Remarks by Karen McCulloh
68 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 3
Yeah I would only say that I sit on the tourism board now as Mayor Pro Tem and we had a report from the woman who is working to the outside people that have been hired and she pointed out that people coming to horse shows usually are pulling their horse behind their thing and sleep in their cab and don't go to a hotel many of them are in rodeos and that kind of thing and they don't put that now obviously if little girls in their pony club come their mom probably comes with her and three friends but you know the idea that all these people that are coming to the bilby center are going to be…
and working it and that's a 15 minute walk I'm sure that if I'm here for a week I'd probably walk you know it's but it's just a mile from the city center in Aggieville so you know anyway okay
Does Bond Council have any words of wisdom?
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
I would just say sometimes we fixate on the mill levy so much that we stop and don't realize what does it cost to run this city business and what are we doing for the public. And having the mill jump around up and down and in and out the way it has in the past, I think this is a very conservative budget. Three years ago we went down so Susan and I had to go up. And so I think just let's keep it steady and hopefully next year we will see some new revenue coming down with the downtown area. I feel very comfortable with this budget, and I think this group has worked really hard to get the mill…
Could I just add, as a past county commissioner, please go down to the appraiser and ask them what they're using for your comparables because a lot of times they do get things slightly wrong. I'd also like to point out that the city, you get the city, you get the bill and you think the city. There's also the county and there's also the school district. And of course the school district, you see a lot of people running for office at the moment at the state level and they're promising to cut your property taxes. Well, they could do that if the legislature would just fund education and special…
I'm supportive of this, but I do think I would like to see the raises in base. The people at the upper end will get a $5,000 to $8,000 raise, and the people in the $40,000 will only get $1,200 or something like that. And so I don't, you know, next year, I mean, I've asked for it this year, but next year maybe we could look into that.
Stephanie, could we charter out from some of these things, like letting everybody know? No. I mean, to me, that's one thing we've always been very open.
So basically, we've made these changes to stay with Senate Bill 48. We don't really have a lot of choice.
So can I ask, do we have no wiggle room? Is that what you're telling us? I mean, can we not notify people? I mean, isn't that our right as a city?
yeah you're building envelope at that point would be a postage stamp if we kept the lower the minimum lot size and kept the same yes Stephanie we ran into issues with lots setbacks with the super duplexes and they were counting paved areas and that is that going to make any difference because we stopped that
Well, I think, you know, with the super duplexes, they were counting setbacks that were paved and all that kind of, you know, on the sides. And we changed that. We said they had to be.
Remember that on Colorado? We did change some things to make that illegal.
And there's been some discussion of having adjacent structures, mother-in-law flats and that kind of thing. Would this impact that at all? No. I'm not saying for or against it, I just.
I just point out that we've been at this since 2018 and this was approved on August 20th, 2025. I think we've really had plenty of time to think it over. It does not put anything on the historic register. It simply identifies neighborhoods which at some point might qualify and in other places definitely qualify. We're not going to have staff go out and preserve the houses around Marlette. That's just an area that this expert who came in and did our plan, it's a plan. and... yeah there were a lot of pages and you know that's what we're paid to read but it's basically the majority of it is sets…
But we can't take, we can't pass something in a work session. I mean, we've canceled two work sessions in the, summer and fall. I mean, this has been on our plate forever. And I know that the Historic Resources Board has again and again told me that they didn't meet, that they were told nothing was on the agenda. And there, you know, people are very invested in this and very frustrated that it's taken so long.
Well, we were trying to do it, but it wasn't funded until...
Until the next legislative session. I would like us to be able to take action on this and that will give plenty of time to ask questions and talk to staff and for the people who really want to see this passed to have a chance to talk to their commissioners.