Routine Rhetoric at City Council Candidate Forum

With campaign season come candidate forums, and with candidate forums come predictable questions and predictable answers. Last night seven of the eight candidates for College Station City Council gathered in a candidate forum at the Hilton, sponsored by the Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce. For about an hour the candidates presented themselves to the voters, and what they said was heavy on rhetoric and light on specifics.

The first topic discussed was what the proper role of the city of College Station is to attract and retain businesses. Arthur Pinto, Place 3 candidate, said that the permitting process should be streamlined and criticized the city for being “unfriendly towards business,” but could not cite any specific examples for how the city is unfriendly toward local business. The use of nodal development in the comprehensive plan was stressed by Pinto’s opponent, Place 3 candidate Karl Mooney, who also said that the community should be proactive in recruiting businesses. Place 1 candidate Shawn Rhodes said that it’s not the city’s job to “pick winners and losers,” and that the city does not have to “buy businesses to come here.” Providing high quality of life and providing infrastructure is what Rhodes opponent, Place 1 candidate Blanche Brick, said the city should do to attract new business development. Hal Hawkins, Place 5 candidate, said the city should be less interfering and that the city should waive all the fees charged to business that move to College Station. One of Hawkins’s opponents, Place 5 candidate Sherry Ellison, said that the city should provide the amenities that attract business and people to the community. Finally, Place 5 candidate Julie Schultz that while she was not particular excited about offering businesses incentives, other cities are offering them and in order to be competitive it might be required to offer them in College Station.

The first round of answers seemed to preview the way in which the evening would progress. While the moderators did press the candidates on some issues, for the most parts candidates gave unspecific answers and provided little substance on the specific policies that they support or would like to see changed. One of the few topics that seemed to generate a significant amount of debate and disagreement was about the city’s debt obligations. When asked about the city budget, Hawkins said that his biggest concern was for what he claimed was $311 million in debt obligations, which he said was a “burden we cannot keep putting on our citizens.” Hawkins proposed paying off the debt and creating a so-called “rainy day fund,” but offered no specifics for how that would be accomplished. Pinto agreed with Hawkins assessment of the debt, and said that he is “extremely concerned with the amount of debt” that the city owes. Mooney disagreed with the concerns about the debt, and said that the city council had done well to decrease the budget by $3 million over the last budget cycle while maintaining core services. Rhodes noted that he thought the budget was not in “that bad of a shape,” and that the surplus the budget currently operates with acts as a de facto “rainy day fund.”


The candidates agreed on one of the issues. None of the candidates thought that the members of the city council should receive a pay check, but Brick said she wouldn’t mind the extra money (which provoked laughter from the audience). But for the most part, the candidates that were endorsed by Council member Jana McMillan and are a part of the so-called “conservative coalition,” did not support any kind of fees or taxes, and supported cutting the city budget by offered no specifics on what areas should be cut. Schultz did say that she is supportive of outsourcing of some of the services such as maintenance in the parks, and was “curious about just giving money” to local non-profit organizations that she characterized by say that the city supporting non-profits as “handouts.” Brick, Mooney, and Ellison all supported maintaining the ROI, while Pinto and Hawkins both supported eliminating the ROI without providing what cuts should be made or what other revenue should be raised to make up for the $8 million the ROI provides. However, Pinto did propose phasing out the ROI over three years, while Rhodes said that it would be “fiscally irresponsible” to eliminate it at this time.

There were few surprises during the forum, with the possible exception of Brick’s ability to make the crowd laugh. I do not think that we learned much about the candidates at the forum, except for their ability to speak about the issues in front of the public. But, decide for yourself what you thought of the forum. Listen to the forum at the WTAW archives, or watch the video at the KBTX politics page.