#1
I am a longtime Springtown resident I grew up within ten miles of Springtown, left when I was 16 saw a lot of the world and different walks of life and different ways of doing things, served overseas and discharged honorably from the military, worked and traveled around America and came home 21 years later in that time, and in part, I owned and ran my own successful office supply company, found Jesus looking after me and became a parent. I earned a Bachelors Degree in Political Science- University of Nevada. Attended the University Of Nevada College Of Business earning a Masters Degree in Public Administration and Urban Planning with an emphasis on administrative law, policy and budgetary creation and implementation. I am your current three term Springtown City Councilman-reelected in 2008 & 2010. I served as your Mayor Pro Tem City of Springtown 2007-2008 I was Appointed City of Springtown Planning and Zoning Commission / City of Springtown Impact Fee Advisory Board 2003-2006. I was Appointed Mayor Sign Committee for City of Springtown 2004 I served as a Board Member Springtown Farmers Market 2003-2005I served as the Secretary/Treasurer Springtown Farmers Market 2003-2005.I am experienced in Economic Development. I am Current on governmental issues facing Springtown and Parker County ;Current on Texas Statutes; Texas Government Code, Texas Local Government Code I was appointed by Mayor Hughes to the Mayors' Task Force on Communications serving the City of Springtown (New Verizon DSL Service) 2006-present.I was appointed by Mayor Hughes to the Mayors' Task Force on Transportation serving the City of Springtown and Mayors Springtown Transportation Board 2006-present - (New Lake Street Road and Bridge Project giving a new North-South artery through Springtown, Springtown East and West Loop Projects, over six miles of new and asphalt rehabbed roadway in Springtown. Two new East-West arteries in Springtown, 5th and 9th streets. Currently serving as a Board Member North Central Texas Council of Governments Regional Transportation Stakeholders Roundtable working to solve transportation issues for the future of North Central Texas including Parker County And Springtown. Served by request on the Texas Municipal League Legislative Council- 2009-2010- deciding which state legislation pertaining to cities to support, which to fight, and which to author.
#2 As you City Councilman for place five for the last three terms I have always worked very hard with the City Council and our partners the Springtown ISD and the Springtown Chamber of Commerce as a team player, including everyone and inviting all opinions and gone far above the call of duty to serve and represent all Springtown citizens equally and fairly with years of voluntary service to the City of Springtown. And, if elected as your new Mayor, I enthusiastically look forward to continue working with all our special interest like the Springtown ISD and the Springtown Chamber of Commerce in planning for the future of Springtown. I recognize, as you might , at this particular point and time in our Springtown history, with all the improvements that we have made to the City and surrounding area since I was first elected to the Springtown City Council years ago and the momentum we have built up for progress since first elected to the City Council, I realize that the City is in dire need and the time is right now to continue the progressive move forward with a new Mayor with that progressive vision for the future that’s brought us this far and if elected I will be that full time Mayor devoting my city councils’ focus and energy on securing the future prosperity, financial security and positive controlled growth plan that will ensure that Springtown will thrive and prosper in the near and distant future while retaining that small town atmosphere we all moved here for. Like many of you, I wasn’t born here or attended elementary school here. I chose to live in Springtown. Springtown is my home and I care for Springtown just as much as someone who has lived here all their lives. This should be obvious to everyone who knows me by my years of volunteerism for the City, always a smile and always willing to help with a “can-do enthusiastic” attitude. Like you, I chose to build here, invested my money in my home and property inside the City just like you and sent my son to graduate from Springtown schools just like you did. After living in my home for a period of years I do expect my property values to go up and to get a nice return on my investment if I chose to and in that respect, I’m am just like you too. But, these things are only going to happen if the City elects a new Mayor with an enlightened, team oriented, forward thinking vision for unifying Springtown, who is not afraid to act to do the right thing, even if he is the only one. Elect someone who will fight for you. Our work on the City Council proves I am not afraid to speak up and do what has to be done even when it is not popular always acting it is in the best interest of all Springtown citizens. I’m on your side. My work on the City Council is not near finished, my job title just needs to change in order to be able to do the best job possible for the citizens of Springtown and the best way to do that and continue brining progress to Springtown is to be your Mayor. If elected, this decision will remove many roadblocks to progress the City has had to endure since I began serving as your City Councilman trying to move the City forward and improve and enhance our quality of life. And any elected official who wants to be reelected must be able to run on not only a vision for the future but, a record of accomplishments for the City. Acknowledging all the improvements to the Springtown area that I have either initiated on my own or played a role in getting accomplished around Springtown in the last five years (Verizon DSL, New Walnut Creek Road and Bridge Project, new additional ambulance service from the Hospital District, East and West loops around Springtown) I know, if you let me, I can do so much more for you and the City as your Mayor. I’m running on a proven vision for the future and an established record of accomplishments for the citizens of Springtown since being elected years ago and I am confident that if elected I can and will do more for the citizens of Springtown as your new Mayor. For years I have worked very hard as your councilman this fact is undeniable by anyone, now let me work just as hard for you and Springtown as your new Mayor. Fact. The City of Springtown has seen some significant growth in the last 10 years and I believe that the next 10 years will surely be just as significant. In 1990 the census counted 1746 citizens in Springtown; in 2000 the count was 2062 citizens in Springtown. In 2010 the census counted more than 3000 citizens living in Springtown that is about a 1000 person increase in about ten years and over 1300 in 20 years that have moved to Springtown. The majority of growth has come in the last 10 years. These numbers verify that significant growth has already arrived here and more predicted coming in our near future. I have witnessed, recognized and worked to prepare for this fact since I have lived here. My job, if elected as your mayor, is not to try to stop the coming growth to our small town, but to welcome and embrace it, you can’t stop folks from moving here as much as you may want to and a city can’t be as close to a major metropolitan area as Springtown is to Dallas-Fort Worth and not grow, we must prepare ahead of time by controlling the coming growth with my vision for the future serving as your mayor of Springtown. That includes, in part, a well prepared and thought-out 20 year economic development and master plan using innovation, creativity and sound planning technics for designed and controlled residential and commercial growth throughout our city, continuance and enhancement of the city’s infrastructure maintenance program the city council started when i was first elected to the city council as I promised when I ran for election at that time. Continued improvement and planning for long term future water and sewer needs of Springtown citizens, continued new road construction throughout the city and the extra territorial jurisdiction, as I promised when I was first elected, making it even easier to navigate through Springtown and the surrounding area. With the coming growth we are going to need these new arteries throughout our area. These things cannot be accomplished by sitting on your tail and being afraid to do anything, or ignoring the facts of our situation hoping they will go away or taking a wait and see attitude, by then we will be far behind on capital improvements and commercial development in Springtown. All the problems of Springtowns’ future will not have a black and white solution this is why Springtown needs a new Mayor who understands difficult governmental issues and will be open minded to and encourage new ideas using ingenuity and creativity to solve problems and raise funds for the city. We must prepare now. These are serious times in need for a serious person in the Mayors’ office. Springtown deserves to have a politically active, motivated and determined mayor with a persistent but cautious and positive can-do attitude and personality. Most of you who already know and have worked with me know that I have just described Springtown City Councilman Tom Clayton. My plan, if elected is to be a Mayor who is capable of being a full time accessible Mayor who already has years of experience serving the citizens of Springtown, with a proven ability to work as a team player and to solve difficult problems and get the job done thinking outside the box, an undeniable desire to see Springtown thrive and continue moving forward, an extensive education in government (Master’s Degree in Public Administration and Urban Planning- University of Nevada) many years serving the City of Springtown, and working in the private sector and owning my own sales business. Combined, this is twenty seven years of real world, formal, and practical hands-on experience giving me the tools and skills the City will need to solve serious problems at an executive level along with the people skills and sales ability to know how to bring to the City the types of business and entertainment that would complement and be acceptable to our Springtown culture. Businesses and entertainment that Springtown folks want to have here. To make the quality of life around Springtown even better, there is always room to improve. These things a city must plan for ahead of time or if ignored and we don’t follow this plan you get what you get and you may not like what moves here. The City can’t discriminate we have to make room for everybody. I remember why I moved to Springtown and as your new Mayor and I will do everything I can to keep the small town atmosphere we all love while trying to provide more choices and variety by, actively using my office as your new Mayor to bring appropriate and desirable commercial business and entertainment to Springtown. Giving Springtown citizens more choices for your families. A vastly improved quality of life and higher sales tax revenue for the city, creating an opportunity that would make it unnecessary for the city to raise property taxes, and to ultimately lower property taxes in the future. I believe those who call Springtown home deserve all these things
#3 Our taxes are not low compared to some other cities in parker county, this is because of the lack of commercial business and development in Springtown. In the last four years The Mayor has not brought one new business to Springtown nor has he made it any cheaper for builders to build in Springtown , I have a plan to fix this problem. And no we are not doing enough to address the streets and water lines in our city. We have subdivisions that have 2” and 3” water lines and no fire hydrants. This is unacceptable. Since I was first elected we have focused on new arteries around town so that we could all get around easier. and we have been successful in accomplishing this , now we need to focus our attention on improving our inner city water lines with proper fire protection and focus on getting everyone inside the city on city sewer. FM 51 was a done deal. Rep. Phil King and myself have work tirelessly to get TxDot to replace FM 51 The fact of the matter is that Mayor Hughes appointed me the Springtown Transportation Board 4 years ago to work on Springtown transportation issues specifically FM 51, because he said "I Know that Tom will get the job done" and acknowledging the fact that I was already working on these projects long before he became mayor. Further, the fact is that over the last several years WE, the city have been in numerous meetings with TX Dot, Phil King and Craig Estes' people working out the details of the FM 51 project. In the last five years we have had two promises from TxDot to come and do the project we even had it in writing with the first promise then they backed out at the last minute. The second promise came to me last year with a promise from TxDot to go out for bids in June 2011 and start work in late august 2011. Also, the only expenditure to the city is the expense of having to move our utilities out or their road way. That was worked out too. If possible, we were going to use the same contractor that TX Dot used for the project so all the work could be done at the same time. as far as not having the funds available I say Hogwash. Other that a very healthy reserve fund thanks to some very good investing of our city funds by city administrator Mark Krey and finance direct Kim Mathis we also have the ability to borrow the funds directly from TxDot. TxDot makes these funds available when they have a project like FM 51 and they mandate that the city move there utilities. But, what if the city is strapped for funds? That is one reason that TxDot set up this fund to help cities who need it. Also, according to city administrator Mark Krey all along he reported to the council that it wouldn't be a problem we had several ways we could pay for moving our utilities. The problem is not with Springtown in anyway, the problem as I see it from the inside is getting the state to come through on their promises. Also the article reported that our sales tax revenue was down 17%. Does anyone remember that the majority of last year that our sales tax revenue was 60 to 70 percent higher than the year before? That was reported by the Springtown Epigraph numerous times but not mentioned in the article. Every year we have highs and lows without sales tax revenue through the year. There is not a more physical conservative member of the city council than myself. I will not spend monies that we don't have on frivolous projects we don't need. You can’t judge the financial state of a city by looking at one month of sales tax receipts that are low and get an honest picture of the financial state of the city, we are doing well. the most recent information on the FM 51 project that I am aware of is that the cities engineers are working a storm water drainage plan for FM 51 that TxDot will accept, also according to the TxDot engineer in Weatherford responsible for this project the engineered plans are more that 65% complete that they were on hold waiting on our engineers Freese and Nichols. Also, as late as 2/09/2011 I spoke with Representative Phil Kings’ office as they told me that the funds were still there for this project, TxDot tried to move the funds to another project in Southern Parker County. Keep this in mind, Springtown has to compete for the same money that Weatherford and every other city in Parker County wants for their road projects. It's not enough that we get the funds for a project, we must fight to hang on to those funds for they surely could be used for a different project somewhere else in the county. It has happened before. We must protect or interest. This is why we should not and cannot stop the momentum the city has built up with our progress in Springtown. We must continue to move forward because with the limited amount of funds TxDot has for these projects and the fact the our district out of Fort Worth has nine counties and about 500 cities that all want something from them when the state tells a city they are ready to go to work the city must be ready also or do without until they come around again sometime in the distant future. After this where we are at now is anybody's guess it’s too early to tell. Maybe if enough citizens who want their highway fixed complain to TxDot and the city council at our council meeting or any other way, maybe we will finally get our road fixed.
#4 being able to provide service without service interruption is my main goal for the citizens of Springtown. We are in the customer service business, excellent customer service should not only be our main goal at the city it should be the written policy of the city. . The city owns its own water treatment plant located just off Peden Rd. in Azle we have approximately 11 miles of pipeline from Springtown to the plant and another 2 miles to Eagle Mt. Lake where we get our water from and our permit that allows Springtown to buy water from the Tarrant County Regional Water District at $0.66022 per 1000 gallons. The city also has two wells it uses for water production also. We just spent 1.2 million on upgrading the water plant but that only makes it adequate for the use we have today. We must also focus on our maintenance of the system including proper line size to ensure proper pressure and flow rates the correct placement of fire hydrants through Springtown and water valves through the system should be identified replaced where needed and checked regularly so that total water outages do not occur when we have a water break as what’s happing today. As Mayor I will see that this gets corrected. We must also plan for future growth enhancing our water and sewer system into new areas including old line replacement to the plant. Without this focus on planning ahead with benchmarks for start and completion dates for infrastructure projects the city risk not being able to supply water to a particular area or desirable new commercial or industrial water customer. This scenario of not being able to supply water for future growth is unacceptable to me and nowhere the best we can do as a city. There is much more but no more room in this article.
4b. the cost of the sewer plant to bring to state standards is about 3 to 3.5 million additional dollars according to staff. The five million mentioned will take the sewer plant out to approximately 20 years in the future according to our city engineers. The decision of what to spend has not been decided at this point but will be by the city council in the near future. The fact is the city has no choice, the state tells us how we will operate our city sanitation and water system. At this point about the only control the city has is how much do we want to improve and maintain the plants over and above the minimum standards required by the State of Texas. As your City Councilman we have already made preliminary plans to address these issues and as your Mayor I will see that these issues are dealt with as soon as I take office. No water no city, no sewer no city. It should seem to a reasonable personal that these two plants would be the city’s biggest capital improvement priorities in my opinion.
5. For capital improvements we must address the water and sewer plants first as discussed above and then focus on undersized and old water lines and the absence of fire hydrants throughout neighborhoods all over Springtown. City road construction comes after that . We have addressed some of these water line and city road issues since I was first elected but not near enough to satisfy me and the focus in the last few years, as you requested, has been on the outer loops and Walnut Creek Bridge Project, 5th and 9th street extensions to address traffic congestion on FM51 at HWY 199. Now that the loop projects are about complete for now the City needs to come back home and deal with the water line and city street issues from Bonnie Belle, Springbranch Acres, Alphabet city to Northgate subdivisions. All of these subdivisions have main streets that are in desperate need of maintenance and or replacement. Some roads have water line issues which must be addressed first before reclaiming the road. Those without waterline issues will be dealt with quickly on a priority basis “worst first” These things I will make a priority as soon as I take office as your new Mayor. The new Mayor and council must work to bring appropriate and desirable commercial business and entertainment to Springtown. Giving Springtown citizens more choices for your families. A vastly improved quality of life and higher sales tax revenue for the city. Creating an opportunity that would make it unnecessary for the city to raise property taxes and water rates, and to ultimately lower property taxes in the future. I believe those who call Springtown home deserve all these things. The city must also create a “ 4b type economic development corporation” whose only function is to recruit new business to Springtown. This takes time to put into place so the new Mayor will have to serve as the top business recruiter and salesman for the city until the new 4b EDC is recognized by the State of Texas as a true nonprofit economic development corporation. This new EDC is funded by a ¼ or ½ cent of the citys’ current sales tax revenue this is decided but only after the citizens have had the opportunity to vote the new EDC into existence. That’s right the city must ask the citizens of Springtown in an election either in May or November if they want to create a Springtown EDC to bring business to Springtown and how much of a portion of the cities sales tax revenues to pay for it. We pay a little up front in sales tax revenue to bring new commercial and industrial business to Springtown. The return comes from all the new sales tax revenue and new jobs for local people the new EDC generates in new business recruitment. Most all successful cities have an EDC like this model. This is a sound and proven economic plan for cities to enhance their general fund through sales tax revenue, provide new local jobs and offer more choices for the citizens of Springtown and ultimately make it unnecessary in the future to raise water and tax rates of the Springtown resident.
6.From some they say that there is a lack of strong leadership at the top, from others they like the new services provided like the new Verizon DSL service , doubling the size of the ambulance service of the citizens of Springtown , all the new roads and bridges making it easier to get around town since I was first elected, those who came the meetings pertaining to and supporting the new Walnut Creek Bridge project told me that it looked like we didn’t get along and that it seemed that one or two councilmembers weren’t in it for the best interest of all citizens only what they could get out of it for themselves. While others didn’t have an opinion one way or the other. I love and respect every councilmember I serve with. As councilmembers we must almost remember that our purpose is to do what is in the best interest of all Springtown citizens whether they’re our friends or not or strangers or new to Springtown.
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