John Whitmire

The update came as council members unanimously adopted a flat property tax rate of fifty-one point nine one nine cents per one hundred dollars in appraised value.

That vote keeps Mayor John Whitmire's pledge not to raise the tax rate, but it leaves the city facing a much bigger gap.

Dubowski said the change comes from a sixty-three million dollar revenue decline tied to historically high property value reductions after tax protests.

Those reductions matter because lower appraised values mean less taxable property value for the city budget.

He served as my campaign chairman in my mayoral campaign, and we didn't win.

but also there was John Whitmire because the mayor knew Bruce Laboon obviously very well.

Bruce was a civic leader when we had civic leaders.

If I were to say, who are the civic leaders today? When I came to Houston in 89, you had civic leaders.

In our neck of the woods, yes.

So Houston City's comptroller is accusing Mayor John Whitmire of violating the city charter after the city council approved a $2.6 million contract for car wash services without the comptroller's certification.

Chris Hollins is the comptroller, and he says the city cannot legally pay the contract while Whitmire, John Whitmire's office, maintains...

The approval process was legal.

This $2.6 million contract would pay for car washes for city fleet vehicles.

This contractor scrutiny during the October 7th city council meeting after it was returned to the agenda as a motion rather than an ordinance.

Not to get into the nuts and bolts for you guys.

But controversial subject in another story of Chris Hollins divided with Mayor John Whitmire.

So there's a ton of work to do before they get close to saying they're moving forward." Uh, you had, uh, Bill Daly Talking earlier, I guess it was, uh, also on TSN, basically saying that Texas could have a team by the 2090, sorry, 2029-30 season, and they're in talks to add a 34th team as well.

And Houston's mayor, John Whitmore, is saying, "We're ready.

In fact, we're talking to multiple parties that are interested, so when we get the proposal, the city can do something to assist and we'll be there.

We'll be, definitely be a better location than Austin." So Houston is very much on board.

He was a Democrat, but obviously probably a little more moderate than some of these progressives that are running the city of Austin and Travis County these days.

He's also an attorney, and he told me that he wrote this charter amendment based on the audit that was conducted in the city of Houston a few years ago after John Whitmire became mayor.

And that audit identified a slew of inefficiencies, some duplicative programs, excessive administrative bloat, and I think the city was able to cut 120 some odd million from their budget and avoid tax increases for the last few years, or significant tax increases, we should say.

Um, but so that audit cost $580,000.

Public money should serve the people, and public officials should answer to them.

This morning on Politics Unright on KPFT 90.1 FM, Neil Aquino examines Whitmire's retreat from Houston's secretly submitted Model Cities grant application-

Yeah

... and encouraging Democratic polling in Fort Bend County.

...

this has been in the paper, on the radio.

Um, the jus, so-called Justice Department, uh, put out for cities for apply, to apply for the Model Cities grant for policing and according to Mayor Whitmire, other things, and it's in there.

Uh, it is in there.