David vonOhlerking III

Responses (5)

• 🏗️ Growth & development

  Where do you see the city in 5 years?

  Between Johnstown and point venture. Jk, hopefully we have some actual workflows in place so that staff isn’t burdened with winging it at every reactive panicked response. I know I’ll do my part to help find some of these operating procedures for development services and general city communication between departments. If we can get our standard operations streamlined, we can begin focusing on the creative solutions we will need to rise above our infrastructure issues. I look forward to proactive practices rather than reductive reactions.

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• 🏗️ Growth & development

  What does supporting local mean to you?

  Rather than announcing and virtue signaling about the support for our local businesses, in my opinion, those in authority should nurture the environment to create the best chance of success for our local businesses and our local residents. The more successful our businesses are, the more of the tax burden they can carry. Those taxes can actually be used for quality of life improvements.(rather than trying to create sketchy workarounds to fund Pickleball courts with illegal funds. We can’t just backpedal, charade, and bullhorn, as if we never made the mistake in the first place.) We need to create a cohesive system, that empowers our people and businesses. We need to stop this us/vs/them mentality. We have a strong community that is ready to collaborate!

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• 💬 Something else

  What is your "why" for running for this position?

  We recently were left in a position with no city manager, no director of development, no parks director, and several other key roles. The further we dig ourselves into this hole, the harder it will be to gather the people who have the qualifications we desire and require. My goal is to build bridges where we constantly have communication breakdown, create workflows where we constantly fly by the seat of our pants, design operating procedures so that we stop reinventing the wheel every two months when we lose a key figure, and lastly, I will call it like it is, so we can stop gaslighting our constituents and directing the blame anywhere other than to those that hold the power to do something about it.

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• 🏗️ Growth & development

  How will you support local businesses while also protecting taxpayers?

  I think a lot of people don’t realize that a healthy business ecosystem reduces the burden on homeowners. The city historically has never had any real procedure or standards in place to manage many of our funds that legally require such. I’d like to see more strategic meetings across departments and boards, rather than 1 million subcommittees that get ignored. I’m not a fan of wasting peoples time or my own. In my opinion, taxes are like an Angel investor, except they got swindled into granting the money, so you really have to earn their trust and respect. There should be clear documentation, and a clear need. If it doesn’t pass the sniff test, you better be able to articulate yourself to an extent that a fiveyearold can easily understand why you just spent their money without asking first.

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• 💵 Taxes & budget

  Could we not raise the sales tax by .01 cent and save ourselves from raising property tax??

  We’re already at the State maximum on sales tax, and we have locked ourselves into the no new revenue rate. This is why I constantly harp on making it easier for businesses to open up here, so that our tax dollars can stay within the city and improve our city further reducing the property tax burden. Right now we’re just helping Cedar Park and surrounding communities, by making it impractical for businesses to run here.

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