27 April 2008
METRO extends deadline to transfer balances to Q Cards
The Chronicle's Rad Sallee reports that METRO has extended the deadline to transfer balances from the old stored-value cards to the new Q Cards:
Some Metropolitan Transit Authority riders who had unused balances when their stored-value fare cards expired March 31 will be able to transfer them to new Q Cards despite missing the deadline.
At Thursday's monthly board meeting, several members said users of the old cards ought not forfeit their unused balances just because they were late making the switch.
[snip]
Not everyone will qualify. Here are the guidelines:
• Riders must bring their stored value card. No transfers will be made if it has been lost or thrown away.
• No cash refunds. Unused balances will be loaded onto a Q Card.
• Customers who received stored value cards from employers or other ride sponsors should contact their sponsor, not Metro. This applies whether the sponsor provided the card free of charge or at a discount.[snip]
No new deadline has been set, but [METRO CFO Louise] Richman said Metro wants to complete the changeover as soon as possible.
In an earlier post, we had suggested that the cutoff was a little abrupt. Kudos to METRO for reconsidering, and extending the deadline.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/27/08 10:13 PM |
Continental calls off merger talks with United
The New York Times reports that Continental Airlines has ended merger discussions with United Airlines:
Continental Airlines said Sunday that it had abandoned merger talks with United Airlines and was planning to remain an independent carrier, a blow to lengthy efforts by United to find a merger partner.
Continental’s decision, announced by the airline Sunday afternoon, will change the complex game of musical chairs that the airline industry is playing after the merger announcement last week by Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines.
Continental’s move was a stunning development for United’s parent, UAL, which had been negotiating in expectation of reaching a deal by late this week. As recently as Friday, it looked as though Continental, based in Houston, and United, based outside Chicago, were on the way to reaching a merger agreement.
Continental decided to drop the discussions after UAL announced worse-than-expected earnings, which sent shares falling last week.
Continental's news release is available here.
As of posting, Chron.com hadn't managed to post this important news -- but hey, we're sure there are plenty of boobie pics and the like!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/27/08 05:02 PM |
Sheriff's office won't appeal email decision
Back on April 8, we noted that KTRK-13 had won another legal round in its effort to obtain emails from the Sheriff's office via public information request, but that the sheriff was considering an appeal of the decision.
KTRK reports that the Sheriff has decided against an appeal:
Harris County taxpayers will have to foot the bill for the sheriff's deletion of hundreds of thousands of emails.
The sheriff decided not to appeal a judge's decision that the emails should be made public. The lawsuit was filed by 13 Undercover reporter Wayne Dolcefino just days after the mass deletion of government records.
The tab for taxpayers comes to more than $30,000.
The emails have to be restored and provided for inspection by Channel 13 for our continuing investigation of the sheriff's office.
That should make for interesting reading!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/27/08 04:11 PM |
City considers heavy-trash changes
We recently noted that the city was considering revisions to the recent changes (read: cuts) it made to heavy trash collection.
Carolyn Feibel reports on some of the details of the possible changes:
Houston could offer citywide recycling of "wood waste" such as tree limbs, stumps and brush as soon as this fall.
The program could divert more than 90,000 tons of trash from landfills, saving taxpayers $1.7 million a year. But residents would have to sacrifice half of their heavy-trash pickup days.
City Council could vote on the proposal in the next few weeks. Under the plan being considered by the Solid Waste Management Department "wood waste" pickup would take place on the scheduled heavy-trash day, every other month. Heavy trash — such as furniture, appliances and some building materials — and "wood waste" would alternate months.
[snip]
The wood will be diverted to a recycling service, LETCO Living Earth Technology Company. The company will chip the wood and manufacture compost, mulch, potting soils and bedding mixes. The Council first must approve a $1.9 million appropriation for three years.
[snip]
LETCO has been recycling Christmas trees for the city of Houston for 17 years. It conducted a six-month pilot program in select neighborhoods for the wood-waste pickup.
LETCO will charge the city $12.45 a ton for the wood. That would save taxpayer money, since the city does not own a landfill and must pay tipping fees of $32 per ton to dump its trash. Officials estimate wood waste makes up almost 30 percent of the solid waste generated by the city.
It sounds like LETCO is set to make out well on this deal -- but is it the best deal for the city? Perhaps subsequent reporting will shed further light on the details.
Councilmember Jolanda Jones says the reduced service is a problem:
"I don't think every other month is sufficient," she said. "On the north side, and especially in Acres Homes, they need more rather than less heavy-trash pickup."
Actually, it seems like many Houstonians liked the old monthly heavy-trash pickup -- and that the "new-and-improved" service will still represent a reduction in service.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/27/08 04:03 PM |
DA's office rejects plea request from illegal-immigrant cop killer
The Chronicle's Brian Rogers reports that the DA's office has rejected a plea request from Juan Leonardo Quintero, the illegal immigrant who shot and killed HPD officer Rodney Johnson in 2006:
Just days before his death penalty trial, attorneys for Juan Leonardo Quintero said he has offered to plead guilty and be sentenced to life without parole for the 2006 shooting of Houston police officer Rodney Johnson — a deal prosecutors have rejected.
Quintero's attorney, Danalynn Recer, noted in an e-mail Friday that the 34-year-old illegal immigrant confessed to killing Johnson and cooperated with authorities. She also said Quintero regrets the toll his actions have taken on Johnson's family, as well as on his own family.
"He is profoundly ashamed and deeply sorry for the pain he has inflicted on them," wrote Recer, founder and executive director of a Houston anti-death penalty organization, Gulf Region Advocacy Center.
Prosecutors on Saturday said the Harris County District Attorneys office has given the defense an opportunity to submit all mitigating evidence and, after reviewing that evidence, prosecutors will continue to seek the death penalty.
"We trust the judgment of 12 citizens to determine the appropriate punishment for the man who executed Officer Johnson," said Assistant District Attorney Denise Bradley.
Bradley said Quintero is expected to plead not guilty by reason of insanity when he is formally arraigned at the opening of the trial Monday in state District Judge Joan Campbell's court.
Because Quintero was in the country illegally at the time of the shooting, the case has become a rallying cry for those advocating stricter immigration enforcement.
The decision by the DA's office was almost certainly more influenced by the fact that a cop was killed than that the cop was killed by an illegal immigrant.
The Chronicle does inform that anti-death-penalty activists are expected to rally around the cop-killer:
Defense attorneys have worked to bury the prosecution in paper before the trial, which is expected to last one month. The team is expected to have access to national experts who oppose the death penalty.
Of course! Maybe the experts will include Kathryn Kase, an attorney and anti-death-penalty activist (who just happens to be married to Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen). Maybe we can even look forward to an installment of the Chron Eye for the Illegal-Immigrant Cop-Killer Guy!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/27/08 03:35 PM |
26 April 2008
How sweet it's been
Earlier this week, the Chronicle's Fran Blinebury penned a nice profile of longtime Rockets' announcers Gene Peterson and Jim Foley, both of whom will be retiring at the end of the season.
Gene Peterson has always been my favorite "voice" of the local teams -- so much so that it's really hard to imagine anyone but Peterson doing Rockets' games. Depending on tonight's outcome (it's not looking good at the moment), we may have only one more installment of Peterson's sweet announcing. It's too bad injuries and the Utah Floppers are likely to prevent a deep playoff run, which would be a nicer sendoff than another first-round exit.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/26/08 11:44 PM |
Chief Lambert goes to Washington
The Chron's Washington, D.C. bureau finally found something to do: METRO Police Chief Tom Lambert traveled to our nation's capital to tell Congress that transit agencies need more money to fight transit terrorism:
Houston's transit system police chief urged Congress on Friday to boost security assistance to cities to combat the threat of terrorist attacks on public transportation that have claimed 452 lives in three foreign cities since 2004.
Communities such as Houston need more money and greater spending flexibility to protect the tens of millions of passengers nationwide who board subways, commuter rail trains, buses and ferries each day, Thomas Lambert, the chief of police for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, told a House Homeland Security subcommittee.
"Our transit systems are open to the public with many access points," Lambert said. "One can clearly see that our transit systems, left unsecured, are viable and attractive targets for terrorists."
Chief Lambert has covered Houston's 7.5 miles worth of "many access points" with METRO's elite counterterrorism unit. Bus riders, however, are still encouraged to protect themselves.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/26/08 09:20 AM |
Now the Dynamo is hitting up TSU for money
So says this little blurb on KHOU-11:
Texas Southern University and the Houston Dynamo are in negotiations to share the new Dynamo stadium.
TSU would contribute money to the building project in exchange for rights to use it during their football season.
Major League Soccer is threatening to move the Dynamo to another city if a deal is not reached on a new stadium.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/26/08 07:25 AM |
25 April 2008
KHOU: Precinct 4 deputies altering paperwork, not patrolling neighborhoods
Whoa. KHOU-11's Jeremy Rogalski has spent quite a bit of time uncovering some of Precinct 4 Constable's office shenanigans. It seems that homeowners associations pay quite a bit of money to get extra patrols from Constable Ron Hickman's deputies, but the time spent patrolling contracted areas is often not what ends up being reported in departmental paperwork:
More than 80 homeowners associations and municipal utility districts have signed a contract with Constable Hickman’s office for extra security. They generally pay around $55,000 per year per deputy to patrol their neighborhoods. Deputies are supposed to spend 70 percent of their average monthly time in those neighborhoods or “contracts,” with the rest spent outside in the general Precinct 4 district.
But the 11 News Defenders discovered in some cases, documents were altered and falsified to make it appear deputies were spending more time in those neighborhoods than they actually were. Even worse, former and current Precinct 4 employees say the deputies were directed to do it.
“It looks like someone took liquid paper and whited it out,” Holden said after 11 News showed her some records for the MUD 191 contract deputy, where she lives.
Those records show how daily activity sheets submitted for approval were altered to make it appear the deputy was spending more time in the contract neighborhood than he actually was.
During the month of July 2007, the deputy showed in one daily activity sheet that he had worked 253 minutes -- nearly four hours -- outside the MUD 191 area he was contracted to patrol. But after a supervisor reviewed that document, the time mysteriously was changed to just three minutes, making it look as if he barely left the subdivision. The same thing happened with the activity sheet for the deputy’s next day — 234 minutes away from the contract neighborhood was cut nearly in half to 132. The pattern continued on other days as well — 271 minutes cut down to just 51, and 197 minutes changed to 64.
The end result? The changes made it look like the MUD neighborhood got more protection than it did that month.
“It’s very alarming,” Holden said. “We shouldn’t have to police the police,” she added.
Turns out, Holden said during this very same period, many of her neighbors were hit by thieves.
“We had homes broken into, and I always wondered what made them that comfortable to take that many items,” Holden said.
Constable Hickman's response?
[...]until it’s brought to my attention so I can address it properly, how am I supposed to know?”
But it would be hard not to know, according to one former Precinct 4 employee, who asked not to be identified.
“It’s agency wide, it’s common practice,” the former employee said. “They’re told in their training that they will be altering documents.”
There's much more in KHOU's story. Hickman had a challenger in the primary a while back, but Hickman won.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/25/08 05:08 AM |
24 April 2008
KTRK: How accurate are HPD's crime stats?
KTRK-13's Tom Abrahams reports that there are more problems with reporting of crime statistics at HPD:
How safe is your neighborhood? You might not be getting the whole story from police, when it comes to certain types of crimes that are going on.
Eyewitness News has spent five months looking into the way the Houston Police Department codes and reports crimes. We asked for an explanation to what we found a week ago, and sent the department copies of what we found. As of tonight we've not gotten any explanation, though the chief did talk about the issue in general.
On a stretch of road a year ago, Houston Police Officer Eric Dargin is accused of stopping a woman and then sexually assaulting her. He's charged with the crime. Prosecutors say they have DNA evidence. His next court date is in June.
But if you check HPD's crime statistics, you won't find his case listed at all. You also won't find at least six other sexual assault cases in which the suspect was charged. And there are another eight listed as less violent crimes, calling into question the legitimacy of HPD's reported crime statistics.
[snip]
Eyewitness News also found 20 charged aggravated assaults that HPD coded as lesser crimes. While coding a crime is not a science, there are the Uniform Crime Reporting guidelines, called UCR, which tell officers to code the most serious crime if more than one is committed.
Are they always doing that? Is the reporting consistent? Without HPD statisticians answering our questions about specific cases, it's hard to know.
Here is Chief Hurtt's response to Abrahams' questions about the coding problems:
HPD Chief Harold Hurtt said, "(They're) as reliable as human beings are, I guess."
That's as helpful as ever. Thanks Chief Hurtt!
When KHOU-11's award-winning reporter Mark Greenblatt reported last year that HPD was underreporting murders, the response from Chief Hurtt (and his ghostblogger) was underwhelming, to say the least.
Maybe this time around, HPD will actually try to figure out these reporting problems, and will get the local media some answers. We do look forward to hearing from Chief Hurtt's ghostblogger, though (and maybe even Martha Montalvo, who is always entertaining!).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/24/08 11:12 PM |
Another Chronicle story missing facts
Mike Tolson gives us this Houston Chronicle piece about a convicted cop killer Anthony Haynes who is trying to play the race card to get out of his murder conviction. The centerpiece to this story is this one liner;
Federal courts have become increasingly sensitive to Texas defendants asserting race as a factor in jury selection.
However, two facts are not included in this story. This is how Mr. Tolson describes the murder of Houston Police Sergeant Kent Kinkaid;
The circumstances surrounding Kincaid's death were unusual. He was driving with his wife in his personal car when Haynes drove past him and appeared to toss something that hit and cracked his windshield. Kincaid, who was not in uniform, followed Haynes until he stopped. When Kincaid approached the car, he identified himself and reached behind him, supposedly for his badge. Haynes, the son of a Houston Fire Department arson investigator, then shot him with a pistol.
There are two problems with this: the first problem is that the object the convicted murderer tossed was a bullet. As stated, Sgt. Kinkaid's wife was in the car and watched Haynes shoot her husband. One of the paramedics on the scene told me his wife couldn't even remember her own name when they were trying to interview her; second, Haynes was in the middle of a robbery spree. Sgt. Kinkaid unfortunately stopped the man at the wrong time. I found a 2001 article that Tolson wrote about convicted murderer Anthony Haynes. Mr. Tolson titled it "Borderline Cases Raise Questions About Death Penalty." This is what Mr. Tolson wrote back then:
Once upon a time he was a model kid whose nickname was Sunshine. Now he frowns much of the time and is bitter over the recent events of his life. A couple of years on death row will do that to you.
Anthony Haynes has no one else to blame, of course. He didn't have to get involved with drugs or the dangerous crowd they often attract.
He did not have to participate in a brief robbery spree in May 1998.
And God knows he did not have to shoot police Sgt. Kent Kincaid. Drunk on the power of a gun and the arrogance of youth, he alone was responsible for his decision, and the series of bad decisions that led to it.
Of course, one is entitled to an anti-death penalty opinion; however, as usual, Chronicle reporters have taken the wrong "poster boy case" without giving its readers all the facts in order to make its point.
Posted by Jason @ 04/24/08 09:54 AM |
Judge Emmett to promote trade with India
At the Houston Politics blog, Liz Peterson notes that Harris County Judge Ed Emmett is beginning a ten-day trip to India to promote trade with Harris County. Accompanying him are officials from the Port of Houston, the GHP and the GHCVB. She includes this at the end:
By the way, Emmett says he's paying for most of his own expenses during the trip, including his airfare.
That's not something you see everyday! Good for Judge Emmett.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/24/08 04:56 AM |
23 April 2008
Council approves IAH fee, delays action on HPD helicopters
Last week, we wondered if Council might reconsider the big plans to expand Terminal B in light of airline industry merger mania. The answer, as reported by KHOU-11, is no:
Under a plan approved Wednesday by the Houston City Council, IAH will soon impose a $3 passenger facility fee if it’s approved by the FAA. Airport administrators said the approval process typically takes a few months.
Airlines would charge the fee when passengers book tickets that depart from or land at IAH. They would then pass the money on to the Houston Airport System. The funding would help pay for a $1.2 billion reconstruction of Terminal B and its parking garages.
KHOU also reports that Council today delayed action for a week on a plan to purchase new helicopters for HPD:
A proposal to buy six new choppers for roughly $17 million dollars was delayed a week on the request of Council Members Anne Clutterbuck and Pam Holm, each for different reasons.
Holm questioned whether the city needs to spend millions of dollars on relatively few vehicles, when there’s also a need for hundreds of new police cars and money to pay additional officers.
Clutterbuck said she is worried that purchasing six helicopters all at once will only create further problems for future administrations – because they would all presumably need to be replaced at the same time, ten years from now. She urged HPD and the city’s purchasing department to stagger such large purchases to avoid sudden changes in fleets.
[snip]
Currently at least one Houston Police Department helicopter is permanently grounded, and others can only fly during daylight hours. The two choppers the Department uses to train officers can only hold two people, can’t carry spotlights, and were purchased in 1975.
In fact, back in the 1970s at any given time, HPD had 16 helicopters ready to patrol. Today there are four.
This proposed purchase would bring that number up to 12.
In a city as large as ours, helicopters are an important policing tool, and HPD seems to have made a good case that it's time for significant fleet investment. Councilmember Holm is right, of course, that HPD also needs other equipment, not to mention funding to boost manpower. It's not clear, though, that it should be an either-or proposition. Policing is an essential service of government -- unlike trinkets. In a time of record revenues, the city should be able to fund essential services.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/23/08 10:39 PM |
22 April 2008
KHOU: Downtown fire station finally open
KHOU-11 reports that on Monday, Houston's only downtown fire station finally opened for business:
Some firefighters are gearing up for their first night in a new fire station.
Station 8 is located in the 1900 block of Louisiana in downtown Houston. It's the only fire station downtown.
Construction started in September 2006, and Monday was move-in day.
The station's opening was delayed a few times due to rainy weather and the discovery of underground chemical storage tanks.
As noted in an earlier post, two other downtown fire stations were vacated so that Tilman Fertitta and Les Alexander could have new playpens.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/22/08 11:05 PM |
21 April 2008
METRO balance transfer deadline raises questions
The Chronicle's Rad Sallee runs a sad story from a METRO patron who missed the transit organization's deadline for moving balances from the old stored value card to the Q card:
Karen Clark had a busy lunch hour on March 31, including a birthday and a doctor's appointment, so she put off a trip to a Metropolitan Transit Authority RideStore.
Unfortunately for her, it was the the last day that balances remaining on her stored-value fare cards from Metro could be transferred to a new Q Card.
The next morning, April Fools' Day, Clark received the traditional unpleasant surprise. After standing in line 45 minutes in the RideStore at 1001 Travis, she was told the transfer deadline had passed.
Three of her old cards, with a total of about $200 on them, had become as worthless as Cinderella's coach at midnight.
[The incident] raises an interesting legal question: When Metro sold the old cards, wasn't that an implicit promise to honor them until their balances were exhausted?
[snip]
We asked University of Houston law professor Richard Alderman, who specializes in consumer issues. This one, he said, is: "What were the terms of the contract when the cards were sold?"
Alderman said Clark may be out of luck "if there was something that said they were subject to change in X days' notice or expired at a certain time.
"But if people were led to believe they could use these for a reasonable period of time, such as six months or a year, then Metro could be in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act," he said. "Texas is a state where the fine print matters a lot."
Clark, who still has her old card, fished it out of her purse and read the fine print.
"This card is valid for payment of the base fare on all fixed route service until the value is used up," it reads.
The cutoff did seem a bit abrupt, even though METRO was forthcoming about it.
Here's an interesting question that the intrepid local media might want to investigate via public information request: Just how much money did METRO make from abandoned balances on the old stored value cards?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/21/08 10:16 PM |
20 April 2008
Adventures in "Ready! Fire! Aim!" governance
Two seemingly unrelated stories this week caught my eye, in terms of what they say about Houston's recent experiments in "Ready! Fire! Aim!" governance*:
First up is the news that the city's heavy-trash collection schedule must be reworked, since the previous (seemingly urgent!) reworking has created problems:
To save space in landfills, a city task force last year recommended reducing heavy trash pickup to once every three months and requiring that only yard waste and other recyclables be put out on the other monthly pickup days. Members of the group, including City Controller Annise Parker, pointed out that other large cities do not provide free monthly residential heavy trash collection.
That may be, but few other municipalities have our sprawling, unzoned neighborhoods that invite illegal dumping in vacant lots and along streets. After several months of experiments with reduced heavy trash service, the volume of resident complaints and accumulating trash and other debris along roadsides prompted Solid Waste Director Harry Hayes to reconsider his options.
Hayes says a common refrain from residents in the pilot project areas was that they agreed with the goal of increasing recycling, but that the new schedule imposed too long a delay. "They said, 'If you do it every other month, hey, I'm OK with that. I don't have to keep that old couch in the back of the house or garage for four months.' "The director expects to introduce the new pickup plan citywide in August or September.
What do you bet it will look somewhat more like the old plan (which was working just fine)? We can hope so.
Elsewhere, KHOU-11's Jeremy Desel took a closer look at the impact of Houston's recent floodway ordinance:
The Floodway Coalition of Houston didn't even exist before October of 2006. But they've been busy since the city of Houston passed Ordinance Chapter 19.
Its no-build provision for structures in a floodway overnight made thousands of properties virtually worthless.
"There is nobody (who) can buy it. That is the bottom line,” said [Realtor Marisa] Talty.
The Floodway Coalition commissioned a study by an appraisal company to try to put a number on the loss of value to both property owners and the city through loss taxable value.
What did it find?
That the city would lose $1.9 to $3.5 billion in property tax value.
On the low end, that would be like totally removing the City of La Porte from the tax rolls or the City of Bellaire's $2.5 billion tax base.
In fact, the loss to Houston could be bigger than the entire tax base of any city in Harris County except Pasadena.
It is an impact that means $38 to $70 million dollars in annual city tax revenue will be gone.
Neal Meyer has been on top of this story for some time now.
Unlike the first example in "Ready! Fire! Aim!" governance, this one may prove tougher to fix.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/20/08 10:42 PM |
Local busybody says too many of us are driving solo
Last week on METRO's blog, Mary Sit highlighted a recent op-ed in the Houston Chronicle by local bike enthusiast Peter Wang:
Peter Wang, a geophysicist in the oilfield services and a board member of the Citizens' Transportation Coalition, pointed out that with oil topping at $100 a barrel and an apparent recession shrinking our economy, we should consider carpooling or vanpooling if we have a regular office schedule.
Wang said he believes most of us don't do so because of socio-psychological reasons. We adhere to the lone cowboy image - especially here in Texas - and we want to drive alone into the sunset. But that, argued Wang, is not the way to build an efficient transportation system.
In a comment to the post, Wang expands his point in response to a question from Kevin Whited:
Kevin, I don't mean to imply steathily that single-occupant vehicles should be gotten rid of. I myself drive my SOV about 75 miles per week. But I will explicitly and publicly state that SOVs are very much over-used in our society, and this overuse creates lots of problems.
Basically, the current generation of Americans have given their hearts and minds over to the marketing people at the car companies. They really do want to be "Ford Tough" or whatever. They will acquire massive debt and waste all kinds of money and resources to implement the lifestyle that has been hypnotized into their brains.
What kind of lifestyle is it do be perpetually in debt, no cash flow, and no forseeable way to even continue in the current mode into the coming decades?
That's the nightmare we are living. We have to change.
What an astounding mindset.
Who determines what is overuse of single occupancy vehicles? What is the criterion? Why does Peter Wang get to say that everyone is in the grip of automaker marketing? Who is he to say that we all are in massive debt, and that we waste all kinds of money and resources on our lifestyles?
Hypnotized?? Is he serious?!
Who is he to determine what is an acceptable level of debt and cash flow? Does he propose government start monitoring our bank accounts? Does he have a crystal ball that tells him what will happen in coming decades.
Just because Peter Wang wants to ride a bike and use mass transit doesn't mean the majority of us want to. Most of us like to have control of our transportation. We like the freedom of being able to run errands when we want to, pick up the kids when we need to, meet friends for lunch when we like to. If our transportation becomes a hardship, then we will make adjustments.
This whole nanny-state mindset is what eats away at our freedoms, our liberties. For goodness sake, the government is going to mandate what kind of light bulbs we can buy in the future. And the light bulbs the government has chosen are more damaging to the environment, AND give some people headaches! But the decision has been made for us. Soon, no more choice.
If we want to change our driving habits and our lifestyles, then we will change them, but we shouldn't be forced to do so because someone else has set some arbitrary standards. Locally, the real nightmare will begin when Peter Wang and his like-minded friends start running things.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/20/08 07:03 PM |
Previously incarcerated illegal immigrant murders mother of five
By now, you're probably aware of the story of two illegal immigrants who went on a carjacking spree in Houston. The final attempt ended with the murder of a mother of five - she didn't want her car taken because her baby was in the back seat. Toward the end of the Chronicle's story we learn:
Escoto was taken into custody early Friday morning at the same complex on unrelated traffic charges.
"He's been cooperative," Denholm said.
Escoto, wearing a face mask due to a tuberculosis infection, was led from sheriff's offices, ducking from reporters who asked about Rios' whereabouts and why Davila was killed.
His only response was a one-finger gesture.
Escoto was arrested in September for trespassing and served 75 days in jail.
Rios was charged with possession of marijuana in May 2007 and served 10 days in jail. In June 2007 he was charged with criminal mischief and failure to identify himself to a police officer and served 30 days in jail.
Were those previous run-ins with the law at the city-level or county-level? For years the city of Houston has had an unofficial sanctuary policy in place. It was modified in late 2006 following the outcry over the murder of an HPD officer by an illegal alien. Harris County's position isn't clear, except for this story from earlier this year:
Harris County would be the first law enforcement agency in Texas to receive training from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, joining 34 departments from Florida to California that have undergone the training. Thomas announced Friday that he authorized his department to pursue the program.
The training would give employees the ability to interview inmates more thoroughly about their immigration status and authorize them to detain those in the country illegally.
Bottom line is these two thugs had previously been in police custody, and it appears they were not identified as being in this country illegally. After serving their time, they were let go, free to terrorize local citizens, and in this case, murder a mother of five.
Is it time for that debate yet?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/20/08 12:36 PM |
18 April 2008
METRO pays Carol Alvarado $150 per hour!
Right after we learned (permanently no longer a councilwoman) Carol Alvarado had been hired by METRO as a consultant, Tom Bazan filed a TxPIA to find out all the details.
I don't think he's heard back from METRO yet (shocker!!!), but Matt Stiles got a response to his TxPIA request:
Turns out the deal, a copy of which I just obtained under the Texas Public Information Act today, specifically excludes Alvarado from representing METRO before city officials, including Mayor White and City Council members. By the way, the contract is dated five days after Alvarado left the city.
But the agency can ask her for help with various other local agencies, including the Houston-Galveston Area Council and the Gulf Coast Freight Rail District.
The terms? They pay $150 an hour, with a maximum of 600 hours per year. So far she's been paid about $6,000, METRO officials say.
So while Carol was boo-hooing that the city was going to be deprived of her greatness, she was already working on a nice gig with METRO.
As one commenter to Stiles' post noted:
CA has never had a real job her entire adult life. Why should she start now?
She's just serving the public, making sure the Houston area doesn't get shortchanged by losing her talents.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/18/08 04:53 AM |
17 April 2008
Councilmember Johnson delays vote on IAH fee
KHOU-11's Lee McGuire reports that Councilmember Jarvis Johnson has delayed plans to impose a $3 fee at Bush Intercontinental Airport to finance a Terminal B revamp (in partnership with Continental Airlines):
Wednesday’s planned vote to add a $3 fee to every passenger departing from Bush Intercontinental Airport has been delayed by a week.
Council member Jarvis Johnson called for the delay because he said he is still waiting for more information from the Houston Airport System regarding its plans to finance a $1.2 billion expansion of Terminal B.
Under the arrangement announced last week, the Houston Airport System would pick up roughly half of the cost of the construction, and Continental Airlines would pay for the other half. The Airport System plans to use a “passenger finance charge” for the next 10 years to raise nearly $400 million.
The last time Councilmember Johnson went poking around in Richard Vacar's territory (what, you think Council should have a say in how the Airport is run?!), he lost. Badly. And so did that company Vacar and Yellow Cab put out of business.
However, in light of this week's news of the Delta-Northwest merger, which could well trigger a Continental-United merger, it might be worth reconsidering the whole Terminal B expansion. In the current fuel-cost environment, it's hard to imagine that Continental is going to be in aggressive expansion mode. And if a merger with United goes through, it's also hard to imagine that the combined airline is going to need significantly more capacity right away at IAH. So the issue probably deserves more deliberation at Council.
I wonder how Richard Vacar will ultimately tell them to vote?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/17/08 11:04 PM |
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