News and views roundup (12/01/10 edition)
It's your "Mayor Parker, Tear Down Those Cameras!" edition of news and views:
- Why You Should Start a Company in... Houston (Laura Rich, Fast Company)
- Red-light camera issue gets red hot in Houston (Brad Olson, Houston Chronicle)
- They Got Scoreboard (Camposcommunications’s Blog)
Agreed!Speaking of elections, a story in today’s Chron can have some folks thinking that the City of H-Town is looking to forget about the fact that the voters said no to the red light cameras last month....I don’t know about that. I would think that the City would want to get in front of the voters and take down the cameras. The City needs to do a better job of ‘splaining their latest moves in court.
- Mayor "Fighting" To Keep Cameras Turned Off (KPRC-2 News)
Sorry, but that quote does not match the headline. That quote tells me that Mayor Parker thinks the red-light-camera contract ($$$) might just trump the will of the voters. As noted previously, that contract was apparently rewritten by former Mayor Bill White to make it more difficult for the city or anyone else to terminate it prematurely."We're trying to extricate ourselves from the situation, but there are broader issues having to do with the use of the charter amendment to unwind the contract, and there are some serious issues on whether a vote of the citizens can unwind the contract," Parker said.
Whatever the "serious issues" -- and they may well include financial penalties that will reflect badly on both former Mayor Bill White and the City Controller at the time (Annise Parker) -- the voters have spoken. Campos has it right, above.
- City Cuts Take-Home Vehicles For Employees (KPRC-2 News)
Good move. - HPD budget: No officer layoffs, overtime slashed (Gabe Gutierrez, KHOU-11 News)
- Is Houston enforcing apartment safety inspections law? (Ted Oberg, KTRK-13 News)
- Stealing An ATM Is Easier When The Storeowner Doesn't Turn On The Security Camera (Hair Balls)
We are highly frustrated when we see press or police blaming victims."These store clerks will buy these high-dollar video systems," he explains, " and then they don't know how to work them -- and of course, we can't force them to learn how to work them. It's highly frustrating for police officers."
- Who's really behind DeLay's fall? (Rick Casey, Houston Chronicle)
What a glowing profile by Rick Casey of a non-partisan, clean-government crusader. *wink* Casey neglected to mention that said crusader Cris Feldman was a member of the (100% Dem-activist) board of the parent organization of the ACORN-like Houston Votes, the group that got itself in hot water earlier this year for fraudulent voter-registration activity in Harris County, but that was surely an oversight. Surely. - KTRK 13 reporter Gene Apodaca calls it quits (Mike McGuff)
- Becca Cason Thrash: Star Of CultureMap, Which Doesn't Mention She's Married To An Owner Of It (Hair Balls)
Richard Connelly and the Village Voice Houston Amateur Hour probably shouldn't be lecturing anyone on the journalistic ethics of spousal identification. Recall that last year, a Village Voice exposé on problems with Toyota vehicles featured Connelly's wife, who had a mysterious sudden acceleration incident with her Toyota Prius (Toyota issued a voluntary recall for that vehicle, conceding that some floor mats might get rolled up in the accelerator; we suspect many more instances involved mistaking the accelerator for the brake). She was not identified as the wife of an editor in the Village Voice empire, and we never saw any clarification issued to the print papers that picked up the original story or any update on how the arbitration proceedings went (post-story). So much for journalistic ethics. - Corrections: 29 November 2010 (Houston Chronicle)
Maybe the editorial board could do some minimal level of fact-checking?In the Nov. 23 editorial "Charge!," the Chronicle cited an incorrect figure drawn from an Associated Press story. The news service has issued this correction: "The Associated Press reported erroneously that the 2,500 kilowatt hours of electricity consumed by an electric vehicle driving 10,000 miles would be 20 percent more than the average annual consumption of U.S. homes. The 2,500 kilowatt hours would add about 20 percent to a home's average consumption of 11,000 kilowatt hours."
- A closer look at Bagwell HOF candidacy (Tag's Lines)
It's not a very close (or even honest) look from Cheerleader McTaggart, or it would include some reference to Bagwell's admitted use of Andro (as documented by the Chron's Jerome Solomon). It was legal at the time he used it, but it is considered a performance enhancing drug. Voters will probably consider it even if some local cheerleaders like to pretend it never happened.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/01/10 09:27 PM | Print |
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