By Ken Stickney

ken.stickney@panews.com

Chuck Vincent took his mayoral campaign to The Port Arthur News’ Facebook Live program Thursday, saying his experience in private business and as a community activist would serve him well as mayor.

Vincent’s family moved from Louisiana’s Acadiana region to Jefferson County in 1923, when his grandfather, of Cajun French origin, sought better economic opportunity in the energy business here. Vincent said he himself lives in Port Acres next to the lot where his grandfather lived.

He and his wife have two children and four grandchildren.

Vincent said he has no experience in seeking political office but has served his community through emergency services — he operates a ham radio — as an appointed member of the police chief’s advisory board and through myriad community efforts based in Port Acres’ local churches.

A product of local schools — he graduated high school at the former Stephen F. Austin High — he received vocational job training through the school system. He has operated his own air-conditioner and refrigeration company for some 20 years.

Vincent appeared on Facebook Live in overalls, purposely selected, he said, to establish a link between himself and hardworking forbears who built Port Arthur and environs, he said.

“The city of Port Arthur was built by great men who dressed like this,” he said, adding that a mayor “with a suit and a tie” would not be able to do the sort of hands-on work he expects to do as mayor. That includes climbing into clogged ditches to seek the source of drainage problems.

He said addressing drainage ills in Port Arthur should be the city’s main thrust in infrastructure repair. You can’t fix the roads first, he said, because flooding from inadequate ditches would damage even repaired roads.

Vincent said he’s grappled with such infrastructure issues in Port Acres for years, usually without satisfactory answers from City Hall. He said he recognized similar anguish among residents of Sabine Pass, where he attended a community meeting there two weeks ago and where residents lamented unsatisfactory service from City Hall.

“I was not satisfied,” he said about events that night, when city officials and two City Council members made a presentation about flooding and road damages there.

He said city leaders “brought beautiful maps” and suggested that many projects had already been “checked off” a list. That, Vincent said, seemed familiar: City leaders have made similar responses to Port Acres residents when they complained about a lack of city services.

“I see changes coming and going,” he said. “It’s not adequate enough. I can understand the frustration.

“We need changes on the council,” he said. “We need to come together, to work together, or nothing will change.”

In fact, he said, Port Arthur is diverse and needs someone who can reach across demographic lines to connect with others. He identifies as a Cajun, he said; his son married someone of Vietnamese descent; their children are Asian Americans and he has learned to appreciate other cultures.

While he has no political experience, he said, his business experience has taught him to deal with a customer base, to listen to customer problems and to seek solutions.

“That can be challenging sometimes,” he said. Sometimes, he said, the theoretical solutions don’t work out in real life.

Although City Hall has worked hard to revitalize the downtown area, especially with new housing, Vincent seemed unimpressed. He said investing in homes near the refinery and near other, dilapidated homes was a poor approach. He said he would urge first getting rid of ramshackle housing and other buildings in the core city before seeking to rebuild downtown and Port Arthur’s West Side.

“Take down the blight,” he said, “otherwise it will be the same.”