March 31, 2024 • 44 mins
@leaninleander We continue the candidate interviews as part of the Vote in Leander series. Join us for a conversation with Damon Burger, candidate for Mayor in Leander's 2024 election cycle.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/lean-in-leander--4783524/support.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/lean-in-leander--4783524/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I again had the opportunity to sitdown with one of the candidates here in
Leander for council this next election cycle, mayoral candidate Damon Berger. This is
our conversation here on Lean and Leander. So we're back here again at Lantern
(00:26):
Media Studios for the next episode ofLean and Leander and the Vote in Leander
series and with me today is acandidate for mayor, mister Damon Berger.
Damon, thanks for joining me.I appreciate it, happy to be here.
Thanks for having me now, Ireally really appreciate you making the time
and uh and coming out here tohave a quick little chat with me.
(00:47):
So, so, Damon, Iknow a little bit about you from like
your website and whatnot. You You'veyou've offered some information for folks to kind
of get a sense of who youare. So we're gonna kind of try
to explore that a little bit hereand get your origin story, so to
speak. So from your website,I understand that you guys have your family
has moved into the Leander area aboutfour years ago, right over four years.
(01:11):
So what brought you here four yearsago? Work? Okay, work
took a new job that landed ushere in the Greater Austin area. Leandrew
moved here a few days after Januarytwenty twenty, okay, and then we
kind of all know what happened afterthat. We had right snowmageddi right,
(01:34):
right, great timing, right,yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, But
no, I mean it's been it'sbeen great. We love Leander, kids
are all in school, have adjustedwell, we've moved several times over the
last ten years or so. Whenthe kids complain about that, I say,
hey, listen, you guys havehad all these different experiences, got
(01:55):
to live all over the country.So no, but we're happy to call
Leander holme. It's been great.So prior to Leander where I mean,
I don't you don't need to giveus a step by step, but like,
where were you most recently outside ofthat Twin Cities metro area of Minnesota.
Oh so, I mean when yougot here in snowageddon, you felt
right at home, right, Iwas all for it was this is great.
We were thinking summers were going tobe pretty mild. I will have
(02:19):
to say, though, from aninfrastructure standpoint, we were you know,
we didn't have water for a weekand we were just scratching our head saying
how is this right right? Cold? And do all this right right right?
Anyways, So one of those thousandyear things or whatever it was,
I mean, it was pretty bananasfrom that perspective. Yeah, Semageddon was
crazy. I had been here atthat point. I think I had been
(02:40):
here at least a year, ifnot too. I'm trying to remember when
I first got here. But yeah, so that was really that was bananas.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Andthen you sprinkle in COVID and yeah
top of everything from anybody, andeverybody's yeah, no, that's a little
crazy. I yeah, I'm surprisedthat you're still here. Hey, fight
(03:04):
in a good fight. No,good for you, good for you.
So you mentioned that your job broughtyou here, and as I am typically
wanting to kind of point out tothose who are viewing the podcast or listening
to the podcasts, when you're puttingyourself into the public sphere as a civic
uh, you know, volunteer forall extents and purposes. Here and Leander
(03:28):
are the way that our council setup. It is a volunteer position.
You're not really being paid to bea you know, council member or mayor
whatnot. That said, you havea real job, like you do stuff
that makes money and pays bills.Right, So help our audience understand what
that is for you, Like,what do you do for a living?
Yeah? So I currently well,for the last twenty plus years, I've
(03:53):
been in the physical security safety sortof space. Okay, in more kind
of senior leadership positions with different organizations. Most of that has been within the
retail sector. Okay, so pickyour big box retailer. Some are still
with us, some unfortunately, havegone the way of the dinosaur been.
(04:16):
We've been with them. When Iwas in Minnesota, I was with Goodwill
running their safety and security program forthem. And then way back when,
spent a handful of years in lawenforcement as a police officer in our hometown,
Wisconsin. So is that kind oflike where you started on that particular
path towards you know, you startedin law enforcement. Yeah, so started
(04:39):
in law enforcement, that was thedream, and did that for several years,
and then my wife and I hadour first child. Right at the
time, she was working a normalnine to five. I was working thirds
mandatory overtime. When we would seeeach other, I say, who are
you, Oh, we have thekid nosed so priorities changed, right,
right, and the kind of naturallykind of came into this space and ever
(05:01):
looked back right right. Okay,that's cool. So moved to Leander,
and you know what, what areyour thoughts so far? Let's take snow
again and out of the out ofthe conversation. But like, you've been
here four years, what are someof the things that you see Again,
you're coming from you know, twincities. You have a little bit of
experience. It sounds like you movedaround a little bit comparatively speaking. Give
(05:26):
me an example of one of thethings that you've encountered or one of the
things you've you've had an opportunity toengage with here in Leander that you're like,
hey, this was really good,or you know, I really didn't
like that. Yeah. So Iwould say on the positive side, definitely
the people, the great, downto earth, real people. Where in
(05:49):
the bigger metro cities, you know, you don't have a lot of that,
So I think, you know,if we've made some some really terrific
friends and acquaintances since we've lived here. I think conversely, on the negative
side, you know, I likethe small town, more rural sort of
(06:10):
that that that fits me very well. But when my wife and I do
have the opportunity to go out ondate night or something like that, we're
either in Cedar Park or Austin orin Georgetown, right, we won't have
all the things right right, right, So you know, I think definitely
those are the ones that stand out. But I mean, ultimately, it's
it's been a great, great,great ride so far. Yeah. No,
(06:31):
and and I would concur again,you've been here just slightly less than
I have. I've been here sixyears actually this month will be six years
in Leander And I completely concur withthat. I mean, one of the
things that was really nice to experience, and and and and was refreshing from
the perspective that I came from Houston, Greater Houston, so I was in
(06:54):
Cyprus, Texas. But yeah,it's a big city, right, It's
it's there's a lot and you know, I kind of didn't know my neighbors
so much, and you know,there was a lot of rental properties where
I lived, and people would movein and out, and I just you
just never really kind of get thatsense of community. Conversely, when I
moved to Leander, A, Imade the purposeful effort of meeting my neighbors
(07:16):
and knowing who was around me.And I was in a relatively new subdivision,
so it was kind of growing.It was one of the I wouldn't
say one of the first, butI was in the early part of the
development, right, So it's grownaround me. So people have moved in,
and so it's given an opportunity tokind of meet those people as they
moved in. But yeah, Iwould agree for what you said is that
the generally speaking, everybody's been reallyreally friendly, really accommodating and helpful.
(07:41):
And you know, one of mypurposeful actions was, you know, I
want to know my people. Iwant other people in my neighborhood, so
I know my neighbors. But Ialso kind of wanted to get involved in
the city. Right. I sawsome things here and I was like,
ah, you know what, Isaw this happen in Cyprus, but Cypress
was unincorporated there in Houston, soit was kind of weird. You really
didn't have a whole lot of say, right, you saw things happening,
(08:03):
but you couldn't really do anything aboutit. It's just like happening around you
here. There's at least an opportunityto get involved. Right, So that's
what you're doing now, right,You're kind of like getting involved prior to
making a decision. I'm going tocome back to this because I want to
know what motivated you to make thedecision to run. But prior to that,
what type of involvement civic or associationwise, what have you been involved
(08:28):
with previously? Like where does thatcome from? Because there's always a little
bit of a servant leadership piece tothat, right, So what have you
done previously? And then follow upwith that what motivated you to do this?
Yeah, So I would say morerecently, within the last couple of
years, more of our service relateditems have been geared more towards our church.
(08:52):
Okay. So we're very active inour church, and you know,
my wife and I both serve incilveral leadership capacy cities within there, and
we lead small groups and things likethat. So that's that's been helpful and
it's been a great way to networkand meet people as well. Prior to
that, you know, I servedon a couple of boards when we lived
in Minnesota, also in Denver,Colorado, Okay, and also in Pittsburgh,
(09:16):
Pennsylvania. Okay, okay, Soso have some exposure on kind of
the giving back aspect. And noneof those board positions were paid. It
was just volunteer free time. Butif really, I've always had an inclination
towards politics. I've always been verypolitically involved, but not necessarily politically active,
right until very recently, right,right, right, So the motivation
(09:41):
to get involved here and Leander?What prompted that? What? What was
it that that you decided, Becausethat's a that's a fairly big leap,
right, It's a big leap.It's a leap of faith from the perspective
of, hey, I can dothis, right, and then it's also
a leap of like, you know, just putting yourself into the public sphere.
Right, So what was it thatmotivated that for you here in Leander?
(10:03):
You know, having been through nowa couple of mayors and councils,
certainly we kind of talked about afew of the bigger issues that have happened.
You know, we had the winterstorm and the issues with water,
and we had COVID and all thatstuff. I think as I've become more
involved in my local community, havemet a bunch of people who are definitely
(10:28):
more politically active than I am learningabout the issues, becoming passionate about those
issues. And I like the termyou use servant leader, right that in
my capacity professionally, that is meto a t. Right, So I
think, you know, from aleadership aspect, I think I could definitely
(10:50):
make a difference within the council.And I think for me, I think
is I'm becoming more and more passionateabout the local issue shoes, you know,
when I when I sit there andscratch my head about why do we
do that? Or you know,that's where it's like, hey, I
feel like I can make a differencehere. Sure, I'm definitely not a
political cuye, but you know,just like anybody else in Leanders. So
(11:13):
yeah, so the and I alwaysmake this distinction, and this is my
distinction, right, I'm speaking strictlyfor myself. So, because this is
a nonpartisan election, as local electionsare, there is very there's a very
minute difference between running for a councilseat and then running for mayor. Right
(11:35):
basically, a everyone is offering themselvesup as a representative for the entire city
because there are at large, right, there's you know, you're representing someone
thirty nine odd square miles of space, right. And then there's then there's
the actual leadership position within the council. Right, So the mayor is that
one person, right, equating everyoneelse on an equal footing, you know,
(12:00):
as an at large representative. There'syou know, the council members are
all representing you know, the cityof Leander and the citizens of Leander from
that perspective, but the mayor isin a position that they are, you
know, kind of guiding that process. Right, they are saying, hey,
I want I always say everybody runsfor mayor, but only a few
people say they want to be mayor. Right, That's basically what it is.
(12:24):
So from that perspective, what wouldyou consider from your from your from
your lifetime, And again, itcan be anything, it doesn't matter.
It's what we're trying to give peoplein a sense of how you think and
what motivates you. So what wellyou consider to be like a unique qualification
or or an experience where you feelthat translates to that type of role,
(12:48):
right, Yeah, So I thinkdefinitely that servant leader mentality that I have
just kind of naturally ingrained in meas one of the larger motivators. But
I think more specifically in in differentleadership capacities that I've had with different organizations,
I think being able to lead effectiveteams towards one goal. Right.
(13:13):
So in this instance, we're talkingabout the mayor of Leander right and being
able to lead the city council andand help create a pathway towards better and
bigger growth, you know, moremore awareness throughout the city of Leander Right.
I think those are those are someof the things that really again kind
of prompted me to say, hey, let's do this right, Let's do
(13:37):
it right right have Well, again, you mentioned that you had have some
experience on boards and things of thatnature. Is there I was trying to,
you know, try to suss outlike a story, like tell me
of a time where you had anopportunity to serve in the leadership role where
you felt you were really effective likethat. Really, if you could do
(14:00):
that again and again and again,what would be that one time? Like
a man, this was so fun, I really enjoyed it. I would
love to do this over and over. What would that be or something like
that. It doesn't necessarily have tobe your business or it could be it
could be your business, it couldbe one of your roles, it could
be your family. I mean,something that helps people understand like, yeah,
(14:22):
I got joy out of that,right. It's an excellent question.
Excellent question. There are certainly outthere things that come to mind. But
I would say one of the boardroles that I served on, we were
in the metro area of Minneapolis andSaint Paul was for a local church and
(14:46):
we were trying to raise money forthat particular church and coming up with creative
ways to do that. And meand a couple of the board members kind
of got together and had a sidebarredconversation and really just kind of game planned
out different fundraising events that had previouslynot been available to them for whatever reason,
and really put a plan in placefor them to they were looking to
(15:11):
expand their one of their buildings,and really put a solid plan together on
different fundraising ideas, how to doit, how to navigate it, and
really go after that with an endgoal of mind of a targeted dollar amounts
race. Once we kind of putthat plan in place, we started these
different events and things. We wellsurpassed that goal. The church was able
(15:35):
to not only make the renovations andadditions so that they needed to and then
some So I mean that immediately,that's the one that stands out, and
it's really just being able to bethat person to guide people towards the path,
right, make them understand, hey, maybe this is a better way,
right, Right, So how doyou seess out the best ideas?
(15:56):
Because that's always something that if youknow, I would say, if you're
going to put yourself into a leadershipposition, right, one of the things
that you want to do is ensurethat that not every idea is crazy,
not every idea is great, right, So you have to kind of filter
that down to like okay, andsometimes that that involves some compromise. Right,
(16:18):
So what would you say, generallyspeaking, like, how do you
how do you make some of thatdetermination? What are some of the things
that you look for when you're whenyou're trying to find the best path.
Yeah, you know, I thinkthere's something to be said for the tried
and true method. We've been there, we've done this, It's worked for
us in the past, and that'sthat's always an effective go to. I
(16:38):
am. I tend to think ofmyself as a little bit of a out
of the box thinker. Okay,so if there's avenues that are a little
bit more creative, never been triedbefore, sure, let's try it.
Why not? What's the worst thatcan happen? Right? Right? You
know, well, I mean forthe most part, I mean, but
(17:00):
but yeah, I mean I'm tryingto just constantly think out that outside the
box. And that's kind of theoperator in me sometimes if I if there's
a better mouse trap, let's doit right, right right? And I
agree with you from that perspective.Like again, when we are looking at
(17:22):
any kind of project, whatever thatproject might be, right, there is
an opportunity to be creative and bringcreative thinking into those projects, like what
what have we done? Like what'stried and true? What have we always
done? And is there an opportunityto improve on that or is there an
opportunity to to change that in sucha way that maybe yields a different result?
Right. I like to say,I mean this is just me,
(17:45):
but I like say, failure isan option, Like it is an option,
it's not off the table. Ithink that's probably one of the biggest
messnomers in my experience, you know, not only personally, but in business.
I'm like, of course, it'san option that it can happen,
right, we can. We don'twin that piece of business or you know,
whatever it might be. So youhave to take that into account too,
(18:07):
Right, So if you're going totry something, you're trying it with
a sense of well, you know, we're gonna try. This may not
work, right, but we're goingto give it a go. Right,
We're gonna give it a go.It's actually one of my own more professional
but in personal life too, bykind of guiding personal guiding leadership principles.
Failure is encouraged, right, yougot to learn these lessons. So,
(18:30):
yeah, I agree. That wasActually I had a I had a mentor
at one point when and my mybackground again and if you know this from
me, but you know I'm I'mI'm in sales. I've been in sales
my entire career, sales or salesadjacent, Right, it's always something regarding
that. And at one point inmy career coming up, I had a
(18:52):
mentor who who we were sitting there, we're talking about it was a lost
business report. We were talking aboutlost business, right, and so we're
kind of lamenting over some business thatwe had lost and whatnot, and there
was some junior salespeople involved in theprocess and and he said, you know,
he goes, you know that failfail is an acronym, right,
(19:12):
And I'm like, is it?And I was like, no, it's
a word, and he's like,no, let me, let me show
you. So he spelled it outon the whiteboard. He was like first
attempt in learning, right, AndI was like, wow, that just
completely shifted the paradigm for me becauseI'd never looked at it that way.
Right, And so there is athere's a good there's a good opportunity to
(19:33):
fail forward if you will, right, because you're learning, you're figuring out
what doesn't work and how you cando things better. Right. So I
think that's great. I mean,I think it's always refreshing to hear somebody
speak in that way to me personally, I'm speaking strictly for myself, but
you know, someone who recognizes thatthat's part of the that's part of the
(19:55):
process, right, Because again,far too many times I think there's a
there's a tendon see and maybe it'syou know, just the way we grow
up or you know, I don'tknow if it's cultural or not. I
won't go that far, but it'sit's, you know, win at all,
win at all expenses, right win. You know, we're so oriented
being the champions and be number oneand all that stuff that we never really
(20:18):
talk about what happens when you don'twin, right, Like I would love
I would love it if if moretimes, instead of interviewing the you know,
to be topical, instead of interviewingthe NCAA champion, interview the guys
that didn't win, right, like, what are they thinking? What?
What are they what's their perspective?Because we know what the winners are going
(20:40):
to say, right, We kindof know what they're going to say,
right, So anyway, that's interesting. I appreciate you kind of going down
that pathway with me. So acouple of things that we've kind of prompted,
and I believe I've shared this withyou. So if for any reason,
any of these questions like hey,I'm really not prepared to answer that
question, just feel free to sayso. But like we know here in
Leander and in my experience to Leander, and I think you probably share this
(21:03):
opinion, but if you don't,that's fine. Small business is a big,
big component in a rural city.You know that a real community that
is rapidly changing, right, thatis the driver. Eventually you see the
bigger boxes come in and you knowthere's a there's obviously an opportunity in Leander
right now to have outside investment intoour city, right and create jobs and
(21:30):
create a diversification of the tax space. I think that's I think I think
we are going down that path.Like to me, it seems like,
okay, that's what we've chosen todo, right, And we could have
chosen at that point, you know, a few years ago or whatever the
case. We could have said,you know what, we're just going to
be a bedroom community. It's justgoing to be residential and we'll live with
that. Right. But we've purposely, I believe, made some choices that
(21:51):
are leading us in a little bitof a different path and from diversification.
But before that diversification can ever occur, there needs to be a small business
driver. Right. So in yourbusiness, I'm assuming you're it's not Leander
Local, right, you're working fora larger corporate entity. What what has
(22:14):
been your exposure to to small businessin the city of Leander. I mean,
we could be through your your socialcontacts, some of your service oriented
contacts. I mean, you've mentionedsome things to do with the church.
Certainly you've had some conversations about smallbusiness in Leander. What's your general sense
there, like, what what areyour thoughts and how can we help bolster
that as part of our process?Yeah, and I think to your point,
(22:40):
we are going down that path.And I will definitely give the current
and former council's credit for recognizing that, right, But I think to that
extent, you know, when wetalk about growth, right, we talk
about small business. So not everowning a small business myself. Certainly,
some people that I have been friendswith since we've moved here have opened up
(23:03):
small businesses and you know, andthat's just ingrained in them and that entrepreneurial
spirit that they have. I thinkthat, to your point, is definitely
the backbone of our community and howwe continue to grow some of the bigger
(23:23):
chains. They are going to comein, the McDonald's, they're going to
be here. That's going You're right, that's going to show up. You
can't avoid it, and it's goingto happen anyway. There's only so much
that we do to necessarily, Iwould say there's an opportunity there to encourage
them to come. But beyond that, they're going to look at demographics.
They're going to look at the population, and they're going to make a decision
and and and they definitely have aplace in a community like Leander. And
(23:47):
as we continue to grow, youknow, to be determined what that will
look like. But from a smallbusiness aspect, I think it's it's really
incumbent upon the mayor and the citycouncil to encourage that growth from a small
business perspective, right, because wedon't want to even though we know we're
(24:07):
going to grow, we don't wantto. Me personally, I don't want
to lose that small town feel,right. I want to have the small
mom pop shops, right. Iam a customer of those, my wife
is as well. So whatever wecan do to incentivize that growth, as
well as the larger commercial spaces andstuff like that, that's definitely one of
(24:29):
my priorities is to ensure we arenot only only encouraging, but enticing people
to say, if you were onthe fence about doing this, what can
we do to have you Let's let'smake this happen right right right now.
I think again, you know,I agree with with with the statement of
you know, we need to encouragethat because the risk that you run with
(24:56):
the larger corporate entity, you know, or franchises and stuff like that,
is that there are there are mechanismsand influences on their decision making that are
completely out of our purview and ourcontrol. Right, So I mean,
I would point to what money peoplewould think it's a positive. You know,
(25:18):
if you look at the life cycleof Krispy Kream Donuts for instance,
right, So Krispy Kream became thebell of the ball, I don't know,
like you know, late nineties,early two thousands, right, and
then there were Krispy Kremes everywhere,Right, shareholders were happy. Everybody's making
money. And then something happened inthe economy and the way that people were
eating. Frankly, it changed that, right, And all of a sudden,
(25:41):
you see this downturn. If yourcommunity has let's just say two three
Krispy Kremes, you know, Idon't know, you know, I know
how, I don't know how farapart they keep those stores, to be
honest with you, but let's justsay you have that. Then all of
a sudden that goes away, right, that has nothing to do with anybody
but maybe the local franchisee. Right. But outside of that, that's not
(26:02):
within their purview. They're they're they'reaffected by something that happens outside of that,
right. So it's always a littlebit of concern personally for me,
Like when I look at some ofthe development even currently that we see whether
or not there's enough diversity in theway that we allow for that, and
and and are subject to some ofthat type of development. Right. COVID
(26:23):
really gave us a real good lessonin over emphasizing the service industry and coming
from the hotel industry myself, Imean that's where I got a lot of
my background. I you know,I could see it like it was like,
oh wow, those cities that haveyou know, like Austin. You
saw it in Austin, right thatso many people lost jobs and so many
(26:45):
hotels suffered just because of what itwas happening, right, But there wasn't
enough diversity in that particular sector tobe able to maintain it. You saw
a number of restaurants that just disappeared, right, Right, So you kind
of want to avoid that from acity planning perspective. And I think small
businesses help with that. I mean, because again they're they're a little bit
(27:06):
more diverse because there's all sorts ofthings that they do. Yeah, And
I think to that point, Ithink that's incumbent upon the council to really
be thoughtful when they're planning out thenext five, ten, eight years to
really and we talk about zoning,we talk about all this other stuff.
I think they need to really havea solid plan in place to what what
(27:27):
sort of leander do we want?Do we want walmarts and targets everywhere or
do we want some of that?But we also want Grand Donuts, you
know, all these you know,stuff like that. So I think it's
I think it's a valid point.I think it's you know, I think
that's one of the roles of localgovernment is really to be more of the
(27:48):
facilitator of growth rather than the regulatorof growth, right in some regards,
right, And I would I thinkwe're probably thinking the same thing here,
right. You just need to bemindful of that. And right now it's
a really critical period of time inthe city's growth, right because when I
first got here, and it wasyou know, shortly before you got here,
I would say close to you know, fifty thousand people or so like
(28:17):
ish, right, And I've hadconversations with candidates already that they you know,
they were here when there were seventhousand people here, right, So
it was exponential growth, right.I mean, at one point we were
the fastest growing city in the UnitedStates. And that's bananas, right,
because all due respect and all dueregard to all of those who were participating
(28:37):
in that process, and we're responsiblefor executing on a lot of those things,
I think it's fair to say there'sno way you can plan for that,
right that you cannot. You canmaybe see that it might be coming,
but when it happens, you're like, there's no way. It's it's
too fast, it's hard to keepup. So a lot of what we're
doing now is a little bit ofketchup, right, And so from that
perspective, what are your thought onmeasures that could be taken? Like,
(29:02):
Like, if you're in that position, you're in a leadership position, and
you're and you're thinking through some ofthe things that that are going to happen
to the city going forward, howdo you steward you know, responsible responsible
development and balance development, right,I mean and and and and and and
damon, get me. I don'twant to get I don't want you to
(29:22):
get me wrong here, right.I'm not trying to put you on the
spot, but I want to knowyour thoughts on what you consider to be
that like, how do we balancethat out as as even just as a
citizen? What would you like tosee? Right? And and and this
goes beyond the business discussion that wejust had. This is more you know,
you know, a fifty to fiftyargument, a sixty forty you know
(29:45):
what I mean by that? Yeah, Yeah, it's funny. This is
this is a question I get askedregularly. So I think, to your
point, it has to be agood balance between commercial and residential. And
I think in your past we leftdefinitely leaned as a city more towards residential,
agreed, right, and now we'replaying catch up. But I think,
(30:11):
you know, if I had toput a percentage on it, sixty
forty commercial and residential, right,But it has to be somewhat balanced,
right, because I think at amacro level, when things kind of settle
down, their growth is going tocontinue and come, it's going to keep
coming. Right. People need aplace to live. Sure, they need
(30:34):
restaurants to go to, shops togo to, they need all of that.
So I think it's got to bea balanced approach. And I think,
kind of going back to what Isaid before, that's where the City
Council really needs to do a deepdive and think of what is the path,
how do we get there, howdo we be responsible, and how
do we make an impact on theeveryday citizens of Leander to give them so
(30:56):
they don't have to go to Austinfor date night, they don't have to
go to Georgetown, and they don'thave to go to these places. It's
all right here. So yeah,I mean I had the opportunity and the
pleasure of serving on the Comprehensive PlanningCommittee right a couple of years ago.
Now I think it is and thatwas a very interesting perspective on things,
(31:19):
right because that's a plan that isrevised I think every five years, I
want to say, right, sowhen we look back, like my opportunity
there was to be able to lookback at what some of the planning had
been right, like these are thingsthat they thought, well, okay,
this could work, right, Andkind of to our conversation earlier where we
were saying, yeah, try it, see if it works. It doesn't
(31:40):
work, right, So you hadthat going on. But you'll hear a
lot of people and maybe you've heardthis too, a lot of people in
Leander. And then the time thatI've been here, one of the things
that has been a constant is whoare we right? Like what's the brand?
Like what is leand about? Right? And you'll talk to different people
(32:01):
and I've had an opportunity to speakwith, you know, a couple of
the different candidates now for mayor,and you know, there's there's been comments
there like, you know, Ithink a unifying theme is the is the
small town component? Right? Ithink everybody has some variant of that conversation.
Right, You've spoken of it today, like it's one of the things
(32:23):
that attracts you to the city andyou know, frankly, it attracts me
as well. Right. So ifwe take that and say, okay,
hey, that's part of it,right, you know, that is the
challenge, and especially right now again, to mirror and to echo what you're
saying. A lot of the growththat's coming to Leander is going to come
(32:45):
to Leander, whether if we justsat here and did nothing. It's going
to happen, right, It's justis it's the pressures that are being executed
in Greater Central Texas. Right.Austin's trying to find land, and they're
trying to create places where they cangrow, right because they're kind of landlocked.
They they're stuck, you know.There they're digging thirty five underground to
(33:10):
there's those and I mean those aregreat projects. I mean I think some
of that stuff is really a goodidea. Like I saw it in Boston
when Boston did that, right,Boston covered up one of the freeways and
created in space to grow to.It's benefited them to great degree. Right.
We see that happening in Austin.Then we of course there's this like
the South Congress stuff that's going ontoo to where they're looking to build out
(33:30):
South Congress. So that's going tohappen anyway, right, And then you
have people like you know, youhave the the Samsung's and the Tesla's of
the world, and they're creating thesepressures, right, so there's a there's
a natural growth that's going to happen. That's what I saw in Houston.
That's what I always reflected to likeI'm out and I'm out in Cypress.
I was out in Cypress at atime where there was a Cajun bar out
(33:52):
there and that was about it.There was nothing else out there, right,
and then next thing, I knowWalmart and you know loss of dark
sky, right, So you know, from from that perspective, we know
we know it's going to happen.And I appreciate some of your comments.
They're like, you know, justkind of how we how we balance that
out and uh and and get tothat point, right, So kind of
(34:19):
change I want to change the subjecta little bit here, just because we're
kind of flirting with that council kindof conversation. And you and I had
a little chance to chat right beforewe started, and it's like, hey,
you know this is you were niceenough to tell me this. You
appreciate what I'm doing here from afrom just creating the conversations, right,
So transparency is always something that's aconversation, right, like how much we
(34:40):
know and when we know it?And you know, I think again here,
I don't know if you would agreenecessarily, but I think here again,
the current council has done a goodjob of creating more transparency. Right,
there's been updates to the website.There's a lot of things that you
can participate in now and you knowyou can subscribe to you know, news
(35:00):
flashes and things of that nature.That's a good thing, that's the right
direction. What would you in theleadership position do to continue complement expand how?
How how do you help with that? So and I know we spoke
about it, but I couldn't agreemore. I think that level of community
engagement could be better. Okay,again, give credit to the current council.
(35:27):
They're making efforts to engage in public, right. I think you know,
whether it's Leander or any place we'veever lived, you know, there's
people have lives, they're busy,everybody's busy, right, And and I
think with the popularity of all socialmedia, right, I think that's definitely
(35:49):
an avenue. I think a lotmore community events anytime that current former future
councils and mayors can can have theopportunity to get out and just talk about
the issues and really solicit ideas fromthe citizens. That's where you're gonna get
your best information from one to oneconversations. How do we do here?
(36:13):
What do you think, how canwe do it better? Right, I
think that's maybe an area where there'ssome opportunities. So yeah, I mean,
any any chance, you know,whether it's a local newsletter, mass
emails, whatever the case is,all technology tools at our disposal last that
(36:34):
information out. Hey, guys,we have this coming up on this date.
We're going to talk about X,Y and Z. Really encourage everybody
to get out, come to thecity council meetings. Right, whatever efforts
we can do to further engage thecitizens. It's a win win, right,
right, Yeah, I agree again, I mean, obviously I feel
(36:55):
that we're doing a better job herein the city of that, but I
do agree that there's still a goodopportunity to increase that, right And and
to your point, I think Iwould be a good idea. I'd love
to see more non election period engagement, you know. I mean, and
(37:17):
if there's there are avenues, Okay, I'm not going to pretend that there's
not. You know, you canif you're a citizen so inclined and you
and you want to become a littlebit more participatory, you know, hey,
volunteer for a committee, you know, get involved, start making your
voice part of that process one hundredpercent. That's that's one of the routes
that's available. Right. But thatsaid, you know, there are limitations
(37:38):
to what committees can do. Imean in our space, to be honest,
and having served on multiple committees asidefrom l pack, nobody has a
budget, nobody has any real influence. Right, It's an advisory, it's
a it's a it's an information andidea gathering place right, properly executed,
(38:00):
can be very effective, right,But there's limitations to that. And and
then you you you layer in someof the restrictions that occur when you start
doing that from you know, froma legislative perspective and the open meetings rules
and stuff like that. It getscomplicated. It's not easy, right,
(38:20):
But I think there is opportunity forfor candidates like yourself and for actual elected
officials after the fact to open upthat space. Right. I'm not saying
you always have to sit down withme, but it's a good venue,
right, it's a it's a goodway to kind of just have a conversation
talk about some of the things.And and there's always there's always well,
(38:40):
we can't talk about that because we'recompeting with other cities and blah blah blah.
You know, and and that's fair, but really, I mean,
this is huddle going to learn thatmuch from an open conversation, right,
you know, And and and therethey they obviously would have different pursuits because
they have different objectives. Right.So anyway, so I appreciate your taking
(39:06):
the time here today and kind offollowing on the path, right, just
kind of coming along. I've enjoyedthis conversation immensely, and it's it's it's
really nice to meet people who have, you know, again that servant leadership
mentality, who are looking really likewhat can I do to help? What
can I do to make a change? And and I always say this,
(39:27):
you know, the best of luckon your endeavors. I certainly hope that
everything works out the way that youwant it to work out. And if
there's ever an opportunity that I couldencourage anybody, I'd say, hey,
you know, if if if stayinvolved, right, I mean, this
is just that one time, andthis is the first effort, right,
so we can fail, but let'sstay involved, because I think you add
(39:47):
an interesting voice to the mix.I mean, I'll be perfectly honest,
having met you, for the firsttime. And and I would say that
about all the all the candidates.Some of them have been around a little
bit and I know them, youknow, I already know of them,
but at this group, in thisin this particular election cycle, is pretty
new. They're people that I'm notfamiliar with. So this has been really
enjoyable for me to get engaged withthem and have that conversation. I certainly
(40:09):
hope you feel the same way.Yeah. Absolutely, I would encourage all
your listeners have to put a plugin from a website. Yeah, no,
absolutely, I was just about totell you, hey, so you
can look at the camera, givethem a straight out face and and that
where can they find you? Whereare your socials? What are your websites?
You know? How how do howdo they get in touch with Damon
Dark? Yeah? Yeah, soreally encourage you to check us out at
(40:30):
Damon Berger the number four leander dotcom. I've got some some issues up
there and what I stand for,And yeah is that? Do you are
you on any of the other socialmedia's any Instagram, orka, LinkedIn is
as far down the social media rabbithole as I go at the moment,
at the moment, but yeah,I really encourage you guys to check out
(40:52):
my website and see what we're allabout. Right, No, well,
damon, I certainly do appreciate againyou've taken time. It happens to be
a Friday, and it's at theend of the day, so I really
really do appreciate that. It's beenan absolute pleasure from my perspective. And
for those of you who have youknow, engaged here on the Lean and
(41:12):
Leander podcast and our website and whatnot, I appreciate the comments. I appreciate
the suggestions. It's definitely something thatI take a look at, so you
know, keep them coming, likeand subscribe as they say, and you
can find us on Apple Podcasts,Facebook, YouTube, other various social media's.
Will throw a few things out therefrom time to time just to let
you know what's going on. Buttake the time to get yourself registered to
(41:37):
vote. Today is March twenty ninth, so technically there's probably about six days
left to do that. Just alittle information there. You know, if
you've lived here, if you justmoved here, you're here thirty days.
You can register to vote as soonas you do your driver's license. Again,
an opportunity to register to vote andget that done Vale be fourth so
that you can participate in the Mayfourth election at the very least. If
(41:58):
you don't do that and for somereason you miss that, take the opportunity
to go out and meet the candidates, meet Damon, meet some of the
other candidates. When you have theopportunity to. I know that there's several
things that occur. You know,many of the local associations and you know,
I think the chamber does some thingsand stuff like that. So find
out what these people are about.And hopefully what we've done here today helps
(42:20):
you learn a little bit more aboutDamon and hopefully that helps you make your
decision. So at the end ofthe day, that's what it's all about.
Get out there and vote. It'swhy we do the series. It's
why we present these things in thisway, so that you have an opportunity
to meet these folks and you don'tget the chance to sit down with them
one on one. I do.I'm fortunate and I'm doing that so that
you know, hopefully it helps youget a little bit of insight. So
(42:42):
Demon, thank you so much.I really really do appreciate that this was
very nice and for those of you. That's it for today's episode, but
again, keep your eyes on theVoting Leander dot com website as well as
lenileander dot net and we'll continue topost information on this election cycle and hopefully
it helps you make decisions. Thanksa lot, folks for tuning in,
and we'll see you up the nextone. An
I again had the opportunity to sitdown with one of the candidates here in
Leander for council this next election cycle, mayoral candidate Damon Berger. This is
our conversation here on Lean and Leander. So we're back here again at Lantern
(00:26):
Media Studios for the next episode ofLean and Leander and the Vote in Leander
series and with me today is acandidate for mayor, mister Damon Berger.
Damon, thanks for joining me.I appreciate it, happy to be here.
Thanks for having me now, Ireally really appreciate you making the time
and uh and coming out here tohave a quick little chat with me.
(00:47):
So, so, Damon, Iknow a little bit about you from like
your website and whatnot. You You'veyou've offered some information for folks to kind
of get a sense of who youare. So we're gonna kind of try
to explore that a little bit hereand get your origin story, so to
speak. So from your website,I understand that you guys have your family
has moved into the Leander area aboutfour years ago, right over four years.
(01:11):
So what brought you here four yearsago? Work? Okay, work
took a new job that landed ushere in the Greater Austin area. Leandrew
moved here a few days after Januarytwenty twenty, okay, and then we
kind of all know what happened afterthat. We had right snowmageddi right,
(01:34):
right, great timing, right,yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, But
no, I mean it's been it'sbeen great. We love Leander, kids
are all in school, have adjustedwell, we've moved several times over the
last ten years or so. Whenthe kids complain about that, I say,
hey, listen, you guys havehad all these different experiences, got
(01:55):
to live all over the country.So no, but we're happy to call
Leander holme. It's been great.So prior to Leander where I mean,
I don't you don't need to giveus a step by step, but like,
where were you most recently outside ofthat Twin Cities metro area of Minnesota.
Oh so, I mean when yougot here in snowageddon, you felt
right at home, right, Iwas all for it was this is great.
We were thinking summers were going tobe pretty mild. I will have
(02:19):
to say, though, from aninfrastructure standpoint, we were you know,
we didn't have water for a weekand we were just scratching our head saying
how is this right right? Cold? And do all this right right right?
Anyways, So one of those thousandyear things or whatever it was,
I mean, it was pretty bananasfrom that perspective. Yeah, Semageddon was
crazy. I had been here atthat point. I think I had been
(02:40):
here at least a year, ifnot too. I'm trying to remember when
I first got here. But yeah, so that was really that was bananas.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Andthen you sprinkle in COVID and yeah
top of everything from anybody, andeverybody's yeah, no, that's a little
crazy. I yeah, I'm surprisedthat you're still here. Hey, fight
(03:04):
in a good fight. No,good for you, good for you.
So you mentioned that your job broughtyou here, and as I am typically
wanting to kind of point out tothose who are viewing the podcast or listening
to the podcasts, when you're puttingyourself into the public sphere as a civic
uh, you know, volunteer forall extents and purposes. Here and Leander
(03:28):
are the way that our council setup. It is a volunteer position.
You're not really being paid to bea you know, council member or mayor
whatnot. That said, you havea real job, like you do stuff
that makes money and pays bills.Right, So help our audience understand what
that is for you, Like,what do you do for a living?
Yeah? So I currently well,for the last twenty plus years, I've
(03:53):
been in the physical security safety sortof space. Okay, in more kind
of senior leadership positions with different organizations. Most of that has been within the
retail sector. Okay, so pickyour big box retailer. Some are still
with us, some unfortunately, havegone the way of the dinosaur been.
(04:16):
We've been with them. When Iwas in Minnesota, I was with Goodwill
running their safety and security program forthem. And then way back when,
spent a handful of years in lawenforcement as a police officer in our hometown,
Wisconsin. So is that kind oflike where you started on that particular
path towards you know, you startedin law enforcement. Yeah, so started
(04:39):
in law enforcement, that was thedream, and did that for several years,
and then my wife and I hadour first child. Right at the
time, she was working a normalnine to five. I was working thirds
mandatory overtime. When we would seeeach other, I say, who are
you, Oh, we have thekid nosed so priorities changed, right,
right, and the kind of naturallykind of came into this space and ever
(05:01):
looked back right right. Okay,that's cool. So moved to Leander,
and you know what, what areyour thoughts so far? Let's take snow
again and out of the out ofthe conversation. But like, you've been
here four years, what are someof the things that you see Again,
you're coming from you know, twincities. You have a little bit of
experience. It sounds like you movedaround a little bit comparatively speaking. Give
(05:26):
me an example of one of thethings that you've encountered or one of the
things you've you've had an opportunity toengage with here in Leander that you're like,
hey, this was really good,or you know, I really didn't
like that. Yeah. So Iwould say on the positive side, definitely
the people, the great, downto earth, real people. Where in
(05:49):
the bigger metro cities, you know, you don't have a lot of that,
So I think, you know,if we've made some some really terrific
friends and acquaintances since we've lived here. I think conversely, on the negative
side, you know, I likethe small town, more rural sort of
(06:10):
that that that fits me very well. But when my wife and I do
have the opportunity to go out ondate night or something like that, we're
either in Cedar Park or Austin orin Georgetown, right, we won't have
all the things right right, right, So you know, I think definitely
those are the ones that stand out. But I mean, ultimately, it's
it's been a great, great,great ride so far. Yeah. No,
(06:31):
and and I would concur again,you've been here just slightly less than
I have. I've been here sixyears actually this month will be six years
in Leander And I completely concur withthat. I mean, one of the
things that was really nice to experience, and and and and was refreshing from
the perspective that I came from Houston, Greater Houston, so I was in
(06:54):
Cyprus, Texas. But yeah,it's a big city, right, It's
it's there's a lot and you know, I kind of didn't know my neighbors
so much, and you know,there was a lot of rental properties where
I lived, and people would movein and out, and I just you
just never really kind of get thatsense of community. Conversely, when I
moved to Leander, A, Imade the purposeful effort of meeting my neighbors
(07:16):
and knowing who was around me.And I was in a relatively new subdivision,
so it was kind of growing.It was one of the I wouldn't
say one of the first, butI was in the early part of the
development, right, So it's grownaround me. So people have moved in,
and so it's given an opportunity tokind of meet those people as they
moved in. But yeah, Iwould agree for what you said is that
the generally speaking, everybody's been reallyreally friendly, really accommodating and helpful.
(07:41):
And you know, one of mypurposeful actions was, you know, I
want to know my people. Iwant other people in my neighborhood, so
I know my neighbors. But Ialso kind of wanted to get involved in
the city. Right. I sawsome things here and I was like,
ah, you know what, Isaw this happen in Cyprus, but Cypress
was unincorporated there in Houston, soit was kind of weird. You really
didn't have a whole lot of say, right, you saw things happening,
(08:03):
but you couldn't really do anything aboutit. It's just like happening around you
here. There's at least an opportunityto get involved. Right, So that's
what you're doing now, right,You're kind of like getting involved prior to
making a decision. I'm going tocome back to this because I want to
know what motivated you to make thedecision to run. But prior to that,
what type of involvement civic or associationwise, what have you been involved
(08:28):
with previously? Like where does thatcome from? Because there's always a little
bit of a servant leadership piece tothat, right, So what have you
done previously? And then follow upwith that what motivated you to do this?
Yeah, So I would say morerecently, within the last couple of
years, more of our service relateditems have been geared more towards our church.
(08:52):
Okay. So we're very active inour church, and you know,
my wife and I both serve incilveral leadership capacy cities within there, and
we lead small groups and things likethat. So that's that's been helpful and
it's been a great way to networkand meet people as well. Prior to
that, you know, I servedon a couple of boards when we lived
in Minnesota, also in Denver,Colorado, Okay, and also in Pittsburgh,
(09:16):
Pennsylvania. Okay, okay, Soso have some exposure on kind of
the giving back aspect. And noneof those board positions were paid. It
was just volunteer free time. Butif really, I've always had an inclination
towards politics. I've always been verypolitically involved, but not necessarily politically active,
right until very recently, right,right, right, So the motivation
(09:41):
to get involved here and Leander?What prompted that? What? What was
it that that you decided, Becausethat's a that's a fairly big leap,
right, It's a big leap.It's a leap of faith from the perspective
of, hey, I can dothis, right, and then it's also
a leap of like, you know, just putting yourself into the public sphere.
Right, So what was it thatmotivated that for you here in Leander?
(10:03):
You know, having been through nowa couple of mayors and councils,
certainly we kind of talked about afew of the bigger issues that have happened.
You know, we had the winterstorm and the issues with water,
and we had COVID and all thatstuff. I think as I've become more
involved in my local community, havemet a bunch of people who are definitely
(10:28):
more politically active than I am learningabout the issues, becoming passionate about those
issues. And I like the termyou use servant leader, right that in
my capacity professionally, that is meto a t. Right, So I
think, you know, from aleadership aspect, I think I could definitely
(10:50):
make a difference within the council.And I think for me, I think
is I'm becoming more and more passionateabout the local issue shoes, you know,
when I when I sit there andscratch my head about why do we
do that? Or you know,that's where it's like, hey, I
feel like I can make a differencehere. Sure, I'm definitely not a
political cuye, but you know,just like anybody else in Leanders. So
(11:13):
yeah, so the and I alwaysmake this distinction, and this is my
distinction, right, I'm speaking strictlyfor myself. So, because this is
a nonpartisan election, as local electionsare, there is very there's a very
minute difference between running for a councilseat and then running for mayor. Right
(11:35):
basically, a everyone is offering themselvesup as a representative for the entire city
because there are at large, right, there's you know, you're representing someone
thirty nine odd square miles of space, right. And then there's then there's
the actual leadership position within the council. Right, So the mayor is that
one person, right, equating everyoneelse on an equal footing, you know,
(12:00):
as an at large representative. There'syou know, the council members are
all representing you know, the cityof Leander and the citizens of Leander from
that perspective, but the mayor isin a position that they are, you
know, kind of guiding that process. Right, they are saying, hey,
I want I always say everybody runsfor mayor, but only a few
people say they want to be mayor. Right, That's basically what it is.
(12:24):
So from that perspective, what wouldyou consider from your from your from
your lifetime, And again, itcan be anything, it doesn't matter.
It's what we're trying to give peoplein a sense of how you think and
what motivates you. So what wellyou consider to be like a unique qualification
or or an experience where you feelthat translates to that type of role,
(12:48):
right, Yeah, So I thinkdefinitely that servant leader mentality that I have
just kind of naturally ingrained in meas one of the larger motivators. But
I think more specifically in in differentleadership capacities that I've had with different organizations,
I think being able to lead effectiveteams towards one goal. Right.
(13:13):
So in this instance, we're talkingabout the mayor of Leander right and being
able to lead the city council andand help create a pathway towards better and
bigger growth, you know, moremore awareness throughout the city of Leander Right.
I think those are those are someof the things that really again kind
of prompted me to say, hey, let's do this right, Let's do
(13:37):
it right right have Well, again, you mentioned that you had have some
experience on boards and things of thatnature. Is there I was trying to,
you know, try to suss outlike a story, like tell me
of a time where you had anopportunity to serve in the leadership role where
you felt you were really effective likethat. Really, if you could do
(14:00):
that again and again and again,what would be that one time? Like
a man, this was so fun, I really enjoyed it. I would
love to do this over and over. What would that be or something like
that. It doesn't necessarily have tobe your business or it could be it
could be your business, it couldbe one of your roles, it could
be your family. I mean,something that helps people understand like, yeah,
(14:22):
I got joy out of that,right. It's an excellent question.
Excellent question. There are certainly outthere things that come to mind. But
I would say one of the boardroles that I served on, we were
in the metro area of Minneapolis andSaint Paul was for a local church and
(14:46):
we were trying to raise money forthat particular church and coming up with creative
ways to do that. And meand a couple of the board members kind
of got together and had a sidebarredconversation and really just kind of game planned
out different fundraising events that had previouslynot been available to them for whatever reason,
and really put a plan in placefor them to they were looking to
(15:11):
expand their one of their buildings,and really put a solid plan together on
different fundraising ideas, how to doit, how to navigate it, and
really go after that with an endgoal of mind of a targeted dollar amounts
race. Once we kind of putthat plan in place, we started these
different events and things. We wellsurpassed that goal. The church was able
(15:35):
to not only make the renovations andadditions so that they needed to and then
some So I mean that immediately,that's the one that stands out, and
it's really just being able to bethat person to guide people towards the path,
right, make them understand, hey, maybe this is a better way,
right, Right, So how doyou seess out the best ideas?
(15:56):
Because that's always something that if youknow, I would say, if you're
going to put yourself into a leadershipposition, right, one of the things
that you want to do is ensurethat that not every idea is crazy,
not every idea is great, right, So you have to kind of filter
that down to like okay, andsometimes that that involves some compromise. Right,
(16:18):
So what would you say, generallyspeaking, like, how do you
how do you make some of thatdetermination? What are some of the things
that you look for when you're whenyou're trying to find the best path.
Yeah, you know, I thinkthere's something to be said for the tried
and true method. We've been there, we've done this, It's worked for
us in the past, and that'sthat's always an effective go to. I
(16:38):
am. I tend to think ofmyself as a little bit of a out
of the box thinker. Okay,so if there's avenues that are a little
bit more creative, never been triedbefore, sure, let's try it.
Why not? What's the worst thatcan happen? Right? Right? You
know, well, I mean forthe most part, I mean, but
(17:00):
but yeah, I mean I'm tryingto just constantly think out that outside the
box. And that's kind of theoperator in me sometimes if I if there's
a better mouse trap, let's doit right, right right? And I
agree with you from that perspective.Like again, when we are looking at
(17:22):
any kind of project, whatever thatproject might be, right, there is
an opportunity to be creative and bringcreative thinking into those projects, like what
what have we done? Like what'stried and true? What have we always
done? And is there an opportunityto improve on that or is there an
opportunity to to change that in sucha way that maybe yields a different result?
Right. I like to say,I mean this is just me,
(17:45):
but I like say, failure isan option, Like it is an option,
it's not off the table. Ithink that's probably one of the biggest
messnomers in my experience, you know, not only personally, but in business.
I'm like, of course, it'san option that it can happen,
right, we can. We don'twin that piece of business or you know,
whatever it might be. So youhave to take that into account too,
(18:07):
Right, So if you're going totry something, you're trying it with
a sense of well, you know, we're gonna try. This may not
work, right, but we're goingto give it a go. Right,
We're gonna give it a go.It's actually one of my own more professional
but in personal life too, bykind of guiding personal guiding leadership principles.
Failure is encouraged, right, yougot to learn these lessons. So,
(18:30):
yeah, I agree. That wasActually I had a I had a mentor
at one point when and my mybackground again and if you know this from
me, but you know I'm I'mI'm in sales. I've been in sales
my entire career, sales or salesadjacent, Right, it's always something regarding
that. And at one point inmy career coming up, I had a
(18:52):
mentor who who we were sitting there, we're talking about it was a lost
business report. We were talking aboutlost business, right, and so we're
kind of lamenting over some business thatwe had lost and whatnot, and there
was some junior salespeople involved in theprocess and and he said, you know,
he goes, you know that failfail is an acronym, right,
(19:12):
And I'm like, is it?And I was like, no, it's
a word, and he's like,no, let me, let me show
you. So he spelled it outon the whiteboard. He was like first
attempt in learning, right, AndI was like, wow, that just
completely shifted the paradigm for me becauseI'd never looked at it that way.
Right, And so there is athere's a good there's a good opportunity to
(19:33):
fail forward if you will, right, because you're learning, you're figuring out
what doesn't work and how you cando things better. Right. So I
think that's great. I mean,I think it's always refreshing to hear somebody
speak in that way to me personally, I'm speaking strictly for myself, but
you know, someone who recognizes thatthat's part of the that's part of the
(19:55):
process, right, Because again,far too many times I think there's a
there's a tendon see and maybe it'syou know, just the way we grow
up or you know, I don'tknow if it's cultural or not. I
won't go that far, but it'sit's, you know, win at all,
win at all expenses, right win. You know, we're so oriented
being the champions and be number oneand all that stuff that we never really
(20:18):
talk about what happens when you don'twin, right, Like I would love
I would love it if if moretimes, instead of interviewing the you know,
to be topical, instead of interviewingthe NCAA champion, interview the guys
that didn't win, right, like, what are they thinking? What?
What are they what's their perspective?Because we know what the winners are going
(20:40):
to say, right, We kindof know what they're going to say,
right, So anyway, that's interesting. I appreciate you kind of going down
that pathway with me. So acouple of things that we've kind of prompted,
and I believe I've shared this withyou. So if for any reason,
any of these questions like hey,I'm really not prepared to answer that
question, just feel free to sayso. But like we know here in
Leander and in my experience to Leander, and I think you probably share this
(21:03):
opinion, but if you don't,that's fine. Small business is a big,
big component in a rural city.You know that a real community that
is rapidly changing, right, thatis the driver. Eventually you see the
bigger boxes come in and you knowthere's a there's obviously an opportunity in Leander
right now to have outside investment intoour city, right and create jobs and
(21:30):
create a diversification of the tax space. I think that's I think I think
we are going down that path.Like to me, it seems like,
okay, that's what we've chosen todo, right, And we could have
chosen at that point, you know, a few years ago or whatever the
case. We could have said,you know what, we're just going to
be a bedroom community. It's justgoing to be residential and we'll live with
that. Right. But we've purposely, I believe, made some choices that
(21:51):
are leading us in a little bitof a different path and from diversification.
But before that diversification can ever occur, there needs to be a small business
driver. Right. So in yourbusiness, I'm assuming you're it's not Leander
Local, right, you're working fora larger corporate entity. What what has
(22:14):
been your exposure to to small businessin the city of Leander. I mean,
we could be through your your socialcontacts, some of your service oriented
contacts. I mean, you've mentionedsome things to do with the church.
Certainly you've had some conversations about smallbusiness in Leander. What's your general sense
there, like, what what areyour thoughts and how can we help bolster
that as part of our process?Yeah, and I think to your point,
(22:40):
we are going down that path.And I will definitely give the current
and former council's credit for recognizing that, right, But I think to that
extent, you know, when wetalk about growth, right, we talk
about small business. So not everowning a small business myself. Certainly,
some people that I have been friendswith since we've moved here have opened up
(23:03):
small businesses and you know, andthat's just ingrained in them and that entrepreneurial
spirit that they have. I thinkthat, to your point, is definitely
the backbone of our community and howwe continue to grow some of the bigger
(23:23):
chains. They are going to comein, the McDonald's, they're going to
be here. That's going You're right, that's going to show up. You
can't avoid it, and it's goingto happen anyway. There's only so much
that we do to necessarily, Iwould say there's an opportunity there to encourage
them to come. But beyond that, they're going to look at demographics.
They're going to look at the population, and they're going to make a decision
and and and they definitely have aplace in a community like Leander. And
(23:47):
as we continue to grow, youknow, to be determined what that will
look like. But from a smallbusiness aspect, I think it's it's really
incumbent upon the mayor and the citycouncil to encourage that growth from a small
business perspective, right, because wedon't want to even though we know we're
(24:07):
going to grow, we don't wantto. Me personally, I don't want
to lose that small town feel,right. I want to have the small
mom pop shops, right. Iam a customer of those, my wife
is as well. So whatever wecan do to incentivize that growth, as
well as the larger commercial spaces andstuff like that, that's definitely one of
(24:29):
my priorities is to ensure we arenot only only encouraging, but enticing people
to say, if you were onthe fence about doing this, what can
we do to have you Let's let'smake this happen right right right now.
I think again, you know,I agree with with with the statement of
you know, we need to encouragethat because the risk that you run with
(24:56):
the larger corporate entity, you know, or franchises and stuff like that,
is that there are there are mechanismsand influences on their decision making that are
completely out of our purview and ourcontrol. Right, So I mean,
I would point to what money peoplewould think it's a positive. You know,
(25:18):
if you look at the life cycleof Krispy Kream Donuts for instance,
right, So Krispy Kream became thebell of the ball, I don't know,
like you know, late nineties,early two thousands, right, and
then there were Krispy Kremes everywhere,Right, shareholders were happy. Everybody's making
money. And then something happened inthe economy and the way that people were
eating. Frankly, it changed that, right, And all of a sudden,
(25:41):
you see this downturn. If yourcommunity has let's just say two three
Krispy Kremes, you know, Idon't know, you know, I know
how, I don't know how farapart they keep those stores, to be
honest with you, but let's justsay you have that. Then all of
a sudden that goes away, right, that has nothing to do with anybody
but maybe the local franchisee. Right. But outside of that, that's not
(26:02):
within their purview. They're they're they'reaffected by something that happens outside of that,
right. So it's always a littlebit of concern personally for me,
Like when I look at some ofthe development even currently that we see whether
or not there's enough diversity in theway that we allow for that, and
and and are subject to some ofthat type of development. Right. COVID
(26:23):
really gave us a real good lessonin over emphasizing the service industry and coming
from the hotel industry myself, Imean that's where I got a lot of
my background. I you know,I could see it like it was like,
oh wow, those cities that haveyou know, like Austin. You
saw it in Austin, right thatso many people lost jobs and so many
(26:45):
hotels suffered just because of what itwas happening, right, But there wasn't
enough diversity in that particular sector tobe able to maintain it. You saw
a number of restaurants that just disappeared, right, Right, So you kind
of want to avoid that from acity planning perspective. And I think small
businesses help with that. I mean, because again they're they're a little bit
(27:06):
more diverse because there's all sorts ofthings that they do. Yeah, And
I think to that point, Ithink that's incumbent upon the council to really
be thoughtful when they're planning out thenext five, ten, eight years to
really and we talk about zoning,we talk about all this other stuff.
I think they need to really havea solid plan in place to what what
(27:27):
sort of leander do we want?Do we want walmarts and targets everywhere or
do we want some of that?But we also want Grand Donuts, you
know, all these you know,stuff like that. So I think it's
I think it's a valid point.I think it's you know, I think
that's one of the roles of localgovernment is really to be more of the
(27:48):
facilitator of growth rather than the regulatorof growth, right in some regards,
right, And I would I thinkwe're probably thinking the same thing here,
right. You just need to bemindful of that. And right now it's
a really critical period of time inthe city's growth, right because when I
first got here, and it wasyou know, shortly before you got here,
I would say close to you know, fifty thousand people or so like
(28:17):
ish, right, And I've hadconversations with candidates already that they you know,
they were here when there were seventhousand people here, right, So
it was exponential growth, right.I mean, at one point we were
the fastest growing city in the UnitedStates. And that's bananas, right,
because all due respect and all dueregard to all of those who were participating
(28:37):
in that process, and we're responsiblefor executing on a lot of those things,
I think it's fair to say there'sno way you can plan for that,
right that you cannot. You canmaybe see that it might be coming,
but when it happens, you're like, there's no way. It's it's
too fast, it's hard to keepup. So a lot of what we're
doing now is a little bit ofketchup, right, And so from that
perspective, what are your thought onmeasures that could be taken? Like,
(29:02):
Like, if you're in that position, you're in a leadership position, and
you're and you're thinking through some ofthe things that that are going to happen
to the city going forward, howdo you steward you know, responsible responsible
development and balance development, right,I mean and and and and and and
damon, get me. I don'twant to get I don't want you to
(29:22):
get me wrong here, right.I'm not trying to put you on the
spot, but I want to knowyour thoughts on what you consider to be
that like, how do we balancethat out as as even just as a
citizen? What would you like tosee? Right? And and and this
goes beyond the business discussion that wejust had. This is more you know,
you know, a fifty to fiftyargument, a sixty forty you know
(29:45):
what I mean by that? Yeah, Yeah, it's funny. This is
this is a question I get askedregularly. So I think, to your
point, it has to be agood balance between commercial and residential. And
I think in your past we leftdefinitely leaned as a city more towards residential,
agreed, right, and now we'replaying catch up. But I think,
(30:11):
you know, if I had toput a percentage on it, sixty
forty commercial and residential, right,But it has to be somewhat balanced,
right, because I think at amacro level, when things kind of settle
down, their growth is going tocontinue and come, it's going to keep
coming. Right. People need aplace to live. Sure, they need
(30:34):
restaurants to go to, shops togo to, they need all of that.
So I think it's got to bea balanced approach. And I think,
kind of going back to what Isaid before, that's where the City
Council really needs to do a deepdive and think of what is the path,
how do we get there, howdo we be responsible, and how
do we make an impact on theeveryday citizens of Leander to give them so
(30:56):
they don't have to go to Austinfor date night, they don't have to
go to Georgetown, and they don'thave to go to these places. It's
all right here. So yeah,I mean I had the opportunity and the
pleasure of serving on the Comprehensive PlanningCommittee right a couple of years ago.
Now I think it is and thatwas a very interesting perspective on things,
(31:19):
right because that's a plan that isrevised I think every five years, I
want to say, right, sowhen we look back, like my opportunity
there was to be able to lookback at what some of the planning had
been right, like these are thingsthat they thought, well, okay,
this could work, right, Andkind of to our conversation earlier where we
were saying, yeah, try it, see if it works. It doesn't
(31:40):
work, right, So you hadthat going on. But you'll hear a
lot of people and maybe you've heardthis too, a lot of people in
Leander. And then the time thatI've been here, one of the things
that has been a constant is whoare we right? Like what's the brand?
Like what is leand about? Right? And you'll talk to different people
(32:01):
and I've had an opportunity to speakwith, you know, a couple of
the different candidates now for mayor,and you know, there's there's been comments
there like, you know, Ithink a unifying theme is the is the
small town component? Right? Ithink everybody has some variant of that conversation.
Right, You've spoken of it today, like it's one of the things
(32:23):
that attracts you to the city andyou know, frankly, it attracts me
as well. Right. So ifwe take that and say, okay,
hey, that's part of it,right, you know, that is the
challenge, and especially right now again, to mirror and to echo what you're
saying. A lot of the growththat's coming to Leander is going to come
(32:45):
to Leander, whether if we justsat here and did nothing. It's going
to happen, right, It's justis it's the pressures that are being executed
in Greater Central Texas. Right.Austin's trying to find land, and they're
trying to create places where they cangrow, right because they're kind of landlocked.
They they're stuck, you know.There they're digging thirty five underground to
(33:10):
there's those and I mean those aregreat projects. I mean I think some
of that stuff is really a goodidea. Like I saw it in Boston
when Boston did that, right,Boston covered up one of the freeways and
created in space to grow to.It's benefited them to great degree. Right.
We see that happening in Austin.Then we of course there's this like
the South Congress stuff that's going ontoo to where they're looking to build out
(33:30):
South Congress. So that's going tohappen anyway, right, And then you
have people like you know, youhave the the Samsung's and the Tesla's of
the world, and they're creating thesepressures, right, so there's a there's
a natural growth that's going to happen. That's what I saw in Houston.
That's what I always reflected to likeI'm out and I'm out in Cypress.
I was out in Cypress at atime where there was a Cajun bar out
(33:52):
there and that was about it.There was nothing else out there, right,
and then next thing, I knowWalmart and you know loss of dark
sky, right, So you know, from from that perspective, we know
we know it's going to happen.And I appreciate some of your comments.
They're like, you know, justkind of how we how we balance that
out and uh and and get tothat point, right, So kind of
(34:19):
change I want to change the subjecta little bit here, just because we're
kind of flirting with that council kindof conversation. And you and I had
a little chance to chat right beforewe started, and it's like, hey,
you know this is you were niceenough to tell me this. You
appreciate what I'm doing here from afrom just creating the conversations, right,
So transparency is always something that's aconversation, right, like how much we
(34:40):
know and when we know it?And you know, I think again here,
I don't know if you would agreenecessarily, but I think here again,
the current council has done a goodjob of creating more transparency. Right,
there's been updates to the website.There's a lot of things that you
can participate in now and you knowyou can subscribe to you know, news
(35:00):
flashes and things of that nature.That's a good thing, that's the right
direction. What would you in theleadership position do to continue complement expand how?
How how do you help with that? So and I know we spoke
about it, but I couldn't agreemore. I think that level of community
engagement could be better. Okay,again, give credit to the current council.
(35:27):
They're making efforts to engage in public, right. I think you know,
whether it's Leander or any place we'veever lived, you know, there's
people have lives, they're busy,everybody's busy, right, And and I
think with the popularity of all socialmedia, right, I think that's definitely
(35:49):
an avenue. I think a lotmore community events anytime that current former future
councils and mayors can can have theopportunity to get out and just talk about
the issues and really solicit ideas fromthe citizens. That's where you're gonna get
your best information from one to oneconversations. How do we do here?
(36:13):
What do you think, how canwe do it better? Right, I
think that's maybe an area where there'ssome opportunities. So yeah, I mean,
any any chance, you know,whether it's a local newsletter, mass
emails, whatever the case is,all technology tools at our disposal last that
(36:34):
information out. Hey, guys,we have this coming up on this date.
We're going to talk about X,Y and Z. Really encourage everybody
to get out, come to thecity council meetings. Right, whatever efforts
we can do to further engage thecitizens. It's a win win, right,
right, Yeah, I agree again, I mean, obviously I feel
(36:55):
that we're doing a better job herein the city of that, but I
do agree that there's still a goodopportunity to increase that, right And and
to your point, I think Iwould be a good idea. I'd love
to see more non election period engagement, you know. I mean, and
(37:17):
if there's there are avenues, Okay, I'm not going to pretend that there's
not. You know, you canif you're a citizen so inclined and you
and you want to become a littlebit more participatory, you know, hey,
volunteer for a committee, you know, get involved, start making your
voice part of that process one hundredpercent. That's that's one of the routes
that's available. Right. But thatsaid, you know, there are limitations
(37:38):
to what committees can do. Imean in our space, to be honest,
and having served on multiple committees asidefrom l pack, nobody has a
budget, nobody has any real influence. Right, It's an advisory, it's
a it's a it's an information andidea gathering place right, properly executed,
(38:00):
can be very effective, right,But there's limitations to that. And and
then you you you layer in someof the restrictions that occur when you start
doing that from you know, froma legislative perspective and the open meetings rules
and stuff like that. It getscomplicated. It's not easy, right,
(38:20):
But I think there is opportunity forfor candidates like yourself and for actual elected
officials after the fact to open upthat space. Right. I'm not saying
you always have to sit down withme, but it's a good venue,
right, it's a it's a goodway to kind of just have a conversation
talk about some of the things.And and there's always there's always well,
(38:40):
we can't talk about that because we'recompeting with other cities and blah blah blah.
You know, and and that's fair, but really, I mean,
this is huddle going to learn thatmuch from an open conversation, right,
you know, And and and therethey they obviously would have different pursuits because
they have different objectives. Right.So anyway, so I appreciate your taking
(39:06):
the time here today and kind offollowing on the path, right, just
kind of coming along. I've enjoyedthis conversation immensely, and it's it's it's
really nice to meet people who have, you know, again that servant leadership
mentality, who are looking really likewhat can I do to help? What
can I do to make a change? And and I always say this,
(39:27):
you know, the best of luckon your endeavors. I certainly hope that
everything works out the way that youwant it to work out. And if
there's ever an opportunity that I couldencourage anybody, I'd say, hey,
you know, if if if stayinvolved, right, I mean, this
is just that one time, andthis is the first effort, right,
so we can fail, but let'sstay involved, because I think you add
(39:47):
an interesting voice to the mix.I mean, I'll be perfectly honest,
having met you, for the firsttime. And and I would say that
about all the all the candidates.Some of them have been around a little
bit and I know them, youknow, I already know of them,
but at this group, in thisin this particular election cycle, is pretty
new. They're people that I'm notfamiliar with. So this has been really
enjoyable for me to get engaged withthem and have that conversation. I certainly
(40:09):
hope you feel the same way.Yeah. Absolutely, I would encourage all
your listeners have to put a plugin from a website. Yeah, no,
absolutely, I was just about totell you, hey, so you
can look at the camera, givethem a straight out face and and that
where can they find you? Whereare your socials? What are your websites?
You know? How how do howdo they get in touch with Damon
Dark? Yeah? Yeah, soreally encourage you to check us out at
(40:30):
Damon Berger the number four leander dotcom. I've got some some issues up
there and what I stand for,And yeah is that? Do you are
you on any of the other socialmedia's any Instagram, orka, LinkedIn is
as far down the social media rabbithole as I go at the moment,
at the moment, but yeah,I really encourage you guys to check out
(40:52):
my website and see what we're allabout. Right, No, well,
damon, I certainly do appreciate againyou've taken time. It happens to be
a Friday, and it's at theend of the day, so I really
really do appreciate that. It's beenan absolute pleasure from my perspective. And
for those of you who have youknow, engaged here on the Lean and
(41:12):
Leander podcast and our website and whatnot, I appreciate the comments. I appreciate
the suggestions. It's definitely something thatI take a look at, so you
know, keep them coming, likeand subscribe as they say, and you
can find us on Apple Podcasts,Facebook, YouTube, other various social media's.
Will throw a few things out therefrom time to time just to let
you know what's going on. Buttake the time to get yourself registered to
(41:37):
vote. Today is March twenty ninth, so technically there's probably about six days
left to do that. Just alittle information there. You know, if
you've lived here, if you justmoved here, you're here thirty days.
You can register to vote as soonas you do your driver's license. Again,
an opportunity to register to vote andget that done Vale be fourth so
that you can participate in the Mayfourth election at the very least. If
(41:58):
you don't do that and for somereason you miss that, take the opportunity
to go out and meet the candidates, meet Damon, meet some of the
other candidates. When you have theopportunity to. I know that there's several
things that occur. You know,many of the local associations and you know,
I think the chamber does some thingsand stuff like that. So find
out what these people are about.And hopefully what we've done here today helps
(42:20):
you learn a little bit more aboutDamon and hopefully that helps you make your
decision. So at the end ofthe day, that's what it's all about.
Get out there and vote. It'swhy we do the series. It's
why we present these things in thisway, so that you have an opportunity
to meet these folks and you don'tget the chance to sit down with them
one on one. I do.I'm fortunate and I'm doing that so that
you know, hopefully it helps youget a little bit of insight. So
(42:42):
Demon, thank you so much.I really really do appreciate that this was
very nice and for those of you. That's it for today's episode, but
again, keep your eyes on theVoting Leander dot com website as well as
lenileander dot net and we'll continue topost information on this election cycle and hopefully
it helps you make decisions. Thanksa lot, folks for tuning in,
and we'll see you up the nextone. An
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com