Reasonable, thoughtful development is needed in the City of Garden Ridge to bring retail and services to our citizens and to diversify our tax base. Our citizens have expressed an interest in businesses opportunities like restaurants, boutiques, medical services, wine bars and places to gather with family and friends. Council Member Kelly Smith and I brought a contract forward to hire Retail Coach to recruit developers and businesses to Garden Ridge. The contract was approved and the work has finally begun. I want our development to reflect the character of our city- casual higher end family friendly stores and services. 

Adopting a strong stance with our nearby quarries and concrete batch plants is not adversarial, it is smart. I’ve worked on every aspect of protecting Garden Ridge from the impacts of heavy industry on our City. From meeting with executives at TCEQ and bringing legislators down Quarry Row, to testifying at the Capitol and proposing legislative solutions, I’ve represented the interests of the citizens of Garden Ridge. Dust mitigation efforts are insufficient and our roads are suffering from almost 10,000 trucks a week driving thru our city. I continue to meet with the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization and TXDOT to find solutions to the mess that is FM 2252. I’m working with a quarry consultant to form an Advisory Council with our local aggregate operators and develop Best Management Practices that the city can use in negotiations. 

A year ago I brought the topic of reserves to City Council. Reserves are financial resources held back from the budget and held in “reserve” for some other purpose. Typically reserves are used to respond to significant, unplanned, unavoidable costs or revenue losses from events like natural disasters or recession. Last year we held fourteen months of operating revenue in reserve- we have cut that to ten months. The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) recommends a minimum of two months of reserves. In my opinion, the city needs to develop a reserve policy much closer to the GFOA recommendations.Ten months of reserves is around $3,000,000. Every citizen is negatively impacted by budgeting excess reserves. It is taxpayer money that could be used to reduce taxes, fund capital projects, and to potentially offer discounted utilities to our many seniors.

We need to plan aggressively for the future. We currently don’t have a Strategic Plan or a Capital Improvement Plan  to guide our city.  We need to perform a simple SWOT analysis to plan for growth and change. How are we preparing for the  probability of more truck traffic on FM 3009? If the Vulcan Quarry is ever approved, it will push hundreds of trucks thru our city as will the proposed development of 400 house on Schoenthal Road. How are we preparing for growth? We need to be planning 5, 10, 20 years into the future to secure the quality of life in Garden Ridge. I’m already actively working with our Legislators to address our future transportation and Aggregate Production Operation challenges.