The Precinct 3 seat on the Hays County Commissioners Court is part of the county’s policy-making body, overseeing the budget, tax rate and county services. The commissioner works alongside three other commissioners and the county judge. Lon A. Shell is the current commissioner of Precinct 3 but he is not running for reelection.
Morgan Hammer (REP)
What made you decide to run for commissioner this election?
“I’m a Texas State alumnus, and it’s not the same Hays County that I remember when I went to school here, we’re having more crime… because I have a two-year-old daughter, I want to make sure that it continues to get safer and we make it a safe place for her to grow up and her to be able to experience life here.”
What are your qualifications for office?
“I’m a financial advisor. It’s what I do on a day-to-day basis…I am the chair of the San Marcos Young Professionals… we focus on professional development, from either Texas State students we’ve had, or just younger professionals to keep them here… I’m the vice president of a nonprofit called Mission Able here in Hays County, and we do home restoration and renovation for low-income families.”
As the population of the county continues to grow, what will you do to help make housing available and affordable for the population?
“From a county commissioner perspective, we can offer developers incentives for making housing more affordable… It’s more of a city thing when it comes to putting in place restrictions on whether rent can go up a certain percentage and all of those qualifications, but we can lead the charge and making sure that those things are of top priority from our cities.”
What policies or budget initiatives will you be implementing to promote economic growth and job creation in Hays County population?
“We are one of the fastest growing counties in the U.S. We can be picky about who we are letting into Hays County to bring jobs to our people. We can focus on people that are going to pay a good living wage. We can focus on people that are going to offer their employees incentives that would help our economy grow.”
How will you manage the balance between stabilizing development and sustaining and protecting the environment of San Marcos?
“We have a lot of great natural resources that we need to preserve and make sure that we are focusing on… unfortunately, the Trinity River is getting lower and lower every day, and it’s an issue that needs to be a top priority… so, making sure that we’re doing safe and sustainable growth and we’re not growing with unintended consequences that comes with hurting our natural resources.”
What are your top priorities?
“My number one priority is public safety… my second top priority is going to be water conservation and preservation… and then third is emergency services.”
How do you plan to maximize the use of tax dollars in the county budget?
“I think that a lot of people don’t know TxDOT is helping counties with the most funding that they’ve ever given out… I plan on working well and learning all of the aspects to using those TxDOT dollars to be able… to not have the taxpayers pay for our roads, and to focus more on TxDOT helping out with us.”
As Texas State University continues to encourage the growth of its student population, how do you plan to help the county prepare for the increase?
“We look into areas that we can give [students] to develop that don’t harm or hurt our natural resources, and we can also offer them opportunities to partner with the county to keep those students… we really just need to make sure that the infrastructure we’re putting in place doesn’t harm our natural resources, but it also allows to maintain the quality of living that we currently have.”
Rebecca Minnick (DEM)
What made you decide to run for commissioner this election?
“Water. Primarily water. From 2022 to now we’ve had all these water issues. Blue Hole Park, we had to close down the swim lawn [last year], we’ve had some wells go dry. Without a dependable supply of water you cannot have the public services required for a functioning county. Fire mitigation requires water.”
What are your qualifications for this office?
“I’ve been on Wimberley City Council since 2019. Prior to that I have been on Wimberley’s [Planning & Zoning] Commission, prior to that I was on the Board of Adjustments. [In Bellaire] I was on the Planning & Zoning Commission… I was public information officer for a school district. [Public service] is my way to volunteer. This is something that I am interested in and it is something that I have developed a background in. I have worked with builders, I have worked with developers, I have worked with large scale healthcare companies.”
As the population of the county continues to grow, what will you do to make housing affordable and available for the population?
“There needs to be collaboration on [housing]. The answer to affordable housing is to have more inventory. It’s one of the most challenging things we have to do, but it involves strategic partnerships between the university, the city and the private sector. We have to ask ourselves: do we have the resources? Do we have the infrastructure? If there are issues with the infrastructure, then that will drive costs up… [housing] is a complicated thing, but it’s a thing we have to solve.”
How will you manage the balance between stabilizing development and protecting the environment of San Marcos?
“We need to incentivize conservation and smart water use. In Wimberley, we have [several buildings] that use rain water collection and condensate conversion. They are able to support 50% of the building with those measures, which adds up… [Sustainable methods are] possible, but we have to be smart about it. There have been proposals before the county about these more responsible development methods, they just haven’t been codified yet. Some of these methods need to be revisited.”
How do you plan to maximize the use of tax dollars in the county budget?
“My philosophy is this: your budget reflects your values. The budget should be in keeping with the things that we understand are important to quality of life- sustainability and efficiency. In the budgets that I’ve worked on that is exactly what we have done… I see that there are certain things that need to be addressed, and I prefer incentives over punishment.”
As Texas State University continues to encourage the growth of its student population, how do you plan to help the county respond and prepare for the increase?
“I think the university is an important partner for the county and the city. We need to make a priority of building that relationship. There are certain things we have to partner on; that includes public safety and traffic; as much as we can do to get people on bicycles [to take advantages of bike lanes].”
What are your top priorities?
“I say water because everything depends on it. We need to have consistency in how we are treating it because Jacob’s Well has not been open for business for two years. That is a symptom of the fact that these aquifers are running low. We need to pay attention to that because water is our life-blood. We’ve had two major wildfires in this area in two years. How do we put it out if we don’t have water? So much of this depends on our ability to manage it, to be smart with it.”
