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Mayor John Whitmire proposing a 5% cut across the board, except for fire and police departments.. Tax hikes and increased fees for parking and city services are likely .. The Mayor of Houston says the city is 'broke' after overspending for decades. Experts say the problem has existed for years, but COVID handouts from the federal government helped mask them. ... A tax hike through a bond is expected in November. ... The city has been struggling to make firefighters whole, from meeting its contractual obligation to their pension, to paying backpay and wage hikes that have been promised years...

HOUSTON — The country’s fourth-largest city on Sunday night ordered millions of residents to boil their tap water, citing a morning power outage at a city water purification plant. The city’s school system also announced late Sunday that it would be closed on Monday, at minimum,... ...It wasn’t clear what caused the water plant’s power outage, why it took the city 10 hours to issue a boil water order or how soon the order could be lifted...

Amper, one of the crowd members, said she saw a "girl lying on the floor near me, and we had random people doing CPR on this girl." More than 20 minutes passed, she said, before "actual medical assistants came." Houston police and event security staff stopped the concert "as soon as the situation got to the point where it was overwhelming the resources there," but by then "the damage had been done," Peña, the fire chief, said.

The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) is off to a rocky start with its virtual convention this week. Though the party has worked on putting together a state convention for three years, the coronavirus changed things up at the last minute. Instead of the usual large, in-person convention, it is now a virtual convention. When the convention tried to open Thursday, things did not go smoothly.The RPT planned to stream the virtual convention on its Facebook page and on YouTube beginning at 9:00 a.m. After problems with electronic credentialing of delegates were worked out, the chairman gaveled in the...

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has instructed the Houston First Corporation to cancel the Texas Republican Party's convention slated to be held in person in Houston next week, the mayor announced on Twitter and in an afternoon press conference. Asked why he waited so long to request the event be cancelled, Turner said he hoped the Republican Party would call off the convention first.

Houston State Senator Paul Bettencourt is calling on Mayor Sylvester Turner to halt controversial public housing projects until the coronavirus shutdown is over. The Houston Housing Authority claims it cannot provide public records on the planned 84-million-dollar land deals because it is closed for business, all while they’re moving ahead to close on the real estate deals. “It is anti-transparency,” says Sen. Bettencourt. “Just because you’ve got a COVID pandemic, there’s nothing that should suspend public knowledge of these projects and you shouldn’t use that as a reason not to provide the information. The mayor should not be proceeding.” The...

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner made a televised plea to Houston’s criminal population to just chill and take a break from committing crimes until after the COVID-19 crisis had passed.

HOUSTON (AP) — Houston’s incumbent mayor won a second term on Saturday night, holding off a millionaire trial lawyer whose previous support of President Donald Trump had become one of the main campaign issues. Mayor Sylvester Turner defeated Tony Buzbee during Saturday’s runoff election. Unofficial results released by the Harris County Clerk’s Office on Sunday morning show Turner capturing just over 56% of the vote. More than 200,000 votes were cast.

“I wasn't in the meeting with the president so I don’t know what he did or didn't say. I can tell you my family, Heidi as a child lived in Africa, she lived in Kenya and Nigeria. Her parents were missionaries there. My brother-in-law has been a missionary with his wife and sons in Haiti for many years,” Cruz said. President Trump denied using the vulgarity. “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled...

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner can be thankful that he has the magic "D" by his name. Had he been a Trump supporting Republican, he would have already been crucified in the mainstream media for urging that residents of Houston, Texas not evacuate even though there was already a high risk of severe flooding from Hurricane Harvey at the time he made his faulty recommendation. As a result, the MSM has so far been mostly very circumspect reporting about his non-evacuation order beginning with his Friday tweet:

Despite repeated attempts, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has reported that he has been unable to reach Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Abbott has called Turner's cell phone "several times" to offer aid and whatever he may need in this time of crisis.

HOUSTON—A split between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner over whether the metropolis should have been evacuated is raising questions about officials’ response to damaging floodwaters as a catastrophe continues to engulf the region. Mr. Turner, a Democrat, and other local officials urged residents to stay in their homes as Hurricane Harvey, which has since downgraded to a tropical storm, approached Houston on Friday. But at a Friday news conference, Gov. Abbott, a Republican, suggested otherwise. “Even if an evacuation order hasn’t been issued by your local official, if you’re in an area between Corpus Christi and...

HOUSTON – The City of Houston is asking the state for $43 million to help with flood relief projects along Brays Bayou. The announcement comes after the city experienced flooding last week causing bayous to rise out of their banks. Some residents say their homes have taken on water several times in the last two years. “We are here to announce that relief is certainly on the way,” said Mayor Sylvester Turner. “My hope is that, after this is completed, you will no longer have to rush to get furniture and carpet off the floors when heavy rain is forecast....

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner argued on Sunday that an evacuation of Harris county, which is currently seeing “unprecedented” flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, would have led to a far worse calamity for area residents. "If you think the situation right now is bad, you give an order to evacuate, you are creating a nightmare. Especially when it's not planned," Turner said during an update Sunday on the city's response to Hurricane Harvey. Turner argued that an evacuation order has to be "very well-coordinated all the way from Houston to the destination point." "If you do it or attempt...

A Facebook post for a protest dubbed “Destroy the Confederacy” at Sam Houston Park in Houston on Saturday warns “*Do NOT bring children.” A group “committed to protecting Texas and Texas History,” “This Is Texas Freedom Force” (TITFF), says demonstrators plan to tear down a Confederate statue. They also warn there will be violence. The promoters of the protest tell potential attendees: “We will meet at Sam Houston Park (right in front of Houston City hall) to demand that the City of Houston ERASE THE CONFEDERACY! It is a STAIN IN THE FABRIC of our history that needs to be...

A shooting in Houston wounded two police officers Tuesday, one critically, as investigators engaged in a frantic hunt for one suspect. Officials urged people in the area, in the city's southwest, to shelter in place, Fox 26 reported. An additional suspect was killed in the gunfire, according to KTRK. Police were approaching a home in a burglary call when shots rang out, sources told Fox 26. One officer was in critical condition at Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center but injuries were unclear. The officer officer was recovering in stable condition at Ben Taub Hospital. Aerial video from the scene showed...

In the wake of the presidential election, Mayor Sylvester Turner is taking steps to promise undocumented immigrants or newly arrived refugees that he will strive to keep them safe and respect their rights in Houston. The election of a certain someone, whom he did not name, will not change Houston's commitment to welcoming all walks of life and valuing diversity, Turner pledged at a press conference Monday morning. To demonstrate this pledge, Turner has created the Office of New Americans, to help immigrants and refugees integrate into their new communities and access services they may need. He has also launched...

OUSTON - Sylvester Turner won the Houston mayoral runoff election Saturday evening. The polls closed at 7 p.m. Saturday after a day of bad weather worried candidates about voter turnout. ELECTION RESULTS:http://www.khou.com/elections Volunteers for both candidates tailored their phone bank messages on election eve, urging voters to cast their ballots in the morning rather than waiting until the afternoon. Although conventional political wisdom says rainy weather generally works against Democrats, this campaign has been anything but conventional.

Democratic Rep. wants to bring video slot machines to Texas. I wish someone would tell him about the woman who lost more than $30,000 at Joliet, Ill., casinos. I wish someone would tell him that Dina Abdelhaq was convicted of suffocating her 7-week-old baby to collect insurance money and feed her gambling habit. I wish someone would tell Turner about addiction in Wisconsin. That there were six Gamblers Anonymous meetings in the state when Indian tribes opened casinos in 1992 — and 13 years later there are 61. I wish someone would talk to Democratic Rep. Ismael "Kino" Flores. He...

Oct. 4, 2003, 1:34AM Scheme to confuse voters in mayor's race is thwarted By JOHN WILLIAMS Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Political Writer An aborted scheme to dilute support for a major candidate by putting another man with the same name on the Nov. 4 ballot has touched two campaigns and is roiling the rhetoric in Houston's mayoral race. It is a bizarre tale that includes a Democratic U.S. congressman, a secret tape recording, a $5,000 campaign check and a floppy straw hat sold for $1,200. And it is a tale that raises as many questions as it answers. At the...