Garcia isn’t perfect, but he’s effective
To hear Adrian Garcia tell it, his first four years as a Harris County commissioner were a repudiation of his predecessor, Jack Morman.
Garcia, a Democrat, likes to say that he brought Precinct 2 — which encompasses Aldine and Northside, along with much of east Harris County, including Galena Park, Deer Park, Pasadena, La Porte and Baytown — “out of the stone age.”
Garcia claimed Morman, a Republican now running to reclaim his old seat, was tracking the precinct's infrastructure projects in a red notebook with pencil and paper. Lower-income neighborhoods that Garcia claims were long neglected under Morman are safer, healthier and more vibrant with better sidewalks, hikeand-bike trails and parks. Parts of the county that for years were acutely vulnerable to flooding would now have first dibs on flood mitigation projects.
That narrative of rebalanced priorities certainly benefits Garcia politically; it also has some truth to it. Garcia, 61, former Houston police officer, city councilman and Harris County sheriff, has delivered on a number of the issues he ran on in 2018, from criminal justice reform to environmental justice to health care. Few would argue that his precinct is worse off than when he took office, and in some corners it is markedly better.
In a precinct where some county residents are 56 percent more likely to be diagnosed with cancer, Garcia secured funding for air quality monitors. He partnered with Baylor College of Medicine to bring SmartPods — a one-stop shop for health care services, including clinic spaces, pharmacies and biosafety labs — to medically underserved residents in Pasadena and Aldine. He was the driving force behind bringing a $7.6 million park to Northeast Harris County for children and adults with disabilities in an area desperate for green space. His proposal to boost the homestead exemption for senior citizens and disabled homeowners saved vulnerable residents millions in property taxes.
“Not only have we focused on the basics, but we have made sure not to forget the human capital that is so critical to the vitality and the success and the future of Precinct 2,” Garcia told the editorial board.
Yet Morman, 44, isn't quite the boogeyman Garcia portrays him to be. He brings his own strengths to the table. A native of Deer Park, Morman lives in Shoreacres and practices civil law. He caught political operatives off guard in 2010 when he unseated Democrat Sylvia Garcia — the first upset of a sitting county commissioner in 36 years — then managed to hold onto the job for eight years.
While Morman has a fundamentally different vision for the role of county commissioner, with a narrower view of county government as a provider of law enforcement, transportation and flood control services, he demonstrated some success with that meat-and-potatoes approach. He spearheaded projects to restore the Sylvan Beach Pavilion and the Leonel Castillo Community Center. He was also a major supporter of the 2018 flood control bond and criticized Garcia for attempting to reallocate money for certain flood bond projects to more “politically advantageous” areas.
“When the voters passed this bond, by such an overwhelmingly wide majority, they did so because we made a covenant to them: ‘You pass it, this is what you'll get, and this is the order you'll get them in,' ” Morman told the board. “This current court immediately proceeded to break those covenants.”
Morman is running on improving public safety, but has not scapegoated misdemeanor bail reform as so many others with less-informed views on crime tend to for easy political points. His primary concern is ensuring the county's public safety dollars are spent hiring more officers, getting more actual boots on the ground, rather than the more holistic strategy that Garcia has advocated for, which includes repairing blighted neighborhoods.
On this issue, we believe Garcia's “broken windows” approach makes sense even if it hasn't won him many friends in law enforcement. Morman boasts that every regional law enforcement union and association has endorsed his campaign.
While Garcia chalks this up to politics — police unions, after all, tend to support Republicans — we'd like to see him show more urgency in directly addressing the county's criminal case backlog. He has thus far been reluctant to meet Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg's funding requests to hire more prosecutors, though he's countered that Ogg has dozens of vacancies she should fill first. As a former sheriff, Garcia has the credibility to be a salient voice on crime, and he should be out in front pushing state lawmakers to fund additional criminal courts to process cases.
That's not the only blemish on Garcia's record. The Chronicle's Zach Despart reported in February that 68 percent of Garcia's campaign contributions during his first term came from vendors with business before the county. While technically legal, and Garcia has rejected any insinuation that the donations influence his decisions, this practice raises all sorts of ethical questions.
He also teamed with Commissioner Rodney Ellis and County Judge Lina Hidalgo to flagrantly redraw county precinct lines to benefit themselves at the expense of their Republican colleagues, contributing to a pattern of dysfunction on Commissioners Court that has resulted in a stalemate on passing a county budget. While Republican commissioners Jack Cagle and Tom Ramsey bear the brunt of the blame for the budget impasse by boycotting court meetings for more than a month, it's fair to question whether the Democrats' gerrymandering poisoned the well.
Still, Garcia deserves credit for attempting to be the adult in the room and meet Cagle and Ramsey in the middle. He made a good-faith effort to bridge the divide by boosting law enforcement funding and narrowing the gap on tax-rate proposals.
“I'm just advocating for my colleagues to show up for work, let's put the proposals in front of us, let's get the budget director to analyze and assess them, and then let's figure out what will work best to accomplish a tax-rate decrease,” Garcia said.
No, Garcia isn't perfect. But even his detractors would acknowledge that he's been effective. Morman's personal style may be more agreeable, but his vision for the office lacks ambition. We want a county commissioner who will continue to use the levers of power to make their constituents' lives tangibly better beyond fixing potholes and digging drainage ditches.
Voters should send Garcia back to Commissioners Court for another term.