Vote in Leander - Episode 70 - Andrew Naudin - Place 5

Guest host Morgan Tuttle takes the helm as we continue with the Vote in Leander series. Our guest is someone you are familiar with from the podcast. Andrew Naudin is running for Leander City Council - Place 5 and Morgan sat down to ask him the questions he is noramally asking the candidates. It's a bit of a role reversal but keeps the spirit of series in place. Meet the candidates in a conversation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to episode seventy of Lean and Leander and the
first interview in the Vote in Leander series with our
guest host, Morgan Tuttle.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hi, welcome back everybody. My name is Morgan Tuttle and
we're here again at Lantern Media Studio and I'm here
again with Andrew for my first ever hosting of Lean
and Leander for the Vote in Leander series.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hey, Morgan, Thanks.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
That's a bit of a role reversal for me here,
but I appreciate what you're doing here to make sure that.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
We keep this.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
Public service, if you will going, because I think it's
going to be important to talk to the candidates and
I just happen to be one of them this time.
So that's the that's the only thing that's really changed. Well,
and then me being in this seat, well that's true too.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Those are the two things that have really changed.

Speaker 5 (01:10):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, Andrew, thank you for having me here and giving
me the opportunity to host this. I will let you
know that I apologize in advance. I'm not used to
being in this seat, so I'll be muddling through as
best as I can.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
No, it's all good, It's all good.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
I mean you're gonna be You're gonna be perfectly fine
with this, and I think it'll help demonstrate a little bit.
I mean selfishly, it's not that easy.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
It's not like it sounds all fun and games. As
soon as you sit in front of the microphone, you're like, uh, yeah, okay,
what do I say?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, I say, how do I say this?

Speaker 4 (01:42):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah? No, it's all good.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
I'm perfectly confident that you're going to be really good
at this, so I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, all right, So I guess we'll start with a
couple of questions. We'll get the basics out of the way.
I guess tell me a little bit about your background
and where you're from.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Okay, so Texas born and raised, right. I was born
in Olpaso, Texas, formative youth out there, and then I
did some time at the University of Texas al Paso,
bounced around a little bit, went back and forth between
California and Texas, and then eventually ended up in Houston,

(02:18):
where I met my wife. And that was weird because
she was from Ohio and you know that, Like, I mean,
Houston's a big city, right, so you have a lot
more propensity. I suppose to meet people from other places, right,
So yeah, so we met and then you know, we
quickly started a family and raised my kids out there

(02:41):
twenty five twenty eight some odd years something like that.
I could probably go back into the math.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
I just never have.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
But yeah, So around the time that we became empty nesters,
her kids were off to college, and my wife and
I were thinking about moving into town, like into Houston
from the suburbs. And then she had an opportunity. Of
the company that she was working with at that time

(03:09):
had offices in Houston and Austin, and they decided to
consolidate all their offices to Austin. So we ended up here.
There was really nothing keeping us in Houston. I really
didn't have any family or anything like that. I mean
a lot of friends, but you know, it just seemed
like a good opportunity to kind of change things up
and shake it up, so we ended up coming out here.

(03:30):
We originally started to look and actually started to build
a house in Georgetown, but then our house in Houston
didn't sell, so we kind of got stuck for a
little bit. And I was in Houston, my wife was
out here in Austin, and while we were building that house.
She would drive back and forth at work, right, and
then one day she calls me, she says, hey, that's

(03:52):
too far. I don't want to live that far from town, right.
So we kind of came back around, started doing some
additional tours, and our brought us out to Leander and
we'd looked at a few areas and then I decided
to drive down Lakeline. For whatever reason, there was some

(04:12):
signs or something like, oh, let's go over here and
take a look in. At that time, it was about
seven years ago. There wasn't as much development out towards
that end of Hero and so we found our place.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Right.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
It just kind of spoke to us, and we ended
up buying and moving and settling here in Leander. Like
I said, about seven years ago. So that's what brought
me here. I've been, you know, working a couple of
different things here in Austin. I've always been in sales,
and so when I got to Austin, I had to
kind of figure out a new network. So I tried

(04:46):
a few different things there, mostly in the tech sector.
I did a little bit of venture capital work and
some incubator work. I worked with the Alzheimer's Association for
a while and then ended up finding my current job,
which is in the communications sector and I work with
like a data group there, so we do data analysts,

(05:08):
analysts stuff.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
So exciting, you know, it can be.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
I mean, there's it's interesting when you start digging into stuff, right, Yeah,
you never know what you're gonna find. But yeah, no,
it's it pays the bills very nice.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Well, and so what kind of widely in or not
like Cedar Park the type.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
Of home that we were looking for. We wanted something
that was a little bit closer to you know, a
good transportation center, and the train was really one of
our decision making processes, right So when we were looking
in Leander and it became it became apparent to us

(05:48):
that that was an option, right then, it really kind
of started us thinking it's like, oh, you know, you
could easily you know, instead of having to drive all
the way into town every day, you could go and
take the train and you know, you have some time
to get ready every day. But you know, we learned
it was about an hour ride and that appeal to
both of us, right, more so my wife because she
was the one who's actually working in Austin, UH and

(06:09):
at the time, I was working from home, so it
really wasn't that much of an issue for me. But
when we got out here, we were able to get
a lot more than what we had expected for our
money and and still be relatively close to the city.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Right. Yeah, Central Texas is real different from Houston.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
There's a complete there's it's a completely different way of
living and a completely different way of approaching a lot
of things, right because I mean we grew up in
uh you know, and raised our kids and in Houston.
We were literally for the first few years of my
kid's life, we were in Houston like inside the Loop,
and that kind of urban environment is just it's different.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
It's way different.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
But yeah, no, that's that was really one of the
main reasons again, you know, it's just it was it
was easy use of the train and at the time
when we bought our house was it was a really
undeveloped area and there was this wonderful pasture behind us,
right because not anymore, no, not anymore. We were right
up against the property line there, right, so we knew

(07:12):
there was always going to be some green space behind us,
which was you know, a decision. Yeah, but at the
time we're like, well, you know, as long as we
can have this pasture. There was a period of time
when we first moved in where we would get up
on any random weekend and uh, you know, it'd be
a longhorn sitting there right outside of our fence, right
just looking at us.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
That and the deer. You'd see the deer, you know,
gallop through there.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
We have some horses near ours. Yea, there's a couple
of little areas, but they're you know, they're area now
that seems really small and I'm not sure they're going
to be there for Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
Now we have the same thing with the cattle, because
there's actually still an area in our subdivision where technically
they can run the cattle. They're out there every once
in a while, but mostly they were on the other
side of the lake line. Now, so they got land
over there. Whoever the landowners are, I think it's the
Gilpin family. They have They have ranches, ranch land on

(08:08):
both sides and then over on lake line. So yeah,
it was cool, Well it lasted. It's not bad to
have neighbors back there. Right now, the the what is it,
it's Rosenbaugh. The Rosenbaut development. It's really nice. They've done
a really good job with that development.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
So it's nice.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
It's nice to have those neighbors. And you know we're
kind of expanding our circle kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
So yeah, we're over by, you know, off of Crystal Falls,
close to Ronald Reagan, and you know, I love the area.
You know, it was a new development. You know, it's
kind of why we moved out here. You know, you
know a little bit more space, you get kind of
that good mix of rural but suburban. Yeah, but you know,
now it's just it's getting really developed. There's a lot
lot of you know, businesses and things going in and

(08:49):
just definitely the vibe has definitely changed.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
No, it will.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
I mean that's progress. That's that's just kind of what
happens after time, right. I mean, you can make the
choice as a as a homeowner. You know, if you
really want the you know, the the more rural kind
of experience, you can you can move out. You can
move further out, and it's not the most ideal situation
to be in, obviously, but if that's what you're looking for,

(09:14):
you know, it's a nice thing about being in a
in an area where development is relatively newer kind of
sort of speaking, right, I mean, people have obviously been
living out here in the in the Greater Austin area
for a while, but some of this more suburban type
development is a little bit newer out here. And you know,
we lived in what is uh, you know, we lived

(09:37):
in Cyprus, Texas for the most part. Like again, you know,
first few years in Houston and then we're like, okay,
big city kids started to go to school and we're like, yeah,
I really not too sure about that. So we moved
out to the Cipher Independent School District, which is you know,
very well regarded, and we're like, okay, our kids are
going to be in public school. So that's one of

(09:57):
the reasons we moved out there. And we saw it
out there. We kind of saw something similar, right, because
Cyprus is kind of a I want to say, it's
an unincorporated area. It's not like ETJ. It's not like
out here, right, But there was no municipal leadership, right,
it was just stuff happened. I just went back this

(10:17):
past weekend and it was kind of surprised at some
of the development that's actually taken place. To your point,
you know, progress happens and new stuff gets built, and
people want you know, the the.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
You know, the.

Speaker 4 (10:32):
Things and the conveniences is the word. I'm looking for
the conveniences of life right near them, and so that's
going to happen, right, I.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Mean, as long as there's an A G B place.

Speaker 4 (10:45):
Right right, well, you know, and you're not. I mean,
that's that's what most people will like. You know, what
are you looking for? Like, what are the conveniences of
life that you're looking for? And so you know, you
want a good mix. I would say for me personally,
I want a good mix. I want stuff that's you know,
the the sandwich shops that I'm used to going to,

(11:08):
but also you know, like you know, a nice local restaurant,
that type of thing. You try to get a good
mix in there. But yeah, those are generally the things
that people I think, you know, are looking for for
the for the places to live. But my point being
is that in Cyprus what we saw was like a
lot of growth really quick without any zoning and just
stuff going up everywhere, right, There was no plan, right,

(11:28):
And when I moved out here to Leander, I was
keenly aware of that, right because I could see. You know,
I had the experience of looking at like, Okay, I've
just lived through this for the last twenty something years.
I get here and I'm like, okay, wait, you guys
are like fifteen years behind where I started, right, So
I was like, Okay, I've seen this happen before. Not
exactly the same, but I've seen those types of development

(11:51):
issues and again the growing pains, and I was like, Okay,
you know, this is this is something I probably want
to maybe see if I can help.

Speaker 5 (11:58):
Right.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
It's kind of one of the first things that kind.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
Of motivated me to to start talking to people, you know,
who were involved with city planning and development and whatnot
and and see what I could do, you know, volunteer
for commissions and things of that nature. So it was
always kind of intentional out here. It's just been something
that I I decided I wanted to do early on,

(12:21):
is just be involved and and see what I could
do to help, right.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, And that kind of leads into the next question.
So you've been here for you said, seven years, Yep,
how come you've just now decided to h you know,
run for offices election cycle?

Speaker 4 (12:36):
I mean, it's a it's a it's a it's probably
the question because of what I've done before, so you know,
if I if I take a look at it from
that perspective and and just being real, forthright and transparent.
When I first came to Leander, uh, there was an
election underway, right, and I saw a bunch of election
signs and this guy running against that guy and whatever,

(12:58):
and I was like, okay, what's going on here? So
I kind of quickly studied what was happening in the
local politics, and I thought, you know, again, I want
to get involved, but I don't know where to start,
so let me try to start to get on some
commissions and things of that nature. And at first it
was a little bit of resistance because I hadn't been
here long enough, right, and so I ran into a

(13:21):
little bit of well, you have to live here a
certain amount of time before you can really you know,
jump in and get involved and whatnot, which I thought
was kind of silly. But you know, I'm like, Okay, hey,
I don't know, and I don't know what I don't know, so,
you know, try to learn and inform myself. And so
I did some work with the Chamber of Commerce because
I think That's where I really was able to get
into the first commission, right, and it was it was

(13:43):
a Chamber of Commerce economic development commission, right, so really
didn't have any direct impact on anything, right, It was
more of a think tank sort of idea. But there
were some really really good people there, so gave me
an opportunity to start meeting some of the people who
get involved in these things, right, some of the I

(14:04):
don't know if you call them movers and shakers, but.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
So yeah, so that's kind of where that started.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
And I thought, you know, I'm gonna familiarize myself with
the issues. I'm gonna fa familiarize myself with, you know,
what's going on in the city, and so that I
can be you know, at least somewhat knowledgeable as to
you know, what the what the parameters of those issues are.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Right.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
And then I just kept continuing to volunteer my time
on boards and commissions. I was on the Ethics Commission.
I was eventually on the city's Economic Development Committee, which
I renamed to an advisory because you know, I was
elected chair at a point and I said, you know
what we have to we have to kind of we

(14:52):
have to be what it is that we are instead
of trying to be something that we're not, right, and
economic development committees are different in a lot of cities,
and here in Leander. You know, this was an idea that,
you know, to to start an economic development committee with
the anticipation of some other issues kind of falling into place.

(15:15):
And when those didn't, then that committee kind of became,
you know, for lack of better terms, it just didn't
have any real guidance, It had no vision, right, and
so but we were really determined. It was a determined
group of people. And and I was you know, honored
with the uh with the selection of chair, you know,
because we needed someone to kind of lead the ship, right,

(15:38):
And and we did some good work, I thought, you know,
I thought we really worked hard to find issues that
we could we could provide some advisory, uh direction to
the city, to the council. We were under no illusions
that we were going to change anything per se, right,
but we were like, you know, there's a few things
that we can address and we can help and we

(15:59):
can lead give some outlines and some ideas, and I
think we did a pretty good job of that. But yeah,
that's kinda that's kind of how this has all come about.
And and the podcast was part of that too, right
because at the time, and this was four years ago now,
with the podcast, I just felt that there was a.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Gap in the conversation. Right.

Speaker 4 (16:21):
There were these people who were getting involved in being
either committee members or running for council whatever, and we
didn't I didn't know who they were, right.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
I was like, well, they're just people.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
It's a volunteer position, right, You're not running for you know,
a paid a public position or anything like that. You're
running to represent people in the community. But there was
nobody talking to these folks, right. I mean, yeah, there's
you know, there's there's forums and whatnot. But I was like,
you know, there needs to be more of a conversation,

(16:53):
just one on one, like what we're doing here that
hopefully frames it in a way that you know, shows
a human side of things a little bit more. I
like to think I was fairly successful with it.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
You know.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
I mean we've interviewed on the podcast. We've interviewed pretty
much every candidate except for two in the last three
election cycles.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, and I was here helping you for those you.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
Were you were it was It was really kind of
because I mean there was a home you know, it
was a home studio effort initially, right, and I was
out there with my iPhones and and and getting some
video and so much nicer.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Oh, it's so much nicer.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
You have no idea, I mean, just the just the
fact that I'm able to you know, the audio quality
and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
I mean, And and the.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
Truth with the with the podcast is that, you know,
we started with a video uh uh YouTube Facebook kind
of approach and eventually added the podcast part. And the
podcast part kind of had a little bit more momentum,
which is what drove me to the studio because I
was like, if I can improve the audio quality, it'll

(17:57):
help with the podcast, right, And it just it does.
It's such a big difference, yeah, from oh absolutely absolutely,
and you were you were kind enough to give me
an opportunity to do that, right, you know, because it's
it's it's not for free, right And and I you know,
as much as I'd like to think I could could
monetize the podcast, I'm not making a whole lot of

(18:17):
money off the podcast.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
You know.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
It's it's in the dollars, it's not even the tens
of dollars, right, So you know, it's it's a labor
of love from my perspective, and it's just something that
I do, I think as a community service, and it
was really important.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
You know.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
The point of you being here today and hosting is
because I'm a candidate. It doesn't mean that that's still
not important, right, And I still want that to happen,
and hopefully the other candidates will take advantage of that.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
I I mean, I think it's great that you're actually
still doing this even though you're running. You could just
be like, you know what, you guys are on your own,
you know, right, right, I'm not going to give you
any ear time.

Speaker 4 (18:50):
Well, no, I think it's important, and it's not it's
not on us versus them or anything like that, you know,
I think it's important to provide this information for people
who actually go and vote and or who are going
to consider going to vote. Right, It's it's we're we're
not so big that it's you know, there's still a
lot of small town things that we can do, and

(19:12):
to be honest, the podcast is one of those things, right.
I mean, I could easily have already expanded it beyond Leander.
It's it's hard to find topics all the time, right
outside of the voting stuff. The voting stuff is easy
from that perspective because it's you know, at least it's
topical and it's timely. But yeah, no, I I hope
that I hope that people view it as a public service,

(19:34):
because that's how it's intended.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah no, I think I think you're definitely a good thing.
You're doing well. You are a friendly audience, so try so.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yes, I guess it kind of again another lead into
you know, kind of what your you know, you feel
your unique qualifications and experiences are that you will bring
to your hopeful position.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
Part of it is is prep. I've spent the last
several years here in Leander very intentionally. By the way,
one of the first things that I did when I
got here was I was very intentional about meeting my neighbors.
I wanted to know who they were. I wanted to
know their names, you know, I wanted to introduce them
to where you know, the the approach was, hey, I'm

(20:21):
I'm I'm the guy you can get a cup of
sugar from if you need it, right, That was the
whole idea, And so you know, I made a very
very conscious effort to try to meet a lot of
my neighbors. And I do know a good number of
the people in my neighborhood by name, and if not
by name, by you know, you know, at least they
know who I am, right, they'll recognize me as being

(20:42):
one of the neighbors, which is nice because there are
situations where you know, hey, I need you know, I
need some flour, you know whatever.

Speaker 3 (20:51):
Right, And especially when.

Speaker 4 (20:52):
We hit COVID, it really it really it slowed the
process down, but at the same time, it kind of
solidified some of those relationships, right because it was people
that were in our neighborhood that we had only known
a short period of time a year or two, right,
and and they were able to come to us, They
were able to come to our home or ask us
pick up the phone and ask us if they needed anything,

(21:14):
and we were always happy to help. My wife and
I and both are are are kind of committed to that.
You know. My wife started to volunteer at you know,
some of the food pantries out here and and some
of that stuff too. Because she's she has that same
kind of community orientation. She goes about a little bit different,
you know, she does less visible things from her perspective,

(21:35):
but we're both kind of oriented that way. But yeah,
that that that is one part of it is that
like that intentional, that intentionality, if you will, of of
making the effort to be involved and and and for
reasons that are very altruistic. You know, it's not about me.
It's it's about making sure that that my world is
informed and is as communicative as possible with the people

(21:59):
who are around me, and that includes my neighbors. I
think we lose a lot of that in society today.
We get away from that. And and sometimes it's the
development that actually does that. You know, you have a
lot of new developments come up and they and they
and for good reason. And and I'm not saying it's
a wrong or right. It's not a bad or good.
It's just what they do, right. They build walls, right,

(22:21):
and so you end up with these subdivisions, and there's
these walls between people, and it's just it's it's it
starts to create barriers to communication, right, So you have
to be intentional to get around those. So that's one thing,
the intentionality, and the other thing is just again, you know,
just by taking the time to learn the things right,

(22:41):
because there's a lot of things, and I will readily
admit I don't know all of them.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
I don't, I don't.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
But anytime I try to get into any one particular
area of communication as far as municipal topics are concerned,
I try to make sure and do as much homework
as I possibly can, right, and I try to get
as many perspectives as I possibly can. And as a candidate,
and as you know, if if elected as a as
a council member, that is something that I really want

(23:10):
to emphasize.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
I think that it's absolutely.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
Critical for us in in in Leander to build bridges
of communication between communities, right, because there's a lot of
diversity out here, you know, no matter which way you
cut it, right, And I know that word gets a little,
you know, a little topical right now, but the diversity
of the population is apparent. It's easy to see. I mean,

(23:36):
all I have to do is go to AGB right,
or which is next to AGB right. So I mean seriously,
but I and we joke a little bit, but I
mean that you go to your grocery stores, your larger
grocery stores and your specialty grocery stores. It tells you
the story of your community. Right when you have literally

(23:59):
special stores that are selling items to a particular culture
or particular background, those people live there because they need
those conveniences that we were talking about at the top. Right,
For them, it's more about being able to get you know,
helal or you know, kosher or whatever it might be,
right as opposed to you know, I don't know, chuck

(24:24):
e cheese, you know. I mean, it's just different, but
it's the same, right, those two things can be true
at the same time. So that's that's one of the
things that I that I think I bring and you know,
and and again a sensibility on the topics that is
very grounded. You know, everybody has their opinions, and everybody's

(24:44):
entitled to their opinions, and there's always going to be
perspectives on things that are going to differ, Right. I
like to try to be the person who is willing
to listen to all of those perspectives with a real
simple precursor. It's helped me understand, help me understand why
you think that, help me understand why you feel that way,

(25:06):
help me understand why that is important to you. And
as a representative and in the true sense of representative government,
it's not my decision, right, it's it's my job or
my you know, the intentionality is to take in all
of those opinions and come up with something that everybody
can be happy with. Knowing of course, so you're not

(25:27):
going to get everybody. You're not going to get everybody
on board, you know.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Yeah, No, I personally think that is a trait that
not very many people have these days, is you know,
listening to other points of views and you know, every
not I won't say everybody, but you know, there's a
lot going on right now where people they have an
idea in their head that you know, what they think
is right, they don't listen to anybody else, and they

(25:52):
just they do what they want to do without any
input from anybody else. And I think it's it's getting
more rare for you know, people like you who actually
want to listen to others and then you know, provide
everybody with all of that import Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Again, it's.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
You always want to be open to conversation, right, right,
because we are a social species. That's that's we're wired
like that, right. That's the reason we've been as successful
as a species as we have is because we're a
social creature, right. And you know, again, I'm in the

(26:35):
I I'm in the I'm tech adjacent, if not directly
in the tech industry, right, so I'm always really kind
of attuned to some of the things that are going on.
And there's a there's a lot of benefits and there's
a lot of you know, there's i sided probably a
fifty to fifty equation as far as you know, good
and bad as far as tech is concerned. I think
a lot of the stuff that we see today was
not necessarily intentional but has become monetized.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
Right.

Speaker 4 (27:00):
So, you know, the ideas of creating communication and an
ability to find information very quickly and to expand on
the amount of information that's available, all those are really
really good ideas. I think what ended up happening is
that the way that it was being consumed very quickly

(27:21):
became something that you know, a lot of the tech
industry leaders realized very quickly that that was monitored, that
they could make money off of that. Right, People's attention,
that's what's been monetized, right. Our attention, like the time
that you spend on whether it's social media's or just
you know, entertaining yourself on your phone or whatever it is. Right,

(27:43):
it's always about getting your eyeballs and having your eyeballs somewhere.
And if you remember, I mean when we first started
this whole process, it was all free, right. You could
just do it for hours, and hey, I mean, I'm
just gonna look at them and look at these, and
you'd go into these, you know, down these rabbit holes
of just stuff, right, And and people figured, Okay, you
know what, I can commercialize this. I can put you know,

(28:03):
I can sell the data all that stuff. And that's
when it changed to the detriment of our communities. I think,
in my opinion humbly submitted, speaking strictly for myself, it's
created a situation where people are.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
And it's kind of.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
So there's a couple of things that happened I think
that started this right all right. First was the car, right,
because before automobiles you were much more community oriented because
you had to be right. But in an automobile, you
suddenly had you had private time, you could privatize your time, right.

(28:42):
And then televisions right, So then televisions allowed us to
be able to entertain ourselves in our own homes. Right,
So we're no longer necessarily required to go out. Right.
And there was a period of time where people would
throw dinner parties so they can entertain and meet their
friends and neighbors and get people together.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Right.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
You just don't see that anymore. It's not done because
our entertainment now as we go home and we isolate
and we enjoy whatever entertainment we enjoy for ourselves, and
occasionally we have a few folks over whatever, right, but
for the most part, it's privatized.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Right.

Speaker 4 (29:17):
So those two things start to take away from community engagement, right,
and that is something that I think as a city
you need to actively work against that.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
Right.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
You have to create opportunities for those who are inclined
to be you know, socially engaged and community oriented. You
give them those opportunities. I think it would be great
if the city were to create opportunities for conservation for example, right,

(29:51):
And it's simple stuff like you know, let's have a
citywide you know, flower planting day or you know, a
citywide garbage pick up day whatever, right, and organize these
things leveraging existing community organizations, because there's already organizations that
do these types of things. Let's just coordinate it as
a city, and let's get everybody or as many people

(30:12):
as we could.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Involved in that.

Speaker 4 (30:14):
And I think that that would have a very positive
effect on what we're talking about, which is the isolation
that people end up in and the way that people
pull away into their own communities because something like, you know,
something as simple as trash that's offensive to most people period, right,
Like you don't like to walk down your street and

(30:34):
have a bunch of trash on your sidewalk, right, That
bothers most people. Right, So let's find those people who
are going to say, you know what, I'll take a
trash bag and I'll go pick that up, and let's
get about twenty of them together and do that times ten. Right,
then you have two hundred people around the community doing
the same thing, cleaning up the streets and helping, you know,
helping the beautify the city.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Right.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
And I'd love to see the city kind of get
behind those kinds of ideas and really kind of provide
commune unity centric opportunities. Not to say that they don't
do it now, it's different. What I'm talking about is
different from what we do and I'm not saying that
what we do now is not good. It is, but
it's more entertainment and less involvement, and I'd like to

(31:16):
see a little bit more involvement.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Okay, cool, So next question, what specific policies do you
think Leander should be focusing on.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
Policies are a little bit different, right, because you know,
policies require planning, right, So if you're going to look
at a couple of things right now, I would say
from my perspective, you know, we look at everybody's going
to talk about water because water is an issue, right,
and how we're approaching our infrastructure as far as water

(31:50):
is concerned today is something that we're making up for
lost time.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
Right.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
There was.

Speaker 4 (31:57):
There's a number of reasons why that happened, right, And
I'm not so you know, I understand them. I think
from the perspective of, hey, you know, the city growth
was exponential. No one could have planned for that, Like
this is just not something you can plan for, right,
No one expected that, and so it got away from

(32:20):
any leader, any city leaders who were there during that time,
and they may not have known how to, or they
may not have had the wherewithal or you know, we
may not have had the staffing to be able to
deal with those things. But we've changed a lot of
those parameters and we're working to being able to resolve that,
which is great, Right, There's still a lot more work

(32:43):
to be done, right, and there's other things that we
need to start considering on a more holistic perspective. So
from a policy perspective, I'd say we need to start
looking at how we're addressing long term water usage and
the accompanying how do I phrase this, the accompanying perspective

(33:07):
of fire hazard as a result of drought prolonged drought periods.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
Right.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
If you want to call it climate change, you can
call it climate change. But the reality of it is
we are not getting as much water as we used
to naturally. We have manipulated the water resources to a
point to where you know, it's a distribution model now
for the most part, right, and that resource is less

(33:33):
than what it was than when we started.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
All you have to do is.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
Look at the lakes, right, It's very obvious, and so
you have to be able to plan for those things,
and you have to be able to plan for those
things at the same time. So that gets into the
responsibilities of the Council, which the Council is responsible for
primarily two things, budgeting and ordinances. Right, So those two

(33:56):
tools need to be used concurrently to ensure that the
that the long term growth and the long term sustainability
of our community is being addressed with a forward thinking policy.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
Right.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
We can't continue to come to this and and make
you know, three to five year changes and solutions, right.
They have to be more long term. And that's going
to require some conversation with the community. You know, people
are going to have to understand that, you know, are
our tax base will increase, and so where we're spending

(34:34):
our money, we need to spend our money on things
that are going to assure that the people who live
in Leander you know here now, you know, in the
short term future and in the long term future, have
a community that can sustain them in a very comfortable
way and and and give them the quality of life
that they're looking for. So that would be one, I mean,

(34:56):
that's one policy. I think there's a couple of other
places that that potentially go. I think one of the
things we actually need to look at is infrastructure. If
you look at infrastructure, there's a number of projects that
will be coming online here shortly. One of those projects
is the expansion of Hero Way. And when you look
at Hero Way, there's a lot of tributaries into hero

(35:17):
Way that starts to affect that right and and the traffic,
the increase of traffic on those on those tributaries will
speed up the degradation of the infrastructure, right, And we
need to look at that. We need to be prepared
for that. We need to find the mechanisms whatever they
may be. And I don't have all the answers, but
we need to start looking at what are those mechanisms

(35:38):
They're going to ensure that, you know that those roads
that we drive to the conveniences that we want are
such that we're not you know, bitching and moaning the
whole time about all the potholes or whatever it might be.
You know when we go to our local grocery store
or favorite fast food place. Right, we want a community

(35:58):
that can support that type of long term planning and growth.
And so from a policy perspective, that would be the
overriding theme. There would be, you know, a more of
a long term policy look like what are we doing
not now, not five years from now, but ten fifteen
to twenty years from now, how do we affect that?

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, so if you're elected, how do you envision implementing
these to address the needs of.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
The community twofold? It's a good question.

Speaker 4 (36:25):
I think the first part of that is understanding the
communication portion that we were talking about earlier and the
outreach to the community so that we get the engagement
that we want. Right. You know, you can look at
many episodes of a more recent episode of Lean and
Leander and I.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Talk about that.

Speaker 4 (36:45):
Right, you have a population of about eighty thousand people roughly,
it's probably a little bit more than that now, but
you have a voting group on any election five seven
thousand people. And that's just not enough. Right, That's just

(37:05):
not enough. We shouldn't allow ourselves as a community to
become so disengaged that that we don't take the time
to to opine on the things that we that are
going to affect us directly. Right, there's a lot of
what I call well, let me let me rephrase this.
We need to be local rather than focal.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
Right.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
There's a lot of noise in the world.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
That's focal.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
Right, And then they're focusing on things and they're and
they're you know, there's there's topics that are coming up,
and there's conversations that are created, and they don't necessarily
impact you on.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
A day to day basis.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
Right, they're big ideas, they're big conversations, right or wrong,
however you want to look at that, that's a different
way of what you're looking at when you're looking at
your local issues, right, And I think we've lost track
of that over time. We've allowed that to be kind
of taken away from us as as as local participants
in our in our cities. How our neighbors feel is important.

(38:09):
You know, how are how are subdivisions all work together?

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Is important?

Speaker 5 (38:13):
Right?

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Well, you know that Actually I was just thinking that's
actually a problem that even comes down to our subdivision,
our neighborhood level. You know, we have over four hundred
houses in our neighborhood and trying to get enough turnout
for voting for you know, our ha you know, for
things that we need to do and fix. Nobody shows
up until something blows up and people getting mad and

(38:35):
all of a sudden, everybody comes out. But then it's like, oh,
you know, we were We've been asking for volunteers for
the last six months, you know, feel free sign up,
we'd love you, love you to coming up, and you know,
at first they're excited to actually you know, be able
to affect change, and then it fades away and people
get involved in their own stuff and don't want to
deal with it.

Speaker 4 (38:54):
Well, it's kind of what I was talking about earlier.
I mean, you're highlighting that issue, right exactly.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
People have I've become.

Speaker 4 (39:02):
Much more isolated in their day to day life as
from a community perspective than than has ever been the
case in the world. Right.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
They say that there's.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
Like an epidemic of loneliness, right, But I when I
think about that and and conversations that I've had and
and information that I've sought out, I've kind of come
to the conclusion that it's, yes, there is a loneliness issue.
There's an issue there, right, there's something that's probably affecting
our youth more than anything else. But that's a different topic, right,

(39:36):
But there's a self isolation issue, right, And again it
kind of goes to the fact that how much time
you spend with your own devices in your own world
looking at the things that you want to look at,
and your attention is being diverted, and then you go
home and you and you, and you're entertained in a
way that I mean, you can you can have first

(39:58):
run movies now on eighty inch televisions with you know,
high end sound bars, and you don't need to go
to the movies. You don't need to go out into
your community. And so the point I'm trying to make
is that that that's why I'm saying. What I'm saying
is that it's important to create an awareness there and
really really emphasize it. Whether again, you know, is it

(40:21):
something and I don't know the answer. I don't and
I may not. It may not be possible either, but
it's something that we should be talking about. How does
the city as a municipality, how do we make sure
that our people are involved, that our communities are engaged,
and that they're participating, right, how do we create those

(40:42):
opportunities for participation? And maybe it's as simple as supporting
awareness of your Hoa's right. I mean, maybe there's something
as simple as that that can be done. You know,
people look for information. It's very fragmented in the environments
that exist now on purpose because people are trying to
make money off of that right, and they're not going

(41:04):
to make it easy to kind of bring all things together.
But I would argue that in the truest sense of
again representative government and what government should be doing for you,
Government should be providing that resource, if nothing else, right,
helping you as a citizen find the things that you
need to find in order to take action within your communities.

(41:27):
And again, I don't know that that's something that we
can do as a city, but I do think it's
something that we.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Should be talking about.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
And maybe there are private organizations, maybe there are community
organizations five H one C three nonprofits that have those
same ideas that even if we could just get those
people together and you start to create some traction for
those ideas, there's a lot of people who want to

(41:55):
get involved. There's just not a whole lot of people
who want to get involved in the same time. Right,
So I mean, I respect people who don't want to.
That's fine, And you don't mean if you don't want to,
that's a that's a choice. It's an active choice.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Right. I don't want to be involved, and that's okay.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
But what we think, I think what we're thinking, what
we're talking about here is the opportunity to get involved,
right and if if if nobody's doing it, then it
never gets done.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Or figuring out like if somebody wants to get involved
but they don't know how, right, you know, be able
to connect with the proper resources to be able, right
and you know, volunteer.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
You know, right, And and again, I mean it's a
larger social issue, I would argue, but the you know
part of that is just the the isolation that comes
from you know, whatever network, Right, whether it's you know,
Facebook or nextdoor or Instagram or whatever, it's never the whole.
It's always just groups, right. And again, I just think
that there's something that we can do there. I think

(42:52):
that we can be purposeful in the way that we
manage our community to help kind of overcome some of
those Some of them was modern issues because it's the
first world problems, but you know, there are problems, So how.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Do you how are you going to promote that, promote
the engagement and the openness.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
I would say that the city has done admirably a
better job as the last seven years have gone by. Right,
that was a very pronounced issue when I first got here,
it didn't exist. I think it's it's from my perspective,
there was nothing there, right, and what was there was
just it was it was antiquated, it was it was

(43:35):
you know, the idea and the way that things were
being approached were just not in line with what was
happening with the city, right, they just and and and
there's lots again, there's lots of reasons for that, Right,
It's not anybody's fault. I'm not saying it's overtly you know,
a a nefarious you know, we don't want to talk

(43:56):
to anybody, you know that. I don't think that was
the case. So the city, I think has done a
better job, and and the city engages more openly and
more actively, and I know that there are new people
on staff who are going to continue to address that, right,
and and and and and make that more apparent to
the people who live here. But again, I would argue

(44:18):
that you know, that needs to be purposeful, right, Posting
on social media every day is not. That's not the answer.
That's something you can just do, right, And like, Okay,
you have to be purposeful. You have to has to
be thought out, it has to be intentional, it has
to be holistic. Right, Far too often I think we

(44:41):
take the approach and it's it's a it's a common
problem in marketing and it's a common problem in business
is that you take an approach based on the immediate
audience that you're aware of, and you don't think about
the audience. It's that you can't see, right, Like a
simple a simple thing, be like, do we have communication

(45:02):
that is in multiple languages?

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Right?

Speaker 4 (45:04):
Are we reaching out to multiple communities?

Speaker 3 (45:06):
You know?

Speaker 4 (45:07):
Are we making an assumption that everyone you know can
can read and speak English?

Speaker 3 (45:13):
Right?

Speaker 4 (45:13):
And it's a fair assumption. I mean there's people who
would argue that, hey, if you live in the United States,
you know, English is the language that's most commonly spoken,
that's what.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
You should do.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
And I don't necessarily disagree with that, but I also say,
you know what, we also have to be aware of
the fact that there are some people who don't right,
and they may be very talented people, they may be
subject matter experts, and if we're not trying to reach
out to them and let them know that they have
a seat at the table, then they're never going to
come right. So that would be part of it, right,

(45:44):
That would definitely be you know, I think we're on
the right track. I think there's things that are being
done now that are positive. Do we just need to
continue that, We need to continue in that vein, and
we need to really look at that and say, how
can we do better here? How can we be more efficient?
How can be how can we be more purposeful in
what it is that we're doing with these mechanisms?

Speaker 3 (46:04):
Right?

Speaker 4 (46:06):
And then just ease of use, just making it easy
for people to find stuff, right, Yeah, you know, whether
that's you know, SEO or or you know, some sort
of you know, data analysis that we're doing to make
sure that we're seeing where people are coming from and
we're putting we're pushing our messages to those channels to
where you know, kind of the opposite of what I'm

(46:28):
talking about, right, Like, that's what the environment is. So
how do we make sure that our messages are getting
out in those environments so that we can use those
environments to overcome the problems that those environments are actually starting, Right, And.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
That's a big that's a big lift. That's not easy.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
And I deal with analytics all the time with you know,
with websites, you know, trying to figure out, you know,
where's the traffic coming from what are they doing and
why aren't they doing what we want them to? So let's,
you know, let's figure out how we can fix it
and make changes so that these you know, traffic patterns
change and you know, for the better.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
Yeah, and again you don't want to necessarily look at
it strictly from a business perspective. Business perspective being a
little bit different than governance in my opinion, in business,
it's very much about how do we make them change
to where they're doing what we want them to do?

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Right? No, but it's not.

Speaker 4 (47:19):
It's not because I think it brings up a very
valid point because a lot of people will look at
it that way, right, and they'll say, hey, you know what,
this is how we would do it, because we want
people to do these things. And I'm like, well, you
know what, governance and public service from a city municipality perspective,
it's not about making people do things the way that
you want them to do it. It's about providing them

(47:39):
the information where they're going now, right, so that they
do become aware because it can be that one message,
you know, it can be that one post, it can
be that one website, whatever it happens to be. If
the individual looking for that piece of information finds it,
they will tell somebody else where it is, and and

(48:00):
that person will tell two more people, and then that
person will tell two more people, and then all of
a sudden, you have a huge group of people, hundreds
of people who now know where to go get the information.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Right, this is the good kind of pyramid scheme that
we were right.

Speaker 4 (48:13):
Well, you know, yeah, I'd never thought about it as
a pyramid scheme you're talking about you know.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
No, you're I mean, you're right. No, you're not wrong,
You're not wrong.

Speaker 4 (48:23):
It's more of as it's a it's something that I
would say, you know, from my from my personal experience,
I would say, that's that's a hospitality thing, right. I.
I did a long stretch in the hospitality industry, and
one of the things that we would always talk about.
I mean, there's obviously we do advertising, and you do
things when you're in the hospitality industry to get people
to come to your hotel or to your restaurant whatever, Right,

(48:45):
But it was always about being aware of how people
were talking about those things, right, because we knew that
the word of mouth was just as powerful as the
actual advertising you know, if again, if that one person
comes and has good experience at your restaurant, they're going
to tell somebody that they had a good experience, or
two people, and those two people are going to come.

(49:06):
And if you can make sure that you continue that
customer service at a level that everybody has a similar,
if not exact same type of experience, the word gets
out right.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
We call that the referral engine.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
That's the referral engine.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
Absolutely, absolutely, one hundred percent, And that's what we want
in Leander. I mean, we're growing. There's nothing we can
do about that. It's going to grow. You know, some
people may not like that, and some people are going
to say, you know, I really want things to stay
the way they are. Well, that's not possible, because that
ship has already sailed, right that we're already well into

(49:41):
the progress of you know, moving the city forward, and
it'll look different in five years and ten years, and
eventually we'll get to a point to where, you know,
there'll be one hundred and fifty two hundred and fifty
thousand people living in thirty nine square miles and they're
all going to want to have a good quality of life.
And that's what we need to be talking about today
because we want to ensure that that happens now.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
One of the things, one of the I guess near
and dear to my heart, is businesses, you know, because businesses,
you know, they you know, they drive the communities. You know,
Leander is growing very fast, but it's mostly on the
residential end that's really growing. And I feel that, you know,
as a business owner in Leander, and you know, there

(50:26):
are a lot of things that Leander is either not
doing or could be doing better to support business growth.
And how would you use how would you handle that?
Here's what is your vision?

Speaker 4 (50:40):
And you're and you're hitting on another really good topic.
And it's definitely something that we've thought about. When I
was on the Economic Development Committee, we talked about these
types of subjects, right like what can we do to
entice business to come to Leander? And that's the key,
right you want to entice people, the businesses to make

(51:04):
those investment. Small businesses, medium businesses, even to a certain degree,
large businesses. They have to have the impetus to come
here in the first place, right, what are the reasons
that they're coming here? Are they coming here because they
have a workforce They're coming here because there's economic growth opportunity.
They're coming here because they have an educated workforce. They're

(51:24):
coming here because there is a you know, a financial
incentive for them to be here, because the people who
are living in the area have a you know, you know,
expendable income whatever. There's again a lot of factors. The
city again here has done I think an admirable job

(51:45):
of adjusting and making some decisions over the past few
years to put us in a in a position that
we're doing a better job of that now. Right, you
see a lot of the development, retail type development going
up and around even right here on you know Hero,
And if you go up a little bit one off
of one eighty three A, you see it like you

(52:08):
see there's the there's the the new uh commercial space
on on Hero right, which when you look at that
commercial space, I think C one is is the classification.
It's you know, it's it's ready for business to move in. Right,
you can come in, you can set up your shop
and whatever it is are you're going to do there,

(52:28):
and and then that benefits the city's tax space because
now you're not so reliant on just residential right, I
would caution that we would need to be very careful
about not over indexing to service oriented businesses. The pandemic
taught us a lesson and service orientation. You know, while

(52:54):
again we talk about those conveniences and stuff like that,
those are the those are the essential business from that perspective.
And if you have too many in one particular sector
for your tax space, if anything impacts that one particular sector,
then your entire tax space feels the impact of it,
right right. You know a lot of businesses closed during

(53:16):
the pandemic, and they were you know, restaurants and small
businesses because they just couldn't make it through that that
particular disruption. Which is not to say that we couldn't
have another disruption similar to that or something else. But
if you have a diversified tax space, which is really
what you want to try to do, you're able to

(53:37):
withstand the ebbs and flows of the marketplace and whatever
popular demands might be. Right, things shift over time, you know.
You know, my favorite pizza place used to be Shaky's Pizza.
There's not even I think there's what or two Shaky's
pizzas left in the whole country, and they were everywhere,
right so things change. Right, Over time, things will change

(53:59):
and got to be aware that we know it happens,
and so how do you plan for that?

Speaker 3 (54:03):
Right?

Speaker 4 (54:04):
But as far as supporting local business, I think we
need to take every initiative that we can to ensure
that we make ordinances as easy as possible to navigate.
We don't need to create additional barriers to having businesses
start their business, run their business, advertise their business, et cetera. Right,
It's always interesting to me, and I think there's a
perfect example that one commercial space that I refer to.

(54:28):
They're off of Hero right large. You know, it's really
set up for you know small those concrete yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wouldn't necessarily call them monstrosities, but they're commercial development.
It's commercial space, right, It's it's you know, a concrete
and so you can put in you know, dividers and

(54:49):
you can have multiple businesses in there, and.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
That's that's what you want.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
Right. But I think it's super interesting. And the reason
I bring it up is because there's a there's a
badminton facility in that business a bit park, right. Most
people don't like they drive by and they see the
little logo or whatever and I've had a lot of
people ask me, well, what is that? And honestly, I
didn't know until I stopped and found out. But it's

(55:15):
interesting because it's not what I would have expected for
that space, Right. I look at that space and I'm thinking,
I don't know, maybe my spectrum shop or you know,
something along those lines. That's typically where you're going to
see there more of a commercial or mid sized business,
maybe an auto repair or auto parts or something like that. Right,

(55:38):
that's my expectation. Again, speaking strictly for myself, I don't
know anything that. I don't know what's going in there,
So if any of that actually happens, it's awes and
sy just it's just a guess. I was like, that's
kind of what I think would go there. But I
was really interested to find out that it was this
Batman facility, right, And it's I don't want to I
don't want to guess wrong, but I want to say
it has something like eighteen or twenty four courts in there.

(56:01):
It's a lot, and they are full all the time. Again,
what we were kind of alluding to earlier is like
it that's somewhat community specific, Right, there's a large ending
community in Leander now and a lot of the Indian
culture has a different perspective on sporting and batman and

(56:23):
as a sport, right, so they trained differently, they approached
the sport differently.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Right.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
You and I probably play it on weekends at the
picnic because someone had a net and a couple of rackets. Right,
we're not experts by any stretch, but there's people who
take that sport very, very seriously.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
In cricket, I think we actually have a cricket yeah
facility again our neighborhood.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
I can tell you from my experience and again this
has lived. I ran I worked with a soccer club
I still do in Cyprus, Texas and we used to
At one point we had multiple fields. One of the
fields was underused and a cricket group came and approached

(57:04):
us and said, could we take over your lease with
the county because we want to build cricket fields. And
we're like, I tell you what, We'll split it with
you if we can configure the cricket fields in such
a way that we can continue to use that field
for soccer when we need to write. And initially that's
what we did. I mean, we just configured it to
where we could have a little soccer fields, small soccer

(57:26):
fields for the little kids and they could play cricket, right,
And eventually they took it over all together. But that
was an early early indication of Okay, this is a change, right,
this is something that's coming in and it's not from
a community that I'd necessarily engage with on a daily basis,
you know. But they have different needs and different wants
and different desires, but they all have to live within

(57:48):
the same community. Again, that's kind of my point at
the end of the day. It's like, look, we got
a lot of different people with a lot of different ideas.
All of them are probably pretty good. Let's figure out
a way to get most of them done.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
No, you know, I think that's great. I think I'm
kind of afraid to open this kind of worms. But
I know one of the issues, especially Scott likes to
talk about it a lot, is the sign ordinance.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Yeah. No, I've heard that pretty much for seven years.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
You know, and you know, I you know, that makes
it hard for me, like technically, like I can't put
some nice window clings on, you know, my studio to
advertise my studios, right, you know, how are people supposed
to find me? You said, you know, the the Badminton
Court didn't really have much of a signage, right, you know,
how are how are people supposed to know that we're

(58:32):
here if we can't properly put outside?

Speaker 4 (58:36):
Yeah, No, I think it's I think it's a very
very real issue, right. What I know of that, and
I'm not an expert, right, but what I know of
that is that a lot of what was done originally
with the sign ordinance or ordinances were designed to manage

(58:59):
that in a way that was esthetically pleasing, which I
think is a good idea, right, But I think over
time maybe just became too onerous.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Right.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
They're just too hard to navigate, and it takes too
much time. And some of that is staffing, some of
that is approval process and whatnot. So I know that
the city is working to address a lot of that
type of stuff, but I think it's it's reasonable to
do a forensic review of our ordinances.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
I know that the.

Speaker 4 (59:31):
Long term planning, I forget what it's called, is coming
up here pretty soon, and so I think there's going
to be some opportunities here in the short term, which
kind of brings up the topic of this election being
really more important than what a lot of people might think.
It is right because we have two incumbents who have
stepped out and will have two open races, and it's

(59:54):
important that the people who are elected to those positions
have an understanding of some of the topics already and
come in with some knowledge. You know, again, I'm not
a subject matter expert here, but it is a topic
that I've discussed. I think I even did a podcast
on it, so it is something that I'm familiar with,
and I know that it's a pain point for businesses.

(01:00:16):
So how can we eliminate that pain point At the
end of the day, it's really important to understand that. Again,
what we do, what you would do as a city
council is is budget and ordinance, and you know, budget
is largely influenced by the taxes on on, you know,
the participants in the community. And if businesses are more

(01:00:38):
easily able to do what they need to do to
create businesses, that's what we should be looking at because
people should be able to you know, you should be
able to make some money and make your make your
way in the in the world, and then in business
without any kind of uh, you know tailwind or actually
the city should provide tailwind yeah, and not headwinds.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
You lower the barriers, lower the.

Speaker 4 (01:01:04):
Barriers, lower the barriers to the degree that we can,
and we still have to keep an eye towards the
long term development and the long term planning.

Speaker 5 (01:01:11):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
That's that, that's the balance, and that's the trick, Right,
that's the trick. It's not as easy as a lot
of people will make it out, especially when you get
people who will really concentrate on one particular issue and
it's like, yeah, that one issue maybe, but there's a
lot of things that go into you know, it's.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
It's like making a gumbo. There's a lot of flavors
in there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
Yeah, So guess taking a measured approach.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Sure, measured, but again you still have to have you
still have to have an idea of what it is
that you're trying to do, right. I think that sometimes
you get caught in the trap of making two measured
of an approach and you're only dealing with what you
see in front of you and not really necessary. Zoom
out is one of my favorite terms, Like I use

(01:01:53):
it all the time, Like, let's zoom out let's look
at the bigger picture here, right, because I think that's
an important way to approach things more holistically. You're not
going to be able to solve every problem every time,
but if you're taking into account as many things as
you possibly can, you do a better.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
Job of solving the problems that you do solve.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
All right, Well, thank you so much for your time.
I think we're just about running out of time for
the day. But I appreciate you coming in down here
today and talking with me and putting up with my questions.

Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
No, I appreciate you taking on the responsibility and the task.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Right. You did a great job.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
A little scary at first, but I got into it right.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
No, No, I think you did a really good job,
and I'm very very happy that you've agreed to take
on that role because, as I mentioned earlier, I think,
but yeah, let's see how it goes.

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
The ratings are going to be terrible.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
No, No, I think it's great. I really do appreciate
you taking that step and hopefully it helps you and
figuring out what you want to do, because I know
we talked about that earlier.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
Last time we talked.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
You know, eventually you want to have your own little
thing figure out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
You know, I'll have to ask chat GPT what what
I should have a podcast about, and then we'll, you.

Speaker 4 (01:03:05):
Know, yeah, let the robots decide. No, but I appreciate it,
and and and great job. I really I appreciate you
kind of keeping the holding the torch as as it
may be, because I don't think it's appropriate for me
to be in that seat, yeah while while I'm running.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
So yeah, now this is a this is kind of
a cool opportunity, and I appreciate being able to do this.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
Awesome, awesome, Well, it was my pleasure to be here.

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
And uh, you know, usually the host would toss as
it's the vernacular is, you know, and and and so
I'm gonna go ahead and I'm going to assume the toss.
Here you can find information on my candidacy. My website
is vote Nadine dot com and Nadine is spelled n
A U d I N. And if you need a

(01:03:50):
little memory tool for that one, it's like the car
out e with an N on either side. And that's
an easy way to remember my last name. So if
you pronoun nodine, if you pronounce it nod In or
any other variant therein it's okay, you know you know
me and and hopefully I get to know you, so
you can find that information vote nodding dot com, and

(01:04:12):
then our various socials will all be some variant of that.
Most of them will obviously have noaden in there. It's
either elect Nodine or vote Nodine, something along those lines.
So engage as much as you'd like. You can reach
me directly via email on the website. There's a direct
phone number that we have for the campaign, and I'm

(01:04:35):
looking forward to having a couple of functions here in
the near term, and we'll kind of be advertising that
and making sure people know. Feel free to stop by,
come meet me, ask me any questions, tell me what
it is it's important to you, and and I'll definitely
have an ear to listen to you because I like
to lean in Leander.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
All right, well, thanks again everybody. I'm happy to be here.
This is again my first time hosting for Lean and
Leander and I'll see you guys next time.

Speaker 5 (01:05:08):
All right, Thanks Morgan, thank you, bye bye. Man A man.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
As man

Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
A