Houston City Council to schedule ballot measures this week

Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association president Patrick “Marty” Lancton, center, speaks to the media after a judge sided with the association that Houston’s City Hall improperly electioneered against firefighters pay measure Tuesday July 31, 2018 in Houston. less Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association president Patrick “Marty” Lancton, center, speaks to the media after a judge sided with the association that Houston’s City Hall improperly electioneered ... more Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Staff Photographer / Houston Chronicle Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Staff Photographer / Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Houston City Council to schedule ballot measures this week 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Houston City Council on Wednesday will consider scheduling elections on two ballot measures, but one is likely to spur some debate, as Mayor Sylvester Turner has given the council two options from which to choose.

Houston firefighters gathered tens of thousands of voter signatures and submitted a petition seeking "parity" in pay with police a year ago, but had to sue the city to force it to count the petition. They won, and the petition was validated in May.

Since then, they have stressed that state law requires council members to place the item before voters and that a debate on the merits of the idea should wait until that duty is fulfilled. Council members recently scheduled a rare special meeting on this point but fell short of a quorum.

"All Houston firefighters ask is that after a year of delays by the mayor, Houston voters finally get to have their say on the firefighter pay parity initiative," fire union president Marty Lancton said late last month.

Turner will ask council members whether they want to schedule the vote this November or in November 2019. The mayor acknowledged recently he suspects the council will choose this fall, but he also repeatedly has said the parity idea is unaffordable and will force layoffs, estimating its annual cost at $98 million.

The firefighters sued again last week, arguing a recent city council committee hearing scheduled to discuss the budget impact of the idea was a disingenuous ploy to trash their proposal that amounted to illegal electioneering. A district judge last week agreed with the firefighters and said a video of the meeting should be taken off the city website; that order has been temporarily blocked on appeal.

The other item the council will set for a vote is a "do-over" of ReBuild Houston, the charter amendment that created the city's current program for repairing streets and drainage pipes and ditches in 2010. The state Supreme Court voided the original election because the ballot language did not make clear that the program envisioned a new drainage fee residents would pay.

One point worth noting: If ReBuild is set for this November and passes and parity does not appear on the same ballot, a vote on the parity proposal could be delayed for three years.

Why? First, both items would change the city charter, and state law says city charters can only be amended every two years. Second, election day in 2020 falls on Nov. 3, which is a few days short of two full years because this fall's election day is Nov. 6.

That would push the next charter change until May or November of 2021.