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AUDIO:
POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; March 5 Primary; REGISTER TO VOTE; League City seeks resident input on future development through new digital tool; Bellaire mayor talks drainage, commercial development in State of the City conversation; After bruising loss in Houston mayoral race, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee faces her toughest reelection yet; In her reelection bid, Rep. Shawn Thierry tests whether Democrats will tolerate anti-LGBTQ votes; ‘Zombie Offices’ Spell Trouble for Some Banks;
Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host, assistant producer and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) or Thursdays at 6PM on KPFT 90.1 FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Media. You can also hear the show:
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- An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
- You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the end.
- March 5, 2024 Primary Elections: com
- If you have applied for a mail-in ballot and have not yet received it, check with your county clerk to see if there’s a problem. You can fill out and mail in your ballot as soon as you want. You don’t have to wait for early voting to start. But make sure you use enough postage.
- Early Vote Centers are open until Friday, March 1. (from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 12 noon – 7 p.m. on Sunday).
- On Election Day, Tuesday, March 5, polling places will accept voters from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.,
- Sample ballots are now available for the primaries. Visit the “What’s on my Ballot?” page at HarrisVotes(dot)com and enter your name or address to see all the contests and candidates you are eligible to vote on! (You can bring handwritten notes or printed sample ballots to the voting booth; just be sure to take it with you when you leave.) Your local election clerk outside of Harris County should also have local ballots.
- The deadline to apply for a mail ballot is February 23, so if you have not already put an application in the mail, it’s probably too late to do so.
- We will have a joint primary this year (OFFTHEKUFF.COM)
- ANDREW: And remember, the March 5th primaries are for the Democratic and Republican parties ONLY. The Texas Green and Libertarian parties have precinct nominating conventions. For Harris County, these will take place on Tuesday March 12 at 7pm, and you can only participate if you didn’t vote in the March 5th primaries. For more information, check txgreens.org/calendar or lpharris.org/calendar.
- League City seeks resident input on future development through new digital tool; By Rachel Leland | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:23 PM Feb 20, 2024 CST / Updated 4:23 PM Feb 20, 2024 CST
- League City is seeking resident input on how to develop its remaining land with a new tool launched within its League City Listens
- The gist — Launched Jan. 8, Talk About Town is accessed through League City Listens’ webpage [MIKE: or it can be accessed directly from the link I’ve bolded in this blog post] and provides information on local business updates and newly opened businesses. It also currently hosts a survey to gather feedback about what type of business development residents would like to see in League City.
- Debuted in summer 2023, “League City Listens” is an interactive digital tool providing a way for citizens to engage with upcoming projects, plans and initiatives in the city.
- Survey questions include: Would you like to see more restaurants? Would you like to see more employment opportunities in League City? Would you like to see more entertainment opportunities in League City?
- As of Feb. 16, 40 participants have taken the survey, said Amber Pedigo, manager of community engagement and special projects. Pedigo added that the survey will remain open for another three months.
- Survey respondents also have the option to rank their preferences for the type of development they’d like to see from least to most important. So far, the most popular categories have been retail, restaurants, developed parks and family-oriented entertainment, Pedigo said.
- “It’s a tool that we can use to give to our elected officials and to our department heads that they can use as League City continues to grow,” Pedigo said.
- The platform also includes a business locator map allowing users to discover new businesses in League City.
- Users can also submit questions or concerns to League City’s director of economic development who will then provide an open-face response that will be visible to everyone, Pedigo said.
- In their own words — Resident feedback from Talk About Town won’t be the sole driving force behind how League City develops the remaining 40% of its undeveloped land, but it will be a tool the city uses to guide development strategies, Pedigo said.
- League City is expected to double within the next 10 to 15 years, according to the city’s website.
- ANDREW: I looked at the survey and was happy to see an option for “undeveloped parks”, as I believe that a city developing 100% of its land leaves too little habitat space for local wildlife and native plant life. I hope enough League City residents share my view for there to be a good portion of land left undeveloped in the final plan.
- MIKE: I think Andrew makes an excellent point. Not all parks have to be “developed”. Something along the lines of Houston Arboretum can also be appropriate. The Arboretum is a semi-developed area with pathways, a visitor’s center and parking area that still leaves plenty of room for wildlife.
- MIKE: Like Andrew, I also visited the Talk About Town page just to see what it was like, and it looks useful as a way to take the pulse of League City residents. It even leads off with the question of whether the respondent is a resident of League City, so if you’re not a resident but spend time there, your opinion is also worth noting.
- AND AGAIN FROM LEAGUE CITY — League City PD upgrades tasers with goals to limit deadly force, reduce harm; By Asia Armour | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:54 PM Feb 16, 2024 CST / Updated 4:54 PM Feb 16, 2024 CST
- The League City Police Department obtained new tasers and received training on them in the hopes that they can be used to help prevent the use of deadly force and protect department staff.
- Two-minute impact — From Feb. 6-8, 121 League City police officers received training on the Taser 10 from Axon, which is a technology and weapons company that develops products for military, law enforcement and civilians.
- Tim McCurley, the department’s training division lieutenant, said the department’s goal is to de-escalate any scenario where harm may come to a civilian or an officer.
- The new Taser 10 will replace the department’s old model, the X26P, which McCurley described as a “one-shot wonder,” as the two-probed taser had significantly less accuracy, he said.
- Some of the Taser 10’s features include: Audible and visual warning alerts; Enhanced data management; A maximum range of 45 feet; the X26P could shoot up to 20 feet away; 10 individually targeted probes; [and] Advancements in accuracy, effectiveness and reliability.
- McCurley said it was a requirement for all officers below the rank of captain to receive the training, including detention officers who work in the jail system. There are approximately 135 sworn officers staffed, he said.
- What else? — In 2022, Axon launched its “moonshot” goal to cut gun-related deaths between police and the public in half by 2033.
- The company publishes a public safety gun fatality database in collaboration with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research, an independent, nonprofit research firm to this end.
- Quote of note — Though the upgraded equipment is still not 100% accurate, it does give League City PD more options than they had before, McCurley said.
- “The goal of having an intermediate weapon is actually to save [the suspect’s] life and the officer’s life,” McCurley said. “It prevents the officer from having to use deadly force.”
- ANDREW: Having tasers is better than only having guns, and having tasers be more useful in more situations at least gives officers fewer excuses to use deadly force. But this expense isn’t really making anyone safer, because ultimately, the problems with policing are structural.
- ANDREW: Community needs being waved away as police responsibility instead of being taken seriously and funded as their own departments, formal and informal protections for police who use force and threats when they aren’t needed, the supply of military surplus to police departments that enable unnecessary force to be used against thousands of people at once. These are just some of the core problems with policing that tasers and training don’t solve. In fact, by increasing funding to police departments, they arguably make these issues worse.
- ANDREW: Ultimately, I wouldn’t call this article bad news. But since it doesn’t mean any real progress on the problems with policing, I can’t call it good news, either.
- MIKE: I substantially agree with Andrew’s comments on law enforcement. I also like the availability of upgraded tasers offering more alternatives to the use of deadly force. It’s worth emphasizing that de-escalation skills, proper training in when and how to use tasers, and also having non-police services to deploy when appropriate are also important.
- Bellaire mayor talks drainage, commercial development in State of the City conversation; By Shawn Arrajj | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:53 PM Feb 19, 2024 CST / Updated 3:53 PM Feb 19, 2024 CST
- Newly elected Bellaire Mayor Gus Pappas gave his thoughts on several ongoing city initiatives at a State of the City event hosted Feb. 15 by the Bellaire Business Association, weighing in on upcoming drainage decisions and efforts to build up the city’s commercial development.
- The big picture — Overall, Pappas described the state of the city as “very strong,” referencing a list by the online real estate company Opendoor that ranked Bellaire as the 12th most family-friendly city in the U.S., based on outdoor recreational opportunities.
- Citing a growing interest among families to move to Bellaire, Pappas said it will be important for the city to continue to develop its business districts, which he said would help increase sales tax revenue and lower tax burdens on property owners. Ongoing efforts to update the city’s comprehensive plan will work toward that end, he said.
- “We need to make sure the people in Bellaire and the surrounding areas … that they will come in and see they don’t have to go to the Galleria,” Pappas said. “That they can get the things they need here. It’s not only a good thing for our residents, but its practical and it helps us pay the bills.”
- By the numbers — About 63% of the city’s $26.5 million general fund revenue for the 2023-24 fiscal year comes from property taxes, according to city budget documents. The city historically stays within its budget, Pappas said.
- “We don’t spend money we don’t have, and I think that’s incredibly important and a bit unique for most governmental entities,” he said.
- Meanwhile, the city is projected to have roughly $92 million in bond debt by September, according to budget documents, debt the city has taken on for street and drainage work, and other infrastructure projects. Pappas said the city typically pays off around $6 million in debt annually. …
- Looking ahead — With regards to major drainage projects, Pappas said the city is “actively engaged” in identifying all potential sources of funding for a Cypress Slough Ditch project that falls outside of city limits and could cost as much as $90 million. The Harris County Flood Control District could come in as a funding partner, he said.
- Another looming decision will involve acquiring land along the ditch that the city can use to during heavy rain events before sending it to Brays Bayou, Pappas said.
- “We have to start some place, and our focus at this point in time is getting Cypress Ditch in a position where we could drain into it,” he said. “Looking at our streets and drainage so that we can have our own capacity to store the water that gets to us in a way that doesn’t flood our homes, and then get it to Cypress Ditch, and ultimately get it into Brays Bayou and away from the city.”
- MIKE: I included this story mainly as part of my interest in local news that it’s useful to publicize. Looking back at Community Impact’s earlier story on Bellaire’s “comprehensive plan”, I noted that “Potential removal of multifamily residential development” was one item mentioned at the time, and that made me curious. If that’s still an item in the plan, then how does it correlate with being “the 12th most family-friendly city in the U.S.” and “a growing interest among families to move to Bellaire”? By definition, multifamily residences make room for more families and more individuals in less space. So what does this mean in practice?
- ANDREW: In practice, it looks to me like Bellaire is trying to be friendly to rich families first.
- MIKE: Possibly. I would also imagine that multifamily dwellings pay more taxes per square foot of land than single family dwellings. This is based on my understanding that these sorts of structures don’t qualify as homesteads for purposes of taxation, and are fully taxed based on their market value.
- MIKE: I hope Bellaire isn’t just trying to keep out the riffraff. I’ll be interested in seeing further information on this as it develops.
- MIKE: The Houston area as a whole needs to be very forward-thinking in terms of flood mitigation, so it’s important that Bellaire — as a sovereign city within Harris County — do its share of flood control planning for its own benefit and as part of a greater Harris County flood strategy within the context of a master plan within the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD). As such, I think it would be both appropriate and necessary that the HCFCD partner on the Cypress Slough Ditch so that other areas outside of Bellaire can also share in it for flood mitigation.
- REFERENCE: Bellaire plan update zeroes in on commercial development; By Shawn Arrajj | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:41 PM Jan 9, 2024 CST / Updated 4:41 PM Jan 9, 2024 CST
- After bruising loss in Houston mayoral race, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee faces her toughest reelection yet; Jackson Lee faces off against Amanda Edwards, her most formidable congressional opponent in three decades. by Sejal Govindarao | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Published: February 19, 2024 at 5:00 AM / Updated: February 19, 2024 at 9:11 AM (Tags: Politics, Sheila Jackson Lee,)
- In 1994, Sheila Jackson Lee, then a 44-year-old Houston city councilwoman, unseated four-term U.S. Rep. Craig Washington in the Democratic primary, securing a seat she’d come to hold for the next 30 years.
- This March, former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards, 42, is hoping to replicate that political upset as she faces off against Jackson Lee in the Democratic primary for Congressional District 18.
- Jackson Lee, who did not respond to requests for an interview, has only drawn four primary challengers over her 14-term career, all of whom she defeated by landslide margins …
- She’s a household name in her Houston-based district known for her frequent visibility at constituent graduations, funerals and baby showers.
- But last year she ran for Houston mayor against then-state Sen. John Whitmire. It was a bruising primary — unfamiliar territory for Jackson Lee — and her campaign was roiled with negative media after audio of her berating her congressional staffers was leaked. She ended up losing the race by 30 points and then immediately announced she was running for reelection to the U.S. House.
- Edwards, a former Jackson Lee intern, initially announced she was running for Houston mayor until the congresswoman threw her hat in the ring. At that point, Edwards pivoted — endorsing Jackson Lee as mayor and beginning her own bid for Congress.
- By the time Jackson Lee announced she was running for her House seat again, Edwards had already gained momentum. In the fourth quarter of last year, Edwards outraised the congresswoman 10 to 1 — $272,000 to Jackson Lee’s $23,000. …
- Jackson Lee and Edwards are also facing off against another primary Democratic candidate Robert Slater Jr., who is a chef and business owner. He has not reported raising or spending campaign money this election cycle. If no candidate gets a majority of votes in the March 5 primary, there will be a runoff election in May.
- Edwards, a native Houstonian, said her commitment to public service is propelled by her father’s battle with cancer when she was a teenager, where she learned firsthand about the cracks in the health care system and how “policy could be a matter of life and death.” She served as an at-large Houston City Council member from 2016 to 2020, where she represented a constituency of more than 2 million people. …
- In her race to beat Jackson Lee, Edwards has garnered some notable endorsements including Washington, who previously held the congressional seat, and former Harris County Democratic Party Chair Lilly Schechter, as well as progressive groups including the county’s Young Democrats, and its chapter of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats – both of which endorsed Jackson Lee in past races.
- The Harris County Young Democrats rescinded its endorsement of Jackson Lee in the mayoral race — after dually endorsing both her and Whitmire — citing a “zero tolerance policy” for staff abuse. …
- In an interview, Edwards acknowledged that Jackson Lee may be a weaker candidate because of her bid for mayor.
- “It certainly has a strong influence on how people are choosing to think about this election cycle in particular,” she said. …
- Despite any damage she may have incurred from her mayoral run, Jackson Lee remains a powerful political force in her district.
- County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who is backing Jackson Lee, said he doesn’t know anyone in local politics with her “energy level,” and that Jackson Lee has secured meaningful federal grants for her district – most recently $20.5 million to Harris County Public Health Department’s Uplift Harris Guaranteed Income Pilot project. He also said she has a reputation for being a reliably progressive voice in Congress.
- Jackson Lee has a long list of powerful endorsements from House Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Minority Whip Katherine Clarke. She’s backed by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and other members of Texas’ Washington delegation including Democratic Reps. Lizzie Fletcher of Houston, Lloyd Doggett of Austin, Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Joaquin Castro of San Antonio.
- Jackson Lee may not be a strong fundraiser but she will benefit from her incumbency advantage, Ellis said.
- “Name ID is the only thing you can buy in an election. If you raise enough money, you can’t really buy a record,” he said.
- Linda Bell-Robinson, a Houston Democratic precinct chair, said she is fighting for Jackson Lee to retain her seat because seniority in Congress is important and Edwards would be learning the ropes as a freshman if elected.
- “We need fighters,” she said. “We don’t need people trying to learn how to fight on the battlefield. We need people who are already fighting and know how to fight their fight.
- ANDREW: I would disagree that seniority should be the deciding factor between two candidates. In the House, the only institutional benefit to seniority seems to be what kind of office space you get. In the Democratic Party specifically, seniority influences committee assignments. That can be useful, sure, but only if you agree with the policy outlook of the candidate given that position. Ms. Bell-Robinson’s position reads to me as being a very party-focused one rather than a policy-focused one, which is perhaps unsurprising for a party precinct chair.
- ANDREW: Still, I think policy matters far more than potential for power, because whether power is good or bad depends on the policy of the person attaining it. Even if the party’s policy outlook is different from the individual’s and has far more momentum behind it, we’ve seen many times in Congress how one person can hold up or totally sabotage a party’s policy goals. Plus, the Republican party in recent years has shown that even a whole party’s platform can be wrenched away from its original direction. In that case, having individuals in office who will put doing the right thing ahead of being useful for their party can be the only way to bring the party back to its roots.
- ANDREW: Now, this isn’t to say that I have a preference between Sheila Jackson-Lee and Amanda Edwards, or Robert Slater Jr. We’ll see as more news comes out if I agree with one of them more than the others, but as it’s not my district and not my party, for now, I’m content to sit back and watch.
- MIKE: First, I must say that Sheila Jackson Lee has been my representative in Congress for a long time. And seniority has its place and its uses in Congress. It can determine what committees you’re on, the relationships you have, and the seriousness with which your ideas and positions are considered.
- MIKE: It’s also an example of how institutional knowledge becomes increasingly helpful. After some time in a position, whether in Congress or in business, you learn better how to get things accomplished, what procedures are best used, and the people and assets that are available to accomplish your goals.
- MIKE: I admit that this article gave me pause, however. The word “seniority” has more than one meaning, and both apply to Jackson Lee. (Again, in the interests of full disclosure, they also apply to me.) A question to consider is, when is it time for a new generation to govern? When do the ideas and real-world experiences of youth get a turn at the table? And the reports of verbal abuse of staffers are not to be dismissed.
- MIKE: Both candidates have noteworthy endorsements, making any guidance that’s worth into a close call. I’ve decided how I’m voting, and I’ll be interested in seeing how things go.
- In her reelection bid, Rep. Shawn Thierry tests whether Democrats will tolerate anti-LGBTQ votes; by Zach Despart / Texas Tribune | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | February 16, 2024
- That Senate Bill 14 would pass was not in doubt.
- The legislation, which would bar gender-transitioning care for children and teens, had universal Republican support and merely awaited final sign-off by the GOP-led House.
- The only surprise that May evening in the Capitol was when Rep. Shawn Thierry, a Democrat from Houston, strode to the front of the chamber and announced she was breaking with her party to support the bill.
- Children must be protected from transgender care because of its risk of harm, she said, citing precedent in Texas for allowing only adults to get tattoos, use tanning salons and purchase tobacco products. She said teenagers’ brains are not developed enough to make potentially irreversible medical decisions.
- “This debate… was never about erasing trans children,” Thierry said in a tearful 12-minute speech. “For me, this discussion is about how to best protect and care for these children as they navigate through the challenging journey of finding the best version of themselves.”
- Thierry’s remarks ignored that treatment decisions for minors can only be made by parents or legal guardians, as well as the consensus of major medical groups that gender-transitioning care should be available to children and teens in the care of doctors.
- Republicans were quick to praise Thierry as a brave politician willing to buck her radical party. To Democrats, who watched the speech in stunned silence, she had betrayed their party’s commitment to protect LGBTQ+ rights and vulnerable Texans.
- “It feels defeating, when you’re a Democrat in the Texas Legislature,” said Dallas Rep. Jessica González, one of several gay members of the caucus. “The last two legislative sessions had the most conservative bills. That’s why it’s even more important for us to stick together.”
- The political fallout is spilling into the Democratic primary, where in her bid for reelection Thierry faces two challengers. One of them, labor organizer Lauren Ashley Simmons, is well funded and has secured the support of several Democratic officials — including sitting House members — and progressive groups like the influential Houston LGBTQ+ Political Caucus. A Democratic club in Houston censured her, accusing Thierry of turning her back on the gay and transgender community.
- Thierry, whose small-dollar donations have largely dried up, now relies heavily on wealthy Republican donors to fund her campaign.
- More than a third of Thierry’s donations over the past year came from individuals or groups who typically support Republican candidates, a curiosity in a predominantly Democratic district. They include $10,000 from Doug Deason, a conservative activist, and $15,000 from his pro-school voucher Family Empowerment Coalition PAC.
- While she’s not the only Democrat in the House to have voted with Republicans on those bills, Thierry’s race has become a referendum on whether elected officials who do not fully support LGBTQ+ causes can remain in good standing with the Democratic Party. Thierry is insistent she can, and said her votes last year reflected the will of her constituents.
- Thierry, who declined to sit for an interview but spoke briefly to The Texas Tribune by phone, said most of the criticism of her on LGBTQ+ issues comes from white progressives outside her district, who do not represent her base of more socially conservative, religious Black voters.
- “I didn’t just jump out against … my constituents,” Thierry said. “Clearly, I have a good pulse of how the majority of the people in my district feel. I really do. I’ve lived here forever.”
- But it’s a knife in the back for gay and transgender residents in District 146, who previously viewed her as an ally. The LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Texas endorsed Thierry as recently as 2022.
- Ashton Woods, a gay man and founder of Houston’s Black Lives Matter chapter, accused Thierry of lying about her constituents’ support for her LGBTQ+ positions. He said the representative previously presented herself as an ally of the gay and transgender community, but in reality is solely interested in the views of a small group of mostly elderly supporters that agree with her.
- “I don’t know who she’s talking to in my age group,” said Woods, 39. “She’s seeking a safe space where people share the same ideology as her.”
- Woods, who unsuccessfully challenged Thierry in the 2020 Democratic primary, said her votes on LGBTQ+ issues last year were a reason why he has decided to run again.
- Joëlle Espeut, a Black transgender woman in Thierry’s district, said she had doubts about the sincerity of Thierry’s commitment even before the votes. …
- The district has always been represented by a Black Houstonian. Thierry … was selected [in 2016] by Democratic precinct chairs as the party’s nominee for the seat after then-Rep. Borris Miles resigned to run for the state Senate. She was elected unopposed. …
- In the following sessions, Thierry voted reliably with her party. She joined most of the Democratic caucus in their 2021 protest of a GOP voter restrictions bill, where they absconded to Washington, D.C., for several weeks to shut down the House. It was an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of her mother, a civil rights activist who integrated Sharpstown High School in Houston.
- In the 2023 regular legislative session, Republicans made sexuality and children their new top social issue. By the time lawmakers adjourned in May, much of the camaraderie Thierry had built with fellow Democrats unraveled.
- Three major pieces of legislation proposed by Republicans became law last year: a bill aimed at removing sexually explicit books from school libraries, a designation critics feared would be used to target LGBTQ+ literature; a requirement that transgender college athletes play on teams that align their sex assigned at birth; and the ban on trans minors from receiving gender-transitioning care.
- Thierry supported all three. She was not the only Democrat to break ranks — 11 others supported the book-banning bill. But she was by far the most outspoken in her support for the legislation. She said in another floor speech that the book bill would set up guardrails against explicit materials that have “infiltrated” schools, noting one that she said teaches children how to access dating websites.
- Fellow Democrats told the Tribune they were especially frustrated that Thierry did not support their efforts to offer compromises on the transgender bill. …
- Thierry skipped the vote on the item, as well as all 18 other Democratic amendments. Thierry said that her positions reflected the views of her constituents.
- Community leaders in Sunnyside said LGBTQ+ issues are not the ones they think most about. Sunnyside Civic Club President Tracy Stephens, 66, recalls when the neighborhood was a bustling center of Black life in Houston, with its own movie theaters, bowling alleys and grocery stores.
- After decades of neglect and underinvestment, he said Sunnyside needs a representative that will secure funding for street repairs and strengthen penalties for pollution. He commended Thierry for being accessible and attentive to these needs.
- Stephens also said he supported Thierry’s stances on the book rating and gender-transitioning care bills. These weren’t issues when he was a kid, he said, adding that he understood Thierry’s desire to protect children. …
- Sandra Massie Hines, who earned the nickname “the mayor of Sunnyside” for her civil rights work in the community, said her focus lately has been helping elderly residents at risk of homelessness because of rising rents.
- When it comes to gay and trans issues, Hines said she supported Thierry’s votes. She said exposing children to LGBTQ+ materials is confusing for them. …
- But younger residents, and those with gay or trans family members, said Thierry’s stances are hurtful and don’t represent the largely progressive district.
- Gender-transitioning care, including doctor-prescribed hormones, makes life bearable for a 16-year-old trans teenager in District 146, their mother said.
- The Tribune granted her anonymity, after verifying her identity and address, because Gov. Greg Abbott has authorized state officials to open child abuse investigations into parents who provide gender-affirming care to their trans children. Those investigations are on pause due to a lawsuit filed by Texas families against the state.
- The child came out as trans at age 7. They had a mental health crisis at 10, a common occurrence for children suffering from gender dysphoria, a type of psychological distress that results from a mismatch between a person’s sex assigned at birth and their gender identity. Their mother said at the time she did not understand the kind of support they needed. Gender-transitioning treatments have significantly improved the teen’s mental and physical health, she said.
- “They can just go to school, do the SATs, get their driver’s license and think about who they’re going to take to the spring dance,” she said. “It freed them up to have a developmentally normal life, as opposed to where they were at prior to this care, which was a dark place.”
- The mother said she wished to share her experience with Thierry as lawmakers considered SB 14 but said her Capitol staff declined to schedule an appointment. She said aides said constituents could visit the office at any time to see if Thierry was available. The mother said it was impractical to make the three-hour drive from Houston without a guarantee (Thierry’s chief of staff said she makes time to meet with visitors, even if it requires stepping away from legislative business).
- Now that gender-transitioning care is banned, the mother said she has made a plan to move to a different state if necessary, a step other Texas families with trans children have already taken.
- Anger with Thierry over her votes last year has created an opening for labor organizer Lauren Ashley Simmons, with a faction of Democrats coalescing around her.
- Simmons, who has never before sought elected office, said residents encouraged her to run after a video of her criticizing the state takeover of Houston ISD exploded in popularity online. With two children in the district, Simmons was worried about Republican attacks on public education and felt Thierry was unresponsive to constituents about the issue.
- She was shocked to see Thierry’s remarks on SB 14, which she felt were “ripped from the Republican national agenda.” Why not make a 12-minute speech on the most pressing issues in District 146, she wondered, like gun violence and the lack of grocery stores? …
- Simmons has captured some of the marquee Democratic endorsements, including labor unions and Planned Parenthood. Democratic leaders including Houston City Controller Chris Hollins, former Harris County Democratic Party Chairman Odus Evbagharu and three House Democrats have also backed her.
- Two Black Democratic House members — Reps. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins of San Antonio and Nicole Collier of Fort Worth — have endorsed Thierry, as have local groups including the Houston Black American Democrats and the Harris County chapter of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats.
- Collier disagrees with Thierry’s vote on SB 14. But she said Thierry has been a devoted Democrat on other issues and does not deserve to be purged from the party. Collier praised Thierry as a skilled and hardworking legislator who has done much for her district. …
- Other Democrats view it differently. There is room for the party’s elected officials to offer lukewarm support to the LGBTQ+ community in moderate districts, they believe, but not in one that has one of the highest shares of Democrat voters of any in the state.
- ANDREW: Hey, I think I was just talking about this. Support for Thierry is significantly about what she can do for her party — and the Republican Party, too, considering some of her donors. Whereas support for Thierry’s opponents, Ashton Woods and Lauren Ashley Simmons, is more based around policy; what they’d do for the people they’d serve in their district and across Texas. And I think I’ve already made it clear that I think policy is far more important than party power.
- ANDREW: It also occurs to me that when Thierry says she was representing the will of her constituents, she’s not strictly wrong. If you ask a question of a large enough group of people, you’re likely to hear every opinion under the sun. So yeah, there’s at least one constituent of Thierry’s who wanted her to vote exactly the way she did with exactly the reasoning she had, and could serve as her excuse.
- ANDREW: But whether that opinion is shared by the majority of her constituents, as she claims later in the article? That’s a lot harder to tell. Without polling every single resident of District 146, the closest she could come to that is measuring the opinions of people who were able or felt safe enough to contact her about it, and that’s already a self-selecting sample. Ultimately, Thierry’s decision was hers, and the consequences are hers too.
- MIKE: This article also jogged my memory of her vote at the time, and I was not happy about it, but I’m not one of her constituents.
- MIKE: I think this is a useful article that raises some basic questions about the nature of representative democracy, and what that means in practice. Voters tend to choose representatives that seem to align with their values and beliefs. That’s as it should be, but what happens when a representative senses that their constituents have views that in some areas differ from their own? Do they ignore those opinions and vote their own, or do they swallow their pride and vote as they believe their constituents might want them to? When is an elected official “bending with the wind” versus doing as their constituents might prefer in spite of what their party or their own values might dictate?
- MIKE: If one is fair and open-minded, this is a conundrum.
- MIKE: Andrew’s point about whether Thierry has correctly determined the values and wishes of her constituents is also valid, as is the question of whether doing the right thing as one sees it should outrank the preferences of even a majority of voters? Essentially, when elected to lead, does one lead from the front or the rear? When considered in these lights, it’s a tough question. But again, as Andrew points out, the consequences are Theirry’s either way.
- ‘Zombie Offices’ Spell Trouble for Some Banks; Bank tremors serve as a reminder: Just because a crisis hasn’t hit immediately doesn’t mean commercial real estate pain isn’t coming. By Jeanna Smialek | NYTIMES.COM | Feb. 8, 2024
- Graceful Art Deco buildings towering above Chicago’s key business district report occupancy rates as low as 17 percent.
- A set of gleaming office towers in Denver that were full of tenants and worth $176 million in 2013 now sit largely empty and were last appraised at just $82 million, according to data provided by Trepp, a research firm that tracks real estate loans. …
- From San Francisco to Washington, D.C., the story is the same. Office buildings remain stuck in a slow-burning crisis. Employees sent to work from home at the start of the pandemic have not fully returned, a situation that, combined with high interest rates, is wiping out value in a major class of commercial real estate. Prices on even higher-quality office properties have tumbled 35 percent from their early-2022 peak, based on data from Green Street, a real estate analytics firm.
- Those forces have put the banks that hold a big chunk of America’s commercial real estate debt in the hot seat — and analysts and even regulators have said the reckoning has yet to fully take hold. The question is not whether big losses are coming. It is whether they will prove to be a slow bleed or a panic-inducing wave.
- The past week brought a taste of the brewing problems when New York Community Bank’s stock plunged after the lender disclosed unexpected losses on real estate loans tied to both office and apartment buildings. …
- When a string of banks failed last spring — partly because of rising interest rates that had reduced the value of their assets — analysts fretted that commercial real estate could trigger a wider set of problems.
- Banks hold about $1.4 trillion of the $2.6 trillion in commercial real estate loans set to mature over the next five years, based on data from Trepp, and small and regional lenders are especially active in the market.
- Economists and regulators feared that heavy exposure to the dicey-looking industry might spook bank depositors, particularly those with savings above the $250,000 limit for government insurance, and prompt them to withdraw their funds.
- But government officials responded forcefully to the 2023 upheaval. They helped sell off failing institutions, and the Federal Reserve set up a cheap bank funding option. The actions restored confidence, and bank jitters faded from view.
- That has changed in recent days with the issues at New York Community Bank. Some analysts are dismissing it as a one-off. New York Community Bank absorbed the failing Signature Bank last spring, accelerating its troubles. And so far, depositors are not pulling their money out of banks in large numbers.
- But others see the bank’s plight as a reminder that many lenders are in for pain, even if it doesn’t spur systemwide panic. The reprieve the government provided the banking system last year was temporary: The Fed’s funding program is set to shut down next month, for instance. [But] Commercial real estate problems are lasting.
- Commercial real estate is a wide asset class that includes retail, multifamily housing and factories. The sector as a whole has had a tumultuous few years, with office buildings hit especially hard.
- About 14 percent of all commercial real estate loans and 44 percent of office loans are underwater — which means that the properties are worth less than the debt behind them — according to a recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Erica Xuewei Jiang from the University of Southern California, Tomasz Piskorski from Columbia Business School and two of their colleagues.
- While huge lenders like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have begun setting aside money to cover expected losses, analysts said, many small and medium banks are downplaying the potential cost.
- Some offices are still officially occupied even with few workers in them — what [Lonnie Hendry, chief product officer at Trepp] called “zombies” — thanks to yearslong lease terms. That allows them to appear viable when they are not.
- In other cases, banks are using short-term extensions rather than taking over struggling buildings or renewing now-unworkable leases — hoping that interest rates will come down, which would help lift property values, and that workers will return. …
- Bank-reported delinquency rates have remained much lower, at just above 1 percent, than those on commercial real estate loans that trade in markets, which are over 6 percent. That’s a sign that lenders have been slow to acknowledge the building stress, said Mr. Piskorski, the Columbia economist.
- But hopes for an office real estate turnaround are looking less realistic.
- Return-to-office trends have stalled out. And while the Fed has signaled that it does not expect to raise interest rates above their current level of 5.25 to 5.5 percent, officials have been clear that they are in no hurry to cut them.
- Trepp expects that delinquencies could nearly double from their current rate to touch between 10 and 12 percent by the end of this year. And as the reckoning grinds on, hundreds of small and medium banks could be at risk.
- The value of bank assets has taken a beating amid higher Fed rates, Mr. Piskorski and Ms. Jiang found in their paper, which means that mounting commercial real estate losses could leave many institutions in bad shape.
- If that were to rattle uninsured depositors and prompt the sort of bank runs that toppled banks last March, many could plunge into outright failure. …
- Their paper estimates that dozens to more than 300 banks could face such disaster. That might not be a crushing blow in a nation with 4,800 banks — especially because small and medium lenders are not as connected to the rest of the financial system as their larger counterparts. But a rapid collapse would risk a broader panic. …
- Officials at the Fed and the Treasury Department have made it clear that they are closely monitoring both the banking sector and the commercial real estate market.
- [Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said during congressional testimony this week that,] “Commercial real estate is an area that we’ve long been aware could create financial stability risks or losses in the banking system, and this is something that requires careful supervisory attention,”
- Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, acknowledged during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Sunday that “there will be losses.” For big banks, Mr. Powell said, the risk is manageable. When it comes to regional banks, he said that the Fed was working with them to deal with expected fallout, and that some would need to close or merge.
- “It feels like a problem we’ll be working on for years,” Mr. Powell admitted. He called the problem “sizable” but said that “it doesn’t appear to have the makings of the kind of crisis things that we’ve seen sometimes in the past, for example, with the global financial crisis.”
- ANDREW: I think it’s a safe bet that there isn’t one magic solution to these impending troubles, but one thing I think could help would be for many of these empty buildings to pivot from office space to residential space.
- ANDREW: Think about it: counts of houseless people reached record highs in 2022, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. That isn’t because there aren’t enough homes; there was a high of over 750,000 active single-family and condo housing listings that same year, according to data from Realtor.com. It’s because housing is becoming increasingly expensive; an article from the Zebra cites the average home price as almost $350,000 in 2022. (All of this data is for the United States, by the way.)
- ANDREW: At first glance, it might seem like building more housing in a market that already has a surplus of it isn’t going to help. And this might not be a magic solution for the housing crisis either, but a major increase in the amount of available housing should, according to the laws of supply and demand, push prices for all homes in the US downward.
- ANDREW: This would make housing more affordable and could help more people renting to be able to afford to purchase their own home, which would free up rental properties which houseless people are more likely to be able to afford, at least in the immediate term. And if people are living in these empty buildings, some of this excess space could be used for convenient retail, helping to use the space for purposes that are, if not the same, at least adjacent to their original intent.
- ANDREW: Of course, there are complications with this plan. Many places in the US have zoning laws and different construction requirements for business versus residential properties that would make pivoting empty offices in this way difficult without going through rezoning and retrofitting processes. And at a deeper level, there are structural factors at play that come with the extractive nature of capitalism, like the fact that real estate is such a common speculative market, which inflates prices in the manner of a bet at the poker table. These factors might limit the effectiveness of my proposal, and would mean that any plan for immediate relief wouldn’t stop a future crisis.
- ANDREW: But I still think my idea, or another idea similarly outside-of-the-box, could make a difference for at least some people who need a house and some people working at a bank that isn’t looking so good. I think it would be hard to make the economy any worse this way, at least, because retrofitting means construction spending, which means jobs, which means business expansion, which means loans. I think it’s worth a shot.
- MIKE: We did a show in in March of 2020 (March 23rd, I think) where we speculated on how Covid might influence the shape of life in the future, and a discussion of commercial real estate was among those items we talked about, and how some of that office space might be repurposed for residences. I think we’re seeing some of those predictions mature now.
- MIKE: Andrew is correct that commercial building codes are usually very different from residential building codes, but in the case of commercial hi-rises, they tend to be stricter. For instance, hi-rise buildings usually have sprinkler systems for fire suppression. Wallboards are thicker. Partitions use steel studs. Windows in newer buildings are insulated glass with sun-shading film, so they are already somewhat energy efficient. The electrical core systems are probably very robust, but each space is always wired specific to renters’ needs anyway.
- MIKE: I see the biggest problem as plumbing. Office buildings are designed for central restrooms, whereas residences will need adequate water and waste service provided to individual units. Trash chutes would also have to be retrofitted. But none of these modifications are beyond the realm of feasibility.
- MIKE: As for partitioning spaces, these apartments could be rented or sold as high-ceilinged lofts that can be assigned open floor plans by each individual tenant.
- MIKE: The converted units might also be sold as condominiums to upper middle-class families and individuals. Increasing living units would not only have the potential of reducing rents generally, but might also free up older housing stocks that would be made more affordable as a result of their vacancy and age.
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