Category Archives: Civics

Likely to be almost anything. Random information or news. Political pontifications. Thoughts about our government, society, politics, etc.

Water Meter Failures: How Accurate Is Your Bill?

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Ok, as usual, the press gets it half right. For that matter, Annise Parker isn’t exactly on the money either.

The project was supposed to cost $50 million and be complete in 2003. Instead, it’s now costing approximately $75 million and won’t be complete until 2008.

“The failure rate is beyond anything that we should have experienced,” Houston City Controller Annise Parker said.

She’s right about that much. How bad is it? Bad. Very bad. Is it as bad as it’s said to be? No, not hardly.

Lets get the worst out of the way: The program was ill-conceived, poorly planned, terribly executed, over budget, and has never worked as advertised. Inasmuch as it has caused numerous problems, resulted in many bill estimations, and caused hundreds, maybe thousands of man-hours per month to be devoted to correcting bills, and resulted in a great decrease in the public’s confidence level even before the story finally broke, it should be probably regarded as the single biggest failure in city administration over the last ten years, short of outright corruption. (Which is not to speak of any specific incident, just to say that I put malfeasance in a class seperate from mere incompetence.) Well, ok, it’s in the top two, anyway.

It will be made clear that the problems stem from decisions made as far back as the Lanier administrtion, but the key mistakes were made during the Brown era, and that the managers involved have since taken their retirement pay and run for the beaches. The current team running Public Works and the section responsible for meters (Utility Customer Service) is all-new, having been shuffled in after the Pension Massacre of 2004. They have inherited a very bad hand, and are trying to play it as well as possible, after about eighteen months of learning that their hole cards are deuces. They’re dealing with the administrative issues well enough, but this is a fundamental city policy–a decison to abandon this program wouldn’t be made in Public Works, not even by Marcotte. Whether they should just fold and ask for an expensive re-deal is a matter of public policy and high-level decision-making by the Mayor and Council–something we may now see if this story becomes a major public issue.

The good news is that, while it’s bad, it’s not nearly as bad as it looks when you see “47%.” If you think it means 47% of the bills are wrong, you’d be way off. You could take that on faith or my word, but I suspect that you, as the reader, want a bit more to go on. To explain why it’s not as bad, I have to explain exactly what is failing and why. It’s not very technical and I’ll avoid jargon as much as possible. In this article, I’m addressing just the technical aspects necessary to show why the 47% figure is highly misleading. History of the decisions and the people repsonsible will have to wait for a future article. Continue reading →

Parking Commission Membership (updated)

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As noted over on Blog Houston, yet another unelected panel is being set up to govern an aspect of our life in the big city. I did a little Googling on the names of the board members, and thought I’d share what I found about the cocktail party circuit. As of posting, this search is not complete; a few members are still absent. I will work on it some more this evening (by which time, they’ll all be officially appointed.)

(Ok, I’m done updating for tonight. 10:30)
(Oops, I lied. Added a bit more analysis & more links.)

Edit: Most interesting website I found while doing this search: Would you call these people skyscraper groupies?

Please excuse the lack of formatting, especially the links, but I don’t have time to clean it up right now–work calls. I certainly don’t warrent this information to be complete or correct; it’s just what I found online, with a few observations.

Charles D. Reedstrom, CAPP
Parking industry mover and shaker. Yes, there is such a thing as a parking industry.
Strategic Revenue Systems Manager, Carter & Burgess, Inc.
Board of Advisors, International Parking Institute

Gerald Torres
Former State Representative (D), part of the Anglo-Hispanic power core that has dominated Houston politics for the last decade.
“Friend of Bill White�
Board Member, Lawndale Art Center
Supports Ana Hernandez for SR 143
Employed by Reliant Energy
Manager Legislative Affairs, Greater Houston Partnership

Mary Jo McFadden
Donated trees to a Precinct 3 park.
No other mention found

Marcus L. Davis
Two different white pages listings come up without the middle initial, both on Briar Forest. One is near Kirkwood, one is near Hwy 6. Might be the Marcus Davis mentioned in this newsletter from Prairie View A&M. I’d bet that it is, and he’s also the recipiant of this Leadership Endowment award. He’s probably not on this team despite the name.

M. Marvin Katz
Big time lawyer
Longtime and well-connected attorney (partner) with Mayer, Brown, Rowe, and Maw. Specialties: Real Estate; Estate Planning; Probate; Corporate. Handled this large commercial purchase:
Sponsorship Vice Chair, Urban Land Institute (Houston District Executive Council)
Former chair of the Houston Planning Commission, now member ex officio

Michelle Colvard
Women’s wheelchair athlete and Chair, City of Houston Commission on Disabilities

Joe R. Martin
Lives on Riptide in zip 77072.
Edit: commenter Royko from BlogHouston provides this link to Martin’s internet service business.
Also owns M Bar & El Centro Restaurant. Chair of DEDA (see Robert Eury, below.)

Andrew F. Icken
Texas Medical Center, possibly hotel industry executive?
Board member, Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau
Listed as Executive Vice President, Texas Medical Center, and board member of the Rice Design Alliance.
Board of Directors, Houston Minority Business Council (page only available in Google cache now—membership listing removed from HMBC website)
Houston Architecture Info Forum, 2004 panelist

Evalyn Laing Krudy
Chair, Boulavard Oaks Civic Association
University Place Superneighborhood board member, and authored this report on neighborhood tree pruning in the BOCA newsletter. Their newsletter looks so much more professional than the photocopies we get in the mail. Oh that’s right, I don’t live in an exclusive superneighborhood. Silly me.
Placed 26th in the female 40-49 category for the Lake 5K Run on 4/30/05.
Member Old Braeswood Kirby Taskforce, 2003, formed to successfully lobbied for retention of the esplanades on Kirby near Braeswood. It’s a very peaceful neighborhood. And she keeps an eye on the construction (see page 5). I’m trying to think of the last time a government explained a construction project in my neighborhood. In such detail. . . . still trying. . . .
Involved in this 2001 candidate forum (contact person).

(still adding to this list!)
Robert Eury
Lives in the exclusive neighborhood between Kirby and Shephard, just north of Westheimer Any further north and you’re in River Oaks itself.
Executive committe member (sometimes listed as President and CEO) of Central Houston, Inc. Nice picture of him with Carol Alvarado at that link.
Steering Committee member of the Downtown Entertainment District Alliance (DEDA). Oh, and look who is the Honorary Chair: Carol Alvarado! And the actual chair is our good friend Joe R. Martin! Such small circles we move in. . .
Member, Houston Downtown Management District
Member, Board of Directors of the Houston Downtown Alliance. Oh, along with, who else? The Honorable Carol Alvarado, City of Houston council member. Oh, and there’s Joe Martin again. They need to watch this menage’a trois stuff, or folks are going to gossip.
He used to like Tom DeLay and Bob Carr.
There’s the “board member, Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau” listing. (He’s managed to solo this one, without Joe and Carol.)
Chairman of Blueprint Houston. Don’t forget, this April 6th, all hail the chair! Ask him when the cameras will be installed while you’re there.
Unsurprisingly, he was involved in the Main Street Square project.
Member, Board of Directors of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership. They’re the ones pushing the idea of turning Houston’s version of a flood plain into a park. (This page is a bit dated, it still shows John Vanden Bosch as the PW&E director.)
Was on this public policy panel. Unsurprisingly, pro rail.
Member, advisory group of Framework Houston, a project of the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County. “An initiative of the Public Art and Urban Design Program of the Cultural Arts Council of Houston/Harris County (CACHH), the Houston Framework offers the tools, identifies the demonstration projects, and outlines the administrative structure needed to provide Houston and Harris County with civic art and design that will enhance the local environment.” In other words, they’re reponsible for the crap that passes as art in modern parks. Is there any wonder people like to go to older parks where they put, you know, ART, instead of this stuff that makes you go “WTF? Artist on acid trip, mabye?”

Edit/Update: There are 15 members, but five were previously appointed, and I don’t have their names at the moment. Only nine can actually vote; the others are three”civic representatives” and one each representing the City, Metro, and Harris County. My (not at all expert) read on this list is that Katz, Martin, Eury, Icken, and Reedstrom are the heavyweights and almost certain to be voting members, while the remainders are “designated roleplayers:”

Torres — Possibly token Hispanic, possibly voting member.
McFadden — Housewife, a throwaway appointment to appease the peasants? Or possibly the Metro/County rep?
Davis — Token black entrepreneur.
Colvard — Token disabled person.
Krudy — Neighborhood busybody who can be counted on to work with the big boys.

Katz is chairman and Eury may be the city’s non-voting representative. The panel is heavily weighted with pro-rail technocrats, so we can generally count on whatever the Authority does to be unfriendly to personal vehicles. Anyone surprised?

Thought not.

Bogus Memos and Doublethink

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The Chronicle reports on the peculiar memo requesting authorization for bonuses, and Carol Alvarado’s memory lapse.

A memo dated last April from a city employee who has been fired for receiving unauthorized bonuses asked then-Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado to approve $5,500 in extra pay.

A spokesman said Tuesday that Alvarado doesn’t remember such a memo. She has said she didn’t approve any of the monthly bonuses that totaled $143,000 over about a year for four employees in the Office of Mayor Pro Tem.

(snip)

If Hernandez did send the memo, it could support — at least in this instance — her contention that bonuses were properly documented, though the four employees eventually collected far more than the amount requested in the memo.

Conversely, it could fit with the conclusion of police investigators that pro tem employees enriched themselves through misconduct that included fabricating documents.

I really don’t get why the memo doesn’t match the bonuses, but let’s follow the logic out: If the bonus memo was supposed to be legitimate, then the bonuses granted should have matched. (Caveat: the next bonus granted didn’t match, but it was only two weeks later. –Edit: Uh no, it was six. — Since that’s the length of the pay period, any approval by Alvarado, even if immediate, could have been caught “between cycles” and the bonuses paid four weeks later; add F&A/Payroll processing time, and maybe six weeks would be right.)

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Debt Outlook Downgraded: An Explanation

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I don’t follow investor newsrags very closely, having no money to invest, but BlogHouston has the scoop on one of the two major bond rating agencies revising the City of Houston’s credit outlook downwards. Unsurprisingly, Mayor White took advantage of this to announce that he never met a tax hike he didn’t like. Oops, I mean criticise Proposition 2.

I’m of two minds on the whole mess. In general, though I’ve opposed it in the past, I think the revenue cap is probably not a bad idea, since it protects the average citizen from the effects of the pension mess. (I’m still leery of joining in to the contributory plan, but I’m fairly sure if I don’t, I’ll get totally screwed as a “free rider.” As if.) However, the mayor’s got a point–Proposition 2 is far too restrictive because we can’t adjust for things like Katrina/Rita. We’re not getting all that money back from the feds, people. And if there’s one thing that should be evident from recent history, it’s that simplistic referrendums tend to backfire. Goverment is a hugely complicated beast; that’s why we elect people to handle it for us.

As for the downgrade, BlogHouston has a long quote at the link above, but simplified, it comes down to this: the city doesn’t actually pay for capital improvements from tax revenue. (Few governments do.) Instead, it sells bonds (borrows money) to pay for the improvements, then pays off the debt over a term, usualy 10-20 years. The rate of interest paid on these bonds depends partly on the market, and partly on their rating. And the rating is determined by two (Edit: 3) major agencies; it is essentially their estimation whether anyone who buys a bond (i.e.: loans money to the city) will get their investment back.

Now this paragraph is strictly from memory, not research, so don’t take it as the 100% accurate gospel. IIRC, Fitch is the more conservative of the two, Moody’s is better known, and slightly more lenient towards stressed finances. They each have rating systems based on the alphabet, roughly (worst to best) D, C, B, A, AA, AAA, AAAA. They’re not exactly the same; I think Moody’s runs C-AAAA, and Fitch is D-AAA (really shaky on that, maybe a reader knows and can contribute?) and there’s + and – modifiers. But it’s not as simple as saying “the city has a rating of ‘x’. The city is given a rating for each category of bond that it issues. Then there is the rating outlook, which is a general prediction on whether things are expected to get better or worse.

I seem to recall that the City was downgraded from AAA to AA sometime around 2002-4 by Fitch’s, but again, that’s just plucked from memory. (See Update, below). Now I see we are at AA-. But the nature of the recent change is that the Rating Outlook, which was formerly Stable has now been revised to Negative. In short, Fitch thinks things are going to get worse. Which means that it will cost more for the city to borrow money, since the only way to get people to take the risk of lending it is to offer higher returns. Why did Fitch take this action?

Primarily (and exactly as predicted) it was due to the passage of Proposition 2.

The change in Rating Outlook to Negative reflects increased uncertainty in general fund operations in light of a summary judgment by a district court judge who upheld the enforceability of one of two revenue limitations measure recently approved by voters. Fitch typically views revenue limitations negatively given that they restrict financial maneuverability. The all-encompassing nature of one of the two propositions (Proposition 2) is cause for additional concern, and Fitch considers its possible implementation as a potential challenge to the city’s credit quality, given ongoing and future spending pressures.

In short, folks, we did it to ourselves, and we were warned it would happen.

There is more to worry about though. In Houston’s case, not only are we paying for the future pension obligations through borrowed money, but we are paying the current dues by borrowing money. This is akin to contributing to your 401(k) by charging it to your credit card. Needless to say, Fitch’s is not impressed with this funding technique, especially considering that it recognizes that the changes made in 2004 only bought the city some time, but did not solve the problem.

In addition, Fitch views the city’s debt financing of a portion of the city’s annual contribution to both the municipal and police pension systems as an indication of financial stress.

That’s putting it mildly. However, not all the news is bad:

General fund operations have reported sizeable surpluses in two of the past three fiscal years, and reserves have increased as a result. Fiscal 2005 ended with net income of $34.4 million, and the unreserved fund balance of $142.7 million, or 9.3% of spending and transfers out, was up sharply from the prior year. Finance department projections for fiscal 2006 year-end anticipate an increase in operating reserves of at least $4 million. Liquidity levels also have improved markedly over the past three fiscal years; the fiscal 2005 general fund cash and investments total was $111.7 million, compared to $27.7 million in fiscal 2002.

To sum up the entire article: the economy is improving and the city’s current bank balance with it, but even that isn’t enough to outweigh the long term implications of the city’s pension headaches and revenue limits.

Update: Three agencies, not two. Forgot Standard and Poor’s. The city’s ratings by each agency as reported in the CAFR for the year ending June 30, 2003 was:

BOND TYPE Std & P Moody Fitch
Gen. Obligation AA- Aa3 AA
Water& Sewer
Junior Lien		 A+ A3 A
Combined Utility
1st Lien		 A A1 A+
Houston Airports A- A1 A+
Convention & Entertainment A- A3 N/R

Source: FY2003 CAFR

Next year, the ratings changed to:

BOND TYPE Std & P Moody Fitch
Gen. Obligation AA- Aa3 AA
Water& Sewer
Junior Lien		 A+ A1 A+
Combined Utility
1st Lien		 A+ A2 A
Houston Airports A A1 A+
Convention & Entertainment A- A3 N/R

Source: FY2004 CAFR

Raises Plus Bonuses

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Ok, I’ve looked at the latest Chronicle article. There’s a few things I could snark about, but in keeping with my earlier resolution, I’m just going to point out the highlights. There were raises in addition to the bonuses, but now we know the amounts of their base pay before and after the raises. And I have to say, the raises might have been merited, if not to the extent that they were given. The pay of Christopher Mays caught my eye: He is an Administrative Specialist, (i.e., mid-rank paper pusher with no supervisory duties, but important responsibilities nonetheless). This is about the rank I’d expect to find in an office that supports council members and their staff.

The problem is, before the raises he was three pay grades higher than me, but making $3k less. That’s….screwed up, even for the city. HR should never have allowed that to happen. Believe me, I’m not overpaid; my raise when I got bumped up a pay grade was less than 3%. His $26k salary was woefully inadequate, but I know what caused it: HR penalizes employees who jump too many pay grades at once. His prior job was in Public Works, I believe as a pay grade 13 or 14 (seven or six grades lower than he is now), but he had the connections to make the jump to the pro tem’s office. Only HR won’t allow anyone to recieve a huge % pay increase, even if they jump several pay grades. They give only a “small” increase. Although I don’t know his actual pay amount prior to the jump, I’d peg it in the area of $24k. So it was about a 20% pay increase. This seems large, but it may not have put him in the bottom end of the pay grade, i.e. his pay was so low it could have been less than the minimum for his position.

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Why Privatization Rarely Works

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I’ve been tinkering with this column for some time now, but Sunday’s article over at Houston Strategies prompted me to pull it off the back burner and get it ready. Tony appears to be someone who gets it.

I’ve never understood why it’s bad for a company (i.e. “capital”) to abuse monopoly power to increase profits but good for labor to do the same thing.

Neither have I. But here’s where I went “OMG, he really gets it!”

As mayor, Goldsmith championed two ideas, privatization and competition. Privatization alone didn’t work, Goldsmith wrote, because private monopolies weren’t that much more efficient than public ones. So simply turning the water department over to a private company wouldn’t accomplish much. But if you could carve up the city into zones and let a number of providers (including city workers themselves) compete to haul garbage, tow abandoned cars, fix potholes and so on, wonderful and surprising things happened, Goldsmith found. Services improved, work processes were streamlined, productivity soared and costs declined dramatically.

Amazingly, city workers often turned out to be the high-quality, low-cost providers, once they were allowed to compete. “The problem,â€? Goldsmith wrote in his book, “is that [municipal employees] have been trapped in a system that punishes initiative, ignores efficiency and rewards big spenders.â€? A system … well, like San Diego city government.

Or Houston’s.

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HPD, Phone Home

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No, I haven’t overlooked this little story due to Bonusgate.

Emanuel is an inspector for Houston Police Department’s Neighborhood Protection.

“His supervisors have told me they’re conducting an inquiry,” said Lt. Robert Manzo, HPD.

11 News discovered the city is not collecting hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars from employees who make personal calls on their city cell phones.

It’s just that there’s really not much to add. Ten years ago, if/when I made long distance calls on a city phone, I would receive a report a few months later. It was my responsibiltiy to mark off any calls that were personal business and attach a check to reimburse the City of Houston. Although city policy was and remains that you don’t make personal calls from city phones, sometimes there really isn’t any choice; you’re disputing a credit card bill and the company can only be contacted during regular business hours, or you’ve got to talk to an insurance company, but it’s not toll free, etc. Managers understand that life stubbornly refuses to be lived between the lines, and as long as our work got done and we reimbursed the city, everything was ok.

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Slicing Bread the Wrong Way

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Note: This article has been updated multiple times, because I made a total hash out of posting it early. This is now the finalized version. Apologies to all both my readers.

Recently, the SEIU ran a highly touted (by them, anyway) nationwide contest, soliciting great new ideas to work towards. They even set up a website for it.

Since Sliced Bread seeks ideas that are original and creative, have the best chance of practical success and would most effectively:

  • Grow the economy
  • Create good-paying jobs that allow people to raise a family, afford health insurance, pay for their children’s college education, get additional training and save for retirement
  • Encourage existing companies to expand and entrepreneurs to start new ones.

Finally, keep in mind who should benefit from the ideas — whom this contest is about.

Since Sliced Bread is also changing the way Washington works. It’s an unprecedented effort to give ordinary Americans — people who are rarely asked for ideas on how to fix the economy — the chance to offer theirs. We’re serious about wanting to change the way policy ideas emerge.

Since Sliced Bread is so serious about finding and rewarding good ideas that a panel of respected thinkers and community leaders will choose 21 finalists and public voting will determine the top three ideas.

Update: all of them are now up, with comments.

The SEIU solicited the ideas late last year, spent a month parsing 22,000 of t them down to the 21 “best” to be voted on during Round One, and posted them on the 9th of this month. The response was overwhelming — overwhelmingly negative, that is. Over three hundred comments proceeded to rip, shred, tear, and even fold, spindle, and mutilate the selections. The SEIU was stunned, and Andy Stern, SEIU bigwig wrote:

I confess — I’m a bit surprised at the hostility meeting the 21 ideas announced yesterday morning. Let’s take a minute to appreciate the work of the 21 people who are finalists – they are amazing ideas that deserve discussion and consideration. Please take time to cast your vote – and encourage other people to vote, too.

In a contest like this, you have to make some hard choices. Every single idea was reviewed at least twice – even the thousands of ideas submitted in the final hours of the contest. Not everyone can be a winner in a contest like this. There are so many good ideas, we’d like to figure out how to recognize and encourage more of them. I’ve asked the folks at SinceSlicedBread.com to put together an online chat to get your feedback about how to recognize some of the innovative ideas that did not make it to the final round. Stay tuned for details….

And the response to that hasn’t exactly been positive either. Comments below the fold:

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So What’s Wrong With City Employees Anyway?

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A few days ago, I mentioned that I’ve been working on a post about city of Houston employees, and how we differ from the general work force. It’s been through several reworkings, as it’s one of the more difficult I have had to write. After all, this is an analysis that will probably upset many of my co-workers, not to mention I expect most readers will disagree with part or all of it. That’s actually of less concern than is the fundamental problem with the article: I am the author. I’m part of the equation; I’m a city employee trying to diagnose from the inside. For the purpose of this article, I’m trying to step outside of who and what I am, and look at the “big picture.” I’m honest enough to know I may not have succeeded. I’ve spent time in the private sector, and all my social time is spent among non-city employees — but that still doesn’t mean my observations are the gospel–but I don’t see how anyone from the outside could even begin to write this article; they can barely scratch the surface. So reader beware: this may be more insightful than an article in the local newspaper (well, that’s a given!), but it doesn’t mean I’m 100% right.

First off, let me point out that in any work force of 20,000 people, there are going to be all types. There will be gung-ho employees, average workers, people who are pure poison, outstanding employees, and people just punching the clock for a paycheck. You may have heard of the concept of “the five percenter.” That’s the people at the very top and bottom of the quality scale; they are the rudders and anchors of the business ship; when anchors run rampant and aren’t jettisoned, the whole ship gets dragged down. When the rudders don’t do their job, the ship becomes directionless, and less gets accomplished. The vast majority (90%+) of the people in any organization are average workers, or just punching the clock. The city is not really any different from a private business in that regard. The problem comes in with the forces that act to motivate and reward all three groups.
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Top 10 Worst Americans: the List

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Well, here is my 10 Worst Americans in History, in no particular order. To make this list, I used 3 criteria.

1. The person must have been personally influential and powerful, not merely notorious. Thus the various Mansons, Oswalds, and Jim Jones’ of history are disqualified.

2. His/her actions should have had a decisive and long-term effect on the nation, not merely be the reflection or embodiment of the times. Thus the Jane Fondas and John Kerrys are eliminated.

3. In the absence of item #2, a certain level of evil or wrongness qualifies, but it has to have a reach beyond the merely personal.

Without further ado, the list:
————————————————————-
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New York MTA Strike — Lessons for Houston?

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I can’t help but read the comments formerly posted to the unofficial blog of the NY transit strike, and see a theme that appears here in Houston also. It’s the same old equation: Public sector union greed + public indifference = collision. No one wins.

Thanks to Dartblog, the comments have been saved, even though the original blog tried to sanitize them. As I read through the first dozen or so comments, all of them fell into the expected molds:

Public: “You’re greedy bastards! And don’t you realize that Public Servant = Public Slave? Now get back to work; you’re making things inconvenient for me!”
Workers: “You just don’t understand what we go through! Waaaaahhhhh!”

Or in their own words:

“when you self righteous people have to go to your jobs and endure people spitting at you,assaulting you, cursing at you and simply hating you for having enough sense to take the test to get our jobs than you have aright to your misguided opinions.oh yeah how about when you go to work, is there anybody taking a piss a few feet from you or maybe some pervert playing with himself. how about your bosses do they write you up for wearing scarves in the winter time or maybe take you off the job because your top button on your shirt is not buttoned? you opinion filled people have no idea what we go through on a daily basis. at least firemen,teachers, cops and even sanitation are respected for what they do.”

and on the flip side, three quotes.

“I think you all probably deserve the raise but this is no way to get it! When you pledge to be a public servant you do so above your own personal needs.

Who are you to take well-paying jobs (for your education levels) serving millions of people and then hold us hostage by striking?

Which part of PUBLIC SERVANT did you not understand?

These serve to counterpoint–and prove– the single best of the early comments (sorry, but I’m not reading all 722 to pull out the gems!):

A question to all who condemn the strike should be: would you take this job, at their pay and conditions? If not, why not?

I think we all know the real answer is of class superiority, disparity and complete apathy towards laborers who clearly are not by any means wealthy or close to it. To condemn these people wanting a fair shake for both new and current members is a shameful day in which the next strategy of the government would presumably be to privatize it.
(Emphasis added–ubu)

Now take that question, and apply it to the wages I posted for jobs in the City of Houston yesterday. Add to that, the recent moves by the SEIU to aggressively organize city workers (after years of benign neglect by the current union AFSCME) and their, er, overly enthusiastic support for Sue Lovall, successful candidate for City Council. Is Houston headed for a New York/California-style collision of the public sector with the public interest? Maybe . The elements are there or assembling themselves. Very disgruntled employees; low pay, cuts in benefits, no future, no respect. An apathetic/blind public, uncaring about the situation of the public sector employees. A powerful and determined union, albeit without the general support of the employees — so far.

I won’t cut the public any slack for it’s attitude towards public sector employees. Too many times, people equate “Public Sector” with “Public Slave.” And there is a strong attitude towards city/government employees as the products of job programs; i.e.: they couldn’t hold a real job so they got hired by the government. I know when I tried to break out several years ago, it was damn near hopeless. You could watch the interviewer reading down the resume for the first time,* and asking questions; then they would reach the part about current employement.

Boom. You could see it in their posture, and often their face, and tenor of their questions–rarely did they bother to conceal it. “What the hell did they send me a city employee for? Nobody is going to hire someone who’s been with the city that long!” Sometimes, they weren’t that restrained.

Nor is the general public much better. I’ve had people break off conversations and walk away upon finding out I’m a public sector employee. I’ve had women remark to their friends (right in front of my face!) “Oh, honey, you wouldn’t be interested in him, he works for the city–he doesn’t have any money!” I mean damn. That’s just harsh.

It’s also true, but I made that point already, yesterday.

On the flip side, I’m not going to cut the employees or the unions any slack either. The last thing this city needs is to end up like New York or California, with powerful public sector unions dictating a fiscally suicidal policy to the employer. I might be the only employee in all of Houston to hold this view, but I don’t believe in public sector unions. I supported Reagan when he fired the PATCO strikers and broke that union over 20 years ago, and my opinion hasn’t changed on that matter since, even if I am a government employee now: Government employees have got no business belonging to unions as they exist today. A public sector union should be no more than a method of streamlining feedback & communication from employees to the politicians who ultimately run the system. That job cannot be left to the managers and directors, because it provides for too much insulation and the top bureaucrats end up with all the power, because without an alternative channel, they control the flow of information from the rank and file to the politicians. (Information flow is power. Just ask CBS.)

After almost 20 years with the city, I have reached the conclusion that there’s really two areas that the mythical “average city employee” lacks, compared to a private sector counterpart. However, I’m going to save that for a related post that I’ve been tinkering with for some time now. Look for it some time after Christmas, entitled, “What’s Wrong With City Employees?”

In the meantime, you might want to tune to KTRH AM 740 at 10 am–noon today, as councilmember Michael Berry will be discussing unions, the MTA strike, and what it means to Houston. Listen here.

Retiring on 90% of WHAT?

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A lot has been made of the fact that city employees get to retire on 90% of their pay, with donations of only 4% (now 5%) of their pay. What the press never got around to reporting last year during the pension mess, was that employee pay stinks. It stinks like the stuff the Solid Waste department or Republic Waste and Overbilling Services hauls off. Well ok, maybe not like the taxpayer money the latter hauled off recently, but then it sort of had its own stink.

In a recent article about the Controller’s audit into Republic, I mentioned in passing that we had problems hiring qualified applicants at $18k per year to haul garbage off. This probably has a lot to do with why we privatized. Wait, let’s rephrase that. It probably has a lot to do with the justification used to push the privatization. I have a hard time believing that a private company could get more and better people to do the same crappy work without paying them a whole lot more. (Which makes one wonder if what Republic was really doing was overbilling the city to pay for the higher wages it had to pay. No way to know, and I can’t even confirm what it pays employees — oddly, their website lacks a “Careers with Republic” link. . . (Heh.)

But I can show what the city pays. For a Solid Waste Driver “Salary Range – Pay Grade 6 $617 – $810 Biweekly $16,042-21,060 Annually” But hey, who cares, it’s garbage! Nobody’s going to pay a lot to have it hauled off. But don’t you just love the part where it says “WORKING CONDITIONS: There are occasional exposures to extreme levels of temperature, air pollution, noise, chemical gasses and substances and/or contagious diseases or physical trauma conditions of a short-term nature, such as broken bones or temporary loss of sight or hearing.”

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The World According to Harry

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“We’ve become like the House of Commons. Whoever has the most votes wins. It hasn’t worked that way in 216 years.” — Harry Reid, House Minority (Democratic) Leader.

Yes, he actually had the nerve to say those words, though whether it was before or after he used a parliamentary trick to shut the Senate down again, I don’t know. You know how it is. Those pesky voters put people in office that they want to pass laws, but God the higher being of your choice / none of the above forbid they be allowed to do their job if they are in the majority.

The mindset of the Democrats has been exposed for all to see. Democrat != Democracy. That != is programmer for “is not equal to.” But in this case, “in opposition to” is more accurate. Anyone know what the symbol is for that one?

The mask is off; vote for a Democrat at your peril.

This is Justice?

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The Dallas county Sherrif’s department has seriously disappointed me. I had an article almost ready to post earlier about it, but the browser glitched and swallowed my post. Since then, I’ve seen Michelle Malkin’s post about how the MSM is up to it’s usual tricks. “All the news that’s fitted to print,” indeed. Only this time it’s the WSJ up to no good.

I wanted to reference that post before resuming with the story I saw in the Chronicle for a reason. Journalism, as performed in the mainstream media, is dead. As if the ghoulish maniac in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre had gotten a job as a news anchor, the current crop of so-called reporters and editors wear the skin of journalism’s heyday like an ill-fitted trophy. Amidst all the petulant whining about blogs and self-congratulation for the wonderful job they do, they have failed to notice that the reason they’re zombies is that they report like them. Not like people who care about the subjects they are reporting on. Reporting should be half-education. Instead, it’s 100% showmanship. The ratings race and the almighty dollar have helped political and personal bias in the info-tainment industry destroy what’s left of the MSM’s creditability.
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