HOUSTON — Houston Mayor John Whitmire has been quite busy since he moved into his new office a couple of weeks ago.
With the city facing many issues, Whitmire says public safety will be his number one priority, followed closely by infrastructure and quality of life improvements.
“Really making a large city work better, more efficient, more responsive,” he told us on Inside Texas Politics. “We have just neglected some maintenance and some city services. We have broken water lines, partly caused by the drought, but just the aging of our infrastructure. And our streets, quite frankly, are probably at an all-time worse condition.”
Whitmire represented Houston in the Texas Senate for four decades, where he was the long-time chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
Before that, he served in the Texas House of Representatives for 10 years.
Another pressing problem facing Whitmire after making the move from Austin back to Houston is the city’s budget.
The new mayor will have to confront a financial shortfall, which is estimated to be $160,000 in fiscal year 2023, but could grow to $264,000 by the end of his term.
Whitmire says city leaders won’t know if it will lead to service cuts or layoffs until they know exactly how large the shortfall will be.
“The city has had shortfalls for many years. The books were balanced by selling city assets,” he said. “We just can’t continue to do that. I spend a lot of time on financial matters. We’re going to look to new sources, such as partnering with the county.”
Whitmire has also already taken steps to mend the city’s relationship with its firefighters, who haven’t had a contract since 2017.
In one of his first moves after taking office, the mayor ordered the city to drop its appeal of a ruling in a lawsuit the firefighters filed against the city and ordered immediate negotiations in an effort to reach a new contract.
Mayor Whitmire says that process will take months.
But he argues a community cannot be whole while it’s battling its firefighters in court.
“It’s affected our public safety. We’re having a very difficult time attracting fire cadets because they don’t know what the contract that they would work under would present,” Whitmire explained. “So, we’re going to work out something with firefighters. It’d be fair to taxpayers and all Houstonians. And it’s going to be fair to firefighters.”