Farmersville Police Chief Jay Brock is currently serving as interim city manager, a title he now holds for the third time.
This time is different, however. This time it will lead to him becoming the next Farmersville city manager.
Brock, who has already signed a contract to become city manager, will continue as “interim” until October as he works to prepare for the current Farmersville Police Department commander to take over as its next chief.
Brock, who has been with the police department for more than 18 years, took time from his two roles to answer Visalia Times-Delta’s questions about becoming city manager and the future of Farmersville.
What does it take to be a successful city manager?
A lot of it is wearing many different hats. You supervise the departments, but you also are trying to balance that with economic development, ensuring that the city is financially stable.
You’re working with the city council to get the general direction or vision that they have and trying to make sure that what staff is doing is aligned with what their goals are.
What are your goals as city manager?
Probably first and foremost, just to add some stability to the administration. We’ve had a lot of changes over the last couple of years. City Manager (Daymon) Qualls was here for a year, and City Manager (Michael) Schulte was here for a few months.
To ensure that the projects and the development going on in the community continue forward without delay. We have a lot of development coming with housing, some subdivisions. We have some business that’s being constructed.
To improve the communication between our staff and city council, and to carry out the vision and the direction of the council to make sure that it’s in line with what we’re doing.
What are you going to do differently to have a better chance at stability than some of your predecessors?
It’s a little bit different because I’ve been here a long time as a city employee. I have a better sense of what the council’s goals are, and I’m a little bit more in tune with the community. It is important that you’re aware of the culture of the city, the things that the city or the citizens need, the possibilities and where to look for them, and the potential for other businesses to come in.
We’ve had quite a bit of turnover of employees and city managers, so trying to support the staff that we do have, and then when we hire for vacancies that we’re finding people that are aligned with what we want. We want people that are professional and people that care about the citizens in the community.
Knowing those things is important because that that allows things to continue.
I’m not trying to come in and make a bunch of changes or I’m not trying to guess at the direction that we should be headed. It’s more based on my experience of seeing how things have developed over time and trying to continue it.
I really look at that as my goal, but kind of an overarching thing is to not make a name for myself, but just move the city forward however much that I can move it, and then the person that takes over for me at some point, they pick up from there and they continue to move it forward again.
All that you can do as a department head or as the city manager is to try to continue the growth, continue to help the city to evolve, and just do your part as far as getting some additional growth and moving it in a positive direction.
What challenges are there in Farmersville?
Our growth to a certain degree has been slower than some of the other communities. We are poised for growth, and with it brings some unique challenges. It’s difficult having limited staff when you’re trying to do more. We do contract out some of our services like engineering and planning and those things, so it’s a little more difficult when everything is not done in-house, dealing with others and trying to collaborate.
Overall, I feel like the community is in a good place, public safety-wise, but I do think that it’s challenging when Visalia is growing so fast next to us, when we do still have land available. There are some prime spots out by the highway for potentially a hotel or even if Walmart were to decide to build something out this far because then they would get Exeter and Woodlake and Three Rivers residents coming to this area.
Trying to do a lot at one time in a small community is taxing on staff, especially since it hasn’t been something we’ve done for a while, but you just buckle down and do what you have to do to keep the ball rolling.
What new projects are coming to Farmersville?
One of the things that increases our activity and access is the expansion of Caldwell that’s underway. It is four lanes currently now from Santa Fe (Street) to Lovers Lane. The next phase of that is from Lovers Lane to Farmersville, widening Caldwell (also known as Visalia Road and Avenue 280) to four lanes.
And then it will, on the third phase, go from four lanes to the eastern city limits of Farmersville to Exeter, so we anticipate a lot of increase of activity and traffic through our city.
There are some road projects as far as roundabouts coming, one out by the high school, at Walnut (Avenue) and Road 168. With this widening, there may be a roundabout at the western city limits on Avenue 280 and then at the eastern city limits on Avenue 280.
Along with that, Smee Homes is almost to the point of breaking ground on about 230 homes on a property that sits behind where the Catholic Church is on Visalia Road.
There’s also a Smee Homes development on Walnut just to the west of Ventura that’s going to be underway. There’s been an approval through LAFCO for another development on the north side of Walnut in that same area, just to the west of the city limits.
There’s Gardenia Courtyard (a new multi-housing project at Farmersville Boulevard and Kristen Street). There’s a senior complex that’s underway north of Walnut, on the east side of Farmersville Boulevard that’s already broken ground. Across the street from that, the Cherry Medical Clinic is currently under construction.
It’s been more than 10 years since we’ve had any new housing. With the increase of housing in a community, it also brings additional opportunity or potential for business to come in.
State Foods Supermarket in the development process. It will be on Farmersville Boulevard, just south of Walnut. The more access that our residents or others have to grocery stores or any other retail is super important. With all of the increase in housing, it does make the city more attractive for more businesses to come in.
We’re not that far from Visalia, so if the prices of the homes are a little bit more reasonable, it makes us a bedroom community of Visalia to a certain extent.
A Walmart location at Farmersville Boulevard and Highway 198 looked like a possibility several years ago, when the retailer was also negotiating to transform one of its Visalia locations into a superstore. Was Walmart serious about a Farmersville store?
I don’t know. It’s hard because many of the businesses have a set of metrics that they go by whether that’s number of residents, whether it’s traffic numbers, but that’s kind of my point on when you increase the traffic flow, potentially through Farmersville, that also then increases our traffic flow north and south through the city.
People from Lindsay that are going to Visalia, are they going to shortcut and come through here versus going all the way out to 198? Visalia’s grown to the southern end there with Costco and the Sam’s Club that’s going to be behind Texas Roadhouse. Other cities’ activity can also potentially drive and increase activity here.
I am definitely going to work to try to see if we can revisit something with them, because I don’t know that I ever thought that I would see two Costcos in Visalia either. Looking at it from that same perspective, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing for them to build something out further this way.
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Six questions for Farmersville’s next city manager
Reporting by Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta | USA TODAY Network
