Austin Williams, telecommunication media studies senior, spoke with candidates for College Station City Council.
Place 1 Candidates
Blanche Brick, Blinn College history professor
THE BATTALION: What issues would you want to address as city council member?
BRICK: Since I came on the council from my first term, I have been interested in addressing issues relating to transportation and especially transportation in the context of the growth we’re now experiencing. Looking at ways to improve public transportation but also looking at ways to offer better solutions to the present infrastructure that we have. We have been trying to upgrade the systems for transportation and managing traffic.
THE BATTALION: What are some goals you would want to achieve as city council member?
BRICK: Well, when I ran the first time, I was running to reestablish the concept of civility in government and the use of common sense in solving a lot of our problems. It seemed at the time that I ran there was a pretty strong divisive atmosphere in the council, and certainly I recognize there are going to be differences of opinion, but the idea is we need to preserve the process and respect the other side’s views so that we can all discuss them and hopefully bring to the table some kind of reasonable compromise that will allow us to at least address the concerns of the whole community.
Gabriel Pereira, political science junior
THE BATTALION: What issues would you want to address as city council member?
PEREIRA: First of all I tell people I am running primarily on representing all taxpayers, so that’s going to be one of the major issues. The fact that our cohort is not really represented in local government, and we contribute $4 billion to the local economy, and that’s an older figure, that’s actually from 2012. Also the fact that we [students] spend about $5 million a year here locally. It’s definitely important that we’re represented. Another thing also is infrastructure, just the growth and development of College Station and the community.
THE BATTALION: What are some goals you would want to achieve as city council member?
PEREIRA: A lot of the people who have been on city council prior, and a lot of people coming out of city council currently, they have some very concrete personal goals. That’s been a big thing I have been telling people, is that I’m trying to come on without having an agenda, just trying to come and address the needs of the community, the issues that are faced by the community and trying to foster community development economically. Working to support businesses here locally, working to support economic independence from the university — those are some of the things I would like to see accomplished.
Place 5 candidates
Julie Schultz, owner of Schultz Engineering
THE BATTALION: What issues would you want to address as city council member?
SCHULTZ: One of those things is to make our community and our staff more helpful to new businesses, and being more of a business-friendly entity that tries to encourage businesses to come, or try to encourage existing businesses to stand and help them be more successful. Another thing is to manage our growth. By that I mean the infrastructure that we are having to put in place in the south part of town, to make sure we are putting in large-scale infrastructure so we don’t have to come back later and increase it once things do get more populated, so that’s a big issue. We’re also looking at the really big projects, specifically the medical district on the south side of town.
THE BATTALION: What are some goals you would want to achieve as city council member?
SCHULTZ: I would have to say in light of what we were just discussing, the problem that has been in existence since I was a small child, is the issues related to students in our community and the rest of the residents in our community. A lot of residents feel adversarial toward the students, like students are a problem and they create all these issues and we don’t want them in our neighborhood. Just the constant negativity that I see as a councilperson, I would absolutely like to change that. I would like to be a part of that change.
Linda Harvell, owner of Texas Trading Post
THE BATTALION: What issues would you want to address as city council member?
HARVELL: Neighborhood integrity. You can look around and see what I’m talking about — that house across the street that you see is going to be renovated, it’s going to be for students but the builder recognizes the historic nature of the area, so he’s restoring that home. That’s neighborhood integrity as opposed to if you go up the street on Welsh here and you see three large houses, one of them is painted turquoise — it doesn’t fit. That’s actually what got me started on the campaign trail. As I have gone across the city and met with people, there are a lot of issues that have not been addressed by the city. I’m also an advocate of small businesses, I am a small-business owner myself and I think that the city needs to position itself as a small-business friendly environment.
THE BATTALION: What are some goals you would want to achieve as city council member?
HARVELL: Actually it’s a very strong goal, to improve communication between the neighborhoods and the city. My concern is, as the city grows, with all this new expansion and being the second-fastest growing city in the country, that the neighborhoods are going to be left behind in the things that need to be done and taken care of.