Brown's Name Game

The June 8 memo to Houston Parks and Recreation director Oliver Spellman from Mayor Lee P. Brown’s communications director was unusually blunt.

“Mayor Brown has instructed me to insure that all city publications reflect the Mayor’s Office in some way,” Jim Young wrote. “If not a picture, at least the name and title somewhere in a prominent location.”

Spellman probably wasn’t surprised to get the two-paragraph note, with the attached front page of his department’s “In Houston Parks — Calendar of Events.” Just to be helpful, Young had scrawled “Mayor Lee P. Brown or Lee P. Brown, Mayor of Houston” below the June 2001 dateline.

The memo is just the latest in an increasingly obvious election year campaign by the Mayor’s staff to stamp Brown’s name and face on everything from electronic billboards at Bush Intercontinental Airport to the sign welcoming visitors to MacGregor Park in southeast Houston.

In another twist, the mayor’s staff is using Houston Police Department mobile command center vehicles as portable city halls to carry the mayor’s message — and sometimes his person — to various events. The Funday in the Parks promotion, formerly advertised as a Parks Department presentation, is now billed as a program brought to the community by the omnipresent Mayor for All of Houston. Any day now, expect to see those plastic City of Houston garbage bags on supermarket shelves stamped with the mayoral mug.

To be sure, most of these programs are funded by taxpayer dollars, approved by City Council and administered by departments whose heads are appointed by the mayor with the approval of council.

Asked why Brown had instructed him to make sure the Lee P. designer label was on every city publication, top flack Young made a surprising admission.

“That’s my memo, and I will tell you it’s totally mine,” avers the director. “The mayor didn’t have anything to do with it.”

So what about the “Brown has instructed me” bit?

“Yeah, I know, and that’s me,” replies Young, sounding sheepish. “I screwed up in the memo by trying to make it quick and efficient and get my message there.” Young adds that he had not sent the memo to any other department, despite his written claim that the mayor’s command applied to all city publications.

So is this a flack feeling his oats or a good soldier falling on his sword to protect the commander in chief? When questioned about whether he was shielding the boss, Young parried, “Would I do that? Nah.”

Young denies any political motivation and says he got the idea for the memo “because [in] every city I’ve ever seen, every publication has got the mayor’s office on it somewhere.” He now regrets sending the memo, mainly because he’ll have to call Spellman and admit he stretched the truth.

Contacted later, an unruffled Spellman says he’s complied with the request to put Brown’s name on the parks calendar for July. As for Young’s supposed fib, Spellman says that’s a matter for mouthpiece and mayor to thrash out.

It’s a pretty safe bet Young will get a pat on the head rather than a slap on the hand for his little Brown lie. The real question is whether the fib was in the memo, or in his later statements taking it all back.