Tom Ramsey - Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, I think that kind of sums up yesday's Commissioner
Court meeting. Sausage rolls for everybody. They were making sausage
left and right, and of course Lena Hildago knows how
to really stretch out the sausage making process. Good God, Olmney.
I watched the video of the commissioners being from you.
I feel like I lost some brain cells watching it.
I don't even know how Commissioner Tom Ramsey manages to

(00:21):
function at these meetings. That is that is some craziness.
Watching her conduct a meeting and try to go through
a budget and get people to vote on light items
on the budget. That is tedious, out of control. Absolutely
doesn't seem like she has any idea what direction she's

(00:42):
going in.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's crazy, it really is, Jimmy, I tell you, the
whole process is pretty much what people do at home.
They bounce their budget, they look at their revenue, they
look at their bills, and they make decisions. She since
she he's the only one on Commissioner's Court who's not
a taxpayer, she admitted that last week. She admitted that

(01:05):
taxes were high last week in her state of the
county address, so she really struggles and these kinds of events.
We had roughly one hundred and fifty five speakers come
and that's fine. People can come and I listen to them.
But every time Judge Oldago would begin to rent on
issues she knows nothing about, I would leave. So, to

(01:27):
be honest with you, I got my steps in yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
It felt like the meeting broke up a couple of times.
I mean, how many breaks did y'all take?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, Whenever Judge Wildago can handle an adult conversation, she
throws a tantrum and leaves. In fact, she abruptly just
left the meeting yesterday because she didn't agree with with
the boat. So you know, this is what adults do.
They get in the room, they debate it. We actually
have a great budget. This was an excellent way to

(01:59):
do it. We have a balanced budget. We funded over
one hundred and forty million for law enforcement. It's public safety.
It's exactly what the hobby polls said that people want it.
They want public safety. They want you to deal with infrastructure.
That's what this budget does. The fact that it doesn't
deal with kindergarten daycare, which is what she was advocating.

(02:23):
Those are all our programs. The money's run out. We
can't fund them anymore. She wants to find it out
of the general budget, and there's not money there. We're funding.
I think the basics that we should be.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Well. She wanted to tell you all that the way
the questions were posed for the poll was wrong. That's
why it turned out the way it did. On public
safety is the question wasn't asked the right way.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, I think people know what they want. I talked
to enough of them. They are clear and what they
don't want. And by the way, we are generating with
and Harris County taxes based on what we vote on yesterday,
that'll be four point one billion in tax revenue. We

(03:09):
got plenty of tax revenue. We don't need to be
going up on taxes, which they did vote yesterday to
increase the taxes for the hospital district. That's one hundred
and forty million additional revenue. I did not agree with that.
But in terms of the budget, our budget, our general
revenue budget, I think we did a great job in
getting that, getting the priorities there, dealing with issues that

(03:33):
we needed to deal with, and actually started to eliminate
some bureaucracy.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, I think that it seemed to me that perhaps
that Rodney Ellis and Lena Hilldogo are simpatico and some
of these things, but everybody else pretty much is in
agreement what needs to be in the budget and what
doesn't need in the budget be in the budget. How
much longer do you see this taking before a final
budget is put together?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, that's essentially we put together the final budget as
we wrap things up last night without Judge Oldago there.
We've got a budget. We pretty much adopted it last night.
We'll do the final vote next week and there'll be
a public hearing on that. So there's some for functories

(04:17):
that we still have to do, but essentially, yesterday we
adopted a balanced budget that fully funds law enforcement, that
does fund infrastructure, that does, I think, deal with some
of the core issues that we need to an account.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I thought it was interesting that I think that Rodney
Ellis agreed on this one. Correct me if I'm wrong.
But Lena wanted you all to face in the raises
for Harris County Deputies over three years in art in
order for her to keep her daycare program. Obviously nobody
was biting on that one. Were they.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
No, and she she called herself the negotiator. So this
is what the negotiator does. She comes to court and
she's the negotiator, and she gets her white board out.
She starts saying, well, let's negotiate. This is like kindergarten
first graders. Are you kidding me? That's not how you negotiate.
You put an option on the table, you go try

(05:11):
to find three votes and you get there. She doesn't
know how to do that, and she struggled greatly, and
so when she gets to the point she can't handle it,
she just leaves.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah. And last question for you, sir, how offended were
you when she made the accusation that you're only there
to represent Republicans.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well, I think I pretty clearly told her I represent
one point two million people in Harris County, and from
what my constituents tell me, I am spot on in
terms of what we're doing, what we're prioritizing, what we're cutting,
what we're funding. And she couldn't handle that either.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
No, she couldn't. You're right about that, sir, Thanks as always,
good to talk to you. Tom Ramsey, Harris Counting Precinct
three Commissioner at seven twenty eight