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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLorence Bravenac TranscriptionCity of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: Lorence Bravenac Interviewer: Unknown Place: College Station, Texas Project: Mayors and City Council Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt Interviewer: Okay good. Tell me about your most vivid memory when you were on the campaign trail. 00:14: Lorence Bravenac (LB): Well I guess the most vivid memory is when I first ran for mayor. And you have to understand a lot of the personalities involved. There was a fellow by the name of (Andy Anderson?) who was mayor a couple of terms before me. And he had to leave the position as mayor because a, at that time you couldn’t w-work for the state and hold a local office, even though it didn’t pay anything. But Andy couldn’t to be involved in politics and there really were two factions in the city at the time. There was Andy Anderson kind of led a homeowner’s faction and Joe Sawyer, the president of University National Bank, sort of led, led the business person’s faction. But really the most important people in the business person’s faction were developers. And so Andy left the council. And at the time I ran for mayor, there was a young man by the name of Bob Bell who almost got elected mayor two years before. And it was expected that he would run again, but in the meantime, Bob Bell went to work for University National Bank, which was Joe Sawyer’s bank. And Andy was determined to keep Bob Bell from being mayor. So Andy asked a lot of people to run and I was the only one who said, “Well, you know, I’ll do it.” I was here only five years at the time I did it. And Andy organized kind of a house party where ten of his friends, ten couples, in turn got, each got ten couples, so we had over two hundred people show up for this house party. And at that time maybe five hundred to a thousand people voted. And that was very impressive you see. And what, what happened next was just kind of I don’t know, I, I never expected it. At the last minute Bob Bell got nervous and pulled out of the mayor’s race and ran instead for the city council position. And, and that was thirty minutes before the filing deadline. So I walked into the mayor’s office unopposed. I: My goodness. 02:55: LB: Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was that lucky all the way through in politics and, and when I ran for reelection, I had a student run against me and students just don’t do well in those races. I was, I was thinking over my political career which was just everything fell into place. Everything fell into place. We had some great issues and we, we prevailed in those issues. And I couldn’t ask for a better four years. And somewhere in there is you know, they ask you, “Well what’s the thing you’re most proud of?” Well in my case, I recruited Gary Halter to run for the council and I recruited Larry Ringer to run for the council. I recruited (Bob Reynolds?) to run for the council and several others. And that’s really the best thing I ever did for the city. Because, because these, these people were just excellent council people. And as a matter of fact, there I was in 1980 with what I considered to be just a lot of luck and the issues that were, we faced and handled and I think I could have been mayor for life at that time. But, but I, I, I didn’t think it was fair that I denied these other people the chance to run for mayor. So at four years I just gave it up. You know I, I remember I was given some very good advice by Dick Hervey, a former mayor, and I decided I’m going to follow that advice mainly because I’ve got people, good people following me. And his advice was, “When everybody’s happy, quit.” I: What a wonderful piece of advice. 04:48: LB: Yes, that way, that way you don’t leave where they’re mad at you or, or you’re not kicked out of office. Because you know, after all mayors or any city position is not paid and you have to have a certain love for the city or maybe an ax to grind, so why be mayor for life? I: Let me ask you about something else. You know there’s a saying that all politics is local. Would you say that city politics is different today from when it was that you were mayor? 05:28: LB: Well it’s still local right? I: Well it’s still local. 05:31: LB: But, but the, the, one of the things that’s changed is that money has entered into the picture. When I ran for office three times, or actually four times because when I went in the first time, it was an incomplete term. When I ran for office those four times, I don’t think I spent more than thirty or forty dollars to be elected each time. And I think I got one contribution. I had the, I, I just told people I didn’t want money. But there was a fellow by the name of Clint, oh he was the finance department chair and he was such a fine person, so he sent me a ten dollar check and I decided, “This one I’m not gonna turn back.” But everything else I did not take, I did not ask for it. I, I don’t, I never got a free meal out of being mayor. Never. Someone want to take me for lunch and one time I even made somebody mad because I wouldn’t take it. And the University National Bank used to take the council and the members of the school board to Houston for an athletic event and (name?) and I were the only ones who broke that tradition. And I don’t think they, they did it after that because we just didn’t want any sort of ties. I: What, how would you characterize your relationship with the members of the city council during the time you were mayor? 07:13: LB: Well the first year, then when I was mayor, oh very good. It was very good. We settled the basic issues about who would run the city. I mean it was not me, it was just kind of the basically the homeowner’s group took over. And we, we, we had such capable people like Gary Halter, Larry Ringer, and Jim Dosher and Jim Gardner and, and Anne Hazen came onto the council. And it was, it was a very pleasant experience for me. We didn’t have any factions, we just, we were too busy fighting the city of Bryan. [chuckles] And working for some other things. I: That leads me into the next thing I wanted to ask you about. The relationship between the city of College Station and the city of Bryan has been up and has been down. Would you talk about what kind of relationship there was during the time of your tenure? 08:24: LB: Well look. It, it, it turned stormy pretty quickly because they were having budge problems and they proposed a rate schedule which basically told us that they were gonna meet their budget problems by charging us more for electricity. And we got into an argument with them and we, over that. And we, we tried to go to Gulf States and then they sued to prevent us from going to Gulf States utility. And we also got into a lawsuit over whether we could extend our service to newly annexed areas. These lawsuits were before the Public Utility Commission and we beat them. We beat them badly. We won both lawsuits and they just kind of gave up. And I think it was, we just, we were very fortunate in the law firm we hired because they had a young man by the name of (Larry Basillica?) who worked for the P.U.C. for about three or four years and he just knew how to get things done there. So we beat them. And that, that was, aside from that, it was fairly friendly relationship. But you know, you, you, if you get sued by somebody it’s, it doesn’t you know, it doesn’t make a good friendship. But we beat them. We were able to get Gulf States. We, we basically created a utility’s system when I was mayor. And the, oh I forgot to mention North Bardell, the city manager was a civil engineer so he was just really perfect for being city manager during this time when you’re creating a utility’s system. And this utility system was water and electricity mainly, but we did some, we did some things with sewage because the city of Bryan kicked us off their sewage treatment plan for the Northgate area. We, as a result, we had to create a new sewage line and then pump the sewage uphill from that creek that runs out of (Hensel Park?) we, and pumped it to the top of the hill where then it can flow by gravity down the hill along that area around University Drive. Yeah, it was, I was really mayor at the right time because we had the city behind us, or the citizens behind us, and everything turned out just fine. Another thing we did at that time was that the local ambulance service was out of funeral homes. Now you explain that. It just, it’s just one of those historical things. And the, the funeral homes were losing money so all the sudden, they dropped their ambulance service. And I don’t remember what the city of Bryan did, but we determined that we’re gonna have the fire department run it. We’re not gonna have a bunch of separate ambulance company. We’re gonna let the city of Bryan do it. We’re gonna cross train the firemen and the ambulance people so they could perform either function. And we were particularly interested in just getting firemen because we figured that they would be, how would you say it? More gentle with people in taking them into the ambulance. They wouldn’t be calloused. They would sort of hurt with the people they took care of. And I think that was a good decision and we still run that kind of service and as a matter of fact, toward the end of my career as mayor, the city of Bryan wanted to piggyback onto that system. I think they wanted to move the ambulance over into Bryan you know, on, on the Bryan side of the, they had a fire station maybe about a mile from the city border. And, but we didn’t, we figured you know, we’ve, we got what we like and we like what we’ve got. So no sense in messing it up. And I’ll be willing to bet that people today still are proud of that ambulance service. I: Talk a little bit if you would, about the relationship between the city and the university. 13:41: LB: Well now look, the university used to, they used to have a fire department that serviced the city. They had a water service that serviced the city. What else? They were really you know, the, the city just kind of was just barely around col-, the university and, and they did everything for us. I: In the beginning, it was essentially the university providing city services and then as time went on, it became separate and independent. So that too has the potential of making a difficult relationship between the city and the university. Was there any friction? 14:30: LB: No, no not during my tenure. Now I don’t know, we, we took over the, the, the fire service during my tenure, we, as I recall. It might have been when I was just a council person. But we took that over. We provided ambulance service for a while. And then somebody bought the university an ambulance and they decided they’re going to put their pre-medical students in it. And basically we, we, we didn’t quite know how to handle that because of the 9/11 problem and what have you. We didn’t want two ambulances chasing after the same business. But we resolved that amicably. At that time as I recall, they just serviced the campus and we serviced off campus. When we got into this utility battle with the city of Bryan, they wanted us off their water system as soon as possible, and we, we got water from the university for about two years until we completed a, a water line from some wells about seven miles away. And that brings up another matter, although you didn’t ask me, if, is was there anything that went wrong. And what, the one thing that I regret is that we didn’t, we couldn’t move faster on these projects like to build a waterline and what have you. ‘Cause, ‘cause, with a, about a two year delay, that was a bad time of inflation and so we had to pay more than we were originally estimated. And what we could have done was just hire another civil engineer. But, but we weren’t, we weren’t that far looking. I: Tell me, are there any special issues around being the mayor in a university town? 16:30: LB: No, I don’t think so. The, the chamber of commerce was a little displeased with me because I wouldn’t make all of the openings. But I don’t, I, I, never had any problems in my relationship with the university. No, there was a, the fellow (Howard Vestile?) who was in charge of the physical plant at that time, he, he was very accommodating. And he got along very well with North Bardell. So maybe there’s something that’s come up lately, but I’m not aware of it. I: Let’s talk about growth for a minute. It, that is critical to an expanding tax base, how did services continue to expand under your tenure? 17:23: LB: Well they just did. I: They just did. 17:24: LB: Yeah. We had bond issues. Now you know, you talk about the expanding tax base, that’s, that’s misleading because as, as the, as they get more development, then you have to create new services. You know, you expand the sewage treatment plants, you build new water lines, you put in new water towers. And that costs money. Now who pays for it? It’s not paid for exclusively by those new homes. It’s paid for everybody. So here, you know, say I’ve been in this town since 1971. I’ve been paying city taxes not just for the stuff that, that benefited me originally, but I’ve been paying it for things that benefit the new people as well. Which I don’t object to, but there, there’s been only way that we really put the costs of growth on new residencies and that’s with the Park Land Dedication Ordinance, which was passed during my administration by the way. I: That’s, I appreciate your raising that because one of the things we want to talk about was the development of the, the city parks. So can you tell us about how that came about? 18:56: LB: Well, we had the Park Land Dedication Ordinance and some people were very accommodating with us like (Bill Fitchall?) was. We had, we went out and purchased I think through bond funds what’s now called Central Park. And I don’t know, I don’t know how they got a hold of Lick Creek. I imagine they did with bond funds also. But we have a very nice park system in College Station. We, we, we had this hotel/motel tax which I still am ambivalent about because it’s, it’s taxes paid by people who don’t live in the city. They, they have no vote on whether they want to pay that tax, but we’ve done marvelous things with that tax. We’ve supported the arts with it and made this, especially the arts, and made this a very desirable city. I: Were there preservation efforts during your tenure to mark any historical buildings in the city? 20:15: LB: Well those original professors’ houses that were on campus, they were all marked. I don’t know whether that was during my time or after time, I think it was during my time. But we, we sold old city hall. That was not during my time. That was not during my time. And then, then we cleared those houses, but not during my time again. We cleared those houses behind city hall and acquired that half of the block. And I was, I suggested to them that they preserve (Andy Anderson’s?) house because it was really, it was built in the thirties and it represented a, a lot of houses in the, you know, in the, in the, the, in the, in the city. And it would have been a great house I think for out, to move out to Central Park and use it administration house. But they didn’t listen to me. They haven’t listened to me very well ever since I left office. [chuckles] I: What about the library system? 21:36: LB: Well that was, what, what we did there was basically support the Bryan city library during my term. And they, I think it was during Larry Ringer’s term that they built this addition here. And I don’t know what their precise relationship is with the city of Bryan library now. I sus-, I, I’m sure they cooperate very well. But I, I don’t even know whether we, whether they hire our people or what. I just know it’s there and I like it. I: Was there any interest during your tenure in promoting historic tourism? 22:21: LB: Now look [chuckle] I don’t think in anybody’s term, ‘cause they got rid of the old College Station you know, railway station. They, the only thing I think that they did when I was on the council was put those plaques on those old houses. And I’m surprised that those house, old houses survived. It’s not that, that, look when, when, when I came in, we were a young city. We were a young city. When I was mayor, every mayor of the city except the very first mayor who died in office, was still alive. And that was, I think maybe seven people, I’d have to, have to use two hands. I wouldn’t have to take off my shoes to count past ten, but you know that, that was pretty good. And they were all fine people. I met, I think, I think his la-, family name is Holleman. Yeah, Ernest Holleman. Dean of the College of Architecture and what a fine gentleman. And then I met the, the (Anderson?) that was, the first (Anderson?) that was mayor. He lived just on the right of the ci-, city limits with Bryan. And his son, a eye doctor, lived on (Rosemary?) and the father and the son had you know, houses that backed up to each other. And he was a fine person, that old man. I think his name was (Frank Anderson?) if my memory serves me correctly. I: You’ve spoken a great deal about Bryan, about College Station, but you haven’t mentioned the relationship between the city of College Station and Brazos County. Do you have anything you’d like to tell us a-about your, your thoughts about that relationship? 24:29: LB: Well hold on. When, when I was mayor, we were just kind of a little suburb of Bryan. And it, the cities have moved into (equality?) since. We did have one county commissioner, (Bill Cooley?), who did a very good job of looking out for us. But it’s you know, we have all these county facilities that are located in Bryan. And I guess if they have four out of the five members of the commissioner’s court, that’s gonna happen that way. Now I don’t know, I don’t know what’s happened over the last twenty years, but I don’t think that, I, I think that they still locate all the facilities in, in Bryan. And there was a movement at one time to have, have a local officer here in College Station, which they’ve never done and maybe they should do. But I think the dirty secret behind that local office is that a lot of tax revenues would go to the city of Bryan. Because if you know, we had the local office here. I: May I change the subject now? City employees sometimes feel that they are precluded from direct interaction with members of the council or with the mayor. Was there any feeling like that during your time in office? 26:03: LB: Well. I thought about that. I don’t think that any of the people ever came to me with a complaint. But there was certainly no objection to my going to the city council or the city staff and asking them questions. The, the city manager never created any barriers and if the city manager told them not to come to us, but to come to him, I can understand that. I don’t feel like it created any barriers. I don’t feel like well I guess, I guess I better just stop. [chuckle] I: Okay, so you had a good working relationship with the city manager. 26:48: LB: With the city manager, yes. With the staff, if I went to them, they were happy to talk to me, but they didn’t come to me. And that’s understandable, I mean they have lines of command and I didn’t have any, what do you call the people that squeal, oh there, there’s a. I: Whistleblower. 27:13: LB: What’s that? I: Whistleblower. 27:15: LB: Whistleblower. No I didn’t have any whistleblowers at that time. I: So the question always comes, how is it that members of the council and the mayor really know what’s going on in the city, in city government? In terms of the services. 27:36: LB: Well I guess you have people complain to you. You, but I didn’t have too many people complain to me. I remember one person calling me at two in the morning ‘cause the city council meeting that very night, he (recaught?) him in some prevarications and I, I told him, “Mr. So and so, just because you have a beard, doesn’t mean you can talk out of both sides of your mouth.” I was kind of rough on him, which was my style. But, then he called me at two in the morning. And I, I didn’t handle it very well. Unfortunately I called him some derogatory terms and hung up. What I should have done is that, “Oh now Mr. So and so, it’s a little late, let me get your phone number and call you tomorrow about noon.” And then I would have called him at six in the morning. [chuckle] ‘Cause, ‘cause you know, but, you don’t think very well at two at, at night. I: [laughs] (word?) Just caught off guard. 28:50: LB: Well I did look up his phone number the next morning. But it was an unlisted number. He ran a bar you see, the local personality that ran a bar. I: Let’s, let’s reflect for a minute on your overall public service. Were there specific goals that you had in mind when you ran for office? Whether city council or mayor. 29:16: LB: Well I had, I guess you might say two. One, one I had, I had wanted a better park system. And number two, I wanted the city council to favor homeowners because I think the homeowners, they, that’s their biggest investment probably is their home. And I was kind of prodded to run because of a, a zoning decision that was made in the dominant area where duplexes, not duplexes, apartments would back up to a single family residence area. And I didn’t like that. I thought that that would take away, it takes away from something from the pocket of a homeowner and puts it in the pocket of a developer. And I didn’t think that fair. And throughout my career on the city council, I always favored whenever there were requests for changes, I always wa-, was very aware of the viewpoint of the people who had already put a lot of money into a home or whatever it is that I thought, “Well when, you know if you’re gonna use zoning and you can’t make up your mind, favor the person who’s got the big investment already.” And I don’t have any regrets about that criteria. We, we, we had a development plan which we sort of tried to follow. But it’s you know, if, if there’s nothing around and someone wants to make an improvement to their property, you tend to want to go with that person. I: Were there anything that you feel were left unfinished from your point of view, when you left office? 31:29: LB: Well we, we really didn’t focus on this yet but it was kind of obvious that the south gate, I guess you might say toward the railroad tracks, that if, if you divide south gate into two parts, maybe the first three blocks away from the railroad track, that was kind of turning into student housing. And over the last twenty years, that student housing has really expanded. And we, we just didn’t see that issue coming when I was mayor. And I think that, that subsequent councils looked at it and they’re the ones that permitted four students in a single family residence, which was a terrible mistake in my mind because if you look at some areas that are very close to the university, it’s maybe a third to a half student housing. And now they worry about emergency vehicles getting in on these narrow streets. They probably should have no parking in the streets. And instead of you know, you can tell where these houses are, the, the lawns not mowed, the, the leaves aren’t raked, the grass is dead, there’s a party on Friday nights. And basically what you’ve done to the homeowners is put them into a kind of an apartment-like residential district that happens to have single-family residences there. And you know, I guess I feel this way because I live about a half a mile from campus and, and my street on my block, I think it’s about half student housing. And they’re nice people, but they’re not your neighbors. I, I introduce myself, I give them advice, but they really don’t care about me, after a year or two they’re gone. And it’s not like living in a, a living neighborhood where you know everybody on your street as I did when I first bought the house. Where you know everybody on the street and they’re your friends and they do things for you. They don’t ignore you. And they take care of their house. It’s, it’s a crazy situation and I se-, I see it on areas that are close to the university. And somebody in the city council is gonna have to stiffen their backs and either convert that zoning to maybe to high density condominiums or, or change it back to maybe two un-related people per residence. I: When you were mayor, what did you like most about being mayor and what did you like least about being mayor? 34:35: LB: I guess I enjoy the city council meetings the, the most. And I, I had some pretty jokes that I cracked during the meeting. Like Jim Dosher, Jim Dosher was always spouting off and he, in, in a nice sort of way, and he, one time he said, “This is like a chicken and egg problem, which came first? The chicken or the egg, the chicken or the egg?” And I looked at the audience and I saw my second cousin, (Larry Hatfield?) from La Grange. And I said, “Hey, let’s ask La Grange. Let’s ask my cousin from La Grange because they have that chicken (race?) there.” [laughs] And I’ve got two others I’ll tell you after this interview is over. Unless you run out of time and you want me to tell you. I: I think we ought to hear them. 35:28: LB: Oh. Well one time a fellow came in and he complained that cars drive, drove too fast in his neighborhood. Well you know, which is a problem. And he had a kid who was kind of mentally retarded and he wanted us to put up a sign that said, “Slow, children at play.” And my comment among the city council was you know, the ma-, the, the city manager said, “Those signs don’t work, they don’t work.” And so I whispered to Halter, I said and the rest of the council had heard it, “It’s because they need to put a comma in there. Slow comma, children at play.” And then one time I really got Jim Dosher on one. Jim Dosher he, he had, at the end of the council meeting, he says, “We ought to go out and eat at the city’s expense. Let’s just, you know, it won’t cost that much. And we, we never get any kind of remuneration. Surely we deserve a meal.” So we went over to Shiloh, which is next to the cemetery, and it’s gone now. And we were just finishing eating and then here come the T.V. cameras. And Jim Dosher gets up and walks out. And Halter whispers to me, “Look, look at Dosher. He wanted us to eat and now he’s leaving ‘cause he doesn’t want to see us on T.V., eating at the city’s expense.” So what you do. Well I said, “We’re through eating. Let’s adjourn now and go over to city hall.” So we did. And they didn’t get any T.V. footage of us at the restaurant. But over at city hall, they got their T.V. footage. And there was one council person who was not present because he left early. [chuckle] And I had just had to chuckle a little bit. Now you, I, I’ve told two of them on Jim Dosher I should, I, he was really a great fellow. He was one of those who, he was the last one to resign from the city council when they kicked all the professors off. He even went without a salary because they couldn’t pay him. And so he really you know, stuck in there for a long time. But he was a character, there’s no doubt about it. I: It sounds as if there were many characters on the city council. 38:06: Well in their own way, yeah, that’s right. I: Now I want to ask you if there are any questions that you wished I’d ask. 38:21: LB: No and I just happened to think about Homer Adams who was really a great fellow too. He and I were always you know, kind of arguing with each other on the council. But when I, when it came time for me to be elected mayor twice, his daughter voted for me. Yes. His daughter voted for me. And I think, I think Homer’s still alive. I haven’t, I haven’t heard anything lately. And I, I guess need to pay him a visit and remind him that his daughter voted for me. I: {laughs] I think that is a perfect interview to end. 38:56: LB: To end. I: This interview. And thank you again for so much for taking the time to do this. College Station is very fortunate to have had you in a leadership position. 39:09: LB: Yes, but fortunate that I was there only for two terms because then they had Halter and Ringer and so on. And if I had been there longer, you wouldn’t have as many people to interview and my interview would have been twice as long. I: Oh, but not nearly as charming. Thank you so much.