Houston-Galveston Area Council needs compromise
Houston has been called the “blob that ate East Texas.”
The blob has grown, in large part, thanks to highways and annexations that gobbled up surrounding communities. In a timeline of the region’s growth, the Greater Houston Partnership notes that in the 1940s, the city almost tripled in size “in a single night.”
We view our blob with affection. But in recent days, the threat — real or imagined — to neighboring communities has divided local leaders and our regional planning body, which has overseen the unending spread of concrete that made us what we are today.
At stake is whom we want to become. This board has championed a grassroots effort to shake things up among the powers that be, endorsing a charter amendment that would force the city to go the Houston-Galveston Area Council, which includes the metropolitan planning organization that oversees the region’s transportation dollars, and renegotiate what we consider to be an unfair voting structure.
The voters approved the measure and late last year, talks began in earnest on how to ensure the voting power of Houston and Harris County comes closer to its portion of the population. Those seemed to be going well, as we wrote this month.
“We had some good discussions,” said Sallie Alcorn, a member of Houston City Council and one of the Houston representatives tasked with leading the effort.
What they came up with seemed reasonable: a system that resembled the one used in the Phoenix area and that doesn’t veer too far from our local status quo. The current voting structure, with one vote per entity at the table, would remain but members would be able to call a second vote, this one weighted more proportionally to give places such as Houston, Harris County and even fast-growing suburban counties, more of a voice on particularly contentious issues.
Not only was it reasonable, but Alcorn and others were willing to compromise further.
“And then the tone just really changed,” said Alcorn.
The dividing lines emerged largely between the urban core and suburban and outlying jurisdictions such as Sugar Land and Pearland whose leaders rejected what they seemed to consider the result of the work of a “special interest” group and expressed concerns that the proposed system would effectively give Houston veto power.
Lurking in the background, it seems, is the fate of the long-delayed, longdebated I-45 expansion. This is the same controversial highway project that the city of Houston and Harris County pumped the brakes on, objecting to certain aspects that eventually led hardwon memorandums of understanding with the state. Their criticisms were overruled in the regional transportation council, galvanizing the effort that put this representation struggle on the ballot to begin with. At this point, the transportation council has approved some but not all of the I-45 project.
Would a new voting structure imperil those portions of the I-45 expansion?
Possibly. It would likely require that the region’s transportation council find a consensus that can pass muster with all parties, including urban communities who would see their roads torn up and homes relocated, and the outlying counties, who benefit from a smoother way in and out of town.
We have full faith that our elected leaders at the table were and still are willing to bargain. And we have reason to believe them when they say that the second vote under the proposed system would be sparingly used. After all, that’s how it’s worked in Phoenix for decades.
“It’s a push for people to stay at the table to talk to each other to resolve the differences,” said Ed Zuercher, the executive director of the Phoenix area’s council of governments, which, like the Houston-Galveston Area Council includes the metropolitan planning organization.
The second vote gives the largest city some comfort, he said, but the two-step process also gives the small members some assurance that Phoenix can’t just impose its will. Indeed, he couldn’t recall a time the second vote was even invoked since at least 2008. He asked around.
“There’s only two or three times people can remember it,” he said. In practice, what it’s done is ensure that everyone keeps talking “because no one region actually has a numerical majority.”
For elected leaders worried about a power grab here, Phoenix should provide some comfort.
But at the end of the day, this is about fairness. The current system is not fair to Houstonians. Not to those organizing for the ballot measure, not to the 142,000 who voted for the charter amendment and not to everybody else who lives here and deserves a real say in major decisions affecting the city’s growth.
Not only did the transportation policy council reject Houston’s proposal when it voted it down Friday, it wouldn’t even grant a 30-day extension to continue working on it.
Friday’s vote doesn’t stop any projects or planning at the moment. But it opens up a ton of questions. The city is bound to either negotiate a more proportional voting structure or “withdraw” from the transportation council, and broader regional council of governments if it also fails to approve a bylaw change. What that means in practice is up to interpretation by the city attorney and even the organizers behind the ballot effort. But withdrawing could hurt the region’s ability to secure federal transportation funding to help keep us all moving.
As adamant as those transportation council members were that they’d heard enough, we don’t believe the effort is dead. We know Mayor John Whitmire is working diligently to find a solution, even reaching out to those most opposed. A spokesperson told us that he’d recently had breakfast with Sugar Land Mayor Joe Zimmerman and that he was confident the conversation will continue. We are too. There’s too much at stake that no ones wants to lose out on. We believe a compromise can still be reached.
Because, as in the case of Phoenix, finding a fairer solution means finding a system that truly requires everyone in and around this blob we call home to work together.
Proportional representation on the panel appears to be at an impasse