As if on cue, I ran a post about restoring competence to local government, and voila, within hours, people started reporting voting problems across Harris County. The problems appear widespread, intermittent and random. They were not limited to areas that leaned Republican or Democratic.
The main effect? Long wait times. One location reported a five-hour line! At another location, a source told me that fifty people were turned away.
The main reasons: Scanners that wouldn’t scan; printers that wouldn’t print; missing supplies; internet glitches; lost keys; lack of testing; not enough setup time; and not enough technical support to resolve issues quickly.
Central Kingwood Mid-Day Report
I personally visited six locations in Kingwood between 11 am and 2 pm. At each, I talked to multiple people.
Four locations seemed to run smoothly. Two had long lines and delays (Kingwood Community Center, Foster Elementary). The problems at the Community Center were unclear. At Foster, several machines went down. Voters experienced half-hour to one-hour wait times at these two locations.
Local news covering long lines at Foster Elementary before lunch today.
At Foster, people exiting talked about scanners being down. Officials asked them to put their ballots in a box and said they would be counted later. Given the level of distrust and skepticism lately, the voters immediately suspected the worst.
They were mad as hornets!
One person complained about his ballot misprinting. It printed Page 1 twice, but wouldn’t print Page 2 at all. Another complained of scanners shredding his ballot.
Handicapped voting seemed to be a problem everywhere. At Kingwood Middle School, a friend and I had to help an elderly woman get from her vehicle to inside the polling location. Elsewhere, I noticed handicapped people coming out of polling places on scooters. Most locations had traffic cones in the handicapped parking places. Several people complained about handicapped call buttons not working or not being accessible.
No Problems at Some Locations
Creekwood Middle School, Good Shepherd Episcopal, Woodland Hills Elementary, and Kingwood Middle School seemed to function properly at mid-day. Many other locations may have been functioning properly, too; I just didn’t check them all.
The last three locations are all adjacent to each other on Woodland Hills Drive between Tree Lane and Pine Terrace Drive.
If you experience problems at your normal voting location, you should be able to vote at any one of them. They’re all within a block of each other. And if one goes down, you have two backups nearby. Also, because of their proximity, the lines are short – at least they were at mid-day.
Wait-Time System May or May Not Work
HarrisVotes.com is supposed to show the wait times at polling locations near you. But caution, if you see zero in line, it may be an error. Both party election officials and Harris County employees have told me the system malfunctioned throughout early voting. It often reported no lines when lines were down the block. So before you get in your car, have some backups in mind.
Note update time as of 6:20 PM tonight. This is likely an error.Foster had long lines most of the day due to malfunctions.
Remember, if you’re in line when the polls normally close at 7, they have to let you vote.
Late Breaking News
At 6:20 PM, the Houston Chronicle reported that a Harris County district judge signed an order keeping the polls open until 8 PM because of all the problems experienced today. They were originally set to close at 7 PM. However, anyone who arrives after 7 PM will have to vote a provisional ballot, a long, complicated process.
Suggestion
In the future, I hope Texas adopts a voting period, and drops the charade of early voting and Election Day. This should simplify procedures and logistics for both election workers and voters. Why do we expand the number of machines and polling locations AFTER most people have voted?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/8/2022
1897 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/20221108-RJR_1040.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=18001200adminadmin2022-11-08 17:11:422022-11-08 19:41:01Voting Problems Reported Across County
Harris County is electing a new County Judge this year. For the Lake Houston Area, it’s arguably the most important race on the ballot. It represents a chance to win a majority on Commissioners Court sensitive to the Lake Houston Area’s needs. We’ve been de-prioritized for four years. Tomorrow, November 8th, is your last chance to change that. It’s Election Day.
Why This Race is So Important
I don’t want to downplay the importance of other races. But this particular race is about your quality of life. Getting your fair share of flood-mitigation funding. Keeping your tax bill stable. Restoring public safety. Rebuilding competence in local government. And increasing transparency.
But four years ago, 63% of all ballots were cast during the early-voting period. So turnout on Election Day will be critical this year.
The number of people who have not yet voted in the Lake Houston Area have the power to swing this election. By all accounts, it will be close.
Overview of Candidates: Problems Vs. Potential
The two candidates are incumbent Lina Hidalgo and challenger Alexandra del Moral Mealer.
Hidalgo (D), left; Mealer (R), right
Let’s look at their respective records.
Hidalgo’s only real-world job experience before assuming the helm of a 16,000-employee organization was reportedly as a medical interpreter. Her rookie errors were predictable. I’ll detail them below.
Mealer is also a newcomer to politics, but comes to the job with vastly more real-world experience. She:
Graduated from West Point
Was a Captain in the Army
Commanded a bomb squad in Afghanistan for a decade
Obtained MBA and JD degrees from Harvard
Put together billion-dollar deals in the oil-and-gas sector as a VP for one of the nation’s largest banks.
More About Hidalgo’s Record
Hidalgo had no management experience when elected. And it showed. Under Hidalgo, the County’s budget increased along with employment. She created six new departments. Hired thousands of new employees. And paid for the largesse by drawing down the county’s reserve funds.
She also replaced the heads of 19 departments. One department had three leadership changes under Hidalgo. And four had at least two. Some departments, such as Engineering, have lost 4-5 layers of management. Whole capabilities, such as disaster relief, were wiped out. And every group head in the IT Department (Universal Services) left.
Political credentials became more important in hiring decisions than professional competence. Knowledgeable, capable employees left county employment in droves. Some are still there. But it’s reportedly getting harder and harder for them to keep things running.
One Misstep after Another
I’ve learned to judge Judge Hidalgo by her actions, not her words.
She talks about serving the entire county, but I’ve only seen her break ranks with her Democratic Commissioners twice in four years. In fairness, there may have been more times. But it’s hard to sit through meetings that have lasted up to 16 hours. Robert’s Rules of Order are not her strong suit.
Much to her discredit, Hidalgo led efforts to:
Create a redistricting plan that forced Jack Cagle and Tom Ramsey to switch districts, a move that:
Disrupted service to half of Harris county
Denied former Precinct 4 residents of their right to vote for Commissioner.
Left Precinct 3 (which the Lake Houston Area is now in) with 47% of the roads and 25% of the budget.
Replace highly skilled professionals in the County’s IT department with political loyalists who couldn’t reboot the County’s bail-bond system after it crashed. As a result, hundreds of criminal suspects didn’t receive probable cause hearings in time. So, they had to be released.
But Hidalgo’s greatest sin, in my opinion, is that she destroyed trust in county government by misleading people. For instance, she:
Tried to minimize the impact of a tax rate increase without projecting the impact on a family’s tax bill, given large increases in valuations during her tenure.
Argued for “worst first” in flood mitigation. But her definition has nothing to do with depth of flooding, deaths, loss of critical infrastructure, or the percentage of damaged homes and businesses in a community.
Redefined “equitable” distribution of funds in voter-approved flood-bond language, so that equitable has nothing to do with the dictionary definition.
Says she can’t rely on partner funding for flood-mitigation projects, when she has had $750 million in HUD funding sitting on the table for 17 months. Her Community Services Department (which changed leadership three times under Hidalgo) still hasn’t submitted one project for approval to the GLO or HUD. The $750 million could fully fund every project in the flood bond.
Says she values community input but has never attended a Community Resilience Flood Task Force meeting.
As far as I can tell, after four years, Hidalgo still has not figured out how to run Harris County. She’s just a bad manager. She came to the job with no experience and has not learned along the way.
More about Alexandra del Moral Mealer
Mealer has actual leadership and job experience. Her military and business background is far more qualifying than Hidalgo’s. Mealer has Harvard MBA and JD degrees, and years of experience as a VP of a bank that has almost two trillion dollars in assets. She’s more equipped with the skill sets needed to be a county judge than Hidalgo ever was.
Mealer also has a laser focus on the things that matter to people at the county level: Crime. Courts. Jails. Flooding. Roads. Budgets. Taxes. She refuses to get bogged down in national issues that she has no control over.
She has a conservative fiscal stance on how to spend OUR money. And it doesn’t involve creating jobs for political cronies through a vast expansion of the bureaucracy.
Virtually every law enforcement agency in the county has backed Mealer’s plan for addressing crime.
She hopes to lower or maintain taxes and tax rates by eliminating wasteful spending.
Finally, having met and talked to Mealer at length several times, I believe she cares about all areas of Harris County regardless of their economic status. Said another way, I think she would treat all people and neighborhoods fairly. Mealer has integrity.
November 8th – Your Last Chance
Tomorrow is your last chance to make a change if you want one. If you’re happy with having the deepest flooding in Harris County and seeing flood-mitigation funding go elsewhere, then by all means, vote for Hidalgo. If you’re happy with soaring crime and revolving-door jails, vote for Hidalgo. But if you want to change that, vote for Mealer.
As proof of how dangerous clearcutting without sufficient mitigation can be, the controversial Royal Pines development has flooded a neighbor on a rain that was less than 1″ – even as the Lake Houston area flirts with drought.
Royal Pines sits at the northern end of West Lake Houston Parkway in Montgomery County. Looking SE from NW corner on 10.31.22.
The circumstances are similar to those of a nearby development – Woodridge Village. There, clearcutting flooded Elm Grove Village and North Kingwood Forest twice in 2019. Without sufficient detention basins, sheet flow from approximately 268 acres swept through hundreds of homes. But those incidents weren’t during a drought. And the rainfalls were much heavier.
Less than an Inch of Rain
In this case, the rain fell on October 28, 2022. Harris County’s Flood Warning System recorded a peak of .72 inches of rain in an hour at the nearest gage. To put that in perspective, .72 inches is so slight that it would have had to have fallen in five minutes to qualify as a five-year rain or ten minutes to qualify as a one-year rain.
NOAA’s Atlas 14 rainfall probabilities
However, the rain was spread out over about a half hour.
And the soils were not saturated either. The Lake Houston Area has been in drought for much of the year. As of 11/5/22, the US Drought Monitor rated this area “abnormally dry.”
From US Drought Monitor
During the entire month before October 28, the area had received only a little more than a half inch of rain.
The flooding occurred in the northwest corner of the new development. From pictures and emails supplied by the neighbor, aerial photos taken during the last several months, elevation profiles obtained from the USGS national map, and construction plans obtained via a FOIA Request, I’ve been able to piece together the following. It appears that:
Montgomery County asked the developer to revise its plans for a detention basin.
Before approval of the revisions, contractors clearcut 200+ acres.
Contractors filled in a natural depression that channeled runoff toward White Oak Creek and sloped the development toward the neighbor’s home.
Runoff from the .72-inch rain rushed toward the northwest corner of the development.
Silt fences funneled most of the runoff toward the corner, where it broke through the fence.
Runoff also seeped under the fence.
The runoff washed sediment across the back of the neighbor’s property toward White Oak Creek.
Video shot by resident on 10/28/22Sloping mudline on silt fence shows how land had been angled toward this corner.The lower elevation used to be to the right.See discussion below.Water and muck running onto neighbor’s propertythrough break in corner. Water also ran underneath silt fence.Aerial photo taken five days later on 11/2/22.Notice all the muck still in the corner and the silt deposited in the woods.
The neighbor’s property extends on a straight line beyond the left fence. Water flowed from bottom of frame toward corner.
Wider shot taken after the rainon 11.2.22 shows contractor tried to fill in trench eroded by runoff.On 11.5.22, contractors repaired the silt fence and installed additional silt fences to slow and block runoff.
Luckily, the neighbor’s house did not flood. But a heavier rain might have flooded it.
Development Now Slopes Toward Neighbor Instead of Away
The USGS National Map shows that this area used to slope AWAY from their property, NOT TOWARD it.
In this area water flows from the bottom of the frame toward the top where White Oak Creek is. Comparing the contours on the left above and depression on the right with the direction the water actually travelled confirm that contractors altered the slope of the land.
Yet Chapter 11.086 of the Texas Water Code begins “No person way divert … the natural flow of surface waters in this state, or permit a diversion … that damages the property of another …”
Missing Detention Basin
Construction plans show that the developer was supposed to have built a detention basin in the corner that flooded.
Royal Pines construction plan shows detention basin in northwest corner.Also note same contour shown on USGS map above.
However, the Montgomery County Engineer’s Office has reportedly asked for changes to the design of the detention basin. A sound business practice would have been to avoid clearcutting that area until the basin could have been excavated immediately.
Montgomery County does not require the approval of construction plans before clearcutting. This story shows why that should change. Delays expose people to more flood risk.
Clearly, the flooding shown in the pictures below could have been much worse in a normal year.
Let’s hope they get that stormwater detention basin built before heavier rains return! And let’s also hope that other contractors learn this clearcutting lesson.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/6/2022
1895 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/20221105-Screenshot-2022-11-05-at-10.11.36-PM.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=16751200adminadmin2022-11-06 08:09:222023-01-13 05:08:24Royal Pines Clearcutting Floods Neighbor on Less Than 1″ of Rain
Voting Problems Reported Across County
As if on cue, I ran a post about restoring competence to local government, and voila, within hours, people started reporting voting problems across Harris County. The problems appear widespread, intermittent and random. They were not limited to areas that leaned Republican or Democratic.
Channel 11, Channel 2, and the Chronicle are reporting multiple issues, similar to those I found.
Long Wait Times
The main effect? Long wait times. One location reported a five-hour line! At another location, a source told me that fifty people were turned away.
The main reasons: Scanners that wouldn’t scan; printers that wouldn’t print; missing supplies; internet glitches; lost keys; lack of testing; not enough setup time; and not enough technical support to resolve issues quickly.
Central Kingwood Mid-Day Report
I personally visited six locations in Kingwood between 11 am and 2 pm. At each, I talked to multiple people.
Four locations seemed to run smoothly. Two had long lines and delays (Kingwood Community Center, Foster Elementary). The problems at the Community Center were unclear. At Foster, several machines went down. Voters experienced half-hour to one-hour wait times at these two locations.
At Foster, people exiting talked about scanners being down. Officials asked them to put their ballots in a box and said they would be counted later. Given the level of distrust and skepticism lately, the voters immediately suspected the worst.
One person complained about his ballot misprinting. It printed Page 1 twice, but wouldn’t print Page 2 at all. Another complained of scanners shredding his ballot.
Handicapped voting seemed to be a problem everywhere. At Kingwood Middle School, a friend and I had to help an elderly woman get from her vehicle to inside the polling location. Elsewhere, I noticed handicapped people coming out of polling places on scooters. Most locations had traffic cones in the handicapped parking places. Several people complained about handicapped call buttons not working or not being accessible.
No Problems at Some Locations
Creekwood Middle School, Good Shepherd Episcopal, Woodland Hills Elementary, and Kingwood Middle School seemed to function properly at mid-day. Many other locations may have been functioning properly, too; I just didn’t check them all.
The last three locations are all adjacent to each other on Woodland Hills Drive between Tree Lane and Pine Terrace Drive.
If you experience problems at your normal voting location, you should be able to vote at any one of them. They’re all within a block of each other. And if one goes down, you have two backups nearby. Also, because of their proximity, the lines are short – at least they were at mid-day.
Wait-Time System May or May Not Work
HarrisVotes.com is supposed to show the wait times at polling locations near you. But caution, if you see zero in line, it may be an error. Both party election officials and Harris County employees have told me the system malfunctioned throughout early voting. It often reported no lines when lines were down the block. So before you get in your car, have some backups in mind.
Remember, if you’re in line when the polls normally close at 7, they have to let you vote.
Late Breaking News
At 6:20 PM, the Houston Chronicle reported that a Harris County district judge signed an order keeping the polls open until 8 PM because of all the problems experienced today. They were originally set to close at 7 PM. However, anyone who arrives after 7 PM will have to vote a provisional ballot, a long, complicated process.
Suggestion
In the future, I hope Texas adopts a voting period, and drops the charade of early voting and Election Day. This should simplify procedures and logistics for both election workers and voters. Why do we expand the number of machines and polling locations AFTER most people have voted?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/8/2022
1897 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Last Chance
Harris County is electing a new County Judge this year. For the Lake Houston Area, it’s arguably the most important race on the ballot. It represents a chance to win a majority on Commissioners Court sensitive to the Lake Houston Area’s needs. We’ve been de-prioritized for four years. Tomorrow, November 8th, is your last chance to change that. It’s Election Day.
Why This Race is So Important
I don’t want to downplay the importance of other races. But this particular race is about your quality of life. Getting your fair share of flood-mitigation funding. Keeping your tax bill stable. Restoring public safety. Rebuilding competence in local government. And increasing transparency.
Turnout in Early Voting was Dismal
County wide, only 750,000 out of 2.5 million registered voters voted. That’s 30%. After 12 days!
Kingwood had 18,872 early voters out of 44,000 registered. That’s 43%. A little better.
But four years ago, 63% of all ballots were cast during the early-voting period. So turnout on Election Day will be critical this year.
The number of people who have not yet voted in the Lake Houston Area have the power to swing this election. By all accounts, it will be close.
Overview of Candidates: Problems Vs. Potential
The two candidates are incumbent Lina Hidalgo and challenger Alexandra del Moral Mealer.
Let’s look at their respective records.
Hidalgo’s only real-world job experience before assuming the helm of a 16,000-employee organization was reportedly as a medical interpreter. Her rookie errors were predictable. I’ll detail them below.
Mealer is also a newcomer to politics, but comes to the job with vastly more real-world experience. She:
More About Hidalgo’s Record
Hidalgo had no management experience when elected. And it showed. Under Hidalgo, the County’s budget increased along with employment. She created six new departments. Hired thousands of new employees. And paid for the largesse by drawing down the county’s reserve funds.
She also replaced the heads of 19 departments. One department had three leadership changes under Hidalgo. And four had at least two. Some departments, such as Engineering, have lost 4-5 layers of management. Whole capabilities, such as disaster relief, were wiped out. And every group head in the IT Department (Universal Services) left.
Political credentials became more important in hiring decisions than professional competence. Knowledgeable, capable employees left county employment in droves. Some are still there. But it’s reportedly getting harder and harder for them to keep things running.
One Misstep after Another
I’ve learned to judge Judge Hidalgo by her actions, not her words.
She talks about serving the entire county, but I’ve only seen her break ranks with her Democratic Commissioners twice in four years. In fairness, there may have been more times. But it’s hard to sit through meetings that have lasted up to 16 hours. Robert’s Rules of Order are not her strong suit.
Much to her discredit, Hidalgo led efforts to:
Destroying Trust in Government
But Hidalgo’s greatest sin, in my opinion, is that she destroyed trust in county government by misleading people. For instance, she:
As far as I can tell, after four years, Hidalgo still has not figured out how to run Harris County. She’s just a bad manager. She came to the job with no experience and has not learned along the way.
More about Alexandra del Moral Mealer
Mealer has actual leadership and job experience. Her military and business background is far more qualifying than Hidalgo’s. Mealer has Harvard MBA and JD degrees, and years of experience as a VP of a bank that has almost two trillion dollars in assets. She’s more equipped with the skill sets needed to be a county judge than Hidalgo ever was.
Mealer also has a laser focus on the things that matter to people at the county level: Crime. Courts. Jails. Flooding. Roads. Budgets. Taxes. She refuses to get bogged down in national issues that she has no control over.
She has a conservative fiscal stance on how to spend OUR money. And it doesn’t involve creating jobs for political cronies through a vast expansion of the bureaucracy.
Virtually every law enforcement agency in the county has backed Mealer’s plan for addressing crime.
She hopes to lower or maintain taxes and tax rates by eliminating wasteful spending.
Finally, having met and talked to Mealer at length several times, I believe she cares about all areas of Harris County regardless of their economic status. Said another way, I think she would treat all people and neighborhoods fairly. Mealer has integrity.
November 8th – Your Last Chance
Tomorrow is your last chance to make a change if you want one. If you’re happy with having the deepest flooding in Harris County and seeing flood-mitigation funding go elsewhere, then by all means, vote for Hidalgo. If you’re happy with soaring crime and revolving-door jails, vote for Hidalgo. But if you want to change that, vote for Mealer.
Their race is far down the ballot, buried between family court and criminal court judges. Here’s how to see a sample ballot. And here’s how to find your polling place.
Please forward this link to all of your friends, neighbors and family members…and VOTE! Remember, tomorrow is your last chance for change.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/7/22
1896 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Royal Pines Clearcutting Floods Neighbor on Less Than 1″ of Rain
As proof of how dangerous clearcutting without sufficient mitigation can be, the controversial Royal Pines development has flooded a neighbor on a rain that was less than 1″ – even as the Lake Houston area flirts with drought.
The circumstances are similar to those of a nearby development – Woodridge Village. There, clearcutting flooded Elm Grove Village and North Kingwood Forest twice in 2019. Without sufficient detention basins, sheet flow from approximately 268 acres swept through hundreds of homes. But those incidents weren’t during a drought. And the rainfalls were much heavier.
Less than an Inch of Rain
In this case, the rain fell on October 28, 2022. Harris County’s Flood Warning System recorded a peak of .72 inches of rain in an hour at the nearest gage. To put that in perspective, .72 inches is so slight that it would have had to have fallen in five minutes to qualify as a five-year rain or ten minutes to qualify as a one-year rain.
However, the rain was spread out over about a half hour.
And the soils were not saturated either. The Lake Houston Area has been in drought for much of the year. As of 11/5/22, the US Drought Monitor rated this area “abnormally dry.”
During the entire month before October 28, the area had received only a little more than a half inch of rain.
Sloping Land Toward Neighbor’s House
The flooding occurred in the northwest corner of the new development. From pictures and emails supplied by the neighbor, aerial photos taken during the last several months, elevation profiles obtained from the USGS national map, and construction plans obtained via a FOIA Request, I’ve been able to piece together the following. It appears that:
See the YouTube video below.
The neighbor’s property extends on a straight line beyond the left fence. Water flowed from bottom of frame toward corner.
Luckily, the neighbor’s house did not flood. But a heavier rain might have flooded it.
Development Now Slopes Toward Neighbor Instead of Away
The USGS National Map shows that this area used to slope AWAY from their property, NOT TOWARD it.
In this area water flows from the bottom of the frame toward the top where White Oak Creek is. Comparing the contours on the left above and depression on the right with the direction the water actually travelled confirm that contractors altered the slope of the land.
Yet Chapter 11.086 of the Texas Water Code begins “No person way divert … the natural flow of surface waters in this state, or permit a diversion … that damages the property of another …”
Missing Detention Basin
Construction plans show that the developer was supposed to have built a detention basin in the corner that flooded.
However, the Montgomery County Engineer’s Office has reportedly asked for changes to the design of the detention basin. A sound business practice would have been to avoid clearcutting that area until the basin could have been excavated immediately.
Montgomery County does not require the approval of construction plans before clearcutting. This story shows why that should change. Delays expose people to more flood risk.
Normally, October is the second rainiest month in Houston. We average 5.46 inches.
Let’s hope they get that stormwater detention basin built before heavier rains return! And let’s also hope that other contractors learn this clearcutting lesson.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 11/6/2022
1895 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.