Other than Parker's foray into social issues and whatever venom Brown seemed to attract from suburbanites, they've pretty much all been in the same vein as Lanier and Whitmire: who ultimately patched things up after the rail and term-limits fight. Business-friendly technocrats who would all be Republican if everyone hadn't hightailed it to Sugarwoodlake.
I liked Mayorbob, but he was gifted a giant pile of money and spent it. That's why he accomplished so much while in office. It would have been a lot different without the giant pile. Just sayin.
It was a metro fund that was designated for rail. Because he helped defeat rail, Mayorbob spent that money on infrastructure.
He spent it on getting more cops and whatever else was left on infrastructure. He ran on getting more cops on the streets.
Mayor Bob is a prime example of crony politics. Houston could have had a leading edge monorail system worthy of "Space City" but he killed it with easy political ridicule only to spend the federal money on an antiquated street car system that does nothing for real transportation needs and everything for his buddy developers that owned the Mid-town property. There was a lot to like about Mayor Bob though every time a car crashes with the street train I ask WTF?
Dare I say the most popular political figure in Houston history. And even he couldn't get zoning pushed through to law, ha. No one since him has tried, for good reason. And still to this day we have strip clubs next to school zones. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
I had no big negative or positive about him Interesting then was no one blames him for the Oilers leaving on his watch Rocket River
Not true. I assume you say this because the obituaries don't mention it. Mayorbob looked like a miscalculating buffoon in that case. He was totally clueless and had no concept of how limited his leverage was in that fiasco. The guy who doesn't get enough credit for the Oilers leaving is Drayton "Bud Dome" McLane. What a liar.
Houston had had enough of Bottom-line Bud suck. The teams sucked and his constant blackmail in the midst of an oil recession sucked.
Lanier wasn't going to be unseated as Mayor, unless there's some quantifiable tax or economic loss then the leverage probably wasn't worth having in terms of large-scale, long-term political or administrative goals.
