MOORE FOR MAYOR: Time to turn Garland around with hope and a fresh direction.

"If not us, then who?
If not me and you,
Right now,
It's time for us to do something."

This chorus to a popular contemporary song played in the background just minutes ago as I made an important announcement.

While fretting over our city's woes and bemoaning why no one with all the right qualifications would step up to the plate to fix them, I became convicted that the "do-something" responsibility fell to me. Instead of just writing blogs and wringing my hands about Garland's vast concerns and needs, I felt compelled to throw my hat in and take on the challenge myself.

Therefore, this afternoon I stood on the front porch of Garland's Historic Pace House, situated in the very center of Garland, and announced my candidacy for Mayor of the City of Garland in the May 5 election.

My theme will be "Moore, Hope for Garland."

I will bring just that—Moore Hope—a spirit of optimism and hope to ALL citizens of Garland through new policies, directions, and style of leadership. This is surely not the time in our city's history for a "caretaker" or "interim" mayor but for a leader immediately willing to take on the heavy lifting our city currently needs. I intend to be that kind of activist mayor.

Helping our citizens plan for a better tomorrow is a primary goal of mine.

"I wanna be the one who stands up and says
'I’m gonna do something'”, the lyrics by Matthew West continue.

The citizens of Garland deserve a city government that is as good, as honest, and as trustworthy as the people themselves—and I intend to do my best to provide it for them.

A true leader will not shy away from work to inspire others by his or her actions.

I will run a low-budget, citizen-focused, open, and transparent Moore Hope campaign where issues of concern to our citizens are my top priority. Local politicos have warned me about the vast expense of running for mayor in Garland and advised me to be prepared to spend $50,000 to $80,000 of my own money to win the race. I do not believe Garland's Office of Mayor should ever be limited to only people with such sums to spend. I intend to work diligently and frugally to earn every citizen's respect and vote.

I will listen attentively to our citizens and respect the varying opinions that I hear, then seek solutions to our problems. I believe truly listening to the citizens—and not just the loudest voices—is the highest tribute political officeholders anywhere can pay to their people.

I will lead Garland to become a progressive city open to political transparency, racial reconciliation, new and innovative ideas, greater economic development and redevelopment using new resources, and increased targeted competitiveness with our sister cities in the DFW area as well as statewide.

With my wife, Kay, encouraging, I will lead Garland to become a progressive city open to new ideas and ways.

With the help of our citizens, I will overhaul the city's political system and widen the political tent—taking the business of running the city out of the hands of the few and returning it to the hands of ALL citizens regardless of race, creed, color, gender, religion, or economic ability. EVERY citizen of this community deserves the opportunity to be heard, to have his or her vote count, and to have a place of respect and honor in our city.

As a Dallas County volunteer deputy registrar, I will continue to work to encourage all citizens to vote and become a vital part of the political process of the city.

Some of the same Garland politicos who told me how expensive a mayor's race is also have advised me to stay away from campaigning in our city's burgeoning Hispanic community because "everybody knows they don't vote". Instead I have studied past election results and believe our Hispanic citizens do vote but have been denied through "benign neglect" access to the pathways to service and political power in our community. My first act as mayor will be to appoint a citizens task force to work alongside me steadfastly and creatively to change that—for Hispanics as well as all other minority groups!

Once elected, I will move swiftly to appoint and empower other citizen task forces to help us find SOLUTIONS to the nagging issues that drag our city down—our miserable residential streets in older neighborhoods, the long-forgotten need for a new animal shelter, the slow-grinding unfair firefighters-and-police retirement compensation matter, the closing of our city's only hospital and what the city can do about the loss, the rising tide of homelessness in our city, the future of the once-fabulous-but-now-closed-and-burned Eastern Hills Country Club, the stalemate over Central Park between the city and citizens living nearby, and other urgent issues. And when those citizen groups make their reports with thoughtful recommendations, I will listen carefully and urge council to do likewise and act accordingly. I will also report fully in this blog on each task force's recommendation. We must tackle all of these problems with a sense of urgency—and with neither foot-dragging nor denial.

I will use my corporate training in executive and staff management and my graduate studies in counseling to strategically work with all 8 members of our city council to lead them to function together as a team with mutual respect for one another and for the council as the deliberative body of this city—always remembering for whom all 9 of us work: the citizens of Garland. Consensus-building has always been my strength. I work to bring together, not to divide. 
 

I bring to the table a long history of leadership in Garland, the state, nation, and internationally—in fields of journalism, marketing, public service, and professional staff management. I have managed staff ranging in numbers from 1 to 96. I have traveled in 49 of the 50 U.S. states, most provinces of Canada, the majority of states in Mexico, and 43 other international countries on five continents.

Besides serving on Garland's Plan Commission for 10 years, I have been elected to dozens of other boards ranging from the Houston Chronicle Credit Union (and its credit committee), to the John Templeton Foundation (British/International) Board of Advisers, to the continent-wide Schachern Board for awards for the best religion reporting on secular daily newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and Canada, to the nationwide Southern Baptist International Mission Board, to the Garland Salvation Army Advisory Board, and to the founding board of Garland's Hope Clinic.

On many of these boards I have held the offices as chair, president, vice-chair, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and committee chair. I am president of the non-profit 501(c)3 Friends of Garland's Historic Magic 11th Street and am a board member (and former vice president) of the Garland Downtown Business Association. To run in this campaign, I recently resigned as a trustee and executive board member of Dallas Heritage Village in Old City Park in downtown Dallas. (For additional biographical information, see my Facebook page, Louis Moore for Garland Mayor.)

I intend to take you, my readers, along with me on the campaign trail. I intend to blog daily—or at least as often as possible—so you will know what candidates do, what they experience, what they feel, what pressures they endure, how they react when they discover "fair-weather friends" and encounter failed promises, how they respond to bullies and political dirty tricks, and why they do what they do. My hope is that my words will inspire others to become more active in our city and to want to seek public office. In my worldview, a true leader encourages others to follow after him or her. I want each of you to take your citizenship seriously, to strive to make Garland a better place for all of us, and to someday launch your own hope-filled campaigns for city council, school board, or mayor.

"We are the salt of the earth
We are a city on a hill
We're never gonna change the world
By standing still," the chorus continues.

Kay and I are a team, just as we want Garland City Council and Garland citizens to be.

In closing, I thank my wife, Kay Wheeler Moore, for introducing me to her wonderful growing-up city as we were courting more than 50 years ago and for helping me to be able to claim it as my own. Because of her and her parents' love for all things Garland and because of their high-profile community activism that rubbed off, I truly now consider Garland "my hometown". When I first began visiting Garland in 1968, her exemplary dad took me on long, instructive walks with him and explained to me about Garland's history, its politics, and its leaders. I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kay will be an industrious and elegant "First Lady of Garland" who will walk beside me with deep and caring insight into and appreciation for this community and ALL the people who live here. We are a team—just as I want Garland City Council and our citizens to be.

May God bless Garland, Texas, with hope, peace, and prosperity for ALL!

For our efforts to help bring rebirth to our Travis College Hill neighborhood and other areas in Garland Kay and I were honored with the "Who's Who in Garland Neighborhoods" award for 2017.

Friends like John Combs have encouraged me with their support and enthusiasm for wanting to make Garland a better place for ALL of our citizens. To each of them I offer a heartfelt "thank you" for your support in words and deeds.