Episode 9 - North Texas Mayor Discusses Upcoming Opportunities

Join Marshall Macomber and Mary Scott Nabers on the latest episode of "The Connection" as they sit down with Mayor Jim Ross of Arlington, Texas. Mayor Ross discusses the vibrant growth and development in Arlington, sharing insights on the city's strategic partnerships and innovative approaches to fostering economic prosperity, education and community well-being. 
 
Tune in to learn how Mayor Ross's leadership and collaborative efforts are shaping the future of Arlington and inspiring other cities to pursue sustainable growth and inclusive development. 

Meet the expert guest:

Jim Ross, elected Mayor of Arlington in 2021, brings a rich history of service to his community and country. Having served as a United States Marine from 1979 to 1983, Jim's dedication continued through a 13-year tenure with the Arlington Police Department, where he specialized in SWAT operations and narcotics investigations. Transitioning to law, he became a licensed attorney in 1999, representing clients in environmental exposure cases before founding The Jim Ross Law Group, P.C. 

Beyond his legal career, Jim's entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish upscale dining destinations like the Mercury Chophouse and Hearsay Arlington. His commitment to Arlington extends to numerous board positions, including the Arlington Police Foundation and the American Heart Association. As Mayor, Jim remains deeply involved in initiatives ranging from youth development to regional transportation, embodying his enduring dedication to the betterment of Arlington and its residents.

Meet the expert co-hosts:

Marshall Macomber is a visionary executive with a unique blend of business development, political strategy, communications, and public sector experience. He is founder and president of ThinkP3, a DC-based consulting and lobbying firm promoting innovative infrastructure solutions and alternative delivery models such as public-private partnerships (P3s). He played a key role in the 2021 infrastructure bill, initiating a vital USDOT program for state DOTs. Macomber is also a former Chief of Staff to Congressman Mike Rogers and holds an MBA from Georgetown University. A member of George Washington University’s ESG & Infrastructure Steering Group and other boards, he is a frequent speaker, panelist and moderator at industry events.  A driving passion for growing public transit, building walkable and equitable cities, decarbonizing America’s energy grid, and improving railroad infrastructure and operations gets him up in the morning and keeps him up at night.

Mary Scott Nabers is President/CEO of Strategic Partnerships, Inc. (SPI). A recognized expert regarding P3s, she is the author of Collaboration Nation – How Public-Private Ventures Are Revolutionizing the Business of Government & Inside the Infrastructure Revolution – A Roadmap for Rebuilding America. Her articles have been published by media outlets, including Forbes, CNBC, The Hill, & POLITICO.  Mary was the President and General Manager of two media firms. In government, she served as the Commissioner representing Business at the Texas Employment Commission where she was a high-profile, proactive business advocate who founded The Texas Business Council. Then, Commissioner Nabers moved to the Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s regulatory agency for the oil and gas industry, which at the time regulated approximately $65 billion of the state’s economy annually. 

Transcript

Marshall Macomber (00:01) 

Well, good morning everybody. And welcome back to the connection. It's the podcast of Government Market News, govmarketnews.com. Welcome back everybody. I'm Marshall Macomber. I'm your cohost here in Washington, DC, with ThinkP3. And I'm joined as always by my colleague, Mary Scott Nabers in Austin, Texas, who's the CEO of Strategic Partnerships. Hi, Mary. Good morning. 

Mary Scott Nabers (00:21) 

Good morning, Marshall. We have a really spectacular guest today. This is going to be good. 

Marshall Macomber (00:27) 

I mean, Mary, I agree. Let's welcome on to the program here. Mayor Jim Ross, Mayor, thanks for joining us here. Arlington, the great Arlington, Texas. 

Jim Ross (00:35) 

Arlington, Texas, the home of the World Series champion Texas Rangers. Can we just start off by saying that? 

Mary Scott Nabers (00:44) 

Mayor, do you take responsibility for that? 

Jim Ross (00:47) 

Absolutely, you know, it's the first time the Rangers have won the World Series. They had to wait till I became mayor to do so. I am taking full responsibility. 

Marshall Macomber (00:48) 

Absolutely. 

Mary Scott Nabers (00:58) 

Well, that's a good thing. 

Marshall Macomber (01:00) 

This is the ultimate kind of partnership. Mayor, I'll ask congratulations, of course, to the Rangers and all the great things. But so listen, to get us going here, everybody of course should know where Arlington is by now, but for the few people that don't, because we have a worldwide, I mean, listenership and viewership of this thing now, I think. Tell us Mayor, where's Arlington? What's going on in Arlington? How big is it? And to what do you attribute all this booming success? 

Jim Ross (01:27) 

You know, well, thank you. You know, Arlington, I remember back in the day when I first moved to Arlington, which was in January of 1983, right out of the Marine Corps, when people heard the word Arlington, they always thought of Arlington, Virginia. And, um, that's where people's mind went. Now that has shifted somewhat and people know who Arlington is. We are smack dab in the center of the Dallas Fort Worth metropolitan area just south of the DFW airport where the largest city closest to the airport.  

Our population is about 400,000 people and it's almost 100 square miles, 99 square miles. That puts us a little bit larger than cities like Pittsburgh, New Orleans, St. Louis, those type of cities. So if you could take Arlington out of the Dallas Fort Worth area plug us into any other area in the city. We would be the hub of that major metropolitan area it just so happens. We're we're between two bigger cities Dallas and Fort Worth.  

The DFW area is about to surpass Chicago's area for the third largest metropolitan area in the country. So we have a lot of growth going on down here and we've grown just like everybody else has grown here in the DFW area. 

Marshall Macomber (03:05) 

It's amazing. I know Mary's would come back with us just a second here, but you know, here on the podcast, we're interested in connecting city leaders, county leaders, state leaders with people in the private sector who want to work with them, build these partnerships. And you know, you I know have been very outspoken on the importance of partnerships, building those partnerships, you've involved with the Conference of Mayors on their P3 task force. When I say public-private partnership, or when you think partnership, Mayor, 

 Tell us what that means and what would you tell your colleagues in your shoes about partnerships and the importance to cities? 

Jim Ross (03:41) 

Yeah, you know, I come from a business world. I'm a lawyer who owns a law firm. I'm a restaurateur who has a couple of restaurants here in town. When when I use the term partnership, whether we're talking P3 or, you know, any type of other partnership on there, what we're really talking about is relationships, any good joint venture entity. 

Partnership, joint venture, it doesn't matter how it is, starts with relationships. People are gonna wanna do business with your community because of who you are, not what you are. And we pride ourselves in Arlington as being the can-do city, that we are always looking for the easiest, the quickest way to yes.  

And sometimes, especially when you're dealing with developers and the private corporations, sometimes the best way to get to a yes is a quick no. Sometimes they need to hear, I'm sorry, it's just not a fit, rather than dragging them on and leading them to believe that there may be something there that's doable. So I'd say the foundation of everything when we're talking P3, when we're talking partnerships. 

Is really about acting with integrity and developing and nurturing and quality relationships with who you're doing business with. 

Marshall Macomber (05:17) 

So take that out into the community. I was reading about UT Arlington, my goodness. 40, what, 40,000 students there, UT Arlington, is that right? 

Jim Ross (05:27) 

Yeah, yeah, a little bit, a little bit more than that. Yeah, 44,000 students or so. Yeah. 

Marshall Macomber (05:31) 

Talk to us about the importance of, if you were talking to your fellow mayors, what you do all the time, the importance of building those relationships between your local college and university and the mayor's office. Why does that matter? 

Jim Ross (05:50) 

Well, you know, UTA has grown with Arlington throughout the decades on here. I was a student at UTA back when I was a cop there. It's important because there has to be a pipeline. There has to be a pipeline that the kids that are growing up here in our community have a local place that they can go to school to get a quality education. 

And then our community is positioned as such that when they get out of college, they have a place to go to work. They have a place to start their business, not just a building, but they have a community that supports them, a community that ensures that they get the, the three classic pillars of, of corporate success and a, and a, and a community. And that is education, safety and relationships, how that community deals with each other. 

Marshall Macomber (06:56) 

Yeah. 

Mary Scott Nabers (06:56) 

So Mayor, let me jump in and ask a question or two about, so maybe some upcoming projects, some opportunities for some of the private sector contractors to come to your illustrious city and work with your public officials. What's coming up? What's on the radar for you? 

Jim Ross (07:13) 

Well, we've, we've just announced that city council has just proved three new North American headquarters here in Arlington. One is great American media company, which is a movie production company coming to Arlington. The other is I'm going to butcher the name of Latin American company called Exsonia. 

Exonia is conglomerate of different types of services, everything from cleaning services, construction stuff, delivery services, things such as that. And the third one is a company called eSpace, which is a manufacturer of satellites. And they will be building ultimately 750,000 square foot manufacturing facility. 

 Here in Arlington and within 10 years bringing well over 3,000 jobs here in Arlington. So we have a lot of really exciting projects going on. That's not including everything else going on in the downtown and entertainment districts here in Arlington with sports teams and hotels and all of that kind of stuff as well. 

Mary Scott Nabers (08:28) 

And so recently, and I know you're really involved with the, is it the US League of Cities? Am I missing that name? 

Marshall Macomber (08:36) 

Yeah, the Conference of Mayors. 

Jim Ross (08:37) 

Uh-huh. US conference, US conference of mayors, US league of cities. 

Mary Scott Nabers (08:41) 

Yeah, well talk to us about a little bit about that group. I mean, I know you're very visionary and you have done public-private partnerships and so forth. We have a lot of mayors who are a little bit hesitant to step out there. It's sort of a new delivery method, but I know that group is looking at it. Give us a little insight on how mayors feel about that and why it's not moving as fast in Texas as it is in some of the other states. 

Jim Ross (09:12) 

Well, I don't know that it's not moving as fast in Texas. I think right now we're having tremendous success with various P3 projects all throughout at least the North Texas area here. So, you know, here's how I look at things when it comes to P3 and working with other municipalities and working with developers. I remember, and I'll relate this back to being a business person. 

When I first went out and started my own law firm, law firms are very competitive, and they're always trying to get the cases, and they're always trying to do that. And I learned one time because of a gentleman that came to see me for a legal issue, I didn't charge him, he didn't have an issue that I could help him with, very nice gentleman, a year and a half later, he had taken my business card and left. 

Year and a half later, he ended up referring a case to me that was worth millions and millions of dollars. And the reason I got that referral was because of the relationship that I developed with that gentleman a year and a half ago. That was the only reason I got that. And then I started to think maybe we need to take our eye off of trying to make the money and put our eye on developing and nurturing those relationships. 

And when that happens, those good things that will come to you. So that's what I started to do business wise, and my businesses began to flourish. And that's what my goal is as mayor is I don't necessarily look. For the big money making deals all the time that we're trying to cut in and take this from everybody else, not a competitive person as far as saying. 

I can't believe Dallas got this or Fort Worth is this or Grand Prairie or South Lake or anything like that. Listen, the better my neighbors do means the better I could do. It helps all of us. So, you know, I enjoy working collaboratively with my neighbors in an area and I believe that you know, we do things better when we do it together and 

That's what being a part of these agencies, these conferences are all about is we learn from each other. When we learn from each other and we strategize collaboratively, we're going to do really good things. 

Marshall Macomber (11:54) 

Go ahead, Mary. Well, I had a question now. I wanna build on Mary's question about some projects happening in Arlington. I go, often we think about partnerships and think about transportation. So, I'm gonna go ahead and start with Mary. 

Mary Scott Nabers (11:54) 

Marshall, do you want to jump in? 

Marshall Macomber (12:06) 

Transportation, how do you get people around it? And we noticed that Arlington, you know, you've got a long partnership with the USDOT on autonomous vehicles that runs through to Arlington. And now we're seeing there's a company, I believe it's going to locate there. That's doing the vertical takeoff and landing those new autonomous air vehicles. What's, how do you get that? If I'm a mayor. 

How am I successful in bringing in those federal partners and more importantly, those technology companies? How do you get them to locate in your town to build out those projects? 

Jim Ross (12:40) 

So here's my formula for quality companies, and I'm going to share it for everybody to steal it and do whatever you want to with it, OK? It's a three-part formula that is very, very basic. When companies want to move to a particular community, and they're looking at a community, they're looking for three things. One. 

What are you doing about education? Because we want our employees to be able to put their kids in quality schools. How are you making education better in your community? Two, how safe is your community? Are you doing the things necessary to support your police and fire, and how safe is that community? And three, and this is one that really surprised me, because we've been in the running for some of the big. 

You know, Apple 2.0 type things here and there. And what really surprised me was companies really look at communities on how your community treats one another. That's critically important. If you have a community that is divisive and fighting and all of that kind of stuff 

It's difficult for companies to feel comfortable sending their people there. One of the most divisive things, and we'll work backwards through those things, our community is the most diverse community in all of North Texas. We're the second most diverse in Texas, second only to Houston. I look at that diversity as a source of strength, not a hindrance. 

Because we can take experiences with various diverse individuals and have tremendous life experiences which help to educate us. I've developed advisory councils for black, Latino, Asian, LGBTQ, Muslim, Jewish, various women's advisory councils because I am an old white Christian heterosexual man.  

My perception of life, comes from an old white Christian heterosexual man. I don't know what it's like to be black or to be a woman or to be gay. So we created advisory councils to help us with that. And companies love to see the support of those communities like that. So that's critically important. We have one of the safest big cities in America. 

I just looked at the annual police report that we have on our crime here in Arlington and our crime has been reduced tremendously, over 20% reduction in violent crimes in Arlington over the last year. And the third- 

Mary Scott Nabers (15:38) 

Hey, Jim, I want to go in just a second because I do know you've got everything going really, really well. Talk to us about issues, though, like homelessness. What have you done there? And are you struggling like all of these other cities? And then talk to us before we lose all our time here about housing, affordable housing. That is every city that we talk to says, this is our biggest problem, homelessness and housing. 

We can't get our critical workers downtown into affordable housing. Talk to us a little bit about that. 

Jim Ross (16:13) 

I'm actually, I'm leaving for Washington DC this coming Sunday to meet with the White House along with Mayor Bass out of LA, Mayor Cantrell out of New Orleans, and some two or three other mayors from around the country to meet with the administration and with Congress about some of the homelessness issues. And it's critically important to everybody around here. It's important to understand that. 

There's not one particular thing that causes homelessness. It could be anything from drug addiction to loss of a job to, that means so many, the cost of housing, so many things contribute to homelessness. So we created a special behavioral health unit in Arlington, where what we do is we partner up specially trained, specially uniformed police officers with social workers. 

And they go out to the various homeless encampments and they work hand in hand because you can't just go out and scoop everybody up in a big van and then say okay everybody's in a shelter because some of the homeless don't want to leave they don't want to get out of there there's mental health issues that we're dealing with so you have to address the problem at the grass roots our behavioral health unit has been phenomenal with that 

And then you have to think about getting outside of the box. How do you create the affordable housing and make sure that you have the right stuff in there? We have been looking and implementing a program where we can take over dilapidated hotels, renovate them, and have affordable housing, transitional housing for homelessness as well. I am the chair of the Veteran Affairs Task Force for the U.S. Conference of Mayors. 

And veterans are a big part of our homelessness issues as well. We have to make sure we take care of them. 

Marshall Macomber (18:13) 

Yeah. And are you, are you, go ahead, Mary. Yeah. And incentives and incentives, because the city offering incentives. 

Mary Scott Nabers (18:15) 

And what about affordable housing? 

Jim Ross (18:18) 

Yeah. See, there's a couple of things in incentives. Yeah. So there's a couple of things with affordable housing. What is affordable to one person isn't affordable to another. So as you try to work at bringing interest rates down and bring in the cap of the housing stuff down, you also got to work on creating jobs that pay more and more money. 

Because you can't have affordable housing if everybody's getting $7.50 an hour. How do you make that to be affordable? So you have to try to balance quality jobs with caps on where the interest rates are and what the cost of housing is then. Now, Arlington, we're landlocked. 

So we're sort of stuck in an environment where we have very little green space available. So what we have to do is incentivize developers to come in and redevelop, revitalize portions of our city that need that redevelopment. And we provide the incentives that you're talking about Marshall and helping them come in to do the revitalization, helping them with the 

Demolition of some of the older, more dilapidated buildings that we need to get rid of and then replace them with stuff. You know, doing the revitalization is a lot more expensive than moving into a green space and just building some multifamily or single family houses in there. So that's a lot of where we're focused here in Arlington on the revitalization of some of the portions of our city. 

Marshall Macomber (20:04) 

Yeah, Mary, you had a question? 

Mary Scott Nabers (20:06) 

Well, I was just going to say, we've talked to a lot of cities, and I know that there's public finance corporations, and then there's other types of incentives. But if you need affordable housing there, what would a private sector firm, development firm, who would they need to come and see?  

Do you have a authority that they would need to go to first or do you have public finance corporations that they should go to? What's the process there? 

Jim Ross (20:38) 

Yeah, here in Arlington, we have a housing authority that's headed by a lady named Mindy Cochran and that would be the first place that they would go to. And our housing authority would act as a conduit for all of those other entities that you're referring to that could help with the funding and financing of that. So our housing authority is available online. You can email, you can call them directly and they can get everybody, all the developers going from that perspective. 

Marshall Macomber (21:09) 

Mayor, anything else we're coming up here at time, we appreciate all you said today. Anything you wanna leave us with here today, anything more about Arlington?  

Jim Ross (21:17) 

Oh, look, Marshall, I could talk about my city until the cows come home, you know, and I'm always happy to do so, you know. We're the can do city. I think that's why we've attracted so many incredible businesses and sports teams and everything else, if you haven't been to Arlington lately, come check us out. We'd love to have you. 

Love to love you. I mean, that's what we do best is make people feel loved here. So. 

Mary Scott Nabers (21:53) 

Well, Jim, I would just close by saying, I know that your work with the organizations for city mayors and so forth, I hope you will be a really strong voice there too for these public-private partnerships because we're gonna run out of money. We've got more federal money right now than any of us will see again, I fear, in our lifetime. And so there's so much funding out there and there's so many opportunities for collaborative initiatives. 

And it sounds like you're doing a lot of that, so speak up. 

Jim Ross (22:27) 

Well, thank you. Thank you all for what you do. You're really helping everybody out here by getting the word out. God bless y'all for what you're doing. 

Marshall Macomber (22:35) 

Mayor, thanks so much. Appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us. Bye bye. 

Mary Scott Nabers (22:36) 

Thanks so much for joining us. 

Jim Ross (22:40) 

You bet. Take care now. 

Mary Scott Nabers (22:42) 

Bye.