Doreen: Council can’t let politics impact City Hall’s execution – Midland Reporter-Telegram

For the better part of 10 months, most who have paid attention to the Midland City Council knows it isn’t the group under Jerry Morales, Wes Perry, Mike Canon or Bobby Burns. I don’t know if the requirements of individual city council members have changed that much or if this particular group’s differences have been exacerbated by social media, Nextdoor and the rest, but this group has a problem and the people it will impact are part of a city staff assembled that is unrivaled during the decades I have paid attention.

Just go down the list City Attorney John Ohnemiller, Deputy City Manager Morris Williams Jr., Assistant City Manager Tina Jauz and Assistant City Manager Jose Ortiz. Combined they have experience in Midland, they know what Midlanders expect in their governance, their services, their parks, their first responders, their roads and infrastructure.

Below them on the city organization chart are people like Fire Chief/Managing Director Charles Blumenauer and Police Chief Seth Herman. Again, they know Midland.

There is Managing Director Carl Craigo, whose competence when it comes to utilities is demonstrated. Midland — as a growing community – has tremendous issues when it comes to infrastructure and Craigo and Ortiz have the city uniquely positioned to handle the planning, the crisis management and everyday tasks of a city dealing with a problem in Midland. We are – particularly inside the loop – a 150,000-population city in the body of a 100,000-population community.

We have a new city manager hired specifically to grow Midland. With the hiring of Tommy Gonzalez, the decision was made to say so long to 1990s-style operations and join larger communities inside our state when it comes to planning, revenue generation and quite frankly a growth of municipal government that will not be anything like Midlanders have seen — even through booms and downturns of the last 15 years.

There are others. For instance, Karisa Danley is likely as competent a public information officer/communications official as there is in local government today and that there has been with the City of Midland in 20 years.

There are others I’m either still learning more or quite frankly I don’t know really well.

I do know Midland Development Corp. Executive Director Sara Harris. I have previously labeled her as one of the most – if not the most competent – person I know in local government. Harris has been thrust into the public spotlight – not voluntarily – because of the meeting last Tuesday and the aftermath of that meeting. While the Midland City Council made a very political decision to remove Lucy Sisniega for the Midland Development Corp. board, the response from a council member has been to throw Harris under the bus.

I find the treatment of Harris despicable. Say what you want about the council’s handling of the Midland Development Corp. after Morales’s last term as mayor – and it has made the board basically irrelevant – Harris has set a standard on executing the plan as laid out by the MDC board or Midland City Council officials. She has stood up and answered question after question – when required – thoroughly and flawlessly. She has often sold particular projects and their respective benefits better than council members themselves.