Aubrey Citizens University completed another successful round of sessions for its fifth graduating class, its largest to date.
The program is offered through the city of Aubrey and takes participants through a seven-week, immersive class to learn about the city's different functions.
Night one was held April 6 and had several presenters, including Mayor Chris Rich, who gave an overview of how the city operates.
“Aubrey, today—… we're about 45 square miles, size-wise; that's our whole growth boundary; that's not city limits,” Rich said. “As of the 2020 census, we were about 5,006 people. We estimate our current population to be around 11,000. And that only includes our in-city. This does not include Silverado, Sandbrock Ranch, ArrowBrooke, Belmont, Saratoga or Ribbonwood. … If we were to look at our total population with those neighborhoods, it'd be about 30,000.”
He speculates that the number is now higher, because of the neighborhoods and is somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000.
The city requires developers to meet with the surrounding school districts to discuss their projects if they want to build more than 50 living units before they can move forward with plans.
“We want to make sure that they've taken the time to talk to the school district so the school district knows what's coming,” Rich said. “The school district has to know how many students to plan for it, how many schools to build and all that kind of stuff.”
The 2026 tax rate is 45 cents on every $100 home evaluation; however, the price is different outside the city limits, which the city does not control.
“Aubrey's total assessed value for fiscal year 2026 is $1.2 billion—with a B,” Rich said. “We're currently operating on an approximate $30 million overall annual budget. We've worked pretty hard to lower the tax rate over the last 13 years while simultaneously putting senior tax freezes and stuff like that in place.”
He also added that the city has completed the 2045 comprehensive plan, which will help guide future land use for property development, economic strategic plan, capital improvements and other uses.
“Citizen input was crucial in the design of these plans and helped the team put together a plan based on everyone's feedback,” Rich said.
For night two on April 13, participants hopped on a bus for dinner and a cruise to learn about the newest developments and future plans around Aubrey’s ETJ from City Manager Charles Kreidler.
“[It] opened our eyes as to everything that's around us that we had no idea about,” participant Darnell Lewis said.
During night three, the class met at Aubrey Fire Station No. 3 for a tour and to learn what makes Aubrey Ambulance Services different from others in the area on April 20.
“We've added pre-hospital antibiotics,” Chief Eric Schlotter said. “We have what's called a POCUS, which is an ultrasound device where we can check for heart motion. It can help us with IVs [and] endotracheal tube placement.”
He added that the fire department has also got new ventilators.
“We do EPOC lab testing, so we can do a metabolic panel in the ambulance on scene, which is like the base blood draw that you get at your doctor's offices,” Schlotter said. “It helps us with treating sepsis and a few other specific conditions.”
In other news, as of May, the department carries whole blood, making it the first fire department in Denton County to do so.
Schlotter added that it should increase survivability.
“The program's built to be no loss, so blood expires,” he said. “It only has about 35 days of life, and so we only keep it for 14 of that, and then we rotate it back to the hospital so that they can use it before it expires, so the program is built to where we're only going to ever buy the first two units. After that, they're going to be given and billed, so that will replace it, or we're going to trade and get a fresh one. So really, our tax money will only ever buy the first two, and then after that, it'll be self-sustaining.”
On night four, the class headed to the police department to test different equipment, watch a mock active pursuit and see drones in action on April 27.
The department also shared some of the different job duties.
“Coming to this training, I learned a lot about the duties, the responsibilities, how much risk they take for us especially, to save our lives, that was incredible,” participant Swetha Bindu said in reference to the several emergency services facilities she toured.
On nights five and six, they learned what the water and wastewater division of the public works department does, on May 4 and 11 respectively.
“Shout-out … to Waste Management; those guys are unsung heroes,” participant Richard Abraham said. “… I learned about them actually putting their health at risk for all of us, and we don't even think about that.”
For the final night on May 18, there was a panel of city representatives who shared their roles over emergency management, finance, development and, lastly, event coordination.
There was also a presentation by Christine Gossett, executive director of the Municipal Development District.
She shared what the MDD does, including buying real property, fixing it up and eventually turning it into commercial property.
One example she gave is the Mom’s on Main restaurant building on Main Street.
“We're looking for a tenant for that,' Gossett said in May. “We just posted an RFP today on our city website for a tenant proposal. If anyone knows of anyone interested, they can go look for that. The deadline's July 16. But again, those are some ways that we can help build business in Aubrey.”
In the next couple years, there are plans to further develop downtown, including adding more parking and making more improvements to the parks.
The city will also add a youth sports complex that's about 15 acres in the coming years, Kurt Karnowski, the assistant director of Public Works, explained.
“We are looking at four multi-use baseball and softball fields,” he said. “... It's going to be all artificial turf on those baseball and softball fields. We're going to have three dedicated soccer fields. … We will have a football field that will also double as soccer fields as well. It's all going to be natural grass. Within the sports complex itself, we will have a huge concession stand area with bathrooms. We'll have a playground within that area. We will have a smaller bathroom with concession stands near the football and soccer fields—… all that with plenty and plenty of parking.”
To close out the class, the students went around the room to share what they enjoyed most about the program and some of their highlights before Kreidler presented each student with their certificate.
“It's empowering for the citizens themselves to understand the daily life of a city,” participant Chad Dotson said. “And I think that what they've been willing to educate us on has been vitally important to that understanding.”
To participate in the Aubrey Citizens University in the fall of 2026, submit an application to aubreytx.gov/378/Aubrey- Citizens-University.
