30 June 2009

Linkpost: 06/30/09

We refuse to link to any blogs offering the non-news that Sylvester Turner isn't running for mayor (when we checked yesterday, he wasn't running either), but there are all sorts of other local blog goodness that you should click on.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/30/09 09:08 PM | Houston Blog Talk | Technorati | Comments (0)

KTRK: Council tackles pressing problem of.... electronic signs?

KTRK-13's Miya Shay reports that your City Council today passed an ordinance to regulate the pressing problem of.... electronic signs.

The ordinance could potentially affect schools and churches as well as businesses, but one busybody says that's too bad:

The neighborhood streets clause would mean many churches and area schools with electronic signs in neighborhoods would no longer be allowed to add new changeable signs. But [Alan] Atkinson says the broader repercussions would mean a better looking community for everyone.

"I need to have a higher quality of life in the city of Houston so my kids will stay here and not get lured to other cities," said Atkinson. "I want them to be here."

Given our city's problems, it is astounding what concerns some people (including our Mayor and Councilmembers).

Now it's reader participation time: If you know anyone whose quality of life in this city has been so negatively affected by the city's electronic signs that he/she (or the offspring!) have been "lured to other cities," please do leave us a comment. We want to hear from what is apparently a large and important demographic.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/30/09 08:01 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (8)

29 June 2009

Council set to renew $11 million arts contract

The Chronicle's Bradley Olson reports that City Council is about to renew an $11 million contract with the Houston Arts Alliance, a local arts organization that has had its trouble delivering projects on time, not to mention providing a public accounting of its operations. The sidebar to the story includes findings from a recent audit of the organization:

A city review of the Houston Arts Alliance’s $11 million contract found:

*Questionable uses of grant funds

*Numerous instances of missing or incomplete information received from grantees

*Poor tracking of how tourists were exposed to HAA-sponsored art or events

*Failure to turn in annual financial reports or make quarterly payments to grantees on time

*A lack of sufficient written policies at HAA governing nearly all aspects of its operations

Source: City of Houston 2009 Contract Compliance Review

Councilmember Michael Sullivan expresses concern about the organization's operations in the story. City Controller Annise Parker indicated that the group had addressed her concerns from earlier in the year. No other elected officials are quoted.

Olson's full story is here.

UPDATE (07/01/09): The Chron e-edition reports that Council voted to approve the funding yesterday. Councilmember Mike Sullivan was the only dissenting vote.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/29/09 09:08 PM | Houston Arts/Culture | Technorati | Comments (10)

28 June 2009

City official who approved HASDC activities now auditing them

In a flurry of reporting last week on the mysterious departure of Richard Vacar, Texas Watchdog reminded us of the city's ongoing review of the Houston Airport System Development Corp.:

The mayor’s office announced a review last month of the Houston Airport System Development Corp. The development corporation was a nonprofit set up by former airport chief Richard Vacar to use airport employees’ expertise to build and run airports elsewhere. The announcement followed Vacar’s abrupt departure.

Trahan said the city would look into Vacar’s trip to Libya in late February of this year as part of the review. Vacar expensed city taxpayers for $13,557, according to records reviewed by Texas Watchdog under the Texas Public Information Act. The final tab was OK’ed by White lieutenant and Houston chief administrative officer Anthony W. Hall Jr. on March 13, records show, with the trip aimed generally at “developing business opportunities” there.

[snip]

The city review is being led by Hall, the Houston Chronicle reported.

For some reason, we missed this informative line in the 24 May 2009 Chronicle story linked by Texas Watchdog:

Vacar said all HASDC activities were approved by the mayor's office through Anthony Hall, the city's chief administrative officer, whom White has asked to review the corporation's activities.

My blogHOUSTON colleague Anne Linehan had a great reaction to this:

The guy who was in charge of approving all of Vacar's expenses/trips when he was in charge, is now overseeing the review of Vacar's expenses/trips?? Excuse me??

Indeed -- what a great example of The Houston Way! As one local blockquoter has been known to say, stay tuned.

BLOGVERSATION: Texas Watchdog.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/28/09 10:52 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

Linkpost: 06/28/09

We tend to have slow weekends, but that doesn't mean other local bloggers took a break. Enjoy!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/28/09 10:15 PM | Houston Blog Talk | Technorati | Comments (0)

Roundup: What we missed this week

A number of items this week didn't manage to get their own posts, but are worth a comment at week's end.

* * *

Another week, another illegal immigrant killing a cop. It's sad that we're becoming so used to this that it gets the weekend roundup treatment. Here is some telling background from James Pinkerton and Susan Carroll for the Chronicle:

The gunman who shot and killed an undercover police officer during a Tuesday night sting operation was an illegal immigrant who had been picked up by the U.S. Border Patrol in El Paso and allowed to return home to Mexico 10 years ago.

Municipal records also show that Roberto Pedroza Carrillo, 37, had been stopped and ticketed by the Houston Police Department at least four times since 2002, most recently last November. In 2002, a warrant was issued for Carrillo after he failed to appear in court on a speeding ticket, but the case was resolved when he paid the fine.

[snip]

Municipal court records for a Roberto Carrillo, with the same address and date of birth released by investigators, show several traffic tickets from late 2002 to November of 2008. Several of the charges were dismissed after he provided proof of insurance and registration, and after HPD officers failed to appear in court. Records show Carrillo died owing the city $195 for a speeding ticket.

Under HPD policy, officers are not allowed to inquire about citizenship status during routine traffic stops. Suspects without valid identification can be fingerprinted, even for minor offenses. Carrillo, however, had several forms of ID, including at least two Texas driver’s licenses.

MayorWhiteChiefHurtt refuse to allow a frank discussion/debate/review of HPD's sanctuary policy, claiming it's a federal problem. Meanwhile, Houston cops keep dying. We grieve for the families who have to cope with these needless deaths of good men who have served the community bravely.

Commenter FilioScotia raises a good question in an email: "In view of the legal problems a lack of 'consular contact' has been for Houston and HPD in these circumstances, do you think someone could ask D-A Pat Lykos if those suspects were allowed to contact their respective consulates?"

Various reports indicate that consular contact has been requested, but we haven't seen any indication whether it was granted.

* * *

Harris County Commissioners Court unanimously passed ethics reform measures including "online posting of officials’ personal and financial disclosure forms, ethics training for all county employees and the voluntary registration of lobbyists" ("Harris County adopts list of ethics rules," Roma Khanna, Houston Chronicle). The measures are weaker than those recommended by a task force. County Judge Ed Emmett, who made ethics reform part of his successful election campaign, stressed that he was pleased to pass the reforms that were possible under current state law. County Attorney Vince Ryan has hinted he may need to review the measures, which has drawn criticism from Emmett.

Like our friends at Texas Watchdog, we're all for the posting of disclosure forms on the web, so let's hope these measures passed unanimously by Commissioners Court pass muster with the County Attorney.

* * *

The Chronicle's Nancy Sarnoff offered this blurb in her latest column:

The Downtown Redevelopment Authority wants to provide up to $20 million in funding to help build housing for people who work or go to school in and around the Central Business District.

The group has released a “request for information” seeking input from developers that could buy, develop and finance one or more housing projects with affordable price tags.

“We have so many people who have said they would like to live downtown but can’t afford it, like students, office workers and some of the people out of the medical center,” said Vicki Rivers, the authority’s executive director.

“We’re trying to attract a population to the downtown area that typically would not live there,” she said.

The project may be part of a larger mixed-use development or one that stands alone, according to the request. It may also include converting existing market rate condominiums or rental units.

How nice of the TIRZ to try to make it more "affordable" (we use quotes, even though the area's newspaper of record doesn't, because we find the reference ambiguous) for certain types of people to live in certain places! If only we could all have a beneficent TIRZ looking out for our personal welfare. What could possibly go wrong?

* * *

KHOU-11's Lee McGuire reports that Discovery Green has been so wildly successful that it's going to cost us another $300,000 per year:

[C]ity council approved a plan this week to pump another $300,000 a year into the park for the next ten years.

"Well, it's [referring to heavy usage] been a challenge no doubt, and we're not solving this problem with city money only,” Hagstette said. "We were thrilled that we got that kind of support [from council]. We were thrilled that it passed."

Taxpayers already spend $750,000 a year on the park in a 50 year deal. The park conservancy also spends three or four times that amount to keep Discovery Green running. Most of that comes from private donations.

The tiny little park has been used much more than we ever would have expected (we're more partial to authentic green spaces like Buffalo Bayou park and Memorial Park), and the city has done a good job keeping it from turning into a haven for the homeless. Nonetheless, it's costing us more than its supporters said it would cost (indeed, Mayor White predicted that the park would swell property tax revenues by millions! But his real-estate buddies are having some trouble helping him deliver on that promise right now).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/28/09 09:23 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

25 June 2009

Linkpost: 06/25/09

Here's the latest collection of local blog posts that have entertained us of late. Enjoy!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/25/09 11:11 PM | Houston Blog Talk | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chron columnist: BARC is, like, definitely making progress (OMG)!

The Chronicle's metro/state diarist Lisa Falkenberg weighed in on BARC today, effectively handing her column (such as it is) over to BARC's Kathy Barton in an apparent effort to refute the latest reporting by Craig Malisow on BARC's misadventures with vaccinations. Seemingly satisfied by Barton's spin, the metro/state diarist pronounced that BARC is definitely making progress (OMG)! And that was that.

Craig Malisow followed up with a detailed post today that illustrates how the Chron metro/state diarist failed to ask some key questions that might have led to a more analytical column, questions as simple as the time frame of the alleged new vaccination policies (which, as it turns out, Barton couldn't answer definitively when Malisow did put that question to her). In short, it's not at all clear that BARC is definitely making progress (OMG!), as the metro/state diarist asserted.

Indeed, there remains good reason to question most any assertion coming out of BARC, something that should be clear to anyone who's read Malisow's body of work on the subject.

BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/25/09 10:58 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

Michel memo illustrates The Houston Way of press management

In their ongoing investigation of Richard Vacar's mysterious departure from the Houston Airport System, Texas Watchdog ran across an interesting bit of correspondence from Mayor White's press honcho (and former Houston Chronicle editorialist) Frank Michel. Here is a teaser from Trent Seibert's post:

On a Thursday in May, City Hall reporter Bradley Olson from the Houston Chronicle e-mailed the mayor’s office a series of questions following Houston Airport System head Richard Vacar’s abrupt departure. The questions were fairly specific. Some could be answered with a yes or no, others by pulling some travel records and counting.

Minutes after the e-mail questions were sent, Frank Michel, a high-ranking press aide for Mayor Bill White, appears to have laid out a plan to keep Olson from getting his answers for as long as possible.

The full post is here. Frank Michel's memo is here. And Patrick Trahan's spin today (in the full post) is well worth the read.

Journalists who ask tough questions about the people's government can be so pesky! How nice to know that Mayor White has some real pros on his staff to stall them.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/25/09 10:22 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

Jury awards wrongly convicted man $5 million

The Chronicle's Roma Khanna reports that a federal jury awarded George Rodriguez $5 million today as a result of his lawsuit against the city for wrongful conviction:

A federal jury today awarded $5 million to a Houston man who spent 17 years in prison in a kidnapping and rape case built on evidence from the troubled Houston Police Department crime lab that DNA testing later discredited.

George Rodriguez, 48, sued the city of Houston seeking compensation for his years of incarceration and lost earnings. His lawyers argued that city officials, namely former Mayor Lee P. Brown who was police chief during Rodriguez’s case, were deliberately indifferent to underfunding, understaffing and a lack of supervision at the crime lab, creating a risk that an innocent person could be convicted.

The Lee Brown era (or should that be error?) seemingly will never come to an end.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/25/09 08:08 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Texas Watchdog follows up on Vacar resignation

Texas Watchdog broke an interesting story today that follows up on the mysterious departure of Houston Airport System chief Richard Vacar a few weeks ago.

There are any number of items that stand out in what we imagine will be a first pass through public information that is finally being made available by the organization: 1) The length of time that Mayor White and/or aide Anthony Hall have been monitoring Vacar's travel and his outside deals; 2) Vacar's extravagant travel tastes; 3) Some of the relationships pursued by Vacar on his junkets, including trips to Libya; and 4) The amount of time Vacar spent on these side deals, as opposed to his day job overseeing the Houston Airport System. Further, the story only hints at Vacar's relationship with spinoffs apparently created to facilitate some of these side deals.

We'll be looking forward to further investigation into all of the above by Texas Watchdog (and any other local media wishing to pursue the story beyond this passive bit of questioning).

BLOGVERSATION: Unca Darrell.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/25/09 12:44 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chron adopts reader representative by committee, neglects to inform readers

Over the years, we've had some useful interaction with the Chronicle reader representative, the individual who received reader (customer) complaints and queries about the newspaper and at least tried to provide a response (if not resolution -- unlike their San Antonio Hearst sister paper, for example, the Chronicle never has liked to admit cases of staff plagiarism). We've at least appreciated someone who would answer questions about the newspaper (James Campbell was generally good about this; Steve Jetton and subsequent replacements, not so much).

For quite a while now, the reader representative has seemingly gone missing. Emails to the reader representative email address are not answered, and the reader representative blog has not been updated in some time. We were wondering if it was time to put the reader representative back on one of those "Missing" notices on milk cartons. Lone Star Timesman Matt Bramanti got to the bottom of the problem on twitter yesterday, when the Chronicle's Dwight Silverman admitted to him that the newspaper doesn't really have a reader representative any more:

@mattbramanti We don't have one reader rep. Senior editors are now responding directly to reader concerns.

Note the clever wording. He didn't say "directly to readers." And if you've emailed the Chronicle reader representative lately, you probably haven't gotten an email response. People we know generally don't (nor do we, but we are an un-blog to the Chronicle). We are told that support staff simply compile emails/phone messages to the reader representative daily and distribute the report to senior editors for perusal (we can't verify that because, well, our emails to the reader representative tend not to get a reply).

The Chronicle continues to act as if it has a single reader representative however, as Jim Newkirk's name is still listed in the e-edition (and presumably print editions) of the newspaper:

Reader rep blurb from Chron masthead

We're not sure we would have minimized what has effectively been a customer-service position at a time when so many customers are dropping the newspaper, but it seems especially strange for a newspaper to tell customers there is a reader representative when there isn't one.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/25/09 08:15 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (6)

24 June 2009

Corrections, Chron style: Wrong = "outdated"

Chronicle transportation columnist Carolyn Feibel posted this interesting clarification/correction towards the end of this week's column:

Speaking of stimulus funds, I gave you outdated information in last week’s column. Metro cannot use $30 million of federal stimulus funds on building the new light rail lines, despite what the agency had expected (and we had reported) earlier. In fact, none of the stimulus can be used on the future rail expansion. That’s because Metro doesn’t yet have final approval from the Federal Transit Administration for the planned North and Southeast rail lines.

Outdated information?

How about incorrect information?

It's easy enough for these mistakes to happen. METRO's PR department almost certainly outnumbers the hard-working journalists who occasionally cover the organization, and facts/figures that METRO supplies surely don't get the rigorous fact-checking and vetting that they should.

Nonetheless, erroneous information is still erroneous (and not simply "outdated").

UPDATE (06/26/09): Carolyn Feibel asks that we post this email, which I am appending to the post:

[Read More]

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/24/09 11:57 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (7)

23 June 2009

Linkpost: 06/23/09

For quite a while, we've linked to interesting local blog posts over on the sidebar. Most people probably don't notice it there, so we're going to try reposting them here in the aggregate, maybe with some comments and/or excerpts, maybe not, perhaps in a different order than on the sidebar. This may or may not become a regular feature, but we'll try it for a while and see how it goes. Please do click over and read some of the fine blogs in town that we read regularly.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/23/09 10:42 PM | Houston Blog Talk | Technorati | Comments (0)

Now there is an insurance database

The Chronicle's Carolyn Feibel writes about the new database created to help police catch uninsured motorists. Since October, police can run license plates and will see if there is confirmed insurance coverage with the state. The readout will give the officer the vehicle's registered owner, make and model of the vehicle, and the coverage record (i.e. confirmed, expired, or unconfirmed). It's the same as officers running license plates looking for stolen vehicles or expired registration. Just two reminders for the public:

1. It is perfectly legal for officers to run anyone's license plate; and

2. If you find yourself stopped and you know you weren't speeding, don't get confrontational and start arguing. Let the officer tell you why you were stopped and go from there!

Posted by Jason @ 06/23/09 10:36 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)

22 June 2009

Hair Balls posts the latest on BARC

Over on the Houston Press Hair Balls blog, Craig Malisow posts several updates on BARC (here, here, and here).

Do you think Mayor White discusses his administration's neglect of BARC (and puppies!) when he is touring Texas and talkin' to the folks?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/22/09 10:14 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Chron.com makes a mess of columnists page, again

Chron.com recently updated its columnists page, after a similar update in May.

Austin politics reporter Peggy Fikac is now listed on the page, as is sports reporter "Gerald" Solomon.

Unfortunately, the RSS feed for Fikac's individual columns is broken, and "Gerald" Solomon's name is actually Jerome Solomon.

The food and wine columnists, who were added to the page in the last update in May (including a photo of Alison Cook that appeared for a short time, inexplicably), have been removed from the page for unknown reasons (it's probably best to add those respective RSS feeds to a reader and forget trying to find them on Chron.com).

Does anyone check these web revamps before they go live?

UPDATE (06/23/09): Solomon's name is fixed now (thanks for reading, guys! Glad we could help *wave*). Now about that Fikac RSS link?

UPDATE 2 (06/23/09): And now, the Chron.com web team has replaced some of the old orange-dominated design with.... a hideous, clashing green:

Chron.com goes green... and orange... ewww!

Do any grownups with taste preview these changes before they go live?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/22/09 10:10 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (6)

21 June 2009

Where in Texas is Mayor White?

With apologies to Carmen Sandiego, we've been amused to see Senate-candidate White traveling the state in search of money and votes, trying very
hard not to sound like the good progressive he resembles in, uh, more urban settings.

A week ago he was in East Texas, talking jobs and the economy:

White says, "You know the people of East Texas they just want the American dream, they come from different backgrounds and they know education is important and the economy, so is worker re-training cause there's a lot of people, they get laid off they need to be able to get re-trained so they can have a job that has a future for them."

Do you think he talked about hybrid cars and weatherizing homes, too?

He also squeezed in a bit of grooming as well.

A couple of days later, he was in the Rio Grande Valley, talking education and balanced budgets:

White said his experience in dealing with disasters, balancing budgets and handling other municipal chores would serve him if he is elected to the U.S. Senate.

"I know how to improve productivity and I know how to balance budgets," he said. "Those skills are really important in Washington."

Mayor White's idea of a balanced budget involves borrowing lots of money to pay current debt obligations in order to free up money for operating expenses. It's similar to using a credit card to make one's mortgage payments.

It's also worth remembering when Mayor White hit the trifecta of his disaster/budget/municipal chore acumen: when he proposed using leftover Hurricane Ike funds to help first-time homebuyers pay off debts and improve their credit scores. Yeah, that went over real well.

As the campaign season rolls along, we'll try to keep an eye out for the further adventures of Senate-candidate White as he treks across Texas.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/21/09 06:44 PM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (14)

1560 The Game cracks Top Ten for morning drive

The Chronicle's David Barron reports that relatively young sports talker KGOW-1560 continues to show some impressive growth:

Mild surprise No. 1: For the first time since August 2008, one of Houston’s four all-sports radio stations cracked the top-10 in morning drive among men ages 25-54, according to Arbitron.

Mild surprise No. 2: For the first time in the Arbitron portable people meter era, two all-sports stations are in the top-10 in morning drive for men 25-54.

Mild surprise No. 3: The top sports station ranked seventh in the demo last month, the best ranking since an eighth-place finish for the segment leader in October 2007.

By now, it’s no surprise that the aforementioned No. 7 station last month is KGOW (1560 AM). KILT (610 AM) checked in at No. 10 in the morning drive demo.

Arbitron’s copyright interpretation prohibits the use of specific share numbers for the men’s 25-54 demo, but it is fair to note that KGOW more than doubled its morning drive share in May when compared to April, beating KILT by more than a point. KNFC (97.5 FM) was third and KBME (790 AM) was fourth.

In other dayparts, KILT ranks 11th in the demo for middays (10 a.m.-3 p.m.), leading KGOW by more than a point. KILT also leads KGOW by more than a point in afternoon drive (3-7 p.m.) and ranks 13th among all stations. KILT ranked ninth in evenings, thanks, no doubt, to Rockets basketball, and also leads in the weeklong 6 a.m.-midnight numbers in men 25-54.

For a young startup radio station that many people didn't even expect to be around by mid-2009, that's some really impressive growth.

At a time when other local media organizations are shrinking or churning much content from other parts of the empire and cheap/free bloggers, it's nice to see an independent commercial media outfit focusing almost exclusively on the local scene and its loyal audience -- and flourishing. Good job, 1560 The Game!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/21/09 02:39 PM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (1)

20 June 2009

$180,000 in "undeclared" cash seized at Bush Intercontinental

Someone tried to get a suitcase full of money past customs at IAH last week:

The Customs Border Protection (CBP) stopped an unidentified person traveling to Mexico after the X-ray machine images revealed great sums of money in the lining of his suitcase.

Since the beginning of this year, the CBP has seized more than $1.4 million at the George Bush International Airport, according to CBP representative Yolanda Choates.

[snip]

Since the traveler refused to sign the form, the currency is taken to the Fines, Penalties, and Forfeiture Division, where the U.S. District attorney can choose to hold the funds as evidence or deposit the money into a federal account.

The money is subsequently forfeited unless the traveler decides to file a petition to get the money back.

Choates could not say why this is happening so frequently in Houston [...]

A mystery!

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/20/09 07:29 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)

18 June 2009

Houston Airport System stonewalls Texas Watchdog on salary request

The folks at Texas Watchdog, who have recently run into resistance with City of Houston public information requests (as have the folks at KHOU-11 News), report that the Houston Airport System is playing the passenger safety card in refusing to release detailed salary information about its employees. The Texas Watchdog request comes on the heels of the mysterious departure of longtime airport system kingpin Richard Vacar, and the city's refusal to discuss the matter substantively with passive Chron scribes.

We're fans of transparent government, to be sure. But we're also sympathetic to the notion that publishing a list of salaries, names, and addresses of personnel responsible for keeping the airport secure may not be a smart security move. Surely there is some compromise that can be reached, though, because there are still lots of questions about the Vacar resignation/firing and how he was running the Houston Airport System. The public deserves some answers, regardless of whether Mayor White would rather be campaigning for the U.S. Senate.

BLOGVERSATION: Hair Balls.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/18/09 10:44 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

How does he REALLY feel about the city's efforts?

Here's a fun lede from the Chron's Bradley Olson:

Houston has moved heaven and earth to expand its recycling programs this year after a trade publication ranked it at the bottom of all major U.S. cities in 2008.

Heaven and earth!

No need for the editorialists to weigh in now. The "news" lede says it all!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/18/09 10:11 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)

New HPD property room a step in the right direction

This promising headline appears on the KTRK-13 site tonight:

The days of missing evidence are over

They must be using Chronicle headline writers, because the story doesn't quite match:

It could be up to a year before the new property room is fully functional. It could take that long to transfer the some 500,000 pieces of evidence that are currently stored in the old property room. Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt calls it an investment and a giant step forward for law enforcement.

It is a brand new $13 million state of the art property room with all of the bells and whistles, and a stark contrast to the outdated, dilapidated old building the Houston Police Department has been using to store evidence since the late 1970s.

Here's hoping the transition goes quickly and smoothly. The community needs to be able to count on HPD to handle evidence reliably.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/18/09 09:58 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

17 June 2009

Audacity: Lee Brown claims he fought hard to fix HPD crime lab!

Yesterday, KPRC-950 talker Chris Baker called our attention to the latest installment of Houston's Crime Lab Follies, a wrongful conviction lawsuit seeking millions from the City of Houston (as reported by the Chronicle's Mary Flood):

George Rodriguez’s lawyer asked a federal jury Monday to make the city pay “tens of millions of dollars” for the disgraced Houston Police Department’s crime lab’s pivotal role in the wrongful conviction that put his client behind bars for 17 years.

“What was taken away from him was his youth,” said attorney Barry Scheck, whose Innocence Project works on behalf of convicts in similar circumstances. Rodriguez went to prison wrongly at age 26 and walked out at 43 to find his three daughters grown and his father dead, the lawyer said.

In opening statements Tuesday afternoon, Scheck told jurors about the loneliness, fear and depression his client suffered in prison after being wrongly convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl.

This happened, he said, because policy makers at the city of Houston were deliberately indifferent to rampant under funding, under staffing and a lack of supervision at the crime lab that created a high risk an innocent person could be convicted or the guilty one could go free.

Former mayor and HPD chief Lee Brown today was forced to say more than we have ever heard from him on the topic of his mismanagement of the crime lab. Here are some choice excerpts from Mary Flood's reporting for the Chronicle:

Lee P. Brown testified Wednesday that crime lab mistakes made during his tenure as Houston police chief weren’t his fault and that he worked hard to get the lab the resources it needed.

[snip]

Lee Brown
“There was a consistent desire of people in the lab to get more people and consistently I tried to get more people for them,” Brown said. But, he said, in the mid-1980s the city had a hiring freeze, the police academy was closed and he couldn’t get all the required positions or even overtime approved.

[snip]

Showing Brown several police department memos about the crime lab, Rodriguez’s attorney questioned Brown about being told the lab was understaffed and that people lacked training and supervision. A 1986 memo said the lab was “cutting additional corners” and had “diluted quality assurance” and that it could be “embarrassed” because of lab deficiencies.

Brown testified he considered staffing problems to be the root cause of all those references to unreliable lab results and failure to meet professional standards.

“It was tough for the city,” Brown said. “I fought hard to get them what they needed.”

“It turned out it was tough for some criminal defendants who were not guilty, too,” shot back Rodriguez’s attorney Mark Wawro.

Cory Crow elaborates on Lee Brown's hard fighting.

We've noted the Lee Brown/Clarence Bradford reign of error previously with regard to the crime lab, and the fact that neither man has ever given much of a public accounting of his role in the fiasco (Bradford despite running for Harris County DA, and now for City Council). Whatever the outcome of this case, at least Lee Brown has finally been forced to discuss his part in perpetuating the crime-lab fiasco. His testimony doesn't seem to have convinced many Chron.com commenters.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/17/09 10:26 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (7)

Chron.com "as good an example of what not to do with a newspaper site as any"

Banjo Jones notes some recent ratings of newspaper websites by Douglas McIntyre of Wall Street 24/7.

McIntyre is not a fan of Chron.com, giving the site a D+:

This site is a bit of a mess and is as good an example of what not to do with a newspaper site as any in this survey. The navigation across the homepage includes twenty five tabs some of which are labeled poorly enough so that it is hard for the reader to understand what they are. The front page really does not have a headline per se. The stories at the top of the page are features which don’t appear to be chosen to compel the reader to go further into the website. Some of the stories near the top of the page are from the Associated Press, an indication that the editors don’t feel that they have enough compelling content of their own. The stories do have the basic social network and reader interaction tools including the ability to comment on stories and share them on Twitter or Facebook. The large sections of the paper like “Business” are only a long list of headlines, some of which have brief story summaries. The only illustrations on many of these pages are low resolution headshots of bloggers. The main news page has nearly no illustrations at all. Multimedia features are completely missing, a sign that Chronicle management treats the online paper as an after-thought. Entertainment sections are the only well-designed portions of online newspaper. Most Chron.com sections look like cheap blogs. The site runs a fair amount of local advertising, much of it not very well designed.

The main problem that we -- as serious newsies -- have with Chron.com is that news is so difficult to find amidst the tacky features, user party pics, and other fluff content. It's not at all clear what the people in charge of Chron.com are trying to accomplish with their website (a localized version of MySpace?), but the news seems to be one of many competing priorities.

We must correct McIntyre on at least one bad assumption, however (bolded, above). The folks at 801 Texas Avenue do take the web seriously, in terms of resources and focus. Chron.com is no afterthought. Rather, it is apparently the Houston Chronicle management's vision of a contemporary newspaper website.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/17/09 09:43 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)

San Francisco passes on Chief Hurtt

The two Hearst Chronicles report that San Francisco will not be hiring HPD Chief Harold Hurtt:

San Francisco has bypassed Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt to fill its top cop spot.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday reached outside the city and selected George Gascón, police chief of Mesa, Ariz., to replace outgoing Chief Heather Fong.

That's disappointing, but Hurtt probably won't be with us much longer in any case. It seems unlikely that any of the current mayoral candidates have any interest in retaining Chief Hurtt, and one of the stronger candidates has been crystal clear that he will not be part of a Parker administration:

City Controller Annise Parker already had called for Hurtt’s dismissal at an event earlier this month.

“I don’t believe he’s really ever integrated himself into the larger Houston community,” Parker said in an interview. “Public safety is so essential to everything we do, and we have to have a chief that has his fingers on the pulse of the city.”

We do need someone willing to commit to Houston, but my preference would still be a CompStat-oriented top cop, even though that likely would mean an outside hire.

BLOGVERSATION: Lone Star Times.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/17/09 08:46 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)

16 June 2009

METRO adds a new trick to the Danger Train files

From KHOU-11 via the Houston Chronicle Froot Loops bureau comes this report on a train derailment in Houston:

A Metro light rail train derailed around 12:30 a.m. this morning near the intersection of Greenbriar and Braeswood, between the Texas Medical Center and Reliant Park.

[snip]

The derailed train collided with a power pole and another rail car.

The toy train derailed?!

How does that even happen?

We're sure METRO will be entirely forthcoming with the details. *wink*

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/16/09 09:52 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (3)

15 June 2009

Chron: MetroRail has 11 million riders every year

As critiques go, this is as tepid as they come, but it's undoubtedly all the Chron editors will allow, and it will be held up as an example of the Chron's tenacious, watchdog reporting:

The Metropolitan Transit Authority touted numbers from a state-mandated audit last month showing that ridership increased 3 percent over the past four years.

The agency also touted increased revenue — partly because of fare hikes — and at least $150 million in light-rail expansion funding that the federal government has indicated it plans to funnel to Metro.

But a closer look at all the good news shows that ridership is slightly below where it was in 2000, despite a 17 percent increase in Harris County’s population. Bus ridership — Metro’s core service — has dropped more than 14 percent.

The new audit has prompted a debate over Metro’s performance. But how critics grade the agency also hinges on what they think its fundamental mission should be. Should you count the number of riders? Number of buses? Cost to the taxpayer? Whether buses are on time? Crowded? Comfortable? Energy efficient?

The critics' concerns (and facts) are flattened by the non-critics' explanations. You'll be so surprised to see where Carolyn Feibel turned for soothing reassurances:

Members of the Citizens’ Transportation Coalition also counsel patience during construction. “A dollar you spend on new facilities is a dollar you don’t spend on operations, and vice-versa,” said CTC board member Christof Spieler. Another difficulty is maximizing ridership while also using tax dollars wisely, he added.

Robin Holzer, the coalition’s chair, pointed out that simply counting riders does not take into account the quality of the trip.

The light rail is quieter, more comfortable, and more reliable than a regular bus. “It’s got level boarding, which is great if you are in a wheelchair or have a baby stroller,” she said.

Apparently, that is the new measure of worthiness to spend billions of taxpayer dollars: level boarding. Never mind that a tiny fraction of the greater Houston-area population will ever use it, or that the train will increase congestion by taking away traffic lanes. Reducing traffic congestion was one of the initial selling features of light rail. Now level boarding is a talking point.

As Metro adds more light rail lines, riders will flock to it, Holzer predicted. Metro officials project 160,000 daily trips by 2030.

Yes, well, the predictions METRO makes for public consumption are often wildly different from actual projections on government documents.

And then there's this:

Since 2006, more than 11 million people have ridden the Main Street “Red” Line every year.

I'm guessing that stat refers to boardings, but METRO has a tendency to run fast and loose with stats and wording, as Rad Sallee explained three years ago:

The measure that Metro watches most closely — the key indicator of how well it is performing its mission — is often referred to as "ridership." But this turns out to be a slippery concept. As with the elephant and the blind men, you need to examine it several ways for a complete picture.

Slippery is the perfect word to describe METRO. But just for fun, let's run with the "11 million riders" data point for a moment. Back in 2006, METRO told the Ottawa Sun that 12 million passengers were riding the light rail line every year. Now it's down to 11 million. Hmmmm. That would seem to be a declining trend.

BLOGVERSATION: TBIFOC.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/15/09 05:06 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (9)

14 June 2009

D'oh!

A domed Houston -- what a fabulous idea:

It seems like an idea from science fiction, a comic book, or even The Simpsons movie -- a 21 million-square-foot dome encompassing a city and insulating it from hurricanes, humidity, and heat.

The Discovery Channel program Mega Engineering recently explored the possibility of a dome that would stretch out over downtown.

It would be made out of Ethylene Tetrofluoro-ethylene or ETFE -- a light, durable material that withstand winds up to 180 mph, which is well above the speed for a Category 5 hurricane.

ETFE is most familiar as the bubble-like surface that covers the Water Cube, the 2009 Beijing Olympic aquatic venue.

Air vents would regulate the temperature and massive doors would allow transportation in and out of the structure. But how realistic is it?

Dilip Choudhuri is a structural engineer with the local firm Walter P. Moore that has built huge projects such as the Toyota Center and Minute Maid Park. Choudhuri said now is the time to think about future solutions like a dome.

"I think it's a great thing," said Choudhuri. "You have to push ahead to the future."

Absolutely. Mayor White should immediately push for the creation of a new quasi-governmental agency, à la METRO, to oversee the project. We could call it D'oh! -- Dome over Houston -- with downtown residents and businesses paying a new tax for the privilege of being under the D'oh! The list of advantages is long, and the selling features of the project are numerous. Go for it, Houston!

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/14/09 06:28 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (9)

12 June 2009

Chief Hurtt still in the running for SFPD top job

Happy Friday!

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt is one of three finalists for the top cop job in San Francisco, sources have told the San Francisco Chronicle.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has selected the city’s next police chief, but he said Thursday his pick is thinking twice about accepting the job after a Board of Supervisors committee voted to strip public safety agencies of tens of millions of dollars in funding.

[snip]

The Board of Supervisors budget committee voted Wednesday to rewrite parts of Newsom’s interim budget. Traditionally, the board rubber stamps the interim budget, but the committee voted to strip $82 million out of the police, fire and sheriff’s departments to reverse cuts to the health and social services programs.

I'll bet some camera revenue could generate replacement funds.

And then there's this:

Hurtt could not be reached for comment.

[snip]

Hurtt is out of the office this week, HPD spokeswoman Jodi Silva said.

Phoenix is lovely this time of year.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/12/09 05:03 AM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (11)

11 June 2009

Port of Houston's new security district

The Houston Business Journal reports that Commissioners Court has given its blessing to a new public-private partnership:

The Harris County Commissioners Court has approved the creation of the Houston Ship Channel Security District, a public-private partnership aimed at funding enhancements to security technology, infrastructure and processes along the ship channel.

Leading the program is Pat Bellamy, chairman of the security district’s council and director of the University of Houston’s Southwest Public Safety Technology Center.

UH’s SWTC entered into a three-way agreement with Harris County and the Houston Port Authority to carry out sophisticated planning, development, design, construction and implementation of port security projects.

The story notes that private partners will contribute funds to match federal grants and cover operating costs.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/11/09 07:11 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

10 June 2009

Cy-Fair ISD decides it can't afford homestead exemption

But a couple of years ago, the district could afford an $807 million bond issue. Go figure.

Cory Crow has been keeping up with the story. You can read his thoughts here and here.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/10/09 06:43 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)

09 June 2009

Making Houston even more inviting

See if this reminds you of a circular firing squad:

Warning: More tickets, tows, boots on the way for Houston cars

Parking scofflaws who drive under the radar are more likely to be nabbed under a system that received a Houston City Council committee’s blessing Tuesday.

The proposed $1.6 million upgrade to the city’s parking management databases would let enforcement teams view parking citation information on a mobile handset, so officers could immediately “boot” or tow a vehicle if it had too many unpaid citations.

And:

HPD: Many towed cars get lost, misplaced

On Monday, HPD Captain Williams Staney told the Council Committee on Public Safety at Houston City Hall that their system was not working.

He said that 135,000 vehicles are towed from illegal parking spots and because of traffic violations each year in Houston.

Captain Staney says that HPD has one phone number that drivers and tow truck companies both call for information. He said that phone lines get an average of 845 calls each and every day.

HPD admits the bottleneck can lead to confusion, data mistakes and very long wait times for Houstonians wanting to find out if their vehicles were either stolen or towed without their consent.

“The call takers and data entry people get overwhelmed with the whole amount of vehicles being entered but at the same time they have people calling in looking for their vehicles,” said Frankie Rash of Fast Tow Wrecker Service. “It can be very overwhelming,” he said for both his staff and for police.

The solution? A $1.3 million web-based towed vehicle reporting management system, of course!

So, here we have Liliana Rambo wanting to spend $1.6 million on new technology to ticket, boot, and tow more cars (she promises a one million dollar return on the investment for the city), and then we have HPD wanting to spend $1.3 million on new technology because the department admits it cannot keep track of all the towed vehicles for which it's responsible. Got that? Revenue-wise, the city should make out quite well. Residents? Not so much.

The big exception to all this is around HPD headquarters, because there is absolutely no ticketing, booting, or towing going on there.

COMPLETELY UNRELATED: City, vendor negotiate agreement on muni courts computer system fiasco; A red light camera ticket nightmare; Channel 2 fixes another red light camera ticket error

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/09/09 06:52 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (7)

Peter Brown for mayor AND school superintendent

Peter Brown showed that he's not just an expert in the architectural arena. No, he's also quite the expert when it comes to local school issues, as the Chron's Bradley Olson recently posted on the Houston Politics blog:

Noting that he [Peter Brown] would soon present details of a plan to "restructure" Houston-area schools, he talked about HISD's closure of Clinton Park Elementary School in 2005, calling the surrounding neighborhood "distressed."

The closure "pulled the rug out from under" city efforts to revitalize the neighborhood, Brown said.

And then he added this:

"Now, by the way, that the neighborhood is turning more Hispanic, HISD has decided, well, maybe we better reopen Clinton Park Elementary School."

Actually, HISD is not even considering reopening Clinton Park, nor has there been any discussion or board agenda items dealing with the matter, according to Norman Uhl, a department spokesman.

And the reason it was closed, he said, was because enrollment had dropped precipitously, down to less than 150 students in its last year of existence.

So there you go. With an absolutely firm grasp of the issues, Peter Brown demonstrates why he should run Houston AND all its schools.

It's worth noting that none of the other candidates for mayor is interested in a mayoral takeover of local schools. Nor is Mayor White in favor of it.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/09/09 05:04 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (4)

08 June 2009

Beware mass transit "green" claims

Tom Bazan has long been skeptical of light rail proponents' claims that it is the more eco-friendly transit choice. Along that line, there's a new study out that underscores his point:

Well, there could be a nasty surprise in store for you, for taking public transport may not be as green as you automatically think, says a new US study.

Its authors point out an array of factors that are often unknown to the public.

These are hidden or displaced emissions that ramp up the simple "tailpipe" tally, which is based on how much carbon is spewed out by the fossil fuels used to make a trip.

Environmental engineers Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath at the University of California at Davis say that when these costs are included, a more complex and challenging picture emerges.

In some circumstances, for instance, it could be more eco-friendly to drive into a city -- even in an SUV, the bete noire of green groups -- rather than take a suburban train. It depends on seat occupancy and the underlying carbon cost of the mode of transport.

[snip]

Boston has a metro system with high energy efficiency. The trouble is, 82 percent of the energy to drive it comes from dirty fossil fuels.

By comparison, San Francisco's local railway is less energy-efficient than Boston's. But it turns out to be rather greener, as only 49 percent of the electricity is derived from fossils.

The paper points out that the "tailpipe" quotient does not include emissions that come from building transport infrastructure -- railways, airport terminals, roads and so on -- nor the emissions that come from maintaining this infrastructure over its operational lifetime.

These often-unacknowledged factors add substantially to the global-warming burden.

And then there's the ridership factor: Will the train run at full capacity all the time, for maximum efficiency? Right. METRO's not so good with ridership data.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/08/09 06:40 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (2)

07 June 2009

HPD Officer disciplined for quick decision

The police always take flak for their actions on the street. Police Departments all have policies designed to limit their liability in a lawsuit. However, the dirty little secret is that no policy manual can foresee every single situation an officer will face on the street. Yet those policies will be used against the officer should he make the wrong decision. In this instance, a chase was heading towards a school zone, and a sergeant made a decision. He decided to use a PIT stop on the vehicle which is not allowed by policy.

While true, the sergeant did violate policy, and on camera for that matter, one has to wonder what the criticism of HPD would be had the chase gone into the school zone and a child was injured or killed. The officers chasing the car would have been criticized for (a) not stopping the chase before the school zone and (b) not terminating the pursuit (in which the criminal would have still sped through the school zone anyway).

Officers face dangers on two fronts. There is the criminal on the street, and the officers' own administration. Any decision an officer had a split second to make will be scrutinized by people who sit behind desks with all the time in the world.

Blogversation: Red Ink Texas

Posted by Jason @ 06/07/09 11:57 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)

"Too many puppies..."

Today in the Houston Chronicle there is a story about too many juveniles being certified to stand trial in the adult criminal justice system.

In 2007 and 2008 alone, Harris County juvenile judges transferred 160 teens’ cases to the adult system — more than nine of the largest urban counties in Texas combined, according to a Chronicle analysis of statewide certifications by county.

Out of probably around two, maybe three thousand cases filed on juveniles in Harris County, 160 is a relatively low number.

The article uses two poster cases to support its argument. The first case is a 15-year old.

One of the [sic] those charged with capital murder at 15, Robert T. Brown, pleaded guilty in May after admitting he had shot a man who hired his 17-year-old sister and him for a so-called sex party. The guilty plea came after Brown, described as mentally challenged and unable to read well, spent more than a year in Harris County jail, where he was badly beaten, family members said.

First of all, only certain circumstances make murder a capital crime in Texas. Click here to read the Texas definition of capital murder. So, what occurred here to make this capital murder, the article doesn't say. Second, the sister is also being charged with capital murder yet the article doesn't say what her role in the crime was. Third, on a side note, neither of these people is eligible for the death penalty, nor would they have been under the old law before the Supreme Court decision. Fourth, who described the 15-year old as mentally challenged? Fifth, the family claims he was beaten in jail. Is there evidence to support this? By whom was the child beaten? By jailers? By other inmates? There are too many holes in the paragraph given by the Chronicle that suggests we are not being given the whole story.

The second case, which seems like the article is trying to downplay is a 16-year old:

A 16-year-old special education student currently faces a potential sentence of life without parole for capital murder, though some witnesses described the crime as an accident. The boy, who had no criminal history, attacked his older brother with a kitchen knife for threatening a stray cat. During the struggle in their crowded apartment, the boys’ 2-year-old nephew received a single, but fatal wound, court records show. The teen was certified as an adult, though psychiatric evaluations said he functions at a third- to fifth-grade level.

In an attempt to tug at heartstrings the article quotes "The result: “virtual destruction” of dozens of juveniles who are dumped and damaged in adult prisons and “could otherwise turn their lives around,” claims nonprofit Texas Appleseed..." Reality is by the time these kids come to the criminal justice system for the more serious crimes they are severely damaged. Ask juvenile probation workers for some of their stories. A common denominator is the family of the kids. Many of these families are criminals themselves and raised their kids to be criminals like them. These kids are taught they don't have to accept responsibility for their actions. They are taught they don't have to earn what others work for and they are entitled to other peoples' things. They are also taught that the juvenile system will be soft on them and when they turn 17, their criminal records are sealed and can only be opened under special circumstances. Basically, at 17 they get a fresh start.

Another sad reality is that juveniles can be just as deadly, if not deadlier than adults. Some of most vicious crimes have been committed by juveniles and the juvenile system is not capable of handling such a person.

Posted by Jason @ 06/07/09 12:46 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

06 June 2009

9 Time DWI Gets 75 Year Prison Term

KTRK ABC 13's website has a story of a Brazoria County man with 9 previous convictions for driving while intoxicated getting a 75-year prison term.

Keith Peltier got his first DWI conviction in 1986. His ninth was just this week.

I can't give Keith Peltier another chance to kill someone," said Brazoria County District Attorney Jeri Yenne.

How many stories have we read where someone was killed by a repeat drunken driver? This time Brazoria County took initiative and probably saved someone's life (or Mr. Peltier's own life down the road). Perhaps he just didn't have the benefit of Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos' idea of pre-trial diversion to forgive first-time offenders who go to rehab.

In response, Mr. Peltier's attorney released this statement:

His attorney says the sentence was too severe. Attorney Jon Jaworski says the prosecution of his client this time was payback for another case where Peltier was acquitted. In this case, Jaworski says also says, "I don't think he was intoxicated by alcohol."

He tells us he thinks his apparent intoxication was, in reality, a "diabetic reaction.

It's a good thing that the jury didn't buy this; had he truly been having a diabetic condition he should have taken the Intoxilyzer test. As far as retaliation for a case in which he was acquitted, this means he was arrested more than nine times for DWI. I bet he has driven drunk around a hundred times and just didn't get caught. It's been a long time but, if I remember the class correctly, most drunk drivers arrested have driven drunk an average of eight times without being stopped by police.

Posted by Jason @ 06/06/09 12:20 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

05 June 2009

Washington Avenue: 30 bars, 10 blocks, lots of drunks

Sounds inviting! KHOU-11 reports the homeowners have some....concerns:

11 News rode along with Steffan, a 17-year police veteran, to witness firsthand what he and his fellow officers encounter on a typical Friday night.

There were illegally parked cars being towed and large crowds of people on the street.

“DWIs, people parking in the middle of the street who are intoxicated is a big issue. Noise is a very big issue,” Steffan said.

The streets were full of suspected drunks – both behind the wheel and on foot – hopping between roughly 30 bars crammed into a 10-block radius on Washington. The strip has become a magnet for people looking to have a good time.

“I don’t understand how all this came together and how everyone decided, ‘Hey, Washington Avenue is a great place to open a bar,’” Steffan said.

[snip]

Friday and Saturday nights find Washington Avenue bathed in neon lights and often shaking from the sound of traffic and non-stop music.

Neighbors have even posted videos of street fights on the Internet.

[snip]

The neighbors have taken their complaints directly to the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission, which is currently reviewing license applications of the bars that are still under construction.

“We do want development. We want to see businesses come, but the right kind of businesses,” said Thomason.

BLOGVERSATION: When NIMBYism meets World Class, Lose an Eye, It's a Sport

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/05/09 06:12 PM | Houston Life | Technorati | Comments (7)

04 June 2009

"Pedestrial realms" to be considered by Council

The Chron's Mike Snyder has the exciting details:

The city’s urban transit corridors ordinance, which it began developing in June 2006, is expected to be considered by the City Council in July. It would offer incentives for developers in six light rail corridors to include a 15-foot “pedestrian realm” with broad, unobstructed sidewalks and other features intended to create appealing, walkable environments.

The new development created under this ordinance will become part of the daily lives of more than 160,000 people the Metropolitan Transit Authority expects to be riding its trains by 2030. Within the next five years, the agency plans to add five new rail lines to the Main Street line it opened on Jan. 1, 2004.

The impact of the ordinance will depend on developers’ willingness to comply with its mostly voluntary standards. Those who agree to create the pedestrian zone will automatically be exempt from rules requiring buildings to be set back a specified distance from the street, giving them more space to build revenue-generating offices, homes or shops.

The ordinance is more limited than steps recommended by the city’s consultants and by the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit real estate organization, to promote transit-oriented development.

Officials in the city planning department, which drafted the ordinance in consultation with community leaders, real estate professionals and the general public, described it as a first step toward changing a development culture that’s long been focused on the automobile rather than on trains or pedestrians.

Imagine where we'd be today if our culture had been pedestrian/mass transit-focused instead of automobile-focused for the past 100 years. But hey, by 2030 METRO expects 160,000 people to be riding the Danger Trains (and you know how good METRO is with projections), so this seems well worth the effort, right?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/04/09 04:50 AM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (6)

03 June 2009

METRO's Quickline vs. John Nova Lomax...on a bike

Can you guess who won?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/03/09 05:55 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (1)

City Council budgets increase for 2010

Bradley Olson's Chron story notes the increase is small, but with times being what they are...

In an austere year for the city of Houston, when the 2010 budgets of several major departments that provide essential services to taxpayers were cut, one highly public group managed to broker a rare increase: City Council.

Although the $13,331 increases scheduled for each council office form but a fraction of the city’s $4 billion budget, they have taken on a symbolic power this week as the police chief and other department heads have endured multihour grillings in budget hearings from council members about every jot and tittle of their spending plans.

Unlike with the department heads, council members on Tuesday spent less than 30 minutes reviewing their budget.

According to the article, Councilwoman Toni Lawrence says she will propose a two percent cut to the Council's budgets.

And there's this:

Much of the increase comes from pay raises that are mandated for council staffers as part of the city’s contract with its union [...]

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/03/09 04:37 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (6)

02 June 2009

As if the city will find fault with itself

Bet you won't find this kind of road construction happening around any city officials' homes:

Jeff Helton says he hasn’t been able to sleep in weeks. His home overlooks Westheimer near Wesleyan, and for most of May, he says, a backhoe and jackhammer jolted him awake in the middle of the night.

“It’s like standing on an airport tarmac,” Helton said. “It got started right after rush hour and it would go on all night through the morning.”

The city’s Public Works Department said a contractor is replacing a 16 inch underground water line, and that the work must be done overnight to keep traffic flowing during the day.

Spokesman Alvin Wright said crews have been instructed to keep noise levels within the city’s noise ordinance, which requires any outside noise within range of a residential area after ten o’clock at night be quieter than 58 decibels or something between a normal conversation and a vacuum cleaner.

The sleep-deprived Houstonian complained to HPD and City Council, started a blog, and posted a video of the noisy construction on YouTube. Public Works spokesman Wright basically said it doesn't matter since the noisiest part of the construction is over, but on his blog, Helton says HPD has told him the contractor's permit has been pulled.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/02/09 06:17 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

Downtown Embassy Suites breaks ground

Nancy Sarnoff noted last week that the on-again, off-again downtown Embassy Suites hotel is back on-again:

Construction of the 262-suite hotel, located at 1515 Dallas Avenue at La Branch, is expected to be completed in Spring 2011.

The project was supposed to get off the ground last year, but developer Nick Massad lost his loan to build it. Massad, of Houston-based American Liberty Hospitality, secured new funding at the end of last year.

The developer also got a boost from the city when council authorized a $9.6 million tax subsidy to the project as part of an effort to spur hotel development close to the George R. Brown Convention Center.

City Council passed a resolution last October which allows a hotel developer to keep hotel occupancy taxes for seven years if it builds within four blocks of the convention center.

PREVIOUSLY: If the City subsidized just one more downtown hotel, would we be world class?

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/02/09 04:57 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (9)

01 June 2009

Houston's budget: balanced or not?

The Chron's Bradley Olson bats the topic around with opinions from various locals. Here's a key point:

Although the mayor is right that the city has not borrowed to pay for operating expenses, Parker said, it has used debt to pay for obligations that in previous years would have been paid through the tax- and fee-supported general fund, the city’s main operating budget. In other words, the use of debt for certain expenses freed up money for the city to spend on operations.

The debt, much of it the result of borrowing to meet pension obligations, also is a primary reason the city has built up its reserves, the city controller said.

“Part of the reason we have healthy fund balances is that we borrowed the money instead of tapping the fund balance,” Parker said. “We used pension obligation bonds to meet current (pension) obligations.”

For some, the $49 million dip into the reserves is enough to declare the budget unbalanced.

“How do you justify expenditures being greater than revenue?” Councilwoman Holm asked. “How is that being fiscally responsible?”

For Lemer, the author of a 2004 ballot proposal to limit city spending, the $49 million question is moot. He argues that the city racked up a cumulative deficit of $1.5 billion from 2004 until 2008.

“That is absolutely frightening,” he said. According to his research, the main driver of that has been borrowing to keep up with costs for the city’s pension debt.

Imagine what your personal finances would look like if you handled your mortgage obligation the way Mayor White has handled the city's pension obligations.

PREVIOUSLY: Lemer on the pension fund problems

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 06/01/09 04:59 AM | Houston Politics | Technorati | Comments (0)

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