With almost 95 billion dollars in revenue, ChevronTexaco, one of a few super major energy companies in the world, offered to move right here to downtown Houston. Almost, 65 billion dollars of that revenue would be accounted for by business operations located right here, in Houston.
And you know the best thing of all is that when I began talking to ChevronTexaco about this -- I guess it was six weeks ago -- in talking about the potential-- what I thought we could do that attracted them to that property is provide plenty of room to expand -- isn't that nice? So, that's just what we need in Houston.
The next event is one of many that you see in the life of a Mayor, day-to-day where there is no press. I guess they think there is no glamour -- no controversy -- no egg throwing, what have you.
We went to the police training facility, about a little more than a year ago. Some members of this group led by Morrie Abramson, The 100 Club , another former Mayor, and me raised money to build a new police training facility where people could simulate the use of fire arms in close engagements and close quarters. The police had not had that. And we have learned that the officers believed lives had been lost by the lack of that simulated training, which is the same kind of training that we gave to our men and women in uniform before they engaged in close engagement in Iraq. And we said if the city couldn't afford it, we were going to come up with the money. And we did! And they opened the facility, yesterday.
There are plenty of opportunities to help like that. But it also reminded us that there were people there who had lost friends in the course of protecting that public safety. There's a lot that goes on every day in this city by dedicated citizens to save lives but never gets into the newspaper. And what an honor it is to be involved in something like that, as Mayor leading this city.
Finally, the day ended by going over an actuarial report I ordered done on the municipal pension system. The report showed that a couple of years ago -- to the best of my estimation -- still working on the figure -- there may have been a billion-dollar mistake when it came to benefit design. That's why I am glad I am an optimist in the office. That's the life in the day of the Mayor. But, I tell you what. The city is so beautiful. And if somebody asks me to talk about the state of the city right here, right now, I'd say there's a sense of excitement in this city. I think we are moving up.
We are a great city of opportunities. You've heard me talk about that. Let me just share with you something. We've talked about this in GHP meetings. You have been in cocktail party conversations about Houston's image and how we appear. You know what I'm talking about. Why we can't get a good story in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal and that type of stuff… But bear with me here. In life, proof is in the pudding. If you would have lived back a few years ago, 20 years ago or so, I had to explain to my kids about the Cold War. But, you all remember East Germany, West Germany. Remember that? Hey, you can read the East German papers and things were just great, worker's paradise…West German papers with all these problems and turmoils of the open and free society. There were ideological battles. But you know what? Proof in the pudding was people were trying to get out of East Germany into West Germany, not vice-versa, right? So, if the “proof in the pudding” for the greatness of a country or society is where people want to stay, where people want to move then… check this out…
In this last generation, since 1930, look at our competing cities, New York up by 15%, City of Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit -- those big cities which are the big competitors -- down ranging between 15 and 39 percent. Now there is one city that expanded almost three-fold in that period, Los Angeles.
How about Houston? We grew by 700 percent! Not too bad, is it? That is because people like this city! That is proof (in the pudding) that we are America's city of opportunity.
Part of my job in working for you, is to make sure that we have a city government that is performance oriented. And that is going to be the hallmark of my administration; because, we need to improve the quality of life in this city to remain competitive with other cities. Urban life is competition. And we can do it. Judge Eckels said it so well, in his speech. Houston is a work in progress. We make it anew every generation and that is some of the things I am going to talk about here today.
Let's start with economic development. We'll hear more on this as the year goes on. I know that the GHP is working with Lee Hogan, and many CEO's in this room, on what our regional plan for economic development might be, roles and responsibilities, what we do well and what we can do better. But I can tell you this. Every day this is something that I work on, with a lot of private-sector leaders in this city because there is no better place to do business in this country than Houston, Texas. And we are going to go out and try to get a lot of the businesses in other parts of the country to relocate here. We have everything…[a] growing, hard-working population. (Days like this, I wouldn't trade our weather for any place in the United States). We have plenty of room to grow. We welcome the type of skilled and unskilled immigration that creates such vitality in our community…immigration from other parts of this country -- from all over the world. There is no city in the United States or in the world that could match the business environment of Houston. And that is not just something that is good for business, I want to tell you.
Economic opportunity…
This is why we've grown by 800 percent over that last 70 years. People are looking to have security for their families. A good job is essential to individual dignity and self-respect. So, when they talk about economic development, we are talking about something that is important for human beings. And that is critical to the lives of our community.
All the other things that I'll be talking, from public safety, neighborhoods services, flooding and drainage, all the other things I'll discuss are about improving the quality of life.
It's about creating an environment where people can raise families and seek their economic future in a way that gives them dignity and respect.
So let's start with the state of the city and the goals for this next year, on transportation.
We started with synchronizing lights. We are going to knock out most of those traffic signals this year. We've already accomplished over 10% of our plan this year. And we are doing it every single week.
You know what the response to Spur 527 showed? I know many of you are familiar with it. Forty thousand people were commuting into the central business district. There were people who did some models and said look at the map. If they close that Spur, it is going to be a nightmare! It is going to be chaos! It is going to shut down! Forty thousand is a lot of folks. But through a combination of: better communication with motorists; improved timing of the traffic signals; good use of our public safety personnel to direct traffic and manage incidents; lane configurations such as having the lanes on Alabama conform with the flow of traffic; improvements that are being made to [State Highway] 288 major interchange intersection where there are bottlenecks; and better signage; we were able to handle that without a significant increase in commuting time for those that continue to come along the 59 corridor…without destroying the neighborhoods. Now what does that tell you? It tells us that with this magnificent transportation infrastructure, the replacement costs would be over $100 billion. And we ought to devote the time and energy it takes in order to manage traffic better on that expensive infrastructure. And we are going to start.
The next thing on the agenda of the Mayor's Office on Mobility is what we call incident management, which is a fancy way of saying we've got to get the stalled cars off the freeways and off the thoroughfares a lot quicker. And we are going to do it. And there are vested interests, by the way. And I'll need your help in battling those vested interests; because, we all have a stake in doing the right thing for the most people in our public.
We need to continue with mass transit alternatives. When I met with some of the heads of the Medical Center institutions and the HR managers of the med center -- Mr. Saperstein and I -- a couple of weeks ago, we listened to what the comments of the employees were. We asked the HR managers who reported on the reactions of people who must show up at a particular time for a meeting. For a lot of people here, the meeting begins when you get there. But, we have found, in traffic, if you listen to motorists, that's where you are going to get your best ideas. A lot of people stalled out in traffic think a lot about what ought to be done on traffic, and it is usually pretty good. Do you know what the number one issue expressed in two hospitals employing 10,000 people together was? The answer is: when can we get more trains on the Main Street rail run, so that service can be more regular? That was the number one issue. You know, there was a controversy in the med center about taking up a couple of lanes on Fannin Street. That is not to say that we couldn't have done things better; but, that is to say that mass transit in this town is moving in the right direction.
And when Judge Eckels proposes his bold idea to have extensive use of commuter rail feeding within [Loop] “610” and to tie into our mass transit system, I say count us in, Judge Eckels. We are all with you and the other commissioners on that. And we don't care who takes the lead. Let's figure out who can get it done. And let's start with the [Highway] 290 corridor. I like the ideas of Commissioner Radack. I think that's the corridor that is deserving of a lot of attention, right now, if you look at the overall scheme of things.
So, later this year, I'll work with major employers and voluntary programs. There are some employers who set the standard in this nation for flexible working hours. They find employee productivity is higher and employee retention is better. Employees consider, in company surveys, [Flex time] as a better benefit than a cost-of-living increase each year. It's a real tool that we can get out and deal with -- the tools of technology we have in the modern economy -- so that everybody is not wasting their time in traffic trying to get to the same place at the same time. I'll tell you what. It is the most conservative approach to transportation planning if you define conservative as being mindful of the taxpayer dollar. You are going to have to pay billions of dollars more in infrastructure if we are trying to get to the same place at the same time, rather than having staggered and flexible working hours using modern technology.
Public Safety. The first function of city government is to start with our Police Department. Tomorrow, at 10:00 A.M, I'll name the new police chief in our city. We spent, the chairman of the public safety committee, Adrian Garcia, and I have spent a considerable amount of time, more time than anything else I've done except transportation and business development as mayor of this city, to have somebody who's a leader, who's respected by the rank and file, who can communicate well with the public, that our police can be trusted in the use of this awesome, coercive force. And I have met with a thousand police officers, EMS personnel, firefighters and talked to them over the last 50/60 days about not only how can they do their job better and how we can support them better in doing their job, but how can they think of ways in which we can get more public safety for the dollars that we've spent. We will implement some of those suggestions.
I can go on and on, but let me just give you this: you don't know how much money the taxpayer spent and how many lives are lost because of the diversion of resources by these “false alarms” set off by the alarms people put in their houses. It is an amazing amount of police time and resources that is wasted that you pay for, both in terms of the lost time or safety. There's got to be a better way to pay for it than put it on us, right? But that is just to give you an example. [We are] thinking “out of the box” about how we do a better job about allocating our resources in public safety, so the men and women who are out there risking their lives can be well-trained, well-equipped and well-compensated. And you will see that as a priority in the budget that I submit. And I tell you that nobody tries to cut corners as has been done sometimes in the past on public safety. They do it because of budget and financial considerations. But, we are going to make that an priority. And we will need your help and support in getting that done.
Let's talk for a moment about improving the quality of life in our neighborhoods. This Partnership really set a standard in our city when recognizing that quality of life is a critical issue for the business community and not just a matter for civic clubs. And we will do more to expand city parks and build -- right now-- bikeways. We have a significant proposal in the next CIP (Capital Improvement Plan) to build out a bikeway program that is long overdue and takes advantage of the linear parks in our city. We've already done -- as the county judge and commissioners know -- some things with the Harris County Flood Control District. And some have been done on my watch, in this administration, where they have the stewardship and progressive leadership in the Flood Control District to make multiple uses of some of our bayou rights of way. And there is more.
So, Commissioner Radack is working on a large park in the county, Cullen Park, our largest park, by far and away. They [the county] want to do improvements and to manage those improvements. And of course, in the past, it got lost in the territorial battle. So, last week I gave the okay. We are going to deed to the county that portion of the park. Let them run it. Let them maintain it pursuant to an agreement to which they have committed; because, this is not about whose territory it's in. We all pay taxes -- everybody here in the room -- to both the city and the county. The commissioners and I all work for the same people.
The question is who is in the best position at the best time to do things most effectively. And that's the spirit with which we are going to work with the county.
And I want to tell you something else about our neighborhoods. My faith teaches that each of us is judged by how we treat the least of those among us. And you know, I think that is probably true of cities, as well. And we have some neighborhoods in this city that have been neglected for a long time. I wouldn't say neglected “too long”; because, it would imply that there was a time that there was no neglect. It is not only something that is wrong; but, it is not beneficial to anybody in this city to have neighborhoods where you have -- well we have: 29,000 properties that are 10 years or more tax delinquent; properties that have been abandoned; poor neighborhoods that are used for sites for illegal dumping and neighborhoods that do not have clean water in this city by the way. And we are going to change that. We are going to make sure that at the top of capital improvement list, we have some of the neighborhoods that deserve some of the attention on the infrastructure. We are going to tear down those abandoned properties. We are not just going to do it with the city, though. I'm going to need the help of the people in this room. The fact is, we don't do it all and we can't do it all as a city with tax dollars. We'll need volunteers from outside the community with specialized skills, helping us to rebuild those communities and not just looking for the fast buck. And we will need people from within those communities who sign a covenant and partnership with us to maintain the communities that we rebuild. Wouldn't it be wonderful, if we were able to revitalize those neighborhoods?
We've got to clean up the way the city looks. I'll try to find the money to take down some of those illegal signs or, at least, deputize citizens to do so. There are so many illegal signs in the city, I'm not really sure if we have enough city employees. I want to figure out ways citizens can go ahead and do it. And, by the way, a court order became final in December saying that 250 of the billboards that blight our communities are suppose to come down.
And in this speech right now, I'm going to say (acting city attorney Susan Taylor) the owners of those billboards know who they are. We've given them 60 days to get those billboards down; otherwise, I'm going to be out there with a bulldozer myself.
Flooding is bad in Houston and getting worse. The county judge addressed this in the state of the county address, as was fit; because, the Harris County Flood Control District has had the lead in our community in the expenditures on the flooding issues. The engineers divide flooding and drainage [responsibilities between county and city]. But, for the person whose water is coming into the door, it looks the same to that person. Whether it's lack of neighborhood drainage or because the bayou is “over-flooded”, we need to take a regional approach to coordinate those two things, to prioritize them based on some objective criteria of what would be for the most good. We both agree, Judge Eckels and I, to have the respective department chiefs have the county infrastructure and have Public Works advise us jointly on what we think the appropriate city and county roles should be to maximize our influence.
Within 30 days, I will have a financial plan to deal with the fact that we've run out of money within the city. We ran out of it, pursuant to the plan in the budget, to do the maintenance of the existing drainage infrastructure in this city and have no money for capital improvements for drainage. I will have a bold plan that will be a step in the right direction. We won't solve the problem in one day. It's taken 100 years. I won't change the climate we live in overnight. But, we've got to look at this with the same priority that we do transportation, NASA and other areas of regional investments. I've talked to our members of Congress, and they have been receptive to the idea that flooding and drainage is a priority right up there with transportation funding and NASA on our federal funding agenda. All members of Congress have responded positively.
I want to tell you from my prior life experience, every year you'll have more money spent on a Utah irrigation project than you will on drainage from here in the city of Houston. And we are a lot bigger than people think; so, we've got to reverse that priority and fight for our fair share of those dollars.
To be America's city of great opportunity, we've got to give folks the opportunity to get ahead in an information economy that depends on education. Each person here who has a seat at these tables has been blessed to have had parents and teachers who have invested in you, probably more than any of us deserve for that matter, more than we had the maturity to thank them for. Now you have an opportunity to pay back that debt. To be a parent, to be an effective parent, you must be involved in your schools. And to be a civic leader -- there is a lot of people elected to things -- you have been involved in some way in supporting our schools, our junior colleges, higher education at some level.
Certainly as Mayor, my wife and I, [can do some part]; but we are not going to do it alone. And neither can professional educators do it alone. It requires a lot of citizens; because, we improve our skills always in competition with those of other states and other nations, a student at a time, a classroom at a time, there is no glory work or blunt-nosed silver bullets.
The same can be said of health care. I don't think I've heard a more eloquent speech about the needs of access to health care in our community than I did from Rob Mosbacher when he took over as chair of this great organization.
All I can say is…I won't repeat a thing he said. I adopt his agenda. And we will be working with other community leaders to make sure that we get the most bang out of the health care buck. Because, we have no room in this community for waste in taking care of the large percentage of working people who have no access to group health insurance.
And I will say this, too. It is sometimes an awkward subject for some folks. But, in the City of Houston, a guard against epidemics is important. That's why we are going to come up with a plan. I hope in short order.
Working with a number of people, it is already in the works, [a plan] on immunization programs and how we are going to organize that throughout this region. But part of that is epidemiology -- preventing the scourge of epidemics.
I tell you what. We have a HIV/AIDS scourge that is in our community right now. We have parts of this city where the HIV/AIDS infection rate among young people has skyrocketed over the last three years. The subject cannot be taboo, even if for some folks it is awkward. We need to have more extensive testing and education; unless we are going to waste lives that God has put here and that can be productive. And I am going to try to do what I can to do that [education and testing].
We are going to make Houston's City Hall the most efficient in the nation. That is the goal, it won't be done in one year. That means, that we are going to have to pay people fairly if we expect to retain and to attract the best in City Hall. I am taking a look at all of our personnel systems. City employees should not be threatened. I know that to be effective, City Hall must have bright and talented and motivated people.
I'll just tell you this, without getting into detail. The current system is designed to encourage people to retire, in the prime of their career, and to discourage us from being able to attract people in competition with private business. When I look to hire people to direct a billion-dollar public works program and cannot pay more than a first year lawyer in a law firm, then something is wrong with this system. I am going to need your help in changing that system.
Building for the future… I've talked about two things. Houston is a city of opportunity and I've talked about performance-oriented government that you'll see from me. I'll make hard choices and I'm going to need your help. All my prior predecessors have made hard hard choices that moved our city forward. Louie Welch, because he opposed segregation, was defeated in the election before he got elected Mayor. Bob Lanier took on a tough battle on affirmative action. But, without affirmative action, we would not have had the proliferation of historically disadvantaged businesses that we now view as such an asset in this community. Lee Brown stood up here last year and said that the next Mayor would have downtown streets and Main Street rail and a stadium ready for the Super Bowl, and wasn't he right?
I need your help now. I'll make mistakes; but, I need your help in some ways that have nothing to do with support of the city government. There are two things that you can do to help.
First, we would love to be able to deliver more and better public services by the City of Houston, simply by relying on employees within the city of Houston. They are the heart and soul of service delivery. But there is plenty of room for citizens who volunteer. And I'm not talking just about a task force now.
A week ago I solicited our department heads for the name of a volunteer -- somebody perhaps who had retired who wanted to give back to the community -- somebody who had raised a family and wanted to come back into the workforce -- people with lesser skills and more skills, and I was going to make that the highlight of this speech. But you know what, I came up with so many incredible suggestions that would have been a one hour-long speech and I wouldn't have finished it. So this is what we are going to do. We are going to catalog those with the specific description of the tasks and the time commitment, put the departmental contact together and the description of why it's important. And sometimes you are freeing resources to go into an area of high impact. You know what I'm saying? A volunteer may not be doing what may not seem the work, but may ………… somebody who's out there doing or making a difference in public safety, on parks or something else. We are going to put it [volunteer information] on the city website. And I'm going to give to the organizers of this a hard copy and then I am going to ask you to reproduce that and circulate it in the workforce. Will you do that for me, if I get that together? You know, not every volunteer will work out. But I had a meeting with the department heads, this morning, and they embraced this idea, they were enthusiastic about using the volunteer spirit of our community that has done so much.
And the second thing I'm going to talk to you about is this. Let me put it in context. And this is not a context that is negative. This is just the real context. Houston is a miracle. It was a village of 44,000 people 100 years ago. Now it's the center of a metropolitan area of over 4 million people. We have changed so incredibly, so fast.
Here is something that maybe folks don't think about that much. Most of the people -- a large majority of the people -- now living in Houston either came from families who came from another country or came from families who, during the course of the adult lives of the people sitting in this room, were subject to official and social discrimination in employment, housing and education. Now that's not something to be ashamed of. It is actually something to be proud that we've come so far so fast. It is amazing to be a city like this that consists of so many people who have overcome so much, and came here as strangers and now are a part of the Houston family. It is a reality. Now, what does that reality mean? For many people here, people with success in business or the professions, you are probably doing what I was doing, minding your job trying to work 12-13 hours a day, trying to get ahead and then spending time with your kids, raising the kids and trying to buy a house (stuff like that), participating in your church, or civic groups, joining organizations like this -- plenty to do. And it does mean that a lot of people in this city are strangers; because, we've grown so fast -- because we've come from different places. We may share the same values and the same spirit and be out there and party together at Super Bowl time, but a lot of us are strangers. And that gets at the heart of something that we can do to take the city of opportunity to the next level.
I'm going to address this now to people who run [businesses] or are senior management of successful businesses. People do not do business with people they've never met. Right? I'm just saying a fact. If you don't know somebody, you don't do business with them. You are not going to do business with them by hiring vendors or hiring employees based on an unsolicited phone call. You do business with people you know; who you know something about.
Dr. [Martin Luther] King said, equal opportunity and civil rights mean nothing without economic opportunity. And the fact is a lot of those, who went to a particular school, and lived in a particular neighborhood or joined a particular club, are not able to know all the people who are the wonderful future of Houston.
So, I'm asking folks in this room, business leaders in particular, to take some time this year to get to know the name of some folks from a different background who are trying to make their decision about a career, who are building their business. And if you do that, you'll find some hard-working people, and this city will be more prosperous, and there will be more opportunities for more people, and when you get a chance to talk to your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, God help us, you'll be able to say that you took part in a history of Houston, when Houston broke out of the pack of all the other cities in the United States, the greatest nation in the history of the world.
We are a great city of opportunities. You've heard me talk about that. Let me just share with you something. We've talked about this in 
Let's start with economic development. We'll hear more on this as the year goes on. I know that the GHP is working with Lee Hogan, and many CEO's in this room, on what our regional plan for economic development might be, roles and responsibilities, what we do well and what we can do better. But I can tell you this. Every day this is something that I work on, with a lot of private-sector leaders in this city because there is no better place to do business in this country than Houston, Texas. And we are going to go out and try to get a lot of the businesses in other parts of the country to relocate here. We have everything…[a] growing, hard-working population. (Days like this, I wouldn't trade our weather for any place in the United States). We have plenty of room to grow. We welcome the type of skilled and unskilled immigration that creates such vitality in our community…immigration from other parts of this country -- from all over the world. There is no city in the United States or in the world that could match the business environment of Houston. And that is not just something that is good for business, I want to tell you. 
And when Judge Eckels proposes his bold idea to have extensive use of commuter rail feeding within [Loop] “610” and to tie into our mass transit system, I say count us in, Judge Eckels. We are all with you and the other commissioners on that. And we don't care who takes the lead. Let's figure out who can get it done. And let's start with the [Highway] 290 corridor. I like the ideas of Commissioner Radack. I think that's the corridor that is deserving of a lot of attention, right now, if you look at the overall scheme of things. 
And I want to tell you something else about our neighborhoods. My faith teaches that each of us is judged by how we treat the least of those among us. And you know, I think that is probably true of cities, as well. And we have some neighborhoods in this city that have been neglected for a long time. I wouldn't say neglected “too long”; because, it would imply that there was a time that there was no neglect. It is not only something that is wrong; but, it is not beneficial to anybody in this city to have neighborhoods where you have -- well we have: 29,000 properties that are 10 years or more tax delinquent; properties that have been abandoned; poor neighborhoods that are used for sites for illegal dumping and neighborhoods that do not have clean water in this city by the way. And we are going to change that. We are going to make sure that at the top of capital improvement list, we have some of the neighborhoods that deserve some of the attention on the infrastructure. We are going to tear down those abandoned properties. We are not just going to do it with the city, though. I'm going to need the help of the people in this room. The fact is, we don't do it all and we can't do it all as a city with tax dollars. We'll need volunteers from outside the community with specialized skills, helping us to rebuild those communities and not just looking for the fast buck. And we will need people from within those communities who sign a covenant and partnership with us to maintain the communities that we rebuild. Wouldn't it be wonderful, if we were able to revitalize those neighborhoods? 
Within 30 days, I will have a financial plan to deal with the fact that we've run out of money within the city. We ran out of it, pursuant to the plan in the budget, to do the maintenance of the existing drainage infrastructure in this city and have no money for capital improvements for drainage. I will have a bold plan that will be a step in the right direction. We won't solve the problem in one day. It's taken 100 years. I won't change the climate we live in overnight. But, we've got to look at this with the same priority that we do transportation, NASA and other areas of regional investments. I've talked to our members of Congress, and they have been receptive to the idea that flooding and drainage is a priority right up there with transportation funding and NASA on our federal funding agenda. All members of Congress have responded positively. 
And I will say this, too. It is sometimes an awkward subject for some folks. But, in the City of Houston, a guard against epidemics is important. That's why we are going to come up with a plan. I hope in short order.