You’ve talked about the importance of representing the residents of Bellaire. How do you see that mindset affecting your first couple of months in office and what you prioritize?
I think the messaging out there is that the people of Bellaire are looking to move forward with tackling the issues they’ve been grappling with for probably the last 10 years. In no particular order, I think they are interested in—what are we going to do about our infrastructure, our streets, our water lines? What do we want to do with our library? What do we want to do with Evergreen Pool? What are we doing, and how do we want to pay for our street and drainage improvement?
I think it showed they are continued in maintaining the safety and security of our town. Safety and security isn’t just in terms of saying we want to have a more robust police presence so people feel comfortable that the response times are low as possible. It’s also things like lighting in the city. The city just took up this issue of lighting in general ... but it's also lighting on our streets. There are streets that are dark, and that came out on several occasions. That’s something we’ve been grappling with in the city for years. There was a pilot program down Newcastle [Street] about creating some lighting down that trail, and it had a price tag at the time of about $250,000. The council heretofore, when it was looking at it, has always thought—from a priority standpoint we want to do something else. But from my perspective ... not necessarily the pilot program, but just the concept of street lighting in our town needs to be among several items on that top shelf, coinciding with safety and security.
I think over these first couple of months, it’s really more about coming up with a plan in terms of scheduling the timing of the discussion and the raising of these issues, and then their determination by council.
Have you thought about if a future next bond election might be in order?
It takes time. I think first we have to find out what the appetite of council is in terms of some of these capital improvement items. At that point, you look at—what are the needs? What is the plan that we’d propose? And then my thought would be that’s going to take the better part of a year. There’s timing in terms of notice and what-have-you. If the council believed that that was something that would be necessary to fund these [capital improvements]—we couldn’t otherwise fund them through our own moneys, through grants or other funding mechanisms—my thought is that probably within the next year after that is when that would be put to the residents.
From my perspective, I think the messaging [from residents] is clear: "We want you to address these [issues]." That’s the focus in my mind. Then let’s see how that fleshes out. My approach was we may have to incur some debt to get these [improvements], and residents will decide that, but we don’t have to do everything all at the same time. We can decide what we want to do, prioritize them and then start. Every journey starts with the first step. ... For those people who are fearful of these types of things, my response to them would be—over the past 10 years, we’ve bitten a pretty big bullet because of what we did before. We don’t have to do that again. We can do things incrementally. I think people are comfortable with that. I think what freaks them out, if you’re really debt conscious, is the unknown. Even if [progress] is slow ... as long as progress is being made and the city is continuing to improve, I think people are generally happy about those things.
Do you see the way you lead the city being different in style at all from current Mayor Andrew Friedberg?
I think in principals, Andrew and I are very alike. Strategically and how we get things done, we probably will be a bit different. But I think that’s more a function of playing to each of our strengths. My strengths in getting things accomplished will be in a certain way. His strengths were in another way. If people notice anything, they would notice more stylistically a different approach, not necessarily a different direction.
Do you see yourself trying to influence the direction of the ongoing comprehensive plan review?
I’m not going to personally go and try to influence that. I think that would undermine the process because I think the process has been very residential input-based. My understanding is that ... they got thousands of responses from residents. I think the ... comprehensive plan review came up because it needed to after 10-15 years. You want to look at it and say "Is what we wanted the city to look like 15 years ago the same today?" And if not, what changes do we want to make today? So it's really focusing on the residential input and synthesizing that into something we can write down on paper.
The city of Bellaire has traditionally been very cautious about high-density housing. I think that the inventory in the city in terms of residential options goes from apartment complexes—which we have one that is a true apartment complex—to patio homes, little town homes and smaller homes. We have that full inventory all the way up to acre lots, where they have pretty large homes. Most of the people I know really focus on the residential nature, the "City of Homes" approach, which is why we have zoning. Having said that, more and more people coming into the city are looking for this sort of idyllic [vision] ... you have your homes, you have these town center areas, you have these hubs where you can shop, go to restaurants and you can do things you don’t necessarily have to go to the Greater Houston area to accomplish.
I think people are looking for those things. Do I think they’re a bit utopian? It’s a tough little fit. You can go around the city of Houston, and you can see all these developments where you see there’s retail at the bottom. You go to an area, you park, and you can walk around different spots. Maybe there’s 10-20 places that include a variety of different functions. Most of those places that have been successful also have a residential component ... whether it’s a high-rise, four or five stories, in the area or in conjunction with it. If you’re going to get developers to come in and say ... "We will spend tens of millions of dollars doing that," they’ve got to make sure that they are going to have the support for that type of investment.
I think that is why, when this [Houston] Methodist project came forward, they would have offices, they would bring people there, there would be people using it so they’d have customers, they’d have people working there. It really does have possibility. The upside is good, which is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Those kinds of synergies are what the comprehensive plan was really intending to create. I think that’s what people are continuing to look for and what they want. The rub is making sure that the citizens get that, but it’s also something people will invest in. You have to hit the sweet spot.
Process is important. I’ve been sharing that with other City Council members, particular the newer ones. It creates accountability. It provides transparency. It provides people with the opportunity to be heard and be part of the process. And at the end of the day, people feel like there’s a fundamental sense of fairness to the result.
What is your message for the residents of Bellaire as you prepare to become the next mayor?
The city is here to serve you. But it’s here to serve everybody. People need to make sure to understand that it can serve you, but it also has to serve everybody, otherwise it serves no one.
