Hello

My name is Kevin Braby. I am a 21 year resident of The Colony, and over the last 15 years I have served on The Colony Economic Development Corporation board, working to take our city from good to great. Our success growing our city is only exceeded by the incredible people who make up our community, and make it a great place to live. I filed to put my name on the ballot the first day of filing because I want to ensure we continue our growth from great to exceptional.

Why am I the right candidate?                                                                                                                  

• Experience

I have served 15 on the city EDC board, helping land many of the anchor businesses we take for granted today.  

• Business and Family friendly

Our great community comes from the amazing people that choose to make The Colony their home, and the large and small businesses that choose to serve them.

• Financially responsible

Only approximately 1/4 of your property taxes go to the city. But we all deserve the best value for our tax dollar, while  working to lower our property tax rates.

When I moved here 21 years ago, this was essentially a bedroom community.  Businesses were in decline, and increasingly, all the expenses of running a city government were falling on our residential property taxes.  For the last 15 years, I have served on the city Economic Development Corporation board.  Our goal has been to bring in new business, and the new property and sales tax it will provide to the city General Fund, to reduce the burden on residential property taxes. 

Every time I voted for incentives to bring in major anchor attractions like NFM/Grandscape, Top Golf and Rifle Gear, we also attracted other businesses like Rooms To Go, 54th street and many others that improve our community without providing incentives beyond the enhanced location.  

Beyond the experience growing our local economy, the EDC board is the only board besides CDC that maintains its own multi million dollar budget as a component of the city budget.  So areas like budget review, feedback and approval, as well as the justifications and conditions of executive session are already familiar and understood with 15 years of experience working with staff and council liaison for EDC.

Additionally, the EDC board has given me a background working (often indirectly) with many of our key city business partners like Matthews Southwest, Jackson Shaw, NFM, and Berkshire Hathaway.

As a resident or business, your local city government provides the government services you interact the most with each day.  These include basics like water, sewer, trash, roads, police, and fire that are core.  But beyond that we have a community focused police force that work with us to keep our crime rate low, major park facilities like our shoreline trails, and 5 Star that directly help us be family friendly and attract great residents.

Similarly, we need to be a good partner with both large and small businesses, so that we have the retail, service, and entertainment businesses that we deserve to have locally.

One example of being small business friendly is our EDC Business Improvement Grant.  Originally this provided up to $1,000 matching funds for any local business that makes exterior improvements in their signage, landscaping, and appearance items. I voted to increase this to $2,500 per business per year, and increased the total pool available per year. 

Responsible finance is a combination of things.  It starts with providing amenities and services that are a good value for our money.  Paying cash for public works projects when we can.  Understanding we are not everything for everybody, while still providing inclusive playgrounds and events.  Providing a space for local community theater to enhance local arts, and the local American Legion branch to help the many veterans who call our community home.  Providing a strong library for those who seek knowledge to grow wisdom, and sporting fields and courts for those aspiring to college and higher sporting careers.  

And doing all this while continuing to lower our tax rate year over year.  Over the last 23 years, council has only failed to lower our tax rate 3 years.  While these have been quarter and half cent reductions, cumulatively, on an average home in our city, they add up to over $4,000 less per year on your property tax bill than if these reductions had not happened.  This year the city started its homestead tax exemption for the fist time ever.  This is something I have been advocating to council for several years, and I want to see the size of this exemption grow over time, as well as continuing to lower our base property tax rate.