‘There was nothing else for me’: Turner had sights set on government from childhood
Sylvester Turner was elected mayor of Houston in 2015.
Turner, who grew up in Acres Homes with eight siblings, said he had wanted to be a lawyer and get into politics since he was a child. “There was nothing else for me,” he said. After graduating from the University of Houston and Harvard Law School, Turner practiced law at Fulbright & Jaworski before starting his own practice, Barnes & Turner Law Firm.
Before his election as the city’s 62nd mayor, Turner, 64, served for 27 years in the Texas House as representative for District 139. He served on the Appropriations Committee and the Legislative Budget Board and was speaker
pro tem for three terms.
A past member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Transportation and Communications Standing Committee, he is vice chair of the National Climate Action Agenda, a member of the C40 and Global Covenant for Mayors for Climate and Energy, and an advisory board member of the African American Mayors Association.
Q: What was your childhood like?
A: I grew up in Acres Homes with eight brothers and sisters. I still live in Acres Homes. After my father died when I was 13, my mother became the CEO of the Turner household and raised the nine of us while working as a maid in the Rice Hotel downtown. We didn’t have much, but my mom always said, “Tomorrow will be better than today.” Neither one of my parents graduated from high school, but they instilled in us the importance of education.
Q: What made you decide to go to law school and become a politician?
A: I wanted to be a lawyer from a young age. I saw lawyers on TV and was impressed by what they did. The tipping point for me
was the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960. I remember my parents sitting us nine kids on the floor in front of a small black-and-white TV to watch the debates. I have a very vivid memory of my parents explaining what was going on. From that moment, I wanted to be a lawyer and then go into politics and public service. There was nothing else for me.
Q: What is your business vision for Houston?
A: The city has diversified its business interests so much since the 1980s. We were an oil and gas town, and we still are an oil and gas town, but we’ve diversified within the energy sector as well as into other areas. We’re now an exporter of energy, not just an importer, and we’re known as the “Energy Capital of the World.” We have the largest medical center in the world, and the No. 1 port when it comes to foreign tonnage. We’re focusing on startups, technology and innovation. Houston is more diverse than ever in terms of what it has to offer. Since May of last year, we’ve added 86,200 jobs. We now have the lowest unemployment rate since 1981. Q: How are you expanding Houston’s presence in technology and innovation?
A: Our focus now includes building what I call a “Silicon Bayou.” Houston will soon have an innovation corridor running for 4 miles along Main Street from Downtown to Midtown. In Downtown, it’s starting with MassChallenge, a business acceleration program from Boston. At the other end is the historic Sears building in Midtown. Rice University bought the building and is turning it into an academic hub named the Ion. Rice is bringing in other colleges and universities from the Houston area to help provide programming. Eventually we hope to see this corridor lined with businesses, retail, housing and public spaces.
There are now more than 3,000 startups in the Houston area. We are no longer walking, we’re sprinting. We are moving in a very collaborative sense to establish an integrated, robust ecosystem right here in Houston.
Q: What are some pros and cons of Houston’s business environment?
A: Let me first deal with the pros. We don’t have a lot of regulatory controls in this city. The city can customize itself to meet various business practices. In terms of demographics, we are the most diverse city in the country. We’re a global city. People speak 145 different languages and come here from all over the world. One in four Houstonians are foreign born. We attract talent. We have two international airports within our geographical limits. Houston has a very vibrant and diverse business environment.
Now in terms of some of the disadvantages: We still have to improve our educational system. We have a lot of young talent, but we need to provide them with the skill sets they need to take advantage of opportunities. Workforce development for the people who are here and improvements to the educational system are important to continue to attract global talent.
Q: Any other issues?
A: We also have to improve our transportation system. Everyday, Monday through Friday, the daytime population of the city increases by a minimum of 27 percent. We need to do a better job of getting people from Point A to Point B. Now, business people and residents are demanding multimobile transportation, and we have to offer multimobile forms of transportation. They want options. They want a city where they can walk or ride to their destinations, so we have to design and construct a city that is more pedestrian friendly.
We estimate that between now and 2040, we could have 5 million or 6 million more people in our area. We simply have to provide the infrastructure to accommodate more people and
“Our focus now includes building what I call a ‘Silicon Bayou.’ ” Mayor Sylvester Turner
give them transportation options.
Q: That seems to be one of your biggest challenges.
A: It is, but I would also put mitigating the risk of flooding and drainage at the top of the list. We’re in the post-Harvey era, but we faced three 500-year storms in three consecutive years. In 2015, it was the Memorial Day flood. In 2016, it was the Tax Day flood. And in 2017, it was Harvey. We’ve already taken steps to prepare for future floods, but there are many flood mitigation projects we still need to do. And we are still waiting for the federal infrastructure dollars to come here post-Harvey. They’ve been approved, but we have not received them. We intend to leverage the county dollars along with the city dollars with those federal dollars.
Flood mitigation projects will always be a top priority. The storms are coming with greater frequency and intensity. It’s not just the hurricanes. A weather system can turn into 10 inches of rain in a short period of time. So flooding, transportation and public safety — those are all top priorities.
Q: How is the federal policy on immigration affecting Houston? Are you
“The present immigration policy is certainly complicating everything. It’s very difficult to do business with this degree of uncertainty.” Mayor Sylvester Turner
experiencing a shortage of labor?
A: We need more workers when it comes to skilled workers, for instance in construction, welding, framing — we’re facing shortages in all those areas. There are many people in our city who are undocumented, people who are DACA kids, who have gone through our educational system and have done very well but are nervous about their futures. The federal immigration system is not helping, it’s hurting. We need comprehensive immigration reform because you cannot handle this on a state-by-state basis.
I can’t say that comprehensive immigration reform would solve the labor shortage, but the present immigration policy is certainly complicating everything. It’s very difficult to do business with this degree of uncertainty. Nobody really knows what the rules are. Nobody knows when somebody is going to come and deport them or when families are going to be separated. There’s just too much uncertainty, and the enemy of doing business is uncertainty. And that is true whether you’re dealing with regulations or whether you’re dealing with a hodgepodge of immigration policies.
Q: What is your approach to leadership?
A: You have to manage. There are things you know you’re going to face, and you plan accordingly. And then there are things that you won’t foresee, and you simply have to learn how to manage them. And you don’t know everything. I will tell you, I don’t know everything. But it is very important to surround yourself with people who know their respective fields, and then you have to trust them. I love having competent, capable people around me. I encourage conversation, but at the end of the day, you have to make a decision and move forward. Communication is very important and you have to be calm under fire. You cannot be temperamental. You have to resist making impetuous decisions without thinking things through. And you have to keep in mind that this is a cruise ship; this is not a speed boat. Which means you can’t make quick turns because you’ll turn the ship over.
Q: What are some of your biggest accomplishments as mayor?
A: When I began serving as mayor in 2016, one of the biggest issues facing Houston was pension reform. There was an $8.2 billion unfunded liability costing the city $1 million a day. All three credit rating agencies were giving us a thumbs-down. This issue had been plaguing the city since 2001. We had to get it under control. The pension reforms we put in place are working. As of today, the unfunded liability is down to $4 billion, and that’s without raising people’s taxes. And now for the third consecutive year, the city is paying the full annual pension costs, and all three credit rating agencies have given us a thumbs-up. We’ve had our financial challenges but have balanced our budget every year.
Q: And on the policy side?
A: When I came in, I didn’t want to be the mayor of two cities in one, of haves and have-nots, and we put in place “Complete Communities,” where we have identified neighborhoods that have been underserved for decades, and we’ve had people from outside of the city, financial institutions, developers, faith-based organizations and nonprofits, step in and help us transform these communities for the better. We’ve expanded this initiative for a total of 10 neighborhoods.
Another accomplishment is that we have greatly increased the number of paid summer jobs and internships for young people through the city’s Hire Houston Youth program. Starting in June, young people ages 16 to 24 began working in more than 10,000 paid summer jobs with over 9,500 coming from the private sector and nonprofits.