Just in case anyone had the idea that a new mayor meant a change in “the Houston Way”, the following message was sent out via Citizen’s Net, an email list you can sign up for on the City’s website. (old messages are also archived at the link).

Dear Citizens of Houston,

Let me assure you that the State of the City is fundamentally strong. Even with the financial challenges facing Houston, I feel comfortable that we have a plan to move our city forward into an “Era of Innovation.”

Without raising property taxes, we will identify ways to streamline, modernize and reform the core functions of municipal government. We will audit city services to identify savings opportunities and I am implementing a Hire Houston First policy to encourage the use of local companies and hiring of local workers for city projects.

We are working with the business community and regional allies to attract and retain jobs as well as stimulate new international business development. Not only do we want to remain the oil and gas capital of the country, we also want to be the sustainable and renewal energy capital. And, work continues to save NASA’s manned space flight Constellation program.

I call upon all citizens to do their part and join Volunteer Houston, an initiative which will utilize citizen support in a variety of city functions. http://www.houstontx.gov/volunteer/index.html

It is a tough economic time, but just as my family persevered when the economy cost my parents their home and their business in the 1980s, I pledge that the City of Houston will balance our budget as we strive to maintain the full faith and credit of all of our citizens.

I respectfully ask for your help.

Annise Parker

Mayor

Read the entire text of the prepared 2010 State of the City address

Edit: Mayor Makes Minor Goof (via KHOU)

KHOU and blogHOUSTON have been talking about the city and county’s decrepit land holdings. Maybe they should look more closely at the tool the city uses to acquire and disburse these properties: LARA.

From the minutes of the August 2009 meeting:

Didn’t we already kill that idea a few months before that?

Read the full minutes on the City’s website — the appearance of Jolanda Jones at the meeting, and the board’s discussion of participating in politics by submitting chosen questions to the mayoral candidates through the League of Women Voters are both illuminating…

Try as I might, I can’t find any mention in the minutes of just how much most of these properties are being sold to developers for, except one lot sold at full value ($10,000) and constant references to the “$1 Lot Program.”

To be able to stop referring to Google as the Chinese Oppressor’s Search Portal.

Freaking libtards took this long to figure out that the Chinese government was going to roll them for info? Eeeeeeeediots.

Since March, there have been rumblings inside the City of Houston’s PW&E department that a large shortfall was pending in the Combined Utility System’s funding. The public first learned about the city’s overall budget problems in Bill King’s oped, which we discussed here. The CUS, which is supposed to be independent of the city’s general fund is a separate issue altogether, though certain funding tricks used during the White era make their appearance once again. Specifically: back-loaded borrowing in which the city pays only a little up front, but then faces a balloon note down the road. According to Lee McGuire’s article for KHOU:

…nearly $1 billion in credit must be renegotiated early next year, and debt payments have spiked $50 million above earlier projections. All told, the system currently faces a $100 million cash shortfall – a significant problem for a department that took in $332 million in water bills last year.

“Re-negotiate” is CPA-speak for “re-finance” or “obtain debt relief, rather than default.” Simply put, the city’s rate-payers are about to face the music for years of living off borrowed money. How bad is it? The city has been making ordinary expenditures, such as yearly water meter purchases, from the capital funds instead of operating expenses. In household terms, they’ve borrowed money to pay for the groceries. And while this specific example represents only a tiny portion of the total, it’s one of the ways that total has been accumulated.

Today’s article was based on item #13 on today’s agenda, a proposal to hire consultants McKinsey & Co. to look for inefficiencies in the Public Works Department. This item was tagged and will return on next week’s agenda. Once again, the mayor is proposing to spend a large amount of funds for a questionable purpose. Unfortunately, KHOU’s article contains a few key errors, and some misleading statements. This may simply be the result of deadline pressure, or it may be that not all of the information provided to the press was…. shall we say, totally accurate.

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Some people wonder why a city employee would blog anonymously (on the rare occasions when I still do).

This is why, and the snark didn’t even work for the county….

We already seceded.