Our Old Friends At It Again...

Looks like Bruce Hotze, Barry Klein and Paul Bettencourt are at it again. Ah, that smell is in the air...you know, the smell of rotting putrid flesh. Mmmmmm...flesh.

<i>Rail, tax-cap referendums sought

Bettencourt aids petition drive
By JOHN WILLIAMS and STEVE BREWER
Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle


Anti-rail and tax-reform advocates, including Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, have begun petition drives for referendums on the two issues this fall.

One citywide vote would be on the light rail system the Metropolitan Transit Authority is building along Main Street to connect downtown with Reliant Park.

The other, a reaction to escalating local property appraisals, would impose a cap on the city's annual tax collections.

If supporters can get the signatures of at least 20,000 registered Houston voters by mid-September, the referendums will appear on the November ballot. If that timetable is too aggressive, Bettencourt said, the group will try for early next year.

Not only has the group distributed "tens of thousands" of petitions, Bettencourt said, it is trying to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for eventual campaigns.

"These ideas are evergreen," Bettencourt said. "If we don't have a vote in November, they will hold until later."

Supporters would then have until late January to collect the 20,000 signatures.

Critics of the referendums called them poorly crafted. Some attacked Bettencourt as a political opportunist whose actions could hurt Houston and generate enough ill will with voters to jeopardize city and county bond issues that may be on the same ballot.

"It's now, in my opinion, reached a point where Bettencourt's tendency to constantly grandstand could have huge detrimental effects on this community," said County Commissioner Steve Radack.

Mayor Lee Brown did not respond to requests for an interview, but Craig Varoga, Brown's campaign manager, said Brown supports a broader rail referendum once the downtown line is finished.

"As for the tax issue, it's puzzling that a county official would propose a city policy without coordinating with the city council, the city controller and the mayor, and it raises questions about the seriousness of the proposal," Varoga said.

The referendums are being pushed by Let the People Vote, a political action committee. Bettencourt is chairman of one subgroup, Let the People Vote on Taxes.

The other subgroup, Let the People Vote on Light Rail, is chaired by Austen Furse. Furse, a local Republican activist who helped finance an anti-arena campaign in 1999, also has headed a political action committee that asks state legislators to pledge they won't raise taxes.

Others working on the effort include Barry Klein, the president of the Houston Property Rights Association, and Bruce Hotze, the brother of social conservative Stephen Hotze.

The group also has begun a Web site: www.letthepeoplevote.com.

Furse said he would prefer that Metro hold a referendum in its entire service area, which it can do under a law that becomes effective next month. But a citywide referendum is the next best answer, he said.

Metro board members have promised a referendum when the board releases a comprehensive rail plan, which will require public borrowing. Until then, it will continue with the 7.5-mile line paid for with $300 million in cash. The line is expected to be finished in 2004.

Metro Chairman Robert Miller said that the legal staffs of the transit agency and the city are studying the rail petition to determine whether it is legal.

There are questions about whether such a referendum can undo Metro and City Council votes that led to the rail construction, which began in April.

Earlier this year, the Texas Supreme Court ruled against Councilman Rob Todd's lawsuit seeking a referendum to overturn the council's vote that allowed Metro to use city rights-of-way for the rail line.

"The Main Street project has been affirmed all the way to the Supreme Court," Miller said. "It has been built in compliance with all laws. Enough is enough. It seems that they are carrying their opposition to an extreme."

Bettencourt said his tax referendum is an attempt to curb rising property appraisals that could double homeowners' tax bills in seven years unless tax rates are reduced.

Bettencourt's referendum would force the council to seek voter approval to increase tax revenue above that collected the previous year plus an inflation formula.

The inflation formula would be determined by the regional Consumer Price Index plus the population growth. If the CPI were 2 percent and the population growth 2 percent, for example, the council could increase its tax revenues by no more than 4 percent.

Additional tax revenue would have to be returned to taxpayers.

At least 60 percent of city voters would have to approve the city collecting more than the cap. The proposal makes an exception for calamities such as Tropical Storm Allison. If the city were named a national disaster area, it would not require voter approval to raise taxes for the cleanup.

Bruce Hotze got a similar referendum, called Proposition A, before Houston voters in 1997, but it failed, 61 percent to 39 percent.

Bettencourt said he had not seen that proposal before crafting his.

"If we don't do this, there will be a tax revolt just like in California and just like in Colorado that will be far more draconian than my proposal," he said.</i>

My concern isn't the tax issue because I don't really know enough about that. But, with rail, the streets are already torn up (I just played a gig downtown on Main and parked on the torn up part of the street) and, by the time a referendum is held (I'm told they don't have a legitimate shot at the November referendum) in summer of next year, the rail line will already be 25% complete.

Nevermind that any referendum won't halt work because this has already been fought in court all the way to the Texas Supreme Court. ARRRGGGHHH!

 

Light rail and effective mass transit has been the key component to an Olympic bid. Olympic officials said that their number one concern in Houston was the lack of an effective light rail system.

The best comparison for me is Dallas. Dallas built a similar starter rail line in downtown without a referendum. They then went back to the voters after it was built and asked for permission to build more lines around the city. The same people who opposed it in Austin (it failed 51 to 49 there last year) and San Antonio were also the people who provided free legal services to Rob Todd in his challenge to light rail in Houston which failed all the way to the Supreme Court.

The funny part is that this same group opposed the light rail expansion in Dallas and the people of Dallas overwhelmingly voted in favor anyway. The reaction, from what I understand, to the oppositions cries of "it doesn't work well" and "no one will ride on it" were met with a collective, "Huh?" by the people of Dallas who saw how it DID work in downtown and people DID ride it already.

In nearly every situation where light rail has been implemented, it is fairly widely used. In a city where we are required to be in compliance with EPA clean air laws by 2007, I would think we would want any kind of light rail we could get.

The same people who are working against this have a section of another website dedicated to changing government laws to make air requirements less stringent rather than actually cleaning the air. In fact, Barry Klein, back about 4 years ago, opposed a school bond referendum (it passed) because he said it cost too much. At the time, it was common for schools to not pass fire codes. He suggested that we should petition the state to make fire codes less stringent so that the schools would be compliant as they were. Nevermind the inherent risk in schools to celiengs caving in (that happened), old lead paint (that did too) and asbestos problems (they found that in some HISD schools as late as 1999). Sheesh!

 

Now, THIS, I can TOTALLY respect. You disagree and that's fine. I'm all about agreeing to disagree. But, like you said, you have to know when to pick your battles and this is definitely not the time. Well said!