A 6-year-old's letter to city council sparked a love of politics. A young Blake Margolis wanted to know why it was taking so long to build a park in Rowlett.
“He started seeing these town hall signs pop up on the street and out of the blue he tells his father and I, 'I want to go. I want to go talk to them about this park,'” said his mother, Christy Margolis.
“Yeah, that was the beginning of everything,” said the Rowlett Councilmember-elect, who’s now 18.
Margolis and his mother both remember that first town hall. He gave a presentation he spent hours rehearsing.
“I went up there to ask, 'where's my park? Where's the park? I'm waiting,'” he said.
“He made us get him a suit, even put his dad's pen in his pocket,” his mother said.
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It's a passion that carried on through two terms on the parks and rec board, 15,000 hours informing citizens on the Rowlett/Sachse Scanner Facebook page, as well as hundreds of council meetings.
“I've never been interested in the things kids my age do,” Margolis said.
He just turned 18 in June.
“Age doesn't matter. It's what qualifications and experience you bring to the table,” Margolis said.
That experience landed him 63 percent of the vote in an August city council election with two other opponents.
“When we got the results, we all were just mind blown,” Margolis said.
“He's always been so serious and been into politics just naturally and we don't know how it happened, it's very confusing to us,” said Christy Margolis.
He’s serious about his studies, too. He's only a senior in high school, but he aspires to eventually get his master's degree in Political Science at the University of Texas at Dallas.
For now, he’ll continue to home school while he pulls double duty as an elected official.
As for his top priorities in office?
“Infrastructure in our city. There's a population boom, not only in Rowlett, but in the Metroplex,” Margolis said.
He’s also focused on commercial development.
“We're 80 percent residential that we're charging for taxes and 20 percent commercial and it needs to be like, at a 60-40 level,” he said.
“I'm always shocked by the things he knows. I mean, he digs, he's nosy. He asks questions and it's important to him,” said his mother.
It seems his love of politics is just getting started.
“I would say this is just the beginning. I have a lot of ambitions and goals,” he said.
Blake Margolis will be sworn in to the Rowlett City Council on September 13.
He’ll officially become one of the youngest elected officials in the state of Texas.
He hopes to one day become governor.
