Seeking a second four-year term, Ector County Precinct 3 Commissioner Don Stringer says the commissioners court’s two most important achievements during his first term were starting a planning department to regulate mobile home and RV parks and selling an Oklahoma City company a lease to drill three wells at Schleymeyer and make the county-owned airport profitable for the first time in its history.
“My campaign is based on continued conservative common sense,” said Stringer, who also works as a Realtor. “We now have ordinances and guidelines that the mobile home and RV park developers have to go by and that will help clean up Ector County, especially in Precincts 1 and 4, because they’re going up on every corner.
“We needed to make sure they were not just throwing them up.”
He is opposed in the March 5 Republican primary by Samantha Russell, daughter-in-law of 2020 Precinct 3 commissioner’s candidate Jeff Russell.
Stringer said the planning department, headed by Eddie Landrum, has been operating for about a year with a half-dozen staff members.
“Eddie is a good man who runs a good, tight ship,” said the commissioner, who serves with Precinct 1 Commissioner Mike Gardner, Precinct 2 Commissioner Greg Simmons, Precinct 4 Commissioner Billy Hall and County Judge Dustin Fawcett.
Precinct 3 primarily lies within the city limits of the City of Odessa, including Schleymeyer Field on the north side of town off the east side of Andrews Highway.
Stringer, the court’s liaison to the airport board, said the county “got a very healthy deposit” 18 months ago from the Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources.
“Our airport has come a long way,” he said. “This project will make it self-sufficient and it will make a profit for the first time.”
Stringer met with a surveyor and appraiser Dec. 13 to identify the pad sites for the drilling rigs.
“Continental is in the final stage of developing that field right now,” he said. “The Federal Aviation Administration required us to have an appraisal done.”
Stringer is a 56-year-old native Odessan who graduated from Odessa High School in 1985 and worked as a well surveyor for Arc Pressure Data before qualifying as a Realtor through Texas A&M University Commerce and joining Trower & Associates 16 years ago. He also attended Odessa College and the University of Texas Permian Basin.
Growing up, Stringer worked for his father’s service company, Burt Stringer & Associates.
He and his wife Shawn have two daughters and five grandchildren.
