By Brittany Anderson
The small city of Hays is gearing up for an election next month that could make waves in the community.
A candidate forum was held on April 9 at Hays City Hall for candidates to talk to their constituents about their goals if elected and for residents and other attendees to ask the candidates questions ahead of the May 7 election.
Running for office are Billy Maphies and Lydia Bryan-Valdez (incumbent, Mayor Pro Tem) for Mayor; Glennell Strawn and Thomas Lemmon for City Council Place 2; and Tony S. Valdez and Richard Gibbens (incumbent) for City Council Place 3.
Candidates were given six minutes each to introduce themselves and address their top priorities, as well as discuss transparency, infrastructure and funding, which were vetted by forum chairperson Linda McKnight as some of the most important questions to address.
Audience members were given the opportunity to write down questions they had for candidates which were later compiled into six cohesive questions by members of the Hays Free Press to sort any duplicates, assure topics of greatest interest were asked in a timely manner and to put any personal questions aside. Candidates then had two minutes each to respond to each of these questions.
Hot button topics like the city not having been audited in several years, longstanding problems with their well water system and a controversial development with MileStone Community Builders have been the community’s focus for the last several months — some for years.
“An audit is the first thing we’re going to do,” Bryan-Valdez said. “The money has to be accounted for … we need to be good stewards of your money,” adding that there are systemic problems to no end within their government, but that there are solutions they can find with feedback, monitoring and unity.
Strawn, who served on the internal records review committee for the city, noted that while she would ensure an audit, she did not see any issues in regards to misallocation of funds.
“There may have been ways that we needed to better monitor or handle our financial records, or to keep them in a better way,” Strawn said.
Another piece of transparency that residents are seeking comes from information on the city website. While a Fiscal Year 2021-2022 budget is available to view, the website has not been consistently updated with audits, other financial information or council agendas and minutes.
“Every citizen should have every opportunity to educate themselves about what is happening, and it is the job of the council to continue to create new and better ways to find information. That’s the only way people can see what’s going on,” Lemmon said.
Maphies, however, said that the city would need to take into consideration the additional costs that would come with this.
“There’s an inherent cost that comes with the maintenance of websites,” Maphies said. “We want to be cognizant that whoever takes on that responsibility can do so in an orderly manner. I think for the most part, if you really needed something, you could just request it. Have you ever been turned down? I know I haven’t.”
At the forefront of many heated council meetings has been about the potential Hays Commons development. The current development agreement, signed in 2013, is with Walters Southwest and commercial-heavy — but MileStone is looking to take over the agreement with their own proposal, which is more residential.
Residents are concerned with the development’s potential impacts on the city’s environment, infrastructure and overall way of life. Issues with lot sizes, a wastewater facility and the development’s location over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone have been raised.
“Do I support the agreement? The way it is written now; no,” Valdez said. “If any part of the agreement is not lawful or doesn’t meet our code, it should be struck. The city code requires one acre lot sizes for the aquifer. If they bring in a sanitary system, a storm sewer, utilities and underground pipes across Bear Creek and the aquifer, they’re going to contaminate the drinking water.”
Gibbens said that Walters Southwest has been looking for the city to grant them the ability to assign the agreement over to MileStone, which hasn’t been done, but that he still doesn’t support MileStone’s proposed concept.
“I agree with the others: it’s probably not in the city’s interest … the lot sizes are too small, it’s too dense,” Gibbens said. “But, the truth is, we don’t have an agreement with them [MileStone] right now.”
Candidates also spoke about their ideas for increasing the city’s revenue, the importance of fixing their well water system and how to protect residents from the inevitable growth of the area.
Maphies said that the city needs to be on a united front, and that it will be hard to do things for the city if people are bickering, fighting and not on the same page. Gibbens noted that each candidate wants to do what’s right for the city and to take care of its residents, there are just different ideas about how to do that.
“Someone asked me to describe my city the other day,” Valdez said. “I said, ‘heaven on earth.’ It’s beautiful with beautiful people … we need to protect that.”
