Don't Buy Another Lie - No to ReBuild

ReBuild Houston - Nearly $1 Billion Collected - Few Improvements

Yesterday, Houston City Council approved revised ballot language to continue the ReBuild Houston program to hold drainage fees collected by the City. This charter referendum will be on the November 6 ballot. ReBuild Houston was supposed to be a "lockbox" of sorts to hold the drainage fee monies collected and to ensure those funds were utilized only for streets and drainage. 

We'll use the term "lockbox" even though the fund has been held in more of a sieve than any type of box. Per Bill King, "in the first year after Rebuild was adopted, the City moved about 500 employees from being paid by the Public Works Department to being paid by the Rebuild fund. By my count, about half of these were sitting at desks at City Hall. To give you some idea how far afield the program has run, the City posted a position this year for a "pedestrian and bike coordinator" to be paid from Rebuild." A pedestrian and bike coordinator? 

The promises of the money not being used for any other purpose than streets and drainage has been a flat out lie. There's no way to sugar coat what has happened to the nearly $1 billion, yes billion with a B, of citizen's hard earned money. Our streets remain in deplorable condition, and our drainage hasn't been improved or repaired (see "performance" illustration below). 

Also according to King, "the City's books show that about 56 cents of every drainage dollar has been diverted to something other than drainage. And that is based on a very generous definition of drainage to include any street, driveway, curb and sidewalk constructed at the same time drainage work is done. My best guess is that about 20% of the drainage fees have actually been spent on drainage. It makes you wonder how many people's houses might have been saved from flooding during Harvey if the City had actually spent the drainage fees on drainage." 

Add to that the incredible lack of transparency from the City of Houston on how those funds have been spent and you have the perfect case of thanks, but no thanks. I cannot fathom a yes vote for a program that may have perpetuated what might be considered the biggest fraud against Houstonians in our history.

20 Drainage Projects in Five Years? 

Not that a vote of the people matters to the City. Mayor Turner stated that he will continue the program even if Houstonians vote to repeal. So instead of city leaders accepting that a vote to repeal would be a vote against the lies that sold Houston the drainage fees in the first place, unfortunately, the drainage fee at the heart of the program is not at risk in the election. It is a cash cow city leaders are unwilling to give up. #tb