Councilman dies
Houston City Councilman Larry Green is found dead at his home , prompting an outpouring of sadness from his colleagues in City Hall and District K.
Houston City Councilman Larry Green was found dead at his home late Tuesday morning, prompting an outpouring of sadness from City Hall to the southwest Houston district he represented for more than six years.
The cause of death was not immediately known, though Houston police said foul play was not suspected.
Green, 52, remains the only person elected to lead District K, one of two seats added after the 2010 Census led the council to grow from nine to 11 districts, plus five at-large seats.
Green’s ubiquity at civic club meetings and dogged work ethic took a district created from the “stepchildren” neighborhoods of two former districts and made it “better than the sum of our parts,” as Westbury civic leader Becky Edmondson put it. Texting Green at midnight often would produce an answer, she said. Meyerland/ Westbury civic leader Art Pronin agreed — but put the time at 1 a.m.
“He’s at my civic club meeting, he’s at the coalition meeting, he’s at the Super Neighborhood meeting,” Keswick Place civic leader Linda Scurlock said. “He’s there. He’s not on a pedestal. I’ve lived in this community for 41 years, and we’ve never had a council member like that. It was like your friend. I’d call him all the time.”
Even residents pleased with their representatives do not always view those politicians as “friends,” but Edmondson used the same word. When she informed her daughter of Green’s death, her daughter wept. And when her 9-year-old grandson heard the news, he cried, too.
“He’s been planting trees
with Larry since he was 2 years old. He considers Larry as his friend,” Edmondson said. “He was a leader for the city, he was our advocate in District K — and he was my friend. And he was a friend to hundreds of other people like me that met him during his tenure. I’ll really miss him.”
Green’s staff members asked the Houston Police Department to check on him at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Assistant Chief Wendy Bainbridge said, after the usually meticulous councilman had missed appointments and failed to return calls.
Officers forced their way into his condominium, where they found Green dead in his bed.
‘He’ll be missed’
Green practiced law for two decades, served as district director for U.S. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, and ran the job training nonprofit HoustonWorks USA for four years, leaving that post a few months after winning his council seat. As a councilman, he chaired the transportation, technology and infrastructure committee and also held leadership posts with the National League of Cities.
Former city controller and councilman Ronald Green spoke as a friend and on behalf of the councilman’s family, thanking the public for its concern but asking for privacy. Ronald Green, no relation to the late councilman, recalled interning for him as a young lawyer and also serving with him at City Hall.
“I think people down the road will look back and see the results of all that he did for his district,” Green said. “He’s from this area — a native Houstonian, a Madison High School graduate, a University of Houston graduate, a Thurgood Marshall School of Law graduate — so he’s a hometown boy. He has so many roots in this city. He’ll be missed all across the city.”
Scurlock said his constituents — whom she said received precious little attention from previous council members — will miss him most. She ticked off the projects Green secured during his tenure: Key street repairs, a new southwest police station, a new economic development zone, new lighting along South Main, extensions of major streets to open vacant land for development.
Green took builders on tours around his district, pitching its numerous vacant tracts for development. He organized Neighborhood 101 meetings, educating residents on such topics as drafting a will, running a civic club or using city regulations to beautify or protect their neighborhoods. He organized an aggressive tree-planting program and was a champion for a program that hires artists to beautify electrical boxes at intersections.
His office routinely was the most efficient of the 11 district council members’ in allocating his district-specific funds: Gathering project requests from civic clubs, vetting them and prioritizing them for funding.
Songs and roses
This efficiency didn’t preclude a “jovial” approach at luncheons or events for seniors at Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, Scurlock said. At Green’s Valentine’s Day gathering last month, Scurlock said, the councilman sang and handed out roses.
“My phone has been ringing off the hook because people just can’t believe it. We’re all numb,” Scurlock said. “He was vibrant, he was alive.”
Green’s colleagues on the council, which met in a regularly scheduled session Tuesday afternoon, called the news devastating. City Secretary Anna Russell, the keeper of protocol and procedure at the horseshoe, produced a somber moment as she called the roll, “In memory and last roll call, former Councilman Green,” and was met with silence.
“I am shocked and at a bit of a loss,” Mayor Sylvester Turner told his colleagues. “But one person’s feelings are secondary to the fact that all of Houston has lost a groundbreaking advocate for equality, economic opportunity and neighborhood safety.”
Turner also referenced Green’s role as the first representative of a new district, saying, “He was the right person to give definition to this new alliance of neighborhoods and businesses: A hard worker. Not a grandstander. He shared in the economic advances and public safety strides of the district without taking the credit for himself.”
“He’s a beloved council member,” said at-large Councilman David Robinson. “A fearless advocate, a tireless champion of those in the city who historically had less, and just a great guy — fair minded, passionate, diligent.”
‘Unfillable void at City Hall’
District I Councilman Robert Gallegos remembered Green as a “great man, passionate advocate and public servant.”
“When I was first elected in 2014, Larry was one of the first council members to congratulate and welcome me. He had a genuine passion for serving his community and our city,” Gallegos tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “I will deeply miss him.”
City Controller Chris Brown called Green “a true friend to everyone who knew him and a tireless champion for our city. His passion for Houston was contagious, and his passing leaves an unfillable void at City Hall and across our city.”
Turner’s communications director, Alan Bernstein, said late Tuesday the city legal department still was reviewing the procedures for naming Green’s replacement. The city charter authorizes council to fill vacancies by majority vote, but does not specify a timeline for doing so.
Green is survived by a brother, two nieces and a nephew, all of Houston, and numerous family members in Texas and Louisiana. Funeral arrangements are pending.