Mayor Jeff Williams tells his club
about all the great things
happening in Arlington.
Kurt Bartley introduced our speaker for the day, Mayor Jeff Williams. Williams complimented our club on our services and spoke about the recent energy outages and ERCOT. He showed us the storm recovery website: arlingtontx.gov/ stormrecovery.org. Here, one can learn about where to go to receive help with food, shelter, storage, insurance questions, and help with pipe damage. Williams mentioned that we didn’t open stadiums for warming centers because there was no guarantee that those places wouldn’t have a power outage. He was thankful to all those city workers who helped deliver water to hospitals and other rescue services, plus the workers at vaccination centers. City workers also helped apartment complexes with out-of-state owners deal with water/pipe problems. He was also thankful to our community for keeping us all informed about the state of our water, and the number for help is 817-459-6777.
Williams went on to explain that Governor Abbott visited here 6 weeks ago and complemented Arlington on the vaccine centers. Williams then read Gov. Abbott’s statement about ending the mask mandate to prove that Abbott did not say not to wear them or stop being cautious. Arlington was chosen as a FEMA vaccine site. The mayor has worked hard to get more funding for more vaccine sites. The cost is $400k per week! Our Arlington budget has been hurt by the decrease in tourism during the Covid era. Mayor Williams is chairman of Metro Economies Committee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Mayor Williams had been invited to the White House during the Trump administration six times, but also recently by the Biden administration. He met with a group of governors and mayors in the oval office to discuss vaccines and direct fiscal assistance. William said we are a top 10 city in tourism and business innovation! The Unity Council will receive a national award soon. We are the 46th largest city in the USA.
The mayor then spoke of Downtown Arlington and how it has been revitalized, from the new library, to restaurants, to the expansion of missions. Theatre Arlington is expanding and the Arlington Museum of Art has a great exhibit coming soon, on tour from a museum in Miami. The museum is also the performance home of Timeless Concerts… hahaha! We learned that East Arlington has great potential and new housing (Bel Air on Abrams) has been built. The EnVision center, a one stop shop for families in need, has helped those who need affordable housing. AISD Dan Dipert technical Center has been built in East Arlington, also. The Ben Thann Plaza is a wonderful addition, as well as Arlington Logistics Center. Nanoscope Technologies moved into the former East Branch Library. Another exciting plan is that all east Arlington AISD elementary schools will be rebuilt! The AISD Center for Visual and Performing Arts and the Athletics Complex have opened. The new East Library includes a recreation center and it is now open. Andy Nguyen, Linda Dipert, and current County Commissioner, Devon Allen worked to create the International Corridor on Pioneer Parkway. Believe it or not, it is the 60th anniversary of Six Flags Over Texas theme park! I remember as a child in Oklahoma being so excited about my parents taking me there! Then, I took MY kids there! The area around the sports stadiums continues to see more hotel rooms built and, as we heard last week, the old Rangers Ballpark will be repurposed. It was a great gain for Arlington to host the NLCS and the World Series during Covid shutdown. National Finals Rodeo came to Globe Life Field because Las Vegas was shut down and we weren’t! It also was a great thing that we got the 2021 Rose Bowl from California! Arlington has innovation in transportation too with VIA on demand; it goes anywhere in Arlington or the Centreport station for access to the rest of the Metroplex. Mayor Williams thanked the city council for creating the Unity Council to help bring us all together. He mentioned that the National Medal of Honor museum is on its way to being built. Then, there was a question/answer session with the mayor. The state of the city address can be found on the city website, and April 16 is the Mayor’s community prayer breakfast. That will be followed by the Unite Arlington, Work Weekend, April 17-18.
A book honoring our mayor was donated to Webb Elementary School. The title is “Pass Go”, and it explains how the game of Monopoly was created.