The Six-Year Itch

A quick Insider poll of City Hall veterans came up with a consensus that the administrators with the best chance to be retained on White's team are solid waste director Thomas "Buck" Buchanan and public works director Jon Vanden Bosch. The former got high marks for the cleanup after Tropical Storm Allison, while Vanden Bosch restored relative order after several years of anarchy in the department.

On the other hand, White promised in his campaign to cut the management costs of city construction contracts. That commitment, plus the fact that Vanden Bosch is nearing retirement age, could mandate a search for a new public works director.

With Haines gone, finance and administration director Phil Scheps is given a good chance to find his footing in the new order. "He's a very valuable person to keep in any administration because he has a way of delivering the facts, the bad news, that Haines never would," explains a City Hall observer.

Major department directors most likely to retire or be replaced are City Attorney Anthony Hall, health director Mary desVignes-Kendrick, parks director Roksan Okan-Vick and library director Barbara Gubbin.

Lawyer Roland Garcia is one of the names being mentioned for the city attorney post. While Hall will leave the post, several sources say he'll stay in the new administration in some other capacity.

Okan-Vick's future isn't helped by the recently published study on citizen dissatisfaction with the state of the parks system. Librarian Gubbin has had poor relations with City Council. Councilman Michael Berry, when he ran for mayor, singled out Gubbin as the first city director he'd fire if elected.

Over at Metro, feisty president Shirley DeLibero's contract expires in April. Nobody, including White, expects her or board chairman Arthur Schechter to stick around to supervise the expansion of the rail system pioneered here under Brown.

"I know that the chairman intends to move on to other things, and so does the president," says White, although he admits he hasn't talked to DeLibero directly about her plans. "We need to have people on the board and in senior management positions who could help us build more of a consensus in our community behind mass transit."

A Metro source says if there's a replacement from within, John Sedlak would likely get the nod. He's an agency vice president and considered a good communicator who maintained solid relations with both sides in the rail debate.

During his campaign for mayor, White opposed Schechter's and DeLibero's efforts to press for a larger rail proposal, rather than the phased construction referendum that voters narrowly approved. One of the architects of the compromise was developer Walter Mischer Jr., who chaired the transportation committee for the Greater Houston Partnership.

Mischer's father is a legendary Houston political kingmaker and campaign contributor, and he and his son raised thousands of dollars for White's mayoral effort.

A willingness by the junior Mischer to do the dirty work in dragging both antirail troglodytes and Mayor Brown into the deal has fueled rumors he's in line to succeed Schechter as Metro chair. Other names in the hopper include businessman Ed Wulfe, who chaired the Metro campaign, and auto dealer George DeMontrond, who also supported the rail plan.

Mischer says he's not seeking the unpaid position and has not talked with White or anyone else about an appointment.

"If I were approached in any capacity, I'd have to do some serious thinking about it because of the time requirement," says Mischer. He runs Wheatstone Investments, which developed The Park at Memorial, the posh gated community of single homes and town houses west of downtown.

"I don't know what I'd say," comments Mischer. "It's a big job, and I've already got a big job."

If White does call on Mischer, The Insider is betting the developer will find the offer very hard to refuse.