Candidate, Houston Mayor - RUNOFF

BACKGROUND

I've been a public servant my entire adult life. The people of Houston have asked me to run for mayor to use my experience in the Texas Legislature to help the city I love. As a legislator, I have dealt with many of the issues facing Houstonians today‚ public safety, transportation and flooding. I have helped create billion-dollar budgets for the State of Texas. I know how to take action and get things done. I've worked with all my colleagues in the Legislature on issues of importance to Houston. I helped create a Latino Senate district, pass the James Byrd Hate Crimes and Sandra Bland Acts and implemented prison diversion programs. I created the Sports Authority, which built our three stadiums. This year, I passed a bill that will bring millions for economic development into downtown Houston. I intend to work with City Councilmembers, the County and the State, making them partners in the Whitmire Administration. We work better when we work together.

CITY SERVICES

The first step to improving city services is to acknowledge there is a problem, then make fixing the problem a priority. As mayor, I will insist all city departments make customer service their number one priority. On day one, I will order my department heads to drill down into their operations and budgets, looking for ways to improve services and drop unnecessary, outdated programs. I will also empower city council members to work with city departments to solve critical problems in their area, and I will ensure our city employees are prepared with better equipment. I will also improve the Permitting Office, which is slowing down efforts to build affordable housing. We need to build more parks and green spaces. We have to get a handle on our deteriorating water system. I will clean up our neighborhoods of heavy trash. I will work with the state and county on more flood mitigation projects like Willow Waterhole. I got $1 million from the state for that project.

PUBLIC SAFETY

I will increase the number of police officers on the street, partly by hiring civilians to handle administrative jobs that officers are doing now and coordinating with other law enforcement agencies that operate within Houston‚ constables, school districts and Metro. I will strengthen the Community Policing Program; when police officers and people in the community know each other and work together, we can reduce and prevent crime. We need to better equip our officers on how to handle mental health situations, including enhancing de-escalation training. I will provide more and better "Second Chance" programs that will integrate former offenders back into the community and help them with housing, jobs and other services so they don't have to return to crime to support themselves. To help prevent crime committed by our young people, I will work to expand our efforts to work with schools, nonprofits and businesses to provide more after-school programs and summer job opportunities.

ECONOMY

The City Controller is projecting General Fund expenditures will increase by 4.32 percent, recurring revenues are only expected to rise by 2.86 percent. As ARPA funds go away this problem is only going to get worse. We've been relying on one-time or short-term funding sources to pay for recurring expenses. Houston's budget is structurally imbalanced. It's unsustainable. To right our fiscal ship will require a comprehensive assessment of where we stand now and developing a long-term plan to get us out of this hole. We must fund only what we can afford, with priority on public safety, infrastructure and basic city services like garbage pickup, water service and parks. We should look at consolidating the city's 25 departments and combining services with other government entities, such as libraries, parks and public health. The future of this city remains bright, but we are at a tipping point. To avoid falling off a fiscal cliff we must face these long-term structural challenges head-on.

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