Flower Mound needs to improve its relationship with small businesses. These companies are the backbone of our community; they employ our citizens, provide valuable services, and bring people from other communities into our hometown. Small businesses have suffered due to the pandemic; labor shortages and now the raising inflation will continue to hurt our local shops.
In the past year, there seems to be an attack on the small businesses in Flower Mound. These are places that everyone utilizes, from restaurants, to retailers, to our many startups in fields as diverse as technology, medical or building components. These businesses are integral in maintaining FM’s vital future and are key when I talk about my Community First strategy. We need to reach out a helping hand to these community partners; we shouldn’t be imposing exorbitant new “fees” that were approved by the current Council. Increased permit fees like requiring new business to pay for the most mundane things like grand opening signs or help wanted signs, fees that raise the cost of many of the newly constructed buildings that will provide homes for small businesses that will increase rental rates.
How can we develop a better reputation and bring more small businesses to our town? Remember, most of the first job experiences come from being hired by a local small business. Let’s develop a better environment for them to grow in by decreasing the fees for a startup in our community. We already have a great conduit in our area that could help – our local Flower Mound Chamber of Commerce. They have an excellent relationship with our local small businesses, so in partnership with them, the town can develop a questionnaire. We can ask them what issues they have with being a small business when dealing with the town, what do they need to be successful here, and what kind of successes they may have had in other municipalities that could work here.
The Flower Mound Town Council is supposed to represent the citizens and businesses in our community. The increases in fees this past year is a hidden tax that isn’t mentioned in conjunction with the “we lowered your taxes” spiel we are getting from some candidates lately. When these fees are imposed, it raises prices for our residents and anyone who is visiting our town. It will drive away businesses to adjoining towns; where the fees to open a coffee shop are not the high prices we have here.
This is a community that people want to come to but with our government we are pushing them away. Flower Mound can be the destination place for the best businesses and this will enable our residents to live here, work here and shop here. Now that is putting “Community First!”
Carol Kyer
Candidate for Flower Mound Town Council, Place 1
Flower Mound, TX
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