Editor’s note: The following is a transcript of the conversation I had Oct. 6 with District 4 City Council candidate Alex Villalobos.
Kyle Report (KR): Why are you running?
Villalobos: I raised my family here and I’ve been in this area for 30 years. I’ve raised my family. I’ve been very engaged with the community and I think it’s, for me, an opportunity to create, at the crossroads of this city and the growth and the infrastructure that’s coming in, is to help create something that, a city that everyone can be proud of, a city that balances everybody’s perspectives, a city that balances everybody’s quality of life issues and a city that’s accessible to all.
KR: What two or three things would you like to accomplish during your three year term?
Villalobos: The number one thing that I think — and I’ve been talking about in my platform — is to engage the community and allow the city to be a lot more accessible to the community, as far as information, when they’re asking for information, getting that information, engaging the community to be a little more participative in government and legislative body in the city council meetings and other meetings that are there, engaging the population of the different demographics that are moving in and getting them a little more involved.
KR: How do you plan to do that?
Villalobos: Assisting and maybe advocating for the city manager currently to maybe re-create the web page for accessibility, ease of use. Create avenues of ability for us to disseminate information to people that might be, that might not have access to that information, such as, you know, the elderly that are under standard care or standard incomes, don’t have access to computers, don’t have access to transportation, those types of things. I know it’s huge, it can be a huge feat. But I think incrementally, if we’re doing it slowly and I think it would also help lend to that transparency that we have been awarded for already. So I really think that’s an important piece for accessability. You have some people that are challenged in receiving information so I want to be that piece that bridges that. And then also is to maybe more augment our younger generations, You know KAYAC is a good way for them to become part of the city organizations, but I want to augment that from a little bit more participation and I also think we need to augment the way we provide public information. I know there’s a process right — a process for providing information. So we have somebody that does our community relations and doing a great job with the resources they have, but I think I want to be an advocate to augment the resources that person has to really publish and really push out some of the really good things the city is doing so the people can be proud of those things. There’s a vetting process when you put information out — I understand, you know, it’s not just forcing it out. It has to go through the legal process for vetting. It has to go through, you know, the administrative process for vetting that information before it goes out. But I think if I can help advocate for a plan that really pushes out all those wonderful things the city is doing, I think it would engage the community a lot better. They would be more participative, They would be more engaged to come to those meetings and meet and greet. And it think that’s important especially at the crossroads of growth right now.
KR: I would agree with you information is not reaching citizens as well as it should, But, having worked for city governments and covering many city governments as a reporter, I am convinced the blame for that does not fall on the city’s staff — it is doing a great job of disseminating information — but should be on the shoulders of the city council members themselves who don’t conduct in townhall meetings or go outside of City Hall in any other matter to engage the populace on a regular basis, except during an election cycle. Don’t you think city council members should do a better job of reaching out to their constituents and getting feedback from them instead of expecting those constituents to come into City Hall to attend a meeting?
Villalobos: I agree. And I’ve had discussions with current people on the board right now in regards to that and they’ve all said we can do a better job of doing that. I think there’s a consistent theme with all the city council meetings and me being a part of the board of adjustments and being the chairman of the board of adjustments and the sign committee as past experiences, I’ve always been "How come we’re not being engaged appropriately and how come we’re not getting the information currently? Why is it not accessible to us?" Here in the last several city council meetings over the last couple of years the constant theme is "we didn’t know about this" and "we didn’t get this information." I know it’s incumbent for people that want
to be engaged in the city to take that responsibility on. But, at the same time, if that’s a constant theme then obviously there’s been something that’s been identified without any research — you don’t need research, that’s immediate feedback from people from varying demographics, not just one demographic — but they say we would like to sit back and really evaluate this because I haven’t seen this and I haven’t had the opportunity to make my own evaluation of that project. You’ve been there for those meetings, you’ve been there for a lot of the project meetings as well and you’ve seen the same themes coming out. So, if that’s the case, then obviously we’re not engaging the community the way we need to.
KR: But what’s frustrating about hearing that is the fact that the information is available. It is out there.
Villalobos: It is.
KR: I’ll use the analogy of eating out at a restaurant and the city staff is like that waiter at the restaurant. He takes your order and then brings your food to your table. It is not, however, his responsibility to feed that food to you. You have to do that yourself.
Villalobos: Some of these development agreements, they’re processed. They’re at the county. They’re at certain jurisdictions. How do we assist? Is there a presentation. Is there a quick video letting the constituents of the city know "This is out, this is where it is located, this is where you can find it."
KR: But most of that material anyone could find my simply accessing the city council’s posted agenda and reading the backup material.
Villalobos: But most people don’t understand that. You do it for a living.
KR: But that’s my point, It’s more the responsibility of the individual council members to connect with their constituents — they are the link between the populace and the city government.
Villalobos: I agree. It must start at the grassroots level. Specifically, when you can identify certain demographics in our community that do not have accessibility to those certain things or are not equipped to navigate the website, navigate the information channels that we currently have I think it’s incumbent upon us that we go out and engage that community and allow them to have that information. And that could be town hall meetings, it could be going out to the HOA meetings on a regular basis, it could be utilizing some of your civic organizations to help push those pieces of information out too. I think we could do a better job of utilizing those organizations to do that — not only to promote the information but to help promote the good things that we’re doing. If we can balance that, I think we get a lot more engagement, a lot more participation from the community.
KR: Did the council pass anything in the last year you strongly objected to?
Villalobos: Strongly objected to at this point in time, no. Knowing and understanding how the budget currently works and understanding how you have to budget and you have to balance utilizing your resources I think we can do a better job of balancing the direction of our resources. I know there are some areas throughout the city that need to be addressed, that have somewhat been neglected. But I also think the reason they’ve been neglected is because we’ve experienced such a huge amount of growth and we are stressed for human resources to get some of those jobs done. But I also think, as growth continues and we’re tying to create that economic development and that growth pattern throughout the city, we can’t forget the people who have been here for years and those areas that have been here for years that need help, that need to be enriched, that need to be maintained, not only for the public safety, but also for their economic plans for their areas as well.
KR: Where exactly?
Villalobos: I’m talking about Old Town Kyle. I’m talking about the road areas with regards to entry and exit for some of these road areas that are specific entrances and exits for the city. You’re talking about Burleson — that’s underway. They’re cutting ground. They’ve been surveying on those particular areas. I think that in the future we’ve got plans to address the entrance and exit to the downtown sector of Kyle. I think it’s an important thing that they’ve already discussed with regards to creating a way to either go under or over that railroad tracks for first response, for public safety, those type of things. I understand that’s going to be a future item, but I think it’s going to be important especially if the growth continues to have multiple ways to come in and out of that city.
KR: Are you talking about on West First Street?
Villalobos: Yes, And whether it winds up there or not, who knows. But I think we have to have those entries and exits and I think they’re globally positioning ourselves to make those decisions. One of the top things is infrastructure in regards to the constituents of the community. In a survey that’s one thing on top of the priority list — one of the top things in the priority list with regards to that. And I think it affects the quality of life issues — all that — transportation, flood mitigation plans, maintenance, roads, infrastructure — all those things are quality of life issues. They are affected in many different ways whether it’s just us going from Point A to Point B — for first responders to get from Point A to Point B, making sure you are able to have access to take your family member to an area that requires any kind of service — could be the hospital, could be the clinic, could be just checking on another family member without having too much clogged traffic. Those are all things that are quality of life issues that we need to address. I think along the lines of visibility, not only does the city council need to be more engaging, but we also have to be balancing the idea of putting more human resources in places to allow our city — our city employees — to be more visible.
KR: So you’re suggesting the city needs to add more employees?
Villalobos: Yes, for services. As we continue to grow, the demand for services, the demand for services are going to be there. We’re going to have to have those people there in place to at least do our due diligence in reaching that demand for sources which is going to be law enforcement visibility and I think you’re talking about public works, you’re talking about maintenance, you’re talking about parks and rec.
KR: Would you support raising the property tax rate to fund all these new employees?
Villalobos: I think that we really need to look at it creatively. I think we’re adding them right now without — we’re doing it because the valuation of our property right now — we’ve been able to take that 3 percent cut and stay under the rollback rate, but are we going to be able to do that over a long period of time? I saw the special meeting with regards to that particular issue and the different perspectives from different people on the board and I think everybody had a valid point. Are we making those right decisions for balancing for future infrastructure? I think we’re really gonna have to make a hard decision at same point. Do we continue to raise fees and the possibility of utilities because we’re going to have to augment some of those particular areas? They might not be taxes, but they’re taxes in a way and we’re going to have to pay for those improvements through our utility bills, through various different ways.
KR: Give me your assessment of the recently passed fiscal year budget?
Villalobos: I think with the current growth they did their best with the resources they had to balance everything and stay in line with what the community felt like were the most important things, based on the survey. Now, I don’t remember the survey. I would get my hands dirty in the quantitative and the qualitative analysis of that particular survey and how those questions were asked to really understand whether we were asking the appropriate questions. Do people understand, on the community level — I think you hit on it already — are we engaging the community to take the educational opportunity to let them know what it means when they ask for these things?
KR: Speaking of that survey, the number one issue, according to the citizens who responded, was the city’s streets and street maintenance, In light of that, do you think the city should acknowledge that by creating a separate Streets Department with its own director who reports directly to the city manager instead of it being a subset of Public Works?
Villalobos: I think we’re going to have to consider that in the future with our growth. I really think it’s going to be a consideration with our growth. We’re going to have to sit down and assess how viable that is. I know what they’re doing — they’re trying to augment personnel in there to get an assistant director inside there to kind of help with the demand of all the different projects that we have going on. I would say I can’t answer that question until I really get my hands really deep into the wants, the needs and the necessary items and then look at it from a budget perspective — where our debt’s gonna go and where we’re gonna bring in that income to address those issues. I think I really need to do an assessment to really stand firm on separating that office out. I’m not going to make a hasty decision and say "Yeah, let’s go ahead and do this" without evaluating anything and I think that’s the way you’re gonna see someone if I’m given the opportunity and the privilege to represent the city is to look back, look at all the data and make a decision based on good assessments.
KR: Another budget-related question: How do you feel about adopting a process that many cities have switched to called "budgeting for outcomes"?
Villalobos: I can’t speak to all the pros and cons with regards to that. I know it’s an evaluation tool. It can be used as performance. You gotta be careful that you’re not using it as a performance tool on evaluating our city staff members. But I would have to do more research on that and get back to you to see if that is something that would be valuable for our current structure.
KR: It appears the overwhelming percentage of jobs that have been added to Kyle’s economy of late are retail, possibly minimum wage retail. What do you propose to do to try to get higher paying jobs, bigger economic developments into Kyle?
Villalobos: I think what we’re doing right now is that we’re trying to put ourselves, according to the current budget plan and the current project of growth, we’re trying to put ourselves in the position to create an economic profile and a compilation profile to invite jobs, to invite employment centers here in our particular area that would be sustainable to their employees to live and work and play here. I would promote that. That’s probably one of the biggest things in regards to inviting businesses to come in is employment centers that could do that. I know that we have had interest from some and we have been evaluated in our particular profile but they turned away from our city because our infrastructure couldn’t support that type of employment center. I know that recently we brought some new businesses in and it’s clearly — we said it over and over again, "OK, we brought businesses in. We got maybe one or two out of that particular business that could live and stay here and the rest of their employees wouldn’t be able to afford that at minimum wage or slightly higher than minimum wage." Did we put ourselves in the position to even afford some of the affordable housing alternatives in our particular community? I don’t know. Not unless you’re churning out quite a few hours. I don’t know if they can afford that either. So we have to put ourselves in a way that allows us to be viable for businesses — whether it’s technical businesses or industrial businesses that come in — and promote job growth that is sustainable for them to buy homes here, to live here, to work here, to spend their money here in all the service areas and all the retail areas here for their sales tax. We need to do that. That’s a very important piece of our city right now, because we are unbalanced with regards to residential growth versus commercial growth.
KR: Do you have any specific ideas on steps the city might take to make that happen?
Villalobos: I think it’s always augmenting and recruiting, right? Recruitment is always a strong piece of the city. You’re supposed to be putting yourselves out there. You talk about grassroots — grassroots is not just engaging the constituencies, it’s also engaging all the different commercial businesses outside of this organization — putting ourselves out there for recruitment of those people and businesses, whether I’m going to a conference and looking viable trying to help the city identify possibilities for us to have employer and employment centers to come in. And, at the same time, and then when I’m doing that recruiting piece, am I doing that in a way that is going to be advantageous for us, that puts us in the best probability of success under our current infrastructure? So we’re going to have to be very creative in that. Promoting what the city manager is doing, him understanding the nuts and bolts of what’s going on in the city whatnot, and taking that information and engaging at that level, whether it’s going to a conference in another state, another city, in another nation or engaging businesses — commercial businesses — in meetings on behalf of the city, helping our city engage them to kind of show what our profile is. There’s many different ways, but that recruiting piece has to be very robust on behalf of the city. It has to be. But we have limitations and we have to work with those limitations. A large part of that is going to be our infrastructure.
KR: What did you think of the Design Guide that was recently passed by the city council?
Villalobos: You’re talking about the beautification piece?
KR: No, the Design Guide.
Villalobos: What specifically about the Design Guide?
KR: Just, what was your assessment of it or your opinion on it?
Villalobos: I think a guide is a guide and it’s a guide in and of itself. I know they tried to put things in order of priority, the order of want and need of the city. I think my job as a city council person is to continue to engage the city manager on what we can get accomplished under that guide within the best interests of the city. That’s a piece for us on the dias to engage the city manager on and support those things he feels we can accomplish with success. And I’m also there to help balance that success across the board of all the city, not just certain areas.
KR: There are some who describe Kyle as a cultural desert, with no community theater, no art galleries, no museums. Do you agree with this description and, if so, what should the city do to improve its cultural landscape?
Villalobos: You’re talking about specific arts and fine arts?
KR: Yes
Villalobos: If you’re talking about that and you’re also talking about the people in and of itself I think that anyone that comes to this particular community and is able to walk around and engage the community can find the historical roots and the very distinct culture of the city. There’s a large history here for culture with regards to ranching in this particular area, the people that helped create those particular ranching environments here. You have a lot of charter members who have been in this particular area — a lot of those families that have been here over the years that need to be here over those generations — and they’re very vocal . We have a lot of rich history in regards to the buildings, the name of our city, some of the success with the person who named the city. If you look at our cemeteries in the surrounding areas just outside of our city limits, there’s a lot of culture there. You’re going to have to define on what the wants and needs are for this particular city, but if you’re looking for cultural ties, we are rich in culture. It’s how we promote that culture that’s the difference. It’s how we engage the community in the pieces that we do have and really promote the good things that we do for culture here, whether it’s gonna be culture of people, cultures of ethnicity and nationality, historical buildings, access to historical areas in and around the city. So that’s another piece I think when you’re talking about how do I engage the community to promote the information about the city and its profile, you need to do a better job of doing that.
KR: So you really don’t think there’s a need in this city, for example, for people to go see a play put on by others in their community?
Villalobos: I think those things are important — they are very important. The fine arts for me are a very important piece for an emotional and very personal connection with your culture — it’s something that’s playing that’s in line with your culture or other cultures to appreciate. My wife is a musician. My sons and daughters are musicians. When you’re looking at someone within the arts or theater, those can be very strong platforms to engage public policy, to engage some of the very good things that are happening in this city, to engage all the different organizations in the city in one place. Coming from a university, it plays a strong role in creating that particular label and marketing piece for the university. So, do I promote it? Absolutely. I’ve put on some symposiums that supported the fine arts with regards to culture whether it’s going to be cinema, whether it’s going to be auditory, whether it’s going to be radio, whether it’s going to be justice, whether it’s going to be any identity issues, whether it’s going to be any of the current issues that are going on. So bringing those here and creating those avenues, do we have areas where we can do that? We have open areas where we can do that in. I don’t think we’ve taken advantage of particular open areas as of yet.
KR: Would you support the city financially supporting something like a Symphony in the Park series at Kyle Lake Park where families could spread out blankets during early evening summer months and listen to music?
Villalobos: We have resources for that to engage the young community here. We’ve got Wallace Middle School that has over 300 band students that play top, highly awarded pieces of music that are very culturally sensitive to very different areas of the world. Mr. Malik (school band director James Malik) has done an awesome job over there. You also have Lehman High School and Hays High School that together can really produce some fine pieces.
KR: So the question becomes should the city make Lake Kyle park, Gregg-Clarke Park available for those entities to perform a "concert in the park’?
Villalobos: Well, yes. Absolutely. That would be something that would promote and highlight some of the good things that we’re doing in the city and some of the things that were allowing our community to be a part of, We also have the PAC Center, which is something that we could market for a better relation with our school board from the city council perspective. A lot of my work has been going to the school board and presenting in front of the school board with regards to the dual language program and the importance of dual language and how it affects the academic profile of students that engage in learning a second language or a tertiary language. Very important. As a matter of fact, so important that I believe in that my kids have been a part of that particular program since kindergarten. My daughter’s still part of that program in high school. I’m a strong believer, not only in the language acquisition, but also in the cultural promotion that it brings to those individuals in learning a secondary and tertiary or even a fourth language, if it’s possible for them under our current system. So, we’ve got resources here. We’ve got the people here that can put on those particular concerts — bridging the gap, I’ve always talked about bridging the gap between the older demographic and a younger demographic, and how much rich culture here can be passed on ro them playing together and doing things together, whether it’s education, whether it’s cultural promotion, or whether it’s just life skills. That’s very important.
KR: What rules or procedures, if any, does the council have in place that you would like to change?
Villalobos: At this time I would have to take a better evaluation behind close doors with my other colleagues to understand why those policies are in place from a one-on-one basis before I made any judgments on why they are right now. I think it’s best that we continue to do our business as we’re doing it right now, but the with idea that someone like me would come in and assess where those changes really need to be and make an educated decision on why we make those decisions.
KR: Do you believe the city council needs to adapt a well-defined strategy for its downtown area and, if so, what would support a downtown TIF district to facilitate and manage that strategy?
Villalobos: With the TIF district, I think that requires a little more assessment on my part. I’m not going to say that I can’t — I would never say "absolutely not" because you have to be very organic in understanding how te finance some of those particular issues. But I do think there needs to be more open and inclusive with regards to making any changes in the downtown district and include those people — and include the entire city with regards to strategic planning. And I think we’ve already touched on that at the beginning of your questioning is that what would you do if you think it’s important that we engage the community on a grassroots level. I think that’s one of the prime candidates that we engage them on a grassroots level to get them to understand that if you make these improvements and make these other improvements to the downtown sector that they got to understand what that means, get them to be engaged in that process. I would venture to say that we have some very highly qualified people who live in that area who could probably give us some insight on things that happened in the past and things that worked and didn’t work. I think we need to come at it from a historical perspective with regards to that and really take into consideration all of what they have to say before we develop a strategic plan that affects their quality of life.
KR: What are your feelings about removing the height restrictions on multi-family to allow such developments to be taller than three stories?
Villalobos: They had a discussion about that at the last city council meeting with regards to changing the codes in regards to limitations on height. And leaving it open.
KR: But that was for developments located in the new Office/Institutional zoning category, not multi-family.
Villalobos: Yes. Well, I think it’s somewhat related in regards to restricting heights. I think it’s important that we assess the type of multi-family building with the demographic that it’s servicing. And I think we need to really consider the infrastructure in that particular place on where we would consider raising that. I think it should be just like in our last council meeting because it should come to the city council to sit down and really look at the merits of that or why it needs to be higher in its restricted rate. And if we can produce a good argument on why it needs to be and then we’ll take it under consideration. But I think it needs a lot more discussion between myself, the city manager and the rest of the board to make that decision. I don’t think I could stand out alone and say "Hey, this is the reason why," because everybody has their perspective on that.
KR: Would you support a plan for the city to contract for municipal auditing services similar to the way the city contracts for its City Attorney?
Villalobos: It comes down to an objective or a subjective audit, right? Contracting outside, I’m sure that the auditing service would have a contract that would dictate how they would perform their audit and we would have to agree to it.
KR: The function of a city auditor is to guarantee the citizens are getting the best bang for their bucks when it comes to measuring performance metrics of a city’s staff. So my question is essentially do you think it might save taxpayers in the long run to have such auditing services "on call," instead of having to issue a special contract like recently happened with the police audit?
Villalobos: I really think with regards to auditing, we need to have somebody on a case-by-case basis come out and address those particular issues, And I know you’re talking about information and disseminating that information. We need to skip back to that because I don’t want to get out of that piece. Audits are done and a lot of times with the information that’s included to be audited because they’re going to be exhaustive audits that are going to go down to the very detail of the operational detail of that particular organization. And some of that information can affect public safety in general by disclosing that information, So I think that when you do those audits, some of those pieces can’t be disclosed because of the public safety issue. They need to be presented in a way that does not affect the overall public safety of the community. And I think that going through that piece and making sure you’re abiding by those disclosure rules, I think that it’s warranted that you’re very careful how you present that information under the constraints. But then when you’re talking about bringing in other individuals to come in and do these auditing, there needs to be a consistent evaluation of all of our operational pieces in our city. We need, as a council and as a city and as the city manager understands, how often do we want to audit various different city operations ro consider operations, to consider budget, to consider are we operating within any new legislative procedures, are we operating appropriately within our budget, are we spending moneys appropriately within that budget. Looking for leakage, looking for possible threats within those particular areas of our operation, doing a spot analysis on a regular basis, looking at your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities to address all the time. So I think it’s something that needs to be put into our plan consistently that we have someone there, too. It doesn’t have to be the same organization, not necessarily.
KR: How would you evaluate the performance of David Wilson, the council member you hope to replace?
Villalobos: I think it’s been a very — his tenure has been very organic in that it’s changed. And I think it’s changed because getting into the nuts and bolts of operating the city there needs to be a balance. So you can be redirected based on that balance. I’ve seen in the past where he’s been very engaged with certain groups and organizations throughout the city. I think the position could be tiring to some degree. I think I’ve seen him in the city council meetings address some of the good things that we’re doing that people kinda miss. He really looks at the connection of the individual and the work that they’ve done and I think that I’ve seen him make an assertive effort to recognize a person for what they’ve done, especially if they had a hands-on role in the project, If I’m looking at him as a predecessor, I think that’s one quality I would gladly take on as well just to make sure that I’m addressing those individuals on a very personal basis because he’s seeing it from many different perspectives. So if I had to evaluate, it’s changing, but I think it’s because we’re in an organic position that requires change and flexibility for the betterment of the city as a whole. That’s about as much as I can say about that.
KR: Give me your analysis of the changes the council made this year to the city’s Comprehensive Plan and what additional changes do you think are necessary?
Villalobos: I think, with regards to the Comprehensive Plan, I think I really need to pull it out detail by detail and do a really complete assessment with regards to that. And I think that’s honest enough for me to say that I really need to assess that piece before I could really make any type of evaluation on it at all. And I think there needs to be a conversation. If I’m afforded the ability to have that conversation with my constituents or my colleagues on the board, I think that’ll require me to have a good conversation with them as well. So it would be premature for me to make an evaluation on that now.
KR: Does Kyle have an issue with parking that needs to be addressed and, if so, how would you address it?
Villalobos: I think every town that is experiencing the growth we’re experiencing is going to have a parking problem. I work in an environment that has seen tremendous growth. We’re close to 43,000 with students, faculty and staff on our campus and parking is a commodity. How do we augment that? And how do we augment that at the same time maintain our historical profile of the city, especially downtown? That’s also something I think that at a grassroots level we need to engage the community into seeing what they really want with regards to parking. Where do they see it? And explaining what the implications of whether augmenting or whether we’re patrolling parking spaces there and make sure that they understand what they would be asking for or understand if they don’t do it what they would be entailing, what the experience would be for future growth. That’s another area that really requires a lot of evaluation before you make a decision. But it’s definitely infrastructure. And you know what? There’s infrastructure in place in our downtown sector that’s not being used right now. So how would it affect the unused infrastructure such as the conduits for putting in our power lines and our communication lines underground. Those things are there. Can you imagine changing the whole infrastructure for parking without even using that? That would be very irresponsible at this point, not to at least be sensitive to the structures that are in place that we haven’t even used yet. So I think that’s a bigger conversation for the community and definitely in a townhall meeting and bringing out a plan that would show what are the implications on both sides — doing something and not doing something and finding a balance in between from our community on what would be the best route.
KR: One of the tenets of the Smart Growth philosophy of city planning is "If pizza was free, there would never be enough pizza." Employing that philosophy, how do you feel about installing parking meters in our downtown area?
Villalobos: Again, I think I answered that question for you already in regards to evaluating what the city wants and needs. That’s definitely going to have a budget implication. It’s going to be a revenue fund. Again, when do we get our cost-benefit analysis? When do we get a return on that particular investment when you’re putting down capital resources down there to do that and you’re also going to have to hire people to manage it? Are we there as a city as far as growth is concerned to be able to have that department open up and for it to be subsistent and to continue to maintain that revenue source? And I think that’s a bigger question also. They seem very small, but they’re big in nature because of some of the implications. So I think that’s another question we need to really address. If parking is a commodity I think other areas have to turn into areas where you would have to pay for parking. Other cities have done that. Higher education institutions have done that. But is it right for our city right now? I think that’s an evaluation piece that needs to be considered in a lot of many different aspects than just a "yes" or "no" answer. That’s really a very complicated effort.
KR: What changes would you like to see made to the city’s charter?
Villalobos: You know, I’ve been asked that question before. The city charter, I believe, is an organic document that needs to be addressed — continually addressed — just like when we discussed evaluating our departments from auditing agencies that come in and look at the operational piece. I think our city charter will change as we continue to grow, as we continue to have needs for the city. If there’s anything distinct right now in the city charter, I think it would be a consultation on behalf of the board in and of itself, the city manager, our general counsel creating that and evaluating that based on what the need is. I mean it’s also another thing that we need to engage the community. That’s also could quite possibly be a city hall meeting on why we’re changing the city charter.
KR: The charter itself requires a Charter Review Commission, that solicits testimony from the community, to review the charter every five years. That five-year period might possibly occur within your term, if you are elected. So my question becomes what changes would you like that commission to recommend to the council?
Villalobos: Again, as we’re talking about how we’re supporting the city and I think it needs fo come from a perspective of how we’re supporting the city and a lot of conversations needs to happen from a historical perspective and a progressive and future perspective before we make a change. How’s it going to affect those particular things. So that’s a bigger conversation as well. But I guarantee you it needs to happen not only at our level but it needs to happen at the community level as well.
KR: If it came to a vote on the city council, would you vote to reinstate Jessie Espinoza to the Kyle Police Department?
Villalobos: I don’t know all the inner workings of that because I think a lot of that stuff’s been left from being disclosed fully. But any one person in law enforcement or in city government needs to be evaluated based on their performance within the constraints of the rules and the policies of that particular organization. So it definitely needs to be an evaluation on my part with all of the information before I can make that decision. And I will be relying on our general counsel, staff members that have been part of that particular situation and issue, the city manager, and looking at it from the global position of what’s the best decision on behalf of our city. I’m a very strong proponent of what the city looks like, what its profile looks like — that’s also part of the recruiting profile, the media relations profile and how our community sees our city and how we’re governing. So I think of lot of those things come into play when you’re making a decision such as that whether it’s going to be reinstating for not reinstating. But I don’t have enough information in my hands to make that decision. I would be relying on how this is evaluated. What significant rules, policies, procedures were violated across the board to make that decision. But, again, you have a city, you have a chief of police and you have an assistant chief of police and you have a city manager. All my information needs to be supporting and holding the city manager accountable to do his job with respect to those particular departments. And that should be a partnership and a relationship that’s for the betterment of the city. So I think it would be premature for me to say anything about it.
KR: Let me pose this hypothetical to you: If the entire city staff was united on one side of an issue and if a very vocal segment of the local population was on the opposite side of that issue, which side do you think you would align yourself with?
Villalobos: Let me tell you this: I’m an executive level law enforcement officer and I put myself in positions to stand on an island by myself when I’m trying to make the right decision. I will make a decision based on its merits regardless of where the pressure is coming from either side. That’s the only way I can operate. To continue to maintain the respect of the community that I serve as a law enforcement officer, I’ll have to do it on based on this premise.
KR: What changes would you propose to the city’s sign ordinance.
Villalobos: You’re talking about the elevation and the height of some of these sign ordinances and the brightness and everything?. I think those signs need to fit within the profile of the city. I think they need to follow the profile of the city. If our strategic plan is to have a certain type of profile then we have to follow in line and we can’t make inconsistent decisions on signage. It has to be fairly consistent across the board. So that’s my take on signs. And I’ve said that in the past. What is our overall profile? What are we trying to accomplish? What is our strategic plan in regards to signs? Why would we make a decision distinctly different than anybody else? There has to be something significant that says we have to do this for me to even consider it that way. But outside of that, consistency along the lines of our strategic plan and along the lines of our city profile. And I would push that all day long because it’s something we can use as a tool for the kind of things we’re trying to accomplish in the city. And largely, I’ll tell you, there’s going to be a consultation with this city manager and with code enforcement — those officials there as well — looking at how this is going to be accomplished. I definitely would rely on a lot of information on them.
KR: Does Kyle have a transportation/mobility problem and, if so, what steps would you take to correct it?
Villalobos: Those are part of the growing pains of a city that’s growing really, really fast. Would you catch me walking down Burleson? I live in Hometown Kyle and it’s safe all the way coming up until you hit Burleson just past the church, just past the housing authority and once you get to that part where you get to Spring Branch, that’s kind of an unsafe area if you’re walking at that point — making it around that turnstile to get over to H-E-B. Or am I going to go around, walking up 2770, taking a right at Kohlers Crossing to come in the back way? Well, that could be problematic at best, if you’re walking —that’s a distance away — but would I feel safe sending a kid on a bike that way? Either way? No, I wouldn’t But my idea of transportation in that respect is that because of the growing pains that we are experiencing right now, we need to have considerations of pathways and ways of getting from Point A to Point B for many different modes of transportation. Whether it’s my two feet, bicycle or a vehicle. And when we continue to address infrastructure, I think it’s important we consider those things which are our egress and exit of those particular areas. Can we do it all at once? We can’t do it all at once. It’s going to have to be slow, incremental and it has to be addressed in a very methodical and consistent way. And it’s going to change, depending on what’s going to be the next employment center that we’re going to get here that’s going to create that whole issue all over again as far as entry and exit. But the way they’ve explained it in our city council meetings, we’ve kind of defined our footprint already as far as growth — projected growth — we know where we’re going to be, right? So I think I would align myself with that understanding that we’re in a good place to understand where that growth is going to be. So now we can start thinking globally and strategically in how we’re going to have those modes of transportation come into place whether it’s sidewalks or trails for both pedestrian and bicycle traffic, where there’s going to be bike lanes in certain areas, how all that kind of comes into play. So, we’re in a good position to really have that forethought now, really start planning for that. I ride my bike. But there are certain places I won’t go on my bike because it’s just dangerous and maybe if I was single I would take more chances but I’m not. I have two children and I’m married and I already take enough risks as it is putting on a uniform and protecting our community on a regular basis. Is that an additional risk I want to take on? No.
KR: Does the city need to improve its park network and, if so, how? Do you see a need for additional pocket parks and open spaces and, if so, where should they be located?
Villalobos: I think they have a plan to do that. They’re trying to connect all these different trails together. That’s a consistent plan in many different cities how you connect them. And I’ve been a part of that process. Apparently the universities and their agreement with the city to try at some point with their plan is to connect their city parks to our university out to other city parks to make of that connection, to give people many different opportunities and different types of landscapes to be a part of and to enjoy the beauty of it, right? So it’s also something that It’s also something that transcends people here. It’s a beautiful thing to see and engage one-on-one, right? It’s also a place, it’s also a recruiting piece to marshal businesses to come here and kind of look at that, to really look at the facade of the city and the beautification piece of that. So I think they’re working to that and I think it’s a good plan at least making an attempt and understanding how we can make those connections happen. Yeah, I think we have to do it in a balanced way because there are other areas of the city that need certain things. That’s my job is to be there, translate that piece and make sure the city manager is balancing that.
KR: Kyle has historically low turnout in its municipal elections although I do expect that turnout to increase this time around due to the elections being in November. But do you think it can also be attributed to voter fatigue as a result of having city elections every single year?
Villalobos: I think those elections are on behalf of the elections body that’s going out and the candidates that are there. You’re not going out and doing your grassroots campaigning and engaging the community like we should and consistently engaging them the way you should, then you’ve already identified that that’s an issue. I think that’s the reason why. And I can tell you in my current block walking a lot of people all over the city have felt as though they’ve been neglected because we don’t have that one-on-one connection. That’s one of my biggest things I’m bringing on my particular platform is engaging. You talk about voter fatigue? Maybe on the larger elections, the national elections, but on the local elections, you’re having voter fatigue because you haven’t done your grassroots work to go out there and engage the people. And that’s something you’re going to consistently see with me. I do it on a regular basis now and all the different civic organizations I’m a part of. I am constantly engaging the community. It’s the only way you can do your job effectively.
KR: Give me your evaluation of City Manager Scott Sellers’s performance?
Villalobos: I think it would be, on my behalf, I think in his presentations of all the city business he has been with the information he has been presenting he has been fair and concise with it. But I think it would be premature of me to give him a full evaluation without understanding him from a one-on-one and understanding behind-the-scenes the operational piece of the city manager. I haven’t seen a performance evaluation yet and I haven’t seen a historical performance evaluation. Is it a consistent performance evaluation or is it a what you would call an inconsistent evaluation based on each individual city council person? It needs to be consistent. It needs to be standardized so we can have a point of reference and we can continue to measure their performance and I think that’s what he’s asking from his city and staff employees under his performance evaluation plan and I believe it would be incumbent upon us as a city council to ensure that at least his performance evaluation is consistent with what he’s trying to accomplish with his performance evaluation of his staff. So we should encompass that and also additional items on the behalf of the city that come up from a public perspective. So, I gotta see that. And I guarantee you that, from what I understand, it’s been somewhat inconsistent depending on which board member was evaluating him, so I think that needs to be sure. But definitely from a performance evaluation, with our strategic plan, the items of importance throughout, when we proposes his budget, how has he effectively been able to accomplish those things and has he been able to do them within the constraints of the budget, effectively consistently and considerably on budget. That would be something we would have to engage. And there’s other things — intangibles — that er get, right? So I would need to see all that information first before I could really say that because there are some things that we don’t see because he’s presenting stuff and there’s a lot that we don’t see. Right? Lots of stuff we’re not supposed to as a regular citizen. I can tell you that I’m held to a certain performance evaluation standard as a state employee. I think governments need to be based on their performance. So I would recommend that we, at least, try to have something that’s a standardized system evaluation so we can have good comparable data and good measurement performance.
KR: The city is steadily increasing its bond capacity. Do you see the need for a general obligation bond proposal during in the next three years and, if so, what should those bonds be used for?
Villalobos: I couldn’t tell you right now. I think it’s premature for me to even discuss that right now without looking at everything. I don’t have anything to say about that right now.
KR: Anything else you would like to add that we haven’t covered?
Villalobos: You know, currently, in my current position, I do policy evaluation, policy implementation. I’m the hiring manager. evaluate my employees based on performance. I work within a legislative budget. I have to be considerate of that budget. And I have to be considerate of that budget and those performance evaluations and as the hiring manager on quality-of-life issues. I believe that experience, not only from being a public servant, but also from being a business owner puts me in a position to have the tools that will be very well aligned with what we need in the city right now. Someone that can be considerate of all those particular things and make decisions based on good merit, good data, good evaluation. I have those tools. I work under those tools on a regular basis and I work under the constraints of state government. And I have the opportunities of state government as well. And I think I can bring that down to the city as a board member and utilize those tools to support all the good things and to make living in Kyle a meaningful thing and to make living in Kyle something that everybody can be part of. I hope to do that and I hope to be there representing my community and my district in a way that’s making decisions in their best interests. And I can tell ya, I’m willing to stand aside and make my own decisions, to make my independent evaluations and do what’s right.
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