The Annise Parker METRO Board's greatest task

In the spring of 2010, Houston's then-newly-minted Mayor Annise Parker, part of whose election platform included a cleaning-house of our region's beleaguered mass-transit agency, appointed replacements to the City of Houston's majority on METRO's Board of Directors: Gilbert Garcia (her nomination for Chairman), Allen Watson, Christof Spieler, Dwight Jefferson, and Carrin Patman (later replaced by Diann Lewter).

Annise is now in her third and last two-year term as Mayor, and with the ascent of her successor in January 2016 will presumably come a new slate of METRO Board members.  And God knows what clown or brilliant saint We, the People of Houston, will elect.

Mayor Parker took office in January 2010 and immediately appointed a METRO Transition Task Force, the findings of which in March 2010 gave her cause to bring in her five new appointees to replace the ones put in by the previous mayoral administration.  The first Board meeting of these new Board members was in late April 2010.

This Board's history may be divided into three phases, the first beginning in April 2010 and consisting of righting METRO's ship in regard to getting rid of its controversial then-President/CEO, Frank Wilson, restoring the agency's standing with the Federal government regarding transit funding and BuyAmerica, and a host of other issues.

This phase could be said to have been concluded for the most part by mid-2012 when the Board transitioned into finally being able to go forward into the future.  System Re-imagining began at this time and in spring 2013, the immense process of bringing about a more-streamlined and organized Procurement Manual was begun (more on that in a future post), thereby making it easier and less-confusing for small businesses to get the ball rolling on doing business with METRO.

We are now in August 2014, at which point the new Procurement Manual is just about or is altogether complete and in-force.  Revamping certain aspects of how METRO goes about its public safety and real estate doings is in the works as the agency heads toward a foregone-conclusion-approval of System Reimagining in September-ish of this year, which will be another milestone and one that marks this METRO Board's transition into the third and most-important phase of its existence: setting up METRO for success in such a way the 2016 Board can take up the reins easily.

In part, it will take the Board appointees from the Multi-Cities and Harris County to speak out and loudly when and if the new Board decides to go back to the bad-old-days of 2004-2010.  

As to what Gilbert, Allen, and all angels will need to do to leave things in good order and to do as much as they can to leave behind a Board culture in which doing the right thing is not only possible, but expected, I don't know.  They are wiser than I, and are doubtless thinking on these sorts of matters already.

It will above all require the election of a Mayor of Houston who genuinely cares for mass-transit and who is competent to appoint quality people to the Board and then goes ahead and appoints those people. 

Without this, we are sunk.