Parker Asks Locke to Show Us the Money

It's a little hard to believe that this late in the game, Locke cannot, or will not, give straight answers to how he will fund the major projects he's proposed. In this exchange from last night's KHOU debate, Parker asks Locke how he would fund one slice of his police plan - providing two-person patrols in high crime areas.

Locke states something no one disagrees with - that it makes sense and should be a priority to put two people in a patrol car in dangerous crime areas. But, he admits he couldn't fund it on day one and doesn't tell how he would fund it on day 10 or day 30 or day 100 or day 365.

I have to think that Locke promised the police two-person patrols and that Parker cautioned them there is no money in the budget for that. This is why fiscal conservatives support Parker - she has a no bull approach to what can or cannot be done. She has a deep working knowledge of the city budget, and knows that Santa is not going to be putting a magic wand in the next mayor's stocking so that she or he can cause money to spring up out of the Reflection Pool in front of City Hall, and be showered upon the police and everyone else who has a good, but costly, idea.

Here's the exchange:



I didn't get to watch the whole debate. Did the debacle over the police's latent fingerprint lab come up?  It appears the City will be spending millions cleaning that up instead of putting more officers on the street, two to a car or even one to a car.