Harris County Commissioners Court voted Tuesday to appoint Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones to the board of directors of the Houston-Galveston Area council, replacing County Judge Lina Hidalgo.
The Office of County Administration put the item on the agenda for Tuesday’s Commissioners Court meeting to remove Hidalgo as a board member and make her an alternate for Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia. Briones then was appointed to the second board seat, with Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis as an alternate.
The decision was discussed behind closed doors in executive session. After returning to the courtroom, the court amended the motion to make Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey the alternate for Briones instead of Hidalgo. It passed by a 4-0 vote; Hidalgo was absent from the court meeting for a previously planned vacation.
The council, known as H-GAC, is responsible for distributing millions of dollars in federal funding for transportation and other projects across the region.
Its board of directors has 37 members representing 13 counties, 107 cities and 11 independent school districts. Though Houston and Harris County account for 57 percent of the region’s population, each has only two seats on the board.
After the city and county were awarded just $9 million out of a $488 million federal flood relief program in 2022, critics complained the two local governments’ voting power should be proportional to their populations. Houston voters approved a charter amendment last November requiring the city to withdraw from any regional planning council that did not apportion voting power on the basis of population.
Against that backdrop, a Houston Landing review of H-GAC board minutes and attendance records found Hidalgo missed more than 50 consecutive board meetings over four and a half years.
Harris County’s nominations for the H-GAC board usually originate from the county judge’s office, a spokesperson with the Office of County Administration said in a statement, and the two offices were “in talks” about the agenda item.
Hidalgo attended an H-GAC board meeting on July 16, 2019, and then did not attend another meeting until Jan. 19 of this year. She missed the most recent meeting earlier this month, at which the board was expected to take action on a new proportional voting structure that could give Houston and Harris County more say in decisions. The measure was delayed by 30 days at the request of Houston Mayor John Whitmire.
Instead of its usual complement of two, Harris County had only one member on the H-GAC board in 2023. With Hidalgo not in attendance, the county had zero representation at every board meeting last year, records show.
Ramsey said he did not believe there was a specific reason commissioners decided to put him as an alternate instead of Hidalgo.
“I think they recognize my previous experience of working with H-GAC,” he said. “I think they saw me as someone who can try to get it to move in a direction of collaboration.”
Following the end of Commissioners Court, Briones said she was not available to comment.
The city and county long have had tension with H-GAC, particularly about how the board is structured.
At its Feb. 22, 2022 meeting, Commissioners Court unanimously voted to withhold paying Harris County’s nearly $190,000 annual dues to H-GAC. The court approved all other annual membership payments.
At that meeting, Ramsey asked what the “unintended consequences” would be if the commissioners elected to not pay the county’s dues.
“The consequences are you have to go to all of the meetings,” Ellis said.
“Yeah,” Hidalgo added with a laugh.
Jay K. Aiyer, first assistant county attorney, said there would be no immediate consequences for not paying, but that after six months, remaining members of the H-GAC board could suspend the county’s voting privileges.
A review of Commissioners Court agendas show officials did not publicly discuss paying the county’s yearly H-GAC dues again until Dec. 13, 2022 — beyond the six-month grace period. Harris County was then required to pay more than $378,000 to account for 2022, and the upcoming year.
The makeup of that Commissioners Court largely was the same, with the exception of former Precinct 4 Commissioner Republican Jack Cagle, who previously held Briones’ seat.
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