HURRICANE — Hurricane Mayor Nanette Billings was surprised in one big way when she moved from her seat on the city council to her new position in the mayor’s chair.

“The time,” Billings told St. George News after finishing her state of the city address to community members Monday night. “The time spent. I have spent 60 hours a week. No joke. Every day, all day long I’ve been a mayor.”

She expanded her answer and discussed what has surprised her most about the Hurricane community.

“The support,” she said. “We have everybody on the staff, in our community, you ask them to do something, they just step up.”

Billings served on the city council for two years before running for mayor. She was elected and took office with three new council members at the beginning of January.

She said the move from council to mayor was a big one.

“My role is totally different,” Billings said. “On council, people were calling me to get approvals. Here they’re calling me to make sure I’m informed of everything.”

She described some of the many calls she receives from citizens, ranging from loose dogs to emergencies.

“People calling 911 for someone else because they can call you,” she said.

Billings spoke in front of about 60 citizens gathered on the north lawn of the community center. Members of the city staff manned both booths to communicate about what’s happening in Hurricane and tables for recreation and the Hurricane Youth Council.

“So the last four months, being on city council, it has been intense,” Billings said in her remarks. “It’s been hundreds of hours in meetings. Literally. It’s for you, and for us. So we can keep this amazing community.”

Answering the phone and the texts and the emails is important, she said, but what is vital for city officials is meeting with citizens and forming relationships.

“These relationships of connection, that’s what makes a community is when we connect,” Billings said. “So I’m hoping as you leave tonight that you feel connected with someone else and that we can build those relationships with each other.”

A topic that was on everybody’s mind, fittingly for Hurricane, is the wind.

“We’ve had a little bit more wind than before, haven’t we?” Billings asked the crowd. “So we have just really had to figure out and mitigate the dust in our community. I hope you feel like it’s getting under control. Our public works have really been working with the developers.”

Billings’ speech lasted about 30 minutes. Her main talking points were “…declaring intentions for the city, staying secure in our independence and preserving our heritage.”

She also commented on power, fiber for greater internet access and water.

“God creates water, we don’t create water. It doesn’t come from us, it comes from Him,” Billings said. “And as we look to Him then we recognize the blessing that He created this beautiful earth and He can certainly sustain it. We have to trust in Him to do that.”

The water cycle that we learned in elementary school–evaporation, condensation and precipitation–is a real thing, she said.

“It’s the only renewable resource we really have,” Billings said. “So we’re really grateful to be able to be in a place that we’ve been able to develop water and live here.”

Photo Gallery

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.