Downtown San Angelo Summer '25 - Magazine - Page 30
During the pandemic, she asked pointed questions at the State and Federal level and eased restrictions on local
business–as within city purview and in accordance with mandated best practice recommendations–so that businesses
could continue to operate or re-open as quickly as possible. The state held the most power and local governments were
severely restricted in what actions they could take, which was a particular hardship for our mayor, a small business
owner herself, watching almost powerlessly as fellow merchants struggled to stay economically viable, some of them
failing.
And finally, after four days of unprecedentedly frigid weather and extensive power losses across Texas and our city,
Mayor Gunter flat-out expressed that she was “pissed” at the failure of ERCOT for the life-threatening outages that
many felt could and should have been prevented.
“You’d like to believe, as Mayor, that what’s local you have authority over and can make the decisions, but that [Covid]
Mayor
Article
was an example–the same thing with
ERCOT–those
things, those decisions, were out of our hands, and you hate
that,” Brenda recalls.
Her two-term stretch as Mayor hasn’t all been disaster and recovery, though. Running on the campaign slogan of “Cut
the red tape!” Brenda has always been a pro-business advocate, especially concerned with local and downtown
businesses. While Brenda is not herself a San Angelo native, she now thinks of San Angelo as home, one that she
wants to add value to. Her husband Kenneth was born and raised here and built his cable business from here.
Although used to living and working in fast-paced New York City as President of Calvin Klein Collection before
marrying, Brenda fully embraced Kenneth’s love of his hometown, joining him in his efforts to make San Angelo a city
people were proud to live and work in. Throughout her tenure, she has emphasized that San Angelo must not only
support businesses but actively position itself as a pro-development, pro-business city—one with open doors that
welcomes companies and entrepreneurs eager to invest and grow.
In the eight years that Brenda has been Mayor, her focus has been on “planes, trains and automobiles,” realizing that
transportation was an area the city needed to address. How would industries move product into and out of San
Angelo, and how could the city be competitive with other markets? She set out a strategy of focusing on the unique
assets of the city that would draw investment here, areas that needed revitalization and enhancement to make San
Angelo attractive as a potential commercial center for businesses, as well as offering the quality-of-life amenities
potential new residents desire. Starting with downtown, “the living room of the city,” she stressed its uniqueness and
importance to the vitality of the city as a whole, continuing efforts familiar from her time as President of Downtown
San Angelo, Inc., to restore and repopulate our historic downtown buildings, emphasize our area’s history and
cultures, and bring life back into the city center. During her time with DSA and as mayor, Brenda has seen San Angelo
earn such designations as a Visual Arts Capitol and a Main Street City. She spearheaded the Sheeptacular event in
2007 in honor of San Angelo’s history as Wool Capitol of the World, and today, the painted fiberglass statues are all
around the city. The Streetscape project and other initiatives focused on design and promotion–like the new banner
project and the bronze statue program that has just been approved–encourage tourism and keep downtown lively and
lovely.
Other unique aspects of San Angelo that set us apart include our annual Livestock Show and Rodeo, bringing more
than $70 million dollars in revenue to the city each year; our rivers; and Lake Nasworthy, which is potentially our
greatest opportunity for attracting weekend visitors. Investing in the coliseum, new boat docks at the lake, enhancing
the downtown river corridor and parks, and the Streetscape Project have all been efforts to further capitalize on assets
we already have and need to maintain for future economic development.
