seven Points governance: "We haven't been able to address it on an agenda. And the only way we can talk about it is on an agenda."

170 Days. Budget Passed.

After approximately two hours of line-by-line work, the council arrived at a balanced budget: $956,135 in general fund expenditures plus $378,000 in segregated road funds, totaling $1,334,135.

The gap was closed by adjusting revenue projections to match actual collections, properly segregating road funds, and cutting tens of thousands from salaries and smaller amounts from maintenance and police department budgets.

A motion was made. A second followed. "All in favor?" Unanimous. The room broke into applause.

A powerful moment in Seven Points history, but one that should not have taken so long.

Mercy Patterson with Watchtower wrote after the meeting: "The contradiction is difficult to ignore. A council divided in conduct, yet aligned in outcome. A meeting marked by dysfunction, yet ending in decisive action."

Patterson described a council member who had left in tears but returned to her seat, "choosing duty to her community over retreat." She wrote that the evening raised "a more enduring question: not just what decisions are made, but who is holding the line on how they are made."

She also wrote that "public trust hung in the air as accusations and one-sided narratives dominated the early proceedings. Citizens and observers alike witnessed a council struggling not just with decisions, but with each other." And that "in Seven Points, progress came, but not without leaving deeper questions behind: not about what was passed, but how."

What Happens Next

This is a six-month budget for the remainder of the current fiscal year. Next year's budget cycle will begin fresh with updated property valuations and revenue projections.

Development may be coming. The mayor mentioned 14 or more houses planned behind a church on Highway 274, with the developer seeking annexation into the city. Apartment permits have been issued but construction hasn't started. Wastewater treatment capacity could be a limiting factor.

On the community side, citizens have stepped up where government has not. Kyle Askins spent eight days clearing roads and abandoned areas with his own bulldozer and crew. Others have volunteered weekends for trash pickup, weed eating, and general cleanup, often with their own equipment and money.

Raymond Wennerstrom is running for mayor in May 2026. If he wins, Mary Wennerstrom has said she is willing to step down from the council if that is what the citizens want.

Seven Points has a budget now. Whether it can hold together long enough to use it is the question nobody in that room could answer.