ARLINGTON, Texas - City of Edinburg Mayor Ramiro Garza recently appeared as a panelist at a YTexas summit.
YTexas is an elite Texas business network for companies relocating, expanding and growing in the Lone Star State. The organization is the premier go-to resource for the most current insider information about Texas’ community, commerce and culture.
There were five mayors on the panel, including City of Brownsville Mayor John Cowen, Jr. The other three were Arlington Mayor Jim Ross, Bryan Mayor Bobby Gutierrez, and Round Rock Mayor Craig Morgan. These five were chosen because each of their cities are fast-growing.
Here are the remarks Mayor Garza made.
Introducing himself, Garza said:
“Thank you so much for having me here. Really looking forward to being here, not because it was coming to the Cowboys Stadium but really happy to be in your town, mayor. It's a pleasure to be here. Just a little bit of background on myself before I talk about our city. So my background is actually city government. I had actually served as city manager before in my own town before I ran for mayor. So that makes it a little bit unique. But I'm enjoying it. I got elected almost two years ago. And Edinburg is the county seat of Hidalgo County, down in the Rio Grande Valley, just down the street from Brownsville. It is a fast-growing area. We're home to the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. We have 30,000 students here in our city and we have two major hospital systems in our city that employ over 7,000 workers. So about a quarter of our employment is related to health care. So that is something very unique to us.
“We do have some sports facilities in our town. We have the expansion league for the Houston Rockets. We have the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. We have an arena there. We also have a soccer stadium. So, a lot like a lot of the cities, we’re a growing city. So what does that mean? You’ve got improve your quality of life. I always tell our fellow council members, if we don't improve our quality of life, people aren't going to stay here in our city. So, we're working towards that with the School of Medicine that came also to our city, close to 10 years ago now. We are seeing some of those benefits. We have some similar challenges to the other cities here but I think as Mayor Ross just mentioned at towards the end, by all of us working together, I think we can do a lot more. So, thank you.”
Asked about regional alliances, Garza said:
“Thank you for that question. I'll use the opportunity to state that, the Rio Grande Valley. with 47 cities... Mayor Ross was talking about the DFW area, how do you (Arlington) differentiate yourself? Well, for us, I think we recently have kind of come together in a way that we hadn't before. We formed an alliance, the Rio Grande Valley, as ‘One Region, One Voice.' Governor Abbott went down and actually signed a compact with us about working together to collaborate and market our a region as one.
“Not just cities, but all of our higher ed institutions, workforce training. It was a fascinating summit. But I said, okay, this is a good pep rally. Now we all need to kind of step forward and collaborate so that we can improve our region and there's so many… Mayor Cowen is one example of it. Our school district just opened up a $100,000 CTE (Career and Technical Education) facility, and it just opened, so we're looking forward to that. There's a lot of them throughout our region. We need to figure out a way to connect our employers with our school system in a way so our kids have that ability to have those paths clearly defined. Not everybody… my local superintendent tells me 60 percent of the kids are probably going to go somewhere, right, in higher ed or do something (with their careers). He says it is that 40 percent that we're working towards, to make sure that we train them and do something with them so they can be part of our qualified workforce."
Noting that Edinburg is part of a fast-growing region, Garza was asked how his city approaches economic development. Garza responded:
“So we also have a half cent sales tax (economic development) corporation. Our EDC director is here, actually. And we've had that for some time. They own land, they own buildings, and they're really the ones just like Mayor (Bobby) Gutierrez (mayor of Bryan) mentioned that really drive all the economic development activity in our city. Like I mentioned, some industrial parks, we have a municipal general aviation airport, there is a large industrial area there. And so they are our single point of contact for companies that are looking to go in the area. But now, as we mentioned earlier, with this regional alliance, it really not about our own city, it's about our region. If you do a 150 mile radius around Edinburg, there are ten million people. That includes the northern part of Mexico, which we need to include (because) it is part of our trade area. And there's some Fortune 500 companies just across the river in Mexico. And so the idea here is to work with suppliers, work with people that need to be in the geographic area that we are in, but also to work with a School of Medicine. There are some opportunities there right now with all that is happening, some of the research that is happening there. But we have a setup much like other cities, an economic development corporation. They're the people that are in charge of bringing in new investment and the creation of jobs. “
Asked what his key tasks are, Garza said:
"I couldn't agree more. Not only what Mayor Ross said, I think what everyone said here because it is different for everybody. For me, it’s really different because I used to be city manager so people still think they can call me and I can get something done. And I said yes. But now I have to call the city manager and then we can get that done. So it's pretty interesting that I think that every day in our life varies. It always starts with complaints. You're right, it's never about Thank You, although I do get ‘thank you’ in HEB for some reason. In a grocery store, I do get that. So it's different for everybody.
"Obviously we all do it because we're giving back, truly. We’re not getting paid. I think our greatest challenge in our city is, like everybody here, our growth. When I first moved to Edinburg, I'm not originally from there, we had public hearings for zoning cases and things like that. And we had people show up advocating in support, allow this development to happen, allow this. Everybody is welcome with open arms. Everybody's still welcome because we are an open arms source city. However, I have noticed lately, because of the growth, people are showing up and saying, we have enough homes already been built and don't we have enough apartments being built? So it's pretty interesting, but that has to do with the growing pains (and the need to build) roadways and infrastructure. So, we've made it a point as a city council to get serious about it. We are right now investing over $65 million just on public improvements throughout the city. And we're going to need to continue… and that's just catching up. We're going to need to do a lot more than that. But our growth is probably our biggest challenge now. And is I told my council, like Mayor Ross says, you know, don't listen to the noise and stay focused on our core values, our core things that we need to do in improving the quality of life in our city.”
Asked for some closing remarks, Garza said:
“Maybe to close it off, and to add to what Mayor Ross is saying, the only thing I will say is the border is safe. Okay, we're in an election year. We have our challenges with immigration but that doesn't mean that is an unsafe area. On the contrary, you just look at the numbers. You look at all the investment, people that are moving to the area. It's a completely different story. But, unfortunately, we're going through an election year. So you're going to hear and see a lot of that, those things, but we're an area that... we are rich with culture. It's vibrant. I mean there are people that moved down there, (for example) the dean of the medical school moved from St. Louis, Missouri, and he had never been down to our region. And when he made the shortlist, he told his family and friends, I made the shortlist to this new medical school down in south Texas. And they told them, oh no, it's unsafe over there, why would you do that? And he not only you got the job, but he's been there now for a year and a half. And he tells me, if I'm not the dean, I don't want to leave here. I love this community. I love this region. He says, Mayor what you need to do is you need to get with the other mayors and you guys need to dispel what's out there because that's affecting what is happening. So, anyway, I think that's part of our all our jobs for the whole state: we need to tell our story, and doing it together goes a long way.”
Editor's Note: Click here to watch the full panel discussion.
