In his first State of the City address since taking office, Houston Mayor John didn’t spend much time highlighting his economic plans amid a looming budget shortfall and increased expenses stemming from the firefighters’ settlement and recent natural disasters.
Instead, a good chunk of Tuesday’s conversation between moderator William F. McKeon, President and CEO of the Texas Medical Center, and Whitmire was mired in nostalgia about the mayor’s upbringing in Hillsboro and young adulthood in Houston.
Rice University political science professor Bob Stein expected Whitmire to lay out more details of his financial blueprint for the upcoming budget cycle. Stein said he was looking for the mayor to discuss where the funds to cover incurred costs would come from.
Whitmire had previously floated the idea of a one-time tax increase to pay for a portion of the $1.5 billion firefighters’ settlement and help balance Houston’s budget. However, the mayor appeared to backtrack on Tuesday, saying that addressing inefficiencies and fraudulent practices would come first.
Stein said Whitmire could consider other ways to generate city dollars through voter approval, such as raising the revenue cap or issuing a bond to borrow money for capital projects.
The mayor did not elaborate on when he would outline his plan to increase the city’s coffers.
“[Whitmire] is not thinking of ways to make advances on new agenda items,” Stein said. “He is trying to run the city adequately and efficiently and deal with an enormous shortfall.”
According to Stein, additional funds — not used for the settlement or ongoing litigation against the city’s drainage fee — could address the need for more flooding and drainage infrastructure or methods to secure additional police officers such as increasing salaries for recruitment.
“I think the equity issue here remains to be seen. [Whitmire’s] not looking to expand parks or libraries,” Stein said. “He’s looking to really consolidate and improve core services, public safety, water and sewage.”
Stein noted this is where Whitmire and former mayor and Democratic nominee for Texas’s 18th congressional district Sylvester Turner differ.
“Unlike Turner, who talked about equity, walkable neighborhoods and dealing with environmental problems — they were never on Whitmire’s agenda to start with,” he said.
In past remarks, Whitmire has criticized Turner’s administration for the issues it left behind. However, his usual “casting the blame” tone shifted slightly as he said he didn’t want to waste any time talking about what he inherited during his address.
McKeon also questioned the mayor about the relationship between Houston and Harris County in a move that appeared to be an attempt to reel in Whitmire’s more than 30-minute-long rambling origin story.
Whitmire touted what he referred to as his proven ability to connect with several Harris County commissioners and forge a bridge between county officials and his former state colleagues.
“The sad news is that when I took over in recent years, the city of Houston and the county had no relationship with the state government,” Whitmire said. “It became so personal between elected officials from different parties. They wouldn’t talk, they wouldn’t collaborate and Houston suffered.”
The mayor thanked Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick for appointing him as the sole Democratic committee chair in the Texas Senate last legislative session and county commissioners Lesley Briones, Adrian Garcia and Tom Ramsey for their assistance in Hurricane Beryl recovery efforts and community projects.
Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo were notably missing from his acknowledgments.
Whitmire and Hidalgo got off to a rough start that has only seemed to have gotten worse. The two top leaders take turns shouldering the blame for incidents in which one talks over the other or chooses to attend or host a separate press conference on the same topic.
Along with facilitating city, county, and statewide collaboration, Whitmire celebrated his administration’s initiative investigating more than 264,000 backlogged cases. He also pointed to the work done to rule out inefficiencies in city operations and agencies and what he would describe as reigning in excessive spending on some capital projects.
The mayor said his administration would continue to work on the city’s responsiveness to emergencies, enhance public safety measures and handle the ongoing water supply issue in the coming months.
“What’s the state of the city of Houston?” Whitmire rhetorically questioned the crowd. “It’s a great city, great people, and we’re going to address our challenges.”
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
