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A local community was effectively shut out of the process for determining whether a local golf course would be allowed to develop into a botanical garden. She call this a failed public process, and provides a useful reminder of who runs Houston.
The more I learn, the more frustrated and infuriated I become. My frustration is not related to whether we should have a Botanic Garden, though I remain ambivalent on this topic, it is more because of the absolute absence of a public process. Frankly, even calling it a public process is misleading, as there was nothing public about it. Increasingly decisions at the city level, and in fact at all levels of government, are made for many of the wrong reasons and without a public vetting process. In our city government agencies cater to tourists and visitors instead of supporting Houstonians; and instead of building our neighborhoods, the City gives away millions to Wal-mart and budgets a $75 million slush fund for private developers to build luxury living downtown. How did we get here? And what does it have to do with the proposed Houston Botanic Garden?
