Mitchell says he plans to run against Hervol

(Updated Monday to include reaction statements from Mayor Todd Webster, the city staff and Travis Mitchell)
City council candidate Travis Mitchell confirmed today what many observers expected would transpire from the moment he announced his candidacy: He hopes to unseat Place 1 council member Diane Hervol in May’s municipal elections.

Although he admitted he sided more with Hervol on major issues, most notably property tax relief, than his other potential opponent, council member Shane Arabie, Mitchell apparently believes Hervol is more vulnerable because she might not have a campaign infrastructure in place or one ready in time for the primaries.

"She didn’t have an opponent the last time she ran," Mitchell told, by my unofficial count, 19 persons, excluding the candidate and yours truly, who attended a meet-and-greet session with the candidate at a local coffee house. "She hasn’t had to run in a contested race in six years."

He also said the decision to go up against Hervol was "almost a personal one," although he declined to elaborate.

Mitchell said had he been on the council he would have fought to keep the tax rate below 50 cents per $100 valuation. The current rate is $.5848. Hervol was one of only two council members (the other bing Daphne Tenorio) who fought in vain to keep the rate below 50 cents.

He also said had he been on the council he would have opposed the extra money given at the last moment to the Kyle Police Department. He criticized the city for purchasing new vehicles for police officers and then retrofitting them with the necessary equipment, saying the city could save a lot of money buying police cars being discarded by other municipalities.

Mitchell went on to say he would have also opposed issuing the general obligations to pay for all the road projects at the same time. He predicted only four of the five road bond projects will be completed, although he didn’t say which one would not be finished nor did he elaborate on the legal ramifications of only completing four of the five projects.

(Updated material begins here)
Stressing that he was only speaking for himself and not necessarily on behalf of the City Council, Mayor Todd Webster, a major proponent on the road bond construction and issuing all the bonds simultaneously, said:

"The thought of this happening has crossed my mind and I think it is not unreasonable for Mr. Mitchell to have such a concern.  Time is the major factor impacting the budget of all five of the road projects.  The longer it takes for each of the roads to be built, the greater the likelihood that we would be forced to make additional decisions to reduce the scopes of the bond-funded projects.  That is why the City Council made the decision to expedite all five road projects, proceeding simultaneously on them to the extent possible.  We also down-scoped all five of the roads to bring costs down and to more closely align with available bond proceeds because a significant amount of time had elapsed prior to the initiation of engineering and right of way acquisition.  Those decisions were made more than a year ago. 

"Please know that the city staff and our contracted engineers are moving as quickly as they can because they understand the impact that delays may have on the overall costs of each of the roads," the mayor said. "With that said, three of the five roads -- Market Place, Goforth and Bunton -- are progressing more quickly.  I am more confident that these three roads will proceed as planned than I am of the other two - Burleson and Lehman.  Of the two, I believe Burleson is more likely to stay on track and within budget.  As of right now, Lehman is proceeding as planned, but any additional delays related to right-of-way acquisition and increased construction costs on any of the five roads may possibly require additional steps to reduce costs and my opinion is that it is more likely that
Lehman Road would take the brunt of any additional reductions.  If additional reductions become necessary, the City Council will have to decide whether to spend additional funds on these projects, reduce the scope of all or some of them or to significantly reduce the scope of one of the roads, leaving the other four to proceed as currently planned.

"As for selling all of the bonds at once," Webster added, "I think our decision to sell the bonds this summer was as good of decision as we could make based on the information that we had available at the time.  Accessing the bond market involves good timing as weeks, months and years can have a significant impact, positively or negatively, on interest rates.  We did get an excellent rate that was better than what was originally anticipated when the bond election was held.  However,
it is not inconceivable that economic conditions could exist in the future that may have allowed us to have acquired an even better rate.  The opposite could happen too and we would have missed out on the excellent interest rate that we did obtain.  Regardless, I think that it is reasonable to question a decision like this because of the possibility that waiting to sell bonds could result in savings even if there is some risk in doing so.

"While it seems a little early to be responding to campaign discussion topics," the mayor concluded, "I am encouraged by the comments as they are exactly the kind of things that I would expect serious candidates to be thinking about.  It bodes well for having an issue oriented campaign this time around."
A spokesperson for the city said "We have no plans to remove any of the roads from the bond project
and are proceeding as quickly as possible to get them all under construction and completed. Selling all the bonds when we did allowed us to take advantage of low interest rates, which combined with our excellent credit rating, will actually save our tax payers money over the term of the bonds."
(Resuming original post)
Mitchell was somewhat vague on an actual platform, talking about Hedgehog concepts (although when he gave examples from other cities he cited their identities, reputations and branding rather than their focus areas) and what he claims was Kyle’s lack of a Mission Statement. He did say he was a major advocate of downtown revitalization, although again he was short on specifics as well as how such a program would affect downtown homeowners.

Of the two recognized forms of growth, Mitchell favors the orderly but dumb approach over the chaotic but smart one, i.e., the former being the growth model Kyle as well as most other municipalities follow.

Mitchell began his informal session asking attendees what they felt were the major issues facing the city. The top concern, voiced immediately by those in attendance, were the property tax rates, followed in order by utility rates and road conditions.

(Update)
Mitchell issued a statement Monday in connection with statements he made at Sunday's meeting:

"When I said my decision to run for District 1 was "personal," that had nothing to do with Councilmember Hervol, which I tried to make clear." Mitchell said. "I meant personal to me, because I am very committed to presenting the community with a vision for Kyle, and not about with whom I agree or disagree. That's a fine line, I understand, but I had no intention to even discuss my opponent. I was pressed by a few members at the meeting. Next time I will stand more resolute in my commitment to keep it about the issues.

"My comments about the police department were meant to be general, and not specific," he added. "I used them as an example of a discussion I would have engaged in had I been on the dais deciding last year's budget. It would have been a broad discussion and certainly would not have been about singling out any one department. We have to keep our tax rate down, as I'm sure most of our police force would agree. Our M&O spending has risen significantly this year and, if it was in tandem with a reduced tax rate, that would probably be fine. But as it is our taxes are at a 20-year high, so my point was that, as I run for council, I will look at everything through the lens of getting the rate reduced."