The Observer blog writes about the Draft Rick Noriega movement, including a few quotes from yours truly. Hopefully, this will turn into a full-length piece for the print publication. Regardless, it's good stuff, so check it out.
I could have lived without knowing this.
Her attorney wants to get something straight -- former astronaut Lisa Nowak did not wear diapers to avoid bathroom breaks as she drove some 960 miles from Houston to Orlando to confront her romantic rival in February.Instead the diapers found in her car that night were size "toddler 3," hardly big enough for an adult, and were left over from her family's evacuation from Houston in 2005 as Hurricane Rita approached, attorney Don Lykkebak said today.
The family, including Nowak herself and her husband, used the diapers then because at the time motels were swamped and restrooms and privacy were scarce. With reporters gathered around after a routine court hearing today, Lykkebak testily described how the family used the diapers.
"You can't put it on," he said. "To have privacy you have to find a way to get in your car, obviously not with the car running, and you (use the diapers) just to collect your waste, and you do that so you don't have to go out in front of everybody."
Uh, thanks, Counselor. I'll be sure to remember that. Now can we please talk about something else?
Kristin Mack makes an interesting claim in her column about who's thinking about running for what next year.
[Former HPD Chief CO] Bradford, who served as police chief in Mayor Lee Brown's administration, still has some battle scars.Among them, a last-minute pay raise Brown gave Bradford that increased his pension, the crime lab debacle that began during his tenure, and an indictment on a perjury charge that eventually was dismissed by a trial judge.
Emphasis mine. All I can say to that is "Say what?"
Independent investigator Michael Bromwich outlined a series of steps he said officials should take to determine what role blood-typing and DNA evidence played in securing convictions against as many as 600 defendants -- including 14 already executed -- whose cases were processed at the Houston Police Department's crime lab between 1980 and 2002.
1980 was a long time ago - I was a high schooler living in New York back then. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure that CO Bradford was not Houston's chief of police at that time. I have no idea who it was, but it wasn't Bradford.
Perhaps this was just an inartful construction. It is true that the HPD crime lab problems came to light during Chief Bradford's tenure - maybe that's what she meant to say. One could then also say that this makes that an asset for Bradford, not a liability, since we wouldn't be at the point of finally resolving this debacle had it not been for Bradford. Perhaps that's a stretch, but it's closer to the truth than saying the problems began while Bradford was chief.
Nor will I be getting one any time soon. I like whizzy gadgets as much as the next guy, but at some point, one must say "Get a life!"
AT&T's Dan Feldstein says 80 percent of the store managers in the Houston area say they've got folks waiting in line for the iPhone.[...]
At the Galleria, another three dozen were in line around 10 a.m., the queue wrapped around the clear plexiglass balustrade across from the Apple Store on the mall's second level. The first to arrive, 24-year-old D.J. Lewis, told Kevin Moran he'd gotten there about 4:30 a.m., and had to wait until 8 a.m. to get into the mall.
Lewis told Moran that, when it comes to gadgetry, he's gotta have it all on Day One.
"Every electronic gadget, I have tried to get it the first day it comes out," Lewis said. "I normally get a new phone about every six months."
The iPhone, he said, "will complete my collection."
Until the next gotta-have-it gizmo comes along. I'll wait, thanks.
I was pretty sure that this would be the ultimate outcome.
Houston Community College Trustee Jay Aiyer pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of tampering with a governmental record Thursday and received a year of probation.Aiyer, one-time candidate for Houston City Council, also must fulfill 160 hours of community service and pay a $750 fine. He also is prohibited from working on any political campaigns during his probation.
Aiyer, 38, a lawyer and former chief of staff for former Mayor Lee Brown, has served as an HCC trustee since 2001.
"I'm glad we were able to resolve this quickly. I look forward to practicing law and spending time with my family," Aiyer said.
He said he had not given any thought to whether he will keep his seat on the HCC board.
Aiyer originally was charged with a state jail felony, but pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor to avoid a trial.
"It made sense to make peace," Aiyer's lawyer, Dennis Cain, said. "It could have had a massive impact on his future had he pleaded to a felony. It doesn't make sense to risk that kind of exposure. He wanted to put it behind him."
It's also a huge financial burden to defend oneself against a felony charge. Whatever the merits of the charges against Aiyer - and I have no idea one way or the other - the downside to fighting it out is huge. You'd have to be pretty non-risk-averse to go for it. As I said before, Jay is a friend of mine, and I hate that this has happened to him. I sincerely hope he does put this behind him.
Couple points that I feel need to be mentioned.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office accused Aiyer of committing the offense by removing and destroying a portion of his campaign finance report and putting another document in its place in March 2005.The charge stemmed from a complaint filed with the Texas Ethics Commission more than two years ago. The complaint accused Aiyer of trying to hide expenditures from his HCC campaign account, failing to report payments to political consultants and failing to itemize credit card payments.
The commission referred the complaint to the district attorney's office in April 2006.
Why did it take the DA so long to act on this? I'm not having any luck finding a citation for this, but doesn't the greater-than-two-year time span between the alleged offense and the filing of the charge mean that the statute of limitations would have run out for a misdemeanor offense? I have to wonder what might have happened if the specter of a felony conviction had not been hanging over Aiyer's head. That's something you do fight.
There may be nothing to that line of thinking - again, we don't know that much about the actual case. But this is pretty egregious:
"This isn't the end of his problems," said Donna Goode, the division chief over the district attorney's public integrity unit. "He still has to deal with the State Bar, he still has issues with the Texas Ethics Commission and a decision has to be made by trustees about whether this disqualifies him from serving."Aiyer did not attend Thursday's monthly HCC board meeting. Christopher Oliver, chairman of the board, said it was not clear how Aiyer's plea would affect his service on the board.
Aiyer's term is up at the end of this year. HCC often is viewed as a political springboard and Aiyer's political future once seemed limitless.
Under state law, a person convicted of a felony is barred from public office, unless he or she since had been pardoned.
"I don't know if it's a disqualification," Goode said of Aiyer's sentence. "It's certainly something an opponent wouldn't have to go very far to dredge up and use against you."
Is it really appropriate for a member of the DA's office to be speculating in public about the potential ramifications of one of its cases? Because if we're going to bring up politics, Chuck Rosenthal and his people have a very spotty history. From the ludicrously weak perjury case they brought against former Police Chief CO Bradford, which ended in a directed verdict of not guilty by the trial judge, to their no-billing of Steven Hotze on a DUI charge, to their refusal to investigate Texans for True Mobility, the DA has been pretty consistent in who he chooses to go after, and who he does not. Again, without knowing all the details, I can't say for sure that Aiyer's case fits the pattern. But you'd be naive to not be at least a little suspicious.
Continuing my series on blue precincts within red State House districts (see here for the first installment), today I'm looking at HD136, where incumbent Beverly Woolley defeated Democrat Scott Brann with just over 70% of the vote. Unlike HD126, HD136 has basically no genuinely blue areas. It has only three precincts that were carried by Brann. Here they are:
Pcnt RVs Votes Turnout Brann Brann% Sharp Sharp% Henley Henley%
====================================================================
179 1749 421 24.07% 189 50.9 211 55.4 N/A N/A
272 2415 506 20.95% 233 51.1 243 51.7 232 48.6
807 2127 387 18.19% 242 67.4 256 69.4 N/A N/A
(As before, "Sharp" is Jim Sharp, the top Democratic votegetter in Harris County; "Henley" is Democrat Jim Henley, whose CD07 covers most of HD136.)
Only Precinct 807 qualifies as a place you'd clearly want to target for GOTV operations. Naturally, it had the lowest turnout in the district - overall turnout was 42%, with quite a few red precincts topping 50%. That doesn't mean I think the other two precincts should be ignored, but it does suggest that perhaps a different approach might be needed to ensure that any new voters turned out are voters you actually wanted. I'm not an expert in those matters, but there's plenty of those folks around. My task here is to point out where the opportunities are, and I say Precincts 179 and 272 are opportunities.
In fact, I'd expand the definition here to include precincts where at least one Democrat topped 40%, since that is still significantly better than the district as a whole. There are a half-dozen of those precincts:
Pcnt RVs Votes Turnout Brann Brann% Sharp Sharp% Henley Henley%
====================================================================
298 2332 798 34.22% 263 36.3 297 40.3 286 38.8
312 4148 1367 32.96% 476 38.0 515 40.5 480 37.2
313 2711 794 29.29% 312 42.6 339 46.6 319 42.9
330 2311 564 24.41% 240 47.7 250 49.6 N/A N/A
569 3098 1076 34.73% 416 42.3 460 46.7 454 45.4
572 2969 905 30.48% 374 44.6 400 47.4 381 44.5
These precincts, especially the bottom four, are close enough to the 50% mark that a project to figure out who the desired voters are and then target them makes sense. I should also note that an eyeball comparison with the 2002 numbers in the Lite Guv's race also indicates that each of those precincts became bluer in 2006. The material is there - it needs extra work, but it's there. And again, I won't say we're maximizing our efforts to win Harris County in 2008 unless we're giving precincts like these the work they need. More to come, so stay tuned.
Great news: The bald eagle is no longer endangered.
Conservationists have hailed the successful recovery of the eagle as clear evidence that the Endangered Species Act, which has been under attack in recent years from business groups and some members of Congress, can work.Government biologists have documented nearly 10,000 nesting pairs of bald eagles, including at least one pair in each of the 48 contiguous states. This compares to only 417 such pairs in 1963 when the bird was on the verge of disappearing everywhere in the country except for Alaska.
While no longer declared endangered, the bald eagle will continue to be protected by a 1940 federal law that will make it illegal to kill the bird -- as well as state statutes.
Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service also is preparing guidelines for protecting the bird's nesting habitat under the 1940 law and developing a permitting process that landowners will have to use if eagles are found on property they want to disturb.
"This is truly one of America's great wildlife success stories," said John Kostyack, director the National Wildlife Federation's endangered species program. He said it shows the Endangered Species Act is needed and can work to save plants and animals on the verge of disappearing.
Said John Flicker, president of the National Audubon Society: "The rescue of the bald eagle from the brink of extinction ranks among the greatest victories of American conservation."
Amen to that. I remember as a kid in the 70s seeing a bunch of stuff on TV about how the eagle was dying out, and what a national disgrace it would be for this great American symbol to go extinct. Thank God that won't happen. Link via Dig Deeper Texas.
Somewhat related to the previous post, did you know that there are now about to be a total of four sports talk/"guy talk" radio stations in town? No, I don't understand it any better than you do. I've listened to many sporting events on the radio, including postgame shows, but have never, not once, tuned into a sports talk show. They've just never appealed to me.
Just one thing from that article that I want to comment on. It's on how "sports talk" radio has morphed into "guy talk" radio, where the topics can include things other than just sports:
Dallas's attachment to the Cowboys is, of course, legendary; you could probably program Cowboys talk 24 hours a day and draw big numbers. But The Ticket has also become known for more wide-ranging discussions -- an hour may go by in the morning where sports doesn't even come up and the talk instead is on the latest celebrity flap or hot movie.Programming execs here are moving in that direction. You're going to hear a lot less talk about fantasy-baseball numbers and a lot more about The Sopranos or Paris Hilton.
So what you're saying is basically that this is the Roula and Ryan show with sports but no crappy music. Am I missing something here?
Filling in for conservative talk-show host Michael Berry Tuesday morning, Houston lawyer Geoff Berg was direct with KPRC radio's listeners."I am a moderate," he announced. "Michael is a right-wing fanatic. We are going to disagree."
He was on point.
Listeners -- and apparently advertisers -- disagreed so much that KPRC/950 AM fired Berg after one day on the job, ending his brief stint as a talk-radio host.
"Right after the show, the producers told me that I'd done a great job as host," Berg said Wednesday.
"(But) later in the day, they said don't come back."
[...]
Berry, when asked for comment, sent the following reply via e-mail: "Geoff is a personal friend. I also think he can develop into a good talk-show host. He is quite to the left of me, but I think there is an audience for him. 950 is not that place."
Berg said he does not have any ill will toward Berry or KPRC, joking that the station fired him after "one day of diverse opinion."
You know, I don't have any problems with KPRC's actions here. You've got to figure that if, say, Michael Berry had sat in for Amy Goodman one morning on "Democracy Now!", KPFT listeners would be pretty vocal about it. People tune into a show like that expecting one thing, and when they don't get it, they're not gonna like it. While this is certainly amusing, and while I agree with Jack that it would be nice to have a little more diversity in the airwaves, I also agree with Berry that it's not going to happen by mixing and matching on an established station. It'll take a different outlet establishing its own brand. Which means it'll probably never happen, but that's what it'll take.
Congratulations, Craig Biggio. For today, any questions about your pursuit of 3000 are irrelevant. You made it, and you deserve the glory that goes with it. See you in five in Cooperstown.
I got this a couple of days ago, but didn't have a chance to post on it till now. This (PDF) is a letter sent from the interim President and Chair of the Board of Regents of Galveston College to Governor Perry to express their concerns over one of his vetoes, which had to do with money allocated to community college faculty and staff for health insurance. At the bottom of the letter, as is custom in situations like this, they cc'ed the college's legislative delegation, so the folks who represent them know what their issues are.
Well, sort of anyway. See, Galveston County has a total of four representatives in Austin, but the letter was only copied to three of them. They managed to overlook Galveston's senior state Senator, which when you think about it probably wasn't that hard to do. Joe Jaworski, noting that Galveston's forgotten Senator is also furniture, is currently having some fun with this in a fundraising email.
Anyway. I'm sure this really was just an oversight, but much like casting Rick Perry as the fourth Stooge once was, it's just fitting somehow.
Booming cities in the Lone Star state dominated the latest population estimates for cities as of July, 1, 2006, released by the census today. Six Texas cities were in the top 25 in the U.S, and three, including Houston, were in the top 10, with San Antonio the seventh-largest and Dallas the ninth.[...]
Nineteen Texas cities, or nearly 20 percent, were among the top 100 fastest-growing cities with populations of at least 100,000 between 2000 and July 1, 2006. McKinney, north of Dallas, ranked No. 1 on that list, nearly doubling its population.
"What you're seeing is verification that, numerically, Texas continues to be the fastest-growing state in the nation," said state demographer Steve Murdock, whom President Bush has nominated to be Census Bureau director.
As of July 1, 2006, Texas edged out California as the state with the largest population growth, gaining 2.7 million people since 2000 while California gained 2.6 million. In that time period, Texas grew at a 12.7 percent rate, compared with California's 8 percent.
It's looking a lot more like we'll be gaining four seats in Congress in 2011. I wonder what effect on the politics of redistricting that will have, since for sure some of those seats are going to be preordained as minority opportunity districts.
And speaking of redistricting:
Houston grew from 1.98 million to 2.14 million in the same period.
We're going to be ready to add new district City Council seats by 2011 as well, right?
Here's the basic reasoning behind the Court of Criminal Appeals' refusal to reinstate the conspiracy charge against Tom DeLay and two of his co-defendants.
In Wednesday's decision, the Court of Criminal Appeals had to decide whether a conspiracy charge could be applied to all felonies or only those specified by the Legislature. To side with prosecutors, the court would have had to either reverse or limit its decisions from the 1970s that the Legislature must specify that the conspiracy statute applies to felonies outside the penal code.The court's majority noted that the Legislature had not reacted to the rulings. Instead, lawmakers applied the conspiracy law piecemeal to various felonies.
The dissent said not applying conspiracy to all felonies defies common sense.
What the court said in effect is that while breaking certain election laws is a crime, plotting to break them with other people isn't a crime unless the Legislature has specifically defined a crime called "conspiracy to violate election laws". Which it did indeed do in 2003, but DeLay and his pals did their thing in 2002, so they get to skate. I can't say I find the Court's logic to be terribly flawed, but it does mean that some conspiracies will be crimes while others will not. You can see the basics of the state's arguments here, from when they were made.
Fort Bend Now has Travis County DA Ronnie Earle's response to the CCA's ruling:
"Criminal conspiracy means three things. It means a person intends to commit a felony. It means that the person agrees that he or his co-conspirators will engage in conduct that would constitute the crime. And it means one of them performs some act in pursuit of the crime," he said in a prepared statement."Under the rationale of today's majority opinion, the Legislature has blessed these criminal conspiracies as long as the felony they agree to commit is not in the Penal Code. There are many felony crimes that are contained in parts of the law other than the Penal Code.
"Of course, it is illegal for them to actually commit the crime, but they can legally conspire to do it all they want," Earle said. "This is a tortured result."
The public policy considerations surrounding this decision are larger than this one case. Criminal conspiracy prosecutions "allow for the prevention of crime before it occurs," Earle said. "Under the court's opinion today, law enforcement is powerless to intercept certain felonies before they are actually committed."
In the short term, Earle is going to ask for a re-hearing on this ruling. I'm not sure what that means, or what practical effect it may have. DeLay and his codefendants are themselves still pursuing an appeal with the Third Court of Appeals on the conspiracy to launder money charge; that apparently may take another year to resolve. I believe that's separate from the checks aren't cash claim that Colyandro and Ellis once made - frankly, I have no idea if that's still an ongoing appeals issue.
Something to watch out for longer term is an attempt by the Lege to clean up this loophole in some fashion. That could make for some interesting legislation, if it were to happen. I'm just speculating here, as so far there's no obvious crusader for this cause. But the prosecutors in this state carry a fair amount of weight, and if they think this may let some bad guys get off the hook, I'll bet they'll ask for the matter to be addressed in 2009.
Finally, a matter I've noted before but just can't let go without noting it one last time:
One of the judges in the majority said he might have ruled differently "were we writing on the proverbial pristine slate." Another in the majority concluded that the court would be denying DeLay due process if it retroactively changed course now.
Because as we know, the Court of Criminal Appeals is all about protecting the due process rights of every defendant in Texas.
Congressional Quarterly takes a look at what I hope will become a high-profile race in CD10.
Texas Republican Mike McCaul was a beneficiary of a mid-decade redistricting plan -- spearheaded by Tom DeLay, the Texan who then was House majority leader -- that left the GOP with six more House seats after the 2004 election than they had after 2002.The 10th Congressional District, where McCaul ran, seemed so Republican (its voters would give President Bush 61 percent in 2004), that McCaul won that year without Democratic opposition, pulling down 79 percent to defeat a Libertarian and a write-in candidate.
But McCaul did draw a Democratic foe in 2006, and it made a difference. His challenger, former NASA employee Ted Ankrum, was not well-known in the 10th -- which spans 150 miles from eastern Austin to western suburbs of Houston -- and spent less than $65,000 to the incumbent's $1.1 million. Yet the outcome was a fairly modest 55 percent to 40 percent victory for McCaul.
While this doesn't suggest a major Democratic tide in the district, the 2006 result has opened the eyes of some of that party's strategists, who are mulling whether they could put the seat into more serious play in 2008.
Hallelujah. As you know, I've been banging this drum for awhile. Hell, I thought CD10 was ripe enough for 2006, had there been the resources to fight for it properly. Better late than never, as long as nobody weasels out now.
There's a lot more there on the two announced Democratic hopefuls, Dan Grant and Larry Joe Doherty, which is worth reading. Nate is also on this. What really matters to me in all this is making sure that CD10 - and frankly, some other seats - are seen as viable and worth pursuing even if they're not sure things. Going on the offensive and expanding the field of play has its own value whether it results in a pickup or not. Here, I think the pickup chances are sufficient to warrant interest on their own. I just don't think the accounting should end there.
UPDATE: James L notes that Dan Grant is doing pretty well on ActBlue.
I have five things to say about this article on how City Council meetings have always started late since 2004:
1. I'm trying to resist the urge to say "So what?" here. Yes, when you expect something to start at 9 AM and it doesn't actually start until 9:30, it's annoying. But it's not at all clear to me from this article that the actual impact of the Council's inability to start on time rises to the level of "news", as opposed to "trivia". Only one member of the public was quoted in the piece, so it's hard to judge whether this is merely a frustration or if it has caused someone who had business before Council, or who just wanted to hear about a particular issue, any genuine inconvenience. Surely if this were a real problem, there'd be some anecdotes out there, about missing work or not getting to testify or something, I don't know. But if there are such complaints, they're not in the article. So how are the 99.9% of us who've never attended a Council meeting in our lives supposed to tell if this is something that should bother us?
(Along similar lines, if this has been such a problem for so long, maybe it should have been reported on before now? Like maybe after six months or so? Just saying.)
2. There are other ways to judge how well a meeting has been run than just starting on time. Things like staying on agenda, keeping a decent tempo, fostering open dialog - if you've ever worked for a large company, you know the things I'm talking about. Now that we know Mayor White would flunk a promptness test, how does he do in other matters? (And how does he compare to his predecessors in them?) Speaking from my own personal experience, I'll take a meeting that starts late but ends on time over a meeting that starts on time but ends late any day of the week. What other dimensions are there?
3. While Council's tardiness may look bad, they're nothing compared to the State Lege, where committee meetings almost never have a set start time, almost never start on time when they do have a set start time, and public testimony is the lowest item on the priority list. Stories abound every session about people who drove all day to attend and speak at a meeting, then finally giving up at 4 AM because they still weren't near their turn to testify. This gets back to what I asked in item 1: How (if at all) has the Council's habit of fashionable start times actually affected people?
4. There was a lot of filler in this story. Honestly, who cares what some "San Francisco time management consultant" thinks? Or, with all due respect, what a local poli sci professor (and Republican blogger) thinks?
5. Finally, not to put too fine a point on it, results matter, too. Last I checked, a pretty high percentage of the voters thought the Mayor was getting good results. Is there a case to be made that we could get even better results if he called the meetings to order in a timely manner? Maybe, but if so I haven't seen it yet.
I see that reporter Matt Stiles has taken a little ribbing for this story. I have no quibble with his point, articulated in the comments, that not every story needs to be big and weighty and that "it's also fun (and enlightening for readers) to write a talker once in a while about fizzy water or attendance". I guess maybe what I'm saying is that while it was clear to me that the Dr Pepper story was intended to be taken lightly, this one felt more like it was supposed to be Real News. As such, it missed the mark.
Boy, when one has used such a title for a post, it's a little intimidating to actually write said post. So, let me just point you to Houstonist, where the title at least will make sense. All I can add is that the whole thing reminds me of a Budweiser "Real Men of Genius" ad. Really, what else is there to say?
Spoiler alert level: Elevated.
The mystery surrounding the end to fictional British boy wizard Harry Potter's saga deepened on Wednesday with a computer hacker posting what he said were key plot details and a publisher warned the details could be fake.The hacker, who goes by the name "Gabriel," claims to have taken a digital copy of author J.K. Rowling's seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," by breaking into a computer at London-based Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
For months now, leading up to the book's July 21 release, legions of "Harry Potter" fans have debated whether Rowling killed Harry or one of his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, in the final book.
Gabriel has posted information at Web site InSecure.org that, if true, would answer that question.
"We make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring," Gabriel said in the posting.
Well isn't that special? Maybe ol' Gabriel was beaten up by one too many wizards as a kid.
Kyle Good, a spokesman for U.S. distributor Scholastic Corp., would not say whether the posting was accurate, but did warn readers to be skeptical about anything on the Web that claims to have inside information on the book's plot."There is a whole lot of junk flying around," she said. "Consider this one more theory."
One that I hope to avoid finding out any more about in the next few weeks. Consider yourselves warned.
(And if it turns out that "Gabriel" did successfully hack into Bloomsbury, I trust that heads will roll and all legal recourse will be pursued.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you our newest member of City Council, Melissa Noriega.
I wasn't there for the swearing-in or the Council meeting that followed, but I trust that by now someone has asked Council Member Noriega her position on the all-important Dr Pepper question. How that managed to avoid being a campaign issue, I'll never know.
Just kidding. Stace has more on her oath-taking. Congratulations, Council Member Noriega!
The Court of Criminal Appeals, which is not known for being friendly to defendants, has refused to reinstate the conspiracy charge against Tom DeLay.
DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and political consultants Jim Ellis and John Colyandro were accused of conspiring to violate state election laws in the 2002 elections for the Texas House. But lower courts threw out the indictment on grounds that conspiracy to violate the election code was not a crime until 2003.A majority of the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed.
DeLay, Ellis and Colyandro were charged with plotting to funnel illegal corporate campaign contributions to several Republican House candidates in 2002, when the GOP gained its first House majority of modern times.
The three also were charged with money laundering, but a trial on those charges has been held up pending a resolution of the conspiracy charges.
So now we may finally get around to having the actual trials, now that all the appeals have run their course. In the meantime, I'm sure there will be more to this story soon. Stay tuned.
For those of you who want to pay your respects to iconic Houston sports announcer J. Fred Duckett, the Rice Athletics Department has the details.
A visitation will be held from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday evening at the George H Lewis & Sons Funeral Home, 1010 Bering Drive in Houston. The Memorial Service will be at 1 pm on Friday at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1015 Holman at Main in Houston. The family is also formulating plans for donations in lieu of flowers and those details will also be announced shortly.
More memories of J. Fred can be found here.
I didn't get around to yesterday's front page story about Mayor White and his plan to help wounded veterans in the Houston area.
One in 11 soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan is Texan, according to the Department of Defense. A quarter of the state's population comes from the Houston-Galveston area."You do the math," Mayor Bill White said Monday.
He has. To help returning wounded veterans, White pulled together about 200 community and military leaders Monday to announce plans for a bureaucracy-busting, problem-solving coalition similar to the one organized for Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett will co-lead the effort.
''Though the issues facing our wounded vets may not get the 24-hour media coverage that Katrina did, there are storms occurring in individual lives and individual families when people come back," White said.
He did not pledge any government money but said the city could assist by building a database to connect veterans to local nonprofits, veteran organizations, faith-based charities, corporate recruiters and other members of the coalition.
White also urged citizens to become mentors to returning veterans, to help them find resources and navigate bureaucratic red tape. A goal of the public-private coalition, he said, should be to respond to veteran requests in 24 hours, if possible.
"One by one with mentors and hope, (we can) take them under our wings and express our gratitude as a nation," White said.
[...]
Dr. S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, defended the quality of care at VA hospitals.
But he conceded the bureaucracy could be "frustrating" for disabled veterans. He said Houston's model, if successful, could work in other cities.
"We have something to learn here in Houston," Casscells said.
So, does this count as a new idea for Mayor White, or is he still fresh out of them? Because, I have to say, this sounds like a new idea to me. And a pretty darned good one, too.
(If you want more discussion of that particular column of Kristin Mack's, go read Greg. It's worth it.)
Anyway. I applaud this initiative, and I look forward to seeing what becomes of it. Well done, Mayor White.
Hey, I'm a Diet Coke guy myself, but business is business, you know?
Several [Council] members are in a fizz after learning that the Dr Pepper Bottling Co. of Houston soon will take over exclusive rights to vending machines at City Hall. That means staples like Coca-Cola and Pepsi will be scarce."I love Dr Pepper," said Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck, who attended Baylor University in Waco, birthplace of the sweet, syrupy pop. "But I'm a Diet Coke gal, now."
The council two years ago approved a five-year deal with Dr Pepper to supply its various soft drinks to 320 vending machines in 150 city buildings. The company gradually has been taking over service to various departments, including parks, fire, airports and health.
[...]
City officials who crafted the deal, which already has brought $700,000 in revenue, say it helps the city because Dr Pepper has agreed to return 45 percent of the proceeds -- much more than Coca-Cola and Pepsi -- in exchange for exclusivity.
"It's a tripling of revenue," said Tina Paez, a deputy director in the city's Finance and Administration Department.
Look on the bright side - at least there's a Diet Dr Pepper, too. Greg and Alex have more.
While I agree with Tom that the Harris County Toll Road Authority would have done well to have simply consulted with Tory Gattis before they implemented their ill-received and short-lived congestion-pricing plan, it seems to me that the stark differences between Tory's plan and theirs suggests theirs wasn't very sensible. I don't have any particular objections to the concept of congestion pricing (though Max Concrete's comment on Tory's post is well worth noting), but the goal is supposed to be about incentivizing people to change their driving behavior. The HCTRA plan was far too blunt an instrument for that. As very few normal commuters have the option of not going to or from work during the 6-9 AM and 4-7 PM time frames, the choice everybody else had was to pay a whole lot more, or not take the toll road at all. That's not an incentive to alter one's habits, it's a shakedown. The response to that was neither irrational nor over the top.
As for the conspiracy theory that HCTRA used this as a cover for their overall 25 cent price hike, I'll borrow from the response that Coca Cola CEO Donald Keough once famously gave when in a similar position: They're not that dumb, and they're not that smart.
PinkDome gets serious about a subject that really is no laughing matter: Teen suicide.
Texas is taking a new step to combat suicide, a serious public health problem.Jeannine Von Stultz, psychologist and director of mental health services for Bexar County's Juvenile Probation Department, says many young people who don't intend to go through with suicide still end up dying as they cry out for help.
"This is an urgent need. It's a crisis. And they're trying to do whatever they can to reach out," Von Stultz said.
Each day in Texas an average of six people take their own lives. For people between the ages of 15 to 24, suicide is the third leading cause of death behind car accidents and homicides.
"What we're concerned about is that we're seeing more lethal methods being used. So kids used to take pills. Now we're seeing higher rates of children hanging themselves," Von Stultz said.
Now the Texas Suicide Prevention Council and Mental Health America in Texas have launched a Web site, www.texassuicideprevention.org, to help educate Texans about suicide warning signs and how to help someone in a crisis.
The Web site is a tool for parents, teachers, counselors, and in many cases, individuals who are suicidal and may use the Internet to look for help.
"The information that's provided is downloadable. So you print it out and then disseminate it," Von Stultz said. "If you are a local agency or a school or a doctor's office -- it's accessible to everybody."
Part of a national strategy put in place in 1999 by then-Surgeon General David Satcher, the site is bilingual and, according to mental health professionals, long overdue.
I consider myself exceptionally lucky that I have had far less personal contact with suicide than PD, who writes very movingly about the people he knew who killed themselves. Take a moment to read what PD has to say, then go visit www.texassuicideprevention.org and be better prepared to confront this issue.
I'll never understand it, but plenty of people are snapping up those fifty-dollar scratch-off Lottery tickets.
For all the naysayers who couldn't imagine folks gambling on $50 on a single lottery ticket....Turns out, the state is making out like a bandit on its high-priced $130 Million Spectacular. Players have forked over close to $49 million dollars in the game's first six weeks. Or $1.2 million a day.Robust sales of the $50 game, amongst the priciest in the nation, are reversing what had been declining overall lottery sales. Total sales this year for all games are down 2.3 percent over last year, but they were down nearly 5 percent before the $50 game was introduced, on May 7. "The $50 game has had a definite impact on instant and overall sales," Texas Lottery Commission projects manager Robert Tirloni told agency commissioners at their monthly meeting this morning.
The $50 game now accounts for 2 percent of all scratch-off sales. The most popular games are those selling for $5. They accounted for nearly 28 percent of all scratch-off sales, followed by the $2 tickets (20 percent of all scratch-off sales) and the $10 tickets (14 percent of all scratch-off sales).
As long as we're not too concerned about who's buying all those high-end games, then I suppose this is a bonanza for the state. I don't believe this pace can possibly be maintained, but then I was one of those pesky "naysayers" about the $50 game concept, so what do I know?
Okay, is there anyone out there who really doesn't know what NSFW means? Right, then. Please put the Internet down, and slowly back away.
So it seems only right to ask: What is and isn't "NSFW" anymore?"We're not trying to arbitrarily post work-sensitive material," said [Alex Blagg, the managing editor of VH1's Best Week Ever blog], who oversees the 15 to 17 entries that end up on BestWeekEver.tv each weekday. "We're doing it because it's funny, and we hope the readers take upon themselves the responsibility to know what is and isn't safe for their own offices."
My criteria is simple: If it's something that would have been zapped by our fairly sensitive corporate net.nanny software, it's NSFW as far as I'm concerned. That, or if it features loud audio, out of respect for my cubicle and open-floor-plan-dwelling brethren and sistren (now there's an opportunity for the gender-neutral pronoun folks). Better to err on the side of caution. People can always follow the link at home.
(And if you really want to be a mensch, consider adding a brief description of what the link delivers, so people can be better informed in the cases where your idea of NSFW and theirs do not overlap.)
It pains me greatly to see stories like this.
Houston Community College Trustee and one-time City Council candidate Jay Aiyer is facing a charge of tampering with a governmental record, a felony that could cost him his law license, authorities said Monday.The Harris County District Attorney's Office accused Aiyer of committing the offense in March 2005, by "unlawfully removing, destroying, and concealing, the original filing" of a portion of his campaign finance report and substituting it with another document.
The charges were filed in the 184th criminal court last Thursday. Aiyer posted a $2,000 bond the following day.
Aiyer, reached Monday, said he could not talk about the charges in detail.
"We will be able to work this thing out in a couple of days," he said. "I think it's going to be resolved."
I consider Jay to be a friend, so I hope the charges against him are proven to be unfounded. We'll see what happens.
As someone whose collegiate sports loyalties lie outside the UT/A&M axis, I found the lawsuit against an Aggie merchandiser for violating UT's trademark on the Bevo logo to be more amusement than anything else. And while I generally side with the little guy in matters like these, it's hard for me to say that the UT position was terribly unreasonable:
Defense attorney Allan Van Fleet argued that Saw 'Em Off fell under traditional First Amendment protection of satire and parody.Van Fleet estimated more than 50 hours were spent haggling a settlement that would allow the university to protect its cherished trademark and the Kalaouzes to keep selling Saw 'Em Off merchandise without paying royalties on past, present or future receipts.
"(The $25,000) was just a one-time, what-does-it-take-to-make-you-go-away," said Van Fleet, a Houston attorney who got his undergraduate degree from Rice, not A&M. "It just came down to them agreeing to take a payment that was minuscule compared to the cost of going forward."
Louis Pirkey, an attorney for UT, noted the settlement also requires the approved symbol to be used in the clear context of the school rivalry and restricts color combinations to prevent confusion with UT's orange-on-white or white-on-orange logo.
Fadi Kalaouze estimates legal expenses north of $200,000, about a third of which were defrayed by selling nearly 5,000 "Save Saw 'Em Off" shirts emblazoned with the old, now-retired parody logo.
The Kalaouzes could have saved their money by agreeing to make a similar alteration when UT first objected in 2005, Pirkey said.
"We told the man a long, long time ago that we understand you want to symbolize the Aggie tradition of sawing Varsity's horns off. What we have an objection to is using our exact logo to do it," said Pirkey, who got his undergraduate degree at UT.
As I said, sounds reasonable enough to me. For some reason, this whole thing is reminding me of peeing Calvins, though without the famously reclusive copyright owner. Make of that what you will.
It's a very sad day for outdoor football.
J. Fred Duckett, who heralded the exploits of "Jose Cruuuuuuuz!" as the Astrodome's public-address announcer and proclaimed, "It's a beautiful day for outdoor football," to generations of Rice University fans, died Monday night at a Houston hospital. He was 74.One of Houston's most distinctive voices, Duckett was remembered by friends and former colleagues as Houston's foremost expert on track and field and as the institutional memory for a half-century of athletics at Rice, his alma mater.
"He could bring such perspective," said Bill Cousins, Rice's former sports information director. "You can look at the picture of Dicky Maegle being tackled in the Cotton Bowl, and J. Fred could tell you the names of the Rice cheerleaders standing on the sidelines.
"He spanned generations, and he was always there when we needed him."
Duckett grew up playing on the fields around Rice and attended the university in the early 1950s, competing in track and football as a member of the Owls' scout team under legendary coach Jess Neely. Sidelined by an injury during his junior season, he began working with Bill Whitmore, the Owls' longtime sports information director, and was involved with the program for the balance of his life.
Away from his alma mater, he was the PA voice of the Astros from 1969 through 1992 and also worked the mic for the Oilers and for several other local pro franchises.
"Strangers," he said during a 1990s interview, "are always telling me, 'I've heard that voice. I just don't know where.' "
Fans were never unclear, though, about their love for Duckett's exaggerated announcement of Jose Cruz's name. Cruz was one of Duckett's biggest fans.
"He gave me one of his bats from his last game as an Astro," Duckett said in 1991. "When he signed it, he put about fifteen U's in there."
Cruz, now an Astros first-base coach, said Monday night from Milwaukee: "He meant a lot to me. He's the one to come out with the way they announced my name. He was the guy to do that, and I'll never forget him."
Another lasting love was track and field. His notebooks of local track and field records dating back decades were an invaluable resource for researchers.
"It's man and woman against himself and herself," he said in an 1980s interview. "They're competing against what they can do, not if someone can block for them or pass the ball under the basket."
After graduating from Rice, Duckett earned a master's degree in history from the University of Texas and taught at St. John's and at Awty International in addition to working as an insurance salesman.
Duckett's wife of 29 years, Baudine, died in January. Friends said he had suffered from leukemia for several months.
Rice football games won't be the same without you, Fred. We fans will always remember you, and I sincerely hope that whoever they find to handle the announcing duties will keep telling us what a beautiful day it always is for outdoor football. Rest in peace, J. Fred Duckett.
More tributes to this local sports icon are here, here, and here.
I'm not really sure what to say about the Chron's rather harrowing series on how messed up the Harris County Probate Court system can be, other than I sure am glad we've done estate planning, and I sure as hell hope it never amounts to more than a formality. Couple of excerpts, just to give you a taste if you skipped past them. From Monday:
Perry ''Bit" Whatley, 84, a former Baytown refinery worker and lifelong Texan, spent his final days in self-imposed exile, a fugitive from a more than two-year-old fight with the state probate courts.Whatley was living in Arizona when he died, but it was not where he wanted to be, away from his home, cut off from his family and his $2 million fortune.
[...]
Soon after the filing of the guardianship case, the Whatleys withdrew $500,000 from an annuity, incurring an early withdrawal penalty. They gave most of the money to their own newly hired attorneys to fight the guardianship. Those attorneys now say the costs for the fight have grown to nearly $1 million.
In Harris County Probate Court, [Judge Mike] Wood, who also claimed he was trying to protect Whatley as a disabled Harris County resident, eventually authorized payments of $360,000 from Whatley's money to four lawyers, three he appointed and one hired on behalf of Whatley's niece. They have not yet provided final accounting of how much of Whatley's money was spent.
The judge openly attacked opposing attorneys as unorthodox renegades who abused the system and instigated Whatley's disappearance. In one court appearance last summer, he said he might have to order Whatley into court "in chains" and that it would be the fault of Whatley's legal team.
However, Whatley's hired attorneys remain adamant in their claims that Wood prejudged their client -- without ever meeting Perry Whatley -- and demonstrated his bias in a series of comments and rulings that threatened Whatley's savings, his independence and his marriage.
[Whatley's niece Jeannie] Anderson has another view. She believes those hired attorneys ''raped my uncle of his estate."
[...]
Whatley's attorneys decided to personally sue the judge, his appointees and others in an attempt to freeze spending of Whatley's assets. The lawsuit accused the judge and others of fraud, conspiracy and breach of fiduciary duties and asked for $15 million in damages.
Wood has called the suit frivolous and insisted he should be granted judicial immunity.
I don't think I've ever heard of attorneys suing a judge like that. I can't imagine the suit will be allowed to proceed, but it still says something to me. How screwed up do things have to be for something like that to happen?
From Sunday:
Some of the fattest fees generated by any recent Texas probate case went to the accounting firm of Paula Miller, a former court favorite who is not a lawyer, a certified public accountant or a banker.Miller, an accountant with two master's degrees, did serve for a while, though, as Probate Judge Russell Austin's campaign treasurer -- something the family of River Oaks widow Doris Conte initially did not know.
Her family trusts eventually paid Miller and her company $1.38 million. Austin ordered more than $780,000 in additional payments to people assigned to work with her, according to court and family records.
[...]
In 1998, Austin personally introduced Miller to Doris Conte's feuding children, Susan and Joe Conte Jr. The two at first agreed to allow Austin to appoint Miller to review accounting in their family trusts.
Initially, Miller charged the Contes more than $30,000 a month for what was supposed to be a temporary job. She later got the judge to approve hiring five law firms and a CPA, who got paid separately to help.
Within seven years after her 1998 appointment, Miller had generated more than $1 million for her own firm. When the Contes' cash ran low, Miller got more by selling properties and cutting lease deals, sometimes over family objections.
In an interview, Miller claimed her fees were similar to those a bank might charge for a complex trust case. "We did a tremendous amount of work," she said.
However, when Miller prepared to leave the trusts in 2003, she collected estimates from banks who competed to replace her. Those documents show that their proposed fees were lower than her own.
Miller's work at first included redoing five years of financial records, funding the trusts, overseeing accounting and monitoring several lawsuits. But she also frequently billed at $225 an hour for tasks such as buying a lawn tractor and arranging for household repairs.
From 2003 to 2005, her last three years on the case, she earned nearly $400,000 from the Conte trusts, the second-largest reported payout to any appointee in a probate case in the state of Texas, based on a Houston Chronicle analysis of fees paid in probate cases over a three-year period.
[...]
In 2001, Miller became Austin's campaign treasurer.
Miller also was among Austin's $5,000 campaign contributors. Others who worked on the Conte case gave Austin money, too, including an appraiser, a CPA, lawyers and the doctor who had examined Conte and recommended she be declared unable to manage her own affairs. Such contributions are legal and subject to Texas disclosure laws, though critics claim they may present an appearance of impropriety.
Texas judicial rules generally do not require judges to disclose campaign-related relationships in court. However, Lillian Hardwick, co-author of the Handbook of Texas Lawyer and Judicial Ethics, said it might have been prudent in this case for Austin to tell the Contes that Miller was serving as his treasurer.
Austin said he felt it was unnecessary because it was a matter of public record. He said Miller did not help him raise money, though her name appeared on fundraising letters.
In 2005, the Contes discovered Miller's role as Austin's treasurer in an Web search of Harris County records. They were furious.
That same year, Miller had requested authorization from Austin to put all the Conte properties on the market, including their home. After the Contes objected, Miller, who had previously talked about resigning, stepped down from their case. She also stopped serving as Austin's treasurer.
But before her work ended, Austin signed one more document in Miller's favor. This one could protect her from the Contes.
"For purposes of any future claims of liability the effect of judicial discharge shall be as though Paula Miller never served ... No person or entity shall have any cause of actions against Paula Miller or any of her actions or inactions ... ," the order said.
"Might have been prudent in this case for Austin to tell the Contes that Miller was serving as his treasurer". Yeah. Or maybe for her to stay out of his campaign, what with the appearance of impropriety supposedly meaning something.
Anyway. They're good reads, and they shed some light on a part of the judicial system that I at least knew nothing about. Check them out.
Are we sure it's time for another debate about gender-neutral pronouns? Because I could swear we just had one.
Okay, here's the thing. It's very easy to invent a gender-neutral pronoun. It's very hard to get anyone to use it, which is why we have this discussion every few years, when some earnest linguist takes another shot at it. What they all seem to not realize is that we've more or less already settled on a perfectly good gender-neutral pronoun:
The most common solution, using "they" or "them," irks grammarians when the subject is singular.
Far as I'm concerned, they can take their irk and stick it, along with every silly attempt at inventing a new word no one will ever use, where the sun don't shine. If you want to be technical, an invented word like "hu", which last I checked ain't in the dictionary, is also a grammatical error, so what's the difference? I say the market has spoken, and it has decided that "they" and "them" (and "their", too) can be singular as well as plural. Deal with it.
They're still fighting it out over wind farms - the Kenedy Ranch has 'em, the King Ranch doesn't want 'em.
King Ranch President Jack Hunt has called for state legislation to regulate the farms - the lack of such laws governing wind farms making Texas a favorite spot for potential wind projects. He's written newspaper opinion pieces and spoken to the media about what he sees as the dangers of the projects.Hunt said he met with Kenedy Ranch overseers when the wind farms were first proposed a couple of years ago, hoping to get them to understand they're "sacrificing the long-term value of a rare resource for short-term revenue."
"But it sort of fell on deaf ears," he said.
Marc Cisneros, who runs the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation from nearby Corpus Christi, has declined to shout back. But he said the project on his section of the ranch not only is environmentally sound but will allow the foundation's charitable work to continue in an impoverished part of the state.
Which is pretty much what we've been hearing all along. Here's some new information, which is greatly of interest to me:
The disagreement lingers even as Babcock & Brown and PPM Energy of Portland, Ore., prepare the sites for the turbines, which they both hope to have spinning sometime next year. PPM's initial phase calls for 84 turbines on about 15,000 acres owned by the John G. Kenedy Jr. Charitable Trust - a $400 million investment that's expected to generate 200 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 60,000 average-size homes.PPM spokesman Jan Johnson said the company, part of Spanish power utility Iberdrola, has worked diligently to make sure the turbines will have as little effect on the area as possible. She said it already scaled back the number of turbines nearer the coastline in part to protect some birds' flight patterns.
Jim Sinclair, the local biologist who studied the birds for PPM, said he's been surprised at the relatively small number of birds he's seen near the wind farm site. The area's hundreds of varieties include mourning doves, long-billed curlews, hawks, orioles and redhead ducks. In general, Sinclair said, many of the birds stick close to the water and large clusters of oak trees, and the turbines are far enough away not to pose too much of a threat - information PPM says it's shared with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others.
"We simply haven't seen a lot of them in the rotor-swept areas," Sinclair said.
If the issue is birds and the danger that turbines pose to them, then this is pretty compelling. I'd say the ball is in the King Ranch's court now.
I'm not unsympathetic to the idea of regulation here. Lord knows, we don't do enough to regulate other forms of energy - more precisely, we don't do enough to enforce those regulations. If we were talking about this being part of a comprehensive set of reforms - the kind that never seems to make it through the Lege unmolested - it'd be one thing. But until we can separate the King/Kenedy acrimony from what might or should be done, I'd rather be careful. Let the King Ranch show some evidence that the cost of what the Kenedy is doing is higher than they claim, and we can go from there. Link via South Texas Chisme.
Most people do not want to sit on a jury, and I was no different. Being away for a couple of days was quite disruptive (and this was a very short trial). Everybody has other things they want to do.And that's fine, but it was amazing to me how many people there started spouting rationales that clearly were designed to get out of jury service. "I couldn't possibly convict someone based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt - it would have to be absolute proof." Well, by that standard, nobody's even getting convicted. "If a police officer testified, I would believe him no matter what!" You couldn't evaluate what was being said? I have great respect for police, but let's face it, like any other group of human beings, some are not credible.
The judge - a cranky guy who was substituting for the regular judge that day - was having none of it. The people saying this stuff got brought up, one by one, to discuss it with him.
Now, there are people who legitimately hold those views. It was painfully obvious that most of these folks were not among them. One woman kept saying, "I can't be impartial!" "Why not?" "I can't be!" "Why not?" "I just can't!"
The worst was a 20-something woman who approached the bench, and after some muttered conversation we couldn't hear in the back of the room, was sent away by the judge with a quite audible dismissal - "Just go be seated!" and came back to where we were sitting with a smirk on her face. Ha ha, I got out of it!
And while we all would have liked to have gotten out of it, the reality is that if we want to live in a country where we get a trial by a jury of our peers - whether in a criminal or civil case - somebody's got to sit on those juries. If not us, then who?
It's one thing to be honest about your biases. It's fine to honestly say, "I do not understand what that law you're describing means." But to sit and just spout crap to get out of it marks you as somebody who doesn't deserve the benefits of our system of justice.
You can't give up a few days of your life? Go find a nice dictatorship where, if you run afoul of the law, you'll be tossed in prison without the niceties of a trial. It is apparently what you prefer.
Perhaps someday Ms. Smirk-a-lot will find herself or a family member in court, hoping for sympathetic people to sit on the jury, and watching them weasel out of it.
I've written about this before, and I'll say it again: People who distort their beliefs to get out of jury duty, for the reason that they don't feel like being on a jury, are beneath contempt. If you have a legitimate reason for not being able to serve, that's fine - tell the judge and be done with it. Otherwise, suck it up. I've been in Houston 19 years now, and I've served on exactly two juries, one of which was for traffic court where they guarantee up front you'll be out the same day. If that's your idea of an excessive burden, I pity you.
Among the many task forces that were convened after the Hurricane Rita evacuation fiasco was one to deal with the issue of depleted gasoline supplies along evacuation routes. Here's the report.
Surprisingly, until Rita hit Sabine Pass on Sept. 24, 2005, fuel supply had been omitted not only from the state's nearly 200-page evacuation plan but from many local ones as well."What we know now is there was no fuel plan," said Jack E. Little, former Shell Oil Co. president and CEO, whom Perry tapped to oversee his Task Force on Evacuation, Transportation and Logistics. "Every company was on their own. The problem arose when the voluntary evacuation was overlaid on top of the mandatory evacuation and the roads were clogged."
[...]
When evacuation discussions finally were held in city halls and among county commissioners courts, gasoline makers found themselves outside with the public. There was no heads-up to prepare gas stations, which were operating like it was any other day in Texas, with underground reserves at a quarter to half-full.
"Rita occurred and there was really no fuel desk," said Wade Upton, the retired Valero Energy executive credited with crafting the resulting evacuation fuel plan.
Together with [Texas Emergency Management Chief Jack] Colley, Upton and the fuel committee agreed on a series of benchmarks that would activate certain responses.
No longer will gas stations, as they had before, operate with half-full or less storage tanks during an evacuation. Typically, gas stations keep anywhere from 10,000 to 18,000 gallons of fuel on hand.
"We didn't know that before," Colley said.
Now, when storm winds are five days from Texas' shore, fuel trucks will be filled and positioned in pre-selected staging areas known only to the industry and the state.
From there, trucks will be directed to gas stations along the coast, particularly those in urban centers such as Houston, where underground tanks will be filled to the 65 percent mark.
When storm winds are two days away, fuel distribution will move from the coastline to stations along the state's key northern and western evacuation routes.
It's this key 48- to 72-hour window that Colley thinks will change evacuation for the better.
"It's absolutely essential to this fuel piece," he said.
Sheriff's deputies will escort the fuel trucks, guiding them around evacuation routes so they don't get stuck in traffic.
Once the storm passes over land, Colley and fuel strategists will concentrate on redirecting distribution in coastal cities, so that when people return to their homes, they can get back to work and those with power outages will have plenty of fuel for generators.
Seems like a reasonable plan - certainly, it's better than no plan. I think any Rita-sized evacuation is going to severely tax the system no matter what we put in place, but this ought to handle most situations well enough.
The task force thought of some other things, too:
Colley smiles when asked about some of the smaller, more irksome items such as stoplights in small towns on evacuation routes and trains.Despite the Rita emergency, many smaller towns along evacuation routes kept stoplights timed as if it were just another day, helping slow millions of fleeing motorists to a crawl.
No one even considered asking train companies to delay or reroute their operations.
"You know that train track in Giddings?" he asks, referring to the town that sits on U.S. 290 that all Houstonians must pass when they take the northwest route to Austin.
"There will not be a train going through that town next time. Stoplights in the town will not be on."
Good to know. Houstonist has more.
I agree wholeheartedly with Patrick McCann.
When Police Chief Harold Hurtt, Mayor Bill White and Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal were quoted as agreeing that there needs to be in-depth review of hundreds of criminal convictions based upon the frankly non-existent science practiced at the Houston Police Department lab, they were absolutely right. When they all solemnly intoned that a special master, a "czar," if you will, was not needed despite the recommendations of the former Justice Department official who conducted the lengthy investigation into this horror show, they were flat wrong.Let's be fair. Chief Hurtt and the mayor were not the ones who caused this mess, and Chuck Rosenthal's office has done a solid job of conducting and helping to retest DNA in many questionable cases. However, together, they certainly outnumber the presence of the Innocence Project (the only ones speaking for the folks who were convicted by the bogus reporting of this lab) on the "Committee of Stakeholders," and frankly, with due respect to those gentlemen, it is not in their own self-interest to conduct this investigation with the vigor it deserves.
That's pretty much it in a nutshell. It's almost like appointing a guardian ad litem. It has to be someone's sole purpose to make sure that every reviewable case actually gets fully reviewed. It's the nature of projects that in the absence of a dedicated project manager, things fall by the wayside. It's basically the 80-20 rule - most of the effort goes into the big, obvious wins, and the rest gets dealt with on an as-we-have-time basis, because hey, we got most of it done and I've got other stuff that needs my attention and wasn't this project supposed to have finished by now? Either it's somebody's job or it's nobody's job, and it needs to be somebody's job.
Over at Draft Rick Noriega, Vince takes a look at Rep. Noriega's recent legislative record.
We'll start this week with some of his accomplishments during the 80th Session of the Texas Legislature.State Rep. Rick Noriega has several sessions of important legislative accomplishments.
During the 80th Legislature, much of Rep. Noriega's attention was focused on education, environmental issues, public safety and veterans' affairs. This, of course, was in addition to his service on the House Appropriations Committees--one of the most sought-after legislative assignments, but also one of the most time-consuming and important in either chamber.
It's a thorough look at what Rep. Noriega did in Austin this past spring. Those of us who already know him know much of this stuff, but it doesn't do much good if nobody else knows about it. Take a look, and see what you think - there'll be more to come.
Meanwhile, Rep. Noriega spent the weekend in San Antonio and South Texas. See The Walker Report, Half Empty, and A Capitol Blog for news and photos.
Let me introduce you to Harris County Precinct 697. It's a very Democratic precinct, but it doesn't get a lot of turnout, at least not compared to some of its neighboring precincts. Here's what happened in Precinct 697 last year:
Precinct RVs Votes Turnout Harless Khan Pct Sharp Pct
==================================================================
697 5198 1108 21.32 323 704 68.6 710 69.0
Yes, Precinct 697 is in HD126, which means it's out in a part of the county where Democrats don't do much in the way of campaigning. It's also the single biggest precinct in that district, and as you can see it performs very well from a Democratic perspective. If it were in Democratic turf, it would be a prime target for GOTV operations, especially as part of a coordinated county campaign like we're expecting to get in 2008.
The reason why I'm introducing you to this precinct is that I believe we have to rethink our notion of where Democratic voters are, and where our turnout efforts need to be, if we really are serious about turning Harris County blue in 2008 and beyond. We know how to fish in the friendly waters, but we've got to be willing to venture beyond them, because the data tell me there's a lot of opportunity to better Democratic performance if only we'd expand our aim a little.
Let's take a closer look at HD126, which is very much a Republican district, but not a monolith. Here are all of the precincts in HD126 where Democrats ran well:
Precinct RVs Votes Turnout Harless Khan Pct Sharp Pct
==================================================================
468 3792 841 22.18 245 548 68.3 535 68.2
520 3977 715 17.98 249 405 61.9 419 64.1
613 2614 564 21.58 155 379 71.0 389 72.7
614 4133 1177 28.48 446 654 59.4 667 60.7
697 5198 1108 21.32 323 704 68.6 710 69.0
757 3712 590 15.89 187 363 66.0 382 68.2
873 729 144 19.75 34 102 75.0 108 78.3
("Sharp" is Jim Sharp, the top votegetter among Dems in Harris County last year.) I submit to you that if I showed you these numbers, and you didn't know where these precincts were, you'd agree with me that they're ripe for a turnout improvement plan. I don't know why you wouldn't want to take these 60%+ Democratic precincts and try to drive their turnout up. That's where the votes are, after all. Yet every one of these precincts had lower turnout than every single other precinct in HD 126. Overall turnout was 33.96%, and only two Republican precincts came in at under 30%.
Putting it another way, total turnout in the Democratic precincts of HD126 was 21.28%; in the Republican precincts, it was 39.00%. By my rough calculation, had the Dem precincts turned out at that level, Democrats would have netted about a thousand extra votes. When you realize that Mary Kay Green missed being elected by less than 7000 votes, that's really something.
Now, I know it's easy to be seduced by the lure of GOTV as a cure-all for electoral woes. Turning out voters, especially voters who aren't habitual voters, is hard. So let's take a look at how these precincts performed in 2002 for comparison purposes:
Precinct RVs Votes Turnout Dewhurst Sharp Pct
======================================================
468 3538 1007 28.46 345 593 63.2
520 4084 856 20.96 399 414 50.9
613 2643 750 28.38 221 503 69.5
614 4085 1349 33.02 609 689 53.1
697 4064 1181 29.06 395 728 64.8
757 2193 360 16.42 143 187 56.7
873 652 212 32.52 66 136 67.3
Here, "Sharp" refers to John Sharp. Peggy Hamric ran unopposed, so I'm skipping that race. Note two things here: Turnout was better in every precinct in 2002, and Democratic performance was better in every precinct in 2006. Maybe some of that was Republicans being more likely to stay home last year, but maybe these precincts, especially 520, are getting even bluer. In 2002 at least there was a rudimentary GOTV operation in the form of a high-dollar TV advertising campaign. Whatever the merits or flaws of the Democratic statewide effort of that year, there was nothing remotely like it this last time around.
What I'm saying is simply this. I believe there are a lot of precincts like the ones I've documented here - blue dots in red areas. (I'm going to review the other Republican HDs as well to try to prove that.) I believe that Democrats in Harris County have not expended much, if any, effort in targeting the voters in those areas. I believe we are not maximizing our efforts to win countywide if we are not targeting those voters. I believe we need to give some thought as to how we do this - certainly, mail needs to be a part of it, but being on the ground has to be a part of it as well. Ideally, there'd be a State Rep campaign to be the focal point of the latter. Point is, almost anything we might think of is likely to be better than what we've been doing.
I'll report on more of these areas in the coming weeks. Let me know what you think.
UPDATE: Here's Precinct 697.
This is a sweet column by Lisa Gray about what happened to some of the folks who were stranded by the demolition of The Stables restaurant.
How stable was The Stables? So stable that the staff didn't leave for new jobs; they died or retired. So stable that a waitress didn't take an order when one of her regulars appeared. She'd know that he wanted the same thing as always: prime rib, most likely, and one of the bar's big, stiff martinis. If she was away on vacation, the customer might stumble, unsure how to order in her absence. What kind of salad dressing? How should he know? When his waitress was there, the iceberg lettuce simply appeared, unbidden, with the dressing whose name he'd forgotten years ago.Late last year, word got out that The Stables' old red-barn building on South Main would give way to some shiny new piece of the Medical Center. Both the customers and the staff were distraught. There was talk that maybe The Stables would reopen somewhere new; surely it couldn't just die. Customers wrote down their phone numbers, telling waiters and waitresses to call when they landed new jobs.
The lot is still empty, in case you're curious. The remaining palm trees are still standing, and I've seen no sign of any impending activity. I'm not even sure if the property has been flipped yet to whoever will do the eventual construction. These things take a lot of time, I guess.
Anyway, about the fancy-schmancy new restaurant where three former Stables waitstaff wound up:
At REEF, they're called "the three D's." Like the younger waitstaff, David, Dianna and Debi dress all in black, but with their small-town haircuts and honeyed Southern accents, they seem like a different species.Taken as a whole, REEF's waitstaff echoes its retro-modern food, dishes such as "roasted grouper, pecan-shallot cracklins, braised collards, pot licker jus." The sleek kids seem born to serve truffled polenta and seared triple tail to the stylish set that feeds on such things. But the three D's stand for pecans and pot licker.
Dianna approves of the way the owners chat up the customers, just like at The Stables. She tells the young waiters not to blow their money, to save some for their rent. And she's proud that she figured out the computer.
Now that the restaurant has been open three weeks, she and David think it's time to start calling their old customers. They wanted to wait until they were sure they'd stick around, sure that the restaurant would be worthy of their people. But already they're thinking long-term. On the first day of summer, David was imagining Christmas, and how beautiful downtown would look through the restaurant's big front window.
Even without phone calls, some of the old Stables crowd has found the three D's. David steers his long-timers toward the rib-eye, a comforting island of beef in an ocean of seafood. Dianna gets excited to see her people's kids and grandkids.
After one Stables regular heard Dianna surfaced at REEF, he asked his college-aged granddaughter to take him there.
You figure the young woman probably looked more suited to the stylish restaurant, with its open kitchen and pearly tabletops, its of-the-moment Portuguese wines.
But her grandfather came back five nights in a row. Like the three D's, he'd found a surprising new home.
Awww.
This is interesting.
The rest of the world got a glimpse into the personality of John Mackey, Whole Foods Market Inc.'s chief executive, last week and learned what Austin has known for a long time: He is anything but subtle.In a blog posting on the Whole Foods Web site, the full force of Mackey's personality was laid bare as he attacked the Federal Trade Commission for trying to stop his company from buying rival Wild Oats Markets Inc.
For openers, Mackey accused the FTC of acting in "a biased, adversarial and arrogant manner" and of using "bullying" and "unethical" tactics.
Mackey, an outspoken, competitive Libertarian who despises government interference with business, is in the middle of a court battle with the FTC over the biggest purchase in his company's history.
At a July 31 federal court hearing, a judge will decide whether to grant a preliminary injunction to stall the merger while the lawsuit goes forward.
[...]
[M]any antitrust experts, Whole Foods shareholders and analysts are wondering whether Mackey has gone too far, possibly damaging his company's chance to buy Wild Oats.
His 14,000-word blog included a letter he sent to the Whole Foods board of directors outlining reasons to buy Wild Oats, including a comment that it would "forever" eliminate the threat of a rival supermarket chain buying Wild Oats to compete against Whole Foods, and attacks against the FTC, calling it "arrogant."
[...]
"I've been writing about business for over 20 years, and something like this is pretty unprecedented in my experience," said Sam Fromartz, the author of "Organic Inc." "Corporations generally don't sock it to the government."
Erik Kulick, a Pittsburgh-based attorney and self-described Whole Foods fan who has owned stock for five years, said he thought Mackey never should have been allowed to publicly post his comments.
Mackey "seems to be a good businessperson, but I think he went off the rail a little bit regarding this FTC hearing," Kulick said. "The repercussions are potentially serious."
Darren Bush, a University of Houston law school professor and antitrust expert, said the comments might not hurt Whole Foods' case because recent history has shown it is rare for a federal judge to challenge a proposed merger.
But it definitely won't help, he said.
If Mackey's comments conflict with statements he provides during depositions in the lawsuit, that will be damaging, Bush said. The FTC will pore over the blog with a "fine-tooth comb," he said.
"One does not want more ammunition pointed at you," Bush said. "Why don't you just hand them a gun and say, 'Take a few shots at me'?"
[...]
Mackey has promised more blogs in the coming weeks.
"His attorneys are drinking a lot of Maalox, or the natural foods equivalent," Fromartz joked. "Lawyers hate this. They just want to play by the game, by the rules, and he is not playing by the rules."
As we know, listening to one's attorney is frequently good advice. The blog post in question is here. We'll see if this turns out to be wise or stupid.
Like 'em or not, red light cameras are not going away - in fact, they're likely coming to a city near you.
More than a dozen municipalities, including Dallas and Houston, have them in place to catch red light runners. And more than 60 cities joined an informal "red light camera coalition" that hovered over the Legislature this spring as it considered how to regulate the emerging trend.Austin and Round Rock were a part of that coalition, and both are moving toward installing cameras. Later this summer, Austin's first red light cameras will appear at two intersections, although the pilot will generate only dummy citations so city officials can evaluate how they do. Round Rock is taking bids, and its city council probably will pick a vendor early in the fall.
"Our goal is just to reduce the number of people running red lights," Round Rock spokesman Will Hampton said. "Does it generate revenue? Yes. But that's how we change behavior."
[...]
Since the cameras first appeared in a couple of Dallas suburbs in 2004, the debate in Texas has centered on the revenue-versus-safety issue, as well as the question of whether red-light cameras in fact make roads safer. Some opponents, pointing to studies, say the cameras cause more rear-end accidents (because of folks who jam on the brakes to avoid a ticket) than they prevent.
In a 2005 review of data, the Federal Highway Administration concluded that the presence of the cameras had reduced right-angle crashes about 25 percent. Rear-end accidents had increased 15 percent. And crashes of all kinds at nearby intersections had decreased 8.5 percent.
Yes, we're still waiting to see what Houston's camera data looks like. That we're catching a lot or red light runners is clear. What effect that is having on accident and injury rates is still not.
Despite all the limitations, Austin and many other cities are moving forward. Austin will have two vendors put cameras on the southbound frontage road of Interstate 35 at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and on the northbound frontage road at 11th Street. During the 60-day trial, offenses will generate only letters sent to the Municipal Court, and violators won't be notified or have to pay a fine.After that, the City Council will choose a vendor to put in cameras at a still undetermined number of intersections. By late this year or early 2008, Austinites who run those lights should be getting their first actual bits of bad news in the mail.
"Nobody likes getting a ticket, whether it's from a camera or a police officer," said Shelley Franklin, who runs Garland's red light camera program. "But what's the alternative? How else do you get people's attention? Someone has to protect us from ourselves or each other."
Well, you could put traffic officers at various intersections and have them nail the violators. That's less effective and more costly, though it would generate more revenue on a per-ticket basis. Something tells me that the people who complain about the cameras, especially those who decry them as a revenue grab, would for the most part not be mollified by this.
Link via The Walker Report, whose camera-critic proprietor has written an I-told-you-so op-ed about the camera implementation in his city of Balcones Heights. It sounds more to me like they negotiated a deal that isn't so good now with the passage of SB1119, but in and of itself I don't consider that to be an indictment of the system. Your mileage may vary.
Gah. From Cap Inside, via LOs Dos Professors, the special session madness just won't go away.
Some state lawmakers want Governor Rick Perry to call a summer special session in hopes of heading off tuition hikes, budget cuts or property tax increases that they fear will be necessary as a result of his decision late last week to slash community college funding with his line-item veto authority.The furor over Perry's vetoes intensified Wednesday amid speculation that the governor was intentionally setting the stage for a special session in an attempt to force an overhaul in the way the state's public colleges and universities are funded.
While higher education officials and their hometown lawmakers expressed disappointment, frustration and anger over the vetoed college funds, Perry is also catching increasing heat for vetoing an eminent domain bill that was designed to protect property rights, a school bus idling measure and a bill that would have increased retirement benefits for some legislative employees such as House and Senate clerks, cooks and parliamentarians including two who resigned during a revolt in the House on the session's final weekend. The Republican governor vetoed 51 bills that had been approved during the regular session and $646 million in spending in two appropriations bills.
Perry has been upset about the methods that higher education officials have used to justify legislative appropriation requests - and he's been unhappy with the Legislature's resistance to his demands for more accountability and spending restraints on special items that he calls pork.
I don't quite understand why anyone thinks Governor 39% will give lawmakers a second chance to pass legislation he's already vetoed. I'm hard pressed to think of anything that's less defining of Perry's style than that. He may yet call a special (God, I hope not), but if he does, it'll be on things he wants, like voter ID. Maybe if the Lege makes short work of his agenda in such a situation, he'd start lobbing them a few bones. But let's keep in mind what the order of operations would be.
Look around the kitchen of Filippo La Mantia's hip restaurant in downtown Rome and you'll see oranges, fresh basil, olive oil. But no garlic."I will never use garlic!" declares the Sicilian chef as he demonstrates how to make a flavorful pasta dish -- octopus linguine with orange juice and almond pesto -- without the ingredient he hates.
A quintessential element of traditional Italian and Mediterranean cooking, garlic is at the center of a gastronomic dispute in this nation that prides itself on its food. To critics it is just a stinky product that overwhelms more delicate flavors. Admirers say garlic enhances taste, gives a dish an extra punch -- and is also good for the health.
"Garlic is the king of the kitchen," says Antonello Colonna, another prominent Italian chef. "To eliminate it is like eliminating violins from an orchestra."
Critics have started a ferocious campaign for garlic-free dining, and the debate has moved out of culinary circles. Corriere della Sera, Italy's top daily, devoted a page to the matter this week, listing celebrities in each camp under the headline: "The Crusade of Garlic Enemies."
Blasphemy! You can have my garlic when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.
I saw a promo for this the other day, and while I doubt I'll tune in, I hope it does well.
Here's one way to get your earphone-wearing, video-game-playing, junk-food-eating kids off the couch and into a healthier lifestyle: Give 'em a Shaq Attack.That's what Shaquille O'Neal, the 7-foot, 325-pound center from pro basketball's Miami Heat, delivers on his new ABC reality show, Shaq's Big Challenge (8 p.m. Tuesdays, Channel 13).
O'Neal's mission: to transform the lives of six obese children -- none of whom can run a mile -- into fit, active kids with a healthful outlook on life.
It won't be easy with this bunch. One of the boys is addicted to "pizza burritos," and another enjoys bowls of popcorn doused with two sticks of melted butter.
O'Neal, who said he's been physically active his whole life, began to question why "big, husky, chubby kids" were becoming more common. And along the way, the answers became obvious.
"We live in a technological society," O'Neal said. "It's easy for a child to come home and listen to his iPod or play Sega. It's easy just to e-mail friends and eat a whole bag of chips."
But the threat to children's health goes beyond the home, as O'Neal sees it: The abundance of junk food and lack of focus on physical education in the nation's schools also are problems.
"I had mandatory PE," he said. "Now only 6 percent of schools have mandatory PE. That's terrible."
Yeah, I had PE all the way through high school. Can't say it was my favorite thing - at Stuyvesant, it always seemed like gym class in the basement was followed by a class on the fifth floor - but it's a good thing, one that kids should be exposed to. Maybe for Shaq's next project, he can use his experience with this show to lobby Congress for a renewed emphasis on PE in the public schools.
His isn't the only such show on TV. Tiffany decided to TiVo an episode of Honey, We're Killing The Kids last week. It's quite an eye-opener.
In the series, our nutrition expert Felicia Stoler, MS, RD shows how everyday choices can have long-term impacts on children, and offers both the motivation and the know-how to help turn these families' lives around. Using state-of-the-art computer imaging and certified assessments based on measurements and statistics, Felicia first gives Mom and Dad a wake-up call to the possible future of their children. Then, introducing her new guidelines and techniques, Felicia will work with parents to reverse course and give their kids a healthy diet and active lifestyle.The family then has three weeks to overhaul its bad habits under the direction of Felicia, who delivers a set of life-altering rules with the aim of completely transforming the children's future health and lifestyle.
How are the families responding to the challenges set by Felicia? Are the children trying new healthy foods? Can Mom quit smoking? Will Dad agree to become more involved in family life? Will the children try rock-climbing? While not always initially easy for the families, the rules often become fun, as new experiences are brought into their routines.
I thought the show relied a bit too much on the "state-of-the-art computer imaging" and didn't spend enough time talking about the nuts and bolts of good nutrition; Tiffany and I both thought there wasn't enough emphasis on how to really learn and follow the rules that families get in a big, thick binder. But at least in the show we watched, it appeared to be effective. One of the parents, who had to weigh over 300 pounds, was said to have lost a total of 50 pounds after seven weeks. That's pretty impressive.
No matter how obsessively one follows the Lege, there's always a few interesting bills that make it through completely under the radar.
Legislators couldn't agree to ban smoking in public places this session. But they did mandate that all cigarettes sold in Texas by 2010 be designed to snuff out after the last puff."The reality is the technology is such that you can have safer burning cigarettes that kind of extinguish themselves," said Sen. Royce West, the Dallas Democrat who helped carry House Bill 2935 to the governor's desk. "We should take advantage of it."
Texas isn't quite blazing a trail. New York, which has required "fire-safe cigarettes" since 2004, was the trendsetter. Its legal standard has become the boilerplate for 15 other states, affecting nearly half of the American public.
The cigarettes employ two or three bands of special paper that act as tiny firewalls to self-extinguish if the user isn't actively smoking.
"Texas is a huge boost to our initiative in that it brings us another big state and another big indication that (someday) every state in the country will be protected by this legislation," said Lorraine Carli, spokeswoman for the Coalition for Fire-Safe Cigarettes, run by the National Fire Protection Association.
Texas will start affixing tax stamps only to fire-safe cigarettes as of Jan. 1, 2009, and any retail stock of non-fire-safe cigarettes remaining could not be sold after 2010.
[...]
According to a 2005 Harvard School of Public Health report, cited in Connecticut legislative research documents, the new cigarettes didn't affect prices or sales in New York.
Carli's group says smoking-related fires kill 700 to 900 people a year, about a quarter of them people other than the person wielding the fateful cigarette.
Smoking is blamed for nearly 4,000 structure fires in Texas from 2000 to 2005, according to the state fire marshal's office. Fifty people died in those blazes, making smoking the most common cause of fatalities in accidental fires.
Seems like a reasonable enough thing to me. The technology exists, it won't cost any extra money, and it may help prevent a few fires and deaths from those fires. I'm not sure what the argument against this is, but for what it's worth, the final version of HB2935 passed the House on a 131-4 vote, with Bonnen, Crabb, Harper-Brown, and Riddle voting No. It passed the Senate unanimously, as is often the case.
There's nothing really new in this story about how funding for the West 11th Street Park came out of the Lege, but it's a useful overview for those who hadn't been following it all along.
Just as the fate of five acres of the West 11th Street Park was looking bleak, state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, put a line item for $3.75 million in the state's urban park budget, which will keep the 20.2-acre park whole.Since 2005, grass-roots organizations and city leaders have been working to raise $9.2 million to purchase the 20.2-acre park in Timbergrove Manor from Houston Independent School District to keep it from being sold for development.
"It was a real bolt from the blue," said Loraine Cherry, president of Friends of the West 11th Street Park. "We had all been getting prepared to go down to city council again and I had been sending out more and more grants. We had some success and had gotten some money, but we still were coming up about $3 million short.
"And then Sen. Whitmire called me one morning and said, 'I want to let you know this is what I'm trying to do.' It was one week before the end of the legislative session."
Said Toni Lawrence, the District A council member who helped with fundraising, "The neighbors in that area worked to keep that green space and it's actually coming through. We had some people step forward, but in the big scheme we needed a little more boost or we would lose that five acres."
[...]
"I watched on the sidelines with interest the efforts to save the park. I followed it very closely and they came up short," Whitmire said. "Historically, the state thinks urban parks are the responsibility of local government.
"It just seemed like a natural thing to do given my position on the Finance Committee. Everyone had done so much -- the city, the Parks Board, the neighbors -- I was just pleased to be in a position to do something.
"I just spoke up and put that item in the budget," Whitmire added. "I didn't say anything until I knew it was safeguarded."
If all goes according to plan, the Parks Board should get the $3.75 million to pay back the loan and accrued interest on Sept. 1.
"The only concern, and it's a guarded concern, is that obviously the governor has to sign the budget," Whitmire said. "I've been informed this park is in good shape."
"When the money is in the Parks Board hands, I'll celebrate," Lawrence said.
The story was published in June 19, and Governor Perry has indeed signed the budget, so all is well. All I want to know at this point is when's the party to celebrate the victory?
Here's a little discussion fodder for the weekend for you: Who would you consider to be Houston's top five athletes? The criteria, as noted by Stephanie Stradley, who gives her own answers plus some honorable mentions, are as follows:
1) What would a Houston sports fan say is his or her favorite local athlete? 2) Would the player's name be familiar to someone who doesn't follow sports or only follows local sports casually? 3) Would the player be recognized walking down the street?
There's an unmentioned fourth requirement in there, which is that the athlete must be actively playing, otherwise I can't imagine a list that didn't include at least three of Nolan Ryan, Jeff Bagwell, Earl Campbell, Hakeem Olajuwon, and maybe Carl Lewis. As for me, I'd swap Steph's #5 with the first runner-up, but that says more about my own sports biases than anything else. Beyond that, I've no real quibble. What do you think?
Apparently, Wikipedia wants to delete the entry for Mary Beth Harrell, because it's an
Article about a person that does not assert the importance of the subject. She was a candidate, but did not win the seat. I don't see any other claim of notability.
Huh. I didn't know Wikipedia cared about such things. Be that as it may, Wikipedia appears to be a bit inconsistent - Shane Sklar is still there, as are Barbara Radnofsky and David Van Os along with a note that his entry "may require cleanup". Van Taylor is there, and so is Arlene Wohlgemuth, but she at least once served in the Texas House. On the other hand, Richard Morrison, David Harris, Jim Henley, and Will Pryor are not there. Maybe they never were, maybe they've already been deleted, I can't tell.
Anyway. For future reference, in the event Wikipedia decides to apply whatever standard goes here, I've put what Harrell is sending to Wikipedia in response beneath the fold.
"Mary Beth Harrell was the only Democratic woman to challenge a Republican incumbent for a Congressional seat in Texas in 2006.Mary Beth Harrell was the only woman Congressional challenger who had a son serving on active duty in Iraq during the national 2006 Congressional elections.
Retired Lieutenant General Wesley Clark endorsed Mary Beth Harrell along with Esquire magazine, The Austin American Stateman newspaper and the Austin Chronicle.
Mary Beth Harrell raised only $162,000 in campaign funds, but managed to win about 40% of the vote in a Republican gerrymandered district in a non-presidential election year.
The nationally televised PBS program "Now" featured Mary Beth Harrell and her race in Congressional District 31 in a show entitled "Sway the Course". The local PBS Station, KNCT-TV, blacked out the program scheduled to air just days before the election in CD 31.
Mary Beth Harrell will now host and produce a new summer series on KNCT-TV entitled "Insight with Mary Beth Harrell." The 12-week show will debut on July 12, 2007, at 7:30 pm (CST). Mary Beth will talk with community leaders - bankers, judges, educators, television and radio broadcasters, newspapers editor, hospital administrators, ministers, business owners, city council members and Fort Hood commanders - about the issues that affect everyone in central Texas. And those leaders just happen to be women.
Harrell also went on location at local area restaurants seeking public opinions from Central Texans on an array of topics. "We want to bring our community into the studio so our guests can hear the opinions and concerns of its citizens," noted Harrell. "We hope the viewers, as well as our guests, find the exchange enlightening and entertaining."
Harrell solicits the viewers opinions and suggestions at the end of each show and hopes to share them in a weekly newspaper column.
Mary Beth graduated from law school at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas in 1998, and has practiced law in Bell, Coryell and Lampasas counties, as well as in Federal Court. Mary Beth has served as City prosecutor for Nolanville and Temple.
Mary Beth and Bob have three children and three grandchildren. Their boys, Josh and Rob, serve on active duty in the US Army, Rob will return to Iraq in the Fall. Mary Beth and Bob already have three granddaughters, but their daughter, Tonya, is expecting her first child around Labor Day. Tonya's husband Hugo Rosas is currently attending training to become a US Border Patrol Agent. Bob Harrell is a retired Army Warrant Officer, businessman, and serves on reserve duty as an Investigator for the Coryell County District Attorney..
Mary Beth co-chairs the Gatesville Boys and Girls Club's Capital Campaign. Mary Beth and Bob are members of the Killeen, Copperas Cove, Temple and Gateville Chambers of Commerce, the Lions Club, Association of the US Army (AUSA), and the Exchange Club.
Mary Beth and Bob live on a small ranch in Gatesville where they raise a few head of cattle, like to ride their horses and tend to their dogs."
I'm still trying to understand the day labor center funding thing, which went one way on one day and then sort of reversed yesterday.
Houston Mayor Bill White will help locate $100,000 to keep an East End day labor center from closing its doors when a city contract ends this month, his staff confirmed late Thursday.The controversial East End Worker Development Center, at 2 North Sampson and popular with undocumented workers, is the only city-funded hiring hall in operation in Houston.
City officials decided recently not to renew a $100,000-a-year contract with the nonprofit Neighborhood Centers Inc. to operate the center. The funding issue also surfaced in spring 2006 when a City Council member and others charged that the center encouraged illegal immigration.
The center is operated with federal Community Development Block Grant funds.
Frank Michel, a spokesman for White who is on business in Washington, D.C, confirmed the mayor has agreed to work with center operators to find new funding.
"What he said is he would work with them to identify other sources of funding," Michel said. "What that is, I can't say at this point because it hasn't yet been identified."
Michel said officials at Neighborhood Centers have been notified of the mayor's effort.
Marc Levinson, director of communications at the nonprofit agency, said he spoke with White's chief of staff, Michael Moore, late Thursday.
"The mayor has committed to finding the private funding necessary to keep the center open for another year," Levinson said.
Levinson said if funding becomes available, he would love to keep the program going. "We believe it is a valuable program," he said.
We certainly know by now that the City is interested in getting out of the landlord business. I don't think that's quite the case here, since I don't see any indication that the city owns the land, but whatever. They'd rather it be done with private money, and whether I agree with that or not, it's at least a reasonable position. Where I'm confused is the rationale that was given initially by the city for its actions:
Frank Michel, spokesman for Mayor Bill White, confirmed that the city did not allocate funding for the center from this year's federal Community Development Block Grant program.''The City Council determined that," said Michel, adding that there are no plans to explore alternate funding. ''It was debated last year at great length. The upshot of it was that we would not fund it again."
Michel said the city's funding of the facility became an issue last spring after then-Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs -- who was seeking the Republican nomination to succeed U.S. Rep. Tom Delay -- and others said the center promoted illegal immigration.
"There are many in the community who say we shouldn't be spending taxpayer money on it, because it encourages illegal immigration," Michel said.
There are also people who think we should disband Metro, and people who think we should bomb Iran. We call them "political minorities", and we generally don't take our direction from them. I mean, didn't we just have a city election in which this sort of thing was an issue, with the guy who supported that position losing?
As I said, in the end I'm okay with what the city is doing, as are Stace and Marc Campos. All I'm saying is that if Frank Michel had stopped talking after his first paragraph, I'd be a lot less puzzled by all this.
I'd call this a step in the right direction, if nothing else.
The Houston Planning Commission recommended Thursday that two iconic shopping centers be designated as landmarks, making them eligible for tax breaks intended to discourage their expected demolition.[...]
The landmark designations, if approved by the City Council, will apply to the Alabama Shopping Center in the 2900 block of South Shepherd -- including the Alabama Theater building that now houses a bookstore -- and the crescent-shaped River Oaks Shopping Center at the northeast corner of Shepherd and West Gray.
Both areas, along with the River Oaks Theater across the street from the River Oaks Shopping Center, have been listed as endangered by the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance. Weingarten Realty Investors, which owns all three properties, has asked tenants to vacate the River Oaks Shopping Center and may legally begin demolition on Aug. 8.
Weingarten representatives could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Miya tried to find out about that awhile back. Short answer, Weingarten is playing it close to the vest.
About a dozen speakers, including leaders of every major Houston preservation organization, two City Council members and architectural historian Stephen Fox, urged the commission to approve the landmark designation even though it might not save the buildings from the wrecking ball."Even though this doesn't ensure that the buildings will be preserved, it does send a message that this city really cares about its history and the built environment," said Councilman Peter Brown.
That and a fiver will get you a fancy coffee at one of the two Starbuckses next to the Theater. The gesture is nice, and I applaud that it may be made, but it's just a gesture.
There is one thing historic designation, and the accompanying tax breaks, could do, however, and that's to make the River Oaks/Alabama Center properties appealing to a buyer who'd want to keep them as they are - or at least, to keep the Theater and the BookStop as they are. It's probably not enough, but who knows? It's something, and until something else better comes along, it's what we've got. Keep hope alive, y'all.
Looks like the Chron is going to need another DC-based columnist.
FishbowlDC has learned that Houston Chronicle Washington columnist (and former Houston Chronicle D.C. Bureau Chief) Cragg Hines is retiring after 35 years with the paper. A Gridiron fixture, Hines has become one of the great Washington monuments in the journalism community. He is leaving at the end of July.
I suppose they could just leave his position vacant, and let Julie Mason pick up the slack. I'd rather they give someone else a shot at it. Either way, Happy Retirement, Cragg.
(And feel free to keep blogging afterwards. You'll be able to say stuff you might've felt uncomfortable about before. Believe me, that would be a good thing.)
I have three things to say about this story about a price hike at the Houston Zoo.
1. Get a membership. If you go to the Zoo more than once a year, it pays for itself. (And if you go less, what are you complaining about?) There are still free days at the Zoo, and as the story notes there will now be discount tickets, for slightly less than what they were before the increase, at Fiesta markets. Membership means skipping the long lines to enter, special deals and other discounts, and a reciprocal arrangement with other zoos and aquaria - when we go to Portland to visit my parents, we get in free at the Portland Zoo, and the same is true when they come here. And it's good for the Zoo. Who knows, maybe more members would mean longer-term price stability.
2. It's still a pretty good deal - kids' tickets are cheaper here than at most other Texas zoos. And speaking as someone whose first visit to the Zoo was over a decade ago, it's a much better place now than it was back then. It's also a pretty good deal compared to other entertainment options. How much would you pay to take the family to a movie? An Astros game? Dave and Buster's? You can still go to the Menil if you want high-quality no-cost entertainment.
3. Maybe the Zoo is having to spend more money on things that it must have and can't control, like (oh, I don't know) gasoline and electricity. What's their alternative in that situation? Unlike HCTRA, the Zoo has fewer good options available to it.
Sure, I'd rather the Zoo be cheaper. I'd rather everything be cheaper. But that's life.
Today's story on the pension deal fills in a few blanks.
The city's annual financial contribution, which increases with the liability, had been a source of contention in recent weeks. White has defiantly stated that the city couldn't afford a higher payment without getting rid of hundreds of employees. That prompted David Long, the fund's executive director, to hint about a possible legal fight.Then, Thursday morning, city employees found an e-mail and telephone message from White announcing the deal.
"As your mayor, I deeply value your commitment to public service," he said in the recorded voice message. "That's why it's important to me, and all within the management of this city, that the pension on which you're planning is secure."
Long, who had been publicly skeptical of White's plans, said current employees should be pleased with the deal. He said the fund negotiated away attempts by the city to replace a popular deferred retirement program, known as DROP.
The two sides also reached a deal with the retirement package remaining a traditional pension plan, long abandoned as too costly by much of the corporate world, rather than a defined contribution plan, similar to a 401(k).
Long said the city also agreed to pay more: $78.5 million in 2009, $83.5 million in 2010 and $88.5 million in 2011.
Among the benefit changes:
- Depending on years of service, the current plan allows workers to retire fully as young as 50. New employees would not be able to retire with a full benefit until they reach 62.
- Annual 2 percent cost-of-living increases would be eliminated for new employees.
- An existing provision extending a full benefit to a spouse upon a retiree's death would be optional. New employees who choose to cover a spouse would receive a reduced monthly payment.
None of that sounds terrible, in the sense that if this had been the way it worked all along it wouldn't strike me as being stingy. But as city employees are the only group we haven't heard from so far (here's one brief reaction), it'd be nice to know what they think - and in particular whether they think future employees are getting screwed - before we put this under the "everybody is happy" banner. We'll see what happens when Council and HMEPS review and presumably approve it.
UPDATE: Here's the HMEPS press release (PDF), via Matt Stiles.
Rod Newman, Secretary of the HMEPS Board of Trustees and Chair of the Board's External Affairs Committee, praised HMEPS and City executives who have worked to come up with an agreement that is a win-win for all parties: "David Long, who was the HMEPS negotiator in the meet and confer process, had many meetings and conversations with the City's negotiator over the last two weeks, and we appreciate his diligence and commitment to get this amicably resolved so the final agreement is in the best interests of everyone."
It's City Council's turn now.
I didn't think there was anything else to say about the head-spinningly fast flipflop on Westpark Toll Road pricing, but then I saw this in today's updated story.
On Tuesday, [Commissioner Steve] Radack said of drivers who couldn't afford peak-hour fees, "Let them go down Richmond Road. Or they can use Westpark," a secondary road near the tollway. His comment especially angered commuters.But [County Judge Ed] Emmett said Radack's comment may have been useful because many residents phoned or e-mailed to say that Richmond also is congested and is not a viable alternative.
Emmett said he and other court members reviewed alternatives to the tollway and decided that it is unwise to force some drivers onto backed-up secondary streets and highways where construction is under way, such as Interstate 10.
"The truth of the matter is, we and the consultants hadn't factored in the construction on the other highways," Emmett said. "You can't have congestion pricing if you don't have a place for people to go to avoid congestion."
Emphasis mine. It's a good thing that was followed by this, because I'm utterly speechless.
Chuck Wagner, via e-mail, wondered why the court didn't realize before Tuesday's vote that alternate roads were congested. "Apparently, it didn't occur to those incompetent boobs on the Commissioners Court that the reason the tollway is flooded with cars is that the Katy Freeway has become essentially unusable to people in Katy due to the ongoing construction fiasco," Wagner wrote.
Even without the Katy Freeway construction as a factor, have none of the Commissioners ever driven down Richmond or Westpark or Westheimer during rush hour? How can this have been a mystery?
At least maybe something good will come out of this farce:
Emmett said the county will look at other ways to reduce gridlock on the tollway. Some possible options include partnering with Metro to allow Metro buses to use the tollway without charge, encouraging carpooling and improving alternate routes.
These are good things in general, and should be explored as options everywhere. I don't know why it needed to take this particular incident to make some of this happen, but at least it's on the front burner now. I'll take what I can get.
UPDATE: When weathermen are taking potshots at you, you know you've screwed up.
The Press' Rich Connelly follows up this slightly over-the-top blog screed (call me a humorless liberal if you will, but I've lost my taste for "torture" jokes) against Kristin Finan's video blog with another potshot (PDF) in this week's print edition. I'm not going to be an arbiter of taste here, but I am a little puzzled as to why Finan's admittedly fluffy effort would engender a reaction as strong as "inchoate rage". She writes for the lifestyle and entertainment section, not the Washington bureau. What's the big deal?
Yes, her blog is highly Kristin-centric. But, um, aren't most blogs about the blogger more than anything else? Isn't that why most people who read blogs do so, for the personality of the blogger as much as for the content? Since "not reading it" is still an option, I'm not sure what the problem is here.
Maybe the problem is that she's a professional reporter and is getting paid for this silliness. To which all I can say is "More power to her". Again, if she were a news reporter, I'd dislike this, too. But she's a features writer. What else is this but a feature? Judging from the number of comments she's getting, it's a feature that at least some people seem to like, too.
In the end, I think it is a matter of taste. Which as I said is just peachy. Maybe it's that I don't much care for Chron criticism that's nothing more than "They're doing something I don't like!" Hey, they also print Charles Krauthammer columns, comic strips by dead guys, and way too many stories about golf. Hard to believe, I know, but their audience includes people other than me. Such is life, wouldn't you say?
So the Vatican has issued the Ten Commandments of Driving. I hadn't realized they had a travel bureau, but all in all it's not a bad effort. I kind of prefer Mac's version, though, even if they sometimes make me a sinner. Oh, and I'd also suggest we add another commandment to cover this sort of thing. Then we can say ours goes to 11.
Via Eye on Williamson comes the news that Mary Beth Harrell, who ran against Rep. John Carter in CD31 last year, has a new gig:
KNCT-TV, the local public broadcasting station located on the campus of Central Texas College, recently announced the addition of a new show to premiere this summer. "Insight," hosted by local attorney Mary Beth Harrell, will premiere Thursday, July 12 at 7:30 p.m. on KNCT (channel four on the local cable system or channel 46 for non-cable subscribers). A re-broadcast will air the following Sunday at 10 a.m."Insight" is a half-hour roundtable discussion featuring prominent, successful women who help shape the issues affecting Central Texas. These leaders come from numerous sectors of the community including education, healthcare, banking, economic development, city management, the courtroom, charitable giving and the news media. "The guests on 'Insight' understand the challenges confronting us today in many areas of our everyday lives," said Harrell. "They will not only identify these challenges but also talk about their plans and goals to meet those challenges now and in the future."
Some of Harrell's guests on "Insight" will be Ann Harder, Channel 25 news anchor; Martha Tyrock, Temple city councilwoman; Judge Diane Henson, Judge Martha Trudo, Colonel Diane Sutton and Colonel Victoria Bruzese of Fort Hood; Reverend Mary Wilson, Dr. Rose Cameron, Diane Connell, Colleen Beck and Brenda Coley.
One segment of the show will feature Harrell on location at area restaurants seeking public opinions from Central Texans on an array of topics. "We want to bring our community into the studio so our guests can hear the opinions and concerns of its citizens," noted Harrell. "We hope the viewers, as well as our guests, find the exchange enlightening and entertaining."
Following its July 12 premiere, "Insight" can be seen Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m. and once monthly on Sunday at 10 a.m.
Great to hear. Mary Beth ran a fine campaign on limited funds against Carter, and she's just an awesome person overall. Congrats, Mary Beth!
I didn't get around to this story yesterday, in which a bartender who was fired from an Austin watering hole has sued her former employer for allegedly refusing to serve State Sen. John Whitmire.
In her lawsuit, Rebekah L. Lear said she lost her job at the bar because she refused to serve Whitmire a second scotch on the night of March 8. Lear also alleges that Whitmire threatened to have her fired.Lear claims her manager later told her that "we never refuse senators," in a conversation that was recorded, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit does not specify the damages Lear is seeking.
[...]
The lawsuit says Whitmire arrived at the Cloak Room on March 8 "acting intoxicated" and with a "glazed look in his eyes." Lear, who was working alone, served him the "J&B and water" that he requested, according to the lawsuit, but gave him a glass of water when he asked for another scotch. Lear told him she couldn't serve another drink because he was intoxicated, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit accuses Whitmire of threatening to call the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and have Lear fired if she didn't serve him another drink.
After Whitmire approached Lear and said he "would have her job," Lear said she would call the police if he didn't settle down, the lawsuit says.
"He responded that the police would not come because all he would have to do was to make a phone call," according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says Whitmire made more threats and then left.
[Lara Wendler, Whitmire's legislative director,] said she and four other people were with Whitmire that night at the bar. She said Lear refused to serve Whitmire even one drink and never told him that she thought he was intoxicated.
If what Ms. Lear says in this suit is proven to be true, then Sen. Whitmire's actions were despicable and inexcusable. Today, we hear Whitmire's side of the story.
Whitmire on Thursday disputed many of the allegations in the lawsuit. The Houston Democrat said he had been drinking before arriving at The Cloak Room, but was not intoxicated."I was in absolutely responsible condition," he said. He added that he was not driving.
Whitmire said Lear never served him any alcohol. He said when she delivered an initial round of drinks to the table, he discovered his was water and wanted to know why.
"She said she was told not to give me a drink. I thought it was a joke," Whitmire said.
He pressed the bartender as to who told her not to serve him, but said he did not threaten to have her fired or call the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission as alleged in the lawsuit.
"I was not upset about not having a drink," Whitmire said. "I was concerned about who had told her not to serve me a drink. I thought I had a right to know that."
That's very different, both in terms of facts and interpretation. If Whitmire's version is true, then one can see how Ms. Lear might have felt threatened, but it doesn't rise to the level of wrongdoing on the Senator's part. It'll be very interesting to hear what all the witnesses have to say. We'll see.
I was wondering about this when I saw the story about the city budget being adopted earlier today. It was just a matter of time, I guess.
The city and its largest pension fund have reached a tentative agreement on benefit changes for new employees designed to reduce the system's more than $1 billion unfunded liability, Mayor Bill White's office announced this morning.The agreement still needs approval of the Houston Municipal Employees Pension System trustees, scheduled to meet today, and City Council, which convenes again Wednesday.
In addition to the benefit changes, which don't affect current workers, the deal also sets a four-year financing schedule that had been the subject of contention in recent weeks between White and the fund's executive director, David Long.
If the deal is approved, the city would be allowed to contribute to the fund what the mayor proposed for the next fiscal year: about $75 million. That annual contribution would gradually increase over the next few years, but remain at a percentage of employee payroll that city officials believe is more manageable.
So the initial take appears to be that the Mayor won this particular staredown. I presume we'll see more details tomorrow, at which point we can better judge how good or bad this deal is for the city as a whole. Given the nature of these things, I'll bet that acceptance by HMEPS and City Council is a formality - you'd have to be a fool to announce a deal more than a week ahead of deadline if you aren't real sure that it'll be ratified by those who have to vote on it. Mayor White ain't a fool.
Matt Stiles has more. Getting back to the budget for a sec, I'd like to know more about this:
Among the changes, which didn't alter the mayor's plan significantly, was the elimination of a controversial proposed waste-reduction fee creating a dedicated fund that would guarantee money for solid waste services such as recycling, composting and heavy trash collection.
So what's going to happen to recycling, composting, and heavy trash? Keep doing what we're doing, make the changes suggested but take the money from general revenue as before, or cut back on some or all of them? I suppose Council still has action items regarding this. I look forward to hearing more.
Well, that was fast.
County Judge Ed Emmett announced today that the county will not double fees during peak hours on the Westpark Tollway, backing off a decision made two days earlier that was assailed by many tollway drivers and area residents."We will cancel the Westpark (peak-hours) increase,'' he said.
Member of Commissioners Court, especially Commissioner Steve Radack, have received phone calls and e-mails from residents criticizing the court's decision Tuesday to raise Westpark fees from $1 to $2.50 per transaction during peak hours.
Rescinding Tuesday's unanimous vote by the court "was certainly influenced by the public's reaction,'' Emmett said.
Boy, when was the last time public opinion had any effect on Commissioners Court? I guess even kings and czarinas have to be concerned about the rabble once in awhile.
So-called "congestion pricing'' was intended to reduce gridlock on the tollway during the morning and evening commutes. But after voting for peak-hour pricing, court members became concerned that doubling the fees would force some drivers onto just-as-congested nearby roads.
Gosh, where might they have gotten that idea? Let's be real here: What the Court - in particular, Judge Emmett - became concerned about was the specter of Charles Bacarisse and David Mincberg rubbing their hands and cackling with glee at the juicy electoral issue that just dropped into their laps. Will people forgive and forget, or will they think he's a flipflopper as well as a chiseler? Look for the hit pieces in your mailbox, any day now.
Looks like there's a little commissioner's remorse over the upcoming toll road fee hikes.
Several Commissioners Court members received calls and e-mail criticizing their decision Tuesday to double tollway fees during peak hours."My initial thought was to implement these changes and then review them," said County Judge Ed Emmett. "But my view may be changing on that."
But unless the court revisits the issue, the Harris County Toll Road Authority plans to move forward with the new fee schedule in September, said Peter Key, the authority's deputy director. The authority would study whether the peak-hour fees should be lower or higher after they go into effect, he said.
[...]
The court authorized the toll road authority to set peak-hour pricing from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. inbound and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. outbound.
Toll transactions along the main part of the tollway now cost $1. That fee will rise to $1.25 per transaction during nonpeak hours. And the rate during peak hours will be $2.50 per transaction.
"I don't think we need three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon," Radack said.
The problem with all this is that the higher toll fee isn't going to adjust people's behaviors in a constructive way. It will just move them from a crowded freeway to crowded surface roads. I don't see what good might come out of that.
Congestion pricing is used elsewhere in the country to keep traffic flowing. It hasn't been tried before in Texas, but the future Katy Freeway toll lanes are expected to have peak-hour pricing. "What's going on in Houston will be a model for what people around the state can look forward to," said Christopher Poe, director of the Center on Tolling Research at Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University.The peak-hour prices on the tollway would raise the toll rate during regular hours from about 18 cents per mile to about 20 cents. The peak-hour rate would be about 42 cents.
Some rates are much higher in other parts of the country.
During peak hours on Friday afternoons, motorists on State Route 91 in the Los Angeles area pay nearly $1 per mile, or $9.50 for a 10-mile trip.
"The idea is not to discourage use," Poe said. "It's to get people to change their schedules to reduce the demand at peak hours."
That's a fine idea, and one I generally support, but the implementation here sucks. If the goal is to discourage people from driving during those times - or to find alternatives to driving - you have to at least help them understand what their options are, if not actually help create some new ones. Most people can't adjust their workdays to avoid the 6-9 and 4-7 time periods, which is the only choice they're being given besides "Let them
Of course, according to this clueless letter writer, it's all actually Metro's fault.
Refund due to rightful ownersThe punishing 150 percent toll increase on the Westpark Tollway proves that the Metropolitan Transit Authority was negligent when it decided to build a highway that was obsolete at the moment of conception.
This latest fiasco underscores the very urgent need to do away with Metro altogether and return the billions of tax dollars it wastes to their rightful owners.
DAVID YANNONE
Fulshear
HCTRA, METRO, it's all the same to him. I just hope he doesn't vote in the next referendum election, whenever that might be. And is it just me, or does anyone else think that if the Chron is going to choose to print a dumb letter like this, they owe their readers the courtesy of an editorial footnote to explain that the writer has his facts completely wrong? Houstonist has a much better rant about this.
One more thing: How much of the current Westpark woes do you think are cause by the construction on I-10? Seems to me Commissioners Court could have chosen to wait to implement congestion pricing after some of the excess traffic on Westpark had migrated north. Maybe they'd have found it's not that bad after all.
J. Fred Duckett, the longtime stadium announcer for the Rice Owls and the originator of the phrase "It's a great day for outdoor football!", is suffering from leukemia and in need of platelet donations. From the Owl fan forum, posted on Monday the 18th:
Hello all. I just spoke to Fred and, among other things, he said that he is need of platelets and blood. For those not familiar with platelets, they are necessary for blood to clot, they are often needed by leukemia patients on a daily basis and they have a very short shelf life (something like 48 hours). The process takes about two (2) hours and there are many things that are much more enjoyable than giving platelets, but nothing that is as important as giving for Fred. I called the Methodist Hospital Blood Center @ 713.441.3415 and made an appointment to give both platelets & blood on Wednesday of this week. As I said, platelets have a short shelf life, and we need to get people lined up to give platelets on a daily basis for as long as necessary (could be weeks depending on his treatment).For this to be effective, there needs to be a schedule of donors. I am scheduled for Wednesday -- we now need Tues (tomorrow) if possible, Thurs and Friday of this week and Mon-Friday next week, etc, etc. Email me and I'll put you on the schedule on a first come, first served basis. As soon as I confirms your date, call the Methodist Blood Center @ 713.441.3415 and make your appointment -- be sure to tell them you are donating specifically for Fred. Then call Fred and tell him what you are doing because he will have to provide some kind of written authorization since the platelets are specifically for him. I have done this before for patients at MDACC and it works, but we need commitments and help to get this coordinated and on track. It will then pretty much run on its own for as long as necessary. Please do your part to help Fred and volunteer now.
Fred's blood type is A+, but platelets do not have to match based on blood type (ie, platelets from any blood type will do for Fred). Blood can be given something like every 8-10 weeks, but platelets can be given much more often like weekly. On Wednesday, I will give my platelets and O- blood. I will not be able to give blood again for 8-10 weeks, but I will be able to give platelets again in a few days (next week for sure). Because of the short shelf life of platelets, those that I give on Wed will have to be used on Thurs or Friday. That is the reason why a daily schedule of platelet donors is so critically important.
I can't do this myself, because I did a double red blood cell donation back in March, which as noted here means I'm on the bench till July. Those of you who can, especially those of you in the Rice community, please click on the first link for more information, and please help if you can. Thanks very much.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg changes tack.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced Tuesday that he was dropping his Republican affiliation, a step that could clear the way for him to make an independent bid for the presidency.[...]
Until he ran for mayor in 2001, Mr. Bloomberg was a lifelong Democrat, and his success in New York reflected his ability to draw Democratic votes: he is for abortion rights, gay rights and gun control.
I hereby make a solemn vow to you, my readers: If Michael Bloomberg gets into the Presidential race as an independent, I will refer to him forevermore as "Michael Bloomberg Keeton Strayhorn". And I will start a petition to demand that he be referred to as "Grandpa" on the ballot. It's just the right thing to do.
Of all the things to come out of the Sopranos finale, I'd have to say this was the least expected. To me, anyway.
The Sopranos is over, but the last song featured on the show, Don't Stop Believin' which the band Journey released in 1981, keeps going as its lyrics say, "on and on and on and on."According to Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, downloads of the song from iTunes went from about 1,000 on the day before the episode to 6,531 the day after. For the week, the song climbed to No. 17 in popularity on iTunes, while the band's Greatest Hits also cracked the Top 20.
On the radio, airplay of Don't Stop Believin' increased 192 percent Monday through Thursday over the first four days of the previous week, according to Nielsen BDS, which tracks airplay.
It was not the first time the band had television to thank for a royalties windfall. In 2005, after Don't Stop Believin' was featured on the season premiere of MTV's Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, it ranked in the top 10 on iTunes.
The song also enjoyed a 150 percent increase in downloads the week after it was featured in an episode of Family Guy on Fox in 2005, according to Nielsen.
While song downloads were not tracked in 2003, when Don't Stop Believin' was featured in NBC's Scrubs, overall retail sales of Journey's Greatest Hits increased 51 percent in the first full week after the show aired, according to Nielsen.
Who knew?
And for what it's worth, I forget where I saw this, but someone suggested the reason why Tony played that particular song is that the B-side to it in the little jukebox was Any Way You Want It, which is apparently the real message from David Chase about what actually happened when the screen went blank. Makes as much sense as anything else I've heard.
At last, we have an official injunction against the anti-immigrant ordinance in Farmers Branch, to replace the existing temporary restraining order.
Agreeing with lawyers for residents and apartment owners who sued, U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay wrote that the measure is "based upon a scheme that does not adopt federal immigration standards" and is too vague for landlords to apply.The ordinance, which voters approved by a 2-to-1 margin last month, would require apartment managers to verify that tenants are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants, with some exceptions for the elderly and minors. Landlords who don't comply would face fines of up to $500 per tenant per day.
Lindsay said the plaintiffs who challenged the measure proved they had a "substantial likelihood" of winning the case on its merits. His injunction blocks enforcement of the measure until a trial is completed, lawyers in the case said.
Lindsay declined the city's request that he edit the ordinance to try to make it constitutionally acceptable. "Any attempt to rewrite the ordinance would require the court to legislate by creating an entirely new ordinance," Lindsay wrote.
Marisol Perez, a staff attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said, " The judge is in line with what courts around the country are doing. They are not allowing cities to do this."
Indeed. Via TalkLeft, I found out about the case of Hazelton, PA, where a similar ordinance was blocked by a federal judge pending the outcome of a lawsuit (there have been at least two lawsuits filed against this ordinance). As it happens, that trial concluded in May, with a ruling expected in the summer. You may want to stock up on earplugs now for when that sucker hits the presses.
Farmers Branch council member Tim O'Hare, who sponsored the measure, said, "I'm certainly disappointed the judge has chosen to ignore the overwhelming will of the people in our town, but I can't say I'm totally surprised."
Oh, cry me a river. The "will of the people" means nothing if what they want to do is illegal. What do you think would have happened if the city had passed a law decriminalizing heroin, as a for instance? There's a reason civil rights legislation was done at a federal level.
By the way, if you haven't read the Steve Murdock interview in the Observer, in which he talks about how the population of Texas is rapidly becoming non-Anglo, and that the Anglo population is aging, consider this snippet:
TO: As you go around the state, what kind of response are you getting to your presentations?SM: Well, it's changed a lot over the past 25 years that I've been talking about this. Twenty-five years ago a lot of people didn't believe this was going to happen. Virtually no one will say today, "We're not going to be diverse. We're not getting older." So I think there's a lot more acceptance.
I think the reactions run somewhat to what you'd expect. That is, there's some who look at it and say, "What should we do to address this?" There are some who say, "I'm going to wall myself off. I'll find a place where I can live and forget about all this, I don't want to deal with it." Those are probably the two most common. And the third set really says, "I see what it is but you can't do a thing about it. It's going happen. What do we do?" In other words, they're not as activated to look for alternatives to do things. They just feel like it's overwhelming. I'd say those are the most frequent reactions these days. Twenty-five years ago many people said, "You're just wrong."
Certainly the number of people that are interested in doing something about it has increased over the years. They increasingly see their fate is tied. And one of the things that we try to show in our work--and this goes back to the individual versus the group phenomenon--is the extent to which all Texans' fates are tied to the changes that occur and how we handle them.
By [20]23 or [20]24, we're talking about three out of every four Texas workers being non-Anglo. I like to say, well, if I, as an aging Anglo, forget that the quality of services I'm going to have--fire, police, and other services--depend on how well primarily the working-age population is doing, I really do so to my own detriment. Our fates are intertwined and related. How well our non-Anglo citizens do in Texas is how well Texas will do.
As Texas goes in this matter, so goes the nation. It's just a shame that places like Farmers Branch and Hazelton have chosen to respond to it by burying their heads in the sand.
Paul Burka takes a detailed look at many of the bills that were vetoed by Governor Perry here and here, and examines the justification he gave for each. As you might imagine, some are more justified than others. In a previous installment, he looked at the personalities involved, and how that may have colored some of Perry's actions.
Meanwhile, Grits for Breakfast did similar work for criminal justice-related bills, and Dos Centavos looked at some education bills. Check them out.
Kristin Mack reported last Friday that Hilary Green, wife of City Council Member Ron Green, was being considered for an appointment as Justice of the Peace for Precinct 7, Place 1. That's the JP Court formerly presided over by Betty Brock Bell, who was convicted of document tampering back in 2005, and finally stepped down recently after exhausting her appeals. According to Isiah Carey, she got that appointment during yesterday's Commissioners Court meeting.
Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee says Green was chosen out of five contenders for the position. She was officially selected Tuesday morning during executive session of the Harris County Commissioner's Court meeting. Lee says there is no official date as to when Green will be sworn into the position. She'll have 6 months to serve before she will have to run for the position in January 2008. Green is a graduate of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law and she received her undergraduate degree from the University of Houston. She's been practicing law for ten years now.
I'm a little bit torn about this, mostly because I've gotten to know Loren Jackson, who was planning to run for that JP seat. (I am also acquainted with Hilary Green, as Tiffany and Ron Green went to elementary school together.) I feel bad for him, because this pretty much eliminates his chances to win that seat - I'd bet he won't even try to run now. It might have been nice to have appointed someone who wasn't interested in running for re-election, as I and others suggested for the County Judge position after Robert Eckels took a powder. But realistically, this sort of appointment happens all the time (the County Judge situation was much less common). As such, it's hard to argue for that. But I still feel bad for Loren Jackson, and I hope an opportunity comes up for him elsewhere.
More details on the county bonds proposal that came out yesterday, though the questions that most interest me are still unanswered.
Major projects that likely will be put before voters include:
- Family Law Center: An $85 million courthouse would be built at San Jacinto and Franklin, across the street from the current family courthouse. The current courthouse and the nearby former district attorney's building would be razed, and the block bordered by Franklin, Fannin, Congress and San Jacinto likely would become a park or plaza.
- Juvenile detention: The county would spend $76 million to renovate the former county jail and turn parts of it into juvenile detention space, alleviating crowding at other county facilities.
- Adult jails: The county would spend $213 million to build a central processing center, which would provide a booking and inmate classification area, expanded health and mental health areas and a 2,500-bed jail. The city would contribute $32 million toward construction.
I still want to know: Are we talking about building more adult jail cells, or are we talking about replacing existing ones, without adding capacity? And if the former, what are we doing to fix the underlying cause of the county jail's problems? Because if the the answer to that question is "nothing", then the next thing I want to know is if these issues will be on separate ballots, so I can vote against this one without having to reject the whole package.
On other matters, it's nice that Commissioners Court is pinky-swearing that none of this will raise property taxes, but frankly that's at best a tertiary concern for me. If this is worth doing, then it's worth paying for. I'm sure bonds are a fine way of doing that, but it neither has to be the best or only way. I find the constant fetishizing of property taxes to be annoying, as well as a frequent driver of questionable public policy.
And finally, get used to this:
The Friends of Charles Bacarisse, a group raising campaign money for District Clerk Charles Bacarisse to run for county judge, assailed Emmett for supporting an expensive bond package."This court once again failed to consult with the people who put them in power on matters affecting our collective future," said Jim McGrath, spokesman for the Bacarisse group.
Let's get ready to rumble! Outside of cold political calculations, I don't have a dog in the Bacarisse/Emmett smackdown. But I do plan on enjoying the spectacle.
Is it just me, or does anybody else have a Jeff Foxworthy moment in reading this story?
A proposed city law would make it illegal to park in your front yard. But if you simply slapped down some pavement over the grass, then it would be fine.The draft ordinance, which is still being tweaked, shows how difficult it is to regulate a practice that some call a private right, and others consider a communal eyesore.
"We have people who park three to four vehicles in their front yard, vehicles that are not running, or people who run a mechanic's shop out of their yard," said City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado of District I. "There is overwhelming support for this (ordinance) from my civic associations."
Supporters of the ban claim that cars parked in yards depress property values, leak oil and fluids into the soil, and damage grass, trees and buried utility lines.
[...]
The proposed law would apply only to single-family homes and duplexes. It also has a loophole you can literally drive through: a provision allowing property owners to install a parking pad on their front lawn. The extra surface could be concrete, asphalt, gravel or other material and could measure up to 275 square feet, enough to park two cars. The exception is a compromise for smaller or older homes, which may have short driveways or none at all, Lawrence said.
But critics say that encouraging people to pave over part of their front yard to get around the ban might only make the problem worse.
"Just dumping shell or some stuff -- will that be any better than parking in the front yard?" asked Councilman Adrian Garcia.
According to Christof, the answer to that question is "No".
According to this study and this study by the University of Texas' Center for Research in Water Resources, the most effective technology for cleaning urban runoff is grass:
The effectiveness of grassy swales for treating highway runoff was evaluated by comparing the runoff at Walnut Creek, before and after passing across a swale. The grassy swale proved effective for reducing the concentrations of most constituents in runoff. The low runoff coefficient due to infiltration of runoff into the swale produced a large reduction (90%) in pollutant load discharged.
In other words, parking cars on grass is not a pollution problem; it's a way to reduce pollution.
The city of Houston has taken great strides in improving its air quality. Let's not take a step backwards when it comes to water pollution.
Beyond that, I confess I've no strong feelings about this proposal either way. I confess, I'm not sure why deed restrictions are insufficient, as one proponent says. All things being equal, I'd say they're probably the best remedy, and if there's a gap in their capabilities then let Council address that.
So we heard about the upcoming increase in toll road fees, and now we find out that for one road at least, it's really gonna cost you to drive it.
Harris County Commissioners Court's decision Tuesday to fight congestion on the three-year-old Westpark Tollway by forcing some drivers off the road with higher rush-hour fees drew the ire of cash-strapped commuters.And a dismissive response from Commissioner Steve Radack -- "Let them go down Richmond Road" -- made the new $2.50 tolls even less palatable for some.
Commuter Vic Stewart, in an e-mail, said of the Commissioners Court, "And 'Let them eat cake!' They'll certainly have time."
Commissioners Court voted unanimously to hike fees to $2.50 from 6-9 a.m. and 4-7 p.m., hoping fewer drivers will use the tollway.
[...]
Radack said those who cannot afford the rush-hour fees should use alternate roads. "Let them go down Richmond Road," he said. "Or they can use Westpark," the surface road running alongside the tollway.
Six months after the four-lane Westpark Tollway opened in 2004, traffic backups began occurring in certain areas, said Peter Key, toll road authority deputy director. Congestion has worsened since then.
I must be missing something here. I thought the purpose of the Westpark Toll Road was to help alleviate congestion on various east-west thoroughfares - I-10 to some extent, but especially overloaded arterial roads like Richmond and Westpark. If so, then isn't jacking up the tolls to discourage people from taking it essentially defeating that purpose? How exactly does turning the Westpark Toll Road (which, for people coming in from Katy and the like, was already a pricey proposition) into a luxury item serve the goal of mobility?
On the other hand, if the real goal is extracting money from people's pockets, then hey. Mission accomplished!
Well, maybe this will encourage more people to explore park-and-ride options. If so, that will be a good thing. Hey, Metro: Maybe now would be a good time to advertise your services in that part of town.
Unlike Steve Murdock, here's a Bush appointee who shouldn't get the job he's being picked for.
The 2003 Texas redistricting plan, engineered by Tom DeLay and blessed by the U.S. Justice Department, was a boost for Republicans. The new district boundaries helped bolster their majority in Congress in the 2004 elections.But here's the thing about Washington: Payback is hell.
Ask Hans von Spakovsky, President Bush's appointee to the Federal Election Commission. After serving a year and a half on the FEC -- apparently with little complaint from Republican or Democratic commissioners -- von Spakovsky's Senate confirmation to a six-year term is in jeopardy.
His critics allege that, while serving as a Bush administration voting rights lawyer at the Justice Department, von Spakovsky overruled a unanimous recommendation by eight career staff lawyers that the Texas redistricting map be considered a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act because it diluted minorities' voting power.
The rejection of the staff recommendation -- one of several seemingly partisan actions attributed to von Spakovsky and other Bush administration appointees by their former Justice Department colleagues -- paved the way for courts in Texas to approve the redistricting map, handing then-House Majority Leader DeLay, R-Sugar Land, a major victory and costing five Texas Democrats their jobs in the U.S. House.
[...]
Von Spakovsky, 48, who volunteered for the Bush campaign in Florida as votes were being recounted during the 2000 contested presidential election, also has come under fire for helping to craft, and then pushing through the Justice Department, his home state of Georgia's voter identification law. The law eventually was thrown out by a federal court that compared it to Jim Crow-era poll taxes discriminating against minority and poor voters who are less likely to have state-issued photo IDs.
Von Spakovsky insists that such calls were made by Justice Department employees above him. He says his former colleagues blame him simply because he was the messenger.
"I was not the decision-maker," he said during his Senate confirmation hearing last week. "My job as a career counselor was to provide legal advice and recommendations."
Then he provided bad advice and recommendations, which speaks poorly about his judgment. And when the article says he "volunteered for the Bush campaign in Florida as votes were being recounted during the 2000 contested presidential election", what it means is he took part in the so-called "bourgeois riot" to shut down the legally-proceeding recounts by intimidating the vote-counters. He's a hack of the first order.
Perhaps most damaging to the nomination, though, is a letter by six voting rights lawyers who worked with the nominee at the Justice Department. They claim von Spakovsky was "the point person for undermining the Civil Rights Division's mandate to protect voting rights" and note that during von Spakovsky's tenure, more than half of the career lawyers in the voting section left in protest.The attorneys accused von Spakovsky of approving Texas' faulty redistricting plan and Georgia's restrictive voter ID law along with blocking an investigation of a Minnesota Republican official who allegedly discriminated against Native American voters leading up to the 2004 election -- a case von Spakovsky told lawmakers he couldn't recall.
TPM has much more about von Spakovsky. I sincerely hope his bid for a full six-year term with the FEC is rejected.
UPDATE: I swear, when I wrote this post, I had intended to link to these two Observer blog posts as part of it. Better late than never.
State demographer Steve Murdock is getting a new gig.
President Bush has nominated the state demographer of Texas, Steven Murdock, to be director of the Census, the White House said Monday.Murdock would replace current Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon, who said late last year he would leave the agency when a new director was confirmed. Kincannon said at the time he felt he had lost the confidence of the Commerce Department, which oversees the bureau. He did not offer specifics.
[...]
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., a member of the House Government Reform Committee's Census panel, said Monday, "It appears that the president, after a lengthy delay, has finally nominated a career professional to be the Census director."
She said Murdock "has a reputation for professionalism and independence," which will be an important factor for the Senate as it considers the nomination of a new director as the agency prepares for the 2010 Census.
Murdock's reputation is well deserved, as BOR and the Observer blog report. I'll second the Observer's recommendation of their interview with Murdock from 2005. He's a good guy, and he's a great choice to head up the Census. Their gain is our loss. Best of luck to Steve Murdock in the new gig.
Grits notes my post about the failure to treat dyslexia in the schools, and observes that I didn't comment on the connection between dyslexia and crime. That would be because it wasn't in the article, and I didn't know any better. Fortunately, Grits is there to fill in the gap. That post of his points to this Comptroller's report on the subject, which contains this eye-opening statistic:
The [Dyslexia Research Foundation of Texas'] first challenge is to determine exactly what the disorder costs the Texas economy. The numbers could be staggering, since a disproportionate number of people with dyslexia wind up incarcerated or on welfare, according to an April 2004 report by JFA Institute of Washington D.C. and Austin.[Foundation chair Bill] Hilgers said the incidence level is 10 percent or higher in Texas schools and about 30 percent or higher in prisons. The students either fall behind or get put in special education classes, Hilgers said.
"They drop out or get into other problems," he said. "Some end up in the criminal justice system. It creates a psychological problem. They feel stupid because they can't read. It's psychologically deadening--children and parents are very affected by that."
So an inmate in Texas is three times as likely to be dyslexic as someone who is not in prison. You think some of those folks never got a proper diagnosis and treatment regimen when they were kids? I remember a TV ad slogan by a car maintenance outfit that went "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later". That's pretty much what this comes down do. We can spend a modest amount of money now to identify and help kids who are struggling with dyslexia, or we can spend a buttload of money later to lock 'em up. Seems a pretty easy choice to me.
Back in the 80s when I was a student at Trinity, I remember thinking how quaint (and more than occasionally frustrating) it was that there was no direct interchange between US 281 and Loop 410. I'm pleased and slightly amazed to read that after all these years, that's finally being corrected.
Nearly half a century ago, a feverish battle began to decide the route of the North Expressway, the part of U.S. 281 north of downtown that's now called McAllister Freeway.The feud lasted from 1960 to 1974, and mostly pitted businessmen against environmentalists over whether the road could slice through parklands. The skirmishes spawned two referendums, several lawsuits, a three-year halt in construction and a new federal law.
Buildings sprouted on land needed for the highway and pushed the cost for a Loop 410 interchange beyond reach for the next three decades.
"That's amazing," said Roger Conrad, 50. "I've driven all over the country and I've never seen anything like that."
In 2005, the Texas Department of Transportation used bond funds to squeeze what would have been a 10-year project to 31/2 years to build a four-level interchange. Work is now 67 percent complete, and TxDOT opened the first ramp at 3 p.m. Monday.
The ramp, from southbound 281 to westbound 410, stretches almost a mile, rising to rooftops of the surrounding skyline. The lane's chalk-white concrete glares in the sun before dumping drivers just under the McCullough Avenue bridge.
The next ramp, eastbound 410 to southbound 281, is expected to open by August, officials said. The north to east and west to north ramps should open by January, and the rest in late 2008.
That interchange, which was really an intersection of two service roads at a traffic light, could get pretty backed up 20 years ago. I can only imagine how bad it must be today. This flyover ramp doesn't sound like the prettiest thing on the planet, but I'll bet everyone who uses it thinks it's beautiful.
Okay, so yesterday we learned that HPD officers are still ticketing cars that have license plate frames, even though the existing somewhat-unclear law on the subject was changed to exempt most such frames this past session. The law doesn't take effect until September 1, but the issue has been known - and complained about - for awhile now. Turns out that even Mayor White was in violation of the old law, but had so far escaped an encounter with one of the more dedicated ticket-writers. All that may have led to today's announcement by the Mayor that enough is enough.
Calling the practice a "gotcha system," Mayor Bill White on Monday said Houston police shouldn't ticket motorists for having common brackets around their license plates that will no longer be illegal when a revised state law takes effect in September.The department had been issuing the $98 tickets under a broadly worded state statute intended to prevent motorists from trying to evade authorities by obscuring their plates.
The state's top appellate court ruled recently that the law's wording meant that any covering of the plate -- even the stars, moon or state nickname -- was a violation.
The Houston Chronicle reported Sunday that officers had issued at least 9,500 such tickets since January, including 2,200 since Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill that would allow drivers to have brackets advertising car dealers or touting alumni affiliations.
White said he planned to tell both Police Chief Harold Hurtt and the city's top prosecutor, Randy Zamora, that motorists shouldn't be punished if an officer can reasonably determine the state and plate numbers.
"Our law enforcement officers should have better things to do," White said. "We're not there to just have some gotcha system. The purpose of these moving-violation citations is to discourage unlawful behavior, not to generate the maximum amount of revenue possible."
[...]
The mayor's position is consistent with a bill, authored by state Rep. Bill Callegari, R-Katy, that removes the broad language from the state's transportation code that prohibited obscuring any design feature of a plate. A motorist also would have to cover more than half the state's name, generally not an issue with license brackets, to be in violation.
Perry signed a companion version of Callegari's legislation, offered by state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, May 4.
[...]
Callegari said Monday he was pleased the mayor intervened.
"Somebody might get a ticket today, and three months from now they wouldn't. That's certainly not fair," he said.
Indeed. This is far from the first poorly-written law whose literal interpretation by an enforcement body has led to a bad outcome (four words: "wheelbarrow filled with cash") and an eventual legislative do-over. In just about every case, a little common sense would have gone a long way, but that's not how things work around here, as the court ruling that upheld the broad definition of what constitutes obscuring a license plate demonstrates. Better late than never, but far from best.
City prosecutors say they will consider dismissing past citations if motorists come to court and bring a picture showing they've removed the bracket, or that it complies with the spirit of the law.
I wonder how much trouble it would be for the prosecutors to set up a web page with a form that would allow you to submit a photo electronically, along with all of the relevant information about your case. Seems to me that it's the least they could do.
Get ready for a bond proposition on the November ballot, courtesy of Commissioner's Court.
Commissioners Court originally thought the bond package would total $500 million to $600 million when it goes before voters in November.But pressing needs have come to light in several departments, and as much as $962 million in bonds may be required to carry out the projects, according to documents from the county budget office.
Among the massive projects are a $100 million Family Law Center, a $100 million Medical Examiner's Office, a $245 million jail and booking area and a $110 million juvenile detention center.
[...]
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards cited the county adult jails last year for inadequate staffing and overcrowding. Meanwhile, the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission has found overcrowding at the county's juvenile detention facilities.
The county could ask voters to spend $213 million on the central processing center, a booking area that also would include a 2,500-bed adult jail and expanded medical and mental-health treatment areas. Voters this year approved allowing the city to contribute $32 million to the project.
The question I have here is the same question I've had all along, which is whether or not the county will do something about the underlying causes of our jail overcrowding problem, and if they plan on spending the dough to hire enough guards so that they don't have to leave cells empty to compensate for the shortage. Because if not, then I hope these bond proposals are broken into separate pieces so I can vote against the one to build more jail space.
Voters may also be asked to spend $76 million to renovate the former adult jail at 1301 Franklin and turn much of it into a juvenile detention facility. Another option could be to raze the building and construct a $110 million detention facility.Family law judges have been clamoring for a new Family Law Center for several years -- a project that would cost $85 million.
Commissioners Court will decide whether to carry out an $84 million expansion and renovation of the current courthouse at Congress and San Jacinto; build a $97 million courthouse on the site of the current courthouse or next to it; or build a $94 million courthouse at Franklin and San Jacinto, across from the current building.
The Medical Examiner's Office needs more spacious facilities to carry out a growing amount of sophisticated forensic work done in crime labs, Raycraft said.
His office has recommended that the county construct a $114 million, 205,000-square-foot building on Harvin, across from the current office.
At first glance, most of the rest of this sounds okay, but given the build-jails-first, ask-questions-later approach that the Court was adopting earlier, I'll reserve judgment until I hear more.
Professors R-Squared remind me that it's time to check up on our County Treasurer, Orlando Sanchez, and his campaign promise to actually do something with that generally useless office he ran for. I did this last on March 21, at which time I discovered, to my complete non-surprise, that there hadn't been a single mention of him in the Chron that wasn't related to efforts to abolish the Treasurer's office. What have we had since then? A search of the Chron archives reveals exactly one story, and well, it's not exactly about how he was going to use the Treasurer's office as a platform to advocate for something.
ALICE Rekeweg, a Kingwood resident, is a member of the Patriot Guard Riders.Patriot Guard Riders was established in 2005 and is a group of riders from across the nation.
It's mission is to attend funeral services of fallen soldiers, provide welcome home rides, or send-off escorts but only if the soldier's family invites them.
"I cry every time I ride," said Rekeweg, a mother of two sons, one stepson and a grandmother of one.
"Even if I'm just going down the street from the church to the cemetery."
Rekeweg also is Senate District 4 Chairman for the Harris County Republican Party and president of the Kingwood area Republican Women.
Rekeweg has been on six missions with the group, riding behind Orlando Sanchez, Harris County treasurer.
"Alice asked if she could ride with me," Sanchez, owner of a 2002 Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle, said.
"Everybody has a different reason for wanting to ride.
"I came from a communist country, (Cuba) so I value my freedom.
"Whether you agree or disagree with this war, these kids signed up to protect us."
Sanchez and Rekeweg's most recent mission was March 11.
Nice story, but not exactly demonstrative of the awesome power of the Treasurer-cy. There was nothing else since March 21.
Now you may say, as Kevin did in the comments to my previous post, that just because the Chron hasn't covered whatever it is Orlando Sanchez has been doing, that doesn't mean he hasn't been doing anything. And hey, that's true. I mean, we live in a post-MSM, new-media, citizen-journalism blog utopia, right? Orlando could be generating all kinds of news, and those heartless bastards at the Chron could be simply ignoring him.
Well okay then. Here's the County Treasurer page, and here's Orlando's campaign web page. Note the complete lack of "news" or "press" links. Whatever it is Orlando is doing, it's nothing he feels the need to publicize. Here's a Google blog search - if you see anything news-like there, let me know. I kinda liked this post - it's not about Orlando, but it does have this excellent line, which is why it got picked up in my Google search:
How about a "Straight Talk Express"-like county bus tour with Orlando Sanchez? He lost two mayoral races and a county race. He's only in office because someone died.
Schweet.
Six months down, six more to go. Will we ever find out what it is that Orlando Sanchez does during the day? Stay tuned!
UPDATE: David Benzion has an amusing take on this.
Right of Texas is reporting that Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco is contemplating a run for Senate. I'll be honest, this is the first time I've heard Edwards' name in connection with any statewide run - former Rep. Jim Turner is frequently mentioned as a "What about him?" kind of candidate for Senate, but till now Edwards' name has been absent. Edwards has money, two impressive wins in turf that went 70% Bush in 2004, and a voting record that's fairly reflective of Texas (read: more conservative than I like), all of which would make him a formidable contender if he chose to get in. All I can say is what I said up front: this is the first I've heard of any of this. I'm hearing the same reaction from other folks like me. It seems unlikely to me, but you never know.
While I admire Edwards in many ways, despite some votes he's made that have left me scratching my head, I don't want to see him jump into the Senate race. We'd lose his Congressional seat for sure, and we've already got a perfectly fine and dandy contender to go up against John Cornyn. I can't imagine why Edwards would give up a seat on the Appropriations Committee as a member of the majority for something like this, but again, you never know. What I do know is that I'm going to have to hear this from at least one more source before I worry about it.
Well, this ought to be interesting.
Two lawmakers asked the Texas attorney general Monday for an advisory opinion on the legality of House Speaker Tom Craddick's handling of an attempt to unseat him last month.During the final days of the legislative session, several lawmakers tried to make a parliamentary motion that would have allowed the 150-member chamber to vote to oust Craddick. But Craddick, the presiding officer of the chamber, cited "absolute authority" and kept his seat by refusing to acknowledge any lawmaker to make such a motion. The session ended with Craddick still in power.
"Clearly, the integrity of the Texas House of Representatives is at a critical crossroads as to whether the use of 'absolute authority' by the post of Texas House speaker contradicts the state constitution," wrote Rep. Jim Keffer, who has filed his candidacy to replace Craddick as speaker.
Keffer, a Republican from Eastland, argued that the specific rule Craddick and his parliamentary advisers used to assert their authority allows "the speaker to govern the order in which members are to be recognized, but not whether they will be recognized which seems to be in direct violation of the state constitution."
Craddick's critics say his assertion of absolute power is an example of their gripe -- an unyielding leader.
A spokeswoman for Craddick said he welcomes the review.
The specific questions being asked are here, and Craddick's response is here.
I have no idea what AG Abbott will do with this hot potato. Frankly, given how long he sat on the Strayhorn question about the business tax, I'll be happy if he gives any answer at all before the 81st Lege gets sworn in. We'll see.
There's not really a whole lot of actual news in this Chron story about the beginning of Legislative Fundraising Season for 2008 - Tom Craddick has a lot of money! And a lot on the line! People will be primaried! The next Speaker will be decided! - but there are a couple of bits that merit comment.
All House seats are on the ballot next year, and the uncertainty concerning the speaker could mean a record number of contested primaries. Incumbents who don't draw challengers or have more money than they need may give some to a fellow candidate.
That right there is the justification for Run Everywhere in a nutshell. You don't want (say) Phil King to help out the likes of Dwayne Bohac? Then make sure King has something at home to occupy his time and attention (and money). Sure, such a person is unlikely to come within shouting distance of King on election day, but nobody likes to get hit without hitting back. The key, and the reason this has to be seen as a long-term project, is to make sure that the folks you recruit for these kamikaze missions have access to enough funds and talent to have the kind of impact that will make the intended target feel the need to stay home and defend his turf. That will require some serious resources and infrastructure, which is why it's not just something you can wish for. Still, it'd be nice if someone in a position to do something about this were giving the matter some thought.
Two of the state's biggest megadonors, Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and San Antonio businessman Jim Leininger, are likely to play key roles in the GOP primaries.Craddick has supported the issues of Leininger, a school voucher proponent, and Perry, who favors limits on lawsuits against businesses. Perry will continue to support Craddick because of his record on tort reform, said his spokesman.
"Without Craddick, their agenda doesn't look as good," [Rep. Warren] Chisum said. "I don't think they'll abandon Craddick by any means. In fact, they may just double their effort."
Didn't do them a whole lot of good in 2006, but with a new year comes new opportunities. Unlike most recent years, there are groups that push back against the Leininger/Perry axis, and have had success in doing so - ParentPAC, for instance. Perhaps the time is right to run against Tom Craddick in the way that Democrats ran against Newt Gingrich in 1998. He'd make a pretty good symbol for "what's wrong with the legislature" ads. Something to think about, anyway.
This is a very good article on the needs of dyslexic students in Houston and how they are not being met by HISD, but I have the nagging feeling that something is missing. Can you tell what it is?
Hundreds of thousands of Texas children who struggle to read aren't getting the help they're entitled to because public schools are not following state law.Twenty-two years ago, Texas passed legislation requiring districts to identify and tutor students with dyslexia, a learning disability that affects 5 percent to 20 percent of all children.
Today, however, schools still are failing to aggressively diagnose and remediate these children, leaving them to fall further behind academically, suffer emotionally and be at greater risk of dropping out of high school.
"This is effectively a national health crisis," said Eldo Bergman, director of the Texas Reading Institute, a Houston company that tutors hundreds of children who are not getting the help they need in public schools. "There's an awful lot of wasted human potential."
The Houston Independent School District is one of the most egregious offenders, with only 256 of its 200,000 students in dyslexia programs this year.
Can you tell what's not there yet? Maybe this will help.
Despite the billions spent on reading in recent decades, test scores have remained stagnant. Some experts blame teachers' colleges, which rarely offer instruction on the science of reading.And while Texas' dyslexia law was designed to improve the situation, educators say it lacks teeth. The state currently doesn't even track its number of dyslexic students.
Parents who suspect their child has dyslexia should ask for a special education evaluation, which districts must provide. They should focus on reading rate, accuracy and comprehension results, Bergman said.
They then should push for phonics instruction that will pinpoint their child's weaknesses, he said.
[Geraldine] Miller, the state education board chairwoman who managed this year's revision of the Texas Dyslexia Handbook, says a class-action type lawsuit may be the best way to get districts to comply.
The words "class action lawsuit" make me think of West Orange-Cove, which naturally leads to the question of "how is the state gonna pay for this?" We're pretty much guaranteed to be revisiting this case soon - Burka thinks the 81st Lege will be all about school finance, which is why he referred to Scott Hochberg as Mr. Indispensible. I'm not making excuses for the school districts - they've obviously done a piss-poor job of following the law, and should have been called on it long before now - but if the state is going to mandate this sort of thing, it's going to have to provide for it as well, and that sounds like a big deal to me.
There's good news and not-so-good news in this story on Philadelphia's experience with municipal WiFi as provided by EarthLink.
Testing by the Houston Chronicle and a private consulting company show that the first phase of Philadelphia's project works -- most of the time. But while the technology only needs tweaking, the company likely has a bigger obstacle to overcome: residents' skepticism.Some residents say they won't subscribe because they found the service to be unreliable months ago, when EarthLink was still making significant adjustments. Both EarthLink and a private consulting company say the service has since improved, but those potential customers say they don't plan to give it another shot.
"It's pretty useless," said Joanna Bacelli, a 21-year-old Temple University student who lives off campus and tried unsuccessfully to get an EarthLink signal in the past. She doubts the service is any better now.
But in much of the area where the network is up and running, it does work, at least for outdoor users.
Signal strength varies significantly depending on the user's proximity to an access node, but online speed tests show the connection speed averages about 1 Mbps, sometimes a bit slower. That's fast enough for the average user to surf the Internet, check e-mail and watch videos on YouTube.
In some areas, however, the signal is weak, particularly when an access node isn't within sight. At several locations, including two free hotspots, this reporter's computer couldn't connect to the network even though the signal appeared to be strong and an access node was clearly visible.
[...]
A review of the EarthLink network by a consulting group called Novarum Inc. showed the service has improved in the last six months and now ranks as "one of the better performing metro WiFi networks deployed so far."
Using a laptop equipped with a standard WiFi card, the same equipment available to most residential customers, Novarum found the service in early June to be reliable at 74 percent of the outdoor locations tested. Back in December, just before EarthLink began its monthlong trial phase when it offered free service, the group found the network's first 6-square-mile coverage area reliable at only half the locations tested. Cell phone networks, by comparison, are usually reliable in about 85 percent of the coverage area, the group reported.
"Our experience the second time through was that it was much better," said Phil Belanger, Novarum's managing director. "So we think they're making the appropriate investment to improve the network."
Basically, it sounds like the technology has lagged the marketing a bit. There's nothing terribly unusual about that - there's a reason the word "vaporware" exists - but it is potentially worrisome for EarthLink's business plan. As with the technology itself, I hope they use this experience to figure out how to do it better here in Houston. We shouldn't suffer the same early-adopter problems as Philly (thanks for beta testing for us, by the way).
Dwight has more. I too will be interested to see how EarthLink rolls it out here in Houston, both in terms of what their progression will be and how they structure the promotional phase. We ought to know pretty quickly how well they've learned the lessons Philadelphia has given them.
Well, now that we've got one Noriega safely elected, it's time to start thinking about another. I've talked about Rick Noriega and his consideration of a run against Sen. John Cornyn next year. The prospect of such a candidacy is very exciting to me for a number of reasons, and I'd like to discuss a couple of them here. First and foremost is simply that I hold Rick Noriega in high regard, both personally and as a legislator. Noriega has a record of accomplishment in the Lege - he's been a leader on matters of education, immigration, and border security - and he has a voting record that I feel good about. You all know I'm a half-a-loaf guy, and I'll support someone with whom I have significant disagreements if the overall package is acceptable. I'll support Mikal Watts in the general election if he emerges as the Democratic candidate, despite his anti-abortion stance, because he's good enough otherwise, and because the alternative is too gruesome to contemplate. But I'd so much prefer to throw down behind someone who doesn't need any glossing over. I don't expect to ever have to say "Yeah, but" to a fellow Democrat about Rick Noriega.
I think we will finally have a confluence of establishment and grassroots support at a statewide level with a Noriega candidacy. I believe people will get fired up about getting Rick Noriega elected. If nothing else, it's refreshing to see someone who isn't a same-old, same-old name as a standard-bearer. It feels like a changing of the guard, one that's long overdue. I think he can be a game-changer, someone who can alter politics in this state in a fundamental way, and in doing so alter Texas' image nationally. I'm told Harvey Kronberg expressed similar sentiments at the town hall meeting Ellen Cohen hosted last week; he apparently said this has been the talk of Austin as well. Who was the last statewide Democrat to generate that kind of buzz? Maybe Henry Cisneros, if you overlook the fact that he never ran a statewide race. It's about damn time.
Finally, I think Rick Noriega is exactly the right candidate to run against John Cornyn. Noriega spent a year in Afghanistan on the front lines of the "war on terror". He's also been deployed to the Texas border to train National Guardsmen on matters of border security. What are the two biggest issues these days? John Cornyn can talk about these things. Rick Noriega has actually been there and done them.
To get to that point, Noriega must first win a primary against Watts, and that will be no small task. Watts starts out with a lot of money, and he's been busy raising even more. He's been involved with a lot of campaigns, and that will bring him a lot of institutional support. And let's not forget, he's a pretty good candidate in his own right. I just believe Rick Noriega is a better one. I hope you'll agree with me and many of my blogging colleagues, who are banding together to get Rick Noriega into, and then out from, the primary for Senate. To put it another way: Draft Rick Noriega.
UPDATE: Others weighing in:
StopCornyn
South Texas Chisme
Feet to the Fire
Capitol Annex
Half Empty
Dos Centavos
Burnt Orange Report
Eye on Williamson
McBlogger
So I confess I didn't know much about the Girl Scouts, but after being sent this WaPo story by my friend Hope, and being assured that they don't have the same abhorrent politics as the Boy Scouts, I could see encouraging Olivia and Audrey to give them a try.
They're cute, they're smart, they're fun. Why would they be labeled geeks?Part of it is the earnestness intrinsic to scouting, so at odds with the practiced boredom and casual cynicism that defines teen culture today. Being a Girl Scout requires a lack of self-consciousness. An ability to sing songs with lines like "When you make a promiiiiiiise, consider its importaaaaaance" in a round, without smirking. Being a Girl Scout requires a pure mind, even when singing "The Brownie Smile Song" ("I've got something in my pocket. . . . I keep it very close at hand in a most convenient place") .
So in their public, non-Girl Scout lives, senior Scouts are teased for being goody-goodies.
"It's such a relief to come to the singalong and not have to worry about what people are going to say," says Joanna Pollard, 13, a secret Girl Scout from Troop 1184 in Greensboro, N.C. She doesn't like the teasing--that exquisitely delivered eye-roll--she gets when people learn she's still a Scout, but she'd never dream of quitting.
"A lot of people our age just sit around and watch TV," says Joanna. "They don't care about their communities or the environment." Her troop is actively involved in several service projects, most recently cleaning up a community garden.
"People can't believe I'm still a Girl Scout," adds her troop mate Kristen Cossaart, 14. "Because they don't realize it's about so much more than cookies."
Well, I can certainly imagine worse things, and the "geek" label is not one I shy away from, so I come away from this feeling pretty good about such a future for my daughters. What do you think?
Nancy Sarnoff reports that big changes may be in the works for the Saint Arnold Brewery.
The Saint Arnold brewery has become something of a tourist attraction in Houston. But its outer-loop location has the owner thinking a closer-in spot would better serve its customers.Founder Brock Wagner said he's scouting inner-city real estate to relocate his brewery, which also happens to be outgrowing its 32,000 square feet of space at 2522 Fairway Park, near the intersection of U.S. 290 and West 34th.
"We're looking all over town, but my first goal would be to get something as close in to the center of town as possible," Wagner said.
Not too close, though.
"Manufacturing can't afford prime downtown real estate or even just off prime downtown real estate," he said. "I'd like to be within five minutes to downtown."
The 13-year-old brew house, which hosts public tours and an average of 15 special events each month, needs a building of at least 50,000 square feet or 3 to 5 acres of land.
Where do you think they should look? Leave a comment and say so.
Remember the story about the Houston Museum for Natural Sciences offering a twenty-five cent per-bug bounty on live cockroaches for an upcoming exhibit? Been wondering how it turned out? Well, wonder no more, as SciGuy Eric Berger asks entomologist Nancy Grieg about it.
Q: First question: How many cockroaches did you collect when you were offering a quarter per bug?A:
We collected, I believe, 724.Q: And you were originally shooting for 1,000?
A: Yes, it was a big disappointment for some. So many people were afraid we'd get too many, but I didn't think we'd get too many. They're not that easy to catch.
Q: So were you happy with the haul you got?
A: Oh, yes, we got plenty. It was pretty crowded in the exhibit.
Q: And tell me again, why in the world would someone ask the public to bring in cockroaches?
A: The purpose is that we really want to raise awareness that cockroaches do have a role as scavengers, and even the ones in your house are not particularly dirty. The ones we collected, American cockroaches, would just as soon be outdoors. We wanted to tell people, 'Hey, cockroaches are people, too.' They're neat. Only 12 out of 4,000 are pests. They're sanitary engineers.
Only twelve, huh? With all due respect, that isn't quite as comforting as Dr. Grieg tries to make it sound.
Q: What type of person likes working with these critters?A:
I've always liked bugs since I was a kid. What I think is really sad is, if a kid has parents who say, 'No, no. don't touch that,' or a mother screams or whatever. That's just bound to turn a kid off. But when the parents are at least tolerant, then it works.
Olivia likes bugs - ladybugs, caterpillars, and spiders in particular. Looks like it's time for a trip to the Cockrell Butterfly Center to see what she might think of this.
I'm kind of looking forward to seeing a GOP primary battle for County Judge next year, especially if it's going to take the tone that's evident in Kristin Mack's column from Friday. That would make it about the exact opposite of what I'm hoping for on the Democratic side for Senate. (Not that I expect to get exactly what I'm hoping for, politics being what it is and all that , but hey, a boy can hope.) And I will say that if Ed Emmett keeps coming forth with stuff like this, the entertainment factor will be reasonably high:
Emmett said he doesn't understand why "Republican activists" would want a spirited primary when there is going to be a tough general election next year.The only reason to throw out an incumbent is if you want to do something different or better, Emmett said.
You do know that "Republican activists" wanted to select somebody else for the County Judge seat, right? And that some of them wanted a "spirited primary" so that they could have an actual voice in the selection process, right? You'd think a guy who got his job through a backroom deal would be a bit more sensitive to those concerns, if for no better reason than they lead to an obvious riposte:
It's a stretch to call Emmett an incumbent said Jim McGrath, a spokesman for Friends of Charles Bacarisse."He is the sitting judge. I accord him the respect the office is entitled to. But no one deserves a coronation. There should be a contest of ideas. He needs to be tested in a primary," McGrath said.
"Voters get to decide who has the right experience for the job. No one should be arrogant enough to substitute their own personal will against that of the majority."
If this is the tack Ed Emmett plans to take, I'm thinking the campaign ads against him - in both the primary and in the general election, if he makes it that far - will write themselves.
Op-ed writer Ellen Marrus has a straightforward solution for the HPD Crime Lab.
If officials behind the HPD lab are feeling the heat, they can take comfort in knowing they are not alone. Crime labs throughout the United States are under assault for employing people and practices that have cast palls of suspicion over lab results. Rather than confidently presenting "ironclad evidence" to their juries, prosecutors have been pushed back on their heels by questionable lab results that can ruin an otherwise solid case.Across the country, two primary factors loom as the culprits behind this epidemic of ersatz evidence. The first is severe underfunding that makes it difficult to hire or retain competent technicians. The second is the way many jurisdictions place crime labs within law enforcement agencies -- an arrangement that prompts lab technicians to view themselves as "advocates for the prosecution" rather than the impartial scientists they need to be.
Added together, these two factors help foster police crime labs that are run by technicians with relatively weak scientific backgrounds who believe their job has a single objective: to generate testimony that will produce convictions. These factors are at the root of police lab fiascos not only in Houston, but also in cities throughout the country.
[...]
There's an easy, albeit expensive, way to fix the national crisis in forensic crime labs. Lawmakers should find a way to allocate more funding for these labs, and they should remove these facilities from the control of law enforcement agencies.
I agree with this completely, and so does Grits, who has advocated similar reforms for some time, and who has a third suggestion to take these ideas a step further. The key thing that everyone has to accept before we can really fix this problem, and it's something I've harped on again and again, is that every time we put an innocent person in jail we're not just grievously wronging that person, we're also leaving a guilty person on the streets to keep committing the crimes we've locked the innocent guy up for doing. It's bad twice over. If we're genuinely serious about fighting crime, we have to take every reasonable step we can to minimize this kind of injustice. The whole system is a failure if we let it be easy for innocents to be ensnared.
But there has to be the political will for this. I think we're getting to the point where that will happen, but we're not there yet. It's easy to criticize Mayor White, Chief Hurtt, and DA Rosenthal for not wanting to spend the money on a special master to oversee the reviews of questionable convictions, but will we also criticize President Bush, the Congress, Governor Perry, and the Legislature for not providing an adequate funding mechanism for crime labs so that the root cause of these problems can be addressed? Because if we don't, sooner or later we'll be right back here again.
Tory Gattis responds to some of the criticism of his Opportunity Urbanism op-ed that was in last Sunday's Chron, including one of the charges leveled by Lisa Falkenburg. He'll get another chance to do some responding after seeing David Crossley's piece today, which also critiques his piece, plus gives some insight into the H-GAC 2035 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP). Check it out.
Olivia was born when I was 38, and Audrey arrived just before I turned 41. That makes me a little young for this crowd, but I can still relate.
Paul McCartney had a baby when he was well past 50. So did Rupert Murdoch, Larry King, Cary Grant, Tony Randall, David Letterman and Dr. Michael DeBakey. Writer Cormac McCarthy has said he wouldn't have written The Road, the novel that won the Pulitzer Prize, if he hadn't been inspired by the son he had late in life. Older parenthood "wrenches you up and out of your nap," he told Oprah Winfrey.Overwhelmingly, making babies is the work of younger men. The National Center for Health Statistics reports just 2.7 live births per 1,000 men 50 and older, compared with 104.9 for men 25-29. The norm is that young people grow up, marry partners close to their own age, have children and then grandchildren.
I became a father at the right time for me to become a father. I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself, in a way that I don't think I'd have been when I was younger and more of a knucklehead. Sure, I worry that my daughters won't know their ancestry as well as I do mine, but that's just how it is. No such thing as a do-over in this life, so you make what you can out of what you've got. I'd say we're ahead on balance.
Dr. Steven Mintz, a history professor and director of the American cultures program at the University of Houston, says older fathers make some adults uneasy. They don't like men more interested in personal growth than growing up."We tend to be a judgmental society, and we want people to act pretty much according to our proper calendar," Mintz says.
"We're living through kind of a revolution in adulthood, and no one is quite sure how it will play out. ... It seems the rules have broken down."
I call that a feature, not a bug. We could stand to have a few more of those rules break down, if you ask me.
Happy Father's Day, from my family to yours.
I can't tell you how good this feels.
Melissa Noriega, a Houston educator whose campaign had strong funding and key support, easily defeated retired Air Force officer Roy Morales in Saturday's runoff for the Houston City Council At-Large Position 3 seat.Noriega took 55 percent to Morales' 45 percent with nearly all but one precinct reporting.
[...]
"After you win is where the real work begins. Doing the job is the real work," Noriega said. "The people of Houston have honored me with their trust and their votes; there's nothing more powerful than that."
Noriega will have less time than usual to begin the job. She will be sworn in at City Hall on June 27, after the City Council canvasses the votes from the election.
She has long served as a Houston Independent School District special projects manager, but said she will retire from that position to devote her time to City Council.
"I'm going to wrap up my old life and start a new one," she said. "I will treat this as a full-time job."
Melissa Noriega won a well-deserved victory, and the people of Houston get a top-notch new Council member. It's all good. Congratulations to Council Member Melissa Noriega, and to everyone who helped her get there.
On a side note, from the "Have I Mentioned That Every Vote Counts?" Department:
In Clute, at first the vote was tied and Saturday the runoff election to determine the Ward D representative on the Clute City Council was decided by one vote.Incumbent Travis Quinn edged out challenger Michael Binnion 29 votes to 28.
Election officials said Saturday that a recount will be held if a candidate requests it.
Saturday's election was held after the city's May 12 general election ended with both candidates receiving 12 votes.
I always say that if you didn't vote and you don't like the outcome, you've got no grounds for complaint. That's doubly so in this case.
Another story about another step forward in obtaining financing for the Astrodome redevelopment project.
A company that aims to reinvent the Astrodome as an upscale luxury hotel has gotten preliminary approval to obtain financing for the $450 million project, county officials said Friday.Astrodome Redevelopment Co. missed a deadline three months ago to show it had the approval, but now can move forward with other stages of the project, said Mike Surface, chairman of the Harris County Sports & Convention Corp., which oversees Reliant Park.
"This is certainly a significant occurrence in the determination of the future of the Astrodome," he said.
During the next three months, Astrodome Redevelopment will try to clear another hurdle: convincing the Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo that they can coexist with a 1,200-room, four-star convention hotel.
It feels like there's been a lot of these stories lately, but I don't feel like there's been a lot of new stuff in many of them. It's not really clear to me what's changed since the previous installment, for example.
Leroy Shafer, the rodeo's chief operating officer, said the rodeo and Astrodome Redevelopment have issues to negotiate, including the hotel's access to Reliant Park during the rodeo, the rodeo's take, if any, of concession and merchandise sales at the Dome hotel during the rodeo, naming rights and marketing rights.Astrodome Redevelopment has considered building an overhead ramp from the South Loop to the hotel.
"They either have to go over us or under us. Ingress-egress is a major issue, of course," Shafer said. "We run our show from fenceline to fenceline."
This subject first came up about a year ago. I'm still not sure what the logistics of this proposed exit ramp would be. Maybe this is where the whole thing founders, and not financing. We'll see.
From Thursday's Chron, in an article on the new red light camera legislation:
Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack said cameras might deter some people from running red lights and improve safety."But you want to have compliance without trying to gouge people," Radack said. "It's as if the city of Houston has figured out a way to extract money from people's pockets."
And from Friday's Chronicle:
By the end of the summer, drivers likely will pay 25 cents more each time they pass through a county toll road booth, and fees likely will continue to rise by more than 2 percent annually during the next two decades.Proposed rate changes would double EZ Tag rates, now $1 per transaction, and cash rates, now $1.25 per transaction, over the next 20 years.
Commissioners Court will vote Tuesday on the proposed increases, which would increase revenues an estimated $65 million over 12 months. Rates will likely go up between late August and mid-September.
Way to extract money from people's pockets, Commissioner Radack!
Polls are about to close, so if you haven't voted by now, it's too late. Turnout was miserable, with the weather not helping. I'm off to Melissa Noriega's election night party. I'll try to post updates as I can. Here's hoping for the best.
UPDATE: With half of all precincts in, Melissa is leading with over 56% of the vote. She is winning today's vote with over 60%. It's looking very good right now.
UPDATE: It's official - Melissa is the winner. Thanks to everyone who voted, and good night.
This is it. If you haven't voted yet, you have until 7 PM to correct that oversight. You can find your polling location here. Please vote for Melissa Noriega, and please bring a friend or ten along with you. Thank you very much.
Governor Perry officially broke out his veto pen yesterday.
Gov. Rick Perry made his final rulings Friday on legislation approved by Texas lawmakers, vetoing 49 bills that came out of the five-month session.The Republican governor had until Sunday to decide whether to sign or veto bills, but he planned to get it all done before the weekend.
On Friday, Perry announced he'd signed the 2008-09 state budget into law, allocating $151.9 billion for state programs. He used his line-item veto power to get rid of $570 million from the budget that lawmakers passed.
Vetoing bills from Democrats and Republicans alike, Perry used his veto pen on some legislation before the 140-day session ended May 28 and announced Friday he was striking down dozens of other bills.
[...]
Perry set the known record for vetoes by a Texas governor in 2001 with 83, according to the Texas Legislative Reference Library. That was shortly after he ascended to the governorship in December 2000, once fellow Republican George W. Bush resigned to become president.
Bush had far fewer vetoes during his tenure as governor. His highest total for a legislative session was 38 in 1997.
Here's the complete list of vetoed bills. I don't see any new ones on that list that stand out to me, but there's a lot of bills that get passed, and I can only follow so many. Anything there that outrages you? Let me know.
The very good news, as Pete happily notes, is that HB1919 got signed into law. Take that, TAB! This is very good news for many families across Texas today. My thanks to everyone who contacted their state rep to help push this through or the Governor to urge him to sign it. Y'all done good.
First, congrats to the Spurs for winning yet another NBA title, and making it look easy. I don't care what anyone says, four titles in nine years is a dynasty. Well done, guys.
Second, for those of you who thought these Finals had less zest than perhaps they might, Mac Thomason has a modest proposal.
Ban the coaches. Seriously. No coaching should be allowed during the game; the point guard can call the plays and the captain can call timeouts and make substitutions. Only active players and trainers can sit on the bench. The coach sits in the stands, and if he does anything to coach the team, it's a technical foul and he's asked to leave. He can meet the team in the locker room at halftime; that's it. (I'm borrowing this rule from tennis, which allows only limited contact between player and coach during the match.)Nobody goes to a sporting event to watch someone coach; they go to watch the players. Let the players play.
It'll never happen, for any number of reasons, but it's intriguing nonetheless. What do you think?
Jeez, what's a vowel planet got to do to get a little respect around here?
Is this really the end for Pluto?The former ninth planet was demoted yet again Thursday when scientists determined it no longer even reigns as king of the dwarf planets, a sub-class astronomers relegated Pluto to last summer after deeming it unworthy of standing alongside Earth, Jupiter and other larger bodies.
The bigger dwarf planet, Eris, is 27 percent more massive than Pluto, California Institute of Technology scientists reported in the journal Science. One of them, Michael Brown, led the discovery of Eris in 2003 that precipitated a reconsideration of the solar system's familiar nine planets.
"I think this result definitely cements Pluto's demotion into the dwarf planet category," said Patricia Reiff, a Rice University astronomer and director of the Rice Space Institute. "There was an outcry in the beginning, but I think it's died down."
Well, I'm still outraged at the injustice of it all. Who will think of the mnemonics?
The International Astronomical Union will reconvene in two years.Harvard University professor emeritus of astronomy and history of science Owen Gingerich said he's still hopeful Pluto can get some recognition if it cannot be restored to its former status.
"I think these icy bodies beyond Neptune will eventually be known as Plutonians, thereby giving some nod to the historical status of Pluto," he said.
A small gesture, if you ask me, but perhaps the best Pluto can do in these cold and uncaring days. How sad it is.
Thus says Miya:
I am a little surprised that the Morales campaign has decided against being interviewed on TV for a pre-election profile. A little refresher, a profile piece is where we spend about 90 seconds of news time to run down why the two candidates are running for council. It's basic, there are no "hidden" agendas, and it's just a chance for candidates to tell viewers who they should vote for. Oh, and it's basically free TV -- which, last time I checked, is something politicians LOVE. However, after repeated attempts to set up an interview before Saturday's runoff election, campaign manager Justin Jordan finally told me that they don't have time. Morales is too busy. WHAT? Has anyone been to candidate school lately? When are local politicians ever too busy for local TV? I may not be the most experienced reporter around, but I've never had a council candidate who wants to be elected turn down free air time.
The reason for this is simple. This campaign, at least at this point in time, isn't about Roy. It's about all those scary people that Jared Woodfill and company are afraid of (and want you to be afraid of, too). There's a reason the entire runoff strategy has been about fear and loathing. You can't beat something with nothing. You can only hope to tear it down.
It's not about Roy. That's pretty much all there is to it. When you view it that way, it makes perfect sense.
Okay, so this is the antepenultimate time I'll run that picture. As soon as I figure out what comes before "antepenultimate", I'll apologize for the goof.
I said yesterday that I believe a special master is needed to oversee the review of the many questionable convictions brought about by the problems with the HPD crime lab. I think it would be a good idea for someone with some gravitas on this issue to speak out about the need for a special master, and why it would be good for everyone, the police and District Attorney's office included. I don't, however, think this is the best person for that job.
"It looks like to me that they're trying to sweep some of their final problems under the rug," state Rep. Kevin Bailey, chairman of the House Committee on Urban Affairs said Thursday.[...]
Bailey, D-Houston, said a special master is needed to examine the cases because the local criminal justice system should not investigate itself.
"That's why so many people don't have a lot of confidence in the judicial system in Harris County," Bailey said. "Not just because of the problems of the past, but (criminal justice officials) continue to not get it, and they continue to appear to ignore the facts and the proper way to resolve these cases."
While serving as chairman of General Investigating and Ethics during the 2003 and 2005 sessions of the Legislature, Bailey held hearings into the crime lab scandal, which was uncovered in 2002. He remains a member of that committee in addition to chairing Urban Affairs. Bailey was also instrumental in the passage of legislation requiring accreditation for all crime labs in the state that perform DNA testing.
Although he has not discussed the the final report with other state leaders, Bailey said he envisions some form of joint pressure by his Urban Affairs committee and the House Committee on General Investigating and Ethics.
"Urban Affairs has authority over the cities, so we could do it alone," Bailey said, "but the General Investigating committee has much greater subpoena power."
If Rep. Bailey had made a peep when anti-clean air bill SB1317, which its own author said was "about city sovreignity", was moved out of Urban Affairs and into Environmental Regs so that it would be ensured easy passage, then I might take his insistence of the might of Urban Affairs more seriously. I agree with what Rep. Bailey is saying here. I'm just not impressed by the fact that he said it. If and when someone else gets on this train, then we can talk.
RG Ratcliffe had a conversation with Senate hopeful Mikal Watts, and it makes for some good and thoughtful reading. I am, obviously, not as impressed as some at Watts' self-proclaimed "pro-life" stance, though I'll give him credit for being consistent about it in a way that's rarely seen or heard from Republicans. This is a core-belief issue for me, and I doubt I would ever vote for a "pro-life" candidate in a contested primary when there's a viable alternative available. But Watts' statement on the issue does make me feel better about the possibility of him being the candidate in November. That's no small thing.
Another good sign: Watts seems to do pretty well by the Hackett test. I wish Ratcliffe had asked him more specifically about lessons learned from the Tony Sanchez debacle of 2002, because I think it's pretty clear that running a "I'm like the Republican, but better" campaign isn't going to cut it. It looks like Watts will avoid this trap, but I'd still have liked to hear it more explictly.
I really am excited about the prospect of a high-profile, well-fought primary for the right to take on John Cornyn. I want Watts to be a good candidate who'll get his supporters as fired up about supporting him as I know my preferred candidate will be with his supporters. I want this to be about the excitement that comes from choosing between two good options. I want the folks whose candidate winds up falling short to see their person embrace and wholeheartedly endorse the winner, so that we all feel passionate about moving the battle to the general election. That's what a contested primary should be about, and that's what I want this one to be about. As of today, at least, I feel pretty good about the possibility of getting it.
As we know, the city of Houston struck a deal with The Woodlands a few months ago to take any future annexations off the table. That deal was later codified into legislation, which has since been signed into law. One piece of that legislation also gave The Woodlands the ability to come to a similar arrangement with Conroe, which has had its own plans for a piece of The Woodlands east of I-45. As of yesterday, that too is now off the table thanks to an agreement between The Woodlands and Conroe.
In December 2005, Conroe officials announced the city would annex Municipal Utility District No. 39, an 858-acre area that includes the Harper's Landing neighborhood of about 1,400 homes. The announcement spurred protests from residents who said they did not want to be a part of the city.As part of the agreement, Conroe will end its proceedings to annex District 39 and release it from the city's boundaries in 2014.
In return, The Woodlands will put $320,000 into a regional fund to be used for mutually beneficial projects agreed to by leaders of both communities. The fund will be handled by The Woodlands' Town Center Improvement District, a special management district.
The district will then make continuing payments to the fund using 1/16 of sales tax and tax income from the utility district.
The regional participation agreement will not have a term limit.
The deal brokered over the past several months is similar to the regional participation agreement recently reached between The Woodlands and Houston, enabling the community to become a city in the future without the possibility of annexation.
''I think this is a groundbreaking step toward cooperation between The Woodlands and Conroe, and the agreement sets the foundation for that," said Joel Deretchin, president of The Woodlands Association.
I guess the only issue left is when does The Woodlands become the city of The Woodlands. It'll be interesting to see how that affects the way The Woodlands does its business when that happens.
With Governor Perry expected to sign the bill to authorize red light cameras (SB1119), expect to see them pop up in places outside of Houston soon, if they're not already there.
Montgomery County Commissioners Court approved red-light cameras in The Woodlands in April, and the devices were installed at two intersections in May. In the first two weeks of operation the cameras caught more than 600 violators, Precinct 3 Commissioner Ed Chance said. In June, the cameras have recorded 336 more, he said.Chance, whose precinct includes most of The Woodlands, said cameras were installed at the intersections to gather information about traffic movement in the master-planned community and ''to show state legislators the severe problem with people violating traffic lights."
[...]
Elsewhere, officials in Sugar Land and Humble are studying possible sites for cameras. Humble's cameras could be working by August, and Sugar Land's police chief said the city's system should be ready by September.
Both cities, Sugar Land in Fort Bend County and Humble on the northern fringe of Harris County, are crossed by major highways carrying heavy traffic.
Humble City Manager Darrell Boeske said cameras probably will be installed at five intersections there. He said a likely spot for a camera is at FM 1960 and the U.S. 59 service road.
"About 90 percent of our accidents happen on those two streets," Boeske said.
Sugar Land officials are still determining where the cameras will be installed.
Three highways, U.S. 90A, U.S. 59 and Texas 6, cross the city.
Police Chief Steve Griffith said a probable spot for one camera would be at U.S. 59 and Texas 6, in the heart of the city's business district.
Like 'em or not, they appear to be here to stay, even with a sunset clause of sorts in the final bill. Look for the signs, and be ready when the light turns yellow.
Miya Shay has been doing a nice job keeping track of what's going on with the River Oaks Shopping Center and the imminent demolition of its north half. She speculated about the effect of the recently-approved tax abatements for historic structures, and got someone from Weingarten to answer a question about it. She posted a letter from Historic Houston warning about a rumored plan to demolish the shopping center without going through the proper permitting process. And finally, she's got some photos of the empty storefronts, as their last days tick by. Check it all out.
We have a new Secretary of State on the way to replace the outgoing one, Roger Williams.
Republican Gov. Rick Perry is expected to promote a top aide to succeed Roger Williams as Texas secretary of state. Phil Wilson, Perry's deputy chief of staff, would bring a background in economic development to the job traditionally focused on overseeing state elections.Perry's office declined to confirm the appointment, which could be announced today. Wilson didn't respond to a request for an interview.
But state Sen. Kirk Watson aired no objections. Watson, D-Austin, reviewed the choice at Perry's request because Wilson lives in Watson's Travis County district.
Watson said he worked closely with Wilson when Watson chaired the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.
The senator called Wilson "extremely competent. He works hard; he knows his business; he's a real straight shooter. As far as I am concerned, the governor can go forward."
Watson said Wilson assured him Wednesday that as secretary, he won't take a position on the Republican-favored idea of asking voters to present photo identification or other proof of identity before voting; Wilson believes that it would not be his role as secretary to take a position on identification proposals.
[...]
Wilson watches over the $200 million Emerging Technology Fund and the $185 million Texas Enterprise Fund to recruit business to the state. On his watch, the governor's office says, Texas has leveraged $10 billion in capital investment and 45,000 jobs.
Early this year, he was Perry's point man on a failed legislative proposal to sell the state lottery and invest the proceeds in endowments for public schools, health care and cancer research.
Wilson worked previously as state director for former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and as director of communications for Charles Matthews, then a member of the Texas Railroad Commission.
Sounds about as good as anyone Rick Perry might appoint to the position. Which is to say, probably not someone I'll ever like, but hopefully someone I won't actively dislike. If he can fix the problems with TEAM, I'll consider him a success. BOR has more.
The final report on the problems with the HPD Crime Lab and what needs to be done about it has been released.
Independent investigator Michael Bromwich outlined a series of steps he said officials should take to determine what role blood-typing and DNA evidence played in securing convictions against as many as 600 defendants -- including 14 already executed -- whose cases were processed at the Houston Police Department's crime lab between 1980 and 2002.Police Chief Harold Hurtt, Mayor Bill White and Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal agreed that hundreds of cases will require further scrutiny and possibly new testing, but they rejected Bromwich's suggestion that a "special master" be appointed to oversee the process.
"We are committed to having a crime lab that the public and the criminal justice system can have confidence in," Hurtt said. "But we feel very strongly that ... we can accomplish what needs to be done without a special master."
Bromwich's recommendations were made in the final report on his sweeping $5.3 million investigation of the lab, where bad management, undertrained staff and inaccurate work -- first exposed 4 1/2 years ago -- has cast doubt on thousands of convictions and unsettled the criminal justice system in Houston and beyond.
[...]
Police and prosecutors already have begun their review, Hurtt said, adding that, in the absence of a "special master," the committee of community representatives that oversaw Bromwich's investigation, known as the stakeholder committee, will check on their progress.
The committee's presence, coupled with assistance from nonprofits such as the Innocence Project to represent defendants' interests, eliminates the need for an independent supervisor of the serology review, Hurtt said. Bromwich said the chief's plan could be an acceptable solution.
Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project, said his group will help but that a special master would be more effective.
"There is no other way to get to the heart of it," he said. "Obviously (we) will provide help, but it's just too hard."
Each questionable serology case will get the scrutiny needed, Rosenthal said.
"We are going to start notifying defendants through the courts that there's a possibility that something was done incorrectly in their cases," he said, "and we'll let the courts resolve that."
While the stakeholder committee could work, as Bromwich says, I agree with Scheck: It will be more effective with a special master. The simple fact is that however well motivated HPD and the District Attorney's office may be now, there needs to be someone in charge whose interests are independent of theirs. The Chron editorial puts it well:
Local officials understandably want to put the crime lab scandal behind them now that all the lab's divisions have been certified as satisfactory and are processing evidence. However, hundreds of convicts remain in prison, some more than a decade after trials in which evidence presented might have been erroneously tested. Many no longer are represented by lawyers and will need more assistance than a small advocacy group such as the Innocence Project, with limited resources, can swiftly provide.Hurtt says the judicial system, including police, prosecutors, judge and jury, can bring justice to the inmates who might have been wrongly convicted. That would leave the matter of representing prisoner interests to the police department that made the case against them, the district attorney's office that prosecuted them or a small private group. That model does not guarantee impartial justice.
Bromwich, a former U.S. Justice Department inspector general, won national attention when he investigated problems at the FBI crime lab. At a news conference after the release of his report on Houston's lab, Bromwich agreed that adequate involvement by the stakeholder group could be a substitute for a special master in finishing up the crime lab investigation.
That will put a heavy responsibility on the volunteer, unpaid members to make sure the remaining cases are thoroughly investigated and not swept under the rug in the interest of saving money or jurisdictional expedience.
It's not that it's impossible for this to work without there being an outsider in charge, as the example of Dallas DA Craig Watkins shows. Of course, Watkins is basically an outsider, just one who has since gotten himself officially embedded. He has a mandate for what he's doing that neither Rosenthal nor Hurtt have. Let's get a special master and get this done. It really is the best way.
Grits has more and more on this. The final report itself is here (PDF).
Here's the link, for the usual Limited Time Only, and here are the lists:
THE BESTRafael Anchia, Democrat, Dallas
Sen. John Carona, Republican, Dallas
Byron Cook, Republican, Corsicana
Sen. Bob Deuell, Republican, Mesquite
Scott Hochberg, Democrat, Houston
Lois Kolkhorst, Republican, Brenham
Jerry Madden, Republican, Plano
Sen. Steve Ogden, Republican, Bryan
Sylvester Turner, Democrat, Houston
Sen. Tommy Williams, Republican, The WoodlandsTHE WORST
Lon Burnam, Democrat, Fort Worth
Warren Chisum, Republican, Pampa
Speaker Tom Craddick, Republican, Midland
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Republican
Sen. Troy Fraser, Republican, Marble Falls
Charlie Howard, Republican, Sugar Land
Sen. Eddie Lucio, Democrat, Brownsville
Sen. Dan Patrick, Republican, Houston
Gov. Rick Perry, Republican
Debbie Riddle, Republican, HoustonHonorable Mention
Rob Eissler Republican, The Woodlands
Senator Kevin Eltife Republican, Tyler
Dan Gattis Republican, Georgetown
Fred Hill Republican, Richardson
Senator Juan Hinojosa Democrat, McAllen
"The Insurgency" Jim Dunnam, Robert Talton, et al.
John Smithee Republican, Amarillo
Burt Solomons Republican, Carrollton
Mark Strama Democrat, Austin
Senfronia Thompson Democrat, Houston
Senator John Whitmire Democrat, HoustonDishonorable Mention
Kino Flores Democrat, Mission
Pat Haggerty Republican, El Paso
Linda Harper-Brown Republican, Irving
Sid Miller Republican, Stephenville
Mike O'Day Republican, Pearland
Chente Quintanilla Democrat, El Paso
Bill Zedler Republican, ArlingtonRookie of the Year
Senator Kirk Watson Democrat, Austin
The former Austin mayor (and once and future statewide candidate) instantly earned respect for his intellect and diplomacy--and for knowing enough to let his elders take credit for his accomplishments.
Furniture
The concept of "furniture" originated in the early years of the Legislature to describe members who were no more consequential than their desks, chairs, inkwells, and spittoons--the equivalent of backbenchers in Parliament. Today the term is only mildly pejorative; the sin lies not in being furniture but in failing to recognize it. Here is the furniture for the eightieth session:
Alma Allen Democrat, Houston
Roberto Alonzo Democrat, Dallas
Wayne Christian Republican, Center
Senator Craig Estes Republican, Wichita Falls
Joe Farias Democrat, San Antonio
Jim Jackson Republican, Carrollton
Senator Mike Jackson Republican, League City
Nathan Macias Republican, Bulverde
Armando Martinez Democrat, Weslaco
The article is done as correspondence between authors Paul Burka and Patti Hart. I just want to highlight a couple of bits from it, for future reference:
[S]peaking of show business, the Senate has staged its share of theater too. Talk show host Dan Patrick brought his performance to town, both figuratively and literally. While Patrick will argue that we targeted him as a Worst before he ever darkened the Capitol's huge oak doors, our only pre-session commitment was to our historic criteria. It was his colleagues who shook their heads at the mention of his name, weary of his lectures about overspending and ignoring taxpayers. In the closing days of the session, he told them how his northwest Harris County district provided the money for their constituents to spend, as if poor people don't pay sales taxes too. Floor debate served as the set for scripted pieces on red-meat issues like illegal immigration, abortion, and appraisal caps. When his dreaded nemesis in the House, Fred Hill, announced his candidacy for Speaker, Patrick sent a mass e-mail referring to him as Fred the Snake. His fellow senators tried to school him, but nothing worked. "Don't showboat," they'd say, only to have him arrange for $1 million in cash as a prop for a press conference that was critical of the Senate's version of the budget, then claim to have discovered $3 billion in savings that their months of work had overlooked. Too bad he didn't mention his ideas to anyone before the budget was debated. It finally became obvious to all that Patrick was here for the wrong reason: not to be a serious student of state policy but to amass sound bites for a run for higher office in 2010.[...]
There is no more unreliable senator than sixteen-year veteran Eddie Lucio. His nicknames say it all: Sucio ("Dirty") Lucio and El Resbaloso ("the Slippery One"). Want to get a laugh from a colleague? Claim you've got eleven signatures to block a bill and produce a list with Lucio's name on it. That's a good one; Lucio uses disappearing ink. When the city of Houston needed to block a bill undercutting its ability to manage air emissions in neighboring suburbs, Lucio promised to provide a crucial vote against the bill. He voted "present" when a "no" would have killed the bill, then voted "no" when it no longer mattered. He pulled a similar stunt when the Finance Committee was looking for funds to pay for a Medicaid lawsuit settlement. Lucio voted for an amendment designating that the money come at the expense of health and human services for the poor. Later, he changed his vote, but it was too late. Here's how he explained himself to the Web-based publication Rio Grande Guardian: "I am pleased I had the opportunity to address the issue one more time, even though we were on the losing side. It sent a message." It sure did.
[...]
Let's close on an upbeat note with the two remaining Bests. If the Legislature were a stock market, Rafael Anchia would be Google. He is the future--the son of immigrants (from Spain and Mexico), a lawyer with a blue-chip firm, the League of United Latin American Citizens' onetime national Man of the Year, and the Democratic Rookie of the Year in our 2005 Best and Worst Legislators story. In only his second term, Anchia emerged as a top floor debater in the fight over the voter ID bill. After hearing Republicans argue that the bill was designed to prevent voter fraud, Anchia responded, "That's like burning down the forest in case Bigfoot exists." When another voting bill was considered in committee, this one requiring that a person seeking to register to vote be able to prove that he is an American citizen, Anchia confronted state GOP chair Tina Benkiser, who was testifying for the bill. "Can you prove today that you're a citizen?" Anchia asked--the point being that most people (including, it turned out, Benkiser) don't typically carry around their passport or birth certificate. When his ambitious legislative program of environmental bills--mostly improving energy efficiency--stalled, he looked for donkeys on which to pin the tail, and he found Republicans willing to let him attach his proposals to theirs. Recommendation: Buy.
Scott Hochberg didn't figure to be on the Best list. This was not a session in which public education, his area of expertise, was in play. But then a conversation took place in which a Republican lawmaker described him this way: "No legislator is indispensable, but Scott Hochberg is the closest thing to it." Session after session, he knows more about school finance than anyone, and he's willing to share his knowledge with friend or foe. Members on both sides of the aisle trust him. When Chisum's bill requiring high schools to offer Bible electives was sent to the Public Education Committee, it was so riddled with problems Hochberg could have killed it. Instead, he fixed it. When the bill reached the House floor, Chisum tried to substitute his original flawed version--and the House sided with Hochberg. In previous sessions, the former chairman of the Public Education Committee, Kent Grusendorf, did everything he could to keep Hoch-berg on the outside, only to lose floor battle after floor battle to him; this time, new chairman Rob Eissler was his biggest fan. On the first day the committee met, Eissler placed four Hochberg bills on the agenda--an unmistakable signal that his banishment was over. He passed one major bill this session, polishing up the way the state adopts textbooks (which saved school districts $1 billion), but next session, when school finance formulas will be on the front burner, Mr. Indispensable will be front and center.
Lots of good stuff in there. Enjoy!
Previously, I noted that the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) will be hosting some public meetings in June regarding the $92 billion in sponsored transportation and related clean air planning and projects identified in its draft 2035 Regional Transportation Plan. The first of those meetings is tonight. Here's some information, courtesy of the CTC:
What: Public open house and hearing for 2035 RTP
When: Thursday, June 14, 2007 from 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Where: Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) offices at 3555 Timmons Ln., Houston, TX 77098 (map)Some kudos for the 2035 plan:
- This new plan finally addresses in a meaningful way the fact that land use decisions can have a significant impact on mobility and quality of life
- This new plan acknowledges the vision and goals for future growth from the thousands of participants in the Envision Houston Region process
- More than 1/3 of expenditures will go to much needed transit projects
- This new plan talks intelligently about preserving open green space and limiting development in flood plains
- This new plan includes $25 million towards "livable centers" that will allow some Houstonians to drive less by living closer to where they work
Some concerns about the 2035 plan:
- This plan still includes many controversial highway projects proposed in years past that will not help our region meet ambitious quality of life goals
- Less than 5% of expenditures will go to freight rail to make our region's antiquated rail network safer for neighborhoods or more efficient
- Less than 1% of expenditures will go to projects to make our region more walkable or bikeable
- The plan does not address how different modes affect each other: how do freeways affect pedestrians? can freight rail improvements take trucks off highways? should transit improvements be targeted to walkable centers?
- This plan does not benefit from the efficiencies of coordinating our infrastructure to build "complete" streets where individuals can choose between many different safe and efficient modes of access
Finally, the public has just two more weeks to digest the RTP, and it will be a challenge to meaningfully react to such a big plan in such a short time. Unless H-GAC grants community requests for more time to respond, the public comment period ends July 2nd.
So there you have it. If this sort of thing interests you, be sure to attend and make your voice heard.
As we know, the state of Texas terminated its contract with Accenture to operate call centers to determine benefits eligibility back in December. While the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) is trying to bring back former employees to pick up the work that Accenture couldn't do, that doesn't mean that the idea of outsourcing this task has been consigned to the dustbin. Indeed, according to an email I got from the Texas State Employees Union, it appears the HHSC is on the lookout for its next future ex-outsourcer:
HHSC plans to issue a new request for proposals for operating the call centers in December 2007. Then it plans to award the new contract a scant five months later in May 2008.It will take companies two to three months to submit proposals, which will only give HHSC two to three months to evaluate them before making the award.
"It looks like HHSC is fast tracking its revival of the call centers. Fast tracking the original call center plan is one of the mistakes that led to disaster with the Accenture contract," said [Mike Gross, TSEU vice-president].
Well, I suppose you could say that nobody could be as bad as Accenture was, right? That depends, it would seem.
TSEU also warned that HHSC's new eligibility computer system TIERS is not designed to work in a call center environment. This and many other problems that have plagued TIERS are a long way from being resolved.One of the potential contractors for the revived call center experiment will be Maximus, which was a call center subcontractor for Accenture. Maximus was supposed to make it possible for TIERS to operate in a call center environment. But its solution, a computer application known as MAXe3, never worked right, which, according to a report issued by the Comptroller, caused unacceptable delays in processing applications for services.
Boy, with a resume like that, what could go wrong? The troubles with TIERS are well known. Nothing like taking your existing failures and building on them.
"If HHSC wants to provide convenient and effective services, it needs to re-staff its local eligibility offices and provide state employees with technology that actually works," said Gross. "HHSC should also give state employees the responsibility for processing CHIP applications. Doing so, will make the transition between Medicaid and CHIP seamless."
On a side note, CHIP enrollments have dropped for four straight months.
Ted Hughes with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission blamed the decline on the agency's decision to end an amnesty program for families with incomplete applications.
Yes, CHIP enrollment is as much about administrative policy as it is about eligibility requirements. Which is why the tighter the rein kept on HHSC, the better. Let's keep an eye on this.
The Observer blog has a great rundown on our soon-to-be-former Secretary of State, Roger Williams, and his future political ambitions.
Maybe the leap from public steward to Republican candidate isn't surprising, since Williams never missed an opportunity to use his supposedly nonpartisan office to score partisan points.There was the incident in which Williams' office fired a state lawyer who inadvertently embarrassed Karl Rove. Williams admitted Rove called him after staff attorney Elizabeth Reyes indicated to the Washington Post that Rove may have committed a civil offense by voting in Texas without meeting state residency requirements.
"He and I are friends," Williams said of Rove, explaining the phone call and assuring us that Rover would never, ever ask for Reyes' head. Nevertheless, she was fired. A subsequent investigation by Kerr County officials cleared Rove of any wrongdoing (because he intends to return to the state).
Nice. I'd forgotten that incident (I could swear I blogged it at the time, but if so I can't find it). How typical for anything involving Karl Rove.
Vince speculates about Williams' replacement, and suggests Harris County Tax Assessor Paul Bettencourt, who has decided not to run in CD22, as a possibility. Maybe, I don't know. Bettencourt has been known to have statewide ambitions, and this would be a good springboard for him. On the other hand, the streets are already clogged with Republicans who have statewide ambitions, and it's not clear to me why Rick Perry would give any one of them a boost up. So who knows?
I see that Comcast is set to roll out a bunch of new channels when it assimilates Time-Warner next week. I'm not particularly interested in any of them, but I am interested in this:
Comcast will introduce a new tiering system that has several notable upgrades or improvements.The new "Basic Service" tier includes all local channels (and their HD signals) as well as Chicago "superstation" WGN, Tube Music (affiliated with Channel 39), and Spanish-language channels LATV (affiliated with Channel 2) and V-me (affiliated with Channel 8). Price: $16.42.
An "Expanded Basic" tier adds 55 channels to the "Basic" tier, including eight HD channels. Price: $44.99.
"Digital Basic" is for customers who want the first two tiers plus access to video on demand, including MoviePlex. Price: $51.99.
Niche channels such as ESPN News, Current TV, Gospel Music Channel and Toon Disney are on the "Digital Classic" tier. Price: $55.99.
"Digital Preferred" adds Logo, Indieplex, Sundance, four Encore channels and more. Price: $56.99.
A sports pack, which includes the NFL Network, goes for an additional $4, while a 15-channel Spanish-language package can be added for $5 more. Premium movie packages and international channels are also available. HDNet pack, offering Mark Cuban's HDNet and HDNet Movies, can be had for another $3.
A package that includes everything except the international channels is available for $86.99, which matches the current price for a similar offering on Time Warner.
Almost makes you wonder how much different a la carte pricing would be, doesn't it? I'm not sure which of these our current TWC digital cable plan will map to, but I guess I'd better check. No point in paying for something you never watch if you don't have to.
One more thing:
All prices do not include the cost of equipment such as a digital box or an HD tuner.
Monday's Chron had a story about how there was supposed to be a free market in digital cable boxes by now. Didn't quite work out that way, but you can avoid the charge if you have the right alternate equipment:
Set-top boxes distributed by cable companies today contain both security and navigation functions. In the first phase of the plan, the FCC ordered the industry to make the security function separately available by July 1, 2000.That led to the development of the "cable card."
The credit card-sized devices house the de-scrambling function and plug into competing boxes, such as the new TiVo Series3, and digital cable-ready televisions, which have a card slot.
So far, there's been little competition for competing set-top boxes. Only about 260,000 cable cards have been deployed, according to the NCTA. And they don't always work very well.
We're on our second set of cable cards for our Series 3 TiVo. The first ones did not work well at all - they would lose signal regularly, which required a call to TWC customer service and a request for a third-line support engineer to re-initialize the card, followed by a TiVo reboot. After several go-rounds on this, I swapped the cards at a TWC retail outlet, and things have been fine (well, mostly fine, anyway) ever since. Keep that in mind if you ever go this route.
Whatever else you may think of this just-expired session, this will count as a win for Governor Perry.
Texas will create a cancer research institute under a bill signed Wednesday by Gov. Rick Perry, who now needs voters to approve a constitutional amendment giving $3 billion to fund its mission of finding a cure.Flanked by cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, Perry signed the bill creating the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, putting the state among a handful aggressively pursuing research that has traditionally been handled by the federal government.
In November, voters will decide whether to approve a constitutional amendment that would allow the state to issue up to $300 million a year in bonds to be distributed by the institute.
"We set our sights high, and that's appropriate for Texas," said Perry, who signed the bill at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "And I set my sights on the day when we talk about cancer the same way we talk about polio."
[...]
Before the bill emerged from the Texas Legislature, some lawmakers questioned issuing billions in bonds, which could accumulate billions in interest debt. But the measure still easily passed the Senate and House.
In the end, HJR90 passed easily enough. It was getting it to a vote that was extremely difficult - the measure nearly crashed and burned numerous times. Being associated with the lame-brained Lottery sell-off idea wasn't an auspicious beginning, and it was almost a casualty of the end-of-session Speaker's race crossfire. But after all that, there it will be on your November ballot. That's really all that matters.
Some runoffs are stranger than others.
Travis Quinn, the incumbent for Clute's Ward D, and challenger Michael Binnion are hoping that more than two dozen voters cast ballots in the runoff Saturday.Theirs is one of many Houston-area elections Saturday.
Clute's Ward D in Brazoria County has 695 registered voters, but the race there ended in a 12-12 tie.
Quinn, 61, said the May 12 tie shows how important every vote is.
"I've gotten a lot of apologies from people for not voting," Quinn said.
I'm sure everyone reading this has already voted early, but just in case you haven't, please don't risk being one of those people who will regret not having voted afterwards. You can avoid this kind of sorrow by voting on Saturday for Melissa Noriega. Though the absolute number of voters will be much bigger than 24, in turnout terms it's still going to be tiny.
Early voting ended Tuesday, with about 11,000 voters casting ballots. Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, who administers elections, said she expects overall turnout for Saturday's runoff to be between 1 percent and 2 percent of registered voters."That's pretty abysmal," Kaufman said. "But it's summer, school is out, it's hot, and Election Day falls on Father's Day weekend."
Last I checked, Father's Day wasn't a two-day holiday. You can still vote on Saturday and celebrate with dear old Dad on Sunday. It really won't take long to vote - there's only one race, and there won't be any lines.
Of course, if you have voted already, that doesn't mean you can't still help. You can make sure your family and friends vote. That's probably the most important thing you can do, but there are other things as well. This election really matters. Please do whatever you can to help Melissa win. Thanks very much.
I might have waited till Governor Perry actually signed SB1119 before I ran this article about what its passage will mean, since after all nobody really knows when Perry will break out his mighty veto pen, but given that it's been run, let's take a look.
Harris County and the Texas Department of Transportation could refuse to register a vehicle whose owner has an outstanding $75 red-light camera ticket, under a bill approved recently by the state legislature. It still needs Gov. Rick Perry's signature to become law."It's definitely going to be inconvenient when you go to register your vehicle and you can't," said Houston Police Department Sgt. E.B. Robinson, who oversees the red-light camera program.
But blocking drivers from registering their cars isn't as easy as it sounds, said Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, whose office issues registrations. He doubted his office or TXDOT could quickly implement the new rule if the governor signs it into law, because the state database that blocks individuals from registering would have to be revamped.
"There are so many issues with this," he said, adding that other new laws with similar logistical problems have taken years to implement.
A spokesman for TXDOT declined to comment because the bill hasn't been signed.
Far be it from me to suggest that there can't be problems with the implementation of state databases, but years? Really? I'd rather they get it right slow than get it wrong fast, so if that's what it takes then that's what it takes. I'd still like to get a narrower estimate of the time frame, just for my own information. By "years", do we mean two, or five? That sort of thing.
While the proposal would give violators new incentive to pay the fine, it also takes the teeth out of the city's previous enforcement mechanism by prohibiting the contractor in charge of the program from reporting unpaid civil penalties to credit agencies.The city's system is run by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based contractor American Traffic Solutions, Inc., which mails tickets to violators. If the owner of the vehicle doesn't pay or contest the ticket, a second notice is sent 45 days later with an additional $25 late fee. Tickets that still are not paid are turned over a law firm that serves as a collection agency.
That firm, Perdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins & Mott, LLP, can sue violators, and if the individuals are found guilty, turn that information over to a credit bureau. Last month, the firm filed 13 lawsuits, according to Mike Darlow, a partner with the law firm.
While the firm sues most violators who have racked up several tickets, it sues only a portion of individuals with only one outstanding citation, Darlow said.
"You gotta let people know there are consequences to not paying," he said.
That consequence no longer would be allowed under the approved bill.
Here's the text of the bill, as enrolled. I call your attention to Sec. 707.003, subsection 2 (h):
A local authority or the person with which the local authority contracts for the administration and enforcement of a photographic traffic signal enforcement system may not provide information about a civil penalty imposed under this chapter to a credit bureau, as defined by Section 392.001, Finance Code.
So credit bureau reporting is out. However, I see no reason why judgments cannot be pursued, or collections turned over to an agency such as the Perdue, Branton firm. How much appetite said firm might now have for taking on the job, I couldn't say.
The bill also would require cities to report the number and types of accidents that occurred at each intersection over an 18-month period before installing cameras. After the cameras are installed, cities would report that same information to determine whether the system increased safety.
I covered that before. What I think should have been mentioned in this article is subsections (b), (c), and (f):
(b) A local authority that contracts for the administration and enforcement of a photographic traffic signal enforcement system may not agree to pay the contractor a specified percentage of, or dollar amount from, each civil penalty collected.(c) Before installing a photographic traffic signal enforcement system at an intersection approach, the local authority shall conduct a traffic engineering study of the approach to determine whether, in addition to or as an alternative to the system, a design change to the approach or a change in the signalization of the intersection is likely to reduce the number of red light violations at the intersection.
[...]
(f) A local authority may not impose a civil penalty under this chapter on the owner of a motor vehicle if the local authority violates Subsection (b) or (c).
So if the camera vendor gets a cut of each ticket, the setup will be illegal and cannot be enforced. And if the city doesn't do a study to see if something like yellow light times can do a better job of reducing accidents at the camera-enabled intersections, then again the setup is illegal. How Houston handles that will be interesting.
Finally, as I've wondered before, I suspect all this will moot the Kubosh lawsuit. It would have been nice for the question to have been posed to him. I'd guess he has no plans to drop his suit, but you never know.
Well, I'm not running this picture, so I figure I ought to run a picture. And here it is:
Audrey is sitting in a Bumbo, and as you can see she is holding herself fully upright. She is now four months old, and is beginning to be able to scoot around a bit when I put her down on the floor. Mobility can't be far behind. Look out, world, here she comes!
Via Grits, here's a Q&A with Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Barbara Hervey that touches on some hot button issues.
Q. If you could improve on one area of law education, what would it be?A. We are working on innocence. Each session, the Court of Criminal Appeals gets $20 million in legal education funding from the Legislature. This year we got the Legislature to set aside a different pot of money ... to provide education in the use of DNA, how to deal with recantations, eyewitnesses and prosecutorial misconduct. Texas is getting onboard with the new science and is way ahead of some states, but there is still a long way to go.
Q. Have innocence-related projects met with resistance?
A. It is not so much resistance as apprehension and fear. Some police departments might feel (if convicts are exonerated) the public will think they are doing crappy work. All segments of the system are afraid they will be blamed, but they are coming onboard.
I agree with Grits' assessment of "resistance" versus "apprehension and fear", and of the nature of "crappy work". I also want to emphasize that if we had a better system to provide attorneys for indigent defendants, a lot of that "crappy work" would have been exposed before it ever got to the appeals level. Think Ron Mock. Think Joe Frank Cannon. Think whoever represented Leonard Rojas, which is one of the cases on which the CCA has built its infamous record. Point being, there's a lot of crap to go around, and some of it is the responsibility of Judge Hervey and her colleagues.
On that score, at least, there's some good news:
Q. How do you see the legal profession changing in the next 20 years?A. About 65 percent of the trial dockets are criminal, and I don't see that going down. I think we will see more public defender officers.
Having more public defender offices, and relying less on attorneys who make their living taking indigent cases on referral from judges, will go a long way. Not nearly long enough, of course, but it's a start.
I mentioned before the talk Joel Kotkin gave to the Greater Houston Partnership recently, and wondered when we'd hear more about it from Tory Gattis. That answer came in Sunday's op-ed pages, where Tory wrote one of the longer submitted pieces I can recall seeing. He's reproduced it here. As I said, I haven't spent too much time studying this (it's the whole only-24-hours-in-the-day problem), but I know Kotkin raises some interesting points, so it is worthwhile reading.
Meanwhile, the Chron's Lisa Falkenberg has a critique.
"It may not be glamorous," Kotkin ends his paper. "But Opportunity Urbanism offers a growing America the most promising path to creating successful and sustainable 21st century cities."Yeah, but if the place is dirty, boring and smothered in concrete, who the heck would want to live here?
Kotkin's argument seems regressive, or digressive, from the progress members of the Partnership have made in recent years to balance business concerns with concern about quality-of-life issues such as air quality, congestion and green space. This past session, the Partnership helped the mayor lobby for a bill to improve Houston's air. It failed because of politics, not because of complacency.
Kotkin argues that he's not advocating business-as-usual. Rice University sociology professor Stephen Klineberg agrees, but he says it's easy to get confused.
"It's a misreading of Kotkin to see it as a celebration of the status quo," Klineberg said. "But it's a misreading that he brought on himself."
The problem is that Kotkin spends so much time building up the city in his paper that he waits until the last chapter to mention the daunting challenges, like education and diversifying the old-energy economy. And even then, he doesn't discuss air quality and offers few potential solutions.
"It's going to strengthen those forces in Houston that say 'to hell with quality-of-life issues. What matters is private enterprise success,' " Klineberg said.
It's increasingly clear, however, that you can't have one without the other.
Also good reading. Check 'em both out.
Well, I don't know about you, but I'm relieved to hear this.
Paleontologists long have assumed that massive hunting by humans led to the extinction of the woolly mammoths about 12,000 years ago. New genetic analysis indicates, however, that inbreeding and loss of genetic variability was the cause.Paleontologists Ian Barnes of the University of London, Adrian Lister of University College London and their colleagues studied mitochondrial DNA samples from 96 bone, tooth and ivory specimens collected primarily in Alaska and Siberia. Their findings, published in the journal Current Biology, chart the animals' evolutionary history.
The animals apparently originated in Asia about 150,000 years ago, migrating over the land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska in what now is the Bering Strait to form populations on two continents.
A gradual warming of the Earth caused sea levels to rise, inundating the bridge and isolating the two groups, which became genetically distinct.
About 100,000 years ago, the land bridge opened again, allowing the two groups to intermingle. By about 43,000 years ago, the Siberian lineage had died out, leaving only the Alaskan contingent.
The ice age 20,000 years ago then stressed the population further, the researchers said, reducing their viability.
"A picture is emerging of extinction not as a sudden event at the end of the last ice age, but as a piecemeal process over tens of thousands of years involving progressive loss of genetic diversity," Barnes said.
"For the mammoth, this seems much more likely to have been driven by environmental rather than human causes."
One less thing to feel guilty about. Thanks, guys!
Plans to build what would have been the nation's largest offshore wind farm in South Texas have been called off because the multibillion-dollar project didn't make economic sense, the developer said Monday.John Calaway, chief development officer for Babcock & Brown Ltd., the Australian investment bank, said the company notified the state a month ago that it was giving up its 30-year lease on nearly 40,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Padre Island.
Calaway was chief executive of Houston-based Superior Renewable Energy when the agreement was announced 14 months ago. Superior was acquired by Babcock & Brown last summer.
"We just don't see the economics working offshore in Texas," Calaway said, noting the project cost would have been "in the billions."
Alas. Perhaps in the near future this will make more sense to another developer.
Babcock is moving on with an onshore wind farm in South Texas' Kenedy County, a $700 million-plus venture that calls for 157 turbines on thousands of acres, Calaway said. He noted the expense of building an offshore farm can be more than double the cost of one on land.Like the nixed offshore project, Babcock's Kenedy County wind farm, slated to begin spinning late next year, has been criticized by some conservationists because of its potential to kill migrating birds.
Actually, the project has been under fire from the King Ranch, not so much conservationists. It's a fairly nasty battle, one in which my sympathies have so far gone to the Kenedy Ranch. And as we already know, claims about dangers to migratory birds are at least somewhat oversold.
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said he was disappointed to see Babcock drop the project, but he was confident another developer would be found because of the ideal location and the ease of doing business with only one landowner -- the state of Texas.In fact, Patterson said he spoke to a few potential suitors at a wind conference last week in Los Angeles. He said those entities were good prospects because they've built offshore wind projects overseas.
Patterson has been a big booster of wind energy (and geothermal, too), for which I applaud him. I'm quite certain he will continue to pursue this.
Via Texas Lawyer and BOR comes the formal announcement of Galveston Judge Susan Criss' candidacy for the State Supreme Court. I knew this was coming - I signed her petition a couple of weeks ago, at the Fort Bend Demcrats' barbecue - but it's still nice to see.
A few things to point out. One is that this is an eminently winnable race. Take a close look at how the downballot statewide races went last year compared to the top of the ticket. Where the choice for most voters was basically "generic Republican" versus "generic Democrat", due to a lack of name recognition and TV exposure, the Democrats did better. The gap isn't as wide as you think it is. Note also that a candidate who can win a bunch of newspaper endorsements can do even better, something which ought to be within range for Criss.
Two, based on 2004 results at least, Republicans seem to be more likely to vote for President but not downballot races than Democrats. Victor Carillo, Scott Brister, and Mike Keasler all lost at least 400,000 votes from George Bush's total that year, while Democrats Bob Scarborough, David Van Os, and JR Molina all had about the same vote total as John Kerry. In other words, the boost in Presidential year turnout may not help Criss' opponent, Phil Johnson, as much as it will Criss.
Third, to the best of my knowledge, the Dems will have a full slate of Supreme Court candidates next year, which is the first time they will be able to say that since 2002. The more candidates out there actually campaigning, the better. I'm not sure who the others are (and I wouldn't say if I could recall, since as far as I know they haven't declared), but they are judges themselves, so they'll be experienced jurists. Now if we could get an equal slate for the Court of Criminal Appeals, that would truly rock.
Finally, as we know we'll have an exciting Senate race to watch, too. As with the item above, having more candidates campaign is a Good Thing. A full slate also has the possibility to create a "Democrats are back" story line that may add a little momentum. I realize I'm deep into "intangibles" territory here, but after more elections than I can count with the wind in our faces, it's nice to contemplate such things.
Bottom line: I look forward to supporting Judge Criss as she makes her run for the Supreme Court. We need as many like her as we can get.
Well, at least it wasn't a front page headline, but the headline to this story one page one of the Chron's lifestyle section was yet another Sopranos spoiler. Maybe there's no one left who hasn't seen either the episode or a spoiler for it, and maybe there might be such people if there weren't all these damn revealing headlines. Hell, I just today opened an email sent to the Mucky Duck mailing list, sent out Sunday night at 11 PM, that completely spoiled the finale. Is nothing sacred any more?
Meanwhile, for those who can no longer be spoiled on this, I give you an interview with series creator David Chase, an analysis of the final episode by Victorino Matus, and a succinct reaction to the whole thing by John Whiteside. Enjoy.
Who said this?
"When Paris Hilton was going to jail last week, more people knew about that than knew that we were sending people into space that day. It has replaced what is real news. There was always a place for it, but it was [gossip writer] Rona Barrett. Now it is the equivalent of Edward R. Murrow reporting it today."
If you guessed "O.J. Simpson", and your head didn't explode, congratulations. You're right. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to speak to a large white Sylvilagus cunicularis, and he's in a bit of a hurry. Link via Tapped.
Today is the last day you'll see this picture:
Well, okay, that's not fully true. I'll run it again on Saturday to remind those of you who haven't voted early to vote on Runoff Day. And assuming no catastrophes strike, I'll run it on Sunday. So, with any luck at all this is merely the antepenultimate time I'll run that picture. (And how often does one get to work "antepenultimate" into a sentence without forcing it?)
But hey, look, it's very simple. Either we get a high quality, highly qualified person to represent us all on City Council, or we get a one-dimensional clown. The choice is obvious, but you have to actually make it. Do it today, or do it on Saturday, but please please please do it. And tell a friend or twenty to do it, too. Thanks very much.
It was forty years ago today that the laws against interracial marriage were thrown out by the US Supreme Court in its landmark Loving v. Virginia decision.
While the rest of the Jim Crow South struggled to divide the races in the '50s, blacks and whites in tiny Central Point, Va. had long been intertwined.And often, they were intimate, said Edward Clarke, who grew up in the town.
It was in this setting that a skinny 11-year-old girl nicknamed "Bean" met a 17-year-old boy who was a family friend, according to Phyl Newbeck, a Vermont author who detailed the case in the 2004 book, Virginia Hasn't Always Been for Lovers.
The friendship led to courtship -- but their relationship took an abrupt turn when Mildred, 18, became pregnant.
"We're talking the early '50s, when an illegitimate child was ... a stigma," Newbeck said. "I don't think Richard wanted her to have to bear that."
They drove some 80 miles to Washington, D.C., in 1958, married, and returned to Central Point to start a new life.
Within a month, they were in jail.
It was 1964, and the Lovings had spent the past few years living in exile in Washington after being convicted on charges of "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth." Laws banning racially mixed marriages existed in at least 17 states.
The couple had avoided a year in jail by agreeing to a sentence mandating, "both accused leave Caroline County and the state of Virginia at once, and do not return together or at the same time to said county and state for a period of 25 years."
Mildred had written to then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union for help returning to their Virginia home.
The Civil Rights Act had passed, and Southern blacks were defying Jim Crow's hold.
Phil Hirschkop, 28, just out of law school, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that laws must treat each citizen equally.
On June 12, 1967, the high court agreed.
Kind of hard to imagine these days, isn't it? More people support interracial marriage these days than believe in heliocentrism, which is a comment on something, though I'm not exactly sure what. The question today, of course, is if someday we'll feel the same way about gay marriage. Will our grandchildren look back and wonder what all the fuss was about? I for one hope so. Be that as it may, I say Happy Loving Day, everyone.
This is cool.
Under a proposal from the Hermann Park Conservancy and the Houston City Council's quality-of-life committee, the little train could be getting a $4 million upgrade, with new tracks and trains, a new train station and three new train stops.Two new stops will be located near the MetroRail depots at Hermann Park/Rice and at the Houston Zoo. The third new train stop will be near the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Houston Garden Center and Miller Outdoor Theatre.
The proposal, part of an $11 million improvement plan for Hermann Park's Lake Plaza, will be considered on Wednesday by the Houston City Council, Councilwoman Pam Holm said.
[...]
Holm, who remembers riding the little train as a child, conceded there is some sadness in replacing it.
"It is so special," Holm said. "It is a little bittersweet when some of the things that have been part of our life get a new life. But it is also great to see the development and the partnership (with the Hermann Park Conservancy) for a better quality of life and better environment for our citizens," Holm said.
The new train "will still be a ride," Holm said. "But it will serve a dual purpose. It would still circle through the park, and the track would be similar to where it is now. But it will be upgraded and there will be stops added."
I haven't taken Olivia on this yet. We visit the zoo regularly, but haven't ridden the train as part of those visits. She has ridden on it many times, however, with my father-in-law, who also takes her to the zoo frequently. Clearly, I've got to catch up.
And for those who are wondering about spending money on something like a park ride when there's a battle over pension funding going on, please note the following:
The nonprofit Hermann Park Conservancy would pay all capital costs to replace the train. The conservancy would operate the train and provide 22 percent of the gross revenues to the city. Net revenues would be used to maintain Hermann Park.
What that means is that it won't be city money going to this project. The city will benefit from it, however. So feel free to support this without feeling like you've made a choice between the pension fund and the Hermann Park train.
The city's Parks and Recreation Department is planning to recognize the Slusky family's contributions to Houston.Louis Slusky built Playland Park, with its giant Cyclone rollercoaster, as well as Meyer Park Speedway, where hot rods raced on a dirt racetrack. His son, Elliott, has been overseeing Buffalo Rides' management of the train concession, Holm said.
"I think they started the train, Playland Park and the Speedway all about the same time," Holm said. "The family really made a contribution to Houston's history."
Amen to that.
Secretary of State Roger Williams is resigning his position as of July 1.
The car dealer from North Texas who gained notice as a Republican fundraiser was appointed to the mostly ceremonial office by Gov. Rick Perry in 2004.Although the post has been a launching pad for future political runs, Williams gave no immediate clue as to whether he'll seek future political office.
"It's really more of a springboard. I think there's a tendency for all people to be appointed for that reason," said Royal Masset, a Republican political consultant in Austin.
Indeed, when George W. Bush was Texas governor, his secretaries of state included Alberto Gonzales, Tony Garza and Henry R. Cuellar.
[...]
As secretary of state, Williams chaired Perry's Partnership Council on Economic Development with a mission to bring more jobs to Texas. He also led missions to market Texas to companies and site selectors, and he promoted Texas exports on trips to Mexico, Canada and Japan.
"He has been a tremendous asset to the state on elections, economic development, border affairs and a host of other issues," Perry said in a prepared statement. "I am proud of the work he has done during his term as secretary of state and, more importantly, proud to call him a friend."
Brandi Grissom has the full press release.
Masset said he believes Williams would have made a "great candidate," but also said there's little opening up statewide for him to grab."There's no doubt in my mind that he really wanted to go for higher office," Masset said of Williams. "He really was a great speaker. He really has charisma."
Did you know that the Secretary of State - which, remember, is an appointed, not elected, office - can raise funds that can be subsequently used in a campaign? Here's Williams' TEC filing for January. He had almost $200K in the bank as of January, and I'll bet the July report shows a lot more. Williams is on the not-so-short list of GOP gubernatorial hopefuls for 2010, with Lite Gov also being in the picture. I don't know what he brings to the table that any of the others don't - less baggage, maybe (or maybe not), and better hair, I guess - but hey, as they don't quite say about the Lottery, all you need is a few million dollars and a dream. We'll see what he does. I'm fairly sure we've not heard the last of him.
Shane Sklar, who ran a strong race against Presidential wannabe Ron Paul in CD14 last year, has announced he will not run again next year, but will in the future. Here's his press release:
Hoping that another Democrat will step up to run against Ron Paul, Shane Sklar announced Thursday that he will not run for the District 14 seat in 2008."My wife, Jill, and I thought it was wise for me to step aside and open the door to another Democrat," Sklar said. "And we thought it was best to do it now, so that he or she has the time to build a strong campaign organization like the one we had last year."
In 2006, Sklar's fundraising was competitive with Paul's. However, one Florida multi-millionaire took the unusual and controversial step of personally buying television ads for Paul at the end of the campaign.
"We did not have the money to counter it, and that sealed our fate," Sklar said. "I'm sure that Paul can count on that kind of money again this year, but there are still no guarantees that I will be able to raise the funds needed to compete."
Still, Sklar said it was not an easy call. "Many have encouraged me to run again, especially since Paul is once again ignoring the district while he runs a pointless campaign for President," he said. "Apparently, all Paul cares about is seeing his name in the newspaper."
Sklar said he will run again. "I am eager to serve the people and make a difference, and I will run for another office in the not too distant future," he said.
Sklar said he and Jill are thankful for the support they received during and after last year's race. "As time has passed, we are even more amazed and humbled by the groundswell of support we received from people from all over the district and from all walks of life," he said. "I'll never forget it."
Sklar got just short of 40% of the vote in CD14, which may not sound very good, but he was the top performer among Democrats in that district. I've got a spreadsheet here with the numbers, which I'll summarize thusly: Sklar got more votes - 62,429 - than any other Democrat in CD14. Bill Moody was next in line with 61,653, and nobody else cracked 59,000. Moody and Dale Henry did better percentagewise, but they were both boosted by the presence of a Libertarian candidate. Sklar was the top Democratic votegetter in seven of the ten counties that CD14 covers - he did poorly in Paul's home turf of Brazoria County, trailed Moody in Fort Bend, and trailed both Moody and Henry in Aransas. He was the only Democrat to carry Jackson County, carried Calhoun County along with Moody, Henry, and Hank Gilbert, and came within four points of carrying Wharton County. In short, Sklar's performance showed both how tough CD14 is, and how soft Ron Paul's support is in many parts of it. Had he received more funding early on, who knows how big a dent he could have made.
Like Sklar, whose return to politics someday I will eagerly await, I hope someone steps up to challenge Paul again. Paul already has two potential primary opponents; if he survives to make it to November, he may find his boutique Presidential candidacy may have cost him more in votes than it gained him in dollars. It won't be easy, and it'll take a fair bit of money, but thanks to the ground Shane Sklar plowed last year it'll be worth trying.
From my Inbox:
The U.S. Army celebrates its 232nd birthday in the coming week (June 14) with commemorative activities at 20 sporting events across the country. Minute Maid Park will house the birthday festivities in Houston as the Astros play the Oakland Athletics on June 14th.Everyone attending will also have the unique opportunity to participate in the swearing in of 16 Houstonians to the U.S. Army.
By way of party favors, fans will have the chance to win one of 50 bags with memorabilia signed by Astros alumni, an exclusive Army leather jacket or to have their picture taken with G.I. Johnny and the U.S. Army Hummer.
"My father and his father before him served in the United States Army," said Sergeant First Class Eric Kurzyniec, "and it's amazing to participate in this birthday celebration that honors all the people who served in the Army over the past 232 years."
Kurzyniec, who will be singing the National Anthem at the game, was recently awarded a Purple Heart after surviving a roadside attack in Bagdad.
These birthday activities are in conjunction with the Army's Patriot Season, which honors America's Soldiers - past, present and future - and their families. Patriot Season runs from Armed Forces Day (May 15) through Independence Day (July 4). Patriot Season also provides opportunities for Army prospects to interact with Soldiers and hear their stories and dedication to protecting our country.
As June 14 also marks the anniversary of the creation of the U.S. flag, the U.S. Army invites the nation to honor America's Soldiers and the American flag they proudly defend. Although a coincidence that these two symbols of America share an anniversary, Flag Day serves as a reminder to honor the U.S. Army's dedication to ensure freedom's light shines as a beacon throughout the world.
The Thursday game starts at one PM, so if you were looking for an excuse to nip out of the office a bit early that day, I'd say you've found it.
Still waiting on a pension deal to be finalized.
The city's current funding arrangement with the Houston Municipal Employees Pension Fund, which must approve any benefit changes, expires July 1.Without a new agreement, the city could be forced to pay millions more than White has planned in the proposed budget City Council is scheduled to approve this month.
The sides have met in recent weeks, but the time left to reach an agreement is running out.
"We've just waited and waited and waited until the last minute," said David Long, the fund's executive director, who has a strained relationship with city officials, especially White. "I'm not saying it can't be done. We will do everything in our power to get it done. But it certainly makes it difficult."
White's proposed benefit changes are designed to cut the pension's $1 billion unfunded liability over the next 30 years, thereby reducing the city's annual contribution to the system.
Without a deal, the city must pay $109 million in the fiscal year beginning July 1.
White says the city can afford only about $75 million, and layoffs would be necessary otherwise. The $34 million difference -- seemingly small in a $3.8 billion budget -- is roughly the same amount the city plans to spend on libraries next year. That amount also could pay for training hundreds of police cadets.
Administration officials say White's plan, which pension officials are analyzing now, would allow the city to maintain a more manageable annual payment and provide a competitive retirement package, while also helping secure the pension fund's long-term viability.
Negotiations began almost four weeks ago. This story strikes me as more of a checkup to see how things are going than a dire warning of an impending train wreck, but beyond that it's hard to say what's in the offing. Stay tuned.
Boy, if you decided to TiVo the Sopranos finale and watch something else last night, I hope you didn't look at the front page, above the fold headline in today's Chron before you queued it up. Because if you did, you might have gotten a little angry at the lack of discretion therein. (So if you haven't watched it yet, don't click that link.)
I realize that most people, TiVo or no TiVo, probably did watch it live last night. But in this day and age, even on true must-see nights, you have to figure there's a nontrivial number of people who, by choice or by circumstance, put it off till later. It's one thing to expect people who haven't tuned in yet to skip a story, it's another altogether to expect them to overlook the front page. A little restraint would have gone a long way, is all I'm saying.
For this penultimate edition of Early Voting for the runoff, I'm just going to say "What John said." Go see for yourself.
Which just leaves this:
Early voting ends tomorrow. Today and tomorrow you can vote from 7 AM to 7 PM at any of the locations listed here. Please don't miss out.
After all was said and done about the Texas Youth Commission, more was said than was done. Scott Henson takes a look at the main legislative action on the TYC (SB103) as well as some changes to the Administrative Code, which came with no public input. Check it out.
Three things about this Chron story regarding car break-ins and enhanced sentencing for repeat offenders. One is that old chestnut about causation and correlation.
After Texas lawmakers downgraded car burglary to a misdemeanor more than a decade ago, vehicle break-ins exploded in the biggest cities.In Houston in 1995, the year after penalties were reduced, vehicle burglaries jumped more than 20 percent, to roughly 23,000, police say. Last year, the city recorded 32,362 car break-ins.
Looking to reverse the trend, which contributes heavily to big-city crime rates, the Legislature passed a bill this session to restore burglary of a vehicle -- breaking into a vehicle and stealing something from it -- to a felony for repeat offenders.
The clear inference one draws from these paragraphs is that de-felonizing the crime of breaking into a car led to the increase in that crime; one should therefore also expect a drop in said crime now that repeat offenders can get state jail time. No evidence is offered in the story to support this conclusion, but it's clearly the one we're intended to draw from the opening paragraphs.
Which is all the more odd when you realize that contradictory evidence come later on:
Police say vehicle burglars not only target valuables but papers and cards useful in identity theft. As people spend more time in their cars, police say, they have become increasingly lax about leaving behind wallets, purses and briefcases targeted by identity thieves.
Gosh, you think the greater number of wallets, purses, and briefcases being left behind in parked cars might be a contributing factor to the increase in break-ins? Maybe just a little? And who are these people leaving these things in their cars, anyway? How anyone can think that might be a good idea boggles my mind.
And finally:
Houston police Capt. James Jones, who handles legislative matters for the department, said increased penalties for the crime stalled in the Legislature two years ago, and supporters this session were forced to abandon their push to make a first or second offense a felony.He said increased penalties will give police more incentive to target repeat offenders. But car burglaries will remain a difficult crime to solve.
The legislation includes money to educate motorists about a crime estimated to cost Texans more than $200 million a year.
How will enhanced sentences help if we're not catching the bad guys in the first place? I'm glad to see that we're going to spend some money trying to educate people about the dangers of leaving valuables in their cars, since however blindingly obvious that sounds it's still likely to have a greater effect on this crime than the punishment will. But do we really not have any other tools in our toolbox besides "git tuff"? Is there nothing we could do to make it easier for the police to solve these crimes? For all the money we spend on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, you'd think we could get some better outcomes than this.
The good news is that rich folks do seem to be buying those new fifty-dollar scratch-off Lottery tickets, as the Texas Lottery Commission thought they would. The bad news is that they're not buying any of the other pricey scratch-off games, at least in comparison to poor folks.
Several months ago, when the Texas Lottery Commission introduced a $50 scratch-off game, agency officials expressed confidence it would draw affluent customers. But they had little to base that assumption on.As it turns out, they were right for the first 10 days of sales, at least.
But had they mapped ticket sales of their pricier tickets for the past 12 months -- the $10, $20, $25, $30 and $50 games -- they might have discovered retailers in the state's 10 poorest ZIP codes sold $2.4 million of them, some 50 percent more than retailers in the state's 10 wealthiest ZIP codes.
Per-capita spending on the high-dollar tickets was $25 in the 10 poorest ZIP codes versus $18 in the 10 wealthiest.
That's counting the early sales data from the new $50 game, which went on sale May 7, and not including ZIP codes with a population of less than 100.
By itself, the new $50 ticket sold faster in more affluent ZIP codes.
[...]
State officials dismiss suggestions that the poor are more apt to wager money on high-dollar lottery scratch-offs.
"Because it's a poor neighborhood doesn't mean that the poor are buying the tickets," maintains Rep. Ismael "Kino" Flores, D-Palmview, who oversees the Lottery Commission as chairman of the House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee.
"Before, what used to be neighborhood stores now cater to people moving through the neighborhood. I've seen it. People stop at different stores and buy their tickets," he said.
Whatever you say, Kino. I'm sure there's plenty of River Oaks matrons passing through the working-class areas every day and stopping in at the local Circle K's to stock up on scratch-off games. Makes perfect sense to me.
For the life of me, I cannot comprehend why anyone would think that rich folks would blow their spare change on high-dollar lottery tickets. Forget the value proposition, there's much better thrills available for that kind of money. And if it's the gambling aspect that's supposed to be the draw, well, that's why we have Las Vegas. I just don't get it.
One more thing:
Robert Heith, the Lottery Commission's spokesman, said the only real way to determine who is buying big-dollar tickets would be to stand "at the door (of each retailer) and ask everybody who bought a lottery ticket where they lived."By having a lottery, Flores said, the state gives folks a product they willingly line up to buy and at the same time raises more than a billion dollars a year in revenue for public schools.
"It's like cigarettes," Flores said. "If that's what people want, let them buy it."
Critics say state-sponsored gambling wasn't as problematic when most games cost a dollar. ("Oh rats!" Gov. Ann Richards exclaimed 15 years ago when she purchased the first ticket and discovered she'd become the first lottery loser.)
"They always argued it was a harmless, little game. Spend a buck. 'Oh, I lost. Big deal,' " said David Hudson, a former Democratic state representative from Tyler who waged a bitter campaign against attempts to introduce a lottery to Texas.
Lawmakers, then voters, approved the lottery the year Hudson left office, in 1991.
The state spent $2 million the first year on programs to help problem gamblers. The state now spends zero dollars on programs for problem gamblers even as ticket prices hit the stratosphere.
"We don't encourage people to buy cigarettes," Hudson said. "We don't go out and buy billboards advertising cigarettes. But we do advertise lottery tickets. Is this the kind of thing the government ought to be engaged in?"
The pushing of this activity by the government bugs me about the Lottery, too. I have my qualms about legalizing casino gambling in this state as well, but that has more to do with the sleaziness of those who are lobbying for it than with the thought that gambling would be more widespread in Texas. Of course, selling off the Lottery to private investors raises other matters of concern, though in retrospect that was more about how it would be done than why. It's hard to keep my personal feelings about gambling separate from the question of whether or not some aspect of this is good public policy.
Wireless phones. Wireless networking. Wireless electricity. Had to happen sooner or later, right?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers announced last week they had made a 60-watt light bulb glow by sending it energy wirelessly, potentially previewing a future in which cell phones and other gadgets get juice without having to be plugged in.The breakthrough, disclosed in Science Express, an online publication of the journal Science, is being called "WiTricity" by the scientists.
The concept of sending power wirelessly isn't new, but its wide-scale use has been dismissed as inefficient because electromagnetic energy generated by the charging device would radiate in all directions.
Last fall, though, MIT physics professor Marin Soljacic explained how to transfer the power with specially tuned waves. The key is to get the charging device and a gadget to resonate at the same frequency -- allowing them to efficiently exchange energy.
It's similar to how an opera star can break a wine glass that happens to resonate at the same frequency as her voice. In fact, the concept is so basic in physics that inventor Nikola Tesla sought a century ago to build a huge tower on Long Island that would wirelessly beam power along with communications.
The new step described in Science was that the MIT team put the concept into action. The scientists lit a 60-watt bulb that was 7 feet away from the power-generating appliance.
The development raises the prospect that we might eliminate some of the clutter of cables in our evermore electronic world.
That sound you hear is Tiffany, who hates hates hates the clutter of cables in our house, doing the Happy Dance. If there's a beta program for this, I suspect she'll want in on it.
I've spent the past week flogging the runoff race here in Houston, but there are runoffs going on in other Texas cities as well. One of the more hotly contested races is for the District 8 City Council seat in San Antonio. I haven't been following this very closely, but my blogging colleagues B and B and Dig Deeper Texas have been (more here), and they clearly have a preference. (In the interest of equal time, I should note that The Walker Report has the opposite preference.) Those of you with a stake in that race should check them out.
Meanwhile, back here in Houston, Tiffany cast her vote yesterday at the Multi-service Center on Gray. She reports that Olivia was very interested in what she was doing, and demanded to be picked up so she could get a better view. Unfortunately for Olivia, Tiffany also had Audrey with her, which meant she couldn't accomodate those demands. Just as well, since I know from personal experience in similar matters that had Olivia gotten her desired closer view, she'd have wanted to start pushing buttons as well. And given how delicate our voting machinery can be, who knows what chaos might have resulted from that. I'm pretty sure Hart Intercivic never tested an Olivia scenario.
Of course you know who Tiffany voted for, right?
Racy Mind did the same. Early voting ends Tuesday. Don't miss out!
The City Council unanimously approved a test project Thursday that lets AT&T Inc., the nation's biggest phone company, set up a municipal wireless network that will serve much of downtown, including city offices and a stretch of the River Walk.AT&T will offer wireless Internet access to residents and visitors over the network, which will operate via equipment it installs on city property over the next two months.
It also will let the city test initiatives that could include remote meter reading and reporting rising floodwaters over the network.
San Antonio officials said they hope to use the trial, which could last up to 18 months, to determine the best way to build and run a large-scale wireless network that could cover a substantial swath of the city.
The city could partner with San Antonio-based AT&T or another telecom company to expand the service, but it would need to put out a formal bid to do so.
"On the technological front, this is really going to drive the city forward," Mayor Phil Hardberger said. "Although this is only a test, I have no doubt it's something that eventually will become permanent."
I wonder if Mayor Hardberger has discussed his city's plans with Mayor White. Like Houston, San Antonio is fairly spread out and not terribly dense in most places. The pilot ought to be a boon for the city, since their downtown is a big tourist attraction that will be enhanced by this new feature.
During the trial, AT&T will offer free Internet access at speeds of 200 kbps, slower than its lowest tier of wired broadband service. It also will offer paid access that clocks in at 1 Mbps, or on par with wired broadband service. The company hasn't set the price for the faster tier.The arrangement essentially means AT&T will pick up the tab for the network installation, but allows the company to earn revenue when customers opt to pay for faster-speed Internet access.
I also wonder if AT&T has studied the EarthLink example to see how their business models match up. We'll see how it goes for them. Link via Dwight.
I have no idea what will happen in tonight's finale of The Sopranos. You can find various predictions here and here, among other places. I'm kind of partial to the idea that Tony will be rescued by the FBI in return for ratting out Phil and the New York crew, but there are plenty of other worthwhile scenarios. The one thing I do know is to watch what I read very carefully on Monday if I haven't already seen the show. Not everybody is good about observing spoiler etiquette, and I've had a few episodes ruined by that. I hope I know better now.
So. What do you think will happen? Leave your guesses in the comments, but please don't reveal anything after you've seen it, for those who tune in later than you.
UPDATE: As PDiddie notes, it's Sopranos versus the NBA Finals tonight.
Among the HBO mob drama's millions of followers is [LeBron] James, who described himself at Saturday's media session at the AT&T Center as "a big Sopranos fan" and was clearly elated to have been asked about something other than how to beat a double-team.Members of the Soprano family have been getting knocked off at an alarming rate, much more quickly and ruthlessly than the Cavaliers and Spurs have rubbed out their playoff foes.
With several of Tony Soprano's lieutenants gone, it appears that the boss may be next. But "The King" doesn't think so.
"Me and my guys have definitely sat down to think about it," James said. "My friends think that either the Feds are going to come and get him or he's going to make friends with the Feds and maybe snitch on a lot of people.
"Or he's going to be whacked, which I don't think is going to happen. I hope that he's just able to get away and not worry about nothing."
James has a small problem. He has a previous engagement Sunday night and won't be able to watch the final episode when it airs for the first time. He plans on catching up when he gets back to Cleveland next week.
"I did have my girlfriend TiVo 'The Sopranos,' definitely, so when I get home I'll be able to watch it," James said. "But I think I'll be more focused on Tony Parker."
Indeed, this is why God gave us TiVo. The Series 3, with its dual-tuner capabilities, is even more of a godsend.
Was it just me, or did anybody else who read this Press story about shady adoption "facilitator" Jennalee Ryan have a flashback to shady would-be uterus broker Whitney Broach?
If the name Whitney Broach doesn't ring a bell, think back to 1993, when she got 15 minutes of fame that she's been hiding from ever since.It started when a billboard went up along the Southwest Freeway advertising a "womb for rent." An anonymous woman was offering to be a surrogate mother for what her lawyer said was the going rate of $100,000.
The billboard got worldwide publicity, but when reporters started digging, they found out who the anonymous woman was -- Whitney Neuhaus Broach -- and what she was.
She's been convicted of fraud and money laundering in a New Orleans federal court for filing fictitious health insurance claims in connection with her weight-loss clinic. She's been the loser in a federal suit in which the government alleged she was charging women for tests using a bogus machine to detect breast cancer.
Broach, who has used many aliases throughout her checkered business career, was even arrested -- but never charged -- in the 1983 killing of her then-husband. The Chronicle reported in 1993 that New Orleans law enforcement officials said that Broach, then known as Cherie Ward Werling, "presented a battered-wife defense and was never prosecuted for the killing."
Broach surfaced again locally in 2002 when former Chron columnist Thom Marshall wrote about her "charitable foundation" without having been aware of her past. In googling ol' Whitney, it turns out I may have been a bit harsh on ol' Thom. He apparently wasn't the first writer to fall for her BS:
This marriage is the second round for Roger and Whitney Broach, Mr. and Mrs. Texas. He was divorced, and she was a widow. She has luminescent green eyes that never blink. She works as a paralegal and does tattoo removal and permanent cosmetics in a room that adjoins Roger's law office. "My first husband was abusive and I vowed I would never marry again," Whitney whispers in a petite voice. "But 20 minutes after meeting Roger, I knew he was a genius. And he's fantastic in bed," she adds, without batting a permanently lined lid. They eloped to Vegas on a very low budget. After spending $25 on a marriage license, Whitney talked a chapel owner into marrying them for $12. The honeymoon was dinner at a Mexican restaurant.While Roger was recovering from heart surgery, Whitney averaged four hours of sleep in order to care for his clients as well as her patients. She wants to remove gang tattoos in exchange for ex-gangsters' performing community service. If they win, Whitney and Roger plan to visit women in shelters and prisons to illustrate that not all marriages are bad.
There's really nothing I can add to that, is there?
Anyway. That's what reading the Press' current cover story reminded me of. Read it for yourself, and if you remember Whitney Broach, see if you agree.
It's come to my attention that Roy Morales has used a couple of quotes from this blog on his latest mailer. As the mailer was done in the same clownish style as the recent HCRP video, I won't bother linking to an image of it - it's nothing you haven't seen or heard over and over again from Morales. He's a one-note candidate, and he's playing that note for all it's worth. However, since Roy has been citing my blog as an authoritative source in this race, I'd like to offer him a quote he can use in his next mailer. Here it is:
"Roy Morales is a race-baiting fear mongerer who is supremely unqualified to serve on City Council."
I offer this quote free of charge, though I hope whoever Roy hires to print the mailer for it gets paid in cash in advance.
Now then. For more positive quotage, I submit to you the Chron's re-endorsement of the one real candidate in this race, Melissa Noriega:
In the runoff election to choose City Council member, At-large Position 3, the Chronicle reiterates its endorsement of candidate Melissa Noriega.The June 16 election (early voting continues through June 12) will decide a replacement for former Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, who left the position for a brief term in Congress.
The new council member must help guide Houston through public safety decisions, such as how best to deploy our overworked, shorthanded police force, and an immigration debate that reverberates nationally.
Noriega, who impressively filled in for her husband, state Rep. Rick Noriega, when he was deployed with his National Guard unit to Afghanistan, is realistic and informed on these issues.
She gives priority to boosting the number of active patrol officers, ensuring that they are adequately equipped and letting them focus on police duties rather than diluting their efforts by doing the job of federal immigration officials.
Noriega also grasps that quality of life, including a clean, well-planned environment, is not a luxury but a necessity for Houston's economic future.
Finally, as a longtime school administrator, Noriega has crucial firsthand knowledge of the needs of Houston's youngest citizens. Voters already recognize Noriega's promise, nearly handing her a victory in last month's regular election. The Chronicle encourages even stronger support when voters cast their runoff election ballots early or return to the polls on June 16.
In summary:
Get out there and vote!
In my last post about Texas' screwed-up statewide voter registration database, Texas Election Administration Management (TEAM), I noted that Racy Mind had promised an in-depth look at how it came to be. She has now delivered on that promise - go here for all posts on the topic, and start here for the newer material. As she says, the Texas Civil Rights Review did a lot of the initial digging, and deserves much of the credit for what we do know. Check it all out.
Buoyed by new legislation that sets up a program for the recycling of computer equipment in Texas, Round2 Technologies Inc. has opened a Houston branch office.The Austin-based technology recycler's new Houston facility at 2121 Brittmore, provides warehouse space for clients wanting to properly dispose of surplus or obsolete electronics.
"Our new Houston warehouse will be more convenient for many south Texas customers who are currently being served through our Austin headquarters," said Randy Weiss, Round2 president. "The warehouse space is directly tied to our logistics department and can handle up to 15 tons of electronics per day."
House Bill 2714 was passed by the Texas Legislature and sent to Gov. Rick Perry last week. The bill requires manufacturers that sell products in the state to finance free, convenient and environmentally sound recycling services for televisions, personal computers, laptops and monitors. Manufacturers can create their own take-back program or participate in a common program, but they must pay for collection and transportation in addition to recycling costs.
HB2714 has not been signed by Governor Perry yet, so there's always that chance he could veto it. Hard to imagine why he would, but you never know, is all I'm saying. Houstonist has more about what you can recycle there, assuming nothing happens to queer the deal. One hopes that will be the case, as more and better recycling options are an unqualified Good Thing.
I wholeheartedly endorse this concept.
Hoping to curb a growing problem with false alarms, city officials are considering an increase in burglar-alarm fees and fines.Houston police say false calls cost the city $9 million a year. That's $5 million more than what the city generates in burglar-alarm permit fees and fines each year, HPD Capt. Dwayne Ready said.
"We're really trying to look at how to reduce the number of (false) calls because it's so high," Ready said.
Under the city's current ordinance, residents and businesses are not charged for the first five false burglar alarms. The city charges the owner $50 for each subsequent false alarm.
The proposed revisions would limit properties to three free false alarms.
The fourth and fifth false alarms would cost $50. The sixth and seventh would cost $75, and any more would cost $100 each.
The city also is considering a plan to boost the annual residential permit fee to $30 from $15. Commercial permit fees would increase to $70 from $40 a year.
It's not just the money. As Grits has pointed out, it's the time and police manpower spent chasing those false alarms. According to the Texas House Law Enforcement Committee (42-page PDF), responding to false alarms is the #1 activity in some Texas cities. Given the current personnel shortage in HPD, this is a no-brainer.
Though I had already concluded it was the case that the West 11th Street Park was out of the woods, it was still nice to see this post from Jeff Balke, which I had missed during my enforced home Internet hiatus (which has been thankfully resolved):
Woo hoo!Got this from Nancy Greig regarding the recent concern over matching funds for the park.
I finally spoke "face to face" with Lara Wendler, Sen. Whitmire's executive director.She emphatically assured me that the allocation of $3.75 million for the W. 11th Street Park was 1) intended to pay for the PURCHASE (not improvements) of the remaining property of the park and 2) not constrained by any "matching funds" rules. She said that despite language or misconceptions to the contrary out there in the ether that the house, senate, and governor knew the intent of the Senator's allocation and that she was fully confident that this would happen and that a check would be cut on September 1. (I asked her if she thought there was any chance the governor would strike this/not approve it and she did not)
Woo hoo, indeed! Many thanks to Sen. John Whitmire for making this happen. Now when's the party to celebrate this victory?
The State of Texas wants you to make your movie here.
Texas, a rejected suitor that has watched 32 film projects consider the state's charms only to waltz away, taking big economic benefits with them, is putting millions into a film incentive program meant to lure the next blockbuster ... and the one after that, and the one after that.All looks bright.
But it's the movie business, so cue the scary music.
The Motion Picture Association of America, a leading organization in the very business that Gov. Rick Perry is courting, last week urged him to veto the bill, saying the state was leaving itself open to a lawsuit.
Perry signed the $22 million bill into law Thursday with fanfare, joined by the rakish Dennis Quaid, a Houston native who is moving to Texas in a couple of years and wants it to become "the new Hollywood."
But there's a catch. Isn't there always a catch?
However, the new law has a provision that allows film grants to be denied "because of inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion."Texas is the first state to enact such a provision as part of a film incentive program, said Vans Stevenson, senior vice president of state government affairs for MPAA, who wrote the letter and said it speaks for itself.
A letter from Stevenson said the provision would permit state government to review and approve motion picture scripts to be eligible for a production incentive, which it said "contravenes the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression, and it will discourage filmmakers from coming to Texas."
"This provision is a direct indictment of the creative process and American values of free expression that are fundamental to our democracy," Stevenson wrote. He added later in the letter, "Moreover, this legislation is subject to immediate constitutional challenge in federal court."
Stevenson said Thursday that he still would have preferred that Perry veto the bill, but he applauds the governor and Legislature for wanting to create an incentive program. He said there are no plans at this time for litigation.
"I think our hope is that we can work to fix this," Stevenson said. The next chance to do that would be in the 2009 legislative session, unless Perry calls a special session before then.
Gah, not the S word again. Bite your tongue!
When senators added the provision, one cited the film Glory Road about the Texas Western Miners from El Paso, a basketball team whose starting lineup was African-American. Texas A&M-Commerce, which during the 1960s era depicted in the film was known as East Texas State University, called for an apology for the unfavorable way it was portrayed.Perry, who signed the measure before a stage backdrop of a lake at an Austin Studios hangar (it's built on the old Robert Mueller Municipal Airport property), downplayed worries and played up the potential benefits of the overall package.
"There's been a lot of misplaced concern about that provision," Perry said. "Dennis and I were talking about it earlier, that some folks see this as a First Amendment issue."
But Perry suggested the provision would be implemented judiciously: "Look, what we're trying to do here is ... trying to get the film industry to come and reinvest and invest in a big way in the state of Texas. And if the first thing that happens is we start seeing some type of censorship, it's not going to happen."
When I think of negative portrayals of Texas, I think of the old TV show Dallas. Quite a few of my high school classmates, upon hearing where I was going to college, invoked that show in some form. On the whole, it's hard to say that the Ewing clan was a net negative for the state and its economy; its image is another matter. I guess the question is who gets to decide what a "negative" portrayal is? How does this thing get enforced, and how to avoid looking all the worse for it when it does?
In the end, it's probably not a big deal. One presumes that with this provision or not, the commission was going to have some kind of latitude. It just seems a bit weird to spell it out so explicitly in the statute like that. The Observer blog has more.
To I-10 and Shepherd in the next few months.
Beatles statues are now up at Sculpturworx on Summer Street near Sawyer in west Houston and they were created by a man who's left his mark on other parts of southeast Texas.The Beatles are part of our musical landscape. Now, they are part of Houston's physical landscape. At 36 feet tall, the concrete statues are instantly recognized by the smallest of observers.
[...]
The Beatles songs revolutionized the pop music industry in the 1960s. But it was the Sgt. Pepper period with day-glo military uniforms that stuck in the mind of local artist David Adickes.
"They're creativity, their musicianship, their writing, their sense of portrait," he said. "They're just very creative guys."
Adickes designed and built the giant cello outside the Lyric Center in downtown Houston -- a musical concept he wanted to expand.
"I've always liked standing figures that are pretty abstract, so I thought I'd like to do that, and I thought three or four and the Beatles were the obvious choice," he said.
Adickes has always thought big, designing giant presidential busts for a project in Pearland. And while the presidents are big, the Beatles are bigger -- at least physically.
"Each one of those weighs about 7,000 pounds, so you've got 25-30,000 pounds," said Adickes.
Any day with David Adickes news in it is a good day. Ken Hoffman has more. You can see some pix of these statues, plus other Adickes work, on this Flickr page. And yes, I'll be by soon with my own camera. Can't wait to see these babies in their eventual location.
I don't know how Mikal Watts will do as a candidate, and I don't really know where he stands on the issues (though this helps a little), but I see he's serious about running, and that counts for something.
San Antonio trial lawyer Mikal Watts has launched his bid for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination by donating and loaning his campaign fund a total of $3.8 million -- an amount equal to Republican incumbent Sen. John Cornyn's cash on hand."I took John Cornyn's first-quarter report and matched it to the penny," Watts said.
"We're going to start with a level playing field, and then we're going to start raising money and see what the people of Texas have to say."
Watts, 39, donated $1.9 million to his exploratory committee and loaned it another $1.9 million. He formed the committee June 1, and its paperwork was available Wednesday.
Millionaire businessman Tony Sanchez spent $60 million of his own money in an unsuccessful run as the Democratic nominee for governor in 2002.
"I'm no Tony Sanchez," Watts said, "but I'm ready to and intend to put in the money it takes to close the deal."
Anything above about $20 million is likely to have little marginal effect anyway. Even if Watts could write that kind of check for himself, the lesson we should have learned from Tony Sanchez is that unlimited funds cannot compensate for a limited candidate. If Watts is a good candidate, then the money will be there for him. Though, as my preferred candidate for the Senate points out, money isn't everything.
Noriega said Thursday: "I am seriously looking at the race, but whether or not I get in or not, I have no intention of getting into a back and forth with a bank account. I do not want to reinforce the unhealthy idea that a candidate is judged solely on money."My focus would be the people of the state of Texas and whether (GOP U.S. Sen. John) Cornyn's rubber stamp support for Bush, and the national leadership that has failed to provide a clear mission for our involvement overseas, is good for Texas.
"Washington politicians are making the decisions while Texas families are making the sacrifices."
Amen. Now while Mikal Watts is not my first choice for the Senate, I'm going to hear him out, and as long as he isn't doing stupid things I'm not going to be negative about him - he may emerge as our candidate in the end, after all. I like the idea of a high-profile primary race between two or more credible candidates for the right to stop John Cornyn. I don't pretend that will be easy to do, but the point is that the perception is that it can be done. Not nearly enough people felt that way about taking out Rick Perry in 2006, so just a change in attitude away from the "Dems should just concede and wait till next time" thinking that's still shamefully prevalent is a huge step forward.
Now if that same attitude can spread to some Congressional districts, too, then we'll really have something. One step at a time, I suppose.
I don't have the attention span to sit through a Star Wars marathon (never mind the free time for such an undertaking), but if I did I'd probably watch them in "chronological" order, which is to say Episodes I through VI. I've said before that I think The Phantom Menace was a far better movie than Send In The Clones, so I don't feel like this would start it off with a dud, and if I were going to make this investment I figure I ought to at least see what the story arc was, assuming Lucas really had one (not a safe bet).
So that's how I'd do it. Your mileage may vary. And may I just say, I'd rather go for the Kurt Russell-a-thon, too. It's been too long since I've seen Big Trouble in Little China. How about it, Pete?
If I'd known that stina was going to find all these pictures of the temporary arthouse construction, I might not have bothered to take one myself. Well, okay, I probably would have anyway, since we all know I like taking pictures of stuff like that. So here's the one I took yesterday:
I'll see if I can sneak out and take some more today.
You know how people who are involved in lawsuits are advised by their attorneys not to say anything about the case while the litigation is pending? This would be the reason why.
It was a Perry Mason moment updated for the Internet age.As Ivy League-educated pediatrician Robert P. Lindeman sat on the stand in Suffolk Superior Court this month, defending himself in a malpractice suit involving the death of a 12-year-old patient, the opposing counsel startled him with a question.
Was Lindeman Flea?
Flea, jurors in the case didn't know, was the screen name for a blogger who had written often and at length about a trial remarkably similar to the one that was going on in the courtroom that day.
In his blog, Flea had ridiculed the plaintiff's case and the plaintiff's lawyer. He had revealed the defense strategy. He had accused members of the jury of dozing.
With the jury looking on in puzzlement, Lindeman admitted that he was, in fact, Flea.
The next morning, on May 15, he agreed to pay what members of Boston's tight-knit legal community describe as a substantial settlement -- case closed.
Let that be a lesson to us all. Thanks to Luke Gilman for the catch.
The following is a press release from the Houston Area Women's Center:
June 7,2007, Houston - Today State Representative Ellen Cohen announced that she will retire from her role as President and CEO of the Houston Area Women's Center effective December 31, 2007. Cohen, who was elected to the Texas House of Representatives from Houston District 134 in 2006, has served as President and CEO of the Women's Center since 1990."Serving as the CEO of the Houston Area Women's Center is hugely rewarding and I will miss it. However, after 17 years as CEO, I think this is the right time for me to move on. The Women's Center is in a strong position, and I look for the new CEO to take it to the next level," states Cohen.
During Cohen's tenure as CEO, the Houston Area Women's Center grew from a shelter with only 45 beds to a multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art facility accommodating 125 women and children. The Women's Center, a United Way agency, now has an annual budget of more than $6 million.
"Ellen Cohen has been a wise, tireless and visionary leader, who has guided the growth of the Houston Area Women's Center," states Margo Scholin, Board Chair of the Women's Center. "As CEO, Ellen expanded programs and raised the level of service we offer our clients. We will miss her strong leadership but the Women's Center will continue to educate the community and assist people who need our help."
Scholin said that the Women's Center will undertake a search for candidates to replace Cohen as CEO, and that a new CEO is expected to be in place by the end of the year. The agency has retained Korn Ferry, an international executive recruitment agency, to assist in the search.
"When it comes down to it, I feel most rewarded by the change of attitude toward domestic and sexual violence over the past 25 years," said Cohen. "When I first started, the myths were that rape was something that happened because of what you were wearing or because you put yourself in a dangerous situation. Domestic violence was something that happened to someone else. Today people know that violence is something that can happen to anyone regardless of color, language or socio-economic status. I am delighted that, as a member of the Legislature, I will be able to continue to work on issues that are important to women, men and children who are affected by sexual abuse and domestic violence."
Cohen first became involved with the Women's Center in the 1980's as a volunteer board member. She became Executive Director in 1990.
For more information on the Houston Area Women's Center please visit www.hawc.org or call 713-528-6798
My best wishes for a happy retirement to Rep. Cohen.
Back in March, we heard about a proposal before City Council to grant tax abatements to commercial buildings deemed "historic". Yesterday, Council passed that ordinance.
The council approved a permanent, 100 percent tax abatement for commercial structures whose owners accept "protected landmark" status for the buildings. Owners would have to refund any tax savings, with interest, if they tore down the building or altered its facade.The measure also adds a five-year "lookback" provision to a more limited tax break approved in 2001 to owners who make improvements to residential buildings designated as landmarks or contribute to a historical district. Under the change approved Wednesday, owners could receive tax breaks for improvements they made as long as five years before the building was designated historic.
White said his staff has identified 50 to 100 commercial properties that qualify for the protected landmark tax break. Most are of modest size with relatively low tax values, meaning revenues lost to the city would be minimal, he said.
At the time of the original proposal, the total amount of the lost revenue was $1.5 million to the city. I presume this hasn't changed much since then.
Councilwoman Addie Wiseman cast the lone vote against the measure.
Nice to know there's some kind of tax cut Addie Wiseman won't vote for. No quote from her, so I can't say what her reasoning behind this was, other than simply saying "Up!" when the mayor says "Down!" I'm sure it would be entertaining to hear, whatever it is.
I first saw this pathetic attack ad by our friends at the Harris County GOP a couple of days ago, but I didn't bother blogging about it because life is too short to deal with stupid stuff like that. But now that Matt Stiles has picked it up, I figure I should at least say something. And what I'll say is this: Stiles is asking the wrong question. It's not whether this ad is "over the top", but whether it's the dumbest, most amateurish, cringe-worthy political ad you've ever seen. I still think that honor goes to the legendary "Ellen Cohen is a Canadian!" ad, but this one is in the ballpark.
I mean honestly, I'd rank "Was Jared Woodfill stoned when he approved this, or just drunk?" ahead of the "is it over the top?" question. Is this really the best they can do?
Not that it really matters. Because this is the best that we can do, and that says a heck of a lot:
It's no contest.
Thanks to Andy Neill for forwarding this to me:
The civic group "Volunteers Organized to Exercise Responsibility" (V.O.T.E.R.) will be holding a candidate forum this Saturday June 9th from 5:30 - 7:30 pm at the Greater Mount Zion Baptist Church - 835 West 23rd Street. Both City Council At-Large Position # 3 candidates - Melissa Noriega and Roy Morales have been invited and their policies and vision for the city will be discussed, as well as a wrap-up of the 80th Session of the Texas Legislature. This is meeting is completely open to the public.V.O.T.E.R is a non-partisan discussion group that meets to converse about political issues and policies on a regular basis. V.O.T.E.R. was formed in 1989 by Jeff Marshall, and they are celebrating their 18th year under his leadership. Although the meeting place is in the Heights area, the membership is comprised of numerous politically active citizens from around the Houston Metropolitan area. If you have questions or would like more information, please contact Jeff Marshall at (713) 862-3323, or email him at admin@voter1989.org. RSVP's are not required but are encouraged as refreshments will be provided.
Here's a Google map of the location. It's my understanding that Melissa Noriega will be there for sure. Not sure about Roy, but who cares? You're not voting for him anyway.
And before you go to this forum, you can start your day with a get-out-the-vote breakfast for Melissa Noriega tomorrow morning from 8 to 9:30 at Doneraki on Gulfgate. Muse has the details.
Vote. It's good for you.
It's here, though I'll also point you to Kos since his archives will be freely available for a lot longer than the Times' will be. Other than a minor subtraction error (2007 - 1966 = 41, not 42), it's well done.
Those of you who would like to do something for Steve and his family will find a PayPal link on his site. A previous update from his partner Jen said that the tentative plan was that the blog would be up for the next 30 days, then taken down for good. In the absence of further news, I'd assume that to remain the case, so if you're inclined to help the Gilliards, please do so sooner rather than later.
This is very cool.
So as I've mentioned a few times, one of my best friends is co-owner of a construction company called Numen Development that uses shipping containers as the basis for their structures.Three months ago, they got a commission from Apama Mackey to design and build the new Mackey Gallery.
Today [Wednesday], the shipping containers will be delivered and installed to the new site of the 1400 square foot gallery, and you can see for yourself what this form of construction looks like. They started this morning with merely a few spread footings and grade beams and they'll finish this evening with all the containers set and a good portion (if not all) of the roof in place. By Friday, there will be a completely secured, weatherproof building where there is NOTHING right now! I've seen them as they've been built out at the Numen warehouse, and they're pretty damned awesome. The gallery will be at 628 East 11th Street in the Heights, right next to Berryhill.
Very cool, but the best part is how amazingly enviro-friendly the whole thing is. Click over and check it out. Comcast permitting, I'll try to upload a few pics of the process.
Still no decision on an injunction, but we're getting there.
A temporary restraining order granted last month will remain in effect until June 19, U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay ruled.Lindsay will decide by then whether to issue a temporary injunction requested by lawyers for landlords and renters who have filed suit to block the local immigration measure. An injunction would stop the rental rules from taking effect until the lawsuits are resolved.
[...]
[D]uring a three-hour hearing today, Farmers Branch attorneys who are already facing an uphill legal fight following the earlier ruling by Lindsay acknowledged there were "drafting issues" with the ordinance.
City Attorney Matthew Boyle sought to convince Lindsay that the city intended to follow federal law in determining who is in the country legally and had no intention of going outside federal regulations, even if some language in the ordinance suggests otherwise.
He offered the court several revised versions that they asked the judge to consider if he decides the original measure is constitutionally flawed.
The Star Telegram outlines the changes the city of Farmers Branch has offered.
One version drops the $500 daily penalty. It would also drop the requirements that family members of prospective tenants sign declarations of citizenship or legal residency and authorize the release of relevant documents to city officials. Prospective tenants would still be required to sign such a declaration but would not be required to supply supporting paperwork.Another version drops the $500 daily penalty and the requirement that prospective tenants sign the declaration. But it leaves a requirement for supplying paperwork acceptable to federal immigration officials.
Another version simply cuts references to U.S. Housing and Urban Development's prohibition on providing housing to illegal immigrants.
Boyle and Tim O'Hare, the City Council member who spearheaded the city's anti-illegal-immigration stance, said the proposed revisions do not mean the city is backing down from the ordinance.
O'Hare said that the city believes the ordinance is constitutional but that the judge could use these alternatives if he finds parts of it to be unconstitutional. He said even if the $500 fines are dropped, the city could pursue people who give false paperwork or false declarations and charge them with fraud.
Boyle said the city also could revoke licenses instead of levying fines.
O'Hare suggested the proposed cuts might be part of the city's legal strategy.
"You throw different things out there, and it's a long, drawn-out battle," he said. "You float things out there to see where the judge stands on one issue or another issue."
Jim Renard, an attorney for Bickel & Brewer, a Dallas law firm representing apartment owners suing Farmers Branch, interpreted the move as a sign that the city is losing the case.
"It's an admission of sorts that they've got some problems," Renard said.
I think Attorney Renard is correct. If Farmers Branch thought it could win, there'd be no incentive for them to offer a weaker version of the law. They're in salvage mode.
Nina Perales, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is also suing the city, said asking the judge to choose what should be stricken from the city's ordinance is wrong."That's not an appropriate thing for a judge to do," she said. "The judge decides what is constitutional and what is unconstitutional. The judge does not rewrite ordinances."
Yeah, that kinda does sound like legislating from the bench, doesn't it? Nice try, fellas.
Back to the Chron:
In rulings last week, Lindsay declined an effort by the Federation for American Immigration Reform to join the lawsuit. The national group wants to stem illegal immigration.The judge also dismissed one of three federal lawsuits against the city, a suit brought by Farmers Branch businesses who said the rental ban was hurting commerce.
"This narrows the constitutional issues," said activist Carlos Quintanilla, who organized the businesses' opposition.
And I think it means we're officially counting the days on this ordinance. We'll see if that's true in two weeks' time. Stay tuned.
Stories like this just make me shake my head.
Linda A. Ballew spent four nights in the Harris County Jail for ignoring court orders related to a long-running dispute about her overgrown lawn before she finally agreed to cut the grass Tuesday.Her next-door neighbor David Carroll -- who also is president of the homeowners association board -- is waiting to see whether she makes good on her promise.
Neighborhood spats are common, but there was nothing typical about this three-year battle, which has reached almost absurd proportions in the Kirkwood South subdivision.
The 50-year-old widow has lived for 14 years in her home in the 10400 block of Glenkirk. But her overgrown yard and the varmints that call it home drew the ire of the Kirkmont Association's board of directors.
Ballew, who has an 18-year-old son, cut her front lawn when the group took the dispute to court to force her to comply with the neighborhood's deed restrictions. But her backyard, surrounded by a fence, has remained largely unchanged.
Carroll, who likens Ballew's backyard to a "jungle" of grass ranging from 4 feet to 9 feet tall, says the excessive growth has caused him considerable problems.
"We've had nutria rats -- the ones that look like beavers -- caught in the trap in my backyard," Carroll said. "I have had run-ins with large snakes. My dog has been sprayed by a skunk. ... My children are not allowed to walk the property unless I go out there first.
"Anytime you try to entertain with friends, you have to explain why there is a jungle next door creeping through the fence. ... It's just the craziest thing."
There was a house in our neighborhood that was similar to this, though not as bad. The owner spent most of the year out of town, and things got out of hand. I've heard from folks who lived on one side or the other of that house that rats were a real problem. It's easy to complain about homeowners associations and the power they have, but in a situation like that, it's hard not to sympathize with them.
(The house that was our urban wildlife refuge was recently bought and torn down, by the way. Much better for all involved.)
Sympathizing with the defendant in this case is a taller order.
The Kirkmont Association first sued Ballew and won a permanent injunction against her in 2004, requiring her to mow her entire lawn twice a month and trim her trees and shrubs once a year. Ballew failed to appear in court at that time to respond to the lawsuit, which resulted in a default judgment.But little has changed since then, Carroll said. Only the front yard has been mowed.
During a follow-up hearing in April 2006, Ballew was found to be in contempt of court for failing to comply with the injunction. She was sentenced to three days in jail, but that sentence was suspended for four months to give her time to do the required yard work, homeowners association attorney Michael Treece said.
She was ordered to return to Davidson's court for a compliance hearing in August but failed to appear.
Davidson issued an order for Ballew's arrest last fall. She was taken into custody Friday. The judge told Ballew he sought her arrest "very reluctantly."
I'd say the judge has been more than patient. Nobody likes to see this sort of thing end up in court, but once it does, that really ought to be the end of it. Maybe now it finally will be.
Why does this article about Joel Kotkin's talk to the Greater Houston Partnership give me an after-school special vibe?
Just be yourself, Houston.That was the essence of the message delivered to the Greater Houston Partnership on Tuesday by urban historian Joel Kotkin, who urged the region's leaders not to be seduced by strategies focused on luring the "creative class" of hip young professionals.
Instead, Kotkin argued, Houston should continue its traditions of low taxes and limited regulations to maintain a favorable business environment and a low cost of living. Local governments, he said, should focus on expanding highway capacity and improving street and drainage systems.
"Downtown Houston will never be Midtown Manhattan," said Kotkin, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, and the author of several books on urban issues.
Just believe in yourself and people will love you for who you are! Who needs therapy, anyway?
OK, I think I've got that out of my system. On a more serious note:
In a report commissioned by the partnership, entitled "Opportunity Urbanism: An Emerging Paradigm for the 21st Century," Kotkin argues that quality-of-life issues such as parks and cultural amenities need not be a top priority of local leaders.These amenities, he said, develop organically in cities with strong economies that can help lift working-class people into the middle class.
Mayor Bill White said he agrees with Kotkin's description of Houston as an "opportunity city" that's open to new ideas and new residents from diverse backgrounds.
But Stephen Klineberg, a Rice University sociology professor who has studied Houston for 25 years, said Kotkin's analysis represents a "serious misreading of the new competitive environment facing American cities like Houston in the 21st century."
Kotkin doesn't place enough emphasis on the need to provide a good education to the immigrants and other ethnic minorities who make up most of the Houston area's younger population, said Klineberg, who spoke briefly at the partnership luncheon after Kotkin's speech.
"If Houston is to have anything like the skilled work force we will need in the years ahead," Klineberg said, its leaders must "ensure that all children in Houston, regardless of their parents' incomes, have access to quality health care, to affordable housing and, above all, to truly effective public education from preschool through college."
Kotkin's report is here. He's got some provocative ideas, and it's always good to get an outside perspective, but if we're talking about Houston I'll take Klineberg over Kotkin.
Tory was at the talk but hasn't posted on it yet. I'll be interested to see what he says.
One more thing, on the subject of green space: The article quotes a couple who moved from Connecticut to a master-planned subdivision in Fort Bend. I think it's important to draw a distinction between development like this, where things like green space are included by the builders, and development in denser urban areas, where there is no budget or incentive for park space to be created. New parks are not going to be created "organically" inside the Loop. There has to be some sort of mandate for it to happen. We can argue about what fraction of space in the core city needs to be green, and we can argue about what share of the financing for it should be public, but it's not going to appear as a side effect of townhome/high rise construction.
Today is Olivia's third birthday. If I had a working Internet connection at home, I'd have some pictures of her opening presents to show you, but alas, that will have to wait till Thursday. She did get a "Go, Diego, Go!" watch from her Aunt Kristin, which she proudly wore to school today, and there are a few more items to unwrap this evening. There's a big mound of Tiffany-made cupcakes - chocolate with pink icing, as requested - waiting for her at school, too.
I know it's a cliche to talk about the joys of parenthood, but Olivia really has been a joy to us. She amazes me every day. Watching her interact with Audrey has been even more amazing. I always find myself torn between the excitement of seeing her enter new phases of her life, and wishing whatever phase she's in at the time would last forever. In the end, the thrill of the new wins out, as it should. But that doesn't mean we can't remember the past.
As it happens, Tiffany and I will celebrate by seeing Weird Al at the Verizon Theater tonight. We'll make it up to Olivia with a trip to the swimming pool over the weekend. She's still a little fuzzy on the whole day-and-date thing, so we can get away with that. For now, anyway.
And finally, happy birthday to Stace. It's a good day all around, whatever Comcast may do to me.
How typical of the Texas Association of Business.
Parents of children with autism cheered when Texas lawmakers revived a dead bill they say will give families hope, save some from bankruptcy and reduce long-term costs for taxpayers.But the Texas Association of Business wants Gov. Rick Perry to veto House Bill 1919 because of an amendment that changes the definition of autism from a mental illness to a neurobiological illness and requires insurance companies to cover treatment for 3- to 5-year-olds with the disease.
The autism-insurance measure passed the Senate but languished in the House until lawmakers approved it as an amendment to insurance-related legislation just hours before the legislative session ended May 28.
As with the process of getting this bill passed with the ABA coverage intact, the best thing we all can do now is call Governor Perry's office and ask him to support real family values by signing HB1919. Pete has the details.
"Somebody finally heard us," Cynthia Singleton of Houston said after legislators approved the amendment. "Parents have been struggling for years to be heard and, I think, somebody finally cared enough to help make it happen."Singleton said she and her husband have spent more than $100,000 on treatment for their 8-year-old son with autism. They financed the treatment by selling a four-bedroom home in West Houston and renting a three-bedroom apartment for more than two years.
I know Cynthia and her family - not as well as Pete and his family, but I know them. But even if I didn't know anyone who was personally affected by this bill, I'd wholeheartedly support it anyway. This is what insurance is for: to help people survive unforeseen setbacks that life deals out. If TAB has its way, this kind of insurance will only be available to those who need it the least.
Perry spokesman Robert Black said the governor and his staff have not decided whether to veto the bill.
Which means you may still be able to have an effect on his decision-making process. Give him a call and tell him what you think. Thanks very much.
UPDATE: More from Dig Deeper Texas, Luke Gilman, Autism Bulletin, and of course Pete.
So here's a story in the Chron about the runoff, and that can mean only one thing: Roy Morales gets to talk about his one issue.
Melissa Noriega, who nearly won the race for the At-large 3 seat outright in the regular election last month, criticized her opponent, Roy Morales, accusing him of using "fear as a tactic to try to get people worked up."At issue are local policies that Morales says make the city a "sanctuary" for illegal immigrants; he wants Houston police to do more to take them into custody.
Noriega, a Houston Independent School District special projects manager, said Monday that immigration enforcement is the federal government's responsibility, a position shared by Mayor Bill White and Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt.
"We're short of police now," she said after casting her ballot Monday afternoon. "Taking police resources to investigate things that are federal responsibilities takes away from people being safe."
Houston police changed their policies last fall, and they now work more closely with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. But Morales, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, said the "sanctuary" perception remains, in part because the city spent federal grant funds on a controversial day-labor facility last year.
"I'm against sanctuary," he said. "I'm against day-labor centers."
The police now allow federal agents in city jails, and they detain wanted immigrants. Morales, who also voted Monday, said police should arrest illegal immigrants they encounter in traffic stops.
So Roy is against the "perception" of sanctuary, and thinks the cops should arrest illegal immigrants at traffic stops. Here's a question to ponder: If you were to be pulled over for speeding and asked to prove that you were in this country legally, would you be able to do it? I don't know about you, but I don't carry my birth certificate or passport on me as a matter of course. This sort of approach could keep the cops and tow-truck drivers very busy, to say the least.
Of course, I don't look like an illegal immigrant, so I won't be getting harassed. Those of you who aren't lucky enough to be a pasty white boy like me, well, you're on your own in Roy's world.
I'm against the perception of stupid public policy. Which is why the choice for City Council is clear.
How many of you have voted yet? If you have, were you the only one at the early voting center at the time?
It's been almost two years since we last had an update on the K-Mart Kiddie Roundup story.
Former Houston police Chief C.O. Bradford's request to be severed from a lawsuit related to an infamous crackdown on street racing has been denied by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.In an opinion filed Monday, the appellate court ruled that it does not have jurisdiction in the case and, therefore, did not have the authority to grant Bradford's motion to be removed from the federal lawsuit.
Bradford was chief at the time of the raid. Contacted by phone Monday night, Bradford said he could not comment without consulting with his attorney.
The litigation was filed after almost 300 people were arrested on Aug. 18, 2002, during a raid on the Kmart parking lot in 8400 block of Westheimer in an attempt to combat street racing. Most of those arrested were charged with trespassing or curfew violations, but none was accused of street racing. The raid produced public outcry and the charges were dropped.
In response to the raid, 10 lawsuits involving more than 100 plaintiffs were filed, accusing police of brandishing pistols and shotguns, and verbally abusing some during the incident. Bradford, who was not at the raid, was named in all of the lawsuits.
In July 2005, in a scathing opinion, U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas ruled that the lawsuits could go forward.
[...]
Bradford had appealed Atlas' decision. But in its ruling Monday, the 5th Circuit said Bradford had made arguments about fact that could only be ruled on by the district court.
I'm not qualified to opine on the legal mumbojumbo. At a high level, it pretty much comes down to how much Bradford knew, and how much he could or should have known. It's been clear from the beginning that fired HPD captain Mark Aguirre was directly responsible for the mess as it took place. Aguirre has claimed that Bradford knew what he was doing and approved of it; Bradford has denied that he approved the specific plan. That much certainly sounds like a matter of fact for the lower court to decide. How long it will take to get to that point from here, I have no idea.
Color me skeptical about this.
The state elections director tried to assure skeptical voting officials Monday that a problem-ridden centralized voter information system would be fixed in time for the 2008 presidential elections."Although we are having tough growing pains, I think we will be ahead of the game for the 2008 presidential elections," said Ann McGeehan, elections director for the secretary of state's office.
Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt doesn't believe it. "That's not going to happen, period," he said, following McGeehan's presentation before more than 100 officials at the Tax Assessor-Collector's Association Conference.
"I don't think we'll ever get there in the next few years," Bettencourt said, blaming flaws in the system designed by IBM and Austin-based Hart InterCivic.
Glitches beset the Texas Election Administration Management (TEAM) system as soon as it went on line in January.
[...]
McGeehan promised improvements over the next few weeks, but Galveston Tax Assessor-Collector Cheryl Johnson remained unconvinced.
"Those will help us, but they are not going to change the basic problems that we are having," said Johnson.
Previous bloggage is here and here. There's really no reason why this should be so hard, and no reason why it can't be fixed, but to say the least the burden of proof is on the vendor and the Secretary of State. It would be nice if there were a way to dry-run whatever solution they say they've cooked up before the next election.
The dissatisfaction with TEAM was reflected by the decision of Sulphur Springs-based NETDATA to resume selling voter registration systems to unhappy counties.NETDATA got out of the voter-registration software businesses when its more than 20 clients switched over to TEAM, NETDATA president Tory Humphries said.
"I've decided to get back into it,"Humphries said.
A little competition is good for the soul, I say. Let's hope that this acts as a catalyst. Meanwhile, I look forward to Racy Mind's deconstruction of the TEAM system.
Last month, the Chron published an editorial calling on the local adult establishments to "drop their legal actions and find suitable properties for relocation", which made me wonder why they thought unincorporated Harris County would be any more welcoming. Looks like I was right to wonder about that.
Worried the city's crackdown on sexually oriented businesses could drive some clubs to relocate to unincorporated areas, Harris County officials said they won't be any more welcoming than their Houston counterparts.County Judge Ed Emmett said he applauds the city's tough stance on the clubs but wants the county to be ready to prevent them from setting up outside city limits.
"I want to make sure all of them don't move out of the city into the county," he said.
Commissioners Court today will discuss whether such a mass exodus is possible.
Officials say they doubt that because the county has similar regulations to the city, prohibiting sexually oriented businesses from operating near schools, day cares, parks, churches and other facilities.
"Our regulations are similar to the city's, and we'll enforce them just as aggressively," County Attorney Mike Stafford said. "A business won't gain anything by going into the county."
Well, yes they would, if there's a location out there that's more than 1500 feet from a school, residence, church, other SOB, or any other "sensitive area", whatever that means. One presumes there are more such places in the unincorporated parts of the county than there are within the city of Houston. One also presumes they're not exactly in prime areas, which would rather defeat the purpose. And of course, even if there were a suitable place to relocate, it would quickly become unsuitable as soon as someone decided to build a school/apartment complex/church/day care center/other "sensitive" thing within 1500 feet of it. Which gets back to why I still think this law should be struck down, but that's a separate matter. In the meantime, relocation is a nonstarter, so putting the onus on clubs to do that while the city graciously agrees to not harass them is one as well. Either the latest appeal gets the clubs off the hook, or that's all she wrote. I see no other ending to this.
I've been dealing with a dead high-speed Net connection all day today, so this strikes a chord with me.
Comcast Corp. is taking steps to improve customer service -- long a point of criticism for the cable industry -- as it prepares to put its name on the local operation.A review of complaints to the Better Business Bureau since Comcast took control of Time Warner Cable in Houston and surrounding areas on Jan. 1 shows little change in the level of complaints. It does show customers fed up with waiting all day for technicians who never showed up, sales staff who didn't apply credits correctly and customer service representatives who promised one thing and did another.
Comcast, which is rebranding the service under its own name on June 19, is vowing to do better by making service calls more convenient for customers, monitoring its network to spot problems before customers do and providing new channels customers have requested.
"We are investing more than $200 million this year in the Houston market to upgrade our network, enhance our customer service and launch our products and services," said Tony Speller, Comcast's senior vice president for the Houston region, which includes 750,000 customers in Houston and more than 60 surrounding communities.
[...]
In an effort to limit the number of customers who say goodbye to Comcast, the company is trying to eliminate the friction points, Speller said.
A common complaint in the BBB records was customers' having to wait around an entire day for an installer to show up. Under Time Warner -- and currently under Comcast -- service windows have run from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.Speller said Comcast will narrow service windows to no more than four hours, and customers will be able to ask for two- or three-hour windows. Comcast technicians will make service calls seven days a week. There is no timetable to implement the changes, Comcast spokesman Ray Purser said.
Sometimes, according to the BBB records, a salesperson on the phone promised the customer would get a call when the technician was 30 minutes from the home. When no call came, the customer missed the technician and had to reschedule, sometimes days later.
Under the company's new courtesy-call policy, if a customer asks for it, a company representative will phone 30 minutes before a technician arrives.
Comcast also said it will hire more call center employees and increase pay for new workers. It declined to reveal specific wages, citing competitive concerns.
You know what would make me happy today? Have enough roving technicians so that when your home Internet service craps out, you don't have to wait two full days for a repair person to make a visit. I was going to be doing some work at home this week and next so Tiffany can take care of some stuff at her office, and let me tell you, this was beyond inconvenient. The good news is that it belatedly appears the problem was a system outage, and not merely my connection - I'm waiting on confirmation of that. All I know is that if I'd been running a business from home and had this happen, and then been told I had to lose two whole days waiting for a technician to fix it, I'd be really pissed.
(If we had citywide WiFi in place today, I'd at least have a backup option for when this sort of thing happen. Someday, someday...)
Before we get to the picture, some deep thoughts from our illustrious County Clerk.
"With only two candidates, one is bound to get a majority; unless we have an even 50-50 tie, and that's not very likely," said Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman.
Well, you have to admit, she did cover all the possibilities. At least, without bringing imaginary numbers into the equation.
More seriously:
She says she's not expecting heavy voter turnout."I would like to remind everyone that in a low-turnout election the value of your vote is greater."
But each ballot is still important.
"The person elected to this office represents the whole city. They play a role in making some important decisions about the conduct of city government."
I figure turnout will be at most two percent. District Council races get more votes than what we'll see. I can't begin to emphasize how much your vote in this election counts.
And with that:
You know what to do. Here's a more useful link to early voting times and locations (thanks, Stace). Go vote!
Yesterday, I mentioned that an update to the Fox 26 story on sex offenders in Crosby was supposed to be broadcast last week. I'm not sure if there was a miscommunication about that, or if they just postponed it for one reason or another, but it was shown last night. Here it is, more mash note to Crosby than an explanation of how they got it wrong the first time around, but I'm sure it served the intended purpose of soothing hurt feelings. So there you have it.
Houston Film Commission executive director Rick Ferguson said many European companies want to film here because of the the uncluttered skyline and architecture.A German-language BMW commercial was filmed in Houston in April. Auto companies, in particular, love filming commercials in Houston, Ferguson said. That's because the city has "so many high-tech and modern buildings that have reflective surfaces." The good lighting off the buildings can make the car look great from all angles.
Over the past three years, about half of the 192 commercials that have gone through the Houston Film Commission -- which represent about 50 percent of the ads filmed in the city -- have been for European or Asian products.
Foreign directors, Ferguson said, like the city's versatility, the cooperation they get from public officials and the way the downtown skyline looks from Allen Parkway or Memorial Drive at the "magic hour"-- right before dusk when the lighting is perfect.
All right-thinking persons enjoy the view of the downtown skyline from Allen Parkway and Memorial Drive, pretty much at any time of the day. But yes, heading east towards downtown at sunset would be pretty optimal.
Random thought: The next time someone wants to do some viral marketing on behalf of Houston, maybe they could hunt down some of these commercials and put a few of the downtown-skyline-from-Allen-Parkway-at-dusk clips on Youtube as part of that effort. Just a suggestion.
About 500 feature films, television movies, miniseries, TV pilots, music videos, commercials and documentaries were shot in the Bayou City from 2004 to 2006, Ferguson said.
We've come a long way from RoboCop 2, haven't we?
Via King Kaufman, who does an interview with one of the investors, we have this NYT article about a proposed Friday night football league called the United Football League (UFL), which would play in the fall and thus compete with the NFL. The founder is Bill Hambrecht, who as a part owner of a USFL franchise, knows a thing or two about going up against the great football hegemon. Which doesn't mean he has learned all the lessons from that experience, as this suggests to me:
Where others might be daunted by the N.F.L.'s success and power, though, Hambrecht came to believe its monopoly status gave him an opening. "I really started thinking hard about this after the Los Angeles Rams left to go to St. Louis and the Houston Oilers went to Nashville," he told me over drinks recently. "Why do you leave two of the top 10 TV markets in the country for these two smaller markets?"The answer, of course, is that the N.F.L. doesn't really have to worry about where its teams are located, since most games are televised and the bulk of the league's revenues come from its network contracts. What's more, with the right stadium deal and enough corporate sponsorship, team owners can make as much (or more) money in smaller cities as they can in larger ones. That's why the N.F.L. does just fine despite not fielding a team in 21 of the country's top 50 markets -- including such enormous metropolitan areas as San Antonio, Las Vegas, Orlando and (of course) Los Angeles. Nor does the N.F.L., which now has 32 teams, have much incentive to expand. On the contrary: expansion dilutes the TV money. (Greg Aiello, the N.F.L.'s spokesman, told me that "expansion isn't on the table right now.")
So the first step in Hambrecht's plan is to enter big cities where the N.F.L. isn't. As Mark Cuban put it to me in an e-mail, "There are quite a few good-sized non-N.F.L. cities that can support a pro team." So far, the U.F.L. has decided to put teams in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Mexico City. (Cuban is considering taking the Las Vegas franchise.) Each owner will put up $30 million, giving him an initial half-interest in the team; the league will own the other half. But eventually the fans themselves will become shareholders -- because each team is going to sell shares to the public. Then the owner, the league and the fans will each own a third of every franchise.
First, I like the idea of fans as shareholders. Not sure how that will work in the real world, but I think the concept of selling stock in a team will appeal to a lot of people, and therefore will be a success from a capital perspective.
But there's some real disingenuousness in these paragraphs. The NFL only has 32 teams, so in the best-case scenario it would be leaving 18 of the top 50 markets out. Obviously, the NFL has a gap in Los Angeles, but it's interesting that the UFL is talking about Las Vegas, Orlando, and San Antonio instead of San Juan, Portland, and Sacramento, all of which are larger metropolitan areas than those three. Vegas is the hottest city without a major sports team, but it's not like Orlando (three NFL teams in Florida) or San Antonio (traditionally Dallas Cowboys turf) are un-served.
Another head-scratcher to me is in the interview Kaufman does with Hambrecht:
I think it strikes a lot of people as odd, though, for people like you and Mark Cuban to say, "This is the new business we're going to invest in in sports, competing with the NFL," as opposed to, say, getting in on maybe not the ground floor, but the second floor, with something like lacrosse, where there's obviously huge potential for growing from almost nothing.Well, the people that understand the business understand exactly why we're doing it. We've had some very interesting conversations with some NFL owners and others. Hey, they understand. Football is the most valuable content that there is now in the media world. By design, they've restricted the supply to get a monopoly price out of the consumer. Look at the fights they've had with Comcast.
It's almost an obvious monopoly, and they have left 40 percent of the market open. They have not kept up with the demographics of the United States. It's still basically a Rust Belt league. You just look at the map, it's really kind of fascinating to look at it compared to the population. It's shifted and they haven't kept up with that. So, you know, if it were any other business, there'd be people filling that market.
This is the one major sport that's left a good part of the market open. As we move along, particularly in the media world, it'll get a lot more understandable and hopefully a lot more believable.
Again, look at the MSAs-by-population chart. Pittsburgh and Buffalo are shrinking, New Orleans has shrunk since 2000, though not because it's a "Rust Belt" city, and Cleveland is growing slowly, but again factoring out the LA anomaly, I'm not sure where the NFL is losing out on national population trends. Besides, how is it that the NFL is the "one major sport that's left a good part of the market open"? You could make the same case for Major League Baseball, which ignores all six of those major metro areas I mentioned above. Only the NBA would seem to have the market as Hambrecht sees it covered.
I'm not going to say Hambrecht is totally wrong here - even if I thought he was off his nut, the UFL is still in its conceptual stage, so what exists now and what will be when they kick off may be two different things. Read the Salon interview and see what you think. I think if I were a zillionaire I'd have find more productive ways to squander my money, but hey, I'm not, so what do I know?
One of the big things the Lege did accomplish this time around was to provide more funding for state parks, both in terms of removing a cap on the amount of revenue from the sporting goods tax that could be appropriated to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, then actually appropriating a greater amount to TPWD. Chron outdoors writer Shannon Tompkins did a good summary of what parks bill HB12 and the budget did:
- TPWD will see an increase of $25.6 million in funding for park operations and authority to increase parks division staff by 229 employees. Over the past couple of years, as funding problems became more severe, TPWD had reduced park staff by more than 100.
- The agency stands to lose about 60 parks staffers in a Legislature-mandated transfer of 18 historic sites (and their staff) currently in the state parks division. The 18 sites will be transferred to the Texas Historical Commission.
The THC also will receive about $6 million a year in sporting goods sales tax revenue to operate the transferred sites.
- The Legislature appropriated as much as $44.1 million for major repairs to state parks. About $17 million of that is bond money Texas voters had approved for that purpose in 2001, but that the Legislature had refused to appropriate.
The remaining $27 million would come from issuance of new general obligation bonds, predicated on voters approval of a bond proposition on the statewide ballot this November.
- Local park funding will be increased to $15.5 million per year -- the same level allowed under the $32 million cap, but about $10 million more than the Legislature has appropriated over the past two years. The $15.5 million will be used in a grant program whereby local governments apply to TPWD for matching grants to help fund local parks.
The grants are awarded using a standardized scoring system designed to rank projects, reducing opportunities for political pressure to influence agency decisions on which projects receive funds.
- Legislators appropriated about $16.7 million for grants to 18 specific local park projects, none of which will have to go through TPWD's standard, competitive grant scoring process. Included in the list of mandatory park grants are $3.75 million for 11th Street Park in Houston and $1.5 million for Spring Creek Parkway in Harris and Montgomery counties -- and two parks named after current or former members of the Legislature.
- TPWD will be allowed to use the $9.6 million the state received for the sale of undeveloped Eagle Mountain Lake State Park near Fort Worth for purchase of land for another state park. But the agency can use the funds to purchase park lands only if the acquisition is approved by the state's Legislative Budget Board.
The Legislature also appropriated about $4.3 million that TPWD can use to acquire inholdings and land adjacent to current state parks.
- TPWD will operate under a legislative mandate to improve its business practices, including meeting the recommendations included in a report on TPWD issued this year by the Texas State Auditor's Office. TPWD executive director Cook said he welcomes the increased scrutiny and performance goals the Legislature is placing on the agency as a condition of increasing the parks division's budget.
"The Legislature was very good to us, and we just couldn't be happier with the budget they've given us," Cook said. "But we also understand we have a huge responsibility to use those funds effectively and efficiently."
I hope we all also understand that this can't be a one-time fix, and that we can't let things slide for as long as they did again. B and B, who followed the ins and outs of HB12 throughout the session, has more.
You know what that means:
Early voting runs from today through next Tuesday, June 12. Times and locations can be found here (PDF). I figure maybe 97 people will vote in this runoff - okay, maybe a few more than that, but not many - so it's important that Melissa's supporters get out there and do their duty. If we show up, we win. It's as simple as that. So please go vote, either between now and June 12, or next Saturday the 16th. Thanks very much.
Happy birthday to one of the best things about Houston.
The Menil Collection is a serene gem in the heart of this boisterous city. To see its quiet presence on green lawns and surrounded by large trees, you might not suspect the pale gray clapboard building is also an international icon.Once inside, however, you begin to glimpse the reason for that reputation, and, if you spend awhile in its galleries, you understand.
Its offerings are the highest-quality works from many centuries and cultures that enchant, intrigue, challenge and puzzle.
"The Menil has emerged as one of the premier museums in the United States," says Glenn Lowery, director of New York's Museum of Modern Art. "The collection is superb and the setting is spectacular. The combination of a rarified environment with the ability to concentrate on certain artists creates optimal viewing for the art."
The renowned museum, considered one of the best private institutions in the world, celebrates its 20th anniversary on Thursday. Typically, it will be a sedate affair with art at its heart.
The birthday centerpiece is A Modern Patronage: De Menil Gifts to American and European Museums. The exhibit is about fine art and about the spirit that collected it, then gave it away.
Read the whole thing. I really can't recommend the Menil enough. It's fairly kid friendly, it's never crowded, and it's free free free. Got little ones and need a place to explore with them during the hot summer months? Go visit the Menil. You can thank me later.
Last week I wrote about how a Fox 26 investigative report used some bad math to make the small Houston suburb of Crosby look like a hive of sex offenders. After I posted that, I heard via email that they were going to broadcast an update to that story last Thursday night on the 9 PM broadcast. I didn't get that email till Friday morning, so I didn't get to see that broadcast for myself, and the only thing I've found on their webpage relating to Crosby is this correction from May 24 that gave the same city limits versus ZIP code explanation I referenced in my earlier post. Far as I know, that's where this now stands. If anyone happened to watch the Thursday, May 31 Fox 26 news broadcast at 9 PM, please leave a comment and let us know if the subject of the Crosby story came up. Thanks.
I've known for awhile that my average daily Sitemeter traffic fluctuates mainly with search engine referrals. The variation can be as much as a few hundred hits a day. There are other factors, of course - the end of the legislative session and approaching elections always drive numbers up - but this is one that comes and goes unpredictably.
Last week, I noticed that a Google blog search for my URL suddenly started only returning stale links - compare to a Technorati search and you'll see what I mean. Coincidentally or not, my Sitemeter stats took a dive at the same time.
I'm not alarmed by this, and I don't depend on ad revenues so it's not like this hurts me, but I am curious. What causes this to happen, and what if anything can I do about it? I presume that at some point it'll fix itself, but it's always nice to be able to be proactive. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
It was a beautiful day for outdoor baseball today. Unlike yesterday, which is when we originally had tickets to see Rice play TCU. When the start of the game got delayed from 6 PM to 8:30, I asked if we could exchange our tickets for Sunday's 6 PM game, figuring I had nothing to lose. To my pleasant surprise, they agreed. So Olivia, our friend Andrea, and I headed out to Reckling Park to see some Rice Owls baseball. We had a great time, the Owls won the game to advance to the Super Regional (the baseball version of the Sweet 16), and Olivia got to experience the joys of Fig Newtons and milk at the ballpark. What could be better?
More pictures after the jump.
The teams line up on the basepaths as the players and coaches are introduced. I've always thought that was a cool tradition. As you can see, we had some great seats. Not that there are bad seats at Reckling.
Olivia moves in for a closer look.
This game was a test run for later in the summer, when the two of us head north to rendez-vous with family for the quasi-annual minor league baseball tour. Olivia lasted through the seventh inning, which was not bad at all considering she mostly had to stay in one place and had no other kids to interact with. I'm confident now that she'll do fine when we go to those games, where there will be plenty of other things to occupy her attention besides just the game.
It's harder than you think to get a drink in Brazoria County.
Counties, cities or justice-of-the-peace precincts can be, by local-option election, totally wet, totally dry or anywhere in between. It's all up to local voters.Roy Hale, of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, keeps a spreadsheet 2,345 lines long to try to follow what is legal where, but even he acknowledges it's almost impossible to keep up with regulations throughout the state.
In Brazoria County alone, there have been 33 different issues on ballots concerning alcohol sales since 1919.
In the same 1933 election in which they approved doing away with prohibition, Brazoria County voters approved only the sale of beer in the county. In 1936 and 1937, voters twice turned down the idea of approving the sale of other forms of alcohol. Since then, the only changes to the regulations have been in cities or JP precincts.
Richwood, for example, voted to prohibit all sale of beer in 1967, and then voted a year later to approve its sale at stores for off-premise consumption only.
Voters in a JP precinct that includes the town of Sweeny outlawed the sale of beer in 1958. Now that precinct is in parts of two modern precincts, and voters in both would have to approve the sale of beer for it to be legal there again, Hale said.
Angleton, Surfside Beach, Freeport and Iowa Colony voted in the 1970s to legalize the sale of all alcoholic beverages.
Quintana approved the sale of beer and wine only.
In the latest two elections, in 2002 and 2006, Pearland and West Columbia voters approved the sale of mixed beverages in restaurants. That category is the newest form of alcohol sales, Hale said.
"It seems to be more acceptable to voters because you don't have a place that's just a bar," he said.
Sounds like a good argument for staying in Houston, if you ask me. Be that as it may, the folks in Brazoria County may get to vote on liberalizing their alcohol rules this November. I'll drink to that.
A lot of what's in the Chron overview of how the Lege affected Houston and Harris County is stuff I've blogged about in some detail, but I want to add a few comments to this effort:
Among the more visible changes locals can expect: backyard July Fourth fireworks will be safer, though perhaps a little less festive; dog owners will be held responsible the first time their pets seriously injure another person; all 20 acres of West 11th Street Park will be preserved; and red-light cameras are here to stay.
I had previously written that the West 11th Street Park was still not out of the woods, since it was apparently matching funds that were approved. However, looking at the statement by the Friends of the West 11th Street Park and the conference committee report on the budget, I think that may have been a misunderstanding. While the report does say "$3,750,000 in matching funds for the City of Houston 11th Street Park", I think the "match" is to the funds that the City of Houston had put up when it bought the parkland from HISD. $3.75 million is enough to pay the loan plus interest, so there's no need for it to match anything else. I feel much better about this now.
The county did have to play a little defense after its ability to build toll roads was jeopardized by a proposed moratorium on pay roads. Although the two-year building moratorium on private toll roads was approved, it will not affect six road construction projects for the Harris County Toll Road Authority."By controlling our own toll roads, we can use that money to build other access roads and free roads in Harris County," Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said. "It means our toll roads will be built quicker and more efficiently, tolls will be lower and money will stay in Harris County."
Unfortunately, HCTRA got all this without any real accountability being required of them. I guarantee this will be an issue in the future.
Lawmakers also ended the debate about whether cities have the right to issue civil citations to red-light runners caught on camera by incorporating it into state law."Our goal was to make sure we could regulate the use and revenues of red-light cameras," said State Rep. Jim Murphy, R-Houston, who carried the bills in the House.
Cities will be required to study an intersection's traffic volume, collision history and frequency of red-light violations before installing cameras. After cameras go up, cities will be required to do the same to determine whether there has been a reduction in accidents.
I have presumed all along that this will mean the end of the Kubosh lawsuit, though I'm equally certain that it won't mean he'll give up. I presume that there will be a motion to dismiss the suit based on the new law, and that it will be successful. Any lawyers want to address that? I also think this is not the last we'll hear about red light cameras. I'm not sure if the sunset provision for SB1119 is still in there or not, but if it is then the matter will definitely come up again in 2009.
Well, I don't know what this footage of something in Loch Ness shows, but until I see a huge red eye and a long sharp tooth, I'm not conceding anything.
"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45-feet (15 meters) long, moving fairly fast in the water," said Gordon Holmes, the 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video this past Saturday.He said it moved at about 6 mph (10 kph) and kept a fairly straight course.
"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years."
[...]
Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake, viewed the video and hopes to properly analyze it in the coming months.
"I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen," Shine said.
He said the video is particularly useful because Holmes panned back to get the background shore into the shot. That means it was less likely to be a fake and provided geographical bearings allowing one to calculate how big the creature was and how fast it was traveling.
[...]
[T]here have been more than 4,000 purported Nessie sightings since she was first caught on camera by a surgeon on vacation in the 1930s.
Since then, the faithful have speculated whether it is a completely unknown species, a sturgeon -- even though they have not been native to Scotland's waters for many years -- or even a last surviving dinosaur.
Shine doubts that last explanation.
"There are a number of possible explanations to the sightings in the loch. It could be some biological creature, it could just be the waves of the loch or it could be some psychological phenomenon in as much as we see what we want to see," he said.
Maybe it was just Bigfoot doing the backstroke.
The Astrodome Redevelopment crew, who missed a March 31 deadline to demonstrate that they had private financing lined up, then got an extension till the end of May, managed to put something together this time.
"We felt like we complied" with the deadline, Astrodome Redevelopment president Scott Hanson said. "We submitted a package with our financing."Willie Loston, director of the Harris County Sports & Convention Corp., which oversees Reliant Park, said he and other county officials could not say whether Astrodome Redevelopment complied because they haven't had time to review the company's submission.
Loston said he and Mike Surface, chair of the sports and convention corporation, will review the submission in the coming days. They will report to the sports and convention corporation's board on the issue at its mid-June meeting.
"We felt like we complied" doesn't exactly sound like a fully confident pronouncement to me, but we'll see what the county folks think. I'm very curious to see who might be willing to invest in this potentially very white elephant.
Related matter:
Astrodome Redevelopment has discussed building a ramp connecting the hotel parking lot to Loop 610 so hotel traffic wouldn't interfere with other events at Reliant Park.The company discussed whether taxes generated by the hotel could be used to pay for the ramp and possibly other infrastructure improvements needed to operate the facility.
But a proposal to rebate the facility's hotel and sales taxes to the county died in the Legislature last month.
"Any bill that would have helped fund the infrastructure would have been beneficial," Hanson said. "It was disappointing."
The bill's death meant that Astrodome Redevelopment could no longer include contingent plans for some public financing for infrastructure, Hanson said. "We've gone with a different package," he said.
Loston said, "Today, this is a 100 percent privately financed project."
Hat tip to Miya Shay for calling that one last week.
Steve Gilliard, 1966-2007It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog (www.thenewsblog.net), passed away early this morning. He was 41.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
We will post more information as it becomes available to us.
Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us. We will miss him terribly.
- the news blog team
I did not know Steve Gilliard, but I knew and respected his work. His was a strong and original voice, and it will be missed. He was also well liked by his blogging colleagues, as the many tributes to him on the news of his passing attests. My sincere condolences to his family and friends. Rest in peace, Steve.
UPDATE: Jane Hamsher has a personal remembrance.
SB482, whose death in the waning hours of the session has led to some calls for a special session to resurrect it, gets a postmortem in the Chron.
The lobbying that weakened and ultimately killed electric utility reform, clean-air legislation and regulation of the $45 billion buyout of TXU Corp. during the recent legislative session was a friend and family affair.The public focus of the legislation has been on high electric rates and the multibillion-dollar buyout of TXU Corp. in Dallas. Lawmakers wanted to rein in high electric bills while the state's utilities fought anything that resembled renewed government control of a market that was deregulated in 1999.
The utility lobby groups, with 90 registered lobbyists, included a former business adviser to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the brother of Dewhurst's chief of staff, the son of Speaker Tom Craddick's next-door neighbor and a pair of political consultants who have helped at least a third of the Legislature win office.
And that does not mention the fact the teams also included eight former legislators, former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, a former Texas secretary of state and former Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Williamson.
The board of directors for the proposed new TXU also has influence in Austin:
- Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Don Evans is from Midland and is a longtime Craddick friend.
- Plains National Bank Chairman James Huffines was finance chairman of Gov. Rick Perry's 2006 re-election campaign.
- And former Ambassador to Sweden Lyndon Olson is a prominent Waco Democrat who has helped finance a political committee run by House Democratic Caucus Chairman Jim Dunnam.
"Where things fell apart is where they often do: in the dark rooms and back halls of the Capitol," said Tom "Smitty" Smith of Public Citizen, one of the groups pushing for reform. "We don't know whose fingerprints are on the razor."
We can do a better job of recording votes (and you'll get a chance to vote on a constitutional amendment to do just that this November), but conference committees will remain the classic back room. I'd heard some talk after the first call for a special session was made that this was an owner's box deal. Which, whatever the merits of this bill and the means of its death may be, at least gives me hope that we won't have a special to try and pass it again. Sometimes even vice has its virtues.
Really sweet article by Rebecca Traister about a Harry Potter convention in New Orleans. Couple of comments:
1. I hadn't realized that one of the biggest stars of the Potter fandom world, Melissa Anelli of The Leaky Cauldron, is a Staten Island girl. Always nice to see a fellow Islander making good.
2. I've touched on this before, but since Anelli brings it up, I'll discuss it again.
Anelli is heading into what she calls "a summer-long pre-game" of conventions, fan gatherings, wizard rock concerts and movie premieres leading to July 21. But, she said, she is hoping to read the "Deathly Hallows" like a civilian." "Once I get that book in my hands, the world doesn't exist," she said. "This is the last time we can savor these books this way, so I want to make sure I do that."And once she's finished? Well, Anelli has her own book to write. And, she promised, "the site will continue to exist, at least through the movies." But at some point, she said carefully, "You've got to move on. J.K. Rowling is moving on."
"Being alive as the story is being delivered to us is magic," Anelli concluded. "I like that I will always look back on this and be able to say, 'I was there. And you know what? It rocked.'"
I totally agree that being able to say "I was there when" is cool. But I continue to believe that despite Rowling's statements, the last chapter of the Harry Potter saga has not been written. Or, at the least, it doesn't have to be written. Whatever else Rowling may want to do with her life (and if she wants to pull a Gary Larson and dsiappear from the public stage completely to enjoy the many fruits of her labors, I sure won't begrudge her), there's plenty more to be said and done. It's really just a question of whether she'll give other creators the license to explore new avenues with her characters.
3. Traister's observation that "There's not a lot in popular cultural life that's built for smart people anymore. Harry Potter really is." is mostly true, but maybe not as much as she makes it out to be. "Smart" pop culture has always been a niche. It's just that Harry Potter has broken out of nichedom to be its own pop culture behemoth. But there's still plenty of smart stuff out there in the niches, and with all the goodness of the Internet it's a lot easier for people to find the niches that they fit into, which in turn makes it easier for them to thrive and propagate. Just as there's never been a better time to be a sports fan, I think there's never been a better time to have offbeat, small-market tastes, or to be an unabashed geek about something. Whatever it is, you never have to be isolated from others who share your geeky interests.
4. I can totally see the Rowling universe and its adherents turning into a Society for Creative Anachronisms clone. You could make the case they already have, after reading the Traister piece. Hey, if Jedi can be a religion, who knows where this can end up?
Seven weeks till July 21, baby. Seven weeks.
Think you know who will make the Texas Monthly Ten Best and Ten Worst list for the 80th Lege? Take a guess and win a prize.
Patricia Kilday Hart and I are now working on the Ten Best and Ten Worst story for the 80th Legislature. We are offering a one-year subscription to TEXAS MONTHLY for the correspondent who can come closest to predicting our choices. Anyone caught hacking into the magazine's web site, as a certain press secretary did in 2003 (NOT a joke), will be disqualified. Anyone who says that our list is stupid because there can't be Ten Best from this session will be disqualified. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, June 13, at 11 p.m. The list will be made public on the morning of Thursday, June 14. Submit your entries by e-mail to pburka@texasmonthly.com and include a telephone number so that we can notify you if you win.
Remember that Burka and Hart value effectiveness most of all. Legislators who get things done get rated highly; legislators who fumble the ball get pinged. It's entirely possible to go from one list to the other - in fact, I would not be surpised if Robert Talton is a Ten Best recipient this year for his incredibly efficient point-of-order sniping. Ideology is only a factor if it gets in the way of accomplishment, especially if it presents a roadblock to a legislator's own goals.
I'm going to think about this and try to post my own guesses next week. Feel free to leave your own list in the comments.
The Chron's This Week section was a trove of transit stories this week:
Meetings net ideas for neighborhoods
Transit-oriented development could take place in Houston if the urban corridor planning process moves forward as anticipated.The Planning Partnership, a consulting firm that has been working with the Houston Planning and Development Department and hosting corridor workshop meetings around town since mid-April, presented its preliminary findings to residents at a wrap-up meeting May 23 at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
"There will be more opportunities for shopping in your neighborhood, but there will also be opportunities for you to go anywhere in the city and shop," said Rick Merrill, a partner with The Planning Partnership, describing the benefits transit-oriented development can bring.
As the North, East End, Southeast, Uptown and University light rail lines are constructed and begin to connect with the already built Main Street light rail line, the city's planning department aims to create corridors along each of the lines with different standards for development.
The goal is to bring in new businesses and make buildings and the streetscape more pedestrian-friendly.
Join debate on University rail line, speaker urges
East End residents and business leaders focused on Metro's plans for light rail along Harrisburg should keep an equally sharp eye on competing proposals for the University rail line.That's what Neartown resident Robin Holzer, chair of the Citizens' Transportation Coalition, told members of the Houston East End Chamber of Commerce at its infrastructure meeting on Friday.
"I suspect (the University line) hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention in the East End, because mostly it (wouldn't) run in the East End," she said. "But I would argue that it affects you anyway."
H-GAC seeks reactions to transportation plan
The Houston-Galveston Area Council will host public meetings in June regarding the $92 billion in sponsored transportation and related clean air planning and projects identified in its draft 2035 Regional Transportation Plan.The 2035 RTP is the long-range transportation plan for the Houston-Galveston region and serves as the blueprint that will guide the development of transportation systems through the next 30 years, according to an H-GAC press release.
Developed in cooperation with area cities and counties, Metro and the Texas Department of Transportation, the plan identifies long-range transportation needs, prioritizes programs and projects, and provides a forum for dialogue and regional problem solving.
"Every transportation plan serves as a stepping stone for the next plan," said Alan Clark, director of Transportation Planning for H-GAC, in a press release..
[...]
A 30-day public comment period will begin on June 1, during which residents are encouraged to express their views and opinions on the plan.
Written comments can be made online at 2035plan@h-gac.com, faxed to 713-993-4508, or mailed to H-GAC Public Information, 3555 Timmons Lane, Suite 120, Houston, TX 77027.
Community associations, religious and civic groups, and business organizations can contact H-GAC at 713-993-2438 to request a special 2035 RTP presentation.
H-GAC will host five open houses in Harris and surrounding counties.
For meeting dates, locations and times, or for more information, visit www.2035plan.org.
I figure Tory and Christof will follow that last one, but that doesn't mean the rest of us should ignore it. Keep an eye out for those open house meetings, so you won't be surprised by anything they dream up a few years from now.
David Dewhurst is still telling lies.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst considers the legislative session a "success" but also says he regrets the failure of a voter identification bill that split his chamber along partisan lines."I was disappointed we did not get a voter ID program out there," said Dewhurst, who asserted there is evidence of "thousands and thousands and thousands" of noncitizens voting in Texas. "This is a no-brainer."
Bullshit. There is no evidence of this. David Dewhurst knows there is no evidence of this. He just doesn't care. From 2002 to 2005 there were a grand total of twenty-four federal convictions for illegal voting, despite a White House-driven focus on the subject that ultimately led to the termination of multiple US attorneys for not arresting enough Democrats. Our own very partisan Attorney General has been trumpeting his own accomplishments in "voter fraud" by arresting people responsible for a grand total of forty illegal votes statewide (PDF). And all of which were done by mail, thus putting them outside the reach of the voter ID bills that died. If Alberto Gonzales and Greg Abbott can't turn up more than that, I guarantee you David Dewhurst can't either. He's lying. There's no other way to say it.
What David Dewhurst is doing is selling the idea that Democrats are stealing elections from Republicans. That's been the subtext throughout this debate. It all goes back to the Heflin-Vo election contest, when the equally reprehensible and irresponsible Andy Taylor made the same wild and phony charges, none of which he came close to substantiating. This has become an article of faith among Republicans. It's pathetic.
It's interesting, too, how voter ID has suddenly become this great crusade for Dewhurst. Voter ID came up in the 79th Lege, too (thanks to the odious Mary Denny), and it was ultimately killed by Senate Democratic unity, which prevented the original bill from coming up for debate on the floor, a filibuster threat, and a last-minute point of order, both also in the Senate. Read through those blog posts and notice whose name is conspicuously absent in the stories that were reported at the time - David Dewhurst. It's only now, in his third term legislative session as Lieutenant Governor, that he's noticed this allegedly massive crisis and gone into By Any Means Necessary mode to deal with it. What's different this time around? David Dewhurst is now running for Governor, and he has to plan for a contested Republican primary. And so he adopts Tina Benkiser's pet cause as his own.
By the way, since it seems to go unmentioned every time this accursed subject comes up (and I'm as bad about this as anyone), we already require voters to bring identification to the polling places with them. It's called their voter's registration card. What "voter ID" bills like HB218 claim is that this isn't good enough any more. Apparently, all these years we've been doing it wrong.
All of this would be little more than extra incentive for electing more Democrats to the Lege in 2008 if it weren't for the possibility that Dewhurst will get another opportunity to cram these measures through. And there's Sylvester Turner calling for a special session, which is exactly the opportunity Dewhurst would need. Remember, thanks to the 2003 editions, we already have a precedent of no blocker bill in the Senate for a special, which means that a simple majority would suffice to get the bill out of that chamber. But even if Dewhurst failed to invoke that, do we really want to put Mario Gallegos in the position of having to risk his life for another 30 days to keep this at bay? Nothing good can come out of this.
I realize that Turner is calling for a special for other purposes. I'm sure the legislation he wants to bring up again would do some good, even if I have doubts about its genesis. But Sylvester Turner doesn't get to control the agenda for a special session. Governor Perry does, and if you think he wouldn't add voter ID to the call, you're not living in the real world. And it wouldn't just be voter ID, either, but other noxious bills that died on the clock last month - the Shapiro/Patrick anti-abortion bills, Jackson's anti-clean air SB1317, and who knows what else. Is it really worth the cost of seeing those bills pass? I can't see how.
Please. No special session. Make David Dewhurst fight this battle again in 2009, hopefully on less friendly turf for his side. It's much harder to undo bad legislation (*cough* *cough* Trans Texas Corridor *cough* *cough*) than it is to keep it from becoming law in the first place. Don't make it any easier for this piece of bad legislation.
UPDATE: Minor error fixed regarding Dewhurst's time in office. Thanks to Evan for the catch.
Just when you thought it was safe to celebrate the salvation of the West 11th Street Park, you find out that there may be another bullet to dodge.
About a week ago, I posted a press release from Senator John Whitmire's office stating that the remaining monies needed to save the 11th Street Park from development had been added to the state budget and the park was now safe.Um...cough.
I got an email from a VERY reliable source stating that Councilwoman Toni Lawrence said there is a glitch in Whitmire's deal and that the funds may be MATCHING funds still leaving the park some $1.5 million short. There was no mention of this in his victory proclaiming press release.
Gah. I hope this is just a misunderstanding, and that a phone call will clear it up. Cutting the debt in half would have been huge if there were enough time to pay it back, but at this point it's pretty much all or nothing. The difference is chump change for the state budget, but a huge hurdle for park supporters. When I hear how this shakes out, I'll post an update.
Back in 2005, I wrote that the proprietor of the Midlothian Family Network website and an outspoken critic of the cement plants in that area and the Congressmen who let them pollute at will, had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I am extremely pleased to report today that I received an email from Julie yesterday afternoon with the wonderful news that she has been declared cancer-free. Way to go, Julie!
She also included a PDF copy of the D Magazine article from 2004 about her family's experience as a voice against the cement plants in Midlothian. It's a fascinating read, so give it a look.
Prior to her cancer diagnosis, Julie wrote an op-ed piece for the Star Telegram that called on the Dallas Cowboys to support clean air efforts in North Texas by refusing to spend any of the public money they were getting for their new stadium on polluters. Unfortunately, it appears that they didn't listen. Maybe now that they've gotten their Super Bowl, that facet of their construction can get a little scrutiny.
But whatever the case, what's important is that Julie Boyle is healthy. My best wishes to her, her husband and kids for closing that chapter in their lives.
One less contender for the right to challenge Rep. Nick Lampson.
Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace is getting out of politics, at least temporarily.Wallace, who announced last summer he would not run for mayor of Sugar Land again, said Thursday he also has decided not to seek the Republican nomination for Congressional District 22.
"So beset was he with questions regarding next year's race for Congress that Mayor Wallace wanted to set the record straight: He will not run for Congress in 2008," said a statement sent by Wallace's secretary, Rosemary Mascarenhas, late Thursday afternoon. "The congressional seat, currently held by Democrat Nick Lampson, is anticipated to draw a wide range of potential Republican candidates. Wallace will not be among them."
[...]
Ironically, it was only two weeks ago that Wallace disavowed rumors that he had changed his mind about running for Congress in part due to a lawuit filed against him and [Wallace Bajjali Development Partners LP] in January by developer Will Perry, son of uber GOP campaign contributor, swift boater and home builder Bob Perry.
Feels weird to see Wallace drop out like this. It sure seemed like everything he did in 2006 was geared towards his long-awaited candidacy for CD22. You have to wonder what made him change his mind.
As for the rest of the field, we know of one person who's running, much to the delight of political watchers everywhere. Everything else is speculative. I figure the June 30 campaign finance statements might tell a few tales. We'll see.
One of the songs that KACC radio has on fairly regular rotation is "Metro" by The Vincent Black Shadow (music video here, for those who are unfamiliar with it). Recently, every time it has played, Olivia has announced "I like this song". I can't think of any other song for which she has voiced an opinion, positive or negative. So the question for you is, what does this portend for her future musical tastes? If it helps, I like it, too. Does this make me more or less likely to be appalled/freaked out/horrified by the stuff she'll be listening to as a teenager? Please discuss. Thanks.
Will the feds ever listen to the people who will be directly harmed by the stupid and useless border fence?
Mayors, county judges and others up and down the 1,200-mile Texas-Mexico border are pressing the Department of Homeland Security to delay construction, saying community concerns are being ignored.But the government's sense of urgency could intensify because the fence has become enmeshed with the push for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.
[...]
"Absolutely, we have a concern," said Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, head of the Texas Border Coalition. The group of elected leaders is fighting the fence on grounds it is unnecessary, will harm flood-control systems and wildlife habitats, cut livestock off from watering places and harm relations with Mexico.
"We've just got such a wonderful relationship on the border, that's why we hate to see some yahoo in Washington impact it, not having ever seen the Texas border," Foster said.
Politicians embrace the fencing in Texas for political, not enforcement, purposes, said Brownsville Mayor Eddie Trevino, who also worries the fence is on a fast track.
"There is such a mismatch and smoke-and-mirrors that's been utilized in order to scare the American public into thinking that the building of a wall will, in some shape or form, answer the problem of illegal immigration," he said.
Trevino, Foster, Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas and Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas offered a similar complaint: Homeland Security officials are moving behind the scenes to finish fence construction plans despite promises to consult with local authorities first.
After they were promised consultation, Texas officials learned in April of a secret Homeland Security memo pinpointing fencing locations in great detail. Though Homeland Security officials have since dismissed the document as premature, the Texans found out the government already is asking private contractors for bids.
The Senate last week approved an amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, saying the department "shall" consult with local authorities in fencing decisions. But it doesn't give Texas cities any actual power to block the plans.
In other words, no, they won't listen. I attended the same conference call on the immigration reform bill as Jonathan Singer, and I asked about the border fence, which is clearly being pushed as a way to make the Senate bill more acceptable to Republicans. I did not hear anything to contradict my thesis about the fence, or to indicate that there's any push to change the basic parameters of this beast. It's very depressing.
The Houston Press has a great story about the effect the fence will have on the environement, and in doing so to the local economy.
In the last 20 or so years, the U.S. Department of Fish & Wildlife Services has spent $80 million in taxpayer money buying up old farmland, empty lots and any other property for sale along the Rio Grande. Then, with the help of volunteers -- including classes of schoolchildren -- they've gone about replanting native vegetation on it to create a wildlife corridor with a series of refuges. The area is about as biologically diverse as it gets.It's a top birding destination -- and when there are birds, there are 150,000 to 200,000 birders bringing an estimated $150 million a year in trickle-down economics to the area.
The corridor is not only home to many bird species year-round, it is a major flyway for migrating birds moving up and down from North America to Central and South America. It is No. 1 in reptiles and No. 2 in mammals, and it is home to some of the few remaining ocelots and jaguarondi in Texas and the United States.
Now much of that same tract of land is going to be handed over for a fence, wiping out years of restoration work, say a chorus of critics that includes environmentalists, conservationists, farmers and city leaders. Yes, they support secure borders with ground sensors, cameras and whatever high-tech gizmos the feds want to trot out. They want more "boots on the ground." They are 95 percent with their federal government on this.
But what they don't want is a "physical" fence, and the construction work and brush-clearing that would accompany it.
They don't like the symbolism, the stay-out message it sends to their No. 1 trading partner, Mexico. They want to know why the Canadian border isn't getting a fence. They are disappointed that their senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, voted for the fence, but say they hope the two will work to temper the plans to something more reasonable.
They don't like its reality. Besides the fact that they believe it's going to wreak devastation on the environment, they say it's bad for business, both for tourists and for the farmers who may be cut off from their pump stations and water sources in the Rio Grande. They compare it to the Berlin Wall.
They don't like the fact that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff can circumvent the same federal environmental studies they would have to undergo if they wanted to put in a road or a bridge. He has specially granted waiver powers, and if he wants a fence, he gets one -- no matter how many dead birds and ocelots are left behind to clean up.
They can't stomach the representatives they've met in the Department of Homeland Security, from Chertoff on down, who seem to them to be unreasonable, untrustworthy creatures, arrogant in manner and not always inclined to truthfulness.
Most of all, [economic development official Mike] Allen and others want to know why the same federal government -- the one that for years ignored their repeated requests for an interstate ("We're the only area with 1 million population that doesn't have an interstate"), $10 million to repair their levees ("We'll be like New Orleans when Katrina hit) and money to help them improve their public schools -- all of a sudden has untold millions of dollars to plunk down on a fence that none of them want.
Oh, and they don't think it's going to work, either.
Why isn't Homeland Security listening to these people? Why are we wasting this money?