Judge gives city a week to verify petition
Houston firefighters, seeking pay parity with police, submitted document last year
City Secretary Anna Russell has one week to finish verifying a petition Houston firefighters submitted last summer seeking pay parity with police or risk being hauled into court, a state district judge said Friday.
Judge Dan Hinde had given Russell until Friday at 5 p.m. to verify whether the firefighters had reached the minimum threshold of 20,000 signatures needed for the item to appear before voters.
City attorneys asked the judge for an extension Friday morning, however, saying that, after a slow start, the count had reached 14,000 names and was proceeding briskly with the help of eight staffers who were assigned from other departments about two weeks ago and approved for overtime pay.
The judge denied the city’s request. However, he asked only that the firefighters’ attorneys submit a draft writ for him to issue by May 4, indicating that if he got word the count had finished before then, he would leave the paperwork unsigned.
“I understand the city has a variety of services and duties to its citizens. I don’t discount those,” Hinde said. “But it was not apparent that the city secretary was emphasizing enough the importance of the electoral franchise and referendum power, the legislative power, the citizens are entitled to.”
Firefighters submitted a petition last July asking for a ballot referendum that, if approved by voters, would grant firefighters the same pay as police officers of corresponding rank. Mayor Sylvester Turner has estimated the cost of implementing that proposal at about $60 million per year; the city faces projected deficits of more than $100 mil-
lion in each of the next five years.
Russell did not validate the firefighters’ petition in time for the November or May elections, so leaders of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association sued in December, leading to the deadline now in force.
“Our intent is ensuring the petitions signed by the citizens are counted and that voters have an opportunity to weigh in,” fire union president Marty Lancton, a plaintiff in the case, said after Friday’s decision.
State law sets no timeline on which charter petitions must be validated. Russell received three petitions last year, one of which fell under a chapter of state law that forced her to count it within 30 days. After doing so, she returned to tallying a pension-related petition to amend the city charter that her office received in April. The firefighters’ petition, which also would amend the charter, was submitted in July.
Russell, who has served the city for 65 years, has expressed disappointment with the case, saying she was processing the petitions “the way that I’ve always handled them: The first one in, the first one out.” After the judge’s decision Friday, she said, “I’ll just continue to do our work.”
Count was ordered in March
At the hearing Friday, Hinde asked why the count had not begun in earnest immediately after his March order was issued.
“Why didn’t she use the extra time I already gave her?” he asked Assistant City Attorney Brian Amis.
Amis said the secretary’s office began preparing the paperwork on which the formal count would be recorded on the day the judge’s order was issued, a process that includes individually numbering each signature line and stamping each page. Within a week of the order, Amis said, Russell asked Turner to approve money for overtime pay and to lend her additional staff.
Russell and her staff must verify that a sufficient number of the names on the petition are those of registered voters who live inside the city of Houston.
“With the diversion of resources from other departments, along with the expenditure of unbudgeted overtime, the city believes it can finish counting the petitions by or before next Friday,” mayoral spokeswoman Mary Benton said, adding it was unclear how much the effort would cost.
“We see no need for an extension,” said Troy Blakeney, an attorney for the firefighters. “We’re not standing before the court to ask that Ms. Russell be brought over here on a writ, but we think timing is really important.”
It is unclear when the petition, if validated, would appear before voters.
City attorneys have indicated that Mayor Sylvester Turner intends to schedule a vote on the petition, if it is validated, during the next municipal election cycle in November 2019. Blakeney has said, he expects to wind up in court again to accelerate the vote.
City Attorney Ron Lewis, who had told the judge that a number of city employees had been required to neglect their regular duties in an effort to comply with the court’s order, traded words with Blakeney in the hallway outside the courtroom after the hearing.
Firefighters irate
Both men seemed to agree that a 10-day extension would have been reasonable, but apparently had failed to make their positions clear to each other before the hearing, and so came away instead with effectively a six-day deadline. The City Hall Annex, which houses Russell’s office, will be without power Saturday for repairs, Amis said, removing one counting day.
The petition fight comes as the fire union is suing the city over stalled contract talks.
Firefighters have been without a contract for almost four years, have received just a 3 percent raise since 2010, and were irate over Turner’s successful push to reduce city workers’ pension benefits at the Texas Legislature last year.