Houston Council Candidate Noel Freeman
Noel Freeman is running for At-Large position 4 on the Houston City Council. Mr. Freeman is a Democrat.
Above you see a picture of Mr. Freeman. He is in front of Houston City Hall. Mr. Freeman works for the Department of Public Works in Houston.
What was Mr. Freeman thinking while posing for this picture? He looks serious enough, but he might have been thinking of something silly.
I think Mr. Freeman was thinking about this truck full of puppies you see below.
Mr. Freeman first attracted my regal notice by making a friend request on Facebook. Blogging is an act of vanity and I’m glad for all attention.
Mr. Freeman and I later exchanged messages on Facebook regarding the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. I’d mentioned I was thinking of visiting the library and Mr. Freeman said such a visit would be worth my time.
Reading about Mr. Freeman on Facebook, I learned he is a graduate of Texas A & M in College Station.
Checking out his campaign web home, I learned he is a member of the Houston Area Stonewall Democrats.
I never get tired of telling people that I was a Stonewall Cincinnati endorsed candidate for the Cincinnati Board of Education in 1997.
Mr. Freeman is a former Republican who supported Barack Obama in 2008. He had a conversion.
Below is how Michelangelo painted St. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.
Mr. Freeman addressed his political switch in a comment on the Houston blog Dos Centavos.
I’ve linked to Mr. Freeman’s campaign web home up at the top of this post. You can see what he is saying. Of course what Mr. Freeman is saying at his web home is what many candidates for office in Houston say.
Mr. Freeman loves Houston. Mr. Freeman is for safe streets. Mr. Freeman is for a strong economy in Houston.
And that’s great—I’m glad Mr. Freeman has these views.
Regular readers here know I have a longstanding concern that the Democratic Party in Houston—and in cities across the nation— use minority voters without offering much in return for the loyalty at the polls. I’ve also said that the concerns of Houston’s many poor people are ignored at election time.
I’d like to see Mr. Freeman please address these issues. What will he do to make the Democratic party in Houston more responsive to the needs and hopes of all Houstonians?
Houston is a Democratic city. Many council races this year will be fought out between Democrats. I’d like to know what Mr. Freeman sees as the role of the Democratic Party in Houston.
Politics is at core an act of imagination. You envision something that does not yet exist and you work to make it real. What does Mr. Freeman see as undone in our city? There people in our city who are not on the agenda at City Hall. What will Mr. Freeman do to get them on the agenda?
I recently met Mr. Freeman for the first time. He seems like an okay guy. He said if I had any questions I should get in touch. All righty—I can do that. I’m going to place the link to this post on his Facebook page and see what he says in reply. I’ll keep the blog reading public updated on this matter.
(Below—The Bush Library in College Station.)
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Welcome To Texas Liberal
Texas Liberal is a blog of politics and political history.
My name is Neil Aquino. Here is my profile.
I can be reached at naa618@att.net.
Additional focuses of the blog are books, art, poetry, personal relationships and, also, sea life and marine mammals.
( The picture above is of the Houston Ship Channel. A narrow channel can lead to a wide sea.)
The signature post of this blog is the Martin Luther King Reading & Reference List. This list is the best of it’s kind on the web.
Another good post is my reciting the words to the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts on Galveston Island, Texas as a ship passes behind.
I live in Houston, Texas and I do sometimes write about political issues in Houston and in Texas.
I also often write about my former hometown of Cincinnati, and about the great beach city of Galveston, Texas.
I define liberalism as a role for government in the economy to help make life more fair, and a broad acceptance of people regardless of who they are.
This is why it says “All People Matter” at the top of the blog.
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Texas Liberal began regular posting on July 25, 2006.
I also blog at the Houston Chronicle as one of eight featured political bloggers, and on Where’s The Outrage? which posts out of North Carolina.
Thanks for reading Texas Liberal.
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Texas Liberal 
Neil, thank you for bringing Freeman to our attention. Were it not for you I wouldn’t have noticed. This year I am going to make an effort to be informed about local races and to vote in it as well. Thank you for making this point over and over again, to good effect, as making me realize how important it is to pay attention to and vote in local races.
However, I would advise that you not go to George Bush’s library. Dick Cheney or one of his nasty little agents will be hiding behind bookshelfes to see what books you pick up and put it in a database somewhere.
Every time I go to the Barbara Bush library in Harris County I can’t shake the feeling that someon’s keeping a tab on who’s reading what. I would even feel more creepy if I went to Bush’s library.
Saleema—Thank you. Given how few people vote in local elections, your vote will count for more.
I don’t think they are watching you.
I’m at least pretty sure they are not.
Don’t forget the PATRIOT ACT
Well you never know. Though I think I might be flattered if somebody was bothering to watch me.
Neil:
Thank you for the wonderful post about me. I enjoyed meeting you, and wish I had been able to dedicate time to responding to your questions earlier. Be warned, my post is a long one.
I have worked for in the Public Works Department for nearly five years and have been dedicated to resolving problems and making our City work better for my fellow Houstonians. Simply put, I’m not running to just get elected to something; I’m running to make a difference in the way our City operates and to make a positive impact on the lives of others and to build a stronger future for our City.
Every candidate has their stump speech, sound bites and usual rhetoric, but many of them don’t have the extensive knowledge of how our City functions on a daily basis or the experience getting results across our City’s government that I do.
With that, I will get to your questions.
“What will he do to make the Democratic party in Houston more responsive to the needs and hopes of all Houstonians?”
Let me start by saying that I really do appreciate the officially non-partisan nature of our elections for City Council. There are so many issues that transcend political party affiliation, and I intend to be a strong representative of all Houstonians, not just Democrats.
However, I think that the Democratic Party here in Houston has struggled for a very long time with getting certain parts of its base out to vote. The demographics of those who vote do not reflect the demographics of the City as a whole. I want to work with the party to find new ways to engage communities with historically low voter turnout and get them engaged in the political process. We have to take ownership of our future, and the only way to do that is to be actively engaged in the process.
“Houston is a Democratic city. Many council races this year will be fought out between Democrats. I’d like to know what Mr. Freeman sees as the role of the Democratic Party in Houston.”
I have to respectfully disagree here. While Democrats currently fill all city-wide elected positions, we still have several very strongly Republican Council districts. I would say Houston is a Democratic-leaning city.
I believe it is important that the Democratic Party in Houston work not only toward advancing its principles, but also toward finding a productive middle ground in those areas that won’t be turning blue any time soon. We learned a lot from the “tyranny of the majority” in recent years, and we owe it to all Houstonians not to do the same thing with the power that the Democratic Party has gained, especially in County seats.
I also think Democrats can work toward building strong bi-partisan relationships that make our City work better. Just look at Anne Clutterbuck – she is tremendously popular among Democrats, and I know a lot of Democrats who would love to see her run for Congress. Bottom line – we have to work with what we can realistically get, and we just won’t get some parts of the City for a long time.
“What does Mr. Freeman see as undone in our city?”
This is quite the can of worms. In the interest of keeping this relatively short, I will touch on just a few issues.
First, I think we need to strengthen our economic base by attracting new industries. Everyone knows we are the energy capital of the world, but we cannot let the energy industry have a strangle-hold on our economy. Remember all that talk about making the Dome into a movie studio? It highlighted the fact that we haven’t taken advantage of the huge potential for a strong film and television industry. Film & television is only one example of so many different industries we need to attract. If we can attract them effectively, we will not be so dependent on the energy industry’s ups and downs, and we will have a much more diverse array of jobs available.
Secondly, we need to look at real ways to strengthen the future our communities. There is a balance to be struck between preserving our history and heritage and developing (or re-developing) for the future. Without some degree of redevelopment, our communities will fade away and die. We have to keep them fresh and attractive but still respect our heritage. That having been said, we have to keep in mind that just because it’s old doesn’t always mean it should be saved, and just because we can build it doesn’t always mean we should.
Personally, I think mixed-use development will be the future of the inner loop as density continues to increase, and deed restrictions along with form-based codes are still our best means of preserving predictability for our communities. I also support public-private partnerships for shared-use structured parking in some of the most vulnerable communities that face increasing density (i.e. Washington Corridor, etc.).
Finally, we have failed our public infrastructure. We could spend the entire budget on infrastructure projects and still not be up to where we should be. Sadly, every time the budget gets tight, water, sewer, street and drainage projects are always the first to get put on hold, and our capital improvement program (CIP) is not sufficient to meet the needs of what we have to do. I support creating a separate funding program for our most pressing infrastructure projects, especially drainage (which is $3 BILLION behind, by the way). We have to dedicate the funding and lock it in for 10 years – beyond term limits so that the funding can’t get stolen away to other projects.
“There people in our city who are not on the agenda at City Hall. What will Mr. Freeman do to get them on the agenda?”
Houston has the strongest strong-mayor system of government of any major city in the nation. I actually wrote a paper about it in grad school because it is so unique. The reality is that our Mayor controls EVERYTHING on the agenda, meaning the only voice Houstonians really have on the agenda if they disagree with it is the ‘no’ vote of their district Council Member. This form of government tends to make our direct representation very weak, especially for the minority.
We need stronger representation in government, and we can do that by allowing Council to add items to the agenda. I have proposed that Council be allowed to add items to the agenda if both a majority of at-large Council Members and a majority of district Council Members request the item be added. By doing so, Houstonians will have a stronger, more direct voice in the agenda. As it stands today, all fourteen Council Members could want an item placed on the agenda and the Mayor could simply say “no” and be done with it.