A challenge to Kyle City Council members: Persuade the “persuadables”

 I’ve received considerable feedback from readers concerning the article I wrote and published just prior to this one. I can’t say for sure, but I’m going to assume the feedback was negative. I don’t know if it really was because all that feedback was sent anonymously and I never open e-mail sent to me anonymously. But I assume it’s negative because I learned 45 years ago, when, for some reason still beyond my comprehension, a graduate student at Texas A&M decided to make me and my supposed influence on the culture of North Central Texas the subject of her master thesis. Her research showed that overwhelming majority of those who write letters to social critics are those who adamantly oppose and reject the opinions of said critics and are inflamed enough to take the time to author this correspondence. Those who agree, just nod their heads and go on about their lives.

So let me give all those letter writers and potential correspondents a tip: Don’t waste your time! I know I’m right about this. I have the facts, the irrefutable logic and the ethical standards to support my point of view. Nobody’s going to change my mind on this subject. At the same time, I am also well aware I’m not going to change the mind of anyone who supports this ordinance. People need to cling to a sense of security and it makes absolutely no difference if it is, like these ordinances. a false sense of security. These ordinances will do absolutely nothing to make today’s Kyle one bit safer; but so many people need to cling to the idea that it will, nothing is going to dissuade them from that belief, that hope, that desperate need.

In my years as a political consultant, I used to instruct my clients running for public office (and there are those on this city council that have heard me tell them this) that the political universe is divided into three groups: those who agree with you, those who don’t and those you’re not sure of. I would plead with my clients not to waste their time trying to convince those who don’t agree with you. They are never going to admit “You know, I’ve been wrong all these years.” It’s never going to happen so don’t waste your time trying. Just look at all those people who are absolutely convinced Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. No set of facts or no one is going to convince them he didn’t. I also told my clients to occasionally reinforce those who agree with you and make sure they act on those beliefs. But don’t waste all your time just talking to them. To win, you must convince those who, for one reason or another, have not yet formed an opinion. Persuade the “persuadables.”

Which brings me to the challenge I’m about to issue to the members of the Kyle City Council. If you are convinced you are doing the right thing by approving this ordinance, then persuade the “persuadables.” At the very least, have the decency to try. Sit down in the living rooms of those residents living on the streets where those who are in the state’s sex offender database and are desiring to relocate to Kyle will be required to live. Completely explain this ordinance to them and persuade them, or, at the very least, try to persuade them it’s the right thing to do. I don’t even believe the residents of these areas are actually aware of what’s transpiring, the action you’re about to take. Has the city even mailed a postcard to them like they should do if they are planning a zoning change that will affect them? I doubt it. You are passing this ordinance behind their backs. At the very least, show the rest of us you have the courage of your convictions and the common decency any human being should possess to sit down with these people and inform them completely about the action you plan to take. And then, during the discussion period before the vote on the second reading of this ordinance, describe to the rest of us the highlights and the lowlights of the conversations you had with these families. Only in that way will we know you have the leadership qualities we look for in elected officials, that you have the ethical standards that earn you the trust we want to place in our elected officials, that you possess the rock solid belief in your decision-making ability that is needed to correctly and resolutely propel this city into the future.

Going out on The Wire to condemn Kyle’s “Hamsterdams”

To me, HBO’s The Wire is the best television series ever. And when I say “ever,” I really mean it — the best show I have seen in my lifetime and that covers a lot of ground. I vividly remember as a kid growing up in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and my dad coming home with the family’s very first television set. The year was 1948 and the set was a Philco, with what I thought was a magnificent 10-inch black-and-white screen. Some nights gathering around that TV were more special than others. Tuesday nights were always magical. They were reserved for a television show known as The Texaco Star Theater, hosted by Milton Berle. Perhaps some of you reading this might not know that name. That’s OK. But back then, Milton Berle was known as “Mr. Television.” Wednesday nights and Friday nights were set aside for my dad and me to watch the nationally televised boxing matches, the aptly named “Wednesday Night Fights,” sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and Friday’s Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, always originating from Madison Square Garden and featuring, as the TV fight announcer, our nextdoor neighbor and close family friend Don Dunphy. But Saturday nights were the best – three hours of superb prime-time television, beginning with the hour-long Jackie Gleason Show and the hilarious characters he invented and portrayed, including the millionaire Reginald van Gleason III; Joe the Bartender, who was always talking to the never-seen Mr. Dennehy (and who is not to be confused with the reincarnated Joe the Bartender who came along several years later and which became a two-person skit with the wrong-headed addition of “Crazy Guggenheim”), along with the silent and usually grief-stricken Poor Soul. That was followed by the zany and genius-propelled 90-minute Your Show of Shows starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Howard Morris, and Carl Reiner. The final 30 minutes was reserved for Your Hit Parade during which Dorothy Collins, Russell Arms, Snooky Lanson and Gisele MacKenzie sang the top seven hit songs of the week (plus two “Lucky Strike Extras”).

Those were my fondest television memories right up until I saw The Wire. What was so powerful about The Wire was the accuracy with which it portrayed the milieus it explored. Well, at least during the last three seasons: Season 3 which focused on Baltimore’s municipal politics, season 4 which concentrated on public education and season 5 which dealt with the print media. As a former newspaper reporter who covered municipal politics and later went to work for a municipal government as well as someone who taught high school and junior college journalism, it was delightfully painful (I know that seems like an oxymoron, but there you have it) to watch The Wire reveal the bitter truths in all those areas.

But the overall arc of the series concentrated on the local police trying and miserably failing in a war on drugs. In Season 3, Howard “Bunny” Colvin, a police major who is alienated by police bureaucracy and the detrimental effects the anti-drug efforts are causing, comes up with this idea that winds up being called “Hamsterdam,” three geographic zones in his district where low-level users can take drugs without facing punishment and where addicts and dealers can conduct their business under supervision, but without interference. This moves the drug trade into a controlled, uninhabited area to protect the rest of his district. It its patterned after Amsterdam’s liberal drug laws, but when Colvin explains this to one of the dealers, the dealer mispronounces it as “Hamsterdam” and the name sticks.

Last week, the Kyle City Council created its own Hamsterdam. But these zones are not going to be havens for drug dealers. They are going to be refuges for newly arriving residents to Kyle who are listed in the state’s sex offender database.

Now, if you ask anyone on the city council, they will probably scream that is not what they did. But that IS what they did. They just don’t realize it because, as usual, they didn’t look at all of the implications of the the ordinance they are passing. And that’s just one of the reasons I am taking what is unquestionably the unpopular stance of being completely and adamantly opposed to the city’s new sex offender ordinance, which is up for a second reading after being approved 6-1 on its first reading a week ago.

I have many reasons for opposing this ordinance. The first, and perhaps most overriding reason, is faith-based. I am Jewish and the most important teaching and tenet of Judaism is found in the Torah’s book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow as yourself: I am the Lord.” Hillel, a Jewish religious leader, sage and scholar responsible for the development of the Jewish laws and teachings found in the Mishah and the Talmud, was once asked to explain Jewish laws. He replied “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. Everything else is commentary.” I believe Christians have a similar belief, known as The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The city council completely ignored these tenets when it acted on this ordinance and anyone who supports this ordinance likewise rejects these religious teachings.

But, like all Jews, I am also seared by the knowledge of Nazi atrocities — Adolph Hitler and his Nazis who did exactly what the Kyle City Council did; they created specified zones where Jews were required to live before they were shipped off to the concentration camps. And Hitler told the German people exactly what the Kyle City Council members were telling us: “This is absolutely necessary to keep you safe and secure.”

There’s an extremely ugly word for what the council did last Tuesday (well, “ugly” unless you’re a white supremacist). It’s a word that’s used when a certain area is set aside for a certain segment of the population and that population is restricted to living in that area. You might have heard of the word I’m referring to. It’s “segregation.” Yes, folks, our city council wrapped themselves in their swastika emblazoned white robes last week, donned their white hoods and voted to legalize segregation in Kyle. In fact, I’m willing to bet that Kyle is the only city in the United States in which, during this century, a black city council member voted in favor of segregation. That’s quite a legacy. A shameful legacy, to be sure, but a legacy nonetheless.

The vote on this ordinance proved Kyle is distinguishing itself in another way as well. While much of the country, including the federal government itself, is seriously contemplating police reform measures, Kyle is moving in exactly the opposite direction — toward becoming a police state. I’ve always thought that Abraham Maslow had the police in mind when he conceived his “law of the instrument.” If you’re not familiar with Maslow’s law, which he first espoused publicly  in 1966, it goes: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” To the police, the non-uniformed world is a nail, a world populated by two kinds of people — bad guys and potential bad guys. To the police, it’s shoot or press a knee to the neck for 8 minutes and 15 seconds first, and ask questions much, much, much later, if at all. To those promoting police reform laws, words like “treatment,” “rehabilitation,” “compassion,” have replaced police terms like “isolation,” “confession” and “incarceration.” Instead of a world populated by bad guys or potential guys, reformers believe the world is populated by individuals, some of whom indeed do bad things. But those bad things don’t make them bad persons. Yes, the people the city has decided to banish, to segregate, to punish, did what many consider to be bad things; in most cases it was a person classified as an adult who engaged in consensual sex with person under the age of 15. But these people we’re talking about here — the ones the city council want to segregate — have already been tried and convicted for what they did and have served their punishment. But that doesn’t matter to our city council. Kyle doesn’t believe in extending these people a second chance.  It doesn’t believe in developing rehabilitation programs or other treatments that might benefit these individuals. It doesn’t believe in forgiveness. No. Kyle stands for banishment, for segregation, for isolation. It believes only in banishing these people to a form of purgatory and then forgetting about them completely as well as completely ignoring those who will be forced to be their neighbors. But I’ll get back to that in a bit.

So it’s no coincidence that this ordinance was the brainchild of the local police who actually (and I’m not making this up) sold the council on this by telling council members this is what such Texas cities as Leander, Pflugerville, West Lake Hills, Cedar Park, Cibolo, League City, Giddings and Fate are doing. Look, I have nothing against Leander, Pflugerville, West Lake Hills et al — I’m sure they are all fine little burgs inhabited by residents who love living there — but, c’mon! There are many really great cities in this land — there are even a few right here in Texas — so why can’t we aim higher and try to emulate them? The Kyle City Council recently spent two days at a “visioning workshop” in Galveston and now I’m terribly concerned they spent their time trying to find out ways “we can be more like Giddings.” That’s low-hanging fruit. That’s not visioning. That’s not aspirational. That’s settling. We should be setting our sights much higher than that. When he assumed the job of city manager here, Scott Sellers said his goal was to make Kyle a destination city. Personally, I don’t think that goal has been reached, but that doesn’t mean the city should stop looking for ways to reach it. At the same time, I doubt there are many husbands in this country who have said to their wives “Honey, grab the kids, put the bags in the car, we’re off to an exciting vacation in Leander,” or League City, or Fate, or any of the other cities the police department wants Kyle to emulate.

Here’s an idea. Why not try hot try to contact the deputy director of Sex Offender Programs, for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Rehabilitation Programs Division to see if Kyle could import some of its ideas and programs? Here’s the Huntsville number for that office:  (936) 437-2882. Why not emulate that? The Federal Bureau of Prisons also conducts residential and non-residential sex offender treatment programs. Why not emulate those – learn what they are doing that’s successful and import that knowledge into similar programs here? In an article written for the American Psychological Association, Karen Kersting wrote that approaches like the one taken by our city council “disregards key information on the nature of sex offenders — statistics show most are not likely to repeat their crimes  — and on the increasing efficacy of offender treatment, largely due to a modern behavior modification model stressing relapse prevention through recognition and avoidance of criminal impulses.” Why not try something innovative such as a “modern behavior modification model” instead of simply being part of the herd with the other sheep bearing names like Pflugerville, West Lake Hills, League City and the like? Because that would take an intellectual and financial investment on the city’s part and that’s simply beyond the collective comprehension — the intellectual capacity — of the current city council. I’m betting they will, instead, choose the cop-out (pun intended): instead of investing in innovative rehabilitation programs that really might make the entire city safer, they will decide to spend that money on hiring more police officers to enforce their segregation laws.

Which brings me to another reason (the one I said earlier I would get back to in a bit) I so emphatically oppose this ordinance. And, from a public safety perspective, this might be the most important reason of all. When you “treat everything as if it were a nail,” you never consider that family living on Orchard Lane or Keegans Way or Masonwood Drive or Thicket Lane or Alpha or Voss or Voyager Cove or the small handful of other streets where newly arrived residents who are in the state’s sex offender database must be funneled into because of actions taken by a city council that’s been led by the nose by the city’s police department. If you believe that what the council did in passing this ordinance made a large section of Kyle that much safer, than you must also accept as undisputable fact that it made all these other places in Kyle far more dangerous. But not a single council member spoke up in the defense of those living in these sections of the city. What’s going to happen when a child living in a home on Wallops Street is raped and murdered by someone in the state database who was forced by the city council to live in this neighborhood? The lawsuit that will be filed will probably bankrupt the city. Which, I guess, is fitting. If the city has become ethically and morally bankrupt, it is only just that it leads to it becoming financially bankrupt as well.

But the clinching reason why I am so adamantly opposed to the passage of this ordinance is that while the police department provided council members many irrelevant figures to help convince them to pass it, when I asked the department to come up with relevant numbers — the numbers the council should have asked for — the department failed to do so. The only reason I can think of for this failure on the part of the police department is because the numbers would prove this entire exercise was a complete waste of time. Last week I asked for two sets of figures: First, the number of persons arrested in the last decade by the Kyle Police Department whose convictions led them to be placed in the state’s sex offender database and, second, the number of Kyle residents already in the database who were arrested in the last decade for sex-related offenses. When filing the request, I assumed the number for both was zero and that’s why the police department failed to volunteer those numbers in its council presentation. That was confirmed when I received this message from the city: “After talking to our KPD staff, it seems gathering this data will not be accessible by your due date if at all for a number of reasons.” Sure. Fine. Whatever. The reason it will not furnish the numbers is obvious. Because to provide them proves that,  in passing this ordinance, council members are finding a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist. I’m ashamed of every single one of them.

 

City says it has upgraded its internet utility billing system

 City officials announced today it has “upgraded” its online billing system, effective today, “that allows customers more on-demand access to past and present statements and usage information,” but, apparently, will also affect those customers who pay their monthly water bill with “autopay.” Customers who pay their bills online each month, but may also want to “access past and present statements and usage information, will also need to register for an account with the upgraded system,” the city said in today’s announcement.

“Due to security standards, customers’ credit card information cannot and will not be transferred over automatically to the upgraded utility billing system,” the city said in its announcement. “Customers currently set up for autopay will need to register for an account and update their account with credit card information no later than Wednesday, May 12 to avoid lapse in payment.”

For those customers who do not use “autopay,” the city said “there is a ‘Quick Pay’ feature on the upgraded site that does not require them to create a login to make a payment, but will ask for their account number and last payment amount.” To find the "Quick Pay" feature, you must select "Utility Billing" on the new website.

The new system will have absolutely no effect on customers who pay their utility bills in person, by mail or at the city’s drive-through window.

To sign up for the new system, the city said, customers must go to this website and then:

• Select “Register” in the upper right corner. Then select “Don’t have an account, Register.”  
• Enter an email, password, name and phone number and select “Register.” 
• You will then need to check the email you entered for an activation link. Open the email and select “Activate Account.” 
• Login with the email and password created upon registration.  
• Select “Utility Billing.” 
• You will see the prompt “You do not have any Utility Billing accounts associated with your login.” 
• Select “Add Account.” You will be asked for your utility billing account number and your last payment amount. 
• Enter the info and select “Add Account.” 
• You will have the option to either “pay now,” “schedule a payment” or “enroll in autopay.” 
• To setup autopay, choose “enroll in autopay.” Select your payment date for each month. Make sure to choose a date that is before your expected due date to not incur late fees. Then select either “enter new Credit card” or “enter new eCheck” and select “Enroll Now.” 

City to host business development webinar

The city’s Economic Development Department is partnering with the Kyle Chamber of Commerce and Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area to host a free webinar called “Ready. Set. Thrive! Empowering your Business through Workforce Solutions” on Tuesday, May 4 starting at 10 a.m., a city spokesperson announced today.

The event will kickoff Economic Development Week in Kyle, although that celebration is actually a week after the webinar, May 9-15. 

“The webinar will have an array of panelists from regional organizations — including Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area, Austin Community College and Hays CISD — who specialize in workforce development and helping employers grow their businesses by utilizing the public workforce system, regional resources and data-driven strategies to attract and retain talent,” the city’s spokesperson said.

Interested individuals can register for the webinar by clicking here.

Mass COVID vaccine distribution set for next month at Lehman High

City Manager Scott Sellers announced last night a mass COVID 19 vaccination event will be held between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday, May 16, at Lehman High School during which the first dose of the Moderna vaccine will be administered.

Any Texas resident aged 16 and older may receive the vaccine. No appointments are required.

A spokesperson for the City said today those receiving the first dose of the vaccine on May 16 can receive the second dose on Sunday, June 13, at another mass vaccination program at Lehman.

How the City Council Voted Tuesday Night

 CONSENT AGENDA

Declaring additional parks maintenance equipment as surplus and directing city staff to identify equipment to be place on the surplus property listing and the equipment to be declared without value to be disposed or recycled. 
Authorize award and execution of a purchase order to Atlantis Aquatics Group through Buyboard purchasing cooperative contract No. 613-20, for an amount of $71,250 to replaster the James Adkins Pool.
Approve the vacation of a 50-foot access easement to the Roland Lane elevated storage tank.
Approved 7-0

ZONING ITEMS

(Second Reading) An ordinance amending Chapter 53 (Zoning) of the City of Kyle, Texas, for the purpose of rezoning approximately 14.08 acres of land from Single Family-1 (R-1) to Townhome District (R-1-T) for property located at the north corner of Live Oak Street and St. Anthony's Drive.
Approved 6-0 (Mayor pro tem Koch absent when vote taken)

(First Reading) An ordinance amending Chapter 53 (Zoning) for the purpose of amending PUD documentation related to approximately 107.247 acres of land to allow impervious surfaces calculations for two or more lots within the PUD that may be combined and considered as a whole, such that the impervious cover across the lots remains in accordance with the City of Kyle limits by district type for property located on Vista Ridge Drive and Gateway Boulevard.
Approved 7-0, second reading waived.

OTHER ITEMS FOR INDIVIDUAL CONSENT

Authorize award and execution of a purchase order to The Brandt Companies, LLC., through BuyBoard purchasing cooperative contract No.  638-21, for an estimated amount of $130,000 to repair damages in the plumbing system located underground and inside walls at the James Adkins Pool. Final repair costs may exceed the initial cost estimate.
Approved 6-0 (Mayor pro tem Koch absent when vote taken)

Acceptance of the City's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) and the Independent Auditor's Report for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2020.
Approved 7-0

A resolution of the City of Kyle, demonstrating support and enthusiasm for the Texas Legislature’s bills HCR 12 and SCR 22, which if passed, would designate the City of Kyle as the official “Pie Capital of Texas.”
Approved 7-0

A resolution of the city council of the City of Kyle providing no objection to the submission of an application for low income housing tax credits to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs for the proposed Balcones Trails multifamily housing project located at 601 Philomena Dr.; approving findings related to the application; imposing conditions for such non-objection; and declaring an effective date.
Approved 6-0 (Mayor Mitchell absent when vote taken)

(First Reading) An ordinance of the City of Kyle regulating sex offender residency within the city and establishing child safety zones; amending Chapter 23 of the Code of Ordinances entitled “Miscellaneous Offenses” by adding Article XI to be entitled “Child Safety Zones;” making it unlawful for certain sex offenders to reside within 1,000 feet (amended from 1,500 feet) of premises where children commonly gather; providing exceptions to the ordinance; prohibiting property owners from renting real property to certain sex offenders; providing penalties for violations of the ordinance; repealing ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict therewith; providing a severability clause, findings of fact and providing for open meetings.
Approved 6-1 (Mayor Mitchell voted no)

City to co-host food distribution event next weekend

The Central Texas Food Bank in partnership with the City of Kyle and Texas Disposal Systems will be hosting a mass food distribution April 24 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Austin Community College Hays Campus, 1200 Kohlers Crossing. 

Central Texas residents can drive to this event to receive a box of assorted produce, milk, and a protein box. 

“Actual contents may vary depending on availability,” a City spokesperson said in announcing the event. “All are welcome and no registration is required.”

Volunteers will place food in the trunks of vehicles as they are driven through the distribution site. The food bank is asking that each household only send one person to the event, and that all attendees come in vehicles — there will be no walk-up distribution — to adhere to social distancing requirements.      

“We're all working hard to push through the rest of this pandemic and many of us have needed a little extra help,” council member Robert Rizo said in the city’s announcement. “But we are incredibly thankful to the Central Texas Food Bank for continuously providing that extra help to our community with these food distributions.”

Anyone wishing to volunteer to help distribute the food may do by clicking here.

Property valuations: today's actual numbers don’t matter nearly as much as what they mean

 Up.

There’s no doubt that’s the direction Kyle is heading when it comes to property valuations. Of course, that’s not exactly news — Kyle has been growing rapidly over the last decade. What’s different this year is that in 2021 this growth is largely being fueled by commercial, not just residential, valuations.

The Hays County Appraisal District released its preliminary assessed valuations of real property in Kyle today and if you look at its tables, there’s a lot to digest there. But I’m less concerned about the actual numbers and more concerned about what those numbers represent. In order of importance, I would list the most important takeaways from HCAD figures are:

1. A major increase in new jobs coming to Kyle during the last year.
2. Kyle’s commercial growth is significantly outpacing its residential growth.
3. The City should remain in a sound financial position with the ability to notably increase services provided while, at the same time, possibly being able to lower the property tax rate.
4. Of all the numbers being tossed around with the release of HCAD’s tables, the two most important are that commercial valuations in Kyle grew by 27.9 percent last year as compared to 15.7 percent for single family residential.
5. Although the percentage growth of multifamily valuations was slightly higher than that of single-family (19.6 percent to 15.7 percent), concerns that multi-family units are overwhelming the city are unfounded. Multi-family accounts for only 12.8 percent of the total residential valuations.
6. Kyle is quickly becoming a major contributing part of a single, monolithic urban complex that will stretch along I-35 from Georgetown through San Antonio that will dwarf in both size and financial/political clout the so-called Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. (By 2050, Kyle will be the most populous city between Austin and San Antonio and might even achieve that distinction by 2030.)
7. Homeowners will complain once again when they receive their property tax bills later this year, neglecting two salient facts: First, that most of this increase will come from school taxes and second, and perhaps even more importantly, their financial net worth has also dramatically increased.

I solicited response from city officials to gauge their reactions to the HCAD numbers and to obtain, in their words, the significance of the numbers released, but received no response prior to publishing this story.

In its formal release of the property appraisals today, HCAD said:

“The overall market value of Hays County’s 2021 preliminary appraisal roll rose to $39.66 billion, up 19.10 percent from $33.30 billion in 2020. Commercial and industrial property increased in value 21.41 percent, up from $3.28 billion in 2020 to $3.98 billion this year.

“Almost 3,000 new homes and 68 new commercial buildings were added to the appraisal roll for 2021,” the district’s statement said. “Total new improvements added more than $1.18 billion in taxable value.”

The district has begun mailing appraisals notices to property owners who have until May 17 to appeal those numbers. Property owners can appeal on line by clicking here and then using the Online Appeal tab.

“Hays County remains a popular destination for new property owners with expanding job opportunities, good schools, and less of that big city feel,” the Appraisal District said in its statement. “The demand for land and homes creates a seller’s market which leads to an increase in sale prices. Traditionally, vacant lots show the largest increase in value and this year is no different with this category rising almost 40 percent from $928 million to $1.3 billion which is less of an increase than last year. Residential multi-family property grew to $2.7 billion, up 17.46 percent from last year’s value of $2.3 billion.”

In its statement, HCAD listed these numbers for an average home in the City of Kyle:

• 2020 residential market value: $215,919
• 2021 residential market value: $235,674
• 2020 residential taxable value: $207,424
• 2021 residential taxable value: $227,630

For Hays CISD, those numbers are:

• 2020 residential market value: $233,464
• 2021 residential market value: $258,103
• 2020 residential taxable value: $210,458
• 2021 residential taxable value: $237,177

Kyle’s commercial property valuations soar to record levels, residential valuations also increase

The Kyle Report has learned that the commercial property valuations in the city increased this year more than in the last six years combined. Residential valuations also increased significantly this year over 2020.

This means, if the property tax rate remains unchanged, the City will have a lot more money to spend during the next fiscal year which begins Oct. 1.

Although the Hays Central Appraisal District has yet to officially post preliminary figures for 2021, according to numbers obtained by The Kyle Report, commercial property valuations increased nearly $260 million this year over 2020. The previous record year for commercial property valuation increases was 2010 when the valuations increased by $75 million from the previous year.

Last year, the total property valuation for commercial property in Kyle was $524,242,917. This year that number is more than three quarters of a billion dollars — $783,701,058. That’s an increase of $259,458,141, an astronomical 49.49 percent.

(Updated material begins here) The Kyle Report has also learned HaysCAD plans to release its preliminary numbers later today. It will also show a combined commercial real estate and personal value of  $783,701,058 this year, but will say that's a net change of $170,737,211 from last year's total, but still an overall growth of 127.85 percent. The district's numbers will also show commercial valuations accounted for almost half of all new growth in Kyle during the last year. It will report a new residential count of 533 worth $119,213,900 during the past year and a new commercial count of 15 worth $108,846,554 which is 47.73 percent of the total new assessed valuations. 

“Based on the preliminary AV estimates provided to us by HaysCAD yesterday, here is a quick comparison of estimated change in AVs from prior tax year.” Kyle’s Director of Finance, Perwez A. Moheet, said today: “This comparison is before any adjustments such as for exemptions, etc. Residential single family:  $423.6 million or 15.7 percent increase; residential multifamily: $62.3 million or 19.6 percent increase; residential combined: $485.8 million or 16.1 percent increase (includes both single and multifamily); commercial: $170.7 million or 27.9 percent increase (includes personal property) (End updated material)

In spite of this astounding growth, commercial assessed valuations are still dwarfed by residential valuations, which also increased dramatically — 31.22 percent — from $2.38 billion in 2020 to $3.124 billion this year. The assessed value of property designated as multi-family was $379,106,479 or $2.7 billion less than single family residential valuations. That means multi-family only accounts for 10.82 percent of the total residential property valuations in the city.

In all, residential valuations account for 69.91 percent of the total market value in Kyle, while commercial valuations account for 15.64 percent.

This chart visually displays the annual increases in commercial property assessed valuations in the City of Kyle from 2007 through this year:

Proposed recycling plan helps but it doesn’t go nearly far enough

Council member Dex Ellison tag-teamed with Chief of Staff Jerry Hendrix at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting to unveil a proposed plan to extend the city’s recycling collection services from strictly single-family residential to apartment complexes. It’s a small step in the right direction but, sadly, it appears to be the only step the City is willing to take right now to protect the environment. 

“Our purpose here is to allow Kyle residents living in apartments to have the same opportunity to recycle as residents in single family homes,” Ellison told the council.

Hendrix noted that the number of individuals in Kyle living in apartments has doubled during the last five years. “Currently we have over 3,000 apartment units in the city,” with an estimated 7,000 individuals in Kyle who are apartment dwellers, he said. He added another 600 apartment units will open by the end of the year with another 822 units planned for 2022.

“Currently, only half the apartment units in Kyle offer recycling,” Hendrix said.

Ellison and Hendrix engaged all 14 of the current multi-family property managers by telephone, in-person visits and, in many instances, both “to get a feeling where their recycling services were at,” the council member said — “their desire to either, if they didn’t have (recycling), bring that to their complex; or, if they did, how they felt about the service being provided and perhaps if capacity could be increased.”

Hendrix said it’s possible recycling services can be provided to apartment dwellers at no additional cost. “If we’re going to divert recycling into the garbage stream, the rate in the TDS (the City’s sanitation services provider) contract for a recycling dumpster is the same as the rate for a garbage dumpster. So, if we’re able to divert one dumpster of garbage into a dumpster of recycling, the net cost to the apartment complex should be zero.”

The City sponsored an on-line survey of apartment dwellers which attracted only 250 respondents, meaning the results are not statistically valid. Of those respondents, 200 said they lived in a complex that does not offer recycling services.

The next step, Ellison told the council, is a pilot recycling program in four apartment complexes, two of which already offer recycling of some sort and two that don’t.

“For those who do not have it, figuring out the spacing of where to put the containers, getting that program started, various different things like that,” Ellison said. “For those that do have recycling, we’ll be heavier on the education to make sure they are recycling properly, as well as making sure they have the right amount of capacity.”

Ellison said TDS is working with the City’s staff to develop the pilot program and Hendrix described TDS “as engaged and committed to making this work.”

“No specific timetable is set at this time” for the kickoff of the pilot program, Hendrix said today. “The specifics of the pilot program are still being worked out. The goal will be to develop service delivery models for providing recycling service in the apartment communities. This may require a mix of dumpsters and carts, or just one of the two. Valet services are also part of the discussion.”

He said the four apartment complexes that will participate in the pilot program have not been selected.

Hendrix also said today a number of objectives for the pilot program are currently under discussion.

“For properties that currently offer recycling: Education opportunities and delivery methods to increase diversion and decrease contamination; ‘rightsizing’ the garbage and recycling receptacles for each property; reviewing collection area placements to see if there may be a better place for them; and controlling litter from the collection areas.

“For properties that do not currently offer recycling: How to introduce the service to residents in a manner that will maximize their ‘buy-in’ and participation; optimum placement of dumpsters/carts; education messages and opportunities; and tracking diversion rates and impact on garbage waste stream.”

At the conclusion of the pilot program, Ellison said he hopes to bring before council a multi-family recycling ordinance that would require multi-family property managers to offer recycling services to their tenants.

“Through the ordinance we will be able to create some economies of scale, a standardized process across the board and a level playing field for all apartment complexes and the people who live there — making sure they’re all getting the same service,” Hendrix said.

Recycling is important not only for environmental reasons, but financial ones as well (and it has nothing to do with income derived by selling recyclables and everything to do with the negative impacts on municipal budgets and, as a direct result, the amount of increased taxes residents pay if recycling is not instituted).

Admittedly, this is a gross over-simplification, but a landfill is basically a huge hole in the ground into which trash is dumped. And, as soon as that hole fills to capacity, the landfill operator seals it up and looks for another place to locate another huge hole in the ground. The problem for municipalities and their tax-payers is finding that next location. Plus, digging another huge hole in the ground is an expensive operation. Not only are land costs a factor, but so is location. A new site for a landfill is almost always going to be at a distance that is significantly greater from the city that uses it than the current one. Thus, daily transportation costs are going to increase dramatically along with vehicle maintenance expenses. So it behooves a community to take whatever steps possible to prevent a landfill from reaching capacity.

And that’s especially true of the landfill at Creedmoor, owned and operated by TDS. For most landfills, after the huge hole is dug in the ground, an expensive liner — a sort of impenetrable bowl — but be placed inside  that hole to prevent the waste from seeping into adjacent soils (often farmlands) and contaminating them. Eventually this contamination migrates to and poisons rivers and streams. The Creedmoor landfill is unique because the land in which it is located is encased with a natural rock formation that prevents any and all seepage into adjacent properties. Finding and securing another location with an identical geological profile is going to be … well, actually, it’s going to be impossible.

One way to keep landfills from reaching capacity is through natural decomposition. A banana peel will decompose completely within two to 10 days. However, a disposable diaper will take between 250 and 500 years to decompose in a landfill. That plastic water bottle you love to drink from will take up to a 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill. Those plastic bags we use to take home our groceries will take between a decade and a 1,000 years to decompose. According to statistics from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, every three months in the United States, enough aluminum cans and packaging are deposited in landfills to completely rebuild the entire American commercial air fleet and those aluminum cans can take between 80 and 100 years to decompose.

Another way to keep landfills from reaching capacity is by accelerating the decomposition process by employing biotechnology techniques; i.e., basically constantly recirculating leachtate along with surface/storm water, through a series of underground pipes. This technology can add between 50 to 100 years onto the life of a typical landfill.

The problem with this, however, is landfill decomposition produces methane gas and unless the landfill has a system to send this methane to a gas processing plant that will convert it into a commercial energy source, the methane escapes into the air. This escaped methane absorbs the sun’s heat and thus accelerates global warming. For this reason, methane is labeled a greenhouse gas.

European landfill operators, particularly those in Germany, have developed technologies that convert landfills into recycling operations in which all trash collected — everything that someone throws away — is converted into energy that powers homes and businesses. Instead of holes in the ground with birds constantly circling above them, these European landfills look from the outside like a typical office building at best, a scaled-down electrical power plant at worst. This waste-to-energy technology is available in the United States, but it has been blocked by a coalition of mega-landfill operators, organized crime cartels that still control a lot of landfill operations, especially in the Northeast, and federal judges who do what the first two instruct them to do. These operators are interested only in making money from their landfill operations, not investing money in them. The European-styled recycling landfills require a lot of garbage to make them economically viable, and the courts have repeatedly blocked flow control measures which would force trash to these recycling landfills and away from those operated by the large private operators.

Which means the only viable alternative is diversion — finding other ways to dispose of trash other than sending it to landfills. And recycling is the most popular of these diversion methods. Others include thermal and biological treatments, reuse and return and implementing waste reduction methods.

Which returns me to my original thesis that Kyle’s plan to try to implement recycling in multi-family units is a nice step, but in the overall scheme of things is a rather insignificant one if the goal is environmental protection. The city needs to broaden its scope. It needs to broaden its thinking and planning. But then, I’ve been making this complaint about the City of Kyle ever since I came here seven years ago. Kyle thinks small. If it plans at all, it plans five-years out. Geez, My Hero, who once operated the largest landfill in the state of Texas and the sixth largest in the country, who was the former president of the Texas branch of the Solid Waste Association of North America, spearheaded the development of a 50-year master plan – planning 5-0 YEARS in the future – for sanitation services for one of the largest cities in Texas. And that was 15 years ago!!! The City of San Francisco now diverts 80 percent of all waste generated in that city away from landfill disposal through source reduction, reuse, and recycling and composting programs. How did San Francisco accomplish that? The same way other cities have. They set a timetable for achieving zero waste, like My Hero developed in her 50-year master plan, and then outlined a step-by-step, long-range plan for reaching that goal.

Here in Kyle? 

“A ‘zero waste’ plan is not currently being discussed,” Hendrix confessed today.

So the obvious question is “Why not?” Why hasn’t the City appointed a blue-ribbon committee composed of environmental scientists, educators and practioners to develop a long-range plan aimed at achieving zero waste? Of course, you could argue that Kyle is only one of the 180 cities in 45 counties served by the Creedmoor landfill, but that misses the larger point of leadership and innovation.

Another question I believe demands an answer from city officials — either elected or staff — is why, when manufacturers such as General Motors have formally announced the date when they will cease manufacturing autos that run on fossil fuels, has the City of Kyle failed to initiate a plan to transition its fleet to environmentally friendly vehicles? And, of course, why does the City continue to ask taxpayers to waste money on buildings that are not LEEDS certified?

In short, why does the City of Kyle consistently brag about the baby steps it takes, while at the same time it utterly fails at the task of long-range planning for a sustainable future for its citizens?

How the City Council Voted Tuesday

 APPOINTMENTS

Item 6: Consider approval of a resolution confirming the reappointments of Tim Samford, James Earp, and Derrick Turley to the Alliance Regional Water Authority Board of Directors for three-year terms.
Approved 7-0

Item 7: Reappointments of Brian Ziegler, First United Bank, Financier Seat; Tessa Schmidtzinsky, PEC, Utility Seat; and Don Tracy, ACC, Higher Education/Workforce Development Seat, to the Economic Development and Tourism Board.
Approved 6-1; Flores-Cale voting no.

Item 8: Consider nomination and take action for appointments of Patricia Snidow and Matthew Chase to the Planning and Zoning Commission to fill two vacancies with unexpired terms.
Approved 5-2 on roll call vote; Ellison, Flores-Cale voting no.

CONSENT AGENDA

Item 10: Approve Plum Creek Phase 1, Section 6F, Resub of Lot 3 (SUB-21-0166) 2.4273 acres; 4 commercial lots for property located on the southwest corner of Kohler's Crossing and Benner Road.
Item 11: Approve Plum Creek Phase 2, Section 2 - Preliminary Plan (SUB-20-0152) 55.028 acres; 201 single family lots and 16 open space lots located within the 400 block of Kohler's Crossing.
Item 12: Authorize award and execution of a purchase order to LCRA, Dallas, in an amount not to exceed $17,718.63 for the purchase and installation of vehicles radios, mobile radios, and miscellaneous associated equipment for the Public Works Department.
Item 13: Approve a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute separate agreements with McGray & McGray Land Surveyors, Inc., Austin; and Byrn & Associates Inc., San Marcos, to provide surveying services for all city departments. 
Item 14: Authorize the city manager to apply for and accept a STEP grant in an amount no greater than $8,100 from TXDOT and authorize matching funding from the Police Department’s approved operating budget for FY 2020-2021 in an amount not to exceed $1,620 to fund a STEP grant program for an enforcement period beginning May 24 through June 6.
Item 15: Approve a resolution of the City Council of the City of Kyle authorizing the submission of an application for a two-year grant to the Office of the Attorney General, for a full-time Victim Advocate I position; authorize funds from the Police Department’s future budgets to pay for the cost of fringe benefits, equipment, and uniforms for the Victim Advocate I; authorizing the city manager to apply for, accept, reject, alter or terminate the grant on behalf of the City Council; finding and determining that the meeting at which the resolution is passed is open to the public as required by law; providing for an effective date; and making such other findings and provisions related hereto.
Approved 7-0

ZONING

Item 16: (First Reading) An ordinance amending Chapter 53 (Zoning) of the City of Kyle for the purpose of assigning original zoning to approximately 66.245 acres of land from Agriculture (AG) to Warehouse District (W) for property located at 24801 IH-35.
Approved 7-0; waived a second reading

Item 17: (First Reading) An ordinance amending Chapter 53 (Zoning) of the City of Kyle for the purpose of rezoning approximately 14.08 acres of land from Single Family-1 (R-1) to Townhome District (R-1-T) for property located at the north corner of Live Oak Street and St. Anthony's Drive.
Approved 6-0 (Koch not present when vote taken)

Item 18: (First Reading) An ordinance amending Chapter 53 (Zoning) of the City of Kyle for the purpose of assigning original zoning to approximately 12.9 acres of land from Agriculture (AG) to Mixed Use District (MXD) for property located on the northeast corner of Philomena Drive and Bunton Creek Road.
Approved 5-2, Ellison, Flores-Cale voting no.

Item 19: [Postponed 3/16/2021] (First Reading) An ordinance amending Chapter 53 (Zoning) of the City of Kyle to rezone approximately 19.5 acres of land from Retail Service District (RS) to Multi-Family Residential-3 (R-3-3) for property located at 5492 Kyle Center Drive.
Motion to postpone failed 4-3 on roll call vote; Mitchell, Koch, Rizo, Tobias voting no. Motion to deny the zoning request approved 7-0.

Item 21: [Postponed 3/16/2021] (Second Reading) An ordinance amending Chapter 53 (Zoning) for City of Kyle for the purpose of assigning original zoning to approximately 29.8 acres of land from Agriculture (AG) to Single Family Residential-3 (R-1-3) for property located southeast of Lehman Road and south of Lehman High School.
Approved 6-0 (Ellison not present when vote taken)

ANNEXATION

Item 24: A resolution of the City of Kyle accepting the petition for annexation of 25.2 acres, more or less, of land located in Hays County; setting an annexation schedule; providing for open meetings and other related matters.
Approved 7-0.

OTHER ITEMS FOR INDIVIDUAL CONSIDERATION

Item 20: Third amendment to the development agreement between City of Kyle and Clayton Properties Group, Inc. DBA Brohn Homes and amendment to the development agreement between the City of Kyle and Clayton Properties Group, Inc. DBA Brohn Homes.
Approved 6-0; Ellison not present when vote taken

Item 25: Reconsider direction to the Planning & Zoning Commission to revise the CBD 1 & CBD 2 zoning codes.
Motion to rescind this direction to P&Z approved 6-1, Ellison voted no.

Item 27: Approval of Balcones Trail workforce housing payment and development agreement.
Approved 5-0 (Mayor Mitchell recused himself; Tobias absent when vote taken)

The Kyle City Council is a mess

There’s a semi-joke enjoyed by sports afficionados about attending a boxing match when suddenly a hockey game breaks out. I have that same kind of feeling watching the Kyle City Council in action these days.

Ever since the election, accepted rules of decorum for city council meetings — rules generally adhered to by all city councils I have covered — have been completely ignored by this City Council. Council members, especially Yvonne Flores-Cale and often Robert Rizo, don’t wait to be called on before speaking. They just blurt out their comments as though this was a discussion being held in a saloon and not in a government meeting in which procedures should be followed.

I also have a problem with Kyle’s City Council’s voting procedure, and both this and the lack of decorum can be rectified with a modest investment in available technology — technology currently employed by a number of city councils — that enables council members to electronically enter a speaking que and to vote. It is all quite simple. During the specified discussion period of any item, if a council member wishes to speak on that item, he or she simply needs to press a button at his or her seat. A screen at the seat of the meeting’s chair registers the names of the persons wishing to speak in the order in which they were entered and the chair simply recognizes the person at the top of the list after the last person has finished speaking.

This same device is used to vote on items requiring a roll-call vote. This is important because you don’t want one council person’s vote to be swayed by the previous vote of another council person. Each council person gets to make an independent decision. Screens used for visual presentations are strategically placed around the council chambers and it would be easy to project the results of the roll call votes on these screens.

The consent agenda is a tool used to streamline council meeting procedures by collecting and grouping routine, noncontroversial topics into a single agenda item that can be discussed and passed with a single motion and vote. The Kyle City Council abused the concept of the consent agenda last night when Police Chief Jeff Barnett took to the speaker’s podium to discuss two of the consent agenda items and then council member Robert Rizo asked Barnett questions about them. Not that this shouldn’t be allowed, but the accepted procedure for doing that is to remove those items from the consent agenda and discuss and vote on them individually. 

The Kyle City Council is ignoring all accepted rules of decorum for city council meetings and is abusing the intent of the consent agenda. It is a mess and needs to be fixed.

Just when it would seem the City would want public input the most

 As part of its ambitious plan to remake Mary Kyle Hartson City Square Park, the City is planning on constructing a building across Burleson from the park. It plans to lease parts of the planned three-story structure for, among other items, a restaurant. The City has already issued a request for proposals from prospective restaurant tenants who might have an interest in taking on such a lease. All well and good … except, true to my nature, there was some wording in the RFP that disturbed me. So, eight days ago, I sent the following message via e-mail to Mayor Travis Mitchell as well as the other six members of the Kyle City Council:

“I am writing this note because of concerns I have about the wording in the City's solicitation of a tenant to operate a restaurant at the city-owned facility on Burleson. 

“The first thing that concerns me is the phrase ‘potential tenants will then be considered by City Council in Executive session (sic) under Economic Incentives.’ I am hoping this does not mean that the names of the potential operators who are being considered will not be made public. I fully understand why any discussion about incentives should be reserved for an executive session, but I would forcefully argue that citizen input concerning those being considered to operate the restaurant would be an important, if not THE MOST important, consideration the council could receive in this decision-making process.

“I strongly recommend that the names of the operators the council plans to consider, along with a brief description of the type of restaurant those operators envision, be announced promptly via a release from the City's Communications Department (which is why I have copied the director of that department in this e-mail) immediately after the noon deadline on April 9.

“I also have concerns about the sentence in the published RFP that reads ‘The City reserves the right to accept or reject any and all proposals and to accept only those proposals which are in the best interest of the City of Kyle.’ My concerns are (1) who at the City will be judging whether ‘to accept or reject’ a proposal; (2) who, if different from the aforementioned decision-maker, will be the person to decide which proposals ‘are in the best interest of the City of Kyle;’ and (3) on what basis will these decisions be made?

“Thank you in advance for addressing these concerns.”

The success or failure or any type of culinary concern depends entirely on the acceptance of it and the steady use of it by the public, especially that public that is already inclined to spend significant amounts of time in downtown Kyle. So, at least to my way of thinking, it would stand to reason that the City Council would want to gauge as early in the process as possible what types of restaurants would be greeted at least positively if not enthusiastically by that public. However, in order to begin measuring any levels of enthusiasm or anticipation, that public must be made aware of what’s coming. However, anything “considered by the City Council in executive session” is, by definition, not part of the public record. These discussions are held behind closed doors.

As I wrote in the letter, I understand why any sort of discussions about incentives would be part of an executive session discussion. You don’t want Buda, or Wimberly, or Dripping Springs or some other burg to know the substance of these discussions and say “Well, darn, we can beat that deal. Let’s try to steal this away from Kyle with a better offer.”

But who the prospective tenants are and what kind of operation they envision for 104 S. Burleson should definitely be made as public. In fact, the City should scream this information from the roof of Old City Hall at City Square Park. This is information that will ignite an immediate reaction from the public — a public, if recent history is any precedent, and I believe it is — that will not hesitate to make that reaction known to city officials. I used to know a lady who made an incredible bread pudding with Amaretto sauce that was to die for. And I wasn’t the only person who recognized this. Her bread pudding was sold by no less than the downtown Dallas Neiman-Marcus department store. The late Ross Perot ordered a big batch of her delicacy whenever he hosted a dinner party. And in the corner of a Plano antique store, she and her partner operated a tea room restaurant that served soups, salads, sandwiches and, of course, that magnificent Amaretto bread pudding. I mention this only because if I learned someone desired to operate such a tea room restaurant at 104 S. Burleson I would go so far as to create a PAC or any other kind of political mechanism to make such an establishment a reality. But, the first step, of course, is knowing about it.

The last thing this City Council needs is Fajita Street Redux. If there was ever a selection process that required public input long before a final decision is made, it’s this one. I’ve never known anyone who refused to drive down a street because they objected to the street name. The traffic patterns on RM 150 will not be altered one iota because it is being renamed Veterans Drive instead of Fajita Street. But the success of a restaurant depends on public support and it seems to me the City would want to know which ventures are likely to receive the most public support.

And, yes, I do have concerns about who at the City will be the arbiter on which proposals to accept and which to reject, or which proposals are in the best interests of the city and which are not. Confession: I am a carnivore and, frankly, I am not comfortable with a diehard vegetarian making these decisions at a City-managed facility. And what kind of a restaurant would not be in the city’s best interests? Please, somebody tell me that, because I have absolutely no idea. As I just admitted, a vegetarian restaurant would not be in my best interests, but my best interests don’t necessarily translate to the rest of the populace. I would guess that a restaurant in the Pie Capital of Texas that specialized in steak-and-kidney pies may not be readily welcomed, but it certainly could be argued that such an establishment would be in the city’s best interest, especially when it comes to promoting its brand. Is this decision-maker someone steeped in successful restaurant operations? What credentials does this person possess that gives him or her the knowledge to make these decisions that will affect a significant segment of the population and could easily have a significant impact on the city’s taxable income? Has some kind of point system been concocted that will be employed in making these decisions? Will the city, hopefully, be giving extra weight to women and minority tenant submissions?

I have rarely jumped on the “City must be more transparent” bandwagon because, in most of these instances, the city has been transparent; the public is upset because it hasn’t been spoon-fed. But this is a situation where transparency right from the get-go could mean the difference between success and failure of this enterprise.

And perhaps they will conduct this operation completely in the open. Perhaps I am worrying over nothing.

And perhaps at least one member of the City Council could have responded to my e-mail to let me know I had nothing to be concerned about.