29 February 2008
Reliant Q-Card readers dysfunctional on first night of Rodeo activities
Last night was the first night of the Rodeo cookoff festivities.
Laurence Simon reports that neither of METRO's Q-Card readers on the Reliant Danger Train platform was actually working. He adds,
The end of paper transfers is today, and METRO can't even keep the equipment running for major events. Or, if they borked the readers intentionally, they didn't bother posting notices saying anything about it.
They want to build more of these things in your streets.
Anyone else think that this is a dumb idea too?
Downtown parking meters are supposed to be a great improvement, just like the Q-Card system.
Unfortunately, when the systems break down and aren't repaired in a timely manner, they are just an annoyance. A truly "world-class" city (like, say, Mayor Daley's Chicago or Mayor Bloomberg's New York) would do a better job with such basic services.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/29/08 10:15 PM |
The Pat Lykos yarmulke controversy
"What Pat Lykos yarmulke controversy?," most people are probably asking.
Unless you read one of several local blawgs, you probably wouldn't know (since it really hasn't been reported).
It's now well past time for the local media at least to mention Lykos yarmulke controversy, especially since this post makes it so easy to research.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/29/08 09:33 PM |
Dangerous time/place/behavior update (River Oaks again!)
KHOU-11 reports on another dangerous time/place/behavior situation:
Houston police are checking out leads and hoping the public will help track down two men who kidnapped a River Oaks resident Thursday.
A $5,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest in the case.
The victim talked with 11 News a few hours after her terrifying ordeal.
"This is very scary this is happening in our city. Anywhere in our city,” said the woman, who didn't want to be identified since her attackers are still on the loose.
She said she was near the end of her morning walk when suddenly, out of nowhere, two men pulled her off the street.
"I was kicking and screaming and fighting to try and get away. They were large and strong, and threw me into the trunk of their car,” she told 11 News.
The two men drove away with the woman trapped in the back and fighting to get out.
The good news is the victim pulled on the emergency release latch in the trunk, and escaped the moving car.
So, be sure to add "mornings, River Oaks area, walking" to your list of dangerous time/place/behavior situations to avoid, if you don't want to become a crime victim.
This would be a great opportunity to break in Chief Hurtt's Ballistic Engineered Armored Response vehicle. Just park that bad boy in River Oaks and put an end to this nonsense.
PREVIOUSLY: Hurtt: You're pretty safe in Houston, unless you wind up dead!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/29/08 08:16 PM |
28 February 2008
Mayor unveils latest strategy to curry favor with anti-Ashby highrise constituents
One of our early objections to the poorly-considered ordinance that Mayor White proposed when well-heeled constituents demanded he stop the Ashby high rise was the amount of discretionary power that it would have bestowed on unelected bureaucrats.
Since the development of that ordinance has pleased nobody so far, Mayor White has since unveiled an even more capricious plan to use an antiquated driveway law to hinder development that somebody, somewhere, might find objectionable (at least until he can win approval for the other ordinance to empower unelected bureaucrats with discretionary power to hinder development). The Chronicle's Carolyn Feibel reports:
The driveway law dates back to 1940, though its current form began to take shape in 1968. White acknowledged that reviving this broadly worded law might have a "chilling" effect on growth, so he circulated a memo Wednesday with criteria on how it would be applied. The memo said developments that meet three criteria will receive "more intense scrutiny" of their traffic loads. The criteria are:
•A location where 60 percent or more of the properties within a 500-foot radius are residential
•Driveways that feed onto local or collector streets instead of a major thoroughfare
•A net increase of 50 additional vehicles going to and from the development during rush hours.
To mitigate the traffic effects, developers might have to add turning lanes or lights, scale back the number of apartments, or change the type of stores, White said.Enforcement comes from the city's power to reject a site plan, which shows where driveways connect to public streets.
The city will use these "interim procedures" while gathering public comment through July 1, the memo said. By Aug. 1, the city will issue a new proposal for regulating traffic from high-density developments. But it was unclear if this meant a new ordinance or the adjustment or tightening of current ordinances or policies.
"We are listening to everybody's concerns," Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck said. "It's an extremely complex process, and one size does not fit all."
Pardon us for being crude for a moment, but a better description of this confused political process actually rhymes with the councilmember's last name.
Alas, this is yet another example of the "leadership" coming from City Hall these days.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/28/08 09:36 PM |
And from the newspaper that largely missed the Enron meltdown?
Today, the New York Times had this interesting tidbit tucked away in its latest story on Roger Clemens:
In a letter sent to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said it could not definitively say if Clemens had lied under oath during its investigation into his challenge of accusations contained in the report on baseball and drugs prepared by George J. Mitchell. But the committee said it believed that the Justice Department should pursue the matter.
Part of that pursuit could center on the Houston area, where federal investigators, even before the referral, had begun looking into whether Clemens received performance-enhancing drugs from local suppliers. That effort has led investigators to scrutinize the activities of at least one gym owner in Houston and one or more doctors, according to several lawyers with knowledge of the situation who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
This story still is not that interesting or compelling to me substantively, save for the fact that we continue to see both the New York Times and New York Daily News breaking stories that involve the Houston area -- with the local Hearst daily eventually left to reprint the AP rewrites of those stories.
So much for Jeff Cohen's little lecture about the name of the local Hearst daily.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/28/08 08:26 PM |
KTRK's Dolcefino continues investigation of county government (02/27/2008)
Last night, KTRK-13's Wayne Dolcefino continued his look at some of the relationships between Harris County government and private industry. A teaser won't really do this one justice (although it speaks volumes that County Judge Ed Emmett gets criticism from one county commissioner for daring to launch an investigation), so here's the link to the story. What a twisted web of cozy relationships!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/28/08 08:03 PM |
Klein ISD superintendent: Most residents favor bond
A new Chronicle story by Kim Jackson quotes Klein ISD superintendent Dr. Jim Cain as saying most of the residents he has spoken with favor a bond proposal that includes $130 million to raze and rebuild Klein High School:
Klein school district board members posed several questions about components of a proposed $647 bond package at a Tuesday workshop, but suggested no major changes to the plan developed by a bond steering committee over a four-month period and honed by Klein ISD superintendent Jim Cain this past month.
Cain said he is still working on a final bond proposal to bring to the board March 4. He said he will continue to take input, comments, and suggestions from the public and staff through the end of this week. All information will be considered as the final recommendation is developed, he said.
At Klein Independent School District's March 4 regular board meeting ,the board will to vote call a May 10 bond election or not. The board can also make changes to the bond proposal before taking that vote, or leave it as presented to them by Cain.
[snip]
The proposed $130 million Klein High School project calls for the demolition and reconstruction of all but four of the school's older buildings some date back to the early 1960s and the relocation of the entire Klein High student body to the district's proposed fifth high school on Spring-Cypress Road during the two-year construction process.
Tuesday Klein board members did not propose alternatives to the Klein High School project, but did ask if some of the buildings scheduled for demolition and reconstruction could be remodeled instead, thus cutting down on the project's cost.
"How did you determine if the tower, which was built the same year as Klein Oak High School, should be torn down or remodeled?" said Klein board president Larry Allen.
Good question!
Laptops for high school students are still in the proposal (parents are going to LOVE footing the bill to repair or replace those things!), with the board president saying, "If we are going to be held accountable for student achievement, there has to include a significant technology component." And that component has to be school district-purchased laptops for all students?
Finally one board member asked what would happen if the bond fails. If the bond continues in its current form, residents should hope it fails, as it does not adequately address the current and future needs of Klein ISD's students.
PREVIOUSLY: Klein ISD's bond proposal includes a boondoggle
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/28/08 07:50 PM |
Spivak: Barack Obama and me
This week's Houston Press has an interesting story by Todd Spivak on Barack Obama. Spivak covered Obama when he was an Illinois state legislator, and has some interesting insight on the presidential candidate.
We generally don't delve into national politics on this blog unless there's some local angle (and I'm not really trying to start a discussion about Obama's politics here, although I suppose it's fair game), but in this case I thought it was worth noting Spivak's story, because it's likely to get some national play, and it's an example of the gritty journalism at small newspapers that can inform down the line that appeals to me. From a local journalist.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/28/08 08:01 AM |
27 February 2008
The indirect costs of public boondoggles
When public officials assure us that no public money will be expended on various boondoggles, we generally are skeptical. Sometimes, the language simply changes over time and the pol hopes nobody really notices (or tries to intimidate those who do notice with "dry riposte"). And sometimes, the indirect costs of the boondoggle really start to add up down the road, long after the political debate is over.
The latter phenomenon is described in this KHOU-11 report by Jason Whitely:
The copper-colored building on the edge of Houston’s skyline has been a long time coming.
“Our guys have been in a temporary facility for about seven or eight years now,” HFD Assistant Chief Jack Williams said.
The building is Fire Station 8 – Houston’s only station downtown.
The city used to have two, but it sold the first in 2001. That became the Downtown Aquarium.
Then the city moved another so the Toyota Center could be built.
So for the last five years, downtown firefighters have lived on leased land, which costs the city $23,000 a month.
Getting the firefighters their new super station has been a challenge.
It was supposed to cost $6 million, but the price tag has soared to $1.5 million more than the city expected.
Not to worry -- it's just taxpayers picking up the indirect costs of supplying moneymaking playpens for Tilman Fertitta and Les Alexander.
It's probably worth keeping these sorts of indirect costs in mind, though, when pols assure that taxpayers shouldn't worry about the latest, greatest public boondoggle.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/27/08 11:00 PM |
KTRK sues (again) for sheriff's department emails
METRO isn't the only local public institution that is being less than helpful with regard to public information requests.
As KTRK-13's Ted Oberg reports, his television station has gone back to court to try to obtain emails that it thought the sheriff's department had already agreed to provide after earlier legal action:
Wednesday afternoon, KTRK went to court for the second time to get the sheriff to turn over emails.
The court filing asks a judge to hold Sheriff Thomas in contempt. The sheriff agreed last month to save emails his department had deleted. Now, they say they don't have to turn them over.
In early January, Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas implemented a brand new email policy. Surprising even his own employees, he deleted 800,000 sheriff's department emails.
Since state law treats many emails as public records, Channel 13 thought the new policy was against the law and asked for a copy of the deleted emails. The station thought it had an agreement with the sheriff's department, but the sheriff later refused to turn the emails over which brought the station back to court Wednesday afternoon.
[snip]
It is the second time the station went to court to get the sheriff department's emails. On January 19th, a judge issued an order preventing the sheriff's department from destroying any emails. Six days later, the sheriff's lawyer agreed to recover any emails that were already deleted. The sheriff's department apparently put them on a back up tape for safe keeping. But when 13 Undercover asked for those emails under state law, the sheriff's department told the station state law doesn't require them to turn anything over from backup tapes.
Even if there's nothing in the emails, the department's behavior sure does suggest it has something to hide. It's hard for me to see merit in the department's argument that emails backed up to tape should be treated differently from emails not backed up to tape for purposes of public information requests.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/27/08 10:38 PM |
Downtown parking is always an adventure
We went downtown earlier to vote early at the Harris County Administration Building (which is little used, unlike the West Gray early voting facility) on Preston.
We parked on the street, and unsurprisingly, the first electronic parking meter was not working properly. The second one we tried was. A fifty percent functional rate seems about par for the course for these machines.
Imagine how bad it might be if Liliana Rambo's department were not "customer driven!"
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/27/08 10:17 PM |
Another example of Metro's "transparency"
Tom Bazan sent out a heads up today about an easy open records request he has made of METRO that is inexplicably being dragged out.
You'll recall last week's news that the Texas Medical Center was still looking into how the Main Street Rail Line's stray current was impacting its buildings. The Chronicle story explained that METRO President Frank J. Wilson has been authorized to "execute a tolling agreement":
The Metropolitan Transit Authority board has approved plans to negotiate with the Texas Medical Center to extend the time that it can sue Metro over "stray" electrical current leaking from the light rail tracks.
The item was described on Metro's monthly board agenda Thursday as authorizing President and CEO Frank Wilson to "execute a tolling agreement," causing some observers to think it was about planned high occupancy-toll lanes on the Katy Freeway.
Instead, as Medical Center President and CEO Richard Wainerdi explained, a tolling agreement "extends the time in which a party has a right to any kind of remedy or action" to recover damages in court.
"In this case, the law is two years," he said.
Tom requested a copy of the "tolling agreement." Today METRO replied:
Type of Request:
Requesting the tolling agreement between METRO and the Texas Medical Center.The Legal Department at METRO has received the above-referenced request. Please be advised that the requested records are in the process of being located. METRO has up to 10 business days to notify you of one (or more) of the below-referenced actions:
a)the requested records have been compiled and can be made available for inspection and/or copying;
b)additional time is needed in order to compile the requested records;
c)the cost to make the records available will be more than $40;
d) that METRO is requesting an Attorney General opinion with regard to your request;
e)that NO records were located.
You will receive a letter notifying you of one of the above-referenced actions (post-dated) by no later than:
3/11/2008[signed]
Jacqueline Maldonado, Paralegal
As Tom notes in his email, the tolling agreement was discussed in a board meeting just last week, and there's a local news story about the agreement. And yet, the records "are in the process of being located." How hard could it possibly be to locate a copy of the tolling agreement that was just the subject of a Chronicle story AND was the subject of a board meeting discussion?
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/27/08 08:10 PM |
KTRK's Dolcefino continues investigation of county government (02/26/2008)
Last night, KTRK-13's Wayne Dolcefino continued his look at some of the relationships between Harris County government and private industry. Here's a teaser:
Friends helping friends get huge government contracts.
Is that the way you want business done with your money?
Deep in the country northwest of Houston, you'll come upon the huge Hat Creek Ranch. It's a nice place.
You know who owns the Hat Creek Ranch? It's owned by Leroy Hermes.
Leroy Hermes is a noted architect. He's a community leader and founder of a firm with a long history of lucrative government contracts.
"Where does giving to the community cross the line to benefiting yourself ethically or unethically, that's what needs to be looked at," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.
This pillar of the community finds himself part of an FBI investigation of public corruption. A federal conspiracy indictment charged developer Michael Surface with multiple crimes and claimed Surface got Hermes' firm to hire a particular consultant to help Surface get a city contract. Hermes' firm would then get to be the architect. Mr. Hermes was not charged with a crime.
Hermes says he hasn't read the now month old indictment. In a letter to 13 Undercover, he says he objects to any suggestion he is "dishonest, deceitful or otherwise corrupt."
But Mr. Hermes is one example why Harris County government and its contractors seem to make up such a small world. And that's why 13 Undercover has looked at the contracts for the Reliant Stadium complex.
The entire story is here.
PREVIOUSLY: KTRK's Dolcefino continues investigation of county government (02/25/2008).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/27/08 09:52 AM |
26 February 2008
KTRK's Dolcefino continues investigation of county government (02/25/2008)
KTRK-13's Wayne Dolcefino has been poking around in county government again, and last night he ran the first of a series of reports on apparent Harris County government cronyism and sweetheart deals. Here's a teaser:
You have to wonder why we've uncovered things in weeks that some Harris County officials claim they never knew for years about. Items like a big real estate deal involving lots of your money. Our focus is over who got the winning hand in the deal.
If it's a game of poker, Michael Surface better hope the FBI doesn't have a good hand.
The Houston developer is facing up to 45 years in prison if convicted of charges of conspiracy to bribe a city official, wire fraud and lying to the feds.
"Maintain they are not true and we look forward to our day in court to prove that," Surface said.
"What we have to do is make sure there aren't any county scandals," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.
That's why we're investigating the players in a $35 million real estate deal on Murworth Street.
Flashback to1998. Michael surface was working for you. The $8,800 a month head of the Harris County Building Department. But his fortunes changed quickly. Surface leaves county government in May of that year and just months later he would be the big winner. Cashing in on a multimillion dollar real estate deal with Harris County for what is now the headquarters of Adult and Child Protective Services on Murworth.
And in this county, the revolving door is allowed.
Be sure to check out the entire story (and all the fascinating details) here. Dolcefino promises more on Harris County cronyism on tonight's 10 pm broadcast.
Traditionally, newspapers have done this sort of multi-part investigative/watchdog reporting on government. In recent years, though, the area's newspaper of record hasn't seemed very interested in this sort of coverage of county (or regional) governmental institutions. It's good to see other news outlets stepping in to fill the void.
UPDATE (02-27-2008): A reader passes along this 2002 Chronicle story, which covers similar ground.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/26/08 10:37 AM |
25 February 2008
Breaking down the $20 million
Tomorrow the council will meet to begin "deliberations" on Mayor White's plan to pay over three times the appraised value for some land downtown, plus engineer some land swaps for the owners of the Dynamo. Er, maybe for the owners of the Dynamo; it's not as if they've actually committed to anything. I've been digging through the agenda, which has two items to execute the deal, that I will summarize. (And let me add that this week's agenda has a number of other interesting tidbits, which I just don't have time to get into. Doubling the size of the bomb squad? Hmmmm.)
Agenda Item 15: $15,942,042 out of the Reimbursement of Equipment/Projects Fund to pay for five blocks of land on the east side of Hwy.59; also the abandonment and sale of Jackson Street from Capitol to Rusk. Plenty has already been said about the disparity between the assessment and the asking price for this land. What I find equally odd is the street abandonment -- this is not the previously discussed land swap, which has to do with the sixth block making up the site. Jackson Street is four blocks away, on the other side of Hwy 59. So what is the point of this? Well lookie-see to whom it's going: "..to the abutting owners of Block 100, Macey Family Properties II, Ltd." If this is being "sold," exactly what is the city's asking price? And why isn't it subtracted from the purchase cost of the other five blocks? Supposedly, it is, but nowhere in the ordinance is the city's land assigned any valuation, or subtracted from the purchase cost.
LAND :
Parcels QY7-015, QY7-016, QY7-017, QY7-018A, QY7-018B, QY7-019 (Fee).. . . . . . . . . . . . $15,442,042 .00
Estimated demolition costs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$400,000.00
Estimated closing costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .$100,000.00
TOTAL CONSIDERATION, DEMOLITION COSTS, AND CLOSING COSTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $15,942,042.00
Perhaps someone can do some back-of-the-envelope calculations using HCAD records and determine how much off the original asking price we got, at $49.25 per square foot (taken from the agenda item)?
So why is the city handing over a street to Macey that has nothing to do with the stadium?
The abutting property owners plan to assemble the property being abandoned and sold into their abutting property to create a contiguous site for development.
So not only is the city buying land from former Council Member Macey at over three times the assessed value, we are giving him a street for his profit, too! And it just keeps getting better. Remember, I said they hadn't committed to anything. From the attachments: a letter to council members, et al. that includes the following informative Q&A:
Has there been some agreement with the Dynamo to locate on this site?
No. The Dynamo have been consulted in connection with its site selection process, which has been extensive and thorough. So have other potential users, such as TSU. There have been many criteria which would make the East Downtown site suitable for a sports venue or other economic
development activities . Those advantages include proximity to a major employment center; proximity to the expanded rail service; availability of parking; and a central location in relation to residential population centers .
So the Dynamo haven't agreed to use the practice facility, and they haven't agreed to use this site. Amazing how trusting Hizzoner is. This is far from the only stunner in this letter, but the full text is too long to include here. I hope to post it later.
Then there's Item 15A, the sixth block involving the previously mentioned land swap. It's another doozy. The city is selling a tract known as Block 193 (aka 319 St.Emanuel) to a company known as 800 Dowling LP, in return for $250,000 and block 220. Then we're turning around and leasing Block 193 back for five years + three one-year extensions, for an amount that escalates from $175,000/yr. to $250,000 per year! Up to $150,000 in closing costs will also be paid for by the city. All money is coming from Fund 8300: Water and Sewer Operations. Yes, that's right, Mayor White is not just grabbing money out of Public Works Equipment and Projects fund to buy land -- now he's tapping money that comes from people's water and sewer bills! (Make no mistake. Fund 8300 is a precise identifier: that's where all revenue from the water/sewer bills goes.)
Is anyone else's jaw on the floor yet? Pick it up, we're not through yet. Why, you ask, is the city going to the expense of leasing back the very property it's selling? Because the equipment and office supply warehouse for the entire city sits on that site!
And the kicker is, despite all that, not one person is signed up tomorrow to discuss it. But two citizens are signed up, to discuss that horrible travesty of private development and the free market, a privately funded condo tower, unwanted by its neighbors. Maybe a certain local news organization didn't think this was the most important thing we needed to know about the Dynamo today:
Boxer De La Hoya likely to be part of Dynamo ownership. Nothing like news of a popular sports celebrity becoming involved (the day before a critical vote) to help things along.
BLOGVERSATION: Lose An Eye, It's a Sport
Posted by Ubu Roi @ 02/25/08 08:51 PM |
Chron: HPD report details latest crime lab problems
Last Friday (the day that damning news often goes to die), the Chronicle ran an important story by Roma Khanna on the latest problems with the HPD Crime Lab. Here are some choice excerpts (although we strongly encourage readers to follow the link and read the entire story):
Months before the troubled Houston crime lab shuttered its DNA division for a second time, analysts and a supervisor warned investigators of continuing problems, including contamination, questionable procedures, and lost evidence, according to a police investigative report obtained by the Houston Chronicle.
So serious were the issues that DNA section leader Vanessa Nelson described the division as "clearly out of control." She told Houston Police Department internal affairs officers to consider halting DNA testing altogether in September — four months before police management made the move to close it.
[snip]
The internal affairs investigation started in response to allegations that Nelson and two midlevel supervisors had improperly coached DNA analysts on a routine skills test in August. Investigators concluded managers indeed had discussed the proficiency test, in violation of policy, and recommended that Nelson and a midlevel manager be fired.
Nelson resigned in January to avoid termination, and the Texas Department of Public Safety hired her to lead the DNA division of its McAllen crime lab. Attempts to reach her Thursday were unsuccessful. Nelson's departure left Houston's DNA division without a supervisor and forced HPD to suspend DNA testing for the second time in six years.
In the course of investigating the cheating allegations, Nelson and others in the DNA division told officers of other troubles at the lab, including attempts to misrepresent the chain of custody on an evidence sample and orders for analysts to do work they were not trained to perform.
The analysts' comments depict a DNA division far different from that police management described as reformed and poised for excellence in 2006 after it earned national accreditation for the first time and resumed DNA testing after an interruption of more than three years.
PR sometimes gets ahead of facts in MayorWhiteChiefHurtt's Houston.
Chronicle staff were kind enough to post the PDF of HPD's internal report (11 MB) to Chron.com at the request of several bloggers. From my reading of it, Khanna's conclusions certainly seem sound. One particularly damning aspect of the report concerns the "coaching" in which some analysts, according to their testimony, felt pressured to change their conclusions in an evaluative situation. What if a man's life were on the line, instead of simply a question on a proficiency exam? Would there have been pressure to deliver a certain answer? Would there have been competent analysis period? This was pretty sober reading, especially after all the positive PR that had previously emanated about the new and improved crime lab.
In Khanna's story, Irma Rios (the crime lab's current director) assures that everything is fine, that problems have been identified and corrected, and that these are expected growing pains (everyone move along, nothing to see here). Unfortunately, this report makes the Rios Pollyanna routine hard to believe. Indeed, it leaves one wondering if MayorWhiteChiefHurtt have been any more effective than MayorBrownChiefBradford at managing the dysfunctional HPD crime lab.
Maybe the problems simply cannot be solved, and it's well past time to consider scrapping HPD's crime lab for an independent regional crime lab. Or maybe this latest crime lab scandal will convince Chief Hurtt he needs to run for DA a few years down the line!
What say you?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/25/08 08:49 PM |
24 February 2008
Sarnoff details new Midtown development
Anyone who has driven through the Elgin/Louisiana area of Midtown recently has probably noticed some serious construction (and occasional lane closures). The Chronicle's Nancy Sarnoff reports on the big development:
One of Midtown's largest landholders has revealed plans for a nearly five-block real estate development around the intersection of Elgin and Louisiana.
Crosspoint Properties has already started construction on a three-story retail building at the corner. And it just fenced off most of the block on the other side of the street between Smith and Louisiana with signs advertising the project, called The Mix @ Midtown.
Crosspoint's George Levan said he believes the revitalization of Midtown and lower Westheimer as restaurant and entertainment destinations will carry over to his project.
"We're looking to play off that trend," he said.
Levan has already leased 50,000 square feet of the building under construction to 24 Hour Fitness, which will open a "Super Sport" concept with a basketball court and swimming pool.
An attached garage will have space for more than 300 cars.
The health club will take the top two floors, and the ground level will have 25,000 square feet of space for shops and restaurants.
[snip]
The attraction is the area's proximity to downtown, a growing residential base and accessibility to highways, he said.
To that end, Crosspoint is planning another 50,000 square feet of retail space on the fenced block.
The retail space could be combined with other uses, Levan said, but construction is not likely to start for at least another year.
[snip]
When it's completed, possibly in 2010, The Mix is expected to have more than 300,000 square feet of retail space.
Accessibility to highways?! Doesn't he realize how close the development is to METRO's transit backbone? It was highly politically incorrect of him to mention highways and not the transit backbone!
And how equally audacious of Crosspoint to be undertaking construction of significant (world-class?) mixed-use properties without the assistance of local pols (who seemingly are willing to throw endless resources at developments like the Pavilions, Discovery Green, the soccer stadium that will make an iffy part of town like Manhattan, a second downtown convention center hotel, an Astrodome convention center hotel, etc.)! That could set a precedent.
BLOGVERSATION: Swamplot.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/24/08 11:12 PM |
Lucy ads are much more fun than actually promoting transit usage
Local blogger Christof Spieler posts some useful ideas on how METRO could better promote its services to the public:
[T]ransit still works in a world where documents — bus schedules, system maps, and brochures — are printed in large, one-size-fits-all, runs.
Consider an office building: several hundred people, all of whom need to get to work and get home every day. They should know what their transit options are. But a system map posted in the lobby won’t do the trick: it shows too much information, and that’s intimidating. But a custom map ... showing just the routes that stop nearby, would.
The technology is not difficult. The time involved is not prohibitive. And, once the map exists, it’s easy to convert for posting on a web site, printing in an employee manual, and otherwise making it available to people whom it would help. It would be entirely possible to put one of these in every large office building lobby, in every hospital and in every university in Houston.
It’s not good enough to simply provide transit. One has to make people aware it exists. And transit agencies ought to be using every tool they can to do that.
That's a very sensible proposal.
Unfortunately, as is the case all too often with METRO, the stylistic takes precedence over the substantive. People win awards, after all, for neat posters advertising museum exhibits (or was it advertising transit?), and not necessarily for customized transit brochures/maps that might actually boost disappointing ridership.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/24/08 10:52 PM |
It's a good thing newspapers are staffed with fact-checkers...
The Chronicle ran a correction that was notable for its length today:
An article in Feb. 18 editions repeated charges made by Republican candidate for Congress Dean Hrbacek that a law firm, Williams & Jensen, had ties to Jack Abramoff. The article also cited reports that the firm's managing partner, L. Steven Hart, traveled with a group of government officials and lobbyists to Scotland to play golf. After being contacted by Williams & Jensen concerning the accuracy of the article, the Houston Chronicle's re-examination has revealed that Hart's correct name is J. Steven Hart, that there is no credible evidence that Hart traveled to Scotland with government officials on one of Abramoff's trips or otherwise, and, also, that there is no credible evidence that Williams and Jensen has any "ties" to Abramoff or his lobbying activities.
Whoops!
BLOGVERSATION: Houston's Clear Thinkers.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/24/08 10:40 PM |
Doctor-Congresswoman goes to Washington (update)
Remember back when Doctor-Congresswoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs headed off to Washington, managed to treat the existing Congressional staff so poorly they resigned, and then made all sorts of reckless accusations about that staff?
As the Chronicle's Alan Bernstein reports, none of those wild accusations actually proved to be true:
House officials now say their investigation of her charge found no wrongdoing by the six aides.
"Our computer security analysts did look into then-Rep. Sekula Gibbs' concerns around the integrity of computers in the office she briefly occupied and found no traces of purposeful erasure of data," Jeff Ventura, spokesman for the Office of the House Chief Administrative Officer, told the Houston Chronicle. "It was determined that any lost data may have been inadvertent or the result of standard methodology employed when any member of Congress transitions to another."In response to that written statement, Sekula Gibbs, who is running for the seat again in the Republican primary, said this week that with the help of House technology experts, she was able to recover most of the material she had accused the staff of deleting on purpose.
She had no further comment about the House findings.
An apology would have been in order, although silence from the Doctor-FormerCongresswoman is not a bad consolation prize.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/24/08 10:32 PM |
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