Harrison: As mayor, first focus on drainage

Published 9:41 am Friday, March 1, 2019

Port Arthur native Dr. Lowra Reado-Harrison has held a variety of jobs in her 58 years: soldier, consultant, businesswoman, teacher. She’d like one job more: Port Arthur mayor.

Harrison is one of five candidates vying for the seat now held by Derrick Freeman, the incumbent — the others are Thurman Bill Bartie, Willie “Bae” Lewis, Chuck Vincent and Freeman — in the May 4 election.

It’s her second effort for the office — her first, in 2013 — was affected when she had to downsize campaigning to care for her sick mother, she said. It’s an uphill effort this year, but she said she relishes the challenge.

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“I need an opportunity to show what I’m made of,” she said while appearing on The Port Arthur News’ Facebook Live program Thursday. “The others (Freeman, Lewis and Bartie) have been in office. Port Arthur needs to progress further than it has.”

To that end, she said, she’d focus heavily on city infrastructure. That means addressing drainage and ditches, which have bedeviled the city in recent years.

“The drainage is horrible to me,” she said. “When Harvey hit, the water just sat there. We need more state-of-the-art drainage … something that empties out into the Gulf of Mexico. We need it to not threaten our infrastructure. I don’t see building a city until we can conquer that.”

Harrison said she’s got some accumulated expertise that would help in overseeing the city, which includes 15 years as a businesswoman who consulted in environmental oversight and who ran a business that included repairing homes and plumbing.

She said she also rose to second lieutenant in the Army — she served five years, inspecting heavy artillery — and, with an earned doctorate in environmental science, has been a specialist in wood products and rubber, working in industry. She said she has consulted in the area of environmental safety for industrial plants from Houston to Lake Charles.

Harrison is married with four step-children, and for the past three years has taught at Abraham Lincoln Middle School. A graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School, she started out at Lamar University but finished her education online.

She said she’d like to see more opportunities for young people in Port Arthur, both for recreation and for careers. Local schools provide workforce training at home, she said, and she’d love to encourage young people to take that route.

“The school system has training plans to keep them here,” she said. “Whatever I can do, I would love to do that.”

As mayor, she said, she’d establish hours to meet with constituents. She conceded that the sheer breadth of Port Arthur, which extends from the Total plant to Sabine Pass, presents some challenges. She said she’s followed citizens’ pleas for help in far-flung areas like Sabine Pass and Port Acres, and understands.

At a community meeting in Sabine Pass recently, citizens met with city officials to report sewer and drainage problems that plague residents there. Some homes have raw sewage spilling into the yards.

“There is danger with that,” she said. “I don’t want them living like that. We need to go find the source of the problem, do it immediately.”

She said exposure to sewage can expose citizens to serious illnesses.

She said her vision for Pleasure Island is that the city’s island ought to include more recreational opportunities, a restored music area, hotel and restaurants.

“Kids should have a roller-skating rink, and a year-round carnival. The money can stay in Port Arthur, not leave.”