On Wednesday, [Houston City Council] approved, in a 13-2 vote, a set of rules offering members two mechanisms to push forward their policy proposals.
Under the new rules, members can still directly request the administration place their proposals on the City Council agenda. Alternatively, they can go through a newly created Proposition A Committee and ask for an initial review before the item heads to the full council for consideration.
The committee pathway has in the past few months generated strong pushback from several council members, who said the additional step would create unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles and violate the spirit of the ballot measure.
“I don’t think the Prop A Committee is necessary because we have all these other committees that if something wanted to get referred to a committee, there’s a mechanism for that,” said Council Member Edward Pollard, who voted against the rules Wednesday.
He said a proposal he spearheaded sat in the committee for about three months because meetings were postponed due to weather or not enough members showed up to meet a quorum requirement.
[Mayor John] Whitmire said the committee structure would offer a chance for council members and department officials to workshop more complex proposals and for the public to offer input.
“Yes, three members can bring anything to council under Prop A,” the mayor said Wednesday. “But the financial consequences, the impact on one district versus another district need to be heard in a committee.”
To ease members’ concerns that their proposals might languish in the committee, Council Member Amy Peck on Wednesday successfully pushed through a change to the proposed rules before they were passed.
Per Peck’s amendment, if fewer than nine members show up to a Proposition A committee meeting, resulting in a lack of a quorum, the proposal can be resubmitted directly to the full council for a vote.
See here and here for the previous updates. I’m fine with this setup, it seems reasonable to me and tries to comply with the will of the voters. I’m curious if there will be a burst of pent-up Prop A activity now that this process has finally been determined and approved, or if there just wasn’t all that much demand (at this time, at least) for Council-pushed agenda items. We should learn soon enough. Houston Landing has more.