February 19, 2003

Houston City Council 

The Houston City Council voted 8-7 against a motion to purchase over four million dollars worth of vehicles for various city departments. Mayor Lee Brown, along with Carol Galloway, Ada Edwards, Gabriel Vasquez, Annise Parker, Gordon Quan and Carol Alvarado voted to approve the vehicle purchases, most of which were light-duty trucks. The low bidders on the item were: Lawrence Marshall Chevrolet II, L.P. for $230,585; Philpott Motors, LTD for $1,119,072; Classic Chevrolet Hummer, Inc. for $1,185,286; Lawrence Marshall Chrysler, L.P. for $40,837; Phillpott Motors, LTD for $520,752; Lawrence Marshall Chevrolet II, L.P. for $1,197,530 and; Lawrence Marshall Ford-Mercury, L.P. for $975,066.

Bert Keller, Carroll Robinson, Bruce Tatro, Mark Goldberg, Mark Ellis, Shelly Sekula-Gibbs, Michael Berry and Addie Wiseman defeated the proposed vehicle purchase. 

Wiseman, who has just returned to City Hall following surgery, said citizens are tired of a council that does nothing but “spend, spend, spend.” Listen 

Other council members discussed the city's $20 million shortfall.

Robinson continued to speak in favor of combining city departments, suggesting that the police, fire, and health and human services departments be included in a new public safety department.

Brown said that next week he will ask the city council to consider the possibility of five furloughs, without pay, for all non-essential personnel, including himself. 

In a news conference after the meeting, Brown and Barbara Sudhoff, director of municipal courts discussed broken parking meters.  Listen

In his "pop off" Keller praised Tilman Fertitta's new Downtown Aquarium.

“Regardless of what one’s sentiment is of Mr. Fertitta, he is a bright light downtown," Keller said.   It’s an incredible development in every detail.”

Several items were tagged or delayed by individual council members:

A $173,732 contract with R.B. Everett & Company for asphalt rollers was tagged by Wiseman.

An ordinance to add to the Houston Police Department one police sergeant, two identification officers and one assistant chief position, and to delete three communication specialists and one assistant chief position, was tagged by Alvarado.

An ordinance to allocate $900,000 of HUD-Guaranteed Loan Funds and $81,250 of Economic Development Initiative Grant Funds to the Houston Small Business Development Corporation was tagged by Ellis and Vasquez.

An ordinance to name several non-profit organizations recipients of Community Development Block Grants was tagged by Ellis and Parker.

A $2,506,100 contract with Electronic Data Systems Corporation for alarm tracking, billing and collections was tagged by Keller.

A $1,613,600 contract with R.K. Wheaton, Inc. for replacement of water lines was pulled from the agenda.

All other agenda items were approved.