Mayoral Candidates Talk Budget at Second Forum. Katherine Driessen, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
(Interestingly, the Chron is asking you to pay $3.50/month to see an unfinished product with all of the sub-headers listed as "sudbhddhre". Nice work editing team)
I would like to point out the one candidate who was an outlier from the "hurl large amounts of money at the problem" school of thought.
Former mayor of Kemah Bill King said the city's budget woes are "not a revenue problem."
He said he would push for more cost-saving partnerships with the county, particularly merging the city's independent crime lab with the county's lab.
Agreed. And while I understand that calls for increasing revenue are both easy and the default setting for most members of the ruling class, they really should try harder. The fact is that, when you both have the power of forced takings (taxes) and are a literal monopoly (there's no other entity competing with the city, forcing them to run efficiently or no shareholders expecting a profit) the lazy way out is to just demand more money and then phrase it in serious terms as if you're concerned about the little people that tend to be used during campaign season, and then tossed aside in real life in lieu of parks, trains, trinkets and potty compromises for the well-to-do.
How ridiculous is all of this?
Chris Bell pretended to have gravitas and was not laughed out of the room.
While it's not clear, as of yet, how the public feels about all of this (Given Houston's recent election history any public polling that comes out will be closer to election time, paid for by the Chronicle and administered by bicyclist and husband of Marty, Bob Stein) it seems that there are two options available depending on where you fall on the political spectrum.
On the Left, you have Sylvester Turner. Whether or not you agree with his politics he's the most serious of all the progressive candidates. Chris Bell is a perennial candidate with no ideas and no reason to take seriously, Adrian Garcia was a failed sheriff who's proclivity to allow things to fall apart under his administration is only challenged by his infatuation with selfies. Ben Hall, well, we've been down that disaster of a road before and Marty McVey seems like a nice guy, but one who just doesn't quite understand the scope of the office for which he's running.
On the Right, you have King, who has desperately tried to position himself as a moderate and is, at least right now, the most likely candidate to face Turner in the inevitable run-off. King has his minuses, but fiscally speaking, he's the only one that seems to be speaking any kind of sense at all in regards to fiscal issues.
I didn't include Councilmember Costello in either of these lists because I consider him separately. While most certainly on the left side of the political spectrum he seems to me to be more of a Houston Way candidate than anyone else. Because of this I feel he has an outside chance of making the run-off against either Turner or King. While Turner is the early favorite for the meaningless endorsement of the New Mrs. White should he stumble or veer away from the new-urbanist orthodoxy on important issues I could see Costello getting that nod by default.
So, right now, I've got the race handicapped as follows: (odds to make the run-off)
Sylvester Turner: 6/5
Bill King: 3-1
Adrian Garcia: 10-1
Stephen Costello: 10-1
Ben Hall: 20-1
Adrian Garcia: 25-1
Chris Bell: 50-1
Marty McVey: 100-1
I'm not happy that Houston's Mayoral election is matching America's Presidential election as far as the presumption that we have a coronation on our hands, but there's a long way to go and things could change drastically by the time election day arrives.
