Editorial Section

​

 

My name is Chris Rocco, I was a WTCMUD1 Director from 1992 thru 1998 and from 2006 thru 2020. I have spent the last two (2) years enjoying my time away from MUD business and spending more time with my wife and our 8 grandkids.

When I was made aware of the only 3 residents that Linda Fabre was able to get to run for the three (3) Director positions open this November I was shaken.  David Flores, Debbie Dahl and Daniel Bauer ? I knew David Flores as the neighbor who gave me that crazy business card with a person pointing a gun at the recipient and I had written “wants to change Dayflower into a one way street so his kids could play in the street” on the back. He also said he wanted to demolish Cypress Creek Elementary School and rebuild it at the site of the All Purpose Field west of the current location so that we could put an aquatic center in the current CCES site. No wonder he is the only neighbor on his street willing to put one of his signs up in their yard !  Ask any of David’s neighbors about their experience with him and you will come to the same conclusion that I have: he doesn’t need to be a MUD director. Sure, you do not need to be an accountant, engineer or a lawyer to be a MUD Director but a high school diploma or a GED, which David lacks, and some business experience sure would make me more comfortable.

And Debbie Dahl ? I have several friends that live on Debbie’s street and they all have told me stories that would make you shake your head.  Just listen to a few minutes of the 40 pages of audio files we have available from the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department and you will come to the same conclusion that I have: Debbie needs to concentrate on her own health issues and leave Directing the MUD to others. And Mr. Bauer ?When I met Mr. Bauer he told me under no uncertain terms that he had no use for the MUD and refused to even participate in an informal survey about the interpretation of Section 1 restrictive covenants. Gee, I’m volunteering my time walking door-to-door trying to glean the Section’s feelings about deed restrictions and he jumps down my throat !

Why would Linda pick these three (3) to be her entourage in her quest to destroy the District? It should be evident to even the most casual of viewers: they are each easily manipulated. Time and time again Cedar Park has said they will not UNDER ANY CONDITIONS consider annexing the District. And even if they were to change their mind, Linda is not going to convince 51% of District voters that annexation is best for them.  Higher taxes, lower service levels ? Who would vote for that? What would we have to do to convince Cedar Park to annex us ? Agree to a “Limited Service MUD District”? Why would we want ANOTHER 7-10% property tax on top of the 20 % tax increase when Cedar Park annexes us ?

If the taxes, service charges you pay and the service levels you receive do not bother you, vote for the three “Ds’.  If they do, vote for Jones, Avila and Rabigo.

 

 

Why Vote for the AMWNA’s Candidates

 

In a previous page, I gave you my opinion about who should be elected to the MUD Board on 11/8.  Most of my reasons had to do “who was best for the job”. I feel like you didn’t need to be an accountant, an engineer or a lawyer to be able to bring to the Board the kind of business experience that the Board needs to make wise decisions about District operations.  Salesman, golf course supervisors and administrative assistance have, over the years provided wonderful experience and skills to WTC MUD1 and are a big part of why the District is so successful. Read below why the three (3) candidates we recommend are not only the best candidates for the three (3) Board positions but why the other three (3) candidates are problematic when serving on the Board is considered. A little background:

 

In 2020, Linda Fabre was elected to the Board. As I had elected not to run in 2020, I was curious what Linda brought to the District and how she would help the District thrive.  After 3 meals with her, I have come to the following conclusions.

 

1. Linda HAS NO RESPECT Luis Zervigon!  As many of you remember, Mr. Zervigon served on the Board a little more than 8 years and was responsible for much of the park improvements that the District saw during his time on the Board. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Luis was an experienced politician and organized his supporters in a professional manner.  He had emailing lists, phone numbers and a plethora of residents ready to come to his defense. I did not get along well with Luis and was the one who exposed his “ACC as a component of the Anderson Mill West Neighborhood Association” plan. I dangled his plan out to Linda to see what she would do, and she did it. Linda has always hated the Anderson Mill West Neighborhood Association as it was something that she could not control.   Oh, we asked her to join, offered her a position on the Board but she was intent in getting other things done.When you have an unlimited amounts of the District’s money to “fish” (i.e., open Records Requests) for ways to cause grief for sitting Board members, any mistake you cause grief for sitting Board members, any mistake you made as a Director is sure to come to the surface eventually and it did and Luis was gone. 

 

With Luis leaving, the Board selected a replacement, Beth Jones, an administrator for the Enclave, the big memory care facility on the southern end of El Salido. Beth Jones, Megan Dudo, Art Medrano and Catherine Franke fought bravely without Luis and his leadership, but Linda had to just continue her wasteful Open Records Requests and lying to the residents about things like “taxes and District infrastructure” and just had to wait them out until the next election. She found her 3 “useful idiots” to run and be elected to the Board in 2022 and implement the next part of her agenda.

2. Annexation by the City of Cedar Park – though Linda contributed NOTHING to the District from 11/22 until the present, she was able to spend nearly a half million dollars on Open Records Requests and require the MUD to raise taxes in 2021-22 and 2022-23.   Even with the unnecessary tax increase, the City of Cedar Park’s “actual taxes paid” is 30% higher than a similar home in WTC MUD1. I don’t know about you but for a library card, I am unable to figure out why I would want to be annexed by the City of Cedar Park.  It puzzled me until I found out that Linda actually thinks she is saving District residents from “some sort of evil” by destroying WTC MUD1 and being annexed by the City of Cedar Park. Anyone who has lived in the Austin area must be familiar with Wells Branch, the highly 

 

successful MUD in North Austin.   Regardless, the City of Cedar Park has and continues to indicate virtually NO APPETITE for annexing WTC MUD1. I did glean some information from Linda when I was made aware that she abhors the fact that WTC MUD’s “Administrative Cost per resident”, the ratio of total administrative costs to number of residents served, is so much high than the City’s. Now, when you start throwing around cost accounting ratios to the general public, you had better be ready to explain the reason for your aberration. A high Administrative Cost per Resident can be a sign of inefficient operation of an entity’s administrative function but when you compare Cedar Parkwith its 72,000+ residents to the MUD’s 5,600 residents its only fair to ask questions like “how much of the total administrative costs are ‘fixed’ and how much are ‘variable’”. In other words, how much of the administrative costs would be present with 10 residents let alone 5,600 and the ration is probably of limited use as a diagnostic tool. It is, though. A great scare tactic, something I will talk about in depth later.

I’d love to have a forum in the District to discuss the benefits of annexation but Linda Fabre would rather sneak around on Next Door raising fear than discuss actual facts.

3. Why these three (3) candidates ?  I have spoken at length about why I think the AMWNA candidates are superior to the Linda Fabre slate.  Let’s look at Linda’s hand-picked candidates, one at a time:

David Flores – David approached me in 2019 about helping him run for the WTC MUD1 Board. That is when he gave me his infamous “firearm” business card. Anyone out there who thinks that I made this up is welcome to look at the extemporaneous notes I wrote on the back of his card. David was a Linda Fabre dream come true. A comrade in arms who would not only do anything he is asked but someone who needs significant help reading and writing anything intelligent. Now, that sounds “mean” but we are talking about my District. Here are some of David’s recent ideas for the District:

a. Making Dayflower Trace (his street) one way going SE so that his kids could play in the street and only have to worry about cars coming from one direction

b. A District swim facility – back in the early 2000s,the District contracted with a firm to do a feasibility study about the District building a swim facility. Our first big problem was location: there was no where to build the facility with room for adequate parking. Sure, many District residents could walk to the location but, for many, it would require a vehicle to get there. The second problem was that there are two swim facilities withing 2 miles of every District resident and the City of Cedar Park advised us that anything we build would not be maintained if the District were to ever be annexed (see #2). David then suggested that LISD move Cypress Creek Elementary to the All Purpose Field location (to the west of the school) raze the school and sell the location to the MUD to build its swim facility. And everyone should have unicorns and rainbows for their kids, too.

c. Cancelling the contract with the Cedar Park Fire Department to save money and contract with the Volente Fire Department (VFD) – 20 years ago the Ranch at Cypress Creek (RCC MUD) did the same thing only to see their resident’s homeowners insurance go up 40% due to the location, equipment and experience of the VFD. The RCC MUD Board was soon replaced for malfeasance. Need I say more?

d. Cancelling WM Solid Waste Management with the District so that residents can seek their own service provider (to save money) – after going to court, the WTC MUD1 was the first MUD in the State to provide solid waste disposal service for its residents by contracting with one provider. Our rates have historically been in the lower 15% strata of other SWM contracts (with superior services) and, by having the MUD the SWM contract customer, saved the District’s 1965+ residents an additional 8.25% in sales tax that exempt entities like the MUD do not pay.  Do you really think you could save money contracting with your own SWM vendor?  The Districts low SWM cost should help you with that question.

e. Harassing residents, Directors, vendors, etc. – I will try and put a link to the various shenanigans in which David has been involved but, just one, throwing stones at an octogenarian Board member while he is trying to conduct a park committee meeting should disqualify him from EVER sitting on ANY governmental BOARD.  Go check his street and see how many neighbors have put up his election sign. There is one on the corner at El Salidoand Charles has it up because he is too nice a guy to tell David “no”. I have several friends on his street that said they would share their “David Flores Story” to anyone who calls.

Debbie Dahl -  except for the Concordia employees on her street that told me that they “don’t vote”, none of Debbie’s neighbors on her street agreed to put up her signs.  Our Open Record Request of Debbie returned over 40 pages of audio files of Debbie complaining to Williamson County Sheriff’s Department about a plethora of “things that bothered her about her neighbors”. I have spoken to 3 Piney Creek resident that have moved elsewhere partially due to Debbie’s harassment.  If you view the October MUD meeting online you can listen to the last resident speaker telling about the restraining order she has had to file on Debbie to keep her from breaking into her house, AGAIN.

a. My favorite Debbie Dahl story – At 4AM, a friend of mine on Lantana was awaken by bull horn by a Williamson County Sheriff’s Department (Wilco SD) deputy demanding that she get out of bed and move her vehicle out of the driveway. It seems that all three of her boys were home and to park in her driveway required her to park over the sidewalk that went through her driveway.  Ms. Dahl had called the Wilco SD complaining about the location of my friend’s vehicle and the Sheriff’s Department sent over a Deputy at 4 AM demanding that she get up, out of bed and move her vehicle to the street. When I called the Wilco SD asking them to confirm this story, I was told it was true.  I asked the Wilco SD deputy to whom I was speaking what actions the Wilco SD would take if I were to go out over the weekend, make notes of vehicle plates and address where vehicles were parked over the sidewalk in their driveway (approximately 175 when I took a sample) in WTC MUD1 and reported them to the Wilco SD. There was a pregnant pause on the line and, finally, the Deputy said, “Mr. Rocco, I would hope you would not do that”. When I asked what made the situation so special when Ms. Dahl called in, I was told that all Wilco Staff have been told to take any action Ms. Dahl demanded if “technically she was reporting a violation”. You tell me why Wilco SD is so concerned about Debbie Dahl complaints! Could it be that Wilco SD doesn’t want the bad press that Ms. Dahl is certain to cause if they “do as she demands” ?

b. Another complaint – I have another friend, let’s call him ‘Troy” who lives on Ms. Dahl’s street. One day he answered his door and there stands a process server: Troyhad a “stalking” violation filed on him by Ms. Dahl. After further review, Troy found out that Ms. Dahl is claiming that Troy is stalking her by “continuously driving by her house”. Troy admitted that he did drive by her house, twice a day when he was going to and coming from his job in Austin. Troy had to hire a lawyer who was able to have the case thrown out before it went to discovery. Oh, he also changed the way he drove to and from work.

c. Do we need someone like this as a MUD director ?  Her campaign literature uses language like “corrupt” and refers to “out of control taxes”. Where is the evidence of corruption ? How is “taxes going down 12 out of 14 years equate to “out of control taxes”?  Debbie started coming to meetings in July of this year and only then, when Linda needed three (3) “useful idiots” did she decide to run for a Director’s seat. 

 

Daniel Bauer – I don’t know Mr. Bauer very well. I met him when I was helping the Board get an idea whether there was an appetite to change Section 1’s definition of “unsightly”. I had been going door-to-door in section one asking residents their feelings about the current definition which was (and is still) not clear at all. Mr. Bauer told me, in no uncertain terms, what he thought of the MUD (he did not speak highly of it) and politely asked me to leave. 

I do like the way he wears his hair but I have some real concerns about his alleged involvement with a “domestic terrorist organization” the “Sovereign Nation” group  through third parties. I hold that everyone should be allowed to belong to whatever group their political ideology dictates but also feel that everyone must bear the burden of the organization’s reputation. 

Under different circumstances I might welcome Mr. Bauer’s involvement on the Board but I know he was selected as just the 3rd of three “useful idiots” for Linda slate.  As Shannon Bauer’s husband (Linda Fabre’s public relation coordinator and David Flores’s campaign manager) he is one of the few residents that Linda could talk into running for a Director position. For someone whose dislike for the MUD is palpable, it is hard to understand why he wants to serve on the MUD Board except for Linda’s goal to destroy the MUD

Why I think I am right

My wife thinks I am crazy. She asks, “why are you so involved in this election”.  I will explain:

When I moved into the District in 1992, things were not “fine” in the District. We had issued bonds to get the funds to pay off the developers for the infrastructure they had put into the ground. Milburn needed to sell house to increase the number of residents that are paying taxes and service fees. House sales were slowly picking up but the Board actual did have to discuss what bills they were going to pay each month.  We had several good Board member with lots of experience and several residents that brought their own special experience to the Board. What we did have was a commitment to the MUD, something that is really lacking now. I served my first 6 years without taking any per diem. I still keep up with the realtor who sold us our house and he has been very successful and has been a wonderful source of useful information about the local housing market.  He walked me through the Buttercup annexation when it went from a MUD to a neighborhood in Cedar Park. 

The first thing that happened is that deed restrictions were no longer enforced. Like Linda plans to do, instead of the MUD or the City enforcing deed restrictions, each resident needed to “take the violator to court over their non-compliance issue”. And you know what happened, right. The little old man and his wife who lived next door to the biker whose shutters were falling off and never cut the grass didn’t dare take his neighbor to court!  What if he lost and the neighbor, who is 6’ 5” and weighs 276 pounds, didn’t take lightly to having to hire a lawyer to defend himself. And what if he won and the next door resident was required to spend the money to bring his house into compliance?  He couldn’t be happy about it and every time the little old man is in his yard and the neighbor sees him he gets a real strange look from the 6’ 5” neighbor.

When Linda gets the votes to do away with deed restriction violation by the MUD, deed restrictions do not go away ! They are still attached to the deed of the property. 

 

Have you been to the Buttercup area recently?  Those houses with the shutters falling off are not something that I made up for this article. They are there driving down the property values of everyone’s property. Just like what will happen if Linda gets her way.

 

Please vote for Beth Jones, Paul Rabago and Hanoi Avila !

​

​

​

​

                             Neighborhood Aspirations​

 

Traffic/Speeding: 

This is an ongoing issue in our community and central to our overall safety and well being. AMWNA has an important role to play in making our streets safer, and we will be dedicating energy to this issue in the coming year. with the assistance and participation of the MUD.

​

Safe Routes to Schools:

AMWNA will be working with several state, and local government and LISD along private concerns to develop safe routes for our children to travel to school 

​

Deed Restrictions:

AMWNA considers our deed restrictions to be an important tool for maintaining property values in our community, but, as written, they are a long way from perfect. There is much work to be done to ensure they are enforced to maintain our property value and the enforcement is uniformity applied. Stay tuned for more on this important topic. 

​

Park improvements and Amenities:

AMW has some beautiful public spaces and parks. These are our shared assets and, as a residential community, one of our most valuable assets. Through your comments, you’ve expressed varying opinions on how best to maximize use of these spaces, and there is no one right answer. But it is also clear through your comments that our shared spaces and the amenities within them are an important part of our community. This year, AMWNA will continue to advocate for the preparation of a park plan that incorporates meaningful and comprehensive input from all of you and that includes an implementation timeline and budgeting plan for turning our collective priorities into a reality. As part of this process, we have an opportunity to revisit options for bringing a splash park amenity to our community.

 

Civil and Productive MUD Board Meeting 

AMWNA is supportive of the MUD's new legal counsel attempts to bring a civil and productive order to the MUD directors board meetings. The MUD board meeting should focus on accomplishing the MUD business, completed tasks pertaining to serving the residents of the district and not supporting a director drama acts and a director personal sideshows that [promote their personal agenda instead of the people's agendas  

​

In Summary

These are achievable goals for  volunteer board, which is why in order to make these things happen we will be reaching out to all of you to get involved. If you are passionate about any of the issues above, we can use your help and input in accomplishing them. You can send us an email at amwnainfo@gmail.com

​

​

​

​