Friday, April 3, 2009

My Perspective on the Council

I grew up in a family that believes in service to the community – in the value of giving something back to Bastrop, a town that I love like no other. As a teenager – through activities at church, school, boy scouts, and as a volunteer fireman, I learned that serving others gives me great joy.
Perhaps this is what led me into ordained ministry. In more than thirty years as an Episcopal clergyman, I engaged in a servant ministry, helping the community and my parishioners in every way possible. Providing leadership for Bastrop’s Calvary Church for nearly 20 years, I endeavored to meet the needs of our members. I also made time to become involved in many activities for the benefit of local citizens.
After three years in charge of a large congregation in Waco, I retired from active ordained ministry and returned to Bastrop six years ago because I don’t ever want to live anywhere else. I am fortune to have begun a second career at Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative where I continue to work to help people – in this case our employees – as I provide support in every way I can - offering personal counsel and professional advice, teaching Bluebonnet’s foundation values, helping improve our communications network, and using my experience in the field of leadership to mentor younger supervisors and managers.
Since I was thirteen, working as a page in the Texas Senate, I have been interested in elective office and have for nearly fifty years admired and appreciated generations of municipal and county leaders.
This seems the best time for me to make good on a long-held vision by offering myself to the voters. My motivation is simple – to serve the citizens of Bastrop if I am elected to the council.
I have no axes to grind. I just want an opportunity to do the best I can to serve my fellow citizens. If elected, I will work hard to do that - to give what I have and what I am in fulfilling the trust placed in me. I will seek positive broad-based and far-sighted answers to difficult questions as we work together to improve aging infrastructures, manage growth, maintain reasonable levels of spending, utility rates, and property taxes, and create a vision for an outstanding future.
I will put to use the best of my experience gained while working with organizations, serving on boards and committees, exercising leadership, building consensus, fostering dialogue, managing budgets and programs, and empowering others in shared responsibility.
I will listen with an open mind, consider all perspectives – then reason, think, study, and pray over every decision, in each case ascertaining what I consider the best solution – the greatest good for the greatest number.
Above all, I want to help Bastrop remain the unique city it is – retaining our heritage and values as we grow in size but maintain a high quality of life.