Jersey Village City Council, Position 3
Harry Beckwith III[/caption]
Harry Beckwith III
Harry Beckwith III has lived in Jersey Village since 2007. In that time he has served on the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission for two years and as a councilman for four years. He owns his own business where he works as a civil engineer. He is the council liaison to the Comprehensive Planning Committee.Why did you decide to run for Jersey Village City Council? Jersey Village is a great place to live, work, play and raise kids. I would like JV to remain the ideal community. To me that means taking the time and effort to become involved. I believe serving on City Council allows me to help maintain all of the good things JV is known for while working to ensure we adapt to changes forced on us.
What do you think are the top issues facing the city? [Top issues include] aging infrastructure, keeping our excellent staff, promoting sound economic development and the growth of surrounding areas, which will place demands on our services and facilities. I think it will be necessary to carefully prioritize needs and commitments so we can continue to sustain our healthy financial condition.
What skills do you think you could bring to the council to contribute to discussion and decision-making? I am very familiar with our existing facilities and the processes necessary to ensure the city gets every year of useful life from them. Every year I carefully review the city’s budget and work closely to ensure we are spending wisely. I listen to our citizens, staff and other council members to develop an understanding of all sides of an issue.
C.J. Harper[/caption]
C.J. Harper
C.J. Harper, a retired peace officer with the Jersey Village Police Department, has lived in Jersey Village for 15 years and is involved with the Cy-Fair Houston Chamber of Commerce, Cy-Fair Educational Foundation and the Jersey Village Post of the American Legion.
Why did you decide to run for Jersey Village City Council? My desire is to be part of a council who are community visionaries coming together to discuss how we can make a great city even better. I believe that from the citizens comes a vision to make Jersey Village better, whether by applying better processes, new initiatives for revenue, or new ideas for costs savings and use of resources.
What do you think are the top issues facing the city? As Jersey Village continues in developing [its extraterritorial jurisdiction], citizen concerns and questions must be addressed. As the Hwy. 290 expansion proceeds, we need to be vigilant with regard to the impact expansion decisions have on our community as we will live with the outcome for decades to come.
What skills do you think you could bring to the council to contribute to discussion and decision-making? I’m a retired captain from the Sheriff’s Department where my budget was in excess of a million dollars. There are capital improvement issues to address that are critical to the ability of our community to attract residents. Citizens have expressed that these issues be met with judicious review and gauged against those of developing the ETJ.
New Mayor
Justin Ray[/caption]
Jersey Village City Councilman Justin Ray, elected in 2012 to Position 1, is the only candidate to file to run for mayor this May. Ray said his top priority would be continuing to work with the Texas Department of Transportation throughout the Hwy. 290 expansion to address noise concerns and minimize economic issues. After being elected in 2013, current Mayor Rod Erskine did not choose to run for re-election, citing other commitments that would not leave him with enough time to be an effective mayor moving forward.
