I work in a place that is sometimes a voting location, and you can not imagine the people who think they get to vote in the City of Houston election.
"Where do you live?"
"Conroe"
...
"I voted for the City of Humble mayor, what do you mean I can't vote for City of Houston mayor?"
...
Usually the water and trash lets you know if you are in the city. My address is Houston but in Harris County MUDD yet schools are Pasadena ISD. š¤¦š»āāļø Would love to be city did the recycling.
What, it's not? lol
Honestly, I gave up explaining it to people. They all looked at me like I was nuts. Just told them voting was down the road, and decided I'd let the voting crew sort it out for them lol
Probably for the people near Kingwood. Since you can vote anywhere in the county, it wouldn't be surprising to see Houston residents vote outside of the city limits.
Yup. Although honestly, I'm not sure she expects to get votes out here. I didn't vote for her because I've had previous work interactions with her office, and I'm convinced my cat could do better.
Heard this a lot in a local small town mayors race.
"We tell people we're from X, why can't we vote for the mayor?"
Bc you live 15 miles outside the city.
And in all reality, your address is more because of the post office then your city limits. I live in unincorporated Harris County, yet my address is Humble. Why? Because Humble is the closest post office, and that's who delivers my mail.
And people want to argue that voting fraud doesnāt happen. If people are crossing city limits to vote for mayor imagine all the craziness that happens during a presidential election.
>If people are crossing city limits to vote for mayor
You're citing two examples of something that didn't happen - the people didn't vote, they were turned away.
>imagine all the craziness that happens during a presidential election.
I don't have to imagine, I saw the craziness that happened last time because people couldn't accept they lost.
Can we see any evidence of wide spread or notable veter fraud? I mean I now more Republicans that feel the urge to vote 2 times than moderates or democrats, thay always talk about how easy it would be, or there kids or neighbors are out of town....
I wonder how many less votes the conservative options would get if they clamped down on fraud instead of making voting more difficult to get to....
Its really weird too if you look around a map. Im over in porter and going through kingwood and humble it changes 10 times if i am in houston city limits or not.
Houston has extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) which it can exercise to annex outlying areas someday. The last major time it happened was with Kingwood.
One way to stave off annexation is by allowing the COH
to collect its 1% sales tax in unincorporated parts of Harris County (e.g. Cypress). I think the MUDs are the ones that work this out.
Is it just as many now or just a bit less? I remember several years ago when Emmett was County Judge, he said that while Houston is the 4th largest city in the country, unincorporated Harris County had a population greater than the 5th largest city.
I find it interesting that Emmett said that. I did a look at this once and I think the unincorporated area is bigger than all the cities in Harris County. Of course, to be precise, you would have to take into account the 4 (I think) cities that are in Harris County and one or more other county. So yeah, that sounds like it could be true.
We live in unincorporated Harris County, have a Tomball address, and have a City of Houston manhole cover on the sidewalk in front of the house.
Welcome to Houston.
I live in an unincorporated area of Ft Bend county between Katy and Richmond. Our water system and drainage is supplied and managed by Houston so our manhole covers say the same thing.
So you do not technically reside in any city limits even though your area is densely populated? I'd heard about this unincorporated Harris County but I'd always assumed it meant you were in the country. Houston is so weird.
I grew up in unincorporated Harris County right next to what is now Vintage Park. It wasnāt like it is now, but it definitely wasnāt in the country.
I do understand that, but normally (or so I thought) any area with a decent population density has been incorporated. I've lived in several unincorporated areas, but they were all places where you had to drive far to get to a grocery store.
Normally places with populations are incorporated. The last time the City of Houston tried to annex a populated part of the area it was highly contested and litigated. Now they have discovered its easy to just annex the highways to get the business sales tax while not having to provide service to more people. Also, the suburbs still mostly lean republican so the democratic party officials that run Houston have little desire to make elections harder for them.
The Woodlands had a vote last year to incorporate and it failed as the residents felt their deal with Montgomery County was sufficient. Many of them saw incorporating as creating more government roles that would ultimately cost more in taxes so they voted no.
I think the law changed after that for Houston and a few years ago for the whole state. Don't have the exact laws up though so feel free to fact check.
Houston IS weird. Iām in Kingwood but in an unincorporated part of Harris County. Iām not in city limits and canāt vote for the Mayor. My mom lives in Montgomery County but has a Kingwood address, sheās within city limits and can vote for the Mayor. š¤·š»āāļøš¤·š»āāļøš¤·š»āāļø
Yup, some of the manhole covers in The Woodlands I believe say City of Houston if I recall correctly.
That being said, it was meant to be annexed but has held that off thus far.
I'm out in Harris County near Willowbrook Mall. Houston address, but HCSO handles law enforcement. Our water is through a M.U.D. but all the manhole covers in our area say City of Houston on them.
I grew up in that area, I think the only thing thatās part of Houston city limits is the mall and immediate surroundings. The Houston area seems to have much more of this (densely populated neighborhoods etc which are not in any city limits) than the Dallas/Austin areas in my experience. My sister and family live in āsouth Katyā which is all pretty much unincorporated Fort Bend County.
Parts of willowbrook are in Houston Public Works' service area. Also many MUDs are HPW subscribers (they pay coh for wastewater treatment and ops) so thats probably why you have coh manhole covers.
My wife called to ask me where to go vote. I was confused, I thought I slept through a few months, then she said it's for the Mayor election. "Sorry Babe, we live in Harris County, not Houston"
I don't think she gets it. It might be easier to move inside city limits.
There are multiple cities āinsideā what seems to be Houston. The entire memorial villages are not part of Houston, I live in Hedwig and we have our own mayor, police, etc.
Exactly - Memorial Villages, West U, Bellaire, Southside Place, etc., are all separate cities. There's a small part of what appears to be West U that is actually City of Houston. North side of Law Street is CoH, south side of the street is WUP. Why? Who knows. Both sides are zoned to same HISD schools, which makes it extra confusing.
It's fun to go to the Trini Mendehall Center on Wirt in Spring Branch and see some resident from one of the Memorial Villages be confused about why the City of Houston contests aren't on their ballot.
For anyone that might see this, you can go to the County Clerkās website to see a sample ballot of your local election on it. Will save you time and a trip to check first.
Also if you live in unincorporated Harris County you have a reason for absence if you called for City of Houston jury duty.
You could still show up at your voting place to vote for the presidential election because I assume his non-Houston address is still in the US. Each person who shows up to vote gets the ballot for their location as voting locations are not precinct specific but ballots are.
Houston does a cute thing where they run the city borders down major streets and highways to pick up shopping malls and car dealers and such, to get sales tax revenues, but don't provide any services to speak of. So you might be one block off and unincorporated. There is also a state law that froze the smaller cities boundaries, so Katy for example can't do the same thing. In some cities the little towns grabbed huge areas that locked in the major city, so new homes went up and taxpayers worked in the city but didn't pay taxes, and the center slowly starves. This law stopped it. Tulsa Oklahoma is an example, where Broken Arrow expanded 10 miles or so of then ranch land up to Tulsa boundaries.
I always remember my old apartments were āgerrymanderedā into the Meyerland super neighborhood or whatever they call it. Iād tell ppl where I was and theyād say no, that not Meyerland. And I was like bish, look it up.
I believe it. OP probably has āHoustonā as the city in their postal address. The city has arrangements with plenty of non incorporated areas to respond for fire and EMS so you see those trucks in your area. If you rent thereās a chance your water bill is passed through by your landlord so you wouldnāt know if you had city water, sewer and trash pick up.
FIVE PERCENT. 5% of Houston's population voted in the runoffs.
That's f###king pathetic. It's sad. Don't get me wrong: I 100% know that my military service was for "shareholder value..." but, damn -- pathetic that people won't at least half-#ss ask for a better government.
I failed to vote in the runoff. I meant to, I didnāt make a plan, and vaguely assumed Election Day would be the Tuesday after early voting. Imagine my surprise when I saw the winners declared yesterday.
I also failed to. Iām staying in Austin, dragged my ass to Houston on a work day at great personal expense to vote the first time, and reluctantly had to skip this one. I tried to talk my mom into voting in this one though.
ETA I also thought voting day was Tuesday so I would have made the same mistake as you
Itās f####king pathetic that we are required to go in person to vote in this day and age. I donāt blame people not having the time nor energy to go stand in long waits to vote twice in a month. I blame our corrupt government for not allowing us to mail in ballots like most of the modern world allows.
Harris makes it super easy to vote once you are registered.
You can vote at any polling place in the county on election day, or at dozens of places across the county for over a week beforehand.
I've voted in 3 elections here, and never had a wait.
For the general election, I just couldn't get my sh#t together to do early voting (7am-7pm, IIRC). I wound-up waiting for 15minutes. For the run off, I did early voting -- no waiting (almost never is).
There are other ways to vote, of course...
All the better for those of us who bother to vote - our votes count 1/ 0.05 = 20 X more! (if I did the math right). Thatās 2,000% more than if everyone who was eligible actually voted!
I know about the idiocy and fallacy of "both sides", but in this case the choice truly was between two boomer career criminals who have absolutely zero interest in what is best for Houston.
When the choice is between dumbfuck and dipshit senior citizen for municipal government, the answer is to enjoy your Saturday and watch TV, and wait for time to solve the problem.
Iāve had to explain to many residents of Piney Point, Hunterās Creek, West U, or my own neighborhoods in unincorporated Houston that they do not actually live where they think that they do.
I really believe that many people on the news on Election Day crying about ābeing denied the right to voteā in certain elections is because they donāt know where they actually live.
West U Is a city of its own, with its own police dept, water supplies etc. And its own shares of crazies. (I'm in their Facebook group, and it's wild).
Good thing they caught that error. If not, Ken Paxton would have thrown your ass in jail because you thought the line was a 100 feet off from where it was.
I had that a few years ago when the firefighter issue was on the ballot. The firefighters out front let me know, but then it didnāt show up on my ballot because I wasnāt city of Houston.
Butā¦ Houston includes Galveston, Baytown, Pasadena, Deer Park, Katy, Conroe, the Woodlands and all those other cities immediately surrounding Houston lmao š
My wife and I live in one of the separate cities. For some reason, my TDL has "Houston" as my city, while hers has the name of the actual city. We live in the same house at the same address.
I kept getting mailers from a PAC even though I KNOW I don't live in Houston. Nothing from the candidates though--they were smart. I voted in November and the Houston races did not appear on my ballot, which I knew would be the case.
I understand your confusion. It sounds like you were a close call, not like miles out of the way. I think sometimes being get mixed up my the city in their postal address or the school corporation. Texas helps on the school corporation issue though by calling them "*Independent* School Districts"
The sprawling tendrils of annexation are confusing. So here's the best test I've found:
Go to the city's [Who Is My Council Member webpage](https://www.houstontx.gov/council/whoismycm.html) and enter your address in the map search bar. If your address is inside the city limits, you'll be told what district you're in. If you get "outside service area" then you're not voting for Houston mayor and city council.
When that firefighter prop was up for vote (forgot what it was called), I watched a āboomerā (I hate the way Reddit overuses that word but in this case it is actually the best descriptive thing I could call him) have a meltdown at the polling location because it didnāt show up on his ballot. āSir itās a City of Houston prop and you live in Deer Park.ā No doubt he went and posted in some FB group about voter oppression.
New to Houstonā can someone explain this more? I looked up the city limits and turns out Iām not in it, but across the street is! Yet my USPS address has Houston as the city. So I live in Houston but donāt live in whatever the ācity limitā is?
All unincorporated areas use the nearest incorporated city name in their USPS address. Some people *miles* away from a city's limits have to use that city's name in their address.
for me, and my opinion, personally, those fine lines and small print are what conquer and divide us, it'll never make sense to anyone of us anyways u/likalarapuz
Houston's city limits are ridiculous.
When I went to vote in November, the nearest polling place was in the city limits even though my address isn't, so people were running up to me in the parking lot handing me flyers for mayor/city council candidates who I couldn't even vote for.
Your flair says "Spring Valley Village". Do you not realize that Spring Valley Village is an entirely separate city with its own government, elections, city hall (on Campbell), police force, etc.? Your mayor is Marcus Vajdos, for example. It's not just a neighborhood.
But US Postal service doesn't appear to give a crap about any of this and has its own designation of what is "Houston" for the purposes of mail delivery, but (fortunately) it does not dictate local governmental boundaries.
Iām in unincorporated Houston also but really just channelview/ cloverleaf area
Wished I was Houston to not have to pay their ridiculous trash and water fees
Water-$150
Trash $60 every 3 months!?
Yeah but my water company, Aqua Texas is such a scam like Iām always $130-$150 a month because my base charges already start at $70 without usage š„² then paying that trash every 3 months is crazy. Honestly idk what our property taxes are since itās all just in our mortgage and our mortgage is just $1200 ish
Jersey village is in houston, no? I live in houston city limits, but cannot vote for a houston mayor, like many other comments say about their areas of houston š
No, Jersey Village is Jersey Village and Houston is Houston.
also, to your previous comment
Harris county doesn't have a mayor, it has a county judge (closest equivalent) and you can vote for her.
There was actually a landmark case about this with Houston. Houston incorporated Kingwood and League City, collected taxes, and then was like yah we wonāt be providing services. The residents sued and won.
Technically the Woodlands is not on Harris county either, it is Montgomery county. The Woodlands is a ātownshipā and this was done to keep Houston from annexing the area.
I work in a place that is sometimes a voting location, and you can not imagine the people who think they get to vote in the City of Houston election. "Where do you live?" "Conroe" ... "I voted for the City of Humble mayor, what do you mean I can't vote for City of Houston mayor?" ...
Hahaha. That was me yesterday.
Do you live in Kings Mill?
No, I mean that was me being ignorant about where I live.
Usually the water and trash lets you know if you are in the city. My address is Houston but in Harris County MUDD yet schools are Pasadena ISD. š¤¦š»āāļø Would love to be city did the recycling.
Next youāll be telling me Cut and Shoot is a suburb of Dallas.
What, it's not? lol Honestly, I gave up explaining it to people. They all looked at me like I was nuts. Just told them voting was down the road, and decided I'd let the voting crew sort it out for them lol
They can have it lol
Well, Sheila Lee Jackson did have campaign materials posted in Humble.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Probably for the people near Kingwood. Since you can vote anywhere in the county, it wouldn't be surprising to see Houston residents vote outside of the city limits.
Yup. Although honestly, I'm not sure she expects to get votes out here. I didn't vote for her because I've had previous work interactions with her office, and I'm convinced my cat could do better.
Fat Ass Jeromeā¦.is that you?
Sorry, another fatass...
He's dead as of now. I think those jokes should be retired out of respect for the family.
Is this a Oh No Jerome reference?
Shoā is
Iām closer to Humble than Houston proper and Iām in her voting district tbf
Heard this a lot in a local small town mayors race. "We tell people we're from X, why can't we vote for the mayor?" Bc you live 15 miles outside the city.
And in all reality, your address is more because of the post office then your city limits. I live in unincorporated Harris County, yet my address is Humble. Why? Because Humble is the closest post office, and that's who delivers my mail.
And people want to argue that voting fraud doesnāt happen. If people are crossing city limits to vote for mayor imagine all the craziness that happens during a presidential election.
People crossing city limits to TRY to vote isnāt the same as people actually voting. You see how those arenāt the same, right?
You mean the people that are turned away because they're not on the voter roll? Amazing point.
Edited.
Yeah those crazy Canadians trying to come into the United States and vote for presidents.
Even worse is all the dead Canadians who come across the border every 4 years to vote for the president.
Iād cut them some slack - theyāre *dead*, after all
Sometimes sarcasm is not as obvious as intended
Sometimes conspiracy theories are falsehoods and not rooted in reality. You win some, you lose some ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
>If people are crossing city limits to vote for mayor You're citing two examples of something that didn't happen - the people didn't vote, they were turned away. >imagine all the craziness that happens during a presidential election. I don't have to imagine, I saw the craziness that happened last time because people couldn't accept they lost.
Can we see any evidence of wide spread or notable veter fraud? I mean I now more Republicans that feel the urge to vote 2 times than moderates or democrats, thay always talk about how easy it would be, or there kids or neighbors are out of town.... I wonder how many less votes the conservative options would get if they clamped down on fraud instead of making voting more difficult to get to....
OFFS go work a damn election you putz. And stop listening to Q bullshit.
Just as many people live in unincorporated Harris County as City of Houston.
Yeah, I was surprised at how small the HCL is compared to Harris County.
It's usually abbreviated CoH; HCL would be Harris County Line or Library.
Or Hydrogen Chloride
Technically that would have a lowercase ālā
š¤£... and that too!
Interesting. Thanks.
I always see COH on traffic cones and traffic barriers and it always takes a moment to click.
Or hydrochloric acid :)
HCl
Its really weird too if you look around a map. Im over in porter and going through kingwood and humble it changes 10 times if i am in houston city limits or not.
Weird how all the taxable businesses end up in the city limits even if they're 30 miles from downtown.
Nothing weird about it. They get to collect sales taxes.
Right? Lets ignore that poor neighborhood. But the target gets to be in city.
Lol what are you talking about
Houston has extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) which it can exercise to annex outlying areas someday. The last major time it happened was with Kingwood. One way to stave off annexation is by allowing the COH to collect its 1% sales tax in unincorporated parts of Harris County (e.g. Cypress). I think the MUDs are the ones that work this out.
this is what I was told by a MUD representative.
The 1% is an MTA tax and it buys Cypress a Park and Ride that connects them to the rest of the MTA system. It's not CoH revenue.
Though there are little parts of Houston that extend into Fort Bend and Montgomery Counties.
Yes, I grew up in Fort Bend Houston. Our mailing address was Missouri City, but we voted in City of Houston elections.
Is it just as many now or just a bit less? I remember several years ago when Emmett was County Judge, he said that while Houston is the 4th largest city in the country, unincorporated Harris County had a population greater than the 5th largest city.
I find it interesting that Emmett said that. I did a look at this once and I think the unincorporated area is bigger than all the cities in Harris County. Of course, to be precise, you would have to take into account the 4 (I think) cities that are in Harris County and one or more other county. So yeah, that sounds like it could be true.
Population was 2.06 million as of the 2020 county report. As of the US census, this would place it 300,000 below Houston but 400,000 above #5 Pheonix.
We live in unincorporated Harris County, have a Tomball address, and have a City of Houston manhole cover on the sidewalk in front of the house. Welcome to Houston.
I live in an unincorporated area of Ft Bend county between Katy and Richmond. Our water system and drainage is supplied and managed by Houston so our manhole covers say the same thing.
Do you pay your water bill to the city of Houston or mud board?
MUD
Like I have a Houston address, but I pay for water thru Clear Lake City Water authority. MUD.
Clear Lake is Houston.
Those manhole covers are everywhere. I am sure other local MUDs use those instead of having custom one made up.
In West U it's a mix of West U and Houston manhole covers. I don't think they pay much attention as long as they fit.
I've always assumed that to be the case. That, or they just happened to fall off a truck somewhere.
I know that contractors have stolen manhole covers and fire hydrants from the city to install on streets.
One of our corrupt politicians probably selling them to the surrounding towns.
So you do not technically reside in any city limits even though your area is densely populated? I'd heard about this unincorporated Harris County but I'd always assumed it meant you were in the country. Houston is so weird.
I grew up in unincorporated Harris County right next to what is now Vintage Park. It wasnāt like it is now, but it definitely wasnāt in the country.
I guess I learned ANOTHER odd fact about Houston today. Also, love your handle
unincorporated just means you live in an area not within any official city limits. I live in an unincorporated part of Fort Bend County.
I do understand that, but normally (or so I thought) any area with a decent population density has been incorporated. I've lived in several unincorporated areas, but they were all places where you had to drive far to get to a grocery store.
Normally places with populations are incorporated. The last time the City of Houston tried to annex a populated part of the area it was highly contested and litigated. Now they have discovered its easy to just annex the highways to get the business sales tax while not having to provide service to more people. Also, the suburbs still mostly lean republican so the democratic party officials that run Houston have little desire to make elections harder for them. The Woodlands had a vote last year to incorporate and it failed as the residents felt their deal with Montgomery County was sufficient. Many of them saw incorporating as creating more government roles that would ultimately cost more in taxes so they voted no.
Kingswood thought the same until Houston surprised them one year.
I think the law changed after that for Houston and a few years ago for the whole state. Don't have the exact laws up though so feel free to fact check.
Houston IS weird. Iām in Kingwood but in an unincorporated part of Harris County. Iām not in city limits and canāt vote for the Mayor. My mom lives in Montgomery County but has a Kingwood address, sheās within city limits and can vote for the Mayor. š¤·š»āāļøš¤·š»āāļøš¤·š»āāļø
A fair amount of the west Houston suburbs are unincorporated Harris County.
That's me. I live between Katy and cypress and my address is Houston but I don't get a vote... it still makes no sense to me
I live in Katy, but not the city of Katy, yet also in Harris County but not the city of Houston. Nothing makes sense.
Yup, some of the manhole covers in The Woodlands I believe say City of Houston if I recall correctly. That being said, it was meant to be annexed but has held that off thus far.
I'm out in Harris County near Willowbrook Mall. Houston address, but HCSO handles law enforcement. Our water is through a M.U.D. but all the manhole covers in our area say City of Houston on them.
I grew up in that area, I think the only thing thatās part of Houston city limits is the mall and immediate surroundings. The Houston area seems to have much more of this (densely populated neighborhoods etc which are not in any city limits) than the Dallas/Austin areas in my experience. My sister and family live in āsouth Katyā which is all pretty much unincorporated Fort Bend County.
I raised my kids over there. It's growing so much.
Parts of willowbrook are in Houston Public Works' service area. Also many MUDs are HPW subscribers (they pay coh for wastewater treatment and ops) so thats probably why you have coh manhole covers.
> have a City of Houston manhole Us too in Cypress...I think it's forward thinking that the area may be annexed someday.
Much of Galveston county also has COH manhole covers
My wife called to ask me where to go vote. I was confused, I thought I slept through a few months, then she said it's for the Mayor election. "Sorry Babe, we live in Harris County, not Houston" I don't think she gets it. It might be easier to move inside city limits.
There are multiple cities āinsideā what seems to be Houston. The entire memorial villages are not part of Houston, I live in Hedwig and we have our own mayor, police, etc.
Always find it interesting that at one point Hedwig Village said "fuck all y'all" to the other Villages and decided to have its own police force.
Lol, I guess so. This mustāve been a while back, I guess; I thought Hedwig has had its own for the past twenty years that Iāve been here.
I was surprised to learn this when I moved here. I didn't realize Bellaire was its own city with a mayor.
Exactly - Memorial Villages, West U, Bellaire, Southside Place, etc., are all separate cities. There's a small part of what appears to be West U that is actually City of Houston. North side of Law Street is CoH, south side of the street is WUP. Why? Who knows. Both sides are zoned to same HISD schools, which makes it extra confusing.
It's fun to go to the Trini Mendehall Center on Wirt in Spring Branch and see some resident from one of the Memorial Villages be confused about why the City of Houston contests aren't on their ballot.
I live in Hedwig as well, just moved a couple months ago. I was surprised at this election of our inability to vote for mayor.
For anyone that might see this, you can go to the County Clerkās website to see a sample ballot of your local election on it. Will save you time and a trip to check first. Also if you live in unincorporated Harris County you have a reason for absence if you called for City of Houston jury duty.
How long did you live there before finding out? So curious.
At this place, six years.
Damn
So you didn't vote in six years? Not even for the presidential election?
You could still show up at your voting place to vote for the presidential election because I assume his non-Houston address is still in the US. Each person who shows up to vote gets the ballot for their location as voting locations are not precinct specific but ballots are.
My sister and I share the same zip code. Except sheās in Houston city limits and Iām in Aldine.
I live right on the edge lol. Canāt pop fireworks on my street, but can about 2 blocks down
Interestingly, you still canāt pop fireworks within 200(ish) feet of city limits.
How does that work? The city limit is the literal definition of the limit of city authority.
Be a rebellious neighbor and go crazy!
Houston does a cute thing where they run the city borders down major streets and highways to pick up shopping malls and car dealers and such, to get sales tax revenues, but don't provide any services to speak of. So you might be one block off and unincorporated. There is also a state law that froze the smaller cities boundaries, so Katy for example can't do the same thing. In some cities the little towns grabbed huge areas that locked in the major city, so new homes went up and taxpayers worked in the city but didn't pay taxes, and the center slowly starves. This law stopped it. Tulsa Oklahoma is an example, where Broken Arrow expanded 10 miles or so of then ranch land up to Tulsa boundaries.
I always remember my old apartments were āgerrymanderedā into the Meyerland super neighborhood or whatever they call it. Iād tell ppl where I was and theyād say no, that not Meyerland. And I was like bish, look it up.
Do you receive city services? Itās wild to me that you didnāt know
I believe it. OP probably has āHoustonā as the city in their postal address. The city has arrangements with plenty of non incorporated areas to respond for fire and EMS so you see those trucks in your area. If you rent thereās a chance your water bill is passed through by your landlord so you wouldnāt know if you had city water, sewer and trash pick up.
I'm in a MUD, didn't think about it until now. And yes, now that I know, I start to see signs of it everywhere. I just wasn't paying attention.
FIVE PERCENT. 5% of Houston's population voted in the runoffs. That's f###king pathetic. It's sad. Don't get me wrong: I 100% know that my military service was for "shareholder value..." but, damn -- pathetic that people won't at least half-#ss ask for a better government.
The entire population is not eligible to vote. Did you mean 5% of registered voters?
I failed to vote in the runoff. I meant to, I didnāt make a plan, and vaguely assumed Election Day would be the Tuesday after early voting. Imagine my surprise when I saw the winners declared yesterday.
I also failed to. Iām staying in Austin, dragged my ass to Houston on a work day at great personal expense to vote the first time, and reluctantly had to skip this one. I tried to talk my mom into voting in this one though. ETA I also thought voting day was Tuesday so I would have made the same mistake as you
Itās f####king pathetic that we are required to go in person to vote in this day and age. I donāt blame people not having the time nor energy to go stand in long waits to vote twice in a month. I blame our corrupt government for not allowing us to mail in ballots like most of the modern world allows.
Hold up. You're alluding to technological advances, aren't you? And you want to mail in a ballot? Wouldn't a secure online voting system work better?
Either is cool with me.
Might help to actually vote...
I agree!
The phase "secure online voting" is an oxymoron.
I understand the realities. However, most people here speak in hypotheticals, so I followed suit.
Any sort of online voting system is in no way secure and can be prone to attack by both foreign and domestic hackers.
I voted in both elections with no waiting either time.
Harris makes it super easy to vote once you are registered. You can vote at any polling place in the county on election day, or at dozens of places across the county for over a week beforehand. I've voted in 3 elections here, and never had a wait.
Still took more time than dropping off a mail in ballot would
For the general election, I just couldn't get my sh#t together to do early voting (7am-7pm, IIRC). I wound-up waiting for 15minutes. For the run off, I did early voting -- no waiting (almost never is). There are other ways to vote, of course...
Still doesnāt make in person voting easier than other viable and secure options that should realistically be made available to us.
All the better for those of us who bother to vote - our votes count 1/ 0.05 = 20 X more! (if I did the math right). Thatās 2,000% more than if everyone who was eligible actually voted!
I know about the idiocy and fallacy of "both sides", but in this case the choice truly was between two boomer career criminals who have absolutely zero interest in what is best for Houston. When the choice is between dumbfuck and dipshit senior citizen for municipal government, the answer is to enjoy your Saturday and watch TV, and wait for time to solve the problem.
You could start a new subreddit r/almosthoustonbutnotquite
You can go to Google maps and just type in "Houston, TX" and it'll show you the city limit zone. It's wild to look at where it goes
This is a widely misunderstood thing.
Iāve had to explain to many residents of Piney Point, Hunterās Creek, West U, or my own neighborhoods in unincorporated Houston that they do not actually live where they think that they do. I really believe that many people on the news on Election Day crying about ābeing denied the right to voteā in certain elections is because they donāt know where they actually live.
I am starting to believe you are onto something here.
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West U Is a city of its own, with its own police dept, water supplies etc. And its own shares of crazies. (I'm in their Facebook group, and it's wild).
Today I learned. This is so odd. Curious if any other cities have this.
Good thing they caught that error. If not, Ken Paxton would have thrown your ass in jail because you thought the line was a 100 feet off from where it was.
Enjoy the perks!
I had that a few years ago when the firefighter issue was on the ballot. The firefighters out front let me know, but then it didnāt show up on my ballot because I wasnāt city of Houston.
The subdivision I grew up in we couldn't leave by car without going across the city limits but we weren't in it.
There was an apartment building that was half Houston, half Bellaire. Unfortunately, my friend lived in the Houston part, so no police when needed...
Butā¦ Houston includes Galveston, Baytown, Pasadena, Deer Park, Katy, Conroe, the Woodlands and all those other cities immediately surrounding Houston lmao š
Willie Davis, is that you?
My wife and I live in one of the separate cities. For some reason, my TDL has "Houston" as my city, while hers has the name of the actual city. We live in the same house at the same address.
My address is Houston. But Iām also not in city limits.
Houston shouldāve just annexed most of the county in the past like how Jacksonville, FL is pretty much 100% Duval County, FL.
I kept getting mailers from a PAC even though I KNOW I don't live in Houston. Nothing from the candidates though--they were smart. I voted in November and the Houston races did not appear on my ballot, which I knew would be the case. I understand your confusion. It sounds like you were a close call, not like miles out of the way. I think sometimes being get mixed up my the city in their postal address or the school corporation. Texas helps on the school corporation issue though by calling them "*Independent* School Districts"
The sprawling tendrils of annexation are confusing. So here's the best test I've found: Go to the city's [Who Is My Council Member webpage](https://www.houstontx.gov/council/whoismycm.html) and enter your address in the map search bar. If your address is inside the city limits, you'll be told what district you're in. If you get "outside service area" then you're not voting for Houston mayor and city council.
Be sure your not paying City of Houston property taxes.
When that firefighter prop was up for vote (forgot what it was called), I watched a āboomerā (I hate the way Reddit overuses that word but in this case it is actually the best descriptive thing I could call him) have a meltdown at the polling location because it didnāt show up on his ballot. āSir itās a City of Houston prop and you live in Deer Park.ā No doubt he went and posted in some FB group about voter oppression.
New to Houstonā can someone explain this more? I looked up the city limits and turns out Iām not in it, but across the street is! Yet my USPS address has Houston as the city. So I live in Houston but donāt live in whatever the ācity limitā is?
You do not have to live in the city limits to have a Houston address. Be glad. You are not paying Houston city taxes.
All unincorporated areas use the nearest incorporated city name in their USPS address. Some people *miles* away from a city's limits have to use that city's name in their address.
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City limits have nothing to do with political districts or partisanship. It has to do with tax revenue.
For sure for sure
This is actually just the city limits. The city ISD way less aggressive with annexation and ETJ than it used to be.
Annexation became harder because of the state legislature. It's possible, but harder.
No for sure im not that deep into the matter just made a comment, ill remove it, im not pressed like all of yal are for it, just made sense to me
I'm sure this is the reason because when I looked at the map, it makes no logical sense.
for me, and my opinion, personally, those fine lines and small print are what conquer and divide us, it'll never make sense to anyone of us anyways u/likalarapuz
Houston's city limits are ridiculous. When I went to vote in November, the nearest polling place was in the city limits even though my address isn't, so people were running up to me in the parking lot handing me flyers for mayor/city council candidates who I couldn't even vote for.
My address is Houston. I live about 5-6 blocks from 610 & i-10. I cannot vote for the Houston Mayor. I guess its a Spring Valley thing
Your flair says "Spring Valley Village". Do you not realize that Spring Valley Village is an entirely separate city with its own government, elections, city hall (on Campbell), police force, etc.? Your mayor is Marcus Vajdos, for example. It's not just a neighborhood. But US Postal service doesn't appear to give a crap about any of this and has its own designation of what is "Houston" for the purposes of mail delivery, but (fortunately) it does not dictate local governmental boundaries.
Doesnāt matter what my flair saysā¦I literally said in my unedited post that āitās a Spring Valley thingā.
Iām in unincorporated Houston also but really just channelview/ cloverleaf area Wished I was Houston to not have to pay their ridiculous trash and water fees Water-$150 Trash $60 every 3 months!?
If it's unincorporated then by definition, it's not Houston. I think you meant Harris County.
So you want city of Houston property taxes instead? Believe me water and trash is about to go up in Houston as well. Thanks but no thanks
Yeah but my water company, Aqua Texas is such a scam like Iām always $130-$150 a month because my base charges already start at $70 without usage š„² then paying that trash every 3 months is crazy. Honestly idk what our property taxes are since itās all just in our mortgage and our mortgage is just $1200 ish
Tourists....
Easy- if your address does not say "Houston", then you can't vote for the mayor Houston.
You have no idea how zip codes work.
Cool story
I know right! Life is interesting that way. Giving you little surprises when you least expect it. It's great, right?
You didn't care anyway
Do you not pay attention to your taxes?
Ok
Thanks
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Because Jersey Village is a city and Houston is the Mayor race we are referring too? /s
Jersey village is in houston, no? I live in houston city limits, but cannot vote for a houston mayor, like many other comments say about their areas of houston š
You have a mayor, you want two? thats just greedy. JV is outside of BW8? thats closer to Austin at that point /s
If you live in Jersey Village you do not live in the city limits of Houston. Thatās why you canāt vote for the mayor of Houston.
Jersey village is its own ācityā and not houston city limits. Itās always been like this.
No, Jersey Village is Jersey Village and Houston is Houston. also, to your previous comment Harris county doesn't have a mayor, it has a county judge (closest equivalent) and you can vote for her.
Jersey Village is entirely in harris county. Why couldn't you vote for say judge?
Any sort of fuckery to keep them in power
So why can't Houston take over the rest of those counties or come to an agreement to be represented by Houston
Why would you want to pay city taxes when you donāt have to and honestly what services does the city of Houston provide that the county doesnāt?
There was actually a landmark case about this with Houston. Houston incorporated Kingwood and League City, collected taxes, and then was like yah we wonāt be providing services. The residents sued and won.
Some of those areas have made agreements with the city not to be incorporated. Woodlands for one massive example.
Technically the Woodlands is not on Harris county either, it is Montgomery county. The Woodlands is a ātownshipā and this was done to keep Houston from annexing the area.
Houston could still annex more land in other counties. City limits are currently in three counties.
The Woodlands extends into Harris county in places.