Joshua Sanders: How Houston Fights for Itself in Austin and Washington

Can you tell me a little about that job day to day? What does that look like from your perspective?

So our office is the primary point of contact and liaison, just for, like you said, for pretty much everything outside of City Hall.

Traditionally, our office is focused primarily on federal and state relations.

So how does the city of Houston get affected and interact with the federal government? Same for the state government.

But our office is also involved with council and the weekly agenda.

So we act as kind of a resource and a liaison for council members and their offices with the administration.

So if they need assistance or information from the mayor's office or potentially from one of our various departments, we try to step in the middle of that and make sure that they get the information that they need so they can be as educated as they need to be to serve their constituents in the different districts and at-large members.

And so we're involved in, you know, not only those outside issues, but, you know, if you look at state and federal, that's a regulatory component.

It's also a funding component, grant money that comes into the city.

So our team is very involved in the grants process here at the city of Houston.

And we also are responsible for appointments for boards and commissions.

So the mayor has authority over about 150 different boards and commissions that our residents can volunteer to serve on.

So we help with that clearing process to get folks appointed to those positions so they can serve on maybe a TERS board or our animal facility.

Bark has a board as well.

So if there's an issue that you can think of, more than likely we have a board or commission that deals with it.

So you've been in this position

now almost three years from the beginning.

What did the mayor ask you to focus on? What were some of his priorities for this office going forward?

Yeah.

I mean, when Mayor Whitmire came in, obviously, you know, him having the experience of 51 years in the legislature, there's not much that he doesn't know about that process.

Right.

And how the state legislative process works.

So it was really a huge advantage for us as a team to be able to kind of lean on that experience and really kind of take cues from him around that.

But, you know, some of the main priorities that we were focused on was obviously how city government functioned and how it was structured.

And so that's really what the impetus for the Ernst & Young study was, was to look at the corporate function and the corporate entity that is the city of Houston.

Can you tell me a little about that job day to day? What does that look like from your perspective?

So our office is the primary point of contact and liaison, just for, like you said, for pretty much everything outside of City Hall.

Traditionally, our office is focused primarily on federal and state relations.

So how does the city of Houston get affected and interact with the federal government? Same for the state government.

But our office is also involved with council and the weekly agenda.

So we act as kind of a resource and a liaison for council members and their offices with the administration.

So if they need assistance or information from the mayor's office or potentially from one of our various departments, we try to step in the middle of that and make sure that they get the information that they need so they can be as educated as they need to be to serve their constituents in the different districts and at-large members.

And so we're involved in, you know, not only those outside issues, but, you know, if you look at state and federal, that's a regulatory component.

It's also a funding component, grant money that comes into the city.

So our team is very involved in the grants process here at the city of Houston.

And we also are responsible for appointments for boards and commissions.

So the mayor has authority over about 150 different boards and commissions that our residents can volunteer to serve on.

So we help with that clearing process to get folks appointed to those positions so they can serve on maybe a TERS board or our animal facility.

Bark has a board as well.

So if there's an issue that you can think of, more than likely we have a board or commission that deals with it.

So you've been in this position

now almost three years from the beginning.

What did the mayor ask you to focus on? What were some of his priorities for this office going forward?

Yeah.

I mean, when Mayor Whitmire came in, obviously, you know, him having the experience of 51 years in the legislature, there's not much that he doesn't know about that process.

Right.

And how the state legislative process works.

So it was really a huge advantage for us as a team to be able to kind of lean on that experience and really kind of take cues from him around that.

But, you know, some of the main priorities that we were focused on was obviously how city government functioned and how it was structured.

And so that's really what the impetus for the Ernst & Young study was, was to look at the corporate function and the corporate entity that is the city of Houston.