A conversation with former mayor Ed Tidwell

Why this conversation

0:00Ed Tidwell: Hello, Lago Vista. Former mayor Ed Tidwell here. And I don't know about y'all, but I was pretty disappointed that we didn't have a meet the candidates night this year. I mean, I know we've only got one contested race on the ballot, but, you know, it's still nice to be able to see and hear from the candidates that are running for city council. And so today I'm actually going to sit here and have a casual conversation with council member Adam Benefield. He's running for re-election and I want to know some stuff. So I'm going to have a conversation with Adam. And Adam, would you like to say something to the audience?

0:49Adam Benefield: I appreciate the opportunity. I hope you bring the hard questions today and we'll just have a frank discussion.

0:56Ed Tidwell: All right. Yeah. I don't know if I'm going to be hard. There might be some pointed questions, but it's going to be more of a conversation, really, because, you know, I want you to open up and be comfortable and let us, you know, let people see Adam. You know, a lot of people don't watch council meetings or go to council meetings and stuff. So they know you're a council member, but they don't really know Adam, who they're voting for. So, you know, I want to keep it more conversational.

1:26Adam Benefield: Okay. That's great.

1:27Ed Tidwell: However, to start, I am going to, I have to make a statement for myself.

1:33Adam Benefield: Okay.

Sergeant Carey

1:36Ed Tidwell: Recently, we lost Sergeant Carey and the public. Oh, gosh. I mean, what they, they went to City Hall to [unclear] lower flags on a Saturday night. The public was not happy with the way his, his death was handled by the police department and by the city. And I know council city employee, I know that there's like some kind of semi gag order in place or something where can't talk, but I don't know. And my opinion, it wasn't handled very, very well. My experience, whether in the military or fire department, when you have a fellow service member, officer pass away, you recognize them. You, regardless of what else is going on out there, you recognize them.

2:36Ed Tidwell: And for the fact that the PD did not put out anything for days, you know, I don't know. It just hit me really wrong that he wasn't being recognized, that Sergeant Carey wasn't being recognized. And then, you know, to, to, and the second sentence, when you do put something out there to say, oh, and by the way, he's under investigation and he was suspended. I mean, that's, to me, that's just completely unnecessary. And, you know, and then the city leaders, I know there was, what, there's no city manager, but. You know, the mayor could have came out and said something along the same line. You just recognize them. You don't need to do a whole lot going in, but you got to recognize them.

3:22Ed Tidwell: So in my mind, I, I don't think it was handled really well. And do you think what?

3:29Adam Benefield: I think that's fair criticism. And I wouldn't say that council was under a gag order per se. But what I, what I will say is this, a simple statement to an officer that had been with us for 13 years and just acknowledging his service and acknowledging his passing and acknowledging the loss of life, I think would have been very appropriate. And just leave it at that. And then, you know, give, give the community time to process and think and reflect on all the good that he's done. And to come to terms with what they were learning and be able to process that information. And I think that would have probably been the most appropriate response. And I think, I think you mentioned earlier that in the military, when you were in the Marines that, you know, do something within 24 hours, get the information out there very quickly.

4:33Adam Benefield: Be honest and transparent and say, this is what happened and let people mourn.

4:38Ed Tidwell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In my mind, you don't have to, you know, you don't have to go everywhere. Just put something. Yeah.

4:47Adam Benefield: You know, I, I think that's fair criticism. And, you know, if, if I contributed to the, you know, miscommunication, you know, I'll, I'll, you know, admit that. But, you know, what, yeah.

5:03Ed Tidwell: All right.

5:04Adam Benefield: We always try to do better. And I recognize that, that, that is a spot that the city could have probably done a little bit better.

5:12Ed Tidwell: And one thing about citizens, they'll let you know if, they'll let you know if they don't agree with you.

5:18Adam Benefield: I received many, many messages.

Turnover at City Hall

5:22Ed Tidwell: All right. Well, all right. So from there, we're going to go to the city itself.

5:27Adam Benefield: Okay.

5:28Ed Tidwell: Um, we just had an interim manager that was here for what, two, three weeks. I don't know.

5:36Adam Benefield: Two and a half weeks.

5:37Ed Tidwell: Maybe a little more. I don't know. But then on his way out, he says, God, this place is so dysfunctional. I'm out.

5:42Adam Benefield: Yeah.

5:43Ed Tidwell: You know, it just, yeah. So now you've got the citizens are like, oh God, what is going on in the city? Um, there are some natural things about city government that happen, but when they happen frequently or in a fast, you know, thing, people are thinking everything's falling apart. You know, personally, I don't think that the, um, council is naturally dysfunctional. There's just some things that happen and you got, you got to deal with them, but you know, your citizens are out there looking. Oh my God, we've had, uh, city manager that was paid off to leave. Uh, you know, what's up with that? New one comes in. There's something in the background, I guess, that people picked up on.

6:40Ed Tidwell: They're like, well, [unclear] council do a better job of this. Now he's gone. Interim comes in, stays a couple of weeks. He's gone. We had the budget thing going on.

6:49Adam Benefield: Yeah, you're right.

6:51Ed Tidwell: In August, um, in, you know, oh, and staff, city staff, department heads, how many, are there any department heads, [unclear] Zeno, Eric Zeno, still around? Is there any department heads still around from when I was the mayor, you know, other than Zeno and police department?

7:10Adam Benefield: Yeah.

7:11Ed Tidwell: God, what's up with the turnover in the police department? I mean, is it, is it just young officers finding better jobs and moving on? Is it, is there something that was under Chief Boshears's watch that is now coming to head and Chief Joy's having to deal with it or, you know, things, people, the citizens have these questions and I don't know. What do you think?

7:36Adam Benefield: Well, that's a loaded question.

7:38Ed Tidwell: There's a lot to it. I know.

7:40Adam Benefield: Um, you know, I, I think people talk about the dysfunction in the city and I, I don't think that we've had the dysfunction. For as long as maybe, you know, I've heard 10 or 15 years. I don't know if that's really the case because we've had a lot of people retire from the city. We've had institutional knowledge, you know, just look at council four or five years ago, you know, collectively you guys had 20, 30 years of experience. And in today it's, it's a handful of years, you know, I, I'm one of the most seasoned council members besides our mayor. Who's only been there three years. And so the city lacks a lot of...

8:16Ed Tidwell: Paul's leaving.

8:17Adam Benefield: And Paul's leaving. That's exactly right. That's what I'm saying. So the city lacks a lot of experience and they lack the institutional knowledge, if you will, that got us here. Um, for me, I, and I can only speak to what I know, the dysfunction started, um, about the time Tracie Hlavinka left. Um, when, when Tracie left, um, you know, there were a lot of issues in my opinion with city council. Um, it ended with, um, you know, a demand letter in which I think $210,000 was paid out, um, due to some actions from city council members. Um, then Taylor came in as an interim city manager and I think he was under a lot of pressure. I think he, he, he had a lot of pressure put on him from members of council to behave a certain way and do a certain thing.

9:13Adam Benefield: And when he left, he was very specific on why he left and those same challenges transferred over to people like Charles West and Charles West on many occasions shared concerns. And he was very vocal about what the issues were. And there was, there's just this thread amongst all of them that says, these are the problems. And, um, um, I think people like Mr. Turner who comes into distressed cities like ours, I think he saw the writing on the wall. The, the, the, the week before he left, he asked all members of council, um, a simple question. What have you done to contribute to the dysfunction of the city and what can you do to improve?

10:12Ed Tidwell: And what did you answer? How have you contributed to our dysfunction?

10:17Adam Benefield: Well, you know, so I'll answer that, but let me, let me just finish this thought here.

10:22Ed Tidwell: Excuse me, I'm drinking my coffee.

10:24Adam Benefield: No, I'm glad you are. But you know, when, when we were finished with that conversation, uh, Mr. Isaac said, I just don't think I can work for the city. And, you know, that should really put into context how that meeting went. And, uh, my, my answer was really simple is that I have reached out to certain council members. Like I went and had a meeting with the mayor and I said, look, you and I have a lot of ability to bring the city together. You and I have to learn how to work together. We have to be more cohesive with each other. And I think people have seen that. I think people in the last two or three months have seen Shane and I come together for the common good of the community and all members of council, all members of staff need to kind of have a similar conversation.

11:13Adam Benefield: And that was basically my answer is that we have to have real adult level conversations and I'll continue to do that.

11:22Ed Tidwell: Well, so, you know, what's too, gosh, I started on a board in 2010, 2010, 16 years ago. I've seen, I don't know how many city managers and interims I've seen all the way across the board from staff with Sandra Barton, our city secretary working is all, you know, to Kenneth. We had Kenneth Renault. That was a fantastic. Um, my impression with your, you know, your interims is they're mostly retired and they claim to be fixers and stuff, but they're retired.

11:57Adam Benefield: Yeah.

11:58Ed Tidwell: And they may come in and Kenneth did a great job, but then you get others that may come in and go, Ooh, wow. Why am I doing this? I'm retired. I'm out.

12:08Adam Benefield: You know, so I think that played into it and I, and, and, and not to go into details, but I also think there were some extenuating circumstances that occurred in Mr. Isaac's life that, um, happened unexpectedly. And so I think you take that unexpected event and you add the dysfunction and I think the combination of the two,

12:27Ed Tidwell: but if y'all can get an interim in there that, uh, supports council and council supports the interim, especially trying to, you know, recruit a permanent one.

12:40Adam Benefield: Yeah.

12:41Ed Tidwell: You know, you get, you need an interim that's going to, uh, he doesn't have to be the greatest interim manager fixer out there. If he doesn't know anything about what's going on and he doesn't have council support and doesn't support council, it's not going to go anywhere. So you just get, I don't know.

12:57Adam Benefield: You, you probably know this better than anybody, Ed. Um, council is there to do the legislative, legislative side of the business. The city manager is there to do more of the administrative side of the business and more of the executive side. And what I have seen is city council is mingling too much in the administrative side of the business. They, they can't get involved in the day-to-day operations. Council members need to, um, make the, make the decisions, make the policies, and then step out and allow the city manager to run the city.

13:32Ed Tidwell: Yeah, that's a whole nother long conversation.

13:34Adam Benefield: It is, but, but, but that really is that the heart of the problem.

13:40Ed Tidwell: Cool.

The police department

13:41Adam Benefield: And you asked questions about the PD. Um, you know, absolutely. We need to, you know, take a real serious look at that department. Um, we've had a lot of officers leave, um, for a lot of different reasons. And, uh, you know, I even have meetings this week to talk to Mr. Joy and to try to find out what the state of the department is and where we need to go.

14:02Ed Tidwell: Um, all right. Yeah. Um, I mean, hopefully, well, the way, the way I, drawing on my experience. So you got a new, you got council coming in in a month. Um, um, at least one new person.

14:20Adam Benefield: Yeah.

14:21Ed Tidwell: Uh, David, uh, possibly two. Um, but you know, so November's kind of, uh, you know, getting everybody caught up and ready to go. December's holiday season. Uh, things still happen, but, um, January, I'm hoping whoever has, whoever is your interim, hopefully they've come in or acting. If Chief is still doing it, um, they get, they bring some strategic plans to y'all and y'all, you know, y'all really take a look, work with whoever the city manager is and, and, and, and really start focusing on teamwork.

15:00Adam Benefield: Um, two, two, two comments there. Um, we absolutely need a game plan. Um, when, when we were interviewing Mr. Isaac, that was the, the very thing that we discussed is we have to have an annual game plan on what we're going to do. What are our goals? What's our visions? What do we want to accomplish the following year? And you know how long it takes for council members to become acclimated with what's going on, understanding our infrastructure. And it takes two years, you know, it takes two years to understand how to submit an agenda. It takes two years to figure out how to advocate for something. It takes, it just, it takes a while, you know?

15:39Adam Benefield: And, you know, you would almost say I'm at the absolute prime of my service, right? I figured it out. I understand the process. And I, I think I am in a position where I can do the absolute most good for the city. With as inexperienced as city council is, we need some people that understand the process. We need some people that can help this new city manager, whoever they may be, um, sit down to a inexperienced staff. Um, and.

16:12Ed Tidwell: You're right. Y'all got some, y'all got. It's, people don't see that.

16:16Adam Benefield: Yeah.

16:17Ed Tidwell: So, you know, now that you, you mentioned that, I can reflect, shoot. I came in, it was pretty stable as far as, I mean, it was kind of a network, a bunch of golfers, except for D.A. and Gloris. But it was stable in the fact that I was able to do three terms.

16:36Adam Benefield: Yeah.

16:37Ed Tidwell: Before you, you know, running for the mayor position. Uh, so I was able to really educate myself on this stuff and y'all are in a position where you don't necessarily have that luxury.

16:49Adam Benefield: So, yeah. Different, different leaders for different times. Um, right now the leader needs to be a builder and that's, what's most important right now is somebody that can take a crisis situation or a dysfunctional situation and improve it. And then hand it over to somebody who is somebody that can, is more of a maintainer. And I think that's where my experience in business and business leadership is most applicable.

Hotel tax and the Chamber

17:14Ed Tidwell: Awesome. So, let's just transition now. Budget.

17:21Adam Benefield: Okay.

17:22Ed Tidwell: We just, we just got it approved. September 1st went into effect.

17:26Adam Benefield: Yeah. No, October 1st went into effect.

17:27Ed Tidwell: September 30th. Um, you know, what I'm not even, I don't even know where to, where to start and ask, but tell us your take on the budget, uh, process, the rate and, and the HOT funds, revenues. Uh, I mean, Alison Sargent, who's head of the chamber is on the board of directors with me, uh, Lake Travis Music Theater, you know, and I know her frustration that's been coming out. And so if you don't mind, while you're, you know, budget, the HOT, that's part of the budget. So.

18:13Adam Benefield: No, it's definitely part of the budget, and, you know, the advice that we've received unequivocally is that in order to properly fund the chamber, we need a couple of things in place. We need an operating contract. We need service contracts and we need a good checklist or a method in which to reimburse them for qualifying events. Um, so I've been working with Justin and Alison the last couple of weeks, we finally have a operating agreement that both sides have agreed to. We just need to put a dollar value in there. So we're going to have that discussion, this upcoming city council meeting. Um, so I anticipate that the visitor center will receive some level of funding.

18:57Adam Benefield: How much I don't know, but they'll receive some level of funding that meets their needs. Um, additionally, there'll be a service contract in place. They host other events that may don't, maybe don't qualify for those HOT funds, like meet the candidates or state of the city addresses. So having a service contract in there that can reimburse them for those expenses. And then really maybe the element that they've struggled with the most is a process to receive reimbursements for qualifying events, meaning they've actually hosted the events, but then never received the reimbursements. So a good example of this is their event coming up in November, Brews and Balloons.

19:34Adam Benefield: They have already submitted $42,000 worth of receipts and I've gotten, uh, initial approval for about 31,000 of those receipts, assuming that council approves it. So I think all of those things are steps in the right direction for the chamber. I expect this Thursday, the chamber to be in a really good situation.

19:54Ed Tidwell: Yeah. HOT funds is it's, that's, I don't know. It's a, it's a weird revenue source.

20:00Adam Benefield: It is.

20:01Ed Tidwell: And yeah, I mean, it would be so cool if we had a hotel actual, you know, um, we've tried for years, suppose that we can support 2.3 hotels, but we don't have one.

20:17Adam Benefield: And we did just approve the hotel Indigo there on Boggy and, uh, it should be coming in the next four to five years. But you're right. HOT funds can only be used for events that bring tourism to the city of Lago Vista, not just for the day, but actually for overnight stays. And that's kind of the element that we have to look at.

The budget and the tax rate

20:38Adam Benefield: But, but to answer your question about the budget, um, you know, our, our current rate was 0.42 and it was advised that we increase that to 0.452 and, um, the process started too late. And then we were coming into the budget season, a little behind schedule. And then at the worst possible time, Mr. West turned in his resignation. It could not have been worse timing. So we, we came into this ill-prepared and there really were two philosophies, you know, philosophy number one, which is, um, let's save the citizens as much as possible. Let's tighten our belts. Let's reduce spending. And option two was increasing that rate about a hundred dollars per home.

21:29Adam Benefield: And it was a very, you know, contested discussion. And some of the contest was over the tax increase, which I was against, but it was also against the process and which got us there. I'll give you an example. The, uh, the budget doesn't have a, a report in there, a CIP report that says these are our expenses over the next five years that addresses infrastructure. And so those are, those are some of the reasons I objected.

21:54Ed Tidwell: Wow.

21:57Adam Benefield: Yeah. You got to have a short range, mid range, long range strategic plan.

22:05Ed Tidwell: Well, and I, I don't, you know, uh, when I left office, I'm not one of those that sticks around and comes to every meeting and has to have an opinion and pretends like I'm still there. You know, if the citizens like somebody else, okay, they're, they're, they're, they're looking to move on.

22:24Adam Benefield: So that's right.

22:26Ed Tidwell: But one thing that gets me is the master plan. How can a city operate without a master plan?

22:37Adam Benefield: Yeah.

22:38Ed Tidwell: You know, it's, you don't, you never stay exactly online because things change.

22:44Adam Benefield: That's right.

22:45Ed Tidwell: But you got to have, that's where your one, three and, and 15 year plans are is in your master. And then you've adjusted in your budget CIPs every year. And I, I, I don't see how they, you know, we're on what? Year 11, 10 of a 15 year plan. It should have been done four years ago, which we started, but I don't know.

23:10Adam Benefield: Well, and the, and the part of the problem is we can't, we don't get good information and I, there's no, there's no finger pointing there, but I've heard that like our water system, we're at 50% capacity. And then I've heard that we're 85%. You know, it's very hard to predict what's going to happen over the next five or 10 years unless we know where we're at. And so that's part of the reasons a CIP, CIP report wasn't generated to my level of satisfaction. They wanted to bring in more engineers, get more reports. And, uh, I get it, but it's a moving target, right? We have to have something out there and I, I didn't like the process. So I voted against it.

23:48Ed Tidwell: Yeah. The, yeah. Capacity and infrastructure. That's weird. Cause three years ago, supposedly we were falling apart and, you know, that was a hit that I took. And then, oh, we're 90 something percent. And, and yeah. And here we are three years later. And yeah, the last thing I saw was 84%. So how did we go down?

24:11Adam Benefield: And I've actually seen 60%. And, and some of that is based on where we are measuring our water at. One pond says this, another pond says that. And so we're getting conflicting information and how do we zoom in on that and get the correct answers?

Why two more years

24:29Ed Tidwell: All right. So, uh, you've, I mean, you've already touched on a lot of this already. Um, you know, two years, uh, why you want to stick around? You know, I was, that was going to be my next thought was, you know, why, why, you know, cause there's, there's a lot of people that they'll come in and it's not for them and they're out or, you know, it's not uncommon to see some people in and out in two years. And then you've got some that like me that are just nuts and stick around for 12 years, you know? Um, so you've, you've got two years under, you've learned some stuff. Um, what's, what's, what's on Adam's list going forward?

25:15Adam Benefield: Yeah, I, I'd like two more years, two more years to stable the ship. Um, I, I'm not 12 years. I mean, the level of service that you and others have committed to is just unbelievable. Um, I, I, I'm a, I'm probably a two more year kind of guy, maybe, maybe four more years, but I think two years is probably where I line out. Um, I think the why is I just haven't finished what I set out to accomplish and I didn't realize how unstable things were, but it really is going to take two more years to find the right city manager to calm the nerves that people are feeling at City Hall. And, um, I need to be there for a part of that. I need to, uh, I, I have the most knowledge on city council about our infrastructure, um, about the irrigation system at the golf course.

26:07Adam Benefield: These are real projects that we're going to talk about over the next two years that requires real experience. And if, in my opinion, if I can get past the next two years, get a good city manager in place, um, get good infrastructure forecasting outlooks out there, then, uh, I feel like I've done a good job.

26:29Ed Tidwell: All right. Yeah. Um, just my experience in this situation, um, you're a little bit ahead, but Josh Ray left in January. Gosh, I always wanted, I always wanted to start a budget process in like March. We do our strategic planning in February, uh, start budget March, hopefully, uh, hopefully not having a permanent city manager and, and when budget cycle get here fast, July could, we'll get here.

27:04Adam Benefield: It happens fast.

27:05Ed Tidwell: You think it's forever, but it's not. Um, I'm hoping for y'all's sake that all these infrastructure CIP projects are not delayed again because you don't have the leadership on the staff side to, to get those things done. So, uh, that's something I'm hoping y'all, y'all have.

27:28Adam Benefield: It's a real concern. And, uh, you know, I think, I think, uh, Chief Joy is looking into that. I think he is looking at outsourcing some of those, um, you know, to Freese and Nichols and to other organizations that can help make sure that we're forecasting appropriately.

27:45Ed Tidwell: God, that's almost outsourcing. Although you say that and I've, we've done it a lot of times when I, but you hear that word, you can think, you hear the cash register.

27:58Adam Benefield: We just don't have the, uh, we just don't have the experience.

28:02Ed Tidwell: That's true.

28:03Adam Benefield: Um, you know, some of the, some of the individuals like our development services director and others, you know, aren't with us anymore. And it just, we, we don't have a choice.

28:14Ed Tidwell: Well, outside your city manager, not now, no, not your service, not your police, fire, EMS kind of guys, but yeah. And inside your city, a city engineer and a city planner. If you don't have those three...

28:25Adam Benefield: You're right.

28:26Ed Tidwell: Yeah. You can have all the greatest, you know, accountants and HR people and, but your city engineer, city planner, city manager, you got to have those three.

28:38Adam Benefield: Those are the three greatest weaknesses that we have right now.

28:43Ed Tidwell: Yeah, I agree. I got one last thing.

28:48Adam Benefield: Okay.

Five years from now

28:51Ed Tidwell: What is, so you say two years?

28:53Adam Benefield: Yes.

28:54Ed Tidwell: What? So this may be stretching. I was, I wanted to know like a five, five year vision. Okay. You know, uh, when I started doing the mayor stuff, I had it. I had a vision because I know things take forever. Like getting a streetlight in Bar K.

29:10Adam Benefield: Yeah.

29:11Ed Tidwell: Dude. I started on that. 2017, me and some of the citizens, we tried to get, um, traffic light there for years. They'd tell us, oh, well, you know, planning takes this long and then we got to get right away. And then I said, yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe five years. Well, sure enough, here we are. Eight years later, we finally get a traffic light.

29:37Adam Benefield: You're right. It takes time.

29:38Ed Tidwell: So my vision, gosh, Dawn Drive, I still think that could be a great retail downtown and some of the other city services, you know, center, rec center, civic center, I don't know, things, but I had a, you know, vision. Do you have a big vision of Lago five years from now?

30:02Adam Benefield: Well, I think the biggest vision Lago needs to, yes, I mean, Lago needs to be, in my opinion, a tourist based city. Um, you know, I think the citizens have been very clear that they don't want us chopping down all the trees. Um, they're concerned about our water. They're concerned about our infrastructure. And so unless individual homeowners are going to flip the bill for all these expenses with higher taxes, then we have to generate these things through tourism and everything that we do has to be come eat our food, stay the night, enjoy Lago Vista. It's time to leave, you know, and so, and that needs to be our mindset. We need to, we need to look back five years from now and say, we are a, a beautiful community

30:52Adam Benefield: that invites anybody and everybody for the weekend. And we'd love to have you. And, you know, and so, you know, five years from now, that's really what I'd like to see. I'd like to see our city have a very strong tourism economy, events being held on a regular basis. I was just talking to one individual that they're wanting to host a month long Christmas event. And, and I love the thought of that, you know, setting up right after Thanksgiving and having a, a, a Christmas wonderland, if you will. And I love those kinds of ideas. I love the Brews and Balloons. I, you know, these types of things will attract the income that we need so we can keep taxes

31:30Adam Benefield: low, but then do the infrastructure improvements like what you talked about on Dawn Drive.

Lakeside and the early 2000s

31:37Ed Tidwell: Yeah, I, man, that would be fantastic. Lago started in the sixties as a golf resort community. Um, but then life happened, the eighties, you know, I, you know, that's when they decided to become a city, uh, things changed, you know, look at the early two thousands, uh, the economy out here was such that the council at the time bought into everything. And now 20 years later, you see these subdivisions, I mean, you see them, uh, gosh, Lakeside, nobody in their right mind would have ever agreed to clear cutting these days.

32:25Adam Benefield: You're right.

32:26Ed Tidwell: But in 2007?

32:27Adam Benefield: It sounded like a good idea.

32:29Ed Tidwell: They needed money, you know, uh, I don't know what they, what people thought. Of course it was probably what, uh, 2,000, 2,500 people. So I moved here in '95, I didn't really pay attention to what the government was doing in 05, but we were only about 2,500, 3,000 people, you know?

32:50Adam Benefield: Yeah. The situation with Lakeside, you know, I mean, to your point, 2007 city council likely saw the money, um, you know, they got into agreements that, you know, looking back, the homeowners are now, you know, paying the consequences of those, um, you know, many people with their PID agreements and their amenities, they're frustrated. And, you know, that, that's, I think where good council leadership comes into play. You know, you gotta be able to ask the hard questions. You gotta dive deep into these. I like what one, uh, one person told me at the last city council meeting, you don't know what you don't know. And it's our job to find out before we approve what we don't know.

33:35Adam Benefield: And cause these people are smart. They know how to bury the details.

What you don't know

33:40Ed Tidwell: Yeah. I would just, it reminds me of funny story. It, yeah. What you don't know. So August of '23, what happens? Freshwater mussel, fresh water sponges clogged our intake system.

33:55Adam Benefield: I remember that.

33:56Ed Tidwell: Who in the world, this was asked on social media. Somebody asked me, you know, I brought this up. I was like, who in the world? I didn't even know we grew fresh water mussel, uh, sponges in Lake Travis. I've seen shrimp, I've seen, but never sponge.

34:09Adam Benefield: Yeah.

34:10Ed Tidwell: And to clog our intake, you know, and then, oh, when it all, you know, we start working on it and then we find out that the barge that everything's sitting on, it's all hooked up by temporary wiring. That's not up to, that was done 10 or 12 years ago that you didn't know that staff didn't know about, you know, what you don't know.

34:35Adam Benefield: No, it's, it's true.

34:37Ed Tidwell: And it's like, and that, you know, that can do a lot of damage. You gotta be, yeah, you guys somehow get on top of everything, but it's harder than you think.

34:49Adam Benefield: Yeah. We, we only have access to so much knowledge, but as we get that knowledge, having, you know, having the knowledge and information to make those decisions, I think is important. And to your point, when, when it came to you and you're like, these things are clogging and it's temporary, you're, you're, you're like, how have we been doing this for all that long? And we need to fix this. And I think that's kind of the role of council is to, you know, have the experience and expertise to figure it out, let staff make a proposal and you go through the details.

35:20Ed Tidwell: Cool. All right. Well, that's all I got, Adam.

Who I am

35:23Adam Benefield: Well, I did want to say one more thing.

35:25Ed Tidwell: Sure.

35:26Adam Benefield: I hope you don't mind.

35:27Ed Tidwell: I was going to open it up to you.

35:28Adam Benefield: You know, it's interesting. I get asked a lot about my personality, you know, um...

35:32Ed Tidwell: Yeah, I've seen that on, yeah.

35:35Adam Benefield: You know, it's one of those things for me, I've owned a business for geez, almost 25 years now. Um, I think if you want to know somebody's personality, there's, there's a couple of places you can look, uh, one, look at their family. I've been married for 28 years. And if you, if you know my children, they are the nicest, kindest, most loving people you will ever meet. Um, if you look at my employees, I've had people working with me for 17, 18, 20 years. And you get that kind of product because these people are in good, kind, loving environments. And you, we're all creatures of our environment. And if you raise your children in light and love and kindness, generally speaking, they

36:40Adam Benefield: will produce light and kindness. And so I just want to say to anybody that ever questions who I am or what I stand for. Yes, I do ask the hard questions. Yes, I do dig deep. I don't tolerate shenanigans, but, um, if you look at the fruit around my life, I have very kind, loving people around me every single day. And so I just don't give those people the credence to dictate who I am because I look at who's around me.

37:14Ed Tidwell: Fair enough. Um, yeah, I've, again, gosh, 11 years. How many different council members? 20 something?

37:24Adam Benefield: Yeah, exactly.

37:26Ed Tidwell: I've seen, I've seen a spectrum of, you know, people that did nothing. People that turned beet red and, and, you know, saw, uh, you know, a council member that literally we were looking at annexing their property and the council members like, dude, I don't, I don't care what you think because you can't vote, but yet we're going to take this guy's property and the annexation, you know? Um, so for me, you know, you gotta, you gotta understand the person, the personality, and, and, And work with them. You know, there's been some that rubbed me the wrong way all the time, you know, and they weren't even necessarily a passionate person. It's just, it's just a thing. But yeah, each, each person is going to have a different personality.

38:30Ed Tidwell: Doesn't mean, I don't know. To me, it doesn't mean they're a bad person.

38:38Adam Benefield: It doesn't. But you know, honestly, uh, Mayor, I, I appreciate this open forum. You know, uh, your, your more than decades of experience is, is amazing. And you know, if we had more opportunities to have these kind of discussions, I think the citizens would appreciate that. I think they would like to understand the issues. You know, today we're kind of talking about, you know, this, a very surface of issues, but if we ever did this again, I'd like to just have one central focus and really dig deep into those issues.

Other candidates invited

39:07Ed Tidwell: Yeah, you probably should have started a couple months ago.

39:09Adam Benefield: Yeah, no, you're right.

39:10Ed Tidwell: You got an election in what, three weeks?

39:12Adam Benefield: Three weeks.

39:13Ed Tidwell: Yeah, November 3rd. I am going to throw this out there, though. There's other candidates out there, and if they would like to sit down and have a conversation with me, I'm open to that as well.

39:23Adam Benefield: I think that would be great, you know.

39:25Ed Tidwell: Um, yeah, yeah, because I don't know anything about them either. At least you've been around. Well, I know Norma. I know Norma pretty well. Um, you've been around for a couple years, so I know a little bit about you and, and stuff. But the others, David, uh, your opponent, Arminae, I know nothing about them. I don't know if the citizens know anything about them. So, you know, I, I'd give them the same opportunity.

39:48Adam Benefield: I, I would welcome that.

39:50Ed Tidwell: Cool. All right.

39:51Adam Benefield: Well, thank you for your time, sir.

39:53Ed Tidwell: Thank you. Yeah, it was good. I mean, like I say, we didn't get to meet the candidates, so.

39:59Adam Benefield: Yeah, it's great.

40:00Ed Tidwell: All right, thanks.

40:01Adam Benefield: Yep.