It was several years back, on this blog, that I introduced the concept of the Houston Area Leadership Vacuum (The HALV, for short). It was a thing I created on a whim to describe what I saw as a stunning lack of actual leadership in any area of government within the Houston area.
The hope, when writing about these things, is that by identifying them people understand the problem and something is done to reverse the decay. Not that I would think this little blog would have much influence obviously, but hopefully someone in a position of power, or with access to positions of power, would read it and think 'You know, this blogger has a point in spite of himself."
It has not worked, because the HALV is growing, and sucking up more and more taxpayer resources.
City Council delays vote on Houston Airport Renovation Contracts. HoustonChronicle
City Controller Questions Expenses on Airport Terminal Project. HoustonChronicle.com
Surprise Vote Blocks Port Commission Appointment to Airport Development Agency. HoustonChronicle.com
Turner: City-Backed Non-Profit Could Seek to Run 15 Houston-Area Schools. HoustonChronicle.com
Mormon to stay on County Payroll, Working for Cagle. HoustonChronicle.com
That's five stories in the course of 3 days that reveal either a pattern of incompetence, shenanigans related to a quasi-governmental agency operating with zero transparency, trough-feeding to maintain the good old boy network, or a power grab.
It's gotten so bad in the Houston area that they aren't even trying to pretend at good governance any more.
The Houston Airport System is rapidly devolving into a dysfunctional mess, the Airport Development Agency seems to be a slush-fund for certain people to forward their personal business ventures while on the public dime, HISD is rapidly devolving into a shit-show, and people who lost elections are being invited back into government in unspecified, and untitled roles, to ensure their "expertise" is retained.
This doesn't even include the Houston City Police union acting as a litigation lackey for Mayor Sylvester Turner (side note: has ANYONE asked what standing the HPOU could possibly have in this suit?) and there's been no serious review of Turner's awarding of a multi-Million dollar contract to his "former" law partner. (I'm sure they were not friends, just law partners, and once that partnership was severed they NEVER had any contact with one another).
We're told to just pay our taxes and accept it, and while the Chron is doing an OK job reporting the news they're doing a horrible job of connecting the dots and following up on these scandals. Don't want to lose access to those politicians and their soirees after all.
While the city is running itself into the ground it's not yet clear whether the County is going to be functional in 2019 or no. We pretty much know that Adrian Garcia is going to be an ineffective manager of County resources, his past shows us that, and it's still highly unclear whether County Judge Elect Lina Hidalgo is going to be focused on the nuts and bolts of County operation (as is her job) or if she's going to try and lead a progressive redo of County services, but the early returns are not good.
The Houston region is already one with pothole pocked roads that make some third world countries tut-tut at us, traffic lights whose only real purpose is to create traffic snarls, a school district that you cannot even call a clown show because that's disrespectful to clowns, with a board whose main trait seems to be throwing shit at one another, and a city that's desperately trying to find more and more revenue so that it can continue doling out patronage payments instead of actually fixing things.
In the next round of city elections it's almost certain that an proposition repealing the pillow-soft revenue cap will be forwarded, and municipal workers and other various civic groups whose existence relies on the largesse of Boss Turner will ensure that it passes, thus ensuring that residents are going to get taxed until their ears bleed.
But, and this is important, what is there to show for that blood?
What has Mayor Turner actually ACCOMPLISHED?
He kicked the can down the road again on the Houston Pension deal, basically refinancing the debt and getting a couple of concessions in the short term, but since that was done, and it's clear the problem will not come to a head under his watch, a long-term fix has been essentially put on the shelf.
The "rain tax" that Houston residents are forced to pay, is bearing no fruit, and Stephen Costello seems happy to keep it that way.
A host of "blue ribbon" commissions have been given much fanfare, and then been allowed to accomplish pretty much nothing with little to no oversight, no questioning by the media and no public transparency to speak of.
Appointed members of quasi-governmental non-democratic agencies continue to spend money like a coked-up bachelor on his first trip to Vegas with nothing to show for it and all we get from the media and local good government groups is a collective shrug and hopes that they all get invites to the next big Holiday gala.
The Houston Region is a mess, and we're being told more about Internet memes regarding Texans games then we are hard news about the city that's falling down around us.
This is not sustainable, and the levels of corruption and graft are getting so high that the donors and beneficiaries aren't even pretending to try and hide it any longer.
There is a reason for all of this, obviously, and it's voter apathy and disinterest in local issues coupled with "good government" groups who are really just paid-extensions of political parties who choose only to see waste, fraud and abuse being committed by the other side.
Around a decade ago, there was a brief hope that some of this would be outed as a strong undercurrent of disruptive bloggers came forward and started to focus on some of these issues at great length. Unfortunately, most of were absorbed into the party machine and became party-bloggers and the rest got tired of getting beaten up by the local machine and just threw in the towel (guilty as charged here), the rest got dismissed out of hand by the local machine and it's house organ the media as cranks, which is too bad.
Because Houston really could use a gang of right and left leaning folks who look at all of this and say "hey, something is NOT right here".
Sadly I think that ship has sailed, and the HALV has sucked up pretty much any remaining opposition or efforts to reverse the tide.
