MIDLAND, Texas — Lori Blong will be the new Mayor of Midland come 2023 and she's ready to take the seat.
"I'm very excited to get started with the council and to work back to a lot of communication within our council, that's a huge priority," said Mayor-elect Blong.
Blong wants to focus on the basics to help improve the city.
"I really want us to focus on long term water solutions for our community," said Blong. "The main goals that we have for Midland's water supply is that we have long term water supply, we're not just planning for next week or next year but were planning for future generations of water needs in our community and so we're looking at the water sources that are available."
Another priority for Blong is the infrastructure and roads in the city.
"I also want to pay attention to roads and infrastructure to make sure we're allocating annual dollars to pay for those projects but also to look forward to other things that need to happen for road development long term," said Blong.
After getting the essentials in place, Blong wants to look into things that are a little more fun.
"Once we've done a good job on those and we are maintaining those, we have the opportunity to look for other more exciting projects and so that can be some economic development projects where we can bring in other types of businesses, and there can also be some quality of life initiatives that will be to the benefits of the families in our community to provide things for families and kids to do together," said Blong.
When it comes to the Hogan Park project, more conversations will be had with the new council.
"There's ongoing conversations with the conservancy board and the city council on the Hogan park project, we do hope that to continue to move forward and those conversations are still ongoing," said Blong.
Overall, the mayor-to-be is excited for the future of Midland.
"It's an exciting thing to come into a new year with a new council dynamic and I'm looking forward to all that is ahead of us," said Blong.