Did Jerry Eversole HAVE to vote for the Grand Parkway?
Rick Casey's column today is enlightening, but probably not in the way he intended. He discussed who has the power within Harris County -- the judge or the commissioners:
The judge may be elected countywide, and his $137,424 salary may be about $7,000 more than the commissioners, whose turf is a quarter of the county, but neither the area of the turf nor the amount of the salary defines power.
Consider this: On countywide issues, such as determining the budget of the hospital district or the sheriff's office, the county judge and the commissioners each have one vote.
But when it comes to building parks or roads or other matters within each of the four commissioner precincts, the commissioner is king.
"I prefer 'czarina,' " says Commissioner Sylvia Garcia.
State Sen. Jon Lindsay, R-Houston, who was county judge for 20 years, summed it up: "The commissioners in Harris County are the most powerful politicians in the state other than statewide officials."
And if anyone would know about power, it's Sen. Lindsay.
Here is the really good part:
The power each commissioner exercises over these budgets is as absolute as it can get in a democracy. That's because each commissioner respects the turf of the others and expects his or her turf to be respected in return.
"El Franco Lee knows his precinct better than I do," Radack said. "If he has the money and wants to do something, I'm not going to second-guess him."
Not only do they get to decide what roads will be built and parks enhanced, individual commissioners have considerable power over what engineering and architectural firms will be hired in their precincts.
Now, why did that interest me? Because at that Grand Parkway meeting a couple of weeks ago, Commissioner Jerry Eversole said he HAD to vote for HCTRA's study of the Spring segment because the other commissioners were in favor of the Grand Parkway. He said if he voted against it, he wouldn't have a say in the route, so he was really doing Spring residents a favor by voting for it.
Tsk, tsk. Commissioner Eversole fed us a bodacious bucket of blarney.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/08/05 05:30 PM | Print | Comments (26)
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