When Roy West sits down to talk the future of Beaumont, his sights don’t immediately set on brick and mortar with paint slapped on top to mimic greener grasses of someone else’s central Texas turf, but his gaze centers firmly on a Beaumont population in crisis – the community’s children.
“If we want Beaumont to be better, we have to show up for our kids,” West said. Firmly on the campaign trail for Mayor of Beaumont, West is careful not to let his self-imposed volunteering duties at underserved Beaumont school campuses falter, and is pressed for time any given Monday. “We’ve got to get engaged with our kids. We need these kids to know that they matter.
“Right now, there’s no indication we, as a community, care about these kids.”
Coming together for the kids
West is a product of Beaumont schools, graduating from Forest Park High School in 1979 and Lamar University in 1983 with a degree in Sociology. West went on to serve as a law enforcement officer in Houston and co-found Patriot Security before attending SMU to earn a Master of Divinity and serving as an associate pastor – all before starting the Beaumont-based Roy West Team of Guild Mortgage, and going on to host weekly radio shows on KLVI. Now mostly retired from the mortgage grind, West can devote more energy to where his heart has always been.
“The kids in the north and south end are largely forgotten,” West shared, indicating more community involvement is needed at campuses such as Jones-Clark, Smith, MLK … “Yet, that’s where we could really use some involvement. We’re not showing up for the kids in our city; and that’s not a problem we need to throw back on parents who maybe had children when they were children, or who are overwhelmed, or whatever; it is a community problem.”
Car thefts, home invasions, robberies, murder – violent crimes committed by persons under the age of 18 are occurring far too often for elected officials to turn a blind eye, West worries.
“Our most violent offenders right now are juveniles,” he said. “They have no hope. They have no love. They have no options. They have no support.
“These kids, they need us. And, as citizens, we need them.”
Battles over battleships and haggling over land deals for private developers should take a backseat to tackling the lack of crossing guards for Smith Middle School students walking to classes in a noted high-crime neighborhood and the lack of recreation options available to youth to keep them from finding trouble on the streets – at least in West’s City Hall.
“If we continue to do nothing, things are going to continue to get worse,” West dismayed. “It’s scary, and I’m concerned for Beaumont.”
Privy to the challenges of the community’s youth through his volunteer service at the campuses, West shared what he called snippets of the masses of heartbreaking stories and situations unfolded before him daily. Children arrive at school unfed, unwashed, in clothes worn for a week straight, bruised, reeking of drugs, sleep-deprived.
“It’s tragic,” West summed up, before again widening the view to denote just how prevalent the need is in the student population: akin to an elephant in a room of mice. “As a community, we don’t talk about this. But, we’re going to have to eat that elephant one bite at a time.”
Eating an elephant will be easier with more mouths, which is why West is hoping to not only rouse support at the ballot box, but also support in the streets. With a concerted effort, the children of this community, West believes, can be saved – but it will take a village.
“We have to empower our community resources,” he said, pointing to municipal, nonprofit, church, school district, police department, and other civic agency involvement in partnering to cultivate youth enhancement programming. “Everybody can work together if we agree to let’s help the kids. If we don’t get the community more engaged, we can hang it up for Beaumont.”
First responders at ‘breaking point’
The city’s first responders are likewise signaling for the community to get engaged or face serious repercussions, as well, with civil servants of both the police and firefighter unions signing on support for mayoral challenger Roy West as the groups are looking for change in city leadership for the sake of public safety. In a unified release from the Beaumont Police and Firefighters Unions, the represented civil servants expressed a desire for enhanced public safety for the residents of Beaumont – something the first responders fear is not being adequately provided under the current administration.
“Our city’s frontline firefighters, paramedics and EMTs are at a breaking point,” Beaumont Professional Firefighters Association President Jeffery Nesom expressed in endorsing West for Mayor on behalf of the first responders represented by the union. “Our fire department can’t even provide full ambulance coverage for the city. Beaumont citizens deserve a more responsive City Hall. Roy West will offer a better path forward.”
Law enforcement officers, too, are at a breaking point.
“Beaumont police officers believe West’s vision for the city would improve security in the city’s neighborhoods, downtown area and parks, while also boosting essential services like public safety, roads, drainage and water services,” Beaumont Police Officers Association President Dean Kane expressed.
“Public safety has suffered,” West added, citing roughly 30 positions vacant in fire and EMS, many more in police not helping the issue. Hundreds of calls every month are routed through 911 without an ambulance available to send, more calls are answered with first responders in double-digit overtime. “You should never have to wonder if someone is there to answer the call.”
While the current elected officials entertain litigation against the city’s firefighters and prevent the addition of new recruits to lighten the load and protect the residents of Beaumont, West objects, the same group has also hired four department heads, two new assistant city managers, split parks and recreation, and hired a new communication director – all without a salary study, or any national search for the three positions that paid over $200,000 a year salaries. Meanwhile, the mayoral candidate further expressed with exasperation, “We have city employees making $10 an hour – and we know that’s not a living wage.”
Poverty pay at the bottom of the totem pole further exacerbates the police problem on the backend, and no amount of murals have, so far, diminished the dilapidated historic facades popping up in TikTok tear-up videos.
For residents looking to use the amenities afforded by tax dollars of the beautification initiative the city has been involved in, however, visiting downtown is ill advised without proper protection.
Ask Roy West
West said he wants to meet the public where the public is, and will be meeting with the Press Club of Southeast Texas at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 20, at Bruno’s Italian Kitchen on Dowlen Road in Beaumont to answer press questions about his mayoral bid in a Mayoral Forum that was originally coordinated with incumbent Mayor Robin Mouton as a Mayoral Debate.
Despite her initial response indicating participating in the local debate, Mouton sent word last-minute that the local press forum was in conflict with a Africian American Mayors Association Conference in Washington, D.C., on the same date and she would not be in Beaumont.
West and Mayoral candidate James Eller are anticipated to be in attendance. The public is welcome.