Link to the Council Meeting-Looking for the Press Conference that followed:
The Sylvester Turner back slapping, self-congratulatory tour continued yesterday at the special meeting of the Houston city council. Before the meeting began, I noticed the presence of Turner’s crooked contractor friends in the audience. And, and of course, Stephen Costello, father of the rain tax, was present. I did not see Karun Sreerama, Sylvester’s former public works director, who was forced out in disgrace after it was revealed that he bribed Houston Community College Trustee Chris Oliver. After snitching on Oliver, Karun is probably persona non grata at these events. This group isn’t really fond of snitches.
In the midst of evacuations and rescues, the meeting began after 9 a.m. Councilmembers Travis and Martin were not present as they tried to help their districts in this tragedy. The true purpose of this meeting was for councilmembers to praise Turner’s handling of Harvey relief efforts. Turner allowed each councilmember to tell stories of Turner’s good works. Turner’s audience was Senator Ted Cruz and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee because Turner wants them to bring home the bacon for the crooked contractors.
Turner called on Police Chief Acevedo and Fire Chief Pena to tell Cruz and Lee about their good works. Both men represent unions who have put in a lot of overtime and the mayor wants federal reimbursement for services rendered.
When I entered the GRB yesterday, I was patted down by some nice officers. I left my knife and .40 at home because I knew that my second amendment rights would be infringed upon entry into this special meeting. I have actually been carrying my 10 mm through most of the storm – for varmints and such.
Turner, et al. treated Senator Cruz like a king (even though they usually think of him as a pariah). The CongressWOMAAAAAAN sat next to Cruz and served as a character witness for Turner and his friends. Then, SheJack hugged Cruz. Hopefully, Cruz sees through this bologna.
Throughout the meeting, there was a lot of lip service about bipartisanship. Cruz, facing reelection next year, is being pressured by SheJack and Turner to deliver on billions in federal funding, which Turner will make certain is doled out to his friends. Very nauseating.
I did not have the opportunity speak with Senator Cruz because Turner whisked him away and out the back very quickly, but I did tell Cruz’s aide, Jessica Hart, that Turner’s charade was a smoke and mirror show.
Stephen Costello entered the room and visited with Tommy Moss, chief of staff for Greg Travis (and previously employed by former councilmember Oliver Pennington, a big Renew Houston aka rain tax supporter). This is the same Costello who went on a road show with Annise Parker to pitch Renew Houston to Houstonians as a project to prevent flooding. Clearly, this is one of the largest frauds perpetrated on any community.
Big Jolly Politics readers know that I spent many years asking for Costello’s city contracts. Costello’s engineering company, Costello Engineering and Surveying, has sought city and county contracts for many years. Costello was elected to city council in 2009 and ran for mayor in 2015. Turner subsequently appointed Costello as the city’s “chief resilience officer.” An appropriate BS title. During the meeting, Turner called on Costello to recite his talking points and praise the public works department (sans Karun) for saving the North Houston water plant.
After the city council meeting, Turner held a lengthy press conference. Meanwhile, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office was recovering the Saldivar family from their van that plunged into Greens Bayou. And active rescues were ongoing throughout the county. But, Turner thought that his pomp and circumstance was more important.
As a valued member of the local press corps (ask David Jennings), I had the opportunity to ask a question about Renew Houston. I asked the mayor what had happened to the $800 million collected under the rain tax. Even though the courts have invalidated the rain tax vote, the city continues to collect this tax. Turner responded that this money was being used for road improvements. Really? If you drive our city streets, you know that can’t be true.
The truth is that rain tax funds were used to pay the salaries of public works employees instead of flood project improvements. The city has never accounted for the rain tax funds. Judson Bryant, president of the Downtown Pachyderm, has been asking for these records for many years.
Federal public corruption investigators should move to Houston for the duration because Turner, et al. will need to be watched very closely. Just a few months ago, Turner’s (former) public works director was wearing a wire and the offices of Dannenbaum Engineering were raided by the FBI.
The answer to all of these concerns is to have the federal government serve as the general contractor. Turner and friends cannot be trusted with the public largesse based on past history.
The Republican congressional delegation needs to form a panel or commission to oversee the implementation of all federal funds. The Democrats will try every way they can to distribute funds to their friends and contributors. Houstonians deserve better.
Ray Nagin, the former mayor of New Orleans, can explain this to everyone. In February 2014, Nagin was convicted on 20 of 21 counts of bribery, fraud, and money laundering in connection with a kickback scheme involving city contractors. Contact Nagin, now federal inmate number 32751-034, at the federal prison in Texarkana.
DanMan says
I too would like to see an independent audit of where the money has gone. The original language had the $8 billion funding over 20 years. That is $400 million/year. All of their language refers to $125 million/year. What we voted for (or against in my case) is not what we got. They told it us it would cost about $5/month. Mine ended up costing over $25/month until they gave me the $5 credit. The vote was held on November 2, 2010 but the law wasn’t written until after it passed (recall Pelosi’s we can’t know what’s in it until we pass it?) and ultimately adopted on April 6, 2011.
It minimum it should have collected $750 million by now. Or is it $2.4 billion since it’s been 6 years (6/20 x $8 billion). CoH Ordinance 2011-254 is a sham that contradicts the language that was used to get the vote and is a direct transfer of public works costs out of the general budget to its own special department. It skirts our Prop 2 TABOR ordinance by declaring the tax a user fee instead of what it really is, a tax. It did not reduce the general budget by the amount that was transferred out. It ballooned spending on other things.
I have a list of 19 CoH employees that were the original Drainage Charge Steering Committee. I recognize many that are still with the city. At least one of them shows up on Anise Parker’s 2012 Budget Task Force membership list. If you ever saw the recommendations that came out of that study it would put our current financial situation in clear view and yet they are still kicking that proverbial can down the road.
Starting with Lee. P. Brown to the current mayor, all of the administrations should be audited and the mayors should be held accountable for the crushing debt and crumbling infrastructure they are responsible for at minimum.
Tired of flooding says
Amen! It spoke volumes when Chris Bell, a flood victim, crossed party lines to endorse Bill King and slime bag Costello (R) endorsed his klepto friend across the aisle.
Jack Rhem says
Don,
1) Sam Pena doesn’t represent the fire union. If anything, objectively applying just a modicum of common sense, we have an adverbial relationship. You would not hear any firefighter singing his praise before Harvey. You will most assuredly definitely 100{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} not hear any praise for him after the storm.
No one steering this ship would be better than the mind boggling dumb steering. I worked for FEMA during Katrina. I know poor leadership, bureaucratic paralysis, etc
2) I’m sorry to hear you like .40. It’s a terrible caliber ! Also, what kind of varmints are in your neighborhood for the 10mm ? 400lb black bears ?
Everything else sounds about right to my relatively uninformed ear though.
Jack Rhem says
And forgive the obviously bad auto corrects
Jeff Larson says
I was going to say, if Don regularly carries a 10, I’ll have to revise my opinion of him up a notch.
Janet Thomas says
Don, excellent commentary on what’s taking place in city government. Turner was a loser in Austin and he’s a loser as leader of Houston, unfortunately during the Mayorial run off, only one in five registered Houston Republicans even bothered to show up at the polls, not that Bill King would have been much better. It’s a shame HCRP won’t back someone qualified to lead the largest city in Texas.
Ross says
The drainage fee revenues and expenditures are on the City of Houston website and lists of the projects are on the rebuildhouston.org website.
If you want specifics, file a Freedom of Information request for the details of the Dedicated Drainage and Street Renewal Fund, Fund No 2310, Business Area 2000 (hint, that’s where you should look in the financial reports as well).
Don Hooper says
Ross, every time the fund was used to reimburse developers for 360 agreements I, Clyde Bryan, or Judson Bryant have asked for an accounting through FOIA requests. The City has never been responsive. I am guessing it is the most frequently denied FOIA the City gets. We have quite a record of denials.
Requests are records and when the US Attorney’s office and the Harris County District Attorneys gets settled I will ask them to ask. They have the power of suponea and to lead grand jury investigations, which has a greater ability to look at bank accounts, communications, an internal communications. There will be no non responsive answers this way. I am betting they will get to the bottom of it and I will request no deals for the first rat in the door. My bet is that Icken roles first? We can start an over/under.
DanMan says
Andy Icken is in the middle of many things that are jinky in Houston. And every issue he is involved in has the same purpose. Control. And what does that control bring? Many, many dollars.
The gal that handles permitting at the city has a keen interest in keeping detailed records of home owner’s improving their properties. I asked her why she did this and accused her of doing it to juice the appraisals. Her response it was her duty to update those records per federal law so that HUD and other federal agencies can properly ‘evaluate’ the housing situation in Houston.
If you call Sears to have a hot water installed they will pull a permit. That permit removes the 10{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} cap you have on annual increases. That also triggers a notification to HCAD that also can change two other categories on your real property account information sheet, that being the Condition/Desirability/Utility box and General Condition box. Both of those factor in to your appraisal value. Putting a roof on with a permit does the same thing. Installing new double-paned windows will cost far more than the energy savings once you realize you will be paying forever for that improvement.
I know this is a rant but here’s the deal. We elect these liberal mayors, and we’re now on our fourth, who work tirelessly behind the scenes to generate more government they can use to control more aspects of our routines that cost us more money to simply go about our lives. They have all the public works employees, police and fire fighters by their short hairs because of the $8billion debt that they have created has them enslaved to maintain this status quo.
This is a dynamic city. It’s full of great people that come from all over the place. We should be a huge economic engine for the state and nation. And here we are operating like that once great city known as Detroit because we elect these charlatans of fiscal lunacy to lord over picayune details of our lives with no regard for the cost.
Ross says
No, Dan, a plumbing permit does NOT get rid of your 10{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} cap. Nor does a new roof, new windows, new siding, or a $60,000 kitchen renovation. We did all of those things, with permits, and never lost the cap. When the HCAD appraiser came by after the kitchen work was done, he asked if we had added any square feet, which we hadn’t, and he went away happy and there were no changes, since all the work was considered repairs and maintenance. Nothing changed on our cap, or our market value. See Texas Tax Code 23-23(e), which says repairs and ordinary maintenance are not new improvements that increase appraised value.
I am not sure which parts of the City government you want to get rid of. We still need police, fire, public works, etc. Police and fire cost more than the entire property tax revenue, so there’s not a lot of potential for savings there. If you think the City taxes are too high, I invite you to move outside the city limits. Of course, your total tax bill will go up, since HISD has the lowest school tax rate in the area, and many MUD’s have higher tax rates than the City.
DanMan says
Ross once again you’re wrong. You don’t live in the city so your experience with the county is not germane to the discussion..
A city employee extolling the virtues of higher city taxes while living outside of the jurisdiction isn’t a good source of information regarding the city once again.
$60,000 kitchen renovation? wow bud, Personal visit by an HCAD appraiser? Didn’t happen. He went away happy and there were no changes? Conjecture.
Ross says
Dan, What makes you think I don’t live in the City of Houston? Our house is within walking distance of the Kroger at Shepherd and 11th. We’ve pulled permits for a new water heater, repiping, windows, siding, roof, and the kitchen in the last 10 years, and none of that work resulted in loss of our cap, or an increase in the appraised value of our house. Same thing with our neighbors up and down the street who had work done. All of them had visits from HCAD, and if the work didn’t increase the size of the house, the appraisals didn’t change.
I would never ask some random clerk at the City permitting office about taxes. It’s not their job, and anything they tell you is likely to be wrong.
Tired of flooding says
Andy Icken needs to be sent to prison ASAP.
DanMan says
Well we should have a trial first don’t ya think?
Tired of flooding says
No, lol. Send him to jail under martial law principles. Ned Stark him ASAP. All kidding, but yeah let’s have that trial soon.