Harvey czar John Sharp offers blunt words for insurers and developers
So, for example, in a public conversation with
"There are things that are going to be done that are probably not environmentally sensitive, but we are going to get people back in their houses," Sharp said.
Asked by Smith about whether much of the recovery work might be "on the backs of undocumented labor," even as their status is increasingly tenuous, Sharp replied, "We're not checking papers when we're asking people to haul stuff out."
Smith asked, "is that just your position," or is that also the position of the state and federal government?
"We ain't checking anything, papers, driver's licenses," Sharp said. "Just get the stuff off the curb."
Sharp said that one lesson of Harvey is that, "some developers had too much power in
Sharp was also especially critical of the insurance industry, saying that they are going to have to treat Texans post-Harvey better than they have treated disaster victims elsewhere, to prove that they are, as their ads say, a "good neighbor," and that Texans are in "good hands" with them.
"They need to quit telling their clients, 'Wait until you get the
Sharp, a former Democratic state comptroller, said he wasn't sure why Abbott chose him to lead the Governor's Commission to Rebuild Texas, except that he knows a lot of people form his long years in state government and politics, and that the governor didn't really ask him to chair the commission so much as tell him he was going to do it. His only question, he said, was could he keep his day job running the A&
Sharp praised
"That was all him," Sharp said of Cornyn, without mentioning Sen.
"He's like an angel that's flying above us," he said of Cornyn.
As he has done in the past, Sharp extolled Abbott's virtues in handling the crisis, saying he is always the smartest, most knowledgeable person in the room, and that, in addition to stripping away any regulatory impediments, he had also successfully negotiated a better deal for
From
Turner wants the governor to call a special session of the Legislature to tap the
The
But Sharp said that didn't reflect the governor's sentiment in the least, and that, aside from some frayed nerves,Texas and Texans had performed superbly in response to Harvey.
"The good part about this is it sure showed the world that Texans are a different breed of cat," Sharp said.
"We probably have the best disaster recovery operation that exists in
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