Written By Staff Writer Cristian Velazquez
All across Texas, local elections will be held on May 1st for citizens to choose who will be on their city councils, school boards, and other regional governing bodies. The city of Helotes is no different. In this election cycle, Rich Whitehead will challenge 14-year incumbent Tom Schoolcraft for mayor. We talked with Whitehead about the importance of local government, his campaign, and how students can get involved in their community.
Whitehead started working in local politics 14 years ago when he ran for city council with the current mayor and got elected in 2006. He was a councilman for 4 years before deciding not to run for reelection due to fixing most of the problems that he wanted to solve in the community.
“Public service is one of those things you do because it’s the right thing to do. You don’t make any money at [city council]. Zero dollars, zero cents an hour, as it were, but you get to see the effects of policy decisions you make that make people’s lives a little bit easier,” Whitehead said.
The Helotes government is responsible for many things in the community such as regulating businesses, buildings, and even plants in the city. The local government is also responsible for our public safety organizations.
“If you ever need an ambulance, or, God forbid, there’s a fire, or if you need the police, [those are] points of contact with the local government,” Whitehead said.
When running a local campaign, a candidate usually doesn’t have the national stage, catchy political policies, or party affiliations to have people pay attention to their campaign.
“Most people have very little idea of what goes on in the local government. They keep an eye on the national government or maybe the state government, but rarely judicial or local, and local government is really where the rubber meets the road,” Whitehead said.
Candidates instead keep platforms and issues close to home. Whitehead is keen on knocking on doors and attending events to speak with his potential constituents. He also has a Facebook page where he lays out his issues extensively and information on events. One component of Whitehead’s platform is to bring back events in Helotes to reinvigorate our sense of community in the city and to local tourism.
“We used to have a lot more things such as Jazz Fest, [and] Chuck Wagon Chili Cook-Off. Those things, unfortunately, have been canceled. […] I am definitely going to bring those things back and hopefully some others. People have good ideas all the time. Someone floated the idea of having kind of like a little ‘Helotes’s Got Talent’. […] Its community and family likes watching family. And so by having these things on a regular basis it just draws people from the surrounding areas. […] I don’t campaign to people outside of the area, but I listen to people outside of the area. […] I care about what [they] think because [they’re] a part of our community,” Whitehead said.
Another major theme of the campaign is fiscal conservation.
“I feel that the current mayor, in his policy directions, has led us to some bad financial decisions: a frivolous lawsuit that cost us 1.3 million dollars, [the] dispatch center [that’s] losings about a half-million dollars a year. As a result, we’re losing police and fire officers to low salaries,” Whitehead said.
Mayor Schoolcraft has been hitting back against these claims on his campaign page with paragraphs, bullet points, vertical selfie videos, and pictures of Whitehead’s Facebook posts printed out with critical annotations in red ink. He has attacked and refuted multiple points of Whitehead’s campaign and platform in a series of edits to his website he calls “The rest of the story”, creating it so, in his words, “you will truly be able to understand the what, when, where, and why of each issue. It will then be up to you to reach your own conclusions”. In a video called “Whack-A-Mole”. Mayor Schoolcraft criticizes the coalition between Whitehead and city council candidates Matthew Merchant and Matthew McCrossen.
“They say ‘we need change’. What is that change? […] Have you ever asked them any serious questions when they’re talking about frivolous lawsuits and salaries being unfair and being mean to business and all that? Have you asked them any questions? (‘Hey, show me some examples of what you’re talking about because it doesn’t make sense’), that’s what I would do. Once they get off their talking points they’ll be lost because they do not know, really, what any issues are, because we have no issues. […] Hopefully you’ll stick with me, Burt Buys, and Paul Friedrichs if you haven’t voted yet,” Whitehead said.
On how students get involved in the local government, Whitehead encouraged finding a candidate that one likes, and volunteering with their campaign. He also proposed creating an internship at Helotes City Hall for seniors interested in government or political science, should he get elected.
“This is going to be your Helotes. […] you’re either going to take ownership […] at some point at an early age, or you’re going to sit by and it’s going to become something that you don’t like. And you just eventually […] get rolled over by the system or just move away to find someplace else, so get involved and make sure that the future is what you want it to be,” Whitehead said.
Information on the election can be found here on the Helotes website- City of Helotes | 2021 Election