President's Message: WHA's Policy Priorities in 2016 Auggie Campbell, President, West Houston Association The West Houston Association’s slogan is “Leadership in Quality Growth.” For the last few months, our Executive Committee and Board have thought about what this leadership should look like. What does WHA do and what should it do? Simply put, WHA should be a leader in communicating with its members, officials, and the community on policy, projects, planning, and promotion. We will focus on the most pressing issues, work to make sure that we have well-developed plans for the future, and stay flexible so that we can respond quickly. WHA has worked hard to improve its communications, which include this newsletter, our website, committee communications, and reports. Our members and speakers have submitted excellent content—like editorials from David Hightower and Steve Spillette and presentations from our Flood Control Forum (see links in Event Review below). Please join them; submit your articles and ideas and help us improve and educate our community. Our committees are the lifeblood of WHA and the starting point for policy discussions and event and project planning. If you have not attended a committee meeting recently, you are missing out. From Education to Flood Control and from Parks to Quality Planned Development, our committees bring together amazingly informed and caring problem-solvers who are looking to foster the world’s best development here in West Houston. WHA’s committees are starting work on updates to the 2050 Plan that we hope to complete by early 2018. The 2050 Plan will provide a compelling vision on the realities and opportunities related to growth in Greater West Houston. WHA is responsive. For instance, last year WHA reestablished TARGET (Texas Alliance for Responsible Growth, Environment, and Transportation) to address the flawed “Waters of the United States” regulations proposed by the EPA. We began working with GHBA and CenterPoint to improve service delivery times and monitoring at the developer level. Most recently and perhaps most importantly, we have been working on regional drainage solutions. WHA’s members have the insight and understanding to find partners who can share the work and the credit in order to achieve a favorable result. We will be ready whenever we have a chance to make a difference —WHA is about harnessing collective intelligence to help Greater West Houston grow and prosper. With your help, we can continue to provide leadership in quality growth. Please email acampbell@westhouston.org if you would like to share an idea or get involved.