31 March 2009
Giff Nielsen has (almost) left the building
Tonight is KHOU-11 sports director Giff Nielsen's last day on the job. The Chronicle's David Barron has more on Nielsen's departure:
As Gifford Nielsen prepares today to wrap up 31 years in two of the highest-profile positions any city can offer — six years as an NFL quarterback, 25 years as a television sportscaster – he reckons the same formula helped him endure in both career paths.
Nielsen, 54, announced Monday that he will resign as sports director at KHOU (Channel 11), effective today. His final appearances will be on today’s 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts.
He disclosed his decision after returning from a vacation break during which the station laid off its two sports producers, including lead producer Carleton Cole, who helped break Nielsen into the business in 1984.
“When you take away the sports producers, obviously there’s a different philosophy of how you’re going to cover sports and what you’re going to do,” he said. “The TV station has made a decision to do and to cover sports differently, and that’s something I’m not accustomed to.
Nielsen's certainly a fixture of Houston TV sports coverage, and it's a shame he felt the need to leave so abruptly. Here's wishing Nielsen well in his future endeavors.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/31/09 10:20 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (4)
Maybe it's best for some to stick with the KTRH conservative talk beat...
The Houston Press Hair Balls blog decided to try a little Chron/media criticism today, with regard to the newspaper's coverage of the DA's recent criticism of two prosecutors:
"She did this rush to just blast them in the media for her own gain," [former prosecutor Murray] Newman told Hair Balls.
It seems to have worked. The Chronicle's coverage was slanted in her direction, closing as it did with a Lycos-lauding rhetorical flourish from defense attorney Mark Bennett, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association: "It's an encouraging sign that (Lykos) is interested in trying to make things right and trying to make the system work fairly for all of the citizens of Harris County, not just the rich, white ones."
[snip]
For his part, Newman says the favorable Chron coverage should come as no surprise. "After the Chronicle endorses her, especially with as much as they have been blasting the DA's office prior to her arrival, they've basically built her up to being the Second Coming and they are not gonna back off of that," he says. "They're gonna overlook her flaws as long as they possibly can."
As we noted in a related post four days ago, Newman and Mark Bennett consistently provide some of the best commentary on local law and politics. They even get the DA's name right on their blogs!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/31/09 10:14 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
30 March 2009
Clay Robison has left the building
Clay Robison, the longtime Chronicle Austin bureau newsman (six days per week) and editorialist (one day per week), pens his farewell column for today's newspaper.
Much of the column is the customary reflection on a long career on a beat, although Robison couldn't resist dispensing this bit of advice:
I offer an observation to bloggers, whose presence in the political arena is expanding as the ranks of traditional news reporters thin. There is a difference between reporting and spinning. I have done both for a long time, and reporting is a lot harder.
With regard to the bolded portion -- yes, you have, and the combination of heading up the news bureau six days per week and producing a reliably lefty opinion column one day per week was one that many of us found odd (and, frankly, part of the problem).
So ... kudos to Clay Robison for a long run in a career he obviously enjoyed. Maybe we'll even see his writing surface somewhere; surely there's a publication that could make good use of his institutional knowledge. But looking to the future (instead of back), let's hope the Chronicle Austin bureau moving forward takes Robison's parting advice to heart, and focuses only on reporting. There are plenty of sources of opinion these days, but those (we?) editorialists are, in most cases, no substitute for hard-news reporting done by pros.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/30/09 07:37 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (6)
28 March 2009
More "change" at the DA's Office
The District Attorney's Office is in the Chronicle twice in one day. This article features an idea about forcing some defendants to go to trial regardless of their wishes. Now, usually when I agree with a defense attorney like Mark Bennett, I have to stick my head out the window to make sure the world hasn't ended. However, I totally agree with Mr. Bennett in his assessment of Jim Leitner.
The loudest voice against the plan came from Mark Bennett, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers association, who said the District Attorney’s Office was treating people’s fates like a game or a law school mock trial exercise.Amen! Another problem with this is the standard Harris County practice is to schedule several cases for trial on the same day. The prosecutors and the defense attorneys have to call all of their witnesses into court and then huddle up and decide which case will actually go to trial, and everyone else will have to go home and come again another day. This plan of Leitner's would also force more police officers to put their lives on hold to come to court when they normally wouldn't have to. This keeps the officers from their regular patrol or detective duties, preventing them from serving the citizens. This plan would also force civilians to put their lives on hold as well when it wouldn't be necessary.“It’s unethical,” Bennett said. “A prosecutor’s job is to seek justice, not win easy cases.
However, there could be one benefit to this plan. Perhaps the DA herself could actually try a case and get rid of that stigma of never having prosecuted a case.
Posted by Jason @ 03/28/09 12:23 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (16)
27 March 2009
Message From District Attorney Lykos
Murray Newman's brilliant explanation is here.
I don't know if DA Lykos meant to send this message but she has. In addition to the already-in-place prohibition against striking jurors based on race, her ADAs now have to take jurors' race into consideration when placing them on a jury. I thought Lady Justice was supposed to be color blind, but she isn't.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Mark Bennett comments on the matter here. Bennett and Newman are consistently providing some of the best commentary on local law and politics.
Posted by Jason @ 03/27/09 11:43 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)
26 March 2009
The fallout
We comment on local media quite a bit on the blog, so readers have probably been wondering about the deafening silence on the big layoffs at the Chronicle.
Frankly, what was there to say in the middle of the carnage?
When ninetysomething journalists get whacked in one day at the biggest news organization in town, and countless more support staff are fired the next day, your community almost certainly is not the better for it. So out of respect to the many journalists at the Chronicle who were literally walking on eggshells as lives were being upended, we decided not to engage in running gossip on the blog about who may have gotten the axe, the corrections that inevitably follow from such speculation, and generally crass rumormongering.
So, for now it's done. Some dead weight was cleared (and much more was not), but many more journalists who did good work are now gone. Our best wishes go out to everyone who lost their jobs during these tough times.
And our best wishes also go out to the folks left at 801 Texas Avenue, who somehow have to reconcile the oversized, overpromising "vision" of diminutive editor Jeff Cohen (who apparently stayed hidden in his office during the carnage) with the pint-size resources he's given them to accomplish the "vision," all while knowing that quality work is probably not as important a factor in job security at the Chronicle these days as being one of Cohen's pets.
But what do I know? Please become a part of the conversation in the forum.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/26/09 09:25 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (11)
24 March 2009
Chief Hurtt announces more crimefighting by acronym
Chief Hurtt has broken out an excellent crimefighting acronym on his blog:
To combat the drunk driving problem in the city of Houston, HPD is acquiring six Breath Alcohol Testing (B.A.T.) vans to be used as mobile Intoxilyzer units for the processing of DWI suspects.
The first B.A.T. van, completed at the end of 2008, was used as a working prototype and is equipped with a suspect holding area as well as a breathalyzer, an Intoxilizer, and computers for officers to write the arrest report, run background checks, file charges and process the suspect.
[snip]
The existing B.A.T. van has already been used in joint task force operations, as a back-up during the renovation of the Central Police Station’s Intoxilyzer facility, and in conjunction with the Aggressive Driving Enforcement Program and the DWI overtime programs.
This question has to be asked: Will the B.A.T. Van respond to the B.A.T. Signal.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/24/09 09:44 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)
23 March 2009
Frank Wilson: The Main Street Line is irreplaceable
METRO's very expensive blogger posts an excerpt from a trade magazine interview with Frank "Procurement Disaster" Wilson, where METRO's CEO says:
"Before there was a rail line on Main Street, Houston didn't understand what rail was. And the first year after it was here, it was a curse that was sent here by the transit gods," said Wilson.
"And now it's irreplaceable in five short years. There's no [sic] here who's going to say we should roll it up and give Main Street back to the automobile," he continued.
It succeeded because of the locations the 7.5 mile line connects - the financial district, downtown and the Texas Medical Center.
"There is no other place that connects all that...Now people use this as a horizontal elevator. It's like a cable car but flat - on and off, on and off, on and off," said Wilson.
It's so irreplaceable, not to mention indispensable, that Frank Wilson has to have a $1,000 per month car allowance!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/23/09 05:53 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (11)
A tale of two transit projects
Cory Crow comments on the news that METRO will not receive "stimulus" funds for light rail, while Harris County has been allocated almost $200 million for the Grand Parkway:
Metro has dithered, changed technology, changed plans and done pretty much anything but get started on the projects, with delays and significant slack-time already used up in the pre-implementation phase. This time last year it would have been fair to say that the Light Rail project was being held-up by Culberson and others in Congress. Today, if Metro wants to see the reason for the delay, they only need look in the mirror.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/23/09 05:34 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)
22 March 2009
Great moments in Houston Public Works
City Disconnects Sprinklers, Threatens Day Care (KRPC-2):
The owner of a Houston day care said city contractors dug up her fire sprinkler system and then the city threatened to shut her down for having no sprinklers
[snip]
"We don't want them to shut down," Public Works Department spokesman Alvin Wright said. "We will work with them."
Wright said his department has no record of having a fire line connected to the building, meaning the owner of the building did not follow the proper process to install the line for the sprinkler system to begin with. With no record of the sprinkler line, city contractors would have no way of knowing they had to reconnect it, Wright suggested.
However, Wright could not explain why his department's contractors would dig up the sprinkler line in the street if they didn't even know it existed. He also could not explain how the city fire marshal was able to inspect the sprinkler system each year for several years without his department knowing the sprinkler system existed.
City Uses Duct Tape On Sewer Line (KPRC-2):
A city of Houston crew apparently used duct tape to repair a broken sewer line last fall that cost a homeowner $3,400 to fix, KPRC Local 2 reported Monday.
David Higgins and his wife said sewage began backing up in the showers at his house last January. A plumber traced the problem to a broken sewer line in the front yard that was apparently broken by a city crew repairing a water line nearby.
The broken sewer pipe was patched with a piece of plastic from a traffic cone, wrapped with duct tape and reburied.
[snip]
Higgins asked the city to city to reimburse the $3,400 he spent to fix it, but the city refused to pay.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/22/09 05:32 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)
21 March 2009
Finally, Spring is here!
What a beautiful day it looks to be! Hope you'll be out enjoying it.
SUNDAY UPDATE: Still beautiful. Still outside. Hope you are, too!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/21/09 10:41 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
19 March 2009
Houston's fair housing ordinance
Local media is reporting the city is suing a homeowner in the first test of the city's fair housing ordinance. Here's the Chron's story:
The city of Houston on Tuesday filed its first criminal misdemeanor charge under a fair housing ordinance, a case against a millionaire for not selling his $8.2 million home in an affluent gated community to his neighbor.
Randy Zamora, chief prosecutor for the city, said Matthew Prucka, an engineer inventor, faces up to a $500 fine if found guilty of discriminating against the disabled in the December 2007 sale of his home.
“After looking at statements he made in a deposition, it seems pretty clear he just didn’t like the idea of ramps and widening halls and did not want his house to be used by his neighbor’s disabled daughter,” Zamora said.
Prucka’s attorney said the criminal charge is “absurd.” He said Prucka cared about preserving a historic home, and that the issue of his neighbor’s disabled daughter wasn’t raised until the neighbor became angry over not getting the house.
[snip]
“The idea is to make the point that this is against the law,” said Zamora, who said he didn’t contact Prucka or his attorney before filing the charge. “If these cases are brought to our attention, we will do something about it.”
KUHF-88.7's story includes this from Mr. Prucka's attorney:
Fogler says his client found someone who wanted to buy the house as is.
"The buyer loved the house the way it was and wanted to preserve it. And that meant something to Mr. Prucka and his wife, because they had spent so much time restoring the house to its original condition."
Three years after the ordinance made it through Council, and the first test is over a historic, multi-million dollar home -- which would seem to indicate there's not a whole lot of housing discrimination going on in Houston. But hey, Gordon Quan got his feel-good ordinance, and that's what counts:
Houston lawyer Gordon Quan helped push through the law when on the City Council and said he’s surprised the first case is about “wealthy people battling over a piece of property. It’s usually used for poor people.”
Not in Houston!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/19/09 06:13 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)
18 March 2009
Bring back the "Red, White and Blue"
The Chronicle has posted a story by political reporter Alan Bernstein that is a real head-shaker.
The quick synopsis is as follows: Following last November's elections, KUHT general manager John Hesse put the weekly Gary Polland/David Jones local political show "Red, White and Blue" on hiatus. Hesse apparently hopes to change the focus of the show to put more emphasis on guests, and even considered dropping hosts Polland and Jones, according to Bernstein. Both Democratic and Republican pols have urged KUHT to retain the hosts and the format. And Hesse has finally said he hopes to bring the show back, although the details still have not been finalized.
How in the world have KUHT and UH managed to screw this up so badly?
Granted, Polland and Jones aren't going to be winning any ratings wars. But their emphasis on local political issues and personalities is a great fit on noncommercial, public television (which isn't capturing many time slots in Houston, we'd wager). They run a smart show with good guests. And as Bernstein reports, they have fans ranging from Rep. Ted Poe to Rep. Al Green, who likely don't agree on many topics.
It's astounding that KUHT's general manager has let things degenerate to the point that it merits a story in the Chronicle and lobbying from Congresscritters. Just get the show back on the air already!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/18/09 11:54 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (2)
17 March 2009
Chron's Olson: "MWBE showdown at City Hall"
The Chronicle's Brad Olson reports that next week's Council meeting could be entertaining:
A federal judge today ordered the city to put to a City Council vote a settlement agreement over the participation of women in Houston's minority business program. The settlement, part of decade-old litigation over the legality of such municipal contracting efforts, would have put women-owned businesses into the same category as small businesses. That would have left women business owners with a smaller "set-aside" portion of city contracts than currently exists, a fact that spurred a furious lobbying effort from local and national women contracting and business associations, given the prominence of the city's minority business program.
According to Olson, the city's attorney argued the matter hasn't been put on the agenda because it doesn't have the votes to pass. Apparently, most parties agree that it will not pass.
There is so much that is wrong here that we'll start with just a few items and let readers pile on: 1) Why is a federal judge setting a City Council agenda? 2) How much money has been spent by the various parties trying either to secure taxpayer goodies or to direct taxpayer goodies to special interests differently? 3) Do we really need these programs, or are they mostly about rewarding special interests with taxpayer goodies these days?
Please do join the conversation!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/09 10:50 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (10)
METRO: Our performance levels aren't bad!
METRO's expensive blogger has posted the organization's latest "web chat," this time with Andy Skabowski, associate vice president of operations (long titles and bureaucratic bloat are fun!). We didn't sit through it, but we think one exchange is representative:
Q : Why is METRO Houston's service so bad compared to other cities' mass transport systems?
A : Houston METRO's service performance levels are measured by industry standards, and our service levels and perfomance are equal to, if not better, than other major cities.
That is disappointing. We expected more exciting rhetoric, like "Our performance is world class!" Maybe Raequel "Nine Volt" Roberts can coach him up with more exciting talking points next time.
PREVIOUSLY: Area transit agency manipulating statistics? Just call it The Houston Way (blogHOUSTON).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/17/09 09:20 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (6)
16 March 2009
Texas Watchdog reports on Sen. Ellis' apparent HISD bond conflict of interest
Texas Watchdog has posted an interesting bit of investigative journalism by Matt Pulle.
Pulle takes a closer look at state senator Rodney Ellis' support of HISD's 2007 bond proposal. Sen. Ellis' support came at a fairly crucial time during the debate, since HISD somewhat bungled the politics of the proposal and it had drawn a fair amount of criticism. As it turns out, Ellis apparently had quite a conflict of interest that, until now, has gone unreported:
Ellis is a high-ranking partner in a New York-based company called Rice Financial Products that stands to make money when the school system issues bonds — like the one the voters passed in 2007.
For at least a decade, Rice, which specializes in bond and derivatives transactions, has served as the minority co-financial adviser with First Southwest Co. as a part of a contractual requirement that the bank work with a “minority or women-owned business.” That same contract says that “minority firms,” like Ellis’, are eligible to receive 30 percent of First Southwest’s compensation from the district.
So, in the midst of a tense debate over the merits of HISD’s financial plan, when Ellis reassured his constituents that the district’s bond package was a “good package … a fair package,” he had a textbook conflict of interest. That same package, if voters followed the state senator’s endorsement, could inflate his firm’s coffers by tens of thousands of dollars.
The results of the Texas Watchdog investigation are posted here and here. The second page has an especially helpful chart that illustrates Ellis' somewhat convoluted financial ties to HISD -- ties that HISD's spokesman Norman Uhl told Pulle he did not know about. Ellis declined to comment for the story.
This is some really nice investigative work by Texas Watchdog, and reads like the sort of journalism one might have found in the Houston Press a decade ago (well before their political focus changed to the KTRH/conservative talk radio beat and weekly two poliblogger interviews) -- not surprising, given Pulle's background in alt-weekly journalism.
UPDATE: Sen. Ellis' office issued a non-denial denial that appears on the Chron Texas Politics blog.
Texas Watchdog responds here.
BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/16/09 03:10 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (9)
15 March 2009
Single-stream pilot program to boost recycling rates by factor of 7+?
The City of Houston has announced a test "single-stream" recycling program, in which all recyclables can be placed together for pickup. The goal is to boost the city's recycling rate and to improve the program's efficiency by making pickup easier for collectors.
The recycling numbers used in the Chronicle coverage did catch our eye:
The long-term goal is to increase recycling participation. A 2008 survey from Waste News pegged Houston with a dismal 2.6 percent recycling rate.
White has said the city’s rate will approach 20 percent after the implementation of new programs. In January, the city began a wood waste recycling program for tree limbs and brush. In the spring, officials are planning to expand yard waste recycling through the use of biodegradable bags.
But single-stream recycling appears to be an increasingly popular strategy for improving participation. Fort Worth and Plano already have single-stream programs.
A single-stream system can more than double participation rates, said Pat DeRueda, president of Waste Management Recycling Services.
So, a waste management expert says single-stream recycling can double recycling participation rates, which in Houston is currently 2.6%. Yet Mayor White claims that this pilot program and a couple of other programs will take the recycling rate to 20%. Is this another case of Senate-candidate math?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/15/09 07:23 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)
Lykos announces DNA testing policy, calls for regional DNA crime lab
Earlier this week, Harris County DA Pat Lykos announced that moving forward, the DA's office will test DNA evidence in all cases where it is available and relevant.
The new policy was rolled out in response to a 2003 case in which an innocent man, Ricardo Rachell, was wrongly convicted of sexual assault of a minor. Lykos laid some blame on the HPD Crime Lab, which was dysfunctional at the time the case was proceeding. Flanked by HPD Chief Harold Hurtt, Lykos apologized for the "cascading, system-wide breakdown" and also called for the creation of a regional DNA crime lab.
Lykos rightly drew praise for this move, from such diverse quarters as former prosecutor Murray Newman, defense attorney Mark Bennett, and the Chronicle's metro/state plagiarist Rick Casey. Indeed, we can't imagine why the move wouldn't draw praise, which is why we didn't see much need to comment on the obvious earlier in the week.
However, the real devil will be in the details. It's one thing to call for a regional DNA crime lab, which we agree is a good idea. In the meantime, however, the ongoing problem of confidence in the HPD Crime Lab looms, and apparently that is yet another problem that will pass from MayorWhiteChiefHurtt to the next administration. Local CompStat/policing activist Jay Wall reminds us that in 2005, the New York Times reported that the crime lab in 2002 had a testing backlog of nearly 19,500 rape test kits, and had only reduced that number to 10,000 by 2005; he rightly asks why HPD wasn't performing those tests back then. We haven't heard where the number stands today, but we'd be shocked if the backlog has been eliminated. Clearly, we need leadership other than MayorWhiteChiefHurtt to move this forward, so kudos to Pat Lykos for taking it on. We hope she makes it a real priority.
We were amused that one Democratic activist welcomed the move, but nonetheless spun it as Lykos stealing Clarence Bradford's DA campaign proposals. This same activist neglected to mention that one big reason the HPD Crime Lab was dysfunctional at the time of the Rachell case was the mismanagement of HPD's chief at the time, none other than Clarence Bradford.
Bradford, incidentally, is currently running for the City Council At-Large Position 4 seat.
The full Rachell Report is available on the Chronicle website here, in pdf format.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/15/09 07:03 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)
Saavedra stretches credulity on rodeo spending from vending machine fund
Earlier in the week, the Chronicle reported that HISD spent up to as much as $100,000 dollars of vending-machine revenues so that some favored educators could attend Houston LiveStock Show and Rodeo gala events:
The Texas Education Agency is investigating whether some HISD principals and administrators wrongly tapped discretionary funds to spend as much as $100,000 on rodeo gala tickets since 2003.
The principals bought the tickets with profits from school vending machines that go into funds controlled by the school leaders, said George Garver, manager of campus audits in the Houston school district’s inspector general’s office. Tickets for the annual Black Heritage Western Gala were then given to teachers and administrators.
The discretionary funds are to be used to “promote the general welfare and the educational development and morale of students,” the HISD’s financial procedures manual says. “Any expenditures directly from this account must benefit the entire student body.”
School Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra said principals and administrators had appropriately used the funds because purchasing tickets works to cement a fruitful partnership between HISD and the rodeo. The rodeo, he said, awards more than $1 million in college scholarships to HISD students annually.
“I have been reassured by the (HISD) inspector general that there is nothing illegal or unethical about this practice,” he said. “It’s a relatively small investment when you consider that the return on that is very substantial.”
Those bolded sentences really are astounding in light of the stated spending requirements for the vending machine funds, no?
The thoughts of one activist resonated with me (and probably quite a few others):
Del Murphy, husband of a retired HISD assistant principal, filed complaints with HISD’s inspector general and TEA. Money from the discretionary funds, he said, should go to buy school library books or make other school improvements.
“They use this money to go wining and dining. Taking this money and using it in this way is immoral,” he said. “You are taking money away from kids and elementary schools that are at minimal resources.”
Surely there was a better use for these funds.
BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport, Texas Watchdog.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/15/09 06:16 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
GHVCB opens six-person D.C. office
The Houston Business Journal's Christine Hall reports that The Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau has opened an office in Washington, D.C.:
The new office is the organization’s first multiperson office outside of Houston, according to the bureau.
The GHCVB estimates that the 2,400 associations in the D.C. area have pumped more than $118 million into the Houston economy through convention business over the past three years.
“The goal of the D.C. office is to help the GHCVB better connect with the 2,400 association customers in the greater D.C. area, and thus bring in more convention business to the city of Houston,” Greg Ortale, president and chief executive officer of the GHCVB, said in a statement. “With the help of the new D.C. office, I hope to increase the number of meeting bookings by 15 percent within one full year of operation.”
Sidney Chang will anchor the new office as director of sales for the Mid-Atlantic region. He will oversee five other employees.
Let's hope that in one year, local media remember to ask the GHCVB if booking goals were met and the costs of the new office are justified.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/15/09 04:00 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
Senate-candidate White tries to beef up his illegal immigration bonafides
Now that Mayor White wants to become Senator White, the "It's the feds' fault!" message he has cultivated for the past few years just won't fly, so he's having to add a bit of nuance. You see, it IS still the Feds' fault, but now he's going to make it a "cause" (via the Chron's Susan Carroll and Bradley Olson):
Standing in front of a bank of TV cameras this week, Houston Mayor Bill White took the federal government to task for not deporting an illegal immigrant with a criminal record before he allegedly shot a Houston police officer during a recent drug raid.
“I vowed after talking to the officer’s wife that I was going to make this a cause,” the mayor said Tuesday, “and I wasn’t going to tolerate some of the excuses that we’ve heard about lack of resources.”
That is truly pathetic. As if being mayor of Houston has been an out-of-body experience for him. Who's been making excuses? Mayor White. Who said HPD resources couldn't be spent doing the federal government's job? Mayor White.
But, you see, with a statewide run for office in progress, NOW it's become a cause. It wasn't a cause in 2006 when HPD Officer Rodney Johnson was murdered by an illegal alien criminal.
Here's Mayor White in 2005:
"The protection of our borders is essentially a federal function," the mayor said. "I am not going to take our police out of the neighborhoods" to start looking for illegal immigrants. "Our police priority is going to be public safety."
And here:
Mayor White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt have defended the current policy. Immigration is a federal responsibility and local police are busy fighting more serious crimes, said a spokesman for White, Frank Michel.
The city's police force has shrunk to 4,600 officers from 5,200 since mid-2003. Many officers retired early to avoid having benefits reduced by a plan that the city enacted to shore up its police pension.
And after Officer Johnson's murder in 2006 (what's more serious than murder?), MayorWhiteChiefHurtt confirmed their support for the city's sanctuary policy directive:
The department's current policy forbids officers from asking about someone's immigration status, unless they've committed at least a Class B misdemeanor. It also prevents officers from inquiring about citizenship if a person has committed no crime.
Both White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt supported that policy. However, White said Wednesday at a City Hall press conference that certain "operational refinements" could still be made. "I think it's fair game for discussion with a committee," said White.
Here's how HPD refined the sanctuary directive:
[...]if an officer should decide to arrest an individual and bring them to the city jail, "We will be checking fingerprints of Class C offenders," said City Council Public Safety Committee Chairman Adrian Garcia. "If there's information that comes back in relation to questionable immigration status, we will put a 'hold' on you until Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials can investigate."
The Chron's story notes how the modification panned out:
Recent documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle through a public records request show that very few illegal immigrants are being identified in the city jail. Last year, HPD jailers detained for immigration officials less than 1 percent of the 58,774 suspects booked only into the city’s jails and not transferred to the Harris County Jail. From October 2006 through January, HPD identified and detained 372 suspected illegal immigrants for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The recently obtained documents include a November e-mail from Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt to White that reported “several thousand” illegal immigrants eligible for deportation had passed through the city’s lockups.
But now that Senate-candidate White has a new cause, change is on the horizon:
To plug any potential remaining gaps, White this week said he plans to ask Hurtt to consider participating in the federal government’s controversial 287(g) program, which trains local jailers to assist immigration agents. The move is a departure from the mayor’s past position that local police should have limited involvement in immigration enforcement. The mayor and Hurtt this week also committed to using a Homeland Security database that automatically checks suspects’ immigration history.
Well, maybe change is on the horizon, but since Mayor White's going to "ask" Chief Hurtt to "consider" participating in the federal program, we shouldn't hold our breath.
Back in 2008 when Harris County became the first law enforcement agency in Texas to receive the training, the Chronicle's Carolyn Feibel questioned not-yet-a-candidate-for-Senate Bill White about HPD participating:
White said, in essence, no.
"I think it will erode the capacity of local law enforcement if local law enforcement starts assuming more and more federal functions."
[snip]
"I'd rather have our police figure out how to catch people who commit violent crimes, than become immigration lawyers."
That's the REAL Bill White.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/15/09 08:43 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (1)
14 March 2009
When Georgia increased yellow light times, red light camera violations tanked
On January 1, a new Georgia law kicked in forcing a one-second increase in the duration of the yellow warning light at intersections with red light cameras. The result has been devastating for red light camera makers as violations -- and revenue -- immediately plunged for the months of January, February and March. Last week, the city of Norcross dumped photo enforcement. Now the UK-owned red light camera maker Lasercraft is offering its customers a 90-day suspension of service to prevent cities from dropping their automated ticketing contracts. The cities of Lilburn and Snellville accepted this offer yesterday and suspended their red light camera programs.
"With the passage of House Bill 77, effective January 1, 2009, there has been a precipitous decline in the number of citations issued through the program," Lilburn Police Chief J.B. Davidson wrote in a memo to the city council.
The mandated increase in signal time created dramatic and instant results. In 2008, Lasercraft issued an average of 1,559 citations each month. In January, that number dropped 80 percent to just 313. Norcross also saw an 80 percent drop in violations.
Not that MayorWhiteChiefHurtt would be interested in that approach for Houston.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/14/09 02:37 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (6)
12 March 2009
Thin skin: Radio host asks tough questions of Bill White; Mayor's staff whines
In the comments on our "Blame the Feds!" post, kjb434 called our attention to some excellent local radio by Michael Berry.
Apparently, Mayor White's press people didn't like Berry's treatment of their guy, and called the host to lecture him about it. Berry discusses that outrageous conversation in this mp3 from Wednesday's program.
Wouldn't it be great if the mayor's staff were as concerned about solving the problems of the city as squelching occasionally critical voices?
BLOGVERSATION: Hair Balls.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/12/09 09:22 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (8)
11 March 2009
Arizona does qualify as "outside the boundaries"
Mayoral candidate Annise Parker's new "Houston first" proposal didn't excite us much one way or the other, but we did enjoy a couple of grafs from Alan Bernstein's Chronicle coverage:
To the extent allowed by law, city government jobs should go first to applicants who live in Houston, according to Parker’s proposal, and mayoral appointees to boards and commissions also should come from within city limits.
In past years the city has had police chiefs and lesser-known workers who lived outside the boundaries.
Now who in the world could he be talking about?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/11/09 10:12 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)
MayorWhiteChiefHurtt: Blame the feds!
Most blogHOUSTON readers have surely been following the news of another needless shooting of a Houston police officer by an illegal immigrant.
Part of the problem is that HPD remains understaffed, a circumstance bestowed upon MayorWhiteChiefHurtt by the Lee Brown Administration (former members of which are now running for Council and Mayor) but one they really haven't done much to address.
Part of the problem is that Houston remains a sanctuary city.
And part of the problem is that federal immigration policy obviously isn't getting the job done.
All of that being said, these grafs from an Isiah Carey blog post take blame-shifting to a new level:
White says the answer lies in federal dollars and the sharing of up-to-date intelligence with local police departments.White flanked by Police Chief Harold Hurtt says Houston is not a sanctuary city and they need the help to get the illegal criminals out!
Don't blame us! We're just helpless bystanders in denial! What fine leadership from MayorWhiteChiefHurtt.
The truth is, this is a big problem that can't be blamed on any one thing, but the dynamic duo's policies, denial, and blame-shifting certainly haven't done much to help the problem.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/11/09 10:04 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (9)
10 March 2009
At least the METRO blog's comments are entertaining
We previously noted that METRO's vice-president of PR something-or-another (sorry, we aren't going to look it up -- blogger's prerogative) Raequel Roberts sent a letter to the Chronicle expressing displeasure with the newspaper's recent coverage of METRO.
Apparently, the letter was edited to save space (or perhaps as a courtesy, to save the eyes and brain cells of readers), so METRO's expensive blogger posted the overly long, overly defensive letter in its full, umm, glory on the transit/land-development organization's blog.
That prompted some interesting comments from one reader of the blog. Since few people read METRO's very expensive taxpayer-funded blog (but many people read our small, privately funded blog), we thought we'd reproduce Don G's comments here:
Rosanna Ruiz was apparently correct in her statement about using the trip planner. It flunked my several attempts when I placed my house address and Ben Taub for a trip tomorrow. It correctly inserted my total address and after selecting the correct choice for Ben Taub, it inserted that data. I then clicked on the "Get Trip Plan" button and zip, natta, nothing happened. All it did was refresh the screen.
Prior attempts (before I read the story) required me to tell it the intersections where a bus might be.
What "SHOULD" happen is for it to tell you first, how far you have to walk and an estimated walk time, followed by the scheduled trips and the walk at the other end.
I seriously doubt Metro will every do that because it would show you how long it's going to take from your door step to the destination door step.
and
I use the Net all the time to locate and get to places.
I just now decided to try the Goggle Transit deal and lo and behold, it provided me with directions, total distance and the total travel time!
Of course...that was NOT using 'public transit'!
It showed me that to get from Beaujolais Lane (with exact address entered) to Maroneal :ane (with exact address entered) as a 15.7 mile trip taking 28 minutes.
Now, when I changed it to 'public transit' with the exact same parameters (and I used tomorrow morning at 8 AM BTW) it gave me this glorious statement:
"Sorry, we don't have transit schedule data for a trip from 1359 Beaujolais Ln, Houston, Texas 77077 to 2508 Maroneal St, Houston, Texas 77030 at the time and date you specified."
Now I want to ask, who should we believe? Metro spokeswoman Raequel Roberts who has a vested interest in selling Metro as a gospel? Or should we accept Rosanna Ruiz,who tried it and surely is a skilled user of the net?
Metro continually seems to sell puff stories rather than providing truth to the tax payers who make it what it is.
Remember, Raequel is the one who compared stray current to a nine volt battery1 Insanely depressing comment that time.
PS: I even tried Raequel's address...to my same destination and it worked PERFECTLY for car but failed to recognize public transit. And, FYI, her address failed also using their own "trip planner"
I would like for Mary to tell Raequel to write a apology correction to the Houston Chronicle to be published as a Letter to the Editor as well as a letter of apology to the author.
We won't be holding our breath for that to happen!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/10/09 09:30 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (0)
CTC: HCTRA land development bad; METRO land development good
The CTC's Robin Holzer, one of METRO's biggest light rail cheerleaders, recently sent out a Grand Parkway action alert:
When you pay tolls on the busy Westpark and Sam Houston toll roads, do you ever think about what your tolls should pay for? For several years now, Harris County has "pooled" toll dollars from busy toll roads to fund other important transportation projects, like the Hardy extension from 610 to Downtown.
But this Tuesday, our toll dollars may start funding land development, at least if the County moves forward on Grand Parkway segment E without a traffic and revenue study. Read on for details...
Robin Holzer, Chair
Gasp!
Of course, METRO has been unabashedly working on land development for years, but we can't recall a CTC alert about that -- which is especially odd since METRO has the power to condemn privately-owned property within a 1,500 foot radius of any transit station.
Now, longtime readers know that I am no fan of the Grand Parkway because I think it's unnecessary, and it's being pushed by developers. However, one would hope the head of the "Citizens' Transportation Coalition" would show some consistency by demanding accountability (or transparency, or slowness of action, or whatever) from ALL local transportation agencies, not just the evil toll road-building one.
END NOTE: Here's Holzer on METRORail via the Chronicle:
Robin Holzer, chairwoman of Houston’s Citizens’ Transportation Coalition, told the Chronicle, “There’s a lot in this agreement to show that Metro has been listening to the community and trying to accommodate our concerns. The transportation infrastructure we build has a dramatic effect on the quality of life in our neighborhoods and people have a right to be involved.”
Here's Holzer on HCTRA via the Chronicle:
“Harris County has a responsibility to every toll road user in our region to slow down and do this right,” said Holzer, whose mobility advocacy group argues that Segment E will do little to address pressing traffic concerns while helping developers get rich building sprawling subdivisions on the Katy Prairie.
By the way, here's just one example of how METRO's been listening to the community and accommodating concerns.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 03/10/09 07:06 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (7)
09 March 2009
Texas Watchdog documents local cases of apparent voter fraud
Texas Watchdog, the local watchdog/transparency group that broke a dead-voter story in 2008, follows up today with a report on two cases of apparent voter fraud.
The names of dead voters may have been used to cast unlawful ballots in two recent elections, a Texas Watchdog investigation has found.
The votes found by Texas Watchdog — two discovered so far by digging through reams of paper and electronic records — appear to be isolated events that don’t point to a pattern or trend of fraudulent activity.
But our reporting, which followed the trail from the polling place all the way to the Harris County district attorney’s office in charge of public integrity, shows how easy it would be to commit voter fraud - and how tough it can be to prosecute people who commit the crime.
Click on over to the Texas Watchdog report for the rest of the report, along with quotes from relevant sources.
The Texas Watchdog reporting comes as the state legislature is gearing up for what is likely to be a highly charged -- and highly partisan -- debate over stronger voter identification legislation. The Republican majority has already muscled through a rules change in hopes of moving the legislation this time around. And some members of the Democratic minority have already started winding up constituents with not so subtle accusations against those who favor the legislation (indeed, Sen. Rodney Ellis robocalled my home last night with an invitation for me to join his telephone town hall to discuss the Republican effort at "voter suppression" -- a charged term that seems popular with some on the Left).
We're not all that interested in the party politics behind the Voter ID debate. As we've stated before, the two major political parties have plenty of resources to get their message out and, if they like, call their opponents names without our help. We are interested in the integrity of the voting process, however, and that our vote, rightly cast according to the established rules, is not devalued by fraudulent votes. We are also interested in anyone who is eligible to vote being able to do so in a relatively easy (but verifiable) manner. To the extent these two aims conflict, we would think reasonable people could come to a workable compromise. Or at least reasonable political leaders might be able to.
The Texas Watchdog reporting suggests that fraudulent voting isn't just a theoretical problem (at least in our area), and that the existing criminal law framework doesn't offer much in the way of deterrence. It's certainly not very hard to vote fraudulently under existing rules (which sets the stage for potential abuse in the future, especially as government becomes ever bigger and, therefore, how an election swings helps determine who gets more of big government's goodies). Moving forward, it's probably worth keeping those facts in mind as some partisans scream "voter suppression" (or worse) at anyone who dares to suggest that perhaps toughening our voter ID requirements isn't an outrageous idea.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/09/09 01:59 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)
08 March 2009
John Keeling concedes area hotel occupancy is down
We were amused by this recent appearance in the Chronicle by hospitality consultant/advocate John Keeling:
Houston-area hotel occupancy is expected to fall to 63.9 percent this year, down from 67.9 percent in 2008, according to analyst John Keeling.
The industry is facing a rough year as individual business and meeting travel slows and more hotel rooms are added to the market.
[snip]
Revenue per available room, a key indicator of financial performance, will be off 6.1 percent.
But the market should turn around early next year when demand is expected to exceed the increase in supply, said Keeling, senior vice president of PKF Consulting.
The reporting did not add, ".... at which time, even if there is no rebound, Keeling can be expected to be out shilling for a new Astrodome Hotel, or a new downtown City of Houston hotel venture, or any number of other big hotel boondoggles." But you can just about bet on it!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/08/09 09:56 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)
Why not just reprint the press release?
Matt Bramanti calls our attention to this story by Chron reporter Todd Ackerman.
As Bramanti notes, a number of phrases in the reporting seem to be lifted from this press release with hardly any change (and no attribution).
It's not the first time that Ackerman has been caught engaging in really lazy journalism (whether you care to call it something else is your prerogative). Why does the Chronicle allow it to continue?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/08/09 09:43 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
Ruffled feathers: Recent Chron METRO, county coverage prompts responses from public officials
Chron transit reporter Rosanna Ruiz is shaping up so far to be much more diligent and probing than her two most recent predecessors on the beat. METRO isn't quite used to the local newspaper being anything but a PR outlet for its proclamations, and one official apparently wasn't too happy with a recent headline. Spokesperson Raequel Roberts also felt the need to write to the Chronicle recently to clarify some matters:
Houston Metro encourages everyone to ride Metro, including Chronicle reporters. (Please see “An inside look at Metro bus commute,” Monday.) To neophytes, riding transit can take some time to master. We have a project under way to straighten out routes that have evolved over the years into zigzag patterns. Any visitor to New York City finds venturing into the subway system a bit daunting, but a day or two of experience leaves many singing the praises of the system. It’s a maturation we often observe with first-time riders to MetroRail.
We are glad the reporter noticed Metro’s buses are clean. We were, however, perplexed by the statement that one must input intersections, not addresses, to use our trip planner. The trip planner works with addresses, as it does with landmarks. We recently added Google Transit to our site as an added form of assistance.
On the matter of fares and our operators: Operators monitor fares to look for abuses of the system, but their primary responsibility is to drive buses safely and adhere to schedules. Buses lurching and creaking? Well, they’re buses, not limousines. Metro isn’t perfect — we’ve fixed a clogged drain that caused leaking on the bus the reporter rode — but we provide a valuable, clean and safe service for one of the lowest fares in the U.S.
These points merited a letter taking issue with the newspaper's coverage? The skin seems to be pretty thin at METRO headquarters these days. As for the bolded comment, one can only wonder what has taken so long, as METRO's route system has long needed a makeover beyond the usual "service improvements" we've discussed before.
Elsewhere on the Chron metro/state pages, Liz Austin Peterson has apparently ruffled some feathers in Harris County government (another beat that hasn't been covered all that well in the past by the Chronicle) with a recent report on drivers for the Sheriff and County Judge. Like many commenters, bloggers, and even our friend Chris Baker, we aren't that bothered by the notion that the Harris County Sheriff and Harris County Judge might need a professional driver/security detail from time to time. On its face, it doesn't necessarily seem like an unwise or inappropriate use of tax dollars, although Commissioner's Court probably would like to be kept better informed on these matters. (Then again, if he were being fully honest, one quoted commissioner might admit that it's a LOT more fun talking about this kinda-not-really "scandal" than his own).
Still, we were a little surprised to see Sheriff Garcia and Judge Emmett's office react so strongly to the story, in terms of this letter to the editor and various comments on local blogs. We're always interested in seeing facts reported accurately and different perspectives represented in stories, but we're also interested in reporters getting stories out there and letting readers/voters decide how important they are. So we hope Peterson isn't dissuaded by the strong reaction from public officials.
What say you?
UPDATE (03-09-2009): METRO is even more thin-skinned than we thought. The Chron apparently cut Raequel Roberts much-too-lengthy letter, so it has been reposted by METRO's very expensive blogger Mary Sit on their blog.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/08/09 09:25 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
05 March 2009
Ready-Fire-Aim: METRO board approves rail contract nobody else has seen
METRO's board has unanimously approved the big rail contract that the public was not allowed to see or debate before the big vote yesterday and which, they contend, was still being negotiated right up to the vote (ready-fire-aim!).
Rosanna Ruiz's coverage for the Chronicle is here.
Instead of offering our opinion, we're gonna throw this one open to readers. What do you think about METRO's $1.46 billion deal (and the gazillion jobs that METRO says it will create)?
Okay, we'll offer one little bit of opinion -- here's hoping these projects turn out better than the Main Street line, with its fine record of collisions (with cars, people, and even wheelchairs), ongoing stray current problems and water art turned to eyesore (photo via Michael Berry). Because a lot of your money is at stake.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/05/09 09:00 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (7)
Chron E-Edition signup/purchase process = Monumental FAIL (updated)
We recently commented on the news that Hearst newspaper executives are discussing putting some of their online content behind a paid firewall and raising subscriber rates. Locally, there has been something of a backlash to that news, as reflected in various blog posts and their comments.
I seem to be in the minority in that I do think there is content in the Houston Chronicle worth paying for. I wonder what all the people who insist that online news should be "free" are going to blockquote and comment on when the local newspaper's revenues can no longer support the sorts of coverage of local affairs we've seen from Brad Olson, Carolyn Feibel, Rosanna Ruiz, Matt Stiles, and others. And I just can't quite believe they think Yahoo/AP sports coverage is a substitute for real sports beat writers (although the Chron sports section is weak weak weak).
But I'll admit, I haven't subscribed to print delivery for a long time. Like many people, I'll skim the paper copy in the office sometimes, and pick up a print edition here and there. Because I like to travel, I don't want newspapers cluttering my yard advertising "Hey, I'm gone -- come take my stuff," and I don't want the hassle of turning the delivery on and off. So I prefer online copy, but only partly because it's "free."
Someone recently reminded me of the Chronicle e-edition, which is effectively a pdf version of the print newspaper. That seems like a perfect solution for someone who actually wants to see a "print" newspaper from time to time. And if Hearst is planning on charging me for some content anyway in short order, why not just go all in with an e-edition subscription? The price is certainly right ($4.95/month).
And so it began. Yesterday, I went to subscribe, and was presented with a request for a physical address for delivery. That didn't seem quite right. Since the Chronicle has been known to throw promotional newspapers that people don't want, I decided an email to the Chron was in order, because I really do not want print newspaper delivery (see above). Reader (or should that be customer service?) rep Jim Newkirk responded quickly to my query, and assured that the info was merely for tracking and billing purposes, and that no print newspaper would ever be thrown, nor would any carrier ever have access to the address info.
Good! I went to sign up for the Chronicle e-edition today, entered my email and physical address and credit card info, and got this announcement after a short time (during which I foolishly assumed credit card info was being verified and temporary username/password were being generated):
Thank you!
Your request has been sent to our Subscriber Services department. If appropriate, one of our Subscriber Services representatives will contact you regarding your request via telephone or by e-mail if you provided an e-mail address. You can use our automated phone service 24 hours a day at 713-220-7211 or 1-888-220-7211. Our associates are available to help you on Monday through Friday from 5:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on weekends from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m..
Orders placed on the weekend will be processed in the next 2 - 3 business days of placing the order.
The year is 2009, I've just tried to engage in e-commerce and support my local newspaper, and I'm getting a customer service message that reads like something from the 70s?
It gets worse. A few minutes later, I got this email:
Dear Kevin Whited,
Thank you for becoming a Houston Chronicle subscriber.
Your Houston Chronicle should begin arriving at your home within two business days of placing your order. If you haven't received your Chronicle by that time, please let us know.
Our top priority is providing you with first-rate customer service. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.
If you need further assistance, please contact a Subscriber Services representative using one of the following options: 713-220-7211 or toll-free at 1-888-220-7211.
In addition, if you would like information on placing classified advertising (there has to be something in your garage that you can sell!) please call our Classified hotline at 713-362-6868 and one of our friendly representatives can get you set up and selling withing minutes.
Thank you again for choosing the Houston Chronicle.
The Chronicle can't pull off a simple e-commerce transaction that should result in my receiving a username/password to their "e-edition" product immediately, they send out a form email describing a product I did not order (home delivery), and Hearst executives think they are going to start charging for online content shortly? Umm, I JUST TRIED TO BUY ONLINE CONTENT AND YOU ARE MAKING IT A PAIN IN MY ARSE!
Wow.
I once had trouble imagining a world without newspaper newsrooms engaged in local reporting, but I have to say that the people on the business and customer-service end of things sure seem to be doing their part to bring that world about.
Now, I'm going to email the Chron's reader rep again and see if he can help me to get a username and password for the service I just tried to purchase, rather than waiting two business days to see what happens (will they toss the username/password on my driveway?) and then calling a "Subscriber Services representative" (on the phone, perhaps with menu trees and hold times! whee!). I'll update the post when/if I manage to get access to the product I just tried to purchase from my local newspaper.
UPDATE (2:15 PM): The reader rep must have passed my email on to someone, because I just got a voicemail message from a pleasant sounding woman who informed me that I had received an incorrect email, and that I was NOT subscribed to print home delivery. Rather, I'm subscribed to the Chronicle electronic edition. And if I have any questions, I can call her back.
That's it. No further useful information, like, say, my username/password. I will follow up later, perhaps. Or maybe I'll just wait and see if I ever receive a username/password.
UPDATE (03-06-2009, 7:15 am): I received my username and password via email this morning, and am trying to access the product. Login was fine, but the iBrowse newspaper pages refuse to load in Firefox on my work PC. They load in Google Chrome just fine, and the product seems pretty good (nice pdf-style reproduction of the actual Chron pages). I'll try Firefox on my home machine tonight and report on that. I am pleased to report that all sections seem to be reproduced (including the Fry's ad, yay!).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/05/09 11:40 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (10)
04 March 2009
Undercover Man looks at Mobility Response Team (Part 3)
Last night, KTRK-13's Wayne Dolcefino continued his look at Mayor White's Mobility Response Team.
City Controller and mayoral candidate Annise Parker even weighed in:
"This is a failure of training. It's a failure of leadership. It's a failure of supervision," said Parker. "And it ends up as a waste of taxpayer dollars."
[snip]
Parker added, "It's a great idea in theory and it probably could be a very good idea in practice, but it's a disaster."
That sounds familiar!
The full report from Tuesday can be found here. Once again, be sure to click on the video link for the full Undercover Man effect.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/04/09 10:26 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)
03 March 2009
METRO: We'll release public information when we feel like it
The Chronicle's Rosanna Ruiz reports today that METRO refuses to hand over any information about the multi-billion dollar contract that it will vote on tomorrow:
The Metropolitan Transit Authority continued to withhold the anticipated overall price tag on its next four light rail lines Tuesday in advance of Wednesday's board vote on a contract with Parsons Transportation Group.
Metro spokesman George Smalley said the cost, which he described only as “more than $1 billion,” would not be disclosed until just before the board of directors votes on the contract Wednesday afternoon.
[snip]
Earlier this week, Wolff defended the agency’s silence, saying negotiations likely would continue until the last possible moment before the vote and the terms likely would change.
Ruiz quotes friend Jennifer Peebles of Texas Watchdog:
“If the public can’t find out what’s going on until two seconds before the board makes a decision, that’s just too late,” said Jennifer Peebles, of the nonpartisan Texas Watchdog. “If they are not giving details before the vote and not allowing us a chance to weigh in, they’re making decisions in a bubble.”
Peebles elaborates in this Texas Watchdog blog post.
Right on!
Readers of blogHOUSTON will not be surprised that METRO is being secretive with what should be the public's information, since frequent commenter Tom Bazan is regularly given the runaround by the organization when he requests information. Rosanna Ruiz's predecessors never seemed that interested in the organization's efforts to deny information to the public -- or, for that matter, METRO President and CEO Frank "Procurement Disaster" Wilson's shady background -- so it's nice to see Ruiz reporting more aggressively on the organization.
Unfortunately, it seems as if we're only going to get the information when METRO is good and ready for us to get the information.
BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport, Fireballs, Lightning Bolts, and Hell Storms.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/03/09 09:44 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (4)
Alvarado: Fiddling while Rome burns
We had to borrow from a recent post by Clear Thinker Tom Kirkendall, because the headline was our immediate reaction to this news about Carol Alvarado's big proposal:
State Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, who as a City Council member spearheaded Houston's smoking ban, has introduced legislation than would eliminate trans fats from Texas restaurants.
Alvarado, serving her first term in the Texas House, plans to discuss the bill on Thursday at Ibiza in Midtown. The bill would ban trans fats, often used to boost the shelf life of foods, in all Texas restaurants. It also would require that prepared and served foods contain less than a half gram per serving, according to a news release....
Recession? Budget shortfall? Ike rebuilding?
Feh. Rep. Alvarado is focused on trans fats.
At least she's out of municipal government and in a place where she, individually, can't do much harm to Houston.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/03/09 09:05 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)
Quanell strikes back
Episode I:
First he gets slapped with a lawsuit for defamation.
Episode III:
Quanell is filing a lawsuit against the three HPD officers suing him. He is claiming that their lawsuit is violating his civil rights. In other words, Quanell is doing what he accused the officers of doing. He is trying to stifle any criticism of him now, and possibly in the future, again lending credibility to the mentality that public servants have neither rights nor voice.
To be clear here, I am not saying that public servants should never be questioned. What I am saying is that the usual critics should also be questioned, especially when they are shown to be wrong. If a critic is going to jump in front of a camera, then that critic shouldn't get his feelings hurt when someone criticizes him.
Posted by Jason @ 03/03/09 11:04 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
Undercover Man looks at Mobility Response Team (Part 2)
Last night, KTRK-13's Wayne Dolcefino continued his investigative reporting on Mayor White's Mobility Response Team program. Here's is an excerpt, although the video is even more fun:
The lights were working. The train was doing its thing. The officers weren't directing traffic. They didn't even walk in the street. They were just hanging out on the sidewalk.
In fact, the only thing blocking traffic on Congress was the city mobility van, parked in a moving lane of traffic, surrounded by those emergency traffic cones.
"I can't imagine what the guy was thinking," said Asst. Chief Vicki King of the Houston Police Department.
I'm guessing it might have been something like, "Dang, this is a sweet gig. Government jobs programs RAWK!"
The full story is here. Be sure to click the "watch video" box if you want the full Undercover Man experience.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/03/09 10:12 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (3)
02 March 2009
Chron Move It columnist recaps experiences riding METRO buses
Chronicle Move It columnist Rosanna Ruiz has been commuting by bus in recent days, and recaps some of the experiences in today's column, which is not exactly a ringing endorsement of transit in Houston:
For rookie riders, the bus system can take some time to figure out. You must first make sense of the tangle of routes and transfers that can require an abundance of time to get to a destination.
The trip planner on Metro’s Web site can frustrate, too. Intersections, rather than street addresses, are required, which then should result in a handful of options. Miss your bus and another may not arrive within the hour.
A trip from my home to the Chronicle took about 45 minutes on the bus, plus walking a few blocks. A typical drive into work usually requires 15 minutes.
The first day of my Metro odyssey involved six buses, two more than necessary.
After an assignment, I mindlessly took a bus heading in the wrong direction. The other was a case of the right route, but the wrong bus. The result was an additional hour to my commute.
The rest of the column contains various observations about other bus patrons, bus drivers, and even the mechanical condition of the buses.
Although not as *ahem* colorful as some of Laurence Simon's past recaps of the METRO experience, it's good to see the Chron transit columnist actually checking out the daily performance of the main transit organization on her beat. That's more curiosity than we saw from her predecessor over a number of years.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/02/09 10:11 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (6)
01 March 2009
Undercover Man looks at Mobility Response Team
KTRK-13 has been busy promoting Wayne Dolcefino's latest investigative effort.
Apparently, the Undercover Man's latest series will examine the Mobility Response Team, Mayor White's program in which various scooter patrols zip around and help solve minor traffic snafus.
The reporting is supposed to start on the 10 o'clock broadcast tonight (Sunday). Feel free to offer your thoughts in the comments if you catch the report. We'll add a link once it's online.
UPDATE: The text of Dolcefino's story is posted here.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/09 09:28 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (13)
Chronicle Trying To Slide in a Half-Fact
The Chronicle reported on the death of a naked Conroe man who fought the police and was tased. At the very end of the article the Chronicle tried to slip in their usual opinion on the subject of tasers.
The Houston Police Department started using Tasers in 2004. A Houston Chronicle analysis showed that HPD officers deployed their Tasers 1,724 times between December 2004 and May 2008, triggering 69 internal affairs investigations.Wow! At first glance, 69 internal affairs investigations sound like a lot. The Chronicle has long been against the use of tasers, especially on people who resist police officers. The Chronicle fails to reveal if any of those IAD investigations were found to be sustained against the officer. The Chronicle had a story in 2008, revealing the results of an audit of taser use. While the archive link isn't working, KPRC had the same story. A blog post shows the faults of reading these numbers to fit a particular agenda. Even though I couldn't get the original Chronicle article to link I did find this quote:
The report noted 55 complaints filed against police officers for using their Tasers, only three of which resulted in discipline.Hmmm . .. originally 3 out of 55 complaints resulted in any disciplinary action. Nice try Chronicle!
Posted by Jason @ 03/01/09 09:27 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
Does Bill White hate puppies? (cont'd)
KHOU-11's Brad Woodard documents the latest problems at BARC:
BARC recently let one veterinarian go and suspended another, who has now resigned. This means that there is just one chief veterinarian left. She was off last weekend, but on call.
“She was called to consult with the vet techs. We have several vet technicians who work all the time, and there are certain tasks they can do simply on standing orders from the chief veterinarian,” said Kathy Barton, who is the spokesperson for the organization.
But there are certain tasks, the veterinarian technicians can't do.
Over this past weekend when the chief veterinarian was off, records seem to indicate some of the dogs brought in over the weekend were vaccinated for rabies.
But according to state law, the veterinarian technicians are not allowed to do this.
“It has to be done in direct supervision by a board certified veterinarian, which means they need to be in the same room and observe the vaccine being given,” said Rosser.
Barton says BARC is doing the best it can under the circumstances and aggressively seeking replacement vets.
The constant criticism, she says, isn't helping.
Unfortunately, neither patience nor task forces have helped, so constant criticism and media attention are about all that would seem to be left to motivate our mayor, who is angling for statewide office, to focus on improving the awful conditions at BARC right here in Houston.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/09 09:09 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
Swamplot: Ashby high-rise developers rejected again
The invaluable Swamplot blog posts an update on the Ashby high rise project, whose developers saw their latest proposal rejected (unsurprisingly) by city bureaucrats who understand very well that Mayor White doesn't want the plans approved.
Swamplot notes that the Chronicle's Mike Snyder has blogged that since one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, perhaps the developers have just been trying to build a record for a lawsuit all along. Well, Snyder doesn't quite blog that -- rather, unnamed "observers" are said to feel this way. Snyder further notes,
The developers are portraying this case as an example of heavy-handed and inequitable city regulation that all developers should worry about.
A more thoughtful criticism is that some of us are worried about non-transparent government that seemingly changes the rules in the middle of the game because certain elites in the city have the mayor's cellphone number and don't want high-density development in their neighborhood.
Swamplot also notes that in contrast to Snyder, the Houston Business Journal does not downplay the changes proposed by the developers:
In order to address traffic concerns, Buckhead recently made some changes to the project design and commissioned an expanded traffic study.
Under the new plan, the Ashby driveway would only be used as an emergency exit. Buckhead also relocated the main driveway on Bissonnet to the center of the project, instead of having it on the east end of the site.
“It optimizes the traffic movements in and out of the driveway from both directions,” Morgan says.
All quibbling about the extent of the changes aside, we do concur with Snyder's characterization in this sense: it is indeed insane to think that any bureaucrat is going to sign off on the last roadblock to this project so long as Mayor (Boss Hogg?) White remains in office and he (and fellow elites) remain opposed to it. We know how The Houston Way works.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/09 08:43 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
Qualitative Survey: What parts of Chron.com would you pay for (or not)?
Banjo Jones calls our attention to this Wall Street Journal blog post, in which Steven Swartz, president of Hearst newspapers (which include our Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News), indicates that Heart newspapers plan to start charging for some online content, and charging print subscribers even more (for a shrinking product). Here's an excerpt from Swartz's memo:
We believe we must begin to provide greater differentiation between the content of our free Web sites and the content of our paid product, be that paid product read in print, on a digital device like Amazon’s Kindle, or online. This doesn’t mean we wall off our Web sites behind a paid barrier. Our sites must continue to be the superior and dominant free Web sites in their markets. This means they must offer the best in breaking news, staff and reader blogs, community databases and photo galleries. In fact, we need to expand the number of reporters, editors and photographers who are running a truly great blog, creating a rich dialogue of opinion and data sharing. We must do a far better job of reaching out to prominent citizens in our communities, those who already have a blog and those who don’t, and providing them a prominent platform to state their views. We must develop a rich network of correspondents to help us grow the deepest hyper-local community microsites in our markets. We must do a better job of linking to other great sources of content in our communities. And we must put staff resources behind building those channels of interest that have the greatest potential: those built around pro sports teams, moms and high school sports, to name a few. Exactly how much paid content to hold back from our free sites will be a judgment call made daily by our management, whose mission should be to run the best free Web sites in our markets without compromising our ability to get a fair price from consumers for the expensive, unique reporting and writing that we produce each day.
We must continue to ask readers to pay more for their subscriptions. Our print subscribers don’t pay us enough today that we can say they are actually paying for content. Rather, we only ask readers to pay for a portion of the cost of printing the paper on newsprint and delivering it to the reader’s doorstep. We must gradually, but persistently, change this practice.
I have no objection in theory to paying for quality local content, since the Chronicle has the resources to cover local/state better than any other Houston news organization -- stuff like critical urban, county, and state reporting, food and drink reviews, arts, and sports. Unfortunately, the local newspaper's coverage of county affairs is spotty, cheerleading on urban issues like rail has sometimes displaced quality, watchdog reporting, and the fare offered by most of the sports and opinion columnists (and editorial board) is weak, making "local" harder to sell than it should be for any newspaper. I have no need for this newspaper's rewrite of national, international, and entertainment stories covered by many other, higher-quality outlets, and would not want to pay for that.
What parts of the Chronicle would you be willing (or unwilling) to pay for to read online? Why (or why not)?
BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport, Unca Darrell, Mike McGuff.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/01/09 01:03 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (16)
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