New Braunfels Council Condensed

July 2025 E1

Hello local patriots! I hope that all of you were able to spend some time this weekend reflecting on our great country and the freedoms that we all enjoy. Unfortunately, as we all know, it was punctuated by an unimaginable tragedy. The tragic hill country flooding. So before we jump in to the usual content, I just want to say that as a father to a daughter who will be 8 years old in a few months, my heart is broken for these families. My wife an I have been praying extremely hard this weekend that our amazing first responders will find the children who are still missing to either be re-united with family, or bring closure.

John 16: 21-22

“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

We do not have a regular city council agenda to discuss in this edition. Since Council meets every 2nd and 4th Monday, the way that the weeks fell gave us a long stretch between meetings. However, there are still some things that I can catch ya’ll up on.

NBU Update

I sent out an alert early last week that you hopefully saw after I received a letter from DJ Seeger that he had sent to Council and NBU. I subsequently had a very interesting conversation with him. During that conversation there was some very incriminating information shared with me by DJ involving NBU personnel. Due to the severity and consequential nature of the account that DJ gave to me, I am not prepared at this time to make those allegations public in this newsletter. I do apologize, but I need to do more research, visit further with DJ (which I will do next week hopefully) and check my P’s and Q’s from a legal standpoint to make sure that I do not get myself into any trouble. I will keep y’all updated in the weeks to come. However, I can share that NBU CEO Ryan Kelso did send a letter in response to Seeger Water. Here it is:

You can view Seeger Water’s original letter in my previous post.

KB Homes Developments Update

First, the great news regarding the proposed “condo” development between Hunter Rd and FM 1102:

If you remember, this is the item that Planning Commission denied, and then Councilman Edwards very inappropriately suggested to the applicants rep, Shannon Mattingly, that she request a postponement, once it became clear that they would not have enough votes to approve. It looks like between the citizens showing up in numbers to voice their opposition, and some of the councilmembers asking good, relevant questions of the applicant, KB Homes saw the writing on the wall and decided to fold on this one.

However;

On the other proposed development by KB Homes, the one next to the Mission Hills Ranch (MHR) subdivision, they are digging in. Recently, the HOA in MHR was able to record their opposition to the project since they own land within 200 ft of the proposed development. This pushed the total percentage of neighboring land in opposition to 21%, thereby triggering a super-majority vote of council in order to approve the re-zoning for the project. Since Councilman Edwards is representing the seller of the subject property in the pending transaction to KB Homes, which is an obvious conflict of interest, he has been forced to recuse himself. Therefore, it would take only one no vote to kill the re-zoning. A very manageable situation. Ok, so, the state recently enacted a new law that requires 60% opposition for these types of re-zoning requests, instead of 20% in order to trigger the necessity of a super-majority vote. Big difference. Also, according to the law, the percentage is not calculated based on the number of landowners who log their opposition, but by the land area. So, your vote as a landowner of a quarter acre lot, does not weigh as much as another nearby landowner who may own an acre. Below is the actual response map for this item to help you visualize what I am saying:

So as you can see, the vast majority of the residents in MHR have written in expressing opposition to this development, however, property #36 and/or #37 will most likely need to oppose in order to achieve the 60% threshold. Here is where it gets frustrating, this new law goes into effect on Sept. 1st. and KB has postponed the Council hearing AGAIN until the 9/8 meeting. This item was originally supposed to go before council in May. Unfortunately, as long as the applicant postpones an item before it goes on the agenda, Council does not have to approve the postponement. KB knows exactly what they are doing here by delaying this hearing. While this tactic is certainly legal, it is no doubt, disheartening to the neighbors who have been working so hard to protect the character of their community. The fight is not over however. 60% is a tough hill to climb, but not impossible. We can also hope that 3 out of the 5 voting councilmembers Do the right thing and vote to protect the interests of the current citizens, and not the interests of an outside developer.

Thoroughfare Plan

At our Planning Commission meeting this week, we heard a presentation from staff regarding proposed updates to the thoroughfare plan. For those not familiar, this in referring to proposed roadways through the city. City staff (namely Garry Ford, the Director of Transportation and Capital Improvements) laid out their vision for New Braunfels in what looked like, on the surface to be a mini-Manhattan, grid style street system. Several citizens were in attendance to express their displeasure with the proposal, mainly due to proposed roads that would cut through existing neighborhoods, and in at least one case, cut someone’s property in half.

Just from this initial presentation, and the resident’s response, it seems like there may be a storm brewing here. I will keep ya’ll updated.

I appreciate all of your support. It means the world to me.

Please continue to pray hard for our neighbors.

Talk to you soon.