PEOPLE
BY BEN THOMPSON
Mark Keough Montgomery County judge
M ark Keough assumed the role of Montgomery County judge in 2019, moving from his previous role as a representative for District 15 in the Texas House of Representatives, which includes The Woodlands. He was elected to the House in 2014, and he was elected county judge in 2018. Before entering politics, Keough worked in the automotive industry and as a minister.
Howdid youget intopolitics? I was kind of a news junkie, and I just didn’t like the direction things were going given my perspective on life in general, and so I thought I’d need to quit throwing my shoes at the TV and get up and run for office. And sure enough, when I did, I became sur- rounded with good people who were able to help me, and I was able to work on, really ... quite a bit of legislation in the Texas House. Why did youdecide tomove fromthe Legislature toMontgomery County? There were some ... undesirable things that were happening at the county level. And when I addressed a couple of those things, it was really met with, ‘It can’t change.’ ... I formulated some things that I thought were important, that, if I had the opportunity to come into this position as county judge—that I actually could do. And so I came up with a contract with Montgomery County. … The very first thing is, we serve the people. This is a republic, and elected officials are servants. Another thing is about issues of transparency. We have an ethics policy here in Mont- gomery County, but it doesn’t really have teeth in it to enforce. And so part of this ethics policy is we’ve developed an ethics commission. … This is a huge step and was a major component of our deal. One of the things I want to continue to work on is really getting to a place where all of us on the court are all pulling in the same direction. I think it does mean that we really do come to a place of transparency where we don’t want to be deceptive to the people. ... So I made a pledge. … If the [property] appraisals go up, in order to keep last year’s same effective tax rate, the rate’s got to go down. Another big deal is mobility. ... How do you keep from waiting in traffic and keep it as cheap as possible? Whatever that takes, that’s what we have to do. Howwould you evaluate your first year as a judge?
What are the biggest challenges in Montgomery County right now? The fact of the matter is Montgomery County has got a statewide reputation of not being the most upright. But what I’m finding is that the commissioners— as I get to know them and the people— are good people. I have really enjoyed getting to know the commissioners. The issue of water and flooding and drainage: One of the challenges that we’re seeing is that the people south of us are contiguous to the city of Houston [and] Harris County. And Montgomery County faces a lot of heat and false narratives that, ‘Montgomery County, they’re not going along with the standards that have been estab- lished’—absolutely not true. catastrophic water fall in 24 hours? What can you do?’ All you can do is mitigate some of the impact by being prepared where the water is running to. … I don’t care what you build, what you do—it is a catastrophic act of God that we can help to mitigate, but we can’t resolve it. But we will do our very best, and I think we’re working on it. For instance, down in The Woodlands, they have their drainage task force, … and we’re going to ... be able to monitor and do that through our Homeland Security Emergency Management, of which I’m over through the court and through my office. So we take the whole county into consideration. The Woodlands does not have ordi- nance-making ability. They have no enforcement ability, and it behooves us when these moneys are coming in … that when these grants come in, that we’re able to look at, ‘Where are the greatest needs?’” What is the county considering with regard to TheWoodlands’ incorporation study? Our position is that we will do what we have been doing as them being a What isMontgomery County doing about flooding right now? There’s a lot of moving parts there, and the big issue is, ‘What do you do with
Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough began his current term in January 2019 after serving two terms as a state representative for Texas House District 15.
township. If it has to do with police, with the sheriff’s office, with roads, whatever, we will continue that. But it’s not permanent. And I’m a resident of The Woodlands; I live there, and the whole idea of taxes—they have to work all that stuff out. But it was my position and continues to be my position—look, we are connected to them now. We’ve got until 2057 for them to become a city. We’ve got a regional participation agreement between Conroe and the city of Houston, and The Woodlands pays so much money for those. And as long as we are not a city, those things are in place. ... As a county, we’ll help them to be able to make that transition. Why would we not do that? We’re doing studies right now, and at some time in the future, there has to be some means to pay for this. Specif- ically, I can’t tell you, but we voted as a court to develop a countywide thoroughfare plan—to take our current thoroughfare plan that was done with H-GAC [Houston-Galveston Area Council]. And since we did a signifi- cant study in south county, much of that residual effect of the study has been done for these other [parts of the county]. You’ve got it going on over in east county, you’ve got it in west county with commissioners [James] Metts and [Charlie] Riley, and stuff up to the north. …We voted to move for- ward with a countywide thoroughfare Is a newcounty road bond in development?
plan, so I think there’s beautiful things coming ahead. What is the county’s financial situation going into next year? We’re looking fabulous. The com- missioners, especially Commissioner [James] Noack, are a tremendous asset. … He did an excellent job as we worked toward keeping the effective tax rate. We did not sacrifice any services; we had residual moneys, a lot of money laying there, that when the sheriff and some others wanted additional people going into 2020—we looked back at what we had from 2019, and we paid those forward with those to keep the budget down. And as we go on, our revenue sources, fees, courts, all that stuff—it continues to be good. CAREER TIMELINE Mark Keough worked in the automobile industry for 27 years before deciding to run for political office. • 2014: Elected as Texas House District 15 representative • 2015: Served in 84th Texas Legislature • 2016: Re-elected as District 15 representative • 2017: Served in 85th Texas Legislature • 2017: Declared candidacy for Montgomery County judge • 2018: Elected as Montgomery County judge SOURCES:MARKKEOUGH,TEXASLEGISLATURE, MONTGOMERYCOUNTYELECTIONS/COMMUNITY IMPACTNEWSPAPER
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The Woodlands edition • December 2019
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