HARKER HEIGHTS, Texas (KXXV) — Voters in Harker Heights will head to the polls Saturday to choose their next mayor, with incumbent Michael Blomquist and Councilwoman Lynda Nash making their final pitches to residents.
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Both candidates share backgrounds in city council service and military retirement.
Blomquist is pointing to a recent legislative win helping pass a bill that refunds money from the state for lost property tax revenue with veteran tax exemptions. He says the city is facing a growing budget gap and if elected he would push to modify the amount during the next state legislature session.
"The city of Harker Heights, we're estimated to lose about $5 million now because it, it goes up every year. You get more people that come onto the rolls, property values go up, so those are, that's lost revenue that we don't, we're not able to pull in from taxation," Blomquist said.
Beyond the budget, Blomquist says water supply is the defining challenge ahead for Harker Heights and the broader Central Texas region.
"That's what other communities around here are always looking at because water is really the big, the next thing on the horizon that cities are gonna really, really be concerned about here in central Texas because the preponderance of it all comes from surface water like Lake Belton or Lake Stillhouse, and there's only a finite amount of water in those lakes, so we need to look at how we're gonna bring more water," Blomquist said.
Nash also identifies water as a top concern, particularly as data centers continue to expand across Texas.
"In the central Texas area and actually all over the United States are data centers, we know that, and talking about our pending water crisis for the state of Texas, not just central Texas, being more transparent with our citizens and letting them know if we decide on a course of action, this is the reason why, letting them know that if there is a potential problem that they are already, we are preparing for it," Nash said.
If elected, Nash says she would prioritize transparency with residents through a citizen advisory council and a public dashboard program that keeps residents informed in real time.
"Any citizen can come up and discuss what their issue is. The same thing with having a dashboard about if you put in a request that you have a pothole or you have a sign or a light out on your street that in real time that you can see that it has been received and that it was that it's getting worked on. So transparency," Nash said.
Election Day is Saturday, June 13, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Harker Heights Parks and Recreation Center.
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