InsideOut at City Hall

by Annise D. Parker

PARADE PREDICTION

Given its success and size, the annual event may soon require a new location

Organizers of the GLBT Pride Parade estimate that the 2002 parade attracted a diverse crowd of 135,000 spectators. More are expected for this year’s parade on June 28.

That’s like putting the entire city of Beaumont or the University of Texas football stadium crowd plus 55,000 more people along lower Westheimer. Not to mention the cars.

For many people in the GLBT community, the parade is the highlight of the year. We’ve come a long way in 25 years, and what better way to celebrate? (I should know. I’ve attended most of them.) For me, one of the highlights of all the parades has to be the contingent of gay and lesbian HPD officers who marched in 2001. I’ll never forget the thunderous applause and cheering that greeted them. Another is the first time I saw the disco ball hanging over Westheimer, glittering in the searchlights.

When the Pride Committee of Houston decided in 1998 to move the parade to Saturday night, I introduced an amendment to the parade ordinance to allow it. One of my first council initiatives, it easily passed. In addition to allowing a Saturday night (as well as Sunday afternoon) neighborhood parade, the amendment provided an important exemption for the nighttime event: Unlike other neighborhood parades, Saturday evening and Sunday parade routes can extend more than eight blocks or a half mile of a major thoroughfare.

I am especially proud that the community is celebrating Pride in greater numbers than ever before. Pride is a celebration of the values of freedom and acceptance—the freedom to live our lives openly and the importance of accepting people for who they are. These values are not unique to the GLBT community and indeed bind all people together.

In the past 25 years, we have grown as a community, and our allies have grown as well. African-American community leaders refused to support the James Byrd Hate Crimes law without protections for sexual orientation. A diverse contingent of Houston legislators—including state representatives Garnet Coleman, Jessica Farrar, and Senfronia Thompson and state senators Rodney Ellis, Mario Gallegos, and John Whitmire—formed the vanguard this year in defeating legislation that would have made it illegal for GLBT individuals to become foster or adoptive parents.

I invite and encourage the GLBT community to join in Houston’s many community celebrations—not just the Pride Parade, but also such celebrations as the Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo, and Juneteenth. These events, like the Pride Parade, proclaim universal human values that lift us all up.

The largest city parades, including those for the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, Thanksgiving Day, Cinco de Mayo, and Martin Luther King Day, go through downtown and are required to be held on weekends because of access, local impact, and safety issues. Our ordinance has slightly different regulations for downtown (as opposed to neighborhood) parades.

For 25 years, I’ve worked to build a society where everyone plays by the same rules. Our community has fought for equal rights, not special rights. Our events must play by the same rules, too. Because of the similar size of the Pride Parade to other major parades, it is inevitable that the Pride Committee will someday apply for a permit, and the city will reply, “No, you’ve outgrown the neighborhood. You’ve gotten too big to be a neighborhood parade.” Then what? The decision won’t involve who we are or the type of parade. It will be about logistics of a fabulously successful event.

I’m not trying to put a damper on this big anniversary celebration. And any decisions about the parade are best made by the Pride Committee. There are options: perhaps limiting the number and size of entries to fit it into the mandated three-hour time frame; perhaps modifying the route to move it to the more commercial areas of Montrose; perhaps moving to a different time of the year so that it can start earlier yet still have the darkness that we love to light up—without violating our noise ordinance that requires us to turn it down at 11 p.m.

Montrose is not the same bohemian neighborhood it was 25 years ago. Our parade is not the same humble gathering it once was. GLBTs are spread out all over the city now. We felt safe to move outside Montrose. Why can’t our highly successful and diverse parade do the same when the time is right?

STREET FESTIVAL

Let me touch on a related subject that has been in the news lately. Though not a GLBT community event, the Westheimer Street Festival was in a position a few years ago similar to the one that the Pride Parade is in now (although, unlike our parade, it had long been controversial and the object of numerous neighborhood complaints). The street fair, too, outgrew its base.

At some point, one must look at the matter from an objective policy perspective, not from an emotional standpoint. Large festivals are held downtown or on Allen Parkway for good reasons: safety, noise, access. Large festivals cannot be staged in neighborhoods based on any kind of popularity contest from festival goers who live all over the city and county. They must be located based on public safety concerns, including the safety and rights of the public that lives and owns homes and businesses in the affected neighborhood.

When the Westheimer Street Festival applied for a permit under the new street-functions ordinance several years ago, a hearing was conducted. Dozens of neighborhood complaints were heard about economic hardship to businesses, loud noise from bands, disorderly and drunken conduct, gridlock traffic congestion, and unmanageable illegal parking. After about nine hours of testimony, assistant public works director George Bravenec produced a detailed report (available upon request) denying the street festival a permit. Council then voted 12–3 to uphold the recommendation.

I worked with festival organizers to find a suitable city location and helped them cut through red tape. They even got initial city underwriting. I’m sorry the Allen Parkway location has not worked out for them. As Neartown president years ago, I worked hard to mediate differences between the festival and the neighborhood. I will do everything I can to help the festival find a better home or make the Allen Parkway event more satisfactory.

But like any festival, street function, or parade, the event must comply with laws designed to protect public safety and the rights of citizens, including those in the affected neighborhood. Apparently, this year the organizers have decided to return to Montrose in defiance of the city ordinance and without the benefit of city regulations requiring street-closure permits, insurance, security, etcetera. They have also chosen to ride the coattails of the Pride Parade by changing their traditional dates to coincide with the parade. I hate to see these promoters try to take advantage of what the Pride Committee has worked so hard for over the years.

It is a source of both consternation and pride that, after more than five years in office, many people still believe that I represent the Montrose area on city council. Of course, most know that I am an at-large council member and represent all 2 million Houstonians. But I understand that the more than 20 years I spent working to both improve the lives of GLBT individuals and improve the quality of life in my home neighborhood have created an indelible identification. I also understand, though, that I represent the entire city. Always.

Annise Parker is serving her third term in Houston City Council At-large Position 1 and has announced her candidacy for city controller. To receive her bi-monthly email newsletter, contact annise.parker@cityofhouston.net or call 713/247-2014. Her website is www.ci.houston.tx.us/city govt/council/1.

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