Priorities
- Water Infrastructure
- Road Infrastructure
- Small Business Development
- Quality of Place
- Food Insecurity
- Drug & Alcohol Abuse Prevention
- Literacy
- Affordable Housing
Water Infrastructure
The number one complaint I’ve heard over and over is about our failing infrastructure. One of the very basic needs we have as humans is water. I pledge to continue taking bold steps to improve the quality of the Odessa water infrastructure through strategic partnerships like the Texas Water Development Board to minimize the financial impact to the Odessa citizens.
Odessa businesses lost millions of dollars of business on Mother’s Day Weekend due to a water main break. We have got to do better. In an Odessa American article I found this:
“Texas economist Ray Perryman said Monday his group used a model of the Odessa economy and prior analysis of various outages around the country to respond to an Odessa American question about the economics of the water outage. ‘It appears that the overall loss was approximately $4.1 million. The direct losses were concentrated in retail outlets and restaurants, although some spilled over to other sectors and households.'”
A photo I took at 14th and Tom Green on my way home June 29, 2024.
Road Infrastructure
We’ve all had issues with the roads in Odessa, whether it is a random pothole on a side street or the frame jarring transitions at the intersections down most of 42nd street, we’ve got some work to do. And don’t even get me started on having to stop at every red light on most every major street in town. Some of these problems are more difficult than others to solve, but when we build solid partnerships with Ector County and TxDot we can start to address the issues. I pledge to work with every entity involved in our roads, like the Permian Basin Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), and TxDot to continue to bring more transportation dollars into Odessa for better roads. Selfishly, I will also get the lights down 42nd and Andrews Hwy and Grant timed right! (Unfortunately those are State controlled highways, so that’s a whole other conversation!)
Small Business Development
Small businesses are the heart and soul of Odessa. When I think of my favorite restaurants in town they are all locally owned “mom & pop” shops. One of my favorite fundraisers I’ve been involved with was Permian Basin Restaurant week, which promoted local restaurants and local chefs, and worked to increase traffic to those restaurants during the slow period at the end of the summer. Odessa is very fortunate to have business development programs through Odessa College and the University of Texas Permian Basin that teach entrepreneurship and business management along with the Small Business Development Center to help those who are wanting to start their own business. The unfortunate reality is that one four start-ups fail after one year and only a quarter survive more than 15 years.
“I’ve always encourage people to imagine what we could do if we dreamed bigger and, more importantly, if we got out of our own way.” Craig Stoker
I will to look at ways the City of Odessa can help support these start-ups. Ask most new businesses and I’m sure you’ll hear some horror story about dealing with one permit or another or trying to get an inspection. When I served on the Housing Committee for Priority Midland several of these “roadblocks” were identified and dealt with, which created an easier experience for someone dealing with permitting or inspections. Odessa must do the same. We can use Neighborhood Empowerment Zones to encourage growth in areas of town that have been overlooked. These Empowerment Zones allow permitting fees to be waived and other incentives to encourage businesses to invest in the zone and they offer incentives for residents in the zone to invest in remodeling and improving their own homes or even building a new one.
Quality of Place
When I served on the Quality of Place committee for Priority Midland I brought back ideas that we incorporated into the Downtown Odessa, Inc. Master Plan Update. Ideas like a food truck park or a festival street, where the community could host concerts and events, or even have a downtown farmers market. My work on the Ellen Noël Art Museum Board of Directors has also been about improving the community by having new and different activities for families. The ENAM Art 2 Go program is wildly successful and has made access to art and books to thousands of ECISD 2nd graders. Recently I took my goddaughter to Prairie Pete Park, and while it was fun to tell her about my time playing on the octopus and spider that are still there, I was more excited to see so many Odessans enjoying a beautiful night at one of our city parks. The community wants these kinds of things, and we need to keep adding new ones and updating the ones we have. I pledge to continue working to make Odessa a place we all can be proud of and a place we WANT to live. A place that has the restaurants where we want to eat and the shops where we want to spend our hard earned money.
Food Insecurity
For the past 10+ years I have worked with Food2Kids, the West Texas Food Bank, and now Meals on Wheels of Odessa to provide hunger relief to members of our community. As a member of Council, I would be responsible for allocating dollars awarded to the city through the Community Development Block Grant. Meals on Wheels of Odessa has been a grateful recipient of these funds for over 25 years, but in the interest of avoiding a conflict of interest, the Board of MOWO and I have decided it is better to re-allocate those funds to an organization like the Food Bank to continue providing hunger relief to Odessans. I will also continue supporting other organizations who are workign to end hunger in our community and hopefully be able to find more grant money to bring into our community to help end hunger.
Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention
Thousands of families in Odessa have been touched by some kind of drug or alcohol abuse. With a number that high, you don’t even have to watch the nightly news to know we have a crisis on our hands. Even I am not immune. As a member of the recovery community, I am proud of my sobriety, and I have used these past 14 years (God willing in September!) to grow my faith, grow myself, and live a life of service. I have sponsored and mentored many others on their own journey and I will continue doing so.
I work with groups like the Permian Basin Regional Council on Drug and Alcohol Abuse (PBRCADA) to further their outreach and mission, and I pledge that I will continue this work as a council member. We have a crisis on our hands and we must work on educating our youth about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Groups like PBRCADA, AA, Celebrate Recovery, and Centers for Children and Families do outstanding work, and I will help to support them through increasing grant funding and volunteerism.
According to the Region 9 Prevention Resource Center, in our area, the average age for a child to start experimenting with drugs and alcohol is 12.7. This lines up with the incredibly heartbreaking story of the 13 year old who lost his life to fentanyl. I applaud the work the City has done to combat the fentanyl issue, but there is more work to do. 90% of all drug and alcohol abuse disorders are rooted in adolescence. We must continue our work educating our kids about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.
Please remember help is available. If you or someone you know is suffering from drug or alcohol abuse and needs help, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or any of the organizations listed above. If you feel your life is in danger dial 911 or the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
Literacy
At a recent “State of the City” type event I heard a statistic that shocked me:
“Only 29% of Ector County residents can read at or above an 8th grade level.”
Now certainly education falls to our friends over at ECISD, but I am deeply compelled to do something about this. I reached out to my friends at the Literacy Coalition of the Permian Basin and started the conversation about how to bring some of their programming focused on adult literacy to the Ector County Library. We’ve already started working on bringing ESL classes which are funded through a grant from the Abell-Hanger Foundation.
I am proud of my work with the POWER Bag Initiative to give books to every baby born in Odessa. Early reading will only help to move the needle on these low literacy rates. I am proud to work with the ECISD Education Foundation to continue to fund the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to continue giving FREE books to all kids aged 0-5. I am also working with the Education Foundation to bring a reading program to the students who volunteer at Meals on Wheels of Odessa to help them build their home libraries.
Affordable Housing
Years ago I was invited to a meeting to figure out how to provide more affordable, workforce housing to Odessa. Unfortunately a global pandemic stopped all forward momentum on that committee, but we still have a housing shortage on our hands. I applaud the efforts made by the new Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcet to being some common sense negotiation to the table so that we aren’t squabbling over pennies and lose site of the big picture. His efforts to negotiate the 50/50 sales tax split led to the annexation of land north of Lawndale which allowed close to 1,000 new homes to be built.
We must continue to find these partnerships and we must not forget not everyone works in the oil field and can afford a high dollar mortgage. I pledge to work with groups like Habitat for Humanity to find common sense solutions to our workforce housing crisis. We can work together to build on old drill sites or even vacant lots throughout the city. If we are going to have to add 190,000 jobs to our workforce by 2050, we are going to have to have a place for all these folks to live. We also need these new homes to add to our tax base so that we can continue to improve our infrastructure.
There is a solution out there, we just have to find it!
