After a short break, I would like to say that I was studying the campaign but the truth is I was in Vegas studying sports book lines, it's back to taking a look at how the major players in Houston's Mayoral Race could potentially govern should they win.
Adrian Garcia began his campaign for the Mayor of Houston as a prohibitive favorite to make the run-off election. This was due in large part to his relatively high name identification (he has spent the last several years in the public eye as both a City Councilman and Harris County Sheriff) and a natural constituency, Hispanics, that are widely considered to be on the cusp of dominating local, and Texas, politics by some political observers.
The problem, lied with Garcia's political history. A history that is marked by either no exceptional actions (his time in Council) or problematic developments that appear to have occurred on his watch (his time as Sheriff). Because of this Garcia has tried to run primarily on name and identity. He has the weakest "issues" section of all the candidates on his website, only identifying three areas (City Budget, infrastructure, and investing in our kids) each of which are strong on ideas, but light on specifics regarding a.) how he is going to pay for his wish list and b.) How exactly he plans to accomplish these things.
City Budget: Mr. Garcia's website spends a lot of time talking about "managing expenses" and "conducting reviews" to determine whether or not the city is operating efficiently. On supposes that one of his first acts as Mayor, would be to conduct a "top to bottom" review of city operations. On his budget page he states that he would not entertain tax or fee increases until "we have demonstrated to the taxpayers that City Hall is running as efficiently as possible."
The good thing, for politicians, about the statement above is that it doesn't tie Garcia down to any strict standard. "as efficiently as possible" can be a sliding scale standard that can easily be tossed away should the need arise. One can always claim that you are running "as efficiently as possible" given the current level of funding and that increased funds are needed to increase efficiency.
In light of this, the expectation is that Garcia would, immediately after the efficiency survey, seek to revoke the voter-approved, pillow-soft, revenue cap and would then move to increase fees and taxes almost across the board in the name of 'efficiency improvements'.
Garcia favors a pension solution that guarantees 'existing promises are kept' but that future obligations are in line with Houston's financial needs. His plan (he doesn't mention a solution) is to work with the interested parties, City Hall, Legislators, Employees and Taxpayers (it is telling that he places taxpayers last FWIW) in finding a solution to the problem.
Ironically, Garcia leans on his work as Sheriff to sharpen his budgetary cred, which is unusual since it seems that his large cuts to the budget of the Harris County Jail may have contributed to the problems that dogged his administration in the latter days. Garcia also claims to have "Helped" Bill White balance the budget during the latter's administration. Knowing the City of Houston budget process (a strong Mayor submits a budget which Council then can debate or amend slightly) his "help" probably consisted mainly of adding or subtracting around the edges and should not be taken as a serious qualification for the office.
Infrastructure: Of all his policy areas, Mr. Garcia is the most thin on infrastructure. His solutions to the pot-hole/crumbling infrastructure problem is to "reform" public works and make them "work for the public" which tells us nothing about what he wants to really do or how he intends to do it.
The only other issue that he mentions is "transportation" to which is plan is "multimodal" which is an empty buzz-speak word politicians use when they don't fully understand the issue. The problem with a so-called multimodal solution is that it ignores the fact that over 90% of all trips in the Houston area involve people sitting in an automobile, quite often, as a single occupant.
While there is no doubt walking, biking or taking public transportation are options to reducing this number the problem is that most of Houston's walking, biking and public transportation are not designed to alleviate this. The system that is most capable of reducing congestion, the Park and Ride system, is often relegated to third-tier status behind the DangerTrain (which mainly ferries people from one point inside the Loop to another) and recreational walking and bicycle trails. None of which will do anything statistically significant to reduce congestion city wide.
Public transit then, under Garcia, would be operated in a similar manner to which it has been dating back to Lee P. Brown, a toy for the affluent, a diminishing tool for the poor (although the verdict is still out on the recent reimagining experiment) and a non-factor in terms of traffic abatement.
Investing in our kids: There are two types of politicians who scare me. Ones who are always out "fighting" for things and ones who use the old saw "It's for the children." Both of these use loaded language to tug at the emotions of voters and skew issues away from their true causes.
Garcia has been a master at using both. The myth of the 'fighting' politician is not something that has partisan roots. Nor does it have any basis in fact. Politicians do not 'fight'. They never 'fight', they are not fighters but negotiators, political animals who, generally, either lack the steel of spine or rock-solid principle to stand and take a beating for much of anything. Expecting them to do so is akin to expecting an accountant to make a joke. It just doesn't work that way.
Again light on specifics, Garcia's education plan seems to be tied up wholly in the popular-for-the-moment idea of public/private partnerships. Unlike Chris Bell, it's clear that Garcia at least understands the city is in a financial hole and will need volunteer cash in order to meet his early-educational goals. He also mentions dropouts/truancy but offers no real solutions to the problem.
Overall expectations: They say that the past performance is a great indication of future results. In fact, expecting them to change with no external action is the hallmark of insanity.
What we know about Garcia's leadership style is this: He's a constant self-promoter (which has lead to him being hung with the moniker "Sheriff Selfie" by some local political commentators) who's leadership at the HCSO resulted in balanced budgets but also was marred by cases of abuse and neglect at the Harris County Jail. Garcia's response to this is that "he dealt with it as soon as it was brought to his attention." While I realize he believes that is a sign of leadership, it is not. The fact is that he had more eyes on glad handing and taking pictures of himself than he did the day to day operations of his department. When he resigned office to run for Mayor there were issues with employee morale as well.
Also, it should be noted that Garcia has left elected office early to run for one considered more high profile. In the past I have been very hard on Republicans (Former County Judge Eckels, current Tx Senator Bettencourt) who have done the same. It reflects poorly on an officeholder that he fails to finish out his elected term in my opinion, and calls into question their ability to lead responsibly.
There are questions, based on his past performance, whether or not Garcia pays enough attention to detail to tackle the issues that Houston is currently facing. In Houston's "strong mayor" form of government one needs more than a keen eye for publicity and a selfie-stick. Whoever is going to lead Houston needs a clear understanding of the issues and detailed plans for how to address them.
Based on his statements, campaign website and past history it is unclear whether or not Mr. Garcia currently possesses those skills or the ability to grow into the job. That is the great unknown and also why (along with the issues stemming from his time as Sheriff mentioned above) he is falling in the polls.
