19 November 2008

METRO addresses Danger Train collisions, financial deals gone bad

METRO's expensive blogger would like you to know that the organization has a plan for dealing with those pesky cars that keep running into the Danger Train:

For the past few months, left-hand turn accidents between cars and METRO trains have been increasing in the downtown area.

Now, METRO and the City of Houston Department of Public Works and Engineering, Traffic and Transportation Division has [sic] launched a pilot program to curb those accidents. It calls for a three-pronged approach that includes:

* Signal priority adjustments for METRORail
* New traffic-light fixtures
* Increased METRO police enforcement along the Red Line

The changes - implemented by METRO, the City of Houston Department of Public Works and Engineering, Traffic and Transportation Division - will also improve safety and help traffic move along Main Street and major intersections.

[snip]

With the resignaling, this means METRORail will get a green light first, before motorists get a green light to proceed. This allows the train to proceed ahead of regular traffic at intersections. Westbound and eastbound traffic will not be affected.

If all it takes to cut down on the number of traffic/train collisions is changing a few traffic signals, why in the world has it taken years of collisions to implement the plan? At-grade rail down a busy traffic corridor used by (bad) Houston drivers seems like the problem (more so than traffic signals). Nevertheless, the organization plans on building even more at-grade rail. Won't busy Richmond be a hoot when even heavier traffic blends with another Danger Train?

Meanwhile, METRO is begging the federal government to help save the profits it made by entering into sell/lease-back deals that required financial backing from firms like AIG (now in default -- uh oh!):

The Metropolitan Transit Authority joined 10 other transit agencies across the nation Tuesday as they urged Congress for help with financing deals imperiled by the credit crisis.

The move is the latest attempt by Metro and the other agencies to avoid millions in default payments triggered by the collapse of insurance giant American International Group.

AIG provided payment guarantees on lease agreements between Metro and several banks. Those deals required payment guarantees from insurers, such as AIG, with high credit ratings. The deals guaranteed by AIG now are in technical default as a result of the insurance giant's slashed credit rating.

[snip]

Metro entered into dozens of the deals, which allow transit agencies to sell rail cars, buses and other assets to banks and them lease them back.

All of the lease agreements were lawful and approved by the Federal Transit Administration.

Metro could be on the hook for about $14 million, roughly the amount in revenue it earned from the deals, officials have said.

Sometimes when a deal seems too good to be true...

Perhaps some intrepid reporter(s) will follow up with some obvious questions to the transit agency about future deals of this nature, and what it has done to mitigate its risks moving forward.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/19/08 10:02 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

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Armchair quarterbacking at HPD

Remember the police chase in which a man claiming to be a federal agent was shot and killed after he initiated a pursuit? Well, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt has disciplined two officers involved in the shooting. A major pet peeve of police officers is being second guessed by administrators who weren't even there. Of course there is a video and you can watch the video attached to the link. I'd like to know how Chief Hurtt was watching this video. The internal investigation found that:

Sgt. Andrew J. Washington and Officer Cecil A.T. Foster did not use sound judgment and did not follow department policy in the incident.

The department policy . . . they didn't talk to the man at the end of the chase! One officer was given a one-day suspension and the other officer was given a written reprimand. Both are appealing their punishments.

One could ask if Chief Hurtt and IAD were watching the video through the eyes of an officer in that situation, at that exact moment in time. Or with the eyes of a long time police administrator trying to use the benefit of hindsight, and "what ifs." Because the city is now being sued over this, were they watching this video looking for the slightest policy violation so that disciplinary action could be handed out to cover the city? Watch the video at the end of the chase. You can hear officers giving verbal commands that are plainly being ignored, so they are talking to him but he isn't listening.

Something to keep in mind is that a violation of policy doesn't mean a violation of the law or liability. Department policies are rules and guidelines that are supposed to have all officers act the same way in any situation. Well, policies, like laws, are interpreted differently by different people. Also, policies cannot foresee every possible situation and that's when officer discretion has to kick in. Think about this. Situations can change in an instant; policies and procedures don't change. For example, let's say a department has a policy that says officers, while involved in a vehicle pursuit, cannot chase the criminal the wrong way on the highway. Let's say the man running just killed a woman and kidnapped her baby. Knowing this policy, he drives east in the westbound lanes and, by a stroke of luck, there is no westbound traffic. Now what is this officer supposed to do? Follow department policy and not chase the kidnapper? Or use judgment and go after the kidnapper the wrong way on an empty road?

At least HPD's internal investigation found the shooting to be justified.

Posted by Jason @ 11/19/08 10:57 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (26)

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18 November 2008

City to repay $15 million in HUD funds

Back in March, we noted that the city had been told to repay $15.5 million in HUD grants due to misuse of the funds. After months of negotiations, the city has finally agreed to repay the amount, and city council will vote on the proposed settlement this week (via the Chron's Mike Snyder):

The City Council on Wednesday will consider the five-year repayment plan, which city officials have been negotiating with HUD since May 2007.

The $15.5 million sum is unchanged from the amount HUD demanded in a letter to the city in March, although it is far less than about $32 million the agency once said the city owed. Even so, it represents one of the largest repayments HUD has ever demanded from a local government receiving its funds, the agency said.

Local and federal officials said they believe the settlement will signal a new era of cooperation after a troubled relationship that dates back 20 years. The problems peaked in 2005, when an audit of spending found that Houston's housing department chose projects based on its directors' whims, allowed for massive defaults on loans and created opportunities for conflicts of interest and fraud.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/18/08 04:59 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

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17 November 2008

Chron: Suspected illegal immigrants out on bail frequently disappear (UPDATED)

The Chronicle has posted some troubling reporting by Susan Carroll on illegal immigration and crime in the Houston area. Here's an excerpt from the story:

A Houston Chronicle investigation found dozens of cases in Harris County involving suspected illegal immigrants who posted bail and absconded on criminal charges, including murder, aggravated sexual assault of a child and drug trafficking.

The Chronicle examined arrest and immigration records for 3,500 inmates who told jailers that they were in the country illegally during a span of eight months starting in June 2007, the earliest immigration records available.

The review found at least 178 cases involving suspects who absconded, meaning they had their bails revoked for missing court dates or allegedly committing more crimes. Of those, 30 cases involved felony charges and two-thirds had initial bails set below $35,000 — the minimum recommended in the county's bail schedule for illegal immigrants accused of felonies.

Local officials said the problems stem from a shortage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents dedicated to identifying illegal immigrants in the county's jails.

The entire story is well worth reading. Also see this related story.

Most readers here are aware of the broken-down immigration system and have some sense of the resulting illegal-immigration problem. But this story makes concrete the criminal impact of the illegal-immigration problem on the area (as opposed to, say, MayorWhiteChiefHurtt denying that Houston is a sanctuary city while simultaneously defending sanctuary policies as useful in getting illegal immigrants to trust the police and report crimes). It's the sort of analytical local journalism we like to see.

Carroll follows up with a report tonight that Sen. John Cornyn has called for an investigation of the ICE screening process in the Harris County jail.

UPDATE (11-18-2008): Another installment in the series is posted here. This one explores the use of probation in cases where deportation is an option.

The Chronicle's Teen Diarist also peeps in on the series to chide all you racist Houstonians for having your prejudices confirmed by... Carroll's detailed, analytical reporting. Here is one of the Teen Diarist's rambles:

There are many lessons from the Houston Chronicle's three-part series on federal officials' failure to detain or deport admitted illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

One is that immigration officials should spend more time at the Harris County Jail and less raiding Shipley Donuts, rag factories and meat-packing plants.

Another, confirmed by reader response to the articles, is that hatred knows no nuance.

Actually, the lessons from reality are that immigration officials need to enforce immigration law at the workplace (Shipley Donuts, rag factories, meat-packing plants, and other places that employ illegal immigrants... illegally!) AND that immigration officials definitely need to step up their game at the Harris County Jail. Thanks to Susan Carroll's excellent reporting, we know the latter, which we would not know if we relied on the Teen Diarist's opinion on such matters (we would just know that the Teen Diarist thinks many Houstonians who are critical of illegal immigration are racists).

Speaking of the Teen Diarist and race issues, this is a fine correction in today's column:

My apologies to Harris County prosecutor Tiffany Johnson. In my column Thursday about former prosecutor Mekisha Murray's decision to change her name to Jane after losing a judicial race, I mentioned how a trial bureau chief at the DA's office used to confuse Mekisha, who is white, with Tiffany, who, I wrote "happened to be white." I ended up making the same mistake as the trial chief. Tiffany is black.

It is unfortunate that this is what Jeff Cohen offers as a metro columnist in the nation's fourth-largest city (alongside a plagiarist whose background is San Antonio). I know the quality of a John Kass is a bit much to hope for, but surely Houston can do better than this.

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

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/17/08 10:31 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (11)

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16 November 2008

There's (more) poo poo in the bayou!

Last week, KTRK-13 reported on another nasty mess in one of our bayous:

Volunteers made a gross discovery in Buffalo Bayou while trying to clean up a park.

They found sewage leaking into the bayou. According to those volunteers, the problem stems from a hole in a sewage pipe that runs underneath a bridge.

They say the dirty water discharges when excess pressure builds up in the pipe.

Crews say they've been complaining about the leak for five years, but no one has fixed it yet.

Hey, the matter of investing in infrastructure to prevent recurring problems of poo-poo in the bayou just can't compete with trinket governance!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/16/08 04:24 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (7)

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14 November 2008

Papal exhibit coming to local museum

The Houston Business Journal reports that Houston will be hosting a unique papal exhibit later this month:

Houston’s National Museum of Funeral History will host the world’s first papal exhibit outside of the Vatican on Nov. 25.

The 5,000-square-foot exhibit, “Celebrating the Lives and Deaths of a Pope,” features the rituals by which popes have been elected and buried over the last 2,000 years.

The exhibit is part of a three-year collaboration between the Vatican and the not-for-profit National Museum of Funeral History, a collector of funeral memorabilia located at 415 Barren Springs Dr.

I have to admit that my sense of the macabre led me to our Museum of Funeral History years ago. It's worth the trip.

And the first papal exhibit outside of the Vatican? That almost sounds world class!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/14/08 10:32 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)

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What's in an election? Perhaps more than a name

The local newspaper's teen diarist chronicles one (losing) local judicial candidate's lament that her unusual name may have caused her loss last week. It reads a little like a bad Lifetime movie (or is "bad Lifetime movie" redundant?).

Meanwhile, the legal set over at A Harris County Lawyer's blawg offers supplemental discussion for grownups. This one was particularly entertaining.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/14/08 09:14 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (7)

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12 November 2008

The Big Flip: HC GOP recriminations and navel-gazing (11/12/08 edition)

Texas Watchdog calls our attention to some interesting posts on National Review about Harris County's flip to the Dems

Last Thursday, David Frum apparently noticed the flip.

Since then, he's added three posts of reader emails interpreting the results, here, here, and here.

Shortly after the election, former Harris County GOP chair Gary Polland blasted the way the current regime (i.e. Woodfill/Blakemore) conducted the election. Sadly, the article will eventually scroll from the front page of the site, and there is no permalink currently available, which is something of a statement in itself on the local GOP's technological competence. The County Seat adds some perspective to the Polland broadside.

Those of you who followed the links and read the commentary -- what's your take? What are these folks getting right, getting wrong, and leaving out in terms of Harris County's big flip?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/12/08 12:36 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (8)

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10 November 2008

Upper Kirby TIRZ to put construction on hold for holiday shopping

The Chronicle's Rosanna Ruiz notes that progress (in the form of the massive Kirby reconstruction/drainage project) will be delayed over the holidays, so Upper Kirby businesses can sell you stuff:

Construction work will pause from Nov. 21 through Jan. 2, said Travis Younkin, capital projects coordinator for the Upper Kirby District.

Work along side streets will continue, though.

"We can't have construction crews working on the street during the busiest shopping season of the year," Younkin said.

The $18 million project, managed by the Upper Kirby District Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, is scheduled to be completed by next November.

Kirby, from Richmond to Westheimer, will have three somewhat wider lanes in each direction, raised esplanades, wider sidewalks and more street lighting.

Overhead utility lines also will be placed underground, which should reduce worries about downed power lines during storms that would otherwise paralyze Kirby businesses.

Rarely are TIRZ officials so forthright about whose interests they prioritize.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/10/08 11:06 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

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08 November 2008

County attorney-elect promotes watchdog role

Many of us are weary of both pre-election and post-election commentary, but here's a snippet on Harris County Attorney-elect Vince Ryan that's worth posting:

Ryan, a lawyer, said he is the right person to be coming into government now. The County Attorney's Office, he said, can play the role of watchdog and try to insist that county officials and employees take the ethical high road.

"What county government needs is a group of watchdogs, not lapdogs," Ryan said. "The County Attorney's Office is an absolute key to the checks and balances on county government."

We hope the new county attorney is serious about playing the role of watchdog, and will do so in an impartial and nonpartisan manner. County government would be better for it.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/08/08 01:37 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

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City removes negligent apartment owner, enters "uncharted territory"

The Chronicle's Matt Stiles and Bradley Olson have details on the city's actions this week in removing the owner of a rundown apartment complex:

In the latest case involving La Casita Apartments, 313 Sunnyside, Mayor Bill White marshaled the help of an old high school friend who retired in 2004 as a federal bankruptcy judge. With his help, city lawyers were able in less than 24 hours to get a judge to turn control of the property over to a new management company.

"I felt that we needed to act immediately to both hold the owner accountable and use the legal remedies in bankruptcy to protect the property," White said. "We are getting much better at identifying and remedying substandard apartments."

[snip]

City officials also said they do not expect to recoup $1.3 million in federal housing money loaned to the property for improvements that state records show began about a decade ago.

Still, officials said the initial success with La Casita was good news, since it can be replicated with other substandard complexes that have vexed inspectors and police.

"This is a great step," said City Councilman James Rodriguez, who has taken an active role in the crackdown. "I know we're in uncharted territory here, but we have to be proactive. Enough is enough."

Houston's push against bad housing began last year after two children were shocked by an unguarded power transformer at an apartment complex, but began in earnest this summer after several Houston Chronicle stories documented substandard conditions in a number of properties.

White announced plans to spend $1 million a year to create a new team of multifamily inspectors. That team, which has yet to be completely formed, now can proactively visit properties and issue citations instead of making trips only after complaints, as had been done in the past.

Since White announced plans to add inspectors, two children have died after being crushed by a staircase that collapsed at a complex that had not been inspected since 1996. Another toddler drowned in a squalid apartment complex last month, only hours after an inspections coordinator had visited the property and noted a damaged fence around the pool.

Hopefully, this won't end up in the category of "Ready! Fire! Aim!" governance.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/08/08 10:36 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)

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03 November 2008

Election Day '08 is here!

The Big Election is finally upon us, and we'll soon say goodbye to all the annoying political ads, mailers, signs, robocalls, and the like, at least for a little while (but Peter Brown really wants to be mayor, so it likely won't last long).

While the little blog is generally not partisan (we believe the major political parties have ample resources to put out their messages without our help) and doesn't do endorsements, we are definitely supportive of free markets, free minds, transparent government, and responsible journalism. We are generally conservative in our political outlook, which should not come as a surprise to many.

Needless to say, the results tomorrow are not likely to make very many conservatives all that happy, at the national level or here locally. Especially here locally, since that's the focus of the little blog. More on that in a moment*, but in light of Tuesday's likely results, I'd like to post some thoughts from my friend Orrin Judd, who runs what I consider the finest conservative blog going:

If it is natural for those who don't genuinely believe in American ideals to be easily alienated, it is thoroughly unnatural for we who believe devoutly to succumb to similar despair. What, after all, is an unwelcome election result or an inept politician or even an unfortunate law or two in comparison to your family, your friends, your neighbors, your community, your relationship with God?

I had two people tell me remarkably similar stories this weekend about being at social events and having people launch into tirades about religion or conservatives or both. One had a friend say: "I'm sure I'm offending you, but...." To which they responded, bewildered: "What? But you don't care?" We can pity the folk who behave (misbehave) in this manner, but we must not react by aping them. The impulse to vent must be subordinated to the values of friendship, citizenship, comity, and, yes, love. Where it is inexplicable to the Bright that anyone could differ with them, it is doctrine to us that people will disagree, even on the most fundamental issues. Where it is unimaginable to them that Reason could have yielded up an erroneous answer, it is obvious to us that Fallen Man is prone to mistake, oneself no less than another. Where they seem to think that spilling enough bile will act as a solvent to disagreements, we know such divisions to be part of the human predicament and the proper response to be an attempt at understanding, not an intellectual bludgeoning.

I've been absurdly fortunate in life and not at all unfortunate in politics. My first vote was cast for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and since then my preference has prevailed more often than not. But in 1992 we were living in Chicago and I walked out of the polling place facing the seemingly dire prospect that, despite my vote, Bill Clinton, Carol Mosely-Braun, and Dan Rostenkowski would be announced as winners later that night. Woe the Republic, eh? Well, last night our eldest asked what the best decade of the 20th Century was. And there's really only one honest response to that question: the 1990s.

A good many of us may feel a tad homeless as we walk out of the polling place on Tuesday, but we'll emerge into the sunlight (or snow here) very much at home. And there's every possibility that we'll be more at home in the months and years to come than those who vote differently. America is rather more resilient than we're prone to imagine in our darkest moments and politics means rather less than we're wont to recognize in the midst of a campaign. Think about what truly matters and be happy. Life is awfully good.

With all that, we're going to throw open the thread for your election thoughts. Most anything related to the election is fair game -- national, local, whatever. We'll just ask that you keep in mind Orrin's comments and also our general rules that we should try to treat each other courteously, and focus on ideas rather than personalities.

[Read More]

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/03/08 10:30 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (57)

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A quarter of a million to tag taco trucks?

The Chronicle's Carolyn Feibel posts that Council this week will consider an expenditure of $250,000 and a bit of change for a radio tag system that will be used to track whether taco trucks are complying with city regulations.

Feibel editorializes in favor of the expenditure:

Before I get too snarky, I'll admit that it's good to see the city taking steps to enforce one of its regulations. Too often, officials pass well-meaning regulations, but there's no impetus or budget to enforce the law. And just last week, the council decided to discard a bike-permit regulation after city officials admitted that enforcement was not a priority, and few followed the law, including the mayor himself. (Story).

So, perhaps tagging the taco trucks is a high-tech answer to enforcement, at least in this arena.

What say you, blogHOUSTONians?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/03/08 08:34 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (6)

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31 October 2008

Kelley pays the Ibarra brothers

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I brought to the forefront Rick Casey's article about Lloyd Kelley and his legal math?

Well, Mr. Casey has written a follow-up article.

Mr. Kelley has paid the Ibarra brothers $115,000. Now, it doesn't stop there. The Ibarra brothers have filed a complaint with the state bar of Texas.

What a mess!

Posted by Jason @ 10/31/08 09:30 AM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (7)

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30 October 2008

Chron reports on TSU plagiarism, still silent on editorial board plagiarism

The Chronicle today reported on a plagiarism accusation against a professor at Texas Southern University.

It's not at all clear why the newspaper considers this news, since it employs plagiarists on the editorial board and in the metro/state section.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/30/08 10:20 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)

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29 October 2008

City kills largely ignored bike registration law

City Council today repealed a mostly ignored law requiring citizens to register bicycles. Here is some background on the archaic law:

The law requires owners to register their two-wheelers at a local fire station for $1 and place a little license sticker on the bike.

"This is something that I think is sporadically done," said Randy Zamora, the city's chief prosecutor. "And I think the firemen have better things to do."

Why the law was passed in 1968 remains a mystery, though city officials guess it was meant to deter theft and track stolen bicycles.

[snip]

Police officers do still occasionally write tickets for unregistered bikes, Zamora said. Since April 2006, officers have written 206 citations. The fine is only $5, but includes $67 in court costs. Zamora said he doesn't enforce the law.

"Most of the time the officer doesn't come (to testify), or we dismiss it," he said.

It would be great if even more of the city's archaic and/or ineffective laws could be repealed -- likely including some passed by this mayor, not to mention the archaic driveway ordinance currently being (mis)used to constrain the Ashby high-rise development.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/29/08 10:46 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (8)

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26 October 2008

Gattis: The Opportunity City weathers all storms

Local blogger Tory Gattis has a new article posted at New Geography, "The Opportunity city weathers all storms."

While much of the information won't be new to those of us here in town, it's a nice, upbeat wrapup of Houston, post-Ike. Be sure to check it out.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/26/08 10:15 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (4)

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AgendaWatch: 10/28/08

Slow week, after all. Most of the agenda is routine business, but there are three items I'd like to flag for everyone's attention. One key item was held over from last week: a series of motions related to the purchase of the new police radio system. Councilmembers Holm and Clutterbuck tagged several separate related items -- and I seem to have missed some interesting parts -- or someone did, at least... I don't remember seeing items a, c, and d. Under their new numbers:

#38: Purchase agreement with Motorola. (Initial cost is about $16 million; the maximum cost provided for is $123 million. Say what?)
#38a: Rental of 2550 N. Loop for the office space for COH and Motorola personnel who will be performing the installation. ($11k+/month, $1.45/sq.ft; Motorola to pay "a proportional cost."
#38b: Legal services from Miller and Van Eaton, L.L.P.C. for legal services related to drafting interolocal agreements with Harris County and Centerpoint. Wait, we've selected our hardware, and NOW we're going to talk about inter-interoperability with Centerpoint and Harris County? ($100,000)
#38c & d: Appropriations to pay for office furniture for the Radio Communications Division at 2550 N. Loop. ($217,000 from Police and IT Department funds. 12 offices, 2 conference rooms, 6 workstations, and a break room.)

Item #33 is a contract to pay for various emergency repairs to the sewer system. Expect more of these in future years if necessary physical upgrades and replacements continue to be deferred, because the city's borrowing practices have made it vulnerable to the current market turmoil.

Item #36: Of interest to citizens who follow land use regulation in this city -- A request to set a public hearing date of November 19, 2008 (but no mention of where), to review a report on land use regulations for the areas around the three city airports. The Airport Commission published its report on October 16, and forwarded its proposed regulations. These were presented to the Council Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure, & Aviation on the 23rd, and it was recommended that they be forwarded to the full council.

It would be nice if the regulations and maps had been included in the council backup, since this will be the public's chance to comment. You know how it is: "The regulations were considered in a public hearing, and nobody objected." Well, fortunately, blogHOUSTON is here -- and the Aviation page with links to the various maps, proposed ordinance, and the regulations is here. However, you may have missed your chance ... from what I can tell, this is only to review the report -- if you wanted to give input to the regulations, you'd have to have attended the well publicized meeting of September 29th.

You do remember how well it was publicized, don't you, citizen?

Posted by Ubu Roi @ 10/26/08 09:29 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

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Competing priorities, election-year grandstanding stoke voter registration battle

KHOU-11's Mark Greenblatt has been reporting on voter registration issues in Harris County.

Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar Paul Bettencourt comes under fire from Greenblatt and Dem pols for allegedly over-aggressive efforts to purge voter rolls of illegitimate voters (resulting in some legitimate voters apparently being rejected). Bettencourt's past assertions of "ironclad" cases of voter fraud are also subject to criticism. What is not clear from the reporting is how the number of legitimate registrations that have been rejected compares to the number of legitimate registrations struck from voter rolls in other counties. Since we will never be able fully to remove human error from human activities, it would be helpful to know the numbers of errors made elsewhere compared to here (which might then help us to judge knowledgeably if a more systematic problem is at work, which is suggested by the reporting). These probably aren't easy numbers to gather, but they would be helpful to know.

Partisans on both sides have legitimate points. On the one hand, everyone who is eligible to vote in our elections should be able to register to do so with minimal hassle. On the other hand, it's not unreasonable to take some steps to prevent illegitimate voters from participating in our elections. With a big election at hand (underway even, since early voting has begun), we'll probably continue to see passionate arguments over these sometimes-competing priorities (maybe even in our forums -- please do try to keep it civil).

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

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/26/08 09:28 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)

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23 October 2008

Texas Watchdog posts financial disclosures of state pols

The AP's Jay Root reports on the latest efforts from Texas Watchdog:

For years the Texas Legislature has resisted calls to publish politicians' personal financial information on the Internet. But the modern world caught up with state lawmakers when a fledgling watchdog group posted the disclosures online.

Texas Watchdog, a nonpartisan organization that uses public records to pull back the curtain on state government, obtained scanned copies of the financial disclosures for the major state officeholders and published them on their Web site Wednesday.

Before the forms were only available on paper at the state Ethics Commission in Austin.

"If the public can't easily get at these records, they don't do voters and taxpayers much good," said Trent Seibert, editor of Texas Watchdog. "Through this site, Texas residents will be able to keep a close eye on public officials and sound the alarm if they spot a conflict of interest."

The ethics commission, which collects the data, was all but barred from publishing the information on its Web site.

The story and links are here on the Texas Watchdog site.

The interactive Google map is a nice touch. Indeed, overall that's another nice bit of work from the new guys in town.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/08 12:46 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)

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+Professors R-Squared

+PubliusTX.net

+Quaint Quiescence

+Rant Fever

+Red Ink: Texas

+Rep. John Culberson's Blog

+Right of Texas

+Run Houston

+She Eats

+Sit, Ubu, Sit!

+Slampo's Place

+Stolen Thunder

+Talk In Texas

+Texas Liberal

+Texas Safety Forum

+Texas Yankee

+The County Seat

+The Light Bulb

+Twelve Two Two Fondue

+WILLisms

+Write on METRO

Journo Bloggers

+Brent Clanton

+HC: About Chron

+HC: About Last Night

+HC: Baseball

+HC: Bayou City History

+HC: Cook's Tour

+HC: David Barron

+HC: Hand Stamp

+HC: Helpline

+HC: Houston Departures

+HC: Houston Politics

+HC: Inside Central Houston

+HC: Jerome Solomon

+HC: John McClain/NFL

+HC: Loren Steffy

+HC: MeMo

+HC: Nick Anderson

+HC: School Zone

+HC: SciGuy

+HC: Sports Justice

+HC: Sports Soup

+HC: Tag's Baseball Plays

+HC: Tech Blog

+HC: Texas on the Potomac

+HC: The Unofficial Scorer

+HC: UH Cougars

+HP: Eating Our Words

+HP: HouStoned

+HP: HouStoned Ballz

+HP: HouStoned Rocks

+Isiah Carey's Insite

+KTRK: Consumer Blog

+KTRK: Miya Shay

+KTRK: Prof 13

+KTRK: Roussel Report

+KTRK: Tim Heller

+Matt Lavine's Left Field News

+Mike McGuff

The local blogs above cover topics of interest. Drop us a line if you blog about local topics and would like us to consider your blog. While a link back to blogHOUSTON is not required, it would be much appreciated.

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+Bayou City Madman

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