HUTTO – Proving that people can have different views and still sit together at a table, all seven candidates for Hutto City Council answered audience questions during the 2023 Hutto Community Watch candidate forum March 25. Although candidates agreed in principal on many questions, following are a few areas where they differed.
Place 1 candidates disagreed on the usage of executive sessions in council meetings.
Robin Sutton (incumbent): I believed everything should be up front until I actually sat in executive sessions. I believe there are things we discuss in executive session that could be a liability for the city of Hutto. First and foremost, my responsibility is to protect everybody in Hutto and be able to maintain a civility and respect of each other. Some of those conversations can get heated. We’re getting attorney input and anything that could put the city at risk in a liable way should be discussed in executive session.
Brian Thompson:
I believe the only thing discussed in executive session should be what’s going to be on the agenda for next meeting. I think everything should be done out in the public. If we talk about maintaining public trust and transparency, that should prevail over any individual interests of professionals or developers. Whatever discussions are made back in a small room should be nothing that reflect a decision that the citizens cannot weigh-in on.
Candidates for Place 4 differed on how to increase participation on boards and commissions.
Peter Gordon (incumbent): What I really think is going to make the biggest difference is the new Hutto Citizens’ University that we’ve started up again. It’s something that I pushed for behind the scenes. I think when people see the process we’re going to be able to get a lot of people signing up for boards and commissions through that. I think we also have to be out in the community. That’s one of my pillars, is leadership through service so I try to serve on as many boards and committees as I can so I have that personal touch point with them.
Nicole Calderone:
Being the type of leader that people would want to follow. I think what we’ve seen in Hutto over the last few years is a lack of accountability that has made people feel exhausted. We need to recruit youth to future boards. I would like to get rid of council as liaison to our boards and commissions and let board members shine. By council stepping in, it brings a type of authority that doesn’t need to be involved. Council staying in their own lane and giving boards room to grow would increase participation.
Candidates for Place 5 had various ideas on how to support police officer pay raises.
Marcus Coleman:
I believe we need to start with a targeted pay increase approach and award seniority instead of just giving a flat increase across the board, because the demographic is shifting to new officers. We need to make sure that they are fit to be in our community. We have a lot of young persons who want to be officers, but mentally they’re still a child, so we need to make sure that with that mentally they’re capable instead of just saying, “come to Hutto we’re paying this amount” … make sure we truly know who’s patrolling our streets.
James Weaver: Get involved with the police department itself. Talk to the officers. Interfacing with the police chief will give us a good idea for a plan of action. If you look at the accolades that have been given to the police department for the salary they’re getting it’s phenomenal. I think they’re doing an excellent job and when you do an excellent job you try to help it along with a salary boost. I would say they need a pay raise but I haven’t been read in on the program so I would need more information.
Dana Wilcott: The median income of Hutto is $86,000. I would want to make sure that our officers can afford to live. If they’re protecting us, they need to be able to afford to live here. We need to do a cost analysis, we need to do a comparison of what other communities of our size are paying our police officers, and even Pflugerville and Round Rock, even though they’re larger cities because who’s going to protect us if we lose our officers to them?
