HOUSTON — With one week until Election Day, the candidates in the Houston mayoral race held a final debate.
Also released about a week out were the final campaign finance reports. They showed that John Whitmire had more than $4 million on hand while Sheila Jackson Lee had about $108,000. Other candidates had a little more or a lot less than that amount.
Money aside, crime remains the top issue for Houston voters, according to a recent University of Houston survey.
So, how do the mayoral candidates feel about the issue?
"We'll definitely recruit additional officers, but the urgency is we'll use other agencies to work with HPD," Whitmire said.
"The focus that I would utilize is community-directed policing. Community police relationships targeting high-crime areas," Jackson Lee said.
"There are many police officers that are doing civilian work. Let’s hire more civilians to do the civilian work. That will free up police officers," Gilbert Garcia said.
"Before we do those priorities of reducing crime, we have to have a balanced budget. We cannot do it by spending more money than we’ve got," Jack Christie said.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said he thinks more boots on the ground is one part of the crime-fighting equation.
"Whenever we can add more staff, it’s gonna help us," Finner said. "Not only law enforcement, but the entire criminal justice system."
On Tuesday afternoon, HPD welcomed its newest class of 64 cadets.
Current Mayor Sylvester Turner said that as of Monday, there were 111 fewer homicides this year than there were in 2021 and 67 fewer than last year.