17 December 2006
Interesting perspectives
Here are two interesting perspectives I ran across today:
1) Loren Steffy advises Continental's Larry Kellner to forget about merging with United.
and
2) Tom Kirkendall checks in on the University of Houston's ambitious master plan.
Feel free to discuss.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/17/06 10:10 PM |
St. Arnold's, other microbrewers press for direct sales
Yesterday, the San Antonio Express-News posted a story on an effort spearheaded by Houston's St. Arnold's brewery and supported by other microbreweries in Texas to ease state laws that restrict direct distribution of their brews. Here's an excerpt:
Texas' five microbreweries have teamed up to lobby the Legislature next year to make their beer more available to the consumer and ensure the survival of their businesses.
They want the same privilege that lawmakers gave to Texas wineries in 2005: selling directly to consumers where the beverage is made. If they get their wish, the breweries would be able to sell up to 5,000 barrels of their lagers and ales a year, such as at the end of tours or keg sales from their docks.
"It would be so great at the end of a brewery tour to sell them a six-pack," said St. Arnold Brewing Co. founder Brock Wagner. The Saturday tours of St. Arnold's Houston brewery routinely draw 100 to 200 people.
"The end result would be a huge boon for microbreweries," said Wagner, who is preparing to spend a lot of time in Austin to make the small brewers' voices heard. "It creates a connection between the customer and the brewery."
The Houston Chronicle chose to run a condensed version of the story from their sister Hearst daily. Perhaps there were just no local reporters who could be spared to cover Houston's own St. Arnold's.
The Express-News version of the story also links to the St. Arnold Goes to Austin blog, which is documenting the group's efforts to press its case in Austin. Houston and Texas blog readers may recognize one of their bloggers, Evan (of Perry vs World), who is assisting the St. Arnold's people.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/17/06 08:58 PM |
Friend of Bill no substitute for diligent oversight
Back on December 6, the White Administration had a big press blitz to announce its plans to remodel certain "affordable housing" apartment complexes in town.
The Editorial LiveJournalists (aka Mrs. White) were a little slow to praise their man's latest initiative, but they finally got around to it yesterday:
The program is dubbed "apartments to standard." Interim city housing director David Mincberg makes the case that upgrading these acres of apartment blocks will attract more stable tenants, reduce crime and spark new business development. If successful, the program could strengthen the tax base and bring higher tax collections, which would provide new revenues for further infrastructure improvements in the same way that former Mayor Bob Lanier's "neighborhoods to standard" program helped revitalize the city core through better street lighting, sidewalks and the like.
The improvements need not be a giveaway that rewards neglectful landlords. City officials are considering making loans on favorable terms to eligible owners. Another tactic calls for the city to arrange for private or nonprofit developers to purchase and renovate apartment projects.
However the plan is structured, it must receive careful oversight to ensure that it does not join the ranks of past city housing projects that have crashed in embarrassments of wasteful spending, fraud and mismanagement. Mincberg has had significant success with his private sector real estate ventures. His appointment to this housing post brings a measure of confidence that such a large-scale, publicly funded apartment renovation plan can achieve its goals.
Why? Because he's a Friend of Bill?
We're all too familiar with the way these sorts of well-intentioned programs have tended to be plagued by fraud, cronyism, and corruption in the past. Let's hope the city's watchdog media and elected officials help to keep this program cleaner.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/17/06 08:29 PM |
Mayor White wants counties to pass smoking bans, too
Kristen Mack's Friday column about Mayor White's agenda for the next state legislative session included this:
The city also is likely to push for expanding counties' powers to regulate smoking in public places.
White has said Houston's smoking ban, which will expand to bars in September, will be more effective if counties also enact such measures.
This also would keep city establishments from losing business to smoking-permitted venues just outside city limits.
Is Mayor White worried about Houston establishments losing business due to the smoking ban? I don't recall that being a part of the debate, from his end!
Now Houston's mayor wants to influence counties to pass smoking bans as well, so as to limit any business losses Houston establishments might incur. But in a 2005 Chronicle story on the first, less-restrictive smoking ban Council passed, Mayor White said:
"Today council acted decisively to make more of Houston smoke-free," White said after the 9-4 vote. "This is Texas, where we do balance freedoms."
It seems to me there's a balance when surrounding counties allow smoking, as opposed to Houston which doesn't. Houston-area residents and visitors get to exercise their freedom to choose which restaurant or bar they'll patronize.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/17/06 04:52 PM |
Chron, mayor agree Houston benefits from annexation deal
You'll recall that state Senator John Whitmire recently said, "Residents of The Woodlands enjoy the golden goose of Houston. They get the benefits of working here during the day and then going back to their comfortable, homogenous, bedroom communities at night."
In an editorial today, Mayor White acknowledges it's actually the other way around:
As Mayor Bill White told the Chronicle editorial board last week, The Woodlands is no longer a bedroom community. The master-planned development draws more workers than it sends out and is about to get its own law enforcement organization. For these and other reasons, the agreement to free The Woodlands from the threat of annexation by Houston is a benefit to both communities.
[snip]
Although Houston would give up new tax revenue, of the two entities, Houston might be the deal's greater beneficiary. The Woodlands is 27 miles from downtown. Houston would incur high costs were it required to provide parks, libraries and police and fire protection. In the first years, these costs would exceed any new tax revenue.
At the moment, Houston cannot hire and train enough police officers to replace retirees and keep pace with its own population growth. Annexing The Woodlands and its 80,000 residents would place a needless and perhaps intolerable strain on public safety. That was the case when Houston annexed the Kingwood subdivision in 1996.
Forgoing annexation of The Woodlands, Houston avoids costs and acquires up to $60 million for parks and mass transit benefiting the region.
Yes. Houston IS the greater beneficiary of this deal, but, again, it's still the best deal The Woodlands could hope to gain under current conditions.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/17/06 04:05 PM |
16 December 2006
Stage Left Productions' "The Nutcracker"
Today a small group of us (including two very excited little girls) went to see "The Nutcracker" put on by Stage Left Productions at the Berry Center.
It was wonderful! The production is geared for children, but was fun and funny for the grownups, too. During some set changes, the actors would come out into the audience and interact with the children; in fact, there was quite a bit of audience participation throughout the show, and the kids loved it.
We especially enjoyed Kalob Martinez's performance(s). He played the dad, the Mouseking, the Snowking, Bittersweet and Bon-Bon. Talk about a character!
And I'd like to say a special thanks to the residents of Cy-Fair ISD for building the Berry Center (wink, wink). My goodness that's a BIG complex!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/16/06 06:40 PM |
They're "public" records when HPD says they are
KTRK-13 reports that HPD doesn't want the public looking at footage from its Tasers that actually have cameras installed at this point:
The Houston Police Department has video of officers firing Tasers, but they don't want you to see it just yet.
HPD wants to install cameras on all its Tasers. About 50 of the weapons already have the test equipment. We put in a request to see the Taser tapes. Instead, we got a copy of a letter sent to the Texas attorney general in which HPD asks to withhold the recordings.
"Those are active criminal investigations that are working their way through the process," said Lt. Thomas Jennings with the Houston Police Department. "So we don't want to do anything that jeopardizes the integrity of those investigations."
The tapes are considered public information and HPD says it will comply with the attorney general's ruling.
They did not add, "When we feel like it, perhaps." But they could have. HPD is not the most cooperative or forthcoming government agency when it comes to fulfilling public information requests in a timely manner.
We'd be really interested in seeing any HPD footage (Taser or patrol car) related to the shock-and-arrest of Houston Texan Fred Weary back in November. A judge later dismissed the charge of resisting arrest, saying the charge was not merited, which led activists to call for closer scrutiny of HPD's Taser program and policies.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/16/06 06:35 PM |
Serial rapist targets young men in east Harris County
The Chronicle's Cindy Horswell reports that area law-enforcement officials are looking for a serial rapist who has been targeting young men in east Harris County since April:
The serial rapist-robber began his attacks in east Harris County in April and his assaults have occurred every 30 to 60 days.
But what makes this case so unusual is that women are not the target. So far the five victims have all been young, white males in their late teens or early 20s, mostly students still living at their parents' homes.
The attacker is described as a light-skinned black male, clean-cut and nicely dressed, in his late 20s. He stands 5-foot-6 to 6 feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds.
Investigators have released a composite sketch, based on victims' recollections, and are working with the FBI to develop a profile to determine whether the crimes are racially motivated or what other forces might be driving them.
In some crime reporting, the Chronicle declines to publish potentially relevant information about at-large criminals in order to avoid what the reader representative has called "racial scorekeeping." Apparently, this is not like those instances.
The Chronicle reproduces a Baytown Police Department sketch of the perpetrator here. The report indicates that the FBI will be assisting with a profile.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/16/06 02:28 PM |
Carey: Local reporters "get shot at"
KRIV-26's Isiah Carey reports some local reporters were shot at yesterday!
But it was a simulation put on by the Harris County sheriff's department for local media, to help them understand the dangerous situations regularly handled by local law enforcement.
As Carey put it,
I have a new respect for law enforcement officers. We were given the chance to go through a simulated active crime scene where there was a crook in an office and we had to apprehend the suspect. It didn't go well. Ted Oberg from KTRK served as my partner and when it was all over we were both dead.
Not two of our favorite reporters! Nooo!
Seriously, this is a good move by the sheriff's department to invite reporters out for this simulation. I've long meant to go out on a ride-along with HPD just to get a closer look at what officers on the street are seeing, but this sort of exercise is good too, especially for people who do crime reporting on a regular basis.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING: KHOU-11, KUHF-88.7.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/16/06 01:45 PM |
Pakistan ambassador spins Afghanistan for Editorial LiveJournalists
Several days ago, the Editorial LiveJournalists reported on their interview with Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani:
While Pakistan frequently strays from elected government, gives women few rights and protections, and engages in a nuclear arms race with India, the ambassador said there is one sin of which Pakistan is not guilty: supporting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Durrani admitted that Pakistan had supported the mujahedeen freedom fighters (as had the CIA) during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan also backed the fighters when they became the Taliban as a means of stabilizing an Afghanistan torn apart by war lords.
That was apparently good enough for the Editorial LiveJournalists, who didn't press the issue.
Also several days ago, the New York Times reported on this somewhat different assessment from Afghanistan's elected president:
In strikingly strong language, President Hamid Karzai warned Tuesday that a failure to bring peace to Afghanistan would destroy the whole region, and laid the blame squarely on neighboring Pakistan.
[snip]
Mr. Karzai charged that elements of the Pakistani government were still supporting Islamic militants, as they had in the past, and that if such sources of terrorism were not defeated, Afghans and international soldiers would continue to die.
“The state of Pakistan was supporting the Taliban, so we presume if there is still any Taliban, that they are still being supported by a state element,” he said.
“In Afghanistan we are fighting the symptoms of terrorism, not the roots of it,” he added. “We feel we should go to the sources of terrorism and fight it there, or we’ll keep losing men, Afghan and international, in a vicious circle.”
The charge that Pakistan is supporting extremists to destabilize Afghanistan is an old and contentious one between the nations. The Pakistani intelligence agency has long used Islamic militant groups as a tool to press rival governments in Afghanistan and India.
Today Pakistan says it has ceased that support, though evidence is mounting that hundreds of suicide bombers and other militants — from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia — are being recruited and trained in Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afghan border.
Recall that some time ago, Editorial LiveJournalist and apparent hothead Veronica Bucio rudely called the U.S. Attorney General a liar to his face over a matter of his family's background during one of the LiveJournalist sessions. She (apparently) didn't pull out that rude stunt for the ambassador's assertions about his country's involvement in Afghanistan (whether passive or active), although it might have been nice to see the Editorial LiveJournalists at least challenge his spin instead of printing it uncritically.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/16/06 12:48 PM |
Red light camera tickets are mailed from Arizona
The Chron's Alexis Grant notes this Wrap Up tidbit:
Drivers ticketed for running red lights at camera-monitored intersections in Houston are sometimes surprised that the tickets are mailed to them not from the city, but from Arizona.
That's because the notices are sent by American Traffic Solutions Inc., the Mesa, Ariz.-based company that runs Houston's camera system.
Violators' payments also go out of state, to a post office box in Ohio, because American Traffic Solutions' payment-processing partner, U.S. Bank, is headquartered in Cincinnati. So drivers who choose not to pay the $75 fine online or contest the violation must send a check or money order payable to the city of Houston, but destined for a Cincinnati address.
U.S. Bank then deposits the money in a city of Houston account, said ATS chief executive officer Jim Tuton.
"Most people are accustomed to sending payments to various locations for payment processing," he said.
All collections go to the city, which pays ATS as much as $5,000 per month per camera.
The city has 20 red-light cameras.
Houston sure has developed some Arizona connections, hasn't it?
Dan Patrick (KSEV-700) was interviewing one of the Kubosh brothers last week (I didn't catch which one) who said that City Controller Annise Parker reported to Council back in November that the red light camera ticket payment rate was 11%. It'd be interesting to know what the percentage is now.
As we've noted before, since the city has changed the red light running-standard to a civil offense at intersections with cameras, the city's only recourse to force payment is to send non-payments to a collection agency. Kubosh said it's unclear whether or not credit agencies will be willing to put those disputes on a person's credit report, with only a camera picture as evidence.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/16/06 09:16 AM |
15 December 2006
Keep an eye out for 790's sports van!
The Chronicle's sports media guy David Barron posts the following to his blog:
This may sound like a radio station engaging in promotional hype, but KBME (790 AM) talk show host Carl Dukes swears it's true.
Dukes says that station employees prepared a 50-foot by 75-foot banner reading "Carr Must Go" to be signed by Texans fans who support the contention that the Texans need to replace quarterback David Carr.
Before employees could take to the road with the banner, however, Dukes says someone stole the station van with the banner inside.
"This is like high school, where your mascot gets stolen," Dukes said. "How do you steal a vehicle that has '790 The Sports Animal' on it and think you'll get away with it?"
As of today, the vehicle, and the banner, remain at large.
Dukes is kidding, right?
Surely he realizes we're short hundreds of police officers and crime is soaring. We've grown pretty accustomed to brazen crime under MayorWhiteChiefHurtt.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/15/06 08:39 PM |
Grammarians wepted as well
Some interesting gaffes made it by the Chron editors today.
A reader passed along this line from a Chron story early this morning:
"It's been seven years, so I can deal with a few more hours," said Amezaquita as he and his relatives wepted and hugged in the early morning fog outside the Harris County Inmate Processing Center on Commerce in downtown Houston.
We wepted a little bit too when we saw that in print.
Then there's this headline:
We were expecting one of those periodic stories in which MSM features reporters talk about blogs. Alas, it is a story about a new book of places readers "gotta" see.
It's Christmas holiday time, so maybe the editors have been hitting the hard egg nog.
UPDATE: "Wepted" has been corrected. No need for thanks, guys. We're happy to help with your routine copy editing! :)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/15/06 08:00 AM |
14 December 2006
More problems at METRO's park and pillage lots
A couple of weeks ago, Anne Linehan noted that METRO finally had installed surveillance equipment at its Park and Pillage lots, nearly two years after METRO police chief Tom Lambert ended human security at those lots and crime predictably shot up.
Richard Connelly reports in the latest Houston Press that the bad guys have found yet a new way to pillage METRO's parking lots:
Metro's Park & Ride lots have had their troubles with security. The transit agency formed a Task Force to study the problem at one point, so you know they're serious.
And a few weeks ago they put out a press release (another sign of a problem being taken very, very seriously) that solemnly declared: "Safety at Metro's Park & Ride lots is taking a quantum leap forward with the ongoing installation of the agency's new high-tech security system."
The "high-tech" system consists of...cameras. Which sounds high-tech for the 1840s. But that wasn't all: "The multifaceted system also features call boxes for patrons who have an emergency or who spot suspicious activities, a public address system, and entrance gates that can be closed at a moment's notice." Space-age entrance gates that can be closed!! The Computer Age has arrived!!
Sadly, not everything's going so well. Metro announced it has a new crime problem at the lots: criminals are stealing the pay phones.
Three such phones were stolen in October, and subsequent investigations revealed eight others have been taken, says Ray Wathen, a Crime Stoppers spokesman.
Connelly has more details here.
Figuring in the cost of the surveillance system and the costs to METRO and to drivers of the vandalism and thefts, I wonder how much money METRO has "saved" at this point by ditching the human security at the Park and Pillage lots?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/14/06 08:02 AM |
13 December 2006
Outage
The server that hosts blogHOUSTON crashed a bit earlier.
Everything seems to have been restored.
Sorry for the down time!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/13/06 10:48 PM |
12 December 2006
Continental, United talking merger?
The Chronicle is reporting that Continental and United are in the early stages of merger talks:
Continental and United airlines are in preliminary talks regarding a possible merger, a source in New York familiar with the talks said today.
Talks between the two big carriers have been under way since before US Airways made a hostile bid for Delta Air Lines several weeks ago, the source said today.
The Chicago Tribune and Houston Business Journal are reporting similar information. Unsurprisingly, the New York Times covers the story with much more depth.
BLOGVERSATION: Houston's Clear Thinkers.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/12/06 10:43 PM |
City tows legally parked vehicles (followup and rejoinder)
Remember a couple of weeks ago when KTRK-13's Miya Shay posted on her blog about a car that got towed because of the city's parking-spot-rental program, and we wondered if Parking Management busybody Liliana Rambo read it?
Well, it seems as if both Rambo and someone at the Chronicle reads Shay's blog, as the intrepid Hearst daily ran a similar story on Monday. It wasn't entirely a copycat story, though, as Ms. Rambo had to weigh in:
When a space is rented, a parking enforcement officer puts a no-parking bag over the meter the night before.
Spaces are free overnight, but paid parking resumes at 7 a.m.
So if a space is bagged during the evening after a car is already parked there, the driver is expected to move the car before 7 the next morning.
A local TV station reported recently that a driver returned to his car one morning to find it had been towed because parking enforcement officers had turned the metered space into a rented one overnight.
Rambo said the driver failed to return to his vehicle by 7 a.m., and his vehicle was towed about 9 a.m.
Had the meter not been bagged, he would have been ticketed for failing to pay the meter instead of being towed for parking illegally.
"That person was parked there more than 14 hours," she said. "You will not get your vehicle towed because we happen to bag a parking meter."
The Houston Police Department calls for a tow once it's requested by the person who rented the space, Rambo said.
That's nice of the Parking Management busybody to clear that up two weeks after the fact, but that's not exactly the situation that Shay described on her blog. Indeed, in a rather pointed post, Shay followed up on the matter yesterday:
Hey, this is a blog! It has a name! Or, heck, just write ABC 13! On top of that, the vague reference was inaccurate. I did not write that the meter was bagged overnight. In fact, there was a witness who told me the meter was not bagged until that morning. I know it's supposed to be bagged the night before, but we're all suppose[d] to do a lot of things.
Maybe in two more weeks, the Chron and Ms. Rambo will have another followup!
Anyway, just to make sure we don't get on Shay's bad side, once more that's Miya Shay's KTRK-13 Political Blog. ;)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/12/06 10:09 PM |
Metro advises rider to board bus that doesn't exist
Three years ago Kevin Whited began noting that Metro planned to cut bus routes as part of its plan to feed riders onto the Danger Train.
Monday's Move It! column reminded us of it:
"I bought a Metro stored value card thinking it was a better deal than carrying cash," says investments executive Mark Vance, who knows good deals.
"But something's wrong," Vance said. "Seems it is only good for one-way travel."
Vance takes a morning bus to the Texas Medical Center and gets a transfer to MetroRail to reach his office downtown.
"The problem is the return trip," he said. "There is no way to use the card at the rail platform ticket dispenser." Metro advised him to board a bus downtown just to get a transfer, and then hop on the train for his outbound trip.
But since MetroRail began operating, Vance said, there are no longer buses on Main. Catch-22. We've written variations on this theme before.
Gosh, that's mighty inconvenient, isn't it? And what's Metro's response?
"There is no solution at this time to the problem, which is one of many reasons why we are going to the 'smart' Q Card," said Metro spokeswoman Raequel Roberts. Q Cards will be loaded up with value like a toll road EZ Tag, then tapped against card readers on the rail platforms to deduct the fare.
Yeah, Metro's losing sleep over this rider's predicament, but it fits Metro's pattern of customer service. By the way, the Q card system won't be operational until February 4th. Unless it gets postponed again.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/12/06 06:34 PM |
Capture the Christmas spirit at Zilkha Hall this weekend
And now for a little change of pace: If you’re searching for an alternative to the annual performance of The Nutcracker and still want to capture the Christmas spirit, consider the ballet performance of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitor.” The ballet, performed by the Sandra Organ Dance and choreographed by James Sewell, tells the story of a young boy, Amahl, and his widowed mother who meet three kings. The kings are engaged in a journey to find a rather now-famous star. Classic and contemporary dance are combined with American Sign Language to retell the story. You can enjoy this modern one-hour rendition Friday and Saturday (December 15 and 16) at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts in Zilkha Hall. Performances are at 2:00 pm and at 7:30pm.
Posted by Vikk Simmons @ 12/12/06 04:25 PM |
11 December 2006
DeLay joins the blogosphere
As various blogs noted earlier, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has now joined the blogosphere.
The Hill posted a bit more background on the blog effort today.
There's no word whether DeLay blogs in his pajamas, though.
UPDATE (12-12-2006): Houston Bicyclist and media go-to guy Bob Stein makes an appearance in the Chronicle's coverage of DeLay's new blog. Stein, some may remember, was involved in that methodologically flawed DeLay poll conducted for the Chronicle earlier this year. Interestingly, Stein and crew were dropped from Chron polling this fall, and replaced by Zogby.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/11/06 09:11 PM |
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