A Letter to My Neighbors

What you told us you care about

Over the last three years, Lago Vista residents have been remarkably consistent about what worries them. It shows up in council meeting comments, in the council message board, in the news, and in the neighborhood groups where you talk to each other. The list looks like this.

• Growth, and who pays for it. Tessera is the sharpest example. Some homeowners there are paying 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.
• Water. Outages, boil water notices, wastewater capacity, and what LCRA does with Lake Travis.
• Taxes. A balanced budget with the lowest possible rate that keeps the city working.
• Traffic. FM 1431 and Lohman Ford, crashes, closures, and getting kids to school safely.
• Public safety and privacy. The Flock license plate cameras brought a packed house to City Hall this August.
• Flooding and drainage. July 2025 hit Sandy Creek and our neighborhoods hard, and the Cow Creek bridge is still a reminder.
• Transparency. When meetings happen, whether you can attend, and whether council does its business in the open.

I want to take those one at a time and show you what I actually did about each of them. Not what I said I would do. What the minutes show.

Growth on our terms

I am not against growth. Lago Vista grew from about 8,900 people in 2020 to about 10,200 in 2025, and that is going to continue whether the council likes it or not. The question is not whether we grow. The question is whether we grow on the developer's terms or on ours.

My answer, every time, has been ours. Here is what that looked like in practice.

Firefly Cove

In late 2024 a developer asked the city to consent to a Municipal Utility District for a project called Firefly Cove. I could have voted no and let it move forward somewhere else with fewer strings attached, or I could make sure that if it happened, Lago Vista residents came out ahead. I chose the second path, and I made the motion myself so I could write the conditions.

Those conditions included $1.8 million toward our wastewater system, roughly $600,000 toward roads, a contribution toward upgrading our water plant, the developer paying the city's legal fees, and a promise that pickleball courts, trails, and lake access built inside the project would be open to Lago Vista residents, not just the people who buy there. I also required that the money be paid up front at the first bond, not promised for some future date, and that Draper Cove would not be annexed as part of the deal. The people who buy in Firefly Cove will pay the district's assessments, the way every utility district works. The difference from Tessera is that a utility district is regulated by the State of Texas through TCEQ, every buyer gets a written notice of its taxes and debt before closing, and the amenities stay with the homeowners' association with access for Lago Vista residents guaranteed in the agreement.

Two of my colleagues voted against the final agreement. I understand why some of my neighbors in Draper's Cove were not happy, and I take that seriously. But I would rather negotiate a hard deal that puts real dollars into your water system than cast a protest vote and watch the project happen anyway on someone else's terms.

Saying no when the answer is no

In March 2025 a developer outside the city limits asked to hook a new project up to our water and sewer. I made the motion to deny it, and council agreed unanimously. If you are not paying Lago Vista taxes and following Lago Vista rules, you do not get to use Lago Vista utilities.

When commercial rezones came up on Lohman Ford, I moved to approve them with one condition written in. No storage facilities and no gas stations. When a property on Boggy Ford Road wanted a planned development designation, I moved to approve it with conditions attached. I voted for a new Growth Management chapter in our code that tightens what developers have to submit before they can rezone or plat.

Tessera

I cannot undo the Tessera PID. It was created before I was on council. What I could do was make sure the next buyer knows what they are getting into. When the PID service plan came up for its annual update in August 2025, I seconded the motion that added a purchaser notice and required the plan to be posted on the city website. It is a small thing, but it is the thing that people who live in Tessera told me they wished someone had done for them.

Water

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. When drought rules called for Stage 2 watering restrictions, I voted to put them in place, I voted to keep them in place when some wanted to lift them early, and I made the motion to end them when the plan said we could.

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. When the irrigation contract was finally awarded this January, I made sure the subcommittee reviews it before the City Manager signs.

You may hear that I voted against water funding. Here is the full story. In June 2025 staff brought a mid-year budget amendment to fund the effluent disposal ponds, about $3.5 million. I supported the project. I did not support paying for half of it out of the utility reserve, which is the money that covers you when a main breaks, before bond counsel had confirmed the bond funds could be used. I was the only no vote. The project moved forward. I still think the financing question deserved a better answer than it got.

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.

Your taxes

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. In 2025 I voted for it when it passed 4 to 3. This August I made the motion to set the no new revenue rate as the ceiling for the 2027 budget, and it passed unanimously.

You may also hear that I voted against a lower rate. That is true. On the same night in September 2025, a motion for a $0.42 rate came up first. I voted no 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. I tabled a police vehicle purchase so we could look at leasing instead, and the lease we ended up with replaced an aging fleet, added three units, and included an annual report to council. I tabled a $193,000 golf equipment lease and a $217,000 mapping contract until staff could walk us through them. I voted against mid-year budget amendments that did not come with offsetting cuts. I was the only no vote on the Pedernales Electric franchise because the 4 percent fee is a charge that shows up on your electric bill without ever being called a tax, and I believe you should at least know it is there.

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.

Traffic and safety on our roads

I made the motion to set the speed limit on Lohman Ford Road, and it passed unanimously. 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.

I pushed for a third stop sign at Boggy Ford, Highland Lakes, and Emerald. It failed 3 to 4 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. I also brought forward the question of stray golf balls landing on the pickleball courts, because safety is not only about cars.

Flock cameras and your privacy

In August, 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. Council agreed unanimously. My reasons were simple. 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. Until the state gives clearer guidance, I would rather Lago Vista err on the side of your privacy.

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.

Flooding and drainage

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. That is not enough. The drainage code modernization sitting on the council forum needs to move, and I intend to be the one who moves it.

Doing the people's business in the open

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 require quarterly reports on vacancies and hiring. 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. I moved the rewrite of council's Rules of Procedure this May, and it did pass, 6 to 0.

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.

The short version

Here is how my record lines up with what you told us matters most.

What I am asking

I am asking for two more years. Not because I have been here a long time, and not because I always get my way at the dais. I am asking because the record above is what I will keep doing. Read the contract before we sign it. Make the developer pay, not you. Keep the meeting open. Tell you the truth when the answer is complicated.

If that is the kind of council member you want in Place 2, I would be honored to have your vote on November 3. If you want to talk about anything in this letter, find me. I am not hard to find.