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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 27, 1975)
r Meng. Hair left her the ' vote to >t her to ’heprin- irchanft s hasn’t D ne on ! t ( dif. 2. Call Memo- Hudson 77868 r Mrs. )r of y Ad- 308tfi Til, Birii to 10 p.D. > fen 2 ini 92t(i II time in- )olo e sti rred. Con- trnl Bruos 2-7326. 84116 . Mon.-Fit «) or tlim Ipful.Appk or Colleft 67tB sil wailrtss carnet i»- J200toW lornings os J3-2323 it Directofd j0913.6(i md all tit) 026 All ki* 11 231t6 ED share i ig-dininl tely f» r ' Must lb W mingr' er seutn- 86 0 and er- ced Batt Spring Election Preview City Council Place 1 Jim Jett What do you consider to be your qualifications for College Station City Councilman? lam 30 years old, energetic and interested in working for the bet terment of College Station. I came back to College Station of my own choice after going to college here The following candidates for College Station City Council- men were interviewed by Bat talion staff writers. The city council election is Tuesday. because I liked the town. I have worked in business as an employe, supervisor and owner. I feel this will aid me on the council to maintain a business-like approach to city gov ernment. I am active in the Chamber of Commerce and local civic organizations. What do you consider to be the advantages and disadvantages of consolidating the cities of Bryan and College Station? Do you sup port this move? lam not for consolidation, as I can see no gain for the city of College Station. I see bad problems arising if we give up any degree of control over our city. The voter turnout is larger in Bryan than in College Sta tion, which would cause a power imbalance without a ward system. College Station is presently a pay as-you-go’ city, and I want to keep it that way. Do you favor ward or at-large elections for the city? Why? I favor the ward system. At least it would insure a diverse geographical distribution on the council. Should the council hold two regu lar meetings monthly instead of the one it holds now? Should council- men receive compensation? How much? The council should hold meetings as often as needed. Two regular meetings would get more people in formed as to when the council meets than the called meeting system. The council should not receive compensation. The job can be done at this time by concerned citizens giving their time. Do you favor moving the railroad tracks by the Wellborn Road beyond A&M’s west campus? Yes. The railroad is an increasing problem. How would you have voted on the Dominik Drive rezoning? (changing a single-family residen tial area to an apartment building district) Why? 1 would have voted for the rezon ing. I believe the buffer requested by the residents was adhered to by Harry Seaback. There was a mutual agreement arrived at between them and it was kept by Seaback. The city needed more apartments and it is not for the council to judge the per sonalities of the person making the request. On what criteria would you ap prove zone change requests in gen eral? The needs of the community must come first. Changing patterns in the city may necessitate rezon- ings. An investigation should be made into the effects of the change on the surrounding area. We must he careful to avoid a ‘snowball’ effect that woidd take us away from our development plan. (See JETT, page 8) Jim Jett Gary Halter Gary Halter What do you consider to be your qualifications for College Station councilman? I have a Ph. D. in Political Science with a specialty in municipal gov ernment and administration. I teach courses in city management, city fi nance and law. Also, I work as an adviser through the university to other cities in Texas giving them ad vice on management and technol ogy application. What do you consider to be the advantages and disadvantages of consolidating the cities of Bryan and College Station? Do you support this move? First of all, I oppose it because I know there are no economies of scale in most municipal services. Per capita expenditures for police, highways, sanitation, fire protection and for recreation and parks gener ally tend to increase with the size of a city. Many of these things in the area of police and fire protection can best be handled through coopera tion between the two cities. In the areas of utilities there are economies of scale in terms of pro duction but to a large extent these services are already consolidated. Do you favor ward or at-large elections for the city? Why? I would favor a ward system under these conditions: a) it should be a combination of at- large and ward with the mayor being elected at-large. b) we would have to increase the size of the city council beyond its present position. I think larger city councils do provide more accurate representation of all the various segments and interests of the com munity. c) wards have to be apportioned equally according to population. We would have to write into the charter an absolute requirement that reapportionment occurs every certain period of time. Should the Council hold two reg ular meetings monthly instead of the one it holds now? Should council- men receive compensation? How much? Last year the council held 36 meetings of which 12 were regularly scheduled. I think we should change the charter to allow for regu lar bi-monthly meetings at a specific time so the citizens will know when they will be held. It wouldn’t make any difference to me if councilmen received com pensation because a state law pro hibits any state employee from tak ing two salaries of emolument. I don’t think that the job is so de manding that the average person can’t serve without pay. A salary should be paid to city councilmen if the demands of their time is such that you begin to exclude certain people from serving because their job won’t allow it. Do you favor moving the railroad tracks by Wellborn Road beyond A&M’s west campus? I think so. The exact effect this would have and precisely how it ought to be moved and how the feeder lines would have to be de veloped would have to be looked into. How would you have voted on the Dominik Drive rezoning? (changing a single-family residence area to an apartment builiding district) Why? I would have voted with the resi dents because they were promised that the area would remain a single family residence area when they bought. Also a petition was signed by about 270 people requesting that KAMV-TV to hold election forum tonight Candidates for the College Station City Coun cil and A&M Consolidated School Board will be questioned by a five-man panel tonight at 10 in a live television broadcast on KAMU-TV, Channel 15. Representing The Battalion on the panel will be city staff reporter Gerald Olivier. The other panelists include Mark Holcomb of KAMU-TV; Wendy Gramm, representing the Brazos County League of Women Voters; C.J. Leabo, journalism department head; and Eagle reporter Jerry Gray. The panel interview will be rebroadcast in its entirety at 10 p.m. Monday. The College Station City Council election will be the following day while the school board election is set for April 5. On April 2 at 10 p. m. a similar interview program will be held by Channel 15 with candidates for the Bryan City Council and Bryan School Board. The show will be re-run at the same time on April 4. The portion of the first program dealing with candidates for the A&M Consolidated School Board will be included in the April 4 re-run. this change not he made. Since this is a democratic government, I think the council should have postponed the hearing to give the public time to legally file the petition. On what criteria would you ap prove zone change requests (in general)? The three main criteria I would look into are the change in traffic, the effects on drainage and the character of the neighborhood. If any of these things are going to be greatly altered then I am going to vote against it. Should College Station have zon ing ordinances at all? (Bryan has no zoning) Would you recommend changes in the current zoning ordi nances? I think we have to have zoning. Development can be directed by laying major utility lines in a specific direction but only as a supplement to zoning. If the city continues to approve over 90 percent of all rezon ing requests then this cannot work. I would recommend a time limit on the amount of time a piece of land can stay in a particular category above a single-family residence and still be undeveloped. If a piece of (See HALTER, page 8) Voting Precincts S. W. Parkway College Station voters will fill three positions on their city council in Tuesday’s election. On the following Saturday, April 5, two positions on the A&M Consolidated School Board will be filled. The polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on both days. Polling places are as follows: Precinct 8 South Knoll Elementary School Precinct9 A&M Consolidated Special Services Building Precinct 10 College Station Fire Station Precinct 20 TAMU University Center Precinct 21 College Station Municipal Building Precinct 24 College Hills Elementary School City Council Place 3 Don Dale What do you consider to be your qualifications for College Station City Council? I’m going on my past record and my support for continued im provement in the regulations that govern our city. We have had a de velopment controls committee that I am chairman of and we are trying to clean up some of our ordinances that are not up to date. I think this continued effort will enable the city to keep up with its growth with up- to-date ordinances. I’ve served four years on the city council and have been very involved in the city’s af- i fairs. What do you consider as the ad vantages and/or disadvantages of consolidating both the cities of Bryan and College Station? Would you support such a move? No, I would not support such a move. That’s a very ticklish subject with me in that I’ve been here so long and I’ve watched the people of Bryan turn thumbs down on the people of College Station and try to run everything. But now the city of College Station is going to outstrip Bryan in all activities and now they (city of Bryan) would like for us to join them. I am 100 percent for the cooperation between the two cities but not the consolidation. Do you favor ward or at-large elections for the city? Why? I see nothing wrong with the ward system. I think the distribu tion of people throughout the whole area has certain advantages. But it would make no difference to me whether or not I was elected from a ward or an at-large system. I think I Don Dale could represent the people just as well either way. I think you might have a little better representation with a ward system and I would vote for it. Should the Council hold two reg ular meetings monthly instead of the one it holds now? Should coun cilmen receive compensation? How much? I don’t know whether two are necessary or not because sometimes we meet more than once a month during special meetings. Just meet ing for the sake of meeting really doesn’t make sense. As long as all the committees we’ve got are doing their jobs then I see no reason why we should meet twice a month. I don’t think we should be paid be- (See DALE, page 8) Bob Bell What do you consider to be your qualifications for College Station city councilman? A basic interest in the city of Col lege Station and the people. I have a bachelor of arts degree from Texas A&M and have been in business for nearly 10 years. My qualifications are a mix of community interest and business success that would be val uable as a city councilman. What do you consider to be the advantages and disadvantages of consolidating the cities of Bryan and College Station? Do you sup port this move? No party supporting a consolida tion has approached me to support it. Several College Station residents are against it. My personal feeling is that cooperation in some areas, such as individual protection and city services, could be in the public in terest. I support examining cooperative measures that could be beneficial to College Station. Do you favor ward or at-large elections for the city? Why? A city council of eight members plus a mayor, with four councilmen elected from wards, and four plus the mayor elected at-large would be best. This would give all areas rep resentation, and enlarge the city council to better handle city gov ernment. This would combine the best features of both systems. Should the city council hold two regular meetings a month instead of the one it holds now? Should councilmen receive compensation? How much? I would favor two regular meet- Bob Bell ings. The council should not receive compensation. Do you favor moving the railroad tracks by the Wellborn Road beyond A&M’s west campus? I think I need to study this issue more closely before I make an iron clad statement. The factors involv ing a move may be such that the railroad will be moving on its own, or it may be impossible to move at all. How would you have voted on the Dominik Drive rezoning (changing single-family residential to an apartment building district)? Why? I would have supported the re quest of the Dominik residents and would have voted against the rezon ing. It was not the request of Col- (See BELL, page 8) City Council Place 5 Greg Magruder What do you consider to be your qualifications for College Station councilman? I am currently an advisory direc tor of University National Bank. I Greg Magruder have an awareness of and interest in community affairs. What do you consider to be the advantages and disadvantages of consolidating the cities of Bryan and College Station? Do you sup port this move? At this time there has not been enough representation of both sides of the argument. Some advantages are that both cities could be in volved in mass transportation sys tem and utilities regulation. The complexity of consolidation would be a major disadvantage. Do you favor ward or at-large elections for the city? Why? I would tend to favor ward system because it would insure representa tion for students and for specific areas of the city. It would not be practical to divide the city into wards to give minorities their own representatives because of the way the minority areas are spread out. Students have the capability to elect representatives in the at-large sys-' tern. Should the council hold two regu lar meetings monthly instead of the one it holds now? Should council- men receive compensation? How much? Yes, the city should have two regular meetings each month. They would get more done and wouldn’t have to cram it into one long meet ing. Councilmen shouldn’t receive compensation. Do you favor moving the railroad tracks by the Wellborn Road beyond A&M’s west campus? Yes. The tracks need to be moved to allow student traffic to get across the tracks. The move would better facilitate traffic flow in town. How would you have voted on the Dominik Drive rezoning? (changing a single-family residence area to an apartment building dis trict) Why? I would have voted against it be cause people in the area did not want additional apartments. On what criteria would you ap prove zone change requests in gen eral? I am skeptical of zone changes. The city needs more planning and to stick to plans. People would have to convince me a zone change would be advantageous to the whole com munity or I would vote against it. Should College Station have zon ing ordinances at all? (Bryan has no zoning.) Would you recommend changes in the current zoning ordi nances? Yes, we need zoning. I would not recommend any changes at this time. Considering the city’s growth rate, should College Station gener ate its own utilities instead of con tracting for those services from Bryan? If there was a future consolida tion, this move would not be feasi ble. I am against another city con trolling our utilities. They may cur tail our usage in a shortage. Larry Bravenec What do you consider to be your qualifications for the College Sta tion City Council? I’ve served one year on the coun cil and it was a year in which I learned a lot. If I’m elected I don’t think I will have any trouble finding my way around. It takes about a year to get to know your way around here. I was elected to fill an unex pired term and I feel I m qualified for another term. What do you consider to be the advantages and disadvantages of consolidating the cities of Bryan and College Station? Would you support such a move? I haven’t seen any advantages, but I wouldn’t oppose it if the ad vantages became clear to me in terms of better services and less ex pense. There are certain advantages in separate cities in that you have police and fire departments that are closer to you and are able to serve the city better. Second, we buy our utilities, water and electricity from Bryan. Bryan has to float its bonds to the public, generally, and one of the factors that bears on the rate of in terest they pay on those bonds is their past experience with their major customers. College Station is their major customer. We have paid our bills on time and because of this I think we actually save money by selling bonds to the public that wouldn’t exist if we had just one big city. Consolidation just for the sake of consolidation doesn t make sense to me. We are operating quite well now as it is. Do you favor ward or at-large elections for the city? Why? This is really a matter out of the councils’ hands, but speaking as a private citizen, I would probably vote against it. I think city govern ment would be more responsive when you have seven councilmen you can call on rather than just one from your own ward. The city really isn’t big enough for a ward system. It would probably divide the city because then you would be promot ing the interests of your own ward rather than of the whole city. Should the Council hold two reg ular meetings monthly instead of the one it holds now? Should coun cilmen receive compensation? When the new council met last April this issue came up and I voted in favor of two meetings because I feel we have enough business now to warrant two regular meetings a month. We’ve been averaging about two and a half meetings a month now. Sometimes we have (See BRAVENEC, page 8) Larry Bravenec