Houston city council notes, prepared by Emily J Hynds.

Agenda

1. Mayor’s Report
2. Consent Agenda (items that require a vote, like purchases, resolutions, ordinances, etc)
3. Council Member Pop-Off

The Mayor’s Report

• UNICEF has named Houston the first “Child Friendly City” in the United States.
• The Vision Zero annual report is out today. Vision Zero is Houston’s plan to end traffic deaths and serious injuries on by 2030.
• Houston’s youth poetry team Meta-Four (Meta4) Houston won the national Brave New Voices Slam, a top honor. Congrats to the team!
• Regarding the court action and media attention around the Food Not Bombs case, Mayor Turner affirmed that “Houston is the model” for how to address homelessness. He accused Food Not Bombs of manipulating the media to make it seem like the city is insensitive. He pointed to the city’s partnership with Bread of Life that offers free meals near the Central Library where Food Not Bombs operates, but said FNB has refused to collaborate. He said the downtown library needs to remain accessible to all and, “The citations will continue.”
• While discussing HISD’s closure of some school libraries, Turner evoked segregation era “separate but not equal” facilities. He said, “Black and brown students should not have to go to school where there are no libraries.”
• Next week is break week – no council meeting!

Agenda Items, Selected Works

• Item 9 approved $6.7M on sound proofing for homes near George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
• Item 16 approved $97K for fire boots for the Houston Fire Department. Item 17 approved $1.2M for EMS supplies for HFD.
• Items 23 and 24 approved forgivable loans to support affordable housing in Districts D and H.
• Item 25 accepted a $1.5M grant from the state for homeless programs.
• Items 26 and 27 approved $40M in total to rebuild the fire stations at both airports. Mayor Turner said, “I want to underscore what we are doing for firefighters, the fire department, and ultimately for the city as a whole.”
• Item 28 approved $54K for technical rescue and water strike team training at Oklahoma State University for HFD (basically dangerous water rescue type stuff). This caught my eye because on the agenda it’s called a settlement and I was like, wait, is OSU suing us?? That would be interesting. But it is not so. From the support doc – “There was some lack of clarity regarding the total number of employees attending,” which isn’t that exciting but also made me LOL – guesstimating happens to the best of us!! And then comes back to bite us in the butt.
• Item 30 approved the city’s bid to host the 2028 Republican National Convention.
  • CMs Gallegos and Kamin both argued against, because the Texas Republican Party asserts that Texas has the right to secede, is blatantly LGBTQIA+, denies climate change, and SO MUCH MORE.
  • CM Gallegos read a statement from Kamin because she is home sick with COVID-19 – I wish her a swift recovery!!
  • Mayor Turner said he might not agree with the Republican platform, but if the city pursues hosting the DNC, or any convention for that matter, we don’t get to deny the RNC because that would be hypocritical.
  • CM Gallegos voted no, the item passed. This means that Houston First has the authority to pursue the contract. Two Houston First reps spoke after the vote. They said, “our business is to try to bring as much convention business, as much focus on the city as possible.”
• Item 33 increased the contract with The Harris Center from $920K to $1.1M for operating the 911 Mental Health Crisis Call Diversion Program.
• Item 43 approved a public hearing on Wednesday August 23rd at 9am on the Standards of Care that Parks and Rec uses to operate after-school enrichment programs.

Item 44 – The Curious Tale of The Missing Financial Policy Guideline Document

• My first instinct was to call “much ado about nothing” on Item 44, but upon reflection I don’t think that would be right. Item 44 would have amended some of the city’s financial policies, a fairly routine item. Two snags came up, though.
• Snag 1 – CM Alcorn admitted that the amendment to the item, with mostly typographical corrections, was finalized pretty last minute. She qualified by saying that she sent this amendment to the administration last week but did not hear back until this morning. CM Pollard claimed that he did not receive the updated item at all and motioned to delay so that everyone has more time to review.
• Snag 2 – In her remarks, CM Alcorn brought up a 40 page document that the admin referenced in an Economic Development Committee meeting on May 31, a document that is supposedly guiding financial policy. She wanted assurance that when that document is finished, council will be able to review. Mayor Turner was real cagey about this. He kept saying that even he has not seen that document, which seems absurd considering it’s supposed to be guiding financial policy, IMO?? CMs Alcorn and Peck both reiterated that the document is real because it was presented to them at that Economic Development meeting and they both thought it was odd that council did not have access to it. Mayor Turner jokingly kept repeating how “easy” he is on this item, encouraging CMs to delay the vote, even for another four months (which means it would not come again until after he leaves office). I found his joking manner frankly offensive to CMs who were doing their due diligence to thoroughly review items, which is, by the way, their job.
• CM Pollard stuck with his motion to delay for two weeks, so this will come back on August 23.

Council Member Pop-Off

There are so many back to school events that I am not going to list them individually. I recommend signing up for your CMs newsletter and following them on social media for that information.

• CM Pollard shared successes on the “clean up” of the Bissonet corridor and thanked One Safe Houston and One Clean Houston for helping.
• CM Evans-Shabazz wants to reevaluate HPD’s pursuit policy, which often puts people in danger because of reckless cop driving.
• CM Huffman shared the final event of her Summer Movie Series this Friday 8/11 at Ray Miller Park – the movie is The Descendants.

Who took these notes? And what resources did they use?

My name is Emily Hynds and I am a writer, producer of the monthly storytelling series Grown-up Storytime, and lifelong Houstonian. I am not a journalist or government official. I am a local government enthusiast who believes meaningful change starts at home. These notes are presented from my point of view and with my framing, and are not comprehensive. Your notes will certainly be different, and I would love to read them if you attend.

While compiling these notes I used the following sources:
https://houston.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/
https://forwardtimes.com/houstons-youth-poetry-team-meta-four-wins-national-championship-at-brave-new-voices-bnv-slam-in-san-francisco/
https://houstontx.gov/moc/first-unicef-child-friendly-city-in-usa.html#:~:text=August%209%2C%202023%20%2D%2D%20In,City%20in%20the%20United%20States
https://houwatch.com/#/city-council-2023/2023-08-09-Council_Meeting_Agenda_Session

You can find your City Council Member and their contact info at: http://www.houstontx.gov/council/whoismycm.html

Thank you to Houston In Action and ACLU TX for supporting these notes.
My Patreon is patreon.com/emilytakesnotes.