Everyone knows that The Dean is Commentary’s good friend. The Dean is The Dean because there are no term limits for state legislators. Here is from today’s Chron:
State Sen. John Whitmire said he plans to propose a substitute to a bill filed Wednesday that calls for a "total membership change" to the influential Port of Houston Authority commission.
The bill as introduced contains recommendations that the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission approved in November, including a controversial proposal to sweep the seven-member board this September and transfer appointment power from local government to the governor, who would choose five commissioners from a locally compiled list of candidates.
It also would impose 12-year term limits on commissioners.
Whitmire, D-Houston, said his substitute bill also will include 12-year term limits and will force commissioners who had served longer than that in their current roles as of last November to step down in September.
But he said it will leave the current appointment process intact, including having a chairman who is jointly appointed by the city of Houston and Harris County.
"It goes a long ways toward addressing some of the concerns we had when we placed them under Sunset," Whitmire said.
Four current commissioners would lose their jobs under the bill. The term clock for Janiece Longoria, who served as a commissioner for a decade before being appointed chairman last month, would start over.
Whitmire, who has criticized local government agencies for failing to make timely appointments, said his bill also would hand appointments to the governor if the local appointing bodies don’t appoint or reappoint someone within 30 days of an expired term.
Commentary is really not a fan of term limits. If The Dean’s substitute becomes law, Port Commissioners Burkes, Fonteno, Phelps, and Lawal would be immediate goners. Lawal has already announced that he’s not interested in being reappointed so it wouldn’t bother him.
All the appointing authorities would still retain their appointing power, so any resistance to this will have to come from Burkes, Fonteno, and Phelps. Here is the question. Do the City of H-Town, Harris County, Pasadena, and Port lobbying teams fight The Dean to protect three individuals?
On the term limit proposal, Hunker Down said it "certainly doesn’t cause me any heartburn."
Stay tuned!
Name the former ‘Stro pitcher that dinged the most batters all time as a ‘Stro
According to the Chron, HISD might raise our taxes. Of course we voted ourselves a tax increase when we supported the bonds last November. Now the administration says more taxes are needed to cover shortfalls. The Superintendent was pretty good at selling the bonds last fall. He needs to get out in the community and sell the taxes.
Here is the Chron piece on the proposed tax increase.
Early Voting started yesterday and HCC shut down an hour and a half early because a water main break shut off water pressure in the area.
Darryl Kile of course dinged 72 batters as a ‘Stro and that makes DK the all time ‘Stro leader.
The ‘Stros first Spring Training game is this Saturday against the Phillies.
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