Robin Monroe, a frequent critic of City Council's handling of the public safety building, will run against incumbent Brenda Hughes for Place 4 on the City Council.
Monroe made it official on Friday — the last day to file.
A member of "Let Us Vote," a grassroots group that raised enough signatures on a petition to stop the city's issuance of debt through Council-approved certificates of obligation, Monroe said she's a retired law enforcement officer and was once a Kerrville real estate agent.
Monroe's criticism of the city's plans to start building a new public safety building through the issuance of debt — estimated to have been about $7 million in the first round — effectively halted the plans. She accused City Council members Kim Clarkson, Judy Eychner and Mayor Bill Blackburn of "clandestine" motivations for pulling back on the public safety building in 2019.
During the Aug. 24, 2021, City Council meeting, Monroe said the City Council had spent $150,000 on a feasibility study that found that it would cost $10-12 million to build the public safety building. However, that feasibility study wasn't released publicly until The Lead obtained and published parts of the study on Oct. 12 after a ruling from the Texas Attorney General's office.
The study showed the city focused on three city-owned sites for its public safety building, and the costs were double what Monroe cited. Only one of the sites came close to fitting the city's requirements to house the police department, fire administration and municipal court under one roof.
The report was presented to the city in November 2019, after the City Council approved the 2020 fiscal year budget. In that year, the City Council chose to issue certificates of obligation to fix several roads and drainage spots. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, then-City Manager Mark McDaniel went into deep budget cuts to protect the city against potential economic harm.
She's accused the City Council of controlling the "newspaper" and that the "media" was covering up for the city's failure to build the public safety building.
"Maybe there's more going but if you could give the newspaper permission to print what's going on that would be informative," Monroe said at the Sept. 28 City Council meeting at the Cailloux Theater.
All three races for City Council now have competition. In Place 3, Joe Herring Jr. will face Katy Chapman-Hanna and the race for mayor features Brent Bates, Vincent Voelkel and Judy Eycher.
Voters will make their decision starting April 25 when early voting starts.
