This is the first story in an 11-part series featuring the candidates for City Commission and School Board. One story will be featured each day between now and Oct. 18. This interview has been lightly edited for length.
Tim Bruce
Candidate for City Commission
Current Job
Project manager for a commercial construction specializing in health care.
Why are you running for this election?
I originally ran to help get a better understanding of how we can get our tax burden off of our single-family homes because Eudora is a pretty expensive place to live from a tax standpoint. My background being in construction, I actually came up through the excavating trade, so I’ve installed a lot of sewer lines, water lines, and so I’m pretty passionate about the infrastructure portion of our community and what that looks like and how we maintain it and how we take care of it and how we plan for it.
The reason that I’m running again is to continue that mission of our tax. This is where I was kind of going with that a minute ago: How do we reduce the taxes for the citizens without compromising any service? On the same token, how do we grow the tax base without sacrificing who we are from a culture standpoint and that kind of small-town feel?
That is a challenge because, obviously, the more growth you get, the less you’re gonna be that small town at some point, you know, and so how do we create that growth intelligently, plan for it, prepare for it, but also because I’m an entrepreneur and been a business owner and in the development world, how do we make it where folks want to come here and continue to help us intelligently grow and not make it super hard on developers and not make it like other communities around us?
The opening of Panasonic will have a big impact on the region. What steps do you think the city should be taking right now to prepare for that?
I think awareness is first and foremost. We have to know that it’s going to have an impact on us. What we don’t know is how it’s going to impact us and so we need to be aware and prepared to manage and deal with those impacts, but I think it’s not our place as a governing body to necessarily dictate how that growth is going to happen. It still needs to happen organically. It still needs to happen the way the private sector or whoever is paying the bill wants it to happen.
It’s our job to protect the people that are here and make sure that, you know, we’re not letting somebody build a factory right next to their house that’s been there for 40 years. But on the flip side of that, we also have to understand that that may not be the best place for that house long term and that factory, that setting, is the best place for the factory long term. Let’s figure out how we maybe relocate them or do something, because you’re never gonna make everybody happy. Somebody that’s been in their home for that long, if it was my home, I’d be upset and angry, too. But we have to do what’s best for the community as a whole and be very mindful.
Residents in town have expressed concerns both about how much taxes are and about the need to keep the small town feel for Eudora. How do you think the city should address these concerns?
So the intent was always how do we create that industry to help the taxes and then that’s kind of where the sports complex, it turned into now, what we’re working on from a STAR bond standpoint kind of evolved from.
The reason I really like that project is because, from an industry standpoint, if we went and built – let’s say Panasonic was in our business park, for example. That’s 4,000 people now that are coming into our community every day. Maybe we say half of them live here. So we have this huge growth that happens that is probably going to happen so quickly. It’s going to be painful. You’ve got all this additional burden on the school system, you got all these things, and that to me was a painful process, just as I was thinking through it in my own head.
When we came to the sports tourism component, that interested me from a standpoint of I want people to come here, spend their money, I don’t need a huge staff to get a decent amount of dollars in the town. I don’t have that overwhelming growth burden that I’ve got to deal with, but they’re still bringing their tax dollars here, leaving them and then going home and, by doing that, they’re not recouping the benefit of those tax dollars.
So the other component of, you know, you ask about so how do you keep the community still that small-town feel and to me, that’s it. Because we didn’t have to add 1,500 rooftops, double the size of our town to support this industry, we still have that small-town feel now. Is there going to be some traffic that comes along with it? Yes. I mean, there’s no perfect scenario, situation, whatever.
But I think we can also control that element. Keep it close to the highway, work on finding alternate routes around it to keep the community connectivity to where people don’t necessarily have to go right down Church Street.
There have been talks about road improvements with the RAISE grant, other needs for wastewater treatment renovations, etc. What do you see as the biggest infrastructure needs for the city right now?
All of them. Again, I’m pretty passionate about infrastructure. It’s something that we pay a lot of attention to. Matter of fact, I’ve asked the city manager that once it cools down a little bit that we do ribbon cuttings for trails and all this stuff that everybody sees, but what we haven’t done is we built a really important piece of infrastructure in a lift station just down the street from here, and we didn’t celebrate it at all. It’s gross, I get it, but nobody thinks about how much work it takes to make the city go round.
I’ve asked the city manager for us to do a ribbon cutting for the lift station just to celebrate our, you know, that was a big expense that nobody sees. Nobody cares about the sewer system in this town, in general. As long as, you know, you flush the toilet, it goes away, everything’s right as rain, but guess what, it takes a lot of work to make that go away.
I don’t know that I can sit in this chair and tell you that any one of them [infrastructure need] is more important than another. It is important to me that we do think intelligently. We do have some sewer lines that are not in great shape that are going to have to be replaced. When [former City Manager] Barack [Matite] was here, that was one of the things I told him. I was like, “Man, do not go put a brand new street down over the top of a sewer that’s going to be replaced in five years.”
The infrastructure component of this community is important to everyone. Like, there’s no piece of it that is, you know, that I’m like, “Oh, you know, a new sewer treatment plant’s the magic bullet. That’s what we got to have.” And that’s part of the growth component, right, until we really understand where the needs are. It’s hard. We know there’s a need for a sewer treatment plant.
We knew that we were gonna have to do something at the water treatment plant. We knew that putting that water treatment plant anywhere besides on the north side of town where all the wells were was going to be expensive, because now we’ve got to just pump raw water to wherever. We had an opportunity to buy the property down the street. It made sense. You know, we were aware enough to know that we’re not building a water treatment plant right now, but if we don’t acquire this property, we’re building a water treatment plant someplace that’s going to cost us a lot more money.
But I’d like to think that we had the foresight to go, we can either figure it out now, or we can spend three times as much later because the ground is not going to get any cheaper, and the further away we get, the higher the cost.
What departments in the city do you see as needing more support, funding or additional services?
Probably again, because of my passion, it’s going to be Public Works. You know, I mean, they’ve got the biggest budget, but they’ve also got the most to take care of and – if you look at it from services provided, quality of life, that kind of thing – those guys being able to go out and do more, being able to continue to make more improvements faster, is only going to make everybody feel better because you’re gonna have less failures, you’re gonna have less water line breaks where people are out of water for a couple hours while they’re fixing it.
You know, streets now that have a big hole in it, and we’ve only got so many guys and, again, if you have more resources, maybe you could slip somebody in or whatever, make that street repair faster. I just feel the quality of service goes up for those guys. Any department would be that way, but Public Works is probably the place that just kind of, again, kind of has a soft spot in my heart, I guess.
What are your hopes for the future of the Nottingham development?
I think the same as they’ve always been, which is that it’s a successful project. You know, is it taking longer than we’d hoped? Absolutely. Absolutely. Is there a reason why we couldn’t find a developer that would do it? Absolutely. Because nobody wanted to put, you know, nobody wanted to lay down the money that we’ve laid down to get it “pad ready” knowing that it was going to take that long. We were, I think, a little bit blinded by the love of our community and who we are and what we thought was capable as a commission.
I think it’s going to be a great project when it’s all said and done. I mean, could it take another 10 years to do that? Maybe. [If] we get the STAR bond thing figured out, I think it’ll help Nottingham because I think that growth and that, you know, need for additional space – there will be more restaurants that want to be in the community if the STAR bond district is full and there’s still a pad site available across then, you know what, it’s going to work itself out.
So I’m still glad we did it. I think it was the right thing to do. Again, I see it as something that I think just is taking a little longer than we’d hoped. I think it’ll be a nice project when it gets done. I’m excited to see how the community embraces the Village Green component of it and when we can get all the structures up and do all that and what kind of additional value that provides to the community.
I’d love to see that anchor tenant in there sooner than later, but I also am not willing to kind of – similar to what I’ve said throughout is – I’m not willing to compromise today to get something today that’s not the best thing for tomorrow.
The city is exploring a STAR Bond and bringing a sports arena/entertainment district to town. What are your views on this proposed project?
I think it’s awesome. I think it’s the best solution for everything I’ve talked about, from helping our tax burden without creating a huge burden on the city.
I’m super excited about it. Again, that’s an example of, I mean, there’s some neighbors there that it’s not great for them, and it sucks and I feel horrible for that. But, you know, if I could lower the entire community’s taxes by X percentage in a situation where it’s at a detriment of 10 households – I feel horrible for those 10 households, but I’ve got 1,500/2,000 that are happy. Everybody views the world differently, right? So we’re never going to have everyone completely happy and ecstatic about a certain situation, but I feel like it’s a really good project for us to create that revenue that we need without sacrificing or compromising our culture as a community.
The senior citizen population is important to Eudora residents. How will you support them and are there services you want to see increased for them?
They’re an important part of our community, no different than the youth, than the working class, and, I mean, that’s what makes our community great is our diversity in age. I’m open to anything that makes sense. Again, if they said, “Hey, we really need a senior center,” and there’s 15 of them, and they want me to build a $2 million building for a senior center for 15 people … I can’t get my head wrapped around that.
But if they go, “Hey, we need a van for x, y, z,” and there’s enough value for that thing, yeah, absolutely. I want everyone to feel supported. At the end of the day, though, there’s only enough money to go around. I mean, we can’t put out more than we bring in, contrary to some of the other governments in this country. I’m open to whatever support they need, to hear what they need, but I don’t specifically know what their needs are right in this moment.
Overall, what is your vision for Eudora’s future?
Just to be a happy place for our kids to continue to grow up in and someplace that’s comfortable for everyone that wants to be here and to find some harmony in what that looks like.
Again, you’re never going to make everyone happy, but if there’s ways for us to continue to improve our services to the point where, you know, if there was a citizen in a neighboring community complaining about something, that one of our citizens go, “Wow, that’s really awful. We never have that problem in Eudora. Like, that’s not even a thing. I’m sorry you have to go through that.” We’ve got an amazing school system here. We’ve got pretty amazing people. I think maintain that and improve that. If we can do that, then that’s success for me.
Anything else you would like to add?
I think the only thing I would add is I really enjoy this position. I hope that I get to do it for another term at least. I think I provide a lot of value for the community just with my experiences and what I do so I appreciate you guys, you know, taking the time to talk to everybody and get their perspectives on everything and just really look forward to what the future does bring with all the opportunities we’ve got because we do have a lot of really cool opportunities to make this community amazing and it’s already amazing, but just to do a better job as a city supporting our citizens.
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