The Lago Vista City Council has a race in its hands for the Place 4 seat as Councilman Pat Dixon chose not to run for the seat and two local residents have filed to run.
Retired project manager Ron Smith and local developer John Leak have both filed for the Council seat, and are both coming from volunteered positions on Council-appointed city committees. As of Tuesday, no one else has filed to run for the Council. The deadline to file is Monday.
Smith, who is currently the city planning and zoning commission chairman, said his decision to run came from a sense of civic duty and a continuation of his current service to the city.
“People came out here for a reason. They wanted a little piece of paradise,” he said. “And if you don’t do anything, it won’t be a paradise anymore.”
Smith has extensive experience in project management. He recently retired from Northrop Grumman, a global aviation manufacturer, ending his 38-year career in the aerospace and defense industry. He served six years in the United States Navy before being honorably discharged in 1978.
Smith’s most recent efforts on the P&Z included spearheading a reworking of the city’s Master Plan, a document that gives a framework for city elected officials and staff to follow. The edited Master Plan is up for approval at the next Lago Vista City Council meeting 7:30 p.m. tonight at City Hall.
Smith said the P&Z should look at city ordinances as development continues to slow during a weak economy.
“We’re trying to take advantage of this downtime to look at a lot of our ordinances,” he said. “There’s no time when you’re looking at permits from tons of developers.”
Leak, owner of homebuilder Ranchera Homes, served on the city’s master plan committee and currently serves on the city building committee. He said lowering tax rates and raising property values is a motivation for him to run for the Council seat.
“I was surprised to find that we have over 13,000 lots, but less than 3,000 homes in what some people call Lago Vista ‘proper,’” he said. “I believe tax rates could come down if we put taxpaying homeowners on some of those remaining 10,000 lots.”
Leak served on the McKinney City Council in the mid-‘80s. He said the growing suburb north of Dallas in that period had many similarities with Lago Vista today.
“McKinney is now the fastest growing city in the U.S. with a population of over 100,000,” he said. “I believe Lago Vista is on the verge of similar growth; perhaps not 100,000 people, but at least 30,000 to 50,000 in the next 25 years.”
Smith said he had no particular goals in mind as a Council member. But his retirement did spur him to run as he now has more time to focus on city issues.
“One, I have time do this now. And two, I felt I probably should step up and do it,” he said. “I’m not doing it because I have an axe to grind with anybody. I know everyone on the Council. I think I can make a contribution.”
Both candidates are still tooling their message while running for the Council seat early into the election season. But Leak has already shown a push for more city growth and openness toward local building.
“More specifically, I would like to help the city of Lago Vista earn a reputation as having a more positive and helpful attitude towards new businesses, relocating families, retirees and vacationers,” he said.
Smith said he would expect the Council to be more of a steward than a decision maker because of the current economy.
“I’m thinking about how things are going to be 10 years from now,” he said.
Local elections outside of the Lago Vista City Council are stagnant. Only incumbents have filed for the Jonestown City Council and Lago Vista Independent School District Board of Trustees, though filing deadlines for both entities are Monday.
The Jonestown City Council has three places up for election, which are currently filled by Joe Aaron, Robert Moore and Lance Wedell. But Jonestown Mayor Deane Armstrong does not expect any races for those seats, which she said is a good thing.
“We like what we have,” she said. “I put my guy’s to work.”
The LVISD Board of Trustees has three seats up for election: Places 1, 2 and 3 filled by trustees Laura Vincent, Jerrell Roque and David Baker, respectively. All have filed to run.