Three College Station City Council members elected in November were sworn in Tuesday night and said one of their main goals will be working with and educating students.
Blanche Brick was sworn in to City Council Place 1, Karl Mooney to Place 3 and Julie Schultz to Place 5. All three members won reelection and were sworn in by Judge Edward Spillane.
Brick, first elected to the council in May 2011, is a history professor at Blinn College and graduated from Texas A&M with a doctorate in 1983.
Brick said students at Texas A&M can expect much of the same from her this term, “which is a fair hearing for everything that comes before the council, and that I want to hear both sides of every issue and make the best decision possible for everyone involved.”
Mooney was also first elected to the council in May 2011 and is the director of General Academic Programs Advising at Texas A&M University.
Mooney said he is excited about being a part of the City Council and hoped that as an employee of Texas A&M, students would be comfortable with speaking to him.
“I work at the university, I’m in charge of an academic advising program over at the university, so students are basically and have been my life for well over three decades now,” Mooney said. “And I hope they see me, in particular, as being approachable.”
Schultz, also first elected to the council May 2011, owns Schultz Engineering located in College Station with her husband Joe Schultz.
Schultz said it’s important to try to change the community’s perspective toward students and for local government be more involved with student leadership.
“I think it’s really important to try to change the mindset of the community, to understand the value of the students and to not complain about them as much as [people] do,” Schultz said.
Both Schultz and Mooney said an initiative of the City Council is to more successfully educate the students on the rules and ordinances of College Station.
“One of the things that this council would like to do is to help students to better understand just what the laws are of the community,” Mooney said. “Students from another state where one law might be appropriate, somebody from Colorado for example, might have one concept of the law whereas in Texas its a little different”.
Schultz said city staff are working on more positive approaches to educate students.
“They are going to do education and not just come at students with the negative,” Schultz said. “To help them understand the way things work here and try to make it more of a friendly exchange instead of a negative one.”