City provides update on legislative session

Cindy Aguirre-Herrera

(Seguin) -- Officials at Seguin City Hall are keeping a close eye on the current legislative session in Austin. City staff provided a legislative update during Tuesday’s meeting of the Seguin City Council.

City Manager Steve Parker says there are several bills that could potentially impact cities across the state. He says there’s a political struggle going on between the state and some much larger cities. He says some of the proposed changes could impact smaller cities like Seguin, which is why he said they wanted to discuss some of those bills. Many of the bills discussed by Parker dealt with local control, and how he believes that makes a difference for Seguin and many other communities across the state.

“They’re really trying to take over the controls that city have, and I think we would all agree that we think that we do a very good job of our local controls -- setting our tax rates, trying to get the services, the infrastructure that our community wants, whether it’s fixing roads, whatever it may be, that we have a lot of say so in that. But there’s a lot of infighting...that stems from relationships that the state has with the city of Austin and city of San Antonio (and) some of these larger communities that are really trying to put in different types of legislation, that would preempt state law, and so there’s a lot of infighting related to that,” said Parker.

A large portion of the legislative update was given by Seguin Economic Development Director Josh Schneuker, who focused on several bills that could potentially enhance or hinder economic development opportunities in Seguin.

One bill that would definitely help Seguin and Guadalupe County was House Bill 4997. Schneuker says this bill was filed by State Representative John Kuempel, a Republican from Seguin. The bill would allow the Texas State Technical College (TSTC) to build a new campus in Guadalupe and Comal counties. Schneuker says this would be a great opportunity for the Seguin and New Braunfels areas if TSTC is allowed to develop a campus in this region. Session, pg. 3

Session, continued.

“We’ve been working very closely with TSTC and our colleagues up in New Braunfels as well for this legislation. This would give TSTC the authority to build a campus somewhere in Comal (County) and/ or Guadalupe County. How that would look right now is still to be determined. There’s a couple of options. It could be one large campus. It could be multiple campuses that can fit the needs of each community. New Braunfels might have different educational needs, (and) Seguin and our industry might have different educational needs. So, you (might have) some separate campuses in each of those communities. This is legislation that was introduced by Representative Kuempel. We did speak with all of our reps regarding this. For the most part, everybody seems to be on board. So, we’re hoping this is the first step forward to, you know, getting this moving towards hopefully creating a new TSTC campus somewhere in our region,” said Schneuker.

The Alamo College District already offers some courses at the Central Texas Technology Center (CTTC), which is located in Guadalupe County and also in the New Braunfels city limits. Schneuker says the proposed new TSTC campus would be something all together different and could pinpoint more training and educational needs in this region. It would also allow TSTC to set up its local campus, even though this area is technically within the Alamo College District’s boundaries. Local officials have already worked with TSTC to bring the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education, or FAME program, to the area. This is a relatively new job-training partnership that’s slated to be offered by TSTC at the existing CTTC. Schneuker says that’s an example of how a new TSTC campus could more broadly benefit Seguin, New Braunfels, Guadalupe County, Comal County, and many other locations in this region.

“If this House Bill was passed, it would actually exempt TSTC from those service area jurisdiction rules. So right now, the way that we were able to get the FAME program established in Guadalupe County at the CTTC, is we had to leverage legislation that was passed last session regarding a right of first refusal. So the FAME program was presented to the Alamo Colleges, and Alamo Colleges declined to serve as the educational provider. That opened up the door for us to go out to TSTC. If this legislation is passed, it would pretty much give TSTC open flexibility to bring in all new programs. They wouldn’t have to go through that process every single time. There is another bill that is somewhat related to those service area jurisdiction rules. It’s House Bill 3048. This would essentially exempt TSTC statewide from those service jurisdiction rules. I’m not sure if this is something that’s going to make it all the way through. It has been referred to committee, but you know this would really help out. I know a lot of communities that I’ve talked to, that have faced similar issues with not being in the taxing jurisdiction of a community college and not really getting the full needs and services that they were demanding. So this is kind of piggybacking off what you were referencing there,” said Schneuker.

Schneuker says the city is also closely watching another bill that it supports. Senate Bill 1071 would allow the SH 130 Concession Company to pursue building a connector route between Seguin and New Braunfels. The route is believed to be an important transportation improvement for this area, and Schneuker says it’s also expected to have a significant positive economic impact for both communities if the connector route is built.

“This is something that I think could potentially have benefits to the city of Seguin. Obviously, there’s a lot of moving parts with this proposed route. But you know, if it is at the right locations, it could potentially create some very attractive commercial intersections, (and) it can open up some areas along SH 130 as well for further development. I think it has the potential as long as it is mutually beneficial to Seguin and New Braunfels, because that’s where the proposed connector would come in from I-35. It just has to be mutually beneficial to both communities for us to stay behind it. So as of right now, we’ve been engaged with those conversations and are pushing for that benefit to seeing as much as we can here, said Schneuker.

City officials say they are working together with state officials to make sure that the voices of this community are being heard on some of these important issues. The legislative session runs through May 29 in Austin.