1 Year, gone. 3 ahead.
Good sunny, Wednesday afternoon! Where does the time go? It reminds of a quote I see from time to time that says ‘When we understand that each day is NOT just one more day, but one LESS we’ll start giving more value to things that truly matter’.
As I sit here at Big Mommas on C-Street enjoying the spring sun and breeze, I’m reflecting on both the last 365 days since I was elected into office as well as the last 24 hours of local and international news. People ask how I feel about lots of things, my time on council, the Question 1 issue and , and what’s happening in my fathers’ home country of Iran. My feelings on the local events are are summed up in the song ‘Feeling Good’ - not because of the title, but because of the words. “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day… and I’m feeling good.” On the international news, ‘something’ needed to happen over there to help the Iranian people, but not this. But I’m hopeful to hear of a cease fire.
My council term technically started April 9, 2025 the day after the election. I thought I had a little time to acclimate before the transition and swearing in ceremony scheduled for later in May. On April 9 2025 I was called to the clerks office to sign documents essentially giving me the ability to start participating right away. When I asked why, I was told that we were to start the interview process for a new city manager that same week. Talk about jumping right into the fire!
Since then we have tackled many issues, as well as all the all the other day to day business. We adopted a new fiscal year budget, selected and hired a new city manager, waded through and approved several large, controversial zoning cases, adopted new codes for land development, public access and driveways, required payment of personal property taxes for businesses, brought forth an eminent domain action on the Hotel of Terror, approved several recommendations from the Citizen Advisory Board regarding the SpringForward ½ cent sales tax, (more on that in an upcoming post) and of course the two failed votes for an additional 3% lodging license fee for a new convention center. We also convened a council workshop to generate Council Priorities for this elected body to tackle over the next couple of years. Link to Council Priorities.
I have thoroughly enjoyed interactions with citizens, city staff, the boards with I’m involved, and of course my fellow council members. I feel like we have a great group of thought leaders with a variety of perspectives and one mission - to make our city a better place.
This ‘new dawn’ has me thinking about what’s next. I invite you follow along as I put out a series of blog posts articulating what I think is good in our city, how we’ve arrived at this moment, and some thoughts on how I believe we can and should move forward from here.
Stay tuned!
