Gwendolyn Tillotson-Bell, COH Chief Economic Dev Officer: How Houston Invests In Itself

Gwendolyn Tillotson-Bell, COH Chief Economic Dev Officer: How Houston Invests In Itself

Most Houstonians have driven on streets, walked through parks, or lived in neighborhoods built with a financing tool they've never heard of. Owen sits down with Gwendolyn Tillotson-Bell, Houston's Chief Economic Development Officer, to explain how Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones — TIRZs — work, why they don't raiseyour property taxes, and how one burned-out apartment complex in the Memorial City area became a $135 million public safety campus: a new fire station, police station, and flood detention facility, all financed through an existing TIRZ without touching the city's general fund. Tillotson-Bell walks through real Houston examples at every step — Corinthian Point's 500 homes in South Park, Levy Park and Emancipation Park as neighborhood catalysts, the Rice Hotel's transformation into the Rice Lofts downtown, and the Bagby Street corridor itself — before closing with a preview of Opportunity Zone 2.0, a federal program launching in Houston in January 2027 that eliminates or defers capital gains taxes when invested in underserved communities. Her philosophy for all of it: "My goal is to get to a mutual yes — so that you have mutual winners." If you've ever wondered how Houston actually funds the infrastructure that makes neighborhoods livable, this is the episode. Thanks for listening! New episodes from inside Houston City Hall, featuring candid conversations about the issues, decisions, and leadership shaping the future of Houston. Connect with Mayor John Whitmire and the Mayor’s Office: * Instagram: @houstonmayor * X: @HouMayor * Website: https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/ [https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/] Follow the show for more conversations from inside the Mayor’s Office.

Mayor Whitmire on Houston's FIFA World Cup, a 15–1 Budget Vote, and the Question Nobody Asked About That Recycling Fire

City Council passed Houston's FY2027 budget 15–1 — and Mayor Whitmire tells Owen exactly how a coalition stretching from the AFL-CIO to the Acres Home Chamber of Commerce got it done. More than 90 community briefings, over 30 supporting letters, and structural fixes that previous administrations left on the table: solid waste consolidated into Public Works, a right-of-way fee charged to private utilities for the first time, and a $5 solid waste administration fee the Mayor describes as the smallest defensible number. From there: Houston's FIFA World Cup operation in full swing, with Fan Fest built on converted parking lots and warehouses — and Metro cutting train frequency from every six minutes to every three between Game 1 and Game 2 after heat complaints. Juneteenth at Emancipation Park, including Mayor Whitmire's reflection on meeting Opal Lee, the Fort Worth activist in her early 90s who drove the campaign to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. The Bethune Empowerment Center coming online in Acres Home. A ribbon cutting at Freedmen's Town. Houston ranked 5th in the nation for convention hosting, with a $300 million Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo expansion announced the morning of recording. And the Kellogg Street recycling plant fire — where, after praising HFD and HPD for containing it, the Mayor asks the harder question: why was a facility storing thousands of tires operating under a metal recycling permit, paying citations, and continuing anyway? The episode closes with a July 4th preview (Keith Urban headlines Freedom Over Texas) and a direct statement from Mayor Whitmire on leadership: "Until I feel comfortable that Houston is where I want it to be, where Houstonians want it to be, I'm not going to leave." Thanks for listening! New episodes from inside Houston City Hall, featuring candid conversations about the issues, decisions, and leadership shaping the future of Houston. Connect with Mayor John Whitmire and the Mayor’s Office: * Instagram: @houstonmayor * X: @HouMayor * Website: https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/ [https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/] Follow the show for more conversations from inside the Mayor’s Office.

She Learned English at the Houston Public Library. Now She Runs It.

Sandy Gaw learned English as a kindergartner at the Houston Public Library. Forty years later, Mayor Whitmire appointed her to run it — a system with more than 330,000 active cardholders, 2 million visits last year, and 8 million physical and digital checkouts. Sandy is the fourth of ten children in a first-generation American family. Chinese was the first language at home; her father took all ten kids to the public library so they could check out books and learn English together. That memory is the spine of this conversation. Sandy spent nearly 30 years inside HISD as a bilingual teacher, ESL teacher, and principal before taking the Director job in 2024, and she walks Owen through what's actually inside a modern Houston library branch — a portable planetarium the community engagement team takes on the road, three research centers (Houston history, African American history, and family genealogy), and TechLink: free makerspaces with podcast studios, 3D printers, music video gear, and Cricut machines available to any cardholder. A fifth TechLink opens later this fall with the most up-to-date equipment in the system. Then there's the Library of Things. Sandy explains that a Houston library card now gets you bakeware and musical instruments alongside books, which produces the episode's biggest laugh when Owen asks whether he can bake her a cake. Underneath the surprises is a stakes-level argument: summer learning loss is real, kids' reading skills can slide measurably over a two-to-three-month break, and the 2025 Summer Reading Program — Unearth the Story, running June 1 through July 31 — exists to keep that from happening. FIFA World Cup programming is running at every branch all summer. Sign up at houstonlibrary.org. Thanks for listening! New episodes from inside Houston City Hall, featuring candid conversations about the issues, decisions, and leadership shaping the future of Houston. Connect with Mayor John Whitmire and the Mayor’s Office: * Instagram: @houstonmayor * X: @HouMayor * Website: https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/ [https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/] Follow the show for more conversations from inside the Mayor’s Office.

1.6M Houstonians Are Not Ready for Hurricane Season

When Hurricane Beryl was bearing down on Houston, the wife of the city's top emergency manager decided — for the first time in years — to stay home. Beryl passed directly over their house. Brian Mason, Director of the City of Houston Office of Emergency Management, tells that story on camera, and uses it to explain why he gets his own family out of Houston 72 hours before any storm — a full day and a half before official evacuation orders typically come down. Mason brings 26 years of emergency work to this conversation, from F5 tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma to running the Emergency Operations Center for 2.4 million Houstonians. He walks us  through OEM's updated household guidance — the city has officially moved its recommended supply kit from 3 days to 7 days — and lays out the four pillars Houstonians should know: have a plan, have a kit, get connected to your neighbors, and use trusted sources like the National Weather Service and Houston OEM. He shares the specifics of his own family's contingency plan, including a designated meetup point at a gas station in Brenham on Highway 290 if cell service goes down. And he names the statistic that keeps him up at night: a 2025 Kinder Institute study found only one-third of Houstonians are prepared for a storm. With 2.4 million residents, that's roughly 1.6 million people who aren't ready. Mason also corrects a dangerous public misconception — 80 to 85 percent of storms that hit Houston spin up in the Bay of Campeche or Gulf of Mexico and reach landfall within 72 hours, not the five-day window most residents assume they'll get. Thanks for listening! New episodes from inside Houston City Hall, featuring candid conversations about the issues, decisions, and leadership shaping the future of Houston. Connect with Mayor John Whitmire and the Mayor’s Office: * Instagram: @houstonmayor * X: @HouMayor * Website: https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/ [https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/] Follow the show for more conversations from inside the Mayor’s Office.

Houston's Chief Operating Officer On Fixing The Budget

Houston's city budget has run a structural deficit for nearly 40 years — the last structurally balanced budget was under Mayor Lee Brown. In Episode 9 of 901 Bagby, Chief Operating Officer Steven David walks through exactly how the Whitmire administration plans to end that streak, and the math is straightforward. Two policy moves, one budget cycle, and the projected FY27 gap shrinks. David is a fifth-generation Houstonian who left Accenture and a higher private-sector salary to take the COO job. He explains the Ernst & Young assessment commissioned in Year 1 — a four-part review covering org structure, performance, spend, and forensic accounting — and the Voluntary Retirement Incentive Program that followed: 1,056 employees accepted the offer, 80% of those positions were deleted from the budget, and the city locked in roughly $100 million in permanent annual savings without a single layoff. Then comes the FY27 budget itself: declaring solid waste a municipal utility (lifting ~$117M off the general fund), and a new right-of-way rental fee on the water and sewer system (~$104M in new general fund revenue) that aligns Houston with Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso. Plus the $5 monthly solid waste fee — the Mayor insisted on $5, not $25 — that makes Houston the last major city in Texas to charge for garbage service. The stakes, in David's words: do nothing, and the FY30 gap approaches $450 million — enough to wipe out libraries, parks, the health department, and most of city administration. This is the same briefing he's given  87 times. Now you've got it too. Thanks for listening! New episodes from inside Houston City Hall, featuring candid conversations about the issues, decisions, and leadership shaping the future of Houston. Connect with Mayor John Whitmire and the Mayor’s Office: * Instagram: @houstonmayor * X: @HouMayor * Website: https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/ [https://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/] Follow the show for more conversations from inside the Mayor’s Office.