During city council meetings this week, Houston Mayor John Whitmire unilaterally decided to divert the funding previously designated to cover the cost of lighting on the Montrose bridges towards the homelessness initiative he recently announced.
In September 2023, the Houston City Council voted to proceed with lighting six Montrose bridges over I-69. At that point, the vote entailed the city of Houston covering two-thirds of the total cost, with Houston First, the organization primarily in charge of tourism advertising, tasked with covering the rest of the cost and maintenance over 10 years.
Now, Whitmire has decided to redirect those funds to projects he says are more important.
Councilmember Edward Pollard spoke up to question the mayor’s authority in deciding to redirect funds that had been previously voted on by the city council. Pollard specifically mentioned that he’d spoken with City Attorney Arturo G. Michel to find out whether that fell under the mayor’s scope of authority; Michel told him that he’d have to investigate it and get back to him.
After bringing up that conversation, Pollard said, “If we’re up here as a body and we approve something, then only we should be able to have the say-so on if the dollars go forward or not. If not, then I don’t see the point in why we’re sitting up here.” Pollard then asked the city attorney during the meeting what would happen to those funds in a situation like this.
As soon as the question was asked, Whitmire proceeded to answer, saying, “I take full responsibility for diverting funds for decorative lights on one of our state highways to what is the biggest threat to Houston First’s success… I take full responsibility [for] representing Houstonians… The bottom line is, we’re broke. And if we want to continue to have a great city, we’ve got to be wise with our expenditures.”
To showcase those priorities, Mary Benton, spokeswoman for the mayor’s office, announced that the main priority for this sort of funding is the recently announced homelessness initiative. Mayor Whitmire said this funding will aid the initiative to increase safety and tourism in Houston.
City Councilmember Abbie Kamin interjected to point out that, in her opinion, the lights were less an art project and more about safety: “It’s not about the beautification. Although many in the Houston community love the lights, it’s about we don’t actually have any streetlights or lighting on those bridges. There are railings that are coming down. It’s not safe and we do need to address that.”
On Wednesday, the Houston City Council approved Houston First’s budget, now excluding the Montrose lights, so all other projects will proceed as planned. Houston First noted that all the designs for the project are complete, and if they’re able to find alternative funding, the project could move forward in the future.
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