Why are you running?
I’ve got issues I haven’t resolved yet. The sewer plant. I want to see the roads finished up. It’s kind of wrapping up projects that we’ve had. The first three months, purchasing the sewer plant. All the flow meter testing we’ve gotten going. The first meeting was the wastewater and the stormwater drainage by San Jose. You’ve heard me talk before about how not to look at our city as a piece and parcel. Look at it as a whole, as a system that works together. How do we utilize the system to get the biggest bang for our buck? I don’t think we’re quire there yet. I think I still have a lot more to offer when it comes to my knowledge of wastewater, water, engineering prospects, how the system works together. There’s a couple of things I’ve seen since I’ve been involved with the City that are starting to come to fruition. I think we’ve done some great work, but I don’t think we’re finished yet.
What two or three things would you like to accomplish during your three year term?
The first step that I wanted to accomplish and what I talked about when I first ran was our wastewater system and our water system. They’re disjointed. When you build a city and you have the core of your city — I’ve seen this in New Orleans and other places where I have lived — Yuma is a good prospect — is that you get the core of the city which was built in the 1950s and then everything essentially goes through that core. That’s where your beginnings are. When I first got on Planning and Zoning, the big problem that we were having was connectivity with all of our water. So we had high pressure lines, low-pressure lines. At some point the high-pressure lines went to here, other points it went over here, but they didn’t connect. So when you don’t have a complete loop you don’t get constant pressure around the loop. You’re using pumps to make up pressure, You’re trying vary the heights in the water tanks to make up pressure in those loops or where the loops should be. It damages equipment. So when you don’t have a good system in place, you don’t see it up front. But you pay for it on the back end because of all the maintenance costs and all the pumps. Having to pay so much attention to all your infrastructure because it’s not a constant working system. When you have different systems that are connected — where the high-pressure lines and the low-pressure lines come in as loops — and you can vary the pressure and keep up with the pressure like when Old Town used to have a lot of problems with pressure. You see the same thing in Hometown Kyle, Plum Creek, Southlake. It was spurs off of a trunk. So now with the work of the last 10 years or so we have the complete ring around. If something goes down in one portion of town it doesn’t lose water anymore. It used to be, a pump well site went down, that section of town was just out of water. So now with the connectivity that we’re just starting to get to, now you can start changing some of the pumps, varying the pressures, raising and lowering the heights in the water tanks to make up for those gaps that we had. It takes a tremendous amount of maintenance out of your system.
Is that completion what you’re hoping to accomplish?
That and the sewer system. The sewer system right now is in dire shape. We all know that. There’s nobody hiding anything on that one. So when we had problems with the floods, that’s when it showed. During the floods, we’re popping manhole covers. I went out there and we started popping manhole covers in the Memorial Day floods to see where our problems were. We’re not going to get a better look than that. You know when you can pop the manhole covers and look down and see the flow inside the manhole cover. You go to the next branch and you see that flowing out of the manhole cover, you know you have inflow and infiltration problems at that point. We’re not quite fixed yet. And that’s what the flow monitoring is that we’re doing. We’re going to put flow meters in at certain locations, like they did when we did the water study, That’s going to tell us how much water, how much flow is getting into our sewer system from these branches and it’s going to help us prioritize what sections we attack first to get the biggest bang for the buck. I don’t want to raise taxes. Nobody wants to raise taxes. Essentially, if I raise taxes what I’m doing is telling all my neighbors they have to pay more for the same system we’re already providing and I don’t want to do that. So if we can narrow down to where we need to focus on and fix those systems first, we get twofold. We take away from what the sewer plants are having to deal with. Two, we break down on the MGD from the sewer plant. We also take away from how much material is flowing through the pipes. So once we start taking away from inflow and infiltration, we take a little bit away from what’s going into the wastewater treatment plant, you get twofold for the same dollar. It saves us a little bit of time before we have to build the next wastewater treatment plant and it makes the sewers work — they don’t back up into the people’s homes. The Public Works Department has had to go in and dig up the lines and clean out roots from the lines amd old pipes that are just disjointed. We all know that. It’s pipes from the ‘50s. So these are the things that we are working on right now and hopefully I’m getting all these things in place.
What is the city council’s No. 1 priority in the upcoming budget?
Equipment. Once again I’m not a finance guy. I’ve worked in aviation and most of what I deal with is maintenance. How do you keep up the system? How do you deal with personnel and how do you move equipment around? What systems to attack first? Finance is one of the things I’ve been working on personally for myself for awhile. But what I’ve seen is, you go in cycles. So one year you’ll get a personnel bump, the next year you’re more focused on equipment and it keeps cycling like that over and over and over. That’s my own personal take from what I’ve seen. So last year we had a deficit in personnel. I think that was obvious to everyone. And there still is. There’s a massive deficit in personnel. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago for the utility billing. Little things like that. We needed people in the field first before we attacked the billing and the administrative side. So that’s what I was hoping to accomplish. Public Works. Parks Department. PD. There’s a lot of people out there supporting the PD. They’re a very vocal group, which is great. They’ve done a great job of getting their support. However, if everything in Public Works works, nobody cares about them. And Parks, the only complaint is when the city just looks rough. When we’re talking about Parks, it’s how many miles of mowing do you do, trash collection in the areas, making sure everything is neat and tidy, the overall appearance. They’re very important. But PD is the one everyone can get behind and fund. So I’m focused on Public Works and to some effect Parks, too, because they kind of do similar things. Parks is the face of the city. When you look at our city, how everything is landscaped, how it looks, that’s what draws people to our city. Public works? We have serious problems there. Like the road bond issue, $36 million for roads. I agree we need roads, but I think with personnel and equipment, we would not only have gotten those roads out of it, we would have also gotten sustainability for a long time coming after that. There’s a couple of different things I would like to see changed. For this budget cycle, I’m looking to get equipment for Public Works and update some of the equipment for Parks.
Speaking of parks, what do you think the goal should be of the new Parks Master Plan that is currently being formulated?
My goal, because hopefully I will be a part of that, is the connectivity and the continuity of the parks system. Right now and in the budget cycle before I was on Council, Todd (Mayor Todd Webster) pushed through a bunch of recommendations and a bunch of budget amendments to clean up the parks — landscaping, beautifying— getting them back up to snuff. They kind of went down there for awhile. We did a lot of beautification the year before last to the parks. Of course, we got the floods and that hurt of lot of what we did. But you can’t account for that. It happens. Beginning with how we put the parks together, how we fund our system, how we maintain it, how we keep it going, that’s what everybody sees. That Parks Master Plan dealing with that is giving us the continuity, making sure all of our parks are similarly kept up, making sure there’s personnel there, because a lot of people just focus on the overall look of a park, not everybody focuses on how that’s going to be maintained. The personnel. The equipment. The consumables that they use. Al that comes into how these parks are going to be maintained. We also don’t want to get so large that there’s such a massive amount of area that’s eventually going to deteriorate just from attrition. We might be able to maintain just by getting the grass mowed down, but the beautification of the parks, making sure everything looks neat and tidy and even. The crush granite paths, making sure they are raked and divots taken out of them from the rain. Little things like that make a massive difference. And this Parks Master Plan not only needs to take in the concept of how these parks are going to look and what’s the next evolution of where they’re going to be, but it also needs to keep in mind what our Parks Department staff and equipment levels are. So we can maintain any future parks that we bring in. So that Master Plan is going to be tied directly into our budget. That’s going to help us decide where we’re going to put the personnel, what type of equipment we’re going to buy, how our department is going to grow, what other projects can we accomplish. If we don’t have a Parks Master Plan that is solid, and not only integrates the pretty parts of the park, but it also has to integrate the baseball fields, football, the other facilities we’re currently engaged in. Right now our basketball camp is currently using a school’s facilities. Hays has great baseball fields and soccer fields. A lot of kids go to those places. I think that’s the section that we’re missing. We have a field here and a field there, but getting something that is lit, has concession stands and can provide that quality of life asset, I think that’s something we need to strive towards.
What do you think of trying to establish more of a collaborative partnership with schools, in which when a new school is built its playground can actually double as a city park facility and the school library — which every school needs — can also function as a branch of the Kyle Public Library?
I think we’re getting there. I don’t think we’re there yet. I think it’s very obvious with what you’re seeing with the triple Freeport exemption. I don’t think we’re quite there yet as far as the school district being willing to deal with the other municipalities. I think that’s something that’s coming in the future, mainly because of the population expansion and growth. You know who are cooperating together? The cities — Buda, Mountain City, Kyle, San Marcos — and Hays County all work to some extent well together. We might not see eye-to-eye on some interlocal agreements, but for the most part when there’s some need there that we both can agree upon, we come together and work well on those things. Getting the school involved in that is somewhat of an issue right now and that portion of the diplomacy is kind of escaping me at the moment.
Are you concerned about Kyle’s long-term sustainability?
That’s the manufacturing. The’s kind of been my little mantra since I got in. Urban sprawl is something we’re going to fight. I know a lot of people hate that term "bedroom community," but we are. But we can be so much more. We have lots of land mass that’s open land mass at the moment. With developers, it’s the quick buck. Developers that own property have a specific thing in their wheelhouse. This is what they can accomplish. Homebuilders are homebuilders. But to get them to open their minds to say manufacturing, some kind of commercial entity that’s just not homes is more difficult. Homes take away from our resources. The general guideline is for homeowners — when it comes to tax dollars — they consume 110 percent of what they actually give to the city. We’re missing the commercial part. We’re missing the sustainability for our city. I think what’s going to help us is to get the developers to see the vision and we need to see the vision. I think the part that’s missing is the City Council needs to see the vision and to actually have a unified vision for what the city needs to be. I think we’re lacking that right now.
You touched on this subject a few moments ago, but because of policies outside city government’s direct control Kyle will never be in contention to land businesses like the Amazon distribution center that recently located in San Marcos or that new Samsung facility that went to Manor, of all places. But do you think the city should exert pressure to get those policies changed and, if so, what form should that pressure take?
Absolutely. We’ve got a little bit of turmoil going on inside Council. That’s bad. Difference of opinion is a great thing because it allows everyone to voice their opinion. A 7-0 vote is not a bad thing, but a 5-2 vote or a 4-3 vote is also not a bad thing. Everybody up there comes from a different background. We all have something different to bring to this group. That’s why it’s a council of seven. If we don’t have those conversations and don’t move forward to find a unified vision and we continue the turmoil that we have up there right now, it’s going to drive all those businesses away. Even though we’re striving to catch up — because we are, we know we’re behind the power curve — we’re pushing pretty hard to get a lot of infrastructure in place in a short amount of time to seal up those little holes and cracks in our economic development policy. We can go out there and go get ‘em. We can give them incentives. We can give them a lot of things. But if we can’t support them with infrastructure, they’re not coming. So that’s the first part I think we need to fix. The policy is coming at the same time, but we’re going to have to fix the turmoil first, because, like the recall we had a couple of months ago, those hurt everybody. If we don’t get manufacturing, we don’t offset that tax rate, it’s going to hurt us for years to come. You were wondering how we’re going to support those homes coming in. If we don’t start quelling some of that turmoil we’ve got, we don’t get a development policy in place for our economic development to drive towards getting those types of businesses which will bring actual jobs in like a Toyota plant or a Caterpillar plant, which have people actually making things. If we don’t start focusing on that, then we’re heading in the wrong direction. But we’re getting there. We are moving away from the big box mentality. We’re not there, but I think we’re heading in the right direction. Now we know we need the triple freeport. We know we need the school board to come onboard. But we can’t force them to do it. All we can do is present the case and say "This is why. This is why we need those exemptions." You can see the triple freeport map. You can see the belt going around the top of Austin and you can see where all the businesses are going. Because, if you have manufacturing, that inventory is not going to stay there for six months. It comes in. It comes out. But the equipment and the jobs that it makes, the actual property that they’re being taxed on is far more valuable than the circular inventory that they’re getting. I don’t think the school board sees it yet. It will come. Obviously, San Marcos did it for Amazon, so it’s coming. I think we just need to work harder on the school board to get the triple freeport exemption in,.
You mentioned the Police Department. Do you think the upcoming budget should include as part of its capital improvements projects, plans for a new state-of-the-art police headquarters?
This might get me in a little bit of trouble. No, I don’t necessarily think we need this brand new state-of-the-art facility. When you look at us and when you look at how much the PD is part of our budget, at one point it was 52 percent of our budget, I don’t know off-hand what it is at the moment. But when you look at that big of a bite — we would have to bond that. We need to start looking towards consolidating our resources, getting our groups together. I think that co-location of all our entities gives us an opportunity so that we don’t have to shoulder the whole burden of that brand new state-of-the-art police facility. And state-of-the-art today will not be state-of-the-art 10 years from now. That’s my problem with that. You build a facility that someone considers state-of-the-art today, it will not be state-o-the-art 10 years from now. We would have to modify that facility in 10 more years. Just think about the internet capabilities in the building — in the next 10 years those capabilities are going to change massively. As computing power gets stronger and all the server issues we’ll be asking the police to deal with, all the transfer of data. Our infrastructure right now — from the cars to what’s inside — that connection is a limiting factor. That’s why those cars are sitting in front of police headquarters so they can pull up and get the wi-fi connection straight to the PD to be able to transfer that data as fast as they can because in the field they can’t do it. We’ve seen over the last three decades that "state-of-the-art" changes so many times. And what with the requirements and the policy changes the police are going through right now, giving them a facility that they can grow into is more important than a state-of-the-art facility. Something that can be changed, something a little more modular. Right now everyone wants to compartmentalize. I think we need to start opening up. You walk into an engineering firm and they’re open. Open floor plans with all the different groups actually communicating. So if you have Group A over there having a problem, Group B can go "Hey, we have the same thing going on" and you have a lot of discussion in between all the different groups. I think knocking down some of those walls, some of those barriers inside the PD facility is vital because right now it’s a very compartmentalized building. Do they need a new facility? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because if you looked at where we started, when I first got here, the VFW building was the PD. And then they moved to the old Post Office that used to be City Hall. And how they’ve moved to the Wells Fargo building. Do they need a building? Absolutely. And when you see what dispatch is working out of, we’re disjointed. We need to get a building that encompasses all the facilities that the PD needs. Do I think it’s a $34 million building at this time? I don’t think we can shoulder that cost.
How do you feel about a zero-based budgeting system?
Once again, I’m not a finance guy, but I have two different opinions on that. I don’t think looking at each year’s budget from scratch is necessarily a bad thing because you have new goals, new outlooks. They way I can see you can approach that is you’re putting your goals and everything first and then you start talking about these are the necessities we have, these are what we need to take away from the projects. If you have a base line already set up, I think it’s good to have an assumption that your base budget for each department is going to be X amount and this is our revenue stream and then how we’re going to piece and parcel that. I think a hybrid between the two systems that we currently have would be much better. I think you’re going to see a big change this year. Before, every item from the toilet paper to the fire alarms we bought for the PD — every single things, everything, how many pins they bought that year — was discussed during the budget cycle. I don’t think that’s a necessity. I actually think that’s a hindrance when it comes to how government functions. Now understanding this facility is going to have X amount of dollars and you already know your base line for your budget and knowing this is where we’re starting from this year, I think incorporating those different philosophies works well. But I don’t think starting from scratch — zero — every year is not something I would like to see right now.
How do you feel about budgeting for outcomes?
That’s kind of what the military does. You have goals that you need to maintain and so you’re shooting for X. For us, it was flights. We’re looking for this percentage for mission capable. That is our goal. So, yes, I think a goal-oriented budget process can be very rewarding in the end. But I think we’re missing our vision and that’s why I don’t think that budgeting works for us right now. Perhaps once we actually have a unified vision for the city. I think we’re getting there, but I don’t think we’re there yet. Almost our complete upper echelon of our executive staff has completely turned over. Rebuilding that vision and the momentum that we’ve gained in the last two years, I think we’re getting to that point. We’re about to be able to do that but I don’t think we’re necessarily there yet.
Everybody talks about the amount of traffic on Center Street. Most of that traffic could be alleviated by spending $2 million. Do you think the city council should approve a $2 million item to fix those traffic problems as part of the fiscal year 2016-17 budget and, if so, where should that money come from?
Not right now, I’m not in favor of it. Our budget is so lean right now, so tight, it would have to come from a bonding issue at this moment. And the threshold for a bond is $5 million, but even so if you’re talking about widening it you have to take some responsibility from TxDot. Right now, that’s a TxDot road. The biggest hindrance is we don’t want that to be anything else but a TxDot road. They paid for it. They pave it, they deal with it. We could do streetscaping, we could do those things. But an actual widening of the road, that’s TxDot. I want to keep TxDot on the hook for as long as I can. I’d rather spend the state money instead of our local money. I’d like to see our local money spent for local projects. Like Masonwood Drive and the roads that are really in dire needs. Goforth extension—that was a project that cost less than $2 million. Those are the ones we get the biggest bang from. We’ve talked about doing a bridge over the railroad tracks. We’ve talked about tunneling under the railroad tracks. We’ve tried to do everything we can to alleviate the railroad tracks. That’s our biggest obstacle. It doesn’t matter what we do to that road, when that train stops on that track, traffic backs up. Union Pacific is more of a problem than dealing with the actual road at the moment. I’m not willing to give TxDot a break on that one.
What changes would you advocate to increase citizen participation in municipal government?
Getting people to participate is rough, especially in this area, because most people work in Austin or work in other locations besides Kyle. They come here to relax. They listen to the traffic problems in Austin. They listen to the government in Austin because that affects the majority of their day. When they get here, they don’t want to really participate, unless something really affects them. That’s how I got involved. The sewer uplift station behind my house flowing out sewer made me pay attention really, really fast. Things like that get people involved really fast. How to get more people involved? On election times, you gotta walk, you gotta get out there. Outside of election times, you gotta advertise the events in the community, events that we’ve got going to show them Kyle has something to offer. And don’t go to Austin. Don’t go to these other places. That’s why the Parks Master Plan, the upgrading of our parks, getting our roads up to snuff, making sure we look and feel as a community, then people will start paying a little more attention to what’s going on. And when the time comes to actually vote, they’ll pay more attention. When we took away the Easter egg extravaganza like we did for four years, people paid attention because they were involved in that portion of our community. That’s how I believe you get people involved. You make them part of the community with the programs we provide. When you start reducing those programs, it removes their involvement and they start going other places for those programs. I think our Parks Department is how we get people involved.
What additional changes would you propose to the city’s board, commission, committee structure?
The problem we were having — entitlement is not the right word, it’s the right feel, but not the right word. The feeling that it had to go through that committee. I’m an elected official. I take responsibility for the choices I make. I’m not going to be right 100 percent of the time. Anybody who thinks that they are is completely deranged. But with the information that we’re given, you try to make the best decision that you can. And with that sending it to a committee to get more information is a great idea. But when that group thinks you absolutely have to take that recommendation and they fight against the council and their votes, that’s when we start having a problem. That’s when you start getting turmoil in government. Having focus groups and people buying into the city, feeling a part of it, is an amazing thing. I wouldn’t be doing this if I hadn’t done the Master Transportation Plan in 2005. That was my buy-in into the city’s process. That’s how you begin to find out how the city works, What’s actually going on in your surrounding areas so you can progress to whatever level you want to progress to. The Police Citizens Academy is an amazing thing. The Leadership Academy is an amazing thing because it gets people involved.
In your opinion, is someone appointed to a city board, commission or committee answerable to the city council member who appointed that person?
No. Take Kent Sheckler, who I appointed to the Charter Review Commission. I had known him for years. He was the coach for my son’s baseball team. Great guy. His wife worked with Fuentes Elementary School. So I’ve known them for years. The first thing I told him was "This not about what I want to see. I am putting you on here, you are my nominee, because you have an opinion. You’ll look. You’ll read. You’ll focus on what the goals are and you can formulate an opinion,. I don’t want you to have my opinion. I’m not putting you on here to be mouthpiece. I will get a chance at it (the charter review). And when I get a chance at it, that’s what’s will actually be proposed as a change with the charter. So I’ll have my opportunity. I want somebody who’s going to make a decision, who’s going to read the material and make a mindful decision." And that’s what I tell all the appointments I make to all the commissions and committees I put forth. When Michelle Christie was taking my seat on Planning & Zoning, we had a very definite difference of opinion. I told the same thing to Timothy Kay when he was getting appointed to P&Z. Between the two of them and myself we have wide differences of opinion on what should happen in what areas. But I want them to make an informed decision. Be mindful, read the material, visit the sites, make a decision. And that’s what they do. I don’t have to like their outcomes but give it an effort and that’s all I expect.
Should the city prioritize growth alternatives it will incentivize and, if so, what, in your opinion, are the top 3 alternatives Kyle should concentrate on?
My top priority is manufacturing. Things that are going to offset our tax base. Those are the things that we need to prioritize. I don’t necessarily want to prioritize. We don’t get to make a decision on exactly where things go and what they want to develop. Our zoning categories say you can have X amount of business in this type of zoning category. If you want to have a full-on manufacturing facility, like a foundry, that has to be in CM zoning. If you want to have warehouse/manufacturing/distribution or residential that’s great, but those are giant categories. We don’t really have sub-categories that break them down. So it’s difficult to focus areas on what you want to go in those areas. Do we have an opportunity to have some sort of warehouses and commercial growth on I-35 and some of those larger roadways, the feeders that come in? On the larger roadways, the arterial roadways you’re gonna get retail service or some kind of warehouse growth. You’re not necessarily going to get full-on commercial on those. You need a large feeder for those to get full-on commercial like an Amazon warehouse. You don’t want that to go on a small arterial road. So if you don’t want something to go in that location, you don’t give them incentives to go in that location. I don’t want to do an overall tax abatement or a 380 — any type of developmental agreement — on an area that we don’t think should contain this type of business. There’s some sense of responsibility for us to make sure that our city grows in a smart growth pattern. That’s one of the things I’ve been talking about with our planning director. How do we start to break down some of those categories to start to focus on what we want to grow and where do we want to grow it. The different types of mixed-use categories, instead of just giving them retail or just residential. We need to start having some sub-categories. Incentivizing growth in areas where we want to grow? Absolutely. That’s using to your advantage the tool that you have in hand. As far as city government is concerned, our play book is set in stone. We have very few mechanisms were actually get to use. The developer, on the other hand, can move around and they have a lot of choices on how they can get projects done. We don’t. We have it set in stone: These are the procedures we have to follow. So we need to look more at the depth ant not just the breadth of our zoning categories. Once we do that, the incentives play more of a part.
Speaking of zoning categories, how do you feel about single use zoning?
That townhome duplex, that’s a good use of single-use zoning. We’re starting to go more into that now than we have in the past. I’m in favor of them. I’m a big proponent of property owner rights. If you buy a parcel and what you want to do with it is not a detriment to the surrounding area, you should be able to build what you want to build on it. As long as you don’t put the nail salon next to the restaurant. You’re hurting the other person’s business when you do that. There needs to be buffers. When you have a hole in the city like in downtown, those single use categories are very useful. Because if you want to buy this, this is what is going to fit in that box. But we’re also affecting the market when we do that. You can value or de-value a property by doing that.
Do you think city government should take a more active role in regional planning or is that, in your opinion, the exclusive prerogative of county government or organizations such as CAPCOG?
It’s their prerogative. They are set up to do exactly that. But if we don’t grow regionally, if we don’t become more of a regional player, we don’t get the choices of where the roads go, we don’t get the choices of main trunk waterlines, the water districts. That takes us out of the equation. Do we have to speak softly and carry a big stick? Sometimes, absolutely. But we are up-and-coming and growing really fast. We have the opportunity to play a bigger part on the state’s incentive to bring in manufacturing. We have an opportunity to do that. We’re right on 35. We have open land. Greenfield is great, but you need to get the highest and best use out of that greenfield, because you’re not re-doing anything there for the next 50 years. So, if we’re not mindful about what’s coming down the pipeline, we’re not one of those bigger players that’s taking part with the surround entities, making sure we have our resources captured. If we’re not a player in those, we lose overall, in a big way. And that’s a long-term loss. That directly affects how our city grows and how prosperous we are in the future.
In your opinion, does Kyle have a transportation problem?
Every city has a transportation problem.
What specifically is that problem and what actions should the city take to remediate it?
First of all we don’t need as many single-family homes. We need to look at different products, which we have. I’ve said before we need diversity in our residential product, but we also need those areas where we have the manufacturing, the retail services and the like. We need to start focusing on those and making sure they’re not haphazard, they’re focused in the areas where we know we’re going to build the roads, and focus not on automobility but on walking traffic, biking traffic. When you don’t focus on alternative modes of transportation and how people can actually get around our city, dealing with different densities, we’re not helping our transportation problem, we’re actually inhibiting us from being able to move around the city.
Do you think Kyle has an air quality problem?
No, I don’t. I run a foundry at Texas State. I pay absolute attention to what is coming out because we have to meet EPA standards. So I follow what the EPA says and what the TCEQ does, what our hazardous waste permit allows. I deal not only with a foundry, I deal with semiconductor waste, I deal with construction waste. Is their an ozone issue with the overall nation? Yes, absolutely. But is there an issue in Kyle? No. We have a problem with particulates and different hazards in our air. But we’re not generators. It’s not necessarily coming from us. We don’t have point-source problems in our area. Do I think Kyle, itself, has an air quality issue? No. I think our general region has an air quality issue. But I don’t think Kyle itself has one. I’m in favor of air quality standards for a region. I’m not in favor of unfunded mandates that we elect ourselves to be a part of. All the Clean Air Coalition is putting forth is what’s coming out of EPA. It’s the same regulations that they’re doing for their air quality index. Exact same. As a city, we already have to abide by EPA standards. Why am I going to elect to be part of the air quality initiative when they bring nothing to the table except for unfunded mandates? We can do it on our own, following the guidelines the EPA puts forth. I don’t believe in tying our hands with another entity at this point.
What are the city’s most prominent infrastructure needs? Which of those needs are of immediate concern?
Wastewater is our most important. That gap analysis that the state did, 50 years out we’re still good when it comes to water. We’re selling water to Buda right now which is helping us pay for our infrastructure from HPCUA. We’ve got water. We have the capability of providing nine MGD (millions of gallons of water a day) water at the moment. I think we’re using 3.5, somewhere around there. I may not be exactly sure of those numbers, but they are close. So we have that ability to use it. We’ve already insured ourself for our growth. Nobody else in Texas has a better gap strategy than we do. So as far as water goes, we’re good on water. Now, getting it out to where the resources are needed, that’s where we have a little more of a problem. We need those pressure loops I talked about earlier, making sure all of our infrastructure is up to quality. That’s what we need to focus on. The sewer side is a different animal altogether. Because of the problems we had with I and I (inflow and infiltration) and because of our aging infrastructure and the issues we had with Aqua Texas that I really can’t talk about it’s put us in a bad position at the moment to grow. That’s why I think we need manufacturing right now instead of residential because manufacturing is a far less user of the resources that we have. And they give us a bigger bang for our buck as far as taxes. We build retail we still end up paying for it out of our ad valorem tax rate and I don’t want to do that. Our tax rate is high. Everybody knows our tax rate is high. But we’re also in a massive growth period and we’re trying to offset the infrastructure needs that we’ve got and we’re having a problem dealing with it with personnel, getting the people processing all the issues we have and the people going to go fix it and the needs we have in our city. So that’s where we’re lagging behind in that section. We’ve got the wastewater treatment plant. That was a massive step because we’re not beholden to any other entity besides us now. So our TCEQ permit is ours. There’s no co-signers. It’s ours. That was one of my proudest moments when we signed that. Scared the hell out of me. Three months as a city councilman, I walk into this adjudication, this arbitration that we had and that was the scariest decision I had made up to that point. Three million dollars we paid for that sewer plant. The point is $3 million was the up-front cost. It’s closer to 10 when you start actually adding in all the subsequent costs that come down the pipeline — the personnel, the longevity of the costs that we’re going to need, the upgrades to it, the infrastructure dealing with all of our uplift stations and our plumbing going to the area. We grew so fast that we had a 1.5 MGD bull’s-eye. In 2008, the second sewer plant came on line, a 3 MGD sewer plant. But at the rate we were growing, we were already growing to capacity by the time it was built. And then our I and I issue from downtown, which is a massive issue I think we need to fix. There’s so many things we need to get ahead of.
What do you see as the source of the money that will be needed to get ahead of it?
We’ve got a couple entities that are building. I can’t reiterate enough how important that (Yarrington Road) package was. To everyone else around it was "Hey, no truck stop." And that’s important. But the real important part of it was we got a thousand LUEs out of that. So those Living Unit Equivalents that we got, it all goes to San Marcos now — into their sewer plant. We’re taking capacity out of ours and we’re growing that south side of our town, but it’s not going to our sewer plant. It also gave us time. Of that $7 million for the south side sewer system, now $2 million of that can now be spent on our sewer plant expansion. We still have to provide that later on, but it’s essentially a stay of execution for five to seven years out. It gives us time to rebuild our assets, to get our city on the path it needs to be, to fix our problems with our sewer and it gives us the ability to get manufacturers here to offset that tax rate so that it’s not coming out of ad valorem taxes, not coming out of the homeowners. It comes from businesses that we have in place that are going to benefit from the natural sewer system. I don’t think a lot of people are really going to appreciate that deal that just happened. Our city is expanding fast. The fact that these moneys are allocated from other areas to improve our pre-existing infrastructure — a lot of that money that is coming in is going to expand our sewer, but it’s also going to fix Old Town. I think a lot of people are missing that. We get a lot of opposition from that group in Old Town because we’re not doing anything for them. They are about to get so much it’s unbelievable. I just hope they see it soon.
Do you support the proposed charter changes that will be on the May ballot?
Yes, I absolutely do. I think it was well thought out. I think we had a great commission. The group that we had there really did a great job on the needs and the differences in our city at the moment. Every five years, the council changes, the attitude changes, the direction the city goes changes. I think the group we had this time was very mindful of the past as well as what is happening now and where we might be at in the future.
Under current policy, if the city council rejects a zoning request, the applicant is forbidden to resubmit the request for an entire year. Do you think this is fair?
Yes, I do. A year’s worth of time waiting is completely fine.
If the City decided to draft an entirely new Comprehensive Plan from scratch, what process would you recommend drafters take in developing that plan?
In an evolution of a city, the way we’re growing, five years from now it’s going to be completely different. We’re pretty much going to be set on a path on how we’re going to grow. So we have a chance to change our current residential zoning or we can go to the commercial path and try to offset ad valorem with sales tax. When it comes to the completely re-do, I think that’s the appropriate time to make those decisions. The way we have done it in the past and it seems to be a very set-in-place process for all the plans I’ve been a part of so far is you have the initial concept with a focus group and then they do open-to-the public charrettes and then they do some tweaking and then they go to the Council. We have a very vocal group when it comes to transportation and planning in general. I think it’s important to get that a little earlier on in the process before you do the first section. People have opinions. Lots and lots of opinions. If you have an open session before the whole thing starts and ask them "What is it you don’t like about what’s going on around you?" I think that would benefit greatly. Instead of putting it together and then start asking questions. We need to have an Old Town group and a group from each neighborhood and then we can start talking about it, bring in the developers in separate groups. The way we’ve done things in the past is one focus group and they all get together, I’ve seen the people have their voices stymied because of how loud other groups speak. That’s our problem. I don’t think everybody gets an equal voice when they are all put in that one big group. If you get that input in the beginning from the different areas and then break it out again later on I think that will give you a direction to go in instead of making the plan and then asking for direction.
Is the city doing enough to manage stormwater? Do you support the creation of a stormwater utility in Kyle and the implementation of stormwater fees to pay for that utility?
I’m never in favor of a fee. It’s not like an ad valorem tax. Once you set the fee, it’s hard to go down. So where we set it at, that’s the starting point. It’s going to grow from that point on. So I’m not in favor of fees. We pay a lot in ad valorem taxes and we should expect a lot of service for what we pay. In times like this when we’re tying to catch up and our ad valorem tax is high — although not as high as the school district tax — I don’t think it’s ever good to add onto that. It’s never a good policy to start adding on fees. They never go away. But a storm water utility? Do I think the idea itself is good? I really do. It gives you a focused effort to deal with the drainage issues we have here in the city right now. Remember, when it was built, the old section of town it was built for 1950 standards. Most of the drainage issues don’t even hold up to a two-year flood. It’s a big problem. Bringing this forth is a great thing. Is it going to cure the problem we had in the October floods? No. Nothing is. You can’t expect a city to plan for 100-year floods every year. We can’t make every one of our assets according to a 100-year flood plan. The trenches would be massive. The drainage ditches would be huge. We would get into channelizing half the city. That’s something Texas as a whole doesn’t really want. As long as the public’s realizes the creation of a stormwater utility will not save us from flooding. You can drive down or walk downtown and walk down some of our main corridors that have been there for years and you can see most of the culverts you have maybe a third of the openings still there. So fixing that is extremely important. So creating the utility is a natural progression from where we are. This is just a natural progression of where we’re going to be. The fee? No, I don’t like a fee. I don’t care what it is.
Anything else you want to add?
We talked a lot about why I’m running—unfinished products. I think I still have a lot to offer to the city, from my background, my expertise, what I’ve done in the past. I have that drive to want to improve the city. I’ve seen it grow. I’ve been a part of the city for 13-plus years now. I’ve seen where it came from since the early 2000s. I’ve seen the problems that we’ve had with growth. I’ve seen where we made some errors and where we made some great expeditions into futility. But I’ve also seen where we’ve made some great decisions. We’ve got a really great staff. It took us a long time to get there. You can feel the mentality of our city is changing. Over the last two years, we went from a beaten-down version to pretty damn positive. You’ve seen the renewal in all our programs — the parks program, the roads — they’re all happening within the next year. We added an extra road to the road bond package. We’re making great leaps and bounds. But we’re not there yet. And that’s where I want to get. There’s those projects that are out there that I helped put in place and helped move forward that aren’t finished yet. The sewer plant is a major one. I know I played a major part in the actual purchase of the sewer plant. I want to see it through. I want to make sure that the purchase that we made, I want to see it through to fruition and that it’s a betterment to the city. I don’t want to leave it part way and let it go down a bad path. If a majority of the citizens don’t agree with me, I obviously won’t be here. But at this point I think I’ve done well and I’ve heard nothing but good things so far. I’m hoping to continue my stay on the Kyle City Council.
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