Looking up to the year ahead, Mayor Annise Parker said she has a new agenda for 2012 that promises a brighter future for Houstonians.

            “Throughout our first term, I focused largely on issues of jobs and economic development, physical reforms in the city and investing in infrastructure,” Parker said. “This second term will hopefully prove to be a big payoff.”

            Parker’s administration has combatted the issues correlating to her “five pillars of faith,” which include public safety, infrastructure, physical responsibility, sustainable growth and quality of life, through reforms that will target the needed homes of Houston.

            “This term I need to integrate the new revenues we’ve produced and translate them into projects in the community through our capitol improvements program,” Parker said. “The drought has clearly shown us where some problem areas are. When we got to the heart of the summer where broken water mains erupted all across the city, it was clear most of the breaks occurred in the older neighborhoods of the city where we have clay pipes or abscise pipes. With the money we are bringing in through water and sewer, we really need to accelerate those replacements so this doesn’t happen again next summer.”

            Parker said she expects new challenges this year with the restrictions on spending that limit her administration from potential projects.

            “The big piece going forward now will be integrating both the new revenue with the new restrictions because in January I can no longer borrow money to do drainage and street capitol projects,” Mayor Parker said. “That’s going to put some handcuffs on us for a while.”

            Parker said the administration will have to carefully watch cash flow in order to launch new projects. In the areas of economic development, Parker says the past administrations failed to provide enough economic incentives for the city.

Proud of 380 projects

            “My favorite tool is what is called a 380 agreement where the developer uses their money to build public infrastructure and then we pay them back over time with the new sales tax or property tax revenue that they generate,” she said. “Having done four of these projects already, we will probably use them more in the future now that we really understand how they work.”

            One area Parker plans on addressing through the 380 projects includes the “food deserts” that have taken over Houston.

            “We have been looking at what other cities have done in terms of bringing in retail infrastructure, meaning access to good-quality, fresh foods. Our aim is to provide more sustainable growth for these areas.”

            Other infrastructure plans include submitting to the state a plan just recently passed by council to target the areas of Houston still dealing with the aftermath of Ike with a 100 million recovery fund.

            “There are still people out there with blue tarps over their roofs,” Parker said. “We are going to pick neighborhoods across the city to concentrate the spending of that Ike recovery money, and are working on single family housing as well. We want to bring all of our tools into the most targeted neighborhoods-that includes 380, the Ike funding. The first term we got the tools in place, and now we really want to use them to be transformative in the neighborhoods.”

            Recently Parker formed a new partnership with HUD (Housing and Urban Development) to enhance city housing and community development, revitalize neighborhoods, help the homeless and produce more affordable housing.

            “The housing department of the city of Houston has been troubled through multiple administrations,” Parker said. “I have a new leadership team in the housing department and we’ve made a lot of internal changes.”

“On the right track”

            After personally meeting with the local HUD representatives as well as secretary and assistant secretary, Parker said she successfully gained the support of the department.

            “HUD has acknowledged that we are back on the right track and agreed to commit to a years worth of technical assistance but with a particular emphasis on housing and issues of homelessness,” Parker said. “Our homeless population is rising, and I really wanted to try and do something to tackle it.”

            In the area of fiscal responsibility, between direct cuts in spending and re-negotiation of contracts as well as cost avoidance, Parker has cut more than 200 million dollars in spending over the past two years.

            “In order to balance this last budget I ended up having to lay off 750 people,” Parker said. “While I am grateful that I am probably the only major city mayor that didn’t have to lay off police and fire, I still had to lay off civilian employees.”

            Parker says it will be difficult not to make more cuts unless the economy picks up.

            “In order to combat this, we are focusing on something that’s never really been paid attention to in the past, and that is the collections of money owed to the city of Houston,” Parker said.

            According to Parker, her plan to generate more revenue for the city will involve a “very aggressive debt collection system” set for the new year.

            “There is a billion dollars of collectables on our books,” Parker said. “We’ve consolidated the efforts and we are using the best practices to create a database and go after it. We have reviewed six different contracts for collecting various types of debt, whether they be unpaid taxes to fines and fees, and we are going through each one of those contracts and renegotiating to create more favorable terms for the city.”

            Parker’s administration has brought in nearly a million dollars of new investment as well as hundreds of new jobs into the city, but it will take a change in the national economy to really see progress.

            “A lot of the really hard work we did in the first term will hopefully show through in the second term,” Parker said. “If the economy goes up, it’ll be a great second term. If the economy continues in the recession that we are in, all of the things we’ve done will help us hold our own.”

            When asked about her future plans, Parker says she only has one thing in mind.

            “I love local government. I have one more term I can serve and I have every intention of serving the maximum amount of time I can as mayor,” Parker noted.

            As for quality of life, Parker said her chapter 42 - development ordinance will be focusing primarily on upgrading Houston parks. Enhancements to the Buffalo Bayou Park have already been put into effect.

            “I consider municipal government to be the highest form of government. I care deeply about trash pickup, potholes, water and sewer lines, trees and parks and all the things that make this a great city. I was born here, both of my parents were born here, and I hope I spend the rest of my life here. I want Houston to be the best city.”