City of Gunter City Council Place 4 Candidates

This is my hometown of 44 years. The impending growth of our city is especially important to me and my fellow residents. I understand the importance of laying a foundation that will enhance our small community environment in a much larger environment. Qualities that I bring to this position:

Motivation:

Why do you want to serve on the city council, and what qualities would you bring to this position?

1. Experience serving in a leader capacity at church, school district, community organizations, and the city.

2.Committed- I have served 32 years as Gunter Elementary Principal, 40 years at church, 6 years on the Economic Development Corporation, 4 years on city council, and 40 years in various community organizations. continue to serve in all capacities with the exception of a Gunter ISD employee.

3.Team Collaboration- worked together with students, parents. educators and fellow administrators to build a school system that achieved exemplary ratings since the inception of the state program till retired.

The definition of a thriving community is different for everyone. I don't believe anyone can ENSURE a thriving community for everyone.

Diversity exists throughout the US. People move to regional areas and cities that best meet their needs.

Strategic:

What actions should the city council take right away to ensure a thriving community in the long-term?

We definitely need to do our best to provide our diverse population with what they need. We should listen to our resident's input. The needs and desires differ from one neighborhood to the next. freely give out my email and phone number to all Gunter residents so I am readily available to them.

Communication is key. We need to pursue different avenues for people to gather information and give their input. We have updated our website to be more user friendly, and increased news releases to the website and facebook. However, not everyone utilizes facebook and they feel disconnected. I totally agree we need different avenues for communication. work hard daily to serve our growing community so that we can thrive (succeed) now and in the future.

Services: What changes should be made, if any, to city services? What would it take to make these changes?

The City currently has a volunteer fire department and no ambulance service. A plan is being formulated to have the fire department start an ambulance service by the end of this year. This move will allow the fire department to hire 7 full time paramedics and will be the beginning of a full-time paid fire department.

Our fire budget increased to over $350,000 last year and the police budget increased to over $800,000. This is an increase of 136% on fire and 71% on police. We purchased new police vehicles and have moved the Police Department to a new location on SH289 for improved visibility and more room.

1. The City spent $1,400,000 in street repairs last year which was more than we spent in the last 10 years. We have earmarked in the budget $550,000 per year until 2025 for street repairs.

2. The Bridges needs a new waste water treatment plant. The design work is almost completed by Mustang and I anticipate construction to begin this summer.

Infrastructure:

What are the most urgent infrastructure projects in the city, and how would you work with the City to get them done?

3. The extension of FM121 from Block Road to SH289 will be a priority in the near future. This is a joint project with the City and Texas Department of Transportation. I anticipate a 2025 start.

4. Flooding in The Woods has been a major concern. The City Engineer is working on plans to help alleviate this problem

5. The City bought 2 new scoreboards for the ball fields at the park and a new back stop for smaller kids.

6. The parks need to be expanded and improved. The City hired Adam Adams as the Director of Parks and Public Services. He is currently working with the park board to develop a comprehensive plan for the parks.

Finance:

What would you like to change, if anything, about the city budget and taxation?

Emergency Preparedness:

What, if anything, should the city do to better prepare for emergencies, natural disasters, like tornadoes, fires, and freezing?

Other issues:

What other important issues are facing the city council, and how would you address them?

The City hired Lorie Lankford as the Director of Finance. She retired from Round Rock which completed 23 years in government accounting experience. Lorie completely revamped the City budget to make it easy to read (see the City web page). Last years budget resulted in a 21% decrease in the tax rate. The City has purchased clearGOV budgeting system which will make budgeting easier and more transparent.

1. We are in the process of purchasing two outdoor sirens to be installed within the city.

2. We contracted the retired fire chief from McKinney to help develop EMS and ambulance service plans for our city.

3. We have an Emergency Management System that includes county and state resources during times of emergency. Recently, the state and county officials helped our police department with a very volatile, dangerous situation involving the same group from Austin that resulted in extreme violence.

1. EMS/Ambulance Service- Discussed above

2. Communication/Marketing Director- More revenue

3. Internet Service- Discussed above

4. Growth Management- Council hired a planning director. This is an ongoing, daily endeavor.

As a longtime Gunter resident and active member of the community, have witnessed Gunter’s changing environment over the last several years. love Gunter’s legacy, people and spirit of community. I’m committed to keeping our town’s charm as the population and the business opportunities grow. It is projected that Gunter will grow more in the next five years than it has in its previous 122 years of history. Change is coming. Knowledgeable growth management is key to Gunter positively moving forward in our current environment.

Biographical Information and Contacts:

(brief intro about you, your education, experience, community service as well as your campaign contact email/phone/website and/or Facebook page link) serve my community on: City Council, Economic Development Corporation, Bridges’ HOA board as resident representative, Gunter Business Networking, Meals on Wheels, Leadership Team

First Baptist Church, Gunter Ladies for Tomorrow hold a BS degree in Marketing, BA degree in Elementary Education, Master’s degree in Educational Administration and certification of Educational Diagnostician from North Texas University. am retired after serving 32 years as Gunter Elementary’s principal. I reside in Gunter with my husband Rick, daughter Jill Latimer, and my grandchildren- Kyle, Finlee and Landry. My email is cohaganc@gmail.com. My phone is 903-821-2620 I have no website or facebook election page. chose to run for city council because I have wanted to live in this city for decades, and after finally moving here and seeing the potential growth coming to the city, I wanted to be able to contribute my voice to help direct that growth into something profitable for current residents, but also maintain the small town feel that we all love and that future residents seek out. As a real estate agent, I feel like have a unique perspective to contribute. I can provide input on expansion that would be beneficial to the town and utilize my relationships with home builders to bring quality new home developments into the community, but also help us do these things in a way that doesn’t spoil the small town feel that we’ve preserved so well up to this point. think one of the greatest things we can change about city services would be better maintenance to roadways. A lot of the roads that aren’t the 2 main roads in the city could use some help. Being a small town, doing a major overhaul of the roadways might not be practical, but I feel staying on top of the health of our infrastructure and proactively maintaining issues we see with that could go a long way.

I think at this moment the best thing that the city council can do to ensure a long term thriving community is listen to the input of the current residents of the city. A lot of us have ideas of how we’d like to see the city develop into a city that provides us with the amenities that we need without turning this city into another Frisco. While know we can’t implement every idea we are presented with, listing to our current residents and what they’d like to see here would go a long way to becoming the best city we can be for those who currently call Gunter home.

I’d have to say further developing the sewer and water infrastructure through the city is the most urgent infrastructure need that we have. Rather than dig our heels in and resist the growth that is coming to our city, it’s important to have utilities in place that developers for quality home builders look for. Doing so will ensure that home builders who look to develop here will be those that build homes that meet the standard that any one of us would look for if it were our own home.

Like any of us, I’d love to see my property taxes lower. However, running the city and providing a quality education to our students does come at a cost. While there aren’t any immediate changes have in mind for our budget, I will work hard to make sure that our educators, first responders, and teachers are cared for, our city can provide public facilities we’d all be happy to use, and at the same time minimize the cost to our residents to make these things happen.

In our city feel like one of the best things we can do is install more and/or louder tornado sirens. While no emergency is more detrimental than another, in my time living here have felt all other emergencies have heard of or encountered myself have been handled relatively well. We have had multiple storms with significant tornado threats since I’ve lived here and have not been able to hear our sirens once. Since this is a threat we face with some frequency, we could make our city a much safer place to make something like this more prominent here.

One of the biggest items I feel like our city council will face over the next 5 years is managing the growth of the city without compromising the small town feel we all know and love. I’m running because feel like I can provide a very beneficial new voice on city council to handle this new frontier in a way that takes into account the benefits our current residents can realize, while also helping to keep the city from feeling like a congested city in which finding a parking spot at the grocery store becomes a difficult and frustrating task.

Bio: Born and raised in Frisco, saw it grow from a warm small town into the large city it is today. I sought out Gunter because I wanted to live in a town with the small town feel fell in love with years ago. acquired a BBA in Finance from Oklahoma Baptist University where I played baseball as a relief pitcher. After graduating worked as an intern in the high school student ministry at Prestonwood Baptist Church where met my wife Lauren. We have been married going on 6 years and since day one we made it a goal to move to Gunter. Almost 2 years ago we accomplished that goal. After Prestonwood I spent 5 years working in various roles at GuideStone Financial Resources. am now a real estate agent specializing in working with buyers in Collin and Grayson counties.

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