Born and raised in Taylor. My parents’ second child. My sister graduated in 1979, I graduated in 1985. We moved back to Memphis, Tennessee, where my dad was from. He went back to dental school. And then when he graduated in school we moved back to Taylor.
For all intents purposes, I’ve been here ever since.
I was in the Navy, lived in California for a while. I lived in Houston. Lived in Austin and move back to Taylor 20, almost 30 years ago.
How old are you? And what do you do?
I’m 55 years old. I’m a superintendent for a commercial drywall company in Austin.
What is your previous experience to elected or appointed office?
I was appointed to St. Mary’s Advisory Council.
I’ve worked with the library board here in Taylor.
What are your what are some of your community activities?
I was active in the Rodeo Association for number of years. I coached football both with Pop Warner, and later was St. Mary’s with my youngest, son. I coached all three of my kids in sports.
Why are you running?
Let’s back it up. When Gerald ran the first time I backed him. I supported him. I voted for him. I encouraged other people to vote for him. But what I saw that first meeting was not right. It was self-centered, and it shouldn’t have happen.
What I’m saying is, we paid engineers to come in and get every city street ranked with different criteria - population, density,usage, state of the base, state of the toppings. Everything went to formula. I don’t even know what all was in the formula, but they ranked every single street in Taylor, and Wabash was third, his was 12th. I believe Rio. Grande was eighth.
All three of those are in district one and everybody agreed that Wabash need to be done first.
He took his road and put it to the top. It just stuck in my craw. It was not the right thing to do.
Later on, just some things he did and said, I just thought it was time for a change.
How do you plan to involve citizens in the decisionmaking process in our community?
They are more than welcome to always talk to me. I’m here in Taylor. I don’t work in Taylor very much, but we’re always here.
I’m always out.
City phone, city email. If you can’t get a hold of me, then get with me, find me, find somebody. I’ll give you my phone number, my personal cell.
Growth is coming. How would you handle the preparation for the grow?
One thing is the comprehensive plan. I think it needs to be adjusted. I think it needs to be refocused.
There’s going to be a lot of growth to the south. I think we need to shift that focus from the north, which is where it was in the original master plan or the comprehensive plan, and shift it to the south.
Right now, everything is concentrated growing north. We need to concentrate on south because Manor, Hutto, Pflugerville, are all coming this way and they’ll be more than happy to swallow all that tax money that’s going to be out there by Samsung.
Samsung is going to bring a lot of auxiliary businesses with them, and we need to be ready to serve those businesses and capitalize on them.
What do you think is the biggest single issue facing Taylor right now?
Taxes. Without a doubt, taxes. Everybody’s got their appraisal, and everybody is up in arms. We have to get the tax rates down, pure and simple. No other options. We have to get the tax rates down.
What is Taylor’s biggest asset?
People. ‘m biased. I admit I’m biased. I love Taylor.
I had the opportunity to stay out of town and I wanted to move back here. Raise my kids and I had zero regrets about that.
The people, the friendliness, the attitude. I mean, it’s once a Duck, always a Duck. Everybody is one. One common theme runs through town.
My signs are green and white because I’m a Taylor duck or always will.
(University of Houston), I follow him when they make the playoffs are following with, they go to the bowl, but I try to go to every home game and as many out of town games I can.
I’m a duck plain and simple.
Are there any concerns in your District that you feel have not been address?
I don’t know if it solely pertains to district one, but small businesses. They’re hurting right now. They have not been getting any relief, any help, any assistance from the city there needs to be something. I don’t know what we can do.
If we if we cut their tax rates along with everybody else’s at that’s a big step in the right direction. If we can.
There’s got to be other way, maybe abatement. I don’t know, but there’s, there’s got to be something we can do to help the small businesses. Not just in district one, but I know we just lost Squirts. It closed down.
We’ve got a bunch of small businesses that are hurting.
With the growth that’s coming. What is the biggest concern you would have for not just District 1, but for Taylor in general.
The public services. We we’re undermanned. Firefighters are undermanned right now. I believe they’re supposed to have 12 appreciate their running. They’re running at seven or eight. The stations we have are undermanned, and we probably need at least one more station as the city expands outward, it’s going to get worse.
Same thing with police. Crime statistics went down. But that doesn’t mean we can taper off on our police budget. You look at cities like Austin, like Chicago, where their crime statistics went down. So they cut back their budget and their police budgets.
Next thing you know, they’re crime rates are skyrocketing. Murder rates off the charts.
Taylor, definitely needs to stay ahead of that. Chief Fluck is doing wonderful job. We need to keep him happy as much as we can.
Why should voters elect you?
I’m going to pay attention. I’m not going to go along with the other council members just because that’s what’s the there going.
I’m an independent thinker. I’m going to try to be a voice of reason. I’m not going to get caught up in the petty squabbles that a lot of times we do.
If we can work together, I think we can do wonderful things in this town.
