That’s the general consensus of his first four-plus months in office.
Mayor Sylvester Turner
Faced with a $160 million budget shortfall that would leave some wringing their hands until deadline day, Mayor Sylvester Turner presented his plan a month ahead of schedule. The proposal being reviewed by City Council includes a few one-off gimmicks, by Turner’s own admission, but would close Houston’s budget gap without huge layoffs or service cuts.
Four months into the job he dreamed of for a quarter century, the former lawmaker has eschewed the traditional pressure to sprint into office with a laundry list of policy objectives. Instead, Turner has concentrated primarily on formulating next year’s budget, the first of several fiscal hurdles.
Turner’s bet? Hitting targets such as next-day pothole repair and balancing the budget early will earn him the political capital to take on Houston’s longer-term problems, namely rising pension and debt costs.
Eager for unity in that process, Turner has kept his goals broad – for which he has drawn some criticism – and invested in bettering mayor-City Council relations, laying the groundwork for a first term built on corralling Houstonians around the painful task of shoring up city finances.
“We resolve the pension issue, we get the revenue cap removed, we satisfy Moody, S&P and Fitch, the credit rating agencies, oil prices start to go back up, this city will take off,” Turner said during a recent interview, laughing at the apparent simplicity of his plan.
[…]
A creature of the state Legislature, which starts slowly and builds toward the end, Turner has approached the mayor’s office with a similar rhythm, Houston lobbyist Robert Miller said.
“Those who are saying he’s not moving quickly enough or are not satisfied with the progress are missing that he knows exactly what he wants to do, and he knows exactly the timing in which he wants to do it,” Miller said. “The most important issue he had to deal with was the budget, and he’s doing that. … Then you will see him begin rolling out the other initiatives and personnel changes that he thinks need to occur.”
There’s not a whole lot in the story that will come as a surprise. As I said when writing about Mayor Turner’s State of the City address, he has stuck very closely to the things he spoke about on the campaign trail. A big part of his strategy to achieve some of the goals he has laid out is to build trust by getting certain things done first so that the tougher items can be done later, when everyone feels comfortable that he’s doing what he said he would do. One of the metrics to watch for is the amount of dissent and pushback he gets from Council members. On that score, there’s so far been very little – no public criticism of his budget proposals, no challenge to his standing firm against Uber’s ultimatum, no complaints about how his office handled flooding issues. Those things will come because they always do, but until then the harmony we’ve had so far is at least an indicator that everyone feels like they’ve been listened to. Whatever else you think, that’s a big accomplishment.
I think he is trying to listen to everyone. Amazing how that works. No social engineering.
Interesting how his priority is actually aimed at the function and financing of government, vs. getting sucked (no pun intended) into social issues. I’m pleased with his performance thus far. Note that potholes effect everyone, and flood waters don’t care what bathroom they ruin.
As Kubosh notes, by steering clear of social engineering and focusing on non partisan governance issues, he could be one of the great ones.
Ordinary civil rights that have been in place for decades in other places are not ‘social engineering’.
Again I find myself agreeing with Bill. Have a good weekend all you Kuffsters.
When Turner passes…
Paid sick leave ordinance
HERO without public accomadation
Paid FMLA for city employees
Etc, etc
I’ll start paying attention.
Michael Kubosh is just another desk-lamp on city council with no critical thinking skills or public policy platform.