Yvonne Flores-Cale and Ashlee Bradshaw registered decisive victories today in their campaigns for Districts 2 and 4, respectively, on the Kyle City Council; and incumbent Mayor Travis Mitchell was out polled and forced into a runoff with Linda Tenorio.
Both bond propositions and all of the proposed charter changes were approved with significant majorities.
Flores-Cale scored an impressive upset of incumbent Tracy Scheel, capturing 60.98 percent of the vote. Bradshaw collected 60.94 percent of the vote against Tim McHutchion, who was trying for the second time for the District 4 seat.
“I think both Tim and I had a great race,” Ms. Bradshaw said. “We both had a great campaign. It just came down to community outreach, just putting the word out there, getting my materials out there and doing everything I could do to campaign during these COVID times.”
She said the pandemic “really inhibited me from being able to speak to the community face-to-face in a way I had hoped to. But I think I was still effective in getting my message out.”
She said that her first order of business on the council will be “to get started on my main objectives which are focusing on the local economy and doing what we can to increase the community amenities. It looks like Prop B is doing very well so that’s a great place to start.”
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In a statement posted today on Facebook, McHutchion said: “I humbly acknowledge Ashley Bradshaw as a new council person. I look forward to continue to serve you as a Planning And Zoning commissioner. This is a great first step in democracy for our city. I look forward to serving you in my capacity I will always have nothing but love for this city and all of us that have chosen to call it home. Let’s move forward to a brighter future.”
Flores-Cale attributed her victory to “my loyal supporters, for sure. I owe a hundred percent of it to my supporters.”
She said she plans to spend her first months on the council studying exactly how the city works.
“I want to observe as much information as possible,” she said. “I’m not going to go in there guns blazing until I can completely understand how the system works. That’s going to be a challenge for me because I am a very passionate person and I really, truly care about the people of Kyle, especially on the east side. So, for the first three to four months I’m going to observe and learn.”
Scheel said she hasn’t yet thought about what her next steps might be but she plans to “be always available to the city for anything it needs or wants.”
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Ms. Tenorio collected 37.82 percent of the vote in her challenge to unseat Mayor Mitchell, who finished just 36 votes behind her, or 37.59 percent, at the latest tally. Dave Abdel finished third with 15.64 percent and Peter Parcher was fourth with 8.95 percent of the votes cast.
“I think he did a very good race,” Ms. Tenorio said tonight of Mitchell. “I think we both campaigned very hard.
She said she plans on approaching the Dec. 1 runoff exactly the same way she planned this race. “I will just be working on getting people out to vote,” she said. “Even without a pandemic it’s hard to get people out to vote, but they did come through.”
Mitchell said “While the results were not what we were hoping for, the outcome was not unexpected. This was a race with four candidates who each put in an effort campaigning in a presidential election year when thousands of ballots are cast. A runoff campaign is a completely different animal than running in a general election during the presidential year.”
Mitchell acknowledged far fewer voters would come to the polls to vote in the runoff than voted today.
“Extreme election fatigue is going to be the number one nemesis both for Ms. Tenorio and myself. Not only are the candidates exhausted, but the voters are exhausted and the last thing they want to think about is coming back to the polls two weeks from now to cast another ballot. But the possibility of a runoff is something I’ve been planning for since the day filing closed and I knew I had three candidates in a presidential year. I’ve been preparing for a runoff since the beginning and am ready to kick it into another gear, which is what it is going to take.”
Mitchell complimented Tenorio’s campaign.
“Linda campaigned to win,” Mitchell said. “I am proud of the effort she and her team put in to run the race the way that they did. They did a good job. Linda ran a very clean race. She had a great ground game.”
Mitchell was especially excited about the passage of Proposition B, which will pay for park infrastructure. Mitchell said the passage of that bond proposal along with the overwhelming approval of Hays County’s proposition to fund parks throughout the county could mean a significant financial windfall for Kyle. He said the money Kyle should receive to upgrade the city’s trail system will be more than Kyle has spent on all of its parks combined throughout the city’s history.
‘We’ve never invested heavily in park infrastructure,” he said. “I am so thankful that the voters gave the city the opportunity to build some really great parks and the council will now have the mandate to build some really great parks for our city. I can’t wait. It’s mind-blowing. I’m extremely excited because this is exactly what Kyle needs. We need a better parks system in our city — better trails that serve quality-of-life initiatives — and we got ‘em!”
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