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Denton City Council Election

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mad dog Newbie

mad dog

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Best of luck to you. If I might make one suggestion...

Running on a platform of achieving a certain ad valorem tax rate for its own sake may be a great way to get elected. However, most local governments the caliber of Denton are managed by first selecting a service level and then setting a rate which, in conjunction with your other revenue streams, balances the equation. If you are elected, and come in with both guns blazing on freezing or lowering the tax rate, you may find it difficult to interface with elected officials and city staff. However, if you couch everything in terms of expected service levels, you may find that lowering or freezing rates are the byproduct of those discussions.

In the three cities I've worked for, I have seen councilmember after councilmember come in with a full head of steam, hellbent on slashing everything to the bone. But I have only seen one of those people stick with that idea for more than a couple of months into the budget process. This is not because they get brainwashed by a conniving City Manager of pressured into passing bloated budgets. Rather, they come to see that local governments (especially those in our region) do a pretty good job of keeping costs low, relative to the desired service level in the community.

If you are looking to achieve a reduced level of service, you can do a lot of things which will save you money: you can close rec centers and libraries, defer park and street maintenance, outsource office jobs, cut police and fire staffing and equipment levels, consolidate core functions, reduce employees compensation packages, or a combination of all of the above. What you, as an elected official, are responsible for is gauging the community's receptiveness to the consequences of those actions.

It may be that you figure no one really cares about some of these items, and you can reduce or eliminate those costs. In my experience, whenever ANYTHING is proposed for deletion, you'll hear about it from a vocal group within the community. Ironically, many of those same people will be the same ones who elected you to office on the promise of lower taxes. Everyone wants everything on the table, but they do not want to pay for any of it.

But the burden of those choices is on the council - they make the million dollar decisions as the true voice of the governed. Every city manager I've ever met operates under that idea. They will do whatever a majority of the council wants them to do - that's how they keep their job - unless it is unethical. On rare occasions, I have heard of managers taking a stand on other grounds, but those were almost always decisions that would have truly disastrous consequences for the community (emptying fund balances to build a pool, or something along those lines). And even then, it is more of a pre-emptive action because when it goes wrong (and it usually will if the Manager is comfortable taking a stand on it), they know they're going to get thrown under the bus and fired anyway. Better to leave with your professional integrity than because you went along with something that you knew was not in the best interests of the City.

In closing, it is great to see people interested in civic involvement. I know you to be a man of integrity with a reputation for getting things done. I am just hopeful that, if elected, you can make as smooth a transition in as possible.

Good luck!

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