Tuesday's decision by the Bryan City Council to halt the process of annexing nearly 6,600 acres is not the last word, city officials said.
But council members disagree about the next step.
Mayor Mark Conlee said Wednesday that the council needed more time to find ways to make the annexation "palatable" to Brazos County residents.
Conlee said the delay was not solely related to organized opposition to the annexation from residents of the Enchanted Oaks subdivision.
"This is about the whole annexation issue. We're searching for ways to help everybody and make it as little a burden as possible on those who are annexed," Conlee said. "When we run out of all options on ways to make it easy on those folks, then we'll make a decision about what we're going to do."
The council is scheduled to discuss annexation in closed session Friday.
In March, council members voted 5-2 to begin the six-month process necessary to annex land in five areas around the city.
Many Brazos County residents contacted the council over the past month, Conlee said, including residents of the Enchanted Oaks subdivision, who expressed the strongest opposition.
At Tuesday's meeting, councilman Jason Bienski made a motion to direct city staff members to "cease annexation processes until further direction from the City Council."
Bienski's motion came after "a very long discussion in executive session," Conlee said.
Councilman Ben Hardeman said he would have voted against the motion if he had been given more time to consider it.
"Literally, I was dumbfounded that he would make such a motion," Hardeman said. "If [Conlee] had hesitated any longer, I might have gathered my wits and expressed my vote."
Hardeman said Bienski's motion "was totally inconsistent with the discussion he participated in the previous hour and a half."
Hardeman said he believed the city should move forward with gathering more information and moving toward eventual annexation.
Councilwoman Ann Horton said she also was in favor of moving forward with the annexation "in some sort of modified form."
"We have to do what's right for the city and causes the least amount of destruction and anxiety to the people in the surrounding area, but ultimately our job is to serve the citizens of Bryan," she said.
Neither Bienski nor councilman Al Saenz could be reached for comment Wednesday.
But council members Paul Madison and Mike Southerland said they thought Tuesday's vote to cease the process was in the best interest of the city.
Madison said he believed the city needed to protect its "corridors" but didn't agree with annexing people who won't receive services from the city.
"When we have a situation where it's not clear when or how long it would take us to provide the necessary services, I'm just not that enthused," he said. "I need to have additional studies as to what it would take to ensure that proper security, proper sanitation will be provided. If we don't have those things readily available, and we don't see that happening in the very near future, I just have a problem with that."
Conlee declined to give an estimate for when a decision would be made, saying, "Tell me how long it takes seven people to agree on something. It could be five minutes or five months."
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