‘I’m for Odessa’: Life-long Odessan announces mayoral run

ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)- Cal Hendrick, a long-time Odessa native, today announced he is running for mayor in November. Hendrick will go head-to-head with incumbent, Javier Joven; as of yet, no one else has announced their intentions to run.

Hendrick’s family settled in Odessa in the late 1800’s and Hendrick himself has lived in Odessa his entire life, with the exception of his college years. Raised on the west side of town, he attended San Jacinto Elementary, Bowie Junior High, as it was known at the time, and Odessa High School. His supporters say that Hendrick is as “Odessa” as it gets and expressed their support for him because they know he truly loves the city and wants to see it thrive.

“I am supporting Cal because he genuinely cares about Odessa,” said Heather Valenzuela. “As a lifelong resident who raised his family here, he understands our community’s needs. Cal’s years of leadership and dedication have positively impacted Odessa, and I trust his ability to collaborate effectively across all neighborhoods to prioritize our collective interests.”

It’s a sentiment that Hendrick echoed at his announcement event Wednesday morning, “I’m for Odessa. That’s my number one goal. I want to do what ever is best for the City of Odessa and that’s going to be my mantra.”

It was a mantra that was met with an enormous round of applause from those in attendance. It would seem, the homegrown candidate has a huge amount of support from the community.

Here’s a little bit more about the man vying for mayor, and what he said he will focus on if elected:

After graduating from OHS, Hendrick attended San Angelo University and obtained a business degree. He then continued his education in Austin at the University of Texas where he obtained a law degree. Upon graduation, Hendrick returned to Odessa and worked as an attorney and raise a family; he’s semi-retired now and said he is ready to serve the community.

“I’ve raised a family, I’ve worked, I’m sort of semi-retired, I’m at least out of trial work, and now have more spare time and I wanted to give something back to my community,” Hendrick said.

To give back, Hendrick said he wants to lead the City and get back to the business of running a city properly, with a focus on addressing the true needs of Odessa.

“I’m going to focus on what I call municipality issues. That is water, sewage, trash, police, fire. I think it’s a waste of our city council’s time to discuss social issues,” he said.

For Hendrick, he wants to focus on the things that matter most and at the top of his list is water.

“If I’m elected mayor, we’re going to focus on how to make this a better city. How we better serve our citizens with water, roads, trash. These are not exciting topics, but when you turn on your faucet, you expect water. Water is critical. We’re in a desert…there’s nothing more important than water. We’ve had multiple water failures over the past year and I’m afraid they’re going to continue because our infrastructure is 75 years old.”

Hendrick said he wants to use Odessa’s Master Plan , adopted in 2019, to ensure that Odessa does not continue to face one water crisis after another.

“There was a five-year plan, a 10-year plan , a 25-year plan to build, repair, and replace. That plan was ignored for the past four years by the current administration and as a result, we are having water failures on a fairly routine basis now. And it’s just going to get worse. My goal is to really take a look as the master plan that was created back in 2019 and start implementing that plan, replacing water mains, water pipes, water valves, and then taking a hard look at our Derrington Water Treatment Plant. Because quite frankly, it’s nearing its life date and it’s going to expire,” he said. “And when it does, we’re going to have a catastrophic problem. We’re not going to have a sewer system in the City of Odessa…so my goal is…find the solution.”

Reliable water seems to be at the core of Hendrick’s campaign; it’s also a key issue for voters, if social media posts amid every recent water outage can offer a clue about the priorities of area residents.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to boil my water. I think the average citizen probably is not aware of how bad our water is right now in terms of the infrastructure. And if you’ve read the master plan, you would find out that it’s a miracle we haven’t had more problems…I’m afraid, it is very possible there could be a catastrophic failure of multiple water lines. And we’re going to go days, if not weeks, without water. And I don’t know how a business is going to survive. How’s a restaurant going to serve ice? How’s it going to cook? My number one concern right now is getting our water problems identified and repaired, and it’s not an overnight fix. It’s going to take a lot of hard work to get it done,” Hendrick said.

Hendrick said he doesn’t want to point fingers or assign blame for what’s previously gone wrong in the city, he just wants to get things done. However, he said the City needs to find the money to fund these projects without a huge increase in taxes.

“We’re going to have to rebuild. We’re going to have to find…the money, federal, state, and local. I’m against taxes, but we have to provide water to the city. Everything is on the table to at least consider. Although I’m against raising taxes, we have to fund these projects. We cannot allow the citizens not to have a water source,” he said.

Hendrick said he has what it takes to problem solve these issues and find workable solutions.

“Being a lawyer, you have to develop critical skill sets, and one of those is the ability to identify problems and then to solve the problems. I think that training, my experience, puts me in a very good position to help the City of Odessa solve its current problems,” he said.

Aside from water, Hendrick said he wants to focus on growing Downtown and bringing new businesses to the area.

“I personally think every city should focus on its downtown area. I think that’s the core. I mean, I sat back and watched Midland develop their downtown, and I think it’s kind of sad that we’ve allowed Midland to, quite frankly, outshine Odessa in terms of their downtown area. I think downtown is critical…we have to support it, and that comes in many forms and many fashions, but it takes intentionality. You have to be intentional, and I think that we’ve lost that focus,” he said.

Aside from supporting downtown revitalization efforts, Hendrick said he wants to make Odessa an exciting place for new businesses and wants to make the process of opening a new business in Odessa an easier one. He also said he wants to make the city a desirable place for people to come and live and work.

“Odessa has to be competitive. We have to have policies in place that encourage businesses to move here, to build here. For employees like teachers and engineers and truck drivers, welders, to come to Odessa. And to do that, we have to make sure we’re competitive. (That) we don’t have undue government intervention, fees, and really, I’m going to call it red tape…it’s just not helpful to anyone. It actually…forces business away to look at other communities,” he said.

If you’d like to learn more about the candidate, and his platform, follow this Facebook page .

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