January 28, 2024 • 54 mins
Saturday, May 4, is the official date of the 2024 General Election in Leander, Texas. Mayor and Councilmembers Place 2, Place 4, and Place 6 will be on the ballot. Incumbents for those places include Christine DeLisle (Mayor), who we sat down with this week to discuss what she sees ahead for the City of Leander. The first in the Vote in Leander Series for 2024.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Saturday, May fourth is the officialdate of the general election here in Leander,
Texas. The office of Mayor,as well as the council positions for
place two, Place four, andPlace six will be on the ballot.
On this episode, I had theopportunity to sit down with current Mayor Christine
Delille. We spoke on a numberof things I think that you will find
(00:23):
both interesting and informative. This isLean in Leander, all right. So
(00:43):
we are here at Fifth Element Brewing. Mike Brune was very kind and allowing
me to do this here and hopefullythis will be our location for all of
the vote in Leander series. AndI am here with Madame Mayor Christine Delisle,
and we're going to chat a littlebit about where you are, where
you've been, and where you're going. How about that? Sure? Okay?
(01:06):
So for the uninitiated, you andI you can go back. I
think it's episode seventeen. I can'tremember exactly which one it is, but
you and I. You and Ihad an interview back when you were running
for mayor three years ago. Atthat time you were on council. You
had served I think one term,one term, okay, so you'd served
(01:26):
one term as a council member.You ran for mayor. Obviously you won.
Now you're the incumbent mayor and you'reup for reelection. We talked a
little bit before we started filming.I know we haven't filed yet, but
you are running, right, Iam going to run again, Okay,
all right, so breaking news,all right. So from that perspective,
I want to kind of touch ona couple of things that we touched on
(01:48):
when we talked before, to helppeople kind of get a better flavor of
view, because that's kind of whatI try to do. And there's a
lot of new people in town becausewe're both well aware. So let's give
a little bit of a shorthand versionof your origin story. You are originally
from California, Yes, all right, like most Leandrians, I came from
(02:12):
somewhere else. You said almost theexact same thing two years ago. But
yeah, it's true. Though.It's true, and I think it makes
us very friendly because we're all usedto being the new person. Yeah,
I think so. I mean again, you know what, we talked a
little bit about population growth last time, and I don't get sidetracked of that
kind of stuff, but it wasthe Oakland area. Right, yes,
(02:32):
all right, So California at thetime we talked a couple of years ago,
you had been here Tanner eleven yearsat that probably that all right,
because this is my fourteenth years,all right, So there we go.
So fourteen years in Leander, andof the fourteen years, I think this
is an important little factoid from adata perspective of the fourteen years, about
(02:53):
half, just shy of half ofyour fourteen years in Leander, you've served
in sub capacity on council. Inever thought of it that. Yeah,
that's exactly what it is. That'ssix years out of fourteen, right,
so it's almost half. So let'ssay forty five percent, all right.
So you spent a lot of timeobviously involved in Leander representing the people of
(03:15):
Leander, and then over the lastthree years serving in a more of a
leadership role from the perspective of thecouncil as mayor. Okay, I wanted
to ask you, well, beforeI do that, let's talk a little
bit about what you do outside ofthat, because it's important for us to
always remind people that anyone who serveson council and any capacity in Leander,
(03:38):
it's essentially a volunteer position. Yeah, it is an unpaid position. So
you're doing this out of the graciousnessof your heart, provo pro bono.
So I always like to mention thatbecause I want to make sure that again,
anybody who's uninitiated in Leander and doesn'tunderstand, maybe even Texas, how
we work. Again, it's avolunteer your position essentially, and you know
(04:03):
you spend your time on council.It's a three year term, right,
so again that would equal the sixthat you spent there so far. So
you have a real life outside ofthat. You do normal things and make
money, just like everybody else.So last time we talked, you were
involved in digital marketing. You weretelling me you've kind of backed away from
(04:24):
doing that full time and more ofon a consultant basis. Now. Yeah,
I'm just picking up little consulting thingshere and there, coming up with
with little plans how to market things, stuff like that. But it's it's
definitely taken a bit of a backseat. I was fortunate since the last
time that we met, I soldmy house and the market was very good
and I merged households and so I'vebeen able to afford to take a little
(04:49):
bit of a break ish so Idon't have to working, yes, exactly,
and so it's allowed me to focusmore on my family and the kids
growing up, and of course thisand I'm sure you know we have so
many things to talk about today becausethis has been an intense time for the
city, especially the last few months. So it's been a blessing, no
(05:12):
for sure, for sure, Andagain for those who are uninitiated, what
I've done over the past few yearsis i'ven't been involved on several committees and
things of that nature. So Itry to keep myself informed of what's happening
in the city to help with theseconversations, primarily to be honest, because
I look at what I do herewith the podcast to help people understand a
(05:36):
little bit more context of what's happeningin the city and the people who are
kind of driving some of those conversations. So again, I appreciate you coming
and sitting with me. Again,it's nice to kick off this season's voting
Leander with you. All Right,So last time we talked, we had
some conversations about your involvement with alot of of municipal leagues for lack of
(06:01):
better terms. Okay, Just likethat was something that you spent a lot
of time doing and kind of educatingyourself as to the operational process I think
of city governance and whatnot. Youwere on CAPCOG at that time, which
is the what was the acronymic ofPepal Area Council of Government? Okay,
okay, and I believe you wereserving on the executive committee there as well.
(06:25):
So we were talking a little bitearlier. You kind of stepped away
from that, but you've done somenew things. So the Texas Municipal League,
let's talk a little bit about that. Like, the Texas Municipal League,
what are you doing with that?So? Texas Municipal League is an
organization that puts together trainings and theyhave all of the basically a lot of
(06:46):
the cities in Texas join them,and we have our annual conference, we
have trainings, networking, and wealso have a lobbying arm and so all
of that allows us to sort ofsee what other cities are doing and work
on not reinventing the wheel. Right, So if somebody has figured out how
to do something better, then theyteach the rest of us how to do
something better. And so I've I'vealways been involved because you want to continuously
(07:12):
improve and know all the things.But I am currently our board representative to
the state for our region and sothat's been really interesting, especially through through
the legislative session, to be ableto get a lot of updates about the
bills that are in progress and howit's going to impact us, and how
different cities are looking at things andchallenging things, and it's been fascinating.
(07:35):
And then recently I was appointed asthe chair of our Governance Committee, so
I get to nerd out on morepolicy. And if you really want to
know how nerdy Christine can get,just go back to the previous episode.
She nerds out big time on allof this stuff. It's interesting and it's
I think one of the things thatfor me, and I don't know how
(07:57):
much other candidates or other people oncamp it will necessarily involve themselves in those
arenas. I thought it was alwaysunique that you were doing that, and
I was like, that's an interestingway to approach what can be some of
the challenges in that process because alot of times people are very opinionated about
(08:18):
what is happening in the city andhow things are happening even in our town,
even in Leander. Obviously that extendsto the larger cities, Austin being
the main hub for a lot ofthe stuff that gets talked about. It's
interesting that you're serving on that particularcommittee with the municipal LYAGU because he's talked
about lessons learned from other cities.You said you mentioned to me off camera
(08:43):
it's like Waco and what's the region. Our region is enormous. It goes
up to Waco and down a littlepast Bastrup and all the way out to
like Brian College Station. Like,it's an enormous regions. So from a
mix of municipalities that are within thatgroup, what's the next big city to
(09:05):
smaller concerns, it's I would saya lot of the cities are about where
we are, the ones that arereally active. You've got the smaller ones
and they so TML actually has sortof a separate group for small cities because
small cities have their own unique challengesand things that we don't really identify with.
(09:26):
So I feel like the small citieskind of have their own network,
and so I don't really know awhole lot that goes on with them,
and then the larger cities like Austin. Austin is not super involved in our
region. I don't think I've everseen an Austin Council member any of our
meetings. But for the board forthe state, they do have, like
all of the large cities have likea standing like person that is on them
(09:52):
that doesn't represent the region, theyrepresent that city. So I saw Kirk
Watson at a meeting last year thatwe had in Austin. But the the
larger cities, surprisingly, they someof them do not seem to be as
involved. So in our region it'sit's a lot of us around Rock bast
Cedar Park, Flugerville. We seemto be a lot of the ones that
(10:15):
congregate here, so conducive to wherewe are from a growth perspective. I
mean, everybody, all of thecities that you mentioned are all here essentially
in Central Texas and all experiencing similarpressures on infrastructure, on population growth,
on you know, natural resources,transportation, you know just all they're similar,
(10:41):
They're not the same for everybody.Everybody's got different ways of approaching things,
and I know a lot of timeswhat we deal here with in Leander
is unique to Leander. There's afew things that contribute to that, but
without going into those details. Sothat's interesting, that's good, and I
think it's good that the that thepublic know that you have that type of
involvement. I don't know how wellthat is known by most. I mean,
(11:07):
I think a few people, thenerds, the city nerds like us,
we know. But outside of that, you know, someone who is
going to be walking into the pollingplaces in May right, it's May.
Yeah, it seems fast first Saturday, May right, that's crazy. But
yeah, so when people are walkingin and they're placing their boat, or
if they go in early, whatever, you know, it's good that you
(11:28):
know this. That's what I'm tryingto do is kind of suss out some
of those underlying details, all right. I will say, even you know,
with our staff, a lot oftimes my first question on things is
is this what we do in othercities? You know? This is this
how Cedar Park does whatever it isthat we're looking at, Because you don't
know unless you talk to other people, you don't know if you're doing something
(11:48):
in the best way or the mostefficient way. And I feel like we
get into our little silos of eachcity and don't always look around to see
if there's a better way to dosomething. And one of the other things
that I've learned from TML is,you know, I feel like we're always
talking about Leander and the water,and it seems like it's this huge,
(12:09):
horrible thing. And then I talkto people from other cities, and I
realize our problems are so small.There are a lot of cities in this
state and even in this region thatjust they are dealing with so much,
and our water concerns are not nearlyas bad as a lot of the water
concerns north of us. The furtheryou get away from Lake Travis, that
(12:33):
becomes so dire that logistically makes sense. I mean, I would imagine that
that would be the case when youtalk about those small cities. They don't
have the funding for that stuff either, right at least have everything in the
works, and we have the funding. So let's segue a little bit there.
Let's talk about the water, becauseit's typically one of the main things
that people talk about. Okay,if yeah, at least number two.
(12:56):
I mean, I don't know,it just depends on who you talk to
about. It's one, it's one, that's one of the Yeah, that's
why. That's why I'm framing itbecause we're about to go into stage four
again. And the last time wewere in stage four, if I remember
correctly, I think it was earlyspring or late fall, right, it
was September of twenty two, Okay, so it was timed well, which
(13:22):
I think again here, it's neverideal. It's never ideal, Okay,
But we're in the winter months.People aren't watering their yard. It's not
necessarily as much consumption per se.People aren't trying to overcome drought conditions,
although we are in the drought,but you know, technically, so what
(13:43):
should people expect with that? Like, what what are the impacts really if
they just stop watering their yards.We know that everything will be fine.
We've done this before. We justwant you to be conscious of the water
that you're using, because what happensis we have to shut down the pipeline
to do a replacement of a pieceof it, and so that makes us
(14:05):
rely on just one plant, andthat plant is undergoing expansion, but it's
not fully expanded yet, and sowe just have to be very careful that
we don't run that plant dry essentially, because that throws off the pressures.
It puts everybody into a boil water. Notice that's going to last a few
days, Like, it's just it'sdetrimental. So the process itself, we've
(14:26):
been undergoing this for a few years, and like when you and I talked
a couple of years ago, again, it was very much one of the
top topics of the day at thatpoint. A lot of that due to
I want to shy away from usingthe word neglect necessarily, but I think
that there was not enough impetus puton that particular part of the planning process
(14:54):
that previously needed to be done.So we kind of got to that point
to where, you know, wewent from I don't know what, let's
just say, thirty thousand people toeighty thousand people almost overnight. It happened
quick, and we just weren't preparedfor that. I think that's a fair
way to talk, right, absolutely, So now we've spent the last let's
(15:15):
say, three four years ish kindof trying to make up for lost time,
right, Is that a fair wayof framing it? Okay, So
in that help us understand what wasin process, what has changed about that
process and with this current thing thatwe're doing with the pipe and making it
(15:37):
deeper and changing I mean, it'sprobably nine hundred years old, probably putting
a new pipe. How is thatgoing to change things for us going forward?
Sure? Okay, so that wasa lot, a lot, a
lot sorry questions. Let me seeif I can address all of it.
So, yes, I feel likepreviously at the city was sort of building
the plane as they fluid. Therewere not a whole lot of plans for
(16:00):
our growth. We knew we hadgrowth, but we weren't tracking it.
We weren't doing anything to slow itdown. I remember when I first got
in council on in twenty eighteen,the advice that we were receiving from our
previous city measure and staff is youwant more users on your water system because
more users helped to pay for upgradesin the future. But there was no
tracking of who those users were,like, how much water was being used,
(16:22):
how many new users were there.And that's where we got into trouble
back in around twenty seventeen. Andso what we've done in the last three
years is we've slowed down the growthand everybody looks around says, why are
you still building? We can't stopthe construction. We can't stop the building.
That's a state law. We haveto actually beat out of water before
we're allowed to put on a monitorium. And it's ridiculous, but it is
(16:45):
what it is. And so whatwe've done is we've worked within the confines
to slow down the growth that wehave. We're prioritizing commercial. It's a
little bit more difficult to build here. If you want to build houses,
and you're going to have to donatea lot more parkland, you're going to
have to pay more into the roadsbecause we know that all the roads need
to be widened. And so it'sgiven our staff a break where they can
(17:10):
really look at the usage of everythingand the projections and growth and make sure
that we are doing everything in away that's going to be sustaining and that
we're putting all of this water infrastructureinto place. And so now I think
we have something like seventeen projects goingbetween new water towers and expansions at both
(17:30):
of our water treatment plants. Sowe've got all these things happening that each
one increases our capacity, but theyall just take time. There's no way
to do it as quickly as wewould like, so with our projections,
twenty twenty seven is where we're sitting. Pretty We've got the rights to more
water out of the lake from LCRA, we've got expansion going on at both
(17:56):
of the plants, We've got efficienciesgoing into both of the plants. We've
got all these extra water towers,all these redundancies in the system. And
so once that last piece, thatdeep water intake is online in twenty twenty
seven, we're golden and it's justgoing to be a matter of getting through
until then. So with the deepwater intake, which is what they're working
on right now, yes, thisis Is it fair to say, hey,
(18:21):
folks, be prepared for at leastanother Stage four at some point because
that work needs to continue, Oris this the last time that the work
that they're doing on the deep waterintake will disrupt what we do day to
day. I know that's maybe aharder question, but it is. It
is a harder question, and we'renot really sure. So if you go
back and watch from when we're filmingthis our last council meeting, that was
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sort of a question that we positiveto staff is what are the expectations,
And our staff really shies away fromsaying, you know, we don't have
to expect it because you don't knowif there's going to be an emergency,
right You don't know if something's goingto break or something's going to go wrong.
But we're trying to find out isas these systems come online, is
there another time we're going to beshutting down? And so I personally don't
(19:07):
have that answer right now, butit is something that I think is going
to be a part of our messagingand I've made it clear for our staff,
like this is what we need totell people. We need to tell
people what to expect and when.And I think we all understand emergencies can
happen outside of those emergencies, whencan we expect this to ever happen again?
Can we expect it to happen again? But it'll definitely happen this spring,
(19:30):
and hopefully if it happens again,it won't be for a while.
But we do need to be goodstewards of the water, and we do
need to think in a more environmentallyconscious way. And this is just the
way of the State of Texas.It seems like it's just leander right now,
but when you look at the statewater board. They've put together their
(19:51):
projections and in twenty years the stateis out of water. So this is
in the next few years. Thisis not just a leander conversation. This
is original conversation, is a stateconversation, and so it's it's something that
we have focused on a lot well, and I think to the betterment,
to be honest, I mean that'smy personal opinion, and I don't try
(20:12):
to do that too often, butin this case, I think it's a
much better scenario looking forward. Andagain I think maybe not one hundred percent,
but I think we've kind of caughtup with the planning part of that,
and they'll be you know, Imean, there's there's technologies that are
being developed now, and there's alot of things that you cannot foresee from
(20:32):
those particular perspectives. So maybe there'ssomething that you know, that we find
in the next you know, tenyears. It changes that equation per se.
But I'm glad to see that fromthe perspective of what this Council has
done there, we're at least lookingat it beyond you know, twenty twenty
five, thank you. And we'vedone a few other things to promote conservations
(20:52):
so we already have purple pipe,which is a reuse for non putable water
irrigation. We already have that upat the golf course, and through Triviso,
we're expanding that to be out aroundHorizon Lake and North Line. All
of that development is going to getpurple pipe over there as well. And
then we've hired our first conservationist andhe focuses entirely on how to make things
(21:15):
more efficient, how to help people. And so he goes out and he
does irrigation assessments for free for residentsand helps them figure out how much water
and they need to do, findleaks in the system, things like that.
We've adjusted our ordinances so new thingsthat are coming online, that are
being built, they don't have tohave as much plant life and grass and
(21:37):
things as they used to have.And so we're trying to be very forward
thinking and what the usage is goingto be in the future and to not
have as much demand per user aswe've had in the past. Good it's
a lot of water stuff. Itis a lot of water stuff. We
talked about water a lot, sothat kind of leads me in a sense
to my next question, which waswe talked a little bit about trends in
(22:03):
governance last time that we met,And so from a trending perspective, using
that as a framing device, whatwould you say, from your experience the
trends in local governance have been?How have they changed? Like you you
you've been on council for six years. If you look back at what you
thought was happening six years ago comparedto what you think is happening now,
(22:26):
what's changed trend wise? Like,how how is that? How's it different
now? I'm I'm not sure ifI fully understand the question or if locally
changed. So let's just say justwithin Leander. Yeah, like from a
from a governance perspective, Leander andthe way that we approach our problems and
(22:47):
our solutions, has that changed overthe last six years or has that maintained
kind of the same approach, justwith better planning. I mean, I
think it's mostly better planning, butalso there's there's a lot more regionalism that
goes on. We do talk tothe cities around us, We talk to
our partners, and we really tryand help them. And so like with
(23:11):
Georgetown and their water issues, ourstaff has assisted them in looking at their
infrastructure and saying, well, youknow, you can put a pump here,
you can do this, you cando that. We're having some talks
with Liberty Hill as well, andwe go out and we seek information from
our partners as well and just askfor help. So I think I think
(23:34):
a lot of the issues in thisarea are regional. They're not just city
by city, and so our staffsare great at talking to each other.
Our local officials are talking to eachother, and so I think there's more
of a regional approach. But honestly, I'm not exactly sure where we were
six years ago. I know comparedto three years ago, we are very
(23:56):
much more communicative. Okay, okay, that's fair. That's fair. Changes
with different people agreed and speaking ofdifferent people. It's not in order here,
but that's fine. I'm flexible.The I've been tracking, and for
(24:17):
those who watched the podcast or listento the podcast, they'll know that I've
done a couple of episodes. I'vetalked about our process right now in that
change management with the city manager position, and I talked a little bit about
over a couple of episodes what's goingon with that. So I know that
there was a consultancy that the citychose to work with, which is interesting
(24:42):
because I don't know if that's happenedbefore for previous city manager hires. So
was one of my questions that Iwanted to ask you, have we ever
done that again? Have we everdone that before? I believe several years
ago, before I was on council, we did that. Okay, So
that's not unusual, it's just youchose to do at this time. Normally
counsels will go with a consultancy thathas experience because you get it's it's it's
(25:08):
a delicate process because the people thatare applying typically have a job somewhere else
and uh and there. They wantto know that they're applying somewhere where if
they don't get it, they don'tget outed to their council of Hey,
you're saying managers looking for a job, right right, So it's it's very
(25:29):
delicate, and you want to havean organization that is reputable that the applicants
can trust. So it's SGR SGRand i've kind of again i've kind of
highlighted a little bit of that.But one of the things that I thought
was really good in that process isthis document that was that was created,
so brochure essentially for Leander and Icovered it in a previous episode, and
(25:52):
I was talking about how from myperspective it was really just me, but
how I felt that this was areally good and clear definition of what was
being done, what to expect,and what I felt. This was my
impression what I felt the council wassaying they want in a city manager.
(26:18):
Right, yes, very much so. So again we were talking a little
bit off camera beforehand. You mentionedthat you had a lot of input into
this particular the council. I shouldn'tsay you, not you specifically, but
the council had a lot of inputinto this brochure, and I know that
there's some restrictions on how you cantalk about as far as the city manager
is concerned. So to just bringpeople up to speed at this point,
(26:41):
you have received from from SGR SDRright, Yes, candidates that you are
now vetting on council based on therecommendations coming from the This is from SGR.
They've kind of vetted them. Theywhittled it down. Now you're down
to the last few. We whittledit down. Okay, So it's been
(27:03):
a really interesting process. So originallys c R they are headhunter. Basically,
he said, you know a lotof councils, they just have a
couple of people that do this aslike a committee and then they just bring
the recommendations at the end of council. And I told them there's no way
this council is going to want todo that. This council, every single
person, if I ask you know, who wants to be on the committee
(27:26):
for this, they are all goingto raise their hand. And and our
consultant was like, well, youknow, that might be a little chaotic,
and I was like, we gotthis right, and and sure enough,
I am so proud of our councilbecause we are so united on what
we're looking for, and at everysingle turn we are seeing the same things,
We are having the same feedback,we all are coalescing around the same
(27:49):
ideas. We all independently without realizingin the beginning, want the exact same
things. And so when SGR firstgave us the brochure, we all looked
at and we're like, this isnot our city. And so we changed
a whole bunch that was in there, and everybody had their input. We
cut out pieces we added in newpieces, and so I think we're probably
(28:11):
all really proud of that brochure becauseit's it's how we see the city.
And I thought that was that wasreally phenomenal, and I know that that's
something we're doing that other councils aren'tdoing so well. Crowd, Yeah,
and kudos on that. Again fromfrom my perspective, a little bit closer
to the drum beat, you know, I'm not uninitiated. I thought it
(28:38):
was really interesting. It struck me. I mean I was really struck by
that because I had looked at SGRand what they had done brochure wise for
some other cities. So it's reallyreally curious as like, all right,
some of these really read like amarketing piece. Some of these read more
of like a again an origin story. You know. It was just like
(29:02):
all sorts of different mixes of howthey were representing the cities, and I
thought, Okay, these are probablysome sort of reflection of that individual city.
But to hear you tell it,it was more like, no,
this is kind of what SGR puttogether. And I don't know about the
other cities. I don't want tospeak to that, but you know,
to me, I looked at someof those and I was like, I
don't know if that's really what thatcity is about, you know. So
(29:25):
when I read Leanders, I waslike, Okay, this is really really
cool because there's little things in herethat I think, again, if if
I think maybe if you're a littlebit more geeky on the city stuff,
maybe that appels to you. Butjust to understand, you know, Leander's
annual budget is three hundred and seventeenmillion dollars. I have been looking for
(29:45):
this number for years and not reallybeen able to find it, like not
clearly enunciated, like here's what itis. Like, yes, I can
go through the budget and I canfigure all that out and I can kind
of break all that stuff down,but just for like the again just Joe
blow, average guy, like who'sgoing to do that? Not too many
people. So I struggle to findthis anywhere, and now here it is
(30:07):
in this one document, which kindof is like all right, cool,
this now kind of sets the tone, or at least sets the plate.
All right. So you're dealing witha city manager who's going to come in
and he's going to be dealing witha three hundred and seventeen million dollar budget.
Right, yeah, great, now, I know, all right,
that's kind of where I'm going withthat. But more to the point,
(30:29):
the way that you outline the position, and I spent some time on this.
I don't get too long on this, but I thought it was very,
very direct and one of the thingsthat I have and it's a personal
complaint, I guess I'll frame itthat I want to be fair to everybody.
I've always felt that our city managersare a little bit too behind the
(30:52):
scenes, like they just they don'tyou don't know who they are. We
agree they're there, you know,and you see them from time to time,
but they are the really the personfrom from the way that we're structured
that is responsible for the operator.They're they're the COO of the company of
the city, like they are thechief operational officer, and that person typically
(31:15):
is a little bit more like yousee them, you know what they they
talk to people, they do interviewsor whatever it might be. You just
have not I have not in mylifetime here in Leander, which is about
the same as long as you've beenserving on council. I've never seen that.
I've never and I know who theyare don't get me wrong. I
(31:36):
know who they are and I've metthem, right because I'm involved. But
then, but that's what I meanby that, Like I try to take
the common man's perspective on that.I'm like, all right, well,
the leadership of the city, theelected, the officials, get the brunt
of the of the dissatisfaction or satisfaction. You guys get all the accolades,
(31:57):
and you get all all the grumgrumbling. Right, Yeah, but it's
representative and you're you're limited on councilsto what you do essentially on counsel it's
budget and ordinances. I mean,if you want to really boil it down
to the two things, right,give the direction, right, and that
says up to the city manager howthey do that, right, Right,
(32:19):
So it's directional, But it's notlike there is like you, as Madam
mayor, don't sit there and saynow and I'm going to veto this thing
and we're going to do something else. That's not how it works, and
not do that. Okay, allright, So just to clarify for people
who may not know that, alot of people don't know that, and
they don't and I joke about thatI'm like, you know, on my
off time, I'm personally holding thatpipeline together, right, because yeah,
(32:42):
a lot of people think that everythingthat goes on the city is the responsibility
of Mary Council, even just youknow the businesses that come here. You
know, this business came here becausecouncil invited them. Like no, like
anybody can open a business. Andso yeah, I think there are a
lot of misnomers and yeah, that'smanage Your position is so vital and so
important, especially right now, rightnow because we are as a city at
(33:08):
a very important juncture in our growthprocess. So you kind of outlined it
earlier the and it's a decision.I think it's a decision that I believe
the city has taken. So wetalk about this and again I've been on
several committees and we've talked about thisbefore. Do we want to be a
bedroom community? Do we want todo this? Do we want to do
that? Well, I've always takenthe position that like, hey, guys,
(33:31):
you can't have that conversation anymore,that conversation that's passed you by.
We're not a bedroom community. Wecan't afford to be a bedroom community anymore.
We need to develop more of oureconomic diversity in order to have long
term stability. Otherwise you end uptoo much in one place, and it's
(33:54):
you've got a three legged stool withone one leg that's not as that's shorter
than the others. Right. Well, and you also you have the risk
when you're a bedroom community of ifthe market goes poorly, you're just out
of our money. But when themarket as well, you're just putting all
of the burden for financing everything onhomeowners And that's not a place that you
(34:16):
want to be in either, especiallyin Texas with the current environments that we
live in. And everybody's looking atit and saying, I want to lower
my property taxes. I mean,that's a common theme for everybody, right,
So that's great, and you know, hey, I'm a normal,
you know, red blooded American.If you're going to make me pay less,
(34:38):
then I'm fine with that. Okay, we try and I know,
but at the same time, Ialso say, well, but that's how
you pay for all the other stuff, right, So it's a balance.
Yeah, And again, you know, to the point that much investment in
the bedroom community, again, you'rereliant on property taxes. If something changes
(35:00):
there, and a lot of thatyou have no control over from at a
city level, because the legislature makesdecisions in Texas that completely change the paradigm
and you have to live with it, right, Or if there's a crash
in the economy and people lose theirjobs, the real estate market comes down,
we have no control over that.That is out of our hands,
(35:20):
and so yeah, it's that wouldbe very risky, right, You've got
to have that economic diversity. Sopart of that diversity, and we talked
about this the last time too.We had to get the North Line development,
which is obviously a little bit furtheralong but still has a ways to
go, because that's just how thatworks. There's the new I think it's
a light industrial structure going on onhere away. Yes, right, so
(35:45):
that was a really nice project fromthat perspective. I don't know if Kat
likes that in her backyard necessarily,but it's right there. But yeah,
no, that's yeah, no there, I don't I'm being facetious. It's
not in her backyard. And sothe land next to that is now available
or up for sale, so Icould imagine that that's going to be And
(36:05):
I've always looked at Hero this sideof Hero as like, Okay, that's
probably what we're going to get here. We're going to get a little bit
of a commercial corridor here. Ilike the direction that we're going there.
I had the privilege of serving onthe Economic Development Committee for the last few
years. It was a little chaotic, to be honest with you, I
mean, because we're dealing with tryingto kind of figure out how that committee
(36:27):
could work. So hopefully I leftit in a good in a good place
and and and you know, appreciateit. Yeah, you know it was.
It was fun. But now I'mfree to do all sorts of really
crazy stuff. But again, likethose commitments to that long term economic development.
One of the things that I wantedto talk about was like the vision
now, So the vision for Leandergoing forward. Now, obviously you've had
(36:50):
an opportunity to put your thumb onthe scale for the last three years.
Where do you see that? Ifre elected, where do you see that
going? I think it's good andcontinue on in the trend that we're going
with where we're getting this diverse groupingof different industries. Right. So I
called this last year that we justhad the most well rounded year in economic
(37:13):
development for the city because we haveClass A office space that's going in over
at North Line, We've got ClassA industrial at hero A West. We've
never had anything like either of thoseprojects, and those bring in such different
users than what we're used to.And then at the same time, we
have all these shopping centers popping upall over the place. That's bringing in
more retail, more restaurants, allthe things that we always said we want
(37:35):
to have, and so it's goingto be fantastic. Each of those Class
A projects is a catalyst. Youtalked about the land next door to here
Auay West being for sale, Well, now that's going to look more attractive
to somebody because there's something there.That also means there's more infrastructure in each
of the areas where these things aregoing in. In the next year,
(37:58):
you're going to see Crystal Village goingvertical. You're going to see more of
North Line going vertical. We've beenin meetings recently about the commercial aspect of
that and and the hold up rightnow and that is that there's just a
shift in plans and the shift isvery, very good, So that's going
(38:20):
to be phenomenal. We've also gotyou know out. I think a lot
of people that have been in Leanderfor a long time don't realize if you
go out to twenty nine in Reagan, that's still Leander. There's a brand
new AGB shopping center there that isjust popping full of things. And you'll
see the the announcements in community Impactand sometimes they listed as Georgetown. It's
(38:42):
Leander. The post office detric right. No, it's crazy, it's it's
it's in Leander. It came up, it came up. It's in Leander.
The address is Georgetown and the schooldistrict is Liberty Hill if I remember
correctly. So that's crazy. It'sjust that one that one piece of life.
So everybody can say it's taxes.That's the most important piece to claim,
(39:05):
right right, right, So that'sthe that's the important piece. And
again predominantly serving our residents that livedReagan and Reagan you know, to our
residents that have lived here for thelast fifteen years, go drive up and
down Reagan. We encourage cap Metro. About two years ago when they got
some new people in, I wastelling them because I've been trying to get
them to expand out the pickup servicebecause it's fantastic and more people need to
(39:29):
be able to access it, andand that it lies entirely with cat Metro,
and so we just try and persuadethem. And I was signing them
and I said, you know,this Reagan Corridor, y'all, don't even
go out there. There is there'snot just a lot of people, there's
all this commercial. There's shops,there's there's places for people to work that
you should be And it was newto them because the last time that they're
(39:51):
out here, when they were,you know, working on the pickup service,
there wasn't a whole lot of commercialout there. You know, when
they first came to Leander, therewas nothing out there. I don't think
that was even annex Dan. Theywere first here and so they drove up
and down it and you know,it's it's very different from how it was
ten years ago. No, it'svery different from how it was five years
ago. Yeah, I mean becauseessentially in the five six years that I've
(40:15):
been here, I've seen all ofthat happen. And it's you know,
it's funny because a lot of peoplesay, hey, we need this,
we need that, and you wouldhear and see on social media, Hey,
how come we don't have this store, and how come we don't have
this place? And why don't wehave a torches taco and whatever? We
do? So we have all ofthat stuff. A lot of that will
come anyway, but if there's notsome sort of conducive planning to that,
(40:38):
right, it's harder. Yes,So there'll be people who listen to this
and I'll say, well, you'remaking it harder for developers to do things,
and I think we want to specifythat. Well, yes, but
that's on purpose because we want toslow the residential growth. Residential That's that's
why I'm saying that it's the residentialgrowth that we want to kind of just
(41:00):
just tap the brakes. It's gonnahappen anyway, right, It's gonna happen.
It's just like we don't want tonecessarily just blow through that process.
But at the same time, Iknow, again from what I did while
we were on the development committee,the commercial focus and getting the right type
of commercial properties interested in the cityof Leander and using what other development is
(41:27):
going on in the region to identifywho those people are. So you know,
I think it's great that we're buildingthe type of infrastructure for that,
we're not going to see it rightaway. I think. I think it's
gonna it's still another three to fiveyears off before we start seeing it and
it's visible. It's the same thingif you drive like, okay by the
ATB Center, if you drive bythe ATB Center and in that seed of
(41:50):
park, but all of that,all of that development there, I mean,
Firefly has been there for a numberof years. Okay, they only
put up signage in like the lasttwo and now granted they only got rockets
that were working in the last twoyears. But that's kind of the thing
that you have to wait for,Like it doesn't happen overnight, and that's
true, then it becomes visible.So I think what I'm saying is that
(42:10):
there's a lot that's going on thatpeople can't see that they will see in
the next few years. Right,that's true. Yes, And I think
a lot of that they're going tosee just in the next year. So
Here a West, even though theyjust broke around, they're anticipating opening quarter
four of this year. Home depothas not yet broken ground, but they
are saying they're on track to openfall or winter of this year. I'm
(42:34):
so hopeful for that. I'm soexcited to have them coming. And we
know that home depot is going tobe a catalyst because anytime you see a
home depot, there's always a shoppingcenter around it that has lots of things,
and so you know something will popup there. And then Crystal Village
has a number of places under contract. I'm not sure what they've announced on
what they haven't, so I don'twant to go into that, but they
(42:57):
have a number of places that areunder contract that are just waiting for the
buildings to be built. And soI'm pretty sure they're done with all their
infrastructure. Whe they're close to beingdone. It looks pretty ready over there,
and so I think this year we'llsee some of that popping up too.
So, yes, some of thesethings take a long time, but
also we're right at the cusp wheresome of these are going to be vertical
(43:17):
in the next twelve months and you'regoing to see it. Right. So
what started us down this path wasthe city manager. And you're now at
the point to where, let's sayyou've identified six candidates. I don't know
if you can say how many thereare many, Okay, but let's say
it down twice. Okay, soit's less than twenty more than one,
(43:42):
yes, okay, yes, allright, So at what point does that
become a more public Is it afterthe higher the higher process is completed,
or is there ever an opportunity Andthis kind of goes to what I was
asking, is there ever an opportunityfor the citizenry to see these are the
(44:02):
people that we're looking at? Ordoes that just is that not how it
works? That is up to everycouncil. We spoke about it recently,
and we don't want to be verypublic about it because the last time we
were hiring a city manager, thename was announced too soon and that person
(44:25):
was a superstar and he ended upbacking out because he hadn't yet talked to
his council. Some cities they arevery public about it. I know hud
too had like their last three citymanagers, like candidates all come and do
a panel and it was videoed,and I don't know how the two that
don't get chosen like work with theircouncils. Right, And so we we
(44:50):
aren't trying to keep anything away frompeople, but we are trying to keep
the process very sacred. And notlose our finalists, because our finalists are
all stars. They are amazing,and we know that the public is going
to adore any one of them.But it's just one of those things where
it's it's sacred, it's our baby. I'm not sure when we're going to
(45:13):
announce, if it's going to belike a few finalists or if it's just
going to be one. That's adiscussion for the future, but currently it
is sacred, and that's fair.I can respect that. And having,
you know, even just in yourown personal you know, experience going through
an interview process. You know,it's you don't I mean, you're like,
hey, don't call don't call mycurrent employer, right, you know,
(45:36):
it's kind of one of those things. So that's fair, and I
appreciate you at least addressing it fromthat perspective. Where was I going with
that? I forgot my I lostmy train of thought. Okay, anyway,
all right, So we've talked abouta lot and we're almost at an
hour, which is crazy. Idon't know how much this is actually going
to make it into the edit.I'll have to probably trim it down a
(45:57):
little bit. I think we've kindof hit on everything. Overall, staffing
plans from the perspective of the citymanager are once that position is filled,
then those specifics become one of thefunctions of the city manager, right right,
(46:20):
So if there are there any plansto expand the staff, because I
know that one of the things that'sbeen I don't want to say a hindrance,
but it's been a challenge has beenstaffing issues, like there's just not
enough people to do the things thatneed to be done. There's not enough
money to have all of the people. Yes, so it goes back to
budget at the end of the day. It does. It does. And
so one of the things you knowthis is this is a part of the
(46:42):
big controversy about camp Metro is beingin a transportation district. Half of what
we would normally collective sales tax goesoff the top straight to cat Metro,
and we can't we can't relitigate that. You know, the legislature puts limits
on how often you can bring thatto a vote. So we have to
work within that and try and changethe life legislature to change the way that
these things are funded, because itcan it can hinder cities like ours,
(47:05):
and so when you look at staffingfor our city versus similar cities in the
area, we run lean and werun lean because we're working with less and
it's it's unfortunate, but it iswhat it is. So there's always more
demand for staffing. Then we havethe ability. So when you talk about
staffing in front and I don't wantto get too too deep into this,
but it's an interesting question for mebecause I look at that and say,
(47:30):
all right, well, there thereare there are theories or or there are
how do I put this? Thereare schools of thought that you you you
you, you, you run lean, you you, you have the right
people and you leverage technology to expandtheir capabilities like you, you make a
(47:51):
technology technology investment. Then there's otherpeople who say, no, you need
the people. The people are whatgets the job done, and they kind
of on the number of people.Neither one is right or wrong. It's
just two different ways of doing things. But because of the way that we
have to do things, I'd askedthe question, how much of a technology
investment has this state of Leander beenmaking. I mean, we've and are
(48:15):
we restricted in that because we're puttingall our money into fixing the waters.
So that is something that I thinkwe've actually done a fantastic job of is
keeping our IT team staffed with lotsof people and they're all top notch.
And it's been incredible too, becausethe city managers I've worked with have not
(48:36):
been super technological, right spoken asa millennial, right, it's very like,
okay, let me help my doubt, right. And so it's been
great though that they understand the importanceof it and they're like, I don't
understand what you do, but youdo you, you know, And so
(48:58):
that that has been fantastic. We'vemade a number of good security choices,
and I see that all the timewhen I talk about meeting with officials from
other cities, and you know,we have problems with a lowercase P,
they have problems with an upper caseP. And you know, one of
the cities that I was talking toa couple other officials from last year,
(49:19):
they were telling me how they hadjust redone their entire IT infrastructure because they
had a ransomware thing that happened andit took down everything and they weren't able
to get anything back and they hadI guess this is a thing for smaller
cities remember they have their different issues. They like outsource it and there's people
specialize in that. And so theseguys were telling me, yeah, I
(49:42):
don't know who you use for it, but don't use this company. And
I was like, you have acompany, like we just have people and
they're just you know, they theystay on top of all the things.
But yeah, we've we've definitely investedin very good, forward thinking it people
that make sure that everything is verysecure. It's it's like Fort Knox to
(50:02):
get in there. That's where allthe servers are, but it's very controlled
and they're very smart, good,good And I think the website finally,
that project finally got yes. SoI was thinking about that when you were
talking about the budget, because wedo post the budget on the website,
the whole budget book, and itdoes list the number in there on like
a little letter in the front thatkind of introduces the budget book and then
(50:27):
it gets into all of the allthe things, right. But I wanted
to say that is easier to findnow on our brand new website that you
can use on mobile, all thethings, the newsletter yep, And now
I'm taking advantage of a lot ofthat stuff, you know, when you
when you talk about that kind ofstuff, always have my opinions. But
it's a huge improvement. It's ahuge improvement, and it's still it's still
(50:51):
still Yeah, you can tell,trust me. I know from my perspective,
I can tell it's all right.You're still working out some kinks and
that's okay. Every so often,you know, you have to call up
and say like, I can't findwhere this is, and they're like,
oh oops, let's minor that overbecause some things just didn't migrate. And
then links have different names, someof them, and they have to go
in and readd them. So that'sone of those things that is very specific
(51:15):
to municipalities too, like you can'tjust build your own website because they have
to follow all of these different regulationsand so everybody uses different contractors and so
you're like confined to their ecosystem andso it's it's been weird, but it's
so much better than it used tobe. I kind of missed the old
search that we used to have though, because you would go to the search
bar for years and you would typein something completely coherent and it would come
(51:38):
back with just random words. AndI used to say it was like like
some sociology experiment, like how frustratedcan you get somebody before they quit?
Because you'd look for like Reagan's ooningand it would come back and it was
like did you mean wombats at atblike like what is this? Like this
(51:58):
has nothing to do with any Soit was it was it was anti chat
GVT, right, it was sofunny. It was frustrating. No,
it's it's actually like I said,it's a huge, huge improvement and a
lot of that is due to youknow, the work of council and then
you know, uh, it wasa big thing for a long time.
(52:20):
I remember, have you stood upall your campaign stuff at this point or
is that I haven't even filed?Okay, all right, so all right,
so there's still a few weeks.There's still a few weeks, but
you're running. Yeah, and it'lllet's see what did you use last time
vote for Christine? I think itwas it was a leader who listens,
(52:42):
a leader who listens. Well,in my experience, you have done a
rotgage job of that, and Iappreciate you taking some time to help the
people who watch this and listen tothis, listen to what it is you
have to say, because it's it'salways it's nice to be able to have
this type of opportunitynity, and it'sone of the things that the small town
can afford you, is these typesof opportunities. Once you get too big,
(53:05):
can't do it anymore. But Iguess that's our signal, no,
I think values really not. Anyway, Thanks again, and for those of
you as we get closer to theelection, I'll continue to post information both
on the Lean and Leander website andthe accompanying vote in Leander website with all
(53:29):
the proper links you can look atall the various candidates who are running.
I wish you nothing but luck inyour attempt to be re elected. And
again I thank you for your time. It's been very very nice of you.
All Right, thanks guys. That'sit for today and my fa
Saturday, May fourth is the officialdate of the general election here in Leander,
Texas. The office of Mayor,as well as the council positions for
place two, Place four, andPlace six will be on the ballot.
On this episode, I had theopportunity to sit down with current Mayor Christine
Delille. We spoke on a numberof things I think that you will find
(00:23):
both interesting and informative. This isLean in Leander, all right. So
(00:43):
we are here at Fifth Element Brewing. Mike Brune was very kind and allowing
me to do this here and hopefullythis will be our location for all of
the vote in Leander series. AndI am here with Madame Mayor Christine Delisle,
and we're going to chat a littlebit about where you are, where
you've been, and where you're going. How about that? Sure? Okay?
(01:06):
So for the uninitiated, you andI you can go back. I
think it's episode seventeen. I can'tremember exactly which one it is, but
you and I. You and Ihad an interview back when you were running
for mayor three years ago. Atthat time you were on council. You
had served I think one term,one term, okay, so you'd served
(01:26):
one term as a council member.You ran for mayor. Obviously you won.
Now you're the incumbent mayor and you'reup for reelection. We talked a
little bit before we started filming.I know we haven't filed yet, but
you are running, right, Iam going to run again, Okay,
all right, so breaking news,all right. So from that perspective,
I want to kind of touch ona couple of things that we touched on
(01:48):
when we talked before, to helppeople kind of get a better flavor of
view, because that's kind of whatI try to do. And there's a
lot of new people in town becausewe're both well aware. So let's give
a little bit of a shorthand versionof your origin story. You are originally
from California, Yes, all right, like most Leandrians, I came from
(02:12):
somewhere else. You said almost theexact same thing two years ago. But
yeah, it's true. Though.It's true, and I think it makes
us very friendly because we're all usedto being the new person. Yeah,
I think so. I mean again, you know what, we talked a
little bit about population growth last time, and I don't get sidetracked of that
kind of stuff, but it wasthe Oakland area. Right, yes,
(02:32):
all right, So California at thetime we talked a couple of years ago,
you had been here Tanner eleven yearsat that probably that all right,
because this is my fourteenth years,all right, So there we go.
So fourteen years in Leander, andof the fourteen years, I think this
is an important little factoid from adata perspective of the fourteen years, about
(02:53):
half, just shy of half ofyour fourteen years in Leander, you've served
in sub capacity on council. Inever thought of it that. Yeah,
that's exactly what it is. That'ssix years out of fourteen, right,
so it's almost half. So let'ssay forty five percent, all right.
So you spent a lot of timeobviously involved in Leander representing the people of
(03:15):
Leander, and then over the lastthree years serving in a more of a
leadership role from the perspective of thecouncil as mayor. Okay, I wanted
to ask you, well, beforeI do that, let's talk a little
bit about what you do outside ofthat, because it's important for us to
always remind people that anyone who serveson council and any capacity in Leander,
(03:38):
it's essentially a volunteer position. Yeah, it is an unpaid position. So
you're doing this out of the graciousnessof your heart, provo pro bono.
So I always like to mention thatbecause I want to make sure that again,
anybody who's uninitiated in Leander and doesn'tunderstand, maybe even Texas, how
we work. Again, it's avolunteer your position essentially, and you know
(04:03):
you spend your time on council.It's a three year term, right,
so again that would equal the sixthat you spent there so far. So
you have a real life outside ofthat. You do normal things and make
money, just like everybody else.So last time we talked, you were
involved in digital marketing. You weretelling me you've kind of backed away from
(04:24):
doing that full time and more ofon a consultant basis. Now. Yeah,
I'm just picking up little consulting thingshere and there, coming up with
with little plans how to market things, stuff like that. But it's it's
definitely taken a bit of a backseat. I was fortunate since the last
time that we met, I soldmy house and the market was very good
and I merged households and so I'vebeen able to afford to take a little
(04:49):
bit of a break ish so Idon't have to working, yes, exactly,
and so it's allowed me to focusmore on my family and the kids
growing up, and of course thisand I'm sure you know we have so
many things to talk about today becausethis has been an intense time for the
city, especially the last few months. So it's been a blessing, no
(05:12):
for sure, for sure, Andagain for those who are uninitiated, what
I've done over the past few yearsis i'ven't been involved on several committees and
things of that nature. So Itry to keep myself informed of what's happening
in the city to help with theseconversations, primarily to be honest, because
I look at what I do herewith the podcast to help people understand a
(05:36):
little bit more context of what's happeningin the city and the people who are
kind of driving some of those conversations. So again, I appreciate you coming
and sitting with me. Again,it's nice to kick off this season's voting
Leander with you. All Right,So last time we talked, we had
some conversations about your involvement with alot of of municipal leagues for lack of
(06:01):
better terms. Okay, Just likethat was something that you spent a lot
of time doing and kind of educatingyourself as to the operational process I think
of city governance and whatnot. Youwere on CAPCOG at that time, which
is the what was the acronymic ofPepal Area Council of Government? Okay,
okay, and I believe you wereserving on the executive committee there as well.
(06:25):
So we were talking a little bitearlier. You kind of stepped away
from that, but you've done somenew things. So the Texas Municipal League,
let's talk a little bit about that. Like, the Texas Municipal League,
what are you doing with that?So? Texas Municipal League is an
organization that puts together trainings and theyhave all of the basically a lot of
(06:46):
the cities in Texas join them,and we have our annual conference, we
have trainings, networking, and wealso have a lobbying arm and so all
of that allows us to sort ofsee what other cities are doing and work
on not reinventing the wheel. Right, So if somebody has figured out how
to do something better, then theyteach the rest of us how to do
something better. And so I've I'vealways been involved because you want to continuously
(07:12):
improve and know all the things.But I am currently our board representative to
the state for our region and sothat's been really interesting, especially through through
the legislative session, to be ableto get a lot of updates about the
bills that are in progress and howit's going to impact us, and how
different cities are looking at things andchallenging things, and it's been fascinating.
(07:35):
And then recently I was appointed asthe chair of our Governance Committee, so
I get to nerd out on morepolicy. And if you really want to
know how nerdy Christine can get,just go back to the previous episode.
She nerds out big time on allof this stuff. It's interesting and it's
I think one of the things thatfor me, and I don't know how
(07:57):
much other candidates or other people oncamp it will necessarily involve themselves in those
arenas. I thought it was alwaysunique that you were doing that, and
I was like, that's an interestingway to approach what can be some of
the challenges in that process because alot of times people are very opinionated about
(08:18):
what is happening in the city andhow things are happening even in our town,
even in Leander. Obviously that extendsto the larger cities, Austin being
the main hub for a lot ofthe stuff that gets talked about. It's
interesting that you're serving on that particularcommittee with the municipal LYAGU because he's talked
about lessons learned from other cities.You said you mentioned to me off camera
(08:43):
it's like Waco and what's the region. Our region is enormous. It goes
up to Waco and down a littlepast Bastrup and all the way out to
like Brian College Station. Like,it's an enormous regions. So from a
mix of municipalities that are within thatgroup, what's the next big city to
(09:05):
smaller concerns, it's I would saya lot of the cities are about where
we are, the ones that arereally active. You've got the smaller ones
and they so TML actually has sortof a separate group for small cities because
small cities have their own unique challengesand things that we don't really identify with.
(09:26):
So I feel like the small citieskind of have their own network,
and so I don't really know awhole lot that goes on with them,
and then the larger cities like Austin. Austin is not super involved in our
region. I don't think I've everseen an Austin Council member any of our
meetings. But for the board forthe state, they do have, like
all of the large cities have likea standing like person that is on them
(09:52):
that doesn't represent the region, theyrepresent that city. So I saw Kirk
Watson at a meeting last year thatwe had in Austin. But the the
larger cities, surprisingly, they someof them do not seem to be as
involved. So in our region it'sit's a lot of us around Rock bast
Cedar Park, Flugerville. We seemto be a lot of the ones that
(10:15):
congregate here, so conducive to wherewe are from a growth perspective. I
mean, everybody, all of thecities that you mentioned are all here essentially
in Central Texas and all experiencing similarpressures on infrastructure, on population growth,
on you know, natural resources,transportation, you know just all they're similar,
(10:41):
They're not the same for everybody.Everybody's got different ways of approaching things,
and I know a lot of timeswhat we deal here with in Leander
is unique to Leander. There's afew things that contribute to that, but
without going into those details. Sothat's interesting, that's good, and I
think it's good that the that thepublic know that you have that type of
involvement. I don't know how wellthat is known by most. I mean,
(11:07):
I think a few people, thenerds, the city nerds like us,
we know. But outside of that, you know, someone who is
going to be walking into the pollingplaces in May right, it's May.
Yeah, it seems fast first Saturday, May right, that's crazy. But
yeah, so when people are walkingin and they're placing their boat, or
if they go in early, whatever, you know, it's good that you
(11:28):
know this. That's what I'm tryingto do is kind of suss out some
of those underlying details, all right. I will say, even you know,
with our staff, a lot oftimes my first question on things is
is this what we do in othercities? You know? This is this
how Cedar Park does whatever it isthat we're looking at, Because you don't
know unless you talk to other people, you don't know if you're doing something
(11:48):
in the best way or the mostefficient way. And I feel like we
get into our little silos of eachcity and don't always look around to see
if there's a better way to dosomething. And one of the other things
that I've learned from TML is,you know, I feel like we're always
talking about Leander and the water,and it seems like it's this huge,
(12:09):
horrible thing. And then I talkto people from other cities, and I
realize our problems are so small.There are a lot of cities in this
state and even in this region thatjust they are dealing with so much,
and our water concerns are not nearlyas bad as a lot of the water
concerns north of us. The furtheryou get away from Lake Travis, that
(12:33):
becomes so dire that logistically makes sense. I mean, I would imagine that
that would be the case when youtalk about those small cities. They don't
have the funding for that stuff either, right at least have everything in the
works, and we have the funding. So let's segue a little bit there.
Let's talk about the water, becauseit's typically one of the main things
that people talk about. Okay,if yeah, at least number two.
(12:56):
I mean, I don't know,it just depends on who you talk to
about. It's one, it's one, that's one of the Yeah, that's
why. That's why I'm framing itbecause we're about to go into stage four
again. And the last time wewere in stage four, if I remember
correctly, I think it was earlyspring or late fall, right, it
was September of twenty two, Okay, so it was timed well, which
(13:22):
I think again here, it's neverideal. It's never ideal, Okay,
But we're in the winter months.People aren't watering their yard. It's not
necessarily as much consumption per se.People aren't trying to overcome drought conditions,
although we are in the drought,but you know, technically, so what
(13:43):
should people expect with that? Like, what what are the impacts really if
they just stop watering their yards.We know that everything will be fine.
We've done this before. We justwant you to be conscious of the water
that you're using, because what happensis we have to shut down the pipeline
to do a replacement of a pieceof it, and so that makes us
(14:05):
rely on just one plant, andthat plant is undergoing expansion, but it's
not fully expanded yet, and sowe just have to be very careful that
we don't run that plant dry essentially, because that throws off the pressures.
It puts everybody into a boil water. Notice that's going to last a few
days, Like, it's just it'sdetrimental. So the process itself, we've
(14:26):
been undergoing this for a few years, and like when you and I talked
a couple of years ago, again, it was very much one of the
top topics of the day at thatpoint. A lot of that due to
I want to shy away from usingthe word neglect necessarily, but I think
that there was not enough impetus puton that particular part of the planning process
(14:54):
that previously needed to be done.So we kind of got to that point
to where, you know, wewent from I don't know what, let's
just say, thirty thousand people toeighty thousand people almost overnight. It happened
quick, and we just weren't preparedfor that. I think that's a fair
way to talk, right, absolutely, So now we've spent the last let's
(15:15):
say, three four years ish kindof trying to make up for lost time,
right, Is that a fair wayof framing it? Okay, So
in that help us understand what wasin process, what has changed about that
process and with this current thing thatwe're doing with the pipe and making it
(15:37):
deeper and changing I mean, it'sprobably nine hundred years old, probably putting
a new pipe. How is thatgoing to change things for us going forward?
Sure? Okay, so that wasa lot, a lot, a
lot sorry questions. Let me seeif I can address all of it.
So, yes, I feel likepreviously at the city was sort of building
the plane as they fluid. Therewere not a whole lot of plans for
(16:00):
our growth. We knew we hadgrowth, but we weren't tracking it.
We weren't doing anything to slow itdown. I remember when I first got
in council on in twenty eighteen,the advice that we were receiving from our
previous city measure and staff is youwant more users on your water system because
more users helped to pay for upgradesin the future. But there was no
tracking of who those users were,like, how much water was being used,
(16:22):
how many new users were there.And that's where we got into trouble
back in around twenty seventeen. Andso what we've done in the last three
years is we've slowed down the growthand everybody looks around says, why are
you still building? We can't stopthe construction. We can't stop the building.
That's a state law. We haveto actually beat out of water before
we're allowed to put on a monitorium. And it's ridiculous, but it is
(16:45):
what it is. And so whatwe've done is we've worked within the confines
to slow down the growth that wehave. We're prioritizing commercial. It's a
little bit more difficult to build here. If you want to build houses,
and you're going to have to donatea lot more parkland, you're going to
have to pay more into the roadsbecause we know that all the roads need
to be widened. And so it'sgiven our staff a break where they can
(17:10):
really look at the usage of everythingand the projections and growth and make sure
that we are doing everything in away that's going to be sustaining and that
we're putting all of this water infrastructureinto place. And so now I think
we have something like seventeen projects goingbetween new water towers and expansions at both
(17:30):
of our water treatment plants. Sowe've got all these things happening that each
one increases our capacity, but theyall just take time. There's no way
to do it as quickly as wewould like, so with our projections,
twenty twenty seven is where we're sitting. Pretty We've got the rights to more
water out of the lake from LCRA, we've got expansion going on at both
(17:56):
of the plants, We've got efficienciesgoing into both of the plants. We've
got all these extra water towers,all these redundancies in the system. And
so once that last piece, thatdeep water intake is online in twenty twenty
seven, we're golden and it's justgoing to be a matter of getting through
until then. So with the deepwater intake, which is what they're working
on right now, yes, thisis Is it fair to say, hey,
(18:21):
folks, be prepared for at leastanother Stage four at some point because
that work needs to continue, Oris this the last time that the work
that they're doing on the deep waterintake will disrupt what we do day to
day. I know that's maybe aharder question, but it is. It
is a harder question, and we'renot really sure. So if you go
back and watch from when we're filmingthis our last council meeting, that was
(18:45):
sort of a question that we positiveto staff is what are the expectations,
And our staff really shies away fromsaying, you know, we don't have
to expect it because you don't knowif there's going to be an emergency,
right You don't know if something's goingto break or something's going to go wrong.
But we're trying to find out isas these systems come online, is
there another time we're going to beshutting down? And so I personally don't
(19:07):
have that answer right now, butit is something that I think is going
to be a part of our messagingand I've made it clear for our staff,
like this is what we need totell people. We need to tell
people what to expect and when.And I think we all understand emergencies can
happen outside of those emergencies, whencan we expect this to ever happen again?
Can we expect it to happen again? But it'll definitely happen this spring,
(19:30):
and hopefully if it happens again,it won't be for a while.
But we do need to be goodstewards of the water, and we do
need to think in a more environmentallyconscious way. And this is just the
way of the State of Texas.It seems like it's just leander right now,
but when you look at the statewater board. They've put together their
(19:51):
projections and in twenty years the stateis out of water. So this is
in the next few years. Thisis not just a leander conversation. This
is original conversation, is a stateconversation, and so it's it's something that
we have focused on a lot well, and I think to the betterment,
to be honest, I mean that'smy personal opinion, and I don't try
(20:12):
to do that too often, butin this case, I think it's a
much better scenario looking forward. Andagain I think maybe not one hundred percent,
but I think we've kind of caughtup with the planning part of that,
and they'll be you know, Imean, there's there's technologies that are
being developed now, and there's alot of things that you cannot foresee from
(20:32):
those particular perspectives. So maybe there'ssomething that you know, that we find
in the next you know, tenyears. It changes that equation per se.
But I'm glad to see that fromthe perspective of what this Council has
done there, we're at least lookingat it beyond you know, twenty twenty
five, thank you. And we'vedone a few other things to promote conservations
(20:52):
so we already have purple pipe,which is a reuse for non putable water
irrigation. We already have that upat the golf course, and through Triviso,
we're expanding that to be out aroundHorizon Lake and North Line. All
of that development is going to getpurple pipe over there as well. And
then we've hired our first conservationist andhe focuses entirely on how to make things
(21:15):
more efficient, how to help people. And so he goes out and he
does irrigation assessments for free for residentsand helps them figure out how much water
and they need to do, findleaks in the system, things like that.
We've adjusted our ordinances so new thingsthat are coming online, that are
being built, they don't have tohave as much plant life and grass and
(21:37):
things as they used to have.And so we're trying to be very forward
thinking and what the usage is goingto be in the future and to not
have as much demand per user aswe've had in the past. Good it's
a lot of water stuff. Itis a lot of water stuff. We
talked about water a lot, sothat kind of leads me in a sense
to my next question, which waswe talked a little bit about trends in
(22:03):
governance last time that we met,And so from a trending perspective, using
that as a framing device, whatwould you say, from your experience the
trends in local governance have been?How have they changed? Like you you
you've been on council for six years. If you look back at what you
thought was happening six years ago comparedto what you think is happening now,
(22:26):
what's changed trend wise? Like,how how is that? How's it different
now? I'm I'm not sure ifI fully understand the question or if locally
changed. So let's just say justwithin Leander. Yeah, like from a
from a governance perspective, Leander andthe way that we approach our problems and
(22:47):
our solutions, has that changed overthe last six years or has that maintained
kind of the same approach, justwith better planning. I mean, I
think it's mostly better planning, butalso there's there's a lot more regionalism that
goes on. We do talk tothe cities around us, We talk to
our partners, and we really tryand help them. And so like with
(23:11):
Georgetown and their water issues, ourstaff has assisted them in looking at their
infrastructure and saying, well, youknow, you can put a pump here,
you can do this, you cando that. We're having some talks
with Liberty Hill as well, andwe go out and we seek information from
our partners as well and just askfor help. So I think I think
(23:34):
a lot of the issues in thisarea are regional. They're not just city
by city, and so our staffsare great at talking to each other.
Our local officials are talking to eachother, and so I think there's more
of a regional approach. But honestly, I'm not exactly sure where we were
six years ago. I know comparedto three years ago, we are very
(23:56):
much more communicative. Okay, okay, that's fair. That's fair. Changes
with different people agreed and speaking ofdifferent people. It's not in order here,
but that's fine. I'm flexible.The I've been tracking, and for
(24:17):
those who watched the podcast or listento the podcast, they'll know that I've
done a couple of episodes. I'vetalked about our process right now in that
change management with the city manager position, and I talked a little bit about
over a couple of episodes what's goingon with that. So I know that
there was a consultancy that the citychose to work with, which is interesting
(24:42):
because I don't know if that's happenedbefore for previous city manager hires. So
was one of my questions that Iwanted to ask you, have we ever
done that again? Have we everdone that before? I believe several years
ago, before I was on council, we did that. Okay, So
that's not unusual, it's just youchose to do at this time. Normally
counsels will go with a consultancy thathas experience because you get it's it's it's
(25:08):
a delicate process because the people thatare applying typically have a job somewhere else
and uh and there. They wantto know that they're applying somewhere where if
they don't get it, they don'tget outed to their council of Hey,
you're saying managers looking for a job, right right, So it's it's very
(25:29):
delicate, and you want to havean organization that is reputable that the applicants
can trust. So it's SGR SGRand i've kind of again i've kind of
highlighted a little bit of that.But one of the things that I thought
was really good in that process isthis document that was that was created,
so brochure essentially for Leander and Icovered it in a previous episode, and
(25:52):
I was talking about how from myperspective it was really just me, but
how I felt that this was areally good and clear definition of what was
being done, what to expect,and what I felt. This was my
impression what I felt the council wassaying they want in a city manager.
(26:18):
Right, yes, very much so. So again we were talking a little
bit off camera beforehand. You mentionedthat you had a lot of input into
this particular the council. I shouldn'tsay you, not you specifically, but
the council had a lot of inputinto this brochure, and I know that
there's some restrictions on how you cantalk about as far as the city manager
is concerned. So to just bringpeople up to speed at this point,
(26:41):
you have received from from SGR SDRright, Yes, candidates that you are
now vetting on council based on therecommendations coming from the This is from SGR.
They've kind of vetted them. Theywhittled it down. Now you're down
to the last few. We whittledit down. Okay, So it's been
(27:03):
a really interesting process. So originallys c R they are headhunter. Basically,
he said, you know a lotof councils, they just have a
couple of people that do this aslike a committee and then they just bring
the recommendations at the end of council. And I told them there's no way
this council is going to want todo that. This council, every single
person, if I ask you know, who wants to be on the committee
(27:26):
for this, they are all goingto raise their hand. And and our
consultant was like, well, youknow, that might be a little chaotic,
and I was like, we gotthis right, and and sure enough,
I am so proud of our councilbecause we are so united on what
we're looking for, and at everysingle turn we are seeing the same things,
We are having the same feedback,we all are coalescing around the same
(27:49):
ideas. We all independently without realizingin the beginning, want the exact same
things. And so when SGR firstgave us the brochure, we all looked
at and we're like, this isnot our city. And so we changed
a whole bunch that was in there, and everybody had their input. We
cut out pieces we added in newpieces, and so I think we're probably
(28:11):
all really proud of that brochure becauseit's it's how we see the city.
And I thought that was that wasreally phenomenal, and I know that that's
something we're doing that other councils aren'tdoing so well. Crowd, Yeah,
and kudos on that. Again fromfrom my perspective, a little bit closer
to the drum beat, you know, I'm not uninitiated. I thought it
(28:38):
was really interesting. It struck me. I mean I was really struck by
that because I had looked at SGRand what they had done brochure wise for
some other cities. So it's reallyreally curious as like, all right,
some of these really read like amarketing piece. Some of these read more
of like a again an origin story. You know. It was just like
(29:02):
all sorts of different mixes of howthey were representing the cities, and I
thought, Okay, these are probablysome sort of reflection of that individual city.
But to hear you tell it,it was more like, no,
this is kind of what SGR puttogether. And I don't know about the
other cities. I don't want tospeak to that, but you know,
to me, I looked at someof those and I was like, I
don't know if that's really what thatcity is about, you know. So
(29:25):
when I read Leanders, I waslike, Okay, this is really really
cool because there's little things in herethat I think, again, if if
I think maybe if you're a littlebit more geeky on the city stuff,
maybe that appels to you. Butjust to understand, you know, Leander's
annual budget is three hundred and seventeenmillion dollars. I have been looking for
(29:45):
this number for years and not reallybeen able to find it, like not
clearly enunciated, like here's what itis. Like, yes, I can
go through the budget and I canfigure all that out and I can kind
of break all that stuff down,but just for like the again just Joe
blow, average guy, like who'sgoing to do that? Not too many
people. So I struggle to findthis anywhere, and now here it is
(30:07):
in this one document, which kindof is like all right, cool,
this now kind of sets the tone, or at least sets the plate.
All right. So you're dealing witha city manager who's going to come in
and he's going to be dealing witha three hundred and seventeen million dollar budget.
Right, yeah, great, now, I know, all right,
that's kind of where I'm going withthat. But more to the point,
(30:29):
the way that you outline the position, and I spent some time on this.
I don't get too long on this, but I thought it was very,
very direct and one of the thingsthat I have and it's a personal
complaint, I guess I'll frame itthat I want to be fair to everybody.
I've always felt that our city managersare a little bit too behind the
(30:52):
scenes, like they just they don'tyou don't know who they are. We
agree they're there, you know,and you see them from time to time,
but they are the really the personfrom from the way that we're structured
that is responsible for the operator.They're they're the COO of the company of
the city, like they are thechief operational officer, and that person typically
(31:15):
is a little bit more like yousee them, you know what they they
talk to people, they do interviewsor whatever it might be. You just
have not I have not in mylifetime here in Leander, which is about
the same as long as you've beenserving on council. I've never seen that.
I've never and I know who theyare don't get me wrong. I
(31:36):
know who they are and I've metthem, right because I'm involved. But
then, but that's what I meanby that, Like I try to take
the common man's perspective on that.I'm like, all right, well,
the leadership of the city, theelected, the officials, get the brunt
of the of the dissatisfaction or satisfaction. You guys get all the accolades,
(31:57):
and you get all all the grumgrumbling. Right, Yeah, but it's
representative and you're you're limited on councilsto what you do essentially on counsel it's
budget and ordinances. I mean,if you want to really boil it down
to the two things, right,give the direction, right, and that
says up to the city manager howthey do that, right, Right,
(32:19):
So it's directional, But it's notlike there is like you, as Madam
mayor, don't sit there and saynow and I'm going to veto this thing
and we're going to do something else. That's not how it works, and
not do that. Okay, allright, So just to clarify for people
who may not know that, alot of people don't know that, and
they don't and I joke about thatI'm like, you know, on my
off time, I'm personally holding thatpipeline together, right, because yeah,
(32:42):
a lot of people think that everythingthat goes on the city is the responsibility
of Mary Council, even just youknow the businesses that come here. You
know, this business came here becausecouncil invited them. Like no, like
anybody can open a business. Andso yeah, I think there are a
lot of misnomers and yeah, that'smanage Your position is so vital and so
important, especially right now, rightnow because we are as a city at
(33:08):
a very important juncture in our growthprocess. So you kind of outlined it
earlier the and it's a decision.I think it's a decision that I believe
the city has taken. So wetalk about this and again I've been on
several committees and we've talked about thisbefore. Do we want to be a
bedroom community? Do we want todo this? Do we want to do
that? Well, I've always takenthe position that like, hey, guys,
(33:31):
you can't have that conversation anymore,that conversation that's passed you by.
We're not a bedroom community. Wecan't afford to be a bedroom community anymore.
We need to develop more of oureconomic diversity in order to have long
term stability. Otherwise you end uptoo much in one place, and it's
(33:54):
you've got a three legged stool withone one leg that's not as that's shorter
than the others. Right. Well, and you also you have the risk
when you're a bedroom community of ifthe market goes poorly, you're just out
of our money. But when themarket as well, you're just putting all
of the burden for financing everything onhomeowners And that's not a place that you
(34:16):
want to be in either, especiallyin Texas with the current environments that we
live in. And everybody's looking atit and saying, I want to lower
my property taxes. I mean,that's a common theme for everybody, right,
So that's great, and you know, hey, I'm a normal,
you know, red blooded American.If you're going to make me pay less,
(34:38):
then I'm fine with that. Okay, we try and I know,
but at the same time, Ialso say, well, but that's how
you pay for all the other stuff, right, So it's a balance.
Yeah, And again, you know, to the point that much investment in
the bedroom community, again, you'rereliant on property taxes. If something changes
(35:00):
there, and a lot of thatyou have no control over from at a
city level, because the legislature makesdecisions in Texas that completely change the paradigm
and you have to live with it, right, Or if there's a crash
in the economy and people lose theirjobs, the real estate market comes down,
we have no control over that.That is out of our hands,
(35:20):
and so yeah, it's that wouldbe very risky, right, You've got
to have that economic diversity. Sopart of that diversity, and we talked
about this the last time too.We had to get the North Line development,
which is obviously a little bit furtheralong but still has a ways to
go, because that's just how thatworks. There's the new I think it's
a light industrial structure going on onhere away. Yes, right, so
(35:45):
that was a really nice project fromthat perspective. I don't know if Kat
likes that in her backyard necessarily,but it's right there. But yeah,
no, that's yeah, no there, I don't I'm being facetious. It's
not in her backyard. And sothe land next to that is now available
or up for sale, so Icould imagine that that's going to be And
(36:05):
I've always looked at Hero this sideof Hero as like, Okay, that's
probably what we're going to get here. We're going to get a little bit
of a commercial corridor here. Ilike the direction that we're going there.
I had the privilege of serving onthe Economic Development Committee for the last few
years. It was a little chaotic, to be honest with you, I
mean, because we're dealing with tryingto kind of figure out how that committee
(36:27):
could work. So hopefully I leftit in a good in a good place
and and and you know, appreciateit. Yeah, you know it was.
It was fun. But now I'mfree to do all sorts of really
crazy stuff. But again, likethose commitments to that long term economic development.
One of the things that I wantedto talk about was like the vision
now, So the vision for Leandergoing forward. Now, obviously you've had
(36:50):
an opportunity to put your thumb onthe scale for the last three years.
Where do you see that? Ifre elected, where do you see that
going? I think it's good andcontinue on in the trend that we're going
with where we're getting this diverse groupingof different industries. Right. So I
called this last year that we justhad the most well rounded year in economic
(37:13):
development for the city because we haveClass A office space that's going in over
at North Line, We've got ClassA industrial at hero A West. We've
never had anything like either of thoseprojects, and those bring in such different
users than what we're used to.And then at the same time, we
have all these shopping centers popping upall over the place. That's bringing in
more retail, more restaurants, allthe things that we always said we want
(37:35):
to have, and so it's goingto be fantastic. Each of those Class
A projects is a catalyst. Youtalked about the land next door to here
Auay West being for sale, Well, now that's going to look more attractive
to somebody because there's something there.That also means there's more infrastructure in each
of the areas where these things aregoing in. In the next year,
(37:58):
you're going to see Crystal Village goingvertical. You're going to see more of
North Line going vertical. We've beenin meetings recently about the commercial aspect of
that and and the hold up rightnow and that is that there's just a
shift in plans and the shift isvery, very good, So that's going
(38:20):
to be phenomenal. We've also gotyou know out. I think a lot
of people that have been in Leanderfor a long time don't realize if you
go out to twenty nine in Reagan, that's still Leander. There's a brand
new AGB shopping center there that isjust popping full of things. And you'll
see the the announcements in community Impactand sometimes they listed as Georgetown. It's
(38:42):
Leander. The post office detric right. No, it's crazy, it's it's
it's in Leander. It came up, it came up. It's in Leander.
The address is Georgetown and the schooldistrict is Liberty Hill if I remember
correctly. So that's crazy. It'sjust that one that one piece of life.
So everybody can say it's taxes.That's the most important piece to claim,
(39:05):
right right, right, So that'sthe that's the important piece. And
again predominantly serving our residents that livedReagan and Reagan you know, to our
residents that have lived here for thelast fifteen years, go drive up and
down Reagan. We encourage cap Metro. About two years ago when they got
some new people in, I wastelling them because I've been trying to get
them to expand out the pickup servicebecause it's fantastic and more people need to
(39:29):
be able to access it, andand that it lies entirely with cat Metro,
and so we just try and persuadethem. And I was signing them
and I said, you know,this Reagan Corridor, y'all, don't even
go out there. There is there'snot just a lot of people, there's
all this commercial. There's shops,there's there's places for people to work that
you should be And it was newto them because the last time that they're
(39:51):
out here, when they were,you know, working on the pickup service,
there wasn't a whole lot of commercialout there. You know, when
they first came to Leander, therewas nothing out there. I don't think
that was even annex Dan. Theywere first here and so they drove up
and down it and you know,it's it's very different from how it was
ten years ago. No, it'svery different from how it was five years
ago. Yeah, I mean becauseessentially in the five six years that I've
(40:15):
been here, I've seen all ofthat happen. And it's you know,
it's funny because a lot of peoplesay, hey, we need this,
we need that, and you wouldhear and see on social media, Hey,
how come we don't have this store, and how come we don't have
this place? And why don't wehave a torches taco and whatever? We
do? So we have all ofthat stuff. A lot of that will
come anyway, but if there's notsome sort of conducive planning to that,
(40:38):
right, it's harder. Yes,So there'll be people who listen to this
and I'll say, well, you'remaking it harder for developers to do things,
and I think we want to specifythat. Well, yes, but
that's on purpose because we want toslow the residential growth. Residential That's that's
why I'm saying that it's the residentialgrowth that we want to kind of just
(41:00):
just tap the brakes. It's gonnahappen anyway, right, It's gonna happen.
It's just like we don't want tonecessarily just blow through that process.
But at the same time, Iknow, again from what I did while
we were on the development committee,the commercial focus and getting the right type
of commercial properties interested in the cityof Leander and using what other development is
(41:27):
going on in the region to identifywho those people are. So you know,
I think it's great that we're buildingthe type of infrastructure for that,
we're not going to see it rightaway. I think. I think it's
gonna it's still another three to fiveyears off before we start seeing it and
it's visible. It's the same thingif you drive like, okay by the
ATB Center, if you drive bythe ATB Center and in that seed of
(41:50):
park, but all of that,all of that development there, I mean,
Firefly has been there for a numberof years. Okay, they only
put up signage in like the lasttwo and now granted they only got rockets
that were working in the last twoyears. But that's kind of the thing
that you have to wait for,Like it doesn't happen overnight, and that's
true, then it becomes visible.So I think what I'm saying is that
(42:10):
there's a lot that's going on thatpeople can't see that they will see in
the next few years. Right,that's true. Yes, And I think
a lot of that they're going tosee just in the next year. So
Here a West, even though theyjust broke around, they're anticipating opening quarter
four of this year. Home depothas not yet broken ground, but they
are saying they're on track to openfall or winter of this year. I'm
(42:34):
so hopeful for that. I'm soexcited to have them coming. And we
know that home depot is going tobe a catalyst because anytime you see a
home depot, there's always a shoppingcenter around it that has lots of things,
and so you know something will popup there. And then Crystal Village
has a number of places under contract. I'm not sure what they've announced on
what they haven't, so I don'twant to go into that, but they
(42:57):
have a number of places that areunder contract that are just waiting for the
buildings to be built. And soI'm pretty sure they're done with all their
infrastructure. Whe they're close to beingdone. It looks pretty ready over there,
and so I think this year we'llsee some of that popping up too.
So, yes, some of thesethings take a long time, but
also we're right at the cusp wheresome of these are going to be vertical
(43:17):
in the next twelve months and you'regoing to see it. Right. So
what started us down this path wasthe city manager. And you're now at
the point to where, let's sayyou've identified six candidates. I don't know
if you can say how many thereare many, Okay, but let's say
it down twice. Okay, soit's less than twenty more than one,
(43:42):
yes, okay, yes, allright, So at what point does that
become a more public Is it afterthe higher the higher process is completed,
or is there ever an opportunity Andthis kind of goes to what I was
asking, is there ever an opportunityfor the citizenry to see these are the
(44:02):
people that we're looking at? Ordoes that just is that not how it
works? That is up to everycouncil. We spoke about it recently,
and we don't want to be verypublic about it because the last time we
were hiring a city manager, thename was announced too soon and that person
(44:25):
was a superstar and he ended upbacking out because he hadn't yet talked to
his council. Some cities they arevery public about it. I know hud
too had like their last three citymanagers, like candidates all come and do
a panel and it was videoed,and I don't know how the two that
don't get chosen like work with theircouncils. Right, And so we we
(44:50):
aren't trying to keep anything away frompeople, but we are trying to keep
the process very sacred. And notlose our finalists, because our finalists are
all stars. They are amazing,and we know that the public is going
to adore any one of them.But it's just one of those things where
it's it's sacred, it's our baby. I'm not sure when we're going to
(45:13):
announce, if it's going to belike a few finalists or if it's just
going to be one. That's adiscussion for the future, but currently it
is sacred, and that's fair.I can respect that. And having,
you know, even just in yourown personal you know, experience going through
an interview process. You know,it's you don't I mean, you're like,
hey, don't call don't call mycurrent employer, right, you know,
(45:36):
it's kind of one of those things. So that's fair, and I
appreciate you at least addressing it fromthat perspective. Where was I going with
that? I forgot my I lostmy train of thought. Okay, anyway,
all right, So we've talked abouta lot and we're almost at an
hour, which is crazy. Idon't know how much this is actually going
to make it into the edit.I'll have to probably trim it down a
(45:57):
little bit. I think we've kindof hit on everything. Overall, staffing
plans from the perspective of the citymanager are once that position is filled,
then those specifics become one of thefunctions of the city manager, right right,
(46:20):
So if there are there any plansto expand the staff, because I
know that one of the things that'sbeen I don't want to say a hindrance,
but it's been a challenge has beenstaffing issues, like there's just not
enough people to do the things thatneed to be done. There's not enough
money to have all of the people. Yes, so it goes back to
budget at the end of the day. It does. It does. And
so one of the things you knowthis is this is a part of the
(46:42):
big controversy about camp Metro is beingin a transportation district. Half of what
we would normally collective sales tax goesoff the top straight to cat Metro,
and we can't we can't relitigate that. You know, the legislature puts limits
on how often you can bring thatto a vote. So we have to
work within that and try and changethe life legislature to change the way that
these things are funded, because itcan it can hinder cities like ours,
(47:05):
and so when you look at staffingfor our city versus similar cities in the
area, we run lean and werun lean because we're working with less and
it's it's unfortunate, but it iswhat it is. So there's always more
demand for staffing. Then we havethe ability. So when you talk about
staffing in front and I don't wantto get too too deep into this,
but it's an interesting question for mebecause I look at that and say,
(47:30):
all right, well, there thereare there are theories or or there are
how do I put this? Thereare schools of thought that you you you
you, you, you run lean, you you, you have the right
people and you leverage technology to expandtheir capabilities like you, you make a
(47:51):
technology technology investment. Then there's otherpeople who say, no, you need
the people. The people are whatgets the job done, and they kind
of on the number of people.Neither one is right or wrong. It's
just two different ways of doing things. But because of the way that we
have to do things, I'd askedthe question, how much of a technology
investment has this state of Leander beenmaking. I mean, we've and are
(48:15):
we restricted in that because we're puttingall our money into fixing the waters.
So that is something that I thinkwe've actually done a fantastic job of is
keeping our IT team staffed with lotsof people and they're all top notch.
And it's been incredible too, becausethe city managers I've worked with have not
(48:36):
been super technological, right spoken asa millennial, right, it's very like,
okay, let me help my doubt, right. And so it's been
great though that they understand the importanceof it and they're like, I don't
understand what you do, but youdo you, you know, And so
(48:58):
that that has been fantastic. We'vemade a number of good security choices,
and I see that all the timewhen I talk about meeting with officials from
other cities, and you know,we have problems with a lowercase P,
they have problems with an upper caseP. And you know, one of
the cities that I was talking toa couple other officials from last year,
(49:19):
they were telling me how they hadjust redone their entire IT infrastructure because they
had a ransomware thing that happened andit took down everything and they weren't able
to get anything back and they hadI guess this is a thing for smaller
cities remember they have their different issues. They like outsource it and there's people
specialize in that. And so theseguys were telling me, yeah, I
(49:42):
don't know who you use for it, but don't use this company. And
I was like, you have acompany, like we just have people and
they're just you know, they theystay on top of all the things.
But yeah, we've we've definitely investedin very good, forward thinking it people
that make sure that everything is verysecure. It's it's like Fort Knox to
(50:02):
get in there. That's where allthe servers are, but it's very controlled
and they're very smart, good,good And I think the website finally,
that project finally got yes. SoI was thinking about that when you were
talking about the budget, because wedo post the budget on the website,
the whole budget book, and itdoes list the number in there on like
a little letter in the front thatkind of introduces the budget book and then
(50:27):
it gets into all of the allthe things, right. But I wanted
to say that is easier to findnow on our brand new website that you
can use on mobile, all thethings, the newsletter yep, And now
I'm taking advantage of a lot ofthat stuff, you know, when you
when you talk about that kind ofstuff, always have my opinions. But
it's a huge improvement. It's ahuge improvement, and it's still it's still
(50:51):
still Yeah, you can tell,trust me. I know from my perspective,
I can tell it's all right.You're still working out some kinks and
that's okay. Every so often,you know, you have to call up
and say like, I can't findwhere this is, and they're like,
oh oops, let's minor that overbecause some things just didn't migrate. And
then links have different names, someof them, and they have to go
in and readd them. So that'sone of those things that is very specific
(51:15):
to municipalities too, like you can'tjust build your own website because they have
to follow all of these different regulationsand so everybody uses different contractors and so
you're like confined to their ecosystem andso it's it's been weird, but it's
so much better than it used tobe. I kind of missed the old
search that we used to have though, because you would go to the search
bar for years and you would typein something completely coherent and it would come
(51:38):
back with just random words. AndI used to say it was like like
some sociology experiment, like how frustratedcan you get somebody before they quit?
Because you'd look for like Reagan's ooningand it would come back and it was
like did you mean wombats at atblike like what is this? Like this
(51:58):
has nothing to do with any Soit was it was it was anti chat
GVT, right, it was sofunny. It was frustrating. No,
it's it's actually like I said,it's a huge, huge improvement and a
lot of that is due to youknow, the work of council and then
you know, uh, it wasa big thing for a long time.
(52:20):
I remember, have you stood upall your campaign stuff at this point or
is that I haven't even filed?Okay, all right, so all right,
so there's still a few weeks.There's still a few weeks, but
you're running. Yeah, and it'lllet's see what did you use last time
vote for Christine? I think itwas it was a leader who listens,
(52:42):
a leader who listens. Well,in my experience, you have done a
rotgage job of that, and Iappreciate you taking some time to help the
people who watch this and listen tothis, listen to what it is you
have to say, because it's it'salways it's nice to be able to have
this type of opportunitynity, and it'sone of the things that the small town
can afford you, is these typesof opportunities. Once you get too big,
(53:05):
can't do it anymore. But Iguess that's our signal, no,
I think values really not. Anyway, Thanks again, and for those of
you as we get closer to theelection, I'll continue to post information both
on the Lean and Leander website andthe accompanying vote in Leander website with all
(53:29):
the proper links you can look atall the various candidates who are running.
I wish you nothing but luck inyour attempt to be re elected. And
again I thank you for your time. It's been very very nice of you.
All Right, thanks guys. That'sit for today and my fa
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