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Houston Mayor John Whitmire has notified four of the seven members of the Montrose Tax Investment Reinvestment Zone that their time serving the neighborhood board is up.
TIRZ board members — including the board chair, Joe Webb — were notified of the decision this week, shortly after the Abdelraoufsinno published a story about the mayor asking the board to fund $11.5 million in renovations to a Montrose library outside of the TIRZ boundaries.
The board members haven’t commented publicly on whether they agree with Whitmire’s request, saying they need to gather more information. Board members noted that they would have to cancel some key infrastructure projects to pay for the library renovations.
COMMUNITY CONCERNS
City Councilmember Abbie Kamin, who represents Montrose, raised concerns about the timing of the decision, as well as a lack of transparency about the move.
“I heard this from board members because the administration refused to even tell me that this was happening,” Kamin said Tuesday morning. “He’s already selected names of replacements, which I was not consulted and not asked about — which for district council members, for their TIRZes, there’s a longstanding history of consultation and being able to put forward names.”
Whitmire’s spokesperson, Mary Benton, said Tuesday morning that the administration is in the process of “notifying council members of the individuals who Mayor Whitmire will be nominating, and they will be voted on by council in the next week or two.”
“They were all aware their terms had expired (in) December 2023, and that they serve at the discretion of the mayor of Houston, who appoints the board members,” Benton noted.
The four members who have been notified they will not be reappointed to the board after their terms expired at the end of 2023 are: Webb, Rev. Lisa Hunt, Amanda Flores and Raymond L. Valdez.
All four were continuing to serve in their positions while awaiting further direction from the administration.
While Flores had just completed her first term, the remaining three have long histories with the TIRZ, and their removal will represent a loss of deep institutional knowledge. Valdez had served for three terms; Hunt and Webb each served for four.
Webb, Kamin noted, “ was instrumental in founding the TIRZ for Montrose (pushing back when the area was proposed to be included into Midtown), and was an inaugural member” when the TIRZ was first formed in 2015.
Hunt, a recently retired rector at Montrose’s St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church has been a steadfast supporter of affordable housing initiatives in Montrose, an area of town that has seen rapid appreciation of home values in the past several years. At last week’s board meeting, she spoke pointedly about her concerns about sidelining key infrastructure projects to pay for improvements to the library building.
“I am deeply concerned about the impact of this $11.5 million,” she said last Wednesday. “Mayors come and mayors go, and citizens and homeowners remain. While I recognize the political components of these decisions, I just want to recognize that we are a community, and I want our money to be able to support our community.”
Days later, she received notice that her services were no longer needed on the TIRZ board.
“I was notified today that my term had expired and I was not going to be reappointed,” Hunt said Tuesday morning. “I understand that several of my colleagues had similar conversations. I also understand that I serve until new board members are appointed and approved by City Council. I am not able to discuss this now.”
A STRING OF SURPRISES
Surprise announcements have become par for the course in recent months as Whitmire has sought to fix a chain-reaction of issues at the historic, but increasingly run-down Freed-Montrose Library on Montrose Boulevard.
One day after the Abdelraoufsinno published an investigation into the deteriorating conditions at the Library, Houston Public Library leaders surprised the mayor and City Council by announcing the building’s permanent closure. A day later, Whitmire replaced the library system’s longtime executive director Rhea Lawson.
He then walked back the Montrose branch’s closure to a temporary one, and in May, Whitmire announced at a news conference that he would block the library’s relocation to the Montrose Collective, a mixed-use development on Westheimer. That news surprised City Council and the developer of the new location, where the city already had invested millions of dollars in the deal.
With the move off the table, interim library director Cynthia Wilson told city council members during a budget hearing that the mayor’s administration and the library were seeking solutions to fund more than $10 million in needed fixes for the Freed-Montrose branch. Over the course of a couple weeks, this took shape as a $11.5 million line item in TIRZ 27’s draft budget.
Then on Wednesday, TIRZ members pointed out a new surprise: Montrose-Freed is actually located within the bounds of TIRZ 2. This week, Ashley Small, a spokeswoman for the Midtown TIRZ, confirmed the library’s location within TIRZ 2, “as part of the new annexation in 2015. We are currently in communication with the City of Houston to determine the best path forward.”
(Editor's note: A previous version of this story quoted an error on the year in which the Montrose library was annexed by the Midtown TIRZ. The correct year of annexation is 2015. )
Another surprise move also surfaced as a result of last week’s meeting: The city is pausing construction of the $19 million regional library on South Victory Drive in Acres Home to free up funds to pay for other capital needs across the library system. Several city council members have acknowledged that the Landing’s reporting about this was the first they’d heard of plans to pause what has been a highly anticipated addition to the Acres Home community.
SHUFFLING BOARDS
This is not the first time Whitmire has excused members of a board in one sweeping move. In March, Whitmire elected not to reappoint members of the Houston Public Library Foundation Board amid financial concerns centered around the board’s issuance of checks that would not cash. A month earlier, Whitmire similarly overhauled the Houston Housing Authority’s board.
The mayor has the authority to relieve board members from their positions after the expiration of their terms without any input from City Council. Refilling the vacant seats requires council approval.
Still, Kamin said, previous administrations have informed council members before clearing out such boards. The fact that the “mayor has unilaterally decided” to significantly change the board’s composition came as one of several shocks to Kamin in recent days. Kamin noted concerns about the potential cancellation of infrastructure projects to free up funds for the library.
“As district council members, we work day in and day out in our neighborhoods with our residents.” Kamin said. “And we have all worked extremely hard to create meaningful safety-based infrastructure projects. When I read your coverage, I was extremely concerned about the directive to cut projects that money has already been spent on — seemingly on a whim.”
The TIRZ has been at the center of several high-profile issues in recent months, including a debate pitting the preservation of trees along Montrose Boulevard with the need for safer pedestrian access.
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