PEOPLE Byron Sanford Montgomery mayor
BY PEYTON MACKENZIE
LEADING A CITY Byron Sanford was sworn in as the new mayor of Montgomery in May. He will serve a two-year term.
MONTGOMERY FAST FACTS
Population (2020): 1,948 residents
After less than a year on Montgomery City Council, Byron Sanford was elected the city’s new mayor on May 7. Sanford was elected to Place 5 on City Council in May 2021. He previously worked in ministry for 15 years and in coaching administration. Sanford spoke with Community Impact Newspaper in late June about his new role. Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Chartered as a city in 1837
Mayoral term will expire May 2024
WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO MONTGOMERY AND CAUSED YOU TO RUN FOR MAYOR? I always liked the small-town feel; I spent my whole life in small towns. I share that with my voters, that they know we’re growing, and I know we’re growing. We’re growing very fast, and we still [want to] keep small-town values and ... keep a his- toric district preserved like it ought to be. So those things are important to me. They always have been. ... The Lord moved me in this direction [to Montgomery], and I pastored another church out here for about a year and a half and then [saw] the calling to run for mayor.
DURING YOUR TIME AS A CITY COUNCIL MEMBER, WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF? We’ve already established some organization that was lacking in our management. I would call it managerial structure. HAS YOUR PAST EXPERIENCE AS A PASTOR PLAYED INTO YOUR ROLE AS A MAYOR? No doubt about it. We pastors have been on high alert that we are losing a lot of our cultural identity—our liber- ties, our freedoms. … There’s a need for Christian ideology and thought and practice to go into the political arena, which is often unpleasant, but
we are called to be peacemakers, and that part I’m really trying to empha- size here in Montgomery. WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE WILL BE THE BIGGEST ISSUES COM- ING BEFORE COUNCIL MEM- BERS IN THE SHORT TERM? Getting busy on the traffic [issues]. … We do anticipate long awaited … of [Texas Department of Transportation] promises, but those things tend to come slow. What we are trying to do and hope we can do is maximize the amount of money that we can put into solving our traffic woes without TxDOT. That’s going to be our biggest task.
WHAT DOES A MAYOR DO?
A mayor:
is the city’s chief executive officer presides over city council meetings is an unpaid position in Montgomery is allowed to vote only to break a tie in a Type A general-law city, such as Montgomery
SOURCES: TEXAS MUNICIPAL LEAGUE 2022 HANDBOOK FOR MAYORS AND COUNCIL MEMBERS, CITY OF MONTGOMERY/COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
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