I used Perplexity to try and summarize and contrast the races. Helped me at least. Feel free to correct or modify the summary.
The main divide among the current College Station candidates is
governance: how aggressively to limit taxes and fees, how much to invest in city services and transit, and whether housing affordability is best addressed through easier development or stronger neighborhood protections. The available platforms support those distinctions more clearly than a simple Republican-versus-Democrat classification. The races are nonpartisan.[
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Below is a comparison for the November 3, 2026 election, including mayor, Place 1, Place 2, and the Place 5 special election. The candidate list is confirmed by the city. Descriptions such as "fiscally conservative" or "investment-oriented" are my interpretations of their stated municipal policiesnot claims about party affiliation.[
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Mayor: Bob Yancy vs. Elizabeth Cunha
Candidate
Overall policy emphasis
Taxes, spending, and housingBob Yancy
Business-friendly, fee-conscious, and protective of existing neighborhoods. Emphasizes public safety, a better business climate, and controlling taxes and fees.
Argues that development fees and approval delays inflate home prices. Supports starter and workforce housing without disrupting single-family neighborhoods. [
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Elizabeth Cunha
Pragmatic, service-oriented, and focused on transparency, property rights, and careful spending.
Supports increasing the homestead exemption, expanding homebuyer assistance, and considering density bonuses for entry-level housing. Identifies the inadequate Public Works facility as a high-priority investment. [
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The clearest contrast: Yancy emphasizes reducing the costs city government adds to development; Cunha puts more emphasis on targeted assistance, selective density incentives, and maintaining the city's operational capacity. Both talk about affordability, fiscal restraint, and neighborhood interests, so describing this as simply "low taxes versus high taxes" would overstate the difference.[
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Place 1: Mark Smith vs. Howard Mayne vs. Roy May
Candidate
Overall policy emphasis
Distinguishing positionsMark Smith incumbent
Infrastructure- and public-service-investment oriented.
Makes expanded bus frequency and better routes a central response to congestion. Supports coordinating Brazos Transit and AggieSpirit connections to medical facilities, upgrading the Public Works Operations Center, and waiving impact fees to encourage affordable housing. [
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Howard Mayne
Most explicit emphasis in this race on lower taxes, spending restraint, public safety, and neighborhood character.
Calls for reining in spending, controlling taxes and fees, and judging projects by necessity and affordability. Favors improving existing transportation services before adding programs or asking taxpayers to spend more. [
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Roy May
Growth-oriented fiscal discipline, infrastructure readiness, and resident input.
Prioritizes Rock Prairie Road and other mobility corridors, utilities, drainage, and police/fire capacity. Favors streamlining permitting, appropriate density, fewer regulatory barriers, and targeted housing incentives rather than mandates that discourage development. [
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The clearest contrast: Smith is more willing to make expanded municipal capacity and transit central policy tools. Mayne stresses limiting government costs and protecting neighborhoods. May emphasizes accommodating growth while making sure infrastructure and the tax base keep pace. May and Mayne overlap substantially on fiscal discipline; their difference is more one of emphasis than an obviously opposing ideology.[
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Place 2: Chandler Arden vs. Michael Kidd
Candidate
Overall policy emphasis
Distinguishing positionsChandler Arden
Core-services fiscal restraint, with a development-cost approach to affordability.
Explicitly questions spending beyond police, fire, EMS, public works, and parks. Identifies zoning, development timelines, construction/development fees, infrastructure planning, and property taxes as city-controlled housing costs. Also emphasizes greater public input and transparency. [
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Michael Kidd
Spending oversight combined with infrastructure, economic diversification, and managed growth.
Calls for stronger safeguards over contracts and ongoing projects. Supports roads, utilities, public safety, businesses that create careers and diversify the tax base, and reducing unnecessary barriers to varied housing options while protecting established neighborhoods. [
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The clearest contrast: Arden more explicitly frames the problem as the city drifting beyond its core functions and adding costs to housing. Kidd combines fiscal scrutiny with a broader agenda of infrastructure, jobs, and economic diversification. Their published positions are otherwise quite similar; the evidence does not establish a large left-right divide.[
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Place 5: Tre Watson vs. Padon Holt vs. Valen Cepak
Candidate
Overall policy emphasis
Distinguishing positionsTre Watson
Working-class residents, anti-displacement, and neighborhood preservation.
Focuses on protecting generational residents from out-of-town investors, youth recreation, and public transportation. Says he would resist developers "maximizing" areasa more development-restrictive approach than the supply-expansion emphasis of several other candidates. [
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Padon Holt
Private-investment-led development, economic independence from A&M, and fiscal caution.
Proposes a distinct downtown, with city zoning and connections but private construction investment rather than public debt. Supports completing sidewalks and crossings, and potentially city-run transit routes if regional service fails to meet needs. Wants fewer fees on new homes and housing designed for buyers rather than "by the bed." [
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Valen Cepak
Public safety, economic-development partnerships, and managed growth, coupled with budget criticism.
Supports Chapter 380 economic-development agreements, creative zoning and infill, revised fees, and expanded down-payment assistance. Criticizes the scale of city spending while supporting strategic investments and protection of historic neighborhoods. [
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The clearest contrast: Watson is the most explicitly focused on displacement and limiting investor/developer pressure. Holt offers the most distinctive urban-development visiona privately financed downtown with better connectivity. Cepak favors a mix of business recruitment, public-private partnerships, and targeted housing assistance.[
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How they compare across the biggest issues
These are overlapping policy tendencies, not mutually exclusive camps:
- Lower taxes, fees, and tighter spending: Yancy, Mayne, and Arden make these especially prominent. May, Kidd, Holt, and Cepak also emphasize fiscal discipline, but pair it with broader growth or investment proposals.[communityimpact][communityimpact][communityimpact][communityimpact]
- Expanded transit and non-car access: Smith offers a particularly explicit bus-service expansion agenda. Holt is willing to consider city-run routes; Watson emphasizes increasing transit use and regional cooperation.[communityimpact][communityimpact]
- Housing affordability through fewer development barriers: Yancy, Arden, May, and Kidd emphasize fees, permitting, regulation, or supply. Smith also supports impact-fee waivers, so this approach is not confined to the most fiscally conservative candidates.[communityimpact][communityimpact][communityimpact]
- Housing affordability through targeted assistance: Cunha and Cepak explicitly support expanding homebuyer assistance; Cunha also supports density bonuses.[communityimpact][communityimpact]
- Neighborhood protection and displacement: Watson makes this his central organizing issue. Yancy, Mayne, Holt, and Cepak also emphasize neighborhood protection or owner-oriented housing, but generally combine it with different development strategies.[communityimpact][communityimpact][communityimpact]
Important limits to the comparison
Public safety, affordability, and "responsible growth" are broadly shared campaign themes; the meaningful differences are in the mechanisms candidates propose. These sources are primarily candidate questionnaires and local forum reporting, so they establish stated priorities more reliably than they establish future voting behavior. They also do not provide enough consistent evidence to assign every candidate a national-party ideological label.[
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Early voting runs October 1930, and Election Day is November 3.[
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