PORT ARTHUR, Texas — Four Port Arthur City Council members are ready to serve the community after being sworn in Wednesday following the May 6 municipal election.
Two races are still to be decided as candidates head to a runoff election taking place Saturday, June 24, 2023. This runoff will determine who holds the Port Arthur City Council District 3 and 4 seat.
The fight for District 3 seat is between Doneane Beckcom and Wanda Lewis Bodden. The battle for District 4 seat is between Kenneth Marks and Harold Doucet.
Willie Lewis Jr. was sworn in as Port Arthur District 1 representative.
He is a seasoned politician and passionate about flood prevention.
"We're going to solve the flooding problem on 17th, 18th, and 19th Street west of Houston Avenue. there has been flooding and what we're gonna do, we're gonna connect West 19th street to East 19th street," he said.
Tiffany Hamilton served as District 2 representative from 2014 to 2017.
She is back to and ready to leave behind a legacy of recruiting businesses to Port Arthur.
She says the best way to do this is to improve staff communication.
"To make sure that we are keeping integrity, within our city government and offering the opportunity to be able to open communication between the city and the citizens to offer the opportunity for young, vibrant, visionary type thinking to be on our council," Hamilton said.
Thomas Kinlaw won a District 5 At-Large councilman seat.
Kinlaw forfeited a third year as a District 3 council member because he wanted to help the entire city and continue infrastructure initiatives.
"We're going to continue the street program that we had $50 million, 5 year project, the drainage will come after that in my particular district we had a $16.9 million dollar grant given to the city," Kinlaw said.
Donald Frank is the pastor of New Hope Baptist Church.
Frank is an incumbent and thanks to redistricting, will represent District 6 as an at-large council member.
Frank attended the swearing-in ceremony but did not provided comment.
Early voting in the runoff election goes from from June 12, 2023 to June 20, 2023.
