COLUMN ONE : Houston Banks on Mayor Bob : Take heart, Richard Riordan. Another mogul-turned-politician has used business sense to help revive his slumping city. But it may not be easy to follow his lead.
Memo to: Richard Riordan.
Re: Managing Los Angeles Inc.
As you’re loping toward first base after a month as Los Angeles’ mayor, another businessman-turned-politician is rounding third in this Texas city after hitting what popularity polls suggest is a grand-slam home run.
No doubt you’ve been encouraged by the results here, where real estate developer-cum-mayor Bob Lanier is enjoying an amazingly long honeymoon with the citizenry thanks to his brisk, businesslike approach and rapid-fire follow-through on a wide range of campaign promises.
In a city beset by a monstrous crime wave during the 1991 mayoral campaign, two of his major vows were to improve public safety and build a harmonious, multicultural community. Sound familiar?
Since taking office 19 months ago, the lanky, 68-year-old Lanier--you might recall playing tennis with him many years ago in his back yard--has succeeded beyond even his own wildest dreams. That’s despite (or, as some observers suspect, because of) his lack of experience in elective office.
You and he--heading up cities with remarkable similarities in terms of ethnic makeup, sprawl and problematic economies--are in the vanguard of a movement started by Ross Perot, who views the country as one big troubled corporation in need of a savvy CEO.
In Houston, Lanier has cut the murder rate 23%; paved roads, built sidewalks and installed street lights in the inner city; appointed members of minority groups to key positions; constructed miles of hiking and biking trails and revamped--or, as critics contend, trashed--the auto-reliant city’s mass transit plans.
His most notable achievement--reducing major crime by bolstering police presence--has won plaudits from President Clinton.
Perhaps most important, he has restored morale to this assertive, muggy place, which is ever so slowly bouncing back from the collapse brought on by the energy bust and attendant banking and real estate debacles of the 1980s.
To the joy of many Houstonians, he has cut to the chase and demon strated a knack for getting things done, just as a shrewd corporate bigwig would.
“The most important private-sector technique he has brought to City Hall is a sense of urgency,” said Marc J. Shapiro, president and chief executive of Texas Commerce Bancshares, a banking company based here. “He’s willing to pick up the phone and call people to unclog things.”
As a businessman, you also are used to making speedy decisions and seeing quick results. In fact, it was your can-do attitude on the campaign trail that helped propel you into public office for the first time--at age 63.
You might glean plenty of ideas from Houston’s mayor, who is by turns avuncular and hard-nosed, charming and tough.
But don’t go getting the notion that, if you simply treat Los Angeles like a business, things will go as smoothly or happen as quickly for you as for Lanier. His methods scarcely provide a blueprint for healing your own complex city, which is more than twice Houston’s size and still raw from last year’s riots.
Moreover, he benefits from Houston’s strong-mayor system. You, on the other hand, must grapple with autonomous department heads protected by Civil Service rules.
To some Houstonians, his style smacks of a return to good-ol’-boy politics, complete with cigar-smoke-filled back rooms. There’s a sense that if Lanier wants something done, he and his pals just smooth the way.
“There’s always a danger when you have government operating in a back-room fashion,” said Kathy Whitmire, Lanier’s predecessor and now director of Rice University’s Institute for Policy Analysis. “That’s something Los Angeles has to watch out for.”
Lanier--or Mayor Bob, as the gap-toothed Democrat likes to be called--has encountered little resistance from the City Council. Admirers say the ethnically diverse panel has cooperated because he is persuasive and has good ideas. Critics say council members are buffaloed by Lanier’s wealth and power.
He comes to any debate armed with facts and figures. “Give him a Magic Marker and a white boardroom easel, and he’s a happy man,” said Alan Bernstein, a political writer for the Houston Chronicle.
He has also brought a sense of discipline to his staff, who each month put together a two-inch-thick binder updating the status of city projects, from debt refinancings to repairs of leaky fire station roofs.
At 6 feet, 4 inches (“even taller in my cowboy boots,” the mayor says) and 240 pounds, Lanier is the epitome of the long, tall Texan. A self-made millionaire, he comes from humble roots, having grown up during the Depression in a small wooden shack without indoor plumbing near Baytown, a section of Houston filled with chemical plants and refineries. His father gave up Methodist preaching to work at a refinery.
Lanier reported for newspapers in high school and college, then put himself through law school. Soon after graduation, he started his own practice and began dabbling in real estate. He later also bought distressed banks, fixed them up, then sold them, often for whopping profits that went into more real estate.
While running for mayor, he somewhat reluctantly ditched the chi-chi white limousine that used to shepherd him from his mansion to the office of his real estate company.
Before his election, he would occasionally fly in authors or scientists--among them Nobel laureate Linus Pauling--to spend a day kicking around ideas. His busy schedule as mayor has forced him to cut back on his avid reading--to just two books a week.
Critics maintain that his imposing heft and forceful manner have helped him ramrod his agenda through the City Council and forgo the public checks and balances that Whitmire strongly espoused.
But, with Lanier’s approval ratings running at nearly 90%, no challengers have yet stepped up to take him on.
You have made it clear that you will bring to City Hall many of the well-honed techniques that served you well in the private sector and in your ample behind-the-scenes participation in local government.
But, as you know, government behaves differently from law firms and corporations. So it remains to be seen whether your acumen as a venture capitalist, investor, attorney and buyout artist has any relevance in coping with the crisis in confidence in your fast-changing, fractious city--with its dueling tribes and maligned business climate.
Lanier’s tenure has been all but free of contention, a circumstance not likely to come your way.
The exception is his highly publicized battles with the city controller, George Greanias, over Lanier’s creative maneuvers to get the city out of its fiscal hole and pay for improvements without layoffs or increased taxes.
The mayor has refinanced more than $500 million in old debts and borrowed anew. Critics say Lanier is treating Houston like one big land deal, stretching out a gigantic “mortgage” that will come due for some future mayor, long after he’s out of the public arena. Sort of like Santa Claus with a credit card.
“Lanier takes every dollar and maximizes it right today,” Greanias said. “I worry about the consequences down the road.”
As a fellow capitalist with a philanthropist’s heart, perhaps you can identify with Lanier’s impatient crusade to help those in need.
Your campaign speeches sounded almost like an echo of his: Get tough on crime and meld a diverse city.
Even your reputation-scorching runoff races were similar. You were both 60-something white businessmen who beat younger, minority politicians.
Like you, Lanier is a newcomer to elective office but no stranger to the public sector.
Of his successful bid for office, he said: “I would’ve preferred to serve as guru, . . . but nobody else stepped up to the plate with my particular views.”
Previously, he served as chairman of the powerful Texas Highway Commission and Houston’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. Along the way, Lanier championed road projects then profited by selling land along the roadways.
In the campaign, he harshly criticized a proposed rail system, arguing that the short-line commuter run would cost a fortune yet do little to serve Houston’s spread-out, multiple centers of commerce.
Instead, thanks to a controversial gambit, he managed to wrest away sales-tax funds that had been set aside for rail and use them to beef up police patrols. You, meanwhile, have pledged to lease Los Angeles International Airport to a private contractor and dedicate the proceeds to boosting police strength. Your idea will undoubtedly prove much more difficult to pull off.
Whether appointed or elected, Lanier loves to “do” the deal. This is a man who recently sold his 18-room, Colonial-style mansion in the city’s tony River Oaks section but kept the rose-studded yard, which he plans to sell separately.
Although Lanier has not declared for another two-year term, the assumption is that he will run again if his health holds out. During a recent radio call-in program, Lanier fielded a bevy of softball questions and comments, many of them complimentary, that surprised even the mayor in their gentleness. If he wants the job again, it would appear to be his.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bob has a few pieces of advice for you that frankly aren’t all that different from what any other mayor might expect to hear:
* Maintain your credibility. Hire more police officers. Create the jobs you promised.
* Constantly balance values and priorities, deciding where you need to spend your money and where it will do the most good.
* Figure out how to improve city services without increasing the tax load while solving a financial crisis all at once.
* Take a long-range look at the city. Decide what your values are and what kind of city you want to become.
And when it all seems overwhelming, Lanier has some encouraging words:
“I really believe we can make a difference in the lives of people. It’s a better feeling than any other I’ve had in my life.”
Houston Fact Sheet
* History: Founded in 1836 by two real estate promoters. Named after Sam Houston, commander of troops who won Texas’ independence from Mexico.
* Population: 1.6 million
* Area: 556 square miles
* Major industries: Shipping, petroleum, petrochemicals
* Major ethnic groups: 60% white, 30% black, 16% Latino
* Large universities: Rice, University of Houston
