Two Way Street

Here is how the Chron E-Board starts their take today:

Collaborator. Team player. Consensus builder. These are not qualities one might associate with the mayor of Houston. After all, this is a city where the term “strong mayor” characterizes not only our unique heliocentric style of government, but the manner in which we expect our leader to govern. 

It was striking, then, that shortly after John Whitmire was sworn in as Houston’s 63rd mayor on Tuesday, he used his inauguration speech as a galvanizing cry for help.

He shouted out incoming City Council members and even the new city controller — a financial watchdog position that often becomes oppositional to the mayor — as governing comrades who would “come together and make a real difference.” He (jokingly?) needled Metro to collaborate with him on repairing roads “that their buses tear up.” He suggested that our blue-leaning city reach “across the aisle,” for help from the GOP-controlled state government in Austin, where he worked as a lawmaker for five decades. Most notably, he called for a genuine partnership with the Harris County government.

And this:

Yet Whitmire must first build a bond with Harris County officials — namely Judge Lina Hidalgo, who endorsed his opponent, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, in the runoff. Hidalgo, who did not attend the inauguration, and the mayor needn’t be best pals, but having a functional partnership is imperative. In his speech, Whitmire noted that county officials have “great responsibility” and that the model for county services ending at the city limits belong to a bygone era. 

Here is the entire E-Board take: Whitmire wants Houston to be great. Will Harris County help? (houstonchronicle.com).

Judge Hidalgo really cracked on Mayor Whitmire during the campaign. She challenged his Democratic Party credentials. The Mayor has run as a Democrat for fifty years and she questioned his cred. Come on! She was silly and uninformed for sure.

Commentary saw Harris County Commissioners Lesley Briones and Adrian Garcia at Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony. I saw a tweet from Commissioner Tom Ramsey posting he was there. Was Commissioner Rodney Ellis in attendance? How about Judge Hidalgo?

This is, after all, a two-way street.

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This doesn’t come as a surprise. See this from the Chron:

In a major step toward reconciliation with the firefighters union, Mayor John Whitmire has asked the city attorney to drop an appeal that former Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration filed just days before the change in city leadership.

The city and the union had been embroiled in a bitter pay dispute for most of Turner’s tenure, and the firefighters have been without a contract since 2017. In December 2023, a judge rejected the city’s request to dismiss the lawsuit and ordered the two sides to start contract negotiations within a month. The city appealed the judge’s decision Dec. 29.

Here is the entire read: Whitmire drops appeal in firefighters union case, orders negotiations (houstonchronicle.com).

Let’s get this mess behind us.

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Speaking of Mayor Whitmire, the featured photo is a Yeti cup I picked up during the campaign. Do you have one?