Shambhu Sharan

Professor Gordon

Feature Story

03-24-10

Mayor

Mayor Gary Slagel worked in the Texas Instrument for 17 years and retired and joined the city council.

Slagel was interested in home association. He was appointed to the Zoning Board. He tried to create vision for the city. He was elected as city council member. Mayor was elected for the first time in 1987. He became Mayor Pro Tem in 1989. In 1991 he was elected as a mayor.

Slagel likes his job as a mayor because he wants to help the city.

“We’d like to see the transportation, creating new jobs, developing the University of Texas at Dallas,” Slagel said. “There are numbers of challenging issues. It has been fun, I enjoyed it. It has been very challenging, but positive experience. We have good city council members,” Slagel said.

Bob Townsend said he likes Mayor Slagel.

“I go very well along with him and the way he works,” Townsend said.

Richardson has economic development and it is a technology city. Mayor works with good companies such as Verizon, Texas Instruments and CISCO.

Slagel said he has solved many public transportation issues and he is planning to start new public transportation.

“I worked hard to DART bus and train services,” Slagel said. “Currently, I am planning to build transportation from Richardson to DFW. We are working for building Galloton station.

We are fortunate that Richardson was not hurt that much during the last year’s economic recession, Slagel said. Through Eisemenn Center is created by the city, it is a community place belongs to city but it is for the community events.

“We have a diverse community,” Slagel said. “We need to engage creating broadness. We have company from other parts of the world. I would like to attract more businesses to the area to improve our economy.”

Richardson is improving transportation issues and need to improve more.

“We need to improve roads, sidewalks and alleys. “The city has passed $66 millions bond to improve the city. The voters will decide in May election.

Bonds come with a tax burden.

But impact isn’t too burdened. This will help to repair recreation center and parks, the mayor said. Better neighborhood vitality is important. People feel better and they get positive support from the company.

“We are trying to help people by creating jobs,’ Slagel said. “Our crime rates are lower than past year. But, we have burglary because of recent economic crisis. We support police department. The police department initiated programs to use crime watch. We have a great support from the community.”

TI and AT&T are very involved with the Richardson’s research. All companies are very active.

“I want to continue improving. I want to see new railways from Cotton to DFW. We need to have that because it is very important. I want to rebuild older part of the city,” Slagel said.