It is a little late to post on the results of the November 7, 2006 mid term elections, but late is better than never. As we all know, the Democrats made gains in many places, most notably winning the House and Senate at the federal level.
Here in Houston, all of Mayor Bill White's propositions passed handily. As Charles Kuffner wrote - game, set, match.
Now then, I spent a fair amount of this morning looking through the Houston Chronicle archives for their coverage on the RevCap / prop2 over the past 5 years. My reason for blowing such a large amount of time on this trivial matter while I could be enjoying a beautiful day outdoors was that I was looking for some information. You see, the Houston Chronicle spent endless buckets of ink and felled trees telling the public that Prop 2 was going to be a financial disaster for the City, ergo it must not be allowed to continue. The Chronicle endlessly repeated scare stories like this, tellling voters over and over again that fire and police protection might be cut.
What I was looking for in the Chronicle archives was the answer to a question. You see, one aspect of our Prop 2 RevCap which most voters were probably not aware of was that it was quite possible to break the RevCap! All it took was a proposition put on the ballot which would be approved by a majority of 60 percent of voters before the additional revenues could be taken in. The extra monies would be factored in for revenue purposes and the RevCap would continue to be in effect.
The Chronicle systematically stopped mentioning this curious little fact about Proposition 2. As far as my research shows, the last time the Chronicle made any mention of the 60 percent "voter supermajority" feature of Prop 2 was in this story dated January 11, 2006. Searching further back into the Chronicle's archives, there are many more stories which feature the theme of "basic services will be cut", or "this will harm the city's ability to function" over the fact that the RevCap allowed the public to deal with the matter in the event that the case could be presented to the voters that the City really was going to pot, ergo we need more money. Moreover, the RevCap did have provisions for such issues as allowing more money in to the City if the City were to be declared a federal disaster area. I often think that the political classes were counting on public ignorance of this matter to help in their efforts to overturn the RevCap.
So why bring up the issue of Prop 2's supermajority override feature which would allow voter breaking of the RevCap? Well, once upon a time I remember reading somewhere that someone once doubted the effectiveness of such a mechanism:
Oh, sure, there's a mechanism to allow for an exception, but I doubt it'll ever get used. Requiring a public vote is an expensive proposition, and who's going to want to push for that when funds are tight anyway?
Well it seems plenty of people were quite eager to push for new votes when the City was bumping up against its RevCap limits and was in a position to where it might have to refund money to voters. CM Shelly Gibbs said:
“The city is sitting on a surplus of $34 million.” ...According to Prop.2, $24 million is supposed to be returned to taxpayers.
I tried to find a quote somewhere where I remembered that someone (most likely the Chronicle editors) seriously asserted that the Prop 2 supermajority feature could not be allowed to stand because the political classes were never going to be able to muster a 60 percent majority on a public vote to increase revenue limits. I could not find this statement, but that doesn't mean it wasn't said. The Chronicle (or Houston Press) does pull stories from time to time from its website, or simply rework their website where links get broken.
My reason for bringing up that issue is that theory as to why Prop 2 could not be allowed to stand from a purely political perspective was absolutely blown out of the water by the results of the November 7 election. All but two of Mayor White's propositions passed by a more than 60 percent vote! The only two that didn't pass with more than 60 percent support were general improvement and public housing bonds. Yes, one can argue that Mayor White and his allies had something like an 8-1 spending advantage over our side, not to mention effectively free advertising from the Chronicle which really matters since the local television and radio stations - other than KPRC or KSEV - basically do fairly little to cover City fiscal affairs. So much for the media being our watchdog. Still, all is fair in love and war. I have worked on a number of political efforts now where I have been on the side who was being heavily outspent and I have gotten used to this. I am not someone who whines about campaign finance, even though many people would say that I would have every reason to do so. Let the campaign money roll in and let the chips fall where they may.
The CoH budgets have, from a certain perspective, two main components - a basic services part and the so - called "enterprise funds" part, such as water & sewer, airport operations, in other words things which the City has chosen to get into. The Chonicle asserted here that:
So if revenue increases from airport user fees or water fees, such as through increased water usage in a drought year, City Hall would have to decrease expenditures in other areas, say police or park maintenance, to avoid going over the cap. Revenues generated by water, sewer and airports cannot be used for other city services.
What? Why would it be that the City would have had to decrease expenditures on police or parks just because there were increased airport user fees or water fees? That assertion never stood up to scrutiny. If the City of Houston were to have gained more monies from its enterprise funds, then so what? The RevCap said NOTHING about how the City was to spend its money other than that the City had to honor its bond covenants!All the RevCap said was that total revenues were capped and that extra revenues were to be refunded to the people of Houston. If the City needed more money, then let's vote on it.
The Mayor, his allies, and the Chronicle were relying on the assertion that revenue monies generated by the enterprise funds (about 40 percent of the CoH budget) are not allowed to be spent on other City services under City ordinance as one of their tactics for scaring the public into gutting Prop 2. Let's just say that my eyes start to roll any time I hear anyone assert that monies taken in by any government entitiy for one purpose will not or are not allowed to be used for another purpose (Social Security anyone?). Houston is a home rule city under charter in the great State of Texas. There is nothing in the world which would prohibit the political classes from shifting monies around from one place to another, or if there were, then there is nothing to prohibit them from trying to find a way around such a financial roadblock. Another way of dealing with money shortfalls is simply to transfer debt from general revenue operations to enterprise funds or vice versa. And what would voters do to any politician who would do such a thing, vote them out of office? That remedy does not deal with the problem. And don't forget that Prop G effectively removes voter oversight from over 80 percent of Houston's long term debt (mostly the debt involving the enterprise funds), even though Houstonians will be on the hook for it. These were the reasons for attempting to implement a comprehensive RevCap.
This past Friday, I attended a meeting of the Houston Property Rights Association.One person mentioned that the reason the Chronicle is scared of challenging Mayor White in any way is not because one of its former editors, Frank Michel, is Mayor White's spokesman. It has to do with the fact that the Houston Chronicle's property on 801 Texas Avenue in downtown Houston has seen its assessed property value fall by 42% over the past 5 years (is this an effort on the part of the elected powers to keep the Chronicle afloat in the age of the Internet?). Ergo, if the Chronicle were not to fall lock step in with Mayor White, then maybe the Mayor might decide to have some appraisers pay a visit to the Chronicle.
The RevCap and Proposition 2 really were about priorities. The Houston Chronicle asserted here that:
Supporters of Proposition 2 have a point. The city of Houston's budget has grown rapidly in the past 20 years. However, it needed to grow. Decades of neglect and periodic recessions had left Houston underserved, with worn out infrastructure.
But that really were the case, then whose fault was it that the City was allegedly underserved and had neglected infrastructure? The voters? Why was it that so many of the streets in downtown Houston were torn up and redone in the late 1990's? Was it because sewer pipes were about to rust out? No, they were redone and repaved with nice little red bricks which stand out on the corners. As for recessions, yes they do happen. But recessions are not a reason for opposing a RevCap.
I grew up in the Spring Branch area of Houston. A number of years ago, the neighborhood in which my parents lived in had their streets repaved. It just so happened that former District A CM Helen Huey lived one block down from where my parents lived.
Now then, to be really honest, the streets in my parents' neighborhood were in perfectly fine shape. Yes, it would flood from time to time, but you know what happened? The entire neighborhood had their streets repaved! Now was that necessary? No it was not.
I lived off of Kirby and West Alabama for nearly 8 years. The public works department of the CoH paved various stretches of Kirby with asphalt several times over before making the decision to tear up all of Kirby between San Felipe and South Shepherd! They laid a massive drain pipe down the center of the street in a project which took 3 years. Fair enough, but that still does not explain why it was that the City kept paving the same stretches of Kirby over and over again with asphalt. It seemed to be almost a random thing.
Recently I drove down Washington Avenue by Westcott, an area where I lived for about 2+ years in the 1990's. I found that the neighborhood had redone the intersection (at a cost of $1.1 million) so that it now is a circular roundabout. In other words, the intersection is not just a staight through intersection which you drive through anymore. You now have to slow your vehicle down in order to drive around the circle. Strangely, the neighborhood asserts that roundabouts both:
reduce traffic speed and eliminate the right-angle turns that often lead to accidents.
while later saying that:
Roundabouts may help reduce traffic delays.
Now how is it that one reduces traffic speeds while reducing traffic delays at the same time? And more to the point - was building that roundabout truly necessary? No it was not! It was frivolous! That intersection was in perfectly fine shape. It was done because the City public works department had suggested it, the locals wanted it, and the City approved it. If the locals there really wanted to beautify their neighborhood, then they could use their own money, not mine.
But I digress. The Chronicle asserted once that having the RevCap in place would not necessarily help prioritize matters in City government, ergo we just can't have it. But the unstated logic of that statement means that we just need to let things continue the way they are now. It seems clear though that keeping the money spigots open does not necessarily help prioritize City fiscal affairs either.
Now all of this does not mean that I personally found flaws in the RevCap. Barry Klein, president of HPRA, seriously questioned my own questions about the RevCap. He seemed to think that the RevCap answered all questions and I came away thinking that he honestly didn't think out some of the details having a RevCap involves, such as:
1) Say for just a moment that the City of Houston were to have a surplus of money while a RevCap was on the books. How would the refund money be distributed back to citizens? Would all citizens get an equal amoney of money, or would there be some other formula for determining refunds, such as the value of your property?
2) I had a concern that if the City were to have obeyed the RevCap, then how much would they be allowed to ask for in the event they wanted to break the cap? An unlimited increase in revenues? If so, then that would have effectively been another way to invalidate the RevCap. Granted that any such asking for an increase in revenues would have been subject to polling before an election to see how much the public would stomach, but I can never once recall anyone in the RevCap camp ever considering the issue at all.
Enough. This has been a very long epistle and I didn't even cover all the issues involved. Bob Lemer, author of the TABOR RevCap asked me several days ago to pick up the torch for him, even though I am not trained as an accountant or as an auditor. But then again, neither is Annise Parker and she's the CoH controller. I'll have to mull the matter over. Until then, all I can do is hold onto my wallet until the taxman cometh.
Ciao for now - TMW
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at November 18, 2006 03:31 PM