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24 April 2007

Chron lauds Mayor White's "Boot the Mentally Retarded" shakedown

Mrs. White (aka The Editorial LiveJournalists) praises her man's "Boot the Mentally Retarded" shakedown today:

The city of Houston has achieved its goal of ending a nebulous 99-year lease at $1 per year in exchange for services provided to this population. It replaces the lease with a contract that allows the city to account for the value of the land on its books.

Houston residents benefit by the continued availability of residential and other programs for this group of citizens in a central location. Those benefits had been jeopardized by rising property values in the area and the city's decision not to honor the center's 99-year lease. Redevelopment of this valuable property for residential or commercial use would have been a short-term gain rather than a long-term investment in human services.

Under the agreement, which City Council must approve, the center has three years to raise the funds or secure financing privately or with the city at 5 percent annual interest. This is the kind of compromise that reflects well on Mayor Bill White and the center's negotiators, who are to be commended for reaching this accommodation.

Nothing about this episode reflects well on Mayor White and his legal/financial shakedown team.

Let us recall that previous Houston mayors and their legal departments did not regard the city's moral and contractual agreement with the Center as "nebulous." It never even crossed anyone's mind until, for whatever reason, Mayor White and his legal/financial shakedown team decided they wanted money (or else they would boot the center and sell the land).

It's good that agreement was reached, thereby eliminating the potential disruption in the lives of the mentally retarded people housed by the center. The center provides a structured environment that allows its residents to live happily. Many people do not understand just how disruptive (and unhealthy) a forced move would have been for these residents -- which is why it's unconscionable that the city's political leaders and Mayor White's legal/financial shakedown team ever threatened the center. That doesn't reflect well on Mayor White, however the Editorial LiveJournalists and his other apologists try to spin it.

Kudos to advocates for the center for defending a segment of our society unable to defend itself (from out-of-control government of all things). The center surely could have put the $6 million involved in Mayor White's shakedown to better use helping the mentally retarded, but at least the payoff averts the danger of eviction by City Hall. That's about the best spin we can put on this sorry episode (then again, we're not planning a run for statewide office and don't really care who is or might be).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ Mentally Retarded" shakedown"> 04/24/07 08:54 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (10)

04 April 2007

"Please help save my home"

A few days ago, we noted Mayor White's "Boot the Mentally Retarded Revenue Stream" proposal.

Since then, the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation has launched a website to raise awareness of the White Administration's craven plans: SaveTheCenter.org.

The site details ways in which interested individuals can help the Center on this issue.

Here's a quote from a board member displayed prominently on the site:

We have a 99 year lease on five acres of property, which was signed in 1963, and which is still fully in effect. And, we have a preferential right to a 30 year renewal on the remaining one acre,” states Jack Manning. “These leases have been honored by seven Mayors: Lewis Cutrer, Louie Welch, Fred Hofheinz, Jim McConn, Kathy Whitmire, Bob Lanier and Lee Brown — all of whom were able to guide the City’s financial affairs without seizing properties utilized to serve the City’s retarded population. Only Mayor Bill White has suggested the eviction of the mentally retarded in order to enhance the City’s revenue stream.

Mayor White needs to rethink this one.

BLOGVERSATION: Lone Star Times, Red Ink: Texas, On Message.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/04/07 09:19 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (18)

01 April 2007

City readies "Boot the Mentally Retarded" revenue stream

The Chronicle's Melanie Markley reports that the city is proceeding with plans to tear up its lease with a local non-profit group that houses the mentally retarded, so that it can deliver their prime River Oaks real estate to local developers (and enjoy a nice revenue boost):

For more than 40 years, it has occupied a prime chunk of public real estate near River Oaks caring for, employing and housing the mentally retarded.

But now the city of Houston is planning to sell the land to the highest bidder, meaning the nonprofit Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation has to find a new home.

The center's directors do not intend to go quietly. They have a 99-year lease signed with the city in the 1960s that required them to construct buildings and provide services for one of the city's neediest populations.

[snip]

The 99-year lease, signed in 1963 by then-Mayor Lewis Cutrer, is not valid, city lawyers argue, because the city charter limits such agreements to no more than 30 years.

[snip]

Center officials also worry that the move seriously will jeopardize the centrally located services they provide for roughly 600 Houstonians.

Most at risk, they say, are the nearly 200 adults living in a dormitory on the property. The center faces the task of building new living quarters or finding other facilities and homes that can take them.

We're thinking that it's not going to be very helpful to Mayor White's plans to run for statewide office when opposition researchers discover that he was the Houston mayor who booted mentally retarded people out on the street to help out real-estate developers (or, for that matter, that he was the Houston mayor who planned to finance his big freeway towing program partially on the backs of poor people whose cars were towed, confiscated, and sold by favored towing companies).

Here's hoping Mayor White rethinks this one. He can surely find some other ways to generate revenue.

RELATED COVERAGE: Associated Press.

BLOGVERSATION: Slampo's Place, Off the Kuff, Red Ink: Texas, Lone Star Times, Lose an Eye, It's a Sport.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ Mentally Retarded" revenue stream"> 04/01/07 09:38 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (10)

01 August 2007

But everybody was a winner before the shakedown

The Chronicle's Melanie Markley reports that Council could vote as soon as next week to approve Mayor White's multimillion-dollar shakedown of the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation:

The Houston City Council is expected to vote as early as next week to sell the 6.7-acre tract where the center is to the facility's Foundation for the Retarded. The center offers an array of services to about 600 mentally retarded people, including 200 who live in a six-story dormitory.

The vote would all but cap the center's hard-fought battle to remain on the land it has occupied for more than 40 years under a 99-year lease that city attorneys recently declared invalid.

Officials with the center said they are looking forward to closing on the property, which could occur within weeks.

"Everybody at the center will be thrilled to be focusing on our clients and adding value to our services instead of worrying about our survival," said David Baldwin, president of the Foundation for the Retarded.

Attorneys with the city and the center have been negotiating the final contract ever since Mayor Bill White announced the proposed sale in late April, calling it "an agreement where everyone wins."

Everybody "won" under the previous arrangement, which didn't raise legal questions for any previous mayoral administration. It remains a shameful moment for the White Administration that this shakedown ever took place. Thankfully, the Center's leaders were able to raise the money for the shakedown, so it did not come to the city evicting a group of retarded people to make room for developers.

Here's hoping that Mayor White is just as diligent about securing full value for city property in the proposed sale of Bolsover street.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/01/07 11:02 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

11 April 2007

Baker Botts takes on White's "Boot the Mentally Retarded" revenue stream

The Chronicle's Melanie Markley reports that Mayor White's efforts to extricate the city from the legal commitment made by previous administrations to a local nonprofit organization that houses mentally retarded people so that he can sell the land to developers has drawn the fire of some big legal guns:

A major Houston law firm has agreed to represent the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation pro bono in its fight to remain on prime city property near River Oaks.

Baker Botts lawyer Irv Terrell confirmed Tuesday that his firm volunteered to represent the center after reading that city officials had declared the facility's 99-year lease invalid and were considering selling the land.

"We think the center should stay exactly where it is and continue to provide the services it is providing, and we hope the city agrees with that," Terrell said.

Also, a former city attorney who negotiated long-term agreements with other nonprofits in the early 1960s said the city contracts at the time were viewed more as service agreements rather than landlord-tenant leases, which the city charter limits to no more than 30 years.

John Wildenthal, who was city attorney for former Mayor Louie Welch from 1964-66, said he wasn't involved in the 1963 agreement with the center but negotiated others that allowed nonprofits to lease land for $1 a year in exchange for providing much-needed social services.

Wildenthal said the city agreed to long-term contracts to allow the charitable organizations time to invest in facilities.

"My opinion is that these services were much more valuable to the citizens than the rent would produce on a landlord-tenant basis or a one-shot sale where you spend the money and it's gone," Wildenthal said.

The reasoning behind these sorts of agreements was/is sound -- the city gives a break to nonprofit organizations that provide a social good to the community. The nonprofit delivers some services more efficiently than the city ever could, and the city doesn't have to take on directly either the expense or the liability. It's a win-win situation.

It may well be that some technical language in this agreement (and others) is not as legally precise as some bureaucrats would like, but the fact is that this has never been a problem until now -- and the proposed solution (evicting mentally retarded people to boost developers and the city's coffers) seems way out of line with the "problem" that city officials have allegedly identified (legal technicalities).

If legal technicalities were the only concern, we suspect the city's legal staff and the legal eagles at Baker Botts could hammer out a substitute agreement in no time at all. Instead, we think KPRC-2 described the Mayor's gambit fairly accurately:

City attorneys argue the center's lease is invalid under the city charter, which limits leases to no more than 30 years. City officials want the lucrative property developed to generate more revenue.

And, of course, to boost developers who have recently come to covet this land.

It's Houston, after all, and public officials tend to treat developers very well.

But evicting mentally retarded people to benefit local developers really is going too far.

It's not fair, it's not right, and it's not necessary.

Mayor White needs to back off.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ Mentally Retarded" revenue stream"> 04/11/07 11:23 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (12)

19 April 2007

Nonprofit fears "Boot The Deaf" revenue stream is coming next

The Chronicle's Melanie Markley reports that another nonprofit organization fears the city may try to scrap longstanding legal and moral commitments in order to squeeze more money out of valuable real estate:

The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation isn't the only nonprofit that faces an uncertain future because of a 99-year lease the city now says is invalid.

Next door, the Center for Hearing and Speech shares a building with the Harris County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority on city property leased for 99 years in 1965. The building sits on a prime 3-acre tract at the corner of West Dallas and Shepherd.

Renee Davis, executive director of the center that teaches deaf children to speak without using sign language, said she has not been contacted by the city, but she worries that her facility could face the same scrutiny as the neighboring center for the mentally retarded.

Representatives of the center for the mentally retarded are in ongoing talks with the mayor's office. The city had threatened to sell the 6 acres that the center leased because the directors would not agree to pay closer to market-value rent for the land near River Oaks.

[snip]

Davis said her lease with the city sets $31,065 annual rent, which is waived if the nonprofit provides at least that much in services to the community.

Davis said her center provides more than $1 million a year in services to at least 1,000 hearing-impaired children. The center is staffed with teachers, audiologists and speech pathologists who help deaf children learn to communicate verbally.

"We believed that this was a partnership with the city," Davis said. "They would lease the land to us and we would provide very difficult kinds of services that need professional expertise for deaf children, and the taxpayers did not have to bear the burden of providing those very specialized services."

Ms. Davis described the utility of such arrangements beautifully in that last paragraph, underscoring the human/moral component of the contractual arrangement.

The following spin is just strange:

White said he wants to develop a uniform policy to reduce the risk of lawsuits against the city claiming the leases are not valid, which could disrupt the nonprofits' operations.

Huh?

Let me take a stab at parsing that: The City of Houston needs to disrupt the nonprofits' operations by breaking its longstanding legal and moral commitment to some of the weakest members of our community (people most in need of a helping hand!), in order to reduce the virtually nonexistent risk of someone other than the City of Houston suing the city, and potentially disrupting the nonprofits' operations.

Well, that certainly makes sense!

Seriously, assuming there is a legal risk of some local developer suing the city over these contractual arrangements (which have never been a problem before), in the hopes of eventually getting hold of valuable real estate -- does anyone think a local developer would go there?

Putting it slightly differently -- can you imagine the firestorm that would erupt in the local media and from bloggers (many of whom have sat this one out) if, say, Perry Homes decided to sue the city in an effort to boot the deaf and retarded and grab their land? That wouldn't fly. That's why it's a virtually nonexistent risk.

But the risk posed by the city under this mayor, for whatever reason, is real.

As we've been saying all along, Mayor White needs to back off on this one.

PREVIOUSLY: City readies "Boot the Mentally Retarded" revenue stream, "Please help save my home", If only Tilman Fertitta were on the board of directors..., Baker Botts takes on White's "Boot the Mentally Retarded" revenue stream, Former city attorney elaborates on leases, center.

BLOGVERSATION: Red Ink: Texas, Lose an Eye, It's a Sport, Off the Kuff.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/19/07 08:52 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (12)

20 April 2007

An end to the "Boot the Mentally Retarded" revenue stream?

A KTRH-740 newsbreak reported that a settlement has been reached between the city and the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation. Details are to be announced at a press conference this afternoon, according to KTRH.

A Friday afternoon press conference -- of course!

UPDATE (4:20 p.m.): The Chronicle's Melanie Markley has more:

The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation will pay the city $6 million for prime inner city property it now uses in exchange for the services it provides, city officials said today.

Mayor Bill White and officials of the facility are announcing details of the transaction, which involved 6.2 acres at Shepherd and West Dallas, during a news conference this afternoon.

Details of the deal were not immediately available, but it involves a favorable interest rate and a discounted price based on the city's declaration that the land is intended for public service rather than commercial use, according to a news release from the city.

MORE: Don't you love the wording above from the city (which I have now bolded)? It isn't hard to figure out that the "discounted price" is nowhere near as favorable as the previous arrangement, which had been honored for decades, by previous Houston mayors.

Nice going, Mayor White: You've squeezed millions of dollars from the folks who provide a service the city couldn't provide nearly as efficiently or effectively. That's quite an achievement!

Posted by Anne Linehan @ Mentally Retarded" revenue stream?"> 04/20/07 02:42 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (17)

15 August 2007

Council approves West Dallas, Bolsover land deals

City Council officially approved Mayor White's $6 million shakedown of the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation today:

The Houston City Council voted today to sell a 6.7-acre tract on West Dallas near Shepherd and Allen Parkway to the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation.

The unanimous vote capped a long and sometimes heated negotiation between city officials and the center, which had occupied the land since 1963 under a 99-year contract that the city recently declared invalid.

[snip]

"It will be one of my great moments as a member of council, that we decided to do the right thing for the people that live there and to choose people over land," Councilwoman Sue Lovell said.

Declaring a (previously valid) lease invalid in an effort to shake down the Center (successfully, as it turns out!) shouldn't be a matter of pride, no matter how much the Mayor and his Council try to spin their shakedown after the fact.

Speaking of spin, Charles Kuffner posts this description of Mayor White's comments before this item was considered:

During the discussion of the agenda item, before the vote was taken, Mayor White spoke somewhat cryptically about a piece of direct mail that went out in the early stages of the city's negotiations with the Center that attacked the city's motives and made some statements that the Mayor called untrue. You could tell that he was upset about this - he specifically said that if the senders of that mail had really wanted to do something constructive, they would have given money to the Center instead of spending it on that attack mailer - though he didn't go into any detail about its origins. You could also tell that he hadn't spoken of this before in public, because everyone I asked about it, including folks who were representing the Center, didn't know anything about it.

Without seeing the alleged direct mail, I can't really comment on it. However, we do know that sometimes our mayor can be thin-skinned when it comes to public criticism, and we can understand that he would have preferred his Boot The Mentally Retarded Shakedown discussion to have remained private, instead of becoming a matter of public debate (and criticism). Picking on retarded children publicly isn't the best imagery for mayors with aspirations to higher political office, after all. It will be interesting to see if the Chronicle Editorial LiveJournalists (aka Mrs. White) supplement the Mayor's spin later in the week!

In other land-transaction business today, Council approved the transfer of a section of Bolsover to a developer for $1.5 million:

This is not the first time the city has abandoned a road.

Not even in the Rice Village area.

But Houston Mayor Bill White says the way this one happened made him want to rethink the way the city does this in the future. “What we’ve done here is really try to make reasonable improvements.”

For two weeks the Mayor has been working on new procedures the city should follow when it sells public streets.

In this case the city got two appraisals for the property, which were nearly $1 million apart.

Mayor White says next time, the process shouldn’t be so haphazard.

If Mayor White (and the principal Councilmember who worked this deal, Anne Clutterbuck) truly thought the process was haphazard, they certainly could have slowed it down and brought more order to it. The fact is, there were some legitimate questions about the appraisal process and whether the city was getting proper value for the tract in question, and Mayor White didn't see that as a reason to slow or modify the "haphazard" process considerably. Presumably, Mayor White and Councilmember Clutterbuck think they secured a good deal for the city, although that's not completely clear at this point.

RELATED COVERAGE: KHOU-11, KTRK-13, Inside Central Houston.

MORE MAYORAL PR SPIN: Off the Kuff.

BLOGVERSATION: A Veneer of Certainty.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/15/07 11:32 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (43)

07 April 2007

If only Tilman Fertitta were on the board of directors...

On Chron.com's City Hall blog, Matt Stiles posts an update on Mayor White's "Boot the Mentally Retarded" revenue stream: the mayor has sent city councilmembers a five page memo explaining his position.

Stiles points out that a KHOU-11 Defenders story from last year led to this current bit of bad press for the city. In that story, KHOU's Mark Greenblatt reported that city-owned land was being rented by private businesses at rock-bottom prices. After that story, it seems the city did some reviewing. It would be interesting for Greenblatt to go back now and update what changes occurred in the agreements between the city and the businesses in the story.

And note Mayor White's reaction in KHOU's story last year:

“I mean it’s unacceptable,” Mayor White said. “People ought to be paying fair market value for those leases.”

He said a new department will handle the rents from now on. Just a few months ago, the mayor hired Bob Christie, a real estate expert with 30 years of experience in the private sector.

“This is evidence why this management change I implemented already is long overdue,” Mayor White said.

White told us he will ask Christie to give him recommendations on the best way to get top dollar out of the land in question.

Regarding the bargain prices we found, like the property that had not been revalued in 40 years, White said: “Total incompetence on the city’s part. And inexcusable.”

He also told us he’d like to sell off most of those properties that have those bargain leases.

The mayor says he now plans to try and sell off, rather than rent, most of that land we just told you about, assigning that task to an expert in real estate he hired recently.

Certainly with regard to most of these leases, Mayor White's position is right on, but not in the case of The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation.

In his memo, Mayor White says:

I would ask the public to understand that no dedication of taxpayers' property is "free," and that any choice that the City dedicate limited public funds or real estate for one purpose ultimately comes at the expense of some alternative public use.

Ahhhhh, if only the folks at The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation had Tilman Fertitta on their side. He has a knack for getting his hands on prime city-owned land, at less than fair market value!

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/07/07 05:10 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)

15 April 2007

Former city attorney elaborates on leases, center

The Chronicle has published a long letter from former city attorney John Wildenthal, criticizing the White Administration's legal efforts to dishonor an agreement with the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation in order to boost local developers and city coffers.

We're reproducing it in the extended body section in its entirety, since it is likely to disappear from the Chron.com site at some point:

[Read More]

Posted by Kevin Whited @ center"> 04/15/07 10:29 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (15)

28 December 2008

The Houston Way paves the way in Galleria-area land taking

Lately, quite a bit of attention has been focused on "the Chicago Way," the complex web of cronyism, patronage, and machine politics that can make (think both of the Mayors Daley) or break (think recent governors) Illinois pols.

Locally, we have The Houston Way, which doesn't factor into our state politics quite as prominently, but is no less intriguing when it comes to cronyism, patronage, and the benefits that always seem to accrue to the city's powerful and well-connected.

As Houston Chronicle reporters Carolyn Feibel and Bradley Olson make clear today in an outstanding followup to a March 2008 story by Mike Snyder on the city's abuse of its eminent domain power, The Houston Way hardly went away when Lee Brown finally was term-limited out of office and Bill White took charge (even though Mayor White's press staff surely loves it when journalists give the impression that White singlehandedly restored ethics to Houston government). Rather, one might say it reverted back to the more refined practices of, say, the Lanier Administration (more refined in the sense that we doubt any White Administration staffers will wind up indicted like various Brown Administration staffers, who were bunglers in The Houston Way really).

Recall back in March that we and other blogs commented on the story by Snyder, which described a lawsuit filed by two brothers contesting the city's effort to take their small Galleria-area property and make it into a so-small-as-to-be-useless "public park" that would conveniently double as ornamentation for a huge planned real-estate development. To recap Snyder's reporting: The brothers had acquired that property in 1982, and had been approached by the Uptown Houston District in February 2004 about selling it for parkland. In April 2004, Wulfe & Co. became interested in acquiring the land, and within a year had announced plans to redevelop a surrounding plot into the multi-acre BLVD Place mixed-use development. In July 2006, Wulfe & Co made a sizable offer for the land, which the brothers declined. In October 2006, the City of Houston said it wanted to acquire the land for a park. In May 2007, the city made an offer for the land, which the brothers declined. In November 2007, the City filed to acquire the property by eminent domain for the Uptown Houston District -- for more than a million dollars less than Wulfe & Co had once offered. At the time, Joe Turner, the City's Parks and Recreation director, said the move was justified, and that there was a "shortage of parks" in the area. The reporting noted that Ed Wulfe had a seat on the Uptown Houston District's board, and "is well-known at City Hall."

At the time, some of us didn't think this passed the smell test.

In today's intricate, detailed followup to the original story, we learn quite a bit more about this deal that makes it smell even worse. In no particular order, here are more of the damning details:

We'll leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions about this smelly, incestuous mess, although we suspect all but the most partisan cheerleaders for Mayor White will at least agree that it's a smelly incestuous mess.

We do take exception with one small part of the otherwise fine reporting by Feibel and Olson:

[C]ritics of City Hall contend that officials too often shape policy and decisions to aid developers.

That's not untrue, but a better description of The Houston Way is that officials too often shape policy and decisions to aid the city's powerful and well-connected (at the expense of the less powerful).

Notable recent examples of The Houston Way in action would include: Mayor White, Council, and Richard Vacar putting an airport shuttle company out of business at the behest of Yellow Cab, which wanted the business to itself; Mayor White's use of an archaic driveway ordinance to continue to frustrate a planned high-rise development (that had seemingly met existing regulatory hurdles) once well-connected supporters demanded it be stopped (this would be a key example of developers NOT shaping policy); Mayor White and Council extending the IAH Terminal C concession for the well-connected Jason Yoo despite the abysmal job he has done; and of course the unsuccessful effort to boot the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation from its prime real estate (for developers never named?).

In a town with a columnist like John Kass, we might look forward to many scathing columns in the future about The Houston Way and all of its incestuous relationships and deals. Alas, The Plagiarist is more expert in The San Antonio Way than ours, the Teen Diarist's range is *ahem* limited as well, and the Houston Press gave up trying to write about politics years ago. Too bad.

BLOGVERSATION: Red Ink: Texas, Lose an Eye, It's a Sport.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/28/08 10:32 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (10)

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