In the 2023 runoff election for Mayor of Houston, John Whitmire won by a landslide. Kingwood voted for Whitmire at much higher rates than the city as a whole. He won 91.4% of the votes in Kingwood – a 10.6 to 1 margin of victory over Sheila Jackson Lee, compared to 1.9 to 1 for the City as a whole.
Most of Undecideds Sided with Whitmire
Whitmire enjoyed a 7% lead over Lee in early polls, but picked up most of the undecideds. He finished with a convincing 65.26% to 34.74% victory, not quite a 2:1 margin.
Citywide, Whitmire won by a margin of 60,275 votes. In Kingwood, he beat Jackson Lee by 8,734 votes – 14.5% of his citywide margin.
That’s remarkable for two reasons.
Kingwood has only 3% of the City’s population (about 70,000 out of 2.2 million).
Kingwood had 5% of the total voters in the runoff.
Among the City’s 1.2 million registered voters, turnout was a meager 16.92%. But among Kingwood’s 44,000 registered voters, turnout was 23.86% – 7 percentage points higher.
Ten of Kingwood’s 12 precincts had turnout in the top quintile of all precincts.
So, Kingwood had higher turnout than most areas and those who voted preferred Whitmire overwhelmingly.
Meaning of Whitmire Win
Whitmire ran a positive campaign focused on crime, the economy, drainage/infrastructure, city services and bringing Houston together.
Kingwood is traditionally Republican. Kingwood’s overwhelming endorsement of the moderate Democrat may herald a sea change in local politics. Here, in this election, in this place, at this time, voters buried partisan politics and reached across the aisle to support centrist viewpoints that benefit the majority.
Precinct-By-Precinct Rundown
Kingwood has 12 voting precincts.
Kingwood voting precincts. 948 is all commercial and had no registered voters.
Here are the totals for each candidate in each precinct from HarrisVotes.com. See how your neighbors voted.
Whitmire vs Lee in Kingwood
Precinct
J. Whitmire
S. J. Lee
Total
JW Win %
199
717
69
786
91.2%
340
620
74
694
89.3%
357
664
78
742
89.5%
459
1,029
106
1,135
90.7%
469
883
56
939
94.0%
546
833
39
872
95.5%
563
829
80
909
91.2%
590
668
43
711
94.0%
612
775
84
859
90.2%
635
530
77
607
87.3%
670
999
81
1,080
92.5%
758
1,094
120
1,214
90.1%
Kingwood Total
9,641
907
10,548
91.4%
Citywide Total
128,908
68,633
197,541
65.3%
Kingwood Tallies & Totals vs. Citywide in Whitmire/Lee runoff.
It appears to me that Sheila Jackson Lee’s winner-take-all politics of polarization backfired on her this time. I haven’t yet had time to check other Republican-leaning areas, but in Kingwood, it seems that Republican’s arms didn’t stretch to her extremes.
The Candidate Now Has a Mandate
While Whitmire could have won the City convincingly without Kingwood, he won it dramatically with Kingwood. He will start the job with a broad mandate.
Whitmire still has huge challenges to face. Now comes the hard part of governing a city saddled with debt.
This is a week for good news and bad. Yesterday, we locked in another $50 million for the Lake Houston Gates Project. But one of the key people who helped us secure that funding is himself locked in a runoff election for City of Houston Mayor. And turnout so far has been abysmally low.
Whitmire Helped Secure $50 Million for Gates from State
More about the good news first. Yesterday, the Texas Water Development Board officially confirmed a $50 million grant to help build additional floodgates on the Lake Houston Dam. That will clear the way for final design, approvals and construction.
State Senator John Whitmire, candidate for City of Houston Mayor, helped secure that money. According to Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin, who has shepherded the gates project since Hurricane Harvey, Whitmire reportedly talked several reluctant senators into supporting the grant. Whitmire has been in the Texas Senate for 40 years and sits on the Finance Committee.
So Whitmire already has some skin invested in the gates project. If elected Mayor, he could provide necessary consistency for the project as it moves forward during the next four years.
Martin also reminded me that future FEMA grants for Lake Houston will depend on a maintenance dredging program. So, we need a mayor who can work with the state legislature to help secure future dredging grants. And Whitmire has relationships with all the key players in Austin.
Turnout Abysmally Low
Now, for more on the bad news. Turnout in the Houston runoff election so far has been “sluggish” according to the Houston Chronicle.
I personally would call it “somewhere south of abysmal.” Only 131,887 people in a City with roughly 1.75 million adults voted early. So, less than 10% of Houston adults have voted so far in what could be the most consequential election of this generation!
Why Mayor is Crucial
After Harvey, the Lake Houston Area Task Force identified more gates for Lake Houston as one of the three most crucial projects to reduce flooding in the area. In case you’re new here, this is what the San Jacinto West Fork looked like during Harvey.
Looking south toward Humble along US59.Water here was more than 20 feet above flood stage, the highest in Harris Countyand knocked out the southbound bridge for almost a year.
The flood affected 16,000 homes and 3,300 businesses in the Lake Houston area. That included 44% of all the businesses in the Lake Houston Chamber and 100% of all the businesses in Kingwood Town Center, which still hasn’t fully recovered. At the time, many people said, “If it happens again, I’m leaving.” That said…
It will likely take four years to complete the gates – the entire term of the next mayor. We need a mayor who will remain committed to the project.
The Mayor has the power to prioritize the project…or not.
This election could determine the future direction of our community and the City for decades to come.
Four 500-Year Storms in Eight Years
And lest you think a 500-year flood only happens once every 500 years, I would remind you that four hit this area in the last eight years: Tax Day, Memorial Day, Harvey, and Imelda.
We Have Power to Swing This Election
Now for the final piece of good news. So few people are voting throughout the City that Kingwood has the power to swing this election on Saturday.
Only 8,381 people have voted so far at the Kingwood Community Center – in a community of more than 70,000 people. While that’s one of the highest totals in the county, it still leaves the citywide outcome in doubt.
So please vote. Get your neighbors to vote. And get your neighbors to get their neighbors to vote. Etc.
When I voted early, I got to the polling place and back before my screen saver kicked in. It took less than 20 minutes round trip. With so much at stake, there’s just no excuse not to vote.
Voting Times, Places, Ballots, Etc.
Remember, races for several council positions and city controller remain open. View your sample ballot here.
Misleading statements. Broken promises. Redefining commonly accepted meanings of words. Math that doesn’t add up. Gobbledygook explanations. These practices have all become “business as usual” in Harris County Commissioners Court. And they come with a high price tag.
Bait-and-Switch Bonds
To get the 2022 Road and Parks Bond approved, County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Commissioner Adrian Garcia, and Commissioner Rodney Ellis voted to allocate a minimum of $220 million to each precinct. They heavily promoted the guaranteed minimum in pre-referendum advertising, online and in community meetings.
Screen capture from County bond web site shows two promises were broken.
A short while after voters approved the bond, the Democrats voted to shortchange Precinct 3 by $32.5 million – even though P3 has 47% of the county’s roads and 35% of the county’s parks. They also voted to give $110 million to Harris County Engineering for administration.
Commissioner Ramsey has been trying to win back the amount P3 voters were shortchanged. But in a 10/31/2023 meeting, Commissioners Garcia and Ellis implied that their portions of funding were already spent, so they couldn’t be reallocated.
Said Garcia, “Right now, of the allocation that I’ve got, my guys have already let that out the door. Yeah.”
Ellis replied, “Yeah, we’ve already committed our funds as well.”
However, when I asked the Harris County Engineering Department for a list of projects funded by the 2022 Road and Parks Bond, they could find no records responsive to my request.
Reviewing bids approved by Harris County’s Commissioners Court between January 1 and November 6 of this year showed that Ellis has spent less than a million dollars on road improvements. Ellis and Garcia together spent less than $7.7 million on road projects. So how did $562 million get “out the door”?
They may have “plans” for spending $562 million, but so far, they’ve only actually spent somewhere between $0.00 and $7.7 million from the bond.
Their choice of words implied that even if they wanted to achieve a fairer balance, it was too late. Did they chose those words accidentally or intentionally?
In the same meeting, Judge Hidalgo and Budget Director Daniel Ramos tried to explain why they shortchanged Precinct 3 in the first place.
Lina Hidalgo’s Explanation
Hidalgo said, “What I have here, and maybe Ramos can jump in, is that we approved 220 to each precinct and the remaining balance according to SVI, because we hadn’t thought about … there’s overhead costs of 110 million. And I think that just literally nobody thought about it. I asked my team, ‘Go back at the notes and see if you know anybody had that anywhere and just hit it or whatever.’ Well, it’s not anywhere. So then by the time January rolled around, the budget folks or whomever came back and said, you know, we actually have to shave 110 off the top. And so, then we changed it from 220 to 175, given that we shaved 110 off the top. So, it’s 175 minimum for each precinct and the rest according to SVI.”
SVI refers to the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.
Issues with Hidalgo Explanation
First, she broke a promise to voters. But there are several other problems:
If overhead costs were really $110 million, you would reduce the minimum for each precinct by $27.5 million, not $45 million. Said another way, $45 million per precinct adds up to $180 million, not $110.
Why are we paying current employee salaries out of bonds that will require interest payments for a decade or more? Especially when the County said it wouldn’t use any bond money to fund day-to-day operations. (See screen capture above.)
The much larger flood bond in 2018 had zero for administrative overhead (although admittedly there were $10 million worth of legal and accounting fees associated with buying the bonds).
Ramos Explanation
Budget Director Daniel Ramos then said to Hidalgo, “You’re correct. So, I believe in January, sorry, the first or second quarter, this new constituted body came back and changed the formula. One: to carve off 110% or, sorry, 10% off of the 900 million for roads and parks to allocate to the county engineer and then precinct 2 put up a motion to do 70, a little over 70%, which is the 175 number plus, and the remainder, which is 29.8%, give or take, for SVI. And that’s where we are today. And that vote passed four zero …”
Problems with Ramos’ Explanation
While purporting to support Hidalgo, Ramos’ explanation contradicts hers. Seventy percent of 220 is 154, not 175. The bond was for $1.1 billion, not $900 million. And his explanation has the feel of a major-league curve ball.
The 2022 Road and Parks Bond was a classic bait-and-switch scheme. And it’s not the first time such deception happened.
Flood-Bond Deception
The same leaders did the same thing after the 2018 flood bond passed. Ellis even bragged openly in commissioners court about how he tricked voters.
The three Democrats promised to focus flood control spending on the hardest hit areas first. But they have not. They defined “worst first” to mean the “poorest” watersheds, not those that had the “most severe flooding.”
Such explanations and actions undermine the credibility of elected officials and trust in government.
These are not little, white lies. They are whoppers involving billions of dollars.
Worse, because of inflation, affluent areas that desperately need flood mitigation may get none. Twenty-percent inflation since 2020 has trimmed $1 billion off the purchasing power of the 2018 flood bond.
So areas that ranked low on the Democrat’s Equity Prioritization Framework may get little or no help from the tax dollars they approved.
Loss of trust could jeopardize future bonds. After the bait and switch with the 2018 Flood Bond, the 2022 Road and Parks bond received far less support, even with the guaranteed minimum per precinct.
To come together, leaders must stop misleading. They must promise what they will deliver and deliver what they promise. Or we’ll all wind up in the semantic rubber room wondering what’s real and what’s not.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 12/7/23
2291 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/20231207-Screenshot-2023-12-07-at-11.22.17%E2%80%AFAM.jpg?fit=1100%2C616&ssl=16161100adminadmin2023-12-07 14:55:372023-12-08 06:57:04Editorial: What Happens When Leaders Become Misleaders
How Kingwood Voted in Whitmire Win
In the 2023 runoff election for Mayor of Houston, John Whitmire won by a landslide. Kingwood voted for Whitmire at much higher rates than the city as a whole. He won 91.4% of the votes in Kingwood – a 10.6 to 1 margin of victory over Sheila Jackson Lee, compared to 1.9 to 1 for the City as a whole.
Most of Undecideds Sided with Whitmire
Whitmire enjoyed a 7% lead over Lee in early polls, but picked up most of the undecideds. He finished with a convincing 65.26% to 34.74% victory, not quite a 2:1 margin.
Citywide, Whitmire won by a margin of 60,275 votes. In Kingwood, he beat Jackson Lee by 8,734 votes – 14.5% of his citywide margin.
That’s remarkable for two reasons.
Among the City’s 1.2 million registered voters, turnout was a meager 16.92%. But among Kingwood’s 44,000 registered voters, turnout was 23.86% – 7 percentage points higher.
Ten of Kingwood’s 12 precincts had turnout in the top quintile of all precincts.
So, Kingwood had higher turnout than most areas and those who voted preferred Whitmire overwhelmingly.
Meaning of Whitmire Win
Whitmire ran a positive campaign focused on crime, the economy, drainage/infrastructure, city services and bringing Houston together.
Kingwood is traditionally Republican. Kingwood’s overwhelming endorsement of the moderate Democrat may herald a sea change in local politics. Here, in this election, in this place, at this time, voters buried partisan politics and reached across the aisle to support centrist viewpoints that benefit the majority.
Precinct-By-Precinct Rundown
Kingwood has 12 voting precincts.
Here are the totals for each candidate in each precinct from HarrisVotes.com. See how your neighbors voted.
It appears to me that Sheila Jackson Lee’s winner-take-all politics of polarization backfired on her this time. I haven’t yet had time to check other Republican-leaning areas, but in Kingwood, it seems that Republican’s arms didn’t stretch to her extremes.
The Candidate Now Has a Mandate
While Whitmire could have won the City convincingly without Kingwood, he won it dramatically with Kingwood. He will start the job with a broad mandate.
Whitmire still has huge challenges to face. Now comes the hard part of governing a city saddled with debt.
The good news as far as the Lake Houston Gates Project is concerned: funding comes mainly from outside sources and can only be used for gates, according to current Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin.
And after 50 years in Austin, Whitmire knows how to work across the aisle and only Whitmire made flooding an issue in his campaign.
I hope Whitmire’s win ushers in a new era for the City that gives everyone a seat at the table, not just those on the far left.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 12/10/23
2294 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Remember Flooding? Vote for Whitmire.
This is a week for good news and bad. Yesterday, we locked in another $50 million for the Lake Houston Gates Project. But one of the key people who helped us secure that funding is himself locked in a runoff election for City of Houston Mayor. And turnout so far has been abysmally low.
Whitmire Helped Secure $50 Million for Gates from State
More about the good news first. Yesterday, the Texas Water Development Board officially confirmed a $50 million grant to help build additional floodgates on the Lake Houston Dam. That will clear the way for final design, approvals and construction.
State Senator John Whitmire, candidate for City of Houston Mayor, helped secure that money. According to Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin, who has shepherded the gates project since Hurricane Harvey, Whitmire reportedly talked several reluctant senators into supporting the grant. Whitmire has been in the Texas Senate for 40 years and sits on the Finance Committee.
So Whitmire already has some skin invested in the gates project. If elected Mayor, he could provide necessary consistency for the project as it moves forward during the next four years.
Martin also reminded me that future FEMA grants for Lake Houston will depend on a maintenance dredging program. So, we need a mayor who can work with the state legislature to help secure future dredging grants. And Whitmire has relationships with all the key players in Austin.
Turnout Abysmally Low
Now, for more on the bad news. Turnout in the Houston runoff election so far has been “sluggish” according to the Houston Chronicle.
I personally would call it “somewhere south of abysmal.” Only 131,887 people in a City with roughly 1.75 million adults voted early. So, less than 10% of Houston adults have voted so far in what could be the most consequential election of this generation!
Why Mayor is Crucial
After Harvey, the Lake Houston Area Task Force identified more gates for Lake Houston as one of the three most crucial projects to reduce flooding in the area. In case you’re new here, this is what the San Jacinto West Fork looked like during Harvey.
The flood affected 16,000 homes and 3,300 businesses in the Lake Houston area. That included 44% of all the businesses in the Lake Houston Chamber and 100% of all the businesses in Kingwood Town Center, which still hasn’t fully recovered. At the time, many people said, “If it happens again, I’m leaving.” That said…
The Mayor has the power to prioritize the project…or not.
Only Whitmire Has Made Flooding an Issue
In that regard, Whitmire is the only candidate who made flooding a central element of his campaign.
This election could determine the future direction of our community and the City for decades to come.
Four 500-Year Storms in Eight Years
And lest you think a 500-year flood only happens once every 500 years, I would remind you that four hit this area in the last eight years: Tax Day, Memorial Day, Harvey, and Imelda.
We Have Power to Swing This Election
Now for the final piece of good news. So few people are voting throughout the City that Kingwood has the power to swing this election on Saturday.
Only 8,381 people have voted so far at the Kingwood Community Center – in a community of more than 70,000 people. While that’s one of the highest totals in the county, it still leaves the citywide outcome in doubt.
So please vote. Get your neighbors to vote. And get your neighbors to get their neighbors to vote. Etc.
When I voted early, I got to the polling place and back before my screen saver kicked in. It took less than 20 minutes round trip. With so much at stake, there’s just no excuse not to vote.
Voting Times, Places, Ballots, Etc.
Remember, races for several council positions and city controller remain open. View your sample ballot here.
Polls will open at 7AM and close at 7PM.
Vote at any of these locations.
For more voting information, visit HarrisVotes.com.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 12/8/2023
2292 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Editorial: What Happens When Leaders Become Misleaders
Misleading statements. Broken promises. Redefining commonly accepted meanings of words. Math that doesn’t add up. Gobbledygook explanations. These practices have all become “business as usual” in Harris County Commissioners Court. And they come with a high price tag.
Bait-and-Switch Bonds
To get the 2022 Road and Parks Bond approved, County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Commissioner Adrian Garcia, and Commissioner Rodney Ellis voted to allocate a minimum of $220 million to each precinct. They heavily promoted the guaranteed minimum in pre-referendum advertising, online and in community meetings.
A short while after voters approved the bond, the Democrats voted to shortchange Precinct 3 by $32.5 million – even though P3 has 47% of the county’s roads and 35% of the county’s parks. They also voted to give $110 million to Harris County Engineering for administration.
It was a blatant bait-and-switch scheme.
Commissioner Ramsey has been trying to win back the amount P3 voters were shortchanged. But in a 10/31/2023 meeting, Commissioners Garcia and Ellis implied that their portions of funding were already spent, so they couldn’t be reallocated.
Said Garcia, “Right now, of the allocation that I’ve got, my guys have already let that out the door. Yeah.”
Ellis replied, “Yeah, we’ve already committed our funds as well.”
However, when I asked the Harris County Engineering Department for a list of projects funded by the 2022 Road and Parks Bond, they could find no records responsive to my request.
Reviewing bids approved by Harris County’s Commissioners Court between January 1 and November 6 of this year showed that Ellis has spent less than a million dollars on road improvements. Ellis and Garcia together spent less than $7.7 million on road projects. So how did $562 million get “out the door”?
They may have “plans” for spending $562 million, but so far, they’ve only actually spent somewhere between $0.00 and $7.7 million from the bond.
Their choice of words implied that even if they wanted to achieve a fairer balance, it was too late. Did they chose those words accidentally or intentionally?
Explanation For Unequal Minimum Distribution
In the same meeting, Judge Hidalgo and Budget Director Daniel Ramos tried to explain why they shortchanged Precinct 3 in the first place.
Lina Hidalgo’s Explanation
Hidalgo said, “What I have here, and maybe Ramos can jump in, is that we approved 220 to each precinct and the remaining balance according to SVI, because we hadn’t thought about … there’s overhead costs of 110 million. And I think that just literally nobody thought about it. I asked my team, ‘Go back at the notes and see if you know anybody had that anywhere and just hit it or whatever.’ Well, it’s not anywhere. So then by the time January rolled around, the budget folks or whomever came back and said, you know, we actually have to shave 110 off the top. And so, then we changed it from 220 to 175, given that we shaved 110 off the top. So, it’s 175 minimum for each precinct and the rest according to SVI.”
SVI refers to the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.
Issues with Hidalgo Explanation
First, she broke a promise to voters. But there are several other problems:
Ramos Explanation
Budget Director Daniel Ramos then said to Hidalgo, “You’re correct. So, I believe in January, sorry, the first or second quarter, this new constituted body came back and changed the formula. One: to carve off 110% or, sorry, 10% off of the 900 million for roads and parks to allocate to the county engineer and then precinct 2 put up a motion to do 70, a little over 70%, which is the 175 number plus, and the remainder, which is 29.8%, give or take, for SVI. And that’s where we are today. And that vote passed four zero …”
Problems with Ramos’ Explanation
While purporting to support Hidalgo, Ramos’ explanation contradicts hers. Seventy percent of 220 is 154, not 175. The bond was for $1.1 billion, not $900 million. And his explanation has the feel of a major-league curve ball.
The 2022 Road and Parks Bond was a classic bait-and-switch scheme. And it’s not the first time such deception happened.
Flood-Bond Deception
The same leaders did the same thing after the 2018 flood bond passed. Ellis even bragged openly in commissioners court about how he tricked voters.
The three Democrats promised to focus flood control spending on the hardest hit areas first. But they have not. They defined “worst first” to mean the “poorest” watersheds, not those that had the “most severe flooding.”
Even though language in the bond promised an “equitable distribution” of funds, the Democrats adopted a formula based largely on income and social vulnerability, without regard to flood risk or damage. That heavily skewed distribution of bond money. As a result, 65% of the flood bond projects that lost funding this year were in Precinct 3.
These are not little, white lies. They are whoppers involving billions of dollars.
Worse, because of inflation, affluent areas that desperately need flood mitigation may get none. Twenty-percent inflation since 2020 has trimmed $1 billion off the purchasing power of the 2018 flood bond.
So areas that ranked low on the Democrat’s Equity Prioritization Framework may get little or no help from the tax dollars they approved.
Consequences of Loss of Trust
Declining trust in government reduces support for government action to address a range of policy concerns, including flooding. Distrust makes it harder to make collective decisions that advance the common good. It fosters polarization in politics. And undermines faith in elections.
Loss of trust could jeopardize future bonds. After the bait and switch with the 2018 Flood Bond, the 2022 Road and Parks bond received far less support, even with the guaranteed minimum per precinct.
To come together, leaders must stop misleading. They must promise what they will deliver and deliver what they promise. Or we’ll all wind up in the semantic rubber room wondering what’s real and what’s not.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 12/7/23
2291 Days since Hurricane Harvey