Mayor’s Corner

One of my campaign themes was Citizen participation. As a small city, Wimberley has reached out to its Citizens to participate in government and the community for many years. Their willingness to serve with their expertise, time and insight has been very valuable to the success of Wimberley. To that end, I want to thank everyone who has or is currently serving on the many City boards and commissions. These include the Board of Adjustment, Ethics Commission, HOT Advisory Committee, Park & Recreation Commission, Planning and Zoning Commission, Transportation Advisory Board, and the newly formed Wastewater Ad Hoc Advisory Committee. Although all are valuable, I wanted to talk about three of them in particular since their roles are currently more front and center than previous – and I have limited space to be able to write about them all.

Wastewater Ad Hoc Advisory Committee. This committee was recently formed with a mission statement to assist the City and affected property owners with the implementation of the new downtown City sewer system under construction. This is the biggest, most expensive, and most complex project in the City’s history. The City has neither the resources on staff nor the experience to do this on its own. One of the biggest roles the Committee will have is communication between the property owners, City staff, and Capital Excavation (our contractor). Building the collection system is one thing. New customers connecting, especially on their own without direct City financial or construction assistance, is another. One of the first steps will include identifying an accurate list of each of the properties that will be required to connect, along with their contact information. Then two way communication – I am sure many of the property owners still are not clear about their obligations or how to go about performing them. The Committee can help coordinate getting questions answered, develop a plan to assist getting connections done in a timely manner, and develop a process to identify qualified vendors to perform the work. The Committee will need to understand how the rate determining process will work. Once the system goes live, there needs to be administrative support from the City for billing and other activities – perhaps the Committee can assist with developing a plan for that. There are still big challenges ahead to achieve success in this critical project – and this Committee’s involvement will be essential.

Transportation Advisory Board. For numerous reasons, this Board has not been very active for the past few years. However, our roads continue to deteriorate and we seem to be falling further behind in this obligation to our Citizens. And of course, one of the primary reasons is financial – road work is expensive and the City has limited funds available. The City needs to get on track to develop a road plan and how to pay for it. One agenda item for the City is working more closely with our important partner – Hays County. They have expressed a willingness to consider working with the City to leverage their extensive resources for the benefit of the City. Certainly not for free – but perhaps our dollars can be best optimized with their assistance. This could be similar to the successful and cost effective relationship we developed with the Constable’s office to provide law enforcement for the City.

Parks and Recreation Board. This Board also has some new challenges. Of course, the crown jewel of the City’s parks is Blue Hole Regional Park. The park would not exist but for the efforts of Friends of Blue Hole – plus their valuable support over the years. I thank them for that. However, it seems that FOBH has recently informed the City that contrary to what the City believed, there is no formal partnership agreement between FOBH and the City. I am not sure what the ramifications are. But I hope that the Board can work on continuing a relationship with FOBH to make Blue Hole even greater than it is. But it is not only Blue Hole, there are other parks and activities to consider. And perhaps we can work more closely with our local schools to improve park and recreational access for our children and residents.

Lastly, I want to take a moment to express appreciation to the City’s talented and hardworking Staff. Although small in numbers, their responsibilities are large. We as City leaders and sometimes the Citizens don’t always make the Staff’s job easy, but we really appreciate them. I’d like to salute the City Staff for all they do for the entire Community.