SIMA & IAPAC Host Reception for Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner
HOUSTON: SIMA (Small Independent Motel Association of Houston) & IAPAC (Indo-American Political Action Committee of Greater Houston) hosted a reception for the Indo-American community of Greater Houston honoring the Mayor of Houston, Mr. Sylvester Turner. SIMA and IAPAC President Mr. Hasu Patel welcomed and introduced the Honorable Mayor Sylvester Turner. At a very well attended event at India House Houston, Mayor Turner, who is up for re-election on November 5th, spoke about issues that were close to his heart and provided his vision for the future of Greater Houston.
He thanked the Indo-American community for always being there for the city and the valuable contribution they made during Hurricane Harvey. He mentioned the critical role SIMA members played during the hurricane by providing hotel rooms for thousands of displaced victims and donating to the Mayor’s Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund.
Mayor Turner shared his overall mission as recognizing that diversity is the backbone of the city and is best demonstrated by active diverse participation at the city, on boards and commissions. Mayor Turner shared how the pension liability was at $8.2B when he assumed office and is now at 4.03B currently. Similarly, unemployment in the city is the lowest since 1981. Continuing his talk related to employment, he shared statistics about summer jobs that were at 450 when he assumed office, and over the years have grown exponentially to 1,000 to 5,000 to 7,500 to 10,985 this year.
To a round of applause from the hospitality community, Mayor Turner talked about his plans to bring back a theme park to Houston which will attract tourists and other enterprises to Houston and provide entrepreneurship opportunities to Houstonians.
Speaking about growth in Houston, Mayor talked about the city having identified five specific neighborhoods in Houston that were underutilized and various initiatives that were put into place to bring in development in those areas with appropriate incentives being provided. As a follow-through, he mentioned the city intended identifying 5 more neighborhoods this week where similar plans will be put into place.
Finally, Mayor Turner thanked the Indo-American community for the wonderful trade mission he made to India where he met with the Vice President of India Venkaiah Naidu and several ministers. The Mayor also had a delightful visit to Akshardham. He also mentioned that he would do what was needed to help establish a direct flight from Houston to India, in the near future.
Thanking the Mayor for all his initiatives and services to the city, the President of SIMA and IAPAC, Mr. Hasu Patel thanked the guests of the evening and informed them that the evenings efforts had raised $50,000 towards the Mayor’s re-election campaign.