Key issues

My family and I are proud participants in sports and activities throughout West U.  West U council should continue to work with these organizations, as they deliver outsize benefits for our residents.  

West U runs on volunteers.  I declined any pay for my service as a West U Councilmember, our boards and commission members volunteer to improve our city and countless residents contribute to the school, sports and various activities.  West U government has (and should continue) to work with and support these organizations.  This is a key question for any candidate seeking this office.

I am proud to have worked with Mayor Sample and Clay Brett to support the further development of pedestrian safety initiatives and a family board.

You've no doubt heard a lot about plans for improving our city center.  With the move of our public works facility outside of our city limits, we have an opportunity to improve traffic flow, expand parking, enhance green and park space and invest in our core city center facilities to make sure they last and work efficiently for decades to come.

For decades, councils have studied options to improve these spaces and build for our future.  Key considerations have been improving pedestrian mobility, improving services for residents of all ages and making sure that our public facilities can serve our residents.

Council has heard your voice, and we are currently planning to build an improved library and community building.  The new location would be less than 100 feet from the existing location, and the plans would include widened sidewalks and improved streetscapes, as well as new green space connecting to Huffington Park, to improve the usability and flow of the area.  I am a supporter of these plans.

Our library is over 60 years' old, and our community building is 80 years' old.  We have made investments and improvements, and we could continue to make investments and improvements to sustain them.  Or, we could build a new building that is more efficient (built to modern LEED efficiency standards to support reduced operating costs), provides more space for activities (many of which would be staffed by Harris County, so we get additional library services for no extra operational costs) and ensures that West U has high-quality spaces that can be used for decades.

Of course, these plans imply a cost, and I'm asking for your vote for me for council, as well as to support the bond for these projects - at $15 million.  

But guess what,  keeping the existing buildings has a cost, too.  There are the explicit capital costs:  investments that will need to be made sooner on older buildings to replace the roof, the air conditioner, the wiring, etc. And there are explicit operational costs:  we pay for the electrical and maintenance costs of the library and senior center, and they are not modern buildings in terms of insulation and design. This leads to higher operating costs per square foot.  Then there are the implicit costs of keeping the existing buildings - to name a few, the services that Harris County won't provide without expanded space, the pickleball games and senior activities that will not be played without expanded space and the improved parking, pedestrian and traffic flow that will not occur without investments.  Council studied whether expanding the library and senior center in their current location made sense, and the costs came back higher than building a new building.  Thus to provide a well-invested building for decades to come, a new building made most cost sense (in addition to the operational benefits).

My son went to West U elementary, and he went to the library regularly and many times twice per day as we coordinated baseball schedules.  He played with friends there, he participated in book clubs, and he got ahead on his homework.  A safe, well-resourced library helped my wife and me to manage pick-up times when the crush of after-school traffic was at its peak.  The library was always crowded then, and it's even more so now.  

Similarly I have heard from countless seniors and other families about the value of these spaces.  I have heard about the pickleball games and the connections that are made in classes and activities.  I have heard how West U allows seniors to age gracefully in a safe and secure environment with activities that support their continued residence in our city. 

An improved community library and a senior center are not frivolous investments.  And their costs are worth it.  Claims that the existing facilities can be continued at zero cost are wrong.  Having worked closely with council and city staff over two years on these issues, I support investing in a new building today will yield value for decades to come.  West U has the resources to make these investments.  And guess what, because we make foresighted investments to keep the city a desirable place to live for families, we enable a path to lower tax rates (as we've done over the past two years on council).  

Finally, if you approve a new library and community center, we will build it.  Then we will come back to residents for feedback on future projects, including improved fire and police station spaces that will help us continue to recruit the best candidates and provide high quality, responsive services that West U residents depend on.  Those projects have not been decided yet.  And their development depends on facts and feedback that residents will provide.  We have prudently developed plans on how to proceed, but we will not proceed unless the costs and value to voters make sense. 

On council, we have approved a project to improve the resilience of our Wastewater Treatment Plant.  The plant is operating well today, and it continued to operate during Hurricane Harvey.  But knowing the frequency of storms in Houston, council thought an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of curse.  So council approved funding to ensure the resilience of the plant.  That work starts in April 2025.  

Unfortunately, due to inflation and permitting delays with the City of Houston, our initial budget was not sufficient to cover some of the additional process improvements we wanted to accomplish on the plant together with the resiliency improvements.  As such, the initial bidding on the project led to only one bidder, who submitted an outsized bid.  We rejected that bid on council, as it didn't make sense to accept a bid from a process that was not competitive.  Instead, we divided the project in two parts, received multiple competitive bids for phase 1, and we will continue to push forward on the best way to bid and complete phase 2.  At no point will the plant fail to do its work, and at no point will your toilets or drains not work due to the plant.  

Some in the city have suggested that we should have accepted the single bid.  I disagree.  When you build a house or undertake significant renovations in West U, you get more than one bid.  If the bids come in high, you re-think the phasing and plans for the project.  The plant, while more complicated, is similar. And thoughtful leadership on council requires that we consider those situations as they arise.  By insisting on competitive bidding processes, we expect to save the city significant resources in completing this project.

I am a former engineer and cost consultant, and I work as a professional and professor in matters of debt and project finance.  I am happy to discuss the details with anybody, and I have no doubt that West U Council took the right approach to provide value for taxpayers.

 West U maintains its own water system, and your monthly bills pay to maintain and improve it. Residents rely on West U to deliver safe, reliable water, and our system is doing so today. But our system needs significant investment to ensure quality water service tomorrow. City council is planning for the future and developing projects that will improve the quality and reliability of our system. These projects will require significant investment, approximately $50-60 million, but the benefits gained will be greater. 

Our water system is comprehensive, including two water towers, wells, distribution pipes, and pumping stations. Having our own water system allows us to prioritize service for residents, invest for improvements, and reliably supply water, even when Houston and our other neighboring cities have issues. State rules require that the majority of our water has to come from surface water—that is, from rivers and lakes—in order not to deplete our region’s shared aquifer. We source this water from the City of Houston. The remainder of our water comes from our own wells. At our Milton Street facility, we mix and treat these sources to meet all state and federal standards. We’re looking at investments to ensure that we can treat water to meet future standards. Water quality standards are continually improving, and recent federal rules regarding PFAS chemicals underscore the importance of this work. 

Having a clean source of water, however, is not enough. For a water system to work, it needs pressure to supply homes, fight fires, and keep the water clean. Without adequate pressure, groundwater can seep into pipes and contaminate the system, leading to boil notices. To keep pressure up, we need to upgrade our Wakeforest facility—the facility with the tower you see from the interstate—and lay a larger pipe from that facility into the city. We’re also looking at upgrades to our Milton Street facility, including pumps and water storage, to ensure we can maintain pressure. 

We also want to ensure our system can reliably deliver water. When Houston issues a boil notice due to problems in their system, we lose our supply of surface water. Because we operate our own system, we can usually disconnect from Houston and still supply water to residents. But if we have to disconnect from Houston during a high usage period—for example, during a hot August, our system could only maintain service for about a day, without having to also issue a boil notice. We’re looking to add an additional well at Bissonnet and Weslayan to address this problem. This well would allow us to pump additional water and maintain service even during an extended outage in Houston. 

As residents, we can also help our system and our own wallets. Adjusting your sprinkler settings, or installing a smart controller, can save significant costs for you and reduce peak usage. Even simple maintenance of your sprinklers and plumbing fixtures can improve your cash and water flow. The city has tools and information available if you’re looking for further ways to save money and sustain water resources. These small changes can make a big difference for our system. 

Our water system serves us all, and I invite you to support these projects to improve its quality and reliability. West U is proud to be an independent city, and our water system is a key part of that independence. Let’s work together to ensure it works for years to come.  

As a responsible city and council, we continually develop plans to improve West U.  We reflect this planning in a document called the "Capital Improvement Plan," or CIP.  The CIP is a planning document, it is not the plan.  That is, in working through the framework of the CIP, we study what projects cost and whether they're feasible.  In an act of foresight, council recently extended the horizon of the CIP planning document to 10 years from 5 years (or in political speak, 5 councils from now).  The total cost of projects over the 10 year CIP is substantial.  But no one should read the CIP and assume that all projects will be done or accomplished in the fashion outlined in the CIP.  More work needs to be done to develop and refine the CIP, as it's a living planning document.  

For example, the largest single-item in the CIP is drainage and detention.  Council has been studying ways to ensure that we have sufficient drainage to ensure resilience of the city for decades to come. By investing in these plans, we open up new options.  We open up options for federal and state funding (which famously only funds "shovel-ready projects"), we open up options for partnerships with surrounding communities, and we systematically can weigh priorities and funding for competing projects. 

While I'm on council, I won't approve any project unless it provides significant value for the residents.  Sometimes that means spending money to make critical investments.  Sometimes that means phasing projects over longer periods of time.  Sometimes it means abandoning projects altogether.  

When it comes time to spend, sometimes that means seeking debt financing, and sometimes that means raising revenue.  

As residents, we do the same things in our day to day lives.  We don't drive an unsafe car, when transportation is needed to get us to work.  We don't sit in a boiling house, when the AC needs work.  And we invest in our families' education and development when there is value from those investments.  This means that sometimes we borrow money, sometimes we economize in areas, and sometimes we work the extra hours (or stick with the harder job) to fund priorities.  The city is the same way, and it requires thoughtful leadership to balance competing priorities.  

I am a former engineer and cost consultant, and I work with companies as a lawyer and teach at University of Houston in the areas of project and debt finance.  I am well-qualified to investigate tax rates, capital projects and financing.  And if re-elected to council, I will continue to thoughtfully lead on these matters.  Any candidate who doesn't engage with the complexity of these matters will do you a disservice.