Turner eyes politically difficult issues
With flood projects at top of list, mayor also seeks to look outside for funding, revamp HFD
Mayor Sylvester Turner said he would seek to enact “transformational” changes in his second term, previewing an agenda that will require city leaders to confront politically difficult issues and vastly expand the use of public-private partnerships — a critical step for some of the mayor’s otherwise unfunded signature programs.
Fresh off his re-election victory over Tony Buzbee, Turner also spoke in new detail Sunday about his plans to restructure the fire department, accelerate the city’s permitting process, build a new theme park and intensify efforts to repair damaged streets.
“I said when I came in, in 2015, I wasn’t going to ignore things because they were not politically convenient. That has not changed,” Turner said in an interview with the Chronicle. “If I have to expend political capital to get some things done, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Chief among Turner’s priorities, he said, is to improve Houston’s flood mitigation infrastructure and quicken the pace of recovery from Hurricane Harvey, which has lagged. The key flood control projects, Turner said, are the construction of new gates on the Lake Houston dam, detention basins in Inwood Forest, the North Canal Bypass channel and an underground detention basin south of the Memorial City area.
Three of the projects have received initial funding through a federal grant program that covers a large share of the cost, with only the underground basin awaiting approval.
More immediately, Turner faces a burgeoning flood control challenge in the Texas General Land Office’s cap on how much Houston and other local governments may draw from a $4.3 bil
lion federal mitigation aid package. Since Harvey, Turner has sparred over the recovery process with Land Commissioner George P. Bush and Gov. Greg Abbott, both of whom wield influence over how the resources are dealt.
Turner said he has no interest in “fighting somebody just to be fighting,” but he said he would push for Houston to receive a bigger chunk of the aid.
“I want to work with the governor and I want to work with the GLO, but when it comes to making sure that those dollars benefit people in Houston-Harris County that were impacted by Harvey and can be impacted by another storm, how do you justify a disproportionate amount of those dollars going to some other place?” Turner said. “I don’t think you can make that case.”
Private partnerships
During the interview, Turner also made clear that he believes the city must form more partnerships with private businesses and groups due to what he characterizes as the constraints of a property tax revenue cap.
That includes Turner’s neighborhood revitalization program, Complete Communities, which aims to broadly improve targeted areas with funding from banks, corporations and business interests. The initiative, though praised by some advocate groups, has raised concerns about funding sources amid allegations that it amounts to a reshuffling of already-scarce community development funds.
In June, when he expanded the program, Turner announced the fund that supports Complete Communities had taken in $11 million in donations and “multiyear pledges,” with a goal of reaching $25 million.
Turner said Sunday he would ramp up his Complete Communities fundraising efforts next year and, in general, push for public-private partnerships “quite a bit” next term, which begins in January.
“I intend to inject myself even more in talking with financial executives, nonprofits, endowments and others, and essentially saying that the paradigm needs to change,” Turner said. “The city is doing everything that we can from a financial point of view, but we are very, very limited. And if you want these communities to be transformed for the better, it is going to require a significant amount of outside resources to make it happen.”
Firefighter changes
Turner also said he would look to restructure the fire department by switching from a four-shift to a three-shift work schedule, which is generally viewed as more arduous and is opposed by the firefighters union.
Turner affirmed that such a move would involve lobbying the Legislature to raise the baseline at which firefighters begin accruing overtime pay. Under state law, Houston firefighters begin collecting overtime pay when they work for more than an average of 46.7 weekly hours during a 72-day work cycle. Without the added overtime cost, firefighters in other cities often work 53- or 56-hour weeks, with many operating on a three-shift cycle.
Calling the department’s model “archaic” and “not reflective of the current needs,” the mayor contended that these changes would allow HFD to more efficiently handle calls classified as EMS. Those calls make up more than 80 percent of the incidents handled by the fire department, though the fire union has noted that a far lower share of the department’s “man-hours” are spent responding to EMS calls.
The union, which has feuded with Turner for over its bid to secure pay parity with police, also disputes that the three-shift schedule would produce savings and says the change would need to go through collective bargaining.
A shift in council
For his second term, Turner will be surrounded on the City Council dais by at least eight new members, with a noticeable shift toward a younger and more progressive council. The body also will be made up of more women than men for the first time in at least 30 years.
Though the outcomes of two races remain unsettled, for now the council will seat four new members under the age of 40. And though the positions are nonpartisan, former council staffer Sallie Alcorn and former Alief ISD trustee Tiffany Thomas will replace more-conservative incumbents Jack Christie and Steve Le, respectively.
Thomas said that she already has gotten to know many of the new council members on the campaign trail and that she picked up the sense that many are eager to work collaboratively and cut through red tape.
“That type of relationship has already been established,” Thomas said. “And I do think because many of us are younger, and it’s a different generation and we cut our teeth in different places, we’re willing to be more bold.”
District E council member Dave Martin, who was re-elected in November, said he would miss his outgoing colleagues but sees the injection of new perspective into the council as a positive.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to work with some fresh faces and some younger faces. The makeup of council has changed a little bit, and I think it’s for the better,” said Martin, who like Turner said he views flood control as the top priority next term.
Turner said he already knows most of the incoming council members and is excited to hear their “new perspectives” and “innovative thoughts.”
Meanwhile, with District C council member Ellen Cohen departing in January, Turner also will need to appoint a new mayor pro tem, who serves as acting mayor in his absence. Though Turner declined to name his choice, he said the pro tem would be a returning incumbent.
“It will be someone who is thoughtful, someone who is analytical,” Turner said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who has agreed with me 100 percent of the time. That’s not important.”
New theme park?
Otherwise, Turner revealed that he had established a task force to recommend ways the city could hasten its building permit process, which commonly causes headaches for developers.
Also on the agenda next term, Turner said, is to develop a “systematic plan” to identify streets in most need of repairs and a way to address them with available resources.
“When I started four years ago, it was the pothole plan,” Turner said. “But many of our streets, I don’t care how many potholes you fill, they either need (concrete) panel replacements or they need to be totally redone.”
In October, Turner generated headlines when he teased an announcement about a new theme park modeled after Astroworld, the city’s defunct amusement park. On Sunday, Turner said a “major investor” had surveyed city land on the North Side and expressed interest in building a new park but determined “it just wasn’t a good fit for them.”
In the meantime, Turner said, his administration has identified other large land parcels that could host a new theme park, which he plans to present to the investor that backed out. And in January, the city likely will announce a new task force focused on building an amusement park.
“I want to get it done,” Turner said. “This next term, certainly before I leave, I would like to see that theme park up and going in the city of Houston.”