For the citizens who have supported us… there is no way I could ever repay you or thank you for your support.
Due to the COVID pandemic, a lot of people are hurting. Many have lost jobs and benefits, many have lost lives. There is recovery, and as a medical professional, and my wife being a medical provider, we follow the science and know now we are lightyears ahead of where we were in the beginning.
But directly to the city’s behavior, and the blind eye turned towards it…
I warned and told you.
I warned you years ago that this “pension reform” was unconstitutional (as it has been ruled in district court).
I warned you that a reckoning was coming over an elected official’s unwillingness to follow the law and negotiate contracts in good faith because the root of the cause is that “he doesn’t like us”.
Now, millions of dollars later, the city has and will lose numerous lawsuits. The court costs and back costs will be astronomical and will definitely be front page news. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner will continue to fight, as that’s all he knows how to do, while a city economy bringing in $5.2 billion in tax revenue a year with an average of $200-250 more million collected every year claims to “have no money”.
The Houston Fire Department has not had any significant amounts of new stations or fire apparatus and ambulances, well, since ever. The highest tax generating communities are left stripped of ambulances daily (Kingwood, Clear Lake, Westside, The Heights, Rice Military) and I’ll tell you first hand it is frustrating. In fact I live in one of the aforementioned places.
Hurricanes will continue, news stories have shown bandaids on arterial bleeds, but we are STILL woefully understaffed and under-equipped to do the job the public expects us to. Except for one simple fact: our members literally go above and beyond and almost all the time do a remarkable job, under equipped and understaffed, and for lack of a better catch phrase “save the day”.
I expect better from conservatives in a state that is one of the few “last outposts” for conservative state legislatures.
The Harris County GOP needs to get their act together and begin to outwardly push public safety funding and put pressure on the City of Houston for their complete waste of taxpayer money over pay raises and expansion of police and fire services that only constitute a minuscule percentage of monetary increase in terms of total budget.
Where did our values go? I want trash pickup, public safety, and good roads. I care not about pet projects for liberal interest groups.
We will see how this all pans out, but I won’t lie to you, the city is about to be on the hook for a very large bill.
Anonymous Houston Fire Captain