04/25/2026
Elect Sharad Ramani for City Council. Vote today (Saturday April 25th) Monday, Tuesday, early voting and next Saturday May 2nd Election Day. The only truly independent candidate without any pre-existing alliances
The process observed here with the Home Rule Charter Review Committee recommending compensation for our Mayor and Council Members is exactly what we've expressed a concern over with our Mayor and Councilman fighting so hard to get their friend, Jaisen Rutledge elected to City Council. When a group of friends or people friendly with each other and very familiar collaborate, there is a tendency to accept information at face value without questioning or proper debate. Several things happened in this discussion that were VERY off target. The Compensation proposal by Mr. Rutledge was passed with a unanimous vote by the Committee.
Mr. Rutledge 1st proposed that his recommended compensation was about the median of other Cities in the area citing Allen, Plano, Frisco, and "Others". It's obvious from the data table that Princeton is nowhere comparable to those Cities in size or Median Household income, and not shown but importantly, City budget sizes.
2nd Mr. Rutledge made the point that Princeton was most recently the fastest growing City in the area (Celina held the title sometime before Princeton) and that they just increased the pay of their Mayor to $33,0000/yr. Unfortunately, it appears that Rutledge was in such a hurry to find data to support what he wanted to recommend that he overlooked the fact that the Celina that increased the Mayoral pay to $33K is actually in Tennessee, NOT Texas.
Also in 2025, Frisco REJECTED an attempt by their City Council to increase the pay of their Mayor($850) and Council Members($700) to $1500 & $1200 respectively.
So did City Council Candidate Jaisen Rutledge already plan to run for City Council when he recommended these pay increases for Council Members? We watched or attended most of the HRCC meetings and although Mr. Rutledge did participate in discussions sometimes; this was the only time we ever saw him bring his own researched Charter Amendment proposal to present. Some other members likewise rarely brought a researched proposal while some brought a proposal every meeting. Safeguard Princeton in public comments brought at least 12 researched amendment proposals to present to the committee, giving out prepared handouts to members as well.
The other question that must be asked, is did Mr. Rutledge collaborate with his good friend and strong supporter of his campaign, City Councilman Johnson in presenting this Compensation proposal? Council can ultimately recommend themselves a compensation item to be part of the Charter Amendments to go to the voters, but in that case, it's fully transparent who is actually making the recommendation.
I can't help but make the point after doing all of this research that Mr. Rutledge has stated in his campaign that he will always only present matters he is fully confident on as a councilman that he has fully researched, and if he does not feel confident of his understanding or knowledge of a matter, he will not speak.
I will just say in ending that there is no one who is beyond reproach as some have claimed in this election. Everyone makes mistakes and this is much too important of an election to accept or vote for a candidate without fully informing ourselves of their qualifications and patterns of behavior.
