Bill White?

[tarheel]

I got this just now. What do people think about Bill White? Is he as shady as the note below says. I don't know much about Houston area politics.

Former Houston mayor Bill White, the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor, left town before anyone realized the poor shape he’d left the city in. Houston’s new mayor, a very left-of-center Democrat herself, has said the city spent more than it had for years. Meanwhile, Mr. White's appointees on the city's transit board are ducking for cover with scandals exploding on all sides.

And he still hasn’t bothered to release his tax filings. Wonder what Mr. White does not want voters to know about his financial background? What might lurk in those documents that could be questionable? Gov. Rick Perry has made his filings public for years. No such transparency from Wily Bill White.

[JakRussll]

Well, that's not good! Do you have a credible source for this? Did you verify anything by chance?

It would be much more believable without the writer throwing in the Rick Perry comment. Ye old internet! It must be true.

[tarheel]

This is My San Antonio . com

http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/editorials/Bill_White_should_reveal_tax_returns.html

[Peaches]

This is from Annise Parker's web page located at:
http://www.anniseparker.com/article/not_so_shy_now/

"‘Willing to listen’
Her campaign was as steady and professional as longtime political observers expect her administration to be. Although she considers herself a friend and ally of her predecessor, she will not be Bill White.
Most observers expect Parker to be more managerial than White, someone more inclined to confer with council members and department heads before making a decision.
“I see her sort of managing, as opposed to White, who came in to fix the city,” said Marty Stein, the longtime agenda director at City Hall. “He was extremely ambitious and very motivated to take on everything. Having been around City Hall for 12 years, she’ll choose her battles more narrowly.”
Bell expects “a more open administration in being willing to listen to a greater number of people from the outside.”
“I have a different management style, and we face a different set of circumstances,” Parker said. “We still have serious pension underfunding and declining revenues. Cash reserves are hovering very close to the suggested minimum.”
Her immediate priority is to deal with those fiscal difficulties. She also expects to tackle police staffing, as well as the ongoing challenge of providing the same level of service for fewer dollars.
“My focus is a little myopic,” she said last week as she sat at a conference table in the controller’s eighth-floor City Hall office. One end of the table was anchored by a tall bouquet of flowers, the other by a thick notebook of transition details."

[tarheel]

JakRussll, wondered if you got a chance to look at that link. Here is KHOU Houston on the Metro activities. I just think it is worthwhile discussing White, since there is plenty of discussion of Perry on here.

http://www.khou.com/news/local/Did-Metro-try-to-deceive-feds-to-get-900-million-91003459.html

[JakRussll]

That's a good point Tarheel. And like most Texans, I know very little about Bill White. Nothing I have seen from him, have I found very impressive either.

I just feel that if the (quasi) investigative reporter had a legitimate issue with White's tenure as mayor, that issue should be strong enough to stand on its own merits. As it is, throwing in the Perry comparison lost the audience. It changed the motive and wasted an opportunity to educate us to (or expose) Bill White.

[luxgolfer]

Texas Monthly had a good article about Bill White a few months back. Also a good article about Perry two months ago.

Can anyone explain what Perry has down during his tenure that could be considered impressive?

[luxgolfer]

Oops, second sentence should read: Can anyone explain what Perry has done during his tenure that could be considered impressive.

[KINGCHIP]

Impressive is a relative term. There are several things that I dislike about Perry including the transTexas corridor land grab.

But I guess the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is that I don't see where it becomes necessary to do something impressive.what's wrong with coasting along? I thought that by now we had experienced more change than we wanted.
Obama did something impressive. He sold a bunch of voters with his talk, and is now giving us the closest thing to socialism America has ever seen. That followed with some new healthcare that works nowhere it is being used, and not what a huge majority of voters want, but what we get unless there is a shift in Congress. I amimpressed that he could con that many of the sheeple, but not with the results.

[JakRussll]

Oops, second sentence should read: Can anyone explain what Perry has done during his tenure that could be considered impressive.
Nope! Unless you want to count his keeping Kay Bailey out of Austin. We could have it worse.

[tarheel]

Chip, you're on the money. A tremendous amount of our problems are unintended consequences of government trying to do something impressive, instead of allowing people to work out their own issues.

JakR, since starting looking, I've seen an awful lot on White's refusal to release his finances, and it seems fair to compare him to Perry, who has. I wonder if being a trial lawyer has anything to do with it? White can make all this go away by simply releasing the information.

[JWebb]

We moved from Houston to Marble Falls during Bill White's term as mayor of Houston. I'm pretty conservative but I really liked him as mayor. I think most people in Houston like him. That being said, I need to hear a lot more from him before I decide whether or not I could vote for him for governor.

[tarheel]

Now that he is finally releasing his tax returns, we know what kind of information Bill White has been hiding from voters. While everyone else was suffering at the hands of Hurricane Rita, Mayor White was laying the groundwork for making a tidy profit.

According to today's Austin American Statesman, Mr. White used his mayoral office to make sure a company on whose board he once sat got a prime emergency contract as the hurricane was bearing down on Houston in 2005.

As mayor of Houston, Bill White overspent the city coffers and left office before the effects of his hurricane-strength deficit spending could be fully felt. But at least he and his friends made some money along the way.

[tarheel]

This info was on the web today, based on Houston Chronicle story:

Obama's EPA, Bill White Mess with Texas

President Obama's EPA has decided to mess with Texas. News broke on Wednesday that the EPA is rejecting (http://clicks.electionemail.com/trkr/?c=3672&g=415&u=88425a6454cf1de9f51718c7d66b09ca&p=2d0415548c6c16d9298d3221d1a38a46&t=1) Texas' flexible permit system, a system that been in place for 16 years, has enjoyed bipartisan support, and has actually worked to reduce NOX emissions in Texas better than the EPA's own programs work in other states.



Bill White, is right in the middle (http://clicks.electionemail.com/trkr/?c=3672&g=415&u=12349cf0787bde320fc217e25c2a4737&p=2d0415548c6c16d9298d3221d1a38a46&t=1) of the EPA's extreme and unnecessary move. According to an editorial by the Houston Chronicle, White met with EPA regional director Al Armendariz last fall, and that meeting apparently spurred the EPA's drive to attack Texas.

Mayor White has also been critical of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as being too lax in enforcing state laws against polluters.....

After meeting with White, EPA officials announced that many of the TCEQ rules are in violation of the federal Clean Air Act.

[dmozoid]

I split my time between my home in Granite Shoals and Houston. I have be in Houston for work. There may have been some problems when Bill White left office. However he left the city an order of magnitude better than it was when he arrived. I believe the budget problems were due more to the fact that property values dropped precipitously before he left office than an irresponsible administration. All the finger pointing is more political spin than reality...

db

[KINGCHIP]

Between jacking with Texas main industry, helping drive up fuel costs by creating shortages(which probably help him, definately help George Soros, and certainly help me), and turning Houston into a sanctuary city, I've got no use for him. I hope Texas feels the same.

This country and state do not need another socialist.