Before anyone starts (or stops) reading my infomercial, please make note of my campaign’s dedicated phone #, 832.799.9427 and email address, info@jibletz.com . I need your calls, texts and messages. I need to understand your priorities and expectations. To invest your vote effectively, you need to have your questions answered … BS-free. I sincerely want to provide as much, or as little, documentation and detail as anyone needs.
Over the past 24 years an ever-changing menagerie of foster and rescue dogs, injured wildlife – even the occasional stray livestock – have generously shared their temporary Bellaire home with me, my wife, Carolyn, and my son, Tanner. We also care for a few herds of TNR feral cats safely remote from the deafening S. Rice Speedway on which the rest of us all reside.
Our civic involvement isn’t limited to our support of local, metropolitan, national and international animal welfare organizations. We also volunteer our time. and contribute to, the Houston Food Bank, storm cleanup. Tanner and I coach/participate in youth athletics and mentor at-risk kids. We are church members, but regularly visit other houses of worship throughout the year as well.
I earned my B.A. and MBA from Tulane University, supplemented by continuing post graduate coursework in law (Ole Miss), journalism (U.TX.) and game theory (M.I.T.). Throughout, my professional career has been in construction – e.g., from highways to hotels, flood control, hurricane recovery and real estate development. About eight years ago I sold the majority of my business interests and devoted my efforts to writing full-time.
This November 7, election is an opportunity to breathe fresh air into Bellaire … to restore trust in City Hall. City Clerk Tracy Dutton, BPD’s Information Coordinator Danyelle Green, the crews who staff our Public Works Department are paradigms of, “how things used to be – how things must be”. Most individuals who staff our police force exceed their mission, “to protect and to serve” the public. We are guaranteed at least two new perspectives to hold office next January. With your help, I’ll make it three.
Over the past two years, our elected officials and the Chief of Police have increasingly replaced “government in action” with “government inaction”. For example, in violation of state and federal law, as well as our own Code of Ordinances, their responses, to Public Information Requests have devolved from 1,000’s of pages to months-long delays to contradictory to adversarial to non-existent. As an example, visit https://itsallaboutthedogs.today
Rosy claims of transparency, accountability or receptiveness to public input are more accurately the stuff by which they are fertilized. The redundant and dysfunctional word salad served at every Council Meeting is an intentional distraction from the actual sausage-making behind the scenes.
Voter turnout in our local elections has always been embarrassingly poor. We are obligated to wrest control of our government from those who hand over the keys to unqualified non-resident appointees or NGO’s. Currently, Published Council Meeting Agendas are routinely , arbitrarily, changed at the last minute.
Twenty years from now the Quality of Life that has recently been officially downgraded as a priority will be as obsolete as dial up connection to the internet. The City of Bellaire is a misnomer. We’re a small town … an oasis surrounded by a desert of urban sprawl. For all the hot air and procrastination that has become SOP of late, we still enjoy the parks, superior public services, prosperity and security that defines Bellaire. There will always be differences of opinion – among 20,000 residents or 20. The solutions are an exchange of accurate information, listening to each other objectively and action.
Register to vote. Encourage your family and neighbors to. Do your homework among a variety of legitimate sources. Vote.
Election Day: November 7, 7am-7pm.
Early voting October 23-November 3, 7:00 A.M. -7pm, Monday through Saturday
12:00 P.M. – 7:00 P.M. Sunday
For polling locations and mail-in ballot instructions, visit https://www.harrisvotes.com
