I think they approved the roll after the 12th. Which may give the court wiggle room. It was stated the rolls were certified between today and the last meeting. Which resulted in them having to adjust the tax rates slightly.

They canceled items 78-151. All Engineering and Flood Control items. Unless that was part of item #25...which had no supporting documentation. So a little confused there.

No idea what's going on with court.the returned from lunch at 2. Did some sort of meet and greet and vanished for about an hour and now they're about to start up?

Maybe news pressers, no idea.

Back, going through the agenda. Flagging out all projects in Pct 3/4 to take no action and punt them to the next court in retaliation for no shows by those commissioners.

Lina did attempt to move to pass all the stalled items for 3&4, Ellis shut it down by verbally saying he wouldn't 2nd the motion nor vote for it anyway. Garcia said nothing.

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2022/09/28/standoff-over-harris-county-budget-continues-as-republican-commissioners-skip-2nd-vote-on-tax-rate/

Continuation of before. Amazing these reporters can't call out some very basic fact points.

I had missed an hour in the AM tomorrow. Apparently Oct 28th is the deadline to set the Tax Rate. So there could be 2 more courts when the Rs are no-shows.

Catching up today.

Item #24 is interesting. Taking "surplus" funds from HCTRA (whichbhad their surplus taken a few years ago).

This will be used as Mobility Funds to the tune of $168,600,000. Which used to be split 25% ea. Then, will find out later, was changed to be split as a % of county owned roads. As county roads are not distributed equally by precinct. 1&2 have more incorporated areas and thus their roads are maintained by the cities they're in. Paid for by different tax structures.

If a 25% split is done, 1&2 will have more funds per road mile and 3&4 will have fewer dollars for more miles. 1&2 want to take SVI and road conditions into account to pull more funds, compounded with other tax dollars from their respective cities, to maintain and improve them.

Also known as draining funding from unincorporated areas to feed into cities. Ellis and Garcia are taking full advantage of Cagle and Ramsey being absent.

In addition: They're not approving project funding in unincorporated areas. This will go on for 2 more courts.

And if they up the toll road fees in the future citing a lack of funds, it's because they repeatedly drain the account.

Isn't there a statistic that like 70% of murderers in Houston in the last two years were out on light bail?

Maybe, I don't know. But that'd be a felony bond and not related to the misdemeanors presentation. So an entirely other subject on why our judges are so lienent.

And that was my bad explanation for differentiating the two types of classification. One shouldn't be used to justify felony bonds. I'm not a lawyer.

Full study is at https://penn.link/bail

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2022/10/05/pct-4-commissioner-jack-cagle-proposes-new-tax-rate-plan-amid-county-commission-budget-impasse/

"Under Cagle's plan, he's calling for a tax rate that would generate $149 million, versus the $257 million that would be generated by the tax rate supported by Judge Lina Hidalgo and Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia.

After the press conference, a spokesperson for Commissioner Cagle told KPRC 2 that his proposed tax rate would be 55.572 cents per $100 assessed valuation...

During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Cagle said he wants Hidalgo to set a special called meeting that will only be for discussion, not a decision...

Hidalgo response:
Of course, I will remain only cautiously optimistic until Commissioner Cagle commits to attending the meeting where the critical action to actually vote on funding key services would take place.

Garcia response:
"Commissioner Cagle's proposal is not serious and there are many questions about his numbers that need to be answered. On our end, we have tried to negotiate in good faith.

Ellis response:
"It's hard to debate someone who doesn't come to the table in good faith or offer real numbers. "

They're still trying to force them to show so they can steamroller the vote through. Cagle is offering a more moderate tax increase, but I doubt the Ds will take it.

Irish 2.0 said:

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Isn't there a statistic that like 70% of murderers in Houston in the last two years were out on light bail?

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im more interested in what phenotype is committing all these murders.

October 11th meeting going swell

crowd at commissioners court booing as hidalgo gavels out the meeting, she is sick. hidalgo may try to reschedule this meeting for friday. pic.twitter.com/l1PgvNA7HY

— Jen Rice 🎃☠️🗡🕸 (@jen_rice_) October 11, 2022

Ha! Even the LEOs were booing!

2 members = no quorum. Nothing can be voted on.

So did any agenda items get approved today?

This is one helluva food poisoning that started 10/4.

Duck and hide out of view from public meetings?

Yes, before she left. I couldn't tell you which items were approved.

At least ten members of some group to save Gulfton were there to speak on an item to approve money to fix up a park that was in bad shape. They stood up and yelled out when it looked like that item wasn't going to be voted in. Lina changed her mind and got that voted in before she left. They were all members of a racial minority community that mostly votes Dem. More and more of the Dems' traditional constituents are showing up at court and giving Garcia and Ellis a very hard time.

Can't imagine how hard it must be to sit 7 days after the visit to the doc.

Irish 2.0 said:

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Ha! Even the LEOs were booing!

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This was apparently for a photo op organized by Mealer's campaign, according to some LEOs who were there.

Here's an article in Community Impact (link) which provides more detail about why law enforcement showed up at Commissioners Court this week...

I love how all the arguments about "budget cuts" are comparing the FY2023 proposed budgets to the "no new revenue" budget and not to the FY2022 budget. In essence the county departments are complaining that their budgets aren't increasing from last year and instead of trimming areas of unnecessary spend for pet projects, we are going to tell the public that this is affecting law enforcement and healthcare budgets.

Do we know what the "no new revenue" tax rates look like?

Ryan the Temp said:

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Do we know what the "no new revenue" tax rates look like?

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As someone who sits on the Board of a tax setting entity, both sides are playing fast & loose with the facts.

BUT, the D's started this misinformation and are the ones not responding to Cagle's alternative, which will have the least impact to the County department budgets.

Oh I forgot to mention... we are STILL waiting on the certificate tax rolls from the County (they were due Sept 1st). So technically, no one really knows what their tax revenue will be next year.