By AMANDA KIMBLE
TheFlashToday.com
ERATH COUNTY (January 18, 2017) – Candidate filing for the May 6 election got underway Wednesday with two incumbents wasting no time in announcing their bids for another term.
Stephenville City Council members Doug Svien, Place 3, and Mark McClinton, Place 1, were early bird filers, submitting their applications for a place on the May ballot shortly after City Hall opened to applicants.
Svien
First elected to the Stephenville City Council in 2011, Svien noted a number of significant improvements in the last few years and the desire to see greater strides through his next term.
A fiscal conservative who says is among residents who don’t want to pay higher taxes, Svien credited the current council with using existing revenue and seeking outside funding opportunities for recent and ongoing improvements across the city.
Svien said the council has experienced a number of “trend changes” over the last five or six years. He said when he was first elected discussions about employee wages always ended with the idea that taxes would have to be raised before salaries could be increased. But, a more recent approach allowed the council to increase employee wages without increasing the burden on taxpayers.
Svien said the council’s old way of doing business – and failure to recognize existing revenue – kept the city from investing in major projects, leaving the city with growing infrastructure issues.
“If we stopped the clock to fix everything we need on streets, we would be spending about $25 million,” Svien said. “We obviously cannot do that, but we do need to look at the city budget the way businesses look at their budgets.”
He cited years of underspending on maintenance and the council’s need to finding ways to proceed with every possible project while taking funding from outside sources.
“I hope we see increased revenue from businesses, sales tax and new constructions,” Svien said.
He also said he would like to see the council continue to seek opportunities from state and federal programs, such as the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.
The program is a federal-state partnership that provides communities low-cost financing for water-related infrastructure projects with a low interest rate and principle forgiveness. The program could save the city about $5 million on the estimated cost for improvements related to the Eastside Sewer Project.
McClinton
Meanwhile, in filing for a shot at this second term, McClinton said he also plans to maintain his focus on infrastructure and noted strides Stephenville City Council has made on street, water and sewer projects and the need to maintain the momentum.
McClinton referenced a $275,000 Community Development Block Grant, a matching fund grant, obtained through the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) for the replacement of the waterline at Hook and Elm Streets. He also said the council plans to continue to seek state support for ongoing reconstruction of the water distribution system.
Meanwhile, McClinton cited a program implemented by the current council to help fund the cost of water pipeline maintenance. He said in the past, the city water and sewer rates were set by surveying rates of similar communities to remain competitive, but no regard was given to the cost of providing service.
But, the current council commissioned a study, determined maintenance costs and found the city was subsidizing citizen water bills rather than charging a rate that would help fund both operations and maintenance, according to McClinton.
“The council has implemented a four-year program, something the city had never done before, that I would like to see through to the end,” McClinton said, adding incremental rate increases over the period will help with regular, ongoing maintenance costs.
More on filing
The seats held by Rhett Harrison, Place 5, and Sherry Zachery, Place 7, will also be on the city’s May ballot. Harrison has said he is “leaning toward another term,” and the incumbents have plenty of time to consider their future on the council before the February 17 deadline.
Potential candidates can find election information and an online application on the Texas Secretary of State website.
Application packets may also be obtained from City Hall.
Other seats on May 6 ballots include two on the Stephenville ISD board of trustees, five on Dublin City Council and those of two Dublin school board members.
1 Trackback / Pingback