Your Candidates Answer Chamber's Questions - Brenham

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County Candidates Questionnaire – 2014 Washington County, Texas

John Brieden – for County Judge 1. Why have you decided to run for election at this time? One of the goals I had running for office four years ago was to do a long term strategic plan. I saw the need for decisions that were being made to have the framework of a long term plan so the decisions would work together moving Washington County toward long term goals. That planning was done in 2012 and Washington County is moving forward with the plan. Many of the items are multi-year in nature and we are in the middle of those efforts. Staying in office to complete what was started is important. 2. What key competencies do you feel you possess to be an elected official? Briefly describe your background in areas such as financial management, ability to be an effective leader and communicator, understanding of labor and human resource issues, understanding of local economic issues, ability to contribute to strategic planning and initiatives. I graduated from Texas A&M University with a BBA in Accounting. That financial background has been invaluable during my term. In Texas, the County Judge is the Chief Budget Officer of the county with a major role in setting the budget and keeping expenditures within the adopted budget. Also as a long time small business owner in the community the challenges of working within a budget, of employee relations, of human resource issues and business planning and operations are strengths honed by years of experience. 3. If you are elected, what do you consider to be the top priorities to work on over the next three years? A. Living within the budget. Washington County is growing, but to stay ahead of the problems of growth requires decisions about infrastructure before the growth and the tax revenue from the growth happens. This creates a tension that is difficult to balance and Washington County cannot afford to be in the extreme either way. B. Because of safety issues with the heavy traffic and the curving hill on Blue Bell Road there is a need to relocate Road and Bridge from this location. Property has been purchased for the move. C. Plan and construct a Justice Center. One purpose of this is to have additional court room space. Currently the court rooms are heavily scheduled and many times all the court rooms are scheduled and court is held in rooms not intended or outfitted for a court. The second purpose is to design the court rooms and public spaces so that jail inmates coming to court would never have contact with the public. Court room safety issues are much different today than in 1939 when the current court house was constructed. (Note: there will still be court rooms in the court house, these are additional court rooms.) D. Continuing to implement technology to make Washington County government more efficient and more effective. 4. What do you consider to be the top issue affecting local economic growth? The top issues affecting local growth are things we do not locally control such as our location between Austin, Dallas and Houston and the low tax, low regulation policies of the

state. The best thing local government can do is to stay out of the way and allow businesses to prosper. However, there is the need to exercise enough regulatory oversight to protect citizens from the bad apples. 5. What could you do as an elected official to help small businesses in the community? See #4 above. 6. Do you believe the county is currently spending enough on infrastructure? If not, how and in what area(s) would you suggest that funding be increased? Yes, I do think we are. That does not mean there are not needs, but as mentioned in question #1 above, there must be a balance of need and budget. Given the current picture, I think Washington County is spending the correct amount. 7. What is your opinion of offering economic development incentives to lure capital investment and jobs to the community? We operate in an environment where other communities are offering the incentives. As long as our competitors are making the offerings, we have no choice but to also offer them. Washington County has prospered because we have good paying blue collar manufacturing jobs that other communities do not. That means jobs for local young people not planning to attend college and it means a higher median income that supports the other businesses of the community. These are the type businesses for which I think incentives should be offered. 8. How important do you feel the relationship is between Washington County government officials and the City of Brenham? How could it be improved? The relationship is very important, because the two entities share constituents. For many years the inter-local agreements between the City of Brenham and Washington County meant that there was not a duplication of services (and the accompanying duplication of costs). For the last several years the difficulties was not in wanting to work together, it was in determining the fairness of these agreements as each entity had a different view of who should offer what and who should pay what. After long difficult negotiations agreement was reached and is being implemented. The basis that we can work together for the betterment of our citizens allows us to continue to work for solutions to problems as they arise. 9. Do you support the Washington County Chamber’s “Government Advocacy Policy Statements for 2014-15?” Does it include any policy statements you do not agree with? I support and agree with the Chamber’s “Government Advocacy Policy Statements for 2014-2015”. I realize they must be broad and general, however some of the topics should be more specific. In the interest of space I will expound on only one—Water. The same study cited saying there will be a lack of water in 2060 said that there is more than enough water if what is flowing down the rivers to the ocean was captured. We know that a certain flow is necessary for the estuaries, but to capture more means more reservoirs or expanded reservoirs. We are now 15 years down the road from that study and nothing has been done. We cannot wait until a tipping point is reached to start, especially when there was adequate forewarning. What is lacking are leaders who are willing now to make the unpopular choices necessary for the long term. 10. The Chamber’s “Government Advocacy Policy Statements for 2014-15” will be a key document for our community’s advocacy activities at the state level. As such, is there anything you would suggest adding to the document to bring to the attention of state leaders?

Local government has been continually squeezed by the state and federal government’s penchant for requiring services but not the funding necessary for those services. Unfunded mandates eat up a large portion of Washington County’s budget. It would be nice to have in law that unfunded mandates are unconstitutional, but knowing that will not happen I think citizens should join your county government in telling Austin and Washington that “if you require it, then pay for it. If you are not willing to pay for it then do not require it.” # # #