Please check out our new Local News Headlines page.

14 May 2011

Bazan: Is Houston City Hall haunted by ghost of Lee P. Brown?

This is another of our occasional series of guest posts/essays on local topics of interest to us and our readers. Feel free to submit topical posts/essays for our consideration to bloggers-at-bloghouston.net. As with our usual blog posts, the views expressed are those of the author.

IS HOUSTON CITY HALL HAUNTED BY GHOST OF LEE P. BROWN?

by Tom Bazan

With regard to the plan being floated to "privatize" certain city facilties: Thank God that the US Congress outlawed the "Defeased Lease" scams in 2005 which were the lump-sum cash vehicles many governmental agencies such as METRO and the City of Chicago exploited to abuse taxpayers! You know that's what the Ruling Class wants to do again if they could.

Recalling the huge give-a-ways of taxpayer assets, it's as if the ghost of Lee P. Brown haunts city hall. Taxpayers must ask "Is the 1.8 million square foot, $270 million facility only worth ten cents per square foot per month?"

Mayor Brown, and his brain trust, Jordy Tollett, dumped valuable city-owned assets such as the Compaq Center (f/k/a The Summit), while at the same time acquiring a herd of "white elephants" with taxpayers funds.

One shudders to recall the fiscal nightmare of the Brown administration, which blew through the billions of property and sales tax as well as fines, penalties and fees. Seemingly, that enormous spending was not near enough; they also added over SEVEN BILLION ($7,000,000.00) dollars in crushing bond debt. Mayor Brown, when not out-of-town, gave us the underperforming Convention Center Hotel, the City Emergency Center, the unsafe and unreliable boondoggle urban rail, and he Super-Sized an existing "White Elephant" by expanding the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Now, Houstonians are presented the specter of the #1 Texas Progressive politician spinning off one of the largest remaining city-owned assets, a proposed scheme that is truly unsettling. Is this Rice U graduate succumbing to the same illogical decisions as that of the former Mayor and renowned Rice U professor, Lee. P. Brown?

This proposed scheme may be worse than the Compaq debacle. In the Compaq scheme, the city took an up-front lease payment of about $11.87 million from a church, on terms that seemed contrary to the best interests of the taxpayer. Several years later, when the city was scrounging around for cash, it sold the property to the church for $7.5 million, less than the appraised value. What seems galling: had not the sweetheart lease terms restricted the value of the 606,000 square foot facility, nestled in the Greenway Plaza on a prime 6.945-acre site, the appraised value likely would have been much higher. The total net to the taxpayer was about $19.37 million for the whole kit and caboodle. Here is a copy of that appraisal (pdf).

The taxpayers suffered the disposal of a huge city asset for less than the appraised value of the land! Rubbing salt into the wound, the church won't be paying any property taxes on this valuable land and building, which is another significant revenue loss to the schools, county, and city totaling well over $1 million every year!

How could a bureaucrat deal be any worse? Try to ignore the reported Bayport debacle, and focus for the moment on the current proposal.

The Houston First scheme doesn't sound feasible. The Convention Center Hotel never has come close to realizing the "Feasibility" numbers generated by PKF (taxpayers paid $102K for the optimistic document yet the city ignored a request to actually order an appraisal).

Where's the beef? Where will the start-up cash come from? Is the new venture going to tap the TIRZ and or float even more tax revenue bonds?

The GRB should never have been expanded, and the Convention Center Hotel should only have been built if it would have been profitable to do so. No one cares to hear the snarky "Conservatives tried to warn the public back then" remark.

We should not allow the current Progressive Mayor to merge these two hungry "white elephants" into a questionably-capitalized privatized corporation mischievously named "Houston First." The lease is priced at ten cents per square foot per month; is that all that this humongous, $270 million facility is worth to the Ruling Class? There is but one word to describe those buying into the scheme...

Suckers!!!

* * * * *

Tom Bazan has a degree in real-estate valuation, has been a TREC licensed broker in Texas for over two decades, and has previously been licensed in Alaska, California, and Michigan. He is a property tax arbitrator, a real estate instructor, and is AQB-certified to teach appraisers the USPAP. He is one of a select group of experienced commercial real-estate appraisers who has been hired often by the City of Houston to appraise real property for the City of Houston as well as the Houston Airport system.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/14/11 04:18 PM | Comments (0)

23 April 2010

Brutus: Unequal and deceptive -- The great water rate heist of 2010 (updated)

Unequal and deceptive: The great water rate heist of 2010

by Brutus

Probably the highest profile study performed on Public Works operations in the last year was the McKinsey Efficiency Study. Less well known, until now at least, was the Red Oak Rate Study. The City of Houston tries to set its rates according to its costs, but the details of what should or should not be counted, and projection of future needs are a highly complicated interlocking set of issues. While rate increases are generally fixed to the Consumer Price Index, that has little to do with actual cost increases. Pipelines, bond costs, and chemicals to treat water are not consumer items, after all. With the Combined Utility System (CUS) continuing to fall further behind revenue projections, the City hired Red Oak to check its assumptions and determine what the City really needed to charge for service in order to maintain and improve the system.

From page 55 of the Request for Council Authorization, available at http://www.houstontx.gov/citysec/backup/2010/042010.pdf:

The Rate Study results were presented to the Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee on April 6, 2010, with a recommendation to set rats [sic] to support the Best Practices CIP and to use the Producer Price Index for annual automatic adjustments, to the degree allowable under the provisions of Proposition One. The Committee voted to move this recommendation forward for Council consideration but expressed some concern relative to the level of increase for the multi-family customer class. After further review, the administration recommended adopting the Best Practices rates proposed to the committee with the exception of Multi- Family Residential and Commercial customers. Those rates would be set to equal 100% of cost of service. It is estimated that these rates would result in an increase equivalent to $7.73 per month for the average apartment unit.

Now I don't know what assumptions went into this "average apartment unit" calculation, so I can't compare it directly. But I can tell you what the rates were, and what they will be. Note that homeowners have a second, higher bracket after they pass 12,000 gallons:

In other words, the Houston Apartment Association (HAA) was squealing like stuck pigs over losing a little of their huge rate advantage over homeowners! Only… that's just the water; now there are sewer charges (which do not have a higher tier for homeowners):

The gap here does not close at all - homeowners are getting gouged even worse!

All the "disparity" and "discrimination" against low-income renters actually increased the advantage held by apartments! Now, if we're going to be fair, their complaint is that the "government" money they get for having all these "poor" folks is capped, and HUD won't allow them to raise their rental rates to cover the increase, which is sure to drive them all into bankruptcy. Nice argument ... made by some very well dressed people in council offices over the last two weeks.

Oh, but it gets worse.

What is the cost of service that the apartment rates will cover? Well, the short answer is that it's everything except capital costs. To expand on this a bit, the point of this entire exercise is to keep enough money flowing in to cover not just the cost of service (which the HAA is so generously willing to do), but to cover the cost of repairs, upgrades, and replacing worn out sections of infrastructure that were built 50-75 years ago. All of those are "not costs of service," they are capital costs. And that cost will be borne solely by homeowners (and to a much lesser extent, businesses), thanks to the actions of Mayor Annise Parker and Council.

We're not done yet. It gets even worse.

The reduction in CUS revenue will be funded by decreasing the amount of "pay-as-you-go" projects in the CIP, however the total capacity for capital improvements will remain at $370 million annually for FY11 through FY15.

These are not optional projects. If you can't pay as you go, and you insist on maintaining the same expenditure level, there are only two places to get the money: borrow it or steal it. The city is already broke, and the CUS is $100 million behind, but we either continue subsidizing the system, or we go deeper in debt. Either way, the homeowners will be the ones stuck with the entire bill for system capital costs -- but the word is, the City will be borrowing.

Still not done yet. You see, they're not just reducing the pay-as-you-go. They're diverting it.

To further address the rate burden on multi-family residences, the administration is working with the Houston Apartment Association to establish a rebate program to encourage water conservation in apartment complexes that currently use much higher than average amounts of water. The planned program would provide up to $14 million in rebates each year for two years to complexes that meet the to be determined qualifications.

Yes, neighbor, not only did the HAA (and all businesses) skate out on their moral obligation to pay for the water and sewer system they depend on, apartment owners will get paid $28 million dollars out of the CUS funds for making the improvements they ought to be making out of their own pockets to reduce their utility costs! That's where your CUS "pay-as you go" money is actually going -- it's being diverted from needed system improvements to line the pockets of slumlords, under terms yet to be determined! Rumor has it that Andrew Teas is determining the terms of the program.

Is anyone taking bets on whether this gets administered through the Housing department, which goes beyond notorious for mismanaged money and receiving little or nothing for expenditures?

No, we're still not done.

Discussion is also underway regarding the rate impact specifically on low-income multi-family housing projects that have received Federal Income Tax Credits, and the administration will work to address this issue to the degree allowable under State law.

In other words "we're going to figure out a way to shovel money to, our slumlord friends."

Still. Not. Done.

But at least we have reached the final point, which is to expose the lies and crocodile tears behind the "gouging of poor renters" by the evil Public Works Department and those dastardly rates. The final point, the capper to all this, is that I've used a very misleading term throughout the article above: "Homeowner." You see, there's no such thing as a "homeowner rate." There is a "single-family rate" for houses and individually metered condos. There is a "multi-family rate" for duplexes up through large apartment complexes.

The single-family rate is based on one meter per living unit; it doesn't matter if the person living there is the owner or a renter. So all this concern, all the discounts, and all rebates from the council and mayor for poor renters applies only if the poor renter is living in an apartment complex. Might such concern be ever so slightly stronger if the poor person suffering from such an unfair rate structure lived in an apartment whose owner belonged to the politically powerful Houston Apartment Association? Perhaps I just have a suspicious nature.

Or perhaps if you're poor and pay for your own water in a rent house or condo, or if you're fortunate enough to own your own home, rich or poor, no one at City Hall cares about you. Pay up with the rest of the ~~landowners~~ suckers.

Now we're done.

UPDATE (04-25-2010) AND EDITOR'S NOTE: Brutus provided the following update late Friday afternoon, but travel plans precluded its posting until now.

Oops -- we're not done after all! This wasn't in the original agenda backup, but was arranged by a helpful Council Member Gonzalez:

Motion 2010-0236 - Written motion by Council Member Gonzalez to amend Item 14 as follows:

Motion to amend Item 14 to establish single family residential rates that will generate revenue equivalent to customer class cost of service over a four-year period.

This amendment will set single family residential rates as originally proposed, effective June 1, 2010, and will set single family residential rates for the subsequent three years to achieve cost of service. Rates will be increased by the following increments, in addition to any Producer Price Index adjustment:

In other words:

1. The Multi-family customers get the full increase immediately, as reported in the press, council deferred half of the residential increase until 2011-2013. This means that the comparisons in the tables above don't tell the full story.

2. "Written motion" = pre-planned with the Mayor, who has total control over the agenda.

3. The actual increases can and WILL be higher than this, as "rate-of-inflation" increases are mandated above. At least they had the sense to use the PPI instead of the CPI.

4. News articles saying the rates would generate $14 million more were incorrect; obviously this means an increase of $14 million more each year -- just from Residential customers.

5. The total increase is estimated to be in the range of $370 million -- the city's utility revenue will be, on average, around $1billion per year.

Hmm... the amount in #4 is the same as what is going to feed the pigs at the tr-- , uh sorry, I meant "fine apartment owners and investors." Coincidence. No, really.

But don't forget that the city is arranging to sue itself to enforce Proposition I (and deliberately lose) in order to preclude anyone else from attempting to do so. "Hey, the judge already decided that case! Stare Decisis and all that Latin stuff!"

Are we done yet? No, not for another three years....

Brutus is the non de plume of a Houstonian who wishes to remain anonymous.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/23/10 08:38 AM | Comments (6)

24 October 2009

Katz: A way to get Houston's police chief out of mayoral politics

A WAY TO GET HOUSTON'S POLICE CHIEF OUT OF MAYORAL POLITICS

by Howard A. Katz

Houston's strong mayoral government has led to a succession of police chiefs who are most notable for being the political puppets of whichever mayor happened to be in office. Houston will soon be saying goodbye to Mayor Bill White and the city will also be saying goodbye to police chief Harold Hurtt who will be returning to his beloved city of Phoenix.

There is a much better way to select police chiefs than to have them appointed by a mayor who requires that the first priority of his police chief is to make sure that the police department does not get in the way of his political ambitions.

The City of Houston should establish a police commission for the purpose of selecting the city's police chief. That commission would not only select the chief, but it would also establish general guidelines for the police department. The chief would then be free to operate within those guidelines, absent of political interference. The commission would also be able to fire the chief, but only for malfeasance in office and only if he fails to follow the guidelines or turns out to be incompetent.

To ensure their independence, the members of the commission should be elected rather than appointed by the mayor, as is the case in Los Angeles.

The City of Houston should be divided into five police commission districts. Candidates for a seat on the police commission would run for office in each district. A candidate would have to show proof that he/she had been an actual resident within his/her district for a minimum of five years. The election should be non-partisan -- no candidate should be identified as Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Marxist, or whatever.

The police commission can be established at little cost to a city. Its members should be paid only one dollar a year plus their out-of-pocket expenses. In this way, only the most civic minded candidates would run for that office. The commissioners should not have to meet more than once a month unless some emergency would require additional meetings. As for staffing, the commission would only need a secretary, probably a part-timer at that.

By having a five member police commission make the selection, the Houston police chief would be free from political interference, thus allowing him to run the police department in the best interests of all Houstonians.

Howard A. Katz is a retired professor Professor of Criminal Justice. He blogs at BarkGrowlBite.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/24/09 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

17 October 2009

HPD Withdraws From Immigration Screening

Susan Carroll of the Houston Chronicle reports:

The Houston Police Department will not participate in a controversial immigration screening program, federal officials said on Friday, ending a months-long saga over the city's plans.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said HPD voluntarily withdrew from the program that provides jailers with special training to root out illegal immigrants who have been arrested. According to the statement from ICE, HPD claims the program didn't meet their specific needs. Perhaps sensing a backlash, a spokesman for Mayor Bill White said they had no idea about the announcement and that ICE "never got back to us."

Two dead police officers, one severely wounded, countless officers and citizens who have been assaulted by illegal immigrants, and the bloody Mexican drug cartel wars being fought in our backyard and still Houston refuses to admit its sanctuary city status.

Could this have anything to do with Bill White's Senate campaign? Maybe he should just say "I'm Bill White and I approve this message!"

Posted by Jason @ 10/17/09 11:25 AM | Comments (1)

15 October 2009

KTRK: HPD Crime Lab looks for outside help to clear its case backlog

A couple of weeks ago, Mayor Bill White admitted he was concerned about a backlog at the HPD crime lab that has existed for years.

Tonight, KTRK-13's Andy Cerota reports that crime lab officials have been working hard to secure outside help to clear that embarrassing backlog:

On the heels of asking for $2 million to hire more DNA technicians to clear the backlog, the crime lab's director for the first time is reaching out to other law enforcement agencies, namely the FBI, for help.

"I'm optimistic. I'm looking at grants. I'm looking at private entities. I'm looking at the DA's office. So we're looking at different ways we can fund this project and get these rape kits completed," said Irma Rios, HPD Crime Lab Director.

[snip]

"If we had the appropriate funding and support we could get that done here at a much quicker pace. I think we now have the commitment to move forward a little bit faster," said Chief Hurtt.

That doesn't make it sound like it has been much of a priority for the City of Houston to clear the backlog.

Interestingly enough, Mayor White is not quoted in the KTRK story. Perhaps he was too occupied with his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat that still hasn't been vacated to be "concerned" with the pesky, enduring local crime lab problems.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/15/09 08:10 PM | Comments (3)

14 October 2009

Texas Watchdog: Senior county attorney official resigns amidst ethics queries

Texas Watchdog is teasing their latest story, which apparently involves the resignation of a senior official in Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan's office:

A top lieutenant of Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan has resigned his post in the wake of questions from Texas Watchdog about a conflict of interest.

This top-level county attorney -- a political appointee-- had been hired by Ryan at the beginning of the year.

He announced his resignation late today as Texas Watchdog was on the verge of publishing a story detailing how the attorney -- while on the county payroll -- had continued to represent clients against the county.

His clients won a six-figure judgment from the county. And he made a nice slice of the cash.

We're very much looking forward to the full story, which Texas Watchdog says is coming soon.

So far, we haven't seen any mention of the resignation on other local news sites, including Chron.com. Then again, they may still be looking for that county reporter, which would seem to be important to covering the beat effectively.

Way back in November 2008, the Chronicle wrote the following about newly elected county attorney Ryan:

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."

It sounds like the county watchdog may have had a little trouble watching his own office after less than a year in power!

Indeed, the county attorney hasn't exactly been the biggest supporter of the modest ethics reform proposals from Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, who has been a strong advocate of ethics reform and transparency in Harris County government.

UPDATE (10-15-2009): The full story is now posted here.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/14/09 08:44 PM | Comments (2)

13 October 2009

Bloomberg: Souring stadium bond deal could squeeze area taxpayers

Bloomberg dropped an ominous story about Houston today. Here's an excerpt from the report by Darrell Preston, Edward Klump and Aaron Kuriloff:

Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, which built the Texas city's 71,500-seat National Football League stadium, may need to refinance $1 billion in debt and pay as much as $142 million ahead of schedule on bonds and interest-rate swaps.

The agency, operator of Reliant Stadium for the NFL's Texans, must pay $117 million over the next five years after JPMorgan Chase & Co. demanded accelerated retirement of variable-rate bonds due in November 2030, said J. Kent Friedman, the authority chairman. UBS AG may also get $25 million to unwind a swap designed to offset rising interest rates. The extra costs will push higher annual debt service by $20 million to at least $83.7 million in 2011 from $62.3 million this year.

"This is like suddenly having to pay a 30-year mortgage in five years," Friedman, a Houston-based partner in the law firm of Kelly, Hart & Hallman, said in a phone interview.

Even though pols continue to promise that taxpayers won't ever be on the hook for any shortfalls, that is starting to sound like real money to us!

One month ago, the Chronicle's Bradley Olson warned of the possibility of this outcome:

JP Morgan's obligation to provide liquidity - essentially act as a temporary holder of the bonds - expires soon. At that point, the 30-year bonds will be converted to a loan that must be paid off in five years, requiring the sports authority to pay $12 million every six months. Emmett and Mayor Bill White were unable to persuade JP Morgan to hold off on requiring payment for a year.

The magnitude of that payment would trigger an obscure provision of the financing arrangement, requiring the county to pay $2 million every six months from parking fees collected at Reliant Stadium. The debt service on the bonds currently is paid from revenues generated by the hotel occupancy tax, motor vehicle rental fees, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Houston Texans and other Reliant complex events.

Edwin Harrison, the county's director of financial services, said the county would not use property tax revenues to make the $2 million payments, but he acknowledged the possibility that property taxes may have to be used to cover the $4 million yearly budget gap.

Taxpayers won't be on the hook... well, they kinda will be, but not really. *wink* Got it?

So far as we can tell, the Chronicle hasn't followed up today on its original story.

There is a very nice profile of Gene Locke in today's newspaper, however, describing him as "a consummate deal-maker, who has had a hand in just about every headline-grabbing step taken by local government the past decade: Three new sports stadiums, annexation of Kingwood, light rail, Houston Independent School District and Harris County redistricting, Houston Community College System expansion."

Rah rah rah, three cheers for the consummate deal-maker!

Sorry, the Chron's selection of the "cheerleader voice" for their series of mayoral profiles got us overly excited.

Anyway, questions have already been raised about consummate deal-maker Gene Locke's ties to the Sports Authority (and to METRO). Maybe it's time for him to start answering some of those questions. Because as mayor, Locke would be in a much stronger position to consummate deals that may just turn out badly for the City of Houston.

BLOGVERSATION: Texas Watchdog, Bay Area Houston.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/13/09 09:36 PM | Comments (9)

11 October 2009

Bill White's 9 Steps to Financial Freedom (#4)

Put a band-aid on the city's pension obligations early on, then ignore them. Lots of money "saved," cha-ching!

We are referring, of course, to the massive unfunded liability at the Houston municipal employees pension fund*, which Mayor Bill White inherited from Lee Brown, made a lot of noise about early on (including the bizarre Hilton Americas asset transfer), then proceeded to ignore for most of his term.

The next mayor will inherit the problem, as we've been saying for quite some time. In today's Chronicle, John Diamond (a Fellow at the Baker Institute) decided to call attention to the problem**:

It's no secret that Houston has a major problem with its pension funds. Liabilities -- or promised benefits -- are much larger than the assets that have been set aside to fund them in the future. The city reports that as of July 1, 2008, the ratio of assets to liabilities is 96 percent for the firefighters' pension, 82 percent for the police officers' pension and 70 percent for the municipal employees' pension. In other words, only 96, 82 and 70 percent of promised benefits, respectively, could be funded by accumulated assets. The unfunded liability -- promised benefits that the city has not set aside enough funds to pay in the future -- for all three pensions is equal to $1.7 billion, according to the city.

However, the problem is much worse than the current city government appears willing to admit.

We would suggest that it is a secret, at least an open one, since there's just not that much reporting or editorializing on the matter (or, to be fair, interest in the same). We do agree that the problem is worse than current financial reports suggest, mainly because those reports are out of date and the situation continues to deteriorate.

Perhaps the local media covering the mayor's race will ask the current crop of (me too!) mayoral candidates how they plan on dealing with the massive unfunded liabilities in the pension plans (psst... ask about other benefits too). And perhaps the media covering the race for a U.S. Senate seat that isn't yet open will also ask about the problem.

[Read More]

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/11/09 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

10 October 2009

Chron: METRO bigwigs, light-rail contractors really like Gene Locke (updated)

Recently, mayoral candidate Peter Brown promised to fire METRO bigwigs Frank "Procurement Disaster" Wilson and David Wolff if elected mayor.*

Mayoral candidate Annise Parker chimed in with a somewhat more subdued "me too" in her discussion of the matter with the Chron's Caucasian Think Tank.

This is a rare moment in our lackluster mayoral campaign in which we did not expect a "me too" (subdued or otherwise) from Establishment mayoral candidate Gene Locke. As we noted back in July, David Wolff already endorsed Locke with the maximum, $5,000 campaign donation, and Mr. Establishment does not strike us as the sort of candidate who would bite the hand that feeds him.

In today's Chronicle, Bradley Olson and Carolyn Feibel report that certain METRO board members and light-rail contractors have supported Mr. Establishment to the tune of $33,000 in contributions. Later in the story, we found these two grafs illuminating:

Metro Chairman David Wolff also held a March 17 luncheon for Locke to which he invited more than 70 people. Within two weeks of the event, people on that list of invitees had donated $24,500 to Locke's campaign. In the past nine months, those on the luncheon list have donated $46,000.

City ordinance bars appointees to city boards and commissions from soliciting contributions for political candidates; they are not prohibited from giving themselves.

We're sure Wolff has a creative definition of "soliciting" that would explain away all those donations to Locke as mere coincidence (although strangely, the newspaper did not seem to press him for that definition). Indeed, The Houston Way requires no less of the Establishment and its candidates.

UPDATE: The really curious thing about this story -- which involves some nice work tracking down the invitees of Wolff's "non-soliciting" meeting and how so many eventually donated to Locke -- is why the Chron editors sought to bury their reporters' good work. It's a two reporter story that uncovers some new elements of The Houston Way at work on behalf of the Establishment mayoral candidate, and instead of giving it Sunday front-page treatment, the Chron buried it on B5, above the life insurance ad and opposite the legal notices on B4 -- not the highest-profile pages in the newspaper! Are editors at the establishment newspaper also in the tank for Mr. Establishment Candidate? It certainly begs the question.

BLOGVERSATION: Fireballs, Lightning Bolts and Hell Storms.

[Read More]

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/10/09 09:10 AM | Comments (14)

08 October 2009

Houston's version of "trust but verify?"

KRIV-26's Isiah Carey posted a release from HPD Sgt. Kenneth Perkins, who is running for City Council at Large Position #1.

We liked the bookends on his list of qualifications:

Sunday School Teacher

[snip]

Met the requirements for the National Weapon of Mass Destruction Standardized Awareness Program

Trust in God, but be ready for the terrorists just in case.

Amen!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/08/09 08:21 AM | Comments (7)

04 October 2009

Chron reports on years-long crime-lab backlog; Mayor White is concerned

Way back in April, we commented on Texas Watchdog's announcement they were bringing former Chronsters Steve McVicker (and Rosanna Ruiz) on board as follows:

We're looking forward to learning about more METRO deception and funny numbers, not to mention just how many thousand rape-test-kits are sitting in a (leaky?) closet somewhere still waiting to be analyzed several years after the Bromwich Report on the crime lab.

We haven't seen much Watchdogging Texas from McVicker*, but the Houston Chronicle finally got around to answering our question a couple of days ago:

Seven years after the Houston Police Department crime lab scandal first broke, city officials acknowledged this week that nearly 4,000 rape kits and other crime evidence remain untested for DNA.

According to HPD Crime Lab Director Irma Rios, that untested evidence stored in the property room includes a backlog of 1,048 active cases where police investigators have asked for DNA testing.

We're glad somebody finally decided to answer the question of whether the crime lab has cleared its backlog of cases. And we are glad Mayor Bill White told the Chronicle that he is concerned about the years-long backlog -- obviously it's been a priority for him!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/04/09 08:55 PM | Comments (4)

01 October 2009

Houblog analyzes the coming water-bill increases

Because of recent technical problems*, Ubu Roi wasn't able to post his thoughts here on the coming increases in Houston water bills.

Fortunately, he did post those thoughts on his original blog, Houblog.

Here's a completely out-of-context teaser to entice readers to click over:

It’s misleading, grandstanding, and worse, it’s utterly unwarranted....

Go read the whole thing.

* Our web host has become completely unreliable, hence the down time this week. We'll likely be moving things over the weekend. We'll try not to break anything, at least not for too long.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/01/09 10:07 PM | Comments (4)

Examiner: Trees return to Kirby

The Examiner's Michael Reed reported last week that trees are returning to Kirby.

It's still one ugly, expanded stretch of concrete if you ask us.

But, that's the price of progress, we suppose. Traffic should zip right along on the new, expanded runways. And hey, in 20 years those new trees might resemble all those that were removed for the raceway expansion. If they actually are watered and such, that is.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/01/09 08:32 PM | Comments (0)

30 September 2009

Texas Watchdog investigates adventures in no-bid contracting, METRO-style

Recently, we've seen Mayor Bill White skirt the city's contracting rules to put the artist now known as The One* in place to clean up a BARC mess that had not previously been a priority and that threatened to be a drag on Senate Candidate Bill White's campaign.

That's nothing, however, compared to METRO's use of no-bid contracts for consultants under Frank "Procurement Disaster" Wilson.

Texas Watchdog has the details in this story today.

METRO contends that the use of such consultants can actually save the taxpayers money, and gives the organization flexibility.

We're open to the argument that one-off consulting can sometimes be more efficient, but we also think public organizations should operate with much greater transparency than this.

When deals are ramrodded through by high-ranking public officials with no public debate or scrutiny -- especially when those deals involve former colleagues of the officials or even self-promoters who are known as The One* -- what is the public supposed to think? Indeed, how is the public even to know, in an age of shrinking newsrooms?

That's why public organizations should make the case with the public well in advance of any such deals (and in our view, should try to keep them rare).

* We are referring to BARC "change agent" Gerry Fusco, who has referred to himself as "The One" in public interviews.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/30/09 08:56 AM | Comments (4)

28 September 2009

Chron returns to topic of police shootings

The Houston Chronicle has returned to a favorite topic with this article about how shootings by law enforcement in Harris County have risen this year. According to reporter James Pinkerton, as of 24 September there have been 44 police shootings in Harris County. This has already surpassed the total number of police shootings for the last two years.

Read the explanations offered by our community.

First, HPOU President Gary Blankinship cites the end of the city's paid overtime program. He also cites rising unemployment due to the state of the economy as of late. However not everyone who is out of a job is out committing a crime. Police are hearing that excuse from people. However it's usually from the same people who were out screwing up when the economy was good.

Next we have media-appointed community activist Quanell X. He seems still hung up on Chuck Rosenthal. He also refuses to look at the whole picture, particularly from the perspective of the officer at risk, who doesn't have the benefit of hindsight. He wants to see more officers charged regardless of the facts.

Next was a shock. Donna Hawkins, spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office, blames permissive gun laws! Was she reading a bad script? She was quoted as follows,

If more people have the access and it becomes easier to carry them, there tends to be more shooting and more situations involving police officers.

[Read More]

Posted by Jason @ 09/28/09 07:25 PM | Comments (8)

26 September 2009

Bill White's 9 Steps to Financial Freedom? (#2)

As reported by the Chronicle's Bradley Olson, Senate Candidate Bill White recently warned voters to be wary of any new spending proposed by Houston's mayoral candidates:

White, who has shied away from endorsing or even offering tacit support to those vying to replace him, weighed in last week with surprising advice for voters: Beware of any promises of new spending in 2010 and 2011.

“Texas has not come out of the recession, and sales tax receipts are dropping,” White wrote in a post on his Facebook page Tuesday. “Be sure not to vote for our next mayor based on commitments of more spending in the next two years.”

Houston Mayor Bill White, of course, has not been shy about spending money on his priorities. This week, KTRK-13's Wayne Dolcefino checked out White's prized weatherization program and found plenty of wasteful spending.

In Part 1, Dolcefino examines the high cost of the city's light-bulb replacement program (as opposed to the cost at Home Depot).

In Part 2, Dolcefino examines the high cost of other items (caulk, ceiling fans) purchased as part of the program.

In Part 3, Dolcefino reports that the State of Texas has been much slower to spend federal "stimulus" dollars that have been allocated for a similar weatherization program, in hopes of avoiding some of the expensive missteps of the Houston program:

Part of the delay is making sure Texas and other states can actually manage to spend all that money efficiently.

"The problem and challenge now is that you're going from a $13 million program to a $327 million program," said Gerber [from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs].

[snip]

"There are going to be a different set of rules the city is going to have to adhere to."

That will mean an end to spending the money the way Houston Mayor Bill White has been spending it: in handpicked neighborhoods where 50 percent of the homes met the guidelines.

We are not optimistic that the state's program will be significantly less wasteful than Mayor White's boondoggle, but kudos to Dolcefino for his investigation (we would love to see a followup on contractors who have benefited from the program). Be sure to click over, or check out the embedded videos below.

BLOGVERSATION: Live Oaks.

PREVIOUSLY: Bill White's 9 Steps to Financial Freedom? (#1).

[Read More]

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/26/09 12:33 PM | Comments (2)

23 September 2009

Tyler Cowen and commenters address Houston, zoning, and land-use restrictions

Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution blog recently linked to this old (2005) paper by Michael Lewyn on "How Overregulation Creates Sprawl (Even in a City without Zoning)."

As readers well know, Houston does not have the sort of macro-level zoning that severely curtails how certain land can be used. However, Lewyn contends that some of Houston's micro-level land-use restrictions are, in some ways, as far-reaching as zoning -- and that a less restrictive environment might actually lead to less sprawl and less automobile dependency. We've seen some of these topics addressed on NeoHOUSTON and Houston Strategies, but this paper and the comments on Cowen's blog make for interesting reading (be sure to look for Houston Strategist Tory Gattis in those comments).

Since our audience is more local, we'd be interested in your thoughts.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/23/09 08:34 PM | Comments (8)

21 September 2009

Shay: Council turf battle over NASA?

KTRK-13's Miya Shay blogs about a little turf battle between At-Large Councilmember and Mayoral Candidate Peter Brown and Councilmember Mike Sullivan.

Apparently, Brown suggested that Council take up some vague resolution in support of NASA. Councilmember Sullivan rejected Brown's meddling (NASA resides in Sullivan's district), suggesting his colleague's recent interest in the matter could harm the strategy Sullivan had been pursuing in support of NASA. Be sure to click over to Shay's blog for all the details.

Here is the part that stood out for us:

The Mayor’s office replied that it does not in general issue resolutions on issues, but that it will discuss it in its weekly meetings.

Now, if one of the mayor's favorites needed a letter to help promote expensive condos, or needed someone to use eminent domain to seize land for an otherwise unplanned park in support of a favored development*, THAT might get some attention from the mayor.

Useless resolutions on issues? Apparently not. The Houston Way is more about making things happen than declarations.

BLOGVERSATION: Bay Area Houston.

* Speaking of that Galleria-area land taking, the folks at Texas Watchdog filed an interesting addendum to that story last week when reporting on spousal campaign finance disclosures more generally. "None other than Anne Brown was an investor in the development," they noted, "and her husband [Councilmember Peter Brown] voted to condemn the patch of land." To repeat -- The Houston Way is more about making things happen than declarations!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/21/09 11:20 PM | Comments (3)

Letter writer Andrew Prieditis visits with blogHOUSTON

While catching up on the Chron letters page back in August, we ran across a writer (Andrew Prieditis) who managed to have two letters published in one week, a violation of the newspaper's stated letters policy. One of those letters was published in multiple newspapers across the country, with Prieditis claiming to be from the hometown of each newspaper. We discovered that Prieditis had published such letters all over the world, and wrote it up in this post (which was picked up by Romenesko, and led to other people looking into Prieditis and his letter writing).

At the time, we emailed several addresses we found for Prieditis to try to secure an interview. We finally heard back from Prieditis, and this is the Q&A we conducted via email. Of interest to local readers is his admission that the Chronicle never attempted to contact him to verify any of his information. The unprofessional and unresponsive newspaper ignored our questions about their letters policy at the time, and our recent followup questions (just as it ignores our legitimate corrections requests), but let it be noted that we did ask for comment. Here is our interview with Prieditis.

BH: It appears you lived for some time in the Germantown, MD area here in the states, but recent reports suggest you're in Australasia now. Could you tell me what place is truly "home" for you at the moment?

AP: Sure. Hamilton, New Zealand is currently where I reside.

BH: Why did you claim to be from the home cities of all those different newspapers?

AP: I usually put my address local to the newspaper in question to maximize the chance of being published. I've found that, as a general rule, if I were to put my actual address, I'd stand a lower chance of being published than if I were a local. Also, I just don't want to take any risks of not being published. Being published is really the big thing.

[Read More]

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/21/09 12:10 PM | Comments (3)

15 September 2009

Rice Prof gives good grades to SAFEclear program he helped design

In today's Chronicle, Carolyn Feibel reports on a study by Bob Stein (Houston's expert on everything) that found a correlation between SAFEclear response times and a reduction in traffic accidents:

Houston's mandatory towing program has continued to reduce crashes on the city's freeways, according to a city-commissioned study released Monday.

[snip]

“It makes the program look exceptionally effective,” said Bob Stein, a Rice University professor who co-authored the study with Tim Lomax of the A&M Texas Transportation Institute. (Stein's wife works for the White administration as a City Council agenda director.)

Cory Crow offers (tongue-in-cheek?) congratulations to the Chronicle for identifying Stein's wife (something that is not always done by the newspaper).

However, we would have preferred that the newspaper identify Stein as one of the architects of the SAFEclear program, a relevant fact reported previously by Rad Sallee for the Chronicle.

Helping design a program for the City of Houston and THEN being commissioned by the city to study its effectiveness is a pretty good gig!

Come to think of it, it's not unlike mayoral staffer Anthony Hall approving various expenditures by Richard Vacar at the Houston Airport System, and later overseeing the investigation of the same when Vacar's mysterious departure raised questions.

That's how the connected class rolls in Houston. We like to call it The Houston Way.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/15/09 09:57 PM | Comments (3)

[Previous 20 Entries]

SITE MENU

+Home
+About
+Archives/Categories
+BH Commentary (RSS)
+Bloggers
+Blogroll
+Contact Us
+Donate
+Forum
+Local News Headlines
+Syndication
+Twitter

WEATHER/TRAFFIC

(local traffic via TranStar)

ACTIVE TOPICS

City's Inspector General quits, suggests strengthening the office

Chron nails quasi-governmental agency behaving badly

Sheriff Garcia's media flack tries to intimidate law firm, fails

Ready-fire-aim: Houston ready to regulate auto repair shops

The threads above are the most recently active in the blogHOUSTON comments (RSS).

LOCAL BLOG TALK

Feed temporarily unavailable.

This section is regularly updated with posts from local bloggers who add to the blogversation about Houston media, politics, and life.

WHERE'S MAYOR WHITE?

Thank you

THE TIME IS NOW!

Vote today & spread the word

Today is Election Day!

Houston mayor Bill White has been very busy of late running for a Senate seat that isn't even available yet, leaving the city on autopilot. Fortunately, his campaign staff keeps us up to speed on his travels outside of Houston.

Please check out our new Local News Headlines page.

14 May 2011

Bazan: Is Houston City Hall haunted by ghost of Lee P. Brown?

23 April 2010

Brutus: Unequal and deceptive -- The great water rate heist of 2010 (updated)

24 October 2009

Katz: A way to get Houston's police chief out of mayoral politics

17 October 2009

HPD Withdraws From Immigration Screening

15 October 2009

KTRK: HPD Crime Lab looks for outside help to clear its case backlog

14 October 2009

Texas Watchdog: Senior county attorney official resigns amidst ethics queries

13 October 2009

Bloomberg: Souring stadium bond deal could squeeze area taxpayers

11 October 2009

Bill White's 9 Steps to Financial Freedom (#4)

10 October 2009

Chron: METRO bigwigs, light-rail contractors really like Gene Locke (updated)

08 October 2009

Houston's version of "trust but verify?"

04 October 2009

Chron reports on years-long crime-lab backlog; Mayor White is concerned

01 October 2009

Houblog analyzes the coming water-bill increases

Examiner: Trees return to Kirby

30 September 2009

Texas Watchdog investigates adventures in no-bid contracting, METRO-style

28 September 2009

Chron returns to topic of police shootings

26 September 2009

Bill White's 9 Steps to Financial Freedom? (#2)

23 September 2009

Tyler Cowen and commenters address Houston, zoning, and land-use restrictions

21 September 2009

Shay: Council turf battle over NASA?

Letter writer Andrew Prieditis visits with blogHOUSTON

15 September 2009

Rice Prof gives good grades to SAFEclear program he helped design

Buy Viagra Online