A conversation with mayoral candidate Nicole Romero-Piche

Editor’s note: The following is the transcript of a conversation I had Sept. 20 with mayoral candidate Nicole Romero-Piche.

Kyle Report (KR): Why are you running?

Romero-Piche: I’ve been in education for 14 years. The majority of those years have been spent in the science classroom and science, I found, can be very optimistic. You look to the future. What have we learned? What are we still learning about? You ignore the policies of the world and you focus on the pure, unadulterated positives, unless you’re doing environmental science. I taught social studies once before, but it was only for a semester. It was for little sixth graders. And it’s very surfacy (sic) — you do maps and you talk about cultures — but it’s very surfacy and very sweet stuff. The first year I was originally hired to teach a college and careers class, which is technology based. The very first day that I showed up for work during pre-service training, they said "Hey, will you teach social studies?" And I was like "OK." So I’m a veteran teacher and that means if they hand me a new project it’s not the end of the world. So I was like "All right, which levels do you want me to teach?" And they said "Eighth and ninth grade." So I was like "OK, I know what’s that basically about." So I started teaching it. This is also election year and the very first thing that happened was 9/11. It’s your first real, like, "Bam, let’s hit you with something deep." My students at that stage think about it — ninth grade was where I was doing my 9/11 spiel, right? — and they’re old enough at this point and young enough at this point that number one they don’t remember, they don’t know. Number 2, they’re old enough to get it, if you teach it right. So, tears all over the room and I was like "They got it. That’s good. So let’s keep going." So we did Columbus Day and we talked about why Columbus is such a controversial figure. I endeavor to go beyond the text books. I was raised in a teaching generation where textbooks were kinda like a bad thing. If you were a teacher that relied on the textbook, then were you good? And my teaching generation was "No, you’re bad. Stay away from the books. They are not a good resource. Don’t trust them." So even though we went beyond that we still had that residual from my early education years. We used the textbooks for definitions and for maps because it’s a resource so why not. But everything else that we did I followed the scope and sequence. We start off with North America and South America, elections, politics, colonialism. We’d sweep over to Europe. We talked about Brexit. I went from this "Everything is wonderful with the world and look at all the great things we’re learning in science" to "People still haven’t learned." And that’s kind of how you progress through the years. You go through Europe and you hit Russia and I’m sure you can imagine how it felt to be covering Russia at a time when it was first revealed that Russia would be possibly meddling in our politics and Obama put the very first sanctions on Russia and we’re like "Why does it matter? Why is it such a big deal? Why are people freaking out about this?" So you do the history of Russia and what is Russia and the USSR, Stalinism and all of these things. "Oh, look, the Middle East — we’re not doing anything there, are we." So we go into "Oh, look, we go down into Africa and there’s no famine or stuff going on in Africa." It was like political season along with having to really dig deep into what is going on with humanity across the globe. One of the things that became really essential with my students was that they started to say "What can we do about it?" They’re seeing the good and the bad and they’re like "What can we do to fix the bad?" And so I’m bringing in political activism ideas. I told them we have freedom of speech, but in Russia, not so much. What does that mean? Freedom of the press — what does that mean? What that means for you is the ability to go tell your representatives how you feel about something. So we took a 15-minute segue into who are our local representatives and let’s compare our government again to the government of Russia. So suddenly they were calling and snap-chatting their representatives, e-mailing their representatives and I thought "This is awesome." It didn’t happen in all my classes but it was spontaneous activism. I’m realizing they have an ability to reach out and touch someone who can make a difference in their lives. It’s beautiful, it really was. At one point I remember mentioning to several different classes "When you come of age, you can be the change politically that you want to see. You can start off by telling them what you think even though you can’t vote. And when you vote you can vote for somebody or support their campaign or not support their campaign or support their opponent or whatever it is you feel moved to do. And that’s how you create change locally." It

’s wonderful. We found that in Africa and in India the different political systems were less balanced than ours sometimes have been and sometimes our’s is stronger and in someways their’s are stronger and they’re just different ways that they treat their systems to have certain strengths and weaknesses as opposed to ours. And they’re like "Wow! We can totally tell people stuff and it’s really OK." At one point one of my students in one of my classes said "Why don’t you run?" And I said "Run for what?" And he said "for an office." It put the seed, right? It helped me plant all these seeds of inspiration. So a little seed was planted. A couple of other students in other classes asked "What does it take to run?" And I said "I don’t know. Let’s go look it up." And I realized at one point that I had inspired a lot of them to be more thoughtful in what they were doing. And I became more active over that same period in time. I started messaging my representatives, especially my senators. I started to attend the stuff at the capitol and listened to different interest groups and their perspectives and it really just started to become more real for me and for them. When I saw there was only one person running for mayor and something clicked and I was like "They asked why I don’t run" and one of my problems has always been my time. I love my kids. I love my students. But to lose them full time to mayor like they do in Austin that would be kind of tough.

KR: Are you saying if you knew there would eventually be four persons in the mayor’s race, your decision would be any different?

Romero-Piche: I don’t think so because there’s a couple of other things that happened. You’ve got the first little seeds, right? And I go, "Well, why couldn’t I do that?" So I looked it up — looked up what it would take. I learned some more and I really started to dig into the process a little bit more and I realized not only would I not have to give up my life — when you’re a state representative, let’s say you’re at the state capitol, you’re giving up months of your life. So I kept on learning more and I realized that’s not what I would be doing. I learned you could still work at a full-time job. I’m learning all this stuff and kinda of digging into it and my daughter said something that I’ll never forget. She’s 6 and she’s at this stage where she’s so precocious and she’s so inquisitive and she wants to be everything from an astronaut to a belly dancer and everything in between. She’s constantly like "I think I’ll run for president, but there’s never been a girl president, so maybe I won’t run for president." It was like a stab and a twist to the heart and I was like "You know, baby, when we get home, let me pull some women leaders for you." It finally occurred to me why should I have to look so far to find a woman leader. Yes, I’m a teacher and, yes, that’s all great and wonderful but is it really enough. This mayoral run made her switch gears. Now it’s "If I become president, does that mean I get to become your boss?" I was like "No, baby, that’s not quite how that works." But as I have continued through this process, people have come out and told me things that they want to see more in Kyle, the things they want to see less of, things I’ve become more aware of and its’ just kind of solidified my stand and my position.

KR: Give me an example of what they are saying they want more of and what they want less of?

Romero-Piche: There has always been some questions as to the ethics of some of our council members past and present. There’s delinquent on their taxes they have to pay back, fees that they missed, political advertising. There’s been questions whether city officials have tried to gain reduced taxes on property that they hoped to purchase. There’s something you’ve got to know about me —I’m a big rule follower. I believe that A you either follow the rules or B you change the rules if they don’t make sense, but then you stick to hem and make sure everyone follows them ethically. That’s just who I’ve really been. It troubled me see that this has been an on-going issue to the degree that some of the constituents are concerned about it. Even if it’s unfounded, the fact that they have these concerns at all means we have some communications things we have to work out.

KR: I wasn’t going to bring this up, but since you opened the topic for discussion, is it true you started a Go Fund Me page to raise money for your campaign and pledging the money you don’t use will go to Hurricane Harvey relief?

Romero-Piche: Yes.

KR: Did you know that’s illegal, unethical?

Romero-Piche: Is it really?

KR: Were you aware that this is an ethics violation?

Romero-Piche: No

KR: Then my question is: Why should the citizens of Kyle trust you to be the arbiter of ethics when you’re not even aware of your own ethics violations?

Romero-Piche: What I heard was that at the end of the campaign, whatever was left I could donate to a cause and that cause, as long as it was a non-profit that was recognized.

KR: Who told you that?

Romero-Piche: I heard it from a couple of different people.

KR: But you never checked it out for yourself?

Romero-Piche: I guess I’ll have to modify that.

KR: What two or three things would you like to accomplish during your three-year term?

Romero-Piche: Several different things. I definitely want to make sure that — I like what they’ve done to hire people to work with the communications department and it seems like they’re doing a really good job of finally getting some of the information out. But I really want to make sure — there’s been some concerns about miscommunications of numbers and concerns about when is it going to be this or when is it going to be that. It’s just the basic communication of data to the public seems to be confusing to the public. So one of the things I want to make sure of is the public gets the information in a way that’s for them, like however that ends up being, and that we work with our communications department to make sure that the people feel like they understand what’s going on and that they have a voice in what’s going on and that they feel that we’re contactable (sic), that we’re reachable, that we’re friendly and that we’re here for them.

KR: When you say "we," who exactly are you talking about?

Romero-Piche: I’m talking about the city — the city in general, but also the elected staff and everybody else.

KR: The main link between citizens and city government are their elected representatives. What can council members do to better facilitate those lines of communications?

Romero-Piche: It’s interesting that they are increasing those communications on-line. Even the candidate for seat 2, Tracy, put together a meet-and-greet over in Waterleaf Park. At that point of the meeting there the majority of the community actually showed up which was real, which was really good, but only two citizens did. So social media is not enough.

KR: Do you find it astounding that not a single council member hosts a budget town hall meeting?

Romero-Piche: I find that more than a little astounding. It’s astounding and it’s not. That solidifies the concerns of the people that have been telling me that they don’t feel like they’re being heard. They don’t feel like they know what’s going on and they’re confused.

KR: But don’t you agree the fault lies with the elected officials, not the city staff?

Romero-Piche: It’s definitely the elected officials. The question is how can I, as a city official, facilitate that conversation better and it’s about making myself available. I’m off all summer. I don’t see why I don’t spend every weekend in the summer hanging out with different people, talking to them, finding ways to help them communicate better with me and communicate better with city in facilitating those kinds of meetings. I work Mondays through Fridays and that means I have the weekends where I can devote to different events and working to make sure people are getting what they need from their city government. There was a really good idea about starting a citizens academy. Why aren’t we doing more of those? Can we have a citizens academy where we have people who are freshly retired and they help us to reach out to our demographics better. They have the time. They want to do things.

KR: The city sponsors a leadership academy, but I’m not sure how many people want to attend it.

Romero-Piche: So the question is why.

KR: Could the answer be that city council members aren’t out among their constituents making them aware of it?

Romero-Piche: That’s very unfortunate.

KR: Did the council pass anything in the last year you strongly objected to?

Romero-Piche: There’s an event that I didn’t care for. I heard "What if we could make the city pay for our dog park" and then voila it ends up on our beautification plan and voila it ends up in the budget. I don’t like the wording of what I saw on the social media sites because it implies that someone is able to make an elected official do their bidding when the elected officials are supposed to be present for all of their constituents not just one. And then on one of the other boards, what if I could make the city council pay for our sidewalks and then it appears and then it gets approved and then the city council says "Not only are we going to pay for it, we found a company that will do it for this much less and we’re just going to go ahead and pay for all the sidewalks."

KR: To be completely accurate here. the council actually voted to pay for specific sidewalk repairs.

Romero-Piche: Right, but is it owned by the city or is it owned by private individuals?

KR: It would probably depend on the individual’s deed? Also, do you define a sidewalk as a public right of way?

Romero-Piche: That’s the thing. They went into extensive this-doesn’t-mean detail. When they approved the sidewalk they said this does not mean that the city is taking responsibility for all of the sidewalks. This does not mean the city is accepting liability for all the sidewalks. It just means that in this particular instance we are going to pay all the costs to repair this particular one set of sidewalks. So it makes me wonder what was so special about this sidewalk that it’s going to be paid for. If it had been a public sidewalk that was owned already by the city, that the city had put in and agreed to maintain then it would be in the best interests of the city to repair them.

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?

Romero-Piche: One of the things we do see with out demographic is that even though the majority of jobs here are lower income, the majority of our families are middle income or solidly upper/middle income. So we’ve got this wide range of demographics that we have living here and then we’ve got this very low level of demographics that we are technically servicing within our local economy. We do have, of course, medical centers that are up and coming but that still doesn’t address the majority of jobs that people are doing. I heard numbers that about 80 percent of our people commute into Austin or commute to San Marcos. I’m sure, but that’s pretty close at present even with the developments. The question is what is it that they’re doing over there. And when you look at Austin and you look at what they build you understand that there’s a huge variety of jobs that they could be doing, everything from the tech industry, so many different office businesses call Austin home. The question is how do we bring them to where we’ve got lower costs of operating down here in Kyle, because Austin city taxes are very, very high. That means rents are very, very high. How good would it be to be on the outskirts of very, very high — close enough that your executives and your people can have access to the greater city but quiet enough and low enough that your taxes and your rent aren’t through the roof? So when we go look for what companies can we attract, we need to look toward the greater Austin and San Marcos areas and we need to see what do they attract and how can we draw those people to here. I have a friend who is a teacher and ultimately became a brewmaster over in Buda. When he decided to open that he was considering locations in Austin, in Buda, in Kyle and when he came down to it, he chose Buda. He chose the area because it was easier for him to build, cheaper for him to build, cheaper for him to operate and he liked the small town feel. We can use those same basic ideas down here. What we’ve got to figure out is what businesses would be open to coming to us that service those higher-end sectors.

KR: So do you favor offering tax incentives to lure these businesses to Kyle?

Romero-Piche: The incentives need to be to businesses that have a certain middle income or above. We need to offer those middle-income or above kinds of businesses opportunities to come here and those incentives need to be timed kind of things where you have to prove your model, you have provide so many jobs. It has to be something where the local people can actually apply for that job and get that job as opposed to things where they’re still coming in from San Marcos or coming in from Austin to fill that position. Theoretically, that could bring more people here from those areas as they find homes here also to be closer to work, but we also need to focus on the people who are already here and how can we keep them home. Because, let’s be real, if I spend an hour going into Austin and an hour coming home how much time can I really spend spending money here in Kyle.

KR: So specifically what would you do to try to ease the property tax burden on residential property owners?

Romero-Piche: It’s an unfortunate thing and I’m not particularly fond of that. I’m also not fond of the idea that we subsidize many of these subdivisions in ways that are not particularly conducive to those property developers paying their fair share.

KR: What are your thoughts about the Design Guide the city recently implemented?

Romero-Piche: Which one?

KR: The Design Guide passed about a month ago?

Romero-Piche: I really haven’t had a chance to look at it. Are we talking about the master plan?

KR: No, the Design Guide.

Romero-Piche: I haven’t seen that.

KR: Do you believe the city needs to become stronger culturally and, if so, how?

Romero-Piche: We’ve got a very different culture as we see Kyle right now. If you would look at small-town Kyle everyone used to know each other and it had a certain demographic and it was balanced in a particular way. At this point our demographics have changed very vastly. I used to work in Hays so I have a little bit of knowledge about the basic changes in demographics which are that we are getting more minorities that are being pressured out of the Austin area because of affordability. We are receiving more of those students that need extra supports. That’s the chronic question of whether they’re coming. They’re coming and Hays is going through a certain amount of growing pains as they’re trying to work to meet the needs of those students who need extra support, who need extra help. They need schools, of course, but they need extra interventions and things like that and so we are going through some growing pains in our school district as they grow to meet those needs. What we need to do is keep that bandwidth.

KR: It’s interesting that your interpreted my question the way you did, because I was referring to things like the lack of a community theater, museums, art galleries, etc., perhaps even a city Office of Cultural Affairs to see how activities like this could be supported. And on that subject, do you think the city departmentally needs to change structurally in any way?

Romero-Piche: Here’s the thing about municipal government in my particular perspective. When I was a substitute teacher I would get a name and a room and that’s where I would go for the day. At the beginning I didn’t know what I was walking into. The more I worked in the school, the better I would get to know the students, the better I would get to know the individual teachers and how they function within their jobs. So I could get that ticket and I would see, "Oh, it’s Mrs. So-and-so’s class" and I would know there were a couple of knuckleheads in there that maybe I need to work with a little bit because they were going to try to rebel. And so, on the way in the door, I would be like "Hey, are we going to have problems today?" and they’d be like "Nope" and I’d be like "Cool." We have some really talented people within the city government — very talented. And they know their jobs and they do their jobs well. I would hesitate to change much going in until I have spoken with them about what they feel like they’re doing and what they feel like they’re going to need. Here’s the reality. We are run by our city manager. There’s very little I can really change out the gate going in without any kind of support from him because he’s the one who ultimately manages the employees. But at the same time if it feels like there is something that I can do that would help him and help his staff to do their jobs better then that’s what I need to be working with.

KR: Give me your evaluation of City Manager Scott Sellers’s performance?

Romero-Piche: He seems to know his stuff, but there’s some places where I didn’t care for some of the answers that I got the other day. I went to the candidates forum and I asked a few questions and some of the things that I got were kind of half answers and it left me wanting. He told us how we were getting a clothing manufacturing facility into Kyle that will offer 250 jobs. One of the candidates asked how many of these jobs will be in the middle to higher income that we’re talking about and he said "very little." Well, how much is "very little’? One or two? Are we talking about the foreman and the manager and maybe a couple of secretaries? I mean, what are we talking about as far as the median job salaries for this company that we are offering these incentives to and what incentives are we offering? I just made me feel wanting like this is a bigger conversation and there isn’t enough time. When it was asked about some different things like after the recent floods was there any money that we got after those disasters and how much and just the basic procedural questions because I didn’t know. Everything that I’ve ever read was that Hays got this much money and this is how San Marcos is spending it and I’m like there’s money in the gap and where’s that going and who is getting that and for what. He said we missed some deadlines with FEMA. And I’m like what’s this "we"? Is it that we have a lack of procedure or do we have a lack of follow through. Why did we miss the deadline? And I didn’t get that answer right then and again it was a time issue and those are things I would like to discuss with him more. So there was that — that little gap of why did we miss out on federal funding and he went on to elaborate that there are other aspects that will affect whether we get FEMA federal funding including our median incomes and things like that which is fine but it was that other gap over there that bugs me. There were a couple of others where it was like "How are we attracting these higher-end jobs" and he said "We’ve got a lady off right now and she’s going to try to find ways to attract businesses here and we want those to be the middle and high-income," but he didn’t specify which sectors she was trying to aim for or anything like that. Those are the questions like if we’re already doing these things what sectors are we doing the in and how are we incentivizing them. I wish we had more time or something so I could dig into that a little bit deeper but it was a limited amount of time.

KR: Do you believe the city council needs to adapt a well-defined strategy for its downtown area and, if so, what should that strategy be?

Romero-Piche: The first thing that I did when I signed up and put my name on the dotted line and filled out my application is that I visited a couple of the downtown businesses. It felt to me like there was a standoffishness and what I was blatantly told by one fo the proprietors was that they felt like promises had been given by current administration — current city leaders — and those promises were not met. So there’s a certain expectation downtown already has about their city council. The question is to sit down and figure out what is their expectations and how can we meet some of those. One of the problems that we’ve had — and this is a repeat thing from different constituents — was that they didn’t feel like our downtown was attractive to day-long spending. If I go downtown, I should be able to spend the day walking downtown. And I should be able to go into little shops and get knick-knacks and brick-a-brats and go and eat lunch and continue my little shopping and finish out with some dinner and go home. There isn’t enough to do there for that.

KR: Yes, you’ve reiterated the situation, but my question is what actions do you propose to remedy that?

Romero-Piche: We need to look at our current businesses and see what is it that’s preventing people from going there and one of them is the traffic patterns and the way that they were re-established when they did a lot of that renovation downtown a few years ago. And that re-routed a few people around downtown so it’s not as convenient the way that parking is downtown — I’ve heard it’s not as convenient as they would want to be able to enjoy it more relaxably (sic). As I understand it, there’s already some plans that have been developed by different city engineers to possibly how we can redesign some of that traffic flow and pattern to be more conducive a greater traffic flow but also better parking situation as well as how can we rebuild where the barbershop and all those newer businesses in the newer buildings —.how can we expand some of that kind of new-old downtown thing through some of that area. What I really want to do is I really want to see those plans and sit down with the downtown leaders and I want to hear the pros and the cons of those plans that have already been laid out before them. This is the plan the city has already laid out. This is the plan they’re kinda moving forward on. Where are your concerns and what is it that’s not meeting your expectation? Because it doesn’t feel like the answers that I got were very clear from some of the businesses about what was meeting and not meeting. And it may just be miscommunication — they don’t know there’s already a plan and whether that plan will meet their needs and how quickly that plan will be implemented and how financially expensive these plans will be and how they have to be done in phases and how long those phases take. Because anytime you have construction you have a decline in business. That’s just the reality. So we have to kind of tick out all that information and really sit down with downtown. Some of them moved in there because they felt that city hall was going to take care of them in some way, shape or form whether it be the elected officials or whether it be the city government — the manager and his people — whoever it was that made them feel like that. I want to pull out the maps and see the plan and see the costs and see the time line and just really make sure that we’re really, really out there with the obviousness of the plan.

KR: You spoke about traffic in downtown. How important is it to expedite the flow of traffic by removing the railroad siding.

Romero-Piche: It’s unfortunately way too expensive. The costs would exceed the benefit in so many ways. There’s a second crossing if you go further south. Can we not take advantage of that better? Can we not allow people more ways to get around or get through the train because I’ve had it where it blocked Center Street and I was able to go around where the fire station is and get around it that way. The question is do other people know that exists?

KR: Even if they do, that only helps people in certain rare circumstances who are eastbound on Center Street. What about those who are westbound or are trying to access westbound Center Street from the interstate?

Romero-Piche: We just need to make what we have work better until we get to a point where we can financially afford an over or under solution.

KR: Last year, the council raised the height limitations on buildings located in areas zoned RS to 150 feet. Would you advocate for and/or support these same heights on buildings in the proposed new Mixed Use and Office/Institutional zoning categories?

Romero-Piche: The height requirements are to try to address the fact that we are a small town and people like that about us. They always have. Why have we had generations of people live and die in Kyle? Because they want the small town. And if it is going to become a city scape, then how are we any different from our neighbors? How are we different from Austin? How are we different from San Marcos? What makes us different if we allow for anything too tall to go in.

KR: What in your opinion is "too tall"?

Romero-Piche: They set it at 15 so that’s what they’ve decided at this point is too tall.

KR: No actually that’s why they decided was tall enough.

Romero-Piche: Is there someone seeking to try and go taller and for what reasons and rationale do they have to go taller? At this point we have the space, we have the place. Like what is it that makes them want to go taller than that and that’s when I would revisit it. At this point we don’t have the space restrictions to justify going up further than that. And if we do — if there’s a specific idea — then we can go before the board and look at it as a city and we can allow for open forums and conversations with out constituents so that they can tell us what they want at that point. Have we risen to the point where this is such a wonderful awesome project that we’re willing to make an exception and if the people say "no," then it’s no. So at this point I wouldn’t support 15 stories in the new zoning districts because I haven’t seen anything that says that we need it.

KR: How many mixed-use developments have you seen that are only three stories high?

Romero-Piche: None.

KR: Then do you still think the RS height limitations should apply to mixed use and office zoning?

Romero-Piche: That’s a good question. Any instance where we had a real developer that had a real plan and the people were like "yes, we want residences that tall," then we can definitely look at it.

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?

Romero-Piche: Auditing services require something that the city doesn’t currently possess.

KR: I know, that’s why I asked the question.

Romero-Piche: What we’ve seen with the water issue and some of the other issues that have come up a couple of times and I want to know what the cost is for us to send off one meter to Washington, D.C., and can we contract that out for cheaper and do it more regularly?

KR: I’m referring to the functions carried out by someone who, if a member of the city’s staff, would be referred to as the City Auditor and regularly conducts performance audits.

Romero-Piche: There would be no harm in contracting something like that out at least for a few years to see what kind of difference we would make. Now you can’t do anything for one year. Nothing that you do for one year will make a significant impact but you’re going to see over multiple years then that’s when your impact is going to happen because you’re going to start to see those larger changes out there able to make a bigger difference in their jobs. But to be able to do that over a multiple-year period with the understanding that this is what we’re doing, this is the contract that we’re servicing, this is the time period that we’re going to attempt this out and at the end of this period we’re going to re-visit it and then we’ll decide how we’re going to continue that would be something I would be very open to because it would be the idea that we’re not doing this necessarily forever. But as long as the people see the progress that they want to see and understand that this is going to be a three- or four-year process then let’s do it. Some of the chief complaints teachers have about all our standardized testing — which is supposed to be an audit, that’s what it’s supposed to be — is that they only let the process run for a little bit of time. They don’t ever give it enough time to really run its course. We didn’t even get our first kids from TAKS graduated out to see if it actually did an impact. They didn’t do that before they changed it to STAAR. Before that it was TAKS. They keep on changing the mechanisms before they give it a chance to work its full go and its full go is from kinder to 12. They have never done that for us as teachers. They change it up too fast. So the question is how long would our auditor need to operate before we could realistically expect to see real results and if we can align that contract to that and then we can get the kind of output that we would expect to see, then I don’t see why it doesn’t happen.

KR: What, if anything, did the city manager include in his current budget that you objected to?

Romero-Piche: I didn’t care for some of the deceptive wording of some of the things that happened. In city council we’ve got people who are like "it’s just a plan, it’s just the beautification plan and it’s not really an actionable thing," but it appeared in some way, shape or form on the budget. Certain items that were on the Beautification Plan already happened like the removal of the marquee from Center Street. How was it paid for? How much did it cost? Is it in storage? Are we paying for fees or is that in city storage? It was in the Beautification Plan, which in and off itself is inactionable yet items within it are. So there’s this concern among residents that I see that there are certain costs that haven’t been laid out and time lines that haven’t been laid out in a way that we understand like "This year for the dog park we’re going to buy this property and it should cost us about this much dollars and the following year we’re going to consider doing the fencing and da da da da da." Those things haven’t been laid out in a way that completely like — like people don’t get it. And even if I were to sit there and read the whole budget and read everything and tell them all that shouldn’t it be that somebody didn’t know by the city officials and by the city whoever it is that’s supposed to do the short version that we can understand the dog park? "Let’s do this. Let’s do this" and it’s all going to be able to be paid for out of the General Fund and we do have the money to pay for it without having to take out loans. It’s more like this concern that we’re borrowing money on some of these items.

KR: So you don’t think the budget makes it clear where this money is coming from?

Romero-Piche: If you read the budget it’s clear, but with the way they disseminated out the basic outline some people are concerned.

KR: How do you feel about budgeting for outcomes?

Romero-Piche: As I understand it, you put a certain amount of money in and then you expect a certain amount of money to come out that you’re planning on. It’s like a business. You’re not going to put money in a piece of equipment unless you can foresee making a profit off of it. You’re not going to put in your time into it unless you’re going to see something beneficial out of it. I do believe in planning for data trends. If we see data is trending toward a certain way then we need to make sure that we’re building to meet that. In schools we tend to see that everything’s very reactionary. We don’t plan for the future the way that we should always. So right now Hays and Lehman are over capacity and we’re breaking ground on the new high school, but when we first built Lehman it was under capacity. They built it planning for a certain amount of growth. But they didn’t anticipate the growth that we got.

KR: Interesting, but what has that go to do with budgeting for outcomes?

Romero-Piche: I don’t want to go blindly to the end, but I want to make sure that we’re not blindly investing in all of these resources without there being limitations along the way to make sure that what we’re reaching is there. We do tests on a regular basis. We call them formative to make sure that we are meeting little mini-goals as we go so that we are going to reach our end goal in the time and in the money in the thing that we need to meet.

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.

Romero-Piche: There were several changes. They were talking about the increase in personnel. They were talking about how we are moving a few things around so that with the new personnel there are things we started out with and I’m still comparing what it is they’re looking at actually changing. Like it’s a change, but I don’t know the why and so for some of it I don’t feel like I have enough information to give you a complete answer because I just don’t have all the information.

KR: How would you evaluate the performance of the person you’re seeking to replace?

Romero-Piche: He has done a lot of great things for the city. There’s a lot of people who have benefitted from some of his actions. But there’s a lot of places where there is discontent and people feel like he’s fallen short. I’m not going to be him. There’s no question. None of the four of us can be him. We won’t have made the same decisions in the same place all the time and we’re not going to be faced with the same decisions that he was faced with. It’s unfortunate that we have got to the point where the people feel so frustrated with their city government that there are people I have spoken to that are unwilling to even visit a city council meeting because they felt so disheartened by the process. I had a teacher friend who showed up, for example, and their child was receiving an award. They sat there and did the pledge and they sat down again and they went through certain things and she was so frustrated by the end of it that she didn’t even ever want to go back. And that was one person, one meeting. She was frustrated by the behavior of some of the people there, the arguing that was going on, the way that some on the city council were treating each other, the lack of professionalism was what she said. Unfortunately, I hear that echoed from enough people and even in the time I was there — I’ve visited state government, I’ve listened to different hearings and I went to different public commentaries on different bills including one that was as contentious as the bathroom bill. And I listened to hours and hours of stuff, questions between those senators, between the representatives, between the people and the going and the back and the forth. And you hear a little bit of things like between the senators and stuff every so often but it was never with the venom that we see with our city council.

KR: Can you give me a specific example because I’ve covered different governmental entities for 50 years now and the Kyle City Council is one of the most civilized I’ve ever witnessed.

Romero-Piche: Really? It’s just the way the people cut each other off a little bit and put their hands at each other and I saw that from one city council member to another. Mouthing words to each other. And I’m like "There’s a video camera on you. You realize this, of course." And it just seemed a little catty. And there’s just cutting each other off sometimes and things like that. It’s the rolling of the eyes and things like that and I guess at the state level there more used to each other. Or maybe it’s because I don’t sit on the floor level and I’ve never actually been there for the live debate. I’ve always been there when they’re hearing from citizens.

KR: If it came to a vote on the city council, would you vote to reinstate Jessie Espinoza to the Kyle Police Department?

Romero-Piche: I guess the question is "why". Why is he not in that position right now? Who is in that position right now? What kind of job did each of them do? Do the benefits outweigh the costs?

KR: Do you think city council elections should be held every year?

Romero-Piche: The problem we have is that it increases discontinuity. If you’ve got someone really good and wants to run every single year there are things that happen and you’re not able to move forward on an agenda. But at the same time you’ve got this fatigue almost from the voters so no one goes to lay out any particular vision, but at the time you’ve got these people who are like — you have to have a certain amount of overlap. You have to have some people come out and some people come in on a regular basis in order to create a thing where you’re not moving all your council members at once because that could take a long time to recover from. You’ve got new people to train up, new people to educate. It could take a long time for things to resume normalcy. You have to have a certain amount of staggering. But at the same time do they need to be every year. Does the staggering require every year. Right now we have a lot of seats up for grabs because of the way things have kind of gone down. So there’s a possibility that virtually all of the seats with a couple of exceptions are going to be changing over. What’s that going to do to council and that is always going to be a concern when you have a certain amount of every year a certain changing possibility of the guard. At the same time, if the guard isn’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing at least there’s a mechanism for changing a few things up. If it were like two years on and one year off maybe it would be better. And then it would be only filling seats that were up due to resignations. But that might provide a little bit more continuity while still allowing for a staggering.

KR: Do you think the city should do more with TIFs?

Romero-Piche: I’m afraid I don’t know what they are.

KR: In your opinion, does Kyle have a transportation problem and, if so, what steps would you take to correct it?

Romero-Piche: So we had transportation here in Kyle and it was servicing a number of our limited mobile people.

KR: We still have that.

Romero-Piche: Right. We do have something, but not the same degree we used to have. I’ve heard complaints from a couple of different residents that they weren’t getting the same kind of service that they got in the past and that things have changed a little bit.

KR: I think you’re referring to government-subsidized mass transportation and Kyle doesn’t have the mass for mass transportation. I’m talking about everything that encompasses transportation — road network, traffic congestion, walkability, etc.

Romero-Piche: We’ve talked about doing more city-sponsored sidewalks like for the city paying for certain things to happen along walkways and things like that. The biggest limitation to something like that is the money, of course, but also where do you start? They’ve started a couple of places but like from my house to here there is no way where I can go 100 percent of the time on a shoulder on a bike. Like they barely built the sidewalks from Hays to Plum Creek and that’s right there. The place where I would probably start is looking at those areas which have high congestion, especially around the schools because those are the places where we’ve got our most at risk. If I can’t get a kid from their neighborhood school to their neighborhood home safely, that’s the place where we need to invest the most at the beginning. Once we can get those kids to school and home safely — especially now that Hays is looking at eliminating bus routes. This is a problem — they are eliminating bus routes. That means either A, increased traffic for the parents to drop off and B increased foot traffic for those students. Are they going to be able to get in and out of schools safely — both the parents and the cars and the kids on the sidewalk? I think that’s my number one concern when I heard about all of this going down that we have areas of town that are not walkable for those kids already. How are we going to facilitate even more kids walking and more kids driving?

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?

Romero-Piche: Bonds are a necessary evil. People talk about you can’t put the cart before the horse, but when you know that you have the people coming and you know they’re coming regardless of whether you’re ready for them or not, you have to do a certain amount of planning which requires a certain amount of borrowing. The question becomes are we able to pay it back in a way that’s sustainable. So the bond proposals I would be personally more supportive of are the ones that address safety issues because we have a few concerns. While we are one of the safest cities, how do we keep that? We need to make sure that as the people come in we are also preparing for them to come in as far as our police force goes, as far as our traffic goes.

KR: So specifically, what are you recommending GO bonds be used to finance?

Romero-Piche: Specifically, with regards to the infrastructure to support them, the manager mentioned the other day we do have a water plan in place that will allow for the growth for the next 60 years including the possible potential population booms that we’re supposed to experience over the next several years. We’ve headed it off. We’ve got the water treatment plant. He said that if all the deadlines are met and everything is paid for in the way that it needs to and those things are met then we should be able to meet the needs of our citizens as far as our wastewater. We’ve got dozens of different plans here. We’ve laid out a dozen different plans that are all in various stages of completion. The question is which of those plans address the infrastructure for the people that we’re going to see and address the safety of our families s they travel those roadways like the sidewalks we were talking about, the schools. And which of those address the need to be able to provide the business opportunities here that we need to be able to have more of our population like stay here, spend here, work here — all of those kind of things. I would have no problem supporting bonds on some of those issues if they could address some of those very key needs. The need for more middle and higher-income jobs.

KR: But since GO bonds are restricted for use on capital projects with at least a 20-year life span, what specific capital projects would contribute to meeting those needs you just outlined?

Romero-Piche: Right, So we can’t exactly build a private building.

KR: So what can we build?

Romero-Piche: We have to look at why it is that people aren’t building their businesses here right now also. What is it that they’re coming here for? What is going to attract them here? What is it that they’re missing from our community to call it home.?

KR: So what’s the answers to your questions and how can bond projects help?

Romero-Piche: So some of it is transportation, some of it is housing and some of it is entertainment and other things for people to do other than chain restaurants. Some of it is also the downtown. Is it cute? If were to take a businessman or a businesswoman on a tour of Austin, they have map laid out how they would drive the person through that town to show off all the best parts of Austin. They should show off the downtown in this way at that time. They have it all coordinated out. What have we got to show them. What is it that we’re showing them right now? And what does that view look like? San Marcos has begun addressing that by looking at its I35 corridor and looking at the route of the most beautiful parts of San Marcos. And looking at what’s missing to connect those routes. And those things, once they’re finished, are going to be able to attract more of those middle and higher-income jobs. Yes, they’ve got the Amazon warehouse which is great, but is that the only place they want job growth? No. So they’re having to address some of those issues, but, no, I can’t take any one or two loops through the city and show off all the best parts of the city. We don’t have that. We need to identify that route. We need to see the routes that are going to show off the best parts. We have a wonderful little video on line. Love it. It shows it from the air — "Look how pretty Kyle is" — but can’t we get that on the ground? Where are we going to drive the people that they’re going to be like "Wow!"? This is where we need to be.

KR: The de-rigeur last question: Anything else you would like to add?

Romero-Piche: I’ve totally been honest about how this has only been a year-long project for me. This past year really delving into government and businesses and things like that. But I’m a professional educator. My job is to learn. My job is "If you don’t know it, you better go and figure it out real fast." You look at the things you don’t know and you make sure that you not only know it forwards and backwards but you can teach it to someone in such a way that even if they are the lowest of a learner, they get it. And when they come into your classroom and they don’t get it, then you haven’t done your job right and you need to revisit that topic and revisit that idea and make sure that everybody is on the same page when it comes to testing. While getting 100 percent of kids to pass every test every time is not necessarily going to happen, what books says we can’t do better than what we’re doing right now? I recognize I don’t know all the answers to everything. I walked into a classroom last year and had never taught U.S. history except as a summer school topic and before then I had never taught it. And I had taught world geography — another topic I had never taught to that level and I did fine doing both because that’s what I do — I’m a professional learner, This year I’m teaching eighth grade college and careers, which I’ve never taught before and it got handed to me two or three weeks in. Like literally two or three weeks in they dissolved one of my classes ad gave me a new prep. At the beginning of the year I was giving my ninth graders and my 10^th graders two new standards that I had never taught before. But I already knew the basics enough so that when I got in there and got to playing with Google Classroom and got the kids going on it I was able to pick up any deficiencies I was lacking and I’m teaching them as we go how to do and how to use those programs, even tough I had never used some of those programs before this year. That’s what I do. I find systems and I learn systems and I teach them to others in a way that they can understand. And if I don’t get it, I dig down deep until I do. And I don’t let go until I’ve got it to a point where everyone around me can understand it too, That’s what I do. I don’t know everything, but you better believe that when I walk in there I’m going to know as much as needs to be known and then some. That’s my task. You don’t have to know me completely to know that when I set my mind to that task, there’s not much that’s going to stop me. And I’m going to ask questions of people that they might not find comfortable but that are necessary because that’s what I do in my classrooms. I ask questions of kids that make them uncomfortable, because if I ask them the comfortable questions all the time they would never grow. And I’m not going to have all the answers because let’s be real I am not an engineer. I’m not the water expert. I’m not the police chief. That is not my field of expertise. But by working with them and asking questions, not only will I gain a better understanding of what it is that’s going on, but hopefully we can find ways together — between me and the city manager and the systems — that we can all get better and improve. I can’t run the city — that’s the city manager’s job. But can I help the city manager to find new ways to ask old questions and find better answers?