Fossler challenging Crouch for Place 4 seat on Bastrop City Council

Incumbent Jimmy Crouch and Kerry Fossler are both running for the Place 4 seat on the Bastrop City Council in the May 4 election.

Council Member Cynthia Meyer is running unopposed for a second term on the Place 2 seat.

Early voting runs through Tuesday, April 30.

Jimmy Crouch

Crouch, 64, has served on the City Council since 2021, narrowly winning by two votes. Outside of his work with the council, Crouch said he works as a self-employed construction consultant.

Crouch said the biggest issues facing Bastrop are growth, development and access to recreation. In his first term, Crouch said he focused on reforming the city’s building and development code. He said he hopes to continue reforming the code if he’s reelected.

“Our building code is hard to read, hard to understand (and) hard to implement,” Crouch said in an interview. “We’ve modified it to some degree in the past two years, but pieces of it need to be rewritten and reworked so that we can make it more user-friendly.”

Crouch said he wants to continue the council’s work on developing a multi-sport recreation facility with the Bastrop Economic Development Corporation.

“That will get the kids off the pasture across the street from Buc-ees and give them a quality place where they can play where they won’t get run over,” Crouch said.

Crouch said his experience in construction consulting helps him understand development from different perspectives. He said he thinks developers often get a bad rap in Bastrop.

“The majority of all developers that … are coming to Bastrop have a genuine interest in the city,” Crouch said. “I think (developers) are doing a real good job of providing positive things for the city, and then in return, we get property tax and sales tax revenue from all the things that are coming in. It’s a win-win for everybody.”

Kerry Fossler

Real estate agent Fossler, 47, said she’s a community member “first and foremost.” She has experience on multiple advisory boards in Bastrop, including the Parks & Recreation board and the Visit Bastrop board of directors.

Fossler said growth, development and community morale are the most significant issues in this election. She also wants to focus on the “highest and best use” of the city’s hotel occupancy taxes.

“Bastrop has been in the headlines a lot recently,” Fossler said in an interview. “We’ve taken a hit. We need to get back to feeling good about ourselves.”

Fossler said she’s running because she wants to amplify the voices of residents, many of whom feel left out of the city’s decision-making.

“The entire reason why I’m running is to make sure local voices are louder than those who have outside interests,” Fossler said. “We know development is coming. It’s already here. We want to make sure that we’re at the table when designing these (developments).”

Fossler said it’s time for “graceful leadership” in Bastrop. She said she aims to bring “emotional wisdom” to the City Council to balance the “heavy logistics and heavy criticism” it faces meeting to meeting. Fossler also said she’s bilingual, speaking English and Spanish, which she included in “graceful leadership.”

Fossler said she helped organize the city’s new Parks & Recreation masterplan as a member of the Parks & Recreation board. She said residents overwhelmingly asked for a public pool and an expanded recreation center.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Fossler challenging Crouch for Place 4 seat on Bastrop City Council