Meet the city official: Mayor Travis Williams

Editor's note: The Madill Record is going to be running a weekly segment about city and county officials in Marshall County.

Long time Madill city council member and Mayor, Travis Williams is well known within the city. Williams, along with his wife, Melany, their two adult children Nathan and Makayla, they moved to Madill in 1999 to help William’s parents open what is now the New Beginnings church.

Williams, who started out as the youth pastor, was appointed the lead pastor at the church in 2012 after serving as the assistant pastor since 2005. He received his Bachelor's of Science in Biblical Leadership, with an emphasis in non-profit business administration from Southwestern Christian University in Bethany, Oklahoma in 2005.

The Madill Record did a short Q&A to help Madill residents get to know their mayor.

Q: When did you first get appointed to the Madill city Council?

A: “I was first appointed to the council in 2013 or 2014 when someone moved out of town and left an open seat.” Q: When did you become Mayor of Madill?

A: “It was about a year and a half later that I was voted in as Mayor. I have run for Mayor now for eight consecutive years. I have run for city council twice since I was appointed the first time unopposed.”

Q: Do you think that your role as a pastor helps you to be able to have a better understanding of what the needs are in the community?

A: “I enjoy the city council as much as pastoring because it’s being a servant to the public. It’s a different role than a pastor but I get to help people that may never come through my doors to come to church but I get to help them. I want to see our community grow, the people do well and so it is just out of a heart for serving others that I enjoy it. I wish more people had a heart to serve. I think the two work hand and hand, because I get to interact with more people. I get to visit with more people and see more people's needs than just the people that I am in close contact with.”

Q: Why do you think people aren’t getting more involved in the community?

A:“I can count on one hand that there was more than one person who was running for an open seat. I think people want to take pride in things. I wish people would get more interested in serving others and the community. I know it is easy to get to yourself and take care of my own thing, do your own thing and that is easy and I think we are all like that at some point.

I think social media has created an atmosphere where you don't have to get out to get to know somebody and so you don’t have to get out, you don’t have to be out in the community.”

Q: For anybody that is thinking about getting involved in the community or local government, what would you say to encourage them to be more involved?

A: “I would encourage them to come to a city council meeting. See what takes place, see what is happening. Come by and visit with me, I would be glade to talk to them. I would think the city council meeting would be the best place to get an over all view of what is happening in the town. They can see how things operate. Our government system here in Madill is city manager, city council system. Where it’s a check and balance between the manager and the council. The council doesn’t handle the day to day operations of the city that is handled by the city manager. So it a little bit different than the bigger towns, where the Mayor is actually elected by the the people and runs the day to day operations. But a lot of towns in Oklahoma are set up the way we run and so we, the city council, is responsible for voting the ordinance and stuff like that but we are also a check balance with the city manager. My responsibility as Mayor is actually the same as every city council member.”

Q:With new businesses moving into the area and the city of Madill grows, what do you think is the biggest need?

A: “I would definitely say housing. We have people who come by all the time asking if I know of a house for sale. Honestly when you get to looking at it there really isn’t a lot for sale or for rent right now and with growth we need to be able to grow in that area. For a long a time Madill has been a city where people lived but they would go out some place to work. They would commute to work, and with the growth that is taking place we are getting jobs where people would no longer have to commute. But then if we don’t have a house for them to live in they have to commute back to Madill. ”

Q: How would you get people to come in and develop things like apartments? Does the city council have a strategy to draw in those developers?

A: “ We do not. As far as the city council, we have not talked about how to draw them in. There are some works in the plans for at least one coming up. South of the catholic church on 5th street, there are some duplexes that have been in the works for a few years. Just waiting onthe builder to get through with some things to get over here. It is going to be 40 units, 20 duplexes I think it is what it is. If you look at the growth in our schools and look at the houses you wonder where they are coming from.”

Q: What type of future community events would you like to see happening?

A: “One thing we have been talking about, that I think is a good idea, is to have a family movie night in the park. I think that people would get behind that. I do that from time to time here at the church. I think would be a good event that could be family friendly and could be for all different ages. You could spin a lot of things off of that as well, as far as having it completely free or opening it up to have vendors. There are lots of options with that. Our swimming pool is a good thing for the community as well. Keeping something like that up as well helps in the community. It’s nice for us to give back to the community as a city. Other events if it’s possible would be to have a concert series in the park. Something of that nature with different genres that would be family friendly as well. I think that would be good. Those two things would not be hard to accomplish. Even a city wide Easter Egg hunt. Something that is good for the whole family.”