Turner tears up airport contracts, will start bidding process over. Mike Morris, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
Mayor Sylvester Turner said he will tear up a series of massive airport expansion contracts and start the bidding process over late Tuesday, hours after City Controller Chris Brown said he would not clear the way for council to approve the items, citing potential violations of city procurement rules and other concerns.
And, so it begins. There were questions surrounding these contracts that first surfaced under the prior administration which, amazingly, were not even mentioned in this article. At the time, then Mayor Annise Parker tried to classify the dispute as a personal issue between then-City Controller Ronald Green and Texas State Representative Boris Miles, the latter seemingly having forged some type of relationship with the former's ex (or soon to be ex)-wife.
Like most political observers I assumed, wrongly, that the exit of Green and Parker would mean that the contracts plowed ahead, and all would be well that ended well with the establishment patronage system still in place. (After all, one of the firms contracted employed a current sitting councilman and the other was owned by Democratic gadfly Boris Miles.)
It appears however that current City Controller Brown is doing his former boss a solid, and Mayor Turner wants to start rewarding his own set of political patrons, so out to re-bid we go.
My question is rather or not the jilted companies are going to play hard-ball and try and fight this, or will they understand that they can get back in the game fairly easily by paying tribute to the new and reigning king?
Given that Mr. Miles and Mr. Turner are firmly entrenched in Sheila Jackson-Lee's Houston Democratic political machine, I can't see Miles going anywhere and the firm that employs Councilman Davis is surely going to be retained in some fashion. So most of the major lawsuit worry is probably going to be negotiated away. What is a mystery will be the other firms that are allowed to take a place at the public trough.
Outside of the direct negotiations is the status of Houston Airport System Director Mario Diaz. Mr. Diaz was a vocal supporter of these contracts, a fact the Houston Chronicle made sure to point out, and has lobbied for their passage both loudly and publically. It's no secret that he's not considered to be "Sylvester Turner's guy" so it is a possibility that His Royal Highness Sylvester Turner of the House Acres Homes looks askance at the HAS until they sack Mr. Diaz (The failure and mess surrounding the contracts would certainly count as 'cause' for termination) and replace him with someone more in favor with the Turner Administration.
In Houston there are several candidates who meet the qualifications: They need to be Democrats, loyal party activists/candidates/gadflies and they need to have supported Turner in the run-off.
Hmmmmm........
*With apologies to the Mythbusters.
