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Officials have a plan to finish widening Brays Bayou — three floods too late.
It took almost two months, but for the first time since Hurricane Harvey, water is completely out of the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs. May it stay that way forever.
Just as the Christmas retail season seems to arrive too early each year, so does the Christmas free speech lawsuit season. A federal judge in Austin ruled this week that Gov. Greg Abbott was wrong in 2015 when he removed a mock nativity scene from the Capitol. Abbott was acting in his role as chairman of the State Preservation Board. That’s the same group that refuses to order removal of an inaccurate plaque honoring the Confederacy in the same building.
For those of you not following Ted Cruz’s Twitter feed (we only do it because it’s in the job description), the junior senator may have confessed to committing a series of unsolved murders in the Bay Area in the ’60s and ’70s. One little hitch: Much of the killing happened before Cruz was born. A few years back, Rice graduate Tim Faust started selling T-shirts labeling Cruz as the Zodiac Killer to raise money for a nonprofit (we’re only the messenger here). Cruz, who often tries and fails to demonstrate a sense of levity, attempted to play along. This week @tedcruz Tweeted the Zodiac cypher, a coded letter sent to California police in the midst of the crimes. At a time when politicians are trying to be funny and comedians are becoming political, we think people should stick to their jobs. (Of course, we’d grandfather Al Franken).
Our hypocritical elected official of the week lives — surprise — in Austin. Gov. Greg Abbott should look in the mirror before beating his chest over Harvey recovery spending. When members of Congress passed a $36.5 billion emergency funding package, Abbott called them “spineless.” He wanted additional federal money. That’s not wrong, but there’s a rub. More than anything, residents of Texas’ Gulf Coast need Abbott to call a special session of the Legislature to create new flood control districts, to fund infrastructure and to work on coastal protection. He’s afraid that a special session will be used against him by his nemesis, Dan Patrick, so any major state effort must wait two hurricane seasons. That’s a lack of leadership, and it’s disrespectful to those of us in the flood plain.
Most experts agree that if Project Brays — a bayou improvement plan conceived after Tropical Storm Alison in 2001 — had been finished on time in 2014, thousands of homeowners would have been spared soaked sheetrock, warping floors and attacks of mold from Harvey. Government, though, failed them and failed to fund the project in a timely manner. Three years and three floods too late, public officials were patting themselves on the back for coming up with a finance scheme to finish widening Brays Bayou and elevating bridges that cross it. So, what will it take to get the project done? Consider this financial stream. The state water board sends millions in cash to the county flood control district via the city of Houston. Once finished, the feds will reimburse the county, the county pays the city and the city pays the state. There is a better way. Government should tax us fairly and quickly use the money to protect citizens.
Hint to those involved in commissioning a statue of Texans owner Bob McNair, which will be sited on taxpayer-owned property near the Astrodome: No one remembers — or cares — what John Mecom or Gus Wortham looked like (more on that in few seconds). A mini-controversy is brewing over the idea of a bronze McNair when the city doesn’t have statues of, say, Barbara Jordan. Commissioner Rodney Ellis, skeptical of why sports team owners deserve this kind public recognition, called for a statue “policy” and “transparency.” He’s getting pushed back like linemen did by Earl Campbell. Now there’s a Houston footballer who deserves a statue. Instead of a chiseled McNair what about a fountain that has his name? Over decades, we’ve remembered Mecom and Wortham by their water features, not bad public art. And, besides, if you build a monument to McNair, the Billion Dollar Rockets Man will want something bigger.