Last week, Mayor Annise Parker (not campaign staff) personally tweeted the following:
I share your frustrations with the condition of our streets. Can't fix years of problems overnight. We're rebuilding from worst first.-A
— Annise Parker (@AnniseParker) October 30, 2013
That’s an astonishing tweet.
Annise Parker has been mayor for four years now, and was elected the first time largely based on her long experience at City Hall.
That experience has not translated into better roads or mobility. On the contrary, roads are crumbling. Kudos to Mayor Parker, at least, for conceding the point of critics.
However, her notion that she just needs more time, because improved road repair is HARD, is just silly.
When he was mayor, Bob Lanier made road repair a priority, exercised leadership, and made it happen. His successor Lee Brown, on the other hand, earned the nickname Mayor Pothole from me because of the rapid deterioration of road repair (and roads) on his watch. Annise Parker has a Pothole of the Week program (really)!
It doesn’t take years (or even two more years) to improve road conditions, as Mayor Parker has been suggesting (or all that long, really, for road repair to slip). As Bob Lanier demonstrated, it takes leadership.
If functional roads and improved mobility are a priority, then Mayor Parker has effectively tweeted that she is not your mayoral candidate.
If the Mayor wants to share my frustration she should ride on a fire truck or ambulance.
Frustration is seeing a column of smoke in the distance and having to slow to 5mph because of the deplorable roads.
Frustration is doing CPR on a cardiac patient in the back of an ambulance and having to slow to 5mph so as not to toss the medics around in back of the ambulance.
She has no idea what frustration is.