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HomeMy WebLinkAboutDick Birdwell City Council Interview Questions & Answers Council Member Interview Questions February, 2012 Thank you so much, Birdwell, for taking the time to participate in this interview for the City of College Station’s Project HOLD, historic online library database. This interview about your tenure as Council Member of College Station will become part of that invaluable library for current and future generations. We really appreciate your time and participation! Dick Birdwell Today is March 20, 2012. I have the pleasure interviewing Dick Birdwell, who was on the City Council for three different terms, first between 1988 and 1992, and again between 1996 and 1998. Mr. Birdwell’s address is three fourth’s Drive College Station 77840, and his email address is d.bird@verizon.net. 1. Running for Office. Elizabeth Vastano Q- What led to your decision to run for public office? Birdwell A- I didn’t get interested in city government for a long time. I’m not sure what starting me with that interest, but shortly after I finished high school in College Station, and went to A&M was gone for 30 years move back here when I retired, and I found out quite by accident about some things on city finances that really disturbed me. We were paying for the city out of taking money out of the electric fund not by taxes. And I thought this was wrong. So that’s the main reason I ran for city council first time. It turned out at the time the city sales tax was 1% but the state had authorized the city sales tax to be 1.5%, so I proposed we raised sales tax to a cent and a half and put that extra cent in to reduction of big transfer of money from the electric fund to the general fund. I’ve got a big fight with Mayor Ringer over that, he agreed with raising the sales tax, but he wanted to use the money to expand city services not to reduce this transfer from electric funds. We wound up using half of the sales tax increase to partially fix that, but they left at that amount of money as the city grew, everything else grew got right back to the same we are in that problem today. This is the current issue of today. It’s the reason the city tax rate is low compared to other cities. This is big amount of money. They finance the city out of electric rate instead of ad valorum taxes, sales taxes. (03:51) Q- Was it the same motivation each time when you ran again in 1996 was pretty much the same reason or different reason? Now.. of course.. not at all.. you know that issue is not a current issue. But there were other things I think the convention center was a big issue after that. Q- Shall I ask you how you felt about the convention center? A- Well, the original convention center I actually supported, The one they were gonna build over…I can’t think of the name of the street The first convention center that the city started talking about was…gonna be on…. (05:01) Q- I know how you brain is working because those same thing. What area was… Well, Wolf Pen Creek. In that area.. was gonna be Sheridan hotel, and the time we got a hotel developer that was gonna build it. Hotel say you gonna pay for convention center hire the hotel to run it. And that was a modest convention center compared to the one that subsequently came along. And I supported it. There was a split on council that whether that should been at North gate or at the Wolf Pen Creek. And the land they were talking about using the mud lot in North gate. (06:10) And it had been better at the time there was not access to University Dr. They were talking about condemning some private businesses show how it was a bad location. The location at the Wolf Pen Creek fit in fairly well. Anyway that all got approved Council of city voted on a bond, and then the city staff started negotiation with the hotel and they never got even come close to agreement so it fell apart. And then the next… this jump from.. The next effort that I convention center. That was gonna be 6 million dollars then next project was 20 million, and it would I opposed and I have opposed any effort by city since the latter convention center. (07:15) Q- What is your most vivid memory of the campaign experience? A- I don’t really have good answers to that question. Campaign is just a lot of work. If you like to go knock on doors, and meet people it can be fun and the city has gotten a little too big for that. Used to be you can pretty well, (07:50) cover the whole city, you know knocking on doors but be hard to do that today. But they have a lot more, have a lot more… there is candidate forums today then they had back then. But they had only candidate forum as you want. There was a sponsor by league of women voters on a KAMU TV. And those put an hour we got, you know the Chamber or subdivision whole lot of chances for exposure through that process. Q- Would you say the campaign(s) focused on issues or on personality differences? Very much on issues. Q- Did your family participate? A- No, my wife was a big help, big help absolutely. Q- What do you think gave you the edge to win? A- I think I have a very good resume and compare to my opponent’s, probably longer resume and experience. Q- After the first campaign, did it get easier? A- Yes. 2. There is a saying that all politics is local. Q: How has city politics changed from your council service to today? A: I don’t think it has changed a whole lot. You know the main change is when I ran for council the first time the population of College Station was maybe under 50,000 and over 90,000 today so the city is doubled in size. That might be a pretty good difference. Q: How would you characterize your relationship with other City Council members? A: I got along with them, almost of them very well. We agree to disagree without being disagreeable. That’s all we are tried to operate. Q: What advice would you offer today to people thinking of running for public office? A: Well, I encourage them to run but I will tell them that if you want to be a good council person, you’ve gotta be a, willing to spend a significant amount of time. There are too many people I think run for council not recognizing to do a good job you have to spend a lot of time. It’s not go to a meeting for 2 hours every other week. It is a lot more to do good job. (11:29) 3. City employees sometimes feel they are precluded from knowing or talking with local elected officials. Q: During your tenure did you reach out to city employees? A: Well I was frustrated by that as a matter of fact. We had a city manager at that time that, I think, would fire a city employee for talking to a council person. And I’m more get into the details kind of guy and find out what’s going on and frequently talking to city employees. It’s good way to do that. It was discouraged and most city employees were reluctant to spend to talk to you. Q: Would you say that was during all three of your terms? A: It got less of problem in last term. Q: How did the City Manager and Department Heads feel about direct interaction with employees? A: They just discourage it. Q: What kind of relationship did you have with the City Manager? A: Good relationship with them. I would say I worked with three different city managers. Q: Who did you work with? A: Well, Ron Raglin was a city manager. First, term of an office in… who was… Q: How would you say a City Council member knows what is “really” going on in city departments? A: Well, any person that’s gonna be in a policy… job… develops his technique for finding out what’s going on, there are a lot of ways their reports that are available, they respond to questions. So you know combination of questions and then, you know you build relationship or two with somebody here and somebody there. This gives you a little additional insight in what’s going on. But you know City council people don’t really always know what’s going on. (14:21) 4. TAMU has been central to College Station from its beginnings. Indeed, most city services first came through the University and the history of College Station can be seen partly as a reach for independence in providing those basic city services. Q: How would you characterize the relationship between the City and the University during your time on a council? A: It was good. There were some problems, you know, but there was a problem that the university’s position is we are a state agency and superior to you city people. And there’s some people with the university that’s kind of their thrust. But there also a lot of people in university that understand we got a work together. There was time when the city depended on the university. That’s not the case anymore. Today the university depends very much on the city. You know, they have no fire department. There was a lot of things they don’t do they depend on the city. Where the major conflicts come about is in an area of land planning and growth in this kind of things, there is not a community of interest they don’t work. The city is got to way like to go A&Ms sometimes parallel but not always.(16:22) Q: What special issues are there to being a city council member in a university town? A: One of the things that people whose side of that I kept always trying to remind them of, you know, College Station with the time of 50,000 people and 40,000 students over there. Well, when you start comparing this 50,000 town to some other 50,000 town, that didn’t have students, you know economics are different, and the number of police you need is different, whole realm of city government is highly influenced by this and it’s a different make up and you can’t say well you need one policeman per 1,000 people, that’s the national average. Well, maybe the national average for normal town, it is necessarily right in the situation where half your population is students, so those kind of things. The other thing is in the national statistics which a lot of things based on income, federal grants and all this kind of stuff. Highly based on income. Where we got 50,000 students over there don’t make anything. So the income figures reported for College Station. Very low, but it’s actually not. This makes for a mish-mash. The city of College Station gets way more money in Community Block Land Grant funds, then they would if those students were working, and they waste the money. (18:42) 5. Growth is critical to an expanding tax base. Q: How did services to citizens expand under your terms in office? A: The city had master plans for a long time. I thought I keep always pretty well adequately taking care of water, sewer, electricity, garbage collection, this kind of things. What they have not accommodated as well as should have streets transportation. We’ve in a struggled and to keep up with what would you have in terms of street. Q: Was there a dynamic tension between developers and neighborhoods during your tenure? A: Yes, there well.. you said dynamic. There was a tension, but the developers wouldn’t talk about it to anybody in council. Because they were afraid if they did the city staff would punish them. And I kept trying to break that down, you know to really find out it is a problem or not a problem. But I never felt comfortable when I got to believe it’s true story. Q: Do you think College Station has been handicapped by not having a “downtown”? A: No, I think it is advantage. I think it is a great advantage. Well, look at the history of Texas town, look at Bryan. You know, tell me that downtown is an advantage to Bryan. This is biggest disadvantage. It’s a rat hole they keep pouring money into and don’t get anything out. But you can look at Texas city after Texas city. It has the same problem. Downtown’s died because of lack of parking. That’s just simple. It is that College Station by not having a downtown unless you want to say North Gate is a downtown. It’s really not. It’s been fortunate that having distributed shopping centers and when an area deteriorates because of a lack of atten?? what not, it’s not a whole big area, it’s smaller area. And I think easier to remodel, rebuild than the classic downtown. That’s just my opinion. (22:03) 6. Transportation is always a point of great interest in growing communities. Q: Was transportation an issue in your administration during the term? A: Yes, we have a hard time to put this much money in the streets, is a… we probably need to. We’ve been fortunate most of the major thoroughfares in College Station state highways paid for by the state. We have got very few major thoroughfares that were not state highways, so we fortunate from that standpoint. But we are getting to the point where we have some real traffic issues. And probably they’re gonna get worse before they get better. Q: What steps to improve transportation were taken? A: Not any real significance. A lot of studies, a lot of thoughts, but not much real action. You know there were things to improves on street lights, things on the edge… no major things I can think of. 7. College Station has a strong parks and recreation system. Q: Did the parks system expand during your administration(s)? A: Yes, I think it did. We had a money and so we expanded more parks and the city of College Station park budget is double the city of Bryan’s, it’s double of most Texas cities their size… There is been a very… You know it’s been a high priority out of whole city money for quite a long time and then continuous to be. (24:44) Q: Were there preservation efforts to mark the City’s historic buildings, homes and other places of interest? A: Yea, I was on the council when we started that the historic homes… the thing. That’s the main thing has been done. Q: What about the library? A: The first bond issue on the College Station library failed by six votes. I was a big supporter of library. There was a sentiment at that time that the College Station didn’t need the library because A&M is got this place big, huge library over there why we need a library in College Station. Well, you need one first off because there isn’t any place to park. You can go there and use it. Q: Was there any interest in promoting historic tourism during your administration(s)? A: It’s a lot of talk. There were people that think that College Station can be made what’s called in the tourism business, the destination city. And I think we are university city and we got supporting events that draw a lot of tourists and we got the Bush library, the very fortunate thing, take those two out and we were way short of being a destination city. (26:44) 8. The relationship of College Station and Bryan has been up and down over the years. Q: How would you characterize relations with Bryan during your tenure as Council member? A: It was acceptable, it’s about all… there’s been a …. There was a…. at the time I was first known Council. We formed a joint economic development commission and Bryan never supported that they claim they did and it looks like they did. They kept doing their own thing in spite of the fact that this was supposed to be joint effort. And that goes on still today. There was a real jealousy and a fight, you know, among banks and landowners, developers, something that happen in Bryan instead of College Station vice versa. It’s way more competitive than most people realize. Q: What about the relationship with Brazos County? A: That’s good. The interests are such that there is nothing for them to fight about or very little, because the County duties the things County does quite different from. There is some overlaps, but court system and police system and whatnot works very well between relationship between the all three, Bryan, College Station, and Brazos, whole community. I think that’s a good relationship. 9. Achievements: Q: When you ran for office, were there specific goals you wanted to achieve? A: Of course money transfer electric system was. And I was partially successful but not totally. One of the things that I did, when I first get on Council, the city had no requirement for sidewalks. We had very few sidewalks, particularly around the schools, and I instituted the system sponsors supported got the rest of the Council to agree with me. Set aside the significant chunk of money each year to build sidewalks with priorities on sidewalks leading to schools, and you know since then we changed the ordinances and new subdivisions have to put in sidewalks and whatnot that was a program that I pushed and supported, and that was really worthwhile. And the end of things that I am proud of, and this is after I get out for Council that they work, but is the new cemetery. The Aggie field of honor.(30:43) - here revise completed. Q: Can you explain a little bit on what… ? A: What happen with that is a… there were a group of people here that tried that.. they were gonna start Aggie field of honor. And back several years ago, they got A&M to donate 30 acres of land for that, and then, they couldn’t get anybody to run the cemetery. The association of former students wouldn’t run cemetery, the university didn’t run the cemetery. The City of College Station wouldn’t run the cemetery for A&M and this fell apart. And couple of other guys came along and started working on it, and tried to doing on the private basis and they actually, the law in Texas you can’t build cemetery privately. It’s within 5 miles of a town. Towns don’t want competition with the private sector on those cemeteries apparently. But anyway they actually get a law passed that would allow them to build cemetery in College Station. There were two guys that were pushing this in within a six months period they both died. And that went away, when one day I get a call. This was after I am off the council but it was a guy that was putting together the group that he was on the cemetery board for the city of College Station. As city cemetery was filling up, the city had to build a new cemetery. He wanted to city to include in the new cemetery a section that would be the Aggie field of honor.(32:37) He asked me to work with him and help him do that because he knew I knew People in the city and whatnot and how the city worked. Q: Wouldn’t you mind to telling me his name? Well, that was Weldon Krueger, Jimmy Bond, and a guy named Joe Wallace, and two of them are classmates of mine in A&M. And Docerei and myself and a local engineer for the better part of a year and half worked on getting that accomplished. More like two and a half years, government doesn’t move very fast and people that are opposed to things that will never tell you they are opposed, they just keep throwing roadblocks in a way and that is what was happening to us. People say, “Oh! Yeah, that is a great idea. By the way have you done so and so?” Well, no, we didn’t plan to. Well, I don’t think you will get anywhere if you don’t do that, you know. We were able to put them together to convince the city that it made sense for them to do this, and then we convinced A&M to sell us the land that 15 years earlier had been donated that we wind up having to pay for, but anyway it got done. It’s a really outstanding facility. Q: You would say you achieved most of your goals either in and out of office? Did your goals change during your tenure in office? A: Not really. Q: Do you have any regrets about things left unfinished? A: Well… Yea, there were things that left unfinished, but the landfill between College Station and Bryan over that I was involved in that from the beginning, and that didn’t have to happen. I could have done a better job maybe in …. Some of that wouldn’t have happened, but there was a big waste of money for both cities really bad. Q: What could have been done differently? What you say? A: Well, the first mistake was when they was first organized, Bryan ran out space and had problems and we had proposed for the city was gonna sell space to Bryan and somehow all at once they came in the council and that had been thrown out the window, I had absolutely no reason to why, and we were gonna swap landfills.(36:34) The city of College Station was gonna give Bryan half of their landfill for half of their landfill. And as far as I was concerned their landfill was worthless, because that was full and run out of permit, that’s why we thought about selling it. Anyway for some reasons, mayor Ringer who was on this and, you know, I’ve been more effective in the way that was put together in a first place I kept pointing out the contract that they were drawing up was full of problems that we are gonna see in the future, but I didn’t spend enough time talking to enough other council people to gather any support at all and that thing was formed and it should have never been formed like this. Q: What did you enjoy the most/least about being on the City Council? A: Well, it’s nice to know what’s going on to be in the know and what plans are, what’s going on in the city. And then meeting people social aspects a little lot of, you know, you get invited when you were in city council person you get invited to everything that goes on in town of any significance a lot of perks would like to do that kind of things. There is a… I didn’t enjoy meetings that last more than an hour, and having to sit at the council meeting in listen to 50 people come in and speech about something that I figured was insignificant in the first place but that’s the part of the job that goes with it. Q: Did you find it difficult to make the transition to a more private life after you get off the council? A: No, not a bit. Q: What are you proudest of in your life of public service? A: Well, it would have to be the Aggie field of honor. Q: What are your current projects? A: That’s not true. I serve on the cemetery committee. I had agreed that mayor Berry had asked me to take on the sunset committee which I had agreed to and that turned out that was gonna be more work than I really wanted to do, so I stepped down from that. 10. Are there other questions you wished I’d asked you? A: Nothing, thank you.