How do you plan to respond to growth in the city and around it?
In the general terms, the growth has to be good and on the positive side for the city of Katy with our legacy and our heritage. So I think it’s real important that our perspective is on—the culture of Katy is we’re very family-oriented, this is a good, safe community to raise your kids and go to school. I want to develop more of the commercial and industrial areas because they are the financial engine that propels the city, more or less, to the right direction.
What is your vision of economic development going forward in Katy?
We’re very close to the energy corridor so any companies that have a relationship to the energy corridor—we’ve got several here. Pepperl+Fuchs, they’re moving their headquarters here to Katy. It brings in a couple hundred more people in employment, as well as, of course Buc-cees does. Those help us as far as people that may be out of work because of layoffs or something else.
Do you feel any tension between “old Katy” and “new” Katy?
There may have been some, I’m not familiar with a whole lot. We’re all one Katy, and there may be a little separation now because of the campaign that was for mayor, but we’ve got to bring the people back together. I represent everybody in the city of Katy. I’m going to make sure that we take care of the needs of our citizens and it’s a daunting task somewhat when it comes down to mobility issues.
What is an area or initiative in the city you think has been neglected that you would like the council to revisit?
Because of the growth going on all around us, [there] is mobility. Just today, we were going down the list of streets and projects that we need to work on this year to improve some of the drainage to replace some of the roadway and make them wider to handle more traffic.
