Born in San Marcos, Jeff Barton watched his parents work tirelessly to fight segregation and bring equal rights to all members of the community. From his experiences as a young child, Jeff has always found it important to stand up for civil rights and connect with different parts of the community

Preparing for the future has been Jeff Barton's focus as county commissioner.

A writer and urban planner by trade, Barton has led efforts to meet the challenges of growth in Hays County, spearheading efforts to address development management, better transportation, and the preservation of natural resources.

Barton earned a state-wide reputation for his fight against substandard development and colonias in the 1990s, when he served almost seven years on the Commissioners Court. He warned of rapid growth and how it would strain resources before most area residents were ready to listen.

He initiated the first substantive efforts by a Texas county to protect the Edwards Aquifer through land use regulations and co-authored the first incentives for rainwater harvesting.

After eight years back in the private sector, where he helped pass legislation giving Texas counties more authority to address growth and development issues, Barton returned to the Commissioners Court in 2007. He helped lead a successful bond package for parks and water quality lands in 2007 and one for major road improvements in 2008. He has also championed rail and transit planning, and broad-based regional cooperation.

Barton used his experience as a business owner and private-sector manager to sponsor and oversee the county's first-ever comprehensive review of the cost of county services and to author the first county-wide personnel policy, working with former County Judge Eddy Etheredge to bring the county into modern times on both fronts during the 1990s.

This term he has sponsored twin proposals on firearms, an unsuccessful effort to limit hunting and target shooting on very small lots within subdivisions, and an on-going initiative co-sponsored with Republican Commissioner Will Conley partnering public and private interests to create a safe and convenient gun shooting range in the county, one that could be used jointly by firearm sports enthusiasts and police.

Working with landowners, the Hill Country Conservancy and the City of Austin, he shepherded a deal that will forever protect 2,000 acres of the most sensitive recharge land in the county while also providing limited public access to the historic Dahlstrom Ranch.

Because he has been able to translate his experience in planning and engineering into tangible benefits for local transportation initiatives, Barton has been closely identified with efforts to reduce congestion, air pollution, and safety hazards on local roadways, especially in Buda and Kyle and along the Interstate corridor. He has managed efforts to improve dangerous arterials like Interstate 35 and FM 1626, while incorporating �context sensitive� design features such as better water quality, bike and pedestrian paths, and even aesthetic considerations into the projects.

A former advocate for sunshine laws and transparency in government, Barton has been active at involving citizens in the public process, putting more information into the public realm via his county website than any other county elected official, becoming the only county official to blog regularly, asking early and often for input from neighbors about road design, holding a broad-based annual town hall meeting, and regularly posting exhibits on county initiatives in the lobby of his Pct. 2 office.

Barton, a Democrat, is married to Cyndy Slovak-Barton, a journalist and businesswoman active in several charitable boards and on a state-wide committee that champions open government. They have two children, a daughter at Hays High School and a son majoring in Plan II at the University of Texas.

In private life, Barton was an award-winning journalist, an aide to legendary former Congressman Jake Pickle, owned and operated several businesses, and later became a land planner, managing the Texas planning department for a small national engineering firm, Doucet & Associates, that worked for both Fortune 500 and public sector clients.

He serves on a number of regional boards:

� Central Texas Sustainability Indicators Project;
� Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization�s Transit Working Group;
� Austin-San Antonio Intermunicipal Commuter Rail District;
� Alliance for Public Transit;
� Central Texas Housing Finance Authority; and,
� Plum Creek Watershed preservation group.

He also serves on the board of the Hays County Family Justice Center and is a member of a number of local organizations, and president of his (small) neighborhood association.

In the past, he has served as:

� President of the nine-county Capitol Area Rural Transportation System;
� Vice-chair of the then three-county CAMPO;
� Executive board of the 22-county Central Texas Higher Education Authority in San Marcos;
� Founder, Onion Creek Cleanup;
� Hays Consolidated Campus Leadership Team;
� Budafest board of directors;
� Kyle Lions Club officer;
� Sigma Delta Chi regional Freedom of Information Chair.

He has been an active volunteer in a number of local youth sports, education and family support groups, and a parliamentarian and chair for Democratic county conventions. He speaks widely on county management and growth issues, and has taught seminars on development management for the Texas Association of Counties, regional government groups around Austin, in Houston and the Valley, and for environmental groups.

Barton says he is perhaps best known as a fine point guard with an outside shot that often comes near the rim, and as the owner and general manager of the Ballpark Estimates, a fantasy baseball dynasty he says might someday finish higher than middle-of-the-pack if it weren't for lousy officiating.