Dialogue with LIFE+DOG

A candid chat with Houston’s mayor, Annise Parker

by Ryan Rice

Houston’s mayor, Annise Parker, is pictured in this article with dogs that have been rescued with the help of the City of Houston Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care (BARC). LIFE+DOG would like to give a special thank you to the organizations that rescued these dogs, Friends of BARC and Lucky Dog Rescue. Please visit Lucky Dog Rescue today to view their list of current adoptable dogs awaiting their forever homes. Parker is also pictured with her beloved companion Dancer, who recently passed away, from an earlier interview with the Houston Dog Blog.

(click any image to view larger)

LIFE+DOG is excited to call Houston our home base! Houston, as well as the entire nation, is rapidly becoming more dog friendly. Dogs are now considered a valued and cherished part of our families, and we are proud to see the elevation of their role in our lives. For LIFE+DOG’s first feature interview, we wanted to highlight a person who not only represented firsts but who has proven, yet again, that she is a representative of the people she honorably serves … Houston’s Mayor, Annise Parker.

To celebrate the kickoff of our year of firsts, we sat down to chat with Mayor Parker, who has a very impressive list of firsts under her belt. She helped create Houston’s first dog park; authored the city’s first pooper-scooper ordinance; became Houston’s first openly gay elected official; and, as widely covered by top news organizations around the world, made Houston the largest city in the nation to elect an openly gay mayor. Each of her firsts has helped our city become a more diverse and progressive city where people want to live and thrive and a place where our canine companions are valued for the benefits they provide all of us!

We sat down with Mayor Parker on a busy Friday afternoon at her office in City Hall. It’s a comfortable space with personal items showcasing her passions for volunteering, nature, and her family. Her relaxed ease during our conversation, amidst a demanding day of balancing the nation’s fourth largest city’s budget, was reflected in her remarks throughout our chat about the happiness and stress relief our dogs bring to our lives. She beamed when talking about her childhood dogs and cats and demonstrated motherly pride when reflecting on her family’s rescue dog Dancer, who recently passed away after a long and happy life. Her hopes for Houston’s future include benefits for two- and four-legged Houstonians alike, and her tireless efforts to improve our city’s shelter system are coming to fruition.

On Houston …

LIFE+DOG:
Sometimes Houston doesn’t get the same attention as other major cities in our country. What are some of your favorite things about our city that an outsider may not know about?

Mayor Parker:
Houston has some of the best restaurants in the country, and Houston has lots of really fun things to do for families and adults. It’s frustrating to me that we are not considered a tourist city, as the only thing we don’t have is scenic vistas. We have all of the other things that any tourist-oriented city has: museums, restaurants, parks and sports, visual and performing arts, and great galleries. We also have a pretty great climate, and if you discount July and August, when it can be brutally hot, we are a city where you can be outdoors year-round. You never have to shovel snow here, either!

LIFE+DOG:
What about Houston makes you the most proud?

Mayor Parker:
It’s really the attitude of Houstonians. We are go-getters. People in Houston are about doing things and, very often, it’s about doing things on their own. Houstonians initiate things rather than wait for somebody else to do it. Houstonians are very entrepreneurial, not only in a business sense, but also in a civic sense.

Houston has always had civic leaders who have been willing to step up and put their money on the line to help the city. We have great philanthropists here, and there is a huge array of charitable organizations and endeavors.

Anything that you care about, you can find a group doing that kind of work here and an opportunity to make a difference.

LIFE+DOG:
What do you see as some of the biggest challenges facing Houston?

Mayor Parker:
Right now, the overall budget and economy. We are not immune to what’s happening around the world, but I think we are going to pull out of it faster than the rest of the nation. We have been better off than the rest of the country, but it’s still a very, very tough time. All of this affects what the city can do. …

LIFE+DOG:
Since becoming mayor, are you happy with our city’s progress?

Mayor Parker:
Absolutely. There are needs out there that I cannot meet because of budget issues, but we have been able to launch many new initiatives with NO dollars or by aggressively pursuing grant funding that we have never had before.

I am particularly proud of the new sustainability initiatives. We are going to be a greener city with a more sustainable culture. I have a new sustainability director who is phenomenal, and we have a green office challenge going on right now. We received a sustainability grant from HUD, and we have a new farmers’ market on the steps of City Hall. We have the Victory Garden downtown, too.

We have all of these green things happening and people sort of scratch their heads thinking it can’t happen in Houston—of course it’s happening in Houston! We are about to roll out a green electric-vehicle initiative in partnership with Nissan Leaf and have all sorts of sustainability and green initiatives on the horizon. It is not costing taxpayers in Houston anything, but it will save everyone money in the long run.

LIFE+DOG:
What is your current initiative with the highest priority?

Mayor Parker:
It is always my highest priority to manage the city in such a way that we maintain a very high level of public services.

My personal priority is to expand green initiatives in the city by enhancing and improving our parks and green spaces. I want to see expansion and connectivity within our parks. We have a vastly underutilized asset in our parks and green spaces and I want to see us use it.

On Life …

LIFE+DOG:
Prior to politics, you were in the energy business. What made you want to leave and enter public service?

Mayor Parker:
I spent 20 years working in the oil and gas industry, but I was an active community volunteer for that entire time, and
I realized that I was working in order to support my volunteer habits. I really wanted an opportunity to devote myself full time to the issues that I really cared about, and that led to my first run for public office.

LIFE+DOG:
Did you always have ambitions as high as the mayor’s office, or was it a sequence of events that led to your current position?

Mayor Parker:
I ran for Houston City Council because I wanted to be a councilmember. I would have been happy to be a councilmember for longer. I wasn’t done. However, becoming city controller gave me an opportunity to serve in a different way, and I would have been happy to have been controller longer, too. There were things I still could have accomplished there, but now I LOVE being Houston’s mayor.

I would not have been ready to be mayor without the trip through the controller’s office, though. Learning about municipal finances has been very important.

LIFE+DOG:
What is the one thing you miss most about life before becoming mayor of Houston?

Mayor Parker:
Being anonymous. Being able to go out and not be noticed.

LIFE+DOG:
What’s your favorite aspect of your job?

Mayor Parker:
I can make a difference in people’s lives and shape the future of my city.

LIFE+DOG:
What do you want to be remembered for?

Mayor Parker:
I would like people to think that I was a transformative mayor. That I helped Houstonians change the way they think of themselves and that I helped change the way the rest of the world views Houston.

On Dogs …

LIFE+DOG:
Tell us your dog history.

Mayor Parker:
We always had dogs growing up. Actually, we always had dogs and cats. It’s hard to imagine life without them. I grew up with a dog sleeping with me most of the time … and a cat. We were not a multiple-dog household; we always had one dog at a time with a lot of cats.

I have parented several dogs as an adult and also was a foster-dog parent in the early days of CAP (Citizens for Animal Protection), where I fostered three different dogs. My partner, Kathy, and I recently lost our longtime dog companion, Dancer, in 2010. He was a rescue dog and one of the loves of our lives.

LIFE+DOG:
Are you ready for a new canine companion?

Mayor Parker:
I am ready for a new dog. I would love to have a new dog, but Kathy is not yet ready for a new dog.

As everybody knows, you don’t get a new dog on a whim, because once you take on a pet, they are your responsibility forever. Pets are not disposable. Kathy will need to be ready for a new dog because it’s a lifetime of responsibility for the entire family and everyone has to agree. My schedule is not very easy right now, so she really needs to be the one who is ready.

LIFE+DOG:
How have animals inspired you/taught you something in life?

Mayor Parker:
Animals are creatures that live in the moment. They don’t spend time worrying or agonizing or debating, they just DO. I have learned from them that each day is a new day and to enjoy and embrace each day. When I’ve had a long day and curl up with a pet, whether dogs or cats, the blood pressure goes down and I relax.

A dog is particularly nice because they get you out of the house. Dogs force you to move around, walk, and interact. A dog should never be tied up in a yard … they are pack animals, and they need to be around their human companions. While I love both [dogs and cats], they are very different experiences.

LIFE+DOG:

What’s the best thing about having a dog companion?

Mayor Parker:
That you love them and they love you back. They have unconditional responses and interactions. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have a dog barking or acting as a little watchdog for safety.

It’s about a mutual and unconditional love.

On DOGS in Houston …

LIFE+DOG:
Do you think Houston will soon be a more dog-friendly city? What are the roadblocks to more public support?

Mayor Parker:
Houston is becoming a more dog-friendly city constantly. We have more and more dog parks. I personally helped to draft the original dog park ordinances and the “pooper-scooper” ordinance, as well as the ordinances we use to regulate how we create dog parks.
I was at the groundbreaking for the first City of Houston dog park. I can also tell you that we are working toward more pet-friendly policies throughout the city. I hope at some point to explore how we deal with pets in public spaces.

The key, however, with a dog park or pets in public spaces is responsible pet owners. You can’t ignore your Labrador all day and then decide you are going to take it to your favorite restaurant in the evening and expect it to behave. You must also pick up after your pet. Additionally, we have spent a good amount of time that I have been in office reforming the city’s shelter, BARC, into a much better, more humane place. We are adopting out more and more animals, but until Houstonians get the message that they should not have fertile pets that are having kittens and puppies, and that animals are a lifetime commitment, we are going to continue to have problems with the supply of unwanted animals coming in. Spaying and neutering and licensing of pets is of the utmost importance. We wouldn’t worry about licensing pets if there weren’t any fertile pets. If there weren’t fertile pets, we could get out of the shelter business.

Of course, there are always going to be animals that are un-adoptable, but those should be rare circumstances and every animal should have a chance.

LIFE+DOG:
Where are we with BARC? How can readers stay involved, share their opinions with city council, and stay updated?

Mayor Parker:
We are reforming BARC in one of the toughest economies we’ve had in decades and using NO new money. We are simply using better management policies, better understanding of the needs of the animals, and better support from the volunteer and philanthropic communities. We are moving toward reconstruction at the original BARC facility and constructing an adoption center at Gragg Park.

LIFE+DOG:
Where/how can people be of the most help in effecting change in regards to animal welfare?

Mayor Parker:
There is a volunteer opportunity for anything that anyone wants to do. You can work through the wonderful nonprofits out there, or you can work through the City of Houston.

If you go to the city website, on the front page there is a link for volunteer initiatives. You can go there and sign up and we will tell you about all of the volunteer opportunities in the City of Houston. Among those opportunities is the chance to volunteer at BARC, to participate in exercising the animals, to participate in adoption days, to do fundraising … all of which are important.