31 March 2007
There's still a glimmer of hope for the Astroworld boondoggle
Because really stupid ideas can often count on government to step in when the private money steps aside:
The county may consider picking up some costs of transforming the Reliant Astrodome into a luxury hotel or doing the $450 million redevelopment itself if a private effort to carry out the project falls through, a top official said Friday.
County officials remain hopeful that the company will obtain financing and go forward with the renovation. But some officials are weighing whether the county should partly finance it or take it over if Astrodome Redevelopment gives up or needs help with financing."From day one, we have always known that it is an option to do this as a publicly developed program," said Mike Surface, chairman of the Harris County Sports & Convention Corp., which manages Reliant Park. "If I'm looking out for Reliant Park's interests, I would say, 'County, you should think about doing this.' "
No property taxes would go toward the project in any case, he said.
If the county paid for part or all of the project, it would use hotel and sales taxes generated by the hotel complex and other Reliant Park revenue, such as concessions.
From day one they have known it was an option for the county? That detail sure stayed under the radar.
No property taxes will be used? Sure. 'Til the other taxes prove inadequate to keep up with the boondoggle's funding needs.
And did I read that third bolded part correctly? Since I'm unaware of a hotel complex currently at Reliant Park, is Mike Surface saying the (as yet unbuilt) hotel will fund the (building of the) hotel? How exactly does that work?
But a feasibility study concluded the hotel will be profitable, and the county would be wise to invest in the project to make it happen, he said.
Let's see that feasibility study.
County Commissioner Steve Radack has said, however, that he does not think the project makes sense and will oppose any county participation.
We can only hope the rest of the commissioners agree with Radack, because this project has DISASTER written all over it.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/31/07 08:02 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)
The media turned on David Carr?
On Friday, the Chronicle Entertainment section ran a story on former Texans quarterback David Carr with the following strange assertion:
Back then, no one could have predicted the level of anti-Carr sentiment that "started really percolating" after the 2004 loss to the Cleveland Browns.When fans poured beer on Carr's family in their Reliant Stadium suite, things hit an all-time low. Their love affair was over.
As was the media's. Newspaper columnists called him "an albatross." Television reporters seemed disgusted in post-game interviews.
Huh?
Fans did turn on David Carr at some point, but the media never seemed that hard on him, even at the end. And by all accounts, Carr was very professional and helpful with the media, which probably partly explains the cordial coverage he usually received.
But that's just my opinion. Does anyone think the local media ever truly turned on David Carr, over all those years of sub par play?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/31/07 03:57 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (4)
Houston Press' Spivak recognized for investigative reporting
Banjo Jones notes that Houston Press reporter Todd Spivak was recently recognized by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) for his investigative work on METRO.
Here's the mention from IRE's website:
Todd Spivak of the Houston Press for “Run Over by Metro.” This alternative weekly’s investigation into the Metropolitan Transit Authority in Houston looked at fatalities and serious injuries caused by the public bus system. It found that the agency rejected the safety recommendations of its own investigators, hounded victims to settle accidents and misrepresented its accident statistics.
Spivak's 2006 article is available here. Here's a quick excerpt:
The Houston Press has spent the last four months independently investigating Metro's bus operations. It took an appeal to the Attorney General of Texas's Open Records Division to open up Metro's records. In examining thousands of public documents and interviewing more than a dozen recent survivors of Metro accidents and families whose relatives were killed by Metro buses, the Press found repeated instances of the following:
• Metro rejecting the safety recommendations of its own investigators
• Metro offering bus accident victims much lower amounts to settle cases than what was recommended by its own claims committee
• Metro hounding victims to settle their cases, even approaching them to sign settlement forms as they lay in their hospital beds
• Metro not offering any form of apology to victims even when their bus drivers caused the accidents
• Metro creatively interpreting accident statistics in ways that enable it to misrepresent the actual number of bus crashes occurring each year
• Metro taking no responsibility for accidents incurred by First Transit, a private subcontractor that operates one-sixth of Metro's buses and consistently posts a higher accident rate.
Further to the bolded portion above, it's worth noting again METRO CEO Frank "Procurement Disaster" Wilson's recent assertion that the organization operates "in a completely transparent manner." Right!
Who knows, further scrutiny of METRO could pay more dividends for local journalists, especially given Wilson's past ethical issues and the recent news that METRO will be moving forward with public-private partnerships.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/31/07 02:45 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)
Coming soon to city coffers: The heavy trash revenue stream!
The Chronicle's Seshdri Kumar reports that Mayor White and his Council will soon be imposing yet another fee on Houston residents:
The city of Houston is likely to propose a $3 or $4 a month fee for recycling and heavy trash collection from city residents, Houston Councilman At Large Ronald Green, told a meeting of the Alief Super Neighborhood Council on Tuesday night.
[snip]
The city's solid waste task force has been meeting for the last six months and will present its recommendations at a special council meeting on April 2, Green said.
The city does not currently charge residents a garbage collection fee; instead, it pays for the service through tax revenues.
[snip]
Green said the method of collecting the fee has not yet been determined but most likely it be done through residents' water bills. Also, the frequency of heavy trash collection may be reduced, he said.
Once the task force actually does the political heavy lifting of advocating new revenues, we're sure the Mayor and his staff will have useful proposals for extracting the money from residents efficiently. They're pretty good at creating new revenue streams.
We're not really sure how well the "Houston: More fees for fewer services!" and "Houston: Murders per 100,000 residents weren't THAT high on my watch!" themes are going to play when Mayor White eventually runs for statewide political office, though.
BLOGVERSATION: Slampo's Place, NewsWatch: City Hall.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/31/07 01:51 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (13)
Every day's a honeymoon when hardly anybody pays attention
The Chronicle's Bill Murphy wrote about new Harris County Judge Ed Emmett's "honeymoon period" a few days ago:
Like anybody who has ever attended Commissioners Court, new County Judge Ed Emmett is finding out that its meetings typically are bereft of Patrick Henry-like debate.
Democracy, Harris County-style, often consists of the county judge paging through a 30-page agenda, reading the names of county departments. If no court member objects to any items listed beneath a department heading, the court passes the whole agenda with no discussion.
Midway through reading the department names this week, Emmett glanced up. "Is it always going to be this easy?"
Neither the Commissioners Court nor Harris County operations get much scrutiny at all from the Chronicle or other local press, so chances are it will remain that easy for the foreseeable future.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/31/07 01:34 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
30 March 2007
HBJ: Deadlines pass on Astrodome redevelopment
Tom Kirkendall calls attention to an update from the Houston Business Journal on the grand plans to redevelop the Astrodome:
The developer endorsed by Harris County to transform the Astrodome into a 1,000-room destination hotel complex has missed two deadlines to show suitable proof of a financial partner for the $450 million project.
An August 2006 letter of intent signed by the county and Astrodome Redevelopment Corp. outlined various milestones to be met in the process.
When proof of funding did not meet the specified December 2006 deadline, the county granted an extension to March 1.
Scott Hanson, president with Astrodome Redevelopment, found a New York bank interested in backing the mammoth development. County officials were not satisfied with the commitment as presented.
The Harris County Sports & Convention Corp., as overseer of the Astrodome for the county, wants confirmation that the bank will finance the deal as it goes forward, contingent on certain conditions being met throughout the process.
[snip]
Hanson is confident he will be able to provide the county with a more firm commitment from his backer. He says the New York bank has asked for updates on a feasibility study and construction costs.
That work is in progress, he says, and the financing milestone will be met in a few more weeks.
Says Hanson: "It's happening. It's just a timing issue. Sometimes the wheels don't turn as fast as we'd like them to."
Like Kirkendall, we've been dubious about this particular project from the start, and fearful that it will turn into an expensive boondoggle. The best news may be that not much has been happening at all.
PREVIOUSLY: What to do with the Astrodome?, Why the Astrodome Hotel is a terrible idea, The demolition of the Dome?, The Astrodome hotel boondoggle, Astrodome convention center proposal creeps forward.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/30/07 08:11 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
29 March 2007
Any day above ground in Houston IS a good one!
The Chronicle's Ken Hoffman got to tag along with some British travel writers visiting Houston as part of a promotional effort by the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, and recounts the adventure here. Here's a sampling:
Hopefully they'll have a Texas-size terrific time and return to their newspapers and magazines and write glowing stories that will entice readers to come here on their next vacations.
I tagged along with the British travel writers for breakfast at the Alden Hotel. One of them showed me her favorite souvenir — a bright-purple cowboy hat.
I had to tell her, "Unless it's Halloween, or you're a member of the Village People, I don't think many Houstonians wear a hat like that."
Sm@rt@ss!
Houston's Museum of Funeral History even makes an appearance. Be honest now -- did YOU know we had such a museum?
What are some of your favorite "off the beaten path" Houston places you take visitors, when you want them to get a good sense of life in the city?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/29/07 09:27 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (23)
28 March 2007
Better to laugh than.... well, just better to laugh
METRO Is Full Of Crap posts a very useful PSA.
The sad thing is, there's some truth to all the bullet points.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/28/07 11:05 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)
Murders surging (again); Lambert downplays danger
Various media outlets are reporting that a man was shot to death on a METRO bus earlier today.
Here are some key excerpts from Kevin Moran's reporting on Chron.com:
A man was shot to death today on a Metropolitan Transit Authority bus in west Houston after he apparently got into an argument with a man he may have touched or bumped while trying to get off the bus.
The alleged gunman was in custody and a passenger was taken to a hospital complaining of chest pains after the incident, which occurred about 11:30 a.m. on the 82 Westheimer route on Westheimer between Wilcrest and Kirkwood, said Metro spokeswoman Rosio Torres.
[snip]
Authorities estimate some 30 people were on the bus. "This is a rare occurrence,'' said Metro Police Chief Tom Lambert. He noted that Metro carries 330,000 passengers daily on 1,300 buses.
Homicide detectives arrived at the scene shortly after 1:30 p.m. Some witnesses were taken in a separate bus to give statements to police.
Observation #1: METRO spokesperson Raequel Roberts should never, ever let Chief Lambert speak to the press without supervision. The implication that METRO carries a lot of passengers daily without many deaths probably isn't very reassuring to the family of the man who was killed, to riders on the bus, or to anyone really.
Observation #2: Homicide detectives arrived two hours after the shooting? That isn't very reassuring either.
On the topic of murder and mayhem, KTRH-740 just noted that this murder was Houston's eleventh since Friday. The Mayor's PR operation is really going to be earning its keep if it figures out a way to spin this one. Or maybe they've figured out there is no good way to spin it, and that's why we keep hearing comments instead from Councilmember Adrian Garcia.
BLOGVERSATION: Lone Star Times, On Message, The American Thinker.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/28/07 04:17 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (20)
Safeway tries to remake Randalls
The Chronicle's David Kaplan writes about Safeway's big remodel of Randalls stores, after years of neglect since the California grocer acquired the chain:
Just a few years ago, some loyal customers were writing Randalls off, blaming new owner Safeway for discontinuing several of their favorite brands and cutting back on service. Its local market share fell dramatically.
Randalls is launching a comeback with a new game plan called the "lifestyle" remodel, which brings in more fresh and gourmet foods, organics and other features and gives stores a more pleasing look.
Since the lifestyle concept debuted at a Houston Randalls in 2004, it's been taken up a few notches.
For example, the Montrose location's big nut bar has 40 varieties of nuts and six machines, which allow customers to make nut butter.
It's the first Randalls nut bar in Texas.
It has a redesigned produce section, five aisles of organic foods and an expanded wine section with a full-time wine steward.
"If people were ever disenchanted from years past, come back and see us. I think they'll be very pleased," Steve Frisby, president of Randalls, said.
I gave up on the Montrose-area Randalls some time ago because it seemed like Safeway had just let the store go to hell (frankly). Has anyone tried out the newly redesigned Montrose store? Or any others in the area?
And as an aside for you wine lovers -- would you be inclined to use the Randall's wine steward, as opposed to the smart folks at Spec's (or some of the other local shops that specialize in wine)?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/28/07 11:07 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (12)
27 March 2007
The Professors talk Harris County politics
The Professors R-Squared speculate that municipal housing guru and Friend of Bill David Mincberg will be the Democratic nominee for Harris County Judge in 2008, and they warn the Harris County GOP that they'd best get their act together countywide.
There's all sorts of good stuff in their post (unless your name is Jared Woodfill, and then you quite likely don't think it's good stuff at all).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/27/07 07:58 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
26 March 2007
Rodeo-related boardings just one measure of transit-system health
METRO's Sit and Spin blog recently posted about the light-rail trolley's record ridership during this year's rodeo:
On Thursday, March 15, we had the highest, single-day number of passenger boardings in METRORail's history - 64,448 passengers.
Of those passenger boardings, an estimated 18,367 were going to or from the rodeo. Of the 20 highest single-day ridership totals, 11 are associated with the rodeo.
A "boarding" is every time someone boards the train. The same person can board multiple times.
On rodeo days, METRORail carried 922,872 boardings this year, a 14 percent increase over last year. Although some of this spike in ridership was due to factors other than the rodeo, there's no doubt that we carried significantly more passengers during the rodeo this year than last year.
The Chronicle has kept a close eye on METRO's rodeo-related ridership as well. There was this story in February (sans link because it has now expired):
Metro set a weekday record Tuesday with 56,388 passenger boardings on MetroRail.
Many of the passengers were attending opening night of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
Tuesday was the highest, single-day weekday total in MetroRail's history, surpassing last Friday's single-day weekday total of 54,193 passenger boardings, according to Metro.
And today, Rad Sallee noted the boarding record set on March 15 that was described on the Sit and Spin blog.
Meanwhile, Tom Bazan recently received METRO's latest boarding and paid-fare information, via public information request, and those figures tell somewhat of a different story -- one of declining fare revenue (which presumably means that across the system, fewer people are paying to ride METRO mass transit vehicles, despite all the forced transfers onto the tram to boost its "boardings" statistics). Media outlets don't always give those numbers a close look, even though they are a better indicator of the transit system's overall health and utilization than light-rail trolley boardings.
Here's the Excel spreadsheet that Bazan received from METRO, for anyone who wants to pore over the details. Please feel free to leave your analysis in the forum.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/26/07 10:43 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (8)
But what about his moonlighting as an opinion columnist?
Bob Richter, the public editor for Hearst's San Antonio newspaper (the Express-News), wrote about the merger of the Austin bureaus of the Chronicle and Express-News this weekend. Richter's (good corporate) take is that even though competition has been reduced, the advantages of the larger bureau outweigh the drawbacks:
"The large size of the bureau and our combined experience give us opportunities for coverage that we may not otherwise have had," bureau chief Clay Robison says, noting he's put two reporters, R.G. Ratcliffe and Lisa Sandberg, on the Texas Youth Commission story, which "wouldn't have been possible with a smaller bureau."
"Things are going smoothly," says Peggy Fikac, his deputy and chief of the Express-News bureau until the merger. "We're all rowing in the same direction, so that's pretty cool."
Richter does not address why Robison continues to act both as bureau chief (in charge of hard news coverage) and opinion columnist (delivering lefty fare reliably). The bureau merger seemingly would have been a good opportunity to make Robison choose one or the other, or simply to designate him as a columnist and reward Fikac with the bureau chief position for her good work running the Express-News Austin bureau previously.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/26/07 09:53 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (8)
25 March 2007
Bloody weekend
KRIV-26's Isiah Carey posts that it was a deadly weekend in Houston.
Carey apparently received six email blasts from HPD (so far) this weekend notifying local media of murders.
Unfortunately, blogHOUSTON doesn't receive those handy emails from HPD, which ignores our requests to be added to their email list. Oh well. What public official really wants citizens to know about the current state of crime in our city?
So, any guesses as to how Mayor White's press people will spin this weekend of murder and mayhem? Or will they just ignore it?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/25/07 10:44 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)
McGuff interviews KTRK's Ed Brandon
Mike McGuff has posted an absolutely fascininating interview with Ed Brandon, the longtime KTRK-13 weatherman.
There's a little bit of EVERYTHING in this interview -- Brandon's heart issues, Steve Olafson/Banjo Jones, Dan Patrick, Austin in the '60s, and more.
Interestingly enough, Brandon's a fan of blogs:
I go to right wing blogs, I go to left wing blogs. I'm fascinated by the Internet, that's why I wanted to talk about this on the blog instead. I'm not the kind of person that wants to put out a press release and say here's what I'm doing. It just seems a little egocentric.
I would be interested in participating in the blogosphere to some point. Maybe I don't know what I want to be.
blogHOUSTON can have a login ready in about 30 seconds, Mr. Brandon. Just give the word!
BLOGVERSATION: TBIFOC, MobilePodcast.org, Lone Star Times.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/25/07 10:19 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (13)
24 March 2007
Metro's transparency in action (cont'd)
Rad Sallee reports that our local quasi-governmental transit agency is at it again:
Four Near Northside residents pleaded with the Metro board Thursday not to leave them in limbo, as one put it, about its plans for an Intermodal Terminal near their homes.
Chairman David Wolff responded that the board would vote during the meeting to buy land for the terminal — a step toward clarifying their issues.
But after the vote, Metropolitan Transit Authority officials would not identify the specific parcel the board had approved for purchase.
George and Sharon Jacobs told the board they love their home on North Main but need to know its fate. "I spent this last year in limbo," Sharon Jacobs said. "It's stressful. It's torturous."
Todd Mason, Metro vice president of real estate services, said he does not believe the townhome property will be needed for construction but that it might qualify for "inverse condemnation," meaning purchasing a project to compensate the owner for loss of value.
Wolff apologized that the residents had been in the dark so long and blamed delays on the complexity of the sprawling, multi-level terminal for buses and light rail.
[snip]
The Chronicle asked Metro on Wednesday for descriptions and maps of the properties. A Metro spokeswoman recommended filing an open records request, which was done.
All in a day's work at Metro.
Let's recall Frank "Procurement Disaster" Wilson's recent statement:
We operate the METRO organization in a completely transparent manner.
Riiiiiiight. We can't wait for the Chron's editorial board to weigh in, since they are fans of government sunshine.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/24/07 09:59 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (2)
Someone tell Peter Brown that utility poles can come in handy
Isiah Carey has pictures of the city's new wi-fi thingys (technical name: mesh routers) which will be placed on utility poles, and this has Isiah concerned:
My concern is that it may bother Houston council member Peter Brown. He has been on a mission to reduce the clutter on utility poles around the city. I wonder how he will react to these bread boxes placed on light poles around the city of Houston!
Actually, Councilmember Brown wants utility poles buried underground, not just de-cluttered. Isiah needn't have worried though -- as he posted later, Councilmember Brown was otherwise occupied in Dallas, taking notes on how Houston can be more World Class.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/24/07 08:27 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
A new look for the Bill White Vermin And Solid Waste Memorial Park
Mike McGuff says things aren't looking so good around the George R. Brown Convention Center right now as construction for Discovery Green has left giant piles of dirt in the GRB's parking lot.
Can we assume the hobos have been (temporarily) displaced?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/24/07 07:52 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (0)
23 March 2007
The sound of nitwits (cont'd)
The Chronicle's Dale Lezon checks in on the latest legal activity from the local radio lunatic fringe:
A Houston peace activist and board member of public radio station KPFT-FM (90.1) filed suit this week after the general manager of the station barred him from its Montrose studio.
Ken Freeland alleges that Duane Bradley unfairly prohibited him from coming to the station after Jane Tucker Bradley, no relation, accused Freeland of assaulting her.
Freeland, a member of Houston Coalition for Justice Not War, denied the accusation.
Duane Bradley said he banned Freeland from the station to protect Jane Bradley and other staff members.
Jane Bradley said she feared Freeland after a confrontation with him during a forum for candidates seeking election to the station board in October. She said Freeland "jumped into my face" and yelled at her about the forum's organization.
He didn't hit her, she said, but she filed a complaint against him with the Houston Police Department.
"His baseball cap was bumping into my forehead," she said. "I felt he was a threat to me."
Freeland said he didn't touch Bradley, and said he yelled at her only after she had yelled at him.
It can be entertaining when the peace activists get all riled up (although sometimes it's not very good for Houston radio)!
BLOGVERSATION: Lone Star Times.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/23/07 09:45 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)
White defends airport parking perk for elected officials
The Chronicle's Matt Stiles got Mayor White to comment on the slow-news-week revelation by KTRK-13 earlier this week that elected officials enjoy parking perks at the Houston Airport system:
Mayor Bill White defended the free-parking program at the city's airports Thursday, saying local elected officials who get the perk are "critical for the success and development of the aviation system."
But he acknowledged "fair questions" about the necessity and appropriateness of the program, and said local elected representatives eligible for the perk should comply with the city's guidelines restricting its use to official travel.
"They ought to be aware that all of us are scrutinized by the public," said White, who is eligible to park for free but hasn't. "The public is always skeptical of any perks or special privileges for elected officials."
We do not always agree with Mayor White, so let it be duly noted that his comments on this matter seem eminently sensible.
It does not seem unreasonable for a taxpayer-supported entity like the airport to extend parking privileges to taxpayer-supported elected officials (rather than making them pay and later turn in an expense report for reimbursement, like most private-sector employees would do when traveling on business), which is why some of the media coverage this week seemed a little overblown.
Then again, elected officials shouldn't abuse the perk, so maybe a little media attention during a slow news week isn't entirely a bad thing.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/23/07 09:35 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
Most news outlets report on abduction attempt at HISD (updated)
On Wednesday, HISD issued a press release about actions taken by HISD in response to an attempted abduction of a student. Here's an excerpt from the press release email* I received from HISD:
The principal of HISD’s Scarborough High School telephoned nearly 500 homes today to warn parents about an attempted abduction of a student on a city street.
Scarborough Principal Moses Diaz contacted 489 homes in minutes using the district’s new automatic phone messaging system to warn parents about a man who attempted to abduct a 9th grade student as she walked to school. (Audio of phone call is attached.)
Principal Diaz told parents that about 8:15 a.m. today, a Hispanic male driving a blue four-door Dodge truck attempted to abduct the girl from a street corner at Antoine and Libby.
“The man was between the ages of 25 to 30 years, 5-feet 6-inches tall with short black spiked hair with excessive acne on his face. He was wearing a royal blue button up shirt and blue jeans. The student who was involved is a 9th grader at Scarborough High School and was able to escape this attempted abduction and was not physically harmed,” Principal Diaz told parents.
The principal said HISD Police and Houston Police are investigating, and that extra police patrols have been added in the area.
The local television news outlets reported this news story the same day (KPRC-2, KHOU-11, KTRK-13, KRIV-26).
Strangely enough, Houston's Leading Information Source didn't run an actual story on the matter.
However, Chronicle education editor Jason Spencer, who whined recently on his Chron.com blog about HISD issuing press releases in an effort to gain favorable media coverage of HISD topics (shocking!), did mention the story on the same Chron.com blog yesterday, while pointing out that HISD's press office issued a press release on the attempted abduction but did not issue a press release on a teaching assistant accused of sexually assaulting a student off campus.
We've long suspected that the Chronicle editor's apparent animus towards HISD spokesman Terry Abbott adversely affects the Chronicle's coverage of HISD. The absence of any non-blog coverage of an attempted abduction -- considered with these recent blog posts -- lends further credence to the notion.
UPDATE: Lo and behold, as I was putting the finishing touches on this very blog post, Chron.com finally posted a news story about the abduction this morning! Better late than never, we suppose, although it certainly was late; maybe the Chron.com Froot Loop bureau should have helped out with this one! I have no idea if the story made it into this morning's print editions.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/23/07 09:24 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (16)
22 March 2007
A peek behind the scenes in the Tynesha Stewart case
KRIV-26's Isiah Carey posts an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the Tynesha Stewart case, and how events unfolded yesterday.
RELATED COVERAGE: Chronicle.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/22/07 07:34 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)
21 March 2007
Ken Charles headed to Miami
The Radio-Info.com site posts that Clear Channel programming guru Ken Charles will be leaving Houston for a Clear Channel gig in Miami.
Best of luck to Mr. Charles in Florida. At least Houston has prepared him for the humidity!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/21/07 10:29 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (9)
Chron: "Magical art colony" to descend upon Memorial Park
The Chronicle's Seshadri Kumar reminds us that the Bayou City Art Festival takes place this weekend in Memorial Park:
Houston's Bayou City Art Festival will celebrate its 10th year in Memorial Park from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Sunday.
More than 300 visual and performing artists are expected to transform the park into a magical art colony, with juried art and multicultural music, dance and culinary delights.
A magical art colony?
Look, it's a pretty neat festival, and definitely worth a visit, especially if you've never been. But past experience suggests that it may not live up to the billing as "a magical art colony," unless you hit the wine pretty hard.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/21/07 10:10 PM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (4)
20 March 2007
Flight attendant tries to live her best life now
The Chronicle's Dale Lezon reports some of the entertaining details of the lawsuit against Lakewood Church's Victoria Osteen, relating to her temper tantrum on a Continental jet in 2005:
The Osteens were on board Continental Airlines Flight 1602 at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport, bound for Vail, Colo., on Dec. 19, 2005.
Victoria Osteen found a liquid on the arm rest of her seat and asked fight attendants to clean it up, according to Brown's lawsuit. The flight attendants did not immediately take action, however, and after they said a cleaning crew would be called, Osteen shoved, grabbed and pulled them, the lawsuit alleges.The suit states that Osteen elbowed Brown, the flight manager, in the left breast while trying to get into the cockpit. After Osteen was asked to leave the plane, she and her family complied.
The Federal Aviation Administration fined Osteen $3,000 for interfering with a flight crew member. She paid the fine, but payment is not an admission of guilt.
Brown's lawsuit claims that she suffered pain and bruising. It seeks unspecified damages for the medical care, emotional pain and mental anguish she claims to have suffered and may suffer because of the incident.
The lawsuit seems overblown, but then again, it doesn't seem very Christian to elbow a flight attendant in the breast, so maybe there's some sort of karma at work in the whole thing.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/20/07 10:48 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (3)
Rep. Isett's red light camera bill is up for discussion
Over at Grits for Breakfast, Scott Henson has details on state Rep. Carl Isett's proposed bill that could put an end to red light cameras in Texas:
Those concerned with using cameras instead of police officers for traffic enforcement may want to make their views known to the Urban Affairs Committee supporting HB 985 by Rep. Carl Isett, which will be heard there tomorrow.
[snip]
This bill takes that opposition one step further and prohibits speeding and other traffic enforcement in addition to red light enfocement via cameras at intersections. (In the Senate, John Carona has legislation that would split revenue between locals and the state.)
Scott also provides a thorough list of why red light camera programs are such a bad idea, especially when there are much better ways to minimize red light running -- ways MayorWhiteChiefHurtt wouldn't even consider.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/20/07 08:34 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)
19 March 2007
Credit where credit is due
The Chronicle's Jennifer Leahy reports on a somber event that took place yesterday:
While thousands of families were enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Hermann Park, hundreds of people gathered in the park's Miller Outdoor Theatre to remember those who never got to experience such a lovely spring day.
The inaugural "A Life to Remember" ceremony, a commemoration of the babies lost through miscarriage, stillbirth or newborn death was presented by local support groups and area hospitals.
Babies?
How did that reference (and not "fetuses") get by the editors?
Hat tip to Jennifer Leahy for the characterization and Matt Bramanti for the catch.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/19/07 10:00 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
Reports: UH to lose president to Auburn
The Birmingham News (via Houstonist) reports that University of Houston President Jay Gogue, an Auburn alum, has been named the sole finalist to become that institution's president:
University of Houston President Jay Gogue, a 1969 graduate of Auburn University, has been named as the sole finalist to become his alma mater's 18th president.
Gogue was named the only finalist for the job by the school's Presidential Search Committee which met Monday and by 2:30 p.m. voted to name Gogue as its candidate for AU's top job.
Search committee members have spent months reviewing resumes of applicants for the job and narrowing the list of those interested in the job.
The 59-year-old Gogue, a native of Waycross, Ga., is expected to be on campus by Wednesday where he will make the rounds meeting with faculty, students, administrators and community leaders.
On Thursday the Auburn University Board of Trustees will meet and are expected to interview Gogue and then possibly vote to hire him.
This sounds as if it's pretty much a done deal, and one that Gogue can hardly pass up. That will be quite a blow to the University of Houston, as Gogue's work revamping/formulating UH's Master Plan has been instrumental in raising/changing expectations around the traditional commuter institution.
RELATED COVERAGE: Chronicle.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/19/07 09:45 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)
18 March 2007
Denied Council candidate blasts city
Earlier in the week, the Chronicle's Matt Stiles broke another interesting story from City Hall -- this time on the inconsistent treatment of candidate applications by city officials in recent years.
He followed that story with a report on the complaint by a candidate whose application was recently rejected on a technicality:
Ray Jones Jr., who was denied a space on the ballot for the May 12 special election to replace former Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, filed a petition in state appellate court trying to force the city to let him run.
He contends that city officials denied his notarized application because he left an oath section blank while other candidates with mistakes on their forms were approved.
In a petition to the 14th Court of Appeals on Thursday, Jones' attorney, Richard Leach, also suggested that his client's advocacy on behalf of the disabled in conflict with the city may have played a role.
His daughter, Kristen Jones, who is disabled, recently won a federal court case against Mayor Bill White and the city in which the judge required that dozens of curbs be fixed or rebuilt to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Jones also said he has appeared before the council and other groups to complain about White's policies on mobility and parking.
"It appears that, if you're favorable to the city, then the city will allow you to run," Leach said. "If the city doesn't like you, as in the case of Ray Jones, then it doesn't allow you to run."
We're pretty sure that the current Mayor of Houston has more important things to do with his time than to micromanage the vetting of applications for City Council races.
However, given the earlier reporting by Stiles about the inconsistent application of standards in these matters, it doesn't look good that one of the rejected candidates just happens to be a thorn in the side of the city. We hope that's just an unfortunate coincidence.
BLOGVERSATION: NewsWatch: City Hall, KTRK Political Blog.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/18/07 10:28 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)
PvW: Crime issue may hinder statewide run by White
Evan at Perry vs World posts some thoughts on Houston's crime problem, and how it might hurt Mayor White if he eventually runs for statewide office:
Crime has certainly lost some of its potency as an issue. But it will be salient in White's record, and the sort of suburban female swing voters who might swing towards White will be very turned off by his record as mayor. Everyone knew that the Houston Police Department was facing an impending shortage of officers, and yet Bill White did nothing. Houston's sharp rise in crime is directly attributable to Bill White's decisions. Whether he is soft-on-crime or not, the buck stops there.
He links to an earlier post at the Professors R Squared blog that also discusses White and crime.
White's local PR operation is pretty good, but if he decides to run statewide, he'll be stepping into the big leagues, where opposition researchers are going to look more closely at his record on crime (and other issues) than some locals. It's an issue that could hurt him.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/18/07 10:10 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (1)
Death row inmate refuses food
The Chronicle's Allan Turner reports that a potential Chron Eye subject is refusing food:
Life on death row, says Roy Lee Pippin — condemned for killing two men in a Harris County narcotics murder — is a living hell.
And unless courts spare his life, Pippin says, he plans to go to his March 29 execution on an empty stomach. He's trying to draw attention to what he considers horrendous conditions at Texas' massive, ultra-maximum-security death row.
A one-time air conditioner repairman, Pippin has spent almost 12 years on death row, roughly half of them at the forbidding, electric- and barbed-wire encircled Allan B. Polunsky Unit just west of Livingston. Pippin, 51, the latest in a series of inmates who have stopped eating to protest prison conditions, started his hunger strike on Feb. 19 and had lost more than 20 pounds.
Pippin, who consumes only water, undergoes daily medical evaluation. If his condition seriously deteriorates, doctors could order that he be fed intravenously.
Didn't Anne Linehan see this coming about a year ago?
BLOGVERSATION: TBIFOC.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/18/07 09:55 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)
Daneshy: How to maintain Houston's dominance as energy capital
In an op-ed for the Chronicle today, Ali Daneshy, the director of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Houston, comments on Halliburton's recent decision to relocate its headquarters to Dubai and what Houston can do to maintain its dominance as energy capital of the world.
Unsurprisingly, Daneshy identifies the University of Houston as an underutilized asset:
In light of this, Houston must strengthen its technology infrastructure within the metropolitan area. The University of Houston can serve as the focal point for much of this strategy. Surprisingly, the city that claims to be the energy capital of the world does not offer an undergraduate petroleum engineering education. This needs to be rectified quickly.
It also wouldn't hurt for the university to promote petroleum economics/finance/management programs as well.
Daneshy's op-ed is available here.
UPDATE: The Chronicle's Brett Clanton reports on the general topic.
BLOGVERSATION: Loren Steffy.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/18/07 02:01 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
Tour de Houston
The city's third annual bike ride was supposed to take place yesterday, but did it? I can't find any local news coverage of the event. If you participated in it, let us know how it went!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/18/07 01:32 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (5)
A perfect day to visit the Houston Zoo
We hadn't been to the zoo in a while, so yesterday we took advantage of the great weather and headed out.
The highlight of our visit was definitely Mac, the baby elephant. What a cutie!
And this time, we were early enough to catch some lion activity -- one of the lionesses chasing a bird. The male lion lifted his head, looked around for a bit, then went back to snoozing. We were also amused by the black spotted something-or-other (leopard maybe?) that was napping on his back with his paws in the air. How the animals can sleep through all the noise zoo visitors make is beyond me.
The only suggestion I'd have for zoo folks is to add more benches around the Duck Lake concessions area. It's a little tough to feed hungry kids with nowhere to sit! Other than that, though, we had a terrific time.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/18/07 10:14 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (6)
17 March 2007
Sheila Jackson Lee heads for Sen. Clinton's cameras
We all know how Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee loves a camera, so it was amusing to read Isiah Carey's post this afternoon:
Several Houston news photographers were very upset with Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee. Those present at a Houston visit by Senator Hilary Clinton say Jackson Lee would not remove herself from in front of the camera. They said everywhere Clinton went Jackson Lee was there with her hair in the way.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/17/07 04:29 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (6)
The consequences of bad choices
Things have been a little slow lately, as far as the type of fodder that generally captures our attention.
What we have seen all too much of in the news recently, though, are tragic stories of people making stupid, devastating choices, such as this one:
Prosecutors have more questions for a 21-year-old Houstonian accused of killing a woman waiting for a bus in a February hit-and-run.
Harris County Assistant District Attorney Warren Diepraam said Monica Aguilar continues to be investigated about the details surrounding the death of Lisa Garcia.
Diepraam said he wants to know if Aguilar was drinking beforehand, if she was racing another car — as some witnesses have said — and where she went afterward.
Diepraam said witnesses reported Aguilar got into another car right after the accident and left the scene.
"It might have been the car she was racing," Diepraam said.
Aguilar was charged with criminally negligent homicide and failure to stop and render assistance, but has not been indicted.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/17/07 07:36 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (7)
16 March 2007
I must be a Q-Tard for helping beta the Q-Card
(rant on)
Pardon me, but there's a chronic problem with Q-Card readers and Daylight Savings Time going on, to the point where today I had 3 out of 4 bad timestamps and got nailed for yet another extra buck, and Mary Sit's blogging about METRO wasting taxpayer dollars on sponsoring movie showings and giving out free rides?
It's costing me more in blown fares and text messages to report this stuff than to just let some other civic-minded sucker take the hit.
Forget this. Frank Wilson can pry 30 day passes out of my cold, dead hands.
(rant off)
Posted by Laurence Simon @ 03/16/07 09:10 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)
More red light cameras
KRIV-26 lists the ten latest intersections to receive red light cameras:
West S. Houston @ Bellaire
Greens Rd @ North Frwy
N. Shepherd @ N. Loop West
SW Frwy @ Wilcrest
S. Main Street @ S Loop West
E. Frwy @ Normandy
Monroe @ Gulf Frwy
Scott @ S Loop E
Antoine @ NW Frwy
North Frwy @ Rankin
Watch your rear end out there!
The Chronicle's Kristen Mack has details today of the latest efforts by Texas lawmakers to curb the revenue-generating devices.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/16/07 05:13 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (10)
LiveJournalists celebrate Sunshine Week...
...by focusing on the U.S. president. Talk about missing an opportunity!
Much closer to home, the Chron editors could have pointed to our own METRO as an example of a government institution with less-than-transparent tendencies.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/16/07 05:03 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
15 March 2007
Show us your basketball knowledge
Commenter Greg544 emailed earlier and asked if we were planning on an NCAA tourney contest along the lines of our football pick'em.
We hadn't originally planned on doing so, but since he did us the favor of setting it up, why not?
You can make your picks here.
You'll need a CBS Sportsline account. The password for the bracket is bloghouston. Picks are due by noon on March 15.
We don't have any prizes to offer this time, but maybe we'll do a post-tourney gathering at Byzantio and I can buy the winner drinks.
Good luck!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/15/07 06:55 AM | Announcements | Technorati | Comments (1)
14 March 2007
FoB Mincberg: Fix those potholes!
City of Houston housing guru and Friend of Bill David Mincberg has really been making the (news) rounds lately. Here's a dispatch from the Chronicle's Seshadri Kumar:
The city of Houston will soon have an ordinance on the habitability of apartments to ensure that rental units are fit for people to live in.
David Mincberg, special assistant to the Mayor for Multi-Family Housing, announced the new ordinance Tuesday at a business and community leaders breakfast meeting hosted by Southwest Houston 2000 Inc. and the Brays Oaks Management District.
The proposed ordinance would state that apartments should not be overrun by trash or be infested with rats; should have no leaky roofs; area streets should not have potholes; and the complex should have proper plumbing, electrical and mechanical fittings, Mincberg said.
Every apartment unit in the city would be inspected every three years by the Houston Fire Department. An inspection fee charged apartment owners will help fund the program, he said.
Currently, once an apartment complex receives an occupation certificate from the city, there are no further inspections — even if the apartment complex is 20 or 30 years old, Mincberg said.
The ordinance is being written and will be sent to City Council in a couple of months, he said.
A couple of points about the bolded portions: 1) Area streets should certainly not have potholes -- while the ordinance presumably will focus on streets within apartment communities, we're all for fixing potholes citywide. Strangely enough, it just seems like something the city should be doing. 2) What are the odds the inspection fee charged apartment owners will, in actuality, fund the spending priorities of the Mayor and his Council, and the Houston Fire Department won't really see much budget expansion despite the expansion of its duties?
PREVIOUSLY: KUHF: Residents skeptical over program to remodel some apartments.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/14/07 10:46 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)
Promises, promises
The Chronicle's resident plagiarist promised us a months-long sabbatical, and all we've gotten is a steady stream of updates from a San Antonio trial.
Oh well. Maybe it will end soon.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/14/07 10:28 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
What was that?
Is it just me, or does this read like a draft thrown together about ten minutes before deadline?
Seriously, that thing really might have benefited from a few more revisions and the helpful hand of a good editor. It even seemed to give the poor headline writer difficulty (unless that headline was *gulp* supplied). I don't think this one was inspired by the Washington Post.
But perhaps my assessment is mistaken. Do feel free, as always, to enlighten in the forum if you disagree (or if you agree).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/14/07 10:19 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
13 March 2007
KUHF: Residents skeptical over program to remodel some apartments
KUHF-88.7's Laurie Johnson did an important story today on Mayor White's big new program to boost "affordable housing" in the city. It seems that some of the people who are the intended beneficiaries of this grand program are pretty skeptical:
[David Mincberg] presented the plan to a community group in the Fondren/Southwest area, where the grant money will be targeted. Complexes between 10 and 35 years old are eligible. At the end of the presentation, several people brought up concerns that the initiative will not take care of the much older, dilapidated housing projects. Kerry Chambers is the president of the Cattails Homeowners Association, which is off of W. Bellfort.
"My main concern is the eyesore and the high crime. Just this past weekend it was on the news about ten people shooting out down at Sandpiper and W. Bellfort, which is right down the street from here. So if we're going to have gangland wars, something definitely has to be done down there to come and demolish and tear these apartment units down so that those people that are concerned with safety could pass through there safely."
Chambers says this initiative will ignore the very oldest and poorest complexes, which means they'll degenerate even further. [Mincberg] says the city simply cannot invest grant money in those complexes because it wouldn't be financially feasible to do so, which leaves it up to the owners to decide what to do with those properties.
"Those owners or those financial institutions are going to have to make very difficult financial decisions as to what they want to do with it. But it was our feeling that we would not be doing this neighborhood or any other neighborhood a favor by putting money into an old, dilapidated project and buying five more years of life when perhaps the best decision maybe, is that it's obsolete."
In other words, the program really isn't going to have much of an impact on the worst properties in some of Houston's worst neighborhoods -- the sorts of places that breed the surging gang activity described in a good Texas Monthly feature from a few months ago, a surge that Houston's leaders prefer to ignore.
David Mincberg, by the way, is the former Harris County Democratic Party chair and an important Friend of Bill. His wife Lainie Gordon is the marketing director for the Houston Chronicle. It's always kind of interesting to keep track of the network of technocratic-progressive elites who are hard at work fixing problems in our city.
PREVIOUSLY: Mayor White names assistant for multifamily housing, Watching history repeat itself..., Friend of Bill no substitute for diligent oversight.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/13/07 11:03 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)
12 March 2007
Chron: "Pleasant, energetic" new county judge to focus on mobility
The Chronicle's Bill Murphy reports that newly selected-not-elected Harris County Judge Ed Emmett plans to focus on mobility during the rest of Robert Eckels' term, and (he hopes) beyond:
[I]f things work out the way he envisions — and that includes winning election next year — he will make his mark as "the regional mobility guy."
He sees himself building coalitions in and out of the county that will add more toll roads, better freeways and secondary roads, more light-rail and bus lines and a freight-train system that doesn't cause traffic snarls.
"The entire region is going to continue to grow in terms of population and commerce," said Emmett, a pleasant, energetic man who looks younger than his age — 57. "We will have more people and more freight. And we will need to add all modes of transportation to accommodate growth."
Upon our first read, we almost didn't recognize this "pleasant, energetic" fellow, since almost every story we saw during his whirlwind ascension to head of Harris County government referred to him as political insider Ed Emmett (as if his mother had named the poor lad "political insider").
It's actually somewhat reassuring that a Harris County official plans to make regional mobility a priority. Perhaps he'll be able to exert some influence over the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO), which for many years has been the nearly exclusive political plaything of Houston mayors.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/12/07 09:58 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (9)
11 March 2007
How those who have never seen Houston see Houston
On Friday, a new photographic exhibit, "Never Been to Houston," opened at the Lawndale Art Center.
The gallery's website describes the interesting premise behind the exhibit:
Imagine a city that you've only seen in reproductions or perhaps have merely heard about. A place, like many others, that exists only through rumors, stories, novels, the nightly news, magazines, movies and the Internet. Using these secondhand clues as firsthand research material, invited worldwide contributors-who have Never Been to Houston- will photographically document (without leaving home) what they imagine Houston to look like. Contributors will upload their photos daily to an on-line Flickr site, which will be projected as a slideshow in Houston's Lawndale gallery. Anything that anyone might take a photograph of is fair game. Just as long as it feels like Houston.
The entire description is here, although it's a bit wordy.
This is an utterly fascinating experiment, and I'm looking forward to taking in the exhibit. It will be interesting to see which photographers merely project silly stereotypes of Houston, and which photographers actually try to present Houston as Houston might present itself.
From the Chronicle coverage of the exhibit, I'm definitely drawn to this photographer:
Elena Perlino, a professional photographer in Saluzzo, Italy, became fascinated, as she researched the city online, with the gritty, urban side of the city — its immigrants, its minorities, its youth. In Italy and France, she shot photos that to a Houstonian look more like Houston than like Italy or France: a brown-skinned kid in a hoodie, surveying a wall of graffiti; three black-skinned guys in gimme caps, slumped in chairs in a white-walled room, waiting for something we don't see.
"People in my pictures," Perlino e-mailed, "are living in a place that doesn't belong to them." Such people look the same everywhere.
The Lawndale Art Center is on Main, in the museum district. This exhibit continues through April 14.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/11/07 10:43 PM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (4)
Mobility Response Team gets nice press, won't deploy for months
KUHF-88.7's Laurie Johnson reports that Mayor White's latest effort to imitate Chicago's Mayor Daley is proceeding apace:
Houston Mayor Bill White first proposed the idea of a traffic mobility team last spring. The past ten months or so were spent drafting policies and hiring 24 civilian mobility officers. White says the team will respond to traffic congestion and help ease the flow in spots where traffic is backed up.
[snip]
The civilian officers will be uniformed in khaki with lime green vests. They'll drive marked vehicles, mostly scooters, a few vans and two lift bucket trucks to assist with fixing broken traffic signals.
Khaki and lime green. Oooh! Take that, Mayor Daley!
The Lime Green brigade will not actually deploy for a few months yet:
The Mobility Response Team, including officers, engineers, equipment and supplies will have a budget of approximately $1.8 million per year. The team won't be operational until July 1st.
RELATED COVERAGE: KHOU-11 (hmm, do you get the sense the administration's press team worked the press last week?)
ADDITIONAL RELATED COVERAGE (03-12-2007): The Chronicle finally chimes in.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/11/07 10:15 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)
Chron op-ed: There's a cop shortage
The Chronicle ran an op-ed by Alan Helfman, Jay Wall, and William A Wolff today.
The auto and real-estate guys have discovered we're short on cops and could use some leadership at HPD.
Agreed!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/11/07 09:55 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
Parker: Inertia, embarrassment keep city from dealing with problem vendor
Last month Isiah Carey highlighted the problem of a city vendor that has been audited several times, the results of each suggesting the city has been overpaying for services and products.
Today, the Chronicle's Matt Stiles continues the story, detailing the city's seeming inaction in dealing with the vendor:
Last summer, the city's top finance official demanded nearly $1 million in restitution from a local contractor after three audits and a police investigation concluded that several departments paid too much for high-tech gadgets and services.
Yet the city has continued doing business with the contractor, Texas Procurement Center.
Late last week — faced with pressure from City Controller Annise Parker and inquiries by the Houston Chronicle — city officials acknowledged that transactions with TPC have not been documented well enough to support recovery of more than a fraction of the restitution demanded last year.
City Attorney Arturo Michel said that the $968,000 demand sent by Judy Gray Johnson, the city's finance and administration director, was "probably premature from a legal perspective of what you can recover in court."
He said the city, which is still considering legal action, might be able to recover only about $70,000.
That's because the contract with TPC did not require the company to provide detailed records, Michel said, and because city employees approved years of payments without seeking adequate documentation.
There's much more in Stiles' story, which should anger Houston taxpayers. As of now, the city is weighing whether or not to terminate the contract with TPC and pursue legal action.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/11/07 06:14 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)
This is what happens
Take a large multi-national corporation. Abuse it, make it the focal point of illogical political attacks. Subject its every move, every action to public scrutiny, ridicule, abuse, and scorn, regardless of whether or not it is warranted. Make it a political hot potato, abuse its friends, defenders, allies, officers, managers, and even employees. Create a regulatory environment so bad, it can't make money in its home area. Tolerate people becoming so unhinged that their reactions to a person is to pillory them as the fourth coming of Adolf Hitler just for mentioning that they work there. (Everyone knows that Bush and Cheney are the second and third comings of Herr Hitler.)
What do you get?
A middle finger and a great big "So long!" Don't kid yourselves people. That's what Halliburton just gave the good ol' U.S. and the city of Houston. They're moving, and it's not just a minor administrative matter; they're moving the world headquarters and the CEO, president, and chairman of the company to Dubai.
In a stunning piece of news, the company said the new headquarters in Dubai will help Halliburton strengthen its presence in the Middle East, Asia and Europe, where it's business is growing. But it casts doubt on the future of the company's current headquarters in Houston.
Demoting Houston's facility from "World Headquarters" to "Hemispheric Headquarters" is the best we can hope for. And that's going to mean the loss of jobs and tax revenue to the Houston/Harris County/Montgomery County areas.
"The Eastern Hemisphere is a market that is more heavily weighted toward oil exploration and production opportunities and growing our business here will bring more balance to Halliburton's overall portfolio," [CEO David] Lesar said today at a regional conference in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
This is how bad it is folks. The announcement wasn't even made at the headquarters or even in the U.S. It was made, by the CEO, in the country where they're going to relocate. Let me translate a few of those words: "More heavily weighted toward oil exploration and production opportunities" means, "doesn't have a regulatory environment that makes it impossible to do anything." It's been 50 years since we built a new refinery from scratch in the U.S. Even the disruptions caused by twin hurricanes 2 years ago hasn't changed that.
From ABC News:
Lesar's announcement appears to signal one of the highest-profile moves by a U.S. corporate leader to Dubai, an Arab boomtown where free-market capitalism has been paired with some of the world's most liberal tax, investment and residency laws.
In a city where the mayor just got slapped down by his neighbors for regulatory overreach, maybe there's a lesson to be learned there. So, what's the reaction? Typical Halliburton-bashing in the press, and in Congress:
The military contractor accused of wasting taxpayer money on no-bid contracts in Iraq is moving its HQ. "They'll be avoiding U.S. taxes," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-N.H., says. "I'm sure they won't stop insisting on taking their profits in cold hard U.S. cash." Federal investigators last month alleged Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of the $10 billion in contractor waste and overcharging in Iraq.
Like the federal government would have done a better job, right? (Just for the record, the problem is with KBR, which Halliburton is selling off, as it has been nothing but political and public-relations trouble). Let's be clear, Senator. No, they won't be taking their profits in cold hard U.S. cash, they'll be taking them in the currency of Bahrain. They'll be operating in a country where business is king, where people like yourself don't make absurd populist statements that have no basis in logic or reality, and where every politically-ambitious mayor doesn't try to impose regulations beyond his legal authority.
And we will be that much poorer.
Posted by Ubu Roi @ 03/11/07 05:24 PM | Houston Business | Technorati | Comments (9)
Jason Spencer still doesn't like Terry Abbott
Speaking of HISD, on the Chronicle's School Zone blog, Jason Spencer takes on one of his favorite targets: HISD spokesman Terry Abbott.
Spencer doesn't like Abbott's aggressive style. He doesn't like that Abbott sends out press releases suggesting positive stories. He doesn't like that Abbott provides tips for other school districts on how to get good news stories on-air or in print.
It's quite an unusual post, to say the least. We certainly don't see the Chronicle getting too worked up about the aggressive PR machine that runs Mayor White's City Hall. Nor have we seen much fretting about HPD's portrayal of bad crime stats as "only bad if one lives in a hot spot." And we certainly don't see the Chron wringing its hands over Metro's PR efforts -- heck, sometimes it seems as though the Chron's editorial board is in charge of Metro's PR efforts!
Then Spencer posts this comment:
I expect a certain amount of spin in press releases. But I have a problem with HISD's press office when the folks there refuse to hand over information that is clearly public in a timely manner. This newspaper had to get lawyers involved to find out how much money individual teachers were paid under HISD's bonus system, for instance.
And our lawyers are currently fighting the HISD administration's refusal to give us access to school board meeting agenda information as soon as it is prepared. Without this information, we can't do our jobs properly. For instance, the policy proposal that was the subject of Abbott's e-mail press release from last Sunday was made available to school board members no later than the Friday before. But the press office makes us wait until Monday to see the official proposal. That way, we're forced to either hold the story and get beaten by our TV news competitors, who are willing to regurgitate the press release, or report on the issue without all the facts.
I'm fine with spin. It's obstructionism and delay tactics that I have a problem with.
Would the Chronicle please -- please! -- put Spencer in charge of overseeing all Metro stories?? That way, Tom Bazan won't have to wait MONTHS to get his TXPIA requests filled. Shoot, Spencer's crying about having to wait a couple of days; I'll bet Tom Bazan wishes he only had to wait a couple of days to get his requests filled!
The weird part of Spencer's post is when he complains that Abbott sent out a press release last weekend. KHOU-11 posted the information to its website on Sunday, but the Chron (apparently) was forced to wait until Monday to print a story because HISD didn't release the official proposal until then. And Spencer didn't want just to reprint a press release (something that hasn't been a problem for the Chronicle in the past).
The irony is that Spencer has gotten himself all worked up over an HISD proposal that he calls "marginally newsworthy." Well, if it's so marginally newsworthy, then what's the problem? Why does he care what other news outlets are doing?
Because Abbott is good at what he does, I guess. And Spencer has had a beef with HISD for quite a while now.
Meanwhile the systemic problems that plague this district don't get nearly the attention HISD gets. Let's see Jason Spencer throw some real resources and outrage in North Forest ISD's direction! HISD has been working for several years now to improve the education it provides its students. The same can definitely not be said for North Forest ISD.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/11/07 03:35 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
Gayle Fallon, role model
You may have read of HISD's bonus error -- giving part-time teachers the same bonus amount as full-time teachers. Houston Federation of Teachers President Gayle Fallon is telling teachers who received more money than they were entitled to that they should not pay it back. Really!
Laurence Simon delivers the needed smackdown.
Perhaps Gayle Fallon's attorney son, whom HFT pays to represent teachers in grievance issues, can help out.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/11/07 08:52 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)
10 March 2007
Main Street bath reopens, quote still wrong
The Chronicle's Rad Sallee reported earlier this week that the frequently broken (but still world class!) Danger Train Main Street Fountain is functional again:
After six weeks and more than $75,000 in repairs, the Main Street Square fountain is again flowing and splashing near car lanes and light rail tracks in the heart of downtown.
The big attraction in a downtown plaza that was supposed to lure lunchtime strollers and commercial development, the fountain has been ridiculed by light rail skeptics, battered by wayward motorists and put to various uses by street people, revelers, pigeons and grackles.
And the bursts of water that were intended to arch gracefully over the passing trains had to be shut off when trains pass because they might interfere with the train drivers' visibility and leave water spots on the rail cars.
It's not the fountain's connection to the light rail trolley that has been ridiculed so much as the utopian notion that somehow a fountain would be a linchpin of a downtown plaza, miraculously "lur[ing] lunchtime strollers and commercial development" (instead of mainly serving as a handy bath for the vagrants who overrun downtown).
Amusingly, Rad Sallee reports today that, in typical fashion, the city didn't even manage to get the quote right on a sculpture overlooking the fountain:
An office worker strolling on Main Street Square noted the inscription on a sculpture that overlooks the fountain there: "As we build our city, let us think that we are building forever."
Not to pick nits, the man observed, but shouldn't it say "building for forever?"
We asked Bob Eury, executive director of the Houston Downtown Management District, which takes care of the fountain. He said the quote is from British author John Ruskin.
The quotation, placed there by artist Michael Davis, comes from a plaque at City Hall that quotes Ruskin in Seven Lamps of Architecture, Eury said.
"Actually, I believe Ruskin's quote was, 'Let us think that we build forever,' " he said. "But Davis intentionally used the City Hall version."
Kevin Morrison, a Rice University graduate student, searched through Ruskin's works and found this: "When we build, let us think that we build for ever."
Nothing is quite as world-class as getting the quote wrong on the sculpture overlooking the fountain that is being counted on to drive a downtown renaissance. Well done!
BLOGVERSATION: TBIFOC.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/10/07 02:45 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
Score one for KPRC-2
Houston Texans defensive end Mario Williams has placed his home, which was once owned by disgraced TSU administrator Priscilla Slade and figured prominently in the spending scandal that led to her ouster, up for sale.
That's not especially interesting news, but we were amused with the conclusion of the story posted on KPRC-2's website:
Among the amenities listed is "lush landscaping".
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/10/07 02:24 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)
09 March 2007
Breaking news you CAN get elsewhere (03-09-2007 edition)
The Chron.com Froot Loop Bureau has been busy watching KTRK-13 again this morning:
An apartment resident fought off two burglary suspects overnight in northwest Houston, according to KTRK (Channel 13).
Authorities gave a reporter this account: Two men broke into an unit at the complex and began rummaging through the apartment.
When they got to the bedroom, the resident attacked the intruders with a broom, flinging one of the suspects out a window.
Police arrived at the scene and arrested the suspects after a short chase on the North Freeway. The three apartment residents — the man, his wife and their daughter — were not injured.
Flinging one of the suspects out a window? At least that has some entertainment value. I wonder if those were the words of KTRK or the Froot Loop bureau.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/09/07 07:35 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
08 March 2007
A new Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy!
The Chronicle's Allan Turner delivers the latest Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy today, and it's a pretty solid performance considering the last statement from the death row killer guy:
When asked if he had a final statement, he answered in a confident voice, "Yes, yes, I do."
He then unleashed a stream of profanity directed to a female death row major, concluding, "That's all I've got to say."
He again looked toward his family and winked.
Charming fellow.
Still, the Chronicle has a formula that must be followed in the Chron Eye series, and so we have the requisite "nice quality" of the killer:
"Joseph was a phenomenal young man," his mother, Lee Greenwood, said in an earlier interview. "He was wise beyond his years. He was popular in school. The girls loved him. He was an all-around athlete. He made good grades. At one point, he even played the violin."
But then, something in his childhood sent things off track:
Things started to go awry in his last years of high school, and Greenwood, who had moved to California, began hearing from relatives in Houston that Nichols was running with a tough crowd.
And finally, the purported flaws in the justice system that led to the execution:
He died not long after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his final appeals. His case was marked by national controversy as his lawyers argued he had been sentenced to die for a murder his robbery partner, Willie Williams, had admitted to committing.
And so concludes another edition of the Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/08/07 07:46 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (4)
07 March 2007
Mayor White's not mayor of the Greater Houston area
Today's Chronicle carries a story about other local mayors' irritation with Mayor White's call for voluntary benzene emissions reductions from area chemical plants:
The mayors of LaPorte, Baytown, Pasadena and Deer Park say White has no business invading their turf and feel snubbed because they weren't consulted prior to the plan's unveiling three weeks ago.
"Mayor White is over Houston," LaPorte Mayor Alton Porter said. "He's not the mayor over all Harris County."
Yes, it does seem he forgets that on occasion. I'd suggest that he should've been appointed Harris County judge, but the job holds little real power, and we all know Mayor White has much bigger aspirations.
Another example of an issue Mayor White is involved with that affects more than just Houstonians would be Metro's mighty expensive "Solutions" plan -- the new and improved one Mayor White helped create -- for which people all over Harris County get to pay.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/07/07 07:47 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)
METRO operates "in a completely transparent manner" (cont'd)
The Chronicle's Rad Sallee reported Monday that METRO continues to stonewall the newspaper's request for information on land acquisition:
The Metropolitan Transit Authority has asked the state attorney general whether it must grant a Houston Chronicle request for a list of properties it plans to purchase for a Bus Rapid Transit line in the Near Northside.
Metro says such information is exempted by passages in the Texas Public Information Act that protect certain real estate matters from disclosure.
"Exemptions to open records laws exist for good reason: in this case to protect the interests of private property owners," said Metro vice president George Smalley.
One section of the act cited by Metro attorneys applies to information that would "give advantage to a competitor or bidder." Another applies to a property's location "prior to public announcement of the project."
But Metro's plans to build a North Line were announced long before the 2003 election that approved the idea. And on Aug. 23 the Metro board decided on the exact route, then posted it online for the world to see.
Several residents said they are concerned because environmental documents released in December have already listed their properties among more than 200 that Metro said it would need to acquire for right of way on the line.
In recent weeks, Metro has said it will need less than half that many properties — and even fewer whole ones. But it won't identify them.
Back in February, Frank "Procurement Disaster" Wilson asserted that METRO operates "in a completely transparent manner."
Right -- Just like Wilson operated in a completely ethical manner in New Jersey!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/07/07 08:49 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (7)
06 March 2007
Breaking news you CAN get elsewhere (03-06-2007 edition)
The Chron.com Froot Loop Bureau was working the remote hard today, covering TWO television stations!
Three police chases took place early this morning, according to KHOU (Channel 11) and KTRK (Channel 13).
Authorities gave reporters this account: The first chase ended in north Houston just around midnight. The driver tried to evade police by jumping out of the moving car, but was captured after a short foot chase on McKee near Noble.
Police then discovered that the car was stolen.
The second chase occurred in southwest Houston around 1 a.m. Police tried to pull a vehicle over on Bissonnet near Beltway 8 when three men fled the scene. The driver was arrested and another was captured a short time later. A third suspect escaped.
The third chase ended when the suspect crashed into a police cruiser and two other parked cars on Greens Road near Imperial Valley.
The suspect was able to flee the scene and hide at an apartment complex, but was later found and arrested on a felony warrant.
Hearst should spring for a radio for the Chron.com Froot Loop bureau, and they could include rewritten news reports from KTRH-740 and KUHF-88.7 in addition to their television beat!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/06/07 08:24 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
Will they go for the hat trick tomorrow?
Yesterday, the Chronicle ran one of those "Another Voice" editorials in which they reprint excerpts from other newspapers instead of penning their own editorial. Here are some excerpts from their Washington Post "Another Voice":
The Justice Department's firing of a group of U.S. attorneys is neither as sinister as critics suggest nor as benign as the department would have you believe, at least on the basis of the evidence revealed so far. But it is, both sides agree, highly unusual and warrants further inquiry. And it points to the need to fix a law that was changed for the worse not long ago.
[snip]
More troubling: Is the Bush administration seeking to circumvent the requirement that U.S. attorneys be confirmed by the Senate? The administration tucked into the renewal of the USA Patriot Act authority for the attorney general to name prosecutors who could serve indefinitely without confirmation.
Justice viewed the previous law, under which unconfirmed replacements could serve for only 120 days, after which the district courts would name a successor, as an improper incursion of judicial authority into executive branch appointments. Yet the new arrangement presents the greater risk of the executive branch doing an end run around Senate confirmation. The best way to prevent that would be to return the law to its previous state.
Actually, the law's previous state -- in which the judicial branch made executive branch appointments -- is constitutionally troubling. If the perceived problem is that appointees can avoid Senate confirmation, then perhaps tightening the confirmation requirements is a better solution to the problem than a constitutionally troubling appointment mechanism.
Today, the Editorial LiveJournalists weighed in with their own voice on the matter:
The unprecedented dismissal of eight top U.S. prosecutors at the behest of the White House late last year finally is getting the attention it deserves. House and Senate judiciary committees are preparing to question the ousted U.S. attorneys.
There are indications the purge was anything but the routine bureaucratic shuffle claimed by Justice Department spokesmen. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' deputies gave conflicting explanations as to why the officials were forced to resign.
It's not unprecedented. One of Janet Reno's first acts as one of the more political Attorneys General in U.S. history was (with the White House's approval) to fire all but one U.S. attorney upon taking office. That was certainly a political decision, but one that conservative publications like the Investor's Business Daily and National Review concede was within the scope of executive authority.
Now, whether the Bush Administration's move was a wise political move is an entirely different question. The new Democratic Congressional majority obviously feels that oversight of executive moves was lacking under the previous regime, and intends to use its oversight power to political advantage. That's not "unprecedented" either! Undoubtedly, they think they have a political winner here (and maybe they do, if their hearings show something more sinister at work than the usual degree of political patronage and partisanship). But so far, it doesn't quite seem like fodder for editorials two days in a row.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/06/07 08:16 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
05 March 2007
Now at MFAH: Masterpieces of French Painting (1800-1920)
We've been remiss in plugging an impressive traveling exhibit now on display at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
Here's an excerpt from the museum's description:
The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800-1920
On view through May 6, 2007 at the Audrey Jones Beck Building
The Metropolitan Museum´s French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection is acknowledged as the finest outside of Europe. Founded in 1870, the Metropolitan Museum and its early benefactors acquired many of the Impressionist works by the early 1900s. An array of masterpieces by the luminaries of the movement forms the centerpiece of the exhibition. Over 50 paintings by Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cézanne, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec show the breadth and depth of the revolutionary vision shared by the members of this group. Among the most outstanding paintings are Manet´s Boating (1874), Monet´s La Grenouillère (1869) and Bridge over a Pool of Water Lilies (1899), and Degas´s The Dancing Class (probably 1871).
Highlights from the Post-Impressionist period include Cézanne´s The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L´Estaque (c. 1885), Paul Gauguin´s mystical Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary) (1891) and Vincent van Gogh´s expressive Cypresses (1889). Works by Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard represent the Nabis movement, and works by Henri Matisse, including Reclining Odalisque (1926) and a selection of Pablo Picasso´s paintings on the cusp of Cubism round out the exhibition.
An illustrated catalogue published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art accompanies the exhibition. The catalogue will be available in the MFAH Shops.
Admission and other information is available here.
BLOGVERSATION: Ad Altare Dei.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/05/07 10:33 AM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (1)
Breaking news you CAN get elsewhere (03-05-2007 edition)
The weekend is over, and that means the Chron.com Froot Loop Bureau is back on the job, keeping a close eye on the TV news reports:
A 19-year-old man led police on a chase through north Houston Sunday night, according to KTRK (Channel 13).
Authorities gave a reporter this account: At around 10:45 p.m., police attempted to pull over the teen for speeding near 7800 Irvington, but the young man fled. Police then pursued the suspect as he drove along a residential street at speeds near 100 mph.
The suspect lost control of the vehicle after hitting the a curb near some railroad tracks and slammed into a telephone pole, splitting it in two. He was treated at the scene for minor injuries before being jailed.
Police say the suspect had no criminal record or warrants and aren't sure why he fled. The car, a Chevrolet Impala, belongs to the teen's mother.
KTRK news may not have won the latest sweeps period, but they're tops with the Chron.com Froot Loop bureau!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/05/07 07:36 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
04 March 2007
Chron's Casey needs a little break
The Chronicle's metro/state plagiarist Rick Casey is apparently worn down from the column grind, and announced today he'll be taking a five-month sabbatical.
Slampo suggests that's good news for Chronicle subscribers!
BLOGVERSATION: HouStoned, Lone Star Times.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/04/07 11:04 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
Eckels to step down on Tuesday
We sometimes have a chuckle at the hapless Chron headline writers, but they nailed it with this headline over the weekend:
Or, as they might have put it, the fix is in.
County Judge Robert Eckels will formally resign on Tuesday. There is more information in this Chronicle story.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/04/07 10:48 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
Blogburst pulled from most Chron.com pages
In 2006, Chron.com was one of the early news sites to announce it would be running BlogBurst content. BlogBurst basically delivers blogger content to relevant sections of news sites. This is how BlogBurst describes its service:
Pluck's BlogBurst network is an opt-in aggregation and syndication service that brings high-quality, topical blogs together with high-traffic web sites. With BlogBurst, bloggers gain visibility, audience reach and traffic through placement on major online publishers and media destinations in real time.
In late February, the Blogburst content disappeared from a number of Chron.com sections.
I emailed Dwight Silverman to ask why Blogburst had (apparently) been dropped, and he tersely replied that there had been some "technical difficulties." I followed up with an email query whether the widgets would eventually be returning to pages from which they were pulled, and he said that was being evaluated.
I had also emailed the Blogburst people, and Rachel Brush eventually replied that there had been some "technical difficulties" but that they hoped to get Blogburst running again soon on the pages where it was pulled.
It's not clear what the "technical difficulties" were, and the folks I queried didn't seem interested in elaborating. Unfortunately, the Blogburst content had declined somewhat in quality in recent weeks, as some bloggers flooded the system with "link post" entries and others had occasional trouble controlling their potty mouths -- not exactly the quality sort of content promised by Blogburst. Maybe that was part of the technical difficulties.
In any case, it's long seemed as though the Washington Post website has a nice approach to outside blog content with the Technorati widgets that appear on stories (linking back to blog posts that reference the story). And USA Today has raised the bar for all online news sites with its launch of features that make its site much more of a social news community. Chron.com may have lots of blogs -- and of course the whimsical linkblog on the editorial page that only Dwight Silverman can update -- but it's starting to lag competing news sites in other cutting-edge web features. Here's hoping that Blogburst makes it back, and features like Technorati widgets, comments on news stories, and Digg-like ratings by users all eventually make it to Chron.com.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/04/07 10:33 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (4)
One of those dreaded link-fest posts
I finally get a day to do some posting, and our DSL service goes on the fritz. Figures, right? A certain someone said it's a shame we aren't blanketed by county-wide wifi, so I could take a laptop outside, hold it up to find just the right signal, and post away.
Right.
Anyway, here's a quick look at a few things I was planning on posting:
Did you know the city is planning on investing a minimum of $500,000 per year for wifi? I've been out of the loop lately, so I probably missed the news coverage that included that little detail...
Matt Stiles gets results! He shamed the mayor and city council into starting the weekly council meeting on time. Er, well, closer to on-time than had been the norm.
Conservative columnist extraordinaire Mark Steyn is underwhelmed by the journalistic effort put forth here by our beloved HouChron.
And Slampo has posted (as only he can) one of those decline-of-civilization moments. Sigh.
Now I am crossing my fingers and clicking the "submit" button. Have a good week, everyone!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/04/07 04:19 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
KHOU news wins February sweeps
KHOU-11 reports that its news broadcasts won the latest ratings period:
The numbers are in for the February sweeps and once again, Channel 11, Houston’s only station broadcasting in HD, is number one.
Nielsen Media Research shows that The Belo owned station won all major newscasts at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.
In fact, Channel 11’s 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts finished a full rating point ahead of it’s closest competitor.
Channel 11 also won the mid-day news time period.
The PR staff did not win any awards for its improper use of possessive pronouns, however.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/04/07 01:26 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (6)
03 March 2007
It's rodeo time
Richard Connelly has a nice feature on the rodeo in this week's Houston Press.
Here's a teaser:
You're not officially a Houstonian until you've done a couple of things: given the finger to an SUV that cut you off on the Southwest Freeway; tried to mentally calculate just how old Marvin Zindler is; and, finally, gone to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
The rodeo is a rite of passage that's cornier than Dallas's State Fair, nuttier than San Antonio's Fiesta and way more chaotically fun than Galveston's Mardi Gras. For a few weeks near the end of every winter, Houston chooses to revel in being a cowtown instead of fanatically trying to disabuse that notion.
After growing up in rural Oklahoma, I figured I had taken in enough rodeo (more than enough!) to last the rest of my life. But as Connelly aptly conveys, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is as much spectacle as anything. Every Houstonian should experience it... once, at least. Even better if you get to take part in a milking competition!
BLOGVERSATION: Houston's Clear Thinkers.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/03/07 10:56 AM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (2)
02 March 2007
Mayor: No redistricting before 2010 census
According to the Chronicle's Matt Stiles, Mayor White has decided against adding new council districts at this time based on the city's estimates of population growth:
Mayor Bill White has decided against adding two single-member districts to the City Council, delaying a move that some believe would offer Houston's growing population more focused representation.
White had largely abandoned the idea last summer. But new city estimates put the population at 2,231,335, a figure that could trigger a charter provision requiring new council districts when the city's population exceeds 2.1 million.
The city's legal department, however, advised White last month that those estimates didn't meet the "stringent standard" in federal law for using noncensus data in redistricting, according to a two-page memo obtained by the Houston Chronicle.
"The 10-year census figures have a presumption of correctness, and that's a hard burden to overcome," White said this week. "If somebody challenged our redistricting, they would prevail under federal law."
[snip]
[City attorney Arturo] Michel said the data weren't detailed enough to ensure that newly created districts had roughly equal populations and didn't dilute the voting strength of ethnic minorities.
White agreed.
"Part of the requirement for redistricting is that you know the details down to the census-tract level — the precinct level — and we don't have numbers of that detail. So I don't believe it's warranted under the City Charter," White said.
While Mayor White could probably have pushed through redistricting based on the city's estimates, the more prudent course is to hold off for the official census figures. It's not clear that the population growth related to Katrina will be permanent, but the census clearly will do a better job of tracking population, right down to the precinct level. For purposes of redistricting and popular representation, the more detailed information is pretty critical, actually.
BLOGVERSATION: Newswatch: City Hall.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/02/07 08:22 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (11)
01 March 2007
Montrose construction boom sure to produce traffic crunch
KHOU-11's Doug Miller reports on the midrise construction boom taking place in Montrose:
"I have never seen this kind of development," said Houston City Councilmember Sue Lovell. "I mean, 10 midrises going up, pretty much within a half-a-mile area."
Just check out the holes in the ground and the construction cranes in the sky on the sites of future apartment and condo buildings going up in and around Montrose.
If you think these construction sites are busy now, just wait until the jobs are finished. Just wait until midrises stand on these properties and all of the traffic starts flowing into the nearby streets. City officials are now talking about how they're going to deal with all those traffic problems.
Among the possibilities, more one-way streets, more traffic signals and better planning of driveways feeding traffic onto city streets.
Just wait till METRO adds to the mix with a light-rail trolley in the middle of an already congested Richmond Avenue -- Danger Train Two!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/07 09:42 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
Psst, Tilman -- want another fire station?
The Chronicle's Jennifer Friedberg reports that the City of Houston is about to retire a fire station:
After more than 50 years in service, the Houston Fire Department is ready to retire Station No. 37 at 3838 Aberdeen Way.
Built in 1955, the station is being abandoned and returned to the city, and the department will move to a new, larger station to be built at 7026 Stella Link under the city's capital improvement plan.
[snip]
Once the station is relocated to Stella Link, the Aberdeen property would revert back to the city, which could sell it or use it for another purpose.
Does Tilman Fertitta need another sweetheart deal?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/07 09:23 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
Surely he doesn't want to be crushed like a bug...
Blogger Tory Gattis attended a lunch put on by the Blueprint Houston utopians and reports this bit of entertaining bluster:
I'd characterize it as a regroup-and-rally for the pro-planning forces after the disappointment last year. To summarize, last summer Councilmember Peter Brown got the City Council to approve a measure directing the Planning Commission to come up with a "plan to plan" - a timeline and budget to create a comprehensive general plan for Houston. They came back at the end of December, and instead decided to focus on the top priorities of mobility and drainage, to much disappointment by the pro-planning forces. My understanding is that the mayor influenced the Planning Commission in this more targeted direction, but I have no specific inside knowledge.Peter Brown attended and was pretty feisty and fired-up. He guaranteed comprehensive urban planning in Houston before the end of his tenure, and noted that he just needs to corral eight votes on the council, with or without the support of the mayor. Pretty bold and gutsy statement.
Mr. Brown was obviously among fellow utopian planner types, and if he truly said that (and I have no reason to doubt the Gattis account), it was probably partly as a result of the euphoria of being among so many true believers. But surely the architect-councilmember understands that with this powerful and politically astute mayor, he's not going to move anything "without the support" of Mr. White.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/07 09:06 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (3)
KPRC retires Radar the Weather Dog
Mike McGuff notes that KPRC-2 is retiring Radar the Weather Dog from its newscasts.
The Chronicle's Mike McDaniel has the full story here.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/07 08:21 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (22)
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