In its never-ending quest to nickel and dime Houstonians out of every last dollar, the City of Houston recently announced that it will begin charging for some of the parking spaces at Memorial Park. The City has said that the revenue will help maintain the park. This is absurd on so many different levels that I hardly know where to start.
First, the numbers. The plan is to meter 572 spaces, about a quarter of the total spaces in the park. The charge will be one dollar for three hours. So, let’s assume all of the spaces were used 12 hours a day, 365 days per year. That would bring in about $800,000. Of course, it will not be anywhere close to that. From my experience going to Memorial Park, I would guess that a third of that time would be a generous guess. If so, that would bring in $200,000-$300,000 per year.
But, of course. all of that is not “profit.” According to the City’s latest budget, it spends about 63 cents for every dollar of parking fees it collects. So, in other words, the City will be lucky if it clears $100,000 per year from this venture.
That is about 2 thousandths of one percent of the City’s annual budget. Eliminating just one of the thousands of bureaucrats at City Hall would save us more than the revenue this incredible inconvenience will net.
Of course, the need for more money to maintain Memorial Park begs the question of where is all the money that the Uptown TIRZ was supposed to kick in as part of the 2013 deal to add ten years to its life (and to the misery of the Galleria residents). The current City-approved budget for the Uptown TIRZ has a measly $280,000 (less than 1% of its budget) for “Park Project Program Management.” God save us any more City project managers. How about hiring some guys to pick up the trash or maintain the roads and the trails?
Also, charging for parking is incredibly discriminatory against those who do not live close enough to walk or bike to Memorial Park. The City already spends a disproportionate amount of its parks budget on the “Golden Bowl” (a term dubbed by community activists for Buffalo Bayou, Hermann and Memorial parks – more on that in the near future). Charging outlying residents for access to Memorial Park exacerbates the discriminatory effect of City concentrating its park investments in the Golden Bowl.
Lastly, let me just assure you that this is the proverbial nose under the camel’s tent. What do you think the odds are that the City will be back in no time increasing both the number of spaces that will be metered and the hourly rate? And, of course, be prepared to pay a few parking tickets along the way.
The City does not seem to understand that most people have a choice of where they live and open businesses. For the last twenty years, the City’s growth has been declining, outpaced by its suburbs and other major cities in Texas. Last year it virtually ground to a halt, with the City only adding only 7,000 net new residents. And that was before Hurricane Harvey took its toll.
According to the Greater Houston Partnership, Harris County suffered a net domestic out-migration of over 45,000 residents last year.[i]
Obviously, the decision to charge for parking in Houston’s most iconic park is a trivial matter in and of itself. But it is symbolic and symptomatic of a larger issue. When you have high property taxes, widespread drainage problems despite residents paying $100 million per year in drainage fees, a police force that does not patrol most neighborhoods and only solves 6% of the burglary cases, streets that look like they should be in the Third World, ambulances breaking down on the way to the hospital . . . I could go on . . . at some point residents reach a breaking point and decide to vote with their feet. Clearly, for many residents, Houston has already reached that point.
[i] “Net Domestic Migration” is the number of individuals who move to Houston from other areas of the United States. It does not include individuals who moved here from a foreign country. The GHP reports that the net international migration for the County was a positive 34,000, resulting in a negative net migration for the County of just over 10,000. The Census Bureau does not break this down municipalities, so we cannot determine how much of out-migration for the County was attributable to the City only. [click here to full report].
Don’t forget to sign up for Bill King’s email list by clicking here.
The proposed FY2018-2019 City budget will, if adopted, continue to spend most of the drainage fees paid by Houstonians on things other than drainage. Any Council Member who votes for this budget is voting to continue to siphon off the drainage fees that Houstonians were promised would be spent to reduce flooding.
I wish I could simply lay out the facts about how the City diverts the drainage fees but the City intentionally obfuscates how the drainage fees are spent. So, this is going to require a deep dive.
In 2012, the City began collecting drainage fees pursuant to a Texas statue that authorizes cities to establish a “drainage utility.” That state statute requires that drainage fees be held in a segregated account. The City has never done this. Instead, it deposits the money into the Dedicated Drainage & Street Renewal Fund, more commonly referred to as Rebuild Houston.
The City uses two devices to obfuscate how the drainage fees are spent. First, they are commingled with other monies. The total income deposited in the Rebuild Houston fund has been running a little over $200 million. About half of that comes from drainage fees. The general mobility payments from Metro account for about a quarter of the money. The other big piece is a transfer from the General Funds which supposedly is equal to the amount that the City’s debt has declined because of the “pay-as-you-go” feature of Rebuild Houston. (More on this topic at a later date.) Of course, once these funds are all commingled it becomes much more difficult to sort out what money is being spent where.
I normally copy/paste Bill King’s posts to make it simpler for readers. But if Republicans and moderate Democrats in the City of Houston are going to have a fighting chance to beat Sylvester Turner in 2019 and start the process of rebuilding the city’s finances, they are going to have to coalesce around one leader. It is becoming clear that Bill King is the only person in the Houston political policy arena that is willing to challenge Sylvester Turner’s administration.
As such, I hope that you will click over to Bill King’s website, read this very important and well researched post about the skimming of drainage funds from the Sylvester Turner administration. While you are there, be sure and scroll to the bottom of the page and sign up to be on his mailing list. He is going to need your information if he is going to mount a true challenge to Sylvester Turner. And when you start receiving his emails, forward them to your friends and encourage them to sign up as well.
Not a paid political advertisement, just my frustrations at the Sylvester Turner administration’s shenanigans.
For as long as I’ve been a Republican precinct chair, my fellow activists have loudly opposed “pay-for-play” slates. Big Jolly Times readers are already familiar with the concept: candidate slates are mailed to subsets of Republican primary voters, and they purport to identify the most qualified or conservative candidates on the ballot. In exchange for these endorsements, candidates are pressured to donate money to support the mailer or purchase advertising inside it. Candidates who refuse to participate find themselves penalized on Election Day.
Anti-slate sentiment has reached a fever pitch in the wake of the May 22 runoff election for CD2 between Dan Crenshaw and Kevin Roberts. Roberts was supported by the three best-known slates: Terry Lowry’s Link Letter, Steve Hotze’s Conservative Republicans of Texas, and Gary Polland’s Texas Conservative Review. The Link Letter dove straight into the gutter to attack Crenshaw and support Roberts, baselessly accusing Crenshaw of bashing Christians and President Trump and of wanting to impose new taxes. This backfired badly: prominent Crenshaw supporters like radio host Michael Berry drew unprecedented attention to this issue using their own independent platforms, and Crenshaw won the runoff with 70% of the vote.
History leads me to part company with the many who wish to see the slates ended completely. When founded, these slates filled an important gap by supporting social conservatives at a time when social liberalism was much more widespread within the Republican Party than it is today. Pro-life and pro-family platform planks, now nearly ubiquitous, were controversial when first introduced—but the organizations behind the slates correctly sensed that the Republican Party could reap enormous electoral benefits by appealing to the majority of Americans who held socially conservative views. Older voters still reward the slates for the trust they built with the electorate during the 1990s—before the Internet came along, they were the only local alternative to the liberal media for conservatives trying to research downballot candidates.
Until recently, most efforts to combat the pay-for-play slates have met with failure. Competitor slates have been introduced, but they have a long way to go to build enough rapport with voters to truly wrest support for their candidates away from the old guard. Warnings on social media and practical efforts such as “Trash the Slates” receptacles at voting locations are not widespread in their reach. The best approach, in my opinion, is to lean into the problem: so long as we have one of the longest ballots in the country, accept that slates will play a role in the way many people vote. The Harris County Republican Party should take an active role in encouraging ethical slate behavior, while maintaining its own neutrality when it comes to the candidates and issues endorsed.
I advocate a three-pronged approach:
Candidates will be offered the opportunity to forswear any payments in exchange for endorsements, and those candidates who sign such a pledge will be listed as having done so on the website and will be encouraged to mention it in their campaigns.
Organizations will be allowed to certify with HCRP that they have not accepted any such contributions, and in exchange will be offered an easily-recognizable symbol or statement to include on their mailers indicating as much.
Voters will be informed about the existence of pay-for-play slates through HCRP’s outreach efforts, and they will be encouraged to ignore any mail that does not include a statement indicating that no endorsements on the mailer were granted in exchange for payment.
I do not suggest this lightly, and I understand if such a program were improperly implemented, it could lead to violations of neutrality. But provided that those complications could be overcome, it is past time for the Harris County Republican Party to ensure its primaries are conducted fairly and ethically. If you agree, let me know via email.
Scott Bowen
Senate District 11 Chairman
Harris County Republican Party
The With Honor PAC supports veterans. Period. And yes, some of them are Democrats. What is it about Kevin Roberts and his disdain for people that have served in the military? Something ain’t quite right with that boy.
Is signing a pledge promising to meet with members of the opposite party and find one thing to agree on the worst thing that could happen to our country? I think not. And you know who agrees with me?
Well, lookie there. East Coast liberals have donated $45,000 to help Kevin Roberts smear Dan Crenshaw. How about that? Let’s take a look at a few of the people that Arthur Luxenberg has donated to in the past, shall we? In alphabetical order:
Joe Biden (D)
Bob Casey (D)
Hillary Clinton (D)
Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte (D)
Democratic Party of Iowa (D)
Democratic Party of Nevada (D)
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte (D)
DNC Services Corp (D)
Big Dick Durbin (D)
John Edwards (D)
Dick Gephardt (D)
Al Gore (D)
Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D)
Joe Lieberman (D)
Patty Murray (D)
Bill Nelson (D)
Barack Obama (D)
Harry Reid (D)
Chuck you Schumer (D)
Anthony (Carlos Danger) Weiner (D)
How about that? Kevin Roberts is being funded by a real live swamp rat. But by golly Big Jolly, Dan Crenshaw is being supported by a bunch of people that like people that served in the military! That’s disgusting!
Like I said, Kevin Roberts is stepping all over his you know what. My guess is that the New York law firm is supporting him for the same reason his brother-in-law is throwing major bucks into this race – to stop tort reform. After all, Kevin Roberts makes his living because his brother-in-law sues people.
I wish that I lived in CD2 and could vote for a man of honor and integrity like Dan Crenshaw. A side bonus would be voting against a real live swamp rat.
After four days of early voting, one thing is clear in Harris County: Harris County Democrats aren’t enthused about their candidates. Republicans have only one county wide race to vote on but are neck and neck with the Democrats in total turnout, who have four county wide races, including for Governor and a nasty fight for CD7.
Let’s take a look at Republican early voting by voting location:
Clearly the runoff in CD2 is dominating Republican turnout. I thought I’d have a bit of fun and guess the outcome of that race:
A second scenario:
I’m sure you know what WAG stands for. Before I plugged numbers in above, I was pretty certain that Kevin Roberts would be the favorite. But I just don’t see enough of the geriatric vote by mail to overcome Dan Crenshaw’s momentum at the polls. Obviously, as noted, this is a WAG but it was a fun exercise.
Speaking of CD2, a reader sent in Kevin Roberts’ lastest campaign email, sent yesterday at 4:01 pm. Check it out:
XXXXX,
You may have recently seen an attack video by Dan Crenshaw or a TV ad by his liberal Washington DC Super PAC claiming that I don’t believe Veterans have “real world experience”.
In this HIGHLY edited video, that is 100% false, Dan Crenshaw cut and pasted several statements I made in a forum when I was comparing my business record to Dan’s Harvard education.
Throughout the forum a few weeks ago, Dan kept attacking my business experience with the response that he was the only candidate capable of serving because his public policy education at Harvard. When we reached the closing statement portion of the event, I wanted to a make a clear distinction.
There is a difference between balancing a budget as a businessowner for 30 years and balancing a budget as a State Legislator from just reading case studies in classes at Harvard.
At no point in this forum did I mention veterans. For Dan Crenshaw and his liberal friends to claim otherwise is misleading and dishonest. For them to claim I don’t support veterans is an outright lie.
Well, I took Kevin Roberts’ advice and watched the full, unedited video. It is true that he did not specifically say “veterans”. It is also true that in context, he was clearly demeaning Dan Crenshaw’s military service. Watch it yourself. Thanks for that Kevin Roberts!
As the reader who forwarded the email said,
He’s a “business owner”? He actually owns that law firm?
Huh. I thought he was the office manager for The Lanier Law Firm. But maybe his brother-in-law, whose name is on the firm’s marque, gave Kevin Roberts a piece of the action. That would help explain why The Lanier Law Firm is funding the negative attacks on Dan Crenshaw to the tune of $450,000 thus far. And probably more to come.
It is pretty clear that Kevin Roberts is on the defensive in this race. Take a look at Dan Crenshaw’s latest campaign email, sent this morning at 9:03 am:
He knows that he needs to get people to the polls and doesn’t waste time talking about his opponent. He also included this video:
Maybe my WAG will come true!
Go VOTE! And while you are there, vote for Richard Risinger for Judge! And if Jeff Williams is on your ballot, vote for him too!
UPDATE
Here is another scenario, sent in by a guy that is way, way better at predicting elections than I am.
UPDATE End of Early Voting:
We now know the number of early voters: 17,931. I reduced the number of mail ballots because the number returned thus far is only 15,837. I also adjusted the election day numbers downward.
Dr. Steve Hotze recorded a robocall falsely attacking former Navy Seal Dan Crenshaw’s Christian beliefs. Take a listen:
Dan Crenshaw was not attacking Christianity as Dr. Hotze claims. He was, in point of fact, defending Christianity. But Dr. Hotze has chosen to do what Kevin Roberts has done, take Dan Crenshaw’s words completely out of context and bear false witness against him.
This is so sad. The commandment against bearing false witness is one of the cornerstones of Judaism and Christianity yet Dr. Hotze does it anyway, knowing full well that he is bearing false witness against a fellow Christian.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Is electing Kevin Roberts to Congress worth losing your soul Steve?
It’s interesting that Dr. Hotze revived his Restore Our Godly Heritage PAC to bear false witness against Dan Crenshaw. This is the PAC that Dr. Hotze used to prop up Roy Moore in Alabama.
Hopefully the voters in CD2 will do the same thing to Kevin Roberts that they did to Roy Moore – tell him to go away, that his negative, lying, bearing false witness campaign against a genuine good guy will not work.
