Ine of the fastest growing towns in North Texas, located in the center of Prosper on 250 W First St., the mayor of Prosper, David Bristol, visited government classes at Prosper High School to share the challenges and rewards that come with being a city official.
Before becoming Mayor, Bristol was in the Air Force, where he flew F-111Fs and F-15Es aircraft. On Dec. 5 and 6, he spent time with Rod McCall’s government students, answering questions, sharing information and showing students what it’s like to be part of the city council. One of the main topics throughout the visits was balancing the population growth in Prosper and keeping up with amenities and schools within the district.
“I think (running for city mayor) is something I should do, and then the second part of that is I went to the Air Force Academy, and I got paid to go to school, I got paid to learn how to fly,” Bristol said. “I got paid to travel around the world. I feel I have an obligation to actually pay that back here in our community.”
From 2004 to 2008 Bristol, served on the town council. He partnered up with the school board’s vice president, Dena Dixon, while visiting the government classes. Bristol mentioned the importance as well as the quality of the facilities in Prosper.
“The town facilities, the municipal services that we have, this is not normal,” Bristol said. “People come to this area. In the last five years, a lot of you guys moved here for the school district, specifically. Your parents brought you here so you can go to the ISD. That is not the same. There are not people clamoring to go to some of this districts to the south of us. So, we have something unique and special here, and I want to continue that.”
Throughout his presentation to the students, Bristol encouraged and highlighted the importance of community involvement.
“If you are interested in being involved, there are so many different ways in and avenues that you can be through the district and the town,” Bristol said. “For such a small area relatively speaking, we have so many different opportunities to give back, and people do. You see neighbors taking care of neighbors.”
Government student senior Paulina Kiser mentions her takeaways from Bristols visit.
“In class, we have been learning about different levels of government, so it was really neat to have the mayor and vice president of the school board to come to our class and hear the local government directly from them,” Kiser said. “While it is important to inform yourself on federal matters, I learned it is your local government who has the most individual impact on you, emphasizing just how important it is to be engaged in local elections and news.”
Next semester, the mayor will make another set of visits to the incoming government classes in the spring.
“Mr. McCall does a great job of inviting visitors, and allows us to engage with them, asking whatever questions we so choose,” Kiser said. “It really sets the space for us to personalize our learning and have real world conversations with important representatives.”
Since Bristol became mayor, he’s worked to enforce safety measures to ensure the community’s safety throughout the town.
“This is the flock camera system. We put it in very shortly after I became mayor, and what it is is a public safety thing,” Bristol said. “It is a license plate greeter system throughout the town of Prosper. Every one of these locations, if you enter into the town of Prosper, there’s a camera that’s snapping a picture of your license plate and the making model of your car.”
Bristol said the town is also working with the district to catch up with the growing population and sustainability by building new roads and aiding in the construction of schools.
“We do our part,” Bristol said. “We try to do our part to help make it sustainable for the people in our community and still be able to provide schools.”
Bristol also works on designing roads to relieve traffic and the growth happening in Prosper. The ongoing construction of First St. was a popular topic of conversation during his visit due to the increased traffic and congestion.
“It takes two years just to to design a road and then potentially get it built. It’s at least that long.” Bristol said. “So, the demographics that we’re looking at, you guys are part of that, all all of you guys have moved here in the past five years, you’re a part of the new growth that we didn’t we had to be able to plan for that we didn’t know was actually coming. Now, we planned for all of those things as much as we can, but I don’t have the money to actually make something happen until you guys are here.”
The town gets their income through three sources: property taxes, license permits, and fees.
“We tax every piece of property in town, and the second methodology is from licenses permits and fees, and when you build a house, you have to get a permit to build your house. You have an inspection fee, or, if you get caught speeding on one of our roads, you get a ticket,” Bristol said. “We get money from those fines, all right? So that’s a small portion of it, and then the third way we get money is through sales tax. So, for every time you buy something down the Gates of Prosper in the town of Prosper, you pay 8.25% sales tax, and the state of Texas gets 6.25% of that.”
Informing students of what occurs in Prosper’s local government encourages them to actively participate in the community.
“There’s a lot of opportunities out there if you want to be in the police environment, in the town prosper and actually all of North Texas, there’s not enough people doing that and the police officers entering salary, I think is $65,000, and then it jumps up from there,” Bristol said. “So it makes a good entry point, and the fire departments, even even better.”
With rewards, there also comes challenges when being mayor. Bristol works alongside the city council, and the community to make the most beneficial decisions for the town and the people. Students at Prosper were able to learn more about his duties during his visit, and got a glimpse of local government.
“Well, we’ve already alluded to the difficulty of managing the resources, roads and coordinating with all the adjacent communities, but the other is figuring out what (the) community wants,” Bristol said. “I mentioned earlier that we were going to go out for a bond in 2025. So the question then goes, ‘Great, do I build roads? Do I build a senior center? Do I build a rec center? Do do I build an auditorium, or a dog park?’ Those are some of the different things. So you guys tell me what what would be of those five things I just gave you, what would be important?”
