I think pretty highly of my City Council member, Adrian Garcia. This is a good example why.
On a tolerable summer morning, it’s not unusual to see Ofelia Bennett and her friend and neighbor, Bobbie Sheppard, on the porch or walking through the yard.
“Ms. Sheppard is just like my own child,” Bennett said.
It’s the only exercise the 88-year-old gets.
“I have a cane and I used to walk in the yard,” Bennett said. “Now I don’t want to walk around there because I don’t know what’s out there.”
Out there, Bennett said, are rodents and insects living inside wood and bricks that a storm blew off the next-door building onto her yard. And she wants it picked up.
“I called the 311,” she said, “the mayor’s office, ever since trying to get some help.”
After four months of complaining, Sheppard was told, “the city has no funds for doing anything like that.”
But Councilman Adrian Garcia in District H does, so he created “District H. Cares.”
“I spend my campaign money buying the equipment,” Garcia said. “The weed eaters, the chain saws, the trailers, all the equipment … so I could put this program in place.”
The idea is to quickly move in to clean up neighborhood nuisances already cited by the city.
“To me that’s enough,” said Garcia. “Literally, my crew can be right behind them to take the corrective action. We should not wait until the lien process comes into place.”
With all due respect to Annise Parker, the person I plan to support for Mayor in 2009 is Adrian Garcia.
(I saw this on the 6 PM News yesterday, as apparently did Anne, who had it posted last night.)