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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBen White Transcription (2)City of College Station Heritage Programs Oral History Interviewee: Ben White Interviewer: Unknown Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt Place: College Station, Texas Project: Mayors & City Councils Interviewer (I): Are you ready for me? 00:01: Ben White (BW): Oh yeah, let’s go. Let’s roll in it. I: Thank you so much Mayor White for taking the time to participate in this interview for the city of College Station’s Project HOLD--the Historic Online Library Database. This interview about your tenure as mayor of, of College Station will become part of that library for future and current generations. And we really appreciate your time and your participation. Now you served on the city council from 2005 to 2007 and then as mayor as from 2007 to 2010. 00:41: BW: Right. I: Let’s begin by, by talking about running for office. Now what led you to decide to even run for the city council, let alone run for mayor? 00:55: BW: [chuckle] You know, I’ve thought about that. And I, I’ve jokingly told people, “It must be in my D.N.A. somewhere.” As many of y’all know, my grandfather was on the council in Austin for sixteen years. So unbeknownst to me, maybe some of that, that involvement got in my blood. And then when my family and I lived, just north of San Antonio in a little town called Garden Ridge. In fact it wasn’t Garden Ridge when we moved out, but it’s out in the country in Comal County. We incorporated and I became the mayor of pro-tem of Garden Ridge, Texas. And stayed in that role for about ten years. And then for a brief period of time, when the mayor at that time, resigned, I was asked to step in so I became mayor of Garden Ridge, Texas. So, that’s just been sort of, I, I enjoy that. You know, people find different ways to volunteer. And believe me in this business it’s, at least here it’s volunteer. So I’ve, I’ve enjoyed this type of exposure and involvement. I: What’s your most vivid memory of the campaign work? 01:59: BW: It still is with me today. It, for some reason, the first candidate’s forum that I attended when I was running for council the first time, has a chill. Every time I would go by Aldersgate Methodist Church, a chill just runs up my back. Well that’s where the location of the first forum was and I was absolutely petrified. I’ve never done that before. In Garden Ridge when we campaigned, and I ran you know, I guess six times for reelection, it was simply sending out a letter to the three hundred or four hundred residents of the community. So this was my first time to actually stand in front of a group and answer questions. And it was not comfortable. [laughs] I: Did your family participate? 02:44: BW: My wife, my wife did. Yes. Our children are grown and living elsewhere. But my wife uh was very active in my campaign and helped out. And sort of organized little groups of neighbors and things of that nature. She did. I: After the first campaign, did it get easier? 03:00: BW: Sure. It did. Right. I: It did. 03:02: BW: Right. I realized that you know I had information that I was able to impart. Information that I had gleaned from serving on the council for well that, one year, two years, whatever it was. So it did get a lot easier. I: There’s a saying that all politics is local. Do you think that city politics has changed from the time of your mayoral service to, to today? 03:31: BW: No Susan I really don’t think it’s changed. And I’m always will remember comment that Congressman Edwards made. He and I were somewhere together. And just one on one. And he said Ben he said you know, “I really envy you in your position.” And I was mayor at the time. And I said, “Chip why is that?” He said, “Because you’re local and you’re right where the people are.” He said, “I’m in Washington and I represent a lot more people than you do. But I’m so far removed.” And he said, “You’re right there.” He said, “That means that you’re easy to get to. And they can, the people can find you probably easier than they can find me.” But he said, “I’m really envious of the local aspect of it.” And that is, that’s what it’s all about. I: How, how would you characterize your relationship with the other members of the city council? 04:13: BW: Obviously that’s a question you probably need to ask them. I think it’s, was very, very good. My background early on was as a high school football coach, so I’m very team-oriented. So what I tried to do as soon as I got involved is to form a team mentality with the council members. And even with the senior staff members and I thought that was very important. And, uh, again you’d need to ask them, but I think it was always very good. I: Is there any advice that you have for, for someone who might be thinking about running for office today? 04:47: BW: You know there would be, yeah. And again to, maybe to my fault, but I would tell, and I told some of my fellow council people this. In my opinion, in Ben White’s opinion only, there’s a right way and a wrong way to be an elected official. The right way is, whether you’re making, getting some salary for it, or if it’s totally volunteer like it is, is here in College Station. The right way is to get involved and not only show up on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month for the council meetings, but when there are other events in the community, you have an obligation to represent the city by being there. Some of my colleagues for whatever reason, we’d see them on the second and fourth Thursdays and you didn’t see them other than that. And I just didn’t think that was, that was right. I think we had an obligation when we were elected to do job the right way and that included being out in the public and, and representing the city. We were city’s representatives and we should be doing that. I: City employees sometimes feel they’re precluded from knowing, or talking with the elected officials. During your tenure, did you reach out to employees? How did you deal with trying to bridge the gap? 05:57: BW: Yeah. You know Susan I think I was blessed in that area also because my profession had been as a health care association executive. So I knew about the working with other executives. So when I came on board, my relationship with Glenn Brown who was the city manager at the time, was instantly good because I realized he was, in effect, the chief staff person of the city of College Station. Whereas I had been for twenty years, the chief staff person of a county medical society. So I knew about interfacing with members, I iner-I knew about interfacing with other staff people. So he and I talked endlessly on that subject and we got along very well. And I transcended that over to the senior staff. Although I told him that I would never ever micromanage. I would love for him to let me come in and sit on his senior management team meetings. But as far as micromanaging, that was absolutely something I would never do. And I slipped and did sometime and he had to correct me. But. [laughs] But that’s all right. We had a, we had a great relationship. And I think I had a great relationship with many, many of the department heads. I: How do elected officials really, I put the really in quotes. 07:08: BW: Yeah. I: Really know what’s going on in the departments? 07:14: BW: I’m not sure if you really do know what’s going on. You take the, a judge, you have to put a lot of faith in your city manager and the city management team. You get to know the department directors and if there’s a level of trustworthiness, which I always felt there was, I did not ever think when I was talking with whether it’s the police chief, or you know, David Coleman in water, or David Gwynn in economic development, whatever the area, I felt like they were always shooting straight with me and not telling me just what I wanted to hear. But then again, I relied completely on our, for the most part, on Glenn Brown the city manager to be that, that filter if you will, between the mayor’s office and, and the staff. I: Texas A&M’s always been central to College Station from its very beginning. Most city services in the beginning were even provided through the university and as you look at the history of College Station, it can be seen almost as a, a series of attempts for the city to become independent then and stand on its own relative to city services. How would you characterize the relationship between university and the city of College Station during your public service? 08:40: BW: During mine? Well again I think I was blessed because whenever I became mayor, I talked with former mayor Ron Silvia. And Ron had felt very strongly as I did, that the relationship needs to be very tight and very one-on-one and very personal. And he was not always able to get, and I’ll use the name, he was not always able to get Dr. Gates, who was president during Ron’s tenure, to meet with him. Dr. Gates would always send a lieutenant over. And Ron wanted to meet with the head person, which I, I agreed was very important. So when I was mayor it was during Elsa Murano’s time. And she and I would meet and then after she left, I had I guess, part, maybe a whole year left on my term as mayor. And I met with Loftin Bowen one-on-one. I, he’d come here one time, I’d go to his office and we’d meet almost monthly. So I thought it was absolutely fabulous. And I got to know the Vice President for Student Affairs, General Weber and so I had an entree into his office. And I thought, I think the relationship was very good. And yes it should be. I mean we call them the eight-hundred pound gorilla, but you know, they are the economic engine in our community. And without them, we would not be where we are today. I: Are there special issues related to being the mayor in a, in a university town? 10:02: BW: You bet. Absolutely. Through the conference of mayors, there is a committee of mayors who have universities in their town. So I would meet with them, just to share and to network. And it’s amazing, the, the problems are mostly all the same. But still there is a different dynamic if you’re the mayor of a city where there’s a university, large or small, verses a non-university community. The needs are different. The resolutions to some of the problems that a city encounters are different, much different. I: Growth is absolutely critical to expanding the tax base. And I wonder if you’d say a word about how services to the citizens as a whole, expanded under your tenure?. 10:54: BW: Growth is interesting because believe it or not, I had citizens catch me, it seemed like they always caught me in the grocery store, and we’d. I talked a lot of politics in Kroger’s and H.E.B. I: [laughs] With your cart in front. 11:05: BW: Yup, my cart in front of me. But, they would all but say, “Ben put a ‘No Vacancy’ sign. We don’t want to grow anymore. Put a ‘No Vacancy’ sign up. We don’t want more people coming in here.” I said you know, you can’t do that. I saw what happened in Austin back in the late sixties and seventies when they knowingly, knowingly tried to stop the growth. And I said, “You just can’t stop growth. What you have to do is manage growth. In my opinion, we need to manage growth.” So we grew, and we grew just look at the numbers, we grew during that time and continue to grow. So what our problem became and our challenge was to keep up with that growth from an iner-infrastructure standpoint. So we’d get reports from, from public works about, and from water, and from electricity, about how our growth was causing them extra concerns and problems to keeping up with it because we didn’t always have the money to put that new road in that we needed to or to extend a road or put a new sewer system in or whatever but you had to do it because people were, were coming to town. You did not want to send a signal out that we don’t anymore family members coming to town. I: Now there’s always a dynamic tension that those with the, the growth, between neighborhoods and developers. 12:22: BW: Right. I: Do you want to say a word about that as well? 12:26: BW: I do. We have, like it or not, and I don’t know what the previous mayors have mentioned that you’ve interviewed, but College Station has a reputation within the development community of being a very difficult place to do business. Our standards are high, and I’m thankful for that. Our, sometimes our working relationships with staff and the development staff mi, mi, might not be as good as maybe it should be. But the bottom line is our quality of the product that we end up of having in College Station is very, very good. So it could have been my first year as mayor, I thought, and I was talking to Glenn. And I learned this at one of my conference of mayors. And, an, another mayor was tell, telling me what he had done. And he started a mayor’s committee, and that’s not the right name but, the mayor’s committee on development. Put together it was the mayor, a council person, and two or three staff people verses three or four development people. And we met every quarter in a closed, behind closed doors and met, and just aired out issues. That went very, very well and did a good job in trying to sort of mitigate the, the hostility between the city and development community. Just recently last night, I ran into one of those people that served on the committee and I asked them, I said, “Is that community still in effect? Still going?” I: Your, your, your grocery store. 13:49: BW: Well it, this was a, this was yogurt shop. [laughs] Yogurt. And he said absolutely. He said, “It’s still going and it’s still serving the purpose of allowing dialogue between the city and a, a group of, of developers.” So that’s very important. You’ve got to communicate. If I may, just as an aside, through the help of staff, I thought it was very important for the mayor to be seen out in the community. So through economic development and David Gwynn, we set up a program and every month, he and I spent an hour or two hours in different businesses. Like we walked the halls of the mall and called on every business in the mall over about a four month period. Just simply thanking them for being here. Thanking them for what they did for the city, was there anything we could do for them. So that went over so well. I thought, “Well maybe we need to do the same thing and call on the construction sites.” So Bob Cal and some of his folks got me hard hat. So once a month, we identified two or three construction sites and went out there. And actually walked in the dirt and the mud and the, the framework and called on construction sites, just to let them know that we were, we’re thankful they were there and, anything we could do for them. And I think that went well. I: Now is that what led to your instituting the, the mayor’s coffee mornings? 15:07: BW: I Also started coffee morning. And I learned that from one of my mayors in another city. He said that’s been tremendously successful. Whenever I brought the idea up, one of the former mayors said that they had tried doing that when they were mayor and it didn’t go over very well. And I said, “Well let’s try it again and see.” We never got large numbers, but we got always people there and depending on what our topics might be, we had good crowds. Had very good crowds. I: Along the same lines, let me ask you a few things that College Station has been handicapped in any way by not having an identifiable downtown? 15:45: BW: I do, yeah. I’m sort of a, a small town, downtown type of a guy. And there’s so much you can do. To their credit, and I’ll give them a lot of credit. The city of Bryan is doing very, very well over there and I respect them for that and admire them for what they’re doing. I have always wanted, and you’ll get to it in a minute about some of my heartaches during my term as mayor. One of things I really wanted to see was the development of a, call it what you might, I, I refer it to as a government center. But over there on Krenek Tap and Texas. Make that into what could have begun to be a center of town and could have evolved maybe into a smaller downtown area. But that didn’t happen and so yes, I do think though a downtown is a great asset. I: Let’s talk for a minute about, uh, transportation. Now you’ve made reference to the fact that College Station is a, is a, is a bigger, is growing uh community. Talk about how you approached transportation problems during your administration. 16:51: BW: Well I’ll tell you what you need to be, oh yeah, you need to be very farsighted on, on that subject. I can remember when I was, well I’m still a nobody, but when my wife and I first moved to town in early 2000, the first thing I talked when I started meeting people was what are we doing in the community to think about a loop around Bryan, College Station. And they said you know, “Probably nothing, why did you ask?” I said, “Well because I was born and raised in Austin and I’ve seen first-hand. And my grandfather was part of the problem. When he and his colleagues didn’t agree to have a loop around Austin. And they’re gridlocked now. Austin is gridlocked. And I said, “We need to proactive and start, it might be twenty five years from now, but we need to be thinking about a loop around Bryan, College Station. Well I’m proud to say, maybe through a little effort of mine, through the N.P.O. and TX D.O.T., it’s now on their game plan, for many years from now, but it’s on there. We got it on there. So that’s one issue, we have to be very proactive as we think of transportation. And transportation from what you’re referring to as a difficult thing because oftentimes when you try to improve transportation internally, it calls for you to do some street widening, whatever, through existing neighborhoods. And people gets. I: Terrific disruption. 18:07: BW: Oh, terrific disruption. And people, we’re all as humans, are set in our ways. We, we don’t. We embrace change but sometimes reluctantly. And to, to come up to you say, “I, we’re going to widen this street because it become more of a thoroughfare and to help the flow of traffic.” Doesn’t sit well, doesn’t sit well. Another pet of mine during my time and this is one of my big heartaches that I am no longer involved in, is I’m a very, very big proponent of high-speed rail. I’ve seen it work. I’ve gone to Germany, I’ve gone to Spain. I’ve ridden on it, I’ve seen how it works. And this is something of the future because as our population grows in Texas, the state’s not going to be able to keep up with the arteries, the highway arteries. So they’re going to have to go to a different source and high-speed rail is that answer. But that’s not going anywhere right now either. I: College Station has a, a strong parks and recreation system. Did the parks system expand under your tenure? 19:06: BW: Yeah, it did. And, just an aside there, when I, for about five years, my wife and I lived in Georgetown. And once again, I got involved and became chairman of the city of Georgetown’s parks and recreation department. So I’m very attuned to parks. In fact the director of that park system in Georgetown got his training here under Steve Beechy. And so it, would always look to Steve Beechy for advice. So when I came here, I had a little bit of insight about the park’s system. And so that was one of the things that was very important to the council and myself that we found money wherever possible to keep the park system going and at a level that the people expected. Now, now that’s difficult because money is so tight. But you cannot, that’s why I supported John Crompton. You, you can’t put the parks on hold. You got to continue to move forward with them. I: Were there preservation efforts to mark the city’s historic buildings and homes and other places of interest during your tenure? 20:09: BW: Probably not as much as it should, we need to talk to Anne about that. But no, there was not that much done. I know we’ve got several reports from an agency in Austin I think, that we were dealing, working with on that. But I don’t think we went as far as we. As an old history minor in college, I, I like history, and I don’t think we went as far as we, we should have. I: How about support for the library? 20:33: BW: Well that’s close to home too because Larry Ringer’s a good friend of mine. And I, think the, the library. I did, it went a long time, and I’ll admit this, probably most of my time on the council and maybe early on in the mayoral job, I didn’t really understand the workings of the library between Bryan. You know, who did what, and I had, had trouble getting my arms around that. But, finally understood it and saw that it was service that was definitely needed and, and used. And that’s the main thing is the services that are being used, it was being used. I: Was there any attempt to promote historic tourism during your administration? 21:14: BW: Susan if there, if there was, I’m not aware of it. I’ll be honest, I was not aware of it if there was. I: Let’s talk for a moment about the relationship between College Station and, and Bryan. It’s been up and it’s been down. And um, how would you characterize? 21:32: BW: When I read that it, when I, you sent me the, the questions and I was reading that one, I just got a pencil and wrote, “They sued us.” [laughs] Well, no it. I: If you want to leave it at that, we’ll leave it at that. 21:43: BW: No, no. I’d love to talk about it. Of course as it turns out, you know, and Mark Connelly was the mayor at the time in Bryan and he and I are good friends. And uh we’ve, from early on, Mark and I agreed to disagree. And that he was obviously looking at it from what he thought was the best interest of his city, and I was doing the same from the city of College Station. So, uh it is been an up and down, sort of a love-hate relationship. But we, I think things are improving. We got the lawsuit behind us and, that is now history and we’re moving forward with the landfill issue. And. In fact I saw Mark just the other day and we’re talking about going to lunch so. I think overall the uh, the relationship, will it ever be good? Probably not, there’s just that deep-seated, deep-rooted resentment from day one you might say, but I think it’s improving. I: How about the, the city’s relationship with, with Brazos County? 22:41: BW: Has been, as far as my five years of involvement, has been nothing but good. I worked well with, Judge Randy Simms, worked well with now, Judge Peters, when he was on the commission. So I, I think it’s always been good. Had a little issues when we were talking about on our southwest side with Wellborn, that issue that they got the county involved and we had some discussions there. And there was a little, a little bit of tension. But other than that though, everything’s gone well. I: As you look back on your time in public service in College Station, what do you consider to, to be your achievements? Did you have specific goals you wanted to achieve when you ran for office? 23:30: BW: Well I think like many people, I won’t say, I won’t say everyone, but many people who run for office and, or any position, they want to leave it better than, than they found it. So I’d have to obviously say that would be my goal. I, I obviously wanted to do more from a convention center because that’s my, my passion, that’s my hi- my career had been in, in association management and conventions. I wanted to see if I could move this city forward because I talked to enough staff people who convinced me that the working facilities are just not what the city of our size and our quality should be. We needed to have, we had people scattered everywhere and we need to put them under one roof. So I really, truly saw the need of a city hall or city government center. That didn’t materialize, but maybe, maybe the seeds have been planted for both of those issues and, and years to come they might move forward. I think as far as what I’ve, I accomplished as the mayor of College Station. I think we grew a lot and that’s cer, cer, nothing that I did, but the relationship from the new people moving in the community, the relationship with the university—the working relationship—that definitely improved. Uh, we had bump in the road with our relationship with Bryan as I mentioned a moment ago, but at the end of my three years, that was definitely improving so. I wish I could sit here and say, “Well that building over there was a result of my time, was on my watch. Or that building.” Maybe there are some buildings that took place while I was on, during my watch, but probably the most was just a relationship building. I: But no major regrets? 25:06: BW: Oh no. No I, I missed it. The people till this day still say, “Do you miss the time?” I said, jokingly I’d say, “I don’t miss the second and fourth Thursdays, but I missed all the, all the networking and all the, the people I got to meet as, as the mayor.” And I loved the second and fourth Thursdays too, I was, I’m joking. I: Yeah, yeah. What did you enjoy the most? 25:27: BW: The people. I: The people. 25:29: Oh absolutely, the people. Yeah, you know. I had absolutely no problem when I was criticized by someone if I thought they were sincere in their criticism. If they was just trying to give me a hard time for no, you know, apparent reason, than that would always bother me. But most people are well intentioned. And they just truly disagreed with some position I had, and I respect that. That’s fine. You know, we can’t all think alike. So I think that was, that was good. I, the people without a doubt. I: What about, what did you, what did you enjoy the least? 26:02: BW: Second and fourth Thursdays. [laughs] No that’s not true either, that’s not true. What was agonizing, because early, early on, of course and this was when I was on the council, we had the issue with the city manager and the lawsuit and that, that was not good. And got taken to court. Probably the least was whenever we were sued by Bryan, that was unpleasant and all the negotiating sessions that I sat in on. And when we were sued by Wine Garden over the Rock Prairie issue. And all of those negotiating sessions and the depositions that I went through. I went through a six hour deposition and I thought that was the worst thing I’d ever done in my life. And so that, that would have to be the highlight of the worst. I: That’s an interesting way to put it. 26:49: BW: [laughs] I: Now did you find it difficult at all to, to make the transition from your, a, a public life, into a more private one? 27:04: BW: I’m have to say no because right at about the same time all this was taking place I, I had lost my wife in ’09 and I remarried, not in ’09, when did I? Yeah, and I remarried shortly thereafter, about a year or so after. And so my marriage coincided with me leaving office by a few months. So I’ve been pretty busy doing other things since then. Plus I’m, I’m volunteering. I volunteered for the, with fire department for a period of months. I’m still the director of the Parkinson’s Association so I still work with patients who have Parkinson’s disease. Getting ready to do some more volunteer work with St. Joseph’s. So no, I’m staying busy. I’m busy. I: Any large particular project you’d like to tell us about? 27:51: BW: Yeah, there is. This is over in Bryan, but it, through um, through St. Joseph’s, they have what they call, and maybe that both of you guys have heard of it, the medallion club? I’d just been asked to be the spokesperson for the medallion club and trying to help promote interest in that. And I’m looking forward to that. That would mean I’d go around visiting groups, speaking to groups about the advantages of being part of that, that organization. I: Last question for you, is, is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you think I should have? 28:26: BW: No I, I think I would say, and again I’ve said this at nauseam during my three years of mayor to pe, people. But a lot of our citizens don’t realize is the level of professionalism on the staff. They are truly a, and you’ve got one right behind the camera right there, you got one right here to my left, we’ve got a, we’ve got a level of professionalism that I would stack up against any cities. And they’re dedicated, you know, do they make mistakes? Absolutely. But I guarantee you every council person, every mayor that’s ever served has made mistakes so. They are, they’re very dedicated people and they want the, what’s best for the city of College Station. My goodness they live here, so they, why wouldn’t they want what’s best. And so that would be my, my strong. Interviewer 2: (I2): Susan, I have a question. Mayor White, can you talk a little about the group that you that y’all have formed of former mayors? 29:16: BW: Sure. I2: And a little bit about what y’all do? 29:19: BW: Sure. As I remember back, it might have been within the first six months, maybe the first three months, of my term as mayor. Something. Don’t have any idea what, I don’t remember what it was, but something came up and I thought, “I’m gonna go to some mayors and, and talk to them.” I said, “Let me see if there’s a committee of former mayors.” So I asked Glenn. He said, he wasn’t aware of any. So I asked Ron Silvia. He said, “No there’s not any.” And so whatever the issue was, I asked him, got some advice from him. And I said, put it into the back of my mind, I said, “One of these days, I’m gonna be a former mayor.” I said, “I’m gonna start a committee of former mayors so that if the current mayor needs some advice or just whatever, we’ll be there for him.” So I did that. And there are seven living former mayors. That right? Seven living former mayors. I: We’ve interviewed them all. 30:05: BW: Okay. Well I was told by a couple of folks, “Well so-and-so’s not gonna be part of that. He’s not gonna fool with that. And so-and-so’s not gonna fool with that.” Well let me tell you, those two so-and-so’s are very involved. And when we started out, we were gonna meet quarterly. And they said, “No we want to meet monthly.” So we meet monthly. We’re not a lobby group, we’re not a fact finding group. We’re just a group, we, what I normally do is call, I call Glenn or I, now David Neely and said, “Could you provide this department director or that department director to, to come brief us. Just let us know what’s going on in their department.” And it’s been extremely helpful, extremely. We got, we did get involved on the recall issue and we issued a statement on our position on recall. But as far as supporting candidates or anything like that, we don’t do that at all. It’s just, an opportunity for the former mayors to get together and, and visit and hopefully be helpful. I: They’ve all been very gracious in responding to our request for taping these interviews. 31:10: BW: Great. I: Because we know that they’re going to be a historical value simply in and of themselves and they go on to Project HOLD. But we also know that they’re going to be used snippets taken here and there for a new, video on the history of College Station for the upcoming 75th anniversary. So, this gives a wonderful wealth of new material for all the folks like Mark. 31:43: BW: Oh sure. Yeah, that’s great. I: They’ll be snipped here and there, but they all have been wonderful in terms of being very helpful about coming and, and uh quite forthcoming. 31:55: BW: Yeah, that’s great. I: And, and that’s interesting folks to talk to. 32:00: BW: I envy you two for sitting, being able to sit and listen to them all. I2: It’s, it’s fascinating. There’s such a wealth of experience and knowledge that you know, if, if we don’t tap it now. 32:09: BW: Oh yeah. I: If we. We, we need to, we need to save this while we can. 32:13: BW: Absolutely. I: We thank you so much Mayor White. 32:15: BW: My pleasure. My pleasure. I: For coming and doing this for us. We really appreciate it. 32:19: Yeah. It’s been fun. I: We certainly appreciate your service on the council and the mayor as well. 32:24: BW: Thank you. I: Thank you so much. 32:26: BW: Thank you, thank all of y’all. Yeah. I: Thank you very much.