"The greatness of a society can be measured not by how much influence and power its government exerts, but rather by how much liberty and opportunity it ensures for its people.​"  

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The Reason I'm running for a seat on the Town Council: 

 

Do you want a politician or a statesman passing laws that impact your life? 

Do you want a council member to represent the collective interests of the town as a whole, or to represent  you, your interests and concerns, and protect your individual rights? 

A person's political philosophy matters even when governing small towns.

I recommend examining the candidates, asking hard questions, and evaluating who has already demonstrated they are willing to do the hard work needed to protect your constitutional rights and preserve the neighborly rural character of Sunnyvale.

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I've spent the last 6 months leading the campaign to fix provisions in the Unified Development Ordianance (UDO) that infringe on the property rights of our current residents, before adopting it into law. We were successful in eliminate two major problems and grandfathering existing development and structures, but the UDO was adopted with many remaining  problems.  This motivated me to run for town council.

 

After interviewing each of the early candidates for town council, some multiple times, I was not able to get anyone’s firm commitment to champion the concerns and issues raised by many of the town’s residents who feel that our town has moved too far towards an HOA style approach with excessive regulatory overreach, particularly with regards to the private property rights of the town’s current residents.  I have also spent a considerable amount of time talking to each of our current town council members, providing public input, and attempting to get support from council members for reining in the regulatory overreach with little success. Though the council recognized that the recently adopted Unified Development Ordinance had public opposition due to its infringement on the private property rights of the town’s current residents, the council voted 6-0 to move forward, adopt the UDO with only a few changes, and let the next council “fix it” later.  Current council members have a genuine concern for the town (and I appreciate their service), but their primary concern seems to be what they feel is best for the town as a collective whole, rather than our individual rights. That is a socialistic approach. I have not found anyone committed to protecting John Doe’s or Mary Smith’s individual constitutional rights and interests.  

 

I therefore filed for candidacy for a town council place, not because I aspire to a town council seat, but rather to protect our individual constitutional rights, to promote limited government, and hopefully to reign in regulatory overreach. It is my hope that my candidacy will increase the public awareness and debate of these issues, influence both council members and candidates to give more attention to protecting the rights of the town’s individual citizens, and if elected allow me to be at least one voice on the council trying to represent the interest of the town’s individual citizens and their constitutional rights.  I support term limits and I will not under any condition serve more than two terms. 

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Platform Details:

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Each member of the town council brings strengths and interest in different areas. A diversity of perspectives and priorities makes for a better governing council. My commitment will be to focus on the following priorities.  If these are not areas of concern for you, I encourage you to vote for a different candidate.

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• Principle Centered Leadership

Some feel that “the end justifies the means”.  This is not principled centered leadership. Principles and integrity are more important than any objective. We need to have a vision for Sunnyvale with prioritized goals and objectives. But ultimately, how we do things is more important than what gets done. Managers get things done. Leaders do the right things. We have a town manager and staff to get things done. The town council needs to take leadership responsibility and make sure we are doing the right things, not just for the town as a whole, but for each individual citizen of Sunnyvale. After all, you elect us to represent your individual interests and concerns.

 

• Govern in accordance with Conservative Constitutional Principles

“We the People” empower the town government to act in our behalf, representing our individual interests, providing infrastructure to enhance our quality of life, promoting the general welfare and safety of the town, and above all protecting our individual constitutional rights. When the town council and staff adopt policies, ordinances, and regulations with language that gives priority to the collective interests of the town over the constitutional rights of its citizens, it has lost sight of who it is supposed to represent and strayed far from the foundational principles of both our federal and state constitutions.

 

• Protect the Constitutional Rights of each individual resident of Sunnyvale

As a council member, I will represent you and always give priority to your constitutional rights over all other considerations.  The town has no constitutional rights, only powers given to it by its citizens.

 

• Reduce the town’s current regulatory overreach

Less government meddling in everyone lives is better government. This doesn't mean no rules, but it does mean that we don't need a thousand pages of ordinances for a small town like Sunnyvale, with a new ordinance enacted for every conceivable problem. We are Sunnyvale. We take pride in being an educated, civil, religious, well mannered community. Surely we can give higher priority to the Golden Rule and "Love thy Neighbor" as our standard of conduct.

 

• Preserve our rural character by:

  • Maintaining an absolute minimum density of one residence per acre, including the preservation of tree lined streets, pastures, and open spaces. Absolutely no new multi-family housing. This minimum density is not guaranteed in the town’s charter and there continues to be pressure on the town council to increase density. The Town Charter Committee is currently reviewing and considering changes to the town charter which will then require approval of the town citizens at the ballot box. A minimum density provision needs to be added to the charter to ensure in the future that any changes to the town’s density standards will require approval by a majority of the town’s voters.

  • Encouraging a diversity of housing styles, parks, trails, and Sunnyvale recreational use of our flood plain and lake shore. (Current the Unified Development Ordinance requires all new structures to be 90% masonry, eliminating many country home styles. This is regulatory overreach and not at all consistent with our rural character.)

  • Encouraging a friendly spirit of community association with neighbors helping neighbors.

 

• Manage development consistent with our rural character

If the town grows too rapidly, we will quickly overrun the capacity of our infrastructure. In addition, new development needs to pay the entire cost of its impact on the town’s infrastructure. Currently this is being born by taxes on the town’s existing residents. Existing residents should not have to pay for new roads, water tanks, sewer capacity, schools, and other infrastructure needs created by new development. We currently do not have sufficient funds to even pay for the maintenance needs of our current infrastructure.

 

• Improve the communication and transparency of the town government

Communication between the town and its citizens is very poor.  We have no town newspaper, no independent reporting on what the town council and its appointed committees are doing, and it is difficult to even find out which council members voted to raise our tax rate for 2018 or to adopt the onerous language in the UDO, hence there is no accountability. We can do better than this.

 

• Improve the process of democracy and community involvement

• In this election cycle, 3 of the 4 open council places are uncontested, with 4 people piled into the race for Place 2. In the most recent 3 elections, we have had 7 uncontested council places. Why is this? With no debate of the issues and no voter choice, there is no democracy.

• Sunnyvale is paying substantial amounts of money for the advice of consultants and for them to do work that in many cases could be done by a committee of town residents. Sunnyvale is blessed with a great deal of talent, with expertise in just about every area of concern the town has, and we are not effectively tapping into it. We need to invite and encourage greater citizen participation in the town’s governance.

• As part of the current effort to improve the Town Charter, consideration needs to be given to changes that will improve the democratic process and encourage more citizenship involvement.

 

 

Political Affiliations and Support:

 

What is my political philosophy for governance?

 

A legislator’s political perspective with regards to how a society should be governed is as important at the local community level as it is at the state and national levels. Local ordinances, rules, regulations, policies, taxes, and budgets for our county, town, and school district can have a greater and more immediate impact on our daily family and personal lives than state and national levels.

 

This question needs to be asked by citizens and answered by every candidate in a push for greater transparency.  However since we rarely ask this question at the local level, we don’t really know what we are getting when we elect our town council members. This could explain why a very conservative town has elected council members who have taken a more liberal view towards governance, resulting in the regulatory overreach manifest in our current ordinances.  

 

I am a very strong constitutional conservative. The US Constitution provided the means to raise up the greatest country in the world’s history by enshrining and protecting principles of life, liberty, freedom, justice, private property, democracy, and opportunity for all. There is much wisdom in this document, and elected legislators at all levels of government in the US, including our town council members, must take an oath to protect and obey it (an oath many take lightly but one which I will keep).

 

I have and continue to be a strong supporter and advocate for very conservative legislators like Ted Cruz, Jeb Hensarling, and Bob Hall. I have personally visited with all three and discussed issues of concern for our community. I’ve previously campaigned for Jeb, and with his retirement from Congress I endorse and support Bunni Pounds in the runoff election. I endorse and support Jonathan Boos as our Texas House Representative in the general election. I participate in grassroots politics and I am a delegate of the Sunnyvale Precinct to the Republican Party State Convention in 2018.