Learn From Others, Make Your To-Do List, Live by It

Barbara Wilson

When I first came to Beaumont, I saw 21,000 square feet of space on the side of Mr. Weinbaum’s building. And I was taught by one of my professors, he always told me, he said, “Barbara, make a list of what it is that you want to accomplish. Make a list of what it’s going to take to accomplish that.” And he says, “Start checking it off.” And I’ve always lived by that. And so all my accomplishments, that’s how I accomplished them.

So when I came here, now you want me to talk about taxes, oh my gosh, okay, so when I came here, that building that I’m in right now, it was listed at 450 [thousand dollars]. Well, where I’m from that’s nothing; your house costs that. So I thought I’d get that building, went, started trying to do financials to get my stuff together so I can get the building. Needless to say, I didn’t qualify when I went to my local bank.

So it went down to 250. So when it got down to 250, I’m thinking, well that’s attainable. I go back to the bank. Of course, I get denied. And a gentleman from, the vice president of Parker Lumber, Chris Miller, bought the building, him and one of the Broussards for $75,000 at auction, okay. So someone told me about them buying that building for $75,000. So I went over there to look at the building, they put up one of the buildings up for rent.

I went over there and I looked at it and I said, “Man, you know, the building that they were trying to rent me was nowhere near the space that I could, that I wanted to use,” and so I shared with him, “I have been trying to buy these buildings for years.”

So he comes and texts me and he says, Barbara, you want to make a bid on the main building? which I did, I gave him a bid. They owner financed it. I bought the main building, initially. Since then I bought the buildings next door.

Well in the end I end up financing the building for 510 [thousand dollars]. Well, then they turn around, I went from paying taxes of $700, from when they had it, to, it went up to, I think last year I paid $8,000 in taxes. And then I just got a bill this year: it’s gonna be $12,000 in taxes. So it went from them owning it, paying a little bit of nothing, and then for me owning it, it’s now, I’m at $12,000.

And so apparently it’s not based off of what the building is worth—I mean I don’t know, because the assessed value, they say they based it off of what I actually paid. So I was looking at that as inequality; I never even thought about that until they shared that. ideas and programs once they are instituted? Number one, you can vote. That’s number one: you do it with your vote. Number two, call it out on social media. Number three, organize workshops like we’re doing right now. Get it out there, hold them accountable. If there’s a participant in the community, whether it’s a business organization or union, whatnot, you call it out, you talk about it, you publish it, put it out there. Nobody likes being embarrassed these days. And again if somebody is ashamed of their action, an organization is ashamed of their actions, well dadgum, you shouldn’t have done it, okay? And so that’s how you hold them accountable. And then also hold your elected officials accountable with industry partners in the community. These tax abatements that are being given, as we see, these tax abatements that are being given, talk to your elected officials and say a good faith try is not good enough.

I think about Mr. Weinbaum, I think about, again, when he said find people that are doing what you want to do and figure out how they did it. Every person I meet, the first thing I ask them is “What do you do for a living?” And I look at their life and I find out what these people are doing and just knowing that, the fact that we’re right here together, it’s attainable. And so I just want to thank you again for this time. Thank you for welcoming me to this town, because a lot of people have been really supportive of my business. And thank you Kate and Abdul for bringing us here. Thank you.

BAW stands for Barbara Azalia Wilson as well as Beaumont Antique Warehouse. Wilson is the owner of one of the largest antique shops in Southeast Texas. Originally from Miami, Wilson moved to Texas in 2012. She graduated from the University of Florida and taught art for 20 years.

The day before yesterday I was talking at a high school and I asked: “How many of you though are tired of school?” A bunch of hands went up: honest kids. Hey, that’s great, no problem there, and I gave them the example of the IBEW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, their apprenticeship program, what those kids can start doing in June, and they are begging for workers.

The IBEW, the plumbers, the pipe fitters, all of the apprenticeship programs are begging for people to come there. And they’re not saying, “Young people,” although mainly it’s going to be younger people trying to get into a trade. I mean, there’s people around my age that are even trying to—teachers see what the apprenticeships are paying, they’re like, I’m gonna quit as a teacher and go become an apprentice electrician. But and I said, “How much do you think it will cost you for the five-year apprenticeship program?” Kids were giving honest guesses: $10,000. That’s an honest guess: $20,000. I said, “Eight hundred dollars, $800 for five years and you’re earning approximately $200,000 during those five years. And then you get that journeymen card, you can travel anywhere in the country or there’s gonna be 10 to 15 years’ worth of work right here, okay?

I’ll close with this, my father’s father worked at Gulf Oil Refinery in Port Arthur. In 1961 he retired. That is now Valero and Texaco is now Motiva and my son-in-law works in Motiva, so, you know, cycle. Each of those refineries employed 7,000 people. There was no automation at all. But now what had 7,000 people then have 1,000 permanent employees and maybe 5 contract jobs. It’s just the nature of it. But the construction work is going to be pretty dadgum good employment while those people are working out there and we just need to diversify our economy around here, too. Thank you.

JESSE GARCIA