Hays County and specifically our Precinct’s population is expected to continue it’s strong growth. To meet our infrastructure and mobility needs, and to support economic development, Hays County must continue to make long-term investments to restore and enhance our infrastructure network. This is a quality of life issue – Hays County citizens should not be forced to spend hours every day on congested and unsafe roads as they try to get to work, or travel to meet personal and family needs.
With the successful passage of the recent road bond election, our citizens have shown that they will support new investments in our infrastructure system. As your county commissioner, I will uphold this public trust by ensuring that these funds are spent competently for the purposes promised.
Based on my extensive infrastructure building experience, as your County Commissioner I will build our Transportation Action Plan on four core principals:
- Projects that receive funding will be those that produce quantifiable and sustainable long term net benefits for taxpayers. The decision making process should be guided by safety, congestion relief and economic development not petty politics. This should not be a question of “pro business” vs. “pro community”; instead it should be “pro taxpayer”, “pro mobility” and “pro effectiveness”.
- We need to develop a strategic plan to affordably and sustainably fund infrastructure improvements for our county. Our citizens deserve to know not just what we plan to build, but how the county intends to pay for the it, and more importantly what is the true cost to the taxpayer. This is the only way to honestly approach the taxpayer, the driver, the commuter, the business owner on how we can pay for needed infrastructure. During this time of scarce federal and state infrastructure funding and the severe economic hardships faced by many of our citizens, we need to have a candid discussion of what funding is available through traditional sources and then work to find new and affordable funding solutions.
- We must reduce the time it takes to complete road projects. Our system of roads is controlled by several layers of government including city, county, state and federal; all with different regulatory and environmnetal requirements. While this does create challenges, we should be focused on producing results for citizens not excuses. We need to build a county organization and foster governmental partnerships dedicated to the mission of faster approvals and more action.
- We need to implement a strategy to better maintain and operate transportation capacity that we already have. “Build a new road” should not be the only answer we have for mobility. We need to look at how we can make existing roads safer and more efficient for our citizens. We need to continue to review how we can expand commuting and mass transit alternatives that have already been established.
