When John Noblitt became the city manager of Sanger, Texas, in 2021, he was returning to his childhood haunts. “When I was in elementary school, you had to drive through Sanger to go get your school clothes,” he said.
Noblitt had previously been a city manager for two Oklahoma communities and the community services director for Gainesville, Texas.
Sanger, a city of about 10,000 located along Interstate 35, about 55 miles north of Dallas, was experiencing growth in the early 2020s, he said, and he thought, “I can do something with this.”
Among the achievements that garnered him the 2024 Exemplary Public Servant award was inking a 16-year agreement with the Lower Colorado River Authority to provide Sanger with reliable electricity at a low fixed rate.
“The benefit of the agreement itself was there was no cap, the rates are fixed, and there were no additional ancillary costs,” Noblitt said. “We're certainly able to buy more power at less money and sell more power to consumers at a better rate.”
Noblitt also tackled Sanger’s wastewater treatment facility, which was undergoing a multimillion-dollar project that he and other officials determined to be unnecessary. Instead, the city acquired property for a new regional treatment plant to better serve Sanger’s growing population and provide open space for parks and trails.
“We're the next boom town,” Noblitt said. Sanger has nearly 4,000 housing units, with another 4,000 in the pipeline, he said. What Sanger lacks is a grocery store. That’s changing soon, when a Tom Thumb Supermarket will soon open in a mixed-use development that will include 2,000 housing units along with commercial properties. Noblitt expects the grocery to open before Thanksgiving.
He works closely with the city council. Noblitt said he brings the council in early, “and keeping them informed … goes a long way into really diminishing a lot of pushback that we can get.”
Noblitt offered some advice for his peers in city government. He said to remember that the decisions city leaders make affect the lives of their constituents and that it's important to act with a “sense of transparency and accountability.” He added that long-term thinking is crucial.
Amid all the challenges and uncertainties that public servants face, Noblitt said, he’s proud to be able to bring the policies of elected officials and the public’s wishes to fruition. “I couldn't ask for a better job than to be a public servant,” he said.
