According to Houstonist, today's City Council meeting should be interesting:
Join the Friends of Cullen (Cullen is the residence hall at The Center) in going to the City Council meeting on Tuesday April 10th at 2pm. City Council members have encouraged advocates for The Center to be aggressive and make their voices heard, and this is the best way to do it. They ask that participants arrive 30 minutes early.
As you know, I understand where Mayor White is coming from on this. Being reminded of the KHOU story on city-managed leases makes his motivation clear. What I don't understand is why this has been handled so badly. The Mayor has been taking a beating on the letters to the editor page, he's going to get an earful today, and you can imagine what the sound bites the TV newsies capture at City Hall will be like. He's saying the right things in his public statements, but he hasn't followed that up with any action yet that demonstrates his commitment to living up to the principles he speaks of. I have no good explanation for why that is. Maybe we'll see something at today's Council meeting.
I believe Mayor White is sincere when he says he wants to negotiate in good faith with the Center. That's why I believe there will be a satisfactory resolution to this standoff. Even if you don't believe he's sincere, the political reality of this is that it's bad for him now and will get worse the longer it drags out. He's smart enough to know that, and he's smart enough to fix it in a way that makes him look good. I'm just waiting for him to do it.
Posted by Charles Kuffner on April 10, 2007 to Elsewhere in Houston