A conversation with mayoral candidate Jaime Sanchez

Editor’s note: The following is a conversation I had Oct. 7 with mayoral candidate Jaime Sanchez.

Kyle Report (KR): Why are you running?

Sanchez: I want to improve my city.

KR: In what ways?

Sanchez: My agenda is as follows — three things. If I can try to save taxpayers taxes, I would love to bring the tax rate down, in whatever form or fashion I can do it — with water, wastewater — whatever way we can do it. People come to the city because they think it’s small town and they think it’s cheap. But we’re more expensive. We’re competing with Austin. In some instances, we have higher rates than Austin so somehow we need to bring all these rates down. Not that we can do it, but we can try and we can look at the different avenues to do that. Second thing and this is my pet peeve, my biggest one, and that’s infrastructure. What that means is two-dimensional. What that means is not only roads but it means water and wastewater. The only way you build a city is if you have the roads. That’s why Austin didn’t grow as much until now because now they’re expanding all the road systems. Look at Houston. Houston is huge because they have a nice infrastructure system. So roads, water and wastewater. That is my pet peeve.

KR: How do you feel about the way the city has prepared for its future water supply and its wastewater needs?

Sanchez: I think they’re doing good. On water, we came to this agreement with all these different cities. I think it’s a great policy, but now we’ve got to pay for it. Which means we got to raise sales tax for everybody else because now we have to pay for it.

KR: You don’t think it should be paid for through water rates?

Sanchez: You can’t cover $32 million — and that was the beginning price. $32 million was the beginning, original price, but it’s gone way up. You’re not going to cover it with utilities. No way. And so the price is going to keep going up and now we have to start paying for it because they’re doing land acquisition. I think they’re trying to finalize all the land agreements for the wells. And now the group that oversees this wants to get paid. So that increases the cost. So it’s gone from $32 million to something substantially higher.

KR: Is there an alternative to paying it?

Sanchez: You pay it, but you have to manage it, though. The agreement was $32 million. Same thing with the roads and the road bonds. $36 million for roads and it wasn’t managed correctly because now it’s gone way beyond $36 million on the projects. I need to look into it — I don’t know the specifics — I’m not involved, but that’s kind of my cup of tea — those are the kind of things that I do so I think I would be a positive influence on that.

KR: Continuing on the subject of roads, in your opinion, does Kyle have a transportation/mobility problem and, if so, what steps would you take to correct it?

Sanchez: Yes, we do. The first thing, Kyle needs to have an adequate staff to manage any of the roads. The original contract for all the roads was $36 million. That has gone up exponentially. If you don’t know how to manage it, if you don’t know how to argue it and if you don’t know your engineering, then basically all you do is sign off on change orders that increase the price of the project. I used to work for the City of San Marcos. That’s what they were doing. First year I was in the City of San Marcos, I saved them $1 million, easy. Then they put me in charge of all the change orders. So that’s something I could help with. When I get in front of my desk, after I get elected, I would look at it. It’s not my job to be a city employee but I would help in that arena.

KR: According to the published results of the last citizen’s survey conducted by the city, the number one concern among citizens was the streets. Do you think the city should reflect this concern by creating a separate Streets Department, independent of Public Works, with a director who reports directly to the city manager?

Sanchez: I totally agree. I think that should be two different beasts. Public Works is one thing — they should be water and wastewater. Unless we have a director that can manage both. If you don’t — and I don’t think we do — than you get somebody else who can and you separate them out. Separate the equipment. Separate the operational processes. That’s what you gotta do.

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

Sanchez: I can’t answer that one because I haven’t been to the council meetings. Sorry, I’ve been busy.

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?

Sanchez: I totally agree. That’s why everybody goes to Austin. That’s why everybody goes to different cities. I’m in Port Lavaca. I’m in Corpus. That’s where all my guys are. I’m in Houston with my guys because that’s where the money’s at. I think one way to do it is where the hospital is that whole open area just to the north. What I would do is rezone that whole property and make it all medical. So when you bring medical, that’s high-paying jobs.

KR: Do you think the addition of an Office/Institutional zoning category here in Kyle will attract higher-paying employment opportunities?

Sanchez: I think the ultimate goal is to keep people here for two reasons. One, they don’t travel to Austin so traffic is reduced. More importantly, you keep them here and the tax base stays here. That’s the most important thing.

KR: Are you familiar with the Design Guide the council recently implemented?

Sanchez: No. I’m not familiar with it because I haven’t been to council meetings.

KR: What rules or procedures, if any, does the council have in place that you would like to change?

Sanchez: That’s a loaded question. They should enforce Roberts Rules. I find it very difficult — and this is another reason I’m running — because when I was on council we made very good policies. And now they’ve changed them around. For example: They have drained the Emergency Fund. They took away the finance commitments — the financial limits, they took that away. They’re re-doing everything. I think that is totally wrong and they should enforce Roberts Rules. What that means is, you should act professionally on the dais and let everybody speak their mind.

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?

Sanchez: Yes. That’s like my fourth goal. We should develop downtown — the whole area — to make something similar to Kerrville, Fredericksburg, where people are attracted to come to the city and drive through that downtown. I would make (Center Street) into a four-lane highway — eliminate that parking and move it somewhere else. Find a way. There’s a way. From an engineering point, it’s easy. Now you increase the value. Now you got more sales tax in and you can develop all this entire area.

KR: What do you think of the idea of creating a Downtown TIF District?

Sanchez: I’m not familiar with that word "TIF."

KR: What are your feelings about removing the height restrictions on multi-family to allow for high rise apartment/condominium developments in Kyle or, at least, multi-family units taller than three stories?

Sanchez: I don’t have a concern. To me, if it’s two stories or three stories or four stories — as long as it is along the 35 corridor. As long as it brings in sales taxes. I don’t see how height influences anything.

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?

Sanchez: No. We are spending too much money on outside services. It would be financially better for the city to hire someone on staff. The city of San Marcos has two attorneys on staff who don’t get paid nearly as what we’re paying for legal services. The city needs to hire a full time auditor as well. What that does is if you pay that person $60,000 to $100,000 whatever then you save the city because if you find out that one of the departments are inefficient or you have too many people, whatever. When you go through the budget, everybody always asks for more people and that’s where it costs you. So if the auditor says, "Well, you know what, we can save three guys" that more than pays for his salary. I think that’s actually a very good idea.

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

Sanchez: Nothing.

KR: How do you feel about budgeting for outcomes?

Sanchez: I’m not familiar with that.

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

Sanchez: That’s a hard one for me because I haven’t been to council, but what I hear from people and individuals is complaints and I’ll leave it at that.

KR: Along those same lines how would you evaluate the performance of the person you hope to replace?

Sanchez: Two ways. One, I heard complaints there too — I hear pretty much everything. I would change the policy on the dais to begin with to make sure every council has a word and a say because the people elected those citizens. That’s one of the complaints I get often. I think Todd (Mayor Todd Webster) has done a great job. I have no complaints. My approach is different. I would like to rezone 35. Have a section for hotels, have a section for this, which they have not done. I totally disagree with them changing all our policies we worked really hard to do. I think they were really good policies.

KR: Are you referring to the changes made in the Comprehensive Plan?

Sanchez: Yes. I would change it where you have individual things along 35. That way you dictate what happens on 35. If you want stores, that’s fine, but the council dictates that. It’s not me. I would just kind of zone it differently and say "We want so many hotels," I would do a medical zoning — huge — so we could bring in a lot of hospitals. When you bting in hospitals, you bring in patients and when you bring in patients you have to stay somewhere, you have to buy food somewhere.

KR: Are you saying the city should impose those specifics or simply allow for them?

Sanchez: That would be up to the zoning. But you’ve got to define your corridor based on what you want to see for your city. So if you want a medical site on this side and gas stations on the other side — however you want to do it — then you define the whole corridor, like this is how I want my city to look like instead of just saying it’s RS and they can put whatever they want.

KR: Does Kyle have an issue with parking that needs to be addressed and, if so, how would you address it?

Sanchez: H-E-B, Walmart, that area doesn’t have a parking problem. The only problems are downtown. So what I would do — and (former city manager) Tom Mattis, as much as I disagreed with him, actually had a very good solution. He wanted to build a two-story or a three-story parking garage real close to downtown because that’s where the problem is. Me, along First Street, I would develop all that area for parking. There’s plenty of places to do parking. From an engineering point, I don’t think there’s a problem with that.

KR: I’ve often heard the expression among city planners that "If pizza were free, there would never be enough pizza." If you endorse that theory, wouldn’t that call for installing parking meters?

Sanchez: The closer you get to downtown — eventually you could apply it everywhere — you do put in parking meters. And the further you get away … But you could go to South First and develop all that area along the railroad and then anything around the court house, you could put meters. That’s revenue.

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

Sanchez: I would take the same opinion as the chief of police and do whatever he says.

KR: What changes would you propose to the city’s sign ordinance.

Sanchez: None. I think along the corridor we need to go bigger and higher. I would go for that as long as it brings in revenue.

KR: Does Kyle need to address the issue of residential density?

Sanchez: Yes.

KR: In what ways

Sanchez: There’s a ratio of housing to business. There’s a ratio. And there are limits and what that means is, depending on your limits, you want so much business and you want so much housing. Right now it seems we’re trying to attract every housing that we can. That changes your ratio. If have a city with 100 percent housing and no business, guess what happens?

KR: You become financially unsustainable, but that wasn’t what I was referring to when I was speaking of density. I was talking about residences per acre.

Sanchez: But at some point you have to say we don’t need as much housing. There have been moratoriums in every city. Let’s say you’ve got 100 percent business. So there’s a balance and I would restrict it when necessary. I hope to be looking at this as one of the studies I’m going to be doing to do this thing so we can balance and maximize our profits for the city.

KR: Can’t the same thing be accomplished by attracting more business into Kyle?

Sanchez: It’s the same principle. It’s a ratio between housing and business.

KR: So which is the best approach: Working hard to attract business or restricting residential development?

Sanchez: It’s a combination of both. It’s a ratio between both. You have to look at both of them. Like I said, if you had 100 percent housing, you loose. If you have 100 percent business, you lose. It’s a combination of both. And if we need to restrict, then we need to restrict. If moratoriums on development are required … Now I don’t think moratoriums on business are required, but for residential, I think they are at some point. When you just grow too much where you can’t sustain it, because what’s going to happen? They’re gonna go to Austin, they’re gonna go to San Marcos, they’re gonna go to Buda and they’re gonna take our sales tax collections. You have to balance that equation to where everybody here has enough services and business, restaurants, whatever, so forth and so on, so they can stay here instead of going somewhere else.

KR: Does the city need to improve its park network and, if so, how?

Sanchez: I’ll give you one example. I like the lake. I really like what they’re doing over there with the YMCA. I think that was a great idea. Here (at Gregg-Clarke Park) what I would do is, I would increase the parking in that area and there are multiple ways to do it. You can increase it by 200 parking easy because I’ve already looked at it from an engineering point of view. And then, at that point, you could have your ranch over here again. You can have more events for the city the way we used to. Now we do the fireworks in Plum Creek. Bring ‘em here. That one needs more parking. They’re clean, accessible. The lake is good and the new YMCA is a very good idea.

KR: As mayor, what would you propose to increase citizen participation in municipal government?

Sanchez: One, I would hold special events in downtown and provide some beverages — drinks — and invite people to engage with the council and the mayor. Then we could bring people in and hear whatever their concerns are. And I know people have concerns because I hear it all the time. Second thing, I would have events at the park, if we could increase the parking. Where you could invite people over. Let’s have a barbecue and let’s invite people over. And let’s talk to the council, if they want to participate. I think that’s something people would be attracted to. There would also be the city manager and city employees.

KR: Do you like the idea of the city council having elections every year?

Sanchez: No. I like the three-year term.

KR: But they are staggered in a way that elections are held every year. Do you think that increases voter fatigue and decreases voter participation.

Sanchez: Yes, but this is a Catch-22. If you have them all in one year then you have everybody running against each other which is ok, it’s not a problem. But like when I run I get the mayor against me, I get every council member against me. So when you have it all together, that means when they dislike a council member then they get clobbered. I’m not saying that doesn’t happen when you do it separately. I would say having it every year does create fatigue for citizens because I talk to them all the time. And when you have to knock on that door every year for votes, yes. So we need to look at some way to change that I would say.

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?

Sanchez: All roads. If I’m mayor, I hope to build a bridge over 35 into the original town of Kyle because there’s a way to do it. I have been thinking about it for a long, long time. Going down the Center Street, which is the main street, when you get that train right there, that’s one of my big goals. We would have to drop some money. And if we develop downtown, it would be even better. That would pay for it.

KR: What kind of tax incentives do you support in order to attract new businesses to Kyle?

Sanchez: None.

KR: Anything else you want to add?

Sanchez: I am for growth. I’m good for growth. A lot of people criticize me saying I’m not for growth, but I am for growth. But it’s a matter of controlled growth between business and housing. I’m not for tax incentives because this city is growing so quick they’re going to comer to us anyway. I am not for PIDs, PUDs, MUDs — I’m not for any of that, because I don’t think we need them. I think people and developers will come here. If you restrict the housing and put a moratorium, they’re going to be knocking on your doors to get in here for free. That’s one way to kill it so I’m not for that either. I’m also for developing our infrastructure, which is my cup of tea — roads, bridges, water and our wastewater system. And we have to try to reduce our taxes for our citizens.