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“The government closest to the people serves the people best,” Thomas Jefferson once stated.
As the end of the year is coming quickly, the City of Houston is starting to shift its focus to the budget for 2024 and seeing better ways that we can serve the citizens in the future years. It is our responsibility to make sure that the city is acting as good stewards of the taxpayers’ money collected, uses it in a way that benefits the largest number of residents possible, and fulfills promises made through taxes passed.
At the end of October comes the hiring and promoting of several employees on the administrative side of city hall. Sarah Moore will be joining the city as deputy clerk, Summer Reed has been promoted to administrative assistant to the city administrator, economic developer and mayor; and the recent hire of Kevin Buck as the city’s economic developer.
Another substantial change that has been talked about around the community is the Tiger Development Academy taking over several of the youth programs from the city for grades 3-6. This is now allowing the city to shift some of its parks and recreation focus to adult recreation within the city and being able to use tax money collected to benefit more of the community members. Several sports that were on the list for leagues are basketball, softball, pickleball, and tennis. Volleyball, golf, and flag football are close behind. We are extremely excited to see what our Parks and Recreation department has planned for the year 2024 with these leagues.
As a city utility customer, you will see a decrease in your electric bill as the final payment for the “High Demand” electric bill has been paid off. This will not only affect residential customers but also business customers. We are also excited to be doing a “Holiday Lighting Competition!” Utility credit will be given to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places in both business and residential categories, so make sure to call city hall at 417-967-3348 to get your business or residential house on the list.
Our city departments have all been hard at work to make sure that everything is continuing to run smoothly in the community. Public grounds has been working on finishing the major mowing for the season, chipping brush around town and patching streets. Parks and recreation worked with the water department to help winterize the pool and splash pad, mulch trees around the parks and gear up for pre-k-2nd grade basketball. Water and wastewater are keeping track of water samples, checking wells and working on locates. They are also looking for solutions for stormwater entering our sewer lines and fixing water line breaks. Electric has been busy with installing meters and primary lines to houses, clearing secondary line easements and working on locates of underground lines. We were also fortunate to be able to send several of our city police officers and volunteer fire department over to the elementary for their career on wheels day for the kids to get up close looks at our police and fire vehicles and get to interact with our city officers and firefighters. If you see one of the city employees out doing something great or having a positive interaction, we would love to hear about it and pass it on to them.
The first six months as Mayor has had its challenges and has been an up-and-down road. But the focus has been on communication, transparency, infrastructure and showing how amazing Houston is. It will stay that way until we get back to where Houston should be, serving our citizens the best way possible.
VIKI NARANCICH,
MAYOR,
CITY OF HOUSTON