MIDLAND, Texas — A city councilmember at-large represents the city as a whole.
In Midland, four candidates are vying for one of the two available at-large seats on Midland City Council. Here's a list of the candidates in alphabetical order:
- John Burkholder
- Current councilmember at-large Eric Davidson
- Rance Norton
- Current councilmember at-large Robin Poole
Below is what NewsWest 9 asked the candidates:
Why are you seeking to be elected to fulfill the Midland City Council at-large seat?
Candidate John Burkholder
"I'm a longtime Midander, a native West Texan, and I absolutely love my community. I've been involved in different, various organizations in the community and currently serve as a Planning and Zoning Committee member here in the City of Midland, and it was one of my ways to want to give back and learn more about the city and I just feel like I have particular talents and knowledge that I think would benefit all Midlanders and the city as well," said Burkholder.
Candidate/ Current city councilmember at-large Eric Davidson
"I'm seeking for re-election because there's still a lot of work to be done. On the six months that I've been on city council, I've helped bring back millions of dollars into the general fund. I've taken the time to comb through 100 page documents and 100 page contracts to to make sure that there's nothing that's going to be potentially bad for the citizens of Midland, and have approved a new tax rate and budget that's going to be able to fully fund and staff our first responder force. I'm running for re-election because I want to continue being a servant leader for this community. I have a heart for everyone here in Midland, and I ultimately care about the decisions not only being made today, but being made for the next generation of Midlanders," said Davidson.
Candidate Rance Norton
"I'm running for the City Council at-large position of Midland because at my core, I'm a servant leader. That's the way I was raised by my family. I was raised in a middle class family, in a poverty type neighborhood and one thing that was always entrusted in me and given to me when I was younger was 'You need to help people. You need to be there for people and you need to take care of people.' One thing that I've done throughout my life is take care of people and be there for people and when this race came up, I decided, you know, it's time to give back to Midland. It's time to give back to the community and move Midland forward. You know, we're at a great spot in Midland right now to where if we're not moving and progressing, Midland forward, we're moving behind. So the reason why I'm running is for all Midlanders not just a select few, but to help the lives and better the lives of everybody in the city of Midland," said Norton.
Candidate/ Current city councilmember at-large Robin Poole
"My heart is just absolutely for the people of Midland. I was born and raised here, I love this community. It's where I've raised my family and so I just really wanted to give back to the community and so I've really enjoyed my three years of service. I love the work that city council does. I don't think whenever I went into this position, I realized just every facet that we cover. And so I have thoroughly enjoyed the work, working with the people and working on behalf of the people. And so I'd just like another three years to continue that work and finish some of the projects that we've got going," said Poole.
What do you see is the biggest challenge the City of Midland is currently facing and how would you tackle them?
Candidate John Burkholder
"One of the biggest situations that we find I think are are managing the growth that we have here and creating a pro business environment without creating an atmosphere that is negative for the city of Midland and what I mean by that is, that we may have to make sure that we're planning things out properly, that we're having the proper road infrastructure, the proper planning in place. Again, going back to the water infrastructure to make sure that those things are there. We're also cutting the red tape when it comes to commercial builders and home builders wanting to get here, making the processes very streamlined and easy, and then very inviting atmosphere so we can bring those businesses in. We can bring those home builders in and our local home builders too, making sure that they have a place in there too. To create this conducive environment for their businesses so we can get people in here, we can give them low cost housing because we've made the processes very simple and easy and made it to where we can expand Midland in a way that benefits all," said Burkholder, who also expressed concern about the Fire Fighters Pension Fund and the need to resolve it quickly. He is hopeful that a resolution is near, but if not, he would look forward to working towards a resolution.
Candidate/ Current city councilmember at-large Eric Davidson
"There's still a lot of work that needs to be done. There's been previous councils that have kicked some of those big issues down the road, like our firefighter pension fund. These are tough problems that we need to work through solutions on. Other issues that we see is our road infrastructure being able to fully staff our first responders and work with our police force. When I think of roads, this is a public safety issue. This is something that we need to address. We aren't doing a good enough job and we need to own the fact that we aren't. This could potentially be something that's putting clauses in place when we do have road construction that you are incentivized to finish early, and then if that you run into constant delays that there's going to be repercussions from that and this is simply just called good business," said Davidson.
Candidate Rance Norton
"One issue would have to be water. Currently right now we have three different sources of water and we're trying to figure out that 100 year water plan. We have the Colorado River Municipal Water District and that comes from three different sources that we're currently using right now. That provides about 70% of the water to Midland. Another is the E bar and that's been a big construction project that we did a great job on with 49 miles of pipeline coming all the way from Winkler County to Midland. The third source that we're currently in the first phase of is the Fort Stockton Water Holdings and that's going to be a big pipeline, a big construction project to bring that water. To help us solve the 100 year water issue. You know, there's other things that we can do. The Texas Water Commission came up with a proposition which we all voted on a year ago to fund $1 billion. And that goes to reuse and reclamation for city municipalities. And they will, they will start awarding this money in 2025 in spring of 2025. So that's something that we need to look into as a city. Midland to help with our water, secondly, I think it's firefighters. What I would do, I know that the firefighters and the city have been working together and it's it's one of these issues. If somebody comes to you and say they have the solution to it, I'm pretty sure they do not have the solution to it because what we have to do is we have to get both sides in the room. We have to get the firemen. We've got to get the city and we've got to realize that both of us need to work together as being a businessman and a guy who's been the members of of countless negotiations. It really comes down to both sides have to sit down at a table and make concessions for us to find the sweet point," said Norton.
Candidate/ Current city councilmember at-large Robin Poole
"I think number one, I've already mentioned it and it's the firemen's pension. It is probably the most pressing issue that we face right now. You know, based on what numbers you look at anywhere from an $83 [million] to $112 million deficit in that pension fund. And so we want to make sure that we're taking care of our firefighters. We want to make sure that we're taking care of future generations of firefighters and their families, but we also want to make that pension fund whole and we want to see changes come forward that are really going to make the longevity of that fund, to really be able to provide for future firefighters," said Poole.
NewsWest 9 also asked the current city at-large councilmembers what accomplishments they are most proud of during their position. Here's what they shared.
Candidate/ Current city councilmember at-large Eric Davidson
"When I think about biggest accomplishments, I think about voting to approve a budget that's going to fully fund and staff our first responders, but not only voting to approve a budget, but voting to approve a tax decrease for the citizens of Midland. Working with the city to come up with solutions to bring back millions of dollars from our airport. This is money that we're no longer going to have to subsidize from the airport and that money is going to be able to increase further projects that we have, our air and space port and then also being able to find potential issues in our water contracts. I'm a hydrogeologist, that's something that I enjoy being able to come through these contracts, see what potential clauses are in place and what we can do to address them. That's experience that I've pulled from my engineering background of being able to solve tough problems day in and day out. That's a promise I made to Midland whenever I first got elected. And that's a promise I will continue to make that I will put in the time and I will work as a servant leader here, investing myself to make sure that I'm solving tough issues here in town," said Davidson.
Candidate/ Current city councilmember at-large, Robin Poole
"We have a council that's working together and I think a lot of times we can focus on what we want to do, but it really is about working as a council and I think that the council is very much in tune with the growth that's happening in Midland. Wanting to stay ahead of growth, be proactive versus reactive and there's a lot of things that we've done to really promote that. For me personally, some of the initiatives that I have been involved in probably right now, one of the most important is the firefighters pension fund I'm on the subcommittee that is working through negotiations with the firefighters to hopefully, you know, solve for the deficit that we're currently facing. Outside of that, work with the airport system is probably kind of a passion project for me. I got tied into the airport through the [Midland] Airpark, which is Midlands General Aviation Airport, and then from there just my advocacy for Midland International as well. My involvement as the liaison for the airport planning board has just really reached very far and I think that our staff at the airport is doing great things to really grow the airport. You know, I'm just excited about that along with that of [the] Airpark. I started the Fly into Fall event, which was really an effort to bring the community out to Airpark to realize what a gem it is for our community, the commerce that it really brings in and hopefully introduce the next generation to aviation as a possible industry that they'd like to get involved in. I think, you know, I'm very focused on the next generation being a mother and so another initiative I started in partnership with the Bush Childhood Home and the Midland Youth Advisory Council, and that's a program much like Midland 101 that our youth is invited to participate in sophomores through seniors and high school can apply for that program every year. And it's really just a program that introduces them to civic engagement, the importance of municipal government and how it really affects your day-to-day life. And what it means to be a good and involved citizen. So we're in our second year of that program, it's going great. We're at capacity and you know it's just programs like that that really get out into the community that I feel are very important for us to take part in," said Poole.
What experience do you have that you believe would suit well if you were to be elected as Midland city councilmember at-large?
Candidate John Burkholder
"I've got 24 years of business experience and leading people. I actually worked for a Fortune 500 company at one point time and one of my jobs with that company was to identify issues and problems in multimillion dollar locations and fix them. And we broke things down from the way it was running operationally to profit and loss management to personnel, to training and it was our job ultimately to correct those issues and problems after I left that particular world. I entered into the oil and gas industry and I was fortunate to go to work for a company that they put me in charge of developing their sales team and finding ways to continue to make them relevant. I took a lot of those business practices that I had learned over the years, implemented them into a new world and we saw amazing success that that business now has three locations which we're very proud of. And around 2016/2017 we started seeing quite a bit of oil and gas activity on our family land holding in Barstow. We didn't really have a lot of experience in managing those things at the time with my grandfather running things and he was a cowboy, true and true, a rancher and so as things got more involved and more hectic, I stepped in and started helping out with those and eventually took over as the president of Burkholder Holdings to manage our contracts, negotiate contracts, manage the all the activities that were going on out there and during that time we also formed a water sourcing company called Ranch Water Resources with our local neighbor. And so now we cover a pretty large area in Ward County as one of the largest nursing companies in the area," said Burkholder.
Candidate Rance Norton
"Throughout my life, I've always been a leader and I said that before being a servant leader. You know, before I came to the oil field, I was in nuclear energy and I held various roles in nuclear energy from all the way from supply chain management to corrective action programs to project management. And I've always been in a management position. I moved out here to Midland and I worked from boots on the ground all the way to an executive position at a hydraulic fracturing company that I started. We were very good at that. What we did at the hydraulic fracturing company so much to where we we had a lot of employees and really good customers and we were able to take care of people. One thing about me is I like to take care of people. It's all about the people and also when you've been throughout the ranks of management, as I have working your way up from boots on the ground up to the chief executive position, you understand and you have a lot of skills to where it's about negotiations, it's about listening to people. It's about figuring out and getting people in the room and knowing that we can get a deal done. And what I bring to city council if elected or when elected is just a a sound common sense business mind to look at things through the lens of 'Is this right for Midland? Does this help Midland? And is this a good use of taxpayer money?'" said Norton.
Early voting ends Nov. 1. Election Day is Nov. 5.