Mayor Sylvester Turner
Lauding Houston as a city where, “when you dream big, big things can happen,” Mayor Sylvester Turner delivered his inaugural address Monday morning at a packed Jones Hall downtown.
Turner also announced his first policy plan, saying by Jan. 18 each pothole reported to the city help line will be “assessed and addressed” by the next business day, with the goal of repairing each reported pothole within 24 hours.
Those holes needing more time or a different fix, Turner said, he will monitor via a “priority report” prepared by the Public Works and Engineering director that will be shared with the City Council.
“Many people have come to our city and to the surrounding region. That growth and development also has brought about its challenges,” Turner said. “No one needs to tell us about the difficulties that we have, the streets we face. Houstonians deserve a safe viable infrastructure.”
Here’s a longer version of the story, in which Mayor Turner discusses finances and some other issues as well as potholes. There will be some challenges ahead, but everyone starts with a clean slate and a heaping helping of optimism. All other city elected officials were also sworn in, with CM Ellen Cohen being named Mayor Pro Tem and CM Jerry Davis being tabbed as Vice Mayor Pro Tem, despite a bit of fuss intended to put that off for a week. I’m sure we are all looking forward to the first Council meeting with the new crew. KUHF has more.
Turner needs to activate an emergency partnership with other Tx municipalities public work Dept’s and have them come down to smooth out our roads that are used by 80% of the entire city I/e Richmond,the on ramp road on smith street at 59 South etc etc-we are years beyond ,call 311 and we will fill the pot hole,we need a partnership and I permanent fix,its time to saddle down on our major traveled roads.The inauguration was very well attended and was very entertaining, however as I have stated before ,I love Yolanda Adams singing but being that Houston is a public office we should have had other singers over the years be able to have the opportunity to perform and get paid ,Yolanda Adams is getting paid for her performance and I think it is misguided to only give her the stage every time the offices change up but for years,she’s a constant and no other singer is getting the opportunity, good for her but bad for the up and coming Yolanda Adams that are not getting the opportunity for the pay or the exposure. Mayor Turner has options in the beginning, he can continue to double down city hall with city insiders or he can unlock the doors of the city with our college grads that have the credentials yet lack the opportunity, perhaps having these city “lifers” at city hall has been part of the problem and replacing them with new folks maybe the solution. Out with the old,in with the new,its not a new concept,they are public offices,not private.In the year of our lord,joshua Ben bullard
I was willing to give Bill White the benefit of the doubt, and Bill White started strong out of the gate, having the traffic lights timed. It didn’t take White long to go off the rails, though. I’ll start off giving Turner that same benefit of the doubt. His pothole commitment is great. I just hope that those repairs are better than the repairs of the past, that last until the next time it rains hard, then wash out.
If a concrete street has a pothole, the only correct fix is to cut out a section around the pothole, then lay rebar and pour more concrete. Dumping some asphalt in and leaving doesn’t fix the problem, and repeatedly repairing the same hole just makes things worse.