Houston City Council member Edward Pollard said his initiative to provide more support for District J residents is being halted by Mayor John Whitmire over what Whitmire says is “a conflict of interest” and city rules.

The overview

In January, Pollard announced the rebranding of District J to J City, which he said would provide District J residents with additional services outside of Houston departments to get a faster, more personalized response to community concerns.

However, these initiatives are being challenged and delayed by the mayor’s office. Whitmire said during a Feb. 26 news conference that the rebrand is a “conflict of interest” because the initiatives would outsource services through private contractors.

Whitmire said he believes Pollard is politicizing city services and that the city already has an existing system in place to provide vendors.

“We’re not going to allow a councilman to pick their vendors," he said. "We have a procurement system here in the city that is transparent, open and we get the best prices.”

The J City initiatives involve addressing public safety, maintenance, heavy trash, illegal dumping, animal welfare and home repairs. Pollard said funding came from the district’s Council District Service Fund, which each district gets $1 million from every year.

What they’re saying

Pollard said he is not politicizing city services; rather he just wants to deliver services to his community. He said some of these programs are not new and his district just wants to provide additional funding to these programs.

“We are trying to provide ways to get issues addressed much faster, and there’s no intent to politicize anything,” Pollard told Community Impact. “All we’re trying to do is get the programs to continue.”

Pollard said the initiatives have been going through the correct procurement process, which he said can be done in a few different ways:

• The district can provide funds to a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone or a management district, and their boards will hire a vendor for services.
• A bidding process for work under $50,000 will be made public for vendors to select.
• A current city vendor can provide a proposal to continue the work that they are providing.

“I do not have a preference on who the city vendor is,” Pollard said. “I would like to keep the same vendors that have been doing the programs because they’ve done an excellent job, they understand the district and they understand how to address those issues in a prompt fashion.”

Pollard said Whitmire's office has instructed Houston police to ignore reports that come in through District J’s online reporting portal, and officers will no longer receive overtime dollars for the District J Patrol.

“HPD is also using the existing framework to respond to residents' concerns in Pollard's district and throughout the city without creating an additional strain on the city's budget or new processes,” Whitmire’s spokesperson Mary Benton said in an email.

Pollard said he believes council members should have the ability to run programs that benefit their district, as long as the items are legally permissible.

Something to note

Pollard said the proposal to allocate the funds for J City has already been approved by the city’s legal department and is waiting for the mayor’s approval.

Benton said Whitmire’s administration is working with Pollard to ensure his requests can be fulfilled through the city’s existing use of contractors and procurement, rather than initiating new ones.