April 2010 Cover Story

Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan Talks About County Government

HCA was honored to have Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan as the speaker for our March monthly membership luncheon.  Mr. Ryan opened his comments by saying that most people, if they are lucky won’t have much contact with his office, however he noted, that was not the case with contractors.  Contractors deal with the County Attorney’s office indirectly, said Ryan.  Most of this contact comes through the contractual agreements that you have with the County.  These documents are either generated, reviewed or vetted by the County Attorney’s office before they are actually executed.  Also if there is a problem with the project you might have to deal with my office, said Ryan.

Mr. Ryan stated that he spent six years at City Hall as the District C, City Council Member and it was through that experience that he learned to truly appreciate just how well County government runs.  Mr. Ryan stated that at the County the division of legal work is split into two different offices.  The District Attorney’s office does the criminal work, both misdemeanor and felony and then there is the County Attorney that does all of the civil work.  The County Attorney’s office also represents all of the other branches of County government including the Toll Road, Flood Control and the Sports Authority.  This splitting up of the legal duties between two offices is a unique approach to handling the legal issues that a County faces and only Harris and a handful of other counties have this method in place, said Ryan. 

Mr. Ryan stated that the Harris County Attorney’s office has several duties that it performs, last year they collected $5 million in different types of revenue for the County, defended over 300 lawsuits with a potential liability of over $36 million, acquired 1,000 tracks of land valued at $55.5 million, and prepared over 2,000 contracts with a value of $2.2 billion. 

One of the newer areas that the County Attorney’s office oversees is that of child protective services, both at the family court and the juvenile court level.  About a quarter of the office staff work on this issue.  Mr. Ryan said that this is a very challenging and very rewarding aspect of life at the County Attorney’s office. 

According to Mr. Ryan, the County has many different types of review proceedures that cover the entire criminal justice system to ensure that we are tough on the criminals, but look at first time offenders, juvenile offenders, veterans and those with mental health issues differently.  Many of the people that are taken to the county jail have health problems or in some cases mental health problems.  Both of these issues can be addressed at the V.A. Hospital if the person is a veteran and if you can help them access their services. 

Mr. Ryan commented that in contrast to the efficiency of County government, just a sixteen minute walk across downtown is City Hall with one of the strongest, strong mayor forms of government in the country.  Mr. Ryan stated that the reason the City of Houston has such a strong mayor is because back in the 1950’s when the city was changing over from a city manager system to what we have now under then Mayaor,Oscar Holcomb, every place in the city charter that read “city manager” was replaced with the word “mayor”.  Mr. Ryan commented that the one check that the people have with the city manager versus the strong mayor form of government is that the city manager can be fired by city council.  When you have a good mayor things work pretty well but when you get someone in there that is not so good, you get a government that is the opposite of the County. 

Mr. Ryan stated that the Commissioners Court has a great deal of independent authority and oversees the creation and maintenance of assets such as roads, bridges and parks.  They also have directoral control over other areas of the County such as Flood Control or the Port of Houston.  Mr. Ryan noted that there are other elected officials in positions at the county, but since commissioner’s court has financial control over the budget, these other officials are forced to submit a reasonable budget for their departments. Mr. Ryan stated that he felt that the Commissioner’s Court has done a very good job, especially this year in light of all of the financial issues, to balance the needs of the residents against the actual dollars available. 

The good thing about the County is that there are multiple places for a contractor to go to find work, said Ryan.  You have the County Commissioners for each of the precincts, you have the Public Infrastructure Department, Flood Control and the Toll Road.  If there is a problem you can go to the County Judge, the Commissioners, the County Attorney’s office.  You might not get the answer you want, but it’s not for a last of options.