John Whitmire Houston Mayor

[mattyt36]

On 4/18/2024 at 12:50 PM, Blue Dogs said:

Turner flat out LIED about the so-called "budget surplus".

Uh huh, sure buddy. And Whitmire flat out lied about being a Democrat as plenty of people who voted for him thinking otherwise would now tell you, if “flat out lying” is your standard.

Governments run by cash flow. When was there not a surplus, Beavis?
 

Maybe voluntarily throwing your hands up on day one and signing a check for, what, $300 million (I forget the number) and saying the next day “the City is broke and it’s not my fault” means you’re not the best fiscal manager with the balance of the City’s interests at heart.
 

But we all know he’s not that stupid (or smart for that matter)! So the question is why did he do it? Someone must’ve put the idea in his head. From the little I’ve read (Texas Monthly and Texas Tribune articles), he seems to be susceptible to such things as a certain class of politicians intrinsically are.

Interesting in Houston we’re experiencing a splintering of the Democratic Party while the country is experiencing a splintering of the Republican Party. However in both cases the only beneficiaries seem to be the more radical of the right wingers.

I know why you are cheering, bluey!

[mattyt36]

On 3/28/2024 at 4:46 PM, hbg.50 said:

Whitmire continues to clean house…replacing the Houston Public Library director of 20 years!
 

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/houston/article/mayor-john-whitmire-appoints-new-houston-public-19373976.php

I admire the consistency of character for whoever “hearted” this one … the new Mayor fired (sorry, “cleaned house”) the library director who worked there for 20 years EXCLAMATION POINT

(No need to note whether the person was competent or not)

[editor]

Since there will likely be ongoing discussion of the police chief's resignation, I've moved those posts to their own thread:

 

[__nevii]

On 12/9/2023 at 8:56 PM, __nevii said:

The fear with John Whitmire is that he might be a MAGA in sheeps clothing, and screw up the city's politics from the inside-out (hence, completing the "plan" that Abbott and Co have regarding Harris County).

Looks like I was accurate. Actually, he turned out way worse than I expected, if anything.

[Blue Dogs]

14 hours ago, __nevii said:

Looks like I was accurate. Actually, he turned out way worse than I expected, if anything.

Whitmire has also put Hollins on full-blast. 

[hbg.50]

20 hours ago, __nevii said:

Looks like I was accurate. Actually, he turned out way worse than I expected, if anything.

Whitmire is hardly a MAGA in sheep's clothing.  All he’s done is pause and cancel a few projects that one specific special interest group has gotten up in arms about.  Let’s keep things in perspective.

5 hours ago, Blue Dogs said:

Whitmire has also put Hollins on full-blast. 

What are you talking about?  Hollins is not wrong to disclose details about the firefighter’s settlement.  It would have been more useful had he done his scenarios earlier, however.

[BeerNut]

Collins is laying everything out for everyone to see.  Whitmire hiding behind imaginary terrorist threat for ripping up a street.  Kinda obvious who is being more transparent in city governance.  

[s3mh]

It seems pretty clear that Whitmire and his wealthy Rice/Memorial backers want to take back control over city and county politics from the progressive Dems who were swept in during the Obama blue wave elections.  They are definitely not MAGA backers.  They are closer to Bill White centrists and the pro-developer backers of Annise Parker.  They have spent the last 4-8 years going to happy hours at La Griglia complaining about how Turner and Hidalgo are turning Houston into Travis County/Austin.  

The problem is that voters just picked Whitmire because of name recognition and a large ant-SJL turnout.  Mayor Turner had a fairly quiet time as Mayor and while there were somethings he could have handled better, he did not leave a city hall on fire in need of a drastic overhaul.  

So a lot of people are scratching their heads and wondering why Whitmire is picking so many largely unnecessary fights.  There is a long tradition in Houston of the County Judge and Mayor coordinating closely on floods/hurricanes.  But Whitmire made a point of doing his own thing during this past flood and would not appear with Hidalgo at any emergency management press conferences.  Even when talking with the press, Whitmire would always be very explicit about going out to Kingwood as if Houston residents' blood would boil if he spent a second on Lina Hidalgo's territory.  Same sort of tone deafness when dealing with bike lanes and other issues.  It just seems like every step is another "ok boomer" moment with Whitmire.

 

[mattyt36]

19 hours ago, hbg.50 said:

Whitmire is hardly a MAGA in sheep's clothing.  All he’s done is pause and cancel a few projects that one specific special interest group has gotten up in arms about.  Let’s keep things in perspective.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

20 hours ago, hbg.50 said:

It would have been more useful had he done his scenarios earlier, however.

Hilarious.  Maybe the guy who was actually making the decision should've run his own numbers before declaring the City "broke."

[hbg.50]

28 minutes ago, mattyt36 said:

Hilarious.  Maybe the guy who was actually making the decision should've run his own numbers before declaring the City "broke."

You weren’t paying attention were you.  Everyone knew the city was broke prior to the election.  You see, Turner had the city running on Covid funds.  Pay attention.

[mattyt36]

57 minutes ago, hbg.50 said:

You weren’t paying attention were you.  Everyone knew the city was broke prior to the election.  You see, Turner had the city running on Covid funds.  Pay attention.

Ah, yes, that's why it was widely reported throughout the local news media and why the City's AA credit rating hasn't changed since 2016 and why if I go to https://www.johnwhitmire.com/issues, I definitely see that the City being "broke" was front and center to his mayoral campaign.  And why the first high profile action he took after becoming Mayor was to sign the City up for $700 million in additional financial obligations, willy nilly.  Because, yes, Whitmire was genuinely concerned about fixing the City's finances.  (Maybe he wasn't "paying attention"?)

Not that I have to tell you, but the City is "broke" because he needs it to be "broke" as an excuse to do whatever he wants.  Typical GOP "starve the beast" strategy.  Your generally antagonistic tone and obsession with claiming he's not a stooge says to me your political views align with such a strategy, and that's perfectly fine, you wouldn't be the first by any means, but there's no need to beat around the bush and obfuscate.

Edited May 10 by mattyt36

[MidCenturyMoldy]

21 hours ago, s3mh said:

It just seems like every step is another "ok boomer" moment with Whitmire.

 

Is the ageism necessary? Turner and SJL are also Boomers.

Edited May 10 by MidCenturyMoldy

[BeerNut]

29 minutes ago, MidCenturyMoldy said:

Is the ageism necessary? Turner and SJL are also Boomers.

Well he did put it in quotes...  Maybe should have said "Out of touch person whose ideology was preferred in the past."  

I've seen ok boomer applied to people that are clearly Gen X.  

[MidCenturyMoldy]

6 minutes ago, BeerNut said:

 I've seen ok boomer applied to people that are clearly Gen X.  

Bigots tend to be ignorant.

[s3mh]

1 hour ago, MidCenturyMoldy said:

Is the ageism necessary? Turner and SJL are also Boomers.

If Whitmire can publicly call supporters of bike/pedestrian infrastructure "special interest groups" and compare phase 2 of the Shep/Durham corridor to Trump's border wall, I can sling an "Ok Boomer" at him.  And the shoe fits.  

[mattyt36]

The press (in this case, literally the Press) are scratching their heads as to what's going on with the Mayor:

“How many problems can this current mayor have? He’s incurring — what I would call — a loss of faith,” Rice University political science professor Bob Stein said. 

[...]

“How does a man who gets elected by 63 percent of the vote and spends almost two to three months doing nothing to prepare for taking over the city, then when he takes it over stumbles at every step?” Stein said. “I think there’s a bait and switch here, and Whitmire is going to — already has — suffered for that.”

[...]

“At this point, he is ill-equipped and understaffed,” Stein said. “Being a legislator and being an executive is really worlds apart, and Whitmire is proving that overwhelmingly,” Stein said. “He thinks he is being a state senator when he stands in Rice Memorial and says, ‘I talked to my neighbors, and they don’t like this roundabout.’”

“Mayor, it’s not your neighbors that matter, nor your opinion. It’s the voters' opinion.”

Houston's Mayor Whitmire Off to a Shaky Start? | Houston Press

 

[hbg.50]

Lizzie Fletcher interview...asked about projects at 15:26 and she gives a very level-headed response...no hysteria here!

A good reason to get out of the HAIF echo chamber...

[hbg.50]

38 minutes ago, mattyt36 said:

Man @hbg.50, you're my new favorite.  You're like @august948 without the humor and @Blue Dogs without the inveterate racism.  Same spirit, however.

What was the "level-headed" response, exactly?

Question from listener, Mayor Whitmire is canceling the Montrose project.  Will that jeopardize the City from receiving grants in the future?

Blather blather blather.  "I've gotten $150 million for the Port!"

But, yes, you're right, it's a win for Whitmire that her first reaction wasn't, "What a horse's arse!"

Do you run his Comms team?

Cuz that'd make sense.

It seems your simple mind likes to label and group people.  Do whatever you have to do...

[editor]

Because of a lack of substance and civility in the posts, this thread is closed.  Please try to be more thoughtful before posting on HAIF.