Parker wants council to vote on fate of justice complex
Local // Houston
Parker wants council to pick 'repair' or 'replace'
Mike Morris Dec. 15, 2014 Updated: Dec. 15, 2014 11:39 p.m.
Citizens fill out paperwork dealing with a ticket at the municipal courthouse.
Photo: TODD SPOTH, For The Chronicle
A new Houston police headquarters and courthouse complex, discussed for decades, could reach a key turning point this week as Mayor Annise Parker seeks to force City Council members to choose between repairing the city's existing facilities or tackling an enormous project to construct new buildings - a move that could trigger a tax increase.
If not for the staggering expense of both the "repair" and "replace" options - from $250 million up to $1.2 billion - the choice would be simple: Few, if any, council members question that the city's criminal justice facilities are fading.
The current complex, on 18 acres just northwest of downtown, houses 1,000 Houston Police Department staff, the main municipal courthouse, a city jail and numerous other operations spread among a dozen buildings, most of them built between 1950 and 1980.
Officials say the facilities are decades beyond their useful lives, cramped, lack adequate parking and sit in the 100-year floodplain. A shoddy sewer line recently created a sinkhole under the courts building, and chunks of the police parking garage have been known to crumble off.
"If you've been in through 61 Riesner, it is dilapidated and you're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars to keep putting Band-Aids on that serious problem over there," said Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers' Union, referring to the main police building on the site. "That complex needs to be leveled, and a new complex needs to be built there."
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No option easy
The mayor's decision to place the item up for a vote Wednesday as a non-binding resolution was spurred in part by a desire not to allocate more than the $2.3 million already spent preparing to build a new complex if council was not ultimately going to pursue the project.
None of the options Parker presents in a memo to council would be easy, and all would require a public vote.
Building a new justice complex at the current site - including costs for design, construction, financing and 30 annual payments for operations and maintenance - would bring the total 30-year cost to an estimated $750 million to $1.2 billion. Though Parker long has pledged not to raise taxes, this option would require new revenue.
The mayor's spokeswoman, Janice Evans, said any talk of a tax increase is premature and would depend on council's decision, which is expected to be delayed into early January.
"We can't continue in the same mode we're currently in," Evans said. "It's going to be up to council as to what direction we take, and if they choose that we're going to do something that does require revenue, we will make the case to the public."
All ideas for new or higher taxes would require voter approval, from a public safety fee levied via property taxes to a special sales tax assessment dedicated to public safety. The latter also would require Legislative approval, which Parker's memo says is unlikely. Council also could ask voters to alter a decade-old cap on the revenue Houston can collect from property taxes and dedicate the additional revenue to public safety. A new courts fee for facilities also could be added, but that would generate only a few million dollars annually.
To repair rather than replace the current facilities would cost $250 million up front, the mayor's memo states, with the total cost of maintaining and operating the buildings estimated at another $450 million over the two decades the repairs would last.
To choose the "repair" option without a tax increase, the memo details, would require the city to gut its 2017-19 capital spending plans, canceling all repairs on fire and police stations, libraries and other city buildings - on which maintenance already has been deferred - as well as delaying all new libraries and parks, save for the voter-approved Bayou Greenways initiative. That plan also would require voter approval.
Briefed six times
Part of the justice complex planning assumes the current police headquarters at 1200 Travis would be vacated and sold, but those proceeds are expected to make only a small dent in the overall cost of the new facilities.
Parker's team has briefed council members on the justice complex six times since the summer of 2013, but many members remained fuzzy on the details at a briefing last month. Members repeatedly have said there is a need for new facilities but have struggled to understand how to pay for them.
Councilman Ed Gonzalez, a former police officer, said it was clear that the main police building on the site needed to be replaced when he worked there in the 1990s. Less clear, he said, is the path forward now, and whether council members' desire to replace the buildings will be matched by the desire to raise taxes, should that prove necessary.
"I don't know if anyone would just stand on an island alone and say, 'Let's increase taxes,' if the rest don't, but if there was a strong will of council to say, 'Yes, we're willing to act on it, and we're willing to make these hard choices,' then maybe it's doable," Gonzalez said. "On the flip side, are we still not dumping on the citizens the need to invest in the current location? It's not like the problem just goes away because we choose not to act."
Councilman C.O. Bradford, a former Houston police chief, said he is not inclined to vote for a public safety fee. He said his difficulties in getting information from the Parker administration trouble him when it comes to complicated issues like the justice complex.
'Justify the strategy'
"I can't in good faith walk into an $800 million project knowing I may not have access to the information I need to understand it and explain it," he said. "Is it needed? Yes. But I have a duty to make sure I understand and I can explain to the citizens not only why do we need it, and do we need it, but how are we going to pay for it, and justify the strategy."
Councilman Jerry Davis said his concerns about the proposed financing mechanisms have not been adequately addressed. He also said it makes more sense to relocate the complex to an underdeveloped area like his district, where it would spur development, rather than rebuilding on the edge of downtown.
"I don't think you have everyone's buy-in right now. There's too much uncertainty," Davis said. "Before this council member says yes or no, I need to exhaust every question."
Mike Morris
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Mike Morris has covered City Hall for the Chronicle since early 2013, having covered Harris County government for two years prior to that. Before coming to Houston, he covered local government, agriculture, business and sports at daily and weekly newspapers in southern Indiana and central Ohio. He covers all things policy and politics in the nation's fourth-largest city, explaining the roots of today's complex problems and exposing public corruption and failing programs. In 2012, he won the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors' annual Freedom of Information award and was a Livingston Award finalist for a series of stories documenting rampant mismanagement at the Harris County Housing Authority.
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