Mayor White has "big plans" for second term
With 165,447 Houston voters giving him the thumbs up, Mayor White rolled to a second-term win yesterday. I was going to pull from Kristen Mack's story, but Chron.com seems to be, ummm, in some kind of altered state, so I can't pull up her story.
Suffice it to say that Mayor White says he has "big plans" for Houston in his second term.
Big plans = technocratic-progressivism.
UPDATE: Okay, here's Kristen Mack's story:
"Houstonians stepped up to support an unknown businessman two years ago," he said. "I want to thank people who went to the polls today and endorsed the direction of the city."
In his first term, White emphasized issues that could be addressed fairly quickly if not always easily — synchronizing traffic lights at 1,500 intersections; devising a way to pay for flood-control improvements; winning voter approval of a plan to reduce a shortfall in the city employee's pension system; and creating the Safe Clear mandatory freeway towing program, though it still faces legal challenges.
He has borrowed a bit from popular former mayors of other big cities, from whom he sought advice between his first election and inauguration. He said he drew from Rudolph Giuliani's nuts-and-bolts approach to city government in New York; Henry Cisneros' business savvy with corporate CEOs in San Antonio; and Richard Riordan's and Ron Kirk's ability to unify diverse parts of the community in Los Angeles and Dallas.
White said that during his first term, he "tried to get the city moving, bring the community together and establish a culture of performance and results at City Hall."
Though headquartered at City Hall, White views his job site as the entire community.
"I want to change the way Houston works, bring hope to neighborhoods that have been neglected and create a standard of performance that will be used by other cities," White said last week in contemplating the second term he won decisively against minor opposition.
In an interview after his victory Tuesday, he ruled out talk that he might seek the 2006 Democratic nomination for governor.
"The honorable thing to do is to do the job you've been hired for," he said. "Being mayor of this city is a full-time job. We have big plans for the next two years."
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: This reporting is a little euphoric. Note this snippet:
White, who has made public safety a hallmark of his administration, also wants to increase the number of police cadet classes.
By year's end, the Houston Police Department will have lost an estimated 740 officers to retirement in a two-year period.
By the end of this fiscal year on June 30, the city will have completed four cadet classes — putting 280 more officers in uniform.
"I'd like to get more officers on the street sooner," White said.
If the Chronicle had quality editors, that bolded part would have been struck. While "public safety" has certainly been a key part of the mayor's rhetoric, the fact is that he has not done nearly enough to deal with HPD's manpower shortage. That aspect of public safety has been mostly neglected by the mayor and his council, despite the claims of the mayor's press people and the willingness of the city's professional press to rewrite press releases.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/09/05 10:10 AM | Houston Politics | Print | Comments (5)
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