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Judge sides with Turner, city leaders in lawsuit accusing officials of shorting drainage funds

Summary

A district court judge has ruled in favor of Houston leaders in a lawsuit that accused Mayor Sylvester Turner and the City Council of illegally shortchanging the city's drainage and street project funds. The lawsuit, filed in 2019 by a pair of engineers, alleged that the city's approach to funding the Build Houston Forward program did not comply with a charter amendment approved by voters in 2010. However, Judge Christine Weems ruled in favor of the city defendants, stating that the method and math used by the city to allocate funds were consistent with the charter. The dispute revolved around the interpretation of the charter amendment and the calculation of the allocation for drainage and street repair and renewals.

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