November 2009 V.P. Report
Eversole is in.
For those of you that missed the notice, Commissioner Jerry Eversole finally broke his long silence and formally announced his intention to run for re-election as commissioner of precinct 4. There had been a great deal of speculation as to what Commissioner Eversole was going to do concerning the office. The Commissioner himself had commented to the Houston Chronicle last summer that he felt that his recent problems with the Texas Ethics Commission and an FBI investigation would force him from office. But faced with a growing number of challengers to his seat and increasing questions from nervous supporters, the commissioner ended the speculation and announced his intention to run. Known challengers to the Commissioner were City Council Member Toni Lawrence, who had recently moved into the precinct. Also looking at the seat were Larry Lindsay, son of retired Senator Jon Lindsay who had been gathering support for months as was Court Koenning, Chief of Staff for Senator Dan Patrick. Within a week of making his announcement, all known opposition to Commissioner Eversole has backed away. The last to pull back was Council Member Lawrence stating that she had said all along that she would not run if Jerry ran. Court Koenning has pledged his full support and assistance to Eversole for his re-election. As things stand now, the Commissioner will not have an opponent in the March Republican primary, and only time will tell if someone from the other side of the aisle will step up to run against him. Commissioner Eversole has held the north Harris County seat since 1991 and is currently running for his sixth, four year term. Commissioner Eversole has not had a serious challenger to his seat in over a decade.
Mayor’s Race Update.
I hate it when I buy the hype and start doubting basic truths and Peter Brown got me to bite. Two weeks before the election I found myself listening to black radio stations trying to figure out if all the stories I had heard were true. I listened mainly to KCOH and was shocked to hear the ads touting Brown’s accomplishments, the live radio programs featuring local preachers and the testimonials from people in the community that had been helped by Brown. Other Council Members told me stories about how Brown had continuously campaigned in the black neighborhoods since 2003 and that he had pockets of support in the community. If that was true then Gene Locke was dead in the water, and if Brown convinced the west-sider’s that he was one of them, then he could win the runoff. Obviously that didn’t happen, and I was not the only one that had seen this possible scenario and got suckered in. Most pollsters were placing Brown as the frontrunner and the discussion was who would be his opponent Locke or Parker. But a funny thing happened on the way to the polls, it appears that both the black and the republican voting blocks ( which combined make up 60% of the voters in the city) did not materialize for Brown. Roy Morales the only Republican in the race, who was not given much of a chance by anyone, was able to reclaim the conservative voters from Brown. Unfortunately for him he still finished in fourth place approximately 20,000 votes behind the frontrunner Annise Parker. It will be interesting to see where the African American vote fell in this race, what percentage went to Brown versus Locke and what was the overall turnout in that community. We won’t be able know those numbers until the individual boxes are released, but in the meantime we can look at the voter turnout in the two primarily black council districts, B and D. According to the Harris County unofficial report the voter turnout in those two areas was 13.88% for District B and 19.03% for District D. The overall voter turnout for the city was 19.10%. That tends to suggest that the black vote was not terribly energized in this election even with mildly contested races in the council districts themselves. Compare that to the turnout in districts A and G, typically considered Republican seats, where there were hotly contested open council races. In District A there was a 23.04% voter turnout and in District G there was a 25.28% voter turnout. District G had 34,685 votes cast alone. That helps to explain Roy Morales’ high numbers in a low voter turnout race. Remember these are generalities, we won’t know the exact numbers until the final details are released.
Looking at the runoff, I will start by saying that you never know what will happen until election day has passed. Annise Parker had a 5 ½ point lead over Gene Locke after the general election. That is literally 10,000 votes that Locke is going to have to make up to win the runoff. Annise has a very energized and active base but they seem limited to the inner loop. She will need to turn them out again, in force if she wants to win. For Gene Locke to win he has to find a way to get the African American voters active and interested in the race. His strength lies with his base, but the question is will the black community rally around him like they did with Lee Brown or will they stay home.
Disparity Study
The City of Houston, specifically their Legal Department has finally come down with a recommendation for a company to perform the upcoming disparity study. City Attorney Arturo Michel announced earlier this month at the Council MWBE Committee meeting that he would recommend Nera Economic Consultants to city council as the provider. HCA has consistently voiced concerns over the possible selection of Nera due to their policy of not weighing company capacity into their formula when determining if disparity exists in a market. Nera also starts out with the presumption that a disparity already exists due to discrimination that minority owned firms face in the banking and bonding markets. The City’s Legal Department in a memo from Augustus Campbell stated that they recognize HCA’s concerns and said that “Nera’s methodology would address our reservations, just not through classic capacity analysis.” City Council will still have to vote on the selection and approve the contract with Nera, however before that can happen Legal still has to negotiate out the terms of the contract. After that City Council gets to take a whack at it, which could take two weeks to pass if the item is tagged at the table. All of this has to occur before the end of the year or else the City risks being in violation of the Kossman settlement agreement and possibly getting called back before Judge Hughes. That is something nobody wants to see especially the City of Houston.
Pay or Play Program is Changing
Two years ago the City of Houston initiated it’s Pay or Play program to the distain of all local contractors. Basically this program requires all companies that do business with the City to provide health benefits at all employee’s working on a City project. That includes all vendors and professional service providers as well as contractors. If all of your employees on a job site are insured then you are considered “playing”. Any employee that is not covered to the city’s base requirements automatically puts the company into the “paying” category and is required to pay to the City of Houston one dollar per man hour per person. HCA negotiated a waiver in the contract that stated if the employee refused to accept the coverage and signed the waiver the company would not be held liable by the city and would be considered at “playing”. The new proposal scheduled to go before City Council in the near future will eliminate that waiver and require that all workers on a city project be covered or else the company must pay the dollar per hour. HCA is working with the administration to try and at least smooth out some of the administrative hurdles that contractors have faced in trying to comply with the ordinance. Just for your information the program has raised $978,000 as of the end of October, 44% of that money came from contractors, we had a relatively low request for waivers compared to other departments, and 49% of all participants in the program “played” 100% of the time. The money raised will go to help create a small business health care provider fund and to pay local clinics to accept indigents for service rather than letting them go to the emergency room.
HCA Ballots are in
The HCA ballots are in and counted, thank you to everyone that participated in the process and got your votes back in on time. Thank you to all of the candidates who ran for office this year. We appreciate all of your efforts and thank you for volunteering to make this the best organization that we can be. Below is the list newly elected Board members who will be officially sworn into office at the Christmas party, congratulations to the victors and to those that didn’t make it we hope you will consider running again.
Incoming Secretary/Treasurer:
Brian Manning Texas-Sterling Construction, LP
Incoming Contractor Board Members:
Robert Carter Angel Brothers Enterprises, Ltd.
Leonard Cherry Cherry Crushed Concrete
David Womack Beyer Construction, LLP
Incoming Associate Board Member:
Harry Kirk ACT Pipe & Supply, Inc.
Golf Tournament outcome
I would like to personally thank everyone who came out and participated in the HCA Fall Golf Tournament at Wildcat. I would especially like to thank all of our sponsors, raffle prize contributors and Sign & Supply for donating the signs. Thank you also goes out to the members of the HCA Golf Committee and especially its chairman, Richard Greer for pulling the event together and to our volunteers, thank you all for making this a fantastic event.
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