Houblog

The mayor just announced the new director of PW&E.

Moments ago the Mayor announced Mr. Krueger as the new Director of the Public Works and Engineering Department. Confirmation by City Council is anticipated as early as late July.

Very Respectfully, 

Daniel R. Menendez, P.E.
Deputy Director
Engineering & Construction Division

Menendez was the interim director for the last couple of days.

Frankly, the mayor should have announced a new ITD director. The website rollout is totally botched. As I write this, the city’s front page is HTV. I don’t mean it’s redirected there, I mean it is HTV.

Once again, ITD fubars a project. No surprises there.

I have yet to see it on any news outlet in Houston, but the word at the office is that Director of Public Works and Engineering Michael Marcotte has tendered his resignation to Mayor Parker. The effective date is in two weeks. According to multiple sources, the Mayor was not happy with unspecified job performance issues and requested the Director vacate his position.

What prompted this action now? The City is embroiled in multiple controversies, as the new mayor puts her stamp on the city. A hefty water rate increase, a drainage “fee” initiative that has her tacit approval, upheavals at Metro; now would not seem to be the time to throw more fuel on the fire. All of those involve Public Works in some way. Yet the fact remains: Marcotte is out.

Several questions immediately occur:

• Is Marcotte supposed to take the fall for the rate increase?
• What was the mayor unhappy about?
• Who else, if anyone, will be following, if the mayor is unhappy?
• Did Marcotte balk at some demand involving the rates, cooperation with Metro, backing the initiative?

Taking the fall doesn’t make sense. There’s no way that Parker can shift the blame for needing the rate increase onto Marcotte; not while she was the controller and silently oversaw the vast expansion of debt funding from capital projects into everyday operations and maintenance. So what is going on?

Perhaps we’ll hear when the usual 3:48 pm Friday evening press release goes out, but I’m not holding my breath.

Update: My view of Marcotte is probably not that well informed; I don’t interact with him in any way. Still, my impression is that he’s an even-tempered administrator who doesn’t rush to judgment, isn’t prone to arrogance, and listens to his managers. He’s been a loyal soldier publicly, whatever he’s had to say privately. He’s tried, within budget constraints, to see to it that his employees are compensated as well as in the private sector.

If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say that the rift probably had to do with the rebate program, and/or contract administration and code enforcement. The latter areas have always given me a queasy feel when I’ve dealt with them; contract inspectors sometimes act like they’re working for the contractor, not the city. There’s nothing I can specifically point to as wrong-doing (or I’d be publishing it, screw OIG), but the creation of the rebate program risks letting the rot spread. Not to mention, it removes funding from the utility system and hands it to slumlords.

Well, I’ve said any number of times (though mostly not here) that the drainage fee was coming back. Sure enough, it has.. There were several things I thought were very interesting in today’s uncritical article.

• The assumption that some of the metro sales tax (aka. “general mobility”) funds would be used for drainage and “infrastructure” improvements. In the first place, that assumes that the changing of the Metro guard means a resumption of those payments to COH. Second place, they’re talking about other than drainage if they’re using mobility funds. Third place, I hope they have that much left after paying for lawsuit settlements for breaking the law about open records. Just as Tom Bazan has hounded them about for years.
• User fee is bullshit, it’s a property tax. Council Member Costello: “It’s a user fee!” Funny, I thought my property tax was a user fee. If I don’t pay it, I’m not going to have use of my land for very long.
• Note the article’s reference to developer fees where such development “affects density.” In other words, they’re going to make it more expensive to develop inside the city– not only that, but they’ll penalize and discourage the very density growth that they claim to be encouraging (and needing) for MetroRail.
• Who are these faceless “engineers” of whom the Chronicle speaks? The only one identified by name is the President of this relatively unheard-of “Renew Houston” That’s Edwin Friedrichs of Walter P. Moore, whose online bio reads:

He devises engineering solutions to help build better communities. Some of his signature projects include the Uptown Houston Transportation Master Plan and Streetscape Improvements Program, numerous roadways and facilities at the Texas Medical Center, Sam Houston Tollway Section VII-A, Minute Maid Park, Lake Texana State Park, BMC Software Headquarters, and the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Mr. Friedrichs works to find consensus, both in his professional work and his civic activities, with groups such as South Main Alliance, Rice Design Alliance, Greater Houston Partnership, Houston Achievement Place, and various City of Houston committees.

Well, I’d not expect an un-influential person to be heading this project.. Can you say “Front man”? I knew that you could.

Some other notes:

The $8 billion to improve drainage would come primarily from three sources. First, the “Stormwater User Fee” that is expected to amount to about $5 per month for an average homeowner and $90 a month for an average commercial property owner with 14 units per acre.

In other words, a property tax, by another name.

Second, a “Development Impact Fee” would set up a program by which developers have to pay for the degree to which their projects impact density.

Which will discourage it, as noted above.

Third, a “pay-as-you-go” plan that would take the estimated one-sixth of total city property tax revenues used now to pay for interest costs on debt that has financed infrastructure and drainage projects and apply it directly to new projects. In other words, the city would not incur additional debt to pay for infrastructure as part of the plan and as old debts are paid off, money used to make those payments would be put to drainage and infrastructure projects.

How about we use the money for Police and Fire protection, huh?

But that’s not all, not by a long shot. Other funding:

The city also would continue to use other sources of funds to pay for road and drainage improvements, such as “mobility funds,” or sales taxes, collected by the Metropolitan Transit Authority and redistributed to the city.

So Metro’s going to cough up the money at last? Wonder how that will affect their already documented inability to pay for their current plans?

The proposed referendum includes a provision that would continue the program for another 20 years after 2032 unless City Council votes to modify or cancel it.

Keep that gravy train rolling, baby, hundreds of millions a year in public spending. Construction and engineering companies are lining up!

Parker said she preferred that the referendum focus exclusively on drainage rather than “general infrastructure,” and she also is uncomfortable that the charter amendment would prohibit future mayors from leveraging the revenues to issue debt if such a course were needed.

What, she wants to pile on MORE DEBT? Well, she let Bill White pile on all he wanted while ignoring the warning signs. Personally, I’m also worried about the referendum being used as an end-run around Prop 1 and Prop 2, if not to just “accidentally” repeal them entirely. “Oh, we didn’t realize it said that, but since it does…”

Houston’s voters need to wake up and smell the arsenic. The “non-partisan” nature of city elections means that neither the Democratic nor Republican parties feel any need to score points off the other by, Heaven forbid, actually doing what the voters want, instead of treating them as particularly stupid sheep to be sheared.

Just in case anyone had the idea that a new mayor meant a change in “the Houston Way”, the following message was sent out via Citizen’s Net, an email list you can sign up for on the City’s website. (old messages are also archived at the link).

Dear Citizens of Houston,

Let me assure you that the State of the City is fundamentally strong. Even with the financial challenges facing Houston, I feel comfortable that we have a plan to move our city forward into an “Era of Innovation.”

Without raising property taxes, we will identify ways to streamline, modernize and reform the core functions of municipal government. We will audit city services to identify savings opportunities and I am implementing a Hire Houston First policy to encourage the use of local companies and hiring of local workers for city projects.

We are working with the business community and regional allies to attract and retain jobs as well as stimulate new international business development. Not only do we want to remain the oil and gas capital of the country, we also want to be the sustainable and renewal energy capital. And, work continues to save NASA’s manned space flight Constellation program.

I call upon all citizens to do their part and join Volunteer Houston, an initiative which will utilize citizen support in a variety of city functions. http://www.houstontx.gov/volunteer/index.html

It is a tough economic time, but just as my family persevered when the economy cost my parents their home and their business in the 1980s, I pledge that the City of Houston will balance our budget as we strive to maintain the full faith and credit of all of our citizens.

I respectfully ask for your help.

Annise Parker

Mayor

Read the entire text of the prepared 2010 State of the City address

Edit: Mayor Makes Minor Goof (via KHOU)

You just can’t write this stuff as fiction. Nobody would believe it.

[Metro VP] Skabowski said there was nothing glaring in the driver’s record to indicate she was a bad driver. Out of five accidents she’s had, Metro said she had only been at fault for one, though her record shows she has been disciplined for speeding, as well as turning right on red where it wasn’t allowed.

“Really she’s got a very good record. Metro makes it look worse than it is. But then they charge their drivers for every little thing whether it’s their fault or not,” said David Gollinger, president of the Transport Workers Union of America Local 260.

Golinger argues Metro may, in fact, be too strict with its drivers.

Clearly, my distaste for the modern-day equivalent of a monopolistic medieval trade guild, a.k.a. public sector unions, is too narrowly focused. Equally, I need to start advocating the banning of management.

As we’ve all been told time and again, red light cameras are ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL about the safety, right? Well, KHOU reports that citizen Byron Schrimbeck found an odd safety violation near one camera, located at FM 518 and I-45 South, and decided to document it:

Texas law requires a light be yellow a certain length of time to safely give drivers time to react and stop.

Schirmbeck then called League City Police Chief Michael Jez and Jez asked The Texas Department of Transportation to investigate. TxDot found Schirmbeck was right about the yellow lights being short.

The eight-tenths of a second made a difference in more than 1,700 citations issued between October of last year and March.

Let’s read that again: The eight-tenths of a second made a difference in more than 1,700 citations. Now, this light was apparently supposed to be under the control of TxDOT. I guess that, since the article doesn’t tell us so. Nor does it tell us what the required minimum time is. But the important question is, who made out like bandits from this money-machine, for six months? Note that the article says refunds are being issued — but doesn’t say by whom. Follow the money, KHOU, follow the money. Doesn’t the state get a cut of it, these days? I’m sure League City gets the lion’s share.

One wonders if some bureaucratic tangle will “delay” the checks. Not that I have anything but total faith in the sincerity of our elected and unelected masters when they say “the check is in the mail.”

Spotted on KHOU:

Shortly before KHOU broke the initial reports of document-shredding, Metro fired its general counsel, Pauline Higgins, as well as another staff attorney, Jakki Hansen. Another staff attorney voluntarily left the agency the same day KHOU’s first story aired. Metro said no other employees from the legal department have left the agency since February 1, 2010.

However, the exodus from the agency continues. A Metro spokesperson confirmed yet another senior manager has left the agency, just two days after it disclosed shredding had taken place. George Smalley confirmed in a written statement that David Feeley, the Senior Vice President of Operations at Metro, left the agency last Friday.

This is in an article, telling us that, surprise! Metro has never been in compliance with state law on recordkeeping.

Let me make this perfectly clear: Metro has NO excuse. All the information you need to know on how to comply with the requirements is available on the state’s websites. It took me a few hours research, and a half-day class on the city’s software and how to fill out the paperwork. To devise the program for Metro, which is far smaller than the city, should not have taken more than a week of work by a lawyer and any reasonable competent bureaucrat assigned to the work. I mean, hell, use the salary they’re wasting on Mary Sit’n'Spin’s blog to hire someone with some experience in the work — I’m available.

Fair warning, though: if you try to shred anything on my watch, you get fed to the shredder first.

KHOU and blogHOUSTON have been talking about the city and county’s decrepit land holdings. Maybe they should look more closely at the tool the city uses to acquire and disburse these properties: LARA.

From the minutes of the August 2009 meeting:

Didn’t we already kill that idea a few months before that?

Read the full minutes on the City’s website — the appearance of Jolanda Jones at the meeting, and the board’s discussion of participating in politics by submitting chosen questions to the mayoral candidates through the League of Women Voters are both illuminating…

Try as I might, I can’t find any mention in the minutes of just how much most of these properties are being sold to developers for, except one lot sold at full value ($10,000) and constant references to the “$1 Lot Program.”

To be able to stop referring to Google as the Chinese Oppressor’s Search Portal.

Freaking libtards took this long to figure out that the Chinese government was going to roll them for info? Eeeeeeeediots.

No, not lesbian. We knew that.

She’s a conservative?

Methinks the LA Times doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about. Someone who has silently financed Bill White’s spending agenda is not a conservative, fiscal, or otherwise. Conservatives keep government spending restricted to the necessities, and do not waste time with worthless amenities such as sports stadiums, useless/expensive/dangerous trams, and wind energy schemes that only benefit friends. Nor do they spend a million dollars on consultants just to cover their political butts for the next run. That’s been the last six years, and the controller has fiddled while Rome burned. We will now discover if this was political pragmatism or agreement with the Democratic machine that Bill White has built.

We’ll be watching to see just how “conservative” this new mayor is.

Steven den Beste backslides into political blogging once again, with a post at Hot Air. If he isn’t careful, he’ll be at it full time again.

Pity I can’t register for comments there, as I wanted to follow up with this: “Is it worth noting that extreme cases of teleological belief would fit the technical definition of schizophrenia?”

As in, iceberg dead ahead!

Lemer/Farb/Roberts assessment of City of Houston Finances (22 October 2009)

Bob Lemer has become known as a bit of a “disaster monger”, and has been about as welcome as a global warming skeptic at a Greenpeace convention. Unfortunately, he’s also correct, and he’s not pulling his punches.

The City of Houston is financially broke and it appears that the mayor who takes office in January 2010 may have to captain the City through bankruptcy procedures.

Well if that ain’t telling it like it is.

Ok, here is my non-accountant read on it: Yes, if we honestly ‘fess up to what the (out of date and UNaudited) books say, we are flat broke. As in, we have a negative net value. That’s not the same thing as bankruptcy though, and while he confuses the point deliberately, I think he’s doing it in good faith. Bob and his co-signers, Aubrey M. Farb and Tom Roberts, are trying desperately to turn the Titanic before we hit the iceberg.

I recommend the full read above, but if Accountant Math makes your head hurt, you may want to skim at least the first half. If that’s too hard for you, I have highlights for the really attention-impaired, presented somewhat out of order, below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since March, there have been rumblings inside the City of Houston’s PW&E department that a large shortfall was pending in the Combined Utility System’s funding. The public first learned about the city’s overall budget problems in Bill King’s oped, which we discussed here. The CUS, which is supposed to be independent of the city’s general fund is a separate issue altogether, though certain funding tricks used during the White era make their appearance once again. Specifically: back-loaded borrowing in which the city pays only a little up front, but then faces a balloon note down the road. According to Lee McGuire’s article for KHOU:

…nearly $1 billion in credit must be renegotiated early next year, and debt payments have spiked $50 million above earlier projections. All told, the system currently faces a $100 million cash shortfall – a significant problem for a department that took in $332 million in water bills last year.

“Re-negotiate” is CPA-speak for “re-finance” or “obtain debt relief, rather than default.” Simply put, the city’s rate-payers are about to face the music for years of living off borrowed money. How bad is it? The city has been making ordinary expenditures, such as yearly water meter purchases, from the capital funds instead of operating expenses. In household terms, they’ve borrowed money to pay for the groceries. And while this specific example represents only a tiny portion of the total, it’s one of the ways that total has been accumulated.

Today’s article was based on item #13 on today’s agenda, a proposal to hire consultants McKinsey & Co. to look for inefficiencies in the Public Works Department. This item was tagged and will return on next week’s agenda. Once again, the mayor is proposing to spend a large amount of funds for a questionable purpose. Unfortunately, KHOU’s article contains a few key errors, and some misleading statements. This may simply be the result of deadline pressure, or it may be that not all of the information provided to the press was…. shall we say, totally accurate.

Read the rest of this entry »

Some people wonder why a city employee would blog anonymously (on the rare occasions when I still do).

This is why, and the snark didn’t even work for the county….

I haven’t got the time to blog this properly, but head over to Texas Watchdog this morning for a look at what almost certainly prompted Vacar’s sudden “retirement.”

This is outstanding investigative reporting, the likes of which has been abandoned by the Houston Chronicle, which now relies on bloggers to cover the news while it keeps us informed of, well see for yourself.

Of course considering that the Chronicle’s loss (in staff) has been TW’s gain lately, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.