Jay Aiyer for Houston City Council

To absolutely nobody's surprise, I'd like to take one moment to just centralize a few thoughts on what I view as the most significant vote available for this local campaign season.

Jay Aiyer has been a friend and acquaintance for a while, sometimes sharing a thought or two via this lil blog, sometimes disagreeing sometimes agreeing. Jay was one of the individuals that helped get the Houston Democratic Forum (a group usually associated with Paul Hobby, one of the brightest local Dems there is) up and running. I've had the good fortune to meet and get to know several of the HDFers since my own introduction to the group and can honestly say it's a quality group to know. As a group of relatively young professionals, it's members tend to represent an outlook somewhere between the partisan extremes in life and usually tempered enough by reality to still be realistic in their outlook.

Jay is not just a chip off of that block, however. He's a leader among this group, having gone on to serve as Mayor Lee Brown's Chief of Staff for a while, and then to serve on the Houston Community College board. While on HCCS, he penned two great Op/Eds for the Chronicle that began to set him apart from the usual herd of pols out there.

"We can have strong city services and tax relief" charted a new course for tax relief within a progressive outlook that, at the time, was only heard by a precious few among the Democratic ranks. It's typically anathema for Democrats to consider tax cuts ... so we're told. But the trend in Texas, generally, has been that as we've weaned ourselves off an economy reliant upon one industry (oil), the tax burden has fallen off of a lone industry that could easily afford to cover the minimal services we've offered throughout the state ... to lower and middle class individuals who are increasingly suspicious of the low rate of return on their "investment."

As Jay writes:

Houstonians can have tax relief and strong basic services at the same time.

To do that, we must create a more efficient and responsive government that can provide quality city services through what former Texas Comptroller John Sharp calls entrepreneurial government.

It is ludicrous to talk about reducing revenues to the city without first reducing expenditures.

City government, however, must change the way it does business. The city has never truly embraced proven methods to introduce efficiencies in government such as performance reviews, managed competition and outsourcing. These methods have helped other governmental units across the state and country reduce expenses while improving services. The state of Texas saved billions during the 1990s through performance reviews conducted by Sharp. Locally, Houston Community College, Harris County and Houston Independent School District have effectively used outsourcing and managed competition to save millions in tax dollars while enhancing its delivery of services.

With generated savings, tax relief for homeowners should be embraced as a needed measure to combat out-of-control increases in valuations. The answer, however, is not a rate reduction, but instead an increase in the homestead exemption for homeowners and a property tax cap for senior citizens.

What may be partisan anathema elsewhere should never keep true progressives from helping folks move ahead through life - something that should be at the core of progressive thought. Jay gets that.

Several months later, Jay penned "City can do more with less, if it doesn't do it solo" which charted some still-necessary ground for how governments can work together to minimize overlap and confusion.

We can improve the quality of services and reduce the cost of government.

The answer is an approach to local governance that focuses on the delivery of core essential services, but recognizes the need for broad-based community partnerships among the public, private and nonprofit sectors. The result would be cost savings for Houstonians with better services across the board.

White outlined this philosophy when he said at his State of the City address that the city cannot do it alone. The problems our community faces are too broad and deep to expect city government do everything.

During the past few years, local officials at various levels of government have worked together on specific projects to deliver better services more cost effectively. Now is the time for us to expand on and take greater advantage of these cooperative efforts. The reality is that most local taxpayers don't make the differentiation among various forms of government. They simply know that they pay their taxes and they expect quality services.

There are a number of examples that illustrate this success. Commissioner El Franco Lee's Finnegan Park redevelopment project and the new city/county Clear Lake Library are monuments to what can be accomplished when local governments work together.

Similarly, an innovative partnership between the Houston Community College and Fort Bend County Commissioner Grady Prestage will create a joint Fort Bend County/HCCS library that will serve both students and the community at large.

In both cases, taxpayers get better services for less cost.

This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the innovation that I think Jay is capable of bringing to City Hall. Jay has covered a fair amount of ground talking about how local government can serve progressive means while still respecting the demands of limited government. In other words, we can have small government, but still serve big goals.

During a debate at the Harris County Democratic Party, Jay mentioned how the HCC reviewed dozens of different contracts for janitors, which then offered no health insurance to their employees. After consolidating all the work into one single RFP, the stipulation was added that whoever bid on the proposal would have to provide health insurance for their employees. The result being that, out of a fragmented mess with little-to-no employee benefits, one big opportunity would arise for a company who promised to serve their employess faithfully. As we applaud the local Service Employee's Union for their organization of City of Houston janitors, it's efforts such as the one Jay discussed then that win this battle on all fronts for employees.

My own choice in this race has been a no-brainer since I endorsed Jay back when his name was first dropped in a news report as a potential candidate. And while my own choice is the result of my own friendship with Jay, I hope that whoever remains among the undecideds will take a glance at the links above, as well as the rest of his issues page, and even his now-prescient proposal for getting more cops on the street.

There's a depth and understanding of the issues before this city that Jay possesses like few others. So if you're undecided, by all means, take a look and see if Jay Aiyer isn't the best addition you can make to Houston City Council.