Seven things neighbors keep raising, in the order you raise them. For each one: what you told us, what I did about it, and the minutes that show it. Where I fell short, it says so.
Tessera is the sharpest example. Some homeowners there pay PID assessments of several thousand dollars a year on top of their regular taxes, and many say they were never clearly told what they were signing up for.
Lago Vista grew from about 8,900 people in 2020 to about 10,200 in 2025. You see the hillsides being cleared, and you want to know who pays for the roads, the water, and the sewer that come with it.
At meetings and online, the question you keep asking is simple. When a developer comes to town, who ends up holding the bill?
And a second question comes right behind it. Does Lago Vista need another gas station or another row of storage units? What gets built on the corner is part of growth on our terms too.
I am not against growth. It is going to continue whether the council likes it or not. The question is whether we grow on the developer's terms or on ours. My answer, every time, has been ours.
In practice that means conditions written into the motion. Firefly Cove is the example people ask about. The question in December 2024 was not whether Firefly Cove would be built. It was whether the city would consent to the utility district that finances its water, sewer, and roads, and on what terms. I made the motion so the city's terms would ride on that financing: $1.8 million toward our wastewater system, roughly $600,000 toward roads, a contribution toward upgrading our water plant, developer-paid legal fees, and access for Lago Vista residents to the trails, courts, and lake access inside the project, all paid up front at the first bond.
The people who buy in Firefly Cove will pay the district's assessments. That is how a utility district works. The difference from Tessera is what happens before they sign. A municipal utility district is regulated by the State of Texas through TCEQ, and state law requires that every buyer get a written notice of the district's tax rate and debt before closing. Tessera homeowners have told me they never got that clarity, and that the amenities did not turn out the way they were described. In Firefly Cove the amenities stay owned by the homeowners' association, and the agreement guarantees Lago Vista residents access to them.
It also means saying what we do not want. If you are not paying Lago Vista taxes and following Lago Vista rules, you do not get to use Lago Vista utilities. When two commercial rezones came up on Lohman Ford, I moved to approve them with one condition written in. No storage facilities and no gas stations. Both passed 6 to 0 with that condition attached, and it is in the minutes.
The hotel and event center proposed for Boggy Ford Road shows what conditions look like in practice. The rezoning came to council in February 2026 and went back to Planning and Zoning. When it returned in May, I listened to the whole commission hearing, wrote down every concern anyone raised, and went through them one by one on the record. Then I made the motion to approve it and read the conditions in. A building permit within 48 months or the zoning goes away. No cap on the tree mitigation fees. Sidewalks. A deceleration lane on the developer's land, not the city's. Purple pipe, so the property irrigates with reclaimed water once we have it. A 42 foot height cap. Evergreen screening around the parking. Loading out of view. Those conditions are in the minutes.
Growth on our terms also means keeping the terms ours. When a developer cannot get the answer he wants at City Hall, Austin is the next stop, and in the 2025 session the Legislature took decisions away from cities. In June 2025 council voted for a resolution asking the Governor to veto bills that eroded local control. In July we changed our own code because a new state law, HB 2464, left us no choice. Shane Saum, now our mayor, made that motion, and he has kept local control in front of this council. I would rather these decisions be made here.
I cannot undo the Tessera PID. What I could do was make sure the next buyer knows what they are getting into. In August 2025 I seconded the motion that added a purchaser notice to the PID service plan and required the plan to be posted on the city website.
Result
Passed 4-3
Result
Passed 5-2
Result
Denied 7-0
Result
Passed 5-2 each
Result
Passed 5-1
Result
Passed 6-0
Result
Passed 6-0
Result
Passed 6-0
Result
Passed 6-1
Result
Passed 6-0
Outages, boil water notices, wastewater capacity, and what LCRA does with Lake Travis.
Tessera residents have lived through repeated outages, one of them on the first day of school, and a main break this August put Lower Tessera under a boil water notice.
You want the water to run when you turn on the tap, and you want the city to plan for the people who are coming.
I have voted for every major water and wastewater investment that came before council. The design contract to expand our wastewater plant. The emergency rebuild of the clarifier at Water Plant 1. The lift station repairs. The final Water Master Plan. The resolution telling LCRA to manage Lake Travis fairly and protect our water security.
I have also done the unglamorous work. Since my first month on council I have been working on the golf course irrigation and effluent system, first on the contract itself and then as a member of the irrigation subcommittee.
I know Tessera residents have lived through repeated outages and a boil water notice this August. I do not have a vote to point to that fixed that, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. It is at the top of my list for a second term.
Result
Passed
Result
Passed 6-0
Result
Passed 7-0
Result
Passed 5-1
Result
Passed 5-1
Result
Tabled 4-3
Result
Passed unanimously
A balanced budget with the lowest possible rate that keeps the city working.
Tessera homeowners pay PID assessments on top of their city taxes.
You want the city to hold the line on its rate without cutting the services you count on, and you want to know where the money goes.
Both years I have been on council I supported the no new revenue tax rate. That is the rate that brings in the same amount of money as last year from the same properties.
I voted against a $0.42 rate because I did not believe we could cut deeper than no new revenue without cutting services, and I would rather tell you that plainly than vote for a number that looks good on a mailer and leaves a hole in the budget.
Where I have been hardest on spending is in the details. I tabled a $2.9 million street paving contract for two weeks so council could see the full bid before voting, then voted for it. In every one of those cases, the item eventually passed, usually with my vote. Slowing down to read the contract is not obstruction. It is the job.
Result
Tabled 5-1
Result
Passed 7-0
Result
Passed 5-1
Result
Failed 3-4
Result
Passed 4-3
Result
Passed 5-1
Result
Passed unanimously
FM 1431 and Lohman Ford. Crashes, closures, and getting kids to school safely.
You have asked for turn lanes and signals on 1431, and the new four-way signal at Bar K Ranch Road came with a note about school traffic.
The Cow Creek bridge is still a reminder of how one washed-out crossing can cut a neighborhood off.
On speed limits, my position is consistency. In March 2025 I brought the item that asked the Chief of Police to look at where our speed limits change for no good reason. On the short drive from FM 1431 up Lohman Ford, the posted limit changed seven times. I said it then and I will say it now. I am not advocating to increase the speed limit. I am not advocating to decrease it. I am advocating for a consistent speed limit as much as possible.
In April I made the motion that set Lohman Ford at 45 where it had been 40 and 50, and left the school zone exactly as it was. It passed unanimously. The companion change for Boggy Ford I moved to table after I looked at the road again and talked with about thirty more neighbors. It is narrower, mailboxes were getting hit, and more people are walking and driving golf carts toward the lake. When the facts changed, my vote changed.
I made the motion to adopt the Travis County Safe Streets for All plan, which commits us to the goal of zero roadway deaths, and I added a requirement that TxDOT consider our own city engineer's recommendations when they work on our roads. That matters because FM 1431 is a state road, and the only leverage a city council has with TxDOT is the record it builds.
Enforcement is the other half. In December 2025 I brought a work session on what we want our police department to look like, and I asked it plainly. Do we want the kind of rigidity where you are pulled over for one mile an hour over, or officers who are visible where people get hurt and use judgment with our neighbors? The discussion that followed was the one I was hoping for. What I heard from my colleagues was visible enforcement on the dangerous roads, with judgment, and that is what I want too.
I pushed for a third stop sign at Boggy Ford, Highland Lakes, and Emerald. It failed the first time. Rather than let it die, I moved to table it and have staff gather traffic counts so the next vote would be on data instead of opinion.
Result
Passed 7-0
Result
Tabled 6-1
Result
Failed 3-4
Result
Tabled 6-0
Result
Passed 6-0
The Flock license plate cameras brought a packed house to City Hall this August. You asked where the data was going, who else could see it, and why the city needed to track everyone to catch a few.
You also want officers on the street, a police department that can hire and keep good people, and patrol vehicles that start.
After residents filled City Hall to talk about the Flock license plate readers, I made the motion to cancel the contract immediately and pay the termination fee, which the contract sets at $500 a camera. Council agreed unanimously. The Fourth Amendment protects you against being tracked without cause, and no one could tell us with confidence where the data was going or who else could see it.
How the contract got here bothered me as much as the cameras. It was signed in November 2022 by the city manager at the time, and it never came to council for a vote. I said on the record that executing a contract like that without the consensus of the council was a mistake, and I put the item on the agenda so council would decide in public instead of letting it ride.
That vote was not anti-police. In the same term I voted to apply for a federal COPS grant to hire an additional officer, I made the motion for the new police fleet lease, and I supported Chief Joy stepping in as Acting City Manager when the city needed him. Supporting our officers and protecting your privacy are not in conflict. Good policing does not require surveilling everyone.
Result
Passed 5-1
Result
Passed 6-0
Result
Passed unanimously
July 2025 hit Sandy Creek and our neighborhoods hard. A flash flood emergency named the city, Lake Travis surged into the flood pool, and the Cow Creek bridge is still a reminder.
The county rate went up afterward with a disaster component. You are following the drainage code modernization thread on the council forum, and you want to see it move.
I want to be honest about this one. The July 2025 floods were the worst thing to happen to this community in my time here, and my record on drainage is thinner than it should be.
I supported giving the City Manager authority to pursue Travis County emergency siren funding, and I moved a fee waiver for a family building a floodplain-elevated home on Cardinal Lane. In 2025 I was council's liaison to the Building and Standards Commission, and the assignment next to my name in the minutes was to work on drainage issues. In May 2025 council sent the draft drainage ordinance to that commission and to Planning and Zoning for review. In October I brought the commission's ordinance to council as my item, and I said plainly that one part of it was too broad, because a homeowner adding a few pavers or fixing a low spot in the yard should not need an engineer's report. Council took no action, and as of this summer it has not come back for adoption. That is not enough.
What is in place today is a directive from the City Manager, not an ordinance. In June 2025 he directed that no building permit be issued without an approved engineered drainage plan until the code is fixed, and I reported that to council in September. The ordinance I brought in October would make it the rule: a drainage study by a licensed engineer for every property, unless it sits in a development with a master drainage plan the city has already approved, the way The Hollows and Tessera do. That is the rule I want on the books.
The drainage code modernization sitting on the council forum needs to move, and I intend to be the one who moves it. It is my first priority next term.
Result
Passed 7-0
Result
Passed 5-1
Result
Passed
When meetings happen, whether you can attend, and whether council does its business in the open.
The council message board carries more than a hundred threads on the charter, the development procedure manual, remote meeting access, and the rules of procedure. You are watching the process, not just the outcomes.
You want to be able to show up after work, speak, and see the numbers online.
If you have watched a council meeting, you may have noticed that I am usually the one arguing to keep talking. When council voted on whether to cut off debate, I voted no. When council moved to start executive sessions at 3:00 in the afternoon and open meetings at 4:00, I voted no, because most people who work cannot be at City Hall at 4:00 on a Thursday, and a meeting you cannot attend is not really open.
I made the motion to send the full, unredacted weekly staffing report to council instead of a summary. I tried to hold an item until the city's 2024 financial statements were posted online, and I lost that vote 1 to 6. I proposed a one-year cooling off period before former council members could be appointed to city boards. It did not pass.
The same goes for what happens behind closed doors. When neighbors wanted the city attorney to answer questions about the Firefly Cove agreement in public, I voted to waive privilege so he could. When an ethics complaint against the mayor came to council in January 2026, I seconded the motion to take it up in open session instead of executive session, and we did.
Some of these fights I won and some I lost. I would rather lose a vote for transparency than win one by keeping you in the dark.
Result
Failed 2-5
Result
Passed 6-0
Result
Passed 6-1
Result
Passed 6-1
Result
Passed 5-2
Result
Failed 0-7
Result
Passed 5-0
Result
Passed 6-0