Elected officials question mayor's new Metro plan

Rad Sallee (with Kristen Mack) has another interesting story on Mayor White's new $2 billion expansion plan, with some elected officials expressing concern:

Two Metro supporters in Congress said Thursday that the agency's decision to put a guided bus system in three corridors where voters had approved light rail could damage public trust in the agency.

"This is not helping Metro's credibility problem," said U.S. Rep. Gene Green, whose district includes the Metropolitan Transit Authority's North, Southeast and Harrisburg corridors.

[snip]

A second Democratic congressman from Houston, Al Green, said he will reserve comment on the plan until he understands it more fully, but he added, "People are concerned that there may be some plan that is going to develop that would not be consistent with what they perceived it to be when they were casting their votes."

[snip]

State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said it appears that "the west side of town won out over the right side of town.

"It's disappointing, but it's clear this is not the end of the discussion," he said.

Coleman is scheduled to talk to White, Wilson and Councilwoman Ada Edwards this afternoon, but said he wished that discussion had taken place before the plan was made public.

"I'm disappointed that people don't understand that you have to work a deal with everybody, regardless of the sticks people carry," Coleman said. "I hope that we can get some clarity on what the plan is."

Several area legislators, including U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, state Sen. Rodney Ellis, both Houston Democrats, and Commissioner El Franco Lee are all on the same page, according to Coleman.

Woopsie! As we suspected, Mayor White didn't share his plan with those communities before he made his announcement. But with the exception of SAFEclear, the mayor generally gets his way and probably didn't anticipate any problems with the new plan.

Which means it's time for Metro officials and Mayor White to fly into action:

Frank Michel, spokesman for Mayor Bill White, said Metro President and CEO Frank Wilson will travel to Washington next week to brief the area's congressional delegation about the changes.

[snip]

Coleman is scheduled to talk to White, Wilson and Councilwoman Ada Edwards this afternoon

[snip]

Board Chairman David Wolff addressed the issue at the start [of yesterday's board meeting], saying that although some people think the agency has moved backward, "all those who are thoroughly familiar with this plan know it is a tremendous step forward.

The last David Wolff quote is humorous, because apparently the only people who were "thoroughly familiar" with the plan were...Mayor White and Metro!

Wolff continues:

"Some people feel we have compromised some lines, but my understanding is that if you never had it in the first place, you never gave it up," Wolff said.

That's sure to win over the great unwashed masses: since you never had light rail, you never lost it...oh, and thanks for your vote two years ago.

Metro provided letters dated April 25 from the Federal Transit Administration advising the agency that its light rail plans for the North and Southeast corridors had been rated "medium-low" for cost-effectiveness.

In general, the letters said, funding is recommended for projects that rate medium or higher.

Gene Green said Metro "should have been giving us that same information, and maybe we wouldn't have had this miscommunication."

See, the problem is Metro didn't share its information (which is a never-ending issue with Metro) and now Metro has a problem with the constituency that gave the nod to Metro Solutions. But Mayor White is the master of making lemonade out of lemons, so he'll smooth this over very soon.

And at the end of the story, Sallee adds that Metro's board approved the new policy of taking on debt to complete projects.

UPDATE: Marc Campos cautions Metro:

Seriously though, pay attention METRO - when you blow off the will of a community, you also blow off their leadership that supported your 2003 proposition. The leadership then gets cracked by their opponents. So METRO makes their minority supporters look bad and the opponents make them look bad. Not good METRO.

In a "let them eat pan dulce" like statement, the METRO Board Chair said in today's Chron - "Some people feel we have compromised some (rail) lines, but my understanding is that if you never had it in the first place, you never gave it up." Gee, thanks Meeester Seeenor Shair.

Yup.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/17/05 11:50 AM | Print |

Bookmark and Share

Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry


 SITE MENU

+Home
+About
+Archives
+BH Commentary (RSS)
+Bloggers
+Blogroll
+Contact Us
+Forum
+Local News Headlines
+Syndication
+Twitter

 ADVERTISING

 DISCLAIMER

All content © 2004-09, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.

blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.

Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.