Commissioners to vote again on funds’ allotment
Harris County Commissioners Court will vote a second time to reallocate road money after Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle, a Republican, alleged an earlier vote violated the Open Meetings Act.
Cagle said the June 25 agenda item, under which the Democrats shifted $9 million in Metropolitan Transit Authority funds away from Republican precincts into ones they control, was too vague. First Assistant County Attorney Robert Soard said his office did not conclude whether a violation occurred, and said the issue is moot because there will be a re-vote. “All of our agenda items need to be as specific as they can be,” Soard said. “I can’t say the item violated the Open Meetings Act; I think that’d be a step too far.”
Though the Democrats’ narrow Commissioners Court majority allows them to steamroll Republican opposition, they again find
themselves defending charges they have failed to be transparent.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis placed an item on Tuesday’s court agenda that calls for discussion and possible action related to reallocating Metro funds until the county engineer can complete a study to determine each precinct’s transportation needs. His original item on the June 25 agenda was a terse 13 words that mentioned only “discussion and possible action on Metro funding to the county.”
Joe Larsen, a Houston lawyer who specializes in Texas public records law, said the June 25 agenda wording may have been insufficient.
“You need to put enough into the notice to make somebody understand the subject of what’s being discussed,” Larsen said. “The way they initially described it, it doesn’t seem like they described reallocating funds.”
Cagle said using that item to propose a vote on redistributing millions of dollars in infrastructure spending contradicted his colleagues’ pledges to be more transparent. Democrats took control of the chamber in January for the first time in more than two decades.
Cagle on Monday wrote a letter to his four colleagues objecting to five items on Tuesday’s agenda, including the re-vote on Metro funds, because he said they contained too little information for a commissioner to decide how to vote. He also has sought the opinion of Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Ellis said that although the court already has approved a motion to evenly divide the Metro funds, he placed the item back on Tuesday’s agenda in more detail to “put to bed any unfounded concerns” from the June 25 vote.
Garcia, the Precinct 2 commissioner, dismissed questions about transparency and said the public was properly warned about the first vote.
“This is a false argument coming from the losing side,” Garcia said. “Commissioner Ellis included this item in the agenda and added necessary details to support it with enough notice.”
Harris County, like all local governments in the Metro service area, receives funds from the transit authority for transportation improvements each year. The county has spent, on average, $31 million annually over the past five years.
The Democrats — County Judge Lina Hidalgo and commissioners Ellis and Garcia — said Metro funds, the majority of which went to Republican precincts, were distributed unfairly. The GOP-held precincts 3 and 4 comprise much of the unincorporated area in northern and western Harris County and have the greatest demand for new roads.
The trio argued, however, that each precinct has roughly the same number of residents and demand for sidewalks, streetlights and drainage improvements. On a party line vote, Commissioners Court approved temporarily dividing the Metro funds equally among the four precincts until the county engineer’s study is complete.
Ellis said he also wished to examine how the nearly $120 million in annual toll road revenues used for roadbuilding is divided among the precincts, though no item on that topic appears on Tuesday’s agenda. Nonetheless, dozens of speakers have signed up to speak about Metro and toll road funds.
State Rep. Jon Rosenthal, a Democrat whose district straddles precincts 3 and 4, is among those who plan to speak. He said court members should take a cautious approach to redistributing transportation funds.
“My approach would be to study the situation and make a case for keeping or changing it, based on the data,” Rosenthal said. “And then put out a detailed plan so constituents like me get a chance to absorb it.”
On another 3-2 vote in April, the Democrats selected Lesley Briones to replace Bill McLeod as a civil court judge, after McLeod mistakenly resigned his post. The Republican commissioners, Cagle and Precinct 3’s Steve Radack, complained because only the Democrats had an opportunity to vet Briones, her name was absent from the agenda, and just 36 minutes passed between her nomination and approval.