Alexandra Mealer – Metro Board Member Joins Houston Morning News, June 10th, 2024

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
How bad things are the twenty twentyfour election, What's really happening? Everything
in your world? Here and AbroadNews Radio seven forty katrh Alexandra Mieler joins
us measuro board member, former candidatefor Harris County Judge. How bad do
you see the problem being, Alexandra, Well, thanks for having me on,

(00:21):
and I think the problems are veryalarming. It's very disappointing when you
think about the once in a generationalopportunity we had to really right size the
county, and instead of using thismulti billion dollar opportunity to restore infrastructure,
restore criminal justice system, they've spentall this money really kind of pushed it

(00:46):
down the drain to a bunch ofpolitically connected nonprofits with little to show for
it. They's some have a lotof programs. I'm thinking about the Basic
Income program twenty million dollars in federalmoney. The problem is when the Fed
money runs out, the taxpayers areleft holding the bag for the administrators.
The administration, the bureaucracy, andthe people who have on good faith,

(01:10):
tried to get this money for themselves. No very well said share. The
largest kind of chunk of funding wentto jobs and education started, both things
that are well outside of the scope. So we spent two hundred million on
that, and what is the universalbasic income? Preschool jobs training. If
we're spending two hundred million, youshould expect some staggering numbers. But instead

(01:33):
we have a jail that can't passinspection. We spent fifty million a year
just trying to send them out ofstate. County recently voted to at least
do some repairs, but everybody knowswe need a new jail. We should
be running night court, we needmore law enforcement and those things that the
county is constitutionally mandated. They havestarved the last few years, and so
we just have this massive bloat andit really becomes kind of the rally call

(02:00):
why we need all the listeners togo out and vote in these h cat
elections, because for the last tenyears the county has actually run surpluses and
we're running deficits. And one ofthe big reasons is they're so backlogged with
property appraisal appeals. They're starting tosettle them, and so that's why you're
seeing this big effort to try totake control of that board back because it's

(02:21):
give me more pain for property taxowners as you have the type of partisans
backed by the labor unions, allof Rodney Elis's kind of foot soldiers that
don't want to see citizens have fairproperty tax appeals because that's really one of
the only ways that they're going tobe able to plug this budget is if
they keep jacking up your appraisals.Is there an understanding anywhere in Harris County
government that you know, there arecertain core things that the city in a

(02:46):
county is supposed to do for thepeople, the taxpayers who live there,
public education, the infrastructure that youmentioned, police and fire, of the
public safety issues. Everything outside ofthat is a luxury, is it not
him? Nona? You know,very grateful. We do have our one
conservative, you know, Commissioner Ramsey, who abstutely says deferred maintenance as a

(03:07):
crime. And when you're staring atthis county that had to take up a
bunch of road bonds just to youknow, do basic road maintenance, and
then you know, took out allthose bonds for flood control, and as
we've seen the areas that flood themost, that all also have to happen
to be conservatives. They haven't seenany of this funding. So a very

(03:30):
challenging situation, very easily solvable,but to your point, you have to
acknowledge what are the core functions ofcounty government, and right now they've really
seen this as an opportunity to transformthe county, to make it the kind
of hyper progressive patronage system that's reallybenefiting a lot of politically connected nonprofits.

(03:51):
Patronage is are a key word there, because it's not taking care of infrastructure.
It's social programs going to the peoplewho administer the social programs, which
happen to be the best right.No, absolutely, most of these programs
was really sad. Is if youlook at how they kind of break out.
The spending at least thirty percent isall the overhead. You think about
it. Every time you used tostart a new program, you have to

(04:12):
bring in the politically connected consultants.Then all the administration where you know,
as far as dollars is even goingto an end user, maintaining your storing
is going to help more people.And one of the tests I think of
county government is you know, howquickly can you help as many people?
And all of these programs they're doingextremely small numbers, you know, maybe
six thousand, a couple of thousand, but you're spending ten twenty million for

(04:38):
those groups, Yeah, versus somethingas simple as hiring more law enforcement for
getting through the backlock, you know, helps hundreds of thousands of people.
It's not about helping the taxpayers,it's about helping themselves. It feels like,
at least to those of us whoare taxpayers. Alexandra, good to
hear from you, Thanks for yourtime. Sure to appreciate it that as
a Metro board member, Alexandra Meeler