by KIM HILSENBECK
With the May 12 elections just a few months away, several candidates have filed for the Kyle City Council and Hays CISD Board of Trustees.
In Kyle, Samantha Bellows and Ray Bryant have filed for office. Bellows, a member of the Kyle Planning & Zoning Commission, was in the news recently when she asked the City Council to reconsider its appointments of paid emergency personnel on the city’s Safety Commission. Bellows said she wanted to see more regular residents on the commission.
Bellows is no stranger to the spotlight. In March 2010, she and two friends wanted to open a snow cone stand on Center Street and were met with a chilly reception from the City Council, citing ordinances preventing such a business from operating within the city limits. As a result of that incident, Kyle changed its policy on mobile vendors.
A former member of the Kyle Community Relations Commission, Bellows is an administrative assistant at ProBuild in Buda. She is running for the Place 5 council position held by Jaime Sanchez.
Sanchez has not officially decided whether to file for a place on the ballot, though he seemed to be leaning toward not running against Bellows. He said he initially ran to change things in the Kyle city government and has accomplished what he set out to do. He also said being on the council and having a full-time job is a big time commitment.
Bryant is a former City Council member who stepped down to run for county commissioner in 2011; he lost to Mark Jones. Bryant works at Texas Disposal Systems as an account manager. His wife, Sandra Bryant, holds an at-large seat on the Hays CISD school board. Bryant is running for City Council Place 6; Russ Huebner is the current City Council member from that district.
Huebner confirmed he will not run again this year, but said in the future, when his children are older, he would consider getting involved with politics again. Huebner said he is relatively pleased with the changes he helped make in Kyle’s city management during his term.
For Hays CISD, Holly Raymond and Doug Ragsdale have filed for at-large seats, while incumbent Bert Bronaugh has filed for the District 3 seat on the school board.
Hays CISD board President Patti Wood is stepping down at the end of her term. An attempt to contact Wood for this story was unsuccessful.
Ragsdale, Hays High School’s baseball coach, is running for Wood’s at-large position. Ragsdale, also an AP biology teacher, started coaching at Hays High School in 1990. He will retire at the end of the school year.
The filing deadline for both Hays CISD board and Kyle City Council positions is March 5. Early voting begins April 30.
The city of Buda has moved its elections to November; therefore, Buda City Hall is no longer a polling location for early or election day voting in the May School Board elections.