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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJeff Kersten TranscriptionCity of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: Jeff Kersten Interviewers: Brooke Linsenbardt and Sheena Cox Transcriber: Sheena Cox Date: 7/25/2017 Place: College Station, Texas Project: City Officials and Employees (00:00): Interviewer: Brooke Linsenbardt (BL): My name is Brooke Linsenbardt, I am College Station’s Historic Records Archivist, and the interviewer. It is 8:35 on, a.m., on July 25, 2017. We are conducting the interview at City Hall off Texas Avenue in College Station, Texas. (00:26): Interviewee: Jeff Kersten (JK): My name is Jeff Kersten, I am Assistant City Manager for the City of College Station, and I am the interviewee. (00:35): Oral History Intern: Sheena Cox (SC): I am Sheena Cox, the Oral History Intern. (BL): Okay, so to start off the interview, can you talk about when and where you were born? (00:44): (JK): Sure. I was born in San Antonio, Texas. My parents adopted me as an infant, and, I grew up down the Rio Grande Valley, in Donna, Texas, outside of Donna, Texas, actually, on a, on, my, my dad’s family farm, he was a cotton farmer. And, that was back in February of 1967 when I was born. And again I grew up on the, family farm, outside of Donna, and uh had, one brother and one sister. And um, grew up, up, again living on, on the farm with some of those types of, of experiences. And, went to public schools, um most of my academic career, two years of private school in there, but most of it in, in public schools down in, in at Donna Independent School District. And, graduated from high school down there in 1985. (BL): Okay. So can you talk about what your parents did? (02:05): (JK): Yeah my, my dad originally was a, was a, he went to Texas A&M as well, graduated in 1957, he was class of ’57. He um was a farmer, farmed his, the, the farm that his dad had, had started, and was a cotton farmer, vegetable farmer, and did that until probably the very early 80s or so is when he, he stopped farming. Um my mom did a, a number of things, um, she, for a while was a stay at home mom when we were younger, but then ultimately began working for uh Brazos County, (chuckles) Brazos County, Hidalgo County down in uh down in, in the Rio Grande Valley area and worked in the tax accessor collector’s office. And, also during that time after my dad got out of farming he did a number of things and ultimately began working for a rural water corporation, and they provided water, services to uh, to a large area of, of the, rural parts of, of Hidalgo County. (BL): Okay. Do you, does your family still operate the farm? (03:29): (JK): No. Wh-when my dad got out the, that, that, that, that all ended um when, when he finished farming um. It, it’s, it’s hard to be uh a small farmer anymore, and when, he, he got out of the, the farm it pr-pretty well ended at th-at that point in time. Ended up selling all the land, and, and, and those kind of things to, to other people. (BL): Interesting. Can you talk about your education background? (04:06): Well again, I, I graduated from high school in, at Donna High School in 1985, and, then went to Texas A&M University in the fall of ’85, uh, came to A&M as a business major ultimately, ended up changing tracks, and, and became a, a political science major, and graduated from A&M with a degree in Political Science in, 1989, May of 1989. And you know, one, one of the questions you ask and your parents ask is “What are you going to do with a political science degree?” And one of the answers is “Well, I’ll go to graduate school, and then figure things out.” And, and so I then, got into the Master of Public Administration program, the MPA program that Texas A&M had at the time it’s sort a, a bit of a pre-cursor to the, to the Bush School and that’s all been kind of wrapped into Bush School now. But, but got a Master’s in, in Public Administration in May of 1991. And again I, you know I had a interest in, in public service, uh, I, liked reading about politics and those sorts of things, but didn’t necessarily want to get into the politics side of it b-, but more into the public service side of, of, of things, and, uh always felt that, that uh public service and in particular local government is, is that part of public service that really is in a lot of ways the closest to the, to the people, and, and kinda focus my, my studies in, in, in, in local government management is, is what ki-, kind of what my focus was. (BL): Was there anything specifically that got you really interested in public service? (06:06): (JK): Well, um, you know again, wh-when I was in high school I was involved in, in, in, in, a number of things, whether it was being class president, um f-for a number of years, and, and also, getting involved in, in the American Legion Boys State Program between my junior and senior year in high school and th-, that’s the program that brings incoming seniors in the high school from across the state, together to have a, a mock state government, uh type exercise for about a week, and, and that was really um a, a, a pretty pr-pretty neat exercise, something my dad did when he was in, in, in, in high school as well. And, and so, th-th-those, you know so-, some of those things really-along with I think some of the stuff that my parents were doing. You know again whether it’s in, in with the, you know providing water services, or my mom working at the County, that kinda thing, kinda, you know I think had some influence on me wanting to have a, uh, ultimately have, have a career in, in, in, uh public service somehow, and, and local government is what, what I decided to focus on, when, when I got, in particular when I was making decisions about my, my master’s program. (BL): So can you describe why you decided to choose the public service over the business? (07:43): (JK): Well, you know, again it, it, it was something I, I just had um a, a lot of interest in with, interest in, in you know what are ways that we can help, that, that I can help people that I can, you know give, s-serve in, in, in some way, and, that, that just interested me a lot more than, than the the, the, the again at, at, at the time, the, the, the, the, business side to, side of things. Certainly, enjoyed that, that too, but, but I really felt drawn more to the, the public service side and, and uh and, and again w-w-what are ways that, that I, I can you know be of service to others, that, that I can maybe make things better for f-for other people in some form or fashion. So they may be s-some sort of a-altruistic k-kinda thing, but, but, but those are some of the things that, that you know, I, I get Is, I was thinking about as I was you know trying to figure out which, which way I wanted to go, to go with my education, and then ultimately with a career after that, and, and again the, the local government side of it, to me, what wa-was appealing because it, it, it seemed like that’s where you could truly make a difference. Some of, some of the professors I had at, at Texas A&M also I think had some influence on that whether it was Dr. Chick Wiggins, who at time was wrapping up as head of the MPA program, or Dr. Gary Halter who, who was in the Political Science Department also former Mayor of College Station. He, he always had some really interesting stories to, to, to tell about his time when he was Mayor and, and, and City Council, and those things really kinda, kinda fascinated me and interested me, as I was going through and it, and it you know, I think those thigs had, had, definitely had some influence on me as, as I was making some of those decisions. (BL): Right. How did you end up working for the city? (09:56): (JK): Well, I, I, you know, again, I, I was Is, basically I was in need of a summer job, back in 1988. (BL): Aren’t we all? (Laughs) (10:10): (JK): And, again, it was the first year that I was going to stay and take summer school classes up here, and previously… (BL): Your first year at Texas A&M? (10:19): (JK): No, it was my, it, it was after my, my sophomore year, a before my, I think that’s right, after my, it would have been after my junior year. But it was the first summer that I was staying in town. Previously, the first few years I had gone, gone back d-down to Donna, and, and worked in the summer as, as, as a lifeguard for, for those summers, I actually lifeguarded down there for six summers in, in two different places, and, got into lifeguarding after being on the swim team, all, all those kinda things, but so I had some experience as a, as a lifeguard, and again, I was gonna stay up here summer of 1988, and needed a summer job, needed something to provide s-some income, and so a-again, I believe I saw a posting on campus somewhere where they were looking for, the City of College Station was looking for lifeguards for the summer and so I said “Hey, that’s something I’ve done, and can do,” and, and applied to, to be a lifeguard in a, a the summer of 1988, and ultimately got, got, got hired. Vera Solis, who recently retired as the pool supervisor, that, the one who ul-originally hired me at the city back in 1988. (BL): Wow. So can you talk about or describe your current position as Assistant City Manager? And what those responsibilities are? Essentially try to take us through a day, I’m sure not every day is the same, but take us a day in your position. (12:23): (JK): A day in the life? Sure. Well, as, as a Assistant City Manager, I have a couple of primary areas of responsibility, th-those include: I, have the Finance Department, the IT Department, and I work with those department directors with big picture items on thigs that are going on and in, in the departments. You know, providing direction on, on major projects that, that we may be looking at and thinking about, and so I spend a, a fair amount of time doing, doing those sorts of things. I, I, I also spend a fair amount of my day you know, trying to provide support to City Manager, and City Manager’s office, and whether its providing information, answering questions, on, you know in particular this time of year is budget time of year so we, we spend quite a bit of time working on, on what are our budget priorities gonna be? What’s the, wh-whats the recommended tax rate gonna be, what’s the, are we gonna have to, we, we, we, we need to look to try to figure out what things we’re going to add to the budget, is there going to be more police officers, more fire fighters, there, there are a lot of needs out there, but, but, but limited resources, and so we have to prioritize those things, an, and understand what, what the priorities are so this time of year, a big part, a lot of my day, in fact that’s part of what today is going to be later this afternoon is continuing to talk about the, about what’s going to be included in the proposed budget, that, that will go to Council soon. The, the, the, again, the, the, the sometimes the, the day can, can, everyday tends to have something somewhat unexpected that, that could happen, that could come up, again whether it’s, you know a question, or request from a citizen, a council person, a departments, or a problem that might pop up that, that, that needs attention. So problem solving is a big, is definitely a big part of the day. So, e-every day is definitely different, some days are filled with meetings from 8 to 5, other days not so much, but they get filled up with, with with things that, that, that tend to pop up through the day. So that’s sort of in, in, in, in a bit of a nut shell kinda, kinda what, what, what, what, what a day may look like. (BL): Can you discuss your previous positions and responsibilities? So you started as a lifeguard, right, 1988. (15:23): (JK): Right. Yeah, how do you go from there to here? (BL): Right. So can you take us through that, the process, your life history in jobs? (Laughs). (15:31): Well in, in pretty well my, my professional career has pretty, has certainly been, been in the City of College Station, and yes I, I did start in 1988 as a, as a lifeguard, and, and, and there’s one of the things I’ll say about the, the, the whole lifeguard experience, again I think I mentioned I had done lifeguarding in two other places, but, but when I came to work at, at the city one-you know something I noticed pretty quickly that was different was how professional the organization was, and how in, in, in how the expectations I felt were, were higher, than, than what they were in some of the other places that I worked and, and those things really, I think appealed to me in a lot of ways, and, and, and on the lifeguard side it was, it was all about safety and customer service, you know of course safety is always first, making sure that, that the people who come in to your pool facility are gonna be safe, and, and, and, and that there gonna have a good experience while they’re there and have good customer service, from you know from everybody that they come into contact with, and any of th-that, that, w-what I realized over time, that, that came from, I think the ideals that, that, that, that the city had and that the city would was, was trying to make sure all their employees were, were, were, were doing, and, and again, th-that really I’m-I think in a lot of ways, again r-really appealed to me, again it’s about, you know, how can your local government you know provide things for you, and at the time, the, the park slogan was you know, “We provide good things in life.” And, and, and I think that’s part of what, what, what I felt I was lucky to be, to be a part of. (BL): Was Steve Beechy still the Parks Director? (17:38): (JK): Oh yeah, he was the parks, he was the Parks Director, at, at the time that I started, and he, he was there, I guess he retire about may-ten years ago or something, so, so through, through that time I was lifeguarding he, he was Parks Director, and, and you know, he definitely made an impact on I, I think on me, and, and kinda my journey as, you know if you will, going through wor-uh-working at the city. But again, you can’t lifeguard forever, right? I guess you could. (BL): The summer jobs. (18:18): (JK): You know. (SC): In Texas maybe that’s something. (Laughs). (18:22): (JK): But, I, as I was going through b-beginning the MPA program, the graduate school program, I was gonna need to have an internship, and the Dr. Wiggins, who I mentioned earlier, who was wrapping up being the head of the MPA program, he, I think had worked with the city on placing interns in the past, and was, was able to get, get me an interview for an internship at the city in the finance department, and in, in, in the budget office in the finance department and so in the, the fall of 1989, I was able to w-well I was beginning my, my graduate school program I was able to get an internship and work in the, and work in the budget office, for twenty-twenty- five hours a week, while I was going to school, and, and so I was able to do that for, I was fortunate that again, typically the internships last a semester, but I was able to keep that internship, pretty well through the time I was in graduate school, until May of ’91, when I was going to graduate and so, and so again, being an intern in the budget office, your, your, your sort of the, the person who gets to do a lot of research, calling other cities to see how they do things. Working with departments on, on, on their budget issues. Typically the budget season really gets intense in the spring and, and through the summer, and you know, I sort of remember that first summer working as, as an intern, you know spending you know, quite a number of hours, again, helping get the, get, get, getting information for the budget prepared, working on, you know, we- we were certainly still using, Excel and some of those sorts of things at the time we were using 5 and a half inch floppy disks, and, and praying that the, the, the, the computer was going to be able to read the disk, what was on it, and cause if it didn’t then that’s a disaster, and you have start over on whatever happened to be on that disk. So, a-again I was able to, fortunate I think to have that internship through my time there, in, in, in graduate school, and the, again, fortunately again I think that around the time I was graduating, I, the full-time budget analysts position came open, and, and, and so I applied for that position. It was really kinda interesting personally anyway at that period of time, because I was engaged to be married. My fiancé, had graduated, we, we, we were, went to high school together and all, and, and after she graduated with, with her teaching degree from A&M, she went back down and, and was teaching down in, in, in at Donna Independent School District, where we went to high school. And we were gonna be married in May of 1991, and as we’re getting into March and April I don’t have a job yet, but, but the Budget Analyst position opens up in, in, in probably May time frame, and, and so I applied for it and, and ultimately find out the week before the wedding that I was offered the position. So, so I graduated, got married, and started a new position all within about six weeks. And, we, we took sort of a leap of faith where she had to be, she had a deadline to, my wife had a deadline to, my fiancé at the time, had a deadline to resign her teaching position, and, and, and so she went ahead and did that before I had the, the, the, the job all lined up, and so we took a little bit of a leap of faith there, and luckily it worked out, and, and so then in June of 1991, I got, I began as a full-time employee with the city as a Budget Analyst in the budget office. (BL): Does, does your wife work in College Bryan Station area? (23:23): (JK): She’s a (BL): Wait, what? College Station/Bryan (Laughing) (23:26): (JK): I know what you meant, yeah when she first came here she worked for Bryan ISD. For about nine years, and then, and then back in around 2000, she began working for College Station ISD. And has been in College Station now for six-whatever that is seventeen years or so. (SC): What, what grade is she, does she teach? (23:58): (JK): She’s a seventh grade math teacher. (SC): My, my son was a, not anymore because we moved, but he, he did seventh grade here in College Station. (24:07): (JK): Really? Which school? (SC): College Station ISD. or Consolidated. (24:11): (JK): CMS? (SC): Sorry, is that different? (24:15): (JK): A&M, yes. (BL): A&M Consolidated and Middle school. (24:18): (JK): AMCMS (SC): Yeah, Okay. (24:20): (JK): Yeah. Yeah, she teaches, Margo teaches at College Station Middle School, the, the school over on Rock Prairie. And she’s been there four or five years, something like that. At that school, she was at another school, two other schools before that, so. But yeah, so in 1991, started as a budget analyst, and at that point in time we had, basically we had one budget analyst and an intern, now we have four analysts, and upstairs the, again things, the city was smaller then, in terms of overall size, and, and all, but that, that summer I think I got to take about a week off for the wedding and stuff, and then we were deep in the middle of, of, of, of the budget season at that point, and, and so I was a budget analyst for about two years, little over two years, and then, again, as I graduated from, with my MPA, my, again, the, the, the, at that point in time the career goal was to ultimately, to get a job in local government that ultimately to work up to be a city manager somewhere. And, and knowing that city managers tend to move around quite a bit, I didn’t necce-necessarily think I’d be staying in College Station for my entire career, but was, again, we get a good entry-level position, and, and then in 1993, a position opened up in the city manager’s office, as, for a, an assistant position, and, and I was able to work for one of the assistant city managers beginning back in 1993, in the city manager’s office for a couple years. And then from, from there, you know, again, things change in organizations. You get a new city manager who comes on board and, and, and they tend to organize things the way that they would like to see things organized, and so at that point in time, back in ’95 or so, my position got reorganized back into the budget office. And so I was back in budget for, for a couple of years, and then was able to, in 1999 or so, moved then to budget manager position, and so that was my first real, t-truly supervisory type position. W-was as the budget manager back in 1999. And then, ultimately, again, well, city managers change, and pos-positions open up over time, and, and, and I was able to move into the chief financial officer position that after the previous person, and the one who had initially hired me for my first time position, had, had left, Charles (inaudible), he, he, he left the, left the city and I was able to move into, move into that position as, basically as a department director at that point. (BL): So how many employees I suppose did you have in those two positions that you managed? (28:06): (JK): Right now or? (BL): I guess previously, and then I guess you could add now. (28:10): (JK): I mean there were probably in, in, in the department in, in, in the finance department, back in probably 25 or so is probably what it was back then, and, and it’s, and again things have changed, the organization had grown a bit, and like I say, finance department, that included finance and municipal court, were, it, it, were, it is, was part of that responsibility. And then over time, the utility billing piece became part of that responsibility as well, and, and so that adds another thirty people or so when we add in the, the Municipal Court piece, and so no-now in finance there’s probably, total when you look at everything, and I consider finance kinda three areas, kinda the upstairs here at City Hall, Municipal Court, and Utility Billing, and there’s probably sixty-seventy, maybe, maybe even a bit more than that, maybe seventy-five, eighty or so when you look at all of those, all those together it, it, it certainly has grown as, again as, as the city’s grown as the population has grown…but, again I was ab-I think in a lot of ways I’ve been fortunate t-to be able to m-movie into some different positions in, here at the City of College Station, and in, in, in m-move up and, and see my career progress that lot of times in order to do that you have to move to other communities, and we really like it here you know so it’s, we’re, we’re happy that, that, that we haven’t had to go and move a lot into, into some different places. There, there are a number of folks who, who were either in the MPA program with me or, or who were in the budget office, or in the city manager’s office in the last twenty-twenty-five years who have gone on to work in other cities and, and some have come back and left again, but, but again its I, I, I’ve been fortunate to, to be able to stay here in, in, in, in College Station and, and again be able to advance my career at the same time, That, that, that’s you know again, been, been one of the things I’ve been really thankful for, and, and, and, the ability to, to do that. (SC): I, I get the impression that the city, specifically here really goes out of its way to take care of the employees, I think that’s, in all the interviews we’ve done so far this is a running theme, and, and I think that’s great, it really says something about the organization. (31:12): (JK): It, you know I think it is, it, it, you know we’re a service organization, and it takes people to provide those services, again whether it’s, whether it’s in you know the, the police department, the fire department, finance, and accounting even, and, and, and, and, parks and, and, and, and, and everything, it, it, it takes you know, it, it, it, it takes them individual people to go out and provide those services, and the, the impression that your average citizen has, it’s gonna be the interaction they may have with that police officer, they may have with the sanitation worker, that they may have with, with, with the lifeguard or the person at the Lincoln Center, you know it, it could be a, a normal day of their life it could be the worst day of their life depending on what’s happening and who their, you know who, who they have to interact with. In, in, in, in, you know the public safety folks have, have to deal with people o- potentially on the worst day of their lives when, when, when terrible things may have happened, but, but, I, thing too it, that, that, that, that has been one of the themes over the years that I worked here is, is, it’s ea-, it takes each individual to, w-we can provide different service we can provide average service, we can provide bad service, and, and you really want to try to make sure your providing the best service that you possibly can, and, and try to get that to the employees and to me that’s also one of the challenges in the last number of years as a city has grown, and the workforce has changed is, I-is also making sure that, that, that, that, that, that message if you will gets, gets passed on to, to all, aa-to all the new folks who are coming to work for the city as well, and, and it’s not only-always an easy thing to do. Especially as you have j-just over time, you know large amounts of turnover, and as you grow, in, in you know, when, when I started working at the city we were a city of, I don’t know maybe sixty thousand or so, and we’re probably one hundred and ten thousand now. We probably had five hundred employees when, when I first started working at the city, we have nine hundred and something now. You know, we, its, you know it’s, it’s funny you, you know that’s one of the things I can be a numbers geek sometimes and you know but, but when you look at some of the numbers and you look at, at, at, at, at how things, how, how the community has grown you can look and see how the city budget’s grown as well, and it’s not just because “Well that’s the big bad government, the budget’s growing,” but population’s growing, the transportation system’s getting more complicated, and complex, and then you have more people here, more different people here who are m-melding together, and, and it, it causes challenges and opportunities for you as you try to provide you know, the, the various services that their trying to provide and, and a community. And to me that’s one of the o- o-one of the, the you know things, it, it’s, challenging, but it’s, its, its, its, exciting to be able to deal with some of that too. (SC): Sure. (BL): So in addition to the growth and a little bit of technology that you’ve talked about the floppy disks, what other changes have you noticed with the city? Or is there any additional changes? (35:22): You know, certainly…again I think as we, we, we, we as we grow, it, it, it provides huge challenges for us to provide the, the, the same levels of service of, uh to people. You know, and ci-cities are complicated organizations and, and organisms if you will, you know, we, we, have many neighborhoods in, in the city, and, and, and y-you see those neighborhoods have, have changed over time whether as, as, and I’m not putting value on it one way or the other just th-it, it’s what, what you see is, is poten- you know some of the older neighborhoods are, are, are changing and that ends up manifesting itself with, with you know people who have concerns about that and, and what that means, and you can just drive through different areas of town whether its new areas in town or older areas of town where new, y-you see new development happening, that for some folks, for other folks, its, it they, they have no concerns with it, and, and, and so I think, you know, I think College Station has always been somewhat progressive in terms of, of, trying new things, with, with technology with, with different ways of providing services to stay somewhat on, on, on the cutting edge, but we’ve also had challenges and limitations to be able to, to, to do that, and you know, and, and the last number of years its, you know sure we've seen a, a, quite a bit of growth, but, but we see significant demands for services, and limits on our ability to meet those service demands again whether it’s, public safety and, and what they maybe needed there whether it’s enough dollars for streets and street maintenance and, and those sorts of things, and can we keep, can we aff-continue to provide the various parks and recreation services that, that we provide, well if we have limited resources what will, how do you choose, and, and, and, and th-that’s, t-to me that’s o-one of the big challenges in, in that you know, again, for us at the staff level my feeling is our job is to, is to look at, t-to take the direction that the city council is given us and try to make the best recommendations and, and go in the direction they want us to go with the limited resources that we have, and that sometimes means making tough decisions about what we’re able to do and what we’re not able to do, and and and sometimes people’s expectations are here in our ability to do things may be, may not be at that same level. (BL): I know when we talked previously you mentioned the, the budget cuts that possibly as one of the challenges, or changes that you’ve had to do, what about accomplishments, do you have accomplishments that you feel proud of in your various positions? (39:15): (JK): Ya, you know…you know, o-o-over the years, I guess in terms of accomplishments, you know for me it’s not so much about me and what I’ve done it’s about what we’ve done as a, as a group as, you know, as, as an organization, and one I don’t think we previously talked about is, is, I’ve been involved in, I guess four bond elections that the city has had, where we’ve put, where we’ve gotten citizen communities together to come in and look at capital project needs for the city. The, the first one was back in 1994-1995, and, and, and, a big part of what we have to do is, and it’s nothing real ex-fancy or exciting about it, but it coordinating a group of twenty-twenty five people in a committee-you know a capital projects committee to come in, get them to come in, sit in this council chamber, sit out and get educated on capital projects, on what the growth needs are in the city, and, and what do they see as the priorities for the city, and, and so we’ve-I’ve gone through four of those processes and, you know, one particular project that, that always kind of comes to mind is Veteran’s Park, it’s a great facility out there and everything, you know it’s got ball fields, soccer fields, pavilion, the veteran’s memorial and all that. Well, all that initially started back in, probably even before, before this with, with the parks folks, and it was one of the projects in this bond election was to buy land for a new regional park. And so, a couple million dollars put in, in, in to that and ultimately got approved, and again it was an overall idea, provide additional soccer fields, ball fields, and, and so again the first thing that happened is, gotta go find land and they found a couple hundred acres, and, and then in 1998 we had another bond authorization and, and there, there were dollars included in there for the first phase of the, of that project. In 2003 there were dollars for the, the next phase, and, and so ultimately, you know over a period of twenty plus years that, that whole idea of a regional park ha-went from an idea to what you see out there now, which is really a, a, a, a, a very nice facility that brings in, we wouldn’t have seven on seven here, th-those kind of big tournaments that, that, that are here if you didn’t have that type of a, of, of a facility, but that all started back in, again in 1994 or 1995, and, and when, when, when that citizens committee agreed, “Yeah, let’s put that on, on the ballot, its, it’s important,” it passed, it got approved, we bought land, and then we got money to begin the development and then continue the development, and there’s probably one or two more, more phases and that’ll be completely built out, but those things don’t happen overnight, it takes, it takes time, it takes energy, it takes money, and, but, and, and don’t hear me saying, “I’m responsible for having that, that happen,” cause, I’m, I’m not, but I was a part of it, and, and, and that’s one of the things, one of the things that I feel like I can look at and, and, and say, you know I was a part of that, and you know, a, a, a part of the process that, that helped make that happen. Which is something that ultimately I think the citizens of College Station said they wanted and desired, and were willing to pay for, and, and, and now it’s a reality. (BL): It’s a very nice facility. (SC): I think that’s great. (BL): So, can you describe the relationship with Bryan during your tenure? (44:24): (JK): Ya, you know, it’s, its, one of those that’s probably had its, its ups and downs it’s almost like a, a, a, a sibling kind of relationship in, in, in some ways. You know I think both cities are trying to do what’s best for, for there, for there citizens and while, while we’re neighboring cities we have a lot of things in common, we’re also different from them in many ways and so it makes sense that, that priorities may be a little different from, from, from, from one city, city to the other. You know I’ve always had good relationships with the, w-with the staff in Bryan, and, and, and that kind thing, and have, have always gotten along, b-but just kinda watching over time, and again there have been some things that, that we may agree on and work together really well on, and other things where there may be competing interests where, you know where, where, where its maybe a little different situation, but I think where, where we’ve ne-really needed to work together on we, we, we have and, but, but, but there have been, be-be- been certainly times where on city or, or the other may choose to take, legal action to resolve things and that’s one way to get, to get things resolved as well, and, and sometimes that’s, that, that’s what’s needed to get, get certain differences taken care of, but again, at, at the end of the day we’re, I think we’re, both cities are trying to serve their, their, serve their citizens the best way that they possibly can. (BL): What about Brazos County? (46:22): (JK): You know I, I, I think what we’re seeing now is, is, pr-probably for me anyway earlier in, in my career, you know I was certainly the, the, county’s always an, and important part of the community as well, it’s probably more so now because there is so much development that’s happening in the County outside the, the city limits and, and you know it’s how does that growth, how is that growth managed between the city and the county in terms of infrastructure, in terms of, in, in term, in terms of of roads that the county’s responsible for and roads that the city’s responsible for, and, and, and how do we meet those needs when we both have limited resources there. So I, I, I, think the relationship with the county has probably gotten more complicated, again just because of all the growth that’s happened in particular in the last ten- fifteen years in, in the in the county outside of the, outside the city limits, again where you ha- may have folks, you know, large numbers of people who may be traveling in from, from their homes ou-out in the county and traveling back, and again what does that do to our transportation systems, and, and there aren’t necessarily easy answers to those challenges, that, that, that come up with that, but, so again I think that the relationship with the county has, in some ways it is, probably more, even more important now than it was twenty-twenty five years ago just because of all the growth we’re seeing in the area. (BL): I could see that. So then last, what about Texas A&M? (48:31): (JK): You know the, Texas A&M, they’re, you know when I was going to school they were, hag lee, what thirty-ssss five-thirty six thousand students something like that (BL): Mm Hmm, sounds nice. (Laughing). (SC): Like a dream. (Laughing0> (48:51): (JK): This fall there may be sixty-five, sixty-six thousand. (BL): That sounds accurate. (48:56): (JK): Again, grow-you know the, the o-one of the big things, probably in the last five- ten years, you know if I can sum up in one word is growth. Not just with A&M, but with just the, the community, the area, as, as a whole, but you know certainly, the relationship with Texas A&M continues to, to, to be important, you know again, th-there are areas where, you know I think we, we work you know pretty well together, and probably coordinate better than maybe we did years ago in terms of some of the traffic things, game day, and those sorts of things, th-th- there’s you know, now that you can have a hundred and something thousand people at Kyle Field, you know, course back when, when I was going to school it was, se-whatever seventy something thousand was, was seventy-five thousand or so whatever. (SC): Still huge. (BL): Yeah. (50:04): (JK): But, but again, an, an it’s not just game day and graduation, and those sorts of things, but, but the impact that decisions they make have on, on the community whether it’s, when they build more dorms, or apartments, or, or, or, or other things, what, what impact does that have, does that have on us, you know, what, what, impact does that have on areas like, like North Gate, in, in the city, I mean, my goodness that, that’s an area that has completely changed from back in the days when I was going to school, and in, in terms of the, used to be pretty well back there was, you know, a l-loot of older houses, and, and apartments and those sorts of things. Certainly a lot of the churches, a lot of churches are still there, there, there were more years ago, where the traditions dorm is right now, that used to be the Presbyterian Church, used to be over there, and you know, they ended up selling and moving, moving south, and the dorm got built, city built a parking garage, city invested other dollars into infrastructure in North Gate with the, with the Promenade behind, kinda the bar district there. W-with the parking lot kinda behind the chicken and all that, th-the city did a lot if that development, and, and redevelopment, and, and, and you look at it now with the high rise apartments, and, and those sorts of things it’s just completely different property values are skyrocketing over there, and, and, and, and I bring, you know you question was about, what about Texas A&M, and you know I’m talking about North Gate, but it’s because of the growth that you’re seeing at, at A&M that, that you’re seeing that, some of that impact that your seeing directly across the street there in, in North Gate, and, and then certainly it, it th-there are also then traffic issues, you know getting people across University Drive safely, pedestrians, bicyclists, there have been some unfortunate accidents that, that, that, have happened and then people are asking the city, “What are you doing? Why did you allow this to happen,” and you, you, you get some of those, you know those hard, critical kinda questions that, that come up and, and so, oaky so how can we work with the university to, and, and, and, and TexDot to, is in charge of, of university drive. (BL): Because it’s at the… (53:12): (JK): Because it’s a state, it’s a state highway. (BL): Oh. I guess, okay. (53:16): (JK): You know, University Drive, Texas Avenue, George Bush, they’re all state highways, so wh-while there are certain thing that we can do there, we-Text, they’re TexDot’s responsibilities, and, and we have to work with them to, to, make improvements happen, and work with university to, to make improvements happen. (BL): Do they talk to the city at all about the amount of students that they’re accepting? Cause that’s obviously going to have a direct impact on the city. (53:51): (JK): Its, probably, that’s probably somewhat of a one way conversation, of, of here’s what… (BL): Them telling you… (53:59): (JK): Yeah, well I mean “Here’s what we’re doing.” We have worked to, over the last number of years to have, th-there are quarterly meetings between A&M, and community leaders to talk through the impacts of, of decisions that are happening at, at A&M. So I think there is more conversation happening, I mean, then maybe there, there have been in the past, but in, in many ways you know, again A&M will still do what they’re gonna do… (BL): Regardless. (54:39): (JK): Sometimes we’ll, we’ll pro-have an opportunity to provide some input, sometimes not, and, and that can, can cause, can cause challenges, but again I think in the last several years, there, there’s more discussion and conversation going on. Kelly was, City Manager for example, has, I think monthly meetings with, with the Bryan city manager, the county judge, and the A&M official. I think, Dr. Strausser, the VP of finance, they, they meet monthly to, if nothing else just to be able to talk about things that are happening that impact, that impact all of, all the entities, and by having those scheduled meetings, it’s an opportunity to have some of those conversations, and, and, and again it may be just conversation, “Here’s what we’re doing.” It’s not saying, “Here, what do you think?” necessarily, but “This ABC may be the direction we’re going.” You know, “We’re gonna add another thirty thousand seats to Kyle Field,” and, and “We want you to help pay for it too.” And we did, so. (BL): So moving on a little bit I guess from A&M, can you talk about your actions, or how your position interacts with city council members? (56:14): (JK): Yeah, you know, my position in, in particular looking at the budget side of things, and on the finance side of things, you know, I’ll, I’ll get questions on a, you know, fairly regular basis about, that, that, that may be number or dollar related that, that city council members may, may have. So I, you know I have fairly routine interaction with council members on, on, on those sorts of things. Again, in, in, you know, in, in, in every council person is different in terms of their level of, of knowledge and, and, and understanding of, of, the, the budget and those sorts of things and part of my job is to help each one best, as, as I can help them understand what, what, what the choices are, you know, how, how, how we pay for, how do we pay for things? How do we break things up into different buckets if you will? And can you, you can’t always take things from this bucket and put it into that bucket to, to spend it on. Th-there are some things where either by policy or by law that restrict how you can do things, how you can spend your, spend your dollars you know. You can’t use hotel tax dollars to build a new road, in, in the south part of College Station, you have, the state law tells you what you can use you hotel tax dollars for. And, and, and, and so, you know, for me a lot of it is, is educating those, those folks so that they can best understand how, you know, how, how to sp-budget (Holding up budget book) I’m holding this up that people can’t see…because it’s not, it, it’s not easy necessarily, I mean it, it, it’s not that it’s hard, but, but its complex, there are a lot of moving pieces to it, it, it’s, and, and, and so you know it’s trying to explain the, the, the different pieces of the budget and the different choices that have to be made that, you know again, I you know, I still come back to, a big part of my job, pro-one of the most important parts of my job is to make sure that city council has the best information that they can n the budget, and, and finances so they can make the best policy decisions that they possibly can, because ultimately in terms of the policy side of things, what you’re really going to accomplish in a lot of ways is where you’re gonna direct your dollars to, where you’re going to direct your resources. Because we talk about us being a service organization, and all, but it takes people to do that, and people for the most part, are gonna have costs associated with them, and, and so, again, what, again what I think I’m, I’m charged with doing is pr-providing city management and city council, now the best information I possibly can so, so they can make the best decision that they possibly can, and hopefully the most complete decision they possibly can. And, and, and, and, and, and, and I always, that’s always a challenge because sometimes you can talk to folks, they can nod their heads and all, but are, are, are they really, you know are they really getting it? And, and, and, and it’s, and, and, and people learn differently, and, and, and, and th-there, and our council has that, that entire range, th-th-there’s a couple who I can give the highlights they can look at this and they’ve got it all figured out, and, and there, they do. And then there are others who, who, who, who it just takes a little more time to explain, again the different buckets that we have these resources in, and what you can, what you can use for ‘em and what you can’t and that kind of thing. (BL): Is your relationship or, or interactions I should say, with the Mayor any different than city council? (01:00:58): (JK): I, I, I, think it, its many times can be a, a, a little more thorough, maybe, I say thorough, may spend more time w-and it probably varies over time with the, the different mayors and what, what their interested in. And again, it’s, it’s all about trying to make sure that, that, that, they have a good understanding of, of the, the decisions that they’re looking at, because then if, if they have a good understanding themselves they can help explain it, whether it’s to the other council members or to the public, you know, for example, Mayor Mooney, spends, you know a fair amount of time keeping an eye on what’s happening with the state legislature in Austin, and, and you know may ask, ”Hey, what’s this bill gonna do? Or what’s the impact gonna be?” Because he may be going down to testify for or against something that, that, that could have some impact on us, and, and again, so it’s about, you know, again, trying to make sure it, that, that, you know, he’s got the best information he can to, to make the point that he’s trying to make. (BL): So, switching gears a little bit with this, we’re going to talk about some of your personal reactions or, memories about certain events that have happened in College Station. So, could you provide some of your reactions or, or memories of bonfire? (01:02:49): (JK): Well sure, I guess, you know certainly w-w-going to school and you know, going to bonfires as a student and all, you know it’s a, certainly a big part of Texas A&M, and, and, and the tradition and all, and, and you know back in 1999, when the, the bonfire fell I seem to remember it was that morning when we were up getting ready for work and all, when we see on the local news that, something had happened over there, and, and at first memory thinking, “Oh, it’s like it was a couple years ago,” where, where they had kind of a minor shift, where they had to come in “Oh, looks like that happened again.” But you quickly realized that’s not, not what it was, and it was something much more, much more serious than that. And, and again, fr- from, at that time my, in my, where I was in the organization, I was more kind of observing what was going on, kind of, kinda from City Hall, and, and I may have gone over to the emergency operations center, when they had it next door, again more than anything, just kinda observing what was happening and it was, you know again, probably the, the most surreal part was when you walked outside city Hall and you can see the heli-news helicopters flying over, and, and ya, ya knew, you know that’s, you know som-obviously that something really terrible had, had happened there. And, and, again, you know and, and, and working here, and certainly the police and fire folks were completely involved in, in,in the whole rescue and recovery operation and everything that, that, that, that happened over there. And, again, just hearing some of those stories were, were you know k-k-kind of, just very, very heartbreaking, about what had, what had happened there. And, and so again, it was a, a very difficult, you know period, kind of shocking when, when, when that, when, when, when that incident happened and stuff. You know and thinking back on it now, A-at the time, I had a, a two year old at home and you think back at it now, now I’ve got a sophomore in college, whose the same age, you know as some of those kids, you know who were, who were on the bonfire, when, when, when that happened and you, it, it, you know r-really kinda hits you in a little different way than when you gotta kinda think back on that. And, I-I also remember afterwards, somebody, it, it, it was probably the days afterwards when, I guess it was my boss at the time made the comment that, “They’ll never have another one again,” and I remember thinking, “Nah, that’s, th-th-that’s, th-there’s no way that they could never, you know never have another one again, and they’ll figure out what happened,” and, but, ultimately the decision was made not to have another one on A&M’s sponsored one on campus. And, and I quickly understood in, understood why, why that they couldn’t do that again. It, it, it, after it happened, a tragedy like that, and, and the hard cold fact of it is the, the, the liability of, of something like that, and just, and beyond that just being able to look at those parents and family members of those who, you know, who are impacted by all that, you know it, it certainly changed A&M forever, and had a big impact on the, on the whole community as well. (BL): What about, so this is a national event, what about 9/11? (01:07:38): (JK): Ya, you know when, when 9/11 happened, I was taking my four month old daughter to daycare. And, over off of Holloman and, and, Texas when, when I listened to the radio, and they talking about a, you know, at the time it was, looks like some kinda plane, maybe a small plane flew into the world trade center, and, and all, and I got out and dropped, dropped her off and then they had a TV on in there and you can see the smoke coming out and, and, and then, you know came in to, came into work, and probably like, like everywhere, you know, the TV was on, and you know turn the TV on in one of the conference rooms, and was watching that, listening to the stuff on the radio, and again, it’s one of those where you’re wondering, wh- wh-what’s going on. I remember my wife called me and she said, “Are we okay?” And I said, “Well, yeeeaahh, sure I think so.” But you really don’t know, you know, you really don’t know for sure, and but, you know again, we, you know, I vividly remember actually in the conference room over here, again one of the other TVs was on, and watching one of the towers fall. Wow, you know. And you’re thinking, you know… (SC): What’s next? (01:09:20): (JK): What’s next? Yeah. What’s, wh-what’s happening in the world now? You know I’ve got a four year old and a three month old and what’s, you know what’s, what’s happening here? And, and, and so that, they probably not a whole lot of work got done, you know again. (SC): All across the country, right? (01:09:43): (JK): Yeah. Ev-everybody was kinda glued to the, glued to the TVs, and watching that a kind of wondering, “Okay, now what? What’s, what’s gonna happen next?” So, so that certainly also you know I think, impacted us, and that, also somewhat remember I think the, at the time the city manager brought in the police chief and fire chief’s to, I think more than anything just to, you know okay if you have an incident happen here just to make sure things were under, under control and all. But, but yeah that was certainly a, it, it, it’s kind of amazing the number of not so many pleasant things I remember as they happened, while being here at, in the last twenty something years whether it was the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building, again, I remember seeing that happen, the Columbine shooting in Colorado, and that was all happening the, the incident in Connecticut, the school shooting there, you know, all those, and just for whatever reason it has popped in my head is, you know th-those are all things that happened, you know during the day when, during a, otherwise normal day, and just then , everybody lives, including our lives here in College Station, kinda jar you, and you know cause you to really reflect and question a whole lot of different things. (BL): (Somber?) So, moving to a, a not quite heavy topic, but I’m sure it’s still heavy for some of those involved, can you talk a little bit about the annexation of Wellborn? (01:12:01): (JK): Ya-ya-you know things like annexation are, are, are tough, they, they, they, they can be, because it impacts people, and people have strong feeling about whether, especially people who don’t a-a-agree with, with, with, with being annexed, and and, what what they feel that that’s going to mean for them, it’s very personal to people, and, and, and, and that was a, a, a certainly a dif-difficult period when, when we had the annexation, and then the attempt to recall a number of the council members at the time, who were, who were involved in that, and so again, it brought up some, some, uncertainty, it brought up bad, I say bad, it brought up , certainly, nega-some negative publicity, jus-just about the whole, whole conflict, and the whole situation that, that was going on. Again, from part, part of what my responsibility is to try to help understand what’s the cost if we, th-there are certain things you have to try to figure out what’s going to cost if we do an annexation, and, and, and typically when you annex something its, its, it, it, it may cost you more to provide services to that area than the revenue that you’re going to get, but typically when you make those decisions, that’s, it’s not just about whether its gonna cover its cost w-when you do it, you know it’s about, ultimately the, the way that the city’s growing, you know, do you wanna have some control over how it grows and what it looks like? And, and, and those were ultimately policy questions that the city council had to gra-political questions that the city council had to grapple with, and, and, and, and figure out, and again it’s one of those that, you know left some difficult feelings on in, in, in particular with, with some of the individuals who were impacted by that out in the Wellborn area. And, you know certainly I think, you know, you’re also seeing at the state level the efforts to further restrict city’s abilities to, to annex, and then we’ll, we’ll see where all that ends up, but, but again there, there doing that we certainly have consequences as well to, to cities again in terms of their ability to handle growth that’s happening, and the, the whole annexation question is, is a difficult one that’s, that’s ultimately the policy makers and politicians are going to, are going to be deciding. (BL): And of course that will, their decision will influence College Station. (01:15:40): (JK):Yeah, you know, and, and, and again part of what I see my job is, is whatever decision that city councils make, you know again, it, what, what, I need to do is to, were need to provide information on what the impact of that is, if we, you know, if we, whether it’s a budget decision or an annexation decision, or, or, or other major decision, you, you know what’s the impact of that? Financially on the city and, and, and otherwise on, on, on the city, you know again, so again, so hopefully people can have the best understanding possible of what, what, what, what the impact of their decisions are. (BL): So we had two concluding questions for you, the first what do h-what do you hope, or what do you hope the city, so you can answer either, you or the city, to accomplish in the future? (01:16:52): (JK): Well, I-I mean I hope that, I, I guess as the city goes, we’re able to meet the demands of the growth that we’re seeing and the demands of the changing population that, that, that we’re seeing, the, the, the best way that, that we possibly can, and to be willing to change what we’re doing and how we provide services because the, the way we did things twenty five years ago in some ways, may, may, may work fine, but nother, in other circumstances it just may not fit with, with, with where we are and where we are going in the further, we, we either may not be able to afford to keep doing some of the things we’re doing, it may be that there are now new priorities out there that, that, because of changes in technology and then the way people lead, lead, live their lives that, that we need to think about, and some of those I couldn’t even necessarily tell you right now, but what I can tell you is in ten years things will be different then they are now, just as they’re different than, from you know twenty five-twenty six years ago when I started working with the city full time. And it’s how do we adapt to those, to those changes, and I’m, I’m confident we will, but it’s certainly not always going to be, not always going to be easy to do that. (BL): Thanks. Do you have any advice for those who would be interested in public service? Or being a city manager, assistant city manager? (01:18:40): (JK): Sure. I, I think, you know again, I think it’s a great profession to be in, and you know there are some people who question why people would want to be, “Why do you wanna waste your time in local government,” or that kinda thing, and again I, I, I, my advice would be to, to it, it’s a place, always remember it’s a place where you can make, you really can make an impact, and College Station is still a small enough community where we’re not so small that we don’t do cool innovative things, but we’re not so big, like let’s say Houston, or something that you can just get lost in the bureaucracy, we’re, we’re, we’re a good size where, where if you wanna come and really make an impact on, on somebody, if you’re willing to work hard, and, and put in some effort, and some things may not always work out the way that you want them to, they haven’t always worked out the way I wanted them to, but you, you, you truly can make a difference in people’s liv-in people’s lives, and, and you know so I would encourage people who are interested in, in local government, to, to always keep in mind it, it’s the it, ul-ultimately the citizens that, that, we’re, we’re, we’re trying to serve the best way that we can and, and, and, and, and to, and our responsibility in, in, in this particular form of government is to, again, working through the city manager to the city council, again, to always give them the best information we can so they can make the best decision possible. (BL): Okay. Well I wanna thank you so much for the time that you gave to us today to interview you as well as, just the contribution and dedication you have to the city, we greatly appreciate it, and we’re very grateful that you allowed us to interview you for our oral history project. So thank you. (01:20:50): (JK): Sure. Thank you very much. (SC): Thank you.