for additional security detail<\/a> during her trade mission to Paris. In an interview with Houston Public Media last year, she said she wasn’t permitted to bring security detail on her trip, which was funded with money from her own political campaign. <\/p>\nThe request for an additional door from Briones\u2019 office first arose in a meeting of the county\u2019s space planning committee, which works with county departments and precinct offices to make security and space recommendations for local government buildings. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, Hidalgo said the county judge\u2019s office inside the administration building is limited in space and has not been remodeled like other precinct offices. Some of the county judge\u2019s staff need to work out of a conference room because the floor they work on is being treated for asbestos. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have had people share offices,\u201d Hidalgo said. \u201cSo it\u2019s five community engagement staff and eight policy staff that are sharing a conference room because of asbestos, and I have a communications staff \u2014 obviously important because of my role as a spokesperson for the county \u2014 that would be displaced if this plan goes through. So it\u2019s not feasible for me.\u201d <\/p>\n
County staff previously rejected two alternative options to enhance safety for Briones\u2019 staff, according to Hidalgo, like installing a safe room inside the precinct office or creating a door into Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis\u2019 office.<\/p>\n
Hidalgo said she\u2019s never voted against recommendations for safety and security, but creating a door into the county judge\u2019s office by tearing down part of her office when she doesn\u2019t have room for her own staff isn\u2019t feasible. Briones, however, said the option was recommended by the county\u2019s top engineering and fire marshals officials, and the door would only go through a storage closet. <\/p>\n
Hidalgo asked if the space planning committee voted on an item to discuss the option back in December. Sam Pe\u00f1a, who works in the county\u2019s engineering department, said there was no need for a vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee, you\u2019re being cute,\u201d Hidalgo said, cutting off Pe\u00f1a and prompting Commissioner Adrian Garcia to call for a point of order. \u201cYou serve at the pleasure of the commissioners, of course you\u2019re going to be cute. But the point is, there was no vote. Please send it back to the space planning committee, take a vote.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hidalgo then promptly exited the chambers. The conversation continued, and Garcia apologized for Hidalgo\u2019s comments. He said the county judge\u2019s staff is working in poor conditions because she failed them by not considering their working conditions. <\/p>\n
Commissioners passed the item unanimously on Thursday while Hidalgo was absent. The project will take about a month to complete. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Screenshot Harris County Commissioners Court, August 15, 2024. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo walked out in the middle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[67366,405,67367,1178,39967,36176,56,58,57,66,223,287],"class_list":["post-165493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-1001-preston","tag-harris-county","tag-harris-county-administration-building","tag-harris-county-commissioner-lesley-briones","tag-harris-county-commissioners","tag-harris-county-judge-lina-hidalgo","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-local","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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