Mayor Coon Addresses City Concerns

CONROE, TX -- Conroe Mayor Duke W. Coon has released the following press release regarding executive management salaries and his strong commitment to fiscal management, restructuring, and rightsizing of the organization.

Just over four months ago I was sworn in as your Mayor. It quickly became clear that our City was burdened with an enormous debt load, a catastrophic water crises, a failed animal shelter, and a hotel that has cost our taxpayers millions of dollars with no clear limit to operational and debt service costs for years to come.

With the help of our City Council, we are aggressively addressing these issues with a commitment to repair the previous lack of management, lack of comprehensive planning, and lack of leadership that has placed our City in its current situation.

What we have accomplished:

• Eliminated over $1.2 million dollars in salaries and benefits through restructuring and rightsizing of the organization, while investing an additional 300K in our executive management team who have taken on numerous additional job duties over the last fiscal year. Moreover, two members of our executive management team are also licensed attorneys, which provides significant incremental value to the City without having to add additional legal personnel.

• Formulated an aggressive plan to model, design, permit, build, and fund six (6) new 2,000 gallon per minute water wells to meet the immediate and longer-term needs of our growing City. • Address the issues of a failed animal shelter while potentially saving the taxpayers over a million dollars to operate the shelter internally.

• Recovered, managed, and picked up over 60,000 yards of debris from hurricane Beryl. • Implemented an ordinance to require newly constructed gas stations, retirement homes, and nursing facilities to have emergency generators for operational status during power outages.

What we look to accomplish in the next quarter:

• Engage an outside audit firm to audit City departments and the hotel project for fraud and operational efficiencies.

• Engage a professional grant writing firm to procure and manage grants for the City. • Continue to model, design, and build critically needed street, water, and sewer infrastructure. • Continue aggressively rightsizing the organization to meet our business objectives by reducing the workforce, reorganizing upper management, cutting costs, and changing job roles.

As your Mayor, I am resolute and determined to fix the many problems our city faces due to years of neglect, poor management, and lack of leadership. Friends, it will take years to correct many of these problems, but with your help, prayers, and support, we will meet our challenges head on to secure a brighter and more financially stable organization for years to come.