Summary

Artificial intelligence will be shaped not only by technology companies and elected leaders but also by public servants making routine decisions about permits, procurement, infrastructure, contracts, and community obligations. Drawing on experiences in Houston government and public affairs, the article argues that officials must balance the economic opportunities of AI investment against long-term demands on electricity, water, infrastructure, institutions, and communities. Ultimately, both AI companies and the public officials governing their role in society must earn the public’s trust.

Letter to My Public Servants

By Mustafa Tameez
AUG 11, 2026

 

After this summer’s FIFA World Cup matches across North America, cities are asking a familiar question: Was it worth it?

They will count visitors, hotel rooms, public costs, and economic activity. But those numbers will not settle the question. Events of this scale also test a city’s infrastructure, institutions, and ability to perform while the world is watching.

I learned that early in my career.

After working on Bill White’s 2003 mayoral campaign, I ran his political operations following his inauguration in January 2004. Less than a month later, Houston hosted Super Bowl XXXVIII.

You may remember the game for the Janet Jackson halftime controversy or for one of the greatest fourth quarters in Super Bowl history. Both happened in Houston.

Inside City Hall, however, the Super Bowl looked different. It was one of the first major tests of a new mayor and a new administration.

The public saw the game, the celebrations, and the national attention.

Government saw the decisions.

We saw the thousands of choices required to make something that large appear effortless.

It became a lens through which I viewed every major public event afterward.

Nearly thirteen years later, in December 2016, Houston was preparing to host another Super Bowl.

Walking up the familiar steps of City Hall at 901 Bagby with Uber’s regional executive, I understood that our meeting was about more than fingerprint background checks or ridesharing regulations.

Lyft had already left Houston over the city’s requirements. Uber had warned that it might follow. The city was less than two months away from welcoming the world again.

Houston has a strong-mayor system. Department directors report to the mayor, who also presides over City Council and exercises considerable influence over its agenda. Whatever Uber’s global ambitions, its future in Houston still depended on Mayor Sylvester Turner.

I had learned that when people with competing interests reach the same table, neither side may get everything it wants, but both can often get what they need.

Uber had built its reputation by entering cities and forcing old systems to respond. Yet there it was, sitting down with a mayor and negotiating with a city.

Technology may be global. Government is still local.

Who will decide how artificial intelligence enters our communities?

The most visible answers are technology companies and the people who lead them. Governors, legislators and mayors will set much of the direction. But many of the decisions that determine how AI actually enters our communities will be made farther down the system, by public officials most of us will never know.

The AI age will be shaped not only by the household names we know, but by the public officials who will translate broad policy into thousands of ordinary decisions.

Their decisions may look ordinary: a data-center permit, a software purchase, a school-system pilot, or a state contract.

None will arrive with a declaration that history is being made. Yet each may shape who holds public information, how residents receive services, what infrastructure communities must provide, and whether an institution can later change direction.

Artificial intelligence does not replace ordinary government. It makes its decisions more consequential.

Public institutions may increasingly use AI to conduct their own work. An agency may rely on it to organize records, assess applications, or communicate with residents. An elected official may read an AI-generated briefing before voting on a proposal.

Other industries seek influence over government decisions. AI companies may increasingly provide the tools through which those decisions are reached.

That does not make those companies uniquely malicious. It makes the relationship different.

Once an institution organizes its records and daily work around one system, changing course becomes harder. Changing vendors can mean retraining staff, moving information, rewriting contracts, and rebuilding expertise the institution may have allowed to fade. A tool adopted to save time may eventually shape how the institution functions.

After Labor Day, campaign spending becomes more visible. Some of it will come from companies, executives, investors, and political organizations with significant interests in artificial intelligence. The advertisements themselves may focus on jobs, China, energy, innovation, or regulation.

The structure of that political influence may also be changing. Established industries such as oil and gas built influence over decades through political action committees, trade associations, and long-standing relationships across government. In technology, some of that influence may be more concentrated in founders and senior executives with extraordinary personal wealth.

None of that proves a public decision has been purchased. But the message voters see may concern one subject while the decisions that follow may concern many others.

The officials elected in November may later decide where data centers are built, what incentives they receive, which systems government buys, and what authority local communities retain.

Those decisions will require judgment, not slogans.

We can already see that challenge in the debate over data-center permitting.

The opportunity is substantial. Companies are proposing enormous investments in Texas, promising construction activity, permanent jobs, new tax base, and the possibility of positioning communities at the center of the emerging AI economy.

Publicly announced Texas$-specific investments for just a handful of major AI and data-center projects already exceed $100 billion. The total does not include major projects for which companies have not disclosed a Texas-specific investment amount.

That is an economic opportunity few public officials can dismiss.

But investment on that scale also brings demands of comparable scale.

State and local officials in Texas are confronting questions about infrastructure, electricity, water, incentives, land use, noise, and protections for surrounding communities. The scale of what may be coming helps explain why those decisions matter far beyond a single permit.

Not every proposed project will be built. But even allowing for that uncertainty, the scale of the pipeline shows how decisions that appear local can quickly become questions about the future of the Texas grid.

This is what makes the governing choice difficult. Public officials are not choosing between economic growth and no economic growth, or between development and environmental protection in the abstract. They are being asked to weigh enormous private investment against demands on infrastructure and communities that may last for decades.

Public officials cannot simply follow the loudest public outcry. They also cannot accept only the case made by the business seeking approval.

They must hear both sides, understand what is at stake locally, consider the wider competition, and decide what best serves the community over time.

I saw how difficult that responsibility can be last year while working with Harris Health on the proposed expansion of Ben Taub Hospital.

The expansion was badly needed. Ben Taub provides complex care to patients who often have nowhere else to go. But making room for it required the use of nearby parkland.

Hospital leaders, patients, residents, park advocates, and public officials all had legitimate interests. There was no solution in which everyone kept everything.

Everyone had to give up something for the larger public good.

The hardest public decisions are rarely choices between something clearly good and something clearly bad. They are choices among legitimate interests, incomplete information, and consequences that may not become clear for years.

The projects are different, but the governing burden is familiar.

A sound decision on a data center or another AI investment is not automatically pro-development or anti-development. It weighs economic opportunity, infrastructure demands, community concerns, and obligations that may last for decades.

In an earlier essay, I argued that artificial intelligence must earn legitimacy and public trust. That remains true.

Trust does not rest only on the technology or the companies building it. It also rests on the people deciding where these systems are built, how they are used, and what obligations should accompany them.

People do not expect every public decision to be popular. They do expect public officials to listen, understand the evidence, recognize competing interests, and make choices they can explain and defend.

AI must earn the public’s trust.

So must the people making decisions about it.

Sylvester Turner understood that burden.

After completing two terms as Houston’s mayor, he was elected to represent Texas’s 18th Congressional District, succeeding the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. He served only briefly before his death in March 2025, after years of treatment for bone cancer.

I had worked on two campaigns against Sylvester Turner. But through all of it, we remained friends.

He was warm and affectionate, with a broad smile that made difficult conversations easier. A Harvard-trained lawyer from Acres Homes, he also understood institutions, relationships, and power.

Turner understood that everyone in public life sometimes had to give up something. He did not compromise casually or simply to avoid conflict. But when the public good required movement, he was willing to move and expected others to do the same.

That instinct helped him work across political differences and become speaker pro tempore in a Republican-controlled Texas House. People did not have to agree with him to recognize that he understood how to govern.

I saw that instinct in the dispute with Uber.

Turner protected the city’s responsibilities while recognizing the practical needs of the company, its drivers, and its customers. Uber remained in Houston. Neither side received everything it originally wanted. Both received enough to move forward.

That is what governing often looks like.

Turner understood that public leadership was not about making everyone happy. It was about reaching an outcome the public could live with and the institution could defend.

Artificial intelligence will create harder versions of those negotiations.

The companies will be larger. The technology will be harder to understand. Government itself will want what they sell. Residents will raise legitimate concerns, and national competition will create pressure to move quickly.

Many of the people making those decisions may never become household names.

But the consequences of their judgment may reach far beyond the rooms where the votes are taken.

The public will see artificial intelligence.

Public servants will see the decisions.

After the World Cup, cities will continue asking whether hosting the tournament was worth it.

Public officials will face the same question in quieter settings as they evaluate artificial intelligence: What are we gaining, what are we giving up, and will this bargain still look wise years from now?

Some of the most consequential decisions of the AI age may arrive as ordinary items on ordinary agendas. Years later, choices that once appeared small may be revealed as decisions that shaped an institution, a community, or an era.

When those decisions arrive, the question will not be only what the technology can do. It will be whether the bargain before the public is worth making.

The technology must earn the public’s trust.

So must the people making that judgment.

Frequently Asked Questions

How will public servants influence artificial intelligence adoption?

Public servants will make many of the practical decisions that determine how AI enters communities and government institutions. These decisions can include data-center permits, government software purchases, school-system pilots, contracts, infrastructure commitments, and rules governing how technology is used.

Why are local governments important to AI policy?

Although AI companies operate globally, many decisions about infrastructure, permitting, procurement, incentives, and community protections happen at the state and local levels. The article argues that these seemingly routine decisions could have lasting consequences for communities and institutions.

What should public officials consider when approving AI data centers?

The article says officials should weigh economic investment against electricity and water needs, infrastructure demands, land use, noise, incentives, and protections for surrounding communities. A sound decision is not inherently pro-development or anti-development; it requires balancing legitimate competing interests.

How could AI procurement affect government institutions?

Once a government institution organizes records and daily operations around a particular AI system, switching providers may become difficult. Changing vendors can require moving information, retraining employees, rewriting contracts, and rebuilding expertise, making initial procurement decisions potentially consequential for years.

Why does public trust matter in AI governance?

The article argues that trust depends not only on AI technology and the companies developing it but also on the officials deciding how and where it is deployed. Citizens may disagree with a decision while still expecting officials to understand the evidence, consider competing interests, and explain their judgment.

What does Sylvester Turner's leadership illustrate about AI governance?

The article uses Turner’s negotiations with Uber as an example of governing amid competing legitimate interests. Neither side received everything it wanted, but an agreement allowed both the city’s responsibilities and the practical needs of the company, drivers, and customers to be addressed.

What is the central question public officials should ask about AI?

The article frames the central question as whether the bargain surrounding AI is worth making over the long term. Officials must consider what communities gain, what they give up, and whether today’s seemingly ordinary decisions will still appear wise years later.

Sources and Further Reading

VP’s Take

Dr. Michelle Cantú-Wilson, Vice President of Education & Workforce, Outreach Strategists:

“Because I work at the intersection of education, workforce, and public systems, I have experienced authentic conversations about AI happening in classrooms, workforce programs, community colleges, local governments, and public agencies. As we navigate its rapid evolution, the real challenge is ensuring that people understand how AI is changing learning, work, and access to information and opportunities. Mustafa’s article thoughtfully explores the policy and governance dimensions of this transformation. My takeaway is that AI’s future impact will be shaped not only by the technology itself but also by how effectively we prepare people to use it, question it, and adapt alongside it.”