What made you want to run for the commissioner’s position?
My ten year old daughter called me out. I teach all of my kids that we have a couple of across the board rules in our house. One of them is that it costs nothing to be kind to people, so you treat everybody with kindness. The next is you can complain about something twice, but the third time you either have to have a plan, do something about it, or shut up. We live by those rules. So my ten-year-old called me out one day complaining about the county. She goes, “Dad, you know, it seems like this is more than your second time complaining about this. So what are you going to do about it?”
What do you like about living in precinct 4 and Fort Bend?
Being from New Orleans, I saw that so much of the stuff was nicer out here when I’d come here for work in the eighties. Back then, they were starting to build West Park Toll Road, and they were working on the first stages of the Beltway. I noticed that they were ahead of the curve, they were ahead of the population growth, not waiting until things already happened to play catch up. I liked the Fort Bend area. That’s what attracted me so when I got married, we could live anywhere we wanted and I’m like we’re going out to where we live now.
You are obviously a leader in the community, what about your background got you to this point? The business side of things, you know, being on a MUD district board, I saw immediately that almost every contract that was being offered to the MUD district was thirty to sixty percent higher than what a business would pay for it. I called it out, and we started holding our vendors to the MUD district accountable. I mean, I could see a ten percent markup, you know, dealing with government stuff, but quite honestly, having been in business for a long time, I’ve done business with big giant companies. I’ve done business with small mom and pops. And I’ve done business with every type of government agency, you can think of including the military. I do the same amount of paperwork for the government agencies and often I have to do way more paperwork for the big businesses because they have to comply with diversity, and all the kind of other stuff that they report on. The argument that it takes more effort to bid a government contract or to do a government contract is just simply BS.
What glaring thing are you looking at? What is happening in the county or on commissioners court that really stands out to you and you’re like this needs to be changed. It is a combination of three things. We’ve got a water infrastructure that every week, if you drive through Rancho, you see a conservation sign. You know they’re constantly preaching to us that we don’t have enough water. They’re constantly preaching to us that we don’t have enough electrical grid. Okay? We all know the traffic problems. Okay? Those are all infrastructure issues. Why do we keep having infrastructure issues? And then, more importantly, if all of these problems are real, why are we trying to build five big data centers that will use more water every month than the entire city of Houston, more electricity every month than the entire city of Houston.
What, if anything, do you see that needs to be changed in the county regarding safety issues? We have to start providing the older sections of the county with the same level of services that we provide the new areas. And you know, I have a problem with this, and it is going to get me beat up again, like everything else, I say, but I have a problem with the contract deputy program. All right, poor people pay taxes too. You know, most of the homeowner taxes go to schools and other stuff. I know that in theory the contract deputy program says they can leave their contracted area if they get enough backlog in their patrol areas of the county, or if there is an emergency. But the reality is, most of the deputies, unless it’s some major event, like where they’re going to see some hot action, aren’t going to step up and leave their toll road duties or their assigned neighborhood.
How are you talking to voters? How are you reaching out to voters and what are you, you know like how are you getting support or hearing support within the community?So I think that the biggest feedback that I’ve received is the primary election results. That spoke volumes. The other thing I’ve seen is, you know, there’s a saying in politics: if somebody gives you one dollar, you’re going to get their vote. You know, I’m not actively seeking donations. But strangely enough, when I’m out there, working these restaurants and businesses along Highway 6 and up and down through the old areas of the county. That’s where I focused all my efforts, frankly.
What I do know is that I’ve got to get some Democratic voters and I’ve got to get some independent voters to win this. And I am the closest thing to a middle of the road candidate of anybody that’s running. I only campaigned for fifty eight days ahead of the primary. I didn’t start campaigning until like the seventh of January. So, in fifty eight days, I managed to get over four thousand small cash donations and by “small,” I mean ten dollars or less. And to me that tells me that I have support where it matters.
Election night, were you surprised at the outcome? The amount of votes you got and that you were in the runoff? Or were you like,”Yeah that’s how I thought it would go?” What was your reaction that night? I knew I’d be in the runoff, or at least I felt that I would be. I was surprised at the number of votes I got and the percentage. As was everybody else. I honestly thought it was going to be a runoff between myself and Ramesh.
There were a lot of candidates in the race, seven on the Democrat’s side and four on the Republican side. Why do you think you’re the best candidate? I’m the only one that has the budgetary business experience out of either side. You know, yes, there are some business people on the other side but I didn’t see anybody I could vote for on either side, frankly. That’s why I got in. You know, that and my daughter called me out. That was the final straw. The last thing I ever wanted to do was run for office.