A week has passed since FOX 26 News reported emerging fears that Harris County was proposing criteria for funding flood protection projects that would favor some low-income neighborhoods.
Those protests came from a Congressman, a Harris County Commissioner, a local mayor and the Lake Houston Chamber of Commerce.
Houston City Council member Dave Martin called the proposed “equity” component for distributing the $2.5 billion local bond dollars “social engineering” which ignores the pledge of “worst first.”
“Greg, I think your reporting was 100 percent accurate,” said Martin. “I think because of your reporting, in identifying what I’m going to call a ‘bait and switch’ approach, a letter was sent out Wednesday, to all the legislators, who got involved in Austin because of the low and moderate income level that was going to be used as criteria to determine how these projects were going to be sequenced.”
“Harris County had 23 public meetings, all across Harris County,” added Martin. “At each and every public meeting, there was never a low-to-moderate income, an equity factor included in those conversations.”
In response to concerns generated by the FOX 26 story, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo did in fact dispatch a letter to Houston-area lawmakers calling our story “misleading” and “inaccurate.”
While FOX 26 reported Hidalgo’s pledge to “execute” all projects approved by voters, the county judge said that the reporting was unclear to viewers and caused fear.
In a face-to-face interview on Thursday, Hidalgo confirmed that the economic vulnerability of underserved neighborhoods should factor into the order that flood projects are undertaken.
“There are some areas that haven’t seen a project in a very long time, that would never see a project were it not for these equity guidelines,” said Hidalgo. “Equity is a factor. Equity is the factor.”
Hidalgo added that many low-to-middle income areas have been shortchanged by federal guidelines which favor projects in neighborhoods with the highest property values.
“Throughout our county, we have to be able to work and come up with an order that doesn’t only look at high property values,” said Hidalgo. “It ultimately hurts all of us. It’s the right thing to do to look at things more broadly and it’s the common sense thing to do.”
Hidalgo would not outline how the potential equity standards under consideration would impact the $900 million local bond dollars still uncommitted to specific projects. She did say that since the FOX 26 story aired, the low-income standard for deciding “equity” has been at least temporarily abandoned in favor of a different metric.
“How long has it been since a project was last done? That actually better gets at vulnerable neighborhoods than asking income level,” said Hidalgo.
And to critics, Judge Lina Hidalgo offered this message.
“It is not right, nor is it fair, nor is it accurate to create a class warfare around this,” said Hidalgo.
There is at least one more public hearing on the issue.
It has been over 60 years since affirmative action began. We’ve had that much time to work on reversing attitudes regarding discrimination and — for the most part — America has learned to stop discriminating.
However, it seems that a portion of the population has determined that the history books don’t present preventative measures that tell us how not to do things. Rather, that part of the population has determined to turn the failures of the past around to see if they will fail again.
Therefore, let me give Lina a message she wouldn’t hear even if she were in a mood to listen to conservative, Christian people: Stop now.
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Lina Hidalgo releases 1000 inmates in violation of governor’s order
Calling the Harris County Jail, ‘a ticking time-bomb,’ Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo announced Tuesday she plans to sign an order that could release 1000 or more inmates from the Harris County Jail.
In a Tuesday afternoon news conference Hidalgo said they are non-violent inmates awaiting trial on felony charges, without prior convictions on violent crimes.
“Public health experts have made clear it is a dangerous situation,” Hidalgo said casting the decision as a public health one, “the cramped conditions there make it impossible to enforce social distancing.”
Trying to stay ahead of critics, Hidalgo said there is ‘no room for politics’ in this matter.
While the order is not yet signed, the judge and county officials are on a tight time frame saying they aim to complete the releases within 96 hours (4 days).
There is not yet a list of offenders who would be considered for release as the order is still not finalized. The judge and her attorneys say anyone under domestic violence protective orders, felony DWI suspects and accused home and business burglars would not be eligible for release.
The proposed order steers clear of an executive order signed by Governor Greg Abbott. That banned the release of any violent criminals. The proposed Harris County plan doesn’t include them.
Once a list of inmates is created, the District Attorney, District Court Judges, and pre-trial services will have eight hours to review the list and raise objections. The county says once that is complete, it aims to release up to 250 inmates per day.
Judge Hidalgo did say she had consulted elected leaders and police chiefs. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo was apparently not one of them.
Acevedo told ABC13 in a statement, “As the largest user of the Harris County Jail, I have not discussed the plan with the judge, nor have I been given any specifics.” Noting an 18.9% increase in burglaries in the last two weeks, Acevedo tweeted, ” hope people who burglarize vehicles, residences and buildings aren’t released in large numbers.”
Adding to the complexity of a plan, a group of lawyers representing thousands of inmates at the jail has filed court documents asking a federal judge to release even more inmates to avoid a ‘public health catastrophe.’
This really isn’t so much a release based on COVID-19. This is a continuation of Lina’s bail reforms.
As mentioned during previous posts, Harris County (Democrat) judges have been releasing inmates (even murder suspects) on a regular basis. Therefore, I think this must be more of a case of bail reform than of releasing inmates due to coronavirus fears.
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Up to 180 days in jail for people who violate Hidalgo’s “Stay home, work safe” order
Violations of the Stay Home-Work Safe order are subject to fines and up to 180 days in jail. Please seek legal counsel if you are unsure if a certain business, service, or function is considered essential.
With the release of 1,000 inmates, why jail people for violating her order?
If the county must release inmates to avoid infecting criminals, then why not prelude any ideas that the jail time for “Stay Home-Work Safe” orders will be enforced? Why not just say that only fines will be levied? Then again, the reason that the Democrat judges released murderers was that the judges surmised that the murderers could not afford bail. If Ms. Hidalgo imposes large fines on people who feel they must travel from their houses, then Ms. Hidalgo is being inconsistent.
Hopefully, Ms. Hidalgo will not start to follow the example of Bill DeBlasio (where he threatened churches or synagogues that defied his shutdown order with permanent shutdown). If Ms. Hidalgo starts to crack down on Christian meetings that exceed 10 people (like her political rally that pictured below that exceeded 15-20), then we will know this “stay home, work safe” was nothing but a political exercise.
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Lina Hidalgo gathers masses to Montrose to encourage Democrats to complete census
Texas’ biggest counties and cities, including Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, are shouldering that burden on their own, officials said during a launch event at the Children’s Museum Monday.
Lina Hidalgo (hypocrite and Democrat) not enforcing social distancing
“We are doing everything we can to make sure that folks participate, said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. She called Census 2020 a crucial moment “to live up to that right that we have…to be counted.”
More lack of social distancing among the crowd in this predominantly Democrat area
Amid heightened tensions for immigrants under the Trump administration, Hidalgo made an impassioned plea, in the Spanish version of her remarks, to prospective participants to set aside any fears about filling out the form.
Packed like sardines for this Montrose event with Lina Hidalgo
“The Census is very safe, I want to make that very clear, that under penalty of prison or fine, nobody can share your personal information from the Census — not ICE, the FBI, no organization or federal agency can access your personal information about the Census,” she said in Spanish.
These Democrats send us home from jobs for weeks on end, empty our jails, but do not practice social distancing or limit their crowds to less than 10.
As a dad, Christian, technical writer, fledgling professor, blogger, I try to address every day and every person as if I am an embodiment of Mark 1:1 (The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;).
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84 thoughts on “Four stories on the hypocrisy of Lina Hidalgo”
A week has passed since FOX 26 News reported emerging fears that Harris County was proposing criteria for funding flood protection projects that would favor some low-income neighborhoods.
In a Tuesday afternoon news conference Hidalgo said they are non-violent inmates awaiting trial on felony charges, without prior convictions on violent crimes.
Mark 1:1 
84 thoughts on “Four stories on the hypocrisy of Lina Hidalgo”