[WB1] KPRC-2 investigative reporter Mario Diaz broke a big story this week about a unique Houston “internship” position with a salary of $95,000 that Mayor Sylvester Turner arranged to have created within the Houston Airport System for a favored 31-year-old staffer for reasons that remain unclear.
Turner initially denied that he even knew the person in question, but when various social media posts and text messages made clear that claim was not true, Turner and allies shifted their narrative to talk about the young person’s multiple degrees and the administration’s efforts to attract millennials to public service.
After the initial story, one mayoral staffer took a break from the usual campaign-tweeting to criticize local journalists over their coverage of the story (see thread). The mayor’s embattled communications staff also shared that the mayor has signed off on waivers of City of Houston civil service rules (ostensibly intended to promote meritocracy and transparency) 122 times across 23 city departments since becoming mayor.
That’s not exactly the strongest rebuttal to accusations by his political opponents that Mayor Turner operates a nontransparent patronage culture.
Whatever the merits of the young man (whose name we’ve omitted because this isn’t really about him or anything he’s done), the bigger problem here is that Mayor Turner asked the Houston Airport System to expedite the creation of a very lucrative “internship” (at a greater salary than 95% of all City employees, according to mayoral candidate Bill King) for someone of his age/experience without any advertisement of the position or any competition for reasons that are entirely unclear. It also remains unclear exactly how taxpayers, travelers, or the Houston Airport System benefited from this arrangement.
[WB2] The Turner administration took a second hit this week when the FBI released 2018 crime statistics that generally support mayoral candidate Bill King’s assertions that violent crime is up significantly under Turner’s watch. The Houston Chronicle, which had previously published an article attempting to debunk one mayoral candidate’s wilder accusations about crime, was forced to backtrack somewhat from that story.
[WB3] The Turner administration (and the new Democrat-run Harris County government) took a third hit this week when Gov. Greg Abbott announced that because of Houston’s slow progress in terms of Harvey recovery, the General Land Office (not the City of Houston or Harris County) will oversee control of a $4-billion+ Harvey recovery program. As KTRK-13’s Ted Oberg has reported, only 15 people have been helped so far by the City of Houston’s existing program. As noted nearly a year ago, however, Mayor Turner’s former law partner was in line early for a nice cut of the funding.
[WB4] Undeterred, Mayor Sylvester Turner promises more of the same – and an even greater focus on progressive issues – should voters grant him a second term. Strangely, his campaign website does not (and apparently will not) contain an issues page or section for voters to determine what any of this might mean.
[WB5] This week, the Chronicle published an analysis of so-called crisis investors and their efforts to snap up distressed properties and flip them, post-Harvey. One takeaway: Some people “have proved reluctant to move back into certain communities” – or to frame it slightly differently, Houston’s flooding issues are coming to represent an existential threat to the area.
Of course, some of the nicer remodeled homes have been snapped up. As we noted some weeks back, the Chronicle ran a story earlier on homes that flooded and have been rehabbed so nicely that they’ve become the hot properties in their respective neighborhoods (we also noted that the writers neglected the perverse incentive that the current flood insurance program creates for just this sort of development – see WB7).
[WB6] Bob Rehak reports that the City of Houston filed a cease-and-desist order against Perry Homes and other builders involved in the Woodridge Village development in Kingwood. Rehak’s site has been invaluable in documenting the developers’ apparent contributions to recent Kingwood flooding, and prompting action.
[WB7] Rehak’s site also links to the newly published report on Imelda from Jeff Lindner and Harris County Flood Control.
[WB8] Local law enforcement agencies and organizations had ample warning that Robert Solis, who killed Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal, should be off the streets. It’s a tragedy that the warnings had no effect.
[WB9] Empower Texans wonders if Harris County Republicans Jack Cagle and Steve Radack are serious about stopping the Democratic majority’s massive tax hike on 8 October this week.
[WB10] Wayne Dolcefino filed a criminal complaint against METRO this week, arguing that METRO’s blitz in favor of its METRO Next proposal violates state law against the use of public funds for political advertising. The organization has blown through millions of dollars worth of advertising already – money that’s not going towards improving area transportation. See more from METRO Watchdog and Responsible Houston.
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