Council candidates engage in ho-hum forum

 Three of four city council candidates, including one incumbent, engaged in a forum today sponsored by the Kyle Chamber of Commerce that was mostly devoid of any news value with the exception of that aforementioned incumbent, Tracy Scheel, saying the city is on the verge of announcing two new significant businesses locating here and all three more or less endorsing the ballot referendum to fund a new police headquarters building.

One of the candidates originally scheduled to appear, Yvonne Flores-Cale, who is challenging Scheel for the District 2 seat, was forced to cancel because of a death in the family, according to chamber CEO Julie Snyder, who superbly moderated today’s forum.

“I wish we could make announcements, but we can’t yet due to non-disclosure agreements,” Scheel said during the forum. “Yet we have two companies coming in and I cannot wait for that announcement.” She said the principle reason why the unnamed businesses decided to locate in Kyle was because the city had already arranged for the construction of shell buildings to house these and other concerns, freeing the businesses from having to construct their own physical locations.

Scheel said that because she was a sitting council member she could speak neither for or against the ballot proposition to fund the proposed new police headquarters, but then, like others on the council, proceeded to “inform” voters why such a building is necessary. The other two candidates appearing at the forum, Tim McHutchion and Ashlee Bradshaw, competing against each other for the open District 4 seat, both supported the ballot proposition, with McHutchion being the more supportive of the two.

“As much as I’m going to bless seeing a more affordable option on the table on the November ballot,” Bradshaw said, “the community voted on the stand-alone site, which was the $37 million, and I will say that I fully support the mental health program and all of the benefits that I believe it will bring to the residents here in Kyle, Texas … (The Police Department) much deserve a larger building — a better option, a more suitable option.”

McHutchion said “It is our duty to ensure the safety of our public by having this new public safety center.”

Scheel said she generally opposed incentives for businesses to locate here, but she danced around the question of what she would do to encourage start-ups that don’t require those types of incentives, instead saying the proposed “Uptown” development would be a great location for a start-up. To be fair, neither of the two other candidates successfully answered the question about “encouraging” start-ups, instead falling back on answers concerning permitting and office space requirements that might streamline such a process for all businesses wishing to locate here, but would do absolutely nothing to specifically encourage start-ups.

Did the city's bond webcast exceed legal limits?

 Last night council member Alex Villalobos opened what is scheduled to be the first of five virtual web seminars paid for by city taxpayers by saying he wasn’t going to argue either for or against passage of Proposition A, the proposed $37 million bond sale that would finance the construction of a police headquarters building, and then he spent the next 52 minutes explaining why voters should approve the proposition in the Nov. 3 elections.

Did he cross the line and illegally assume the role of a city official campaigning in favor of the passage of a bond proposal? That would be a question only courts court definitely answer. The question that should be asked is whether he said enough to open the door for a litigious segment of the population to seek remedies from the court to prevent the bond sale, should the proposition pass in November.

The one thing I do know for sure — the one take-away I had from last night’s presentation — was that on at least three different occasions I heard the proposition described as “an investment in our community.” That, to me, sounded more like a campaign slogan than an objective statement of fact. It came across like words you would see on a yard sign: “Vote ‘Yes’ on Prop. A — an investment in our community.”

Here is exactly what he said on one of those occasions: “If passed, the funding from the proposed bond would finance the design, construction, equipping the public safety center that would open in 2022 and serve residents for decades to come. This bond is an investment in our community.” Objectively speaking, Villalobos could have stopped after the words “decades to come.” Did he begin campaigning when he added that additional sentence? Is it a question even worth pursuing?

I don’t blame Villalobos for this. “An investment in our community” is obviously one of the scripted talking points the PR company that was hired to “educate” the voting public about the bond proposal wanted to mention at every available opportunity. That’s why, I must assume, I heard those exact words, delivered more dramatically and with greater emphasis than anything else that was said, it at least twice last night by Villalobos and at least once by Sarah O’Brien, the so-called “hostess” of the webcast and a senior account executive with Buie and Company, the Austin-based PR outfit the city hired to “educate and inform” voters about the bond propositions. These webcasts are supposed to have rotating city hosts and while I’m not going to waste my time watching any more of these (c’mon, the NBA playoffs are in progress — I have my priorities), I will be bold in predicting that regardless of who the upcoming hosts are, you will hear them call the bond proposal “an investment in our community.”

Less than two minutes after the above mentioned statement, Villalobos said “The proposed facility would allow the city to increase its public safety services to support our growing population. This is an investment in our community.” There it was again. That’s not an accident. That’s planned. That’s scripted. I don’t know if it was designed to be somewhat subliminal but in reality it had all the subtlety of the freight trains that roll through downtown Kyle daily. The question is: Did objective education end after the word “population” and did campaigning for passage of the proposition begin with the word “This?”

The other problem was the word “community” was the last word he uttered in his formal presentation. After that came the “thank-you’s for tuning in” and the start of the Q&A session.

In describing why it’s a good plan to have other departments co-located inside the proposed facility, Villalobos said “The more we consolidate, the more we become more efficient and the more we have all those particular departments under one roof to be able to respond in an efficient and a timely matter, the better we are equipped to take care of the citizens of Kyle and all of the visitors that come through the city of Kyle.” Is that statement an objective one, or an opinion? Was that a statement made to inform voters or to give them a reason to vote in favor of the proposition? If the answer is the latter, it makes the entire presentation illegal because it is against the law to use taxpayer money to campaign for the passage of a bond proposal, just as it is for an incumbent city council person to use taxpayer funds to finance any part of a re-election campaign.

When he was asked if there was a Plan B in case the bond proposal failed, Villalobos danced around the answer, revealing there are no contingency plans, but then added “At some point we’re going to need a facility to house and utilize a space that consolidates all the resources together for efficiency, to utilize and make our best responses to public safety throughout the city.” That, alone, could be classified as electioneering, but then he added this: “It’s important to understand in law enforcement to have a facility that serves the needs of not only the citizens but also supports the staff that is working there in our city. I think that’s very, very important that they feel supported because I believe that a supported officer with all the resources that they need is going to be important for overall public safety.” Did Villalobos, who, perhaps not coincidentally, is the Democratic nominee for Hays County sheriff, cross the legal line when he went into talking about what he feels are “very, very important” for law enforcement issues? At that point, was he, as that nominee for a law enforcement post, illegally campaigning for funding for a law enforcement facility?

He mentioned the facility would contain an Emergency Operations Center. Which is fine. That’s informative. That’s educational. But Villalobos not only editorialized by calling it “a state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Center,” he went so far as to say “There definitely is a need for the city to expand and to add all the technology that is required to have a state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Center with all of the resources, with all of the technology and all of the space that is necessary for a top-tier EOC.” Is that a statement urging passage of the proposition?

Reasonable people can legitimately argue either answer to that question. The only way we will ever come close to a definitive answer is, if the proposition passes, one or more parties go to court seeking a restraining order to prevent the sale of the bonds and use this webcast as a piece of evidence that the city acted illegally in the bond election process.

That’s a big “if.”

Virtual meetings on public safety building bond proposal begin tonight

 The first of five planned virtual open houses designed to convince residents to vote in favor of the city borrowing $37 million to fund the construction of a new police headquarters is scheduled for 7 p.m. this evening and will continue for the next four consecutive Thursdays at the same time.

Because of the economic distress caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the proposal to sell the required city-backed bonds arguably faces more of an uphill battle than the 2013 bond election. The proceeds from the sale of those bonds financed major road reconstructions in Kyle, two of which — Burleson and Lehman — are still in the final phases of completion.

Voters are being told that if they approve the sale these bonds, it could mean, on the average, a $160.53 per year increase in property taxes over the next 20 years. The city likes to claim out of the goodness of its heart it is deferring collecting this tax increase until October 2021 because of COVID-19, but, that’s mostly a lot of malarkey. The truth is the bonds can’t be sold, obviously, until voters approve the sale, and the first time a city budget can reflect any income the sale of those bonds generate is in the FY 2021-22 budget, which doesn’t kick in until October 2021. But saying the city is considering the plight of the poor taxpayer because of COVID-19 is a good PR stunt, especially if the economic effects of COVID-19 might be the reason some voters are considering voting against the bond sale.

The open houses will take the form of a “Zoom Webinar.” I am not that proficient in anything that could be described as “high-tech,” but even I, with my limited technical capabilities, managed to participate recently in a Zoom Webinar from my home. The trick is to Google “Zoom” and then go from there. You’ll need a Webinar ID and, for tonight’s meeting, that ID is 976 8015 2699. You’ll also need a passcode and that passcode will be the same for all five meetings: 2020.

The IDs for the remaining meetings are 926 2839 7701 (Sept. 24), 943 8608 5201 (Oct. 1), 993 3800 6811 (Oct. 8) and 922 4148 4630 (Oct. 15).

The open houses will feature a presentation followed by an opportunity for attendees to ask questions. The city says the presentation section of the open houses will be identical for all five meetings. Spanish interpretation will be available for tonight’s and next week’s open houses.

The $37 million Public Safety Building proposal is one of two bond propositions on the Nov. 3 ballot. The other is a $10 million proposed bond sale that would increase property taxes, again on average, another $43.47 per year, to pay for a new sports complex and upgrades to the city’s park infrastructure. The city, however, is not pushing that bond sale as much as the one for the new police headquarters.

The city is walking a fine line here. Legally, it is prohibited from spending tax money to campaign in favor of a bond election. That is why it is calling these productions an “education” effort.

City takes first step toward creating much-needed Code Enforcement Department

 Right now, it’s being called “The Beautification Division.” At least that’s the name given to this new department by assistant city manager James Earp. It’s first assignment is to maintain the rights-of-way along eight major Kyle corridors. But, during last night’s city council meeting while Earp was describing his three-year-plan for this new division, it’s easy to see how this idea could morph into something the city desperately needs — a stand-alone Code Enforcement Department.

“We’ve gotten to the point right now where we’re large and sophisticated enough to where we really need to start specializing in order to maximize our efficiencies and in order to maximize the benefit the public is receiving,” Earp said.

City Manager Scott Sellers tried unsuccessfully to bolster code enforcement in his proposed FY 2020-21 budget, but the council nixed the plan, removing Sellers’s proposal to add two new code enforcement officials to the city’s staff. At the time, the council made clear it erroneously thought of Code Enforcement as a “beautification” issue. It is not. Code Enforcement, in reality, is a public safety issue and that’s one of the reasons that, in the city’s current organization, code enforcement falls under the jurisdiction of the police department. 

So it seems to me what the city’s staff is doing right now, with a wink and a nod, is saying, “OK, if you folks think this is beautification issue, we’ll play along with you, and create a stand-alone Beautification Division,” with the idea that its success and acceptance will give it the space is needs to grow and morph into something much greater and much needed in any “large and sophisticated” community.

The first step in the creation of this new division was to award a $250,000 contract to WLE (which, according to its website, stands for “Water, Land, Environment”), an Austin-based commercial landscape and construction company, to be responsible for, essentially, the “beautification” of these Kyle roadways: 2770, RM 150, Center Street, Burleson, Philomena, Kyle Parkway, Marketplace, and Lehman Road. In this case, “beautification,” primarily means mowing, weed removal/prevention and litter abatement. About 90 minutes after Earp outlined his plan for the first three years in the life of this Beautification Division, the council voted unanimously to award the contract to WLE contingent on whether Earp could obtain satisfactory answers from the company to questions and concerns raised by Mayor Travis Mitchell.

But what I found so fascinating about all this was that three-year plan Earp outlined for this new city department, because it contained valuable hints of what’s in store, or at least what the city staff envisions. I know for a fact Sellers knows the value of code enforcement. He tried to strengthen it in this upcoming budget. He failed. But, like any good administrator, he simply decided to accomplish his goals another way.

Why is a strong code enforcement department necessary? That’s an easy question to answer. Kyle, like any other city, has any number of codes/ordinances that it puts on the books. Here, to cite just one example, is Kyle’s sign ordinance, and section 3 of that ordinance says, in part, “the code enforcement officer is hereby authorized and directed to enforce all the provisions of this chapter.”  Does Kyle have the code enforcement staff required to adequately enforce “all the provisions of this chapter”? I doubt it. There’s also zoning regulations. For instance, do we know for certain that a particular area zoned Community Commercial is following the restrictions for that zoning, or is it possibly allowing uses prescribed for Retail Services zoning? I’m not saying developers are deliberately gaming the system, but do we even have anyone inspecting these properties? Do we know what’s going on? Are residences being developed in R-3-3 zoned areas being developed exactly as prescribed in the city’s zoning ordinances? Is anyone checking? Are the coolers where the food is kept at the restaurants in town being maintained and kept at the proper temperatures? In short, the Code Enforcement Department of a city is responsible for monitoring both public and private property, commercial and residential, to ensure that there are no health or safety hazards that might endanger the public and determining compliance with certain city codes and ordinances. That’s why such a department is necessary.

And that’s why I found it so fascinating that Earp said that he planned that, by year three of this Beautification Division’s existence, it would include a least one building inspector — a position not associated with “beautification” per se, but definitely linked to code enforcement.

“One of the things we have issues with and challenges with is recruiting qualified building inspectors,” Earp told the council last night. “That’s predominantly because in order to become a licensed building inspector you first have to be a licensed electrician or plumber. We just don’t have a good pipeline that creates that type of skill set. So, we’re constantly trying to find folks outside of our organization to come work for us. So I thought, how better than to build our own pipeline. We have these needs. We have these responsibilities. If we could start training folks up and find a way to get them licensed and then we can build our own pipeline of ultimately becoming a building inspector.”

It also goes without explicitly saying, it’s also the way to building the city’s own pipeline to creating a functioning code enforcement department.

“Obviously this is a big plan,” Earp said about his proposed new division, “with a lot of thought that’s gone into it. It will ultimately be a high bar for everyone to accomplish.”

Some may think the actual height of this bar ends at the “beautification” of the eight roadways named above. One of those is Mayor Mitchell.

Earp’s proposed Beautification Division “is exactly the kind of move we’re ready for as a community,” Mitchell said. “I can’t wait to drive up and down some of these streets and see our street sweeper out there full time, see our sidewalks without weeds, making sure all of our right-of-way is mowed, weed-eated, trimmed and edged, all of it. The community of Kyle deserves to have nicely maintained roads and I’m glad we’re taking the steps we’re taking to deliver that to them.”

He’s right, of course. But, personally, I think the city staff is justifiably setting the bar much higher than that.

Council takes another wrong turn on RM 150

 The city council has found itself stuck in a “Renaming Rebel Road” quagmire of its own creation and the more it tries to extricate itself from the quicksand, the more it becomes entrapped.

This all began with good intentions — to vanquish the racist connotations attached to the name Rebel Road, just as, weeks earlier, Hays High School rid itself of the racist connotations attached to its Rebel school mascot. The problems began when the council came up with a simply horrible name to replace Rebel.

Rebel Road, or Ranch-to-Market Road 150 as it’s now officially called, courtesy of an ordinance finally passed at last night’s council meeting, is one of the city’s major arteries, a road not only traveled by residents of Kyle, but by anyone driving the 25 miles between, say, San Marcos and Driftwood. The council’s suggested name for the new road, Fajita Drive, had many problems but chief among them was that the name was trivial; it simply lacked the gravitas that should be associated with the importance of a road such as RM 150. It was not only a mistake to make the road’s name sound so trivial, but it was also  seen as a slap in the face — an insult — to many in the Hispanic community. And I completely understand how it could be viewed that way. 

The council mistakenly did not take this road renaming as seriously as it should have. Instead of first even asking the city’s staff to prepare a list of possible new names and then putting those names through a thorough vetting process, one or more members of the council simply thought Fajita Drive was a good idea without thinking it through and talked the rest of the members in going along with it.

The result of that mistake quickly became evident. So what does council do about it? It compounds the mistake by last night voting to create an ad-hoc committee to recommend one or more new names for RM 150 for the council to consider at some later date. The council said this committee is needed “in order to get input from the public.”

I served on one such ad-hoc committee appointed by the city council and have scrutinized and reported on the activities of at least three other such committees. What they succeed at is providing recommendations to the council. What they are not good at is reflecting public opinion. They conduct public meetings which are completely ignored by the public. Perhaps one or two persons will appear at one or more of these meetings, but one or two persons certainly don’t represent the public at large and these one or two persons are the same folks who appear at just about every pubic meeting held by an arm of the city, individuals with a personal agenda that also don’t reflect the opinions of the city as a whole. I can guarantee you from personal, first-hand experience, the recommendations from such a committee will not reflect the opinions of the citizens but only the opinions of a majority on that particular committee. And, depending on how strong the chair of the committee is, it might only reflect the opinions of a chair who managed to successfully impose his or her will on the rest of the committee. I’ve often seen that dynamic play out.

Cities rename streets all the time. I would be willing to wager that way more than 50 percent of the streets currently named after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., once bore a different name. Two things I have never seen before I witnessed it here the last couple of weeks in Kyle, was a council rushing through a street re-naming so quickly, as though they were cramming the new name down the collective throats of the citizenry, and a citizens committee named to recommend a new name. I have seen citizen-driven street renaming before, usually via a petition process. That’s actually quite common. But even with that, the process involves a series of public hearings, usually conducted by a body similar to Kyle’s Planning & Zoning Commission, before a recommendation is forwarded to the city council.

Hays High School is handling its mascot renaming much better than the city is handling its street renaming, a fact that was noted last night by Mayor Travis Mitchell who was the lone vote against forming this ad-hoc recommendation committee. First, the school conducted a referendum involving students, faculty and staff to determine whether the mascot should even be replaced. When the results of that referendum demonstrated it should, the school board voted to follow the results of that referendum. But the school and the district wisely decided not to rush into naming a replacement. In fact, there’s an excellent chance the school might not decide on a replacement until next year and one should assume that process will involve additional referendums conducted among students, faculty and staff at the school.

Which brings me to the November elections which will include the opportunity for voters to amend the city charter to allow the city council to conduct such referendums. You want to solicit public response on an issue? There’s no better way than to creatively design a weighted ballot referendum on the subject. The city also likes to tout the results of its on-line citizen surveys and the truth is these surveys go a long way in deciding the emphasis that will be placed on the next city manager’s proposed budget. A similar survey would provide far more citizen input — both in quantity and quality — than you’ll get from this ad-hoc committee.

But that still ignores the obvious question: Why is all this necessary anyway? Name all the times a city established any kind of ad-hoc committee or conducted any sort of formal input mechanism to select the name for a city street. The process is just the opposite. A name is selected and then public hearings are conducted over a period of time to garner input on that change. Does this mean that from now on, an ad-hoc committee will have to be formed any time the city wants to rename a street? I would argue that, legally, it does, and that creates a nightmarish problem.

I would also argue — and I know there are those who will say this is undemocratic or that, as they say about any city action, “it lacks transparency”  — that it’s not up to the entire Kyle public to decide on a new name for RM 150. The only “public” that really matters in this process are those that either have a business or a residence with an address on that street. Sit down with, engage in conversations with, solicit the opinions from, every single member of that “public.” There’s really not all that many of them that would make that task all that burdensome. Listen to and weigh what they have to say on the matter and use those conversations, that input, to drive the decision-making process. 

But the single most important thing to do is to make it a process, not just a symbolic gesture — such as forming this ad-hoc committee — or a quick decision, the mistake that got the council in this quicksand to begin with.

Maybe the next thing that should happen is to make the principal of Hays High School the chair of the committee. Just joking. But then … again …