September 16, 2024 • 60 mins
City managers in Texas cities under home rule charters have greater autonomy to shape their roles and responsibilities compared to those in cities operating under general law. At a special meeting Monday, Sept. 18, 2023 Council approved a contract with recruiting firm Strategic Government Resources to assist in a formal search for a new city manager. The Leander City Council announced it selected its new city manager in March this year.Todd Parton, a Texas native, was chosen for the role. His first day was April 16, 2024. As City Manager, Todd Parton oversees all city operations and personnel, enforces city policies and procedures, and manages the city budget. The city manager reports to City Council who represent the citizens of Leander. I was able to have the pleasure of sitting down with Todd and asking a few questions to help me, and by extension, you the listener to get to know him.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Todd Parton,
who's the new city manager here in the City of Leander,
and we had a really, really nice conversation that spanned
a number of topics, all I think are very important
things for us as citizens here in the City of
(00:30):
Leander to consider when we start thinking about what we're
doing here in the city for the near term and
for the long term. So, without any further ado, here's
my conversation with Todd Parton. Hey everybody, we're here at
(00:55):
Lantern Media Studios again for the latest episode of Lee
and Leander, which I am very very pleased and kind
of giddy to have an opportunity to speak with the
new city manager, mister Todd Parton. Todd, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Thank you, good morning.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I appreciate you making this happen because I know you
got lots of stuff going on, so I definitely appreciate
the courtesy. Todd is the new city manager. As I mentioned,
and this was a process that we've covered on the podcast.
We kind of touched on some of the hiring process.
If you go back a few episodes, you'll be able
to find that information. While the process was ongoing. So
(01:35):
back in March of twenty twenty four, that process was
completed and Todd was the survivor. I guess right. There
was seventy one applications that the city reviewed and they
were from nineteen different states, so it was a pretty
pretty comprehensive process and exercise, which again I think at
(01:57):
the time that we did those episodes, I low the
city for taking that extra effort in that extra time.
I think it was a very very well coordinated and
well executed search. And then Todd is the one, like
I said, who ended up surviving that whole process. But
he's got some really really great bonafides, and I want
to start there just kind of chat a little bit
(02:17):
about you your personal history. I know that you were
a graduate of the University of North Texas. So are
you a Texas native or not?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I am you are. I was born and raised in Denton,
Oh Okay. I didn't know that, went to University of
North Texas bachelor's and master's program, and then went out
in the world, went to go explore California for about
seven and a half years. I had to come back home.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Right, Well, good, I didn't I didn't realize that you
were actually a Texas native. That's good to know. I'm
sure a lot of people will be rarely happy with that.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
My y'all israliative.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
That's good. That's good. So yeah, so we were you
at North Texas because I remember North Texas had a
point kind of it had a moniker name change if
I remember correctly, right, I can't remember what the old
university was, but I mean, I'm giving my age away
by that.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
We were in TSU, that's what it was, and we
became the University of North Texas. I remember that emphasis
on the the the University of North Texas, and it's
the it's the Eagles, right green right, So so I
noticed that and I was like, all right, so if
you are naturally inclined to be green.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Austin FC fan.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Absolutely. As a matter of fact, when we were living
in Redlands, we actually went to l A and saw
l A f C in Austin play in the Western
Conference Championship.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Oh wow, that a good game to watch.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It was well lost three to nothing.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Wow, I mean, but still it was a good game.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
But we were wearing where you were in the absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
All right, see now I have to copy here that uh,
forever Orange from Houston, so the Dynamo and my heart
beats there, right, But it's fun to have the teams
like that. I mean, I love going to the games
here in Austin. I think the venue is absolutely fantastic.
And yeah, that I kind of figured you might be
inclined to be very day.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well and actually when I was in Sibilo, we had
a Major League Soccer preseason tournament and Greg kinnear and
Houston Dynamo were actually probably the primary team that came
to play in that event. Really, and actually I think
they won that event.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That's very cool, very cool. Yeah, that's neat. That's interesting.
I kind of pegged you as maybe a footy guy,
but you know, I kind of wanted to slip that
one in there. I appreciate that. All right, excellent, all right,
So personal like married kids.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, so we have been married since nineteen ninety seven. Okay,
so I'm very fortunate. Mandy is my bride. So actually
I had already graduated and we were set up on
a blind date. So she was just finishing up there. Okay,
(05:12):
so I got lucky, he did, but they lied. She
could see perfectly.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Wow, So it was kind.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Of true.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Kids. That was a bad dad joke. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
So our son is twenty just graduated, so he's working
on his next chapter. And then our daughter is a
senior in high school. So wife and daughter are finishing
up in Redlands, so they're out in California for the
next ten.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Months and then that senior year for her. Right, it
is all right, do you I'm assuming you probably make
a couple of John's out there. Senior Year's a lot
of stuff going on, miss anything, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, I think in a couple of weeks, I need
to take a quick little weekend trip out to go
do good for you.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Good for you. That's always the you're almost an empty nester,
and I've already been an empty nester for a few
years now, so it moves really really quick, right, But
I know that the senior year is like just that's
super super important that time. So it's got to be
a little bit of a of a of a challenge.
I mean, you know, taking this type of position out
(06:15):
here knowing that you're you're not going to be there
every day, so you.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Know it is and you know, part of the I
guess advantage if you will to the situation is that
right now, coming into a job like this new there's
so many hours. You know, you could work every day
for many, many hours. So it gives me a chance
to kind of concentrate and drill in and let let
them do what they need to do. But you know,
they'll be up for holidays, came in for the home
(06:41):
closing for a couple of days. I'll go out there
for a few trips and yeah, we'll we'll make it
work nice. We talk every day.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah. So, well it's different now. I mean, you know,
Zoom or whatever, FaceTime, whatever, and there's easier. It's not
as challenging as it was even before my time. I mean,
you know my kids had Zoom. It's not that big
of a deal. You know, I could see them in
college too. Yea. But yeah, well kudos for that because
that is a deficult, difficult decision to make. But obviously
something that you felt was was I would I would
(07:10):
assume I'm not to put words in your mouth, but
it was the right thing to do, right because it was.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And she's very active, you know in high school, you know,
on sports and extracurricular activities and good friend base.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So it's like, let's leave that let's support that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And let you let you finish out.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
So a little bit of a of a an idea
there of strong decision making on your part there, Todd.
All right, anyway, Okay, well, thank you for sharing that,
because I you know, again, my audience is a little
bit more a casual audience from that perspective, and it's
not necessarily the you know, hard boiled civic minded people.
(07:49):
You know, it's more of a of a diverse group
of folks that I think watched the podcast and listen in.
So I want to give them a little bit of
an idea of who you are. And I think that
helps people understand, you know, especially because there's not a
whole lot of discussion generally speaking. And my experience here
in Leander, and like I said, I've been here about
six years, there really was always like, well, who's the
(08:10):
city manager and what do they do? That kind of conversation.
You hear it all the time, right, and that was
part of my effort here was to get you. And
again I appreciate you making the time so that we
can kind of start to break down some of that
thought process, right, just like you know, hey, Todd's just
a guy and he has a job, right, and he
is here because he has an intent to help with
(08:31):
you know, that's why you take the job, right. It's
not because oh, it's just you know, I want to
be there. You have to want to be there, right.
And obviously, leaving your family in California for about a
you know, ten months to a year, that's a that's
a big decision. So I think that definitely shows an
intent there. So I want to highlight that a little bit.
My word's not his, okay, all right, So what drove
(08:53):
you into this space? Like, tell me from your perspective,
because I've got some notes here about you know, what
a city means does, But from your perspective, like in
your own words, what would you say you do?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Well? I got into public service because I wanted to
help build communities and I wanted to try to make
as much of an impact into the world and into
communities and lives as much.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
As I could.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And you know, from really even middle school, you know,
I talked to my mom a lot about what was
you know, what was going to look like?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
She was, Oh, you.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Should be an engineer. You know, you need to be
an engineer. So I don't really know if I like
math that much. I mean, I could do math, but
I don't know if I really like it, you know,
And so so I always had kind of a mentality
of wanting to serve and give back and and try
to contribute as much as I could. So so I
(09:53):
was kind of looking at that. When I started working
on my bachelor's degree at North Texas, I really started
in journalist and because I thought that was a great
way to be able to try to help inform people
and kind of serve that mission. And one of the
things you do at North Texas is you work on
the campus newspaper. I did an interview for a new program,
(10:17):
which was the Emergency Administration Planning program, and I was
so enthralled by that program and what I learned about it.
I said, that is an angle, you know, that is
truly a way to get in and get involved. And
so I went to I switched my major to emergency
administration and planning, and we learned a lot about policy,
(10:37):
about governance, about all those different things you have to
know from that perspective. And then when I graduated, I
realized I need to go back and work on a
master's program. So I went to I pursued a master's
in public administration. In the meantime, I took a position
as a planning tech with the City of Denton because
(10:59):
I needed to some experience. I need experience. Planning was fantastic.
It brought in a lot of what I had learned
through the MPa, I'm sorry, through the EADP program at
North Texas. It just was a good fit and it's
just been amazing from then on because I got into
planning and got to be there at the very very
(11:21):
I guess bottom of an organization. So you know, I've
worked from the very lowest level positions, you know, all
the way through you know, that process.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And Denton was a kind of burgeoning city at that
particular point in time, and it was definitely in a
growth mode if I remember correctly, and you know, I'm
just going from exposure to to the to the university
and stuff like that. I remember my dad lived in
Denton for a little bit, right because his wife, my stepmom,
(11:53):
was doing her undergraduate work at Texas Women's I think
is right. W Yeah, so she was there to do
her undergraduate work and he had moved to Denton to
kind of support that process, right, So he was there
for a few years, and I remember it. I just
I was very I remember seeing Denton well when it
was smaller, and then when I went to see him,
(12:14):
and we even talked about having my daughter look at
Texas Women's because I was like, this seems like a
good university, should probably check it out. She didn't want
to stay in Texas and that's a whole nother story
for another day. But so it's interesting you so you
were there kind of was it an intern type situation
or were you actually was a paid position.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So I had finished up my bachelor's I had done
an internship actually at the City of Grand Prairie in
the emergency management office. So emergency manager at that time
was a man named George Grant is amazing, and he
mentored me and we actually were writing emergency response plans
and it was kind of cool because we'd write and
then he would take it to the council they'd get
(12:55):
an adopted.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I was like, whoo, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It was all exciting and so and then again I
knew I needed to go pursue the master's degree. So
I actually had applied for a position at the City
of Dallas in water utilities and at the City of
Denton in planning position, the planning tech position actually was
(13:18):
offered the water utilities position in Dallas, and you know,
it actually paid a little bit more, but I said,
you know, I'm right there in Denton. I'm there. It
just kind of made sense. So it is really, in retrospect,
probably the best decision I could have made. It's been
just amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
No, that's excellent. You also did just again, while you
were doing your masters, you had an emphasis on budget
and finance. So I kind of wanted to use that
to leverage into like the first question, right, So that's
what we talked a little bit about you When we
look at you know, public budgets and public finance, one
(13:59):
of the challenges I would imagine, and I'm just going
from my perspective, right, I like to think of it
as at least an informed perspective, but I could be wrong, right,
So one of the challenges, it seems to me, is
balancing public safety, sustainability. And then in a city like Leander,
(14:19):
which is experiencing the type of growth which is has
to be mind boggling, right, I mean, because I know
that in Beaumont in California, where you were, it was
about a population of about forty five thousand or forty
five thousand, right, yeah, is that right? Yes? So here
we're closer to one hundred, so it's a little bit
it's like double the population base, right. And by the way,
(14:44):
Beaumont is near Palm Spring, so you're dealing with a
lot of the same types of issues, right, water and
resources and conservation and things of that nature. So I
found it to be very interesting when I read that information.
I was like, wow, that's that was hopefully purposeful and
looking for somebody who had those similar type of experiences.
But how is it that you know, again, when you're
(15:07):
looking at the budget and the financial financial piece of this, right,
the city manager is it's like the CEO, right that
you're the chief executive of operations, right, so it comes
to the functioning of the city. Council obviously sets budgets,
they decide where money is supposed to be spent, but
(15:29):
you're the one who's actually like you have to execute
on that, right, And I'm wondering from that perspective, you know,
how what is your thought now that you've had a
little bit of time here, because I think April was
you know, so you've had a little bit of time
to get your feet wet. Right, how is it that
we can continue to foster economic development while maintaining some
(15:54):
of those you know pillars if you were in public safety, sustainability,
and housing, those are key factors into that economic development? Right?
What's the balance there? How do we go about doing
that and doing it with intent?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Well, the first thing you really have to do is
to understand where you are today. So and you have
to be just brutally honest about that, the good the bad.
So there's a lot of good here, and which is
why I came. It's just a lot of opportunity to
be able to marshal the resources that are here. The
(16:31):
way I explain it to some people is the city
of Leanders kind of in kind of a golden era,
so to speak, from that financial perspective, where revenues have
been growing significantly, but the demands on the city and
the expectations of the citizens are also growing at the
(16:52):
same time. So strategically, we have to make sure that
we are smartly using our resources and we're putting those
into the areas where we need to prioritize and make
those most effectively deployed. So what the first step in
the process is really to begin to look at where
(17:15):
we expect to be over an extended period of time.
So we're working right now to develop some long range
fiscal forecasting. So what do we think we're going to
have to work with from a financial perspective over the
next fifteen to twenty twenty five years. Because when we
look to develop programs, whether it's adding people, adding equipment,
(17:38):
doing additional things, are those sustainable within a five to
ten year window and we want to establish performance expectations
for those programs. So we'll be developing that process as well.
So if we're spending money to do a specific program
and we're expecting to achieve specific results, are we receiving
(17:59):
those results? If we're not, then what's the failure? Are
we under resourced? You know what's happening in that process.
So it's a constant evaluation process. I really kind of
started working on this, this kind of strategy that I
have when I was in Sibelo, fast growing city. We
(18:20):
were doing up to two thousand new homes a year
when I was there, major commercial retail growth happening, you know,
all those kind of things were going on first city manager.
They had just converted to a home role city, so
we were building a lot of financial structure, brand new CIP,
all those different things. When I went from there to Kerrville,
(18:42):
Kerrville was an established city, slower growth Recession of two
thousand and eight hit, so we had to go back
and tell to reinvent the city's finances and we had
to re examine what we were doing. We had to
match our resources to the delivery services or service levels
that we were trying to deliver at that time. And yeah,
(19:04):
I'm proud to say we were able to work through
that situation. We made cuts, we kept service levels at
a level that I don't think the citizens ever really
saw a change. What they saw at the end result
was a consistent level of service. So those experiences in
developing those programs were what was really kind of what
(19:27):
took me to Beaumont, California. Beaumont, California was a city
that was fast growing. It's actually fifty three thousand when
I left, but we were adding probably about eight or
nine hundred new homes a year at that stage. But
they were sliding into bankruptcy when I got there, so
we restructured the city's finances. I mean, it was literally
(19:50):
building from ground zero up. So all those situations make
Eliander situation, you know. I mean, this is the plot
at the end of the rainbow, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Right, because I would imagine that again, and you've touched
on it, thank you, because I didn't have to bring
it up. You've touched on some of the challenges in
the in the prior engagements that you've had with other cities, right,
and the bankruptcy out there in Beaumont definitely was something
that I wanted to kind of touch on a little
bit because from a financial perspective, that's a huge challenge, right,
(20:23):
any kind of bankruptcy. It's just that's again, like you
said it, I can't say it any better. You really
have to start with ground zero. You have to build
it from the bottom up, right. And fortunately we're not
having those similar challenges here, which is great. But you're
able to take all of that knowledge base that you've
been developing over all these years and apply that here
(20:43):
at Leander, which has got to be helpful to process
from your perspective, right, because you're you're not kind of
trying to figure it out as you're going, You're like, Okay,
I've already had these experiences, right, I can we can
apply this type of experience here and that usually ends
up creating some level of change as well. Right, So,
(21:04):
from a change management perspective, what's your general philosophy? Because
I don't want to put you on the spot, right,
because that can be a little bit of a loaded question,
But there is inevitable nature to someone coming into a
position and taking charge that there will be change. Right.
It's an expectation. I know anytime I go into any
(21:25):
of my jobs, I've been like, I'm the new guy here,
I'm expecting to change a few things, right, Or at
least if I get a new boss, I'm expecting him
to make some changes. It's just an expectation. And I
think a lot of times that's lost on the citizenry
because there is still a little bit here in lander
and again these are my words, not yours, there's still
a little bit of a backwards looking kind of like,
(21:49):
you know, almost mythos that has developed of what Leander
had been, right, because you're going from rule to suburban
urban kind of space. Right, growth has been as I mentioned,
and I've talked about a million times. It was exponential.
That just does not happen on the norm. Right. That
(22:09):
was crazy crazy and still is crazy crazy growth and
it's good on a number of areas. But then there's challenges. Right,
So when you're looking at that and you're looking at
an established city structure which you're coming into, there's bound
to be changed. So in a general sense, again, I
don't want to pin you down on anything, that's not
what I'm trying to do, but I want to get
your thoughts on that, like, how how do you approach that?
(22:31):
How do you approach that change management process?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Well, the first is conversations with counsel. You know, what
is it that they are expecting the organization to really
deliver in, What does that philosophy need to look like?
And so you know, council has been very clear on
specific points of concern that they have and some expectations
that they have. They've also been very clear that there
(22:59):
they really like our core staff and there's a good
set of staff here that's ready to go. So you know,
so part of that is taking that information and communicating
that back to the staff. So, okay, this is what
the concerns are, you know, and we can't. Don't don't
don't take it personally. You know, these are observations and
(23:20):
some of these things that council hears, you know, they're
coming from things that they're hearing from constituents, they're hearing
from the business community, and so that's feedback, you know.
So they may not talk to us directly, they may
talk to a council person, but we're getting the feedback.
So so let's take that as constructive criticism and we
can absorb that as part of what we need to contemplate.
(23:42):
So we talked to council. We're taking that input. But
the other thing is really to begin to talk about
the fact that we're not Leander at ninety thousand people.
We are Leander. That is a city that's building towards
two hundred thous some people potentially, and so we are
(24:04):
building forward. We have to look forward and we have
to do that. And like I said earlierf we're honest
about where we are now, we're looking forward into where
we're going in the directions that we're going, and we
need to go. Then, as from a cultural perspective, how
do we help them facilitate that process? How do we
help counsel. How do we help our boards and commissions,
(24:26):
how do we help our citizens, how do we help
our business community begin to move into that direction? And
so that's kind of the cultural expectation within the organization
that we're trying to create.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So I know, again kind of I'm going to look
back a little bit at your experience because I know
that in Beaumont, wastewater Management master Plan was something that
you worked on the road maintenance, and I think there
was a big road project in Beaumont that was under
your guide while you were there. There are similiar structural
(25:01):
infrastructural issues here in Leander's specifically that you can't avoid
having at least a little bit of a mention of
the water situation and what's going on with that. And
then if you talk to the citizenry, and I'm a citizen,
so I can you know, in my opinion, I'm like,
we need to do something about the roads. I mean,
we continue to grow, but the growth is outpacing our
ability to maintain the infrastructure right, and so that's going
(25:23):
to be a quality of life issue downstream for anyone
who's living in some of these subdivisions. And there's arguments
about you know, our overreliance on developers and blah blah blah.
I don't want to get into that necessarily, right, but
that's the type of feedback that we hear consistently, Right,
But you've had some experience with that, You've had some
experience with issues similar to that. So, knowing that those
(25:47):
are our challenges here in Leander, how do you address that?
Would you consider those to be the most pressing challenges
here in the city right now? Or is there something
else that we maybe as a as a general, you know,
the citizens in general, we don't necessarily think about I
don't know, like I'll use it. I know it's not
(26:08):
an issue, but like, let's say fire, like the fire department, Right,
you don't think about those things generally speaking as a
citizen until you know there's something burning. Right, So that's
kind of again I want to kind of understand from
your perspective, having stepped in now and had an opportunity
to kind of take a look at the lay of
the land, what would you say are the most pressing
challenges here in Leander from that perspective.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Well, definitely, you know, public safety, parks and recreation, core infrastructure,
you know, those are those are three elements that really
really need attention. And you know, if you look at
our core infrastructure, it's the nature.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Of the beast.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
We get the development, the development takes care of a
certain portion of its demand, and then there's those interconnecting pieces.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So you know, you all get a sub.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Division that happens in a particular area, and then there's
surface level roads that need to be improved between point
A and point B. So so managing those resources and
kind of manager managing that growth so that we're accommodating that,
you know piece. But but those roadway sections are are
sections that a lot of time lag a little bit.
(27:25):
So what we have to do is we have to
understand where those critical pieces are, we have to figure
out how we begin to prioritize what sections get done,
and then we have to understand what our financial capabilities are.
So we're at the kind of the beginning level of
some of that, particularly on the roadway side of it.
We've done some initial analysis to look at what the
(27:47):
city's bonding capacity would be over a twenty year window
and in some of the more mid level kind of
analysis that will looked at. So we've looked at a low, medium,
and high kind of scenario in those forecasts, right, the
middle scenario would show the city with a bonding capacity
(28:08):
about one point to to one point three billion dollars
over twenty years. If you look at the plans that
we have in place and you look at the identified
projects today, there's one point two billion dollars identified projects
all day already, right, and so so okay, well, you know,
we have to then begin to figure out those strategies
(28:30):
on where to prioritize that. So roadways right now are critical.
The water system improvements that are underway right now, there's
a lot of improvements that will be completed by the
end of twenty seven, so the city's water capacity will
so the system delivery system pieces that are needed will
(28:54):
be in place and operational by early twenty eight. End
of twenty seven, the city these water supply will have
grown from twenty five million gallons per day to forty
four million gallons a day by the end of twenty seven.
So that piece, and that supply piece is you know,
the staff was already working on that, you know, and
(29:15):
kudos they've done an amazing job and pulling that together.
The next piece is sewer there's sure plant expansions that
are needed to begin to take that next step there,
so that'll be a part of thing. The important thing
about the utility side is it's a separate fund. So
a lot of times when we talk about you know,
(29:38):
water and sewer, and we talk about streets and parks,
we kind of put that all together, but they're different
funding sources and strategies, which is helpful on that one
point two billion dollars I talked about, because at one
point too would be the stuff that's more the streets
and drainage and those sides of it, those facility pieces.
(30:00):
So we're putting that together. One of the things we'll
be talking to council about is how do we begin
to evaluate what projects take priorities over others. So there's
certain purposes behind a given project. Is it public safety,
is it account development? Is it quality of life? You know?
(30:22):
Is it to address a mandate? So there's probably five
or six kind of core things that a project would
typically be fall into different categories of need or objective,
and then we then can evaluate that. So if we
say account development is a top priority above the others,
(30:47):
then we would wait our scoring metric to that degree, right,
And so that gives us the ability to say, Okay,
we've got two billion dollars worth of projects. We take
them through that selection matrix, and then that allows those
projects that are the cream of the crop to come
to the top. Then we begin to match what we
have in terms of resources to get that done. Is
(31:10):
it pay go funds, is it bonds? Is it impact fees?
What are those other dollars that we have to make
those projects work. You may have your top five projects
that are just not financially feasible, right, So then we
push some of those back down. So I say, well, okay,
if it's a sewer plant or water or a new
police station, what do we need to do first? Well,
(31:31):
we got to get sewer done, right, and then we
got to get roads done, and then we'll turn our
attention to the public safety pieces a little bit later.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
So it sounds a lot to me like in project management,
there's a there's a acronym moscow. Right, you're probably familiar
with it, right, So what is it? It's must I
forget exactly what it is, but I know I know
the first one is like must have is the M
in moscow?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Right?
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So you take a similar approach in that you know,
there's things that we have to do. We have no choice,
we have to do these. So I'm curious a little
bit on the roads things, because the roads are something
that affects everybody every day. You know, you travel on
the road, you take it for granted until you're you know,
feel like you're in a rickshaw in Thailand, right, You
know that, then you're like, Okay, there's something wrong with
(32:20):
the road, right, right, So not that the roads are
terrible in Thailand, just that was a good alliteration there.
But anyway, you no offense to anybody in Thailand. And
Tesla cuisine, yes, the food is great, but anyway, So
I'm curious on the roads thing because it's always struck
me as one of those kind of makes you go hum, right,
(32:42):
because you're outlining some of the budgetary concerns and some
of the financial funding mechanisms and all that. It's a
very complex and very convoluted process. You've I mean, you've
done an excellent job, by the way. I think anybody
who's watching or listening to this will get a better
understanding of just what those complexities can be, which I
(33:02):
think is something that's missing from a lot of the
civil discourse in smaller cities is that it doesn't matter
the size of the city. Those things are still very,
very complex, and in Texas can be especially challenging because
of the way that the legislature restricts certain mechanisms. Right,
So all of that goes into play, and you know,
kudos for someone like you to take that on. I mean, wow,
(33:23):
that's to me. I'm like, I don't know that I'd
be I'd be so frustrated. I would be the worst
city manager in the world. But anyway, so back to
my point the roads. So when I take a look
at this, and this is strictly a layman's view, right,
I'm thinking, okay, and I'll give you a real world example.
So I live in the Canaros Ranch, a subdivision, right,
(33:44):
and we've got Lakeline, I think, is the road that
goes down that side? Right? Lake Line constricts to a
two lane once you get past I forget the subdivision
that's out there, but it kind of constricts down to
two lanes until it gets to Hero And I know
that the long term planning is for that road to
probably end up making it all the way up to
(34:04):
Liberty Hill. At some point it's going to be a
major thoroughfare, right, So I look at that and I'm saying, okay, well,
there's not a whole lot of well that hadn't been
Now there's a lot more, but there hasn't been a
whole lot of development out here. From an economic perspective,
wouldn't you take into account current costs of supplies and
(34:25):
labor and all that stuff, and maybe look at a
project that you know, in the long term is gonna
need to be done and say, well, we can actually
do it cheaper today than it'll cost us five years
from now or ten years from now. Does that ever
come into consideration when you're doing that.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It it does. But one of the things, and you know,
over the years, I've had a lot of people that say,
you've got to go build the roads before you let
this development happen. It But that's not economically viable, right right,
because we have to have the dollars that come in.
And so here's the question. So do I tax the
existing Red residents to build the infrastructure that somebody else
(35:03):
is going to utilize later? And that's the balance we
have to walk. So everything I charge or that we
build to us as current taxpayers today to build capacity,
somebody else is going to commutilize that, so it may
or may not benefit from that directly. So the concept
really is that we're trying to get development to a
(35:25):
point where it pays as much of its own way
as it can. There's limits in terms of statutory limits,
I mean with regard to what we can make development do.
So there's there's a whole concept of takings. There's a
whole concept of a rational nexus between what you can
(35:46):
make them do versus the impact that the project actually has.
And so that's that is that balance that every city,
particularly fast grow cities, kind of struggle with. So citizens,
you know, we do feel pain because there is a
moment of time where the off site roadway infrastructure. You know,
(36:06):
we've got a four lane section that's narrowed down to
a county old county two lane section that needs to
be widened. So there's that piece of it. The other
thing you have to think about is if I go
and I build three lanes of something today, I don't
know if I really built the right thing. It could
(36:28):
be requiring four lanes or six lanes. So there is
that overall implication as well. There are some areas where
we've got some intervening development. We can look at some realignments,
we can look at some signalization to help facilitate things
as we kind of go through that. The other thing
to think about that we think about, I mean, is
(36:52):
what is the timing to actually prepare a project to deliver?
So if I'm looking a roadway project, do I need
right of way? Do I have land donors who are
willing to work with me to dedicate or sell the
right of way? Or do we have to get their
process to condemn and take that the design process, the
environmental constraints, you know, there's just there's some other factors
(37:13):
that kind of roll into it. So so a lot
of those roadway sections, by nature and by the way,
the need and the timing to design and build are
somewhat reactionary to what we have on the ground. So
in some cases we can look forward, and you would
do that in places where we're trying to influence things.
(37:35):
So we need to create an opportunity zone for egount development,
for example. So let's get ahead of it, let's build
some infrastructure. We've got two intervening pieces we need to
make some connections to help ease or address traffic congestion circulation.
These San Gabriel projects are good examples of that. San
(37:55):
Gabriel too, will be an extension of San Gabriel along
the north side basically of Palmaro over to Reagan. So
it'll provide an outlet for residents to be able to
get up and over to Reagan, give them another opportunity
for access. San Gabriel. Phase three is a connection that'll
(38:17):
go back west and connect to one eighty three A.
And so that project is about a year behind in
terms of design, but it's an easier project because there's
less topo, there's less things to work on. So that
project is actually in design today. So but we're you know,
we're probably another year out from being able to have
(38:40):
bid ready documents towards in San Gabriel three. We're out
to bid right now in San Gabriel two, but it'll
be two years before we have those roadway sections in place,
and so it's about a two to three year design process.
Then it's a two year bid and construction process to
get there. So that's five years, right, you know, And
(39:00):
so so we have to be spot on in terms
of what we're building and where we're building it.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
So I appreciate you kind of giving people a little
bit of a you know, pull but pull back the
curtains a little bit, right, because the reality is and
again it comes from I don't want to say an
uninformed citizenry because I think generally speaking, there's there's a
good group of people in Leander who who stay informed,
who are who are engaged, civically engaged, who try to
(39:30):
help move things forward, right, you know, probably a conversation
for another day, right, because there's there's things that I
think that the city could leverage. I think there's really
really some very talented and very thoughtful, you know, former
CEOs and the things of that nature, people who are
(39:52):
you know, willing and able with their time to help.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
And I know that sometimes there's restrictions there, that there's
legal restraint, there's you know this this state makes things
real difficult to do, but I always feel that there's
probably a middle ground there. Personally from my perspective, and
again that's me having served on multiple boards and just
found you know it, sometimes it feels like you're just
banging your head up against the wall because just nothing
(40:18):
gets done. Right. But that said, there's not there hasn't
been for a long time at least well okay, I
can't say long time, six years and less six years.
The experiences that I've had have been not enough information shared.
So like just in this conversation here, the education that
you can walk away from from listening to this podcast
(40:40):
is this is how things kind of work. So when
you're thinking about project A, project Z, whatever it might be,
keep that in mind. Right, So when you're the request
the expectations, I think it's probably a really good way
to say it, the expectations from the general citizen in
the city of Leander are not less set with the
(41:01):
actual realities, right, And I think that we've taken an
unfortunate process. And this is probably something that was said
in the action many years ago, Like the situation was
completely different, right, So they were evaluating and making decisions
based on a completely set of data points, right, completely
different set of data points. But the revision the five
(41:25):
year you know, the comprehensive plan for instance, you know
every five years we're redoing. I was like, you can
never get a long term planning if you just keep
revisiting the same things every two, three, five years, Right,
you're just never going to get there. And I do
attribute a lot of that to just it was a
small town. Just that's just a simple fact, right, it
was just a small town. They didn't necessarily have the
(41:49):
benefit of larger planning processes or whatever. And again it
was rule and they just didn't have the same issues. Right.
So now you come into a burgeoning city, which to
your point, you know, planning for two hundred and fifty
thousand people in a thirty nine square mile space, it's
a lot of planning that you have to really kind
of have to get things perfect. But you should be
(42:11):
tending towards right, you know, because otherwise you're just you're
not going to be able to support that long term.
And I forget the gentleman's name, but he was I
was exposed to. He was, I want to say, the
city manager in Plano at one point, and he basically
said something that struck me. He was like, you know,
(42:31):
when you're working with a city, it's not for you. You know,
you're you're working for the future. You're not going to
see what you do, right, You're just going to be
part of getting it there. So I thought that was
an interesting thing. Anyway, I'll stop there. I probably said
too much, But so I want to circle back to
some of that growth. And again I appreciate you pulling
(42:51):
the curtains back because that does help people. But part
of that, in my mind was talking about that rapid growth,
you know, and the way that the city can maintain
the quality of life for uh, for everyone? Right, So,
how do you accommodate And you know, this will kind
of hopefully wrap us up here, I think, but how
do you accommodate new residents who are coming in and
(43:13):
they have a completely different idea of what's going on?
And in Leander, pointedly, there is a influx of a
completely different cultural perspective as well. Right now, right, how
do you maintain accommodation for all these new people coming
to town and also the long term citizens like someone
(43:33):
who's been here, their families here, they're from here. Again,
you know you have landowners and things of that nature
that feed into that. How do you manage that? Like,
what's what you're in your opinion? Again, I know that
you're not directly responsible for making specific decisions, but what's
your thought there, like, how do we do that? Well?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
You know, one of the important things for us to
do is to measure what our citizens think and feel
about our community, and particularly when the demographics are changing
so quickly. You know, age and come you know, ethnicity,
you know, all those things are important, and and who
(44:12):
we are and how we come up and how we're
raised is a lens by which we view things and
how we view each other, and so, you know, and
it's really say, well, we just need to communicate. Well, okay,
that communication is an execution piece, but it's what are
you building behind that? And so one of the first
things that that we're going to do beginning in the
(44:35):
next fiscal year is a community survey. So we're going
to go out and we're going to do a statistically
significant survey of the community, and we're going to ask them,
you know, basically how livable is the community for them?
And you know, what are the good what are the
bad kind of things? So we're gonna that's the first
piece is tell us and how are you how are
(44:58):
you accessing information where you're getting information. The other thing
that I think is fantastic that the council has done,
the staff have done, is you know, they've implemented programs
and programming that are trying to embrace the diversity that
is present in our community and growing in this community,
(45:19):
you know, trying to sponsor different types of events and
in different kinds of cultural opportunities to be able to
express that and celebrate that within the community and so
continue to have those conversations in making our community vibrant
from that perspective for everyone having something and to celebrate that.
(45:39):
One of the critical things we've talked about with the
council from a visioning perspective has been, you know, also
kind of recognizing the history and kind of what the
root of Leander was, where did it come from, and
recognizing that and trying to find ways to incorporate that
(45:59):
into are are thinking finding ways to physically represent that.
You know, old town Leander, you know, is a place
there's a lot of opportunity to create there and to
recognize the prior history and those who came before that
created this. Because as we're building a community now as
(46:22):
a foundation for that next generation, the generations before are
built a foundation for this community that we get to
take advantage of today, and so so does we we
just on everyone to lose sight of that It's kind
of like I guess our parents would tell us, don't
ever forget where you came from. Right, it's the same
thing in the city. Let's not forget where we came from.
(46:45):
And and then as we evolve and grow, let's let's
celebrate that growth. But let's we also need to listen.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
What do you need?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
You know, you know, how can we best you know,
provide that? And and those things are replication in programs,
but they're also replicated in things. They're replicated in what
types of facilities do we build? Right, So at park
from fifteen years ago doesn't isn't a park today. The library,
(47:17):
you know, needs to evolve and grow, you know, to
provide the right types of services and to to to
reach people in terms of what their needs are. Yeah,
libraries are I think a prime example of that because
you know a lot of people, you know, gosh, as
the internet you know, was evolving and social media was evolving,
we don't need libraries anymore? Oh yeah we do? Oh yeah, no,
(47:40):
for sure, they're critical and and the need and the
use of the library changes as economic conditions change, right,
And so so that's kind of a little microcosm of
I think that overall kind of piece for it. So
so I think it's you know, and again I kind
of roll back to staff and council. Before I got here,
(48:00):
they were already recognizing that, and there are already implementing
systems and programs and creating you know, cultural opportunities to
be able to embrace that and celebrate that are So
we just need to cure that forward.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
And I definitely can concur there, right because again I've
seen it, and I've I've been able to be part
of it in certain instances and involved and other instances,
you know, take part. I think there's a great economic
opportunity there too, so you know, and this will be
my only little pitch to you. I I think that
(48:33):
if we continue to argue over transportation issues, we lose
sight of the fact that we are in a prime
position to take advantage of them. Right. I know that
in in cities where mass transit is key to the
(48:54):
development of the city, key to the to the movement
of finance money. Right, money moves around on mass transit,
whether you think about it that way or not. Right,
I look at the event based opportunities that Leander, if
Leander can focus on that and really really do that well, Right,
(49:18):
you are in an exponential space from a Central Texas perspective. Right,
you can look at San Antonio, you can look at Austin,
you can look at San Marcos, you can look at
cities in Central Texas have a very exponential sense to them. Right.
(49:39):
You can look as I mean as close as Round
Rock that we just had the Labor Day Cup tournament
in round Rock in Flugerville and points beyond that. You
know it's the Lone Star Soccer Club. That thing is massive.
And I know from my perspective, a little tournament. I
(50:00):
still were in a little tournament in Houston, Texas, and
I have an economic impact. I know that I have
an economic impact. I bring in over that weekend, just
my little tournament probably close to seventy to eighty thousand
dollars worth of hotel revenue every year on a soft
weekend in February. Right, So there's opportunity there, and I
(50:24):
don't think it gets talked about enough. I mean, I
love the fact that we're creating all of these you know,
the festivals and these opportunities to gather. From a communal sense,
that's huge, right, I think that helps bring people together,
you start having shared experiences and it helps the community
grow in a uniform manner instead of siloed to these
(50:44):
you know, specific things. I love the fact that the
city's stepping up and helping with some of that. Right,
it should embrace some of the other efforts as well,
and let's work together. The private public opportunities there are massive, right,
But I don't see an eye to the future with that,
because imagine if you had let's just say, for instance,
and I'll take I'll take Like Dolly as an example, Right,
(51:06):
that could be a massive festival in Leander, and there's
a train that brings a bunch of people up from
the city of Austin who have money to spend, who
are looking for experience, right. Right, That's the type of
thing that I try to mention as many times as
I can, because let's not lose sight of that. Right.
We tend to be a little siloed in our own
(51:26):
community conversations, but there's an economic factor here that we're
not taking into account, right, And I just I'm mentioning
it because I want to plant the seed, and I'm
kind of selfish in that way.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I guess, no, and you're making a very good point.
And a little example of this, a small little example
in Kerrville have five Events, which is an Austin entertainment group.
But one of the things that they were that they
were putting together are trath On festivals and trath On events,
and so they came to Curveville and they so, we
(51:59):
want to do trath On Festival in Curville. Curl text
as you're like, okay, well, why well, we've got the waalupee,
we can swim in the river, and we've got the
hill country and we got the all that all these
opportunities to do it. So we got it launched and
it was amazing because that that event became, i guess,
(52:25):
consistent with the community image. And so you know, people
of all ages from every demographic. You can imagine all
a sudden they were out running, they're out biking, you know,
and so it changed a lot of the culture and
a lot of the activity. But it also brings in
three thousand contestants, which probably bring in another you know,
(52:45):
three thousand or three people per contestant, you know, so
you're bringing in ten fifteen thousand people, you know, at
the end of September every single year and These are people,
you know, if you look at the demographics of a trap,
these are people that are well into six figures in salary.
They they're driving up with you know, twenty thirty thousand
(53:06):
dollars bikes on the back of the audi's, you know
what I mean. So they're bring a lot of purchasing
power and they're filling up the hotels absolutely, I.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Mean, and I think that's that's kind of what I'm
talking about, right. I think this is just tremendous opportunity there.
And you know, honestly, I think we might be a
little bit closer to that had COVID not kind of
I think COVID kind of slowed us some of that
thought process down. And then you know, the effect the
after effects of COVID people having to leave or you
(53:35):
know whatever. You know, it did kind of it put
a little bit of a speed bump in that process
for Central Texas as a whole. But now you can
look at it, and I know you can. I'm sure
that you do. You look at Huddo, you look at
you know, what's the other one, a maner, and you're
looking at what they're doing, right, and you're saying, okay,
(53:57):
and that's part of the calculus too, right, Like, how
do we do something that's going to differentiate us enough
to be able to drive you know, some mechanism of
financial and economic impact. And that's where economic development goes
a lot further than just well, what kind of businesses
are we bringing into town and what kind of you know,
how are we supporting that? Yeah, that's a big component,
(54:20):
but you know, there's a there's another thing here that
you know, we need to be cognizant of and planning for.
And I and I and and again. I don't want
to harp too much on that, but I could. I
appreciate you addressing it, but you know, I think it's
important to kind of circle back around. And I don't
know how long we've been, so probably this one's going
to probably be split into two. I think it's probably
(54:40):
too long to expect anybody to sit and listen the
whole We sit for hours, We could, we could.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
This is good.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
No, I really do appreciate it, but I want to
be cognizant of that too, And maybe we come back
and visit again. I'd love to have the opportunity to
sit down with you, you know, six months a year
from now and just like, hey, where are we now?
Kind of thing that'd be great. Uh, let's let's agree,
at least in principle to make it annual.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Okay, it sounds good.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
But to wrap things up for this episode, right, I
do want to circle back and just thank you for
your time, right, because I think you've been more than
generous in not only in your time, but in helping
my efforts to help people understand what some of the
things that need to be done are and how you
(55:27):
do some of those things. Right. It's a little bit
of a of a crash course in city management, but
I think that's missing, and that's kind of why I
wanted to talk to you more than anything else, is
to help fill in some of those blanks. Right. There's
people who make a lot of assumptions and a lot
of statements without necessarily understanding all of the stuff, right,
(55:48):
And there's a lot of stuff there. So I appreciate that, Todd.
I think there's two things. Actually, there's one thing that
I want to make sure you talk about before I go.
I wrote myself a no, so I don't want to
forget the survey that you mentioned, right, Yes, I do
have one question and one recommendation so we've done from
I was on a committee a number of years ago
(56:09):
there was a Citizens Action Committee. It was Mayor Hill's committee.
He was an ad hoc. We did a very caveman
survey at the time, right. It was actually fairly decent.
I would hold it up to the survey they did
in Cedar Park to be honest with you, but it was.
It was. One of the things that I learned from
(56:30):
that was that it's very hard to drive people to
take a survey like you know, the soft you know,
the soft approach. You need to sell it a little
bit more. I would recommend that there would be and
I'm happy to help if there's an opportunity to create
some community outreach opportunities, you know pop ups if you will,
(56:52):
to get people to take the survey right, like make
it to where people can sit on their way out
or into h GB and a quick survey right and
expand the amount of people who respond to that, because
you're going to have, in my opinion, humbly submitted, You're
going to have pockets of communities that we will not
respond and that's been my experience, right, So outreach to
(57:13):
those communities specifically, I think is key to getting a
fully recognized, fully realized data set right. And I know
that you would probably do that anyway, but I'm going
to mention it just I can. I can take credit
for it.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
I appreciate that. I'm going to give you credit for
it because it's like this, it would have been a
failure otherwise.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
I appreciate that because I don't think you would have
thought of that at all, no kidding now, And I'm
only mentioned it because I think it's really important. Like
I love the one eighty three project and the process
that's going on there. I have some misgivings, but you know, hey,
everybody always does, right. I have my opinions, but there's
things there that I think are really really important, and
I know that there's some work that has been done
(57:53):
prior to that that I hope you're talking to Andy
Ice about what we did on the Economic Development Advisory
because it's not a committee in the true sense of
the committee. It's an advisory, as are most of the
committees in Leander their advisories. But yeah, I hope that
(58:13):
that's getting to you, because there was some good work
there and the one word that I've heard you say
today that I think is key and I appreciate it.
And as a citizen, I'm very very hopeful and actually
kind of excited and engaged in the sense that you
said the word visioning. And I've always felt in the
six years that I've been here, we don't do that enough.
(58:37):
We just don't do that enough. And you have to
have a vision to go along with the planning, right,
There has to be an idea of what it is
you're trying to achieve. So I commend you on that.
And this has been a tremendous pleasure. I feel like
I know you.
Speaker 2 (58:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (58:52):
It's kind of like you and Mandy. You have to
invite you all for dinner or something.
Speaker 2 (58:56):
No, soa wait, want to see at ag B. We're
gonna have to stop and talk.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
Yeah, no, I definitely will. Now I know what you
look like. I mean because your picture is a little
you need to update your picture. Yeah, I know, I
know you need update. You look super super young in
your picture. Not that you don't look it's just it
gives you a different impression. I had a completely different impression,
which is on me. That's my bias. I I guess
I'm what is it I'm ageis in reverse, right. I
(59:22):
look at young people like, yeah, you don't know anything,
you'll whipper snapper. But anyway, thank you again so much
for your time. I really really do appreciate it. And
for those of you who have either this is either
going to be one whole long episode or we're going
to have a two party here. I don't know yet.
We'll get to the edit, but I thank you for listening,
and I hope that this has helped you as a
(59:43):
citizen here in the in the Leander area and the
Greater Leander area to understand what some of the complexities
are and the type of people who are responsible for
executing on that visioning. And again, Todd, thank you for
your time. And that's it for this episode or maybe
two of Leaning Leander. We'll see y'all next time. Thanks
a lot,
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Todd Parton,
who's the new city manager here in the City of Leander,
and we had a really, really nice conversation that spanned
a number of topics, all I think are very important
things for us as citizens here in the City of
(00:30):
Leander to consider when we start thinking about what we're
doing here in the city for the near term and
for the long term. So, without any further ado, here's
my conversation with Todd Parton. Hey everybody, we're here at
(00:55):
Lantern Media Studios again for the latest episode of Lee
and Leander, which I am very very pleased and kind
of giddy to have an opportunity to speak with the
new city manager, mister Todd Parton. Todd, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Thank you, good morning.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I appreciate you making this happen because I know you
got lots of stuff going on, so I definitely appreciate
the courtesy. Todd is the new city manager. As I mentioned,
and this was a process that we've covered on the podcast.
We kind of touched on some of the hiring process.
If you go back a few episodes, you'll be able
to find that information. While the process was ongoing. So
(01:35):
back in March of twenty twenty four, that process was
completed and Todd was the survivor. I guess right. There
was seventy one applications that the city reviewed and they
were from nineteen different states, so it was a pretty
pretty comprehensive process and exercise, which again I think at
(01:57):
the time that we did those episodes, I low the
city for taking that extra effort in that extra time.
I think it was a very very well coordinated and
well executed search. And then Todd is the one, like
I said, who ended up surviving that whole process. But
he's got some really really great bonafides, and I want
to start there just kind of chat a little bit
(02:17):
about you your personal history. I know that you were
a graduate of the University of North Texas. So are
you a Texas native or not?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I am you are. I was born and raised in Denton,
Oh Okay. I didn't know that, went to University of
North Texas bachelor's and master's program, and then went out
in the world, went to go explore California for about
seven and a half years. I had to come back home.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Right, Well, good, I didn't I didn't realize that you
were actually a Texas native. That's good to know. I'm
sure a lot of people will be rarely happy with that.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
My y'all israliative.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
That's good. That's good. So yeah, so we were you
at North Texas because I remember North Texas had a
point kind of it had a moniker name change if
I remember correctly, right, I can't remember what the old
university was, but I mean, I'm giving my age away
by that.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
We were in TSU, that's what it was, and we
became the University of North Texas. I remember that emphasis
on the the the University of North Texas, and it's
the it's the Eagles, right green right, So so I
noticed that and I was like, all right, so if
you are naturally inclined to be green.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Austin FC fan.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Absolutely. As a matter of fact, when we were living
in Redlands, we actually went to l A and saw
l A f C in Austin play in the Western
Conference Championship.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Oh wow, that a good game to watch.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It was well lost three to nothing.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Wow, I mean, but still it was a good game.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
But we were wearing where you were in the absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
All right, see now I have to copy here that uh,
forever Orange from Houston, so the Dynamo and my heart
beats there, right, But it's fun to have the teams
like that. I mean, I love going to the games
here in Austin. I think the venue is absolutely fantastic.
And yeah, that I kind of figured you might be
inclined to be very day.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well and actually when I was in Sibilo, we had
a Major League Soccer preseason tournament and Greg kinnear and
Houston Dynamo were actually probably the primary team that came
to play in that event. Really, and actually I think
they won that event.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That's very cool, very cool. Yeah, that's neat. That's interesting.
I kind of pegged you as maybe a footy guy,
but you know, I kind of wanted to slip that
one in there. I appreciate that. All right, excellent, all right,
So personal like married kids.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, so we have been married since nineteen ninety seven. Okay,
so I'm very fortunate. Mandy is my bride. So actually
I had already graduated and we were set up on
a blind date. So she was just finishing up there. Okay,
(05:12):
so I got lucky, he did, but they lied. She
could see perfectly.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Wow, So it was kind.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Of true.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Kids. That was a bad dad joke. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
So our son is twenty just graduated, so he's working
on his next chapter. And then our daughter is a
senior in high school. So wife and daughter are finishing
up in Redlands, so they're out in California for the
next ten.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Months and then that senior year for her. Right, it
is all right, do you I'm assuming you probably make
a couple of John's out there. Senior Year's a lot
of stuff going on, miss anything, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, I think in a couple of weeks, I need
to take a quick little weekend trip out to go
do good for you.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Good for you. That's always the you're almost an empty nester,
and I've already been an empty nester for a few
years now, so it moves really really quick, right, But
I know that the senior year is like just that's
super super important that time. So it's got to be
a little bit of a of a of a challenge.
I mean, you know, taking this type of position out
(06:15):
here knowing that you're you're not going to be there
every day, so you.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Know it is and you know, part of the I
guess advantage if you will to the situation is that
right now, coming into a job like this new there's
so many hours. You know, you could work every day
for many, many hours. So it gives me a chance
to kind of concentrate and drill in and let let
them do what they need to do. But you know,
they'll be up for holidays, came in for the home
(06:41):
closing for a couple of days. I'll go out there
for a few trips and yeah, we'll we'll make it
work nice. We talk every day.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah. So, well it's different now. I mean, you know,
Zoom or whatever, FaceTime, whatever, and there's easier. It's not
as challenging as it was even before my time. I mean,
you know my kids had Zoom. It's not that big
of a deal. You know, I could see them in
college too. Yea. But yeah, well kudos for that because
that is a deficult, difficult decision to make. But obviously
something that you felt was was I would I would
(07:10):
assume I'm not to put words in your mouth, but
it was the right thing to do, right because it was.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And she's very active, you know in high school, you know,
on sports and extracurricular activities and good friend base.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
So it's like, let's leave that let's support that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And let you let you finish out.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
So a little bit of a of a an idea
there of strong decision making on your part there, Todd.
All right, anyway, Okay, well, thank you for sharing that,
because I you know, again, my audience is a little
bit more a casual audience from that perspective, and it's
not necessarily the you know, hard boiled civic minded people.
(07:49):
You know, it's more of a of a diverse group
of folks that I think watched the podcast and listen in.
So I want to give them a little bit of
an idea of who you are. And I think that
helps people understand, you know, especially because there's not a
whole lot of discussion generally speaking. And my experience here
in Leander, and like I said, I've been here about
six years, there really was always like, well, who's the
(08:10):
city manager and what do they do? That kind of conversation.
You hear it all the time, right, and that was
part of my effort here was to get you. And
again I appreciate you making the time so that we
can kind of start to break down some of that
thought process, right, just like you know, hey, Todd's just
a guy and he has a job, right, and he
is here because he has an intent to help with
(08:31):
you know, that's why you take the job, right. It's
not because oh, it's just you know, I want to
be there. You have to want to be there, right.
And obviously, leaving your family in California for about a
you know, ten months to a year, that's a that's
a big decision. So I think that definitely shows an
intent there. So I want to highlight that a little bit.
My word's not his, okay, all right, So what drove
(08:53):
you into this space? Like, tell me from your perspective,
because I've got some notes here about you know, what
a city means does, But from your perspective, like in
your own words, what would you say you do?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Well? I got into public service because I wanted to
help build communities and I wanted to try to make
as much of an impact into the world and into
communities and lives as much.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
As I could.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And you know, from really even middle school, you know,
I talked to my mom a lot about what was
you know, what was going to look like?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
She was, Oh, you.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Should be an engineer. You know, you need to be
an engineer. So I don't really know if I like
math that much. I mean, I could do math, but
I don't know if I really like it, you know,
And so so I always had kind of a mentality
of wanting to serve and give back and and try
to contribute as much as I could. So so I
(09:53):
was kind of looking at that. When I started working
on my bachelor's degree at North Texas, I really started
in journalist and because I thought that was a great
way to be able to try to help inform people
and kind of serve that mission. And one of the
things you do at North Texas is you work on
the campus newspaper. I did an interview for a new program,
(10:17):
which was the Emergency Administration Planning program, and I was
so enthralled by that program and what I learned about it.
I said, that is an angle, you know, that is
truly a way to get in and get involved. And
so I went to I switched my major to emergency
administration and planning, and we learned a lot about policy,
(10:37):
about governance, about all those different things you have to
know from that perspective. And then when I graduated, I
realized I need to go back and work on a
master's program. So I went to I pursued a master's
in public administration. In the meantime, I took a position
as a planning tech with the City of Denton because
(10:59):
I needed to some experience. I need experience. Planning was fantastic.
It brought in a lot of what I had learned
through the MPa, I'm sorry, through the EADP program at
North Texas. It just was a good fit and it's
just been amazing from then on because I got into
planning and got to be there at the very very
(11:21):
I guess bottom of an organization. So you know, I've
worked from the very lowest level positions, you know, all
the way through you know, that process.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And Denton was a kind of burgeoning city at that
particular point in time, and it was definitely in a
growth mode if I remember correctly, and you know, I'm
just going from exposure to to the to the university
and stuff like that. I remember my dad lived in
Denton for a little bit, right because his wife, my stepmom,
(11:53):
was doing her undergraduate work at Texas Women's I think
is right. W Yeah, so she was there to do
her undergraduate work and he had moved to Denton to
kind of support that process, right, So he was there
for a few years, and I remember it. I just
I was very I remember seeing Denton well when it
was smaller, and then when I went to see him,
(12:14):
and we even talked about having my daughter look at
Texas Women's because I was like, this seems like a
good university, should probably check it out. She didn't want
to stay in Texas and that's a whole nother story
for another day. But so it's interesting you so you
were there kind of was it an intern type situation
or were you actually was a paid position.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So I had finished up my bachelor's I had done
an internship actually at the City of Grand Prairie in
the emergency management office. So emergency manager at that time
was a man named George Grant is amazing, and he
mentored me and we actually were writing emergency response plans
and it was kind of cool because we'd write and
then he would take it to the council they'd get
(12:55):
an adopted.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I was like, whoo, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It was all exciting and so and then again I
knew I needed to go pursue the master's degree. So
I actually had applied for a position at the City
of Dallas in water utilities and at the City of
Denton in planning position, the planning tech position actually was
(13:18):
offered the water utilities position in Dallas, and you know,
it actually paid a little bit more, but I said,
you know, I'm right there in Denton. I'm there. It
just kind of made sense. So it is really, in retrospect,
probably the best decision I could have made. It's been
just amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
No, that's excellent. You also did just again, while you
were doing your masters, you had an emphasis on budget
and finance. So I kind of wanted to use that
to leverage into like the first question, right, So that's
what we talked a little bit about you When we
look at you know, public budgets and public finance, one
(13:59):
of the challenges I would imagine, and I'm just going
from my perspective, right, I like to think of it
as at least an informed perspective, but I could be wrong, right,
So one of the challenges, it seems to me, is
balancing public safety, sustainability. And then in a city like Leander,
(14:19):
which is experiencing the type of growth which is has
to be mind boggling, right, I mean, because I know
that in Beaumont in California, where you were, it was
about a population of about forty five thousand or forty
five thousand, right, yeah, is that right? Yes? So here
we're closer to one hundred, so it's a little bit
it's like double the population base, right. And by the way,
(14:44):
Beaumont is near Palm Spring, so you're dealing with a
lot of the same types of issues, right, water and
resources and conservation and things of that nature. So I
found it to be very interesting when I read that information.
I was like, wow, that's that was hopefully purposeful and
looking for somebody who had those similar type of experiences.
But how is it that you know, again, when you're
(15:07):
looking at the budget and the financial financial piece of this, right,
the city manager is it's like the CEO, right that
you're the chief executive of operations, right, so it comes
to the functioning of the city. Council obviously sets budgets,
they decide where money is supposed to be spent, but
(15:29):
you're the one who's actually like you have to execute
on that, right, And I'm wondering from that perspective, you know,
how what is your thought now that you've had a
little bit of time here, because I think April was
you know, so you've had a little bit of time
to get your feet wet. Right, how is it that
we can continue to foster economic development while maintaining some
(15:54):
of those you know pillars if you were in public safety, sustainability,
and housing, those are key factors into that economic development? Right?
What's the balance there? How do we go about doing
that and doing it with intent?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Well, the first thing you really have to do is
to understand where you are today. So and you have
to be just brutally honest about that, the good the bad.
So there's a lot of good here, and which is
why I came. It's just a lot of opportunity to
be able to marshal the resources that are here. The
(16:31):
way I explain it to some people is the city
of Leanders kind of in kind of a golden era,
so to speak, from that financial perspective, where revenues have
been growing significantly, but the demands on the city and
the expectations of the citizens are also growing at the
(16:52):
same time. So strategically, we have to make sure that
we are smartly using our resources and we're putting those
into the areas where we need to prioritize and make
those most effectively deployed. So what the first step in
the process is really to begin to look at where
(17:15):
we expect to be over an extended period of time.
So we're working right now to develop some long range
fiscal forecasting. So what do we think we're going to
have to work with from a financial perspective over the
next fifteen to twenty twenty five years. Because when we
look to develop programs, whether it's adding people, adding equipment,
(17:38):
doing additional things, are those sustainable within a five to
ten year window and we want to establish performance expectations
for those programs. So we'll be developing that process as well.
So if we're spending money to do a specific program
and we're expecting to achieve specific results, are we receiving
(17:59):
those results? If we're not, then what's the failure? Are
we under resourced? You know what's happening in that process.
So it's a constant evaluation process. I really kind of
started working on this, this kind of strategy that I
have when I was in Sibelo, fast growing city. We
(18:20):
were doing up to two thousand new homes a year
when I was there, major commercial retail growth happening, you know,
all those kind of things were going on first city manager.
They had just converted to a home role city, so
we were building a lot of financial structure, brand new CIP,
all those different things. When I went from there to Kerrville,
(18:42):
Kerrville was an established city, slower growth Recession of two
thousand and eight hit, so we had to go back
and tell to reinvent the city's finances and we had
to re examine what we were doing. We had to
match our resources to the delivery services or service levels
that we were trying to deliver at that time. And yeah,
(19:04):
I'm proud to say we were able to work through
that situation. We made cuts, we kept service levels at
a level that I don't think the citizens ever really
saw a change. What they saw at the end result
was a consistent level of service. So those experiences in
developing those programs were what was really kind of what
(19:27):
took me to Beaumont, California. Beaumont, California was a city
that was fast growing. It's actually fifty three thousand when
I left, but we were adding probably about eight or
nine hundred new homes a year at that stage. But
they were sliding into bankruptcy when I got there, so
we restructured the city's finances. I mean, it was literally
(19:50):
building from ground zero up. So all those situations make
Eliander situation, you know. I mean, this is the plot
at the end of the rainbow, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Right, because I would imagine that again, and you've touched
on it, thank you, because I didn't have to bring
it up. You've touched on some of the challenges in
the in the prior engagements that you've had with other cities, right,
and the bankruptcy out there in Beaumont definitely was something
that I wanted to kind of touch on a little
bit because from a financial perspective, that's a huge challenge, right,
(20:23):
any kind of bankruptcy. It's just that's again, like you
said it, I can't say it any better. You really
have to start with ground zero. You have to build
it from the bottom up, right. And fortunately we're not
having those similar challenges here, which is great. But you're
able to take all of that knowledge base that you've
been developing over all these years and apply that here
(20:43):
at Leander, which has got to be helpful to process
from your perspective, right, because you're you're not kind of
trying to figure it out as you're going, You're like, Okay,
I've already had these experiences, right, I can we can
apply this type of experience here and that usually ends
up creating some level of change as well. Right, So,
(21:04):
from a change management perspective, what's your general philosophy? Because
I don't want to put you on the spot, right,
because that can be a little bit of a loaded question,
But there is inevitable nature to someone coming into a
position and taking charge that there will be change. Right.
It's an expectation. I know anytime I go into any
(21:25):
of my jobs, I've been like, I'm the new guy here,
I'm expecting to change a few things, right, Or at
least if I get a new boss, I'm expecting him
to make some changes. It's just an expectation. And I
think a lot of times that's lost on the citizenry
because there is still a little bit here in lander
and again these are my words, not yours, there's still
a little bit of a backwards looking kind of like,
(21:49):
you know, almost mythos that has developed of what Leander
had been, right, because you're going from rule to suburban
urban kind of space. Right, growth has been as I mentioned,
and I've talked about a million times. It was exponential.
That just does not happen on the norm. Right. That
(22:09):
was crazy crazy and still is crazy crazy growth and
it's good on a number of areas. But then there's challenges. Right,
So when you're looking at that and you're looking at
an established city structure which you're coming into, there's bound
to be changed. So in a general sense, again, I
don't want to pin you down on anything, that's not
what I'm trying to do, but I want to get
your thoughts on that, like, how how do you approach that?
(22:31):
How do you approach that change management process?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Well, the first is conversations with counsel. You know, what
is it that they are expecting the organization to really
deliver in, What does that philosophy need to look like?
And so you know, council has been very clear on
specific points of concern that they have and some expectations
that they have. They've also been very clear that there
(22:59):
they really like our core staff and there's a good
set of staff here that's ready to go. So you know,
so part of that is taking that information and communicating
that back to the staff. So, okay, this is what
the concerns are, you know, and we can't. Don't don't
don't take it personally. You know, these are observations and
(23:20):
some of these things that council hears, you know, they're
coming from things that they're hearing from constituents, they're hearing
from the business community, and so that's feedback, you know.
So they may not talk to us directly, they may
talk to a council person, but we're getting the feedback.
So so let's take that as constructive criticism and we
can absorb that as part of what we need to contemplate.
(23:42):
So we talked to council. We're taking that input. But
the other thing is really to begin to talk about
the fact that we're not Leander at ninety thousand people.
We are Leander. That is a city that's building towards
two hundred thous some people potentially, and so we are
(24:04):
building forward. We have to look forward and we have
to do that. And like I said earlierf we're honest
about where we are now, we're looking forward into where
we're going in the directions that we're going, and we
need to go. Then, as from a cultural perspective, how
do we help them facilitate that process? How do we
help counsel. How do we help our boards and commissions,
(24:26):
how do we help our citizens, how do we help
our business community begin to move into that direction? And
so that's kind of the cultural expectation within the organization
that we're trying to create.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
So I know, again kind of I'm going to look
back a little bit at your experience because I know
that in Beaumont, wastewater Management master Plan was something that
you worked on the road maintenance, and I think there
was a big road project in Beaumont that was under
your guide while you were there. There are similiar structural
(25:01):
infrastructural issues here in Leander's specifically that you can't avoid
having at least a little bit of a mention of
the water situation and what's going on with that. And
then if you talk to the citizenry, and I'm a citizen,
so I can you know, in my opinion, I'm like,
we need to do something about the roads. I mean,
we continue to grow, but the growth is outpacing our
ability to maintain the infrastructure right, and so that's going
(25:23):
to be a quality of life issue downstream for anyone
who's living in some of these subdivisions. And there's arguments
about you know, our overreliance on developers and blah blah blah.
I don't want to get into that necessarily, right, but
that's the type of feedback that we hear consistently, Right,
But you've had some experience with that, You've had some
experience with issues similar to that. So, knowing that those
(25:47):
are our challenges here in Leander, how do you address that?
Would you consider those to be the most pressing challenges
here in the city right now? Or is there something
else that we maybe as a as a general, you know,
the citizens in general, we don't necessarily think about I
don't know, like I'll use it. I know it's not
(26:08):
an issue, but like, let's say fire, like the fire department, Right,
you don't think about those things generally speaking as a
citizen until you know there's something burning. Right, So that's
kind of again I want to kind of understand from
your perspective, having stepped in now and had an opportunity
to kind of take a look at the lay of
the land, what would you say are the most pressing
challenges here in Leander from that perspective.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Well, definitely, you know, public safety, parks and recreation, core infrastructure,
you know, those are those are three elements that really
really need attention. And you know, if you look at
our core infrastructure, it's the nature.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Of the beast.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
We get the development, the development takes care of a
certain portion of its demand, and then there's those interconnecting pieces.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So you know, you all get a sub.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Division that happens in a particular area, and then there's
surface level roads that need to be improved between point
A and point B. So so managing those resources and
kind of manager managing that growth so that we're accommodating that,
you know piece. But but those roadway sections are are
sections that a lot of time lag a little bit.
(27:25):
So what we have to do is we have to
understand where those critical pieces are, we have to figure
out how we begin to prioritize what sections get done,
and then we have to understand what our financial capabilities are.
So we're at the kind of the beginning level of
some of that, particularly on the roadway side of it.
We've done some initial analysis to look at what the
(27:47):
city's bonding capacity would be over a twenty year window
and in some of the more mid level kind of
analysis that will looked at. So we've looked at a low, medium,
and high kind of scenario in those forecasts, right, the
middle scenario would show the city with a bonding capacity
(28:08):
about one point to to one point three billion dollars
over twenty years. If you look at the plans that
we have in place and you look at the identified
projects today, there's one point two billion dollars identified projects
all day already, right, and so so okay, well, you know,
we have to then begin to figure out those strategies
(28:30):
on where to prioritize that. So roadways right now are critical.
The water system improvements that are underway right now, there's
a lot of improvements that will be completed by the
end of twenty seven, so the city's water capacity will
so the system delivery system pieces that are needed will
(28:54):
be in place and operational by early twenty eight. End
of twenty seven, the city these water supply will have
grown from twenty five million gallons per day to forty
four million gallons a day by the end of twenty seven.
So that piece, and that supply piece is you know,
the staff was already working on that, you know, and
(29:15):
kudos they've done an amazing job and pulling that together.
The next piece is sewer there's sure plant expansions that
are needed to begin to take that next step there,
so that'll be a part of thing. The important thing
about the utility side is it's a separate fund. So
a lot of times when we talk about you know,
(29:38):
water and sewer, and we talk about streets and parks,
we kind of put that all together, but they're different
funding sources and strategies, which is helpful on that one
point two billion dollars I talked about, because at one
point too would be the stuff that's more the streets
and drainage and those sides of it, those facility pieces.
(30:00):
So we're putting that together. One of the things we'll
be talking to council about is how do we begin
to evaluate what projects take priorities over others. So there's
certain purposes behind a given project. Is it public safety,
is it account development? Is it quality of life? You know?
(30:22):
Is it to address a mandate? So there's probably five
or six kind of core things that a project would
typically be fall into different categories of need or objective,
and then we then can evaluate that. So if we
say account development is a top priority above the others,
(30:47):
then we would wait our scoring metric to that degree, right,
And so that gives us the ability to say, Okay,
we've got two billion dollars worth of projects. We take
them through that selection matrix, and then that allows those
projects that are the cream of the crop to come
to the top. Then we begin to match what we
have in terms of resources to get that done. Is
(31:10):
it pay go funds, is it bonds? Is it impact fees?
What are those other dollars that we have to make
those projects work. You may have your top five projects
that are just not financially feasible, right, So then we
push some of those back down. So I say, well, okay,
if it's a sewer plant or water or a new
police station, what do we need to do first? Well,
(31:31):
we got to get sewer done, right, and then we
got to get roads done, and then we'll turn our
attention to the public safety pieces a little bit later.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
So it sounds a lot to me like in project management,
there's a there's a acronym moscow. Right, you're probably familiar
with it, right, So what is it? It's must I
forget exactly what it is, but I know I know
the first one is like must have is the M
in moscow?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Right?
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So you take a similar approach in that you know,
there's things that we have to do. We have no choice,
we have to do these. So I'm curious a little
bit on the roads things, because the roads are something
that affects everybody every day. You know, you travel on
the road, you take it for granted until you're you know,
feel like you're in a rickshaw in Thailand, right, You
know that, then you're like, Okay, there's something wrong with
(32:20):
the road, right, right, So not that the roads are
terrible in Thailand, just that was a good alliteration there.
But anyway, you no offense to anybody in Thailand. And
Tesla cuisine, yes, the food is great, but anyway, So
I'm curious on the roads thing because it's always struck
me as one of those kind of makes you go hum, right,
(32:42):
because you're outlining some of the budgetary concerns and some
of the financial funding mechanisms and all that. It's a
very complex and very convoluted process. You've I mean, you've
done an excellent job, by the way. I think anybody
who's watching or listening to this will get a better
understanding of just what those complexities can be, which I
(33:02):
think is something that's missing from a lot of the
civil discourse in smaller cities is that it doesn't matter
the size of the city. Those things are still very,
very complex, and in Texas can be especially challenging because
of the way that the legislature restricts certain mechanisms. Right,
So all of that goes into play, and you know,
kudos for someone like you to take that on. I mean, wow,
(33:23):
that's to me. I'm like, I don't know that I'd
be I'd be so frustrated. I would be the worst
city manager in the world. But anyway, so back to
my point the roads. So when I take a look
at this, and this is strictly a layman's view, right,
I'm thinking, okay, and I'll give you a real world example.
So I live in the Canaros Ranch, a subdivision, right,
(33:44):
and we've got Lakeline, I think, is the road that
goes down that side? Right? Lake Line constricts to a
two lane once you get past I forget the subdivision
that's out there, but it kind of constricts down to
two lanes until it gets to Hero And I know
that the long term planning is for that road to
probably end up making it all the way up to
(34:04):
Liberty Hill. At some point it's going to be a
major thoroughfare, right, So I look at that and I'm saying, okay, well,
there's not a whole lot of well that hadn't been
Now there's a lot more, but there hasn't been a
whole lot of development out here. From an economic perspective,
wouldn't you take into account current costs of supplies and
(34:25):
labor and all that stuff, and maybe look at a
project that you know, in the long term is gonna
need to be done and say, well, we can actually
do it cheaper today than it'll cost us five years
from now or ten years from now. Does that ever
come into consideration when you're doing that.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It it does. But one of the things, and you know,
over the years, I've had a lot of people that say,
you've got to go build the roads before you let
this development happen. It But that's not economically viable, right right,
because we have to have the dollars that come in.
And so here's the question. So do I tax the
existing Red residents to build the infrastructure that somebody else
(35:03):
is going to utilize later? And that's the balance we
have to walk. So everything I charge or that we
build to us as current taxpayers today to build capacity,
somebody else is going to commutilize that, so it may
or may not benefit from that directly. So the concept
really is that we're trying to get development to a
(35:25):
point where it pays as much of its own way
as it can. There's limits in terms of statutory limits,
I mean with regard to what we can make development do.
So there's there's a whole concept of takings. There's a
whole concept of a rational nexus between what you can
(35:46):
make them do versus the impact that the project actually has.
And so that's that is that balance that every city,
particularly fast grow cities, kind of struggle with. So citizens,
you know, we do feel pain because there is a
moment of time where the off site roadway infrastructure. You know,
(36:06):
we've got a four lane section that's narrowed down to
a county old county two lane section that needs to
be widened. So there's that piece of it. The other
thing you have to think about is if I go
and I build three lanes of something today, I don't
know if I really built the right thing. It could
(36:28):
be requiring four lanes or six lanes. So there is
that overall implication as well. There are some areas where
we've got some intervening development. We can look at some realignments,
we can look at some signalization to help facilitate things
as we kind of go through that. The other thing
to think about that we think about, I mean, is
(36:52):
what is the timing to actually prepare a project to deliver?
So if I'm looking a roadway project, do I need
right of way? Do I have land donors who are
willing to work with me to dedicate or sell the
right of way? Or do we have to get their
process to condemn and take that the design process, the
environmental constraints, you know, there's just there's some other factors
(37:13):
that kind of roll into it. So so a lot
of those roadway sections, by nature and by the way,
the need and the timing to design and build are
somewhat reactionary to what we have on the ground. So
in some cases we can look forward, and you would
do that in places where we're trying to influence things.
(37:35):
So we need to create an opportunity zone for egount development,
for example. So let's get ahead of it, let's build
some infrastructure. We've got two intervening pieces we need to
make some connections to help ease or address traffic congestion circulation.
These San Gabriel projects are good examples of that. San
(37:55):
Gabriel too, will be an extension of San Gabriel along
the north side basically of Palmaro over to Reagan. So
it'll provide an outlet for residents to be able to
get up and over to Reagan, give them another opportunity
for access. San Gabriel. Phase three is a connection that'll
(38:17):
go back west and connect to one eighty three A.
And so that project is about a year behind in
terms of design, but it's an easier project because there's
less topo, there's less things to work on. So that
project is actually in design today. So but we're you know,
we're probably another year out from being able to have
(38:40):
bid ready documents towards in San Gabriel three. We're out
to bid right now in San Gabriel two, but it'll
be two years before we have those roadway sections in place,
and so it's about a two to three year design process.
Then it's a two year bid and construction process to
get there. So that's five years, right, you know, And
(39:00):
so so we have to be spot on in terms
of what we're building and where we're building it.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
So I appreciate you kind of giving people a little
bit of a you know, pull but pull back the
curtains a little bit, right, because the reality is and
again it comes from I don't want to say an
uninformed citizenry because I think generally speaking, there's there's a
good group of people in Leander who who stay informed,
who are who are engaged, civically engaged, who try to
(39:30):
help move things forward, right, you know, probably a conversation
for another day, right, because there's there's things that I
think that the city could leverage. I think there's really
really some very talented and very thoughtful, you know, former
CEOs and the things of that nature, people who are
(39:52):
you know, willing and able with their time to help.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
And I know that sometimes there's restrictions there, that there's
legal restraint, there's you know this this state makes things
real difficult to do, but I always feel that there's
probably a middle ground there. Personally from my perspective, and
again that's me having served on multiple boards and just
found you know it, sometimes it feels like you're just
banging your head up against the wall because just nothing
(40:18):
gets done. Right. But that said, there's not there hasn't
been for a long time at least well okay, I
can't say long time, six years and less six years.
The experiences that I've had have been not enough information shared.
So like just in this conversation here, the education that
you can walk away from from listening to this podcast
(40:40):
is this is how things kind of work. So when
you're thinking about project A, project Z, whatever it might be,
keep that in mind. Right, So when you're the request
the expectations, I think it's probably a really good way
to say it, the expectations from the general citizen in
the city of Leander are not less set with the
(41:01):
actual realities, right, And I think that we've taken an
unfortunate process. And this is probably something that was said
in the action many years ago, Like the situation was
completely different, right, So they were evaluating and making decisions
based on a completely set of data points, right, completely
different set of data points. But the revision the five
(41:25):
year you know, the comprehensive plan for instance, you know
every five years we're redoing. I was like, you can
never get a long term planning if you just keep
revisiting the same things every two, three, five years, Right,
you're just never going to get there. And I do
attribute a lot of that to just it was a
small town. Just that's just a simple fact, right, it
was just a small town. They didn't necessarily have the
(41:49):
benefit of larger planning processes or whatever. And again it
was rule and they just didn't have the same issues. Right.
So now you come into a burgeoning city, which to
your point, you know, planning for two hundred and fifty
thousand people in a thirty nine square mile space, it's
a lot of planning that you have to really kind
of have to get things perfect. But you should be
(42:11):
tending towards right, you know, because otherwise you're just you're
not going to be able to support that long term.
And I forget the gentleman's name, but he was I
was exposed to. He was, I want to say, the
city manager in Plano at one point, and he basically
said something that struck me. He was like, you know,
(42:31):
when you're working with a city, it's not for you. You know,
you're you're working for the future. You're not going to
see what you do, right, You're just going to be
part of getting it there. So I thought that was
an interesting thing. Anyway, I'll stop there. I probably said
too much, But so I want to circle back to
some of that growth. And again I appreciate you pulling
(42:51):
the curtains back because that does help people. But part
of that, in my mind was talking about that rapid growth,
you know, and the way that the city can maintain
the quality of life for uh, for everyone? Right, So,
how do you accommodate And you know, this will kind
of hopefully wrap us up here, I think, but how
do you accommodate new residents who are coming in and
(43:13):
they have a completely different idea of what's going on?
And in Leander, pointedly, there is a influx of a
completely different cultural perspective as well. Right now, right, how
do you maintain accommodation for all these new people coming
to town and also the long term citizens like someone
(43:33):
who's been here, their families here, they're from here. Again,
you know you have landowners and things of that nature
that feed into that. How do you manage that? Like,
what's what you're in your opinion? Again, I know that
you're not directly responsible for making specific decisions, but what's
your thought there, like, how do we do that? Well?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
You know, one of the important things for us to
do is to measure what our citizens think and feel
about our community, and particularly when the demographics are changing
so quickly. You know, age and come you know, ethnicity,
you know, all those things are important, and and who
(44:12):
we are and how we come up and how we're
raised is a lens by which we view things and
how we view each other, and so, you know, and
it's really say, well, we just need to communicate. Well, okay,
that communication is an execution piece, but it's what are
you building behind that? And so one of the first
things that that we're going to do beginning in the
(44:35):
next fiscal year is a community survey. So we're going
to go out and we're going to do a statistically
significant survey of the community, and we're going to ask them,
you know, basically how livable is the community for them?
And you know, what are the good what are the
bad kind of things? So we're gonna that's the first
piece is tell us and how are you how are
(44:58):
you accessing information where you're getting information. The other thing
that I think is fantastic that the council has done,
the staff have done, is you know, they've implemented programs
and programming that are trying to embrace the diversity that
is present in our community and growing in this community,
(45:19):
you know, trying to sponsor different types of events and
in different kinds of cultural opportunities to be able to
express that and celebrate that within the community and so
continue to have those conversations in making our community vibrant
from that perspective for everyone having something and to celebrate that.
(45:39):
One of the critical things we've talked about with the
council from a visioning perspective has been, you know, also
kind of recognizing the history and kind of what the
root of Leander was, where did it come from, and
recognizing that and trying to find ways to incorporate that
(45:59):
into are are thinking finding ways to physically represent that.
You know, old town Leander, you know, is a place
there's a lot of opportunity to create there and to
recognize the prior history and those who came before that
created this. Because as we're building a community now as
(46:22):
a foundation for that next generation, the generations before are
built a foundation for this community that we get to
take advantage of today, and so so does we we
just on everyone to lose sight of that It's kind
of like I guess our parents would tell us, don't
ever forget where you came from. Right, it's the same
thing in the city. Let's not forget where we came from.
(46:45):
And and then as we evolve and grow, let's let's
celebrate that growth. But let's we also need to listen.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
What do you need?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
You know, you know, how can we best you know,
provide that? And and those things are replication in programs,
but they're also replicated in things. They're replicated in what
types of facilities do we build? Right, So at park
from fifteen years ago doesn't isn't a park today. The library,
(47:17):
you know, needs to evolve and grow, you know, to
provide the right types of services and to to to
reach people in terms of what their needs are. Yeah,
libraries are I think a prime example of that because
you know a lot of people, you know, gosh, as
the internet you know, was evolving and social media was evolving,
we don't need libraries anymore? Oh yeah we do? Oh yeah, no,
(47:40):
for sure, they're critical and and the need and the
use of the library changes as economic conditions change, right,
And so so that's kind of a little microcosm of
I think that overall kind of piece for it. So
so I think it's you know, and again I kind
of roll back to staff and council. Before I got here,
(48:00):
they were already recognizing that, and there are already implementing
systems and programs and creating you know, cultural opportunities to
be able to embrace that and celebrate that are So
we just need to cure that forward.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
And I definitely can concur there, right because again I've
seen it, and I've I've been able to be part
of it in certain instances and involved and other instances,
you know, take part. I think there's a great economic
opportunity there too, so you know, and this will be
my only little pitch to you. I I think that
(48:33):
if we continue to argue over transportation issues, we lose
sight of the fact that we are in a prime
position to take advantage of them. Right. I know that
in in cities where mass transit is key to the
(48:54):
development of the city, key to the to the movement
of finance money. Right, money moves around on mass transit,
whether you think about it that way or not. Right,
I look at the event based opportunities that Leander, if
Leander can focus on that and really really do that well, Right,
(49:18):
you are in an exponential space from a Central Texas perspective. Right,
you can look at San Antonio, you can look at Austin,
you can look at San Marcos, you can look at
cities in Central Texas have a very exponential sense to them. Right.
(49:39):
You can look as I mean as close as Round
Rock that we just had the Labor Day Cup tournament
in round Rock in Flugerville and points beyond that. You
know it's the Lone Star Soccer Club. That thing is massive.
And I know from my perspective, a little tournament. I
(50:00):
still were in a little tournament in Houston, Texas, and
I have an economic impact. I know that I have
an economic impact. I bring in over that weekend, just
my little tournament probably close to seventy to eighty thousand
dollars worth of hotel revenue every year on a soft
weekend in February. Right, So there's opportunity there, and I
(50:24):
don't think it gets talked about enough. I mean, I
love the fact that we're creating all of these you know,
the festivals and these opportunities to gather. From a communal sense,
that's huge, right, I think that helps bring people together,
you start having shared experiences and it helps the community
grow in a uniform manner instead of siloed to these
(50:44):
you know, specific things. I love the fact that the
city's stepping up and helping with some of that. Right,
it should embrace some of the other efforts as well,
and let's work together. The private public opportunities there are massive, right,
But I don't see an eye to the future with that,
because imagine if you had let's just say, for instance,
and I'll take I'll take Like Dolly as an example, Right,
(51:06):
that could be a massive festival in Leander, and there's
a train that brings a bunch of people up from
the city of Austin who have money to spend, who
are looking for experience, right. Right, That's the type of
thing that I try to mention as many times as
I can, because let's not lose sight of that. Right.
We tend to be a little siloed in our own
(51:26):
community conversations, but there's an economic factor here that we're
not taking into account, right, And I just I'm mentioning
it because I want to plant the seed, and I'm
kind of selfish in that way.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
I guess, no, and you're making a very good point.
And a little example of this, a small little example
in Kerrville have five Events, which is an Austin entertainment group.
But one of the things that they were that they
were putting together are trath On festivals and trath On events,
and so they came to Curveville and they so, we
(51:59):
want to do trath On Festival in Curville. Curl text
as you're like, okay, well, why well, we've got the waalupee,
we can swim in the river, and we've got the
hill country and we got the all that all these
opportunities to do it. So we got it launched and
it was amazing because that that event became, i guess,
(52:25):
consistent with the community image. And so you know, people
of all ages from every demographic. You can imagine all
a sudden they were out running, they're out biking, you know,
and so it changed a lot of the culture and
a lot of the activity. But it also brings in
three thousand contestants, which probably bring in another you know,
(52:45):
three thousand or three people per contestant, you know, so
you're bringing in ten fifteen thousand people, you know, at
the end of September every single year and These are people,
you know, if you look at the demographics of a trap,
these are people that are well into six figures in salary.
They they're driving up with you know, twenty thirty thousand
(53:06):
dollars bikes on the back of the audi's, you know
what I mean. So they're bring a lot of purchasing
power and they're filling up the hotels absolutely, I.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Mean, and I think that's that's kind of what I'm
talking about, right. I think this is just tremendous opportunity there.
And you know, honestly, I think we might be a
little bit closer to that had COVID not kind of
I think COVID kind of slowed us some of that
thought process down. And then you know, the effect the
after effects of COVID people having to leave or you
(53:35):
know whatever. You know, it did kind of it put
a little bit of a speed bump in that process
for Central Texas as a whole. But now you can
look at it, and I know you can. I'm sure
that you do. You look at Huddo, you look at
you know, what's the other one, a maner, and you're
looking at what they're doing, right, and you're saying, okay,
(53:57):
and that's part of the calculus too, right, Like, how
do we do something that's going to differentiate us enough
to be able to drive you know, some mechanism of
financial and economic impact. And that's where economic development goes
a lot further than just well, what kind of businesses
are we bringing into town and what kind of you know,
how are we supporting that? Yeah, that's a big component,
(54:20):
but you know, there's a there's another thing here that
you know, we need to be cognizant of and planning for.
And I and I and and again. I don't want
to harp too much on that, but I could. I
appreciate you addressing it, but you know, I think it's
important to kind of circle back around. And I don't
know how long we've been, so probably this one's going
to probably be split into two. I think it's probably
(54:40):
too long to expect anybody to sit and listen the
whole We sit for hours, We could, we could.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
This is good.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
No, I really do appreciate it, but I want to
be cognizant of that too, And maybe we come back
and visit again. I'd love to have the opportunity to
sit down with you, you know, six months a year
from now and just like, hey, where are we now?
Kind of thing that'd be great. Uh, let's let's agree,
at least in principle to make it annual.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Okay, it sounds good.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
But to wrap things up for this episode, right, I
do want to circle back and just thank you for
your time, right, because I think you've been more than
generous in not only in your time, but in helping
my efforts to help people understand what some of the
things that need to be done are and how you
(55:27):
do some of those things. Right. It's a little bit
of a of a crash course in city management, but
I think that's missing, and that's kind of why I
wanted to talk to you more than anything else, is
to help fill in some of those blanks. Right. There's
people who make a lot of assumptions and a lot
of statements without necessarily understanding all of the stuff, right,
(55:48):
And there's a lot of stuff there. So I appreciate that, Todd.
I think there's two things. Actually, there's one thing that
I want to make sure you talk about before I go.
I wrote myself a no, so I don't want to
forget the survey that you mentioned, right, Yes, I do
have one question and one recommendation so we've done from
I was on a committee a number of years ago
(56:09):
there was a Citizens Action Committee. It was Mayor Hill's committee.
He was an ad hoc. We did a very caveman
survey at the time, right. It was actually fairly decent.
I would hold it up to the survey they did
in Cedar Park to be honest with you, but it was.
It was. One of the things that I learned from
(56:30):
that was that it's very hard to drive people to
take a survey like you know, the soft you know,
the soft approach. You need to sell it a little
bit more. I would recommend that there would be and
I'm happy to help if there's an opportunity to create
some community outreach opportunities, you know pop ups if you will,
(56:52):
to get people to take the survey right, like make
it to where people can sit on their way out
or into h GB and a quick survey right and
expand the amount of people who respond to that, because
you're going to have, in my opinion, humbly submitted, You're
going to have pockets of communities that we will not
respond and that's been my experience, right, So outreach to
(57:13):
those communities specifically, I think is key to getting a
fully recognized, fully realized data set right. And I know
that you would probably do that anyway, but I'm going
to mention it just I can. I can take credit
for it.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
I appreciate that. I'm going to give you credit for
it because it's like this, it would have been a
failure otherwise.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
I appreciate that because I don't think you would have
thought of that at all, no kidding now, And I'm
only mentioned it because I think it's really important. Like
I love the one eighty three project and the process
that's going on there. I have some misgivings, but you know, hey,
everybody always does, right. I have my opinions, but there's
things there that I think are really really important, and
I know that there's some work that has been done
(57:53):
prior to that that I hope you're talking to Andy
Ice about what we did on the Economic Development Advisory
because it's not a committee in the true sense of
the committee. It's an advisory, as are most of the
committees in Leander their advisories. But yeah, I hope that
(58:13):
that's getting to you, because there was some good work
there and the one word that I've heard you say
today that I think is key and I appreciate it.
And as a citizen, I'm very very hopeful and actually
kind of excited and engaged in the sense that you
said the word visioning. And I've always felt in the
six years that I've been here, we don't do that enough.
(58:37):
We just don't do that enough. And you have to
have a vision to go along with the planning, right,
There has to be an idea of what it is
you're trying to achieve. So I commend you on that.
And this has been a tremendous pleasure. I feel like
I know you.
Speaker 2 (58:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (58:52):
It's kind of like you and Mandy. You have to
invite you all for dinner or something.
Speaker 2 (58:56):
No, soa wait, want to see at ag B. We're
gonna have to stop and talk.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
Yeah, no, I definitely will. Now I know what you
look like. I mean because your picture is a little
you need to update your picture. Yeah, I know, I
know you need update. You look super super young in
your picture. Not that you don't look it's just it
gives you a different impression. I had a completely different impression,
which is on me. That's my bias. I I guess
I'm what is it I'm ageis in reverse, right. I
(59:22):
look at young people like, yeah, you don't know anything,
you'll whipper snapper. But anyway, thank you again so much
for your time. I really really do appreciate it. And
for those of you who have either this is either
going to be one whole long episode or we're going
to have a two party here. I don't know yet.
We'll get to the edit, but I thank you for listening,
and I hope that this has helped you as a
(59:43):
citizen here in the in the Leander area and the
Greater Leander area to understand what some of the complexities
are and the type of people who are responsible for
executing on that visioning. And again, Todd, thank you for
your time. And that's it for this episode or maybe
two of Leaning Leander. We'll see y'all next time. Thanks
a lot,
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