On Chron.com’s City Hall blog, Matt Stiles posts an update on Mayor White’s “Boot the Mentally Retarded” revenue stream: the mayor has sent city councilmembers a five page memo explaining his position.
Stiles points out that a KHOU-11 Defenders story from last year led to this current bit of bad press for the city. In that story, KHOU’s Mark Greenblatt reported that city-owned land was being rented by private businesses at rock-bottom prices. After that story, it seems the city did some reviewing. It would be interesting for Greenblatt to go back now and update what changes occurred in the agreements between the city and the businesses in the story.
And note Mayor White’s reaction in KHOU’s story last year:
“I mean it’s unacceptable,” Mayor White said. “People ought to be paying fair market value for those leases.”
He said a new department will handle the rents from now on. Just a few months ago, the mayor hired Bob Christie, a real estate expert with 30 years of experience in the private sector.
“This is evidence why this management change I implemented already is long overdue,” Mayor White said.
White told us he will ask Christie to give him recommendations on the best way to get top dollar out of the land in question.
Regarding the bargain prices we found, like the property that had not been revalued in 40 years, White said: “Total incompetence on the city’s part. And inexcusable.”
He also told us he’d like to sell off most of those properties that have those bargain leases.
The mayor says he now plans to try and sell off, rather than rent, most of that land we just told you about, assigning that task to an expert in real estate he hired recently.
Certainly with regard to most of these leases, Mayor White’s position is right on, but not in the case of The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation.
In his memo, Mayor White says:
I would ask the public to understand that no dedication of taxpayers’ property is “free,” and that any choice that the City dedicate limited public funds or real estate for one purpose ultimately comes at the expense of some alternative public use.
Ahhhhh, if only the folks at The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation had Tilman Fertitta on their side. He has a knack for getting his hands on prime city-owned land, at less than fair market value!
