I ran into my District J Houston City Councilman, Mike Laster, today and I must say that he’s really representing us well on the horseshoe. Mike Laster is running for a second term, and by the looks of it, he has earned it. According to a recent campaign e-mail:
Together we are making great progress in building better neighborhoods in District J and making southwest Houston a better place to live, work and raise our families. Here’s just a few of the things we’ve accomplished:
• We completed an agreement with Houston Baptist University for $160M in economic development which will create jobs and revitalize the Fondren corridor;
• We worked with HPD to close adult nightclubs and demolish the abandoned Winfield I Condominiums;
• We worked to establish Friends of Parks organizations and are helping to create a skate park for Burnett-Bayland Park;
• We finally secured the return of the long requested left turn lanes at Gessner & Beechnut;
• We handled over 1,000 service calls from community members.
I want to continue making progress in bringing economic development and neighborhood revitalization to District J. I hope I can count on your support for my re-election as your City Council Member.
Since the Fondren corridor runs along my neighborhood, I must say that I like what is going on at HBU, especially the development of their Southland Conference football team and a new stadium which is being built. They open their development season at Sam Houston State. It might cause some added Saturday traffic, but if it helps our neighborhood economy–great!
The skate park at Burnett-Bayland caught my eye, as well, and reminded me of a story I did on the Tacos and Votes event held in 2012 in which I met a group of skateboarding kids who helped out a little. They brought up the fact there was no skate park in the area, so, I wrote a blurb in that post. Well, I don’t know if it caught anyone’s eyes, but hopefully, these kids were involved in bringing this up because it seems to be happening, now. Good deal!
And let me tell you, one might think that a left-turn lane at Gessner and Beechnut is no big deal, but let me tell you, it really is. It will make a huge difference when it comes to drive-time and traffic flow. Taking Beechnut back to Gessner (and taking a left on Gessner to hit Bellaire to head to my neighborhood) from the big HEB on the Beltway is definitely going to make things easier for me.
And I’ll add that the construction project outside my door on Harwin is coming along nicely–new pipes, new concrete, and two lanes, again. Something about watching progress happen that just puts me in a good mood.
Mike Laster has been a very responsive council member, and I’m looking forward to his second term.
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