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01 August 2005
Bob Stein, Houston bicyclist
Oh look: Bob Stein makes an appearance in today's Chronicle as a Houston bicyclist:
Since moving to Houston in 1979, Bob Stein, a political scientist at Rice University and dean of its School of Social Sciences, says he has logged some 250,000 miles on his bicycle, mostly within the city.Twenty-six years ago, a bicycle was an economic necessity because Stein and his family couldn't afford two cars. Now he rides seven days a week, logging as much as 200 miles, much of it spent commuting the 11 miles between his house and the Rice campus.
His motives are good health, an aversion to what he calls a car-centric society, and the simple pleasure of riding. Stein, however, is realistic when it comes to biking in Houston and doesn't readily endorse it for children or inexperienced adults.
"It's not a city that's immediately friendly to bicyclists. You have to plan the right way to get where you want to go for that time of day. Not every driver is your friend. They don't move over. I've been driven off the road twice," said Stein, adding that he once broke six ribs when a driver opened his door in front of him.
Of course, Stein is also a regular political expert for the Chronicle and his wife works for Mayor White, two things that were mysteriously left out of the story. We thought the Chronicle had fixed the problem of identifying Stein correctly.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ Bob Stein, Houston bicyclist"> 08/01/05 08:28 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
17 June 2005
How to identify Bob Stein
Chronicle politics columnist Kristen Mack reports today on the companies vying for the city's red-light-camera contract, and the city-hall ties of some of their lobbyists.
The column concludes with a proper identification of Rice University political science professor Bob Stein:
"It's going to be ugly. There's a lot of money involved," said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein, whose wife works as the mayor's agenda director."The mayor will be watching carefully to ensure that the contracts are handled properly and that there are no shenanigans."
On that bolded part -- how does Professor Stein, sometime advisor to Mayor White himself, know? Is it because he's an omniscient objective political analyst, or because of his personal ties to the White Administration?
There's no way for readers to know, which is why it is important for journalists to note his association with the White Administration in their reporting. Otherwise, readers simply think he's an outsider doing objective political analysis, which is misleading.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Bob Stein"> 06/17/05 07:08 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (2)
15 September 2005
But can Bob Stein explain where dust bunnies come from?
Oh, and his wife works for Mayor White.
Anyway, we just wanted to say thanks to the Chronicle's Kristen Mack and Matt Stiles for properly identifying Stein in recent stories. Readers have a right to know of the local expert's mayoral connection.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ Bob Stein explain where dust bunnies come from?"> 09/15/05 04:36 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (1)
20 November 2005
Houston's most happening political scientist reappears
One of blogHOUSTON's favorite professional political scientists, Professor Bob Stein, made an appearance in Kristen Mack's Friday politics column (notable for its reporting on the Aiyer/Lovell race -- more on that later).
"I was surprised, not that she [Sue Lovell] was in the runoff, but that she ran ahead of Jay [Aiyer]," said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein.
Maybe it had something to do with Proposition 2? And maybe Mack should have asked Stein's opinion on that, since this quote didn't really explain much.
Stein also admitted his lack of insight on the Clutterbuck-Hittner runoff:
Anne Clutterbuck and George Hittner, who will meet in a runoff in District C, ran neck-and-neck Nov. 8. She received 20 percent of the vote to his 19.8 in a seven-way race.
[snip]
Clutterbuck, a lawyer and president of Southampton Civic Club, won the endorsement of Mark Lee, who placed third Nov. 8. She could benefit from her grass-roots contacts as a civic club leader, Stein said, but he's not forecasting the result.
"These are impossible races to predict," he said. "They are really street affairs."
Perhaps since Professor Stein has so little no insight on either seriously contested council race, he really wasn't the person to quote extensively in this story.
Incidentally, since it was not mentioned, it is worth noting that Professor Stein is the spouse of mayoral aide Marty Stein, and he is also an occasional mayoral advisor who helped design the illegal predatory exclusive tow-zone contracts that comprised the original SAFEclear program. Professor Stein also likes biking.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/20/05 08:12 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (3)
13 December 2005
Does low turnout mean Bob Stein's wife is doing a great job?
We almost forgot to mention this insight on low turnout for Houston's city council elections, courtesy of KHOU-11 political analyst Bob Stein:
[S]ince much of politics is about spin, there's even a positive spin on low turnout.
"Maybe in some respects that's good news. It's good news in the sense that the city is run well," said KHOU political analyst Bob Stein.
Shopping and not voting, he says, may mean less about the state of democracy than the state of overall satisfaction.
That would be the same Bob Stein who helped concoct the illegal, predatory contractual scheme that was a key component of Mayor White's original SAFEclear program, and whose wife works for the White Administration.
Stein did not add, "perhaps voters took advantage of the good weather to spend the day biking, and that kept them away from the polls."
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Bob Stein's wife is doing a great job?"> 12/13/05 08:40 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (1)
08 November 2008
Bicyclist Bob Stein goes international, downplays Obama's accomplishments vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton
Bicyclist Bob Stein, Houston's (Democratic) expert on everything and every (lazy) local political journalist's go-to man for the obvious quote, has gone international! The bicyclist is featured in today's Ottawa Citizen:
Bob Stein, author and political science professor at Rice University in Houston, agrees that the Clinton campaign was more substantive than Mr. Obama's.
"She was far more specific on policy," he says. "And my guess now is that she is more interested in her policies than she is in position."Pushing Mrs. Clinton as Senate majority leader would be controversial and difficult, says Ms. Parry-Giles, who is writing a book about media coverage of the former first lady dating back to her pre-White House days.
[snip]
Whatever becomes of Mrs. Clinton, she remains very much in the political game, adds Mr. Stein.
"Nobody thought that either a black man or a woman could be a candidate for president," he says, "and what she achieved was breaking a glass ceiling that was even more formidable than the barriers to electing a black man."
Huh?!
Gee, we wonder whom the bicyclist supported in the primaries? Not that he would ever let us know, given the reputation of impartial bicyclist/political observer that he must uphold (for lazy local political journalists, at least). *wink* *nod*
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Bob Stein goes international, downplays Obama's accomplishments vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton"> 11/08/08 07:34 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (1)
09 January 2005
Is Bob Stein the only political scientist in town?
Last week, the Chronicle's Kristen Mack included this curious line in her mostly positive review of Mayor White's first year in office:
"He came into office with major problems that seemed intractable," said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein, whose wife, Marty Stein, is White's agenda director. "It's bad enough when you inherit an administration where things didn't go well. But this is a guy who pushed the envelope and did very well with it."
Mack did the right thing in identifying Stein's relationship with a member of the White Administration. But in so doing, she rendered Stein somewhat of a suspect analyst to be quoting. Do we really think he's going to have anything critical to say about the Administration? Indeed, it might actually be notable and worth quoting if he did say something critical.
It's not as if there aren't several universities in this city with academics who follow city politics, and even a few of us outside of academia who do so and have terminal academic credentials. Why not include some other analyst instead of Stein, since Stein clearly adds nothing to the story?
Today, Rad Sallee repeats the practice in an informative column on $AFEclear:
But Rice University professor Bob Stein, who helped design the program, predicted the numbers will decline as motorists ensure their cars are roadworthy or drive on surface streets.
"The very act of doing the program will change attitudes and behavior," he said, noting that the logjams predicted when Spur 527 was closed for repairs never materialized. Motorists simply found other routes.
Stein also responded to the idea of limiting Safe Clear to rush hour. "It won't work for the wrecker companies," he said.
With that remark, Stein — whose wife, Marty, is the mayor's agenda director — hit another of the critics' sore points: the idea that Safe Clear is just a revenue scheme.
That first bolded section is informative. In her column, Mack failed to mention that Stein, in addition to being married to one of the mayor's paid advisors, also served as one of the mayor's policy advisors himself.
So here's a question for Chronicle editors (if there are any such creatures): Why in the world would the newspaper print Stein's positive assessments of the mayor's policies, as if Stein is a completely detached, uninvolved, objective academic?
Surely such a creature can be found in town, but it's not Bob Stein in this instance.
We'll take up the substance of Sallee's column in a separate post.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Bob Stein the only political scientist in town?"> 01/09/05 04:01 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
13 June 2006
A Bob Stein sighting!
Have you been missing Houston's favorite bicyclist Bob Stein as much as we have? He's been pretty scarce lately, at least in local media stories. Thankfully, the Christian Science Monitor called up Houston's expert-on-almost-everything for his take on the CD 22 race:
Political scientists believe political jockeying has already begun - since there are four counties, and it takes a majority vote to put a candidate on the ballot."There is great concern that the seat could be lost to a Democrat," says Bob Stein, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston.
Great concern?
Yet District 22 is heavily Republican, and a Democratic win is a long shot - even for the well-financed and well-known former Congressman Nick Lampson, say political scientists.
But voters here have become disillusioned with DeLay. Jim Mills, a "recovering DeLay supporter," doesn't know who he will vote for in November, but says Mr. Lampson is not a choice. Mr. Mills will wait to see who the GOP chooses.
Maybe not so much.
In addition, this month the US Supreme Court will rule on Texas redistricting, an effort spearheaded by DeLay that redrew congressional districts in Texas to favor Republicans.
If portions of the plan are found to be unconstitutional, the result could mean an all-comers race in DeLay's district. That would work to Lampson's advantage, says Stein, because of the large number of Republicans who are interested in the seat.
Hope springs eternal!
(As a side note, which local entity do you think will miss Tom DeLay the most? Even the Chron's editorial board figured that one out!)
Posted by Anne Linehan @ Bob Stein sighting!"> 06/13/06 08:47 AM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (4)
03 February 2009
Bicyclist Stein opines on Houston dining
For a guy who complains about allegedly being misquoted by the press, Bicyclist Bob Stein, Houston's expert on everything, sure does like to give his opinion to the press on, well, pretty much everything.
Here is Stein's latest, from Bloomberg:
Consumers across the U.S. may be tightening their belts during the recession, but Texans are bellying up for more restaurant meals.
Sales at Texas restaurants are projected to rise 4 percent this year, more than in any other state, the National Restaurant Association forecast. That outstrips its 2.4 percent estimate for all U.S. restaurant sales.
Restaurateurs are being encouraged by the Texas economy, said Mike Donohue, spokesman for the Washington-based trade group. The state’s population will increase 1.7 percent this year and disposable incomes will rise 2 percent, according to the group’s estimates. The December jobless rate in Texas was 6 percent, compared with 7.2 percent nationwide.
“We’re certainly glad we’re not opening in a city that revolves around the financial industry,” said Tom Kaplan, senior managing partner for Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, based in Las Vegas, whose grand opening for Five-Sixty, atop Dallas’s Reunion Tower, is next week. “What we’re seeing is instilling confidence in Texas.”
Demographics play a role in big cities such as Houston, said Bob Stein, sociology and political science professor at Rice University. Thirty-seven percent of Houston households include children under 18 years old, he said.“It’s not just about having the money, it’s about juggling the day,” Stein said. “A high population of families with school-age kids and two wage earners is a perfect recipe for eating out a lot.”
We had no idea (from his vita) that Bicyclist Stein had ever researched Houston or urban dining patterns. He truly is a knowledgeable man of the world, and we always enjoy reading his opinions on... well, everything!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Stein opines on Houston dining"> 02/03/09 07:47 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (5)
17 June 2005
More Bob Stein -- this time on SAFEclear
Bloomberg.com is running a fawning SAFEclear story:
Tow trucks are doing what politicians can only hope to achieve with billions of dollars in transportation spending: easing traffic congestion in Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city.
A program to clear disabled vehicles from freeways during peak travel times eliminated 1.8 million hours of delays since starting in January, according to a report last week by the Texas Transportation Institute and Rice University. Accidents dropped by almost 10 percent. Commuters saved $70 million in lost time and collision-related costs, the report said.
``People were 2-to-1 against the program,'' said Bob Stein, a Rice professor who has studied Houston traffic for more than 20 years. ``They are now 2-to-1 for it. They have seen results.''
Bob Stein is EVERYWHERE! Now, Stein doesn't just study Houston traffic (and of course, his wife works for Mayor White); he helped design SAFEClear. And not only did Stein help design the original SAFEclear, but in January he let slip the true purpose behind the plan:
Stein said the biggest factor in determining how much towing companies bid for their segments was not the expected number of tows or miles of freeway, but the average age of vehicles there.
Vehicles on the city's largely industrial east side average about 4 years older than those in the affluent western suburbs, he said.
Stein's conclusion: "Tows were not the driving force in the bidding."
On the west side, he said, "it was the opportunity to make referrals for repairs." On the east side, the tow operator's profits are likely to come from storage lots and reselling impounded vehicles whose owners cannot afford to pay the fees, he said.
None of that is in the Bloomberg story. But this is:
Stein, the Rice professor, said results have won over many of the people who opposed Safe Clear. Traffic congestion is a perennial sore point for people in Houston, which ranks fifth in the U.S. for time wasted in traffic.
No source is given for Stein's repeated pronouncements that "people" have been won over by SAFEclear.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ Bob Stein -- this time on SAFEclear"> 06/17/05 08:47 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
11 December 2006
DeLay joins the blogosphere
As various blogs noted earlier, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has now joined the blogosphere.
The Hill posted a bit more background on the blog effort today.
There's no word whether DeLay blogs in his pajamas, though.
UPDATE (12-12-2006): Houston Bicyclist and media go-to guy Bob Stein makes an appearance in the Chronicle's coverage of DeLay's new blog. Stein, some may remember, was involved in that methodologically flawed DeLay poll conducted for the Chronicle earlier this year. Interestingly, Stein and crew were dropped from Chron polling this fall, and replaced by Zogby.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/11/06 09:11 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)
30 January 2009
Least surprising news of the week (updated with a Bob Stein revision!)
That HPD tried to tweak the city's questionable red light camera study to produce a more favorable conclusion -- one more in line with what MayorWhiteChiefHurtt have been peddling ever since the cameras were first installed:
The Houston Police Department tried to influence the outcome of a controversial city-commissioned study by changing how crashes at intersections with red-light cameras were counted, according to documents included in a lawsuit.
HPD’s request was refused by the study’s authors, however, who concluded the number of accidents at 50 intersections with the cameras had increased, not decreased as city officials expected, documents say.
Attorneys fighting to end Houston’s 2-year-old red-light camera program seized on the documents — released after an open records lawsuit they filed against the city — as evidence the study was tainted by a purposefully skewed methodology.
[snip]
According to an e-mail included in the lawsuit, an HPD official asked Stein in April to rule out accidents if they occurred more than 100 feet from the intersection. Kallinen also said that documents he obtained indicated the department attempted to rule out crashes that did not involve a red-light violation. Either of those steps would be more likely to lead to results showing the cameras reduced crashes, Kallinen said.
Stein, whose involvement has been criticized because his wife works for White, said the study’s other authors rejected HPD’s suggested change because they were using what they believed was the best methodology.
Mayoral spokesman Patrick Trahan said the police had legitimate reasons to consider limiting the crashes that way, as they did not want the study to include collisions that had nothing to do with running red lights or the cameras.
UPDATE: Over at the Houston' Press' Hairballs blog, Houston bicyclist Bob Stein goes on a tear, giving his side of things, including this:
Third, Stein argues that he was misquoted when he reportedly said that "collisions are going up all over the city." This quote appeared in a January Associated Press story as well as elsewhere in the media.
It was "A complete and gross misrepresentation of the quote," says Stein. "I said, 'collisions are going up all over the city at the intersections that we studied,' not that they were going up all over the city. They in fact are going down, which is clearly demonstrated in the emails. Collisions throughout the city are not what we were studying."
Hmmmm, here's what was written in the Chronicle at the end of December:
Study authors said the reason for the increase at "monitored approaches" is actually that the city has seen a major uptick in collisions during the past year, one that they believe red-light cameras helped mitigate. In other words, the study, released today, concludes that there were far fewer collisions at intersections with red-light cameras than there otherwise would have been if the cameras had not been installed.
"Collisions are going up all over the city," said Bob Stein, a Rice University political science professor and one of report's four authors. "But red-light cameras have held back that increase at approaches where they have been installed."
Clear as mud.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ Bob Stein revision!)"> 01/30/09 06:39 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (4)
15 September 2009
Rice Prof gives good grades to SAFEclear program he helped design
In today's Chronicle, Carolyn Feibel reports on a study by Bob Stein (Houston's expert on everything) that found a correlation between SAFEclear response times and a reduction in traffic accidents:
Houston's mandatory towing program has continued to reduce crashes on the city's freeways, according to a city-commissioned study released Monday.[snip]
“It makes the program look exceptionally effective,” said Bob Stein, a Rice University professor who co-authored the study with Tim Lomax of the A&M Texas Transportation Institute. (Stein's wife works for the White administration as a City Council agenda director.)
Cory Crow offers (tongue-in-cheek?) congratulations to the Chronicle for identifying Stein's wife (something that is not always done by the newspaper).
However, we would have preferred that the newspaper identify Stein as one of the architects of the SAFEclear program, a relevant fact reported previously by Rad Sallee for the Chronicle.
Helping design a program for the City of Houston and THEN being commissioned by the city to study its effectiveness is a pretty good gig!
Come to think of it, it's not unlike mayoral staffer Anthony Hall approving various expenditures by Richard Vacar at the Houston Airport System, and later overseeing the investigation of the same when Vacar's mysterious departure raised questions.
That's how the connected class rolls in Houston. We like to call it The Houston Way.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/15/09 09:57 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)
16 November 2009
Slampo does the work of (nonexistent?) Chron editors
SLAMPO posts more about that Sunday Chron story on the soccer stadium and mayoral candidates, noting several problems with the reporting:
1) Gene Locke was never chairman of the Sports Authority (an error that has not been corrected by the newspaper as of this morning).
2) The story didn't bother to report that Dynamo ownership have donated to Gene Locke's campaign.
3) Houston's expert-on-everything, Bob Stein, apparently must always be quoted by the newspaper.
Further to (3), here's a helpful hint to local journos/editors: When a sentence quoting a nonessential source begins, "As Rice University political science professor Robert Stein (who discloses that his son-in-law works for Locke) pointed out..," find another source. It really is that simple.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/16/09 08:16 AM | General | Technorati | Comments (3)
11 September 2006
Urban Socrates adds to Third-Ward rail debate
Houston's expert on everything (including bicycling) makes an appearance today in Rad Sallee's Chronicle coverage of the debate over the rail alignment in the Third Ward:
All three routes that the Metropolitan Transit Authority is studying for the eastern segment of its planned University line pass through the Third Ward, whose residents have long been wary of gentrification.Rice University professor Bob Stein recalls bicycling through the area and seeing signs saying, "My home is not for sale." In the 2003 transit referendum that authorized MetroRail expansion, 43 percent of Third Ward voters turned out, but just 52 percent approved the measure.
Bicylist Stein had to be quite a sight pushing the pedals through the Third Ward while pondering policy issues, almost a contemporary urban Socrates! The signs to which he refers were widespread in the years after the rail referendum, but one sees far fewer of them today. My notion was always that they were a response to speculative developers who were attemping to buy whole blocks of property for expensive townhouse development, and not rail per se, but I am no urban Socrates.
Our amusement at bicyclist Stein's latest appearance aside, Sallee's piece is a good update on the state of affairs in the Third Ward, and well worth reading. It is interesting that METRO not-so-subtly seems to be suggesting to Third-Ward residents that the Westpark/Richmond imbroglio further west could mean no rail for them. Interestingly, METRO didn't tell voters in 2003 that adhering to the Westpark alignment in the METRO Solutions plan could mean no rail through the Third Ward to UH and Texas Southern.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/11/06 09:04 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (3)
18 January 2005
Morning talk about SAFEclear
KTRH-740 just ran a report on the SAFEclear program today that included a blurb from "political scientist Bob Stein," who unsurprisingly spoke in defense of the program. He was not identified as one of the architects of the program, nor was it mentioned that his wife is an advisor to Mayor White. It should have been. Even better, the reporter might have found a more objective analyst. Bob Stein is not the only political scientist in town.
Elsewhere on the morning dial, KSEV-700 host Edd Hendee will be reporting live during the week via satellite phone from Iraq, where he is joining American troops as an embed. That likely means some morning studio time for Chris Begala (who is in today for Hendee, and conveying the Dan Patrick line that motorists without $75 for a tow should stay off the freeways).
Council takes up the Mayor's proposed SAFEclear revisions this week.
UPDATE: Lone Star Times posts Hendee's first dispatch from Iraq.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/18/05 07:43 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
07 February 2006
Doug Miller hit piece on Dan Patrick omits detail
KHOU-11's Doug Miller ran a hit piece on talk show host/Texas Senate candidate Dan Patrick today:
Dan Patrick’s job as a talk show host got him into politics. Now it seems his political opponents were listening.
“He said, ‘This race, he’s going to win this race without taking special interest money.’ I think we have that clip for you now,” said Joe Nixon, ® Candidate for State Senate District 7.
It turns out Joe Nixon’s campaign spent months recording Patrick’s radio show.
Patrick radio clip: “I don’t want lobby money. I don’t want PAC money unless they’re groups that support the people and issues we support.”
And now, Nixon is trying to use the talk show host’s words against him.
“Those are words and actions of Mr. Patrick and of no one else. And to those, he needs to own up and be responsible for,” Nixon said.
“I’m focused on illegal immigration, lowering our government spending, lowering our property taxes, and they’re listening to tapes. And they wonder why they’re behind,” Patrick said.
Patrick’s talk radio exposure gave him priceless name ID among voters. But it could become a double-edged sword.
All of the other candidates running in this primary have served in elected office so they have voting records. Dan Patrick does not, but he has built a career in talk radio.
“And one of the dangers of being on talk radio is you say a lot of things you may not really have thought of. We sometimes call it ‘cheap talk,” said Bob Stein, KHOU Political Analyst. “And I think in the case of Dan Patrick, they may have begun to—how shall we say? -- hit the motherload of those remarks.”
And at least one of his opponents is trying to make Patrick’s years of outspoken words come back to haunt him.
So, Joe Nixon has an audio clip of Dan Patrick saying something and asserting it means something. Doug Miller has basically given the Nixon campaign a free television ad on the highly rated KHOU news broadcast, seemingly agreeing that Joe Nixon's assertions mean something. Houston Bicyclist Bob Stein seems to agree that it means something.
The story's glaring omission? Any specifics as to why Dan Patrick's earlier comments are controversial.
Does Miller have evidence that Patrick has taken money from PACs opposed to his issues and fellow conservatives (which would contradict the clip in the story)? If so, the evidence doesn't appear in the story, which just seems to be a vehicle for Joe Nixon and Bob Stein to beat up Dan Patrick.
Houston bicyclist and "KHOU political analyst" Bob Stein's blast is even more interesting. Stein is a Democrat whose wife works for Houston's Mayor Bill White, also a Democrat. One suspects that he has found conservative Republican Dan Patrick "outspoken" (as Doug Miller puts it) over the years, to say the least -- something that would not be apparent by the way Miller identified Stein. And Stein's notion that Nixon's vague assertions are somehow a "motherload" is unsupported by the facts reported in the story.
Now, there may be some truth to at least some of the remarks by Bicyclist Stein. Remember when he went on Chris Baker's radio show to defend the original SAFEclear program? That PR effort (not to mention quotes in the newspaper) was such a disaster that the entire program nearly wound up shelved, and did wind up modified considerably. But that's probably not what Stein had in mind with his comment.
Miller's story seems more an attack piece than quality political journalism. It raises eyebrows because it's Miller's second such attack on a local conservative in recent weeks (and the last one featured commentary from Bicyclist Stein as well). Miller and KHOU would be better served to focus on actual political news, and ease up on these weak attack stories.
UPDATE (02-08-2006): The Chronicle's Kristen Mack reports on the Nixon press conference (no response from the Patrick campaign). It's pretty short on substance, but at least it doesn't include Bicyclist Stein's thoughts.
BLOGVERSATION: Houblog.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/07/06 11:07 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (15)
14 January 2006
Shutter the D.C. bureau (cont'd)
Earlier this week, two Chronicle D.C. bureau reporters contributed to a story with the headline, "DeLay takes Texas' clout in Congress with him."
The story suggests that Texas Congressional pork may be in jeopardy, now that Texas has no members of Congress in prominent leadership positions:
[W]hen embattled Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, stepped down permanently as House majority leader Saturday, Texas found itself without a rainmaker in a top congressional leadership role.
[snip]
[W]ith DeLay's departure from the leadership, the top ranks of the House and Senate are void of Texas twangs, and there aren't any custom-made cowboy boots parked under a committee chairman's seat other than Barton's.
[snip]
Beyond bragging rights, there is a practical reason for wanting Texans in congressional leadership jobs. Powerful lawmakers can direct money, programs and projects to Texas.
Houston's most happening political scientist and bicyclist, Bob Stein, makes an appearance:
Having DeLay in place was vital when federal money was needed for the space program, relief for Hurricane Katrina victims, the Texas Medical Center and other local projects, said Bob Stein, a Rice University political scientist and pollster.
But, Stein said, the Texas leadership void is in large part one of DeLay's legacies to the state since he spearheaded the controversial 2003 redistricting effort that placed so many freshman members in Congress from Texas — and booted out Democrats with decades of seniority.
Is there a quota at the Chronicle for comments from Bicyclist Stein? Because it's hard otherwise to explain this off-topic comment from the Houston bicyclist (it's somewhat off topic because high-ranking Democrats who lost their seats after redistricting weren't a part of the Republican Congressional leadership).
Strangely, the story works in three paragraphs quoting Bicyclist Stein and another quoting lefty analyst/consultant, George Strong, but neglects to mention two important facts that would seem to contradict the thesis that Texas pork might be threatened by Rep. DeLay's departure from leadership: 1) Rep. John Culberson is a member of the Appropriations committee and 2) Rep. DeLay has announced that he will be reclaiming his seat on the Appropriations committee.
But hey, why mention little facts that weaken the story you want to tell? Especially if Bicyclist Stein can be quoted instead!
BLOGVERSATION: Isolated Desolation, Off the Kuff.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/14/06 05:21 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
10 January 2006
Miller, local bicyclist criticize councilmember's radio gig
Earlier, KHOU-11 ran a hit piece by Doug Miller on Councilmember Michael Berry, who began hosting a talk show on KPRC-950 this week.
The hit piece is entitled, "City councilman's radio gig raises questions."
Well good. Presumably, programming guru Ken Charles likes his talk show hosts to raise good questions for the audience.
But perhaps that's not what Miller meant. The headline more likely implied, "around the table of us important journalists."
And Bob Stein. We can't leave him out! Yes, Houston's most happening political scientist, bicyclist, and spouse to mayoral aide Marty Stein has to add his two cents for Miller:
"Actually, it raises an ethical question about whether elected officials should be in positions where they have unlimited air time," said Bob Stein, KHOU Political Analyst.
Well, it's sort of a moot question, since Berry doesn't have "unlimited air time." His show is on four days a week, for a total of eight hours.
Funny, but Bicyclist Stein never seems to lapse into haughty lectures on politics and media ethics when local journalists report his commentary on city politics but sometimes fail to note that his wife actually is a shaper of city politics as a mayoral aide.
I listened to Councilmember Berry's show this morning, and thought it was pretty good. He talks knowledgeably about local issues, and he's good with callers. That's my kind of talk radio. I wish more elected officials were willing to engage the electorate that way. Earlier, Chris Tritico was ridiculing the Controller's Office because Annise Parker was in a meeting and apparently "nobody else in the entire office can speak." That's unfortunate.
It must have been a slow news day at City Hall if that's the best Miller could do.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/10/06 10:49 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (15)
14 April 2009
Houston-area Tea Parties (updated)
Several Tea Parties are planned in and around the Houston area tomorrow, and the big one at Jones Plaza should be jam-packed:
We expect quite a crowd. If we have overflow we are setting up an overflow area to protest the post office. Please stay on sidewalks there, and we apologize if Jones Plaza becomes too full. We are working to accommodate people in case this happens.
If you are unsure about coming downtown, The Woodlands, Sugarland, Clear Lake, Tomball, and a few other communities are hosting Tea parties. Please consider going to them. All Texas tea parties can be found here: http://taxdayteaparty.com/teaparty/texas/
Things will get underway at 4pm at Jones Plaza, at 5pm in The Woodlands, and at 6pm in Clear Lake -- all accommodating folks who have to work, you'll notice, unlike a METRO board meeting.
If you make it to one of the Tea Parties tomorrow, please tell us about it in the forum.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS (04/15/09): Houston's Expert on Everything, Bicyclist (and Democrat) Bob Stein, has an opinion (actually, two opinions) on the Tea Parties. Here's the first one, offered to KHOU-11:
Organizers say the events are non-partisan, but 11 News political expert Bob Stein disagrees.
“This is an effort by the Republican National Committee to build up grass roots for a decimated party,” said Stein.
Here's the second opinion, offered to the Galveston County Daily News:
More than 300 people gathered in a city park Tuesday to rally against “out of control” government spending and to ship protest tea bags to Washington, D.C. Whether the first of what will be a series of tea party protests across the country is the start of a grass-roots political movement or just another form of political theater is yet to be determined.
“I think it is too early to say,” said Rice University political science professor Bob Stein. “There is a good deal of partisanship, but for an event the Republican Party would normally put its stamp on as the loyal opposition there really isn’t a (party) spokesperson on this.
“To me, the story is why the Republican Party is not jumping on this. (Republicans) are supportive of this, but not sounding the trumpet.”
Thank you, Bicyclist Stein, for those two contradictory opinions!
Incidentally, neither story identifies Stein as a Democrat.
ANNE LINEHAN ADDS: Our beloved Chronicle dips its toe into the Tea Party water with this story:
Anti-tax protesters turn out for dreaded April 15
Gosh, it's a mystery why that paper is bleeding readers.
MEANWHILE: KPRC-2 covers the local story much better than the Chronicle.
BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport, Suburban Goddess, This Blog Is Full Of Crap.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/14/09 06:45 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (45)
14 February 2006
SafeClear works (updated!)
Really! It does...Mayor White says so:
The number of crashes on Houston freeways dropped 10 percent last year - and Mayor Bill White touted the statistics today as evidence that his Safe Clear mandatory towing program is working.
White, citing with data analyzed by officials at Rice University and the Texas Transportation Institute, told reporters today that the statistics show freeway crashes have dropped from an average of 14,670 a year in 2003 and 2004, to 13,137 in 2005.
"We're proud of the Safe Clear program,'' he said. "It's the most cost effective, transportation and traffic program we have.''
White has also said he believes the roughly $3 million program, a key portion of the mayor's mobility efforts, has reduced freeway congestion.
[snip]
The program now gets most of its funding from the Metropolitan Transit Authority. The city's portion annually is about $600,000, city officials have said.
White acknowledged those opponents at yesterday's luncheon, saying they fought hard when the mandatory towing program started. They "packed City Hall" and later sued the city, he said, "but we hung in there."
Did the mayor host a luncheon for SafeClear opponents yesterday?
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Post hoc ergo propter hoc (hat tip to TP), anyone?
KHOU-11 posts the actual SAFEclear report, and guess who one of the authors is? Yep, one of the designers of the program, Houston bicyclist Bob Stein!
Does anyone really think Bicyclist Stein, the spouse of mayoral aide Marty Stein, was going to conclude his (somewhat modified, thanks to courts) program is anything but brilliant?
UPDATE: KUHF-88.7 adds some comments from a SafeClear opponent:
But Suzanne Poole, president of the Houston Professional Towing Association, says those numbers are misleading.
"The price increase in gas and a lot of people are carpooling or using mass transit which those figures are reflected in how many people are using the buses. But also the wrecker drivers with the SafeClear program no longer call out officers to minor accidents, they simply give them the blue forms to send to the state. If they don't send those forms in, those accidents aren't reported. So the actual figures are inaccurate."
Poole says there's no way to tell how many accidents were prevented by SafeClear and comparing numbers from the past two years doesn't give a complete picture of the city's freeways.
[snip]
The mayor says SafeClear has saved more than $35 million through prevented accidents. That number is calculated using an average total cost of $26,000 per accident and multiplying that by the number of reduced accidents in 2005.
That's some math!
UPDATE (02-15-2006): The Chronicle has another version of this story posted now. Here is an excerpt on Bicyclist Stein:
Bob Stein, a Rice professor who authored the study with student researcher Danielle Supkis and Tim Lomax of the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, said the trio only looked at actual crashes.
"I'm not saying the Safe Clear program is responsible," said Stein, whose wife works in the mayor's office. "All I'm saying is, since the program was implemented, these facts have occurred."
Bob Stein also helped design the program. That detail should have been included.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/14/06 05:53 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (11)
26 July 2006
The Press likes Cohen
The campaign of Democrat Ellen Cohen must be very pleased with the fawning coverage Cohen gets in this Houston Press article (contrasted with the negative coverage of incumbent State Representative Martha Wong).
The article also includes a very positive assessment of Cohen's chances by none other than Houston bicyclist Bob Stein:
"Like the Spanish Civil War," Stein says, "this may be the race the people watch to see if Democrats can break through in Harris County."
"At the rate Cohen is going," he adds, "I think she has much better than a chance of winning."
It's an urban, largely inner-loop, swing district that could very well go to the Democrat, but it's not necessarily a barometer for Harris County.
Bicyclist Stein's political affiliation is not mentioned in the article.
BLOGVERSATION: Off the Kuff.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/26/06 09:33 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (5)
29 December 2005
DeLay gains another (token) primary challenger
The Chronicle's Eric Hanson reports that Rep. Tom DeLay (R) has gained an opponent for the GOP primary:
A 50-year-old attorney from Sugar Land has filed to run against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay for the 22nd District in the Republican primary in March.
Thomas A. Campbell, who specializes in environmental law, is the third Republican challenger to take on DeLay, who has held the post since 1985.
Campbell paid the filing fee of $3,125 to the Texas Republican Party in Austin on Wednesday and entered his name in the race.
"We need to return some decency and civility to the way we conduct the public's business," Campbell said.
Campbell said he found it has become increasingly difficult for him to vote for DeLay....
Sugar Land political consultant and blogger Chris Elam suggests that Mr. Campbell seems to have found it difficult to bother voting much at all:
My records show that he's voted in two GOP primaries over the last 12 years ('96 / '02).
A glowing profile by Todd Spivak in the Houston Press describes Campbell as a "Washington insider and Republican party loyalist."
Spivak does touch on a matter previously reported by the Chronicle's Kristen Mack about perennial DeLay challenger and loser Mike Fjetland:
After the 2000 primary, Fjetland sent DeLay a letter in which he promised to support him in exchange for a plum political appointment. DeLay never responded. "When we're young and naive, you know, sometimes we do stupid things," Fjetland explains when asked about the incident. He was 50 years old at the time.
And it's not a column on local politics without a few quotes from happening Houston bicyclist and political scientist Bob Stein:
Some Democrats want DeLay re-elected to continue his slow burn in the courts, the media and opinion polls, according to Rice University political science professor Robert Stein. "They see him as a poster child for Republican corruption," Stein says.
[snip]
"Tom DeLay's more likely to resign or be convicted than lose in a straight election," predicts Stein, the Rice professor.
That sounds about right.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/29/05 07:58 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
16 July 2006
Chron neighborhood section looks at Hillcroft "microcosm"
The Chronicle's Tara Dooley has an interesting article on the Hillcroft area of southwest Houston. Local bicyclist Bob Stein even makes an appearance:
Hillcroft Avenue is pure Houston, created with dedication to the automobile and an aversion to zoning.
A string of strip centers broken by blocks of single-family homes, it connects cacophonous enterprises: the tires of an auto repair shop stacked near a florist's roses; a women in hijab at Jerusalem Halal Meat Market two parking lots away from the "adult novelties" at Bizarre Bazaar; manicured lawns and Dumpster-decorated parking lots.
It provides spiritual sanctuary under steeples and in tucked-away storefront temples and mosques. Just as it offers nighttime revelers refuge under twirling lights and Norteño music.
It's an avenue where a staple of life and culture is found under different headings: bagels, pita, naan, pan, bread.
"Hillcroft is disorganized but not necessarily unorganized development," said Bob Stein, dean of Rice University's school of social sciences. "It is what Houston is all about.
"When you go from one end of Hillcroft to the other end, you cross every ethnic and racial group in our city. As a result, I want to say it is a microcosm."
The full story is available here. It is an interesting read.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/16/06 03:56 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)
04 March 2008
Is Quanell the Tenth the new Bob Stein?
Remember when Rice professor and bicyclist Bob Stein used to turn up in the local media all the time, as an expert on everything?
Although he's not really an expert on everything, Quanell the Tenth also seems to turn up all the time in media reports, for reasons that have never been entirely clear. A bemused reader passed along this latest instance from a Chronicle story:
Led by community activist Quanell X, residents of a southwest Houston apartment complex began a grass-roots search Sunday to catch a serial rapist.
Raina Williams, 34, said she wishes someone would come forward with information that would lead to the arrest of the suspect, who police believe has attacked at least four women since September.
"It will be nice if he is caught because it's scary, very scary. Sometimes you don't have a person to meet you at the bus stop," said Williams, who lives with her 11-year-old daughter, 22-year-old sister and her sister's 2-year-old daughter.
Houston police have said they believe the same man has sexually assaulted three women in the 9300 block of Dairy View and one in the 9400 block of Dairy Ashford. They believe the man lives in the area.
Quanell, who along with four other men passed out fliers with composite sketches of the suspect Sunday, said the community wants police and area apartment complexes to increase security. "And we are saying to the rapist, it would be wise if you turn yourself in because if you don't, when the community catches you, we will whip your rusty, raggedy behind," Quanell said.
Allrighty then!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Bob Stein?"> 03/04/08 08:18 AM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (8)
03 December 2006
Culberson not backing off Richmond rail opposition
In a story that speculates on the impact of the rail issue on the Martha Wong/Ellen Cohen race in November, Rad Sallee also treats the issue of Richmond rail more generally, and the position of Rep. John Culberson, who will become a minority member of the House Appropriations Committee next year:
Culberson is a rail skeptic. Except for his stand against Metro studying rail on Richmond, he has been generally supportive of Metro's rail plans since voters approved a Metro-backed referendum in 2003
As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, his support has been crucial in Metro's effort to obtain federal rail funding. Metro officials say it is too early to tell whether his influence will wane when Democrats gain control of Congress in January, possibly with newly elected Democrat Nick Lampson of Stafford on the Appropriations Committee.
Culberson has often said the views of those who live and work on Richmond itself carry more weight with him than those elsewhere.
He said last week that nothing in the Nov. 7 result gave reason to soften his opposition to the Richmond rail.
"Every election is about personalities and party affiliation and issues. It's about who the district wants to represent them," he said.
Culberson said the only referendum that counts was the 2003 transit referendum that approved the rail plan, and whose ballot said "Westpark."
November postings from a pro-Richmond rail blog that sometimes acts as the adjunct public relations arm for METRO on the topic of Richmond rail suggest that METRO is planning to move ahead on Richmond rail despite Rep. Culberson's opposition and the referendum language. The wild card was whether the election would soften Rep. Culberson's position. The answer would seem to be a resounding No.
UPDATE: I should note that Democratic political scientists Richard Murray and Bicyclist Bob Stein both made an appearance in Sallee's story. It's probably also worth noting that Zogby, rather than Murray/Stein, handled the Chronicle's polling for the last election. Perhaps the Chronicle decided it didn't want another methodological fiasco like the Murray/Stein DeLay polling from earlier this year.
BLOGVERSATION: Perry vs. World, Off the Kuff.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/03/06 09:38 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (1)
19 January 2005
Chron SAFEclear editorial: Better late than never?
On January 9 (and in subsquent posts), we criticized SAFEclear advisor and political science professor Bob Stein's admission that one key assumption in the original SAFEclear program was that the cars of some motorists would be seized and resold by SAFEclear wrecker companies looking to recover the big licensing fees paid to the city.
That admission as much as anything sent talk radio hosts and irate citizens into overdrive, and Mayor White announced revisions to the program shortly thereafter.
Today, the Chronicle inveighs against Stein's admission, a full ten days after this blog criticized it and talk radio took the criticism to another level:
Bob Stein, one of the program's designers, said tow truck operators on the east side were likely to make their profit by impounding and eventually selling the cars of Houstonians too poor to afford the towing charges.
No public service should be predicated on the confiscation of essential property, perhaps leaving low-income workers no way to get to and from work. The revisions before council would reduce the number of occasions that would happen.
We understand from interim editorial page editor James Howard Gibbons that he is enamored with editorials "in their ideal state," but trailing blogs and talk radio by ten days on such a hot local issue doesn't seem ideal (or timely) -- especially when the Chronicle's own news staff originally reported the Stein comments!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/19/05 10:36 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
15 January 2006
Recent news reflected by new Chron poll on DeLay
The Chronicle released a survey on Rep. Tom DeLay by Richard Murray and Houston's most happening political scientist Bob Stein over the weekend.
One question on the survey seems a bit bizarre, as it appears that Murray and Stein asked ALL respondents (not just those planning to vote in the Republican primary) whom they would be voting for in the Republican primary, thereby making the results on that particular question relatively useless. It's not entirely clear if the newspaper simply misreported the results, or if the veteran pollsters really did employ a strange approach to that question.
Unfortunately, the newspaper chose not to post full (raw) survey results or full crosstabs online, so it is impossible for those who might be interested to look at the work more carefully.
Evan at Delay vs. World has given the reported results a careful look, and also has an email out to pollsters and reporter alike for clarification on some of the numbers. Evan's executive summary (if you will) is as follows:
1. This isn't good for DeLay, although it's not really unexpected. The survey puts DeLay's favorable/unfavorable at 29%/60%, and it shows that many voters who have voted for him are considering other candidates because of his legal situation.
2. Unless DeLay's legal situation deteriorates, this is very likely the nadir of his poll numbers. There's no doubt that after the last few weeks, DeLay's poll numbers would be bad. But is this really the best time to take a poll, if you're attempting to predict the outcome of upcoming elections? No.
3. As far as I can tell, unless the Chronicle or Stein/Murray choose to clarify the primary results, it's very hard to take the primary results seriously.
4. If DeLay wins legally, he'll win re-election. If he loses legally, he won't win re-election.
Evan also notes that KHOU-11 seems to have had some difficulty interpreting the results properly.
There's not much to add to Evan's assessment, which ought to be read in its entirety. After the last few weeks and the accompanying press, it's not surprising that Rep. DeLay's poll numbers have suffered accordingly. It may be exciting for some executive editors to rush a (flawed) poll to the field in those circumstances, but the timing probably isn't so helpful in terms of predicting the outcome of the election. The poll does illustrate that Rep. DeLay's legal situation is central to his re-election chances, but that shouldn't come as news to most people.
UPDATE (01-16-2006): The Chronicle's Dean Betz informs in the comments that Murray/Stein have provided additional crosstabs, which the Chronicle has posted. Thanks to all of them for responding so quickly. Evan at Delay vs. World has some preliminary thoughts on the newly posted information.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/15/06 10:56 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (14)
31 October 2009
Eversole will run for re-election
THE CHRON reports what many of us learned via social networking sites yesterday: Embattled Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole will be running for re-election. The Chron version does offer comment from the usual go-to sources (Democrats Richard Murray and Bicyclist Bob Stein), however.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/09 08:01 AM | General | Technorati | Comments (0)
30 January 2006
Rep. DeLay makes the Economist, Hardball
MSNBC ran a segment on the 22nd Congressional District race, including a long interview of Rep. Tom DeLay (R) by Hardball's Chris Matthews earlier tonight.
Video and a partial transcript are available here. In the television version, political scientist and bicyclist Bob Stein made an appearance. He was identified as a Rice University pollster.
The Economist also ran a story on the race in its most recent issue. This is a lowlight:
Another problem for Mr DeLay, assuming that he survives the primary, is Steve Stockman, a former Republican congressman who has entered the race as an independent. Mr Stockman will need 500 votes to get on the ballot in November. He has vowed to go after Mr Lampson, but since his politics are to the right of Mr DeLay's, he may end up pulling support away from him. (According to the Chronicle poll, he could draw 11% of election-day voters.)
We've already established that among several flaws, the Chronicle/Murray/Stein survey almost certainly overstated support for Stockman because of the way he was identified.
Speaking of Professor Richard Murray -- he makes an appearance in the Economist article:
“The best Mr DeLay can hope out of Washington is continuing bad publicity but he's not indicted,” says Richard Murray, a political-science professor at the University of Houston.
They could have at least identified him as one of the people who put together the (flawed) survey they cited.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/30/06 10:57 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (4)
24 February 2005
Mayor contemplates parking authority
KHOU-11's Doug Miller reports that Mayor White is contemplating the creation of another unnaccountable government "authority":
Now, just as Houston has a Metropolitan Transit Authority and a Houston Port Authority, the mayor's thinking about setting up a Houston parking authority.
"You really need an element, an entity, an authority that focuses strictly on parking, on enforcement, on the meters, making sure that they're all working, responsible for valet zones, cab zones, and enforcements of those ordinances," said Carol Alvarado, Houston Mayor Pro Tem.
A parking authority could take over much of the job now done by the city's municipal courts division, the people who write parking tickets.
And in the shadow of downtown high rises, city officials suggest this authority could build another government-owned parking garage.
The city already runs some garages, like the spaces beneath Tranquility Park.
"It's not clear what the mayor is talking about here, but parking authorities are a widespread function. In fact, I actually looked at the number. Of cities over 100,000, about a third have some type of parking authority," said Bob Stein, KHOU political expert.
This idea is still just that -- an idea, very much in its formative stages. And there are still plenty of unanswered questions, like, 'Who would run this authority?' 'What exactly would it do?' and perhaps most importantly, 'Would it really be an improvement?'
Here are a couple more questions: how much will this new authority cost, and how much of a "new revenue stream" is the mayor hoping to create with it?
As for Professor Stein, KHOU might have also mentioned that he has advised the mayor on at least one traffic issue (SAFEclear) and that his wife serves as a fulltime mayoral aide. Indeed, perhaps KHOU should find a political expert less connected to the policies he is evaluating.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/24/05 12:57 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (10)
19 July 2009
Mayor/Senate Candidate White's press office announces plan to spend nearly $200k on HFD legal consultants (updated)
In a two-reporter, eight-paragraph story on Saturday, the Chronicle reported that Mayor/Senate Candidate Bill White would like to spend nearly $200,000 so two law firms can look further into issues of equality within the Houston Fire Department:
Mayor Bill White wants to hire two local law firms to examine “equal employment opportunity processes and practices” in the Houston Fire Department, his office announced Friday*.
The effort to initiate an outside review comes about 10 days after two women found racist and misogynistic graffiti near their quarters at a department fire station.
White has asked City Council to authorize a contract of up to $190,000 with the law firms Thompson and Horton, L.L.P. and Lemond and Lemond, L.L.C, who will “work jointly to review, assess and recommend policies and practives on issues that include diversity, conflict resolution, preventive practices, compliance, communication and management practices,” said a city news release*.
[snip]
“In any organization there is always room for improvement. We want this expertise to help us examine how we can do that,” White said in a statement*.
The rest of the story updates us on the lack of significant new developments in the HFD investigation. The two reporters do not, however, inform us what precisely Thompson and Horton or Lemond and Lemond will be doing (beyond the platitudes in the mayor's statement) or shed any light on why those two law firms were chosen (as opposed, to say, management consulting firms or any number of other firms). Apparently the mayor's staff wasn't able to shed much light on those issues either.
We did find one interesting connection. It turns out that Thompson and Horton employs a young associate lawyer by the name of Annie Stein. Ms. Stein, we are fairly certain,** is the daughter of Marty Stein (Mayor White's agenda director) and Bob Stein (Houston's expert on everything).
Now, are we suggesting that the selection of a law firm to handle ambiguous consulting for HFD has much to do with a junior associate lawyer who is related** to the mayor's agenda director? Not at all. It's probably complete coincidence. We are just amused by the small-town feel of Houston at times (being from a small town ourselves).
* Was our mayor too busy running for his next office to participate in this HFD announcement?
** Our multiple layers of fact-checkers and research assistants are out, it being the weekend and all.
UPDATE (07-22-09): As it turns out, there were even more interesting connections between Mayor White's staff and the law firms that apparently influenced their selection without any input from Council or public vetting. See this story from the Chronicle for more details.
BLOGVERSATION: Isiah Carey's Insite.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/19/09 09:47 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
05 December 2008
KRIV: Bettencourt resigns! (UPDATED)
KRIV-26 is reporting some shocking political news (via Mike McGuff and Twitter):
FOX 26 News has learned Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt has turned in his resignation to Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.
Sources tell FOX 26 Bettencourt turned in his resignation letter Thursday, and it is effective Wednesday.
Betterncourt has been unavailable for comment.
[snip]
Sources said Bettencourt has chosen to work in the private sector.
There's not much to say until this story is fleshed out a bit more, but if this is another case of a popular Republican running and winning while planning to step down the whole time (à la Judge Eckels), the little blog will be displeased once again. But perhaps there are mitigating circumstances, so we'll withhold judgment for now.
UPDATE: The Chronicle is now reporting the same story, citing Joe Stinebaker.
UPDATE 2: KHOU-11's Doug Miller has more.
UPDATE 3: The story seems to be that Bettencourt resigned to pursue a business opportunity he just received. Maybe that's even true. Unfortunately, the appearance is that Bettencourt misled voters about his intention to serve them just as Robert Eckels misled voters about his intention to serve them, because local Republican Party leaders (oxymoron?) knew that a non-incumbent Harris County Republican running in 2008 (and on) would be in a lot of trouble. Perhaps someone should inform the aspiring Machiavelli behind these moves that the Texas Republican brand is damaged, and that misleading voters about one's intention to serve if elected further damages the brand.
UPDATE 4: Paul Burka speculates about what's behind the Bettencourt resignation.
UPDATE 5 (12/07/2008): Bettencourt is finally quoted in the Chronicle, and doesn't seem at all bothered about misleading voters and citizens, who had every reason to expect he would serve out his term:
"I've had a wonderful 10 years of service with great people at the office who have done good things for the taxpayers of Harris County," Bettencourt, 50, said Saturday, a day after word of his planned departure was leaked to the media and broken on the late-night news.
"But there comes a time when you decide that further challenges await you and that you know you need to accept those challenges before maybe you get to the age where someone won't offer you the opportunity," he said.
[snip]
Bettencourt said he first entertained the idea of leaving the county during the summer, well after the GOP primary, when it looked like he and every other Republican in Harris County were headed for defeat. But he insisted no serious discussions about the offer he chose to accept occurred before the Nov. 4 election.
"This business venture is something that took shape after the election and not before," he said.
"You can always think pie in the sky, what do I do if the election doesn't turn out your way. It's another thing to have a thought like that and be approached to have a discussion about a new business venture.
In other words, the man isn't bothered by breaking his commitment to voters but has offered no compelling information as to why we shouldn't be bothered. It's the latest case of a local GOP official misleading citizens and voters, and it's deplorable.
Meanwhile, the Chronicle's Liz Austin Peterson has this quote from Bicyclist Bob Stein:
It is almost unheard of for an incumbent to resign before being sworn in to his new term, Rice University political scientist Bob Stein said. The timing of Bettencourt's decision was suspect, he said, because a lesser-known Republican might have struggled to win in a year Democrats so heavily dominated countywide elections.
True enough. However, Peterson might have added that Bob Stein is a Democrat. For that matter, perhaps the Chronicle could, on occasion, find some source other than Bob Stein to cite.
Peterson does confirm that the news was leaked to local media late Friday. There's only one reason to leak political news that way: Because it stinks and someone wants to bury it. While one can understand why the Harris County GOP's local Machiavellis might want to hide the fact that they have deceived voters and citizens (again), a better move would have been not to do it in the first place, especially after the Eckels example!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/05/08 09:59 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (28)
06 September 2006
Reporter and bicyclist crack on doctor-councilwoman
KHOU-11's Doug Miller and Houston bicyclist Bob Stein team up for a little hit on Councilmember and Congressional candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs tonight:
Shelley Sekula Gibbs is asking voters for their support for a general election write-in campaign and for a special election that would send her to Congress for just a few weeks.
But if voters give her what she wants the City of Houston will have to fill her empty council seat with a special election.
“The cost is not inconsequential, probably around two million dollars.” “So it’s going to cost two million dollars for a special election.” “Yes, it’ll cost two million dollars to fill her unexpired seat. And I don’t believe there will be anything else on the ballot,” said KHOU political analyst Bob Stein.
“Well, these issues are something that are done in the charter. It’s the city charter and really, we don’t have much control over that. It’s just unfortunate, but it’s part of the city charter,” said Sekula Gibbs.
It does seem like a somewhat selfish move that may cost the city quite a bit of money and is likely to be temporary at best (since the doctor-councilwoman has little chance of winning the regular election as a write-in candidate), but that is what is spelled out in the city charter.
Miller tosses out some fun gossip as to who might run if doctor-councilwoman leaves Council early:
Among the candidates talked about on the political grapevine are former state reps Melissa Noriega and Diana Davila-Martinez, former council candidate Jay Aiyer, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce head Richard Torres, a councilmember’s wife, Nandy Berry and district councilmember M.J. Khan, who could run for a citywide seat and build a citywide political base.
Aiyer would seem well positioned to make the run, if the seat does open up. Berry is certainly an interesting name.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/06/06 11:02 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (2)
24 February 2005
Woodfill comes out swinging.... but at what exactly?
The Chronicle's Ron Nissimov devotes a surprising amount of space today to Harris County Republican Party Chair Jared Woodfill, who is highly critical of cooperation by city council Republicans with Mayor Bill White:
The executive committee of the Harris County Republican Party has voted overwhlemingly to support Proposition 2 and to repeal Safe Clear. The local party's Web site has links to council voting records maintained by the city.Woodfill said the Harris County Republican Party has a good relationship with Republican council members and is not planning immediate action against them.
But he said the party is keeping a closer eye on them and may take more aggressive stances if they continue to vote for what he called liberal positions.
There are conservative alternatives to Mayor White's approach to municipal government, which may fairly be characterized as a technocratic-progressive approach that relies heavily on the mayor's considerable interpersonal skills, but Woodfill and the Harris County Republican Party haven't been been presenting them effectively (if at all). Woodfill has admitted he supported the SAFEclear program initially, and seemed only to get worked up over it about the time Mayor White gave in to public pressure and decided part of the $1 million windfall could pay for tows so that poor people wouldn't have their cars impounded and sold; Doctor-Councilwoman Gibbs deemed this "socialized towing," but after a motorist died while seemingly trying to beat a SAFEclear wrecker, Council finally stopped playing games and passed the changes. As for Proposition 1, there are probably many Republicans who wish that Woodfill had been more proactive when councilman Ellis actually helped write the legislation with the mayor.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/24/05 11:25 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (4)
29 July 2009
August Texas Monthly offers interesting article on Houston dogfighting, and a Tribute To White
The Chronicle's Bradley Olson calls our attention to Mimi Swartz's Texas Monthly article on the Houston Mayoral race.
It almost reads like Mrs. White* back in the day: Bill White good, VERY VERY good. In comparison, the three serious contenders to replace him are small.
There are other touches that remind us of Houston's Biggest Blog**:
“We’ve never had a mayor who wanted to run for higher office,” says Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University. “Different ambitions set up different agendas. . . . Lanier’s idea was to pick three things and do one. White picked ten things and did fifteen—well.”
That's Houston's Expert on Everything, Bob Stein, a sometime mayoral advisor. Oh, and someone named Marty Stein is the mayor's agenda director. Those little tidbits don't turn up in the story.
There is a reference to Bill King, who decided not to run for the office this time:
For more than a year, a prominent conservative businessman, Bill King, has been showing local breakfast groups a Cassandra-like PowerPoint presentation that purports to reveal how the city employee pension fund and other “unfunded liabilities” will bring financial disaster to Houston soon—maybe even before the election. If King is right, Brown and Parker, as public servants, will be in big trouble. “Annise hasn’t been waving her hands and saying the sky is falling,” said one campaign junkie. “After eleven years, she can’t run as an agent of change.” A fiscal crisis in the middle of a Senate run would also be bad for White—if he saw one looming. “In brief, Mr. King is just wrong,” White says. “Because we planned ahead and built up cash reserves, Houston is in far better shape than other cities...."
In a relative sense, perhaps, but that bit of politico-speak doesn't really refute the story that King has been telling. As we've noted for quite some time on the little blog, the unfunded pension fund liabilities still loom, despite minor improvements that Mayor White made early in his administration. We hope Mr. King keeps talking about municipal finances***, and that whoever wins the race taps his expertise in addressing the looming problems.
Anyway, those were the parts we found most interesting in this Great White Tribute.
Unsurprisingly, we didn't even think that was the best Houston-centric article in the August issue. We would bestow that honor on Skip Hollandsworth, for his fine (but disturbing) article on the undercover officers who got inside Houston's underground dogfighting culture, before busting many of the sickos involved in it. It's well worth reading if you're a subscriber.
* Cory Crow's name for an earlier Chron editorial board.
** AKA the Chronicle, another term coined by Crow.
*** We're not a breakfast group, but we'd welcome his presentation at a future blogger meetup.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/29/09 10:56 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
30 October 2005
Chron: young people can sink Prop. 2 (and save the Republic!)
The Chronicle's editorial board laments that more young people don't vote, in an editorial about Prop. 2:
The vote on Proposition 2 on the Nov. 8 ballot, a proposal that would ban gay couples' right to legally protect their families, offers young people a chance to make their influence felt.
Eighteen- to 25-year-olds vote at about half the rate of 45- to 55-year-olds, notes Rice University political scientist Bob Stein. Without home ownership, school districts and careers to worry about, the younger age group doesn't feel driven to participate. What a waste. If 18- to 25-year-olds voted their stated beliefs next month, they could show the country that Texans will not stand for bigotry.
(Oooo, a Bob Stein sighting!)
Why does the Chronicle think that if 18-25-year-olds voted their beliefs, they would vote against Prop. 2? Maybe, just maybe, young voters WILL vote their beliefs -- and vote in favor of it! (Even notoriously-liberal California passed a Defense of Marriage Act with more than 60% of the vote.)
The editorial should also include a big non sequitur warning because of the first and last paragraphs:
THE past year has not been very empowering for young adults. Just starting to earn a living and newly eligible to vote, they have witnessed a cavalcade of events beyond their control: disasters in Asia, terrorist bombs in Europe, interminable warfare in the Middle East. At home, officials are under investigation for endangering national security.
[snip]
There's not much voters can do about natural calamities, stateless terrorists or dishonest, unelected public officials. But Texas' young voters can exert amazing leverage on the home front next month. They need to vote — and show that hateful legislation is an embarrassment in 21st century Texas.
Natural disasters, terrorist bombings and dishonest public officials relate to Prop. 2...how exactly?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/30/05 09:01 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (11)
07 April 2005
House bill would scuttle SAFEclear oligopoly
Kristen Mack reports that a House Committee approved a bill today that could throw a monkey wrench into SAFEclear:
A House committee approved a bill today that would ban a central component of Houston's Safe Clear mandatory towing system -- the exclusive contracts designed to keep dozens of wreckers from converging at accident or breakdown scenes.
The bill sponsored by Rep. Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, would allow all wreckers meeting certain requirements to respond to freeway scenes. The Safe Clear program carves the city's freeways into segments served by wrecker companies under exclusive city contract.
The day Kristen Mack goes beyond repeating talking points will be a good day for Houston journalism.
Regarding that bolded section of her first paragraph, that is of course what proponents of SAFEclear have said all along. Of course, that's also what proponents of zone permits for towing said also in the 1990s -- and since we have the zone permits they wanted, presumably that solved the "problem."
However, both the zone permits and the exclusive SAFEclear tow zone permits were designed at least partly (if not wholly) with other ends in mind: revenue enhancement for the city.
That's why later, Mack quotes State Sen. John Whitmire as follows:
"The bottom line is, we ought to leave it alone," Whitmire said. "If you did away with the sections and contracts, you would destroy Safe Clear."
That's most likely true. Initially, Mayor White and Bob Stein came up with a scheme by which the city would make money by selling those exclusive tow zones. Sen. Whitmire forced the mayor to promise that money would be dedicated to SAFEclear/mobility by threatening to scuttle the whole scheme. If Talton's bill goes through, there will be no revenues coming as a result of the oligopolistic zones White and Stein created, and SAFEclear will have to be scuttled, or funded differently.
Mack discusses other interesting provisions of Talton's bill in her coverage.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/07/05 10:59 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)
17 November 2009
Chron catches up on the campaign press releases and commentary
THE CHRONICLE updates the latest mayoral campaign press-release charges and responses (with a poor headline as a bonus, but no input from Bob Stein, sadly).
Did the newspaper finally ask Gene Locke for his tax returns? If so, they apparently haven't gotten them either.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/17/09 08:18 AM | General | Technorati | Comments (0)
27 October 2009
More mayoral polling
ANNISE PARKER'S CAMPAIGN has released an internal poll that *shock* shows Parker leading the mayoral race.
KHOU-11 has released a poll that shows Peter Brown in the lead, which is consistent with the earlier Chron poll that showed the same. KHOU's story also quotes their "political expert" Bicyclist Bob Stein, who says expertly that if the poll holds up, Brown will make the runoff!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/09 06:18 AM | General | Technorati | Comments (1)
29 December 2008
Chron: Wrecks more than doubled at intersections with at least one red-light camera
Finally, the study has been released (completely unrelated to that lawsuit, we're sure), and incredibly, Mayor White and Bob Stein have decided they're going to sell a different conclusion, saying red light cameras have actually improved public safety: (via the Chron's Bradley Olsen):
Red-light cameras installed at some of Houston's most dangerous intersections did not reduce the number of crashes there, according to a long-awaited study the city commissioned on the matter.
In fact, wrecks at intersections with at least one red-light camera more than doubled, the data shows. The analysis examined accident data at intersections that had at least one camera which monitored traffic in one direction, or "approach" of the intersection.
Study authors said the reason for the increase at "monitored approaches" is actually that the city has seen a major uptick in collisions during the past year, one that they believe red-light cameras helped mitigate. In other words, the study, released today, concludes that there were far fewer collisions at intersections with red-light cameras than there otherwise would have been if the cameras had not been installed.
"Collisions are going up all over the city," said Bob Stein, a Rice University political science professor and one of report's four authors. "But red-light cameras have held back that increase at approaches where they have been installed."
Regarding the bolded sentence, read the following from the study:
Although this study supports the idea that that red light cameras have a positive effect in reducing collisions at monitored approaches in comparison with non-monitored approaches, several questions have been raised by these findings. The most important of these is “Why have accidents at non-monitored approaches increased so dramatically in the past year?” As suggested above, these results could be evidence of an increase in collisions across the city. The selection in 2006 of intersections with high rates of collisions could be serving to magnify this effect.
Currently, conclusions on a general increase in collisions across the city are not supportable with available data. Population growth and congestion stand out as possible factors behind slower traffic flow and increased collisions on a citywide level. However, this hypothesis is beyond the scope of this report and will have to be tested with specific data and rigorous analysis.
Just something to consider, as you read MayorWhiteBobStein's spin:
Mayor Bill White said the findings prove that the red light cameras are making city streets safer.
"The program is proving successful in improving public safety, which has been the goal since the beginning," White said in a written statement. "We believe the findings and conclusions provide sound evidence of that."
Or something else.
UPDATE: Kevin and Cory have struggled through the study. Both now need aspirin.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/29/08 07:48 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (7)
08 June 2006
Here are the first red light camera intersections!
KTRK-13's Jeff Ehling gives us a heads up on the first intersections to receive red light cameras:
The first group of ten red light cameras used to monitor red light running will be installed at the following intersections:
Bay Area Blvd. @ El Camino Real
Bellaire @ Fondren
Bellaire @ Wilcrest
Bingle @ Pinemont
Elgin @ Milam
Hillcroft @ Harwin
Hillcroft @ Westpark
John F. Kennedy @ Greens Rd.
Richmond @ Dunvale
Travis @ Webster.
Installation is scheduled to begin within the next 2 * 3 weeks. These sites were selected based on the number of crashes that occurred at the intersection and number of crashes that occurred at the intersections where red light running was a contributing factor.
It is anticipated that, American Traffic Solutions (ATS) will install and have these first ten cameras operational by mid July 2006. The others will be placed in groups of 10 approximately every 30-45 days. ATS is also creating a media public awareness campaign designed to inform motorist and the general public about the Red Light Camera system that will last 30 days. No citations will be issued during this period.
One would hope (okay, I would hope) that someone or some media outlet will take a stopwatch to see if the yellow light times at these intersections are set for the federally-recommended minimum length of time, and then make sure the city doesn't shorten the yellow light times as we move on in this program. It's been known to happen!
And then there's this:
The red light camera sites have been, and will continue to be, determined from statistical analysis of crash data by a committee consisting of representatives from the Houston Galveston Area Council, Rice University, as well as the HPD Traffic Division.
Houston bicyclist Bob Stein is from Rice University. I wonder if he's a member of the statistical analysis committee??? (As a refresher, Stein has an aversion to cars, helped come up with the original Safeclear program, is a parking authority expert, and is the husband of Mayor White's agenda director.)
RELATED: Chronicle
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/08/06 08:25 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (12)
07 January 2007
Carey: Narrow streets a concern for Cottage Grove
KRIV-26's Isiah Carey links to his TV report on the Cottage Grove neighborhood, and the potential dangers posed by the growing neighborhood's narrow streets.
Councilmember Peter Brown, who is popping up more lately than bicyclist Bob Stein, appears in the report. He is concerned about the narrow streets, and (surprise!) thinks the neighborhood would benefit from better planning.
I'm starting to get the sense that Brown hopes to run for mayor when term limits force out Bill White.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/07/07 12:08 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
09 January 2005
Mayor's $AFEclear spin machine starts to wobble
Mayor White and supporters of his flawed $AFEclear initiative are starting to have a little trouble with their talking points.
On the Chris Baker program a few days ago, the Mayor himself denied the program was about generating revenues, then asserted later that the new revenues would be used for additional traffic cops and equipment (what new revenues?).
In the press release (pdf file) announcing the program, the Mayor's office asserted that $AFEclear is "modeled" on a New York program.
Thanks to some solid research from Chronicle reporter Rad Sallee, we now know that the Mayor's office didn't get any mandatory tow provisions from New York's program:
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/09/05 11:07 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (5)
23 January 2006
Chron reader rep, pollster defend DeLay poll
The Houston Chronicle and its pollsters continue to stand by a poll and reporting that have come under strong criticism from the local blogosphere. This weekend, Chronicle reader representative James Campbell penned a column in defense of the poll and the reporting, and Lone Star times has posted an email from Professor Murray defending the poll.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/23/06 11:59 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
06 December 2005
Editorial LiveJournalists ignore alleged SEIU campaign finance irregularities
The Chronicle Editorial LiveJournalists today praised the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which recently unionized Houston's janitors and has now set its sights on municipal employees.
Curiously, the Editorial LiveJournalists still have offered no comment on the union's possibly illegal effort to influence the at-large Position 2 council race, even though Kristen Mack first reported on the matter a couple of weeks ago. KHOU-11's Doug Miller followed up on it more recently, as captured by the Aiyer campaign (Happening political scientist, sometime mayoral advisor, and bicyclist Bob Stein even makes an appearance in the video!).
Apparently, the Editorial LiveJournalists only get worked up over allegations of improper campaign financing when it somehow involves "bad guys" like Tom DeLay.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/06/05 11:22 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
14 August 2006
A favorite Houston tow-truck urban myth returns
The Chronicle's Matt Stiles reports on a new collection of SAFEclear data compiled at the request of a federal judge. Houston bicyclist Bob Stein even makes an appearance:
While the city has released information about crash reductions since the program went into effect in January 2005, the report offers some new details about what Mayor Bill White has touted as a key to increasing safety and reducing congestion on Houston's freeways.
Compiled by Bob Stein of Rice University, whose wife works in the mayor's office, and Tim Lomax of the Texas Transportation Institute, the report groups tows into nine categories.
Only 8,670 of the tows — about 15 percent — followed wrecks. Other reasons were more obscure. For example, about 250 stolen, flooded or burned vehicles were removed, less than 1 percent of the total.
The arrest of drivers accounted for 1,517 tows, or nearly 3 percent.
The study also said Safe Clear, which uses selected tow companies, accounts for about 5 percent of all the towing business in Houston.
The judge's request for the data comes because of a lawsuit by tow companies that are not part of the SAFEclear program.
An old red herring makes its way into the story:
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/14/06 11:25 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)
12 January 2005
Some thoughts on the SAFEclear revisions
As Anne Linehan noted earlier, Mayor White has announced changes to the controversial SAFEclear program that has been a hot topic on talk radio and blogs (especially this one) for over a week now.
The original, draconian program called for near-immediate towing of any disabled vehicle on Houston freeways regardless of the extent of the disablement for a non-negotiable fee of $75. Motorists without $75 would suffer vehicle seizure and accrue additional administrative and impound fees, in some cases for a simple flat tire. We later learned from advisor and Rice University Professor Bob Stein that towing companies actually anticipated seizure and reselling of vehicles as part of their incentive for bidding for SAFEclear permits, which he said netted the city $1 million in new revenues.
All along, Mayor White, traffic czar Saperstein, and Councilman Berry have contended that the SAFEclear program is absolutely necessary for reasons of public safety and to improve mobility. Conservative talk radio host Dan Patrick backed them on this contention.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/12/05 10:43 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (11)
19 March 2006
Second annual Tour de Houston
Saturday was Tour de Houston bike ride day:
Among the roughly 2,500 participants was one cyclist diligently leading the crusade of inspiring Houstonians to ramp up their level of activity via marathons or bicycle rides.
"I just want to let people know that keeping fit can be fun. It's not like any big sacrifice," said Major Bill White, an avid cyclist. "Leadership is about setting a good example."
White has doggedly tried to encourage Houstonians to seek fitness. He was joined Saturday morning by Houston Councilwoman Carol Alvarado and another cycling enthusiast.
"I fought obesity most of my life, and I suspect that I'll continue that battle," said District 13 State Senator Rodney Ellis. "From liquid solutions to diet pills, finally I matured enough to get an exercise program and a nutritionist to help me learn how to eat.
Proceeds from the Tour will benefit the Houston Parks and Recreation Department.
I'm disappointed. The story doesn't mention Houston bicyclist Bob Stein.
As for the proceeds, let's hope Councilwoman Alvarado won't be overseeing those funds as they make their way to Parks and Rec.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/19/06 09:42 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (5)
04 September 2006
Another Bill angling to run for mayor (in 2009)?
The Chronicle runs a story by Kristen Mack on Bill King, the former mayor of Kemah, who is hinting that he wants to run for mayor of Houston in 2009:
Meet Bill King.
If the name sounds familiar but you can't quite place it, here are some reminders: He has made dire predictions of hurricane devastation and has become a top advocate of preparedness. And he's weathered political storms as part of the Texas Southern University board that ousted President Priscilla Slade.He was mayor of Kemah for four years.
Now he wants to be mayor of Houston.
No, he doesn't plan to challenge Mayor Bill White — who can run one more time under city term limits. King is looking past White to the 2009 election.
Even if it's early to talk about an election three years away, King, 54, an ambitious lawyer, lobbyist and civic leader, wants to be in whatever conversation there is.
The ubiquitous Bob Stein makes an appearance in the story. It's apparently very hard for local journalists to find anyone else who might have an opinion on Houston politics or bicycling. Maybe the oft-quoted Houston bicyclist should run for Mayor in 2009 also!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/04/06 12:36 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (2)
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