ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – On this week’s edition of Big Country Politics, News Director Manny Diaz sat with City Council Place 3 candidate Blaise Regan. Regan is an attorney at his own firm, Regan Law Firm and co-founder of Six Brothers Brewery. He also hosts a podcast called Reganomics with Blaise Regan and is on charity boards.
“It’s really been very cool to just see us (Abilene) getting better and better, especially over the last five, six years and I really just want to build on that as a city council member,” Regan explained.
He shared that he feels equipped to take on this role with a broad range of knowledge from his life, such as his career and working downtown.
“I feel like I have the experience, the critical analysis skills that I think our city council needs at this time. We’ve seen the effects of a city council that maybe doesn’t think long term or too focused on a few issues… we’ve paid that price,” Regan expressed. “We need people who have a broad range of knowledge and experience and I think I bring that to the table.”
Regan shared that the topics he focuses on are road conditions, water, police and fire, as these are the building blocks of the city.
“Those are the core, then you build from there,” said Regan.
He added that recently, he has heard concern about a lack of employees in the workforce that potentially could raise prices.
“We really want to address that workforce shortage as soon as possible,” Regan expressed.
On his Facebook page, Regan wrote that he wants to maintain a good relationship with Dyess Air Force Base (AFB), fully back safety departments and maintain and improve infrastructure. He also wants to support local businesses while retaining recent graduates for the workforce.
“The universities are one side of a coin. They’re our biggest recruiters, they recruit from across the state, across the nation,” Regan explained. “As a city, as a community, we need to be doing a better job about being the other side of that coin of remaining those young recent graduates.”
He said retaining this group of people is a combination of many factors such as getting students involved, internship opportunities and giving a space for those to work here rather than moving to a bigger city.
“I’d also love to start an incubator or accelerator here, because a lot of our graduates, especially in tech, they believe that they have to move to Dallas or Austin in order to start their app or develop a prototype,” Regan explained. “I’d love for Abilene to develop an incubator or accelerator so that they can now develop it here, we can keep those new graduates here. Share our values and our work ethic.”
Regan added that this applies to local schools of many kinds, not just four-year institutions. Some of the schools he wants to focus on as well are junior colleges, nursing, pharmacy, police and fire academies and trade school.
“We don’t need just lawyers and doctors, we need people who are skilled in all types of work that are going to be employed by that at great paying jobs,” Regan said.
In a memo to his followers on Facebook, Regan said he wants to keep the cost of living and taxes low while maintaining home protections for residents and keeping community benefits to retirees high. If elected to council, Regan said this would be a multi-faceted plan, but it comes back to the workforce.
“You got to look at the broad range of issues,” Regan shared. “Circling back to the workforce issue, that has a ripple effect on everything. So if we have a shortage of a workforce here in Abilene, it makes it harder for homebuilders to get workers and so, they have to increase the prices of the homes which makes home affordability a bit of an issue.”
Regan is running against three other candidates for place 3: Shawnte Fleming, Cynthia Alvidrez and James Sargent. Regan said he stands out from the rest due to his work and involvement within the community on a large scale.
“We’re all running for, I think, the right reasons… But what I bring to the table is the insight and experience that I have across all the spectrum. So I don’t just run my business, I’m involved with hundreds of businesses and so I get to see the insides of how they’re running, what they’re struggling with,” Regan shared. “I believe I am the best candidate to represent all these different segments and really make Abilene better.”
Visit Regans Facebook page or Instagram to learn more.