By Will Pafford, Staff Writer

No election will be held in West Lake Hills after  two of the candidates dropped out of the race March 17, including the longest-serving council members in West lake Hills history. 

The new City Council will consist of Mayor Dave Claunch and council members Cindy Probst, Andrew Schwartz, Spencer W. Stevens and Stan Graham. 

The election was canceled after Jean Goehring and Jane Noble, who has served on the council for 13 years, dropped out of the race and prompted all the City Council seats to be uncontested. 

Noble began serving the city on the Zoning and Planning Commission in 1994. After two years, she was appointed to serve on the council to fill a vacancy. 

Initially, she was interested in serving on the Council because she enjoyed ZAPCO and wanted to be more involved in making the decisions for the city, not just recommendations. 

The first thing she noticed when she took the Council seat was how different it was.

“It felt really different to be the final decision,” she said.

She knew she and the Council were ultimately responsible for how the city looked, felt and evolved.

Another thing she noticed was how slow government moves. 

She says it’s easy to have a lot of ideas, but implementing them can be complex. 

The community has so many diverse opinions that finding a balance becomes an art. 

One of her favorite parts of serving on the Council was balancing the property rights of individuals with the values of the general community. 

She says her greatest fear is the suburbanization of the city one lot at a time, so variance requests must be carefully considered. 

“The hardest part has always been saying ‘no’ to people,” she said. 

Usually the requests come from new residents, who may not appreciate the rural landscape. 

Noble said it usually takes between two and three years for residents to realize the value of leaving the terrain as it is. 

She says when she first moved to the city, she requested a variance to build a limestone sidewalk on her property that encroached into her setback.  

The Council denied her request, and years later she realized the Council members made the right decision. 

She ended up using materials and landscaping that fit with the city’s look, and now she is much happier with the results. 

This rural quality the city retained while sitting so close to Austin is what brought her to the city in 1991, and she worked to protect that throughout her time on the Council. 

“I just wanted to preserve what drew me out here in the first place,” she said. 

Although she has enjoyed her 13 years with the Council, Noble said it’s time for someone else to have a chance. 

She said she hopes the new Council will continue to preserve the natural beauty of the city. 

The new Council members should also always remember why they’re there, for the residents, she said. 

“It really is a service,” she said.