by JENNIFER BIUNDO
As the Nov. 2 election day barrels down upon us, high octane political races are heating up across the nation. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is fighting to hang on to her congressional district. In the battle of good hair versus no hair, former Houston mayor Bill White is challenging two-term Gov. Rick Perry for control of Texas.
And deep down the Hays County ballot, San Marcos resident Shawn Ash is taking on his old mentor Kelly Kilber for the unpaid and largely unknown position of county surveyor.
It may not be high stakes political drama, but the match-up between old friends offers a refreshing respite from the mudslinging that usually characterizes the home stretch to Election Day.
In the League of Women Voters debate last week, Ash campaigned on his own behalf, while also assuring the audience that voting for his opponent would be a perfectly sensible alternative.
“I actually worked for Kelly Kilber,” Ash said. “He’s a dear friend of mine.”
Kilber, who has held the seat off and on for decades, shared the sentiment.
“Shawn used to work for me,” Kilber said. “He’s a good young guy.”
Of course, it helps that there’s little in the way of wealth or glory at stake.
“It’s the only county office that I know of that costs you money to hold it,” Kilber said.
In Texas’s frontier days, when miles of wild and unmapped land stretched as far as the eye could see, the surveyor performed an essential task necessary to settle the new territory. As local governments rose out of the frontier, the county surveyor recorded patent surveys and organized the county deed records.
But in the 21st century, the position has become almost honorary in many counties.
Most people aren’t aware that the county surveyor’s office exists, Kilber said, while others think that he’s paid by the county to survey private property. But in reality, county officials hire a paid surveyor for large jobs, while the elected official serves as more of a record keeper.
“Its primary purpose today is to report any discrepancies or overlaps in the old original patent surveys,” Kilber said.
Kilber can recall only about three such cases in the last three decades, mostly in rural edges of the county that has poor original surveys from the 1800s. More typically, he said, the surveyor serves as a general information officer for the public about land issues.
A large part of the county surveyor’s current role, Ash said, is to watch over the external borders of the county and make sure no other entities try to infringe upon your county’s territory. If elected, Ash said he’d like to retrace the boundaries of Hays County using GPS technology.
More than anything, Ash said he’d like more people to understand the surveying profession.
“I’d like to further my occupation in the eyes of the public, so people understand what we do a little bit more,” Ash said.
Both men have decades of experience in the field. Ash, 53, graduated from Southwest Texas University and opened his business, Ash & Associates Surveying & Mapping, LLC, in the 1970s. He and his family live in San Marcos, and in his spare time he volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.
Kilber has served as county surveyor on and off since 1975. He practices as both a civil engineer and a surveyor, and is president of Pro-Tech Engineering Group in San Marcos.
The race between Ash and Kilber is amicable, to say the least. But one incursion three elections ago still rankles the professional pride of both men. In a Republican drive of 2002, a used car salesman named Hugo Mitchell ran on the GOP ticket for county surveyor, winning the seat.
Though he could legally seek the office under the elections code, state law prohibited Mitchell from holding the office without being a registered surveyor. As a result, the surveyor’s seat sat empty for four years, Kilber recalled. After that, he took to running as a Republican.
Ash says that while he has affection and respect for his colleague, he’d like to bring some fresh blood to the position. Kilber, meanwhile, is hoping to hang on to the volunteer position he’s held for so long.
“I love Shawn like a brother, but I’m not voting for him,” Kilber said with a laugh.
