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].
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The TIRZ 16 Memorial Park saga continues. In 2013, TIRZ 16 annexed Memorial Park, which I wrote about here. The TIRZ sought an extension of its own expiration from the city and, simultaneously, the city cut a deal for park improvements using bond proceeds to be sold by TIRZ 16. This required TIRZ 16 to annex Memorial Park into their jurisdiction. One of my big concerns at the time was Stephen Costello’s involvement in and manipulation of the Memorial Park Conservancy – specifically, the obvious deviation from the park’s original purpose.
Fast forward to Houston City Council’s recent approval of the Memorial Park Master Plan. This plan reconfigures the park in a number of major ways. The Master Plan is yet another puzzle piece inside a long-term plan by engineers, landscape architects, and other ne’er-do-wells to spend lots of taxpayer money – TIRZ money in this instance. The so-called Master Plan, as laid out, didn’t come with a number; but, lots of questions were asked about the number. Making Memorial Drive go underneath the park will, no doubt, cost city taxpayers a lot of money.
Let me tell you why I was concerned about Stephen Costello’s involvement with Memorial Park. First, he led the effort to enact the “rain tax.” He and his merry group of engineers completely misled city voters on the cost of the rain tax – rebranded as Renew Houston. At the time of the rain tax election campaign, I debated Steve Ross, an engineer and spokesman for Renew Houston. Ross told television listeners that the new tax would cost less than the Starbucks in my hand – a mere $5 per month. This, of course, was never true. Applying simple math, the rain tax numbers did not add up – $5 per month multiplied by 440,000 residential homes only raised $24 million. Either this was a vast fraud on the city taxpayers or Costello and Ross aren’t very good at math because Costello’s rain tax charter amendment required $125 million to be raised by the rain tax.
President H. W. Bush 1992
While this fuzzy math debate was going on, Costello owned an engineering company with $38 million worth of engineering contracts with the city of Houston. We know this because Stephen Costello told us so – right here. After the rain tax squeaked by, Clyde Bryan and I worked hard to get copies of Costello’s city contracts. Clyde and I went to City Hall on a multiple occasions asking to see Costello’s contracts. One of the contracts acknowledged by Costello was consistently unavailable – neither Costello nor the city would provide this contract. Jarvis Johnson, City Councilman for District B at the time, walked up to me at a council meeting and said that I was “never going to get the contract.” My first thought was, hum, what does Jarvis have to do with this contract?
Needless to say, I identified Costello as an elected official who needed to be watched carefully because his deceitfulness was blatant and self-serving. During his initial campaign in 2009, Costello could be seen at every Republican event in the city. Just a year later, Costello worked with his engineering buddies to pass the rain tax – a cash cow for the engineering community that was not in line with conservative principles. My concern boiled down to this – if Costello would pull his rain tax shenanigans on the city taxpayers, what was he doing as chair and a longtime board member of the Memorial Park Conservancy?
When the TIRZ 16 announced the proposed annexation of Memorial Park in 2013, I expressed my trepidations to City Council. My big worry at the time was allowing any group to annex the park – especially a group that could potentially encumber it with debt. Also, I recognized that a TIRZ, a political subdivision of the State of Texas rather than the City of Houston, would likely not fall in line with the Hogg family’s restrictions on the park. I am sure that TIRZ 16 or a TIRZ of any kind was unforeseen by the Hogg family.
I was present at the recent City Council meeting where the Memorial Park Master Plan was debated. At the meeting, 52 people signed up to speak and I was curious to hear what people would say – I did not speak. The usual suspects championing the Master Plan were sprinkled in with the conservationists. I could tell that the spend-lots-of-money crowd had done their usual job of convincing everyone that the Master Plan was the way to go. I was (and am) very skeptical.
The 51st speaker on the list was a name I recognized, but could not remember why. It was a common yet familiar name – Frank Smith. Mr. Smith is not a tall man and, at 93, was not an imposing figure. He spoke in a somewhat quite voice, the voice you use when you want people to listen carefully – a skill that I have been trying to develop. When Frank began to speak, he told the council that he is the last remaining member of the Conservancy appointed by Ima Hogg herself. Now, I thought, here is someone I wanted to hear what he has to say. You can watch his testimony here, advance it 7 minutes into the hearing.
Mr. Smith was allowed one minute to speak and Oliver Pennington then asked him a couple of questions. The reason you should care about what the Hogg family and Ima Hogg, in particular, thought about Memorial Park is because Frank knew her and his best friend growing up was Jack Staub, son of John Staub, Ms. Hogg’s architect who built Bayou Bend. Jack was also a Conservancy member, President of the local Audubon Society, and a Doctor here in Houston until his death. Frank made a couple of statements that inspired me to track him down and take him to lunch.
The first thing Mr. Smith said that piqued my interest was that Ms. Hogg knew every architect and landscape architect in town and did not appoint one architect of any kind to the Memorial Park Conservancy. Now, that is a strong statement. Ms. Hogg’s belief was that the park could coexist with the golf course, swimming pool, and ball fields; however, the main purpose of the park was to be a wildlife sanctuary and kept in as natural state as possible. You can see this reflected in the individuals appointed by Ms. Hogg to the conservancy.
At lunch, Frank told me of the many previous battles – to place the Astrodome in Memorial Park, drill for oil in the park, and convert the park into a fish hatchery. Ms. Hogg was always able to hold them back. Ms. Hogg knew the battles were great. More importantly, she knew the powerful contracting, engineering and architectural community had designs for the park. On over 100 occasions, Ms. Hogg fought with different interests who were scheming to encroach into the park or convert its use. Over the years, Mr. Smith was a witness to the strong forces used to preserve the park.
The new Master Plan for the park creates a land bridge – envision Memorial Drive as a tunnel running underneath the Park. This is a landscape architect’s vision for the park. Buffalo Bayou and the park itself are scheduled for heavy construction destroying the natural habitat of wildlife. The wish and desire of Ms. Hogg was to keep the park as natural as possible.
I couldn’t help but notice that Stephen Costello abstained from voting on the park’s Master Plan. Now, there must be a huge conflict because, for the last five years, Costello has rarely abstained from a city council vote. Costello rarely abstained from voting on his own contracts with the city.
Frank Smith’s opinion and expert testimony should matter to a council representing Houston. His story is an important one – not merely for his personal thoughts on the park’s future but as an historian on the many long battles fought to preserve the park. It is important to know about the three recent Executive Directors who left the park recently and Costello’s involvement in firing of one of them. Costello and the engineers are about to do the park what they did to the City of Houston with Renew Houston.
Mr. Smith is scheduled to speak to the Downtown Pachyderm on May 7th. I invite anyone who cares about Memorial Park to come and meet someone to whom we owe a great deal of gratitude for his efforts. More importantly, come here about the park’s history from a person with first-hand knowledge of our city’s crown jewel.
I wish to thank Mr. Smith for his time he spent with me teaching and educating me about the park. Also, Frank lent me his book about the Park and I would like to give credit to Ms. Sarah Emmott for her outstanding history of Memorial Park.
Memorial Park was a gift from the Hogg Family to the City of Houston. In 1924 Mike and Will Hogg, the sons of former Governor of Texas James Hogg (1891-1895), deeded 1,503 acres to the City of Houston. Under the transfer agreement, the land must be used for park purposes or be subject to reversion to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Ima Hogg, sister of the two donors, charged several people with the task of protecting the park: Sadie Gwin Blackburn, Terry Hershey, Frank C. Smith Jr., Dr. John D. Staub. This group later became known as the Memorial Park Advisory Committee. To give you an idea of the value of this gift, a square foot value of $100 multiplied by the park acreage equates to 6.5 billion dollars. Currently, land in the Memorial Park area has sold for $300 per square foot; so, you do the math. There is no question that we are talking about a lot of money.
Approximately one month ago, rumors began flying around town that Mayor Annise Parker was planning to allow TIRZ 16 to expand into Memorial Park. Mayor Annise Parker indeed placed a proposal on the May 15 City Council agenda to have TIRZ 16 expand its borders to include Memorial Park. Please note I used the word expand and not annex.
First, you should know TIRZ 16 is a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone established in 1999. This sends the incremental value of City of Houston property tax from 1999 to the TIRZ – this is big money, hundreds of millions of dollars. TIRZ 16 covers the Galleria area and their leadership wants to build a Bus Rapid Transit System down Post Oak. I disagree with his scheme for a number of reasons; but, I have remained silent because the TIRZ 16 board includes some of the property owners within the TIRZ. If they want to ruin their property value, far be it for me to tell them they cannot do so. Let me explain how this impacts Memorial Park.
All TIRZ are a political subdivision of the State of Texas and and have a specific purpose and duration. As you can imagine, the City of Houston would love to have their hands on this revenue stream. TIRZ 16 has spent most of their future revenues on other projects through the life of the TIRZ, which is set to expire in 2029.
Think of the value of the Galleria and Uptown areas. The area has more than doubled in value since 1999, we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes. TIRZ 16 is looking for an extension; so, this is not a good time to go hat in hand and ask Mayor Parker “mommy may I” when there is an election around the corner. TIRZ 16 desperately wants to be extended through 2040, which would allow them to to finance construction of the Bus Rapid Transit System.
This spring, I spoke twice against expanding the TIRZ to include Memorial Park: once at council and then at a public hearing held by Stephen Costello. Yes, another controversy involving Costello. By now, alarm bells should be going off in your head.
Two years ago, Stephen Costello, leader of Costello, Inc., a civil engineering and surveying firm, used the Renew Houston (Prop 1) ballot measure to bolster his own pocketbook. The last time I looked, Mr. Costello had over 40 million dollars in contracts with the City of Houston and he refuses to recuse himself from voting on contracts involving his firm. More importantly, there was a contract that he and the city of Houston refused to disclose, even after I made repeated trips to City Council. We still do not have that contract, even though he reports the contract on a disclosure form.
When I spoke at City Council on the Memorial Park issue, I expressed concern that TIRZ 16 would include the park in their borrowing schemes. Council Members Oliver Pennington and Mike Laster were quick to say that could not happen. This was disconcerting to me because Mr. Laster was previously sued for his conduct involving a management district. The City Attorney responded that he would offer an opinion on potential borrowing issues involving Memorial Park. Unfortunately, that opinion never came and this issue went unaddressed.
Memorial Park was a gift to the City of Houston, a gift of incredible magnitude that no one could ever afford to replicate. Mayor Parker has balanced the City of Houston budget by selling off assets over the last several years. Mayor Parker and Bill White have established a precedent by spending far more money than the City brings in and selling assets to produce a balanced budget. This brings grave concern to anyone who cares about Memorial Park.
Allowing Memorial Park to be annexed into a political subdivision of Texas also creates risk. The city has now created an opportunity for the Legislature to interfere with the park. This, of course, would never be an issue if Mayor Parker had cared enough to take care of this jewel of Houston.
Now, we get to the root of the matter – Mayor Parker has bankrupted the City. For years, as Controller and Mayor, Annise Parker has spent far more money than the City’s revenue. She is using the drought as a reason for this necessity; but, I say “hog wash”. There will always be natural disasters that will always threaten the park. It is an asset of the City and should be maintained as such. The Mayor’s liberal spending policies have now made it so the City cannot even take care of this great asset.