By Jami Clark
As I get ready for another election, one in which I’m trying to retain my seat as city commissioner for District 4, in Texas City, I want to reiterate that “experience really does matter”.
This will be my 5th term, if I am reelected, and I can honestly say, that the first couple of years were a learning curve for me. Even though I have been involved in Texas City for over 35 years, the first two years, I learned a lot from being a commissioner.
As well as our city commission, I currently serve on the Executive Committee and the Plans and Projects Review Committee for the Houston-Galveston Area Council, which I am a board member on. I have learned so much of how city government works on that board. As well as working with and listening to our very qualified directors of all our departments in our city.
I served on the Park Board for over 24 years, with 21 of those years being chairman, prior to being on the commission. Those were the years that we were adding parks, new convention center, Sanders Center, and many other amenities around town. I worked with a great group of people in the Parks and Recreation Department, and we all worked closely with the commission. That is when I decided that I wanted to have more of a voice in our city and I felt like I could do better for our community and our citizens, so I decided to run for an elected office.
I have served on the Cultural Arts Foundation for 10 years. I was one of the original board members of that Foundation and served as Chairman of it for the first 10 years of its existence.
I have also served on several other boards and committees over the last 35 years.
I am currently serving my 6th term as President of the Foundation for the Future, our TCISD Education Foundation. What an amazing feeling to give out over $200,000.00 in grants every year to deserving teachers for innovation material to use for teaching in the classrooms. We could not do this without the partnership we have with our industry and businesses in our town. We maintain a great working relationship with them and I’m very proud of that. We have some amazing fundraisers every year, and it’s so rewarding to help raise money for our teachers and our kids. Our kids are our future!!!!
I’m very involved in my church, St. Mary’s of the Miraculous Medal, and I am serving for the 6th year as President of our Altar Society. My faith and my church are very important to me and by serving in that role, and several other committees, I feel like I am giving back some but not near what my faith gives to me.
We have some major projects going on in Texas City and most of those have to do with drainage around town. We are in the process of getting ready to start on our Moses Lake pump station. When that is completed, Texas City should not flood again. It is a huge project that is funded by grants and approved by the Corps of Engineers, and we are very excited to get moving on that project.
We have several other major drainage projects in the works, all funded and paid for by grants that we have already received.
I love Texas City, as I have been here for 67 years. I graduated from TCHS in 1971 and married my high school sweetheart and we have been married for over 50 years now. He, too, was a TCHS 1970 graduated, and we have two sons and two daughters in law, all four of whom graduated from TCHS. We have 4 grandchildren whom we adore, and they certainly keep us young.
I ask for your support and most importantly, YOUR VOTE, on May 7.
Texas City is my hometown, and don’t plan on leaving, so I will do all I can to make Texas City the best place to live, work, and play.
And as you can see from above, I do have experience and “EXPERIENCE MATTERS”.
