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 | Sphere | Comments (0)
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