Bowie Hogg said that rang true during his 14 years on the Arlington Independent School District's board of trustees and will remain the case as first-term District 7 council member.
"Service in the city is critical," he said after being sworn in Tuesday. "We are in a critical phase of redevelopment, and we have so many things to do."
Hogg has also served on community boards including the United Way of Tarrant County, Arlington Life Shelter, Downtown Arlington Management Corporation and Theatre Arlington.
His campaign platforms included improving roads, supporting small businesses, improving code enforcement, supporting first responders and improving neighborhood services.
He earned his bachelor's in business administration at Texas A&M University.
Bowie Hogg received around 55% of the 15,197 votes cast in the citywide race. He beat out Cyndi Golden, a nurse anesthesiologist and member of Arlington's Unity Council.
Hogg replaced Victoria Farrar-Myers, mayor pro tempore and former UT Arlington political science professor. Farrar-Myers was first elected in 2016 and worked extensively on Tarrant County Homeless Coalition Continuum of Care and the Arlington Housing Finance Corporation. Farrar-Myers could not run again under voter-approved term limits set in 2018.
District 1 council member Helen Moise said Farrar-Myers helped her that year, when she won her first term and some serving council members had over a decade of experience in office.
"I want to tell our newest council member that's not the way it is anymore because there's no time for learning," Moise said. "You get it with a firehose and you have to be ready to go to work on day one."
Moise was reappointed Tuesday evening after running unopposed for re-election to her north Arlington district seat.
Moise remarked during her speech on the shifting diversity of the city and Council, as well as her focus on strengthening neighborhoods and attracting high-quality developers to her district. North Arlington includes Viridian, the city's first master-planned community, but also holds neighborhoods of older apartment complexes that council members would like to see redeveloped.
"I will do my best for the next two years to do what I do best, and that is work for neighborhoods and work for development in north Arlington so that it's the quality of development that we want that will continue to make the city great. We are under demolished — we all know that," she said.
Raul Gonzalez, District 2 council member, was sworn in for a second term after also running unopposed in the southwest Arlington race.
'I'm not a developer, I'm not a business owner; I'm a public servant, and I'm here for everybody," he said in his speech.
Arlington City Council will have another council member to swear in come June, in a runoff for at-large District 6. Long Pham and Albert Parra will be on the ballot after neither candidates received more than half of the vote in the four-person race. Pham received 46.56% and Parra received 35.87%.
The District 6 victor will replace Ruby Faye Woolridge, who ran for Tarrant County Commissioner's Court, but lost the Democratic primary bid.
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