Early voting for next month’s elections begins Tuesday and this post is designed to give you a glimpse of those running for spots on the Kyle City Council.
On Aug. 27, I sent a five-item questionnaire to seven of the eight candidates running for a spot on the Kyle City Council. I wanted to reach all eight, but I could not contact mayoral candidate Linda Tenorio, the only candidate of the eight who redacted all of her contact information on her filing papers. I contacted more than a dozen individuals I knew who were associates of the candidate to see if they could or would contact her so that she could participate in this exercise, but for some reason I never received a reply.
I gave the candidates until 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 2, to reply so that I would have the time to compile the responses and publish them before early voting began.
Here are the items in the questionnaire:
1. Why are you running?
2. What is the single greatest challenge facing Kyle and, if elected, what specific proposal or proposals would you recommend/endorse to the council to overcome this challenge?
3. Here are five areas (listed alphabetically) municipal governments can focus on:
- Clean, Healthy Environment
- Culture, Arts, Recreation and Education
- Economic Vibrancy
- Efficient, Effective and Economic Government
- Public Safety
Please list them one through five with one being your top priority should you be elected, through five, being the area you would prioritize the least.
4. What four individuals born on or after Jan.1, 1900, would you place on a political Mount Rushmore?
5. What’s the last book you read?
Here are the responses I received, listed by council seat and then alphabetically by the candidate’s last name.
MAYOR
David Abdel
1. I'm running because I am not particularly fond of the direction that Kyle seems to be heading. While I believe this council, and those preceding it have done a lot of hard work in developing this town, I would like us to refocus on building a small-town culture. There should be more for the families here to do, it should be more affordable, and we need equity across the entirety of the town. It seems as though Plum Creek is getting all of the focus.
2. Affordability. It is simply getting too expensive to live here for too many people. My plan on lowering taxes will help. Other initiatives can ease the overall cost of living as well.
3.
- Efficient, Effective and Economic Government
- Culture, Arts, Recreation and Education
- Economic Vibrancy
- Public Safety
- Clean, Healthy Environment
4. President Lyndon Baines Johnson, President Barack Obama, Senator John McCain, Madeline Albright
5. How to be an Anti-racist by Ibram X Kendi
Travis Mitchell
1. Kyle is home. And Kyle is changing. Every day more people move to our city for a variety of reasons. This creates challenges. The city council is working very hard to keep up with growth while balancing the tax rate. Our new budget is $134 million, and of that, $91 million is to be spent on infrastructure, including a new wastewater treatment plant, a major new water source, more road improvements, and two new cash-funded public parks. We have accomplished this because we are requiring more from the development community than ever before if they wish to come to our city. We have also successfully recruited over $100 million of new commercial development which has helped us diversify the tax base. Since I was elected, we have lowered the property tax rate in Kyle by more than 11 percent which leads all of Hays County and nearly all of the Austin region.
2. For decades now, the single greatest challenge before the city council has been to properly manage the growth we are experiencing in Kyle.
The reason is straightforward. In order to properly plan for growth, the city must often install regional infrastructure — with ample capacity — years ahead of when those services come online and generate revenue. What’s more, as growth happens, our existing road infrastructure deteriorates at a faster rate while streets and schools become more congested. If the city does not prepare for and properly manage the growth, it will cause increased taxation without a corresponding increase in city services.
But there’s another side to the story. Healthy, properly managed growth can lead to new community amenities like restaurant/retail districts, office districts, quality parks and open spaces, small business opportunities, employment opportunities, recreational facilities, better-funded schools, expansion in the arts, new community programs, upgraded roads, increased pedestrian mobility, a diversified tax base, and much more. The key for Kyle is to understand what we specifically need, and then we must strategically create opportunities to meet those needs through partnerships and targeted investments of city resources. We must also be willing to say “no” when a project or proposal is not in our best long-term interest.
In 2016, when I was first elected to office in Kyle, there were many factors that I felt kept the city from realizing its potential. These problems represented systemic, perennial threats to affordability and our overall quality of life. Looking back, I would summarize the challenges we faced in 2016 as follows:
- Reliance on entry-level single-family residential development to fund city operations
- Inadequate sales tax generation per capita. For example, last year Kyle collected $202 per resident in sales tax. Buda collected $318 and San Marcos collected $600.
- Disjointed and spread out developments which requires even more investment of city resources to upgrade roads and wet utilities rather than infilling our already constructed infrastructure.
- Over reliance on IH-35 and Austin. 80 percent of our population commutes out of town for work. This is not ideal because local quality jobs give residents more time with family, more time to volunteer, more discretionary income spent locally, and less expenses related to travel.
- Lack of public amenities such as parks, trails, and activity centers.
- Lack of private amenities such as restaurants, hotels, and areas to shop.
- No significant industrial/office projects
- Downtown district underperforms compared to the region
- Languishing road reconstruction projects
- High city debt relative to taxable value of the city
- Highest tax rate in Hays County
In my time on council, we have addressed these 11 issues, and more, as follows:
- Reduced city tax rate by more than 11 percent which leads all municipalities in Hays County over that time period. We no longer have the highest tax rate in Hays County.
- Cut our debt relative to city size in half (2016-2019).
- Added more than 1 million square feet of private industrial space, totaling more than $55 million of taxable investments, with more private investment on the immediate horizon.
- Voted against and resisted most residential development proposals outside city limits.
- Increased design standards inside the city to require sidewalks, better street widths, more pocket parks, better fencing, better architecture and neighborhood design, all for new single-family residential developments.
- Opened the first section of our Plum Creek Trail from Lake Kyle to the Waterleaf Subdivision in east Kyle.
- Opened Ash Pavilion, a new roller-hockey court at Gregg-Clarke Park. The project cost around $700,000 with $300,000 coming from private philanthropic contributions.
- Completed eight city road construction projects totaling $39,400,000. These dollars represent the largest investment in road upgrades in our city’s history.
- For the first time in our history, we have established a dedicated, replenishing fund to perform sidewalk repairs throughout the city.
- Established TIRZ#2, a funding mechanism that will allow for our new mixed-use district, Uptown, to finally develop. The TIRZ collects 50 percent of city and county taxes produced by new development in Uptown to pay for 100 percent of the maintenance of public amenities proposed for that area. The remaining revenue generated by private taxable investments — estimated to be over $1 billion of new construction in the next 10 years — will serve as surplus to fund city operations, new public capital improvement projects, and will help facilitate tax relief for the residents of our community.
- Allocated $2.5 million in funding towards renovations of the landscaping at our historic square plus a modest three-story building across from the Krug Activity Center. The new building will be home to a restaurant on the first floor, private office space on the second floor, and a quaint small event space on the third floor.
- Opened two new hotels, multiple new sit-down restaurants, and dozens of new small businesses.
- Closed multi-million-dollar deals for Alsco Linens, ENF Technology, Amazon, Lowes, and more, to establish logistics/manufacturing/office hubs in Kyle. Of these companies, only ENF Technology received a small performance-based financial incentive, primarily because the average wage at ENF is considerably above the median wage of other businesses locating in Kyle. ENF Technology’s investment is expected to bring the city of Kyle $598,506 in net tax revenue over five years while also bringing Hays County $401,602. Additionally, Hays CISD is expected to receive $747,602 as a result of the project by the end of the five-year agreement.
- Lobbied for and received CAMPO/County funding to eliminate the at-grade rail crossing on Kohlers as well as prevent the train from ever blocking a downtown Kyle intersection again.
- Installation of the first of four (all cash funded) quiet crossing zones to eliminate the need for the train to blow its horn coming through Kyle.
- Established the city’s first parking ordinance which, among other things, reduces fines for things like wrong-way parking from $150-plus to $30.
- Established the First Year on Us small business grant program designed to offer modest financial assistance in the form of a one-time tax credit to small and medium sized businesses who locate or expand in the city.
These actions and more represent what I believe has been one of the most proactive and productive seasons in Kyle history. For myself, I have been laser-focused on bringing about long-term benefits to the city. I believe, with all of my heart, that it’s unwise to allow for growth without bringing forward the necessary investments to control and manage that growth. I think of Kyle 20 years from now, when my children are grown, and I ask myself, “What kind of town do we want Kyle to be in 20 years? A bedroom community? A city completely reliant on Austin jobs, IH 35, and single-family housing for us to survive?” Some may say these things are inevitable. But I believe we can be more than that. We can be the kind of city that diversifies its tax base, targets spending to receive maximum long-term returns, and systematically and comprehensively improves our overall quality of life in the community. It’s not an easy task, and nothing good happens overnight, but we are moving in the right direction. The next five years will be critical to establishing ourselves as a stronger city in the region.
3. These rankings were not established based on ideology or philosophy. Rather, I ranked them based on what I believe are the areas we should focus on based on the factors currently impacting Kyle, Texas:
- Economic Vibrancy
- Public Safety
- Efficient, Effective and Economic Government
- Culture, Arts, Recreation and Education
- Clean, Healthy Environment
4. Ronald Reagan, John K. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Margaret Thatcher
5. The unfinished autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Peter Parcher
1. As a resident of Kyle, I have been very frustrated by council not hearing residents. I will initiate changes where residents must be fully informed and sufficient time is given for resident participation.
2. The greatest challenge facing Kyle is the single-mindedness of some members of council to the detriment of all residents of Kyle. As mayor, I will interact with all residents and ensure all areas of Kyle are equally represented. I will ensure all residents have ample information and time to decide what they would like and the direction they want Kyle to take.
3.
- Efficient, Effective and Economic Government
- Public Safety
- Economic Vibrancy
- Culture, Arts, Recreation and Education
- Clean, Healthy Environment
4. Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez. D'Arcy McNickle and JFK
5. Oath of Office
DISTRICT 2
Yvonne Flores-Cale
1. I am running for city council because I want to be part of changes happening in Kyle. I feel like many of the other residents in Kyle, who feel unheard and are unhappy with many of the current changes.
2. Without a doubt, Kyle’s biggest challenge is its growth. Our rapid growth makes it difficult for the city to plan for our future and focus on our immediate needs. I would recommend slowing down residential development until the city has updated our infrastructure (to include water treatment centers, sidewalks, streetlights and fire hydrants, to name a few) to match our current population.
3.
- Efficient, Effective and Economic Government
- Public Safety
- Clean, Healthy Environment
- Economic Vibrancy
- Culture, Arts, Recreation and Education
4. Fred Rogers, Martin Luther King Jr., Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Tupac Shakur
5. The last book I read all the way through was I’m not your perfect Mexican Daughter. The last book I read (but have yet to finish) is Freakenomics.
Tracy Scheel
1. Currently I am the District 2 council member for the Kyle City Council and while I feel I have accomplished a lot, I feel I have not yet seen all of my goals to fruition, such as the downtown revitalization, several infrastructure projects and getting the Alliance Regional Water Authority pipeline servicing the citizens of Kyle.
2. The greatest single challenge for the City of Kyle is its growth and making sure that growth can be maintained with our current and prospective infrastructure. We need to ensure we have the roads and utilities in place to handle all of our new residents without burdening our current residents.
3.
- Public Safety
- Economic Vibrancy
- Efficient, Effective and Economic Government
- Culture, Arts, Recreation and Education
- Clean, Healthy Environment
4. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Irene Stuber (My grandmother who fought for women’s rights)
5. Sue Grafton's Y is for Yesterday
DISTRICT 4
Ashlee Bradshaw
1. Ever since moving to Kyle I have had a very clear vision of the potential this city holds, and I feel that it is my due diligence to do what I can to help the city reach that potential. I am very passionate about increasing the quality of life for our residents in Kyle by providing more community amenities, strengthening our local economy so we no longer have to drive to Austin or San Marcos, and reduce the tax burden put on our residents.
2. There are a few challenges facing Kyle that all fall under managing growth. As I am sure many can agree, there have been growing pains that have come with our increased number of residents, and I would like to work towards efficiently managing the growth happening now and plan for the future.
I would recommend or endorse projects to help expand our infrastructure (such as roads and utilities) to address our growing needs.
I would also recommend or endorse more opportunities for increased public and private amenities for our residents to use and benefit from such as parks, playgrounds, trails, fitness centers, and more dynamic dining and shopping.
3. All five of these areas are an intricate part of my platform, and I believe they are all equally important in different ways. In order for this city to operate efficiently all five of these need to be addressed and taken into consideration simultaneously, rather than prioritized from most to least relevant.
4. John F. Kennedy, Rand Paul, George H.W. Bush, Nelson Mandela
5. Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo is what I am currently reading, but I make it a goal to read personal development books each month.
Tim McHutchion
1. I am running for office so that the citizens of Kyle can have more transparency, communication, and participation in the administration of their city.
2. The COVID-19 pandemic is beyond a doubt the greatest challenge facing Kyle at this time. If elected, I will make recommendations to council to secure additional funds to provide PPE and testing to our citizens, continue providing utility assistance, rental assistance, and grants or low interest loans to small businesses in our community. It is vital that we maintain our current infrastructure in Kyle.
3.
- Public safety
- Clean healthy environment
- Economic vibrancy
- Efficient, effective, and economic government.
- Culture, arts, recreation, and education.
4. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Representative John Lewis, Mother Teresa, Cesar Chavez
5. Community Association Leadership. This was a book given to me by the Plum Creek HOA when I became chair of the Safety Committee.
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