On the heels of state Rep. Garnet Coleman’s scolding of Mayor White, is this excellent op-ed in today’s Chronicle by Robert Muhammad:
Let me be clear, it is not just the revised rail plan, but the way the mayor and the Metropolitan Transit Authority communicated the rail plan changes to the community that opens them to criticism. The community’s angst is rooted in what appears to be the arrogance of power.
The citizens of Houston elected White to be the mayor — not their father. The title of the popular television show was Father Knows Best — not mayor, congressman or transportation planner knows best. In his op-ed, Mayor White stated, in the future tense, that he and Metro will listen to the community and will explain the transit plan to them. If the listening and explaining would have been in the past tense, the mayor and Metro would not find it necessary now to be defensive about the plan.
Similar to the fallout from the implementation of the Safe Clear program, it appears that the community is a public policy afterthought with White’s administration.
He’s not alone in thinking that.
Whenever voters are asked for their approval of a policy, the mayor, as a policy implementer, should remember to confer with the voters if the approved policy is substantially changed — as we now see the Metro transit plan has been substantially changed.
In Texas, popular sovereignty means that power lies in the will of the people governed, not with the government itself. The community wants to make this view crystal clear to the mayor, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the congressional delegation and private developers.
