Cooperation the byword for Houston candidates

HOUSTON — A crowded field of candidates has filed to run for three open seats on the Houston City Council.

The Oct. 7 ballot contains eight names for Houston, where all seats are elected at-large, meaning each voter gets to select a candidate for each seat. Two candidates are vying for council Seat A, currently held by the city’s mayor, Sandy McDonald, who is not running for re-election. Seat A candidates:

• Griz Smith, a local fireworks impresario, owner of Fire Art by Griz.

•Virgie Thompson, a special education assistant who works for the Mat-Su Borough School District in Houston.

Seat B also has two candidates:

• Paul Stout, the incumbent and a software developer.

• Ruth Blanchard, a Houston Lodge employee who sat on the council for nine years before losing in 2007 to Lee Himes by 11 votes.

Three people are running for Seat C:

ª Ralph Buzard, the incumbent, a retiree and former member of the Petersburg City Council.

• Natasha Rife, at 27 the youngest person running this year. She works in the design center for Spenard Builders Supply’s Big Lake store.

• Joseph Stanistreet, who could not be reached for comment.

Lance Wilson, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel with nearly 24 years of service, is running unopposed for Seat D, the seat held by Councilman Glen Tilghman, who is not seeking re-election.

Seat A

Smith said he was encouraged to run for the Houston council and figured it needs somebody like him. He said he has the time to serve and would like to give back to his community. Like many in the race, Smith said he hopes to work cooperatively with other council members.

“The older I get the more I know that compromise is the way to go,” Smith said. “In life, everything we do is a compromise and I would try to see everyone else’s point of view.”

Thompson echoed Smith’s statements when asked if she’d like to restore cooperation to what has recently been an often fractured council.

“I’m a caring person, I get along with a lot of people, and yet I’m not afraid to step up and voice my opinion,” Thompson said.

Thompson cited road maintenance as an area of concern, particularly where it affects school bus routes. As for Smith, he said he’s concerned about education and coping with growth in such a fast-growing area of the state as the Mat-Su Valley.

Seat B

Stout said serving on the city council has been probably the toughest challenge he’s ever faced, but that he’s enjoyed the work, has started a lot of good projects and wants to see them through.

“I originally came on board to help pull the city out of the ditch,” he said, noting that when he was appointed to replace former mayor Steve Frost in March the city was in a bad way.

“I was asked to come and help with the computer problems and just saw so much that needed to be done that I decided to run for a vacant seat,” Stout said.

Efforts to reach Blanchard as of press time were not successful. A call to the Houston Lodge indicated she was possibly out of town. Blanchard served on the council during the tenure of former mayor Dale Adams.

Seat C

Buzard echoed Stout’s comments that, as an incumbent on the council, there is work he’s started and would like a chance to finish.

Buzard said he came to the council without an agenda or any one particular issue he felt a need to address. His motivation, he said, was to serve the city and its people.

Now, Buzard said the city is engaged in important work. He singled out efforts to find a new head for the city’s two-man police department, an ordinance he’s working on to pool city departmental funds for maintenance and replacement of city vehicles, and work on a sales tax ordinances to make sure the city is collecting what it’s owed.

The sales tax examination likely ruffled some feathers in the community, but the city needed to straighten out its codes and that’s what it did, Buzard said.

“I was willing to step up to the plate,” he said of his appointment to replace Carla Hendrix in May after she resigned her council seat. “Nobody else was willing to step up at that time. And now all of a sudden we’ve got three of us running.”

Rife said the feeling she’s getting from the community is that the tweaking of the sales tax did, indeed, ruffle some feathers.

“The businesses here in Houston are not real enthused about what’s going on up there [at city hall]“ Rife said.

She said Houston needs its businesses and for the council to work with them “would be a great thing. Otherwise they’ll leave.”

Like most in the races, Rife vowed to work with her colleagues. Efforts to reach Stanistreet were not successful as of press time.

Seat D

Lance Wilson said he has attended every council meeting he could since he came to Houston after retiring from the U.S. Army in February 2003.

Asked how he feels that, barring an unforeseen event, he will be seated on the council after the election, Wilson said, “I think that’s just great. I still plan to do a little bit of campaigning. I’m not just going to sit back and not do anything.”

His top priority after the election is to restore a collegial atmosphere to the council, Wilson said.

“The council has been pretty much deadlocked over personal differences for the last two and a half years,” Wilson said. “I would like to contribute to better interpersonal relations so we can actually get some work done for the city.”

Wilson said he would like to find ways to better fund city departments, especially the fire department. Also, he would like to promote economic development and create more local jobs.

“Especially now, when fuel prices are so high, if we had better jobs in the local area here people wouldn’t have to commute so far,” Wilson said.