Four fifths of the money behind the campaign to cut the emergency services district's sales tax came from two families.

Pflugerville Residents for Responsible Taxation is the political committee behind the petition drive, the litigation and the Prop A campaign to cut Travis County ESD No. 2's sales tax. Its Texas Ethics Commission filings show $261,748 raised since 2015. Contributions recorded under Tiemann names total about $136,580 and under Timmerman names about $75,500 — together roughly 81 percent of everything the committee ever took in. All of it was reported. None of it was hidden. That is why we can show it to you.

Committee
Pflugerville Residents for Responsible Taxation
TEC filer ID
00082943
Campaign treasurer
Starlet Sattler
Total contributions, 2015 to date
$261,748
Total expenditures
$301,407
Contributions under Tiemann names
About $136,580
Contributions under Timmerman names
About $75,500
The two together
About $212,080 — roughly 81%
Excluding Tim's Acres Ltd
About $199,580 — roughly 76%
Measure supported, as the committee reported it
Travis County ESD 2 Prop A, November 5, 2024

The concentration

A committee funded by a neighbourhood and a committee funded by two families are different things, and the filings say which this was. Across every reporting period since 2015 the committee reported $261,748 in contributions. Contributions recorded under Tiemann names come to about $136,580 — the largest single line being $130,000 from Carrie and Robert Tiemann. Contributions recorded under Timmerman names come to about $75,500, spread across Timmerman & Hagn Ltd, Tim's Acres Ltd, Timothy Timmerman, Timmerman Farms Ltd and two individual Timmermans. Together that is roughly four fifths of the committee's lifetime funding.

Carrie and Robert Tiemann
$130,000
Timmerman & Hagn Ltd
$35,000
Tim's Acres Ltd
$12,500
Timothy Timmerman
$8,000
Timerman & Hagn (as filed)
$7,500
Robert Tieman (as filed)
$6,000
Hagn & Timerman (as filed)
$5,000
Barth Timmerman
$2,500
Geradine Timmerman
$2,500
Timmerman Farms Ltd
$2,500

One report, in full

The pattern holds down to the individual filing. The committee's 8-day-before-election report for Prop A, filed October 27, 2024 and covering October 3 to October 26, reports $20,000 in contributions from three sources: $10,000 from Robert Tiemann of Pflugerville, listed as owner of Tiemann Company; $5,000 from Star Golf Development, Inc. of Hutto; and $5,000 from Stuart Shaw of Austin, listed as CEO of Bonner Carrington. Half of that period's money came from one contributor. The report itself names the measure it supported: Travis County ESD 2 Prop A.

Robert Tiemann, October 17, 2024
$10,000
Star Golf Development, Inc., October 22, 2024
$5,000
Stuart Shaw, October 17, 2024
$5,000
Period total
$20,000
Spent in the same period
$22,196.11

They are developers, and that is on the city's record too

This is not a label applied from outside. Pflugerville's own records name Rowe Lane Development, Robert M. Tiemann, Carrie P. Tiemann and Tiemann Legacy LP collectively as the developer in the Lakeside MUD No. 5 development agreement, which contemplated bringing up to 782 further acres into the structure. Other city records document Timmerman & Hagn Ltd holding substantial property in the city's growth corridor — about 249.55 acres annexed in 2019 south of E. Pflugerville Parkway, west of SH 130 and north of E. Pecan Street, and a 2022 preliminary plan on about 75.571 acres creating seven commercial lots.

Lakeside MUD No. 5 agreement
Rowe Lane Development; Robert M. and Carrie P. Tiemann; Tiemann Legacy LP
Additional acreage contemplated
Up to 782 acres
Timmerman & Hagn annexation, 2019
About 249.55 acres
Timmerman & Hagn preliminary plan, 2022
About 75.571 acres, seven commercial lots

Where the figure comes from, and where it stops

The eighty-one percent is arithmetic on names as the committee itself filed them, including the misspellings — Tieman, Timerman — that appear in the filings. Grouping by surname is a judgment, not a fact: Tim's Acres Ltd is grouped with the Timmermans on the strength of its name alone, and we have not confirmed its principals. Without it the figure is about seventy-six percent. The count also stops at the committee's own books. Money that reached the effort another way would not appear here, and money reported by a different committee is a different question.

What this does not assert

  • does not allege that any contribution was unlawful, unreported, or over any limit — every figure here comes from a public filing
  • does not allege a quid pro quo, an agreement, or an exchange of any kind
  • does not allege that any contributor directed, instructed, or paid any officeholder to act
  • does not allege that the contributors sought, designed, or would have benefited from the proposed municipal development district
  • does not allege that a contributor's development interests are improper, or that developers may not fund political speech
  • the grouping of contributions by surname is our judgment, not the committee's; Tim's Acres Ltd is included on the strength of its name and its principals have not been confirmed
  • the lifetime totals are taken from an aggregation of the filings, not yet from our own totalling of each report
  • we do NOT assert that this committee or these contributors were the leading contributor to David Rogers' city council campaign — a presentation supplied to us says so, our own review of his city campaign finance reports does not support it, and it must not appear on this site

Sources