Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s daughter gets a cushy tax funded job

Did Mayor Sylvester Turner use his influence to get his daughter a cushy, high paying taxpayer funded job? Wayne Dolcefino thinks you should decide:

THE MAYOR’S DAUGHTER HAS A NEW JOB

October 15, 2018

The Lone Star College System gets an awful lot of your tax money. $161 million dollars in property taxes and another $77 million dollars from State Funds, just in the next year. Much of the rest of their money comes from tuition.

I am sure taxpayers all agree Lone Star should look for the best people to compete for some of these high paid government jobs.

So, is this your definition of competition?

The Special Assistant to the Chancellor at Lone Star College decided they needed to hire a new Executive Director of Community Relations to help manage “external relationships” for the proposed new Lone Star College- North Houston campus. That’s “government speak” for someone to help lobby other politicians.”

The school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2019 pending approval from state and regional government agencies.

Lone Star College even created a fancy job description, but that was a waste of paper, because this wasn’t a job that anyone could apparently apply for, a job where the best person could win.

In Early April, the Special Assistant Quentin Wright sent a memo to the Chancellor that he wanted to “direct appoint” a candidate for the job, even before Human Resources was told a new post was needed. That’s code for let’s ignore the concept of seeing who wants the job.

Guess who got the $84,000 a year job? Ashley Turner, the Mayor’s daughter. Her last job was running a wellness center.

“This isn’t fair to taxpayers and it’s not even fair to the Mayor’s daughter”, says Wayne Dolcefino, President of Dolcefino Consulting.” Cynical taxpayers will think she got the job because the school wants to buy the Mayor’s political help in getting their Aldine area campus approved.”

This is one of the things people don’t like about government. Instead of seeking out the best possible candidates for jobs you pay for, jobs sometimes go to folks who know politicians, or are related to them. It is a horrible practice because it smacks of favoritism.

Turner’s new role will also make her the person who deals with the media in crisis situations at Lone Star College. The school ignored our questions about this new gig.

“Ashley Turner may not have any experience in the media, but hopefully she won’t get advice from her father about public information. Sylvester has made a mockery out of the Texas Public Information Act while Houston Mayor, hiding public records, even ignoring judges orders to produce public records,” says Dolcefino.

Good grief. $84,000 a year for a relationship manager at a freaking community college? You gotta be kidding me. Of course Turner’s status influenced this hiring. To think otherwise is idiotic.

And believe me when I tell you that Lone Star College isn’t the only tax funded entity paying political hacks in Harris County. And that includes Republicans, even Republicans that I like and support.

And people claim that there is no waste to cut. Sheesh.