This does not sound good.
A man claiming to have a bomb walked into Hillary Rodham Clinton's storefront campaign office today and took at least two hostages, police and witnesses said. One woman was later released.''We are in close contact with state and local authorities and are acting at their direction,'' Clinton said in a statement. ``We will release additional details as appropriate.''
The man ordered the hostages onto the floor and then released a mother and her baby, said State Police Maj. Michael Hambrook. Two campaign volunteers were still being held, said Bill Shaheen, a top state campaign official.
Witness Lettie Tzizik told television station WMUR of Manchester that she spoke to the woman shortly after she was released and that she was crying, holding the infant.
"She said, 'You need to call 911. A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape," Tzizik said.
Thankfully, it now appears that at least two more hostages have been released, although it's not clear whether there are others. Live video coverage of the situation is here. I sincerely hope that this comes to a safe and peaceful resolution.
UPDATE: It's over, with no one getting hurt. Thank God for that.
(I have asked the candidates involved in next Saturday's runoff to send me a brief statement saying why people should vote for them in that runoff. I will run the responses for candidates for each race concurrently. This statement is from Lawrence Allen in District D.)
My name is Lawrence Allen and I am asking you for your support for Houston City Council, District D. I have been a life long resident of District D, and have given back to the community as a Teacher, Assistant Principal and Principal in District D schools (Dowling Middle School, Jack Yates High School and Jones High School). I graduated from Jones High School and eventually returned to serve as Principal. I am currently serving District D as an elected Member of the Texas State Board of Education. During the last legislative session I represented Houston Independent School District, rallying support for the issues that affect our community schools. As a proud husband and father, I am committed to rearing my children, along with my wife Clothild Allen, in the community. I believe that District D has much to offer, and in the hope that our children will grow up with the same desire to give back to their community.
The people of District D should vote for me because I will always have their best interest at heart. District D is experiencing a change and I want to nurture that change. Businesses are prospering, the community bond is strengthening and I believe that the District is ready for a visionary with new ideas.
I have consistently expressed that my priorities for District D are quality of life (after school programs and park development), housing (mixed income housing and structural integrity), infrastructure (flood control and road improvement) and safety, but above all else, I want the people to tell me what they want. I want to be their voice.
Thank you, Lawrence Allen. Please click here for a statement from Wanda Adams.
(I have asked the candidates involved in next Saturday's runoff to send me a brief statement saying why people should vote for them in that runoff. I will run the responses for candidates for each race concurrently. This statement is from Wanda Adams in District D.)
Today I say thank you to everyone in District D for your support in the general election, and I humbly ask for your vote in the December 8th run-off election. It is a privilege and an honor to have received the most votes of the seven exceptional candidates in the November general election. Voters have shown that they believe that "Experience is the Difference," and experience is needed to improve the quality of life for all residents of District D. Experience is also needed to keep our community moving forward.
Each day that I walk the neighborhoods of District D, I am reminded of what makes our community so great---the people. I have had the honor to meet, work alongside, and befriend many wonderful neighbors in our district. I will consider it a true privilege to serve all residents of District D as their representative on Houston City Council once I am elected.
Helping to create good, healthy, quality lives for Houstonians has always been my passion. Over the years, whether as a student at TSU or as an employee of this great city, I have served the citizens of Houston by working directly with the Super Neighborhoods and the civic clubs of District D to address issues of infrastructure, affordable housing, and to increase constituent services. My commitment to the environment has led me to conduct community education workshops, which educate citizens about recycling and solid waste procedures of the City of Houston. As a result of these efforts, the Mayor asked me to coordinate Houston's "Go Green Initiative."
To best realize the limitless potential of District D, all residents deserve to have a voice. Most importantly, they deserve accessibility to their councilmember who will work not only to confront their issues but to get resolutions for their concerns.
In District D:
I have faith in our ability to create significant economic development opportunities;I have faith in our ability to improve the environmental quality of our neighborhoods;
I have faith in our ability to increase public safety for all citizens;
I have faith in our ability to provide affordable housing options for those who dream of home ownership;
I have faith in our ability to improve the quality of the roads and sidewalks that lead them home.
These issues impact District D every day, and the issues I will spend my time on council addressing.
We must preserve what we love about our community and have the determination to fight for what we believe in. I encourage you to elect me as your council member because I have the wisdom and the skill to make a difference. Experience is the difference!
I hope to have your vote on December 8th.
Thank you, Wanda Adams. Please click here for a statement from Lawrence Allen.
Monday is the official opening of Filing Season for 2008. Rick Noriega will be heading to Austin that morning to do the paperwork for his Senate campaign. You can help send him on his way:
Come join Rick NoriegaMonday, December 3rd, 2007
7:30 am to 9:30 amat Taqueria Del Sol Banquet Hall
8188 Park Place Boulevard
Houston, TX 77017Come join Rick and his family for breakfast as we send him off to Austin to file as a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate.
Contributions are welcome.
Please make checks payable to "Rick Noriega for Senate"
PO Box 231163, Houston, TX 77223-1163.For more information, please contact James Cardona at 713-621-7425
For those of you in Austin, Noriega will be at TDP headquarters (505 West 12th Street, Suite 200) some time after 11:30 for his filing. That event is also public, so come show up and cheer him on.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, predicting voters will see through Democrats' bid to turn health coverage for working-poor children into a "political football," on Tuesday defended his August and September votes against a proposed expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program.Mr. Cornyn said the legislation went too far, cost too much and would place some children who have private insurance onto government rolls.
"There is a question of fiscal responsibility and of how much we want to grow the size of the federal role when it comes to health care," Mr. Cornyn said after visiting a privately run call center for social program signups in Austin.
Mr. Cornyn, a Republican, faces re-election next year. Two Democrats who want to unseat him criticized his call center tour and photo-op, which they said were designed to conceal mean-spirited votes.
"He can use all the semantics and misdirection he wants. At the end of the day, he had an opportunity to vote for working families' children and he chose not to," said state Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston.
Pretty much. And please, let's not forget that along the way, Cornyn was patently dishonest throughout the proceedings. It's all he's got at this point.
Mr. Cornyn opposed the bill, though Texas' other GOP senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, backed it.
One infers from this that Cornyn thinks his senior colleague supports fiscal irresponsibility. Nice to know.
My inner math geek was amused by this story about the annual onslaught of Christmas music from one of the local radio stations.
Chestnuts roast, sleigh bells ring, drummers drum and angels are heard on high in 700 combinations for the next 26 shopping days and beyond on Houston radio station KODA (99.1 FM), one of more than 260 stations nationwide playing Christmas music and nothing but Christmas music through Dec. 25.This is the eighth year the Clear Channel Radio-owned station has put its soft adult contemporary format on post-Thanksgiving Day hiatus in favor of nonstop holiday music, said Sunny 99.1 program director Mark Sherman, who co-hosts the station's morning show with Dana Tyson.
Sherman said the station has about 700 holiday performances in its library. It plays about 20 songs an hour, which means each performance will receive multiple plays over the next month. Sherman, however, said the format never wears on him, even though he's been doing it since 1999.
"Multiple plays"? We can do better than that.
First, do they really play 20 songs an hour? I figure between commercials, promos, and DJ chatter, each hour has about 45 minutes of music. Christmas songs are often shorter than your standard pop offering, but this is an average length of two minutes and fifteen seconds. Is that for real? I'd assume it's more like 15 songs per hour, but hey, he's the program director.
So let's assume 20 songs per hour and run with it. If the total catalog is 700 songs, then they will run through the entire thing every 35 hours. From the day after Thanksgiving (Nov 23) to Christmas is 33 days - if we cheat and expand things to Nov 22-Dec 26, we get 35 days and a simple solution of each song getting 24 plays during the interim. At the very least, each one will get spun a minimum of 20 times. That's a lot of rum-pa-pum-pums, you know?
I'm still at that happy place where I haven't yet been so inundated by Christmas music that I reflexively cringe when I hear it. Probably a good thing for me that KODA is not one of the preset buttons in my car.
I've got to agree with King Kaufman here. This is such a sensible plan for a college football playoff that I can't quite envision an argument against it. Oh, all right, I suppose it means that as many as four teams might wind up playing 16 or 17 games in a season, which might be a bit much for college players. Simple answer: Shorten the season back to 11 games, and ban conference championship games. Or, quit worrying about it since it doesn't much matter anyway. All I can say is I hope I live long enough to see something like this implemented.
I've said before that one of my great regrets as a Houstonian is that in all the times I drove past the venerable Pig Stand on Washington Avenue, I never paid heed to that little voice in my head saying "I really need to try that place sometime". Well, according to Swamplot, I may get a second chance to rectify that.
A Sixth Ward reader writes in with this report from the sneak preview of Beaver's, Monica Pope's new barbecue joint at 2310 Decatur near Sawyer, just south of Washington Ave.:
Tasty food there, nice interior. There is also a rumor (overheard at Beavers from someone that should know) that a man bought the Pig Stand on Washington, and another Pig Stand (my guess the Beaumont one) and plan to reopen them.
The shuttered Pig Stand stands just north of Beaver's, at the corner of Washington and Sawyer. Bring on the roasted animals!
Amen to that! I'll try to keep an eye on this, and if I get my reprieve, I'll make the most of it.
By the way, that description of Beaver's, Monica Pope's new joint, sounds pretty tasty, too. It's here for those of you who think the same.
I've used the kuff - at - offthekuff - dot - com address for as long as I've had the offthekuff.com domain. I still use it today, though I've had it forwarded to Gmail for some months now. Unfortunately, it looks like my webhost is having some issues with forwarding email to Gmail:
Update: (11/29/2007 3:00 PST) We've moved all outgoing gmail forwards to their own server so that they'll have dedicated processing time without affecting the rest of outgoing mail. The outgoing mail queue is still pretty full, but it's steadily decreasing. We're in contact with a Google support representative to get this resolved permanently. Mail to Gmail forwards are being delayed, but they are going through. A temporary workaround is to point your email forwards to a non-Gmail address or local DreamHost mailbox, as those are not affected by the delay. We're sorry for the problems this causes you, and we're doing all that we can to resolve this.
I hadn't really noticed this problem before today, but it's definitely been affecting me. If you've sent me an email to the kuff address today and are wondering why I haven't responded, this is the reason. I'm sure I'll have a pile of mail to wade through tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you need to reach me right now, address your correspondence to cakuffner - at - gmail - dot - com. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks very much.
One HISD Trustee race, in District II, has gone to a runoff. Here's the overview story for that.
Both candidates in the runoff for the District II seat, Carol Mims Galloway and Michael Yarbrough, say they have serious concerns about the consolidations proposed in the Houston Independent School District's $805 million bond package that was narrowly approved by voters this month.They also agree that the district needs to improve vocational education. And Galloway and Yarbrough say they are troubled by the district's performance pay program for employees.
The candidates, however, say voters have a clear choice.
Galloway touts her experience as the District II trustee from 1992-99. Yarbrough says the board needs a fresh face.
[...]
"What sets me apart from my opponent, first of all, is character," said Galloway, who is president of the Houston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "Second of all, my proven commitment in the past for being accessible and inclusive of the community and the constituents I serve."
The Harris County Appraisal District contends that Yarbrough wrongly accepted property tax discounts for years. The tax office says he could owe more than $7,770, plus penalties, for the over-65 homestead exemption he received.
"My paperwork shows something different from theirs," Yarbrough said, declining to comment further.
He said Galloway is more committed to those who encouraged her to run than to the students, and that HISD's high dropout rate reflects on past trustees.
Galloway said she has the support of former candidates Larry Williams, who finished third, and Reginald Adams, who finished last. The other candidate, Charles McCloud, supports Yarbrough.
I thought Reginald Adams was the real fresh face in this election, and I was sorry to see him not get any traction. I'm glad to see he's supporting Galloway, because Yarbrough has a pretty questionable past.
Yarbrough, who graduated from Texas Southern University with a degree in political science, said he would work to reduce dropouts. He also hopes to solicit money from businesses to raise teacher pay.Voters, he said, are not bothered by his past legal troubles. In 2000, he was acquitted on charges that he had accepted an illegal campaign contribution. He also was tried twice on charges that he had accepted bribes in exchange for votes, but both trials ended in mistrials because the juries deadlocked.
Here's an old Houston Press article that goes into that in more detail. I don't have a vote in this race, but if I did it would be going to Galloway.
Even though we just had a second consecutive relatively quiet hurricane season, some people think this one should have been quieter still.
With another hurricane season set to end this Friday, a controversy is brewing over decisions of the National Hurricane Center to designate several borderline systems as tropical storms.Some meteorologists, including former hurricane center director Neil Frank, say as many as six of this year's 14 named tropical systems might have failed in earlier decades to earn "named storm" status.
"They seem to be naming storms a lot more than they used to," said Frank, who directed the hurricane center from 1974 to 1987 and is now chief meteorologist for KHOU-TV. "This year, I would put at least four storms in a very questionable category, and maybe even six."
Most of the storms in question briefly had tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph. But their central pressure -- another measure of intensity -- suggested they actually remained depressions or were non-tropical systems.
Any inconsistencies in the naming of tropical storms and hurricanes have significance far beyond semantics.
The number of a season's named storms forms the foundation of historical records used to determine trends in hurricane activity. Insurance companies use these trends to set homeowners' rates. And such information is vital to scientists trying to determine whether global warming has had a measurable impact on hurricane activity.
The rest of the story, as well as the accompanying SciGuy blog post, is interesting and informative in its discussion of the science and data of hurricane tracking, but I still came away a bit disappointed. The reason for that is that the only mention of how this affects insurance rates is what you see in the paragraph above. Even then I wouldn't pay any mind, except that the potential cost of this hurricane inflation was highlighted everywhere - in the print edition, on the Chron index page, where the headline reads "Rush to name storms may be costing you money", and on the story page, where the subhead is "As season ends, some say center rushes to classify, which costs you". That's an awful lot of emphasis on cost for what we got in the story, which raised the subject then never explored it. I think a followup article is needed here to make up for that.
On the one hand, as the 2007 hurricane season officially ends, it wasn't that bad.
Despite alarming predictions, the U.S. came through a second straight hurricane season virtually unscathed, raising fears among emergency planners that they will be fighting public apathy and overconfidence when they warn people to prepare for next year.Friday marks the official close of the Atlantic season, so unless a storm forms in the next few days, only one hurricane -- and a minor one at that -- will have hit the U.S. during the June-to-November period. Mexico and Central America, however, were struck by a record two top-scale Category 5 storms.
The preliminary total for the season: 14 named storms, six of them hurricanes, two of them major.
That was less activity than the government predicted before the season started, and stands in stark contrast to 2004 and 2005, when the U.S. was hit by one devastating storm after another, including Hurricane Katrina.
[...]
The season's 14 named storms were on the low end of the 13 to 17 government scientists predicted. The six hurricanes didn't reach the seven to 10 forecast. The two major hurricanes were also below the three to five predicted.
Colorado State University weather researcher William Gray was further off the mark. Before the start of the season, he forecast 17 named storms, including nine hurricanes, five of them major, with a strong chance that a major hurricane would hit the U.S. coast.
Humberto, a Category 1 storm that hit Texas and Louisiana in September, was the first hurricane to strike the U.S. in two years. It was blamed for one death and $30 million in damage.
Gerry Bell, a hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the season was relatively quiet largely because La Nina, a cooling of the water in the Pacific that normally boosts the formation of hurricanes, had weaker-than-expected effects.
The government's 2006 preseason forecast proved overly pessimistic as well. Scientists predicted 13 to 16 named storms, eight to 10 of them hurricanes, with four to six of them major. Instead, there were nine named storms and five hurricanes, two of them major.
Bell said that this marks the second "near normal" season in a row. However, storm activity tends to go in cycles, and he said the Atlantic is still believed to be in a more active hurricane period that began in 1995.
On the other hand, if you were outside the US, this hurricane season was very bad indeed.
For a second year in a row, the United States has escaped a severe hurricane hit, pushing memories of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans another notch into the past.But for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, the 2007 hurricane season ending on Friday has hardly been benign.
"No, not at all. The consequences for the poor have been very high," said Judy Dacruz, a representative in Haiti of the International Organization for Migration.
The 14 tropical storms that formed in the Atlantic this season killed more than 200 people in Martinique, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua and Mexico and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to often impoverished and vulnerable communities throughout the region.
[...]
In the Mexican town of Mahahual on the Yucatan Peninsula, Hurricane Dean destroyed a cruise ship pier which had been a key source of income. "Windows, doors, electrical systems -- except for the basic structure of the hotel, everything was destroyed by Dean," said Rodolfo Romero, owner of the boutique Hotel Arenas.
Dean, which became a maximum-strength Category 5 hurricane, killed at least 27 people as it roared through the Caribbean in August and struck the peninsula.
Hurricane Felix in September also became a Category 5 storm on the five-step scale of hurricane intensity, killing 102 and leaving another 133 missing in Nicaragua, according to the Pan-American Health Organization.
Dean and Felix were the first two Atlantic hurricanes since records began in 1851 to make landfall in the same season as Category 5 storms.
The last storm of the season, Noel, soaked the Dominican Republic and Haiti, killing more than 150 people as rivers broke their banks and surged through towns.
"It's been very busy, especially in Central America but also in the Caribbean," said Tim Callaghan, a senior official with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. "We have provided disaster assistance to Dominica, Belize, St. Lucia, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico."
That first story talks about how after two quiet years in the US, folks here are likely to get complacent and less willing to pay attention to warnings and evacuation notices. I can't speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell haven't forgotten our 20-hour odyssey to Dallas from 2005, and I haven't thought it would get any easier now that we have two kids to think about. We were on full alert for Hurricane Dean, and would have hauled ass out of here at what would probably have been a fairly low objective risk level. I don't plan on taking this any less seriously any time soon.
Here's a summary and review (PDF) of the year's activity from William Gray and Phil Klotzbach, the two Colorado State dudes who make the predictions that get the press. Here's their press release if you want the condensed version. And here's a great quote to wrap it all up:
"Meteorologists are known to be absolutely brilliant at after-the-fact explanation of weather phenomena ... but please don't press us too hard on future events!!"
You can freely substitute "political scientists" and "elections" (or, if you prefer, "smartass political bloggers" and "elections") in that statement and it wouldn't be any less true.
The number of motorists nabbed by the city's red-light cameras spiked dramatically last month after the Houston Police Department added 20 locations and began citing illegal turns, records show.The department noted about 27,000 violations last month, more than twice the total in September, according to a review of camera data released to the Houston Chronicle.
The 130 percent increase from September to October was not too much of a surprise, police say, because the state began requiring citations for illegal turns -- and because the new cameras went up at the city's busiest intersections.
"I expected an increase," said Martha Montalvo, an executive assistant chief who oversees officers tracking the program. "I had no idea what the increase was going to be."
[...]
Until now, the number of $75 violations had been decreasing. There were 14,808 violations in May, for example, but only 11,767 in September -- a 20 percent reduction.
The department in late August announced plans to install the additional 20 cameras to alternative approaches at intersections already being monitored. They began noting violations at them in October.
[...]
Police say about 3,600 turn violations were noted in October. The remaining increase came from the new locations, which accounted for nearly half the 27,000.
The new locations were chosen because they are busy. The average per-camera citation total for the original 50 locations was 290 in October. But the new cameras accounted for about 635 citations per approach, on average, according to the data.
There's an accompanying graphic that shows five new cameras accounted for 6212 citations all by themselves. Going by the 290-per-original-camera average cited about, the first 50 cameras generated 14,500 tickets, leaving 12,500 for the new ones. Taking out the top five total, the remaining 15 new cameras nabbed about 6300 violators, or about 420 per camera. In other words, even the lower-volume new cameras were busier than the older ones. I feel certain those totals will decline over time, perhaps sharply, but still. Makes you wonder why these new additions weren't higher up on the priority list to begin with.
The increase in citations, which presumably will bring in millions of dollars to city coffers, could fuel new complaints that the camera program is intended to generate revenue."It's about making money. It's very clear to me it's so obvious," said Randall Kallinen, a local civil rights lawyer. "It's just a revenue machine."
I really can't adequately express how completely unimpressed I've been with the arguments of the anti-camera folks. They've made the "revenue machine" claims all along, and show no sign of abating despite evidence from elsewhere that camera revenues decline over time, not to mention the state law that caps fines and directs much of that fine money to trauma centers. They continue to scoff about the effect on safety even though the bulk of the data we have so far shows that such an effect definitely exists. They carp about signage, as if drivers should need to be reminded that running red lights is illegal and dangerous and can bring undesired consequences, though none have made any claim that the city has failed to comply with state law on the matter. I've said before there are plenty of things about the cameras that ought to concern people, but what we get from the critics is mostly the same tired assertions, repeated over and over. What's strange about this is that in many cases, the things they've complained about were addressed by SB1119, but I never see any acknowledgment of that. It seems to me that if you still believe the cameras are money-grubbing, ineffective, unnecessary, or inadequately signed, you should be directing your ire at the Legislature for not going far enough in that bill, or for not banning the use of cameras altogether, as State Rep. Carl Isett (R, Lubbock) had tried to do for at least the past two sessions. Yet we're hearing the same arguments today as we did when the cameras were first introduced. I don't get it.
Houston. It's Worth It. is now in book form. Houstonist has a conversation with its authors, Randy Twaddle and Dave Thompson. There's also info in there about a couple of "big blowout parties" related to the book, one of which is tonight. Check it out.
John Truitt, the fellow who had told a couple of us bloggers last week that he was going to run as a Democrat in CD07, has now decided to run as an independent instead. PDiddie has the press release. Like PDiddie, I wish him luck with that. I also hope those rumors I've heard of another Dem (or Dems) jumping into this race turn out to be true. Filing season opens Monday, so we'll know soon enough.
Metro has made its decision about the Universities line, but there's still work to do to make sure it's done right. The folks at RichmondRail.org want your help with that.
We are only at the beginning of the neighborhood friendly part of our goal. RichmondRail.org has an important part to play in sharing specific ideas and concerns with METRO as they develop the detailed design of the rail line, and in urging the City and other stakeholders to make important investments in sidewalks, lighting, trees, signage and other improvements that make our streets safe and attractive public places. We also need to continue our commitment to Richmond Ave. businesses to see them through construction.On Tuesday, December 4, we invite you to join us for a special Tuesday Night Out at a favorite Richmond restaurant, Maria Selma. Please come and help us CELEBRATE our successes and ENVISION Richmond Avenue with rail. This will not be our typical Tuesday Night Out. We're expecting a senior official from METRO and representation from City Council to share their views on the role RichmondRail.org has played and can play in the next phase. Bring your ideas - we'll also take time to begin crafting a vision of what will make the University Line the neighborhood asset we all want.
What: A Special Tuesday Night Out for RichmondRail
Hot Hors d'oeuvres & Soft Drinks, Cash Bar
When: Tuesday, December 4, 2007, 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Where: Maria Selma Restaurant, 1617 Richmond Ave.
Reservations: $15 in advance, admission $20 at the door
Click here to reserve your place and pay in advance. When you make your reservation we ask you to also consider making an additional donation. With your help, RichmondRail.org will continue to promote constructive solutions that look towards the greater good of our community and a sustainable quality of life.
Things have been quieter than I expected on this front since the official route announcement. Somehow, I expected more prolonged and pronounced whining. I'm not sure if that's a sign that the opposition was never all that deep to begin with, if RichmondRail made a real impact on those who weren't originally on board with them, or if they're just biding their time for some as yet unknown to me future event. In any event, join in if you can and help make a difference.
I'm not quite sure I understand this.
Art Briles on Wednesday accepted the position as head coach at Baylor, accepting a seven-year deal worth approximately $1.8 million per year."It looks like my tenure here at the University of Houston has come to an end," Briles said. "I'm thankful for the great players, coaches and fans that I've been associated with these past five years."
University of Houston athletics director Dave Maggard said Wednesday that Briles will not coach the Cougars in the Texas Bowl, saying he would name an interim coach by 5 p.m. Maggard also said that a "national" search will begin immediately for a new head coach, but would not specifically identify any candidates.
"I think Art has done an outstanding job here," Maggard said. "We appreciate everything he has done for us."
Briles has four years remaining on a contract extension he signed last year. The reworked contract paid $900,000 per year and could have exceeded $1 million with incentives. That contract has a $300,000 buyout clause that allowed Briles, 51, to accept the Baylor job.
The Bears have scheduled a 5:30 p.m. press conference to introduce Briles as their new head coach.
Okay, the money part I understand. At least, I understand it from Briles' perspective. Why Baylor would want to shell out nearly $10.6 million over seven years on a coach is a bit of a mystery. Can they really afford that? If there's one thing that the Lords of Baseball have learned lately, it's not the annual salaries that kill you, it's the length of the contracts. You can really get stuck down the line with a commodity that's no longer worth anywhere near what you originally paid for it. It doesn't have to work out that way, of course, but it is a risk.
The other thing I don't quite understand is why Briles thinks Baylor is going to be a good opportunity for him.
Briles is replacing Guy Morriss, who was fired Nov. 18, one day after the Bears completed a 3-9 season, their 12th straight losing season, and went 0-8 in the Big 12. Bears went 18-40 overall under Morriss, 7-33 in Big 12 games."I think the challenge is always (a lure)," said Briles of moving on. "That's why you coach. We crossed a few bridges here that haven't been crossed before. I can find comfort in the fact that this program (Houston) is on solid ground. There are some good players in the house here that are coming back and ready to go. We've built a winning tradition here, one that people will be proud of."
The Bears last above-.500 finish came in 1995, when they went 7-4 under coach Chuck Reedy, and they have not been ranked since the second week of the 1992 season when they were No. 24 in the AP poll before a 45-21 loss to No. 10 Colorado. Since joining the Big 12 in 1996, the Bears have gone 11-85 in conference play, winning no more than three games (3-5 in 2006) and getting outscored by an average of 39.2-16.9 in 96 Big 12 games.
How do you compete in the Big XII as Baylor? Briles did a fine job at UH, which as Richard Justice notes is a challenging environment. He may well have what it takes to succeed in a much tougher conference, I don't know. Whatever confidence he's got in his abilties, he's gonna need, that's all I'm saying.
Early voting for the City Council and HISD runoff elections begins today and runs through Tuesday.
WHAT: The second and final round of voting to fill the four public offices.
WHY: No candidate got a majority of the vote in those contests in the first round this month.
WHO CAN VOTE: Registered voters who live in the city of Houston can vote in the only citywide race, for council At-Large Position 5. The candidates are Jolanda Jones and Joe Trevino.
Residents of Council District D in central and southern parts of the city also can vote in the district race between Wanda Adams and Lawrence Allen Jr.
Residents of Council District E in northeast and southeast parts of the city also can vote in the district race between Mike Sullivan and Annette Dwyer.
Residents of HISD board District 2 on the north side can vote in the race between Carol Mims Galloway and Michael Yarbrough.
WHEN: For in-person early voting, 20 balloting stations are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Saturday; 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. Votes may also be cast early by mail.
HOW: For voting information, call the Harris County Clerk's Office at 713-755-6965.
WHERE:
- Main office: Harris County Administration Building, 1001 Preston, 1st floor
- Acres Homes: Acres Homes Multi-Service Center, 6719 West Montgomery
- North: Hardy Senior Center, 11901 West Hardy
- Alief: Alief Regional Branch Library, 7979 South Kirkwood
- Southwest: Bayland Park Community Center, 6400 Bissonnet near Hillcroft
- Near west side: Tracy Gee Community Center, 3599 Westcenter
- Far west side: Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum, 901 Yorkchester
- Spring Branch: Harris County Courthouse Annex #35, 1721 Pech
- Southeast: Palm Center, 5300 Griggs Road (Enter JP/Constable door)
- Astrodome area: Fiesta Mart Inc., 8130 Kirby
- South Houston: The Power Center, 12401 South Post Oak
- Sunnyside: Sunnyside Multi-Service Center, 4605 Wilmington
- Southeast: H.C.C.S. Southeast College, 6815 Rustic
- Clear Lake: Freeman Branch Library, 16616 Diana Lane
- Kashmere: Julia C. Hester House, 2020
- Kingwood: HC Library-Kingwood Branch, 4102 Rustic Woods
- Moody Park: Moody Park Recreation Center, 3725 Fulton
- Northeast: BeBe Tabernacle Methodist Church, 7210 Langley
- Neartown: Metropolitan Multi-Service Center, 1475 West Gray
- East side: Ripley House, 4410 Navigation
Here's a list of the interviews I did with candidates who are in the runoff:
Joe Trevino - At Large #5 - MP3
Jolanda Jones - At Large #5 - MP3
Lawrence Allen - District D - MP3
Wanda Adams - District D - MP3
Annette Dwyer - District E - MP3
I did not have the opportunity to interview District E candidate Michael Sullivan, or either of the two HISD candidates. I am in the process of asking the Council candidates to send me a statement about why you should vote for them in the runoff. I will print those as I get one for each candidate involved in a particular runoff.
In my previous entry on Governor Perry's email retention policy, I noted that the strategy for dealing with John Washburn, the activist who's giving the Governor a pain in the tuchus by making TPIA requests for his office's emails, is to nickel and dime him to death. Well, Washburn is not taking that lying down.
Now Washburn is responding. With a formal complaint to the Texas Attorney General's office.
Dear Mr. Simpson:
I would like to file a formal complaint with the Attorney General of Texas regarding the excessive charges to copy electronic records to electronic media. The charges amount to $568.00 for one CD-ROM worth of data.
As I articulated below, I believe Texas statues and administrative rules only allow for the charge of two dollars ($2.00) not $568.00 as asserted by the Office of the Governor. Attached are the relevant correspondences. I am also mailing the attached to the Austin address of the Attorney General.
As an aside I must say the "itemization" leaves something to be desired. What services exactly am I getting for $567.00?
Washburn also wrote back to the governor's deputy counsel, disputing some of the charges as well as the governor's office contention that Washburn has not paid for his total of seven TPIA requests. Washburn says this is untrue, because he only got an itemization of costs for one of his seven requests.
And here's that letter he sent (PDF), along with a check for $2 and two self-addressed stamped envelopes to cover the cost of CDs and shipping. Read the letter, and you will understand that this guy is Not. Going. Away. I can't begin to tell you how much fun this has been already, and how much the prospect of this being drawn out makes me smile. Here's more from Elise Hu, the Observer blog, and the Star Telegram, which adds this useful fact:
Jesse Wilkins, a records retention expert at Houston-based Access Sciences, last month headlined an "e-records" conference in Austin designed to help state bureaucrats manage records in the electronic era.He said that governments everywhere are grappling with how to balance the requirement for transparency with the need to handle ever-larger inboxes and run an efficient office. There are no hard and fast rules, but Wilkins said there's affordable technology that allows governments to manage clutter, index and archive e-mail messages and ensure that important information is retained.
Wilkins said he didn't know the specifics of Perry's records retention policies, but he said a seven-day delete policy was a bit unusual, even in the private sector.
"In my mind, seven days is not reasonable," Wilkins said. "That strikes me as a very short period of time."
Indeed. Your move, Governor.
Here are your Hall of Fame hopefuls for 2008.
Tim Raines and David Justice head 11 first-time candidates on the baseball writers' 2008 Hall of Fame ballot, joining Mark McGwire, Rich Gossage, Jim Rice and 11 other holdovers.McGwire, his candidacy hurt by suspicions of steroids use, was selected on just 23.5 percent of ballots when he was eligible for the first time in 2007.
When Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn were elected in January, Gossage fell 21 votes shy of the necessary 75 percent and Rice was 63 votes short.Rice is on the ballot for the 14th time and Gossage for the ninth. Players can be on the Baseball Writers' Association of America ballot for up to 15 years.
Gossage's percentage increased from 64.6 in 2006 to 71.2 in 2007, while Rice's declined from 64.6 to 63.5. The highest percentage for a player who wasn't elected in a later year was 63.4 by Gil Hodges in 1983, his final time on the ballot.
Raines was a seven-time All-Star who played 23 seasons and batted .294 with 2,605 hits and 808 steals, fifth on the career list. He was the 1986 NL batting champion.Justice was the 1990 NL Rookie of the Year and a three-time All-Star. He had a .279 average, 305 homers and 1,017 RBIs in 14 seasons.
Brady Anderson, Rod Beck, Shawon Dunston, Chuck Finley, Travis Fryman, Chuck Knoblauch, Robb Nen, Jose Rijo and Todd Stottlemyre also are first-time candidates. The five-year waiting rule was waived for Beck, who died June 23.
Other holdovers (with their 2007 vote percentages) include Andre Dawson (56.7), Bert Blyleven (47.7), Lee Smith (39.8), Jack Morris (37.1), Tommy John (22.9), Dave Concepcion (13.6), Alan Trammell (13.4), Dave Parker (11.4), Don Mattingly (9.9), Dale Murphy (9.2) and Harold Baines (5.3).
Rijo retired after the 1995 season and appeared on the 2001 Hall ballot, when he received one vote. He then returned to the major leagues and pitched for Cincinnati in 2001 and 2002, making him eligible to go back on the ballot.
Well, that's something you don't see every day. My ballot would have Raines, McGwire, Gossage, Blyleven, Trammell (whom I'd clearly been underrating, based on his JAWS score), and Tommy John, based more on my continued affection for his days as a Yankee than anything else. For those of you who are still carrying a grudge against McGwire, here's my case for him from last year. Like David Pinto, who thinks this is the Goose's best shot at induction, I hope the voters were just delivering a message to McGwire last year, and not making a final decision.
More than 49,000 ineligible voters on Texas rolls, the headline blares. Sound scary to you? Consider this:
More than 49,000 people on the Texas voter registration rolls in May may not have been eligible to vote, state auditors reported today.The ineligible voters included 23,114 possible felons, 23,576 people who were deceased and 2,359 voters with duplicate records. The auditors said the ineligible voters represented 0.4 percent of the state's 12.3 million registered voters.
In other words, a headline reading "Fewer than 1 in 200 registered voters are ineligible" would be equally accurate. But not nearly as scary.
Putting it another way, the closest statewide election in the last 10 years was the 1998 contest between Carole Keeton then-Rylander and Paul Hobby for Comptroller. Rylander won by 20,000 votes, so had each of these felons and dead people participated (and assuming they were either felons or dead back then), they could conceivably had tipped the election to Hobby. Of course, if we assume that felons and dead people turn out at the same rate as other registered voters, then the 36% of the 49,000 of them would not quite have been enough to affect the outcome, even if they all voted for Hobby. Point I'm making is that in context, this is a very small number.
Obviously, the Secretary of State and the various county officials have done a pretty good job of keeping the voter rolls up to date. Frankly, the truly scary prospect is that they're so good at cleansing the rolls that they've been (accidentally or otherwise) throwing perfectly legitimate (i.e., non-dead, non-felon, non-duplicate) people out as well. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone is keeping track of how many such disenfranchised voters there may be, so we've no basis for comparison. But we should at least bear it in mind.
UPDATE: Here's the fuller version of the story.
State auditors found more than 49,000 potentially ineligible felons and dead people on Texas voter rolls this year, but did not find that any cast ballots in May's special election.The audit report released Tuesday said that there may be even more potentially inaccurate voter information but they were unable to check for U.S. citizenship status or federal felony convictions or verify records that lacked a Social Security number and Texas driver's license number.
The audit recommended that the Secretary of State's Office do a better job of matching criminal conviction and death records with the voter list.
Although there were no instances found of potentially ineligible voters casting ballots in the May 12 special election, auditors noted the "relatively low 7 percent voter turnout" for that special constitutional amendment election to extend a school property tax cut to senior citizens and disabled homeowners.
The audit also found inadequate security controls over a new computer system that maintains voter records and weaknesses in data backup that increase the risk of prompt and full recovery of data from a disaster.
Scott Haywood, a spokesman for Secretary of State Phil Wilson, said the office has implemented many of the auditors' recommendations but wants to be careful about wrongly removing anyone from voter rolls.
He noted that the auditors were unable to verify that the 23,114 possible felons and 23,576 possibly deceased voters actually should be removed from voting lists.
"We can't remove someone from the voter roll unless it's a strong match because we don't want to take away an eligible voter's right to vote," Haywood said.
[...]
Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said the audit didn't find any fraud had occurred in the May election. He said the ID requirement could suppress turnout among many Texans who are eligible to vote.
"Every time someone says, 'Show me the fraud,' there isn't any," said Coleman.
So there you have it.
Christof takes a look at the Bissonnet Tower controversy, and asks just what it is we're aiming to do about it.
To start with, the residential part of this project isn't actually a traffic issue. Bissonnet is a major arterial; it carries 17,720 cars a day. The proposed 230-unit tower would increase the number of units on the site by 163 (there are 67 apartments there today). Assuming that each unit would create 4 trips a day, and half of those trips would head in each direction, that would increase the number of cars on the street by 2% -- a trivial number. A purely commercial project could have worse traffic impacts -- but the ordinance wouldn't apply to it, nor even to a high-rise office building.And what does lane count have to do with anything? Greenbriar in this neighborhood is 3 lanes, but it's congested, too, and presumably the people living in nice houses with secluded backyards there don't want a highrise next door, either (they just fought a two-story dental clinic). Conversely, there are two lane streets where a big highrise would be appropriate.
The real issue here isn't traffic; it's scale. There's an important discussion to be had about how big or tall a building is appropriate in a residential neighborhood. There are good ways to write ordinances addressing these issues -- so-called form-based codes. But because the neighborhood is talking about traffic, and because City Council feels politically comfortable addressing traffic, we're debating a traffic ordinance based on faulty assumptions.
So we might ask whether the ends justify the means: is it OK to block a bad project by equally bad arguments?
[...]
Development policy ought to have two goals: it should automatically block projects that have unacceptable impacts, and it should make it easy to build projects that don't. As long as we depend on neighborhoods to organize to stop a project, some neighborhoods will be unable to organize in time. And as long as we make it more difficult and risky to build, we make projects more expensive and chase even good development out of the city.
But the only way we'll get a better set of ordinances is if we have the right conversations. If we're concerned about buildings being out of scale, let's talk about that. If we're concerned about traffic, let's talk about traffic. But let's not talk traffic when the issue is scale.
I agree completely.
Tory reminds me that there were a couple of letters to the editor on Sunday that called for the stadium-seeking Houston Dynamo to be united with the purpose-needing Astrodome. We've been over this before, but let me reiterate the key reason why this ain't gonna happen: The Dynamo have no interest in using the Dome. The franchise relocated here from San Jose because they wanted their own stadium and couldn't make it happen there. They're putting up their own money to cover somewhere between 75 and 90% of the cost of that stadium. There's no way on earth that they will suddenly decide they're better off as tenants in a cavernous, out of date venue, no matter how much nostalgia there is for it. It makes no sense.
Now, if the Dynamo were seeking a publicly-financed stadium as our other franchises had done a few years ago, then I could see this. But given how much public opinion has turned against such largesse, don't you think Mayor White and Judge Emmett would prefer the Dynamo's mostly privately financed venture to a taxpayer-funded refurb/retrofit of the Dome for them? Maybe I'm misreading the save-the-Dome sentiment out there, but I don't think people have factored a multimillion-dollar expenditure into their thinking.
Finally, regarding the issue of air conditioning versus the Houston summer, I say the Dome's utility bills would be another negative from the Dynamo's perspective. Why pay to cool off 60,000 people when your high-end attendance estimates are in the 25,000-30,000 range? And as for the summer weather, I have two words: night games. They do open the roof at Minute Maid when the sun goes down, you know.
Seriously. Dome/Dynamo - not gonna happen. If the hotel idea won't fly for the Dome, they're going to have to think of something else.
So early this morning I got a press release from HOPE about a radio ad they plan to run that highlights issues with the Houston Emergency Center (HEC).
Houston public employees are calling on the city to fix long-standing problems at Houston's 9-1-1 call center in radio ads starting Tuesday morning on five local stations. To hear the ad and read about the sources behind it visit: www.HoustonWeHaveAProblem.com/news (The ad is running on Sunny 99.1 FM, KILT 100.3 FM, Majic 102.1 FM, K-Hits 107.5 FM and NewsTalk 740 AM.)"Three independent reports have told the city the time has come to fix serious problems at the Houston Emergency Center," said Jere Talley, a civilian employee of the Houston Police Department and a member of the Houston Organization of Public Employees (HOPE). "Instead of paying these critical workers a competitive wage, the city has tried to fill holes with part-time high school students."
Starting pay for Houston's 9-1-1 call takers is 25 percent less than for emergency dispatchers at the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Houston's call takers have a turnover rate 35 percent higher than the national average.
HOPE is seeking to raise the substandard pay of HEC employees and other city workers in ongoing contract talks with the city. A recent City of Houston study showed that Houston public employees have the second-worst pay among eight Texas governments surveyed.
A transcript of the ad is here, and there's a link to listen to it as well. You may as well click over and check it out, because later in the day, I got this release:
City of Houston officials are trying to quash radio ads that highlight long-standing problems at the city's 9-1-1 call center.This afternoon high-ranking city officials called the Houston Organization of Public Employees (HOPE), which produced the ads, demanding that it stop running the spots. The ads note that the Houston Emergency Center (HEC) is using high school students to fill staffing holes on its 9-1-1 lines.
"This kind of censorship would threaten public safety and we won't let that happen," said Norm Yen, president of HOPE. "Instead of dealing with this critical problem, the city is trying to cover it up. But we're going to fight and make sure that Houston's citizens have emergency services they can count on."
This is all a bit strange, since as yet another HOPE email pointed out, the fact that high schoolers take 9-1-1 calls is not exactly a secret. I don't know whose idea it was to try to quash the ads, but that sort of thing never works. I'll be surprised if there isn't some kind of public disavowal of that. Stace has more.
Via Eye on Williamson (who is not surprised to hear it), Texas Weekly and now Postcards from the Trail are reporting that State Rep. Mike Krusee (R, Round Rock), who barely cleared 50% running against the underfunded Karen Felthauser last year, will not run for re-election.
Krusee, 48, is set to announce his retirement, effective at the end of his term in January of 2009, in a written statement released later today.Krusee, who had served in the House since 1993, had been rumored to be in line for a gubernatorial appointment, possibly to the Texas Transportation Commission, because of his legislative work on toll roads. But a source close to the situation says state law forbids the appointment of a legislator to any job requiring Senate confirmation during his term in office.
That would mean Krusee would not be eligible for most state appointments until the end of his term.
Krusee had already drawn a strong opponent in Diana Maldonado, who is now being supported by Annie's List. His departure will move this race up the profile charts. It'll be interesting to see if the Republicans nominate someone as pro-toll road as Krusee was, or if they tacitly admit that was a loser for them and find someone with a bit more nuance on the issue.
Of course, you can't talk about this sort of thing without also mentioning Speaker politics. As Elise Hu notes, Krusee gave a long anti-Craddick speech at the end of the spring session, which was interpreted by some as a "So long and thanks for all the fish" moment. Postcards paints a more convoluted picture:
"Questioning leadership is the highest privilege this body has," Krusee said that night as Craddick looked on. "And it belongs to the body, not to the presiding officer."Yet this summer Craddick attended a Krusee fundraiser, raising speculation that the two former allies had settled their differences. On several occasions this summer Krusee insisted he would be running for re-election.
So much for that. Let's pay close attention to the Republicans that get in the primary to replace him. It should be obvious who Craddick's preferred choice will be.
Meanwhile, moving over to East Texas, Rep. Mike "Tuffy" Hamilton in HD19 has drawn an opponent that could give him a tough race, former Vidor Mayor Larry Hunter. The name Vidor obviously carries some baggage, but I'm told that Hunter spent his time as Mayor trying to get the city past that. We'll see how he does. This has the potential to be a competitive race, as Hamilton has never done better than 57% in his three previous elections, and both Bill Moody and Dale Henry topped 45% in the district last year. Democratic gains have mostly come in urban and older suburban areas lately, so this will be a departure from that formula. I'll keep an eye on this one.
UPDATE: More on Krusee from Karen Brooks.
UPDATE: And more on HD19 from PDiddie.
Since I'm sure someone is going to send me this link, I figure I'd better blog it now and get ahead of the curve.
Tulsa has filed a formal complaint with Conference USA over the Rice marching band's performance of "Todd Graham's Inferno" during halftime of Saturday's football game in Houston.Graham left Rice for Tulsa after just one season. His Golden Hurricane defeated Rice 48-43 to win the C-USA West Division title. Tulsa plays Central Florida for the conference championship Saturday.
The band's show depicted a search for the former Owls coach through different circles of Hell -- based on Dante's "Divine Comedy."
The Tulsa World reported Tuesday that the show ended by calling Graham an offensive name over the public address system.
That would be "douchebag". Here's the script. The bit in question is at the very end, our walkoff line:
Announcer:
You know, that reminds me of a joke: A priest, a nun, and a rabbi walk into a bar. Now, I forgot how the rest of it went, but I think in the end Todd Graham is a douchebag.Ladies and gentlemen, the two-thousand seven Marching Owl Band. Please send all complaints to: your mom at mob dot rice dot E-D-U.
I should note that the "your mom at rice dot edu" address did once belong to an actual MOB member, and that we've used it in a script before. I don't know if it still works, but that's not really important right now.
Back to the story:
"We filed a formal complaint with the conference and that's where it stands now," Tulsa athletic director Bubba Cunningham said. "I talked to their AD (Chris Del Conte) this morning. Our conversation was very cordial and he said to do what we thought was appropriate."Cunningham said sportsmanship has been a point of emphasis in C-USA.
"When we don't meet those standards, we need to look at ourselves as a league and find how we can make that experience better," he said.
I'll leave that one open to your suggestions. Beyond that, I'll just say that this one will go down as one of my favorite shows ever. It was totally worth freezing my butt off for.
Chron reporter Carolyn Feibel, in response to the badgering of a persistent red light camera critic, did some research into their effectiveness, and blogged about what she found. Bottom line is that most of the studies she located indicated that red light cameras reduced serious accidents and total injuries, though there was often a smaller accompanying rise in rear-end collisions. There's plenty of links there, so go see for yourself. To answer Carolyn's question at the end, yes the city needs to fund its own study. In fact, they're required to provide a written report to TxDOT as specified by SB1119, authored by State Sen. John Carona (R, Dallas), which was the bill that granted cities the authority to assess civil penalties for red light violations caught by cameras and which was passed this session. From the bill:
Sec. 707.004. REPORT OF ACCIDENTS. (a) In this section, "department" means the Texas Department of Transportation.(b) Before installing a photographic traffic signal enforcement system at an intersection approach, the local authority shall compile a written report of the number and type of traffic
accidents that have occurred at the intersection for a period of at least 18 months before the date of the report.(c) Not later than six months after the date of the installation of the photographic traffic signal enforcement system at the intersection, the local authority shall provide the department a copy of the report required by Subsection (b).
(d) After installing a photographic traffic signal enforcement system at an intersection approach, the local authority shall monitor and annually report to the department the number and type of traffic accidents at the intersection to determine whether the system results in a reduction in accidents or a reduction in the severity of accidents.
(e) The report must be in writing in the form prescribed by the department.
(f) Not later than December 1 of each year, the department shall publish the information submitted by a local authority under Subsection (d).
In theory, we should be seeing that report soon.
And speaking of persistent red light camera critics, Kevin Whited left the following comment to that post:
Here's something also to consider -- if we have identified certain intersections as extremely dangerous (dangerous enough for the cams), wouldn't it make sense heavily to publicize the fact that those intersections are under surveillance?The current signage is minimal. If an intersection is dangerous enough for cameras, I would think it would also be dangerous enough for maximum signage warning people that they will be ticketed for running a red light in that intersection, to raise awareness completely (after all, if it's ALL about safety, then we can't go far enough to deter/educate those evil red-light runners, even if it means fewer citations!). But so far, the city has resisted that approach....
Well, Kevin, if all the news coverage of the red light cameras plus the Chron's nifty map of their locations is insufficient for you, then SB1119 and HB1052, authored by State Rep. Bill Callegari (R, Houston), address your concern. Here's the text from HB1052, which amended Chapter 544 of the Transportation Code to add Section 544.012:
(c) The municipality shall install signs along each roadway that leads to an intersection at which a photographic traffic monitoring system is in active use. The signs must be at least 100 feet from the intersection or located according to standards established in the manual adopted by the Texas Transportation Commission under Section 544.001, be easily readable to any operator approaching the intersection, and clearly indicate the presence of a photographic monitoring system that records violations that may result in the issuance of a notice of violation and the imposition of a monetary penalty.(d) A municipality that fails to comply with Subsection (c) may not impose or attempt to impose a civil or administrative penalty against a person, including the owner of a motor vehicle or an operator, for a failure to comply with the instructions of a traffic-control signal located at the applicable intersection.
You've probably seen one of these signs at the camera-enabled intersections. If you don't, then the city is in violation of this law, and can be enjoined from collecting the fines it imposes. Similarly, if you think the signs that are there don't meet the requirement that they be "easily readable to any operator approaching the intersection, and clearly indicate the presence of a photographic monitoring system that records violations that may result in the issuance of a notice of violation and the imposition of a monetary penalty", then that's a violation of the law as well. In either case, I recommend doing something about it, like writing a letter to City Attorney Arturo Michel to point out the failure to comply with the law, and then blogging about it. If instead you think the city is complying with the law but that the standard set by that law is too lax, I suggest you contact Sen. Carona and Rep. Callegari with your complaint and urge them to address it in the next legislative session. And if you think the city should do more, above and beyond what state law requires them to do, well, that's your right. Take whatever action you think is appropriate.
UPDATE: Changed some of the wording in the last paragraph for clarity.
Have we all recovered from the Thanksgiving weekend? Here's a few non-leftover Texas Progressive Alliance posts from Turkey Day Week to help get you back into the swing of things. Click on for more.
Dealing with recalled toys that contain lead is putting a damper on charities' holiday toy drive efforts. Muse discovers some charities are not accepting toys or are throwing donations away.
Despite the Dallas Morning News article claiming the Texas Railroad Commission is stepping up Barnett Shale inspections, an injection well in N. TX remains seriously out of compliance. TXsharon has pictures, history and solutions at Bluedaze.
Who wont be President in 2009? John Coby at Bay Area Houston compiles an obvious list of Who wont be President in 2009 Any Republican candidate. The Republican party must have worked overtime to find this bunch of losers for President. White. Old. Dull.
McBlogger takes a brief look at the concerns of a Republican Bexar County Commissioner who doesn't realize the Republican Party of Texas is already known as the Tolling Party of Texas.
North Texas Liberal reports on President Bush's loss of an ally in staunch conservative PM John Howard of Australia, whose Liberal Party lost handily to the Labor opposition in Saturday's elections.
The Texas Cloverleaf visited Capitol Annex for Thanksgiving with a guest blog about Turkey, Football, and JFK. Oh my!
Off the Kuff looks at mass transit versus highways for dealing with traffic congestion.
Vince at Capitol Annex reprises his holiday tradition begun last year by reprising his Laws of Thanksgiving--with a 2007 update.
In "Giving Thanks for the Corporations", PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has a few choice words from David Van Os, Jeff Cohen, and John Edwards.
WCNews at Eye On Williamson notices the conspicuous absence of Rep. Mike Krusee since a rumor surfaced that he may be retiring in Where's Krusee?
CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme notes Lyndon Johnson was right, but demographics are having the last laugh.
Noting the arrival of Netroots Nation in Austin next year, the Morning News surveys the liberal blog scene in Texas, with a little link-love thrown in for me and a few of my colleagues. It's a good read, but I wouldn't be a blogger if I didn't have a nit to pick:
It's still unclear whether bloggers can translate their activism into votes, though. Nationally, they took credit for Democratic wins in 2006 congressional elections. Some of their highest-profile efforts - on behalf of 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean and against Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman - have flopped, although those races showed the bloggers' potential.
Howard Dean's rise in 2004 (really, 2003, since his candidacy was more or less toast after Iowa and New Hampshire) was certainly fueled by blogs and online activists, but that was a fairly special case in that it was really its own separate infrastructure. There's an establishment to the liberal 'sphere that existed in smaller form back then, and the Dean Nation movement was for the most part not part of that. On the other hand, Dean's subsequent ascension to chair of the DNC was very much an effort pushed by the wider community.
As for Lieberman, he did lose in the Democratic primary, which was the goal at the time the Lamont movement caught fire. He is still in the Senate, of course, so that does count as a failure, but then so are Jim Webb and Jon Tester, both of whom first had to survive primaries against establishment candidates. I'd argue those two races - Webb's in particular - were at least as high-profile as the battle in Connecticut, and should be given equal weight when evaluating bloggers' won-lost record.
Here in Texas, we've followed all kinds of races, and I'd claim a share of the success the Democrats have seen in State House races for the progressive bloggers. I wouldn't claim we've got more wins than losses, but then we get invested in candidates with longer odds of winning than the national folks do. The bottom line is that people know who we are and they take what we do seriously. We intend to build on that.
Anyway, that's my nitpick. Now go read the article, it's good stuff. In the Pink has more.
Why I support Mayor White's efforts to crack down on area polluters, in 25 words or less:
Some of Texas' biggest industries have an important ally in trying to keep the Environmental Protection Agency from ordering nationwide smog cuts: the state's top clean-air officials.
Yes, it's as screwed up as it sounds. Read it and try not to wheeze.
Elise Hu has a fifth entry in her series called "The Purge", on how Governor Perry's office disposes of email, possibly in conflict with Texas' open records laws. (See here, here, and here for background.) Along the way, Perry has picked up a bit of a thorn in the side, a fellow who has taken advantage of the fact that the Governor's office will retain emails for which a public information request has been made. We pick up the story from there:
Twice a week for the last three weeks, open government crusader John Washburn has sent out a TPIA request for the governor's office emails, excluding constituent mail. He received an itemized response from the Governor's Deputy General Counsel this week, with charges for FOUR DAYS worth of emails:31.5 hours of staff time at $15/hour = $472.50 (to compile and redact emails)
Overhead at 20% of staff charge = $94.50
CD for compiled material = $1
TOTAL for four days worth of emails = $568The letter from the Governor's office once again encourages Washburn to narrow his request to save money.
I'm not sure which surprises me more, that staff time is only billed at $15/hour (try to find that in the private sector), or that they added in a dollar to cover the cost of the CD. It's pretty clear that the Governor's office has realized it can't easily extract itself from this situation, so they're taking the approach of hoping to nickel and dime the guy until he cries uncle and goes away. Hu notes that Perry requested and then withdrew (both PDF) an opinion from AG Greg Abbott about its responsibilities, so I'd say they've conceded the point but not defeat. We may have to start a fund to ensure that this tactic doesn't work. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: The Observer blog has more.
Washburn could be looking at an open records request fee total of more than $2,000 per month -- and Perry's office also noted that a failure to receive the funds would result in automatic withdrawals of outstanding requests, along with a note that no disclosure of the records requested would begin until the governor's office receives a "deposit."What was Washburn's reaction?
"I laughed at it, to be honest with you," he says. "It is exorbitantly high."
Washburn says he knows exactly what he asked for, and he knows that it can be easily obtained.
"How hard can email extraction be from a server?" he asked. (I must admit thinking about that for a minute. Perry's office is claiming 31.5 hours of staff time at $15 per hour, which results in the bulk of the $568 figure. What will those staff members be doing during those hours? We called Perry's office and they said they'd get back to us with more details.)
Washburn asked for the emails in their original, digital format. There is a question as to how such documents can be redacted, and for that matter, what is the logic of the redactors?
Washburn, who has a history of open records activity in Wisconsin, Florida, and now Texas, says he has never before encountered a charge for staff time, although it is standard in the Lone Star state.
He did tell me that he was surprised by what he called Perry's 'gambit.' He said he thought Perry would take the 'drag-it-out' approach to stifling records requests.
"Before, I thought it was just going to be stretched out," Washburn says. "Now, they're hoping that I won't come up with the money."
So far, Washburn has requested the governor's emails from preceding days on Nov. 6, 9, 13, 20, and 23. The objective, Washburn said, was to stop a pro-forma email destruction policy that Perry's office had in place -- and which it said it inherited from Governor George W. Bush.
Washburn does have a plan to thwart Perry's latest move, but it will take another post to assess its merits.
To answer the "how hard can it be?" question, it can be complicated and time-consuming if we're talking about restoring data from backups - the architecture of Microsoft Exchange makes it more involved than simply pulling files off of tapes. Here, we're basically talking about dumping people's Outlook Inbox to a PST file, which is a trivial task. I suppose redacting could take some time and effort, but that does seem to be a high figure budgeted for it. Anyway, I look forward to hearing what Washburn's plan to "thwart" the Governor's gambit will be.
I've mentioned before that there just don't seem to be as many Democratic Congressional challengers this year as there were last year. Not sure why that is, but it's definitely noticeable. There's still time, of course, but it just feels like most of the action is going to be in other races next year.
So I was pleased to have the opportunity recently to meet John Truitt, who is announcing his candidacy for CD07 as a Democrat. I've also heard some rumors lately that one or more other Dems may be jumping into CD07 as well. Truitt's website needs to be redone, but that's easy enough to fix. He came across well in person, and has clearly given a lot of thought to a variety of issues. I look forward to seeing him at events in the future, and if other candidates do get in, I look forward to a vigorous debate about how that district can best be represented.
I'm including a copy of his press release beneath the fold. Has anyone heard anything about other districts? Filing season begins next week, so it's getting to be now or never time.
Former CNN "radio rebel" talk show host launches petition drive to run as DemocratA little over four weeks after his show on CNN650 Radio News (KIKK-am) was cancelled, John Truitt is starting a petition drive to get his name on the ballot in the Democratic primary election next March as candidate for US Representative from the 7th Congressional District in Houston.
"I've been a business consultant and lived in our district for over thirty years," says Truitt, "and I've spent the past four years studying the issues and listening to fellow Houstonians of all political persuasions on the air. I believe I know more than the incumbent Republican Congressman John Culberson does about how people in my district feel about the issues. After four terms he may know what all the Republican leaders, big money contributors and lobbyists in Washington want, but he's completely out of touch with the people back home he's supposed to represent. My neighbors want a Congressman that knows us, and represents all of us; not just the wealthy or some far right-wingers in the Republican Party."
"If you're rich you're happy and you're getting richer," Truitt says, "but the rest of us are not happy, because we're really feeling the pinch of runaway inflation in higher gasoline, energy, food and healthcare costs. And while the cost of everything is soaring, the value of the dollar is falling. Yet even during wartime, the politicians in Washington can't overcome party stand-offs to tackle these and other issues like the war, illegal immigration, homeland security, caring for our veterans, social security, wasteful spending, and on and on."
"I believe it's time to stop all the partisan bickering during wartime," Truitt adds, "and I know my neighbors feel the same way. If I'm lucky enough to get elected, I'll work with all parties to find smart, sensible solutions to the real problems our country faces today."
Senator Trent Lott has resigned in order to "spend more time with his family". All I can say is that he lasted longer than Robert Eckels. Enjoy your new life as a lobbyist, Trent. It's what you've been working for all these years.
Side note: Will Lott's departure mean a more prominent and visible role in the Republican power structure for John Cornyn? That could be fun.
The new business tax won't be collected for another six months, but there's already a media campaign being waged against it.
Radio ads in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and Houston draw on tidal waves and scary movies to make a point about something they paint as just as frightening: Texas' new business tax."It's the difference between a tiny drop and a tidal wave. Because of the new Texas Margins Tax, small-business owners may see a slight drop in property taxes, but their business tax will increase up to 1,000 percent," says the script for one of the ads by the National Federation of Independent Business.
A second ad begins, " 'Tax Rage in Texas.' It's not a scary movie. It's a scary development for small-business owners across our state. Many small-business owners are seeing their tax bill increase 200, 400, even 1,000 percent!"
The campaign is a membership drive for the small-business group, but it's also an effort to urge legislative changes to the expanded business tax part of a package that also lowered local school property tax rates, and to make the tax a top 2008 campaign issue.
"I don't know how on Earth someone can run for election saying, 'Hey, you're not making money. Give the state a little extra money,' " said Will Newton, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business/Texas.
[...]
The new business tax, which replaced the franchise tax, is based on gross receipts -- either 1 percent or half a percent, depending on the type of business -- with deductions for cost of goods sold or employee benefits.
Backers say the new tax is fairer, bringing businesses into the system that weren't paying. They say companies that will owe higher business taxes must also look at whether that's offset by lower local school tax rates. They cite adjustments made this year meant to benefit smaller businesses.
"The goal ... is to keep Texas business-friendly," said Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. "We certainly in the Legislature strove to protect small business."
Keffer bristles at the ads, contending that NFIB/Texas "did not come and really try to work with us on any of this. Pretty much they were against the whole process."
Whatever. Look, the new business tax isn't the end of the rainbow. It's got to be a better idea than the pointless, almost-never-collected franchise tax, but it was designed for a purpose it couldn't ever fulfill, which was the ridiculous property tax cut. I can't say it's good public policy, because our entire outdated, jerryrigged tax structure in this state is bad public policy. It may be the best we can do given that a complete overhaul of the system isn't in the cards, but if so it'll be more by accident than design. Sooner or later, something is going to give, and when it does it won't be pretty.
None of this is to say that I have any sympathy for NFIB/Texas and its whining. They're not interested in solving problems, they just want to not be taxed. The line for that one forms to the left, fellas.
I think Lance Armstrong did a good job in getting Prop 15 through the Legislature and then approved by the voters. He did the hard work necessary for such an endeavor, he leveraged his celebrity and his life experience, which were his two biggest assets as spokesman for the measure, and in the end he got the job done. I'm not surprised that in the afterglow that stories like this, about what kind of future he might have if he chose to pursue politics fulltime, are now appearing. But I think a little more thought needs to be given to the matter, because I'm already seeing some potential red flags.
"He's got the political DNA without a doubt," said Cathy Bonner, an aide to former Democratic Gov. Ann Richards."He's an extremely fast learner," said Ms. Bonner, a board member at the 1997 launch of Mr. Armstrong's anti-cancer foundation who last year came up with the idea of a $3 billion bond issue for research after Ms. Richards died of cancer of the esophagus.
"When you travel with him, it's a rock star kind of thing - and to use those sorts of skills politically is also a talent," Ms. Bonner said. "The skills are there if he wants a political career."
Mr. Armstrong declined to be interviewed about what, if any, political ambitions he has.
Stumping for Proposition 15 last month, Mr. Armstrong said that as a private citizen who is not linked to either political party, he's more effective urging more spending on cancer research and - in a new addition to his message - more affordable health insurance so more people can receive preventive care and be diagnosed early. However, Mr. Armstrong declined to rule out a future run for office.
[...]
Ms. Bonner, the architect of Proposition 15, and state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said they would like to see Mr. Armstrong run for public office.
They use words like "authentic" and "heart" and "incredible potential" to describe Mr. Armstrong, who was born and grew up in North Texas.
But neither claims to know Mr. Armstrong's intentions about running for office - or for that matter, whether he's a Republican, Democrat or independent.
"He transcends those labels," said Mr. Watson, who like Mr. Armstrong survived testicular cancer. "Most people get that trying to find a cure for cancer - trying to make sure that people who are touched by that beast are able to live full lives - that's not about labels."
I'm always leery of claims that someone "transcends party labels". The simple fact of the matter is that if you're going to make a serious run for office in this state, you're going to have to do it as an R or a D, and once you claim such a label, you can't really transcend it. Neither side will let you - one will demand that you wear it with pride, while the other will try to make it be a negative. That's the nature of our system, and it ain't gonna change.
That doesn't mean he can't appeal to people in each party, as well as independents. There are plenty of such politicians in Texas today. It's one thing to do so on an already-popular, genuinely bipartisan effort like Prop 15. But if you want to be Governor or Senator or some such, people are going to want to know how you feel about things like immigration, abortion, and taxes. Sooner or later, you've got to pick a team.
None of this is to suggest that Lance Armstrong couldn't be a successful politician if he wants to pursue that path. He's got plenty of Elvis in him, he's likely to have name ID and favorable numbers that anyone would kill for, he's a proven fundraiser, and he's clearly got some skills. All I'm saying is that an actual partisan race is a very different animal from what Armstrong just experienced, and sometimes the skills don't translate from one type of race to another. History suggests that candidates who try to rise above partisan politics - the Adlai Stevenson types don't do so well at the ballot box.
One last point: It's not clear to me that Armstrong couldn't accomplish more for the issues he cares about as a lobbyist/activist than he could as an officeholder. Right now, he can focus exclusively on what he cares about the most, he can pick his fights, and he can maintain his status as a transcender. If cancer research and funding is his thing, I'd probably advise him to keep doing what he's doing. Just a thought.
Some see bumps ahead, though, should Mr. Armstrong decide he wants to be governor, U.S. senator, maybe even president.The Proposition 15 campaign "sounds sort of like a low-cost test run" of a candidacy, "where you see both how good you are at it and how people respond to you," said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson.
"It's not a particularly good test because you're on a feel-good mission and you don't have [a campaign's] nastiness and the partisan slash and burn," Dr. Jillson said.
He said that just as Mr. Schwarzenegger in his 2003 gubernatorial race fended off sexual harassment allegations and reports about possible past drug use, Mr. Armstrong's divorce and highly publicized dalliances with rock star Sheryl Crow and actress Ashley Olsen could complicate any bid to win political office.
"I think what Lance Armstrong would have to think long and hard about is what people would make of the end of his marriage," Dr. Jillson said. "Mostly it would be the way the marriage ended, as opposed to playing the field afterwards."
Well, yeah, there's that, too. Some people with colorful pasts have a harder time with them than others, but it's a consideration. It's also my understanding that Armstrong wasn't even a registered voter prior to 2006. The oppo research has not yet begun on Armstrong, that's all I'm saying. Only he can say if that's a concern or not. State of Mine has more.
You know, I just love a good David versus Goliath trademark fight.
Mambo Seafood is taking on the mightier Michelob in a beer brawl.The fight began in 2003 when the local seafood and Mexican restaurant chain filed a trademark application for its Mambo Michelada -- a combination of beer, lime juice, salt and the company's spicy michelada mix.
Michelob owner Anheuser-Busch Cos. responded to that U.S. Patent and Trademark Office application, saying the Mambo Michelada will damage its name.
"The term Mambo Michelada is confusingly similar to the brand name Michelob," said Frank Hellwig, one of Anheuser-Busch's attorneys -- in the only comment the company provided for this article.
Mambo attorney Daniel Schein, though, argues in court documents that Michelob is pronounced "mick-a-lobe" and the Mambo Michelada is pronounced "mom-bo mee-chee-la-da."
As was the case with Star Bock Beer, I'm with Mambo Michelada. Frankly, I think they've got a stronger case, too.
The lager is not popular with Mambo's mostly blue-collar, Hispanic immigrant customers, said Mike Ho, Mambo owner and president, and he doesn't stock it.Mambo does, however, buy about $200,000 worth of other Anheuser-Busch beers a year, according to depositions.
"We've never had an instance where our customers ask for a michelada and we bring them a michelada and they say, 'No, I meant Michelob.' That's never happened," said Robert McKinley, Mambo's chief operating officer.
[...]
Mambo has spent more than $100,000 thus far fighting for the Mambo Michelada, which Ho said he brought to Houston in 1996.
"Back in '96, there was no michelada in Houston," Ho said. "People are using it more now."
Ho's Mexican stepfather introduced him to the michelada, a beer-based drink popular south of the border.
The words michelada and chelada come from the Mexican slang for beer, or chela, said one beer analyst in Mexico City, who follows Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo, which is half owned by Anheuser-Busch.
Some say chelada. Some call it michelada. Some add tabasco sauce or other ingredients, depending on the part of Mexico where the drink is made, the beer analyst said.
"It depends on the region. We call anything that has beer and lime a michelada," said the analyst, who did not want to be identified.
"Obviously, it's very ironic, an American company trying to have the exclusivity on that name," the analyst said.
Ironic, perhaps, but not the least bit surprising. My best wishes to the Mambo folks in their legal battle.
From the weekend, the Statesman lays out the issue of Rick Perry's RGA troubles.
Even by Texas standards, the Republican Governors Association's argument that it isn't a political committee is absurd. Not only absurd, it's obscene.Just before last year's election, the association gave Gov. Rick Perry $1 million in his hard-fought bid for re-election. But the group didn't report the donation to the Texas Ethics Commission as required under Texas law. And Perry didn't list the individual donors behind the large gift.
Turns out that most of that money came from controversial Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, who has had his fingers in a lot of GOP fundraising pies in recent years. Bob Perry's money was behind the scurrilous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth political ads that undercut Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry in 2004.
Now the governor is saying that concealing Bob Perry's name was an oversight, a clerical error. And the Republican Governors Association is saying it isn't a political committee, so it didn't have to disclose the donors. Sorry, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
This year-old episode not only quacks, it stinks. And Travis County Attorney David Escamilla is reviewing the circumstances of the two $500,000 contributions dumped into Perry's treasury in the final two weeks of the campaign.
[...]
In addition to a possible $2 million penalty, the candidate accepting the money also could be guilty of a criminal misdemeanor. That is a heavy weight hanging over Perry's head.
More bizarre still is the Republican Governors Association's argument that, although it raises and donates money to GOP candidates, it isn't a political committee. The law isn't precise in its definition, says Ben Ginsberg, the association's attorney.
He argues that Texas law wasn't properly crafted to include every entity that might contribute to a candidate. If the law is so flawed that a political committee that gives $1 million to a candidate for governor isn't defined as a political committee, then that law needs a serious overhaul.
The courts aren't likely to agree with Ginsberg and the governors association. Indeed, if the Republican Governors Association isn't a political committee when it contributes to candidates, then nothing is. And millions in secret donations can flood Texas elections.
This has the potential to be all kinds of fun. I'll be keeping an eye on it.
From last week, more signs from EarthLink that they are done with the municipal WiFi business.
Three years after Mayor John Street announced that Philadelphia would be the first major U.S. city to have its own wireless Internet network, the project has been beset by delays and cost overruns.It's also been set back by a restructuring at EarthLink Inc., the Atlanta-based Internet service provider that won a 10-year contract to set up and manage the network.
The project took another hit on Friday as EarthLink said it was considering "strategic alternatives" for its municipal Wi-Fi business -- corporate jargon that could mean a sale.
Shares of EarthLink rose by 13 cents, or 2 percent, to $7.27 amid heavy volume on Friday.
Terry Phillis, Philadelphia's chief information officer, said EarthLink is still committed to completing the Wi-Fi network in the city but it's less clear who will own it afterward. Philadelphia could take the network over and find another company to operate it.
[...]
EarthLink paid Houston $5 million for missing the starting deadline for the city's Wi-Fi project and had been mulling whether to walk away. The company's announcement on Friday puts the investment in limbo. Richard Lewis, the city's chief information officer, said EarthLink's investment was estimated at $40 million to $50 million.
"We will not devote any new capital to the old municipal Wi-Fi model that has us taking all the risks," Rolla Huff, EarthLink's chief executive, told analysts in August. "In my judgment, that model is simply unworkable."
Doesn't sound good, does it? The question is what it means for the cities that currently have deals with EarthLink. Via WiFiNetNews, the Philly consortium that had bid against EarthLink for that contract offers its interpretatation of what it all means.
I propose that the statements by EarthLink's CEO actually send two messages; In addition to the classified ad above, which might have the effect of soliciting parties who want to get in on a fire-sale, it also opens the door for cities where EarthLink has agreements and performance obligations to renegotiate terms - the most meaningful of which would relate to anchor tenancy - as a way to avoid less desirable outcomes under an Assignment.
I don't think the idea of city WiFi is dead. I think it's got enough merit and enough support to survive EarthLink's change of heart. The question is what model will take the place of the current one. Thanks to Dwight for the links.
The last of the three City Council runoffs to get an overview story is in District D, and it gets a pretty decent story for its wait.
The runoff for the District D seat on Houston City Council will be won and lost along Cullen in the southern reaches of the city. For this is where candidates Wanda Adams and Lawrence Allen Jr. have their storefront campaign headquarters, 12 blocks apart.The area also is where both candidates have worked on some of Houston's grittier problems, earning their credentials as grass-roots public servants. Cullen, its empty storefronts and busted sidewalks intertwined with signs of redevelopment and neighborhood pride, symbolizes a district full of need and promise.
Adams, on leave as a coordinator of the city's Go Green Initiative for recycling and other environmental programs, has the support of the district's outgoing councilwoman, Ada Edwards. At least three other council members are in Adams' corner, along with former Mayor Lee Brown.
Allen, on leave as special projects coordinator for the Houston Independent School District, where he rose from wood shop teacher to high school principal, is backed by at least four of the five candidates who did not make the runoff produced by the Nov. 6 election.
Allen also is an elected member of the state Board of Education, having replaced his mother, state Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston, who is helping him in the city campaign.
[...]
The candidates differ somewhat on property taxes, though -- an issue that has echoed at City Hall.
Rejecting conservatives' call for a substantial tax rate cut, City Council recently lowered the municipal property tax rate by an eighth of a cent to 64.37 cents a year per $100 of assessed value. That would result in a savings of $1.25 on property with taxable value of $100,000.
Adams, 40, said homeowners deserve a tax rate cut, especially if rising property tax payments threaten to make their residences unaffordable.
"We can come up with ways to see if we can bring it to a medium," she said, meaning the city should carefully balance its property tax needs against the ability of homeowners to pay.
Allen, 46, said the city should not be afraid to try to ask for justifiable tax increases.
"If the people understand the needs of the city (to improve services), they will not object to contributing more," he said. "We do it in church every Sunday; we trust in something good."
Asked how he might do things differently from the outgoing councilwoman, Allen said "there are some tremendous disconnects" between district residents and City Hall, and that he would work to bridge the communication gaps.
Adams, on the other hand, said she would operate differently from Edwards by opening a branch service office in the Fort Bend County part of the district.
All due respect to Wanda Adams, but I'm with Lawrence Allen on the question of city taxes. Having said that, I'll pull a Peter Brown here and say that both candidates are fine by me. I fully expect that whoever wins will do a good job.
I just have one question regarding this article about the hip, trendy, environmentally-conscious email sig making the rounds these days:
Stephanie Fessler doesn't drive a hybrid car, compost her orange peels or bring her own reusable cloth bags to the supermarket.But two months ago, Fessler joined countless other business people in doing one environmental good deed daily. At the bottom of every e-mail she sends, she includes this message: "Save Trees. Print only when necessary."
"This is something I can contribute in my crazy busy life," said Fessler, 29, who works for a Los Angeles public relations company. "It reminds other people about environmental awareness and reminds me on a daily basis."
The trend took off last March, when the environmental Web site www.TreeHugger.com encouraged readers to add the don't-print plea to their automatic e-mail signatures.
Since then, the message has spread beyond the granola-and-Birkenstock crowd to the cubicle armies of corporate America. Architects, airline employees and even button-down accountants have gotten in on the act, as have companies such as media giant News Corp.
The parent of Fox Television offers employees a catchy admonition that riffs on the company's "Cool Change" environmental initiative: "Be cool, consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to."
My question is why were any of these people in the habit of printing emails in the first place? Seriously, what purpose does that serve? I understand there may be job functions that require printing emails for legal or other business reasons, but as this campaign is clearly aimed at those who choose to print emails, I have to ask, why in the world are you doing that? I truly don't understand.
Look, I've had corporate email in one form or another for almost 15 years. I think in all that time, I've printed maybe 100 or so of them. Mostly it's stuff related to travel - confirmation emails for conferences, classes, hotels, flights, that sort of thing. Once in awhile I get directions from someone, and I print those to bring in the car with me. The very occasional receipt for expense accounting. Beyond that sort of thing, I've never felt the urge to print, and can't imagine why anyone else would.
So please, help me understand. Why do you print emails? What purpose does it serve? Or is it just an old habit you've not broken? Might this campaign have an effect on you? Help me to get it, because I just don't. Thanks.
I appreciate Tory's summary of his views on transit, which I find largely agreeable. I don't know if he was specifically responding to my critique of his prior post about the Houston Area Survey data on transit or not, but no matter, it's good to advance the conversation.
As I said, there's nothing in what Tory is saying that I find objectionable. It's true that you get a high return on the investment in highway throughput, and Houston has certainly stayed on top of that - pretty much every highway in the region has been widened, is being widened, or has a plan to be widened in the works. I don't see what more we can reasonably do on this score, and yet I don't think anyone would argue that our traffic congestion issues will be solved when all of these projects have been completed. The reason for that is what I said before - there's an awful lot of non-highway driving done in Houston.
I presume this is common sense, but let's go over it anyway. There's a lot of densely populated areas in Houston that just aren't that close to a freeway, and getting to them - or getting between them - often means taking longer routes to utilize whatever highway is closest, or driving on the heavily congested surface roads. I'm talking about places like the Medical Center, much of Montrose, the Rice Village, pretty much everything in the box bounded by Richmond and Westheimer, and Fountainview and Gessner - you get the idea. The key point to understand is that there is no road widening that can be done to help any of this, because it's simply not feasible to do it. The only possible remedy is mass transit.
To my mind, this should not only be common sense, it should be considered a natural and vital consequence of the way Houston is growing right now, which is in the direction of infill and increased density. I read yesterday's story about the two luxury towers being planned for the corner of San Felipe and Voss, and I was amused that the only concern the developers expressed about their impact on the neighborhood was the shadows they'd cast. I don't know about you, but I've driven through that intersection, and let me tell you, traffic sucks there. The addition of a couple of high-rises isn't going to help. We're going to see more of this kind of development, in other already-dense parts of town, and as I see it, the only way any of this makes sense is if there will be viable transit options that allow people to leave their cars at home, so that the city doesn't become a complete gridlocked mess.
Note the use of the word "options" in the sentence. No transit system is ever going to eliminate the need for cars - if one did, we wouldn't have cabs or programs like car sharing. I often hear transit opponents and skeptics talk as if a system can only be considered successful if it gets people to stop driving altogether. Ridiculous! Transit is an option, and if it's done well, people will use it. Even if it takes a bit longer to get where they're going, even if they have to (gasp!) walk a few blocks, they'll use it. The Main Street line has proven that, and I think the rest of the 2012 Metro Solutions system will do so as well.
All of this is a longwinded way of saying that highways and transit shouldn't be thought of as an either-or choice. Each solves different problems, and each is an incomplete solution by itself. We need both, and if we see the Metro 2012 Solutions plan though, we'll have done a good (though not fully complete) job of providing both.
The Austin Lounge Lizards and Consumers Union, who banded together two years ago to bring us The Drugs I Need and It's Always Christmastime for Visa, have done it again with a new song and video about toy safety, an issue that's closer to my heart these days than before. I can't actually tell what the name of the song is, but as it's the Lizards, it's worth listening to regardless. Or, if you just want to know what it's about, click here. Thanks to Grits for the pointer.
There are four local races remaining in the 2007 election season, and as of today we've gotten overviews for two of them. First up is in District E, where Kingwood's Mike Sullivan is up against Clear Lake's Annette Dwyer.
Voters who do come to the polls will have to decide between two candidates with largely similar views on key issues and who disagree with some of the more controversial policies of Mayor Bill White.Both candidates, however, have pledged to work more closely with the administration under Houston's strong-mayor system -- in contrast to [Addie] Wiseman, a frequent critic.
That at least somewhat addresses a point I raised about the prospects for Mayor White to have a smooth final term. We'll see what that means in practice.
The two candidates have divergent backgrounds and they split, in varying degrees, on other issues.Dwyer, a former Harris County economic development worker, now supports the city's red-light camera program, though she said she probably would not have voted for it originally. But she wants engineering studies to show that the signals are timed to increase safety. Sullivan says he is "strongly opposed" to the cameras.
Sullivan, who owns a marine and industrial paint company, also does not support Safe Clear, the mayor's mandatory freeway towing program. Dwyer says she would like to study whether it has been worth the $3 million annual cost.
There also is some division on the idea of a drainage fee to fund overdue projects in District E and the city. Sullivan said he would not support the idea, though he supports a "strong" capital-improvement plan. Dwyer is noncommittal, but said she might support a fee if the revenue was placed in a dedicated fund with identified projects spread fairly across the city.
"People should not have to live in this fear of repeated flooding," she said.
The endorsement game is splitting along geographical lines, as I noted on Monday. Will Williams is in Sullivan's corner, while Manisha Mehta has come out in favor of Dwyer. Watch those turnout numbers during early voting to get a feel for who's going to win this one.
Endorsements and turnout projections are pretty much the entire story of the At Large #5 overview, which spends more time analyzing what happened in the general election than it does on any issue the candidates might want to discuss. It's true, as the article says, that Jolanda Jones and Joe Trevino are ideologically very similar, which may be why both of them managed to get the endorsement of Council Member Peter Brown, as both Matt Stiles and Greg Wythe have noted. But last I checked, same values != same priorities, and so it might have been nice to know what sort of thing the two candidates are emphasizing as they prepare to rally their troops to the polls. Maybe we'll get that story after one of them gets sworn in.
One last thing:
Trevino hopes his personal success and professional experience might sway the critical swing bloc -- Anglo voters."I have managed multimillion-dollar budgets," he said. "As a school administrator, I have experience working with people. You hire, you fire, you select, you train, you transfer and you always look for the best match for every position.
"I've always surrounded myself with people that are smarter than me," Trevino added. "If you can do that without being threatened, you can be very, very successful."
Jones also is emphasizing her up-by-the-bootstraps biography and coalition-building résumé.
"I've had sufficient life experiences, world travel, professional experiences to be able to listen to the citizens, negotiate with other council members," Jones said. "I have run a business since 1998," she added, referring to her law practice.
Jones has spent years working on local causes and building bridges with various constituencies. She joined the Mexican-American student group at the University of Houston as an undergraduate, the Asian-American group during law school and marched with Hispanic janitors when they went on strike last year.
"This is the problem with term limits: You have two very good candidates running against each other," [Rice political science professor Bob] Stein said. "Why? Because they won't run for anything but an open seat."
On that point, I wholehertedly agree.
I thought term limits were a bad idea when I first heard about them in the 1990s. It always seemed to me that everything you might reasonably hope to achieve with term limits you could get instead by some kind of campaign finance reform measures aimed at narrowing the financial gap between incumbents and potential challengers, without taking away the people's right to re-elect someone they approve of and want to keep in office. Houston was caught up in this trend in the mid-90s, with three two-year terms imposed as the maximum a city officeholder could serve for that office. Every now and then someone makes noise about changing that law, which is currently a part of the city's charter, but so far no action has been taken.
So, while I don't expect anything to happen this time around, I nonetheless wholeheartedly endorse Chris Bell's column in the Examiner, in which he makes the case for change.
In the early '90s, most members of the City Council and Mayor Kathy Whitmire had been around for years. The whole "new blood" argument was a big seller and the measure was passed and then strengthened to take away any loopholes.Now what we have, for all intents and purposes, are six-year terms for all city office holders. An incumbent has not been defeated since 1999. Most incumbents face only token or no opposition regardless of performance. That seems completely counter to the original purpose of clearing out dead weight. Now dead weight is basically ensured a spot until three terms have expired.
Because everyone knows they will be there for only a limited period of time and have very little inherent power to begin with, members of council have been effectively neutered.
The mayor still has to get seven council members to go along with him, but that's not terribly difficult since the mayor of Houston has extraordinary inherent powers -- only New York's mayor has more -- and every road at Houston City Hall leads through the mayor's office.
It has made "go along to get along" a mandate at City Hall and while that might sometimes be a good thing, other times it's not.
People should want members of city council to operate with a certain degree of independence and under the current system, that's strongly discouraged and next to impossible.
Term limits also create a sort of artificial democracy whereby openings are created for city office not because someone is retiring or is doing a bad job and needs to be replaced but because of an arbitrary time limit that folks back in the '90s decided would make everything better.
At first, it created a lot of interest and enthusiasm but all that has clearly waned. Now, after suffering through one of the most boring elections in the history of man and seeing a lower degree of interest than many thought imaginable, it's time for term limits to become term limited.
The unelected incumbent was Jean Kelley, who succeeded her husband John in District G, then was ousted by Bert Keller. Since then, going by the City Secretary election archives, I count all of three elections featuring an incumbent in which the incumbent had a real chance of losing:
- In 2001, Bell and Orlando Sanchez forced Mayor Lee Brown into a runoff, where Brown won a close match against Sanchez.
- In 2003, Peter Brown took Council Member Shelley Sekula-Gibbs to a runoff, where she prevailed by a close margin.
- And in 2007, Council Member Sue Lovell won by six points over perennial candidate Griff Griffin.
That last one is basically an accident, as the result had nothing to do with Griff or his campaign. Given that we have ten or eleven races featuring an incumbent each cycle, that's over fifty such elections from 1999 on, and a total of four among them that could be considered competitive. Whether you like the term limits we have or not, I don't think you can call that a good thing.
If it were up to me, I'd throw the whole thing out, and finance a pool of money to serve as matching funds for small-dollar donors to candidates. That would incentivize grassroots campaigning, and make it more feasible for a little-guy candidate to make a serious run. If you insist on having some limits, I'd argue for something like six terms, which allows for an officeholder to accomplish something, yet still face the possibility of a strong challenge should he or she prove to be ineffective. Naturally, I don't expect this to ever happen, but it's what I'd do anyway if I could. What do you think?
(Crossposted from Kuff's World.)
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay may not be in a leadership position on Capitol Hill anymore, but that doesn't mean he can't weigh in on the current GOP leadership.DeLay told Yeas & Nays that Republicans in Congress are "looking for something to believe in" and "they're not getting it out of this Republican leadership. ... The leadership just isn't getting it."
"They're looking for some backbone," said DeLay, who also chimed in on the 2008 election. He said the Republican party is "going to get our clocks cleaned in 2008" and unequivocally said that "Hillary [Clinton] will be the next president." Which ought to give DeLay's newest projects, the Coalition for a Conservative Majority and a consulting firm called First Principles, LLC, plenty to do.
DeLay gave us is his dour assessment at a book party for former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, which was held at the Georgetown home of former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman. The party was a virtual "who's who" of the conservative movement: Lynne Cheney, Liz Cheney Perry, Scooter Libby, David Keene, Vin Weber, Grover Norquist, Barbara Comstock, Armstrong Williams, Mary Matalin, Ramesh Ponnuru, John Fund, Byron York and Kate O'Beirne.
But, lest you think that The Hammer is about to start playing for the other team, he did poke fun at New York Times columnist -- and favorite conservative punching bag -- Paul Krugman: "I'd like to bitch-slap him."
To think that people used to fear this guy. What a sad sack.
DeLay also ruled out another stab at politics, even if GOP fortunes reverse: "I'm 60 years old, I'm through."
I'm thinking that age may not be the only factor in that. Call me crazy. Thanks to Sadly, No! for the catch.
I think I know what to get Tiffany for Christmas now.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will perform April 14 in Houston, for the first time in more than five years. More information on the venue and on-sale date is expected Nov. 29.The iconic rock hero is currently performing in the U.S. and will head overseas before returning stateside in the spring.
Springsteen's current album, Magic, entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1 and has sold more than 1 million copies. It currently sits at No. 27 after six weeks.
My guess is a Toyota Center date, with the possibility of a second show. Ticket prices are ranging from $65-$95 in most cities.
Long as they don't get into Hannah Montana territory, I'm in.
I think everyone already knows what I'm thankful for this year, but just so we're sure:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm one hell of a lucky guy. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from me and mine.
So. How do you stuff your turkey? 'stina wants to know. We were a bread-based stuffing family when I was growing up, but I'm an avid devotee of the Italian sausage/rice/fennel stuffing that was Tiffany's grandmother's recipe. That recipe has been bequeathed to Tiffany, so it's in very capable hands now. I can eat the leftovers for days. In fact, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. If you'll excuse me, I need to ask someone when dinner will be.
So this is what a campaign based on a "battle of ideas" looks like. I'd always wondered about that.
Ray McMurrey, 42, is a government and history teacher at a Gates Foundation Early College High School on the Del Mar College campus. He joins Houston state Rep. Rick Noriega in the race for the Democratic nomination to take on Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the general election.McMurrey admitted his campaign is short on cash and lacks the backing of the Democratic Party establishment. But he said he plans to crisscross the state meeting with county chairs and Democratic groups.
"Why should a teacher who is educated and qualified be excluded from the process because of a financial situation and money?" McMurrey said.
He wasted no time in openly criticizing Noriega.
"We do not win by replacing a corporate Republican with a corporate Democrat," he said.
McMurrey noted that Noriega has been a government affairs specialist for CenterPoint Energy Inc. in Houston. Noriega currently is on leave from that job.
"Why is the Democratic establishment endorsing my opponent, a big energy, natural gas, fossil fuel representative while you are asked to pay $3 a gallon for gasoline," he asked.
McMurrey also criticized Noriega, a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard, for once supporting the war in Iraq. He also criticized Noriega for taking $7,000 in campaign funds from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, who helped pay for attack ads against Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004.
Keep those ideas coming, dude. You'll win us all over in no time.
Just curious here, but who exactly is excluding whom from anything? Last I checked, if your check for the filing fee clears, you can enter the primary. Or, you can gather the 5000 signatures (as Rick Noriega is doing) and save yourself the money. I admit, being aggrieved about the fact that nobody loves you is cheaper and easier. As a strategy, it's pretty limited. But good luck with it anyway.
Yesterday's celebration of the Dynamo's second consecutive MLS championship turned into an impromptu rally in favor of Dynamo Stadium.
Also present were several Houston City Council members and Mayor Bill White, who congratulated the team but not before enduring chants of "Where's our stadium? Where's our stadium?" from many of the more than 2,500 in attendance."If you don't like Dynamo soccer, you don't like sports," White said.
Minutes earlier, Councilman Adrian Garcia had gotten the crowd going.
"Let's make it (a stadium) happen," Garcia said.
As I said before, if it doesn't happen now, I don't know when it ever would. I predict it'll happen by Tuesday next week. Could be sooner, but I figure they won't want to make such an announcement over a holiday weekend. We'll see.
In that previous post, a commenter asked the quite reasonable question "Why can't they play at the Astrodome?" I can't think of any reason why they "can't", in the sense that there's no legal issue that would bar them from doing so, but I can think of at least four reasons why they wouldn't and won't:
1. The fan experience at the Dome would be lousy. Going by the capacity of the stadium they want to build, the team expects its average crowd to be in the 10,000 to 20,000 range. At that size, the Dome would be like a cavern, and its seats would be too far from the action.
2. Given that expected crowd size and what I figure the operating costs of the Dome (think air conditioning), I'd have my doubts that the Dynamo could cover their operating expenses. It would certainly not be optimal, and likely not desirable for them to be in that position.
3. Even if the Dome were a good fit for them, it would still require some upgrades and maintenance to be suitable for regular dates. I attended a couple of concerts at the Dome during its last Rodeo, and it struck me then as being in sad shape. The county isn't going to want to pay for this, and it makes no sense for the Dynamo to do so either, especially when they can pursue a new venue for what's likely to be about the same cost.
4. The Dynamo don't want to be tenants. The reason the franchise moved here from San Jose was because they wanted their own stadium, which they couldn't get out there. Why would they abandon that goal now?
So there you have it.
UPDATE: Miya has pictures.
Trash talking in sports, especially between fans of rival teams, is a time-honored tradition. But as in all things, there are lines that shouldn't be crossed. Via Racy Mind and the Library Chronicles, I'd have to say that making Katrina evacuation jokes, especially in Houston when the New Orleans Saints are in town, counts as one of those lines. Call me a stick in the mud if you must, but I just don't find that at all funny. Please don't do that again. Thanks very much.
More good news for Dan Barrett:
The Texas League of Conservation Voters (TLCV), a coalition of Texans committed to clean air, clean water, and access to public lands, water, fish and wildlife, has endorsed Dan Barrett for state Representative in the District 97 Special Election run-off."Dan Barrett is the candidate most committed to cleaning up Fort Worth's air, holding polluters accountable, and ensuring that Texas leads the way toward an independent, clean, and sustainable energy future ," said TLCV's executive director, Colin Leyden.
"Unlike his opponent, Dan Barrett has pledged to support a new vision of Texas politics. He rejects the dangerous and extreme ideology that claims we can't have cleaner air, that climate change isn't real, and that we can't have both a strong economy and healthy environment," said Leyden.
In responses to a TLCV District 97 questionnaire, Barrett indicated his support for the following issues that are important to TLCV and conservation voters:
- requiring power plants up-wind of Fort Worth to significantly reduce NOx emissions in order to reduce the burden on local businesses;
- requiring the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to consider cumulative impacts of new coal plant permits in conjunction with all other pollutant emitters;
- working with nearby cement kilns to adopt and meet the best emission control technologies and standards being met by other cement kilns in the U.S
- and helping Texas reduce green-house gas emissions by investing in renewable power sources, supporting viable public transportation systems between major Texas cities, and increasing investment in proven scientific methods for carbon reduction.
Texas leads the nation in greenhouse gas emissions, and the Fort Worth-area consistently ranks as one of the worst cities in the nation for air quality. Barrett's opponent, Mark Shelton, did not fill out the TLCV questionnaire despite repeated requests.
TLCV is a non-partisan organization that supports candidates who are committed to conserving our state's natural resources. TLCV endorses candidates using several criteria, including: voting history on conservation issues, campaign platform, and personal efforts toward protecting the water, air and land in Texas.
Excellent. As always, if you're feeling generous, you can show some love to Dan.
By the way, I had mentioned before that the runoff date is December 18. Turns out that the city of Fort Worth has a Council runoff to do as well, and it wanted to do both of them on the 11th, but Governor Perry said no.
The governor's office notified Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief of the runoff date Monday."We worked closely with the city and the county to determine a permissible election day to allow adequate time for the campaigns to rev back up and educate voters on the candidates who were running," said Krista Moody, a spokeswoman for Perry.
Asked whether an election day closer to Christmas might hurt turnout, Moody said, "We surely hope not."
Several county officials were expecting Perry to pick Dec. 11. Five early voting locations and 63 polling places had been reserved for that date, said Gayle Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the elections office. Holding the election a week later shouldn't cost the county more money, though staffing may be more difficult, she said.
When asked Monday how election officials felt about Perry's decision, Fort Worth City Secretary Marty Hendrix said: "That's his prerogative. We still get to hold a joint election, which will allow us to save money."
Early voting is scheduled for 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Dec. 10-14.
The candidates in the runoffs were decided Nov. 6. Running for the House seat are Democrat Dan Barrett and Republican Mark Shelton. Joel Burns and Juan Rangel Jr. are in the nonpartisan District 9 council runoff.
Barrett's campaign released a statement saying that Perry chose the date to help Shelton. Shelton said the announcement will allow his runoff campaign to start in earnest.
Art Brender, chairman of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, predicted last week that Perry would pick Dec. 18 to reduce turnout.
"He considers low turnout to be advantageous to Republicans, but I think he'll be surprised," Brender said.
Stephanie Klick, chairwoman of the Tarrant County Republican Party, said a later election date will give the campaigns more time to reach voters. Runoffs always yield low turnout, she said.
"It's not necessarily about Democrats and Republicans. It's about turnout and who turns their people out," Klick said.
After Perry's announcement, the council approved the Dec. 18 election date for the District 9 race.
Nice try, Governor. Ms. Klick is correct, races like these are about turnout. If you're in Fort Worth, please make sure you show up for this one. Burka and Vince have more.
Matt Stiles points to this Governing Magazine newsbrief about red light camera revenue, and asks a simple question:
After Sioux Falls, South Dakota, installed red-light cameras at a key intersection, it saw its revenue from tickets for red-light infractions plummet.In 2005, their first full year of operation, Sioux Falls' cameras snapped 8,000 scofflaws. In 2006, it was 5,000, and as of August of 2007, only 2,000. Almost all the money collected from red-light tickets at the intersection now goes to pay the vendor that operates the system.
Of course, those statistics mean that the cameras are having a positive effect: Accidents are down. "From my standpoint, it's purely a safety issue," says Lieutenant Jerome Miller of the Sioux Falls Police, "and it works."
Sioux Falls' fiscal experience with red-light cameras isn't unusual. In 2002, a California state auditor's report found that only two of seven cities studied were netting much money from their red-light camera programs.
As more and more localities install red-light cameras--a decade ago, only a handful of communities had them, but now there are more than 200--the revenue concerns are spreading. Just in the past few months, the subject has come up in Mesa, Arizona; Springfield, Missouri; and Garland, Texas.
There is, however, a silver lining to not making money, as Anne Fleming, a spokesperson for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a group that advocates for red-light cameras, points out. One of the central arguments against the cameras, besides the Big Brother angle, has been that they are just schemes to collect more revenue. Now, there's growing proof that that complaint is off base. "There are," Fleming says, "many officials out there who say, 'I don't want
to make any money at all.'"They are getting their wish.
To which Stiles asks "If the cameras don't produce huge profits for the city, should they still be 'controversial'?"
Well, since I always thought the revenue-grab arguments were bogus, then my answer is that they're no more controversial now than they ever were. The same questions about privacy - how the stored images are kept, secured, and ultimately disposed of - remain. We still don't have data about what effect the cameras have on accidents and injuries - for all we know, when that data finally gets released, they'll have had no positive impact. I don't think that will be the case, but it could be. And of course, as Trafficnerd has tirelessly pointed out here and elsewhere, there were things the city could have done to reduce red light running without cameras - things like optimizing yellow light durations - which haven't been done and aren't being talked about by city officials. None of that has changed, so to my mind, the central question - Is it worth it? - is still unresolved. A such, I at least expect them to be controversial for the foreseeable future.
Remember the border webcams that were piloted last year, then went away because there was no money for them? Well, Governor Perry thinks he has found funds for them now.
Gov. Rick Perry has identified $3 million in federal funding to restore a short-lived but highly publicized "virtual border watch" program that allows Internet users to access video feeds from cameras set up along the border.As early as January, viewers might have access to feeds from some of the 200 cameras strategically located along the Texas-Mexico border. They'll be able to alert authorities if they think they see immigrants illegally crossing the border.
Perry sought out more funding after seeing the benefits of a monthlong, $200,000 pilot of the program in late 2006, said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for the governor's office.
"We know these cameras secured our borders," she said. "We want to get them up and running as soon as possible."
The governor first mentioned the program during his 2006 re-election bid but failed to win approval from lawmakers during the last session.
The project, one of several measures intended to curb the flow of illegal immigration in Texas, is the first of its kind to be sponsored by a state government.
Among the other steps being taken in Texas: Constructing a 700-mile border fence, hiring more border patrol agents and launching a zero-tolerance policy to detain, rather than simply deport, all illegal immigrants caught near Laredo.
[...]
Supporters say this type of "virtual wall" might be more practical and less costly than a 700-mile border fence.
"It's great to use technology to try to enforce our immigration laws rather than a fence that costs up to $3 million a mile," said El Paso Mayor John Cook. "You can put up a whole lot more cameras for $3 million."
[...]
State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said border security and immigration have become overblown political wedge issues. Cameras, he said, may be less imposing than a border fence, but both are responses to an issue grounded in politics rather than reality.
"Is this really about securing our borders," he asked, "or about some Americans' feelings about Mexicans?"
If my only choices are between that stupid border fence and a bunch of webcams, I'll gladly pick the latter, as it might actually be a cost-effective method of keeping an eye on the border. For sure, though, however much you think illegal immigration is an issue, this is really just a small part of it. A whole lot of undocumented folks entered the country on visas, then simply stayed past their expiration dates. If there were even a tenth of the energy devoted to dealing with that as there is to building fences and "securing" borders (one border, anyway), I might take take this issue seriously. As things actually stand, I think Rep. Coleman has pegged it.
Dick Wilson, the character actor best known as Mr. Whipple, has passed on.
Dick Wilson, the character actor and pitchman who for 21 years played an uptight grocer begging customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," died today. He was 91.The man famous as TV's "Mr. Whipple" died of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his daughter Melanie Wilson, who is known for her role as a flight attendant on the ABC sitcom Perfect Strangers.
Wilson made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly housewives from fondling toilet paper. The punch line of most spots was that Whipple himself was a closeted Charmin-squeezer.
The first commercial aired in 1964 and by the time the campaign ended in 1985 the tag line and Wilson, a former Canadian airman and vaudeville veteran, were pop culture touchstones.
He also played a drunk on several episodes of Bewitched, as appeared as various characters on Hogan's Heroes, The Bob Newhart Show, and Walt Disney productions.
Another icon of my childhood, gone. Rest in peace, Dick Wilson.
As we know, Mayor White has upped the rhetorial stakes in demanding action from local plants on cleaner air. The plants have for the most part claimed that they can't meet his deadline. Turns out there's more to the story than that.
At least some measures to reduce air pollution from Houston-area plants are within reach, despite the industry's complaints that Mayor Bill White's six-month deadline for improvements is unattainable.For less than $20,000 a plant could have an infrared camera crew scan its facility for major leaks. The scan would take a few days -- though fixing the leaks could cost much more and take much longer.
In about six months a plant operator could build a dome over the top of an 80-foot-diameter storage tank, preventing escape of fumes. The cost would be around $200,000.
And with better planning and training, a refinery could cut the time it flares off gases during startups and shutdowns.
"I think some of it's doable, what he's asking them to do," said David Furry, whose Texas firm developed a widely used infrared leak detection system.
But costs and timetables for specific pollution projects vary because of the complexity of chemical plants and refineries.
"These can be very big capital expenses, and it's usually a matter of years of planning, designing and optimizing changes," said Don Bellman, a former manager in Exxon Mobil Corp.'s chemical business who now teaches at the University of Houston's Global Energy Management Institute.
Sure these things take time, and maybe even a sincere effort can't be completed in six months. But what can be done by then is a demonstration of commitment to achieving the ultimate goals - a timetable of events, with checkpoints, a budget to provide for what's needed, and so on. Hell, a Gantt chart would be better than nothing, as long as what was on there was sincere, realistic, and verifiable. We've heard nothing but "we need more time" for decades now. It's time to provide for an endpoint.
Industry leaders say that isn't long enough to take action and evaluate results. At least one spokesman suggested that was the mayor's design."It's only logical to suppose the intent of the city is to create an unachievable target that, when it's not met, will be used to attack the industry," said David Harpole, a spokesman for Lyondell Chemical.
The mayor's environmental spokeswoman disputed that claim and said the city has tried since February to get companies to adopt some form of a five-year emissions reduction plan.
"Between now and then they have done nothing but meet and produce a report that talks about platitudes and public education sessions," said Elena Marks, director of health and environmental policy for the city. "Not a single company would agree to any plan on any timetable."
I'd say it's only logical to assume that the city is taking a hardline position to get the attention of people like David Harpole, and to allow for some negotiating room that still demonstrates actual progress towards a desireable outcome. The resistance and hyperbole are entirely predictable. The only real question is whether the city and the plants can come to some kind of negotiated agreement before the six month deadline passes, and the city chooses what action to take next. I'd say it's fairly likely, but far from guaranteed. Stay tuned. In the meantime, the EPA will be in town next week to discuss cleaner air. Click on for the details, courtesy of State Rep. Ana Hernandez:
State Rep. Ana E. Hernandez is asking for your support to help improve the air quality for our community and the entire state of Texas.The Environmental Protection Agency will have a hearing in Manchester, a community in District 143, to hear testimony from residents living near refineries.
Please show your support by attending the hearing on Tuesday, November 27th at the Hartman Park Community Center (9311 E. Avenue P, Houston, TX 77012). The hearing will be from 9am - 9pm, please try to attend as long as your schedule permits.
Each person will be given 5 minutes to testify.
Also, there will be a Candlelight Vigil for Clean Air on Monday, November 26th at 7pm at Hartman Park.
We need your support!
My congratulations to the Houston Dynamo for their second consecutive MLS championship. Now how about that stadium that's been in the works for however long?
The Houston Dynamo, fresh off the team's second straight championship, could have a private-public deal to build a stadium in place within weeks, city and team officials said Monday."I'm hopeful we can put a good deal together," said Andy Icken, the city's deputy director of public works, who is heading negotiations for the city. "If we're going to be successful, we'll be successful in the next two weeks."
When last we discussed this, we were looking at a late-September-ish deadline. Guess that kinda slipped. Ah, well, the timing worked out pretty well for the team.
Some members of the team, which won its second straight Major League Soccer championship Sunday by defeating the New England Revolution, said they are wondering why it is taking so long to secure a stadium deal."Mayor White, listen up: This team deserves it (a stadium)," Dynamo defender Craig Waibel said.
All due respect, but I don't think an attitude of entitlement is going to help your cause. Just FYI.
County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia said the Dynamo's second championship should energize officials and fans to get a stadium built."But nobody wants to see taxpayer dollars go toward this," she said.
The county is not expected to play a role in a stadium project.
Nearly two years ago, AEG moved its franchise to Houston after failing to put together a stadium deal to its liking in San Jose, Calif. The mammoth entertainment company renamed the team the Dynamo, and executives promised to get a stadium built in its new home.
Oliver Luck, Dynamo president and general manager, said the team has presented a good proposal to the city and is waiting for a response. "We're close to a deal. It's really up to the mayor," Luck said.
White is seeking a deal that would not require the city to contribute public money. While AEG's proposal calls for the company to bear most of the construction costs, it still would require the city to provide millions of dollars in needed infrastructure improvements, city and team officials said.
"The mayor has said he would not like to use any money that could be used for firefighters or policemen," Icken said.
[...]
"We're prepared to put in the preponderance of the money for the stadium," Luck said. "I'm reluctant to say whether it would be $60 million, $62 million or $72 million," he said. "But we are asking the city for some financial help, no two ways about it."
Infrastructure improvements could include building streets to a stadium site and paying for expanded water lines and other utilities, Icken said.
I've said before that I needed to know the details before I could judge this. From what I'm seeing here, I'm leaning towards being okay with it. The team is putting up most of the money, the location of the stadium (east of Minute Maid) is sensible, and the city appears to be asked to do things that would be broadly beneficial. I'm not sold yet, but I'm not feeling like we're about to get hosed, either. That's good enough for now, but we'll see where we end up.
It's a short week, but we've got a full lineup of Texas Progressive Alliance blog highlights. Click on to check them out.
The Texas Cloverleaf examines the ongoing feud between TxDOT and NTTA -- this time the funding for the Hwy 161 project Dallas County may face its wrath. To toll or not to toll? That is TxDOT's question.
Hal at Half Empty wants to ask John Cornyn just one question: "When are you going to stop flip flopping on a border wall?"
XicanoPwr reports on the noose found hanging from a scaffolding on separate occasions over at the Exxon Mobil facility in Baytown, TX.
NYTexan at Bluebloggin discovers that some things will just never go away. Tom DeLay Will Launch Activist Group. Two stellar citizens, Tom DeLay and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell have teamed up to promote the Coalition for a Conservative Majority (CCM).
Kay Granger pretends to care about the environment by sponsoring an Energy Expo but TXsharon at Bluedaze points to her ZERO score on environmentally friendly votes and begs to differ.
Harris County election officials adjusted the vote at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, after Tuesday's final election results had been released to the media. The Democratic Party's observer, a long-time voting rights activist, was stunned to watch it happen. What does this mean for the integrity of electronic voting in all of Texas? PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has questions without answers.
John Coby at Bay Area Houston reminds us that Texas is #1 in sucking with tuition for Texas University up by 63% since deregulation in 2003. The high cost of college tuition deregulation. Tuition increases again.
CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme complains that Texas keeps money meant for hospitals in 'state funds'. You can hear the Republicans yammering for another tax cut.
Muse wonders why Tom DeLay can't seem to stay away from Fort Bend County when he is supposed to be a Virginia resident. His new Coalition for a Conservative Majority kicks off there and has Ken Blackwell as its chair. Yeah, that Ken Blackwell. SOS in Ohio during the 2004 elections.
Mayor McSleaze at McBlogger asks What part of "interfaith" was not clear? in his post detailing the actions of Hyde Park Baptist Church.
Why can't Rudy Giuliani talk about baseball any more without pandering? Off the Kuff takes a look at his latest shenanigans.
Vince at Capitol Annex explores Texas Congressman Ron Paul's "surge" in the polls and in online contributions and wonders why his Republican supporters haven't bothered to examine his terrible record on behalf of the middle class in Texas.
WhosPlayin brings back the Texas Dim Bulb Award for Cracker-Barrell Craddick.
On The TexasBlue, David Gurney explores the total absence of integrity displayed by the Religious Right's endorsements of Giuliani and Thompson.
Texas Toad of North Texas Liberal explains why the Chicken Pickens of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth owes Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a sum of $1 million.
I confess to having mixed feelings about this story concerning Rep. Nick Lampson's political strategy these days. I like Rep. Lampson, and have liked him for a long time. He's a good guy, a dedicated member of Congress, and easily the best representative District 22 has had in a long time, or could reasonably hope to have any time soon. Though he's made a number of votes I don't like, he's still good on a lot of issues I care about. I'm generally willing, perhaps more so than some, to cut guys like him in unfriendly districts a certain amount of slack. I can even overlook the otherwise tedious "I'm not going to be afraid to go against the party" stuff on the grounds that being a Democrat in his district is not exactly an asset, though how it will ever become one without people standing up for its honor is beyond me. I just wonder if this balancing act is going to succeed. Will the activist base work for him this time around? Are there enough soft-Rs who can be persuaded to cross over? Obviously, he and his campaign have put a lot of thought into this, and they're pursuing what they have concluded is the best course. I don't know how well it will go, but then I can't say any other strategy would be better. I'm glad it's someone else's problem, that's for sure.
Los Dos Professors bring word of the latest front in the Dan Patrick Proxy Wars, courtesy of Capitol Inside:
Patrick, who's backing Tomball businessman Allen Fletcher in his bid to oust State Representative Corbin Van Arsdale in next year's GOP HD-130 primary, denies rumors that have been floating around Republican circles (which we're heard on more than one occasion) that he's recruiting candidates to run against several state representatives in the SD-7 area. Specifically, Patrick denies having any plans to try to field candidates to oppose either State Representative Gary Elkins or State Representative Patricia Harless -- or any other House members in Houston.From the Hailey story:
"...But Patrick has cautioned Harless about getting involved on Van Arsdale's behalf in his upcoming bout with Fletcher, a retired Houston police officer and Tomball Chamber of Commerce official who launched a campaign for House District 130 last week. Patrick reportedly warned Harless that she runs the risk of being tainted by her association with Van Arsdale as a result of revelations that the senator expects to come out in the primary fight with Fletcher....Elkins said that he'd heard rumors that Patrick and House Speaker Tom Craddick were trying to find a primary opponent to challenge him at the polls next year. But Elkins said he hadn't been able to validate that. While Elkins acknowledged that he's been told that a challenger is planning to run against him in 2008, he isn't sure if that potential candidate is a Republican or a Democrat and has no reason to believe that the possible opponent in question has ties to Patrick or Craddick.
Elkins said that he and a supporter had approached the senator at a recent event and asked him "point blank" about speculation that Patrick and Craddick might be plotting against him in an attempt to recruit a primary challenger in the district he represents in northwest Houston. But Elkins said Patrick responded by saying that any conversations that he has with the speaker or other top leaders are confidential. Elkins, nonetheless, said that he thinks Patrick is focusing on the campaign to unseat Van Arsdale and has a full plate with that.
When refuting suggestions that the senator had thought about trying to field a primary opponent against Elkins, Koenning noted that Elkins had voted against the state business tax - a measure that Patrick adamantly opposed when he was still a candidate for the Senate. Koenning suggested that the positions that Patrick and Elkins shared on a tax bill that a substantial number of conservatives opposed made it all the less likely that the senator would intervene in that particular House member's re-election bid next year."
Hmmmm... We wonder if Court's fingers are crossed on that one. Heh.
Well, I can tell you that on Saturday, Carl Whitmarsh forwarded an email to his list from a fellow named Trey Fleming, who plans to run as a Democrat against Elkins in HD135. Here's an excerpt:
I'm running against Gary Elkins and on paper, the district is set to go to a Republican. However, there is a catch in the numbers in that Governor Perry picked up less than a majority of the vote in 2006 in this district while many other Republicans carried much more than their share... I'm a former Republican (as of 7 years ago or so) and will put together a campaign to knock on 8 to 9,000 1-R Republican doors and bring them my way. This is a winnable district, be it 2008 or 2010. Either way, we're going to take this district and you won't find a more aggressive candidate...
It's true that Perry got less than a majority in HD135, but that isn't saying much, since he won a higher percentage there than he did statewide, and his margin over Chris Bell was twice what it was overall. HD135 is actually a bit less red than I thought it was - I'd have pegged it in the 65/35 range, but Bill Moody cracked 40%, and looking at the countywide numbers, it's more like 62/38. Not completely impregnable, but a steep climb to say the least. In any event, I daresay this is the challenger Elkins had heard about.
It's mildly curious to me that no one has recruited a primary opponent to Elkins, since he was the only local Republican besides Robert Talton to vote for the secret ballot for Speaker at the start of this past session, which everyone interpreted as a vote against Tom Craddick. Maybe he got a pass on that vote for some reason, maybe everyone has forgotten about it, maybe his overall record is good enough to forgive the transgression, I don't know. I'm just a little surprised, given how aggressive Craddick has been in recruiting opponents for his Republican detractors and in framing the Speaker's race issue that Elkins' lack of faith appears to have been overlooked.
As for Danno and his full dance card, I'll just say this: For a guy who reportedly has statewide ambitions, he's sure taking a path that will accumulate enemies. I can't think offhand of a State Senator who's been that vocal about State House members and the possibility of primary opponents for them. Lots of folks don't care for this kind of meddling in other people's races - ask Sue Lovell about that. I will say that Patrick has certainly been true to his promise to not be a "business as usual" politician - well, other than taking lobbyist money - and this is consistent with that approach. I just wonder how sustainable it is. Maybe we'll find out the next time Patrick himself is on the ballot.
Mikal Watts may be gone, but there will still be a contested primary for the Democratic nomination for Senate next year. Here's a look at Rick Noriega's opponent, Ray McMurrey:
McMurrey, 42, will make his official announcement Tuesday in Austin, cutting into a primary race against comparably well-funded Houston state Rep. Rick Noriega weeks after millionaire trial lawyer Mikal Watts, who lists Corpus Christi as his hometown, withdrew from the race citing family concerns.[...]
McMurrey said the state's senate leadership should not be based on who has the best name identification or the most money, it should be about who has the right message.
"Ordinary Americans are clamoring for someone to stand up and be truthful about what is going on in our country, and I feel both major political parties have abandoned their responsibility," McMurrey said.
Tired of "politics as usual," McMurrey, who said he is a lifelong Democrat, initially planned to run as an independent. After determining that gaining the 43,000 petition signatures required to get on the ballot was too arduous, he signed up as a Democrat.
McMurrey will campaign on repealing tax cuts instituted by the Bush administration, hastening the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy, campaign finance and ethics reforms and against laws he says have undermined small business, family farmers and average workers, among other issues.
McMurrey wants international borders secured to stop illegal immigration and a redirection in war efforts in Iraq toward forces responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In a race where the Noriega campaign has more than $500,000 in the bank and Cornyn already has raised more than $6 million, McMurrey knows raising the money to get his message out will be a challenge.
"I realize what I am up against," he said. "I am at a terrible disadvantage. But I want this campaign to be a battle of ideas, not a battle of cash."
After the relentless "can Noriega compete with Mikal Watts' money?" story line, it's a bit odd to see the shoe on the other foot. Not bothersome, mind you - not at all - just different.
You all know where I stand on this, and I don't expect to have much to say about Mr. McMurrey in the future, but I will say this for now: Lots of candidates, especially underfunded underdogs, give lip service to "politics as usual" and "battles of ideas not cash". One can certainly make the case that the Democrats have done precious little to change the course of things since they took over control of Congress. But I have to ask - is there anything about Rick Noriega and his record that would indicate he'd be a part of that problem in 2009? I sure don't think so, and I'd be willing to bet Mr. McMurrey has no specific examples to cite to bolster that case. Along similar lines, what points of disagreement does Mr. McMurrey have with Rick Noriega's ideas on the issues he plans to highlight in his campaign? You want a battle of ideas, I say bring it on.
Like I said, I don't expect to have much more to say about Mr. McMurrey between now and March. But I'll keep an eye on him anyway, and if he really does put forth some ideas that distinguish him from Rick Noriega, I'll be happy to discuss them. We'll see.
Always good to see the Texas ParentPAC get involved in an election, especially considering their track record last year:
The bipartisan Texas Parent PAC today announced its endorsement of Dan Barrett for state representative in House District 97, which includes the cities of Fort Worth, Crowley, Benbrook, and Edgecliff Village."Dan Barrett is a skilled, experienced advocate who will stand up for the needs of schoolchildren and their parents," said Texas Parent PAC board member Pam Meyercord of Dallas. "He will be a courageous, independent legislator who acts in the public interest and steers clear of divisive partisan politics."
Meyercord said Barrett will work to change the way the state house does business so there is real progress on solving problems and less political bickering in Austin.
Texas Parent PAC was created to elect strong and effective state legislators who are committed to strengthening public schools. More than 700 parents and business leaders have contributed to support this grassroots political committee formed in 2005.
"Unlike his opponent, Dan Barrett opposes taking money away from public schools to fund private school tuition vouchers," said Ellen Jones of Euless, a Texas Parent PAC board member. "Barrett understands that Texas taxpayers cannot afford to subsidize private schooling through voucher schemes. Our limited state and local funds must be used to strengthen public schools in every neighborhood so children can succeed academically and their communities and families prosper."
The date for this runoff is December 18 - yes, one week before Christmas. You can imagine what the turnout will be like. BOR has more on Barrett, and on his strangely anti-CHIP opponent. Check it out, and if you feel so inclined, chip in a few bucks to Barrett's campaign.
On Sunday, the Chron editorialized in favor of keeping the Astrodome.
The county spends $1.5 million a year simply to maintain the Astrodome in its largely unused state. That is an untenable situation that cannot extend indefinitely.County commissioners are eager to turn the Astrodome into a steady income producer. Commissioners Sylvia Garcia and El Franco Lee have called on the parties to sit down and negotiate their differences. "I would rather see the Texans and the rodeo make a good faith effort toward what works and creating a revenue generator at the Dome," Lee said. "That's the way to go, rather than for the Texans and the rodeo to make the presumption that it won't work and stonewall."
Astrodome Redevelopment officials indicate they are willing to work out an agreement to compensate the rodeo and the football team for a share of revenues lost on game days and during the rodeo season. That should be a starting point from which to negotiate other issues. Both the Texans and the rodeo have been essential elements in the successful development at Reliant Park. Their concerns must be fairly addressed in a transparent process that respects their legal rights.
At the same time, those organizations must realize that they are tenants at a publicly owned complex, and county officials will have the final say on what happens to the Astrodome. If the county commissioners decide to proceed with the hotel proposal, the Texans and the rodeo should make every effort to reach a satisfactory settlement of their differences.
The last thing citizens want is a legal fight pitting the county against a charitable organization and a pro football team, with the future of the Astrodome hanging in the balance.
I confess to having some complex feelings about this. On the one hand, I favor preservation, and I'd be as sad as anyone to see as iconic a structure as the Astrodome get torn down. I'd like to see someone rehabilitate the place. I have no idea how likely to succeed this hotel/convention center thing is - there's plenty of evidence to suggest it's a boondoggle, but hey, at least it'll be private investor money. As long as the county doesn't get put on a bigger hook than what it's on now for Dome maintenance, I don't see the harm in letting the Astrodome Redevelopment folks have a shot at it. Surely the Texans and the Rodeo can come to some agreement with them that protects their interests.
On the other hand, this all feels like delaying the inevitable. I also have to wonder just what exactly it is we're trying to preserve here. The Astrodome as we know it is already gone because it's not being used for its original purpose, and it's not going to be used for that purpose ever again. Does the structure have inherent value in the way that the Alabama Bookstop and the River Oaks Theater do? Maybe, but that never seems to be the argument anyone makes - it's all about what used to happen at the Dome, and the memories that were created. It would be one thing if we were talking about turning the site into a museum, but we're not. I don't quite see how any of those memories will translate to the redeveloped Dome, other than it still being shaped like the Dome from the outside. If we accept the argument that a hotel/convention center on that site makes sense, then is renovating the Dome the best way to do that? What does recycling the building get for us?
I don't know. The basic argument for preservation boils down to "they don't make 'em like that any more", and that's as true for the Dome as it is for the Alabama/River Oaks Theaters. I don't quite feel the same way about the Dome, though, and I'm trying to figure out why that is. What am I missing?
Here's some good news: Richard Morrison, the man whose run against Tom DeLay in 2004 marked the beginning of the end of the Hammer's career, is running for County Commissioner in Precinct 1 in Fort Bend. His opponent is incumbent Commissioner Tom Stavinoha, and the main issue is a toll road.
Morrison said he'd been contemplating a run, and then made up his mind a few weeks ago at a citizens' meeting on TxDOT's proposal to turn so-called Section C of the Grand Parkway into a toll road, on a route that runs close to Greatwood (where Morrison lives), Bridlewood and other area communities.Morrison said Stavinoha attended the meeting, but instead of getting up on stage with state and local officials, he sat quietly in the audience. And while hundreds of residents in attendance voiced their strenuous disapproval of the toll road proposal, Morrison said Stavinoha told him he favors it.
"I went up there afterwards and said 'Tom, you better change your position on this toll road," Morrison recalled. "I said, 'you're not going to get six votes in Greatwood.'"
"Everyone in Briarwood and Greatwood is furious about this toll road," Morrison told Democrat club members. "How can they trust their commissioner to do anything, because he may have taken a contribution from a road-builder, and now he's sitting in the audience. You've got to take a stand for these people."
Another issue that has strengthened his resolve to run, Morrison said, is "the fact that Tom and the whole commission supports this I-69 corridor coming through Fort Bend County - that's the most ridiculous thing." Building the corridor in the midst of Fort Bend's suburban neighborhoods will be an invitation for industrial development, he added.
I thought toll roads (in particular, the Trans Texas Corridor) were going to be a real issue in the 2006 elections, but outside of State Rep. Mike Krusee's near-loss, it's hard to say there was much impact. Most of the candidates running on toll road opposition were poorly funded, so maybe it's too early to judge the potency of the issue. This feels like a different situation, as it's more local and not really a partisan matter per se. We'll see. What I know for sure is that Morrison's return to the political stage is a welcome sight, and that he'll bring a lot of energy and dedication to the job. I look forward to seeing more from his campaign. Go get 'em, Richard! Muse has more.
Marc Levin writes about how we can and should deal with the Harris County Jail now that the bond to build more of them went down.
A new Texas law allows law enforcement officers the discretion to issue citations, instead of making an arrest, for some of the lowest-level misdemeanors.Issuing citations with notices to appear does not reduce the ultimate punishment for these offenses, which include driving without a license and possession of an ounce of marijuana, but it could divert tens of thousands of these pretrial detainees from the Harris County Jail every year. This also keeps more police on the beat when officers are spared the three- to four-hour process of booking a suspect into jail.
The Sheriffs' Association of Texas and the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas both supported this law. While other counties are successfully implementing it, Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal has said he will not prosecute cases in which police issued citations for such offenses. Law enforcement agencies and officers in Harris County should be able to exercise the discretion given to them by the Texas Legislature with confidence that the citations they issue will be fully prosecuted.
As of Oct. 1, the Harris County Jail's inmate population included about 1,000 first-time offenders -- more than four times any other county -- serving sentences for possessing less than a gram of a controlled substance. A 2003 state law mandates probation for these state jail felony offenders, but Harris County prosecutors have instead invoked another law that allows them to reduce the felony charge to a Class A misdemeanor, which still allows up to one year of county jail time on local taxpayers' dime.
I hope everyone focuses on this, because it's critical to understanding why we are where we are. The jails aren't overcrowded because there's been an explosion in crime. The jails are overcrowded because decisionmakers like DA Rosenthal have made a conscious choice to fill them with people who don't have to be there. With different choices - or with different people making those choices - we wouldn't be in this position.
As of Sept. 20, another 411 inmates in the Harris County Jail awaited trial on misdemeanors. Many have no prior offenses but cannot afford to post bail. If the person is not a flight risk, they should be offered a less costly personal bond. Public safety, not an offender's financial means, should guide public policy.Jail overcrowding can also be reduced by offering victim-offender mediation for first-time, nonviolent property offenders. A survey of burglary victims found that 81 percent wanted restitution, but only 41 percent wanted the offender jailed. The victim and the offender can voluntarily choose to enter an agreement for the offender to make restitution and perform community service in lieu of jail time.
It's certainly not for every offender or type of offense, but it makes sense in cases like graffiti and stealing a compact disc from a car.
Probation reform can also reduce jail overcrowding. Currently, 43 percent of offenders charged with misdemeanors for first- or second-time drunk driving choose the Harris County Jail over probation. As odd as that seems, it allows them to avoid probation fees and end their case in a month or two instead of two years. One way to encourage more offenders to choose probation would be to increase the availability of early termination for probationers who have fulfilled all their terms and whose conduct has been exemplary.
Some of this will be familiar to you, but all of what Levin discusses is worth your time to read. If you take only one thing away from what he says, it should be this: We are not in this situation by fate. We are in this situation by choice. We can choose to do things differently, and in doing so we can allocate our scarce resources more efficiently. It really is that simple.
Last week, the fourth entry in the Presidential dollar coin series, bearing the likeness of James Madison, made the scene.
While there are a lot of doubters, Mint Director Ed Moy says he is hopeful that the latest attempt to introduce a dollar coin will be more successful than previous efforts. The past two dollar coins -- the Susan B. Anthony, introduced in 1979, and the Sacagawea, introduced in 2000, were spectacular flops.The new presidential coins, in an effort to tap into the huge success of the 50-state quarter program, feature a changing design with a new president introduced every three months in the order they served in office. The hope is that the changing designs will keep interest high and avoid the sharp drop-off in demand seen with other coins after their initial introduction.
Moy said there were some encouraging signs. The number of dollar coins ordered in the first eight months of the program totals 810 million, well ahead of demand for the previous two coins. But Moy concedes that much of the demand is coming from collectors. He said there are continuing problems in persuading the public and retailers to put the coins into circulation.
"These coins have been much more successful than critics said they would be, but they are not as successful as they can be," Moy said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.
One worry is that demand has been falling steadily. After an initial order of 300 million George Washington coins, introduced last February, orders for the John Adams coin fell to 200 million, with the Thomas Jefferson coin falling to 170 million. The Mint will be producing 140 million Madison coins, less than half the size of the Washington production.
Moy said the Mint's unofficial goal is to stabilize production around 500 million coins per year. "We are shooting for that as the floor and we hope to do better," he said.
Whatever. My feelings about dollar coins are well known by now, I trust. All I can say is that I've not seen any of these coins yet, and I'm apparently not alone in that. Anybody out there seen one of these babies yet? Speak up in the comments if you have. Consumerist has more.
The title pretty much says it all. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I can remember the 1970s vintage "Shazam!", where lines like "Oh, Elders, fleet and strong and wise, appear before my seeking eyes!" were spoken with great earnestness. I consider that decade to be the golden age of Saturday morning entertainment, but even Golden Ages have their tarnish.
I wasn't able to make it to Loren Jackson's campaign kickoff event for District Clerk last week, but fortunately Stace was there with a report. Loren's a bright and energetic guy, and if you haven't had a chance to meet him yet, just show up to some Democratic events. He'll be there, I just about guarantee it. Jackson's announcement brings us to four official non-judicial countywide candidates, joining David Mincberg (County Judge), C.O. Bradford (District Attorney), and Vince Ryan (County Attorney). We're still waiting on Sheriff, where Adrian Garcia has been the rumored-but-not-confirmed candidate for awhile now, and Tax Assessor, where I'm told several folks are in the mix. The filing period begins in less than two weeks, so all these questions will be resolved soon. Stay tuned.
Interesting overview of Mayor White's upcoming final term in office.
Fresh off his re-election this month, Mayor Bill White heads into his final term with the most ideologically aligned City Council since taking office in 2004.When newly elected members join the 15-person council in January, the number of Republicans will have dwindled from eight to five during his four-year tenure, a shift that could make it easier for White to pursue his agenda while eyeing a potential run for higher office.
The partisan shift could reduce instances of members challenging the mayor's direction on taxes, spending or other contentious issues, but it's his own consensus-building style that has defused acrimony at City Hall, political observers say.
"What we're really seeing here is that the mayor's changed the game," said Allen Blakemore, a prominent local Republican political consultant. "The mayor has continued to refine and develop the power of a strong-mayor form of government, and has used it in a very wise and savvy way."
[...]
[S]tarting next year, White should preside over a changed council.
For example, the panel for the first time in recent memory will not have a Republican member elected citywide to an at-large seat.
The ideological change on the council is not unexpected, thanks to demographic shifts and the growing political participation of Democratic-leaning Hispanics.
"That is one of the reasons why the council has made a subtle change now, and that might increase in the future," said local political scientist Sanders Anderson Jr.
During his final two-year term, White may not face predictably vocal critics -- unlike in years past, when former Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and the term-limited Councilwoman Addie Wiseman lobbed attacks about tax rates, red-light cameras, mandatory freeway towing and other items.
They only prompted postponed or lost votes for White's administration in a few instances but sparked plenty of debates during their tenures.
Councilman Michael Berry, a conservative member, is also leaving. He has been a critic, and he sometimes votes against White, but the mayor appointed him to oversee the council's administrative office.
Some of the remaining Republicans could be seen as moderates who have worked with the mayor's administration to accomplish their goals.
For example, White appointed Councilwoman Toni Lawrence to a committee that allows her to pursue ordinances that protect neighborhoods. White also tapped Councilwoman Pam Holm to handle quality-of-life issues, and she has advised him on dealing with non-permitted billboards. Even Berry has led the defense of Safe Clear, White's towing program.
Those more moderate, or at least less vocal, members could be less likely to take partisan shots at the mayor if he positions himself to seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 2010, or some other higher office, observers say.
"The mayor is fortunate in that some of the more aggressive Republicans ... are no longer on council, and that there's now a clear Democratic majority," said Richard Murray, a University of Houston political scientist.
"Very likely his next race will be a partisan race, and, therefore, if you had particularly outspoken Republicans on council, they would not pass any opportunity to dent his image."
A few thoughts about this:
- Politics really is a game of inches. Change about a thousand votes in the 2003 runoff (PDF), and instead of the moderate consensus-oriented MJ Khan in F and Pam Holm in G, we'd have the more conservative and ideological Terry McConn and Jeff Daily, both of whom might have been more vocal opponents of the Mayor's. Bill White may have the political skill to have co-opted them, but it's got to have been easier on him not needing to find out. Similarly, though the 2005 runoff in District C wasn't close, George Hittner was running to Anne Clutterbuck's right. Who knows where we'd be today with that alternate universe version of Council?
- I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that there will be no one on Council to provide a little friction for the Mayor's agenda. I think District E will continue to provide that, even without Council Member Wiseman. Annette Dwyer said in the interview I did with her that she intended to be more of a team player, but I doubt she'll generate much ill will by placing holds and voting No a few times. I did not get to speak to Michael Sullivan, so I can't attest to his style, but I'd be surprised if he's any farther away from Wiseman's position than Dwyer is.
- Even if I'm wrong about that, and the District E winner is Addie's antithesis, I guarantee that someone will fill the role of Mayor White Attack Dog. Everybody knows that Bill White's next race will be statewide, and the current narrative about him - highly popular, problem-solver, bipartisan appeal - is one that they need to knock down, and the sooner the better. I have no idea who they have that's well-suited for this role, but someone - probably several someones - will play it.
- Shifting gears slightly, I don't think the dismal results for the local GOP in this year's election portend their doom at a citywide level. I think it's clear that candidates of the Roy Morales/Tom Nixon mold won't win - it's too bad in a way that Jack Christie had the residency issue, since we can't really evaluate him as a candidate because of them - but I think a Clutterbuck/Lawrence/Holm/Khan type could do well.
- Things could also get worse for the Republicans. They hold five of the nine district Council seats, but there's nothing preordained about that. While I'd normally expect a Republican to hold Districts A, E, and G, a Democrat could certainly win in C and F. Mark Lee and Herman Litt both came close to making the runoff in C last time. And of course, who knows what the 2011 Council redistricting will bring. At least that won't be Mayor White's concern.
Rural Texas has a severe shortage of doctors.
Kent County has not had a doctor in 53 years.
"The last one we had died in 1954," County Judge Jim C. White said matter-of-factly. "When we need medical care we go to Lubbock or Abilene or to the district county hospital in (neighboring) Fisher County."The community of 734 residents, down from 859 in the 2000 Census, is not the only county in West Texas without a physician.
Twenty-seven other counties in the region do not have a physician, said Dr. Steven Berk, dean of the School of Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
"It is definitely a very critical problem," said Berk, who is interim vice president of the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health at Health Sciences Center. "We have a shortage of doctors in the United States but it is more severe in West Texas."
The Office of Rural Community Affairs is aware of the severity of the physician shortage. That's why ORCA is offering stipends of up to $15,000 to physicians willing to work in a rural community for at least a year.
"We hope to get some doctors interested," said Theresa Cruz, director of the rural health division at ORCA. "We are seeing a downward trend of applicants. Most doctors, especially those just out of medical school, are not all that interested in moving to rural areas."
The Texas Health Service Corps Program has been around since 2001 and on average, the agency gets about five applicants a year, Cruz said. The deadline to apply for the stipends is May 28.
Berk said there are several reasons for the growing shortage of doctors everywhere.
First, the medical profession didn't recognize that a shortage was on the horizon until about five years ago.
In addition, young physicians don't want to work as many hours as their older peers.
And for rural areas, there is an additional problem. Fewer and fewer medical students are going into family medicine because they don't make as much money as they can in specialized medicine, Berk said.
I assume none of this is a surprise to anyone. The reasons cited for the shortage are quite understandable. The thing is, just four years ago, the Texas Medical Association was claiming there was a different reason for rural doctor shortages: Greedy trial lawyers suing them out of existence. The solution, naturally, was tort "reform", in the guide of 2003's Proposition 12, which was ratified by a fairly close margin. Well, guess what? It's had no effect whatsoever on the problem.
Proposition 12, and the far-reaching changes in Texas civil law that it dragged behind it, was built on a foundation of mistruths and sketchy assumptions. The number of doctors in the state was not falling, it was steadily rising, according to Texas Medical Board data. There was little statistical evidence showing that frivolous lawsuits were a significant force driving increases in malpractice premiums.Perhaps the most insidious sleight of hand employed by Proposition 12 backers was their repeated insistence that medical malpractice insurance rates were somehow responsible for doctor shortages in rural Texas.
"Women in three out of five Texas counties do not have access to obstetricians. Imagine the hardship this creates for many pregnant women in our state," Gov. Rick Perry told a New York audience in October 2003 at the pro-tort-reform Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. "The problem has not been a lack of compassion among our medical community, but a lack of protection from abusive lawsuits."
The campaign's promise, that tort reform would cause doctors to begin returning to the state's sparsely populated regions, has now been tested for four years. It has not proven to be true.
[...]
On a Texas map inside the beguiling-baby mailer, blood red marked the 152 counties in Texas that did not have obstetricians in 2003. Rural doctor shortages were kept front and center as the state's physicians, led by the Texas Medical Association and the Texas Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, campaigned for Proposition 12.
A flier printed by the TMA in English and Spanish and posted in waiting rooms across the state told patients that "152 counties in Texas now have no obstetrician. Wide swaths of Texas have no neurosurgeon or orthopedic surgeon. ... The primary culprit for this crisis is an explosion in awards for non-economic (pain and suffering) damages in liability lawsuits. ... vote "YES!" on 12!"
As of September 2007, the number of counties without obstetricians is unchanged--152 counties still have none, according to the Observer's examination of county-by-county data at the state Medical Board.
Nearly half of Texas counties--124, or 49 percent--have no obstetrician, neurosurgeon, or orthopedic surgeon. Those specialists aside, 21 Texas counties have no physician of any kind. That's one county worse than before Proposition 12 passed, when 20 counties had no doctor.
There's more to the story there - the Observer did its usual thorough job on the subject - but you get the idea. We were fed a load of crap about tort "reform" back in 2003, and we're still eating it today. I suppose the good news is that now that this particular bogeyman can no longer be used as an excuse for real problems like this, we can maybe start thinking about solutions for them that might actually work. Heckuva job, TMA!
Are you in the market for an armoire? If so, you're in luck, as there's apparently quite a glut of the out there, thus allowing for some real deals. Swamplot has the scoop.
The Chron's This Week section had an article on the Universities Line decision last week. While there wasn't much there that we didn't already know, this bit from a business owner on Richmond got me thinking.
Manager Avelino Diaz of the Taqueria La Tapatia, 1749 Richmond Ave. at Dunlavy, one of several hundred businesses fronting the approved University Corridor, is less enthused.He said he and other owners and managers of businesses next to the line predict a decline in their customer base and diminished access to their businesses during construction, and perhaps less patron parking space afterward.
"Our sales will go down during construction. If construction goes through as it is planned, it wouldn't allow left or right turns into the restaurant. People would have to go two to three blocks," said Diaz of the restaurant that has been in existence for 11 years.
"They anticipate making another lane on each side of Richmond. That's another whole parking area for us," Diaz added.
His restaurant brings in about 100,000 customers each year, he said -- the rewards of management's purchase four years ago of an adjacent flower shop to double space and remodel.
"It was like opening another restaurant," he said. "After the corridor is finished, we could build up the (number of) customers again and have a good chance of picking up sales slowly, but I have my doubts about that."
I'm sure he's right about his business being negatively affected during construction. It's hard to imagine otherwise. Numerous suggestions have been made about how Metro and the city can help mitigate this loss for businesses in the interim, and I hope they are aggressively pursued, and any promises made scrutinized closely for compliance. But one suggestion that I don't believe I'd seen before came to me recently - while I was riding the train, as it happens - and so I thought I'd present it here.
It occurred to me that unlike every other rail system I've been on, Metro trains don't have any advertising in them. I'm not sure why this is, but why not allow it? In particular, why not let any interested business that's about to affected by rail construction on Richmond (and elsewhere as needed) advertise for free for a period of time on the Main Street line, and then again on the Universities line once it's done? That would be of value to the businesses, and might help ease some negative feelings they have about Metro and the idea of rail transit. It would also help them reach the market they'll be getting as their businesses become convenient for people who might otherwise drive past them without even knowing they're there.
Now of course none of this will help any business that folds before the line is built, so again it's incumbent on Metro to do what it can to make the transition as smooth as possible, and on all of us to hold them to that. But unless there's some reason why Metro is forbidden to sell ads on the trains, I don't see why this wouldn't be helpful for all involved. What do you think?
The attitudes about immigration found by the 2007 Houston Area Survey are not as bad as the Chron headline make it sound. It's a fairly mixed bag and there certainly are some disheartening things, but it's not all negative.
"Anglos who live in predominantly Anglo areas are less likely to interact and meet minorities," said Stephen Klineberg, the Rice University sociology professor who has directed the annual survey for 26 years. "And they have more reservations about ethnic diversity."For the first time, Klineberg expanded his survey to Galveston, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties. Only the responses of white residents were used in questions about immigrants, Klineberg said, because the non-Anglo percentages in the four counties varied widely.
The survey found 57 percent of Montgomery County respondents and 59 percent in mainland Galveston County believe the immigrant influx "mostly threatens American culture."
In addition, 73 percent of whites in mainland Galveston and Montgomery County favor fines and criminal charges against employers who hire illegal immigrants.
A similar vein runs through the other counties: In Harris, 69 percent of whites support punishing employers. In Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, 72 percent say they want the government to hit illegal-immigrant-heavy companies with fines and charges.
[...]
Lisa Graybill, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Texas chapter, says the conservative rhetoric is nothing new. It has held a grip on places such as Farmers Branch, a community north of Dallas that adopted a law banning apartment owners from renting to illegal immigrants. The ACLU is suing to overturn the ban.
"The moving out of Latino immigrants into the suburbs is creating a backlash," Graybill said. "We do have to acknowledge that there are problems -- complicated problems -- surrounding immigration, but these type of answers are not good policy for anybody."
Statistics show that indeed there has been a Latino explosion in the suburbs. In Montgomery County, the Hispanic population grew to 66,000 in 2006 from 37,000 in 2000, according to Census Bureau data.
It's been my opinion for awhile that what's driving a lot of the anti-immigrant sentiment is economic anxiety. Wages are stagnant, blue-collar jobs are going away, the housing bubble has burst - it's all there. Add in the neverending war in Iraq, and there's a lot for people to feel anxious about. Deal with the underlying causes of that anxiety - I'm thinking January of 2009 will be a good time to start - and I think the immigration "issue" largely goes away.
The survey, however, does show whites are open to a path of legalization. More than 62 percent of the Anglos in Galveston, Harris and Fort Bend counties agreed that illegal immigrants should be granted citizenship if they speak English and have no criminal records. In Montgomery County, however, only 48 percent of the whites were for that idea. And more than 58 percent of whites in Galveston, Fort Bend and Harris counties said ethnic diversity is a "good thing," the survey shows."The experience of living in a more diverse community may increase one's feelings of comfort with the diversity," Klineberg said. "It's surprising how big the difference is."
Not to me, it's not. Burka, who was in town for the presentation of the 2007 Survey, has a lot more.
The 2007 Houston Area Survey (PDF) is out, and to some people's surprise, it shows that a lot of folks around here want transit options.
The findings represent a challenge to leaders of suburban counties where transit service is scarce, said Stephen Klineberg, the Rice University sociology professor who directed the survey.In an expanded version of the 2007 Houston Area Survey, almost 80 percent of residents throughout the region named public transportation as their first or second choice among three options for easing traffic congestion. The other choices were building bigger and better roads or developing communities where people live close to where they work and shop.
Klineberg said the broad support for mass transit -- particularly in Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, where concerns about traffic were the highest in the region -- was striking in light of Houston's car-dependent history.
"Virtually all of Houston was built by, for and about the automobile," said Klineberg, who presented his findings Thursday to the Center for Houston's Future, a nonprofit group focused on strategic regional planning.
His survey, conducted annually since 1982, has previously been limited to Harris County. After this year's findings were released in March, Klineberg expanded his sample to include Galveston, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties.
Leaders of suburban counties who attended Thursday's presentation said they were surprised by the level of support for public transportation in their communities.
"In our own surveys, mass transit per se is not on the radar," said Montgomery County Judge Alan Sadler, noting that a park-and-ride lot west of Conroe closed recently because of lack of use.
"We're getting mixed messages," Sadler said.
Klineberg acknowledged that support for transit as an abstract concept might not equate to a willingness to give up one's own automobile. In previous Harris County surveys, he said, as many as 65 percent have said they would continue driving their own cars to work every day even if better transit service were available.
Fort Bend County Commissioner James Patterson said his constituents are reluctant to give up their cars, but he said this attitude might change if the price of gasoline continues to rise.
I don't find any of this terribly shocking. Commuting is a soul-sucking experience, and the price of gas isn't going down any time soon. Having a cheaper option, especially one that would let you do other things during the time you're en route, is going to look appealing to people. I do agree that some of the favor that transit is finding now is from the folks who want other people to use it, or who have misguided ideas about what it really means. Tory covers some of this, but I think he falls into a trap as well:
The real polling question should be "Should government spend tax dollars on transportation solutions that move the most people for the least cost?" - which I'm sure would enjoy overwhelming support, and, of course, would point directly at road capacity in most cases (although, admittedly, not all - the Main St. LRT is quite popular and successful, and the Galveston commuter rail plan looks not bad if these numbers hold).
The problem is that adding road capacity is frequently not an option. Sure, you can often widen highways, though as we've seen with I-10 that can be a tremendously expensive and disruptive thing to do. And sometimes when you add capacity in one place you just add bottlenecks elsewhere. It's swell that TxDOT wants to widen I-45 north of downtown, for instance, but as I've said before, until someone shows me the plan to add lanes to the Pierce Elevated, I will remain unconvinced that it will help all that much.
But even if you could widen every highway to a point where it never backed up, you'd still have a problem once you exited that highway. To a very large degree, you just can't add capacity on the surface roads. Look at Richmond Avenue, which we all agree is badly congested. How much property would have to be condemned just to add one lane of traffic each way? There's no way that would be economically or politically feasible - the uproar over Metro's takings for the Universities line would look like a garden party in comparison. But unless you live or work on a service road, you've got to get off the highway as part of your daily driving experience, and the odds are you're going to get stuck in traffic just as bad as anything you'd experienced on it.
So the point of transit is to give people who do most of their commuting and recreating off of the highways an option that doesn't involve low-mileage, engine-wearing, exhaust-spewing city driving. We need that option because there isn't anything else that's going to help us get from all our Point As to Point Bs any faster or less stressfully. Increasing road capacity is great when it can help, but it won't do squat for me or for an awful lot of people like me. And with all due respect, we spend a hell of a lot more, around here and all over the state, on road capacity than we do on transit. I think a little balance is both eminently sensible, and long overdue.
So imagine there's a guy who played right field for a total of 12 seasons, only seven of which saw him appear in as many as 120 games, and who was out of baseball by the time he was 34. He had a career 260/345/476 AVG/OBP/SLG line, had 275 career home runs, scored 826 runs (one season of 100 or more), and 851 RBI (three seasons of 100 or more). Does this player sound like a Hall of Famer to you?
Well, his name is Roger Maris, and he sounds like a Hall of Famer to Rudy Giuliani.
At campaign stop this week in Fargo, where Maris grew up, Giuliani recalled that he was a college freshman in 1961 when Maris set the single-season home run record of 61 while playing for the New York Yankees."I was there when he hit his 61st home run. I was in my first year of college and I went to many of those games in 1961," Giuliani said.
"It is a particular source of just great contentment for me, an honor to be in Roger Maris' hometown," Giuliani added.
Yes, Rudy came to this bold conclusion while campaigning in Roger Maris' home town. I'm sure that was just a coincidence.
Giuliani said the Yankees retired Maris' jersey No. 9, "and if it's good enough for the Yankees to retire No. 9, it's good enough to put him in the Hall of Fame."
Of course, as any Yankee fan who remembers Graig Nettles could tell you, the team continued to employ the number 9 for twenty years after Maris played for them. It wasn't retired until after his death in 1985. The Yankees have also retired Thurman Munson's 15, Don Mattingly's 23, and Ron Guidry's 49. I look forward to hearing Rudy make the pitch for their enshrinement when he visits Ohio, Indiana, and Louisiana.
I like Roger Maris as much as any Yankee fan, and I respect his accomplishment tremendously. But the Hall of Fame exists to honor careers, not single seasons. The guidelines for induction were clear on that from the beginning. I can't find a citation online right now, but go read Bill James' "The Politics of Glory" for the full background on that. People have been arguing for Maris' inclusion for as long as I can remember based on his longtime ownership of the single-season home run record, but that won't do. His career doesn't measure up. It's not really close, even. There's no shame in that - Maris was a good ballplayer, and he appears to be in no danger of being forgotten. But calls for him to be a Hall of Famer are at best ignorant, and in this case utterly shameful.
Not that Rudy has any shame, of course. You Red Sox fans, you can have him.
Back in June, I wondered why a Google blog search for links to my site was suddenly returning so many fewer results than a Technorati search was. Recently, in the course of doing some background research for a post, Vince asked himself the same question, and came up with a possible answer: Blog searches are done in Safe mode by default. He disabled filtering, and wound up getting a bunch more results. I tried it myself, and it did seem to generate more results, though still not quite as many as I'd expect based on what Technorati does. Good to know, though. Thanks, Vince!
Via QR and BOR, frequent candidate and former former Democrat Victor Morales has announced his intention to challenge State Rep. Betty Brown in HD04. That's a tough district, so I can't say I like his chances, but I wish him well. At least this will be a race for which he ought to have a clear path to the nomination.
KHOU was the first to report on the story of the Crowne Plaza implosion mystery, in which a shadow in video taken just before the big boom have led to questions about whether a person might have entered the place. The Chron reports that police are investigating.
A video given to police appears to show a figure inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel moments before it was imploded last week, officials said.The video, police said, is very short and inconclusive, but appears to capture what may be a figure running on one of the upper floors just before the explosion and seconds before the structure collapsed.
"It seems to show movement just prior to the implosion," said Sgt. Nate McDuell, a Houston Police Department spokesman. "But that hasn't been confirmed to be human."
Still photos, investigators added, show no images of a person.
Investigators searched the rubble Thursday, but no body was found, police said. Other videos officials took of the implosion show shadowy movements, McDuell said, but they appear to be blowing cardboard or other debris.
"No video is definitive," McDuell said. "All you see is shadows."
[...]
Officials with the demolition firm, Cherry Demolition, said security measures at the site before the implosion included a fence around the site as well as 24-hour security personnel.
Company workers searched the building before it was demolished, Leonard Cherry, a company co-owner, said in a statement released Thursday.
"And immediately prior to the implosion," Cherry stated, "a 300-foot safety barrier was established with loud speaker notification of the pending implosion."
Company officials all the firm's workers at the site were accounted for.
Cherry stated that company crews will use appropriate equipment to excavate a portion of the site as directed by the police to aid in their investigation.
It may take several more days, he added, to clear the area.
Swamplot has more. I'm not convinced there's anything there, but obviously we need to search, just to be sure. I certainly hope I'm right about this. Stay tuned.
The Chron reports on a study that makes the case for a commuter rail line between Houston and Galveston.
The Galveston-Houston Commuter Rail Study estimates it would cost between $380 million to $415 million to revive commuter service on the 140-year-old Galveston-Houston and Henderson rail corridor that parallels Interstate 45.That's a bargain compared with the estimated $2.2 billion cost of a two-way bus lane carrying the same number of passengers, according to the study.
"If people ask if we can do it, I say it's impossible for us not to do it," said Barry Goodman, whose Goodman Corp. conducted the study.
[...]
A commuter rail line would carry about 11,480 passengers per year when it is completed in 2030, reducing travel by vehicles by 51.7 million miles per year, the study says. That translates into a 509-ton annual reduction in air pollution, the study says.
[...]
The study offers two choices for the first phase of the commuter rail line, which is projected to begin operations in 2012 with trains traveling as fast as 79 mph.
One choice would connect Clear Lake with Galveston, hauling an estimated 1,263 passengers daily. The other would connect Dickinson with downtown Houston, carrying about 2,970 passengers daily, according to the study.
Goodman said the Clear Lake-to-Galveston section would likely end at the University of Texas Medical Branch during rush hours and at the Galveston Railroad Museum, housed in the former Galveston rail passenger terminal, during off-peak hours. A station also could be built to serve the cruise terminal, he said.
Cruise ship passengers would cross to the cruise line terminal in a covered walkway from a rail stop surrounded by restaurants and retail shops, according to one possible scenario, Goodman said.
The Dickinson to downtown Houston alternative could end at a Metro transportation hub that is being considered in the vicinity of Harrisburg Boulevard and Magnolia Park, or continue up the I-45 corridor and end at a transportation hub downtown at Congress Yard, Sharpe said.
The route down I-45 would cost about $25 million more because of greater engineering challenges such as grade crossings, Goodman said.
Several points:
- I presume when it says the rail line "would carry about 11,480 passengers per year" they mean "per day", since 11,480 per year is 31 per day, and none of the rest of the numbers make sense if this is the case.
- I'm a little puzzled how you can get a Clear Lake or Dickinson to Houston portion of the line in place by 2012, but the whole thing wouldn't be done till 2030. Is this another typo, or am I missing something?
- As Christof has pointed out, commuter rail can intersect with light rail at various places, and it enhances the value of each to ensure passengers can get from one to the other easily. Basically, taking advantage of existing transit makes good sense.
- That would be true on the Galveston end as well, but there isn't much there to take advantage of. One thing you could do, however, is work with some of the bigger tourist attractions to encourage them to provide shuttle service between the Galveston terminal and their locations. I'm thinking specifically of Schlitterbahn Galveston here, but Moody Gardens and the Strand as a whole should be in on this as well.
- I forget if he's blogged it or just mentioned it to me in person, but Christof has also noted that there's a case to be made for tying this Houston/Galveston line into the planned 290 Corridor commuter line, and extending it as far west as College Station. I'd like to see some feasibility study on that.
- While I've said before that I think a Houston/Galveston line makes sense, I don't quite understand the comparison of its cost to that of a "two-way bus lane". Has anyone seriously proposed such an alternative, or was this just added to make the rail cost seem cheaper? Maybe I'm missing something again, but this data point feels like a plant to me.
That's what I think. What do you think?
Pretty good recap of the past couple of weeks for Rick Noriega and his fundraising efforts.
Noriega is traveling today to Las Vegas as a guest of the Democratic National Committee to meet national party donors who are attending the Nevada Democratic Party's presidential debate, which begins at 7 p.m. Central Time."They've got a lot of national donors coming to this, and we wanted them to put a face with the name," Noriega told the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday. "What's going to happen is across the country folks are going to start realizing that Texas is in play."
In the past several weeks, Noriega also has picked up endorsements from past Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and Wesley Clark.
"It's a different race now, from a primary to a general election," Noriega said Wednesday.
That weeklong netroots push for Noriega hauled in nearly $64K, which is not too shabby. But don't feel bad if you missed out - it's always a good time to make a donation to Team Noriega.
Another sign that Noriega is turning the national party to his favor occurred last week in Austin, where he was a guest at a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.The senatorial committee will not decide which state races to finance until late next summer, but chairman Sen. Charles Schumer had in the past indicated a preference for Watts as the party nominee because Watts, a San Antonio trial lawyer, could largely finance his own campaign.
I think I'm more optimistic about the DSCC getting involved in this race than some. They'll have plenty of money, and perhaps they'll be spurred on by the DCCC's aggressive fundraising goal and offense-minded approach. I admit I have no evidence for this optimism, and I know that in the end nothing will matter as much as Noriega's own fundraising plus whatever poll they commission in August or so, but I'm feeling optimistic anyway. We'll see how foolish I'm being for believing this soon enough.
The Texas League of Conservation Voters discusses one of the top tier races for 2008, the rematch between State Rep. Allen Vaught and the man he ousted, Bill Keffer:
It appears as though former Representative Keffer is going to once again attempt to impose his anti-environment ideology on Dallas County and the state of Texas. The recent press and blog attention highlighting alarming amounts of radioactive pollution from increased gas drilling over the Barnett Shale (more on this below) gives voters the opportunity to once again remember why, in 2006, they un-elected Bill Keffer, and elected his opponent, Allen Vaught.In 2006, The Texas League of Conservation Voters strongly backed Allen Vaught in his bid to unseat Bill Keffer, and we intend to do the same in 2008. Texans who care about their health and safety and our natural resources can't afford to have a guy like Bill Keffer back in Austin.
Few House members, in such a short time, have compiled worse environmental records than former Rep. Keffer did from 2003-2005.
The case against Keffer is long and detailed. Give it a read, and if you live in Dallas, give a hand to Rep. Allen Vaught as he defends his seat.
A week after State Rep. Diane Delisi announced her intent to retire, a couple of prospective candidates for her seat emerged.
Samuel Murphey, of Harker Heights, said he is considering running, and John Alaniz, of Temple, said he intends to file for Delisi's soon-empty seat.Murphey, a Democrat, has lived in Harker Heights for the past 44 years.
"I'm taking a hard look at it," Murphey said.
Alaniz, a Republican, has lived in Temple for the past 22 years.
"I have always had a passion for public service," Alaniz said. "It is something I have studied and pondered for a long time."
Murphey had a 22-year career in the Army, followed by 16 years working in the office of U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco. He has served on the Harker Heights Planning and Zoning Commission and as president of the Central Texas-Fort Hood chapter of the Association of the United States Army. He also has worked in various roles with the Harker Heights Chamber of Commerce.
"I don't feel the least bit shy about my ability to pick up where she (Delisi) left off," Murphey said.
He said he has support from fellow Democrats, as well as Republicans and independents.
"I can't tell you how wonderful it's been to get the reception I've had," Murphey said.
He said he was asked by several peers, including Edwards, to consider running.
"He (Edwards) said he thought I'd be a dandy candidate," Murphey said.
He said he will decide in the coming days if he will run for the District 55 post, which represents most of Bell County, excluding only Killeen and the western corner of the county. The line between districts 54 and 55 is the Killeen/Harker Heights city line.
It's my understanding that Murphey has made up his mind and is now officially in. As I said before, this is a red district, but Murphey's relationship with Rep. Edwards (who clearly thinks highly of him) makes him a contender, because if anyone knows how to win in a district like that, it's Chet Edwards. Keep an eye on this one.
Meanwhile, Austin Political Report suggests that Rep. Mike Krusee, who's already a top target of the Dems, may take a state job and vacate his seat. That's good news. BOR and EOW have more.
Elise Hu continues doing good work on what she calls "The Purge", about the email retention policy of Governor Perry's office and how it relates to Texas' open record laws. Turns out that at least one state office hasn't had any of the issues that Perry has claimed as justification for keeping its mail servers so clean:
[T]he Texas Department of Transportation, TXDOT -- is doing what the Governor's office says cannot be done. The open-records-crusader, John Washburn, pointed me to TXDOT's testimonial on the website of its consultant, Messaging Architects. Not only does TXDOT keep its emails, it can electronically search and sort them from its archives.
As a state agency, TxDOT needs to be compliant to the Texas Public Information Act, which was designed to provide access to public information, including email messages and other electronically delivered documents. To fulfill this requirement in the most cost-effective way, TxDOT needed an enterprise-class solution capable of processing over 11,000 GroupWise mailboxes while also providing quick and easy access to the contents of archived mailboxes. In addition, given the scope of the project, access to expert-level GroupWise technical support in the deployment phase was seen as a priority.
It seems even TXDOT -- an agency roundly criticized for its secrecy -- has found a permanent home for its emails in order to comply with the TPIA.
Groupwise, huh? If that's standard for the government as a whole, then what I wrote before about Exchange deleted email retention isn't operative. I claim no expertise on Groupwise, though I'd still bet that the claim of "wiping clean the server after seven days" is at the least way too broad. My suggestion for the next angle to pursue in this story is to track down whoever the email administrator is for the Governor's office and ask him or her 1) what exactly the Governor's policy means in technical terms, and 2) why exactly their claimed lack of server space is an issue for them but apparently not for other agencies. I'll help translate the geekspeak if you need me to.
Well, this could get interesting.
Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell filed a lawsuit against Gov. Rick Perry's 2006 re-election campaign and the Republican Governor's Association today claiming they illegally hid $1 million in donations from Houston homebuilder Bob Perry.The lawsuit claims the Republican Governor's Association was not legally set up to make donations at the time of the contributions to Perry.
RGA Executive Director Nick Ayers called the lawsuit "political posturing at its best."
Perry spokesman Robert Black issued a statement calling Bell's lawsuit retaliation.
[...]
If the lawsuit is successful, Bell would be able to collect a maximum of $2 million each from the RGA, Perry's campaign fund and Perry campaign treasurer, Austin dentist Richard Box, said Bell's lawyer, Buck Wood.
A copy of the lawsuit is here, and a reprint of a Chron story from January that first aired this information is at the Texas Politics post. I realize that between the Lone Star Project, the Fort Bend GOP, and Ed Emmett, it seems like everyone is suing everyone else these days, but I wouldn't dismiss this out of hand. Back in 2002, I scoffed at some losing Democratic State House candidates when they filed a suit against the Texas Association of Business. Not only did those plaintiffs win their suit, they uncovered evidence of fund-shifting not unlike what's being alleged here that led directly to the criminal indictments of Tom DeLay and three of his cronies. You never know what might happen during discovery. Most people have better things to do than file frivolous suits, so let's see what happens when a motion to dismiss is made.
On a side note, I'd like to see someone answer the commenter there who asked about Grandma Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman filing suits of their own. It'd be interesting to hear what they think about this.
UPDATE: This Statesman story has more (link via V&W).
UPDATE: And here's the Chron story.
Barry Bonds was indicted Thursday for perjury and obstruction of justice, charged with lying when he told a federal grand jury that he did not knowingly use performance-enhancing drugs.If convicted on all five counts, baseball's home run king could go to prison for up to 30 years.
"During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances for Bonds and other athletes," the indictment read.
The indictment is here (PDF), and some legal commentary is here. I'll just say this, since I heard some talk about "wiping" the record books of Bonds' accomplishments on the teevee earlier: Last I checked, Pete Rose was still considered the Hit King, Denny McLain was still the last 30-game winner (perhaps the last ever), and guys like Shoeless Joe Jackson and Kirby Puckett were still on the books. The stats are just a record of what happened; to deny them is to deny history. If in due time, Barry Bonds gets convicted of or pleads guilty to a felony, we can talk about whether or not he should be denied entry to the Hall of Fame. Until then, he's still got a presumption of innocence. Not that I expect the average sportswriter to care, but there it is.
Netroots Nation, formerly known as Yearly Kos, will have its 2008 convention in Austin.
There are many reasons that we chose Austin, personally, I was most compelled because the hotel rate was $25 better than the other city. But it also gives me peace of mind to know the venue can handle our technical needs because they host South by Southwest every year. Another great reason is that we have already been approached by people on the ground to help with organizing local volunteers (always a consideration for a convention that relies on getting 100+ volunteers, many of whom tend to be local to the area). Finally, Austin has everything that our audience asked for in our post-convention surveys this year. The rooms are cheap, the city is walkable, there are many food and accommodation options, and the meeting space is compact.
Very cool. Of course, this means I no longer have an excuse for not attending. Thus, I look forward to seeing those of you who've been before and will be back. Here's a statement about this by the Rick Noriega campaign:
On behalf of all Texans, Rick Noriega congratulates the City of Austin as he shares in their excitement as host of the 2008 Netroots Nation convention. The Netroots community has not only proven that it can change the conventional wisdom of politics, but that it can change the conventional practices of politics as well.We have the opportunity to enact meaningful change in the makeup of the U.S. Senate in 2008 and Rick is proud to be the candidate to put Texas in play. Our grassroots movement in Texas has garnered Democracy for America's first Senate endorsement, the support of John Kerry and Wesley Clark, the backing of the Texas netroots and Blue America communities, as well as contributions from over 2,400 online donors-- the most donors of any Senate challenger on ActBlue.
Welcome to Austin, Netroots! Rick and our entire campaign team look forward to meeting many of you in person next July 17-20.
Keynote speech, anyone? More on NN can be found here.
As you may know, I'm a tournament bridge player, though not as frequent a player as I once was, thanks to other obligations. I can honestly say that in nearly 20 years of playing at tournaments, I have very little idea how most of the folks I've played with and against vote. It just doesn't come up in the conversation. So I guess I'm as surprised as anyone to hear about this.
In the genteel world of bridge, disputes are usually handled quietly and rarely involve issues of national policy. But in a fight reminiscent of the brouhaha over an anti-Bush statement by Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in 2003, a team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, "We did not vote for Bush."
By e-mail, angry bridge players have accused the women of "treason" and "sedition."
"This isn't a free-speech issue," said Jan Martel, president of the United States Bridge Federation, the nonprofit group that selects teams for international tournaments. "There isn't any question that private organizations can control the speech of people who represent them."
Not so, said Danny Kleinman, a professional bridge player, teacher and columnist. "If the U.S.B.F. wants to impose conditions of membership that involve curtailment of free speech, then it cannot claim to represent our country in international competition," he said by e-mail.
I look at it this way: If you think these women are representing all US bridge players, then I'd agree they were out of line. If this had occurred in 2002, with someone holding up a sign that said "9/11: Have You Forgotten?" superimposed over a map of Iraq, I'd have been mighty pissed if I felt they were somehow speaking on my behalf. If that's your view, that the USBF team represents all of us, then sanctioning them is appropriate.
This view isn't crazy. You hear Olympians talk all the time about "representing their country" and how proud they are to do so. But it seems to me that if you are representing your country, then as Ronald Reagan used to joke about, one of the ideals you're also representing is the right to criticize its leaders openly and publicly. That doesn't immunize you from criticism of your actions, of course, but it is something that the sponsoring organization, in this case the USBF, should respect and leave alone.
So put me down as someone who thinks these women should not be made to issue any perfunctory apology, or to be suspended from international play. It's the USBF, and not the individual team captained by Gail Greenberg, that represents me in some sense, and as such I'd prefer they butt out and let the ideal of free speech speak for itself. Link via Jon Swift and The American Street, who has an amusing alteration of the sign.
Okay, this is disturbing.
Johnnie German admitted he was nervous as he used high-security codes to tap into the Harris County elections computer system last week and change some of the results manually.The system was in good hands as the votes were counted from the sprawling Nov. 6 contests. German is the county's respected administrator of elections, and there were witnesses present as he corrected the vote totals on a sales tax referendum for a fire/ambulance district in the Cypress-Fairbanks area of northwest Harris County.
But German's late-night deed, said by officials to be a first-time event in the six years Harris County has used the eSlate voting system, has rekindled the debate about whether the newest electronic methods for counting votes should be trusted.
What German graphically demonstrated was that with the proper physical and informational access, one person can alter the results of an election in a county of 1.8 million registered voters.
The adjustments also highlighted the fact that, with multiple election boundaries snaking through precincts to separate city voters from county voters and municipal utility districts from emergency services districts, there usually are flaws that put voters in front of the wrong ballot screens.
[...]
The omission of the tax proposal on ballots in parts of three precincts was discovered thanks to an alert from a voter, and Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman's staff was able to get the tax question on the right ballots for Election Day -- but it was too late to have those votes recorded on the main computer.
Instead, they were recorded separately and later added to the totals.
[...]
The county Web site already showed that all precinct totals had been counted; three sheriff's deputies who guarded the counting process on the fourth floor of the County Administration Building in downtown Houston had been sent home.
Also in the locked, glass-walled room were Republican Kaufman and John R. Behrman, a computer expert and longtime election observer representing the Democratic Party. He said he considers Kaufman's staff the most knowledgeable election computer administrators on the continent and does not question their motives.
But Behrman said he was shocked when he saw German use a series of passwords and an "encryption key" -- a series of numbers on a nail file-size computer memory storage device -- to reach a computer program that said "Adjustment."
"A hundred percent of precincts reporting, and everything had been distributed to the press," he said. "Then and only then did I see how they were going to do this, and frankly I never thought it was possible.
"Basically it turns out, without regard to any ballots that have been cast, you can enter arbitrary numbers in there and report them out in such a way that, unless you go back to these giant (computer) logs and interpret the logs, you wouldn't know it has been done."
The fact that this is possible isn't actually shocking to me. Pretty much any distributed computer system is going to have an Administrator account on it, which has the rights to do anything it wants to do. You can't install or configure software without that level of access. Frankly, it would have been shocking - and inexcusable - if it hadn't been possible to do this sort of thing, to handle the event of an incorrect ballot.
The question then becomes one of procedure - how do you ensure that the person or persons who have access to the Admin account (and other aspects of the system) don't abuse their position? That's something Dan Wallach harped on when I interviewed him about voting machine security, and it remains a big deal. Wallach brings up other issues with the way these corrections were made as well, though you really can't tell that from the article:
Computer scientist Daniel Wallach, who started Rice University's Computer Security Lab and was on the task force that recently studied California's electronic voting systems, is skeptical about the eSlate system supplied to Harris County at a cost of $12 million by Austin-based Hart InterCivic.The "encryption key" code could be extracted from voting equipment at each precinct, according to Wallach, who studied the company's systems in California.
County officials and Hart InterCivic, which also provides its state-certified voting equipment in Fort Bend County and Austin and Fort Worth, said the system merits public confidence because it has multiple layers of secret access codes.
I emailed Dan to ask him for a comment. This is what he sent me:
Neither their quote from me nor their responses from the county officials really explains enough for the paper's readers to understand what is actually going on here. For readers who want the gory details, I would recommend they read California's "top to bottom" analysis of the Hart InterCivic voting system. I co-authored the source code analysis of Hart's systems. The relevant section that describes the "vote adjustment" feature is on pages 49-50, labeled "Issue 17: The Tally interface allows a Tally administrator to `adjust vote totals.' This can create inconsistencies in the reported vote totals."To summarize, Hart's tabulation system, "Tally" supports a feature that allows an election administrator (i.e., somebody who knows the special administrator password, has the appropriate USB key token, and has access to the Tally machine) to make pretty much arbitrary changes to the election totals. This functionality operates by directly editing the totals, which goes entirely against standard bookkeeping practices (where you never, ever overwrite a number in the books; you instead add a line to the books that states what the correction is and where the error occurred). Hart's basic design allows for innocent mistakes to go uncorrected, since there is no easy way to audit any corrections that may have been made. Corrections do not show up on official election reports.
As a secondary matter, the security features, intended to prevent unauthorized users from accessing this feature, are similarly inadequate. The password necessary to interact with the database is stored on the disk where any user of the machine can easily access it (see our report, pages 48-49, "Issue 15: Database passwords are stored insecurely"). Similarly, the USB tokens, used to manage cryptographic keys, turn out to all contain precisely the same key, which is used throughout the county. The very same key is stored inside machines in every precinct and can be easily extracted (see our report, pages 55-57, Section 6.7, "Cryptographic Key Management").
So, indeed, Hart has multiple lines of defense. Unfortunately, every one of them is incorrectly engineered, rendering the system entirely vulnerable to compromise. Of course, I am not stating that any such compromise has ever happened in Harris County. What I am saying is that the design of the Hart system is entirely insufficient to prevent such attacks, should a competent attacker wish to make them.
I've said before that I think the only way we're going to see a change in attitude towards our inadequate voting machines is if we suffer a catastrophic failure. What happened last week wasn't catastrophic, but it should serve as a wakeup call anyway. I hope we pay heed to what we've been told.
TPM links to this qualitative look by the Brennan Center on the effects of Indiana's restrictive voter ID law, and it's a must-read.
Citing new evidence that Indiana's voter identification law is disenfranchising thousands of Indiana voters, lawyers at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and a coalition of voting rights organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief today urging the U.S. Supreme Court to scuttle the Indiana law. The brief is one of more than 20 amicus briefs being filed today by voting rights advocates, current and former Secretaries of State, law professors, historians, political scientists, student organizations, labor unions and civic, religious and civil rights organizations. A full list of amici and a summary of their briefs is available here.The Brennan Center's brief comes as new research, also released today from the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality, is providing the first direct evidence that Indiana's voter identification law is disenfranchising thousands of Indiana voters, especially African-American and low-income voters as well as senior citizens and students.
"The state of Indiana has the most stringent voter identification law in the country. This study makes clear that their law - rather than preventing fraud - is actually disenfranchising substantial numbers of Indiana voters," said Michael Waldman, the Brennan Center's executive director.
The Washington Institute Study
In October 2007, researchers fielded a statewide telephone survey of Indiana registered voters. The sample included a random statewide component and oversamples of African-American and low-income populations. The two oversamples were targeted based on population patterns at the census tract level. A second sample of non-registered voting age Indiana citizens was done by random digit dialing. The study encompassed responses from interviews with 1,000 registered voters and 500 interviews among non-registered adults.
The results were clear and striking. As the researchers wrote in their report, "In short we find strong statistical differences with respect to access to valid photo identification that significantly reduces the opportunity to vote for minority, low-income, less-educated, and young and old residents of Indiana."
Among the key findings:
- 21.8% of black Indiana voters do not have access to a valid photo ID (compared to 15.8% of white Indiana voters - a 6 point gap).
- When non-registered eligible voter responses are included - the gap widens. 28.3% of eligible black voters in the State of Indiana to not have valid photo ID (compared to 16.8% of eligible voting age white Indiana residents - a gap of 11.5 percent).
- The study found what it termed "a curvilinear pattern (similar to an upside down U-curve)" in the relationship between age and access to valid ID - younger voters and older voters were both less likely to have valid ID compared to voters in the middle categories. 22% of voters 18-34 did not have ID, nor did 19.4% over the age of 70. (compared to 16.2% of Indiana voters age 35-54 without valid ID and 14.1% for 55-69 year olds).
- 21% of Indiana registered voters with only a high school diploma did not have valid ID (compared to 11.5% of Indiana voters who have completed college - a gap of 9.5%).
- Those with valid ID are much more likely to be Republicans than those who do not have valid ID. Among registered voters with proper ID, 41.6% are registered Republicans, 32.5% are Democrats.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The purpose of voter ID legislation is not to prevent "fraud", because the type of fraud it purports to prevent is vanishingly rare. The purpose of voter ID legislation is to make it harder for certain classes of citizens to vote, and in doing so to give an advantage to certain other classes of voters. That the voters the legislation burdens are disproportionately Democratic, and that the legislation is pushed by Republicans, is neither surprising nor coincidental. It's about gaming the system. The evidence for this is clear.
Pretty much says it all:
The organizers will deliver a copy of the complaint to the clerk of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for distribution to Sharon Keller and the other judges on the Court. They will also mail a copy to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. You can bring your own letter to the rally, or just sign the complaint. Link via McBlogger.
The poor, discombobulated Fort Bend GOP may be able to get out of limbo by the end of this month.
The Fort Bend County Republican Party Executive Committee is planning a special meeting, possibly on Nov. 29, to take the action necessary to name an interim chairman in the wake of Gary Gillen's surprise resignation announcement last week.Citing untenable political differences with what he termed a "fringe element" in the local party, Gillen told a group of elected Republican officials and others attending a West Fort Bend Republican Women's luncheon on Thursday that he has resigned, along with party Treasurer Richard McCarter, Secretary Nancy Porter and Parliamentarian Dick Hudgins.
While Gillen did not name her, county GOP General Counsel Farha Ahmed also resigned on Thursday, party sources say.
County GOP Executive Committee members and State Republican Party officials were scrambling on Friday, when they realized they didn't immediately have written notice of Porter's resignation.
According to the Texas Election Code, if the county party chairman's position becomes vacant, the party secretary is to call a meeting "for the purpose of filling it." But with no party secretary either, it's up to the Texas Republican Party chair, "on written request of a member of the county executive committee," to call a meeting to fill the county chairman vacancy.
However, state GOP officials informed local executive committee members a written notice of the party secretary's resignation was required before the state could step in and call a special meeting.
And as of Friday, county Executive Committee members said they had nothing in writing.
On Monday, however, party sources said the documentation is in hand, and the local Executive Committee and state GOP officials are working out arrangements for a meeting, likely on or around Nov. 29, at which an interim chairman would be chosen.
Without a chairman, prospective candidates for local office might have difficulty filing to run in the March 2008 primary election. Also, without a chairman or treasurer, the party would have difficulty paying bills or writing checks.
I'd mentioned the fact that primary season opens real soon - in fact, just a few days after that meeting - in my prior post. I have to assume the FBGOP will have a chair and a full slate of officers in place by then, but what happens if they don't? Does the state Elections code deal with this situation? I see that 172.022 states that
AUTHORITY WITH WHOM APPLICATION FILED. (a) An application for a place on the general primary election ballot must be filed with:
(1) the state chair, for an office filled by voters of more than one county; or
(2) the county chair or the secretary, if any, of the county executive committee, for an office filled by voters of a single county.
but it doesn't say anything about what happens if there is no chair or secretary. Anybody know the answer?
Meanwhile, a long-awaited audit of the county GOP's financial records may be delayed further because of the resignations. Gillen, as chairman, was point man for communication with the auditors, and until he is replaced, it's unclear to whom the auditors would report.
Boy, I'll bet that has some potential for havoc in it. Could it be that the time is right for Tom DeLay to get back in the game? One can only hope.
Miya reports that the long-awaited blog by HPD Chief Harold Hurtt is now operational. Sadly, he did not use any of our suggested names, going instead with "Chief Hurtt's Bog". Which is boring, but certainly accurate. Welcome to the blogosphere, Chief!
I noted before how the Katy Freeway expansion is forcing the closure of the Fiesta at I-10 and Blalock. Before that happens, there has to be an agreement on how much TxDOT should pay for the property.
Fiesta and the Texas Department of Transportation disagree how much the highway project is to blame. The state used eminent domain proceedings to take 36 percent of Fiesta's parking lot that served the supermarket as well as businesses in an adjacent strip mall.A TxDOT-hired appraiser said Fiesta and and landowner Weingarten Realty Investors deserve $3 million in compensation for the 1.3 acres and the cost of relocating the store, according to court records. An appraiser hired by Weingarten put the value at nearly $16 million -- $9.7 million for Fiesta's trouble and the rest for the landlord. An independent commission appointed by a judge in the Fiesta case recommended the store get $7.7 million.
That's an amazingly broad difference of opinion. Remember the two different appraisals for Bolsover? They were at least roughly in the same ballpark - the high end was about 60% more than the low end. Here, the high end is more than five times as much as the low end. It's simply not possible for them to be talking about the same property in the same terms. Even if you throw out the money allotted by the Weingarten appraiser for the landlord, it's still more than triple the TxDOT estimate. No wonder this is contentious.
Generally, compensation of property owners works like a negotiation. The state makes an offer based on its appraisers' suggestions, and property owners respond with data from their appraisers. Then a court-appointed special commission reviews the methods used to reach each number and recommends a value it deems fair. If either side doesn't like it, they go to court.What's not negotiable is that the state can take control of property even as compensation remains in limbo. In Fiesta's case, road crews bulldozed the former parking lot months ago to carve out the new westbound feeder.
Appraising property value is a technical process that examines what similar properties nearby have recently sold for to gauge the market value.
But rarely are two parcels identical, so appraisers use various other factors and analyses. That makes it tricky to explain complicated cases to a jury, said Jeff Avant, an Austin lawyer who specializes in condemnation cases.
The article then cites two examples of court-resolved disputes involving Katy Freeway properties, one in which the landowner got more than the high-end estimate, and one in which it got less. We'll see what happens here.
Vince and BOR pass along the word from QR that State Rep. Robby Cook will not run for re-election in 2008. This feels like a probable loss for the Dems next year - Cook was the only sitting Dem to come close to a loss in 2006, and his district is fairly red, though not hopelessly so, as Bill Moody's 49.3% attests. Still, if Tim Kleinschmidt runs again, he'd have to be considered the favorite, so I'm mentally considering this to be a counterbalance to Rep. Kirk England's party switch. We'll see how it goes.
UPDATE: Capitol Inside gives me some hope:
Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald is one of the first names to emerge in Democratic circles as a potential replacement for Cook on the ballot next year. McDonald, who's been county judge for almost nine years, considered a race for the House four years ago when Cook appeared to be on the verge of switching parties while being wooed by Governor Rick Perry and other high-level Republicans. But McDonald decided to stay in his current position after Cook spurned the GOP and filed for re-election as a Democrat.Cook went on to defeat Republican activist Jean Kilgore in 2004 in a rematch with 54 percent of the vote. While McDonald won re-election with 54 percent of the vote in a fight against Republican Paul Pape last year, Cook squeaked by Kleinschmidt with less than 49 percent support in a race that included a Libertarian candidate who claimed 3 percent.
Kleinschmidt, a Lexington attorney, came closer than any other Republican challenger in House races for seats held by Democrats that the GOP had targeted in 2006. Buoyed by his showing against a veteran lawmaker despite the defeat, Kleinschmidt has thrown his name in the ring once again as a candidate for the HD 17 seat. But Kleinschmidt and other Republicans have been operating under the assumption that Cook would be a candidate for re-election in a rural district that covers a wide swath of the coastal plains between Austin and Houston.
HD 17 takes in Bastrop, Burleson, Colorado, Fayette and Lee counties and a slice of Brazos County as well. But Brazos (sic) County, where McDonald has been the top local official since 1999, is more than twice the size of any other county in HD 17 and contains about 40 percent of its residents.
McDonald has been a political trailblazer as Bastrop County's first African-American county judge. He was the first African-American yell leader in Aggieland before graduating from Texas A&M University and pursuing a career in government. McDonald worked for John Sharp in the Comptroller's Office before deciding to enter politics himself.
CapInside means Bastrop County in that penultimate paragraph, and checking the SOS election results page, over 16,000 of the 40,000 ballots cast in HD17 came from Bastrop, with Cook carrying it by 2000 votes. Who knows, maybe Ronnie McDonald can be the Joe Heflin of 2008. We'll see.
We heard about it two weeks ago, and now it's official: You must hang up and drive in a Highland Park school zone.
Drivers will no longer be able to talk on handheld cellphones while passing through school zones in Highland Park.The ban, which goes into effect on Dec. 1, will be in effect during school zone times only -- typically early mornings and mid-afternoons. It's believed to be the first restriction on cellphone use while driving in Texas.
The Town Council passed the ban in a unanimous vote during its regular council meeting on Monday. Officials added that within six months, the council expects to revisit the issue, possibly to expand the restriction townwide.
At least one other city, neighboring University Park, is considering a similar restriction. There, the City Council referred the issue to its public safety committee, which also will explore whether the city should enact a citywide ban instead of school zones only.
The University Park council could vote on restrictions as early as its Dec. 4 meeting.
Meanwhile, Highland Park Department of Public Safety Director Darrell Fant said that after a recent meeting of North Texas police chiefs, a few asked to see Highland Park's proposed ordinance. But officials from several cities, including Richardson, Farmers Branch, Addison and Southlake, said Monday that they have not looked at pursuing cellphone restrictions in their cities.
It would not shock me to see this idea spread to other cities. Politically, it seems like a no-brainer to me. I don't think it'll happen in most places without an actual push, but once there is one, I'd expect fairly easy passage.
Cellphone restrictions of varying degrees have become more common across the country in recent years, but their effectiveness in improving safety hasn't been consistent.Studies conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in New York, one of the first states to prohibit handheld cellphone use while driving, showed that after an initial drop-off in cellphone use, within 16 months drivers went back to their old habits.
"Even though police were writing tickets, it wasn't visible to the average driver," said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the insurance industry-funded research organization.
Mr. Rader said that drivers won't comply with the law unless there's a consistent message that it's being enforced. That has worked in the case of seatbelt laws, with "Click it or Ticket" campaigns combined with news media attention, but he said that people won't change their habits unless they think there's a good chance they'll be caught.
Probably true. But then, I think that's the case with most traffic ordinances. If you think you can get away with it, many people will try. Speaking from my own personal experience - "I'm just going with the flow of traffic" - rationalization is a powerful tool, especially when the risk of negative consequences are low.
A local animal welfare group today will launch an ambitious effort to stop the euthanasia of dogs and cats at area shelters by the end of 2013.Sean Hawkins, president of Saving Animals Across Borders, said Harris County could be turned into a no-kill area if advocates are able to spay and neuter 50,000 animals a year for five years.
"The shelters don't want to be destroying healthy animals," he said. "And we don't need to be building more shelters to warehouse these animals. We've set a lofty goal."
Last year, about 125,000 cats and dogs were taken into the Houston area's five main shelters -- the city Bureau of Animal Regulation and Control, the county animal shelter, the Houston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Citizens for Animal Protection and the Houston Humane Society. About 80,000 of those were euthanized, Hawkins said.
About 25,000 of those animals were adopted. Owners picked up the remainder.
The goal of Saving Animals' program, called Fix Houston, is to reduce the number of animals taken into the shelters by 50,000 a year.
To kick off the program, Savings Animals will open its first Fix Houston spay-neuter clinic, which will offer inexpensive sterilizations, near the Katy Freeway in west Harris County today. Four more clinics are to open by the end of 2008.
[...]
"What he is trying to do can be done. It's not going to be easy. But if anybody can do it, it's Sean Hawkins," said Merritt Clifton, editor of the Animal People, a newspaper that covers animal protection issues. "He's worked in a lot harder areas than Houston, such as Mexico and the Navajo reservation."
Cindy Shaw, shelter operations coordinator at Citizens for Animal Protection, a nonprofit shelter on the Katy Freeway, said she hoped Fix Houston succeeds.
"We all want to eliminate the wholesale euthanasia that we have seen in Houston for so long. I think it is a wonderful initiative," Shaw said.
Even if Fix Houston fails to turn the shelters into no-kill operations by 2013, it should increase the number of animal sterilizations in the area significantly, she said.
[PetSmart Charities director Susana] Della Maddalena said Fix Houston may take longer than anticipated to attain its no-kill goal, but PetSmart will be satisfied if the program makes significant gains in eight to 10 years.
About 70 percent of cats and dogs must be sterilized in a region that wants to run no-kill shelters, Clifton said. Della Maddalena put the number at 80 percent.
Among many other reasons why this is a Good Thing is it would have to save the county a bunch of money to see that big a reduction in the number of animals it handles. And even though things are a whole lot better around here than they used to be, you still want to limit the county's involvement in animal control if possible. It's pretty simple - the more spaying and neutering up front, the fewer animals that have to be put down later on. I wish Fix Houston all the best.
Seen on the Chron's Business page yesterday evening:
Oops. The story, which does not make that mistake, is here.
Prosecutors want to keep former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling behind bars, without retrying any part of his case, and did not give an inch in the reply they filed to Skilling's appeal today.The Department of Justice filed a 218-page reply to the appeal of Skilling, who is serving a 24-year prison sentence in Minnesota on 19 convictions of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors at Enron.
"The jury had ample evidence to hold Skilling responsible for the pervasive fraudulent conduct at Enron," the government argues. "The record demonstrates, moreover, that Skilling had a fair trial before an impartial jury and that he received a reasonable sentence for his multiple crimes. This court should affirm his conviction and sentence."
Skilling was found guilty by a Houston jury in 2006 and appealed his conviction to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September. He argued that prosecutors sought to criminalize normal business practices and overreached in prosecutions relating to the fall of Enron.
Skilling's multi-faceted appeal included arguments that the government had a faulty theory in claiming Skilling denied Enron his "honest services," that the judge gave improper jury instructions, that the sentence is excessive and that the case should not have been tried in Houston, where the company imploded.
The Justice Department's fraud section disagreed with all those contentions in its response today, written by San Francisco-based prosecutor Douglas Wilson. The government argued that a court decision on "honest services" in another case does not mean Skilling's convictions should be reversed.
No real comment on the story - I thought Skilling was convicted fair and square, and I don't think he'll get anywhere with his appeal. But there you have it anyway.
Here's the Chron story on the ruling in the Kubosh lawsuit that I had noted yesterday. The basic facts were covered in that Newswatch post, so I'll just skip ahead to the new stuff.
"The city is very pleased with the outcome," said Philip Fraissinet, a partner with Bracewell & Guiliani, the firm that defended the city. "Fundamentally, these cameras do work and reduce the number of violations and serious accidents."Paul Kubosh also claimed a small victory, since the judge agreed with the plaintiffs that the city has failed to present "properly authenticated evidence" in hearings over the tickets. Wood also said the city should not be imposing a nonrefundable fee on a driver who wants to appeal the ticket.
"I'd really rather not have red-light cameras at all, but if you're gonna have them, if judges are going to allow them, the hearing has to be fair," Kubosh said.
City attorney Arturo Michel said the city was willing to adjust the administrative hearing process to accommodate the judge's concerns. He said the city might create an affidavit for red-light camera tickets to satisfy the need for "properly authenticated evidence."
Although details need to be worked out, the affidavit could testify to the operations of the camera system and their proper use by the city, Michel said. That would bolster the evidentiary status of the digital image of the car running the red light.
Kubosh called it a "big win," saying, "You have to follow the rules of evidence. You can't have a sham hearing."
Wood's letter indicated she also had a problem with the $10 non-refundable fee required of drivers who contest their first hearing. Michel said the city might consider refunding the fee if the driver wins on appeal.
The $10 fee is not a big concern for the city, Fraissinet said.
"There have been more than 100,000 red-light camera violations, and there have been about 20 appeals," Fraissinet said.
I'm still not quite sure what the issue is with "properly authenticated evidence" or how exactly an affidavit solves it, but as I suspected, the two points on which Kubosh won seem fairly minor, at least from the city's perspective. I hope someone will correct me if I'm being overly flippant about that. I guess I figure that since Kubosh's original stated claim was that cities did not have the authority to levy civil fines for red light violations caught by the cameras, there really wasn't anything "big" left for him to win on. The program will continue, more or less as originally envisioned though with some of the revenue going to the state and with a few minor tweaks around the edges. There's no way that's what Kubosh envisioned as his goal when he filed his lawsuit.
Last month, Elise Hu of KVUE took a look at the state of Texas' email retention policy and how it relates to open record laws. A fellow named John Washburn read about it and decided to do something about it.
The Milwaukee-based software consultant programmed his computer to automatically spit out two requests a week for all government e-mail generated by Perry staffers. He hasn't gotten a single e-mail yet, but Washburn has already achieved a victory of sorts. Under state law, records aren't supposed to be destroyed once somebody has asked for them.In other words, Washburn has singlehandedly brought the electronic shredders to a grinding halt.
"I've kind of put a stick in the spokes of the wheel," said Washburn, whose fight for election records in Wisconsin made him a believer in open government. "The whole point of public records is to make those ongoing transactions and government policy decisions more transparent to the public. If they're gone, by definition, that's about as opaque as it gets."
Here's the correspondence. Very clever, and perfectly logical. It's not like these emails are taking up physical space, so why not? If nothing else, this gambit should make it clear that Governor Perry's policies are not compatible with the spirit of the law.
On Friday, Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody said the governor's office will comply with Washburn's request, which prompted officials to deactivate the automatic destruction of the records."That was disabled [Thursday]," Moody said. The governor's office is "holding all e-mail correspondence and not wiping clean the server after seven days." She said it's typically up to each employee of the governor's office to set aside and save e-mails that they believe should be preserved as public records. Otherwise, they get whacked automatically.
"We believe our staff is acting lawfully and in good faith," Moody said. She said Perry's office receives a "high volume" of e-mail and doesn't have the server space to keep them indefinitely.
She also said the governor's office believes that some government e-mail, such as informal exchanges between employees about going to have coffee or lunch, don't have to be saved at all and can be deleted within minutes or hours after they're created.
"They are transitory, we're not required to [save them]," Moody said. "Basically, e-mails that have nothing to do with state business are eligible to be deleted at any time."
Okay, let's talk about the bit I emphasized, because I'm quite certain that neither Krista Moody nor reporter Jay Root understands how Exchange servers work. I can guarantee you that nobody is "wiping clean" any servers, because among other things it would mean every single email - including just-received-not-yet-read email - is being zapped. Trust me when I say that ain't happening.
What I suspect Moody means is this: When you empty your Deleted Items folder in Outlook, a copy of the email you've just dumped still exists on the Exchange server. That's because Exchange servers are configured to retain deleted items for a period of time - I forget if 10 days or 30 is the default, but this "Deleted Items Retention" property is what allows you to go back into the Deleted Items folder and retrieve something you've wiped out. Most likely, Moody either means that the Deleted Items Retention period is set to 7 days, or that once a week the Deleted Items Retention store is purged.
That still doesn't answer the question about how long backup tapes are kept. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the tapes are recycled every seven days, but the question still needs an official answer. And as Vince points out, all this violates the email policy model for state agencies as defined by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Is there an official rule about this, or is it all "suggested"? I think it's time that got clarified. I suspect it will take a lawsuit, or at least an Attorney General opinion, to make that happen. The Texas Observer, whic knows a thing or two about open records requests and the havoc they can wreak, is following this saga as well. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Elise Hu noted that Governor Perry may be violating his own stated email policy.
Did you miss the Crowne Plaza implosion this weekend? Well, have no fear. Swamplot is there for you, with pictures, videos, reader reports, and links to more pictures. And if that isn't enough for you, HouStoned has more. It would appear that a good time was had by all. Check it out.
Remember how SB1119 from last session was supposed to allocate money collected by red light cameras for trauma centers? That hasn't quite happened.
Medical trauma centers in Texas have fallen victim to a legislative version of bait-and-switch.This year lawmakers, who had previously decried the Big Brother and cash cow aspects of red-light cameras, did a U-turn and gave cities permission to use them. The biggest selling point was how the cameras would be used: Half the fine money paid by red-light runners would be dedicated to emergency rooms and trauma care centers.
Except, hospitals are just now learning, the state is keeping the money.
"There was no appropriation made for that fund, so whatever's collected will stay in that fund," said R.J. DeSilva, spokesman for the Comptroller's Office.
Budget writers said the funds were being kept to offset potential, unbudgeted Medicaid costs. And the same pot of money could be used to attract matching federal health care money - building the funds available, although that money wouldn't necessarily benefit trauma centers.
I'm curious - is it really the Comptroller's office that decides whether or not the Lege made an appropriation for funds like this? Do we need to ask the sponsors of SB1119 what they intended, or perhaps Appropriations chairs Steve Ogden and Warren Chisum? And was this one of those situations where everybody "knew" this was happening but no one explained it to the supposed recipients of the money, or is this one of those situations where the legislative intent was circumvented by a little budgetary sleight of hand? It would be nice to know.
In 2003, lawmakers created a new menu of fees that bad drivers would have to pay on top of their traffic fines. Standing before emergency room entrances at hospitals, Gov. Rick Perry touted the bill as a new way to address medical needs.Except, lawmakers initially kept the fees to fill state budget holes.
In 2005, they began sending some of the money collected to hospitals, and currently, about 50 cents of every dollar collected is flowing to trauma centers. In fiscal 2007, almost $100 million was raised from the fees and $46 million was sent to medical facilities.
We've talked about that before. The red light camera mechanism is in my opinion more appropriate for funding trauma centers than the shakedown fees of the Texas Driver Responsibility Program. I'd like to see both of these things fixed. Let's at least start with SB1119.
And another landmark bites the dust.
An empty lot, littered with rocks and roped off by chains, is all that remains of the butcher shop where Tony Soprano once held backroom meetings and sipped espresso at outdoor tables.Satriale's, the Kearny landmark and fictional pork store that became one of the most infamous icons of the New Jersey mob world created by "The Sopranos," was demolished last month to make way for a condo development. Construction of the nine-unit project, dubbed -- what else? -- "The Soprano," is expected to start next year.
Condos. You knew it had to be condos.
For years, property owner Manny Costeira leased the empty building to HBO, which turned it into a storefront that was home to countless meetings for the acclaimed drama series' mobsters (not to mention a bloody hit or two). Satriale's was also where Tony Soprano often met with the FBI's Agent Harris, who continued to come there for pork sandwiches even after he was transferred out of the agency's organized crime unit.Patrons of the Kearny Irish American Club, a bar and event hall that sits next door to the Satriale's site on Kearny Avenue, grew accustomed to a regular influx of business from the days when the series was filming there.
"They really kept us alive for a few years," said Michael Mara, who is on the board of the club. "They used to come here to eat, rent out the banquet hall, use the bathrooms, film out in front. A few times they paid us to take down the Irish sign and put up an 'Italian American' sign."
After the series ended in June, Costeira announced plans to raze the building. Reached in Syracuse, N.Y., where he was visiting his daughter at the university, he said he has approval for a nine-unit condo development and hopes to break ground in the spring.
He said the store had been long shuttered when the Sopranos signed on to use it as a location, bringing new life to it. As a nod to its fame he decided name the development after the show.
"There's a great deal of sentimentality but the store was something they created," he said. "When they were gone it went back to being an empty store. It was pretty hideous looking building."
Probably for the best, all things considered. Now if they included an autographed cast photo with each condo purchase...
You know, I never thought I'd see a day where it would be necessary for Pete to come to the defense of Mister Rogers, but that day has apparently come. And just in time, it seems. Check it out.
Election Week is over, but before we get too wrapped up in the runoffs, let's take a moment to see what's been said recently in the Texas Progressive Alliance blogs. Click on for the highlights.
TXsharon at Bluedaze sounds an alert about an investigative report exposing The Most Toxic Substance on Earth and the Barnett Shale gas exploration.
CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is disgusted with UT Southwestern Medical Center's policy of using state funds to give the 'elite' special treatment while the rest of us languish.
McBlogger wants to know why Barney Frank is loving on big banks with his Kill The Mortgage Market bill, HR 3915.
Xanthippas at Three Wise Men says be on the look out for how credit card and home mortgage lenders will screw you by making you pay debts you don't actually owe.
Muse finds herself in the middle of a massive police presence and wonders if she has wandered into a manhunt. Nah, not an escaped convict, just W in town to get slobbered on by his lapdog, John Cornyn, at a fundraiser.
At Half Empty, Hal questions whether Congressmen Lantos' and Smith's excoriation of Yahoo! chiefs for releasing information to the ChiComs, is just the pot calling the kettle black.
Burnt Orange Report is all over the runoff for HD 97. Todd Hill gives an analysis of on the ground action and why Democrat Dan Barrett came in first place to secure a runoff spot in the HD 97 race this past week. Phillip Martin breaks down the numbers and price-per-vote, while also looking at some possibly illegal practices by the Republican in the runoff, Mark Shelton.
John Coby at Bay Area Houston writes about Bay Area Houston State Representative John Davis being slapped by the Ethics Watchdog. Again.
The Texas Cloverleaf's hide is chapped by the abolishment of the hide inspectors and calls for a new Texas Constitutional Convention.
BossKitty at BlueBloggin points out how the Bush administration shows their support for veterans and the troops in US Tax Dollars NOT Spent on Homeless Veterans - Words Are Cheaper.
Texas Toad at North Texas Liberal fills us in on Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson's announcement of the delay in the sale of the Christmas Mountains, as well as the reaction of Environment Texas.
Lightseeker at Texas Kaos tells that gigantic slurping sound from a few acres of scrub in north Texas was just T. Boone Pickens stealing water rights..
Vince at Capitol Annex has some reservations about the fact that the Bill White 2010 bandwagon is already rolling down the tracks.
WhosPlayin takes a look at an aspiring new "non-partisan" political party - the GOOOH party.
PDiddie is fed up with Democrats like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, and intends to support only members of the Democratic Party such as Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards. He clarifies the distinction in "The Democrat Party vs. the Democratic Party", at Brains and Eggs.
WCNews at Eye on Williamson has video of the TCRP's Scott Medlock Discussing Williamson County, T. Don Hutto, & CCA.
Off the Kuff does a little after action review by examining his Election Day predictions to see how they turned out.
As you know, I've been eagerly awaiting a resolution to the Kubosh lawsuit, which challenged the city's right to install red light cameras and impose civil penalties for being caught by them running a red light. Today, Judge Sharolyn Wood handed down her ruling on the various motions for summary judgment, which you can see here (PDF). Basically, she denied all of Kubosh's motions except ones having to do with the following:
1. The City of Houston's failure to require or present properly authenticated evidence at the administrative adjudicative hearing.2. The City of Houston's imposition of a non-refundable fee to appeal the ruling from the administrative adjudicative hearing.
I'm not sure what #1 refers to, but #2 seems relatively minor. The next step is for the lawyers to sit down with the judge and hash out a deal. There'll be a story in tomorrow's Chron, so stay tuned.
Want to know who's actually providing services to the HHSC these days? The CPPP is keeping track.
Earlier this month, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission released two draft Request for Proposals related to the development and operation of an integrated eligibility system for Food Stamps, Medicaid, TANF, and CHIP. Similar to the now defunct "TAA" contract with Accenture, the RFPs ask vendors to submit their proposals for operating a system of call centers to provide "eligibility support services" for Food Stamps, Medicaid, and TANF; determine eligibility for CHIP-only cases; and provide document processing services through a centralized mail center. CPPP has prepared a contracting matrix that describes these and other major contracting opportunities with HHSC related to the delivery of health and human services.
I hope someone with more free time than I will keep an eye on the "Twogether in Texas Healthy Marriage Program", a/k/a the Warren Chisum Marriage Tax, if for no better reason than to see if one of our local adult establishments takes the suggested initiative.
Diane Trautman will take another shot at HD127 next year.
Dr. Diane Trautman, former candidate for District 127 State Representative in 2006, hosted a town hall meeting at Homewood Suites in Kingwood on Saturday, November 10, and announced her intention to run again in 2008. Trautman vowed to "continue my fight to make a positive difference for our children, our schools, and our communities...and yes, I will continue my campaign to be your state representative."
When asked why she decided on the topic for this meeting, Trautman replied, "We hear too much about what is wrong with our public schools today or how to fix them, and sometimes it even seems that public schools and teachers are under attack by the very people in Austin who should be going to bat for us. I want to get the good news out about our schools and our students."
Trautman is one of three repeat candidates for State House in Harris County next year; the others are Sherrie Matula in HD129 and Kristi Thibaut in HD133. Trautman ran one of the strongest campaigns among Democrats in Harris County last year, in one of its reddest districts. It'll be very interesting to see how things are the second time around for her and the others, especially in a year when Dems will be putting real money into the countywide effort. The apparent lack of a high-profile race in HD134, where Ellen Cohen has seemingly been given a pass by the GOP, will also be a factor. Stay tuned.
Almost two years after the last days of Kaplan's-Ben Hur, the site of the onetime historic department store is being turned into an apartment complex.
A $30 million apartment complex under construction on a century-old commercial site in the Heights is further proof of how this neighborhood is continuing its evolution from a quaint residential area to an urban enclave.The 195-unit development at 2125 Yale is being built on the site of the old Kaplan's-Ben Hur department store that closed about two years ago.
Designed by Meeks + Partners for Allied Realty Services, the modern multifamily building, with four stories of apartments over two levels of parking, will sit on a 2-acre site between 21st and 22nd streets.
One- and two-bedroom apartments will range from 700 square feet to 1,378 square feet.
The sidewalks surrounding the building will be friendly to pedestrians, the developer said. The first occupants should be able to move in next August.
Just a few blocks away is 19th Street, a commercial area that's become lined with hip boutiques and restaurants.
But the developer isn't letting go of the past entirely.
The clubhouse and leasing center will include restored southern yellow pine flooring that was salvaged from the retail building.
The place is called "Retreat in the Heights", and it was blogged about by Swamplot and By the Bayou last month, with this HAIF post providing a lot of detail. I've since heard from some folks who live closer to that area that it's generated some controversy over - you guessed it - traffic concerns. Hamilton Middle School is nearby at 20th and Heights, and the Long John Silver parking lot across the street on Yale (which is being targeted for a separate townhome development) has been heavily used as a dropoff/pickup point. With that going away, the worry is that school hours will become a mess. I don't know enough about that to add anything cogent, I just wanted to pass it along.
Having said that, I think that Yale in general is a good location for this kind of development. It's in need of some revitalization, and unlike Heights Boulevard it's fairly conducive to more density. Concerns about the effect of this particular project on traffic aside, I agree with John when he says that not making this a mixed-use project is a missed opportunity. I hope we'll see some elsewhere on Yale.
Last week, BOR took a couple of looks back at how things were five years ago in the aftermath of the 2002 election (short answer: it sucked), and compares to how things are now. I'll give you one way in which things are different now - I believe the base Democratic level statewide is higher. Take a look at this spreadsheet, which compares the Congressional vote totals and percentages from 2002 through 2006. Note that in 2006, the Democrats won a slightly larger share of the Congressional vote than they did in 2002 (45.9 to 45.1) even though they had six more incumbents in 2002.
A couple of notes on this spreadsheet: I counted votes for Shelley Sekula Gibbs as Republican votes for the regular election (the meaningless special election was skipped). In the special elections for CDs 15, 21, 23, 25, and 28, I added up the votes for candidates who carried the DEM and REP labels; if you were listed as LIB, IND, GRN, or CON, you were skipped. The "Competitive" label removes all of the races in which one party did not field an opponent. As you can see, in 2002 and 2004 this was basically a wash; in 2006, it favored the Dems. If you assume the Republicans would have netted about another 100,000 votes with all of these races filled in, the Dem percentage goes down to 44.8, which is a bit less than 2002, but again, that's working with six fewer incumbents.
What this suggests to me is that the partisan gap at the statewide level isn't as great as it might appear, at least by looking at the 2006 statewide election results. Generally speaking, the Dem Congressional candidates outperformed their statewide colleagues, with Bill Moody being the only statewide who did as well or better than most. I believe the way to close the gap between the Congressionals and the statewides is with money, which is what the statewide Republicans who did the best had in abundance. It seems clear to me that people who would vote for a Democratic Congressional candidate, especially those who did so in a district held by a Republican incumbent, would be open to the idea of voting for a Democratic statewide candidate. It would help if they knew something about these candidates - at least, if they knew as much about them as they did their Republican opponents - so they could make a fully informed decision. No guarantees, of course, but it sure couldn't hurt.
Now of course, we don't know what will happen in 2008. As you can see, 2004 was a much stronger year for Republican Congressional candidates than either 2002 or 2006. One presumes having President Bush at the top of the ticket to drive turnout for them didn't hurt; they obviously won't have that next year, and no I don't think having Hillary up there will help them, either. On the other hand, we've got a pretty sparse crop of Dem candidates so far, so this measure may not be that useful next year. But we'll see.
So recently I got a friend invite from this "person" on Facebook. In case you can't see it, the page (one "Page Peel", har har har) is a dot com site, looking suspiciously like the sort of thing I'd flag as junk in Movable Type if it were attached to a blog comment. I suppose it was just a matter of time before this sort of thing infected the soc-net sites.
And as if to prove that it ain't just Facebook, shortly after I got that "friend" invitation, I received a pair of requests for connection on Plaxo Pulse from people I'm sure I don't know. I've responded to requests from people I do know who use Plaxo as their contact manager, but this is a different animal entirely. I'm not a Plaxo user myself, and I need another login/password to remember like I need a hole in the head, so I can't tell more about these odd invitations. I just hope they're an aberration and not a trend.
Is this happening to anyone else out there? Or am I just the lucky one?
Finally, on a tangential note, my Facebook friend (whom I do know in real life) Sarah Lindner of the Statesman has a nice article on Facebook for old farts those of us who are over thirty. Check it out.
I don't know for sure how many Craddick Dems there are left in the Lege, but I hope those that remain, whether they face a primary challenger or not, read this article and answer a simple question.
As he seeks to retain his leadership post, House Speaker Tom Craddick is pounding home a partisan message in his public appearances that portrays Republican legislators who oppose him as aiding and abetting the Democrats.In speeches to Republican gatherings and civic groups, Craddick characterizes himself as the keeper of GOP ideals in Austin and warns that efforts to prevent him from winning a fourth term are being driven by trial lawyers who want to undo lawsuit restrictions.
Craddick allies have sought primary election opponents for some Republicans who tried to oust him as speaker in this year's legislative session. And telephone surveys have tried to turn voter sentiment against them in their districts. Craddick denies participating in these efforts.
Because the speaker is elected by representatives in the 150-member House and few districts are competitive across party lines, both Democrats and Republicans are trying to determine the outcome of the next speaker's race by counting votes in the primaries.
Most think Craddick's best chance for winning re-election in 2009 rests with his supporters carrying Republican primaries in March.
"A divided Republican Party is a Democratic win," Craddick told a Republican gathering in Arlington earlier this fall, according to a report in The Dallas Morning News. "The Republican base knows what's best for this country."
Why in the world would you even consider supporting this guy? I don't get it. Maybe in 2003 or 2005 - maybe even in 2007 - I could see the argument for being on his team. But now, after all that's been said and done? I just don't get it.
Couple points of interest regarding this story about the quandary county officials find themselves in with the Astrodome Redevelopment/Texans and Rodeo dispute:
The court will wait until January before voting on whether to allow Astrodome Redevelopment Corp. to go forward with the convention hotel, said Commissioner Jerry Eversole.The county owns Reliant Park and the various venues there, with the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. overseeing operations.
Texans owner Bob McNair and rodeo officials have said the proposal would compete with their operations. And they have called for the hotel to close on Texans' game days and during the 20 days of the rodeo.
"The rodeo and Mr. McNair are asking us to stop the process of examining this proposal," Eversole said Friday. "We can't do that. We couldn't face the public. We just can't say, 'We're going to do what's best for the rodeo or what's best for the Texans.' "
[...]
Knowing the public's feelings about the Dome, several Commissioners Court members said they hope the Texans and rodeo consider the current redevelopment plan more closely.
"I would urge the Texans, the Rodeo and Astrodome Redevelopment to sit down at the table and try to iron out their differences," Commissioner Sylvia Garcia said.
Commissioner El Franco Lee said the rodeo and the Texans adopted a tactic that appears intent on killing further dialogue.
"We pursued this (redevelopment) plan in the first place, because the public has a high interest in preservation," he said. "I would rather see the Texans and the rodeo make a good-faith effort toward what works and creating a revenue-generator at the Dome. That's the way to go, rather than for the Texans and the rodeo to make the presumption that it won't work and stonewall."
Seems pretty clear to me that the Commissioners Court is going to try to get the Texans and the Rodeo to the negotiating table so that a deal can be worked out. Whatever the merits of the Astrodome Redevelopment plan, it has the big plus of taking the Dome and its maintenance expenses off the Court's hands, not to mention letting them all claim that they helped save the beloved Dome. The Commissioners have got to be rooting for this to happen.
Whatever decision that members of Commissioners Court make, they are bound to infuriate someone.And fallout from the vote could create problems for County Judge Ed Emmett, who faces opposition in the GOP primary for his job next year after being appointed to the post to replace Robert Eckels, said Rice University political scientist Bob Stein.
"For public officials, it's like being in a maze," Stein said. "You don't know which turn you make is going to help you. You have the rodeo and the Texans -- the stakeholders -- and then you have the public."
[...]
There's little public support for razing the Dome, Emmett said. He often takes show-of-hand surveys at speaking events to learn where the public stands on the facility. The public overwhelmingly wants the county to save and redevelop the venue that was dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World when it opened, he said.
In a September poll of 400 county residents likely to vote in the March GOP primary, 67 percent said they favored the county's participation in a public-private partnership to redevelop the Dome. Of those polled, 16 percent favored razing the stadium, and 17 percent were undecided.
I wonder if it's ever occurred to Judge Emmett that he could follow up those show-of-hands polls to talk about the reality of the Dome's current situation, both in terms of its annual cost to the taxpayers, the obstacles it faces in order to be perserved as some other functional space, and what the county could do with the property if the Dome weren't there. In other words, he could use his position as County Judge to try and affect public opinion on the matter, so that he might not have to be so bound by it. I'm just saying.
Ideally, I too would like to see the Dome saved. But unlike certain other high-profile preservation targets, it doesn't currently serve a purpose. It can't survive on its own without a big infusion of capital. I hope that if the Dome Redevelopment folks have a plan for that capital that makes sense that they be allowed to go forward with it, but if that doesn't happen, we all need to be prepared for other outcomes. That includes Commissioners Court.
sigh Why must the Chron mess with my comics?
The good news is that, Monday through Saturday, one page of comics will be printed in color.The bad news is that, Monday through Saturday, the number of pages devoted to comics will be reduced by one.
The Sunday comics pages will not be reduced. There will be one slight change. Sherman's Lagoon will be added to the lineup, replacing My Cage.
The comic strips that are being dropped can still be found online at chron.com/comics. You can even build your own comics page by using tools available at that site.
Why is the paper doing this? It's a cost-cutting measure. The Chronicle has run more comics than other newspapers for years, but syndication fees and increases in the cost of newsprint make these changes necessary. The decision was made only after other serious cost-cutting measures were implemented at the paper.
I'm one of those hopeless throwbacks for whom nothing quite compares to the experience of reading a newspaper in its original form. I love online content as much as anyone, but I have a longstanding habit of reading the paper at lunch, and you just can't do that on a computer. Fewer comics in the print issue = less enjoyment for me.
Now I know the Chron lets you customize your own comics page, but as I said in a comment on this About:Chron post, I'd much prefer they provide an RSS feed for each strip, because that's something I can get to via Bloglines from whatever computer I happen to be using, which isn't the case for bookmarks. If they're gonna make me read some of my favorite comics online, the least they can do is let me read them in my preferred way.
A considerable amount of thought went into deciding which strips would be dropped and which would remain. Some of the comics ranked poorly in a recent survey of readers. Some were new comics that had not yet developed a following. Some of the older comics that were dropped were no longer being produced by the original author.
On the one hand, while they moved "Shoe" online, dinosaurs like "BC","Peanuts", and "Hagar the Horrible" are still being printed. On the other hand, inexplicably long-running page-cloggers like "Mary Worth" and "Gasoline Alley" are gone as well. It's a little odd when you think about it, since you figure the audience for those strips are the least likely to read comics online, but I'll take it as progress. It would have been nicer had they given some of those newer strips more of a chance, but on balance I think they made some decent decisions. Now if they give me my RSS feeds, I'll quit griping. For now, at least.
A fellow named Robert Donoghue went to hear chef Anthony Bourdain speak recently, and he came away with a great piece of advice:
Just got back from seeing Anthony Bourdain in in the city, and it was an absolute treat. He is every bit as much fun as you would imagine him to be. Lots of good and useful stuff in the talk, but two stick in my mind:1. Truffle oil is the ketchup of the newly affluent.
2. To find good places to eat, provoke the nerds.#2 showed a remarkably precise understanding of the internet. The question at hand was how to find good restaurants, and his answer was to take the city you want to go to and just google up some restaurant names that serve the dish you're after. Then go to chowhound or another foodie site, and rather than asking about restaurants, you put up an enthusiastic post talking about how you just had the best whatever you're looking for at one of these restaurants.
At that point, what drivingblind likes to call the nerdfury will begin. Posters will show up from nowhere to shower you with disdain, tell you how that place used to be good but has now totally sold out and - most important to your quest - will tell you where you would have gone if you were not some sort of mouth breathing water buffalo.
That's just so right, I can't begin to quantify it. And I'm totally adding "nerdfury" to my vocabulary. Thanks to Unqualified Offerings for the link.
The Chron writes what others have been saying: The recent decision by the Court of Criminal Appeals to accept email filings of appeals is a direct rebuke to Judge Sharon Keller.
The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct has yet to weigh in on the outrageous behavior of Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, who refused to take a last-minute death row appeal after the court's 5 p.m. closing time. In response to the complaints of more than 300 Texas lawyers, her colleagues moved swiftly to make sure the shameful episode does not recur.In an action that took effect immediately, the court installed an instant response system that will allow appeals for stays of execution and other extraordinary legal matters to be sent by e-mail to an on-call duty judge and other members after regular hours. The new system will allow the court to consider matters before hard copies of legal papers are formally filed. Lawyers would be required to do that by 9:30 a.m. the following work day.
Had the system been in effect on Sept. 25, Michael Richard of Harris County would not have been the last person executed by lethal injection before the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a challenge to that form of execution next year. Because of computer problems, Richard's lawyers were not able to file an appeal with the Texas court before closing time, and Keller refused to allow a late filing even though several colleagues remained at the court to hear a last-minute appeal. Richard was executed within hours of the court's closing. The judge assigned the case, Cheryl Johnson, complained that Keller had not notified her of the attempted appeal and that she learned about it from news reports the next day.
A group of Texas attorneys filed a complaint with the Commission on Judicial Conduct, calling for disciplinary action against Keller. The commission could recommend to the Texas Supreme Court that she be removed from office. In a further development this week, the wife of the executed inmate filed a federal lawsuit accusing Keller of violating his due process rights and asking she be prevented from stopping emergency death row appeals from being filed. Marsha Richard also seeks financial damages and court costs.
The members of the Court of Criminal Appeals who supported instituting e-mail filings should be commended for taking a necessary step to restore the image of Texas jurisprudence. That cleansing process will not be complete until the Commission on Judicial Conduct takes strong action to sanction Judge Keller for her reckless abuse of the legal system and a defendant's rights.
Mark Bennett and Scott Cobb get a lot of the credit for that. You can still add your name to their efforts if you'd like. Texas Monthly adds their call for Keller to be impeached. Hopefully, the Commission will make its decision shortly, but I think Grits has the right idea when he says "The most honorable thing would be for her to resign her seat." If she has any honor, she'll spare the Commission the trouble of disciplining her. Your move, Your Honor.
The poor Fort Bend GOP. I almost feel sorry for them in their current predicament.
County GOP Chairman Gary Gillen stunned political officials and activists Thursday when he announced that he and party Treasurer Richard McCarter, Secretary Nancy Porter and Parliamentarian Dick Hudgins had resigned over continuing political differences with what Gillen called "fringe elements" within the party.Then on Friday, members of the local GOP Executive Committee learned that they are at least temporarily unable to appoint even an interim chairman to replace Gillen.
According to the Texas Election Code, if the county party chairman's position becomes vacant, the party secretary is to call a meeting "for the purpose of filling it." But with no party secretary either, it's up to the Texas Republican Party chair, "on written request of a member of the county executive committee," to call a meeting to fill the county chairman vacancy.
Terese Raia, a member of both the county and State Republican Party executive committees, called State GOP Chairman Tina Benkiser Friday morning to discuss the election code stipulation and to strike a plan to find a replacement chairman for Fort Bend County.
Raia said Benkiser asked if county Executive Committee members had received party Secretary Porter's written resignation.
"The caveat is, we do not have written notification that Nancy has resigned," Raia said Friday morning. "Until we find out in writing that she truly resigned, nothing can happen. We are at a standstill. The party cannot call a meeting."
"That is sort of where we find the situation," State Republican Party Political and Communications Director Hans Klingler acknowledged Friday afternoon. "Our hope is...we will receive that sort of legal notification so we can move forward. We're still trying to get our arms around this, too."
Porter did not immediately respond to a call seeking clarification on whether she has officially resigned.
Ms. Porter apparently left a comment on the story at Fort Bend Now that was a copy of an email she sent to Gillen announcing her resignation, so perhaps that will count. I figure the state party will take action as fast as it can, given the pickle they're in now, with primary filing season opening three weeks away. One commenter elsewhere in that story reports that Gillen's predecessor, Eric Thode, will step in on an interim basis. We'll see what happens - whatever it is, it'll be fun to watch. Juanita and Hal have more.
Joe Jaworski writes the following letter to Governor Perry:
Dear Governor Perry:I know you share my outrage at the snail's pace of state aid for Texas families more than two years after Hurricane Rita came ashore with such force. The recent State Auditor's report finds that of nearly 4,300 applications for federal assistance controlled by your administration, only 13 have been helped.
This letter is to ask you to take immediate steps to break the logjam that has kept all but a mere two percent of available aid from getting to the families who need it most.
It is outrageous that these taxpaying citizens - these Texans! - should be victimized twice - first by the storm, then again by the state bureaucracy.
The State Auditor's report makes clear that the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has been too cautious in providing relief to the storm's victims but thrown caution to the wind when it comes to privatizing relief effort, including a multi-million dollar contract with a private firm whose top lobbyist is your former chief of staff.
The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has also squandered more than $230,000 in hurricane relief on administrative expenses, according the State Auditor's report. That's one-fifth of what has been spent thus far--a ratio that would make Halliburton blush.
I urge you to make sure that Texans who applied for aid receive initial payments to get things going. The state can then provide additional funds based on a more thorough approval process. This plan will guarantee immediate help while allowing for safeguards to protect taxpayers against fraud or abuse.
As a Galveston city councilman in 2005, I helped lead the efforts to prepare for Hurricane Rita's arrival. Had the storm not turned east at the last minute, our region would have been devastated. Even though we avoided the brunt of the hurricane, thousands in our area suffered property and infrastructure damage. They deserve help - now.
Sincerely,
Joe Jaworski
Jaworski is referring to this story from last week. Given the initial response from Governor Perry, I'm not sure his letter will be well received.
Gov. Rick Perry defended housing situations on Friday - both his own move to a $1.8 million lease home while the Governor's Mansion undergoes renovation and the two-year wait for assistance endured by 4,300 Texas families displaced by Hurricane Rita.After voting early on the 16 propositions on Tuesday's general election ballot, Mr. Perry told reporters that both housing situations were based on security needs - in his case, to accommodate his security detail, and in the Rita victims' instance, to protect taxpayers' money.
A critical state audit report released this week showed that the state has spent only 2 percent of the half-billion dollars in federal aid given to help victims of the 2005 storm, which happened only weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana and Mississippi.
Thus far, only 13 families have been supplied mobile homes.
"You try to find a balance of having the right safeguards in place and getting the money to the people who need it in an appropriate amount of time," Mr. Perry said. "I think the vast majority of Texans would rather get it right then get it quick."
He said the state's response in the immediate aftermath of the storm was good, and that other "pots of money" have been used to help rebuild southeast Texas communities.
He said the housing funds are slowed by federal restrictions and the state's own insistence that the money not fall victim to fraud.
Asked repeatedly about the audit, the governor said it was unnecessary to keep "beating this horse" and that his chief of staff had made phone calls to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.
"Can it be faster? Yes. Should it be faster? I think so. But again, I think finding a way to do that without jeopardizing the taxpayers' money is really important," Mr. Perry said.
"Am I going to lift a finger to help? Nope," Perry did not add. For goodness' sake, even John Cornyn thinks this is ridiculous.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has denounced the state's "shockingly slow pace" of parceling out federal housing aid to Hurricane Rita victims.Citing a state audit released last week that found only 13 families had been helped, out of almost 4,300 applicants for aid, Mr. Cornyn rebuked the state's top housing official Thursday and huddled with federal agency leaders about how to speed the flow of money.
"While it is important to meet federal regulatory requirements and have safeguards against fraud and abuse, I believe the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has taken an overly cautious and bureaucratic approach to delivering assistance to homeowners," Mr. Cornyn wrote Michael Gerber, the department's executive director.
[...]
Mr. Cornyn complained to Mr. Gerber that with similar block grants, Louisiana has helped 36,000 families and Mississippi, more than 13,000.
"The go-slow mind set ... must be reversed, and I urge you to streamline and expedite the approval process," Mr. Cornyn wrote.
When even our junior Senator thinks the government should be doing more to help, you know things are bad.
This is good enough for me:
If it's not good enough for you, check out this excellent video that clearly and concisely explains the issues involved, and what the writers are asking for. It may surprise you. Mark Evanier, from whom I got that video, has also been answering a bunch of questions about the Writers Guild. Check it out.
I love headlines like this: City Of Duncanville Cracking Down On Sex Parties. Who knew they had them? You can almost see the light bulb going on over Wayne Dolcefino's head. And I can't believe In the Pink hasn't covered this already.
I want to call your attention to this story about how Duncanville dealt with this matter, and see if any of it sounds familiar.
The Duncanville City Council unanimously approved an ordinance Tuesday night preventing the operation of sex clubs in residences in response to complaints from neighbors of a private swingers club.Council member Johnette Jameson said the ordinance was the result of years of complaints about activities at the home near Cedar Ridge Drive and Interstate 20. Although the city has regulations pertaining to sexually oriented businesses, it has not been able to document business activities at the home, which is in Ms. Jameson's district.
She said the ordinance is targeting public nuisances related to the Cherry Pit club rather than what people are doing as part of the club.
"We are not addressing what activities are going on," she said. "We're addressing the traffic. We have to be good neighbors to each other."
Mayor David Green agreed that nearby residents have been bothered by the influx of cars coming to the home.
"People can't find parking," he said. "It's really detracting from the neighborhood."
But one of the home's residents, Julie Norris, said she thinks city officials are disguising their attempts to regulate private behavior at her home by complaining about traffic.
"If it was about traffic, why are there only [no parking] signs in front of my house?" she asked.
Hmm, using concerns about traffic to pass an ordinance dealing with a particular threat to a single neighborhood. I know I've heard something like that recently...
A few more election wrapup pieces to finish off the week...
Joe Trevino talks to Carolyn Feibel about how he made it to the runoff in At Large #5.
I asked Trevino who he thought his supporters were. He identified three voting blocs that he cultivated:* HISD teachers and staff: Trevino worked 32 years in the district, so he placed calls to former colleagues and union leaders. That seems like a good strategy, considering the HISD bond proposal drove many voters, and presumably HISD workers, to the polls.
* East Side voters: For much of his career, Trevino worked for schools in the heavily Hispanic East Side, including as principal of Austin High School. "There was a lot of name recognition out there," he said. "I was the principal that handed them their diploma." Presumably, voters who came out in District I for the Rodriguez/Marron race also recognized Trevino's name.
* Runners in Memorial Park: Talk about a simple campaign strategy. On the weekends, at least half a dozen times, Trevino set up a little table, stocked an ice chest with water and beer, and greeted runners."Right now is the marathon season, so a lot of people are out getting ready," he explained. "Most marathoners are educated people who vote."
Number 3 is my favorite reason, and a pretty good idea for a fairly low-money campaign. Number 1 seems like the biggest driver of votes, especially since as Marc Campos notes, Latino voters did their job in helping to pass the HISD bond. I don't know what the turnout numbers look like yet, and I confess to being a bit skeptical about the District I race being that big a factor. Fewer than 8000 votes were cast there, compared to over 98,000 in AL5; if you assume half of them voted for Trevino (in such a big field, it's a stretch to assume anything higher), that's barely 20% of his vote total. If you subtract that entire amount, he still places ahead of Tom Nixon. I'm not trying to discount Trevino's performance in the East End - I've no doubt he did well there - I'm just saying it was only one piece of the puzzle. He'd have had to do well all over the city to really compete, and clearly he did just that.
The Caucus Blog notes that with the exception of Kevin Hoffman and his close loss in the HCCS Trustee race, every candidate and proposition endorsed by the Houston GLBT Political Caucus won or made it to the runoff. I'd say their support of the HISD bond was the biggest victory for them. The Caucus has gotten a lot of good results for its endorsements lately; they should be proud of what they did this cycle.
Finally, Miya Shay attends a Greater Houston Partnership postmortem of the election and gets a few good quotes from the assembled panel. Check it out.
UPDATE: Two more of interest, from Burka on HD97, and Grits on the failed Smith County jail bond.
Previously, we learned that the Harris County Attorney was researching whether or not Commissioners Court could approve the Astrodome Redevelopment plans over the objections of the Texans and the Rodeo. Now we have the answer to that question.
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and the Houston Texans have no legal basis to block a plan to turn the Reliant Astrodome into an upscale convention hotel as long as their concerns about parking, access and food sales are addressed, Harris County Attorney Mike Stafford said Thursday."There is no insurmountable legal impediment to doing this deal," Stafford said.
The rodeo, however, signaled that it could sue to prevent Astrodome Redevelopment Corp. from forging ahead with its proposed $450 million, 1,300-room hotel.
"Our legal firm is telling us this proposal will violate our lease rights," said Leroy Shafer, the rodeo's chief operating officer. "And we will take every measure to protect those rights."
Commissioners Court will decide whether the Dome plan goes forward, with its next review of the plan scheduled for January. The court could give ARC's plan the go-ahead, or reject it and seek new proposals.
So if ARC meets the terms of the lease, then they can get approval from the Court even if the Texans and the Rodeo don't like it. Which is not to say that they would get that approval - I still don't see the Court going against the wishes of those two entities. My guess is that if ARC fulfills its obligations and they get the thumbs down anyway, they'll sue. So by whom would we rather be sued? That may be the question.
In its applications for financing, Astrodome Redevelopment Corp. told investment banks that as many as 750,000 of the 1.8 million spectators who attend the rodeo and carnival annually could come through the convention hotel complex, said John Clanton, the company's chief executive.The proposed hotel complex would include seven restaurants and an amusement component. Entertainment attractions could include a ride that would take people near the top of the Dome, gondolas, tethered hot-air balloons and a batting cage, Clanton said.
A ride to the top of the Dome, eh? Too bad you won't be able to get a good view of the city from that vantage point. I'd ride that if that were the case.
A letter of intent signed by Astrodome Redevelopment and Harris County Sports & Convention Corp., which oversees Reliant Park, requires the company to get the Texans and the rodeo to sign off on the convention hotel.Stafford said the rodeo and Texans' contracts require the county to provide them with 22,000-25,000 parking spaces and adequate ways in and out of Reliant Park.
A convention hotel, he said, would not violate the Texans or the rodeo's parking and access rights.
Clanton said Astrodome Redevelopment negotiated with the Texans and the rodeo and agreed to meet the latter's demand for a percentage of food and merchandise sales during the three-week rodeo.
Clanton said Astrodome Redevelopment would be willing to close the convention hotel to rodeo attendees, defusing the rodeo's concerns it would siphon off its business.
Stafford said the hotel complex would not be violating the rodeo or the Texans' right to sell food exclusively on their operating days, if the hotel shut its doors to their attendees.
Sounds like the pieces may be in place for the Court to approve the project if they want to. And even though I think they won't if there's enough of a stink raised by the Texans and the Rodeo, there is another force at work here:
Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said he supports redeveloping the Dome, mostly unused since the Astros left after the 1999 season, especially after seeing wide support for such a plan among the public.While speaking at a Bay Area Chamber of Commerce meeting this week, he asked how many people favored razing the Dome.
"Only four people out of 100 raised their hands, and there were people who audibly hissed them," Emmett said. "Then I asked, 'Who wants to save the Dome?' About everybody else raised their hands."
In a September poll of 400 county residents likely to vote in the March Republican primary, 67 percent said they favored the county's participating in a public-private partnership to redevelop the Dome.
Of those polled, 16 percent favored razing the Dome, while 17 percent were undecided.
It always comes down to the primary, doesn't it? Good luck sorting it all out, Ed. Swamplot has more, while City of Brass has an alternate suggestion in case the ARC plan gets shot down.
So Proposition 15 passed by a solid margin, with over 61% of voters statewide supporting it. But it turns out that Travis County, home of Prop 15 uber-supporter Lance Armstrong, nearly rejected it. What's up with that?
Proposition 15 just squeaked past there, winning 50.29 percent of the votes, according to unofficial results, as opponents staged a late drive in Central Texas to defeat it.Williamson, Burnet, Blanco, Caldwell and Bastrop counties voted against Proposition 15, and Hays barely supported it. Most of the state's urban counties -- Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and El Paso -- were on the Proposition 15 bandwagon.
Here's a spreadsheet of the returns for Prop 15 in each county, sorted by approval percentage. A total of 60 counties voted against Prop 15, the largest being Williamson (9,292-13,739), Lubbock (5.455-6,161), and Smith (9,797-9,823). Most of the naysayers were much smaller, and the total margin of defeat in all 60 counties combined was about 10,000 votes. The margin of victory in Tarrant County alone (43,507-27,107) would have been enough to overcome them.
As such, I find the crowing by the opponents to be, well, a little odd.
"Most people think of Travis County as a liberal big-government haven," said Wes Benedict, chair of the Travis County Libertarian Party, which opposed the proposal. "Seeing Prop. 15 almost defeated in Lance Armstrong's backyard is very satisfying."
I know I just said that there's no "almost" in politics. You win or you lose - there are no consolation prizes, no moral victories, and as we well know these days, no assurance that a close win will have any temporizing effect on the winner. That said, obviously one looks at each election's results to see where opportunities exist to make gains in the future. Only problem here is that Prop 15 will never be on the ballot again. It's enshrined in the Constitution, and the money has been authorized for allocation. Passage by one vote or a million, it's all the same. If you want to claim a moral victory for almost defeating it in one particular county, even though actually doing so would have meant nothing for the final outcome, well, if it makes you feel better, I guess go right ahead. I confess, I don't quite get it.
David Rogers, an attorney who lives in Pflugerville, said he voted against Proposition 15 but supported several other proposals on the ballot.Proposition 15 "is a blank check to whoever the researchers are," he said, "and generally, I think blank checks are bad ideas."
Rogers said he wasn't swayed by Armstrong's or Perry's participation but did take note of a group that called the proposal a cancer tax.
That group was Austinite Don Zimmerman's political action committee, Prop15 Families Against Cancer Tax. The group organized late and raised just $3,500, Zimmerman said. But it put up 50 signs in the area and held a news conference and a debate.
Proposition 15 supporters acknowledged that made a difference.
"A late-in-the-game, solid push by the opposition -- centered in Travis County -- bounced the numbers down a little," Lance Armstrong Foundation spokeswoman Katherine McLane said, "but not enough to detract from the tremendous victory the proposition received."
Zimmerman said that many Austin-area opponents of Proposition 15 are, like him, supporters of presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a Lake Jackson Republican who's gained traction on the Web in recent months and this week received more than $4.2 million in campaign contributions in nearly 24 hours.
"Ron Paul supporters do not believe in socialism," said Austinite Robert Morrow, a local Paul volunteer, "so they targeted this proposition as the worst example of wasteful big-government spending."
And they failed to achieve any practical effect whatsoever. You can draw your own analogy to the Paul for President campaign, or indeed to his entire career in politics, as you see fit.
The City Hall blog asks Sue Lovell why she thinks she won by such an unimpressive margin against Griff Griffin.
Lovell claims that she purposely did not campaign, instead choosing to spread her "political capital" to three other council hopefuls: Jolanda Jones, Wanda Adams, and James Rodriguez. Lovell gave money to all three.Rodriguez won outright, and Jones and Adams each made runoffs. "I won three times last night," Lovell said.
Why did she adopt this somewhat risky tactic? It seems Lovell thought her seat was relatively safe, and she wanted to support those she believes in. And supporting those three would help her consolidate political power in the long term. She has her eye on the Harris County Clerk's office in 2010.
But why did "Griff" do so well? Lovell has answers to that, too:
1) Early voters were driven to the polls by churchs opposed to the HISD bond, she said. And some church voters don't like Lovell because she's gay.
2) "Griff" has run six times before, so he has name recognition.
Unlike Johnson's first-time challenger in District B, Kenneth Perkins, for example.
Several things:
- First, my thanks to Carolyn Feibel for asking this question. I was thinking about doing something like this myself, and she saved me the trouble.
- Besides money, what does "political capital" mean here, and why would spending it to help others prevent her from running a vigorous enough campaign on her own behalf? Looking at the eight days out report, Lovell's financial resources were fairly modest. A more detailed accounting of what she did and gave would help better evaluate her actions.
- Also unexplored here is what kind of blowback Lovell might have gotten for taking sides as she did in these races, two of which were strictly Democrat-versus-Democrat while the third featured multiple Dems as well. I heard some grumbling about this at the election night party I attended as I expressed my surprise about Lovell's close race, and while Carl Whitmarsh doesn't name names in his comment at Greg's place, it's pretty clear who he's referring to. It would not surprise me at all to learn that more than a few supporters of Jones', Adams', and Rodriguez's Democratic opponents cast votes for Griff as payback. This is why you often see incumbent politicians stay out of contentious primaries.
- I gotta say, I always thought it was axiomatic that you always take your own re-election seriously. If you're not unopposed, you run to win, because the streets are littered with former officeholders who took their seat for granted and woke up the day after to find themselves unemployed. See "Heflin, Talmadge" for a recent example of this. It's one thing for a Bill White, with his infinite resources and truly irrelevant opposition, to lend a hand to a colleague or two. It's another for someone who had won by a small margin in a low-turnout runoff after a bruising campaign to take her eye off the ball. Note too that while the Mayor may have helped out some other folks, he still ran hard for his own re-election. As someone who thinks Council Member Lovell has done a good job, and who would have been appalled to see her get ousted by the likes of Griff, I hope she takes this to heart, because I fear she may get a real opponent next time.
- Finally, I'm being a bit unfair to Griff, for whom I at least saw a few signs around town - more than I saw for Lovell, now that I think about it. He still didn't do any actual campaigning, as far as I could tell, but I'll concede that he had some name ID going for him, and unlike some of the other perennials that litter the ballot, he was something of a known entity before he made the transition to eternal candidate. Which just gets back to my prior point.
There is no such thing as "almost" in electoral politics. Lovell's race may have been unexpectedly close, but the bottom line is that she won. Further, she achieved her stated goal, in that Rodriguez won, and Jones and Adams are in positions to win. She's entitled to look at Tuesday's results as an unqualified success if she chooses to do so. But as long as Lovell will be on future ballots, there may be a cost to her actions as well, even if it doesn't get billed to her in this cycle. It's worth it to keep that in mind.
So okay, maybe Feibel didn't save me any actual work by asking the question. But I'm glad she asked it anyway.
So, why did the jail bond fail? Ed Emmett would like to know.
County Judge Ed Emmett said Wednesday that he still was analyzing the loss -- the first defeat of a county bond request in 20 years -- and will consult with Commissioners Court on whether to hold another referendum for the jail project, possibly as soon as next year."We always have jail overcrowding," Emmett said.
"Sooner or later, we will have to have more cells."
You all know how I feel about this, so I'll refrain from beating the dead horse. I'll just say how nice it would be if the Chron, which as I said before has done some great reporting on the overcrowded jails, would do some more reporting on how the jails got to be overcrowded in the first place, and what we could do about it without building more jails. If nothing else, someone needs to explain this to Emmett.
I should note further that one explanation that has arisen for the defeat of this bond is the proposed location for the new jail, on Buffalo Bayou. Christof explores that aspect of the issue, which was curiously omitted from this story even though it got mentioned in an editorial (the op-ed page on Chron.com also linked to Christof's post). A little better communication between Editorial and the City Desk, fellas!
In a pre-election poll, the jail bond had the support of only 38 percent of African-Americans likely to vote, said Bob Stein, a Rice University political scientist who conducted the polling.Franklin Jones, a Texas Southern University political scientist, said jail referendums often do not fare well among some African-Americans, who believe society should invest more in education and other programs and less on jails.
"It becomes a question of priorities and spending," Jones said. "In the black community, many believe that if the money was spent on the front end, you wouldn't need these factories and warehouses at the back end."
Seems eminently logical to me. If you think it's a poor use of your money, why should you vote for it?
Former Harris County District Clerk Charles Bacarisse, who is running against Emmett in the March Republican primary for county judge, said the county's five bond requests would have fared better if Emmett had done a better job justifying why they were needed.Bacarisse publicly supported each of the county's bond requests on the ballot, but he refused Wednesday to disclose whether he voted for the bonds.
"I won't say that I voted for all of them," he said. "I just don't like to talk about how I personally vote on any subject."
Emmett said, "If the bonds were going to raise taxes, why did he say he was for them earlier? This is a guy who says he is for the package, but then says he is against it after the jail portion loses."
Emmett said he and other officials would learn from this election and wage a better campaign if Commissioners Court decides to seek another referendum.
What was it I said about how this would play out between Emmett and Bacarisse? Oh, yes, it was "I think each side takes some credit and tries to pin some blame on the other". Sometimes this gig is just too easy.
Have I mentioned lately that 2008 is going to be a very interesting year around here? Yes, I think I have. And it's stuff like this that keeps fueling such statements.
In a surprise announcement before an audience of elected Republican officials on Thursday, Fort Bend County GOP Chairman Gary Gillen said he and a slate of top party officers have quit.Citing untenable political differences with what he termed "a number of fringe elements in the party," Gillen said he, party Treasurer Richard McCarter, Secretary Nancy Porter and Parliamentarian Dick Hudgins have resigned effective immediately.
"We have a problem in Fort Bend County that I'd like to bring to your attention," Gillen told an audience at a luncheon meeting of the West Fort Bend Republican Women, at Katy's Falcon Point Country Club. "We're facing nother less than a hostile takeover" of the county Republican Party.
Gillen did not identify members of a group he said gradually drove him to Thursday's decision, but at one point in an interview after his announcement said, "if the executive committee of the party are not interested in helping all of our candidates equally, I am not interested in working with them."
[...]
Gillen has clashed with members of the party's executive committee repeatedly in the 18 months or so since he took office. In fact, on Jan. 3, 2007, the Republican Party of Fort Bend County, in the person of the executive committee, filed a lawsuit against Gillen, saying he diverted money from the party by attempting to operate the party's Lincoln Day fund-raiser through another organization.
More recently, Attorney and Precinct Chairman David Stone sent an email to Gillen, McCarter and the GOP General Counsel Farha Ahmed, in which he detailed instances where he said party officials failed to comply with election law.
In the email, Stone alleges, among other things, that Gillen has used party funds for in-kind contributions to local and federal candidates but failed to report it as required by law.
Gillen discounted the accusations on Tuesday, saying "We don't think Mr. Stone has his facts together." Before an audience of judges, law enforcement officers and elected officials on Thursday, Gillen said, without mentioning him by name, that as a Republican, Stone "could not work in a better way as a Democrat than he has done."
Procedurally, the move by Gillen and other top party officials leaves the Fort Bend County Republican Party Executive Committee at least temporarily unable to meet - just days after several committee members said they intended to call a special meeting over issues raised in Stone's email.
According to the Texas Election Code, if the county party chairman's position becomes vacant, the party secretary is to call a meeting "for the purpose of filling it." But with no party secretary either, it's up to the Texas Republican Party chair, "on written request of a member of the county executive committee," to call a meeting to fill the county chairman vacancy.
I'm sure Tina Benkiser will handle that with all the tact and sensitivity for which she's renowned. Gillen's tenure with the FBGOP has been rocky, to say the least, with all kinds of fissures developing during the aborted attempt to replace Tom DeLay on the ballot in CD22 last year. While it's a surprise to see it all happen at once in this fashion, Gillen's departure isn't itself a surprise. It'll be interesting to see where the go from here. Juanita has more.
The endorsements keep coming in for Rick Noriega. Here's an email Wes Clark sent to his list:
20 months ago I asked you to take a chance. To help a veteran, who had been drafted into his race, facing long odds and an entrenched Republican incumbent with a huge campaign war chest in a red state.Today, we call that candidate Senator Jim Webb.
I am asking you to take another chance. Lt. Col. Rick Noriega is challenging Republican John Cornyn for Texas' U.S. Senate seat. Rick served honorably in Afghanistan after the attacks on 9/11. Like Jim and me, he was drafted into his race.
Now, I need you to support Rick, as you did for Jim and me. Contribute to his campaign today!
http://www.actblue.com/page/supportrick
Today, George W. Bush is holding two closed-door fundraisers for Rick's opponent, John Cornyn. We shouldn't be surprised as John Cornyn has been a reliable rubber stamp for Bush's policies. Cornyn has consistently voted to continue Bush's failed strategy in Iraq. He voted against Jim Webb's Dwell Time legislation, which would have ensured that our men and women in uniform spend as much time at home as they do deployed.
And just last week, John Cornyn once again voted against providing health insurance for poor children. His reward for such fealty to the Administration was a fundraiser that same night held by Dick Cheney in Texas and now two more fundraisers tonight with George W. Bush.
Texas and America deserve better than another rubber stamp. Help send John Cornyn home with George W. Bush in 2008. Contribute to Rick Noriega's campaign today!http://www.actblue.com/page/supportrick
I've met Rick personally, and we need him to be the next U.S. Senator from Texas.
At a time when we are facing increasingly serious foreign policy and national security challenges, while needing to repair this Administration's assault on the Constitution, Rick's leadership and knowledge will be of paramount importance.Rick serves as a State Representative from Houston and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Texas National Guard who served a tour of duty in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. He joined the Army in 1979 in response to the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Since 2005, Lt. Col. Noriega served as Laredo Border Sector Commander in Operation Jump Start and as the Incident Commander at the George R. Brown Convention Center for evacuees to Houston in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Rick Noriega's background as a military man for nearly three decades will provide a vital perspective and fill a needed gap among our leaders as we work to rebuild international alliances and confront the many obstacles to peace and prosperity here, and around the world.
Please add Rick's voice to the U.S. Senate by contributing to Rick's campaign today!http://www.actblue.com/page/supportrick
Your support of me when I was drafted into the Presidential race helped me hit the ground running. Your early support of Jim Webb laid the groundwork for the biggest victory of the entire 2006 elections. Now we have the chance to top that. To win a U.S. Senate seat for Democrats in George W. Bush's home state.
Contribute to Rick Noriega's campaign today and send George W. Bush a message while he's fundraising for Rick's opponent!
http://www.actblue.com/page/supportrick
Rick has answered the call to serve once again. I hope you will join him.
Sincerely,Wes Clark
I've got his press release beneath the fold. And you can add Sen. John Kerry to the fold as well, as he writes in this BOR diary. You may have noticed that each of them has set up his own ActBlue page for Noriega, like the one that I pointed to before. That's all apparently a bit too confusing for the Republican Party of Texas to understand, as they sent out an email claiming the "netroots" (who knew they even knew of such a thing, since they don't have one themselves?) had failed to respond to the calls for donations. Turns out that there's also one master page that's tracking all of the various partnering efforts for this week, and as you can see they're approaching 1000 donors and $50,000 in contributions. Admittedly, that will fall short of what President Bush can do for his pal John Cornyn. But then, he can only do that so often. And we all can do this any time.
Recognizing America's need for leaders who possess the necessary experience to protect national security while preserving the rights of citizens, one of the most highly-decorated military officers since General Dwight D. Eisenhower today endorsed Rick Noriega for U.S. Senate. General Wesley K. Clark noted State Representative Noriega's military experience and legislative accomplishments as grounds for his support.
"At a time when we are facing increasingly serious foreign policy and national security challenges, while needing to repair this Administration's assault on the Constitution, Lieutenant Colonel Noriega's leadership and knowledge will be of paramount importance," Clark said. "I am excited that Rick Noriega has, once again, answered the call to serve."
Rick Noriega is a state Representative from Houston and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Texas National Guard who served a tour of duty in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. He joined the Army in 1979 in response to the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Since 2005, Lt. Col. Noriega served as Laredo Border Sector Commander in Operation Jump Start and as the Incident Commander at the George R. Brown Convention Center for evacuees to Houston in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"Veterans Day is next week, and I can think of no greater way to honor those who have served our country abroad than to support a fellow veteran's bid to serve our country in the United States Senate. Rick Noriega's background as a military man for nearly three decades will provide a vital perspective and fill a needed gap among our leaders as they work to rebuild international alliances and confront the many obstacles to peace and prosperity here, and around the world," Clark added.
In his five terms in the Texas Legislature, Representative Noriega has committed himself to education, health care, veterans' issues, and to ensuring that all Texans have the opportunity to succeed. During the 2007 legislative session, Rep. Noriega helped stop several partisan bills that would have eroded Texans' voting rights.
"General Clark's support underscores our nation's need for leaders who have first-hand experience to deal with problems around the world," Noriega said.
Excellent news. Here's the press release:
Democracy for America, a coalition of activists committed to promoting fiscally responsible, socially progressive candidates and values, today announced its endorsement of State Representative Rick Noriega for United States Senate. DFA's first endorsement of a senatorial candidate in the 2008 election cycle results from a surging grassroots movement supporting Noriega's candidacy."We heard from thousands of DFA activists over the past few weeks, telling us about the work they were doing for Noriega's campaign. Noriega has real boots-on-the-ground support," said Democracy for America Chair Jim Dean.
"From the beginning, this campaign has been about bringing together ordinary people who share a common goal of providing new leadership for Texas," commented Representative Noriega. "DFA has a proven record of working from the grassroots to bring real change. I am extremely grateful for its endorsement and for the countless support that DFA activists have provided my campaign."
DFA's endorsement falls during the same week as President Bush's planned visit to Texas, where he will hold several high-dollar, closed-door fundraisers for Texas's Junior Senator. Whether failing to care for veterans or refusing health care to needy children, John Cornyn has spent his five years in Washington blindly rubber-stamping George Bush's policies. Tomorrow, he will cash in on that support for the President's failed agenda.
Democracy for America, in conjunction with its endorsement, is joining with other grassroots activists in the Stamp Out Bush's Rubber Stamp campaign, a weeklong, online fundraising effort aimed at demonstrating the ability of ordinary people to counter Bush's support for his unfailing ally.
Outstanding. And if you want to help with that weeklong fundraising effort, you know what to do.
That sound you hear is another nail being hammered into the coffin of the Astrodome Hotel/Convention Center plan.
Texans owner Bob McNair opposes the most recent plan to redevelop the Astrodome because it conflicts with the team's lease that gives him exclusive rights to the premises on game days.McNair said he is willing to listen to any proposal from the Astrodome Redevelopment Corp. as long as it doesn't interfere with Texans games at Reliant Stadium.
"We want to make it as easy as possible for our fans to get in and out of the parking lots on game days," McNair said after the Texans' practice on Tuesday. "We've invested close to a billion dollars, and our contract has been in place. There's no question that we have the rights to control the property on game days. And the rodeo has the rights on their dates."
The Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo have opposed the $450 million plan that includes conventions and a 1,300-room hotel.
"A hotel would be in direct conflict with our games and when the rodeo is going on," McNair said. "You can't tell guests they can't come to the hotel on Sundays. That wouldn't be fair to them. It wouldn't be fair to our fans.
"At one time, the plan was to have conventions on game days. Nothing could be booked until we get our schedule, and we don't get our schedule until April. Conventions have to be booked three or four years in advance. It just won't work. And it's not just us. The rodeo has more events than we do.
"We bought the rights to control the premises, and they're asking us to give up the rights we negotiated in the lease."
[...]
McNair said he wants to make it clear he doesn't oppose the redevelopment of the Dome.
"We're trying to be open-minded about this," he said. "We'd like to see something happen that doesn't undermine our operation. They need to come up with a plan that's not in conflict with our operation and the rodeo's operation."
And if you can come up with such a plan that's 1) commercially feasible, 2) politically viable, and 3) not in conflict with the bidness of the Texans and the Rodeo, you're probably a lot smarter than everyone else who's had a hand in this. John McClain, and Swamplot have more.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Tuesday it will accept emergency e-mail filings in death penalty cases in an effort to avoid a repeat of the nationally controversial execution of Michael Richard.[...]
The court said its new "instant response system," which takes effect immediately, will send emergency pleadings in death penalty cases and other extraordinary matters by e-mail to an on-call duty judge and the rest of the court so it can begin considering the matter.
The e-filing will allow the court to act before an official filing is made with the court, according to a statement issued by the court. The new procedure was described as a "stop-gap" measure until a wide ranging electronic filing system is adopted by all Texas appeals courts in 2010.
Under the procedure, an attorney filing an emergency appeal will have to notify the clerk by telephone that a late filing is in the works. The e-mail filing then will go to the duty judge. An official paper filing will have to be given to the court clerk by 9:30 a.m. the following day.
"This system will supplement the court's current routine for these emergencies so that nothing will be left to chance or miscommunications," said the court's unsigned news release. "The court intends to have a fail-safe system."
[...]
Austin criminal defense lawyer Charles Herring, one of the leaders of the petition drive, welcomed the new rule as a "small step" toward improving the death penalty system. But he said it does not undo the "legal malfunction" that led to Richard's execution.
Herring said the court is far from creating a "fail-safe system." He said a recent State Bar of Texas study found the criminal appeals court is still designating for death penalty appeals too many lawyers who are inexperienced or who have had legal disciplinary problems.
"This court is a long, long way from achieving that goal," Herring said.
Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, also said the new rule is a small step toward fixing the state's capital punishment system.
"The fact the court could do this so quickly after the attorneys' petition begs the question of why it had not done so earlier and underscores the sad reality that Mr. Richard would still be alive," Harrington said.
"Judge Keller's actions were but one manifestation of a system that operates capriciously and discriminates against poor and minority persons," he said.
Amen. As I said before, there's really no argument against this. Honestly, had it not been for the Michael Richard tragedy, it never would have occurred to me that we weren't doing it this way already because why in the 2007 would we still be relying on paper for stuff like this? It's madness. At least we've taken this small step forward now, and thank goodness for that.
David Pinto reports the following:
The general managers voted 25-5 to use instant replays to decide boundary calls:
The recommendation, by a 25-5 vote, was limited to boundary calls - whether potential home runs are fair or foul, whether balls go over fences or hit the top and bounce back, and whether fans have interfered with a possible homer.
That seems to be a reasonable recommendation. Fans of the 1996 Orioles would approve, I'm sure.
Sounds fine to me. These have got to be the hardest calls for an ump to make just because of the distances involved, but should also be fairly easy to determine from replay evidence, unlike (say) a ball/strike call, where you can never be sure of the angle. Good move, baseball, if it happens. This Chron story fills in the details.
In a vote more symbolic than substantive at the annual general managers' meetings, the GMs voted 25-5 in favor of recommending the use of replay. It's doubtful replay could be approved for next season.Commissioner Bud Selig, who has been against the use of replay in the past, will study the matter further. Even if he approves it, the 30 owners and the players' and umpires' unions would have to give their OK.
About an hour after baseball executive vice president Jimmie Lee Solomon announced the vote, baseball president Bob DuPuy put the matter in perspective.
"GMs make recommendations," DuPuy said. "They don't have rule-making authority."
I hope the unions and Beelzebud get on board, because this just makes a lot of sense to me. I can see the concern that Will Carroll raises - it's a lot easier to undo a fair call than a foul call - but I don't think it's insurmountable. Give it a test drive in spring training and see what happens. Brian McTaggart is also on board.
As you know, I don't listen to talk radio, but this story about some changes in the lineups here interested me.
Talk-show hosts Chris Baker and Cynthia Hunt have been taken off the air at Clear Channel-owned radio stations KTRH (740 AM) and KPRC (950 AM) .Hunt said Tuesday she was told Monday night by Michael Berry, director of AM programming for Clear Channel Houston, that the KPRC show she hosted with Baker was being canceled. Baker also hosted a solo afternoon drive-time show on KTRH.
"They're going more into the Radio Mojo format (on KPRC), which is kind of like Radio Maxim for men," Hunt said. "I will absolutely miss the show and getting to talk to people every day and hear what they think about important issues."
[...]
According to Clear Channel's Web sites, Baker's departure from KTRH will be filled by extended hours for the syndicated Sean Hannity show, which will air from 2 to 5 p.m., and Berry's local show from 5 to 8 p.m.
KPRC's schedule shifts the Walton and Johnson show and the Erich "Mancow" Muller shows to fill the two-hour afternoon gap left by the departure of the Baker and Hunt show.
Here's the thing: How exactly is this lineup going to compete (some day, if not right now) with satellite radio, where you can hear every juvenile thing that W&J and Mancow do as well as all of the naughty words they can't use and whatever else the FCC would fine KPRC for if they aired it? It seems to me that the one advantage traditional radio stations will have as satellite becomes more pervasive is with local content, aimed at local audiences. You can listen to clowns from Louisiana or Chicago anywhere nowadays. But if KPRC and KTRH are the only places to hear Houstonians talking about Houston, that's gotta be a competitive edge for them. Right?
I know, I know, nobody thinks that far ahead in the business world, and besides, Clear Channel is just trying to beat the other old-school talkers. Well, good luck to you with that. To borrow from Lawrence Garfield, sooner or later y'all will have the best damn buggy whip any of us have ever seen. LST, blogHouston, Laurence, and John Coby pile on.
According to Matt Stiles, the Anti-Bissonnet High-Rise ordinance was on the agenda for City Council today. Well, sort of.
As the council convenes today, though, it seems likely that the measure could be delayed for as long as three months.The ordinance, (click on the Nov. 7 link) which would authorize the public works director to require developers to change projects that would add to traffic congestion in surrounding neighborhoods, was "tagged" last week, a one-time delay tactic. Any additional delay would require a council vote.
White said Tuesday that he will seek a delay if Matthew Morgan and Kevin Kirton, the developers who want to build a 23-story mixed-use project at 1717 Bissonnet, agree in writing to delay seeking any permits. This would give the city time to tweak a few areas in the ordinance that he believes need some work, White said.
If the developers don't agree to hold off, White said, he'll ask the council to pass the ordinance now, in its current form. White didn't specify a time frame, but leaders of neighborhood groups fighting the project said they understood the requested delay to be 90 days.
Given the speed with which this sucker has come to the fore, I'd say a delay of 90 days is pretty reasonable. And it seems now that Council agreed with that.
The council's action came after the developers, Matthew Morgan and Kevin Kirton of Buckhead Investment Partners, agreed in writing not to seek any additional permits during the 90-day period. Their planned 23-story, mixed-use building at 1717 Bissonnet has focused attention on the need for better rules to manage the impact of dense new developments on residential neighborhoods.Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck, who represents the neighborhoods adjacent to the project site, cast the only vote against the delay. Dozens of residents of the Southampton and Boulevard Oaks neighborhoods showed up for today's council meeting, and several of them pleaded with the council to act quickly.
Chris Amandes, an attorney who co-chairs a task force of leaders of the two neighborhoods, said Tuesday that he was worried that a lengthy delay would prompt efforts to add features to the ordinance that might jeopardize its passage.
"There are lots of opportunities for anybody who has any kind of land-use issue to tie their wagon to this ordinance," Amandes said.
Now see, I'd consider that a feature, not a bug. Your mileage may vary on that, but I've said all along I want to see something more comprehensive discussed, if for no other reason than to ensure that people in other, non-Southampton neighborhoods get the same opportunity to exert a little influence over development in their vicinities. More here, and on Miya's blog.
So how good were my predictions yesterday? Let's take a look.
Mayor - The over/under line for Mayor White is 90%. I think he just slides over it.
Mayor White got 86%, so the unders won. Still, that's pretty impressive, better than Bob Lanier's third-term total, and given that the undervote in this race was significantly less than what it was in other Council races, the best any of his detractors can say is that there might have been people who weren't motivated to vote at all rather than cast a meaningless vote for a fringe opponent. If so, then I'd like to encourage such people to follow the same strategy in 2008 and beyond. And I'd also like to take a minute to make fun of Jared Woodfill:
The mayor still faces challenges in the coming years, including rising worker health care costs, massive pension debt and growing public safety needs.Up first, though, is a potentially contentious City Council debate today about setting the property tax rate.
[...]
Jared Woodfill, Harris County Republican Party chair, said he hoped to persuade enough council conservatives and force the mayor to compromise.
"They are hearing from Houstonians, and I think you'll see some movement," he said. "If not, they're not listening to the people."
Yes, I got one of those calls yesterday, asking me to contact Council Member Michael Berry and ask him to
White's critics also see the next two years playing out as a potential platform for a gubernatorial race. That has encouraged them to try to frame White's record on their terms."He's positioning himself for a run in 2010," Woodfill said. "We're going to be ready for him."
In the same way you were ready to get a Republican into the runoff for At Large #5 and to defeat the Cy-Fair ISD bond? This is me quaking in my boots.
Enough of that. Back to the prediction review:
Council At Large #5 - It's tough, but I'm going to guess Zaf Tahir and Jolanda Jones make it into the runoff.
I was half right, as Joe Trevino joined Jolanda Jones in the runoff. Tahir finished fifth, after Tom Nixon and Jack Christie. I confess that the other scenarios I envisioned for AL5 included Nixon and Christie opposing Jones, but I didn't think Trevino had a realistic shot at it. Shame on me for that, especially since Trevino had gotten my vote.
Council Districts D, E, and I - I think Wanda Adams will lead the field in D, and I think I is close enough that there will still be a runoff even with third candidate Brad Batteau drawing three percent or so.
Adams did lead the field in D, so I got that right. No runoff in I, however, and no close race either, as James Rodriguez won in a surprisingly (to me) strong showing. And Brad Batteau got about nine percent, not three.
Other contested Council races - Incumbents across the board. No surprises.
Incumbents did win across the board, but Sue Lovell's unrobust win against Griff Griffin has to count as a surprise.
HISD bond referendum - Passes with a close margin, say 52-48.
Passed by the slightly closer margin of 51.2 - 48.8. I'm claiming victory on this one.
Harris County bonds - All pass, none in any danger of not passing.
I'm happy to say I was wrong about this. Prop 3 failed, and three of the other five won by the skin of their teeth. Question: how will the split vote be seen for Ed Emmett (who pushed the bonds) and Charles Bacarisse (who opposed them)? I think each side takes some credit and tries to pin some blame on the other, but I don't know how it all spins out.
State constitutional amendments - All pass, though some of the bond proposals are close, say less than 55%.
All passed, and the bonds had the lowest margins, but they ranged from 58 to 62 percent, so I was off as far as that goes.
So overall, not too bad. I was half-right about most things, which would probably make for a good epitaph for me some day. Other good assessments of the day's activities come from Lose an Eye, Los Dos Professors, Houtopia, and Greg. Grits reviews the jail bond referenda, while Vince rounds up the school bond elections. Christof has an explanation for why the Harris County jail bond failed. Miya and Elise attended the Election Night parties so you didn't have to.
UPDATE: One more wrapup, from Stace.
Good news from my dad: My Uncle Dan, who was running for the Dutchess County Legislature as a Democrat against a long-term Republican incumbent, won his race yesterday by a respectable margin. In doing so, he helped tip the partisan balance of that legislative body.
For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Democrats appear to have seized control of the Dutchess County Legislature.In unofficial results Tuesday, Democrats picked up one seat on the 25-member Legislature, giving them a 13-12 majority and putting them in power for the first time since 1977, when a Republican lawmaker switched her enrollment and put the Democrats in the majority.
In Northern Dutchess, Democrats snatched from the GOP the District 7 seat in Hyde Park and the District 20 seat in Red Hook, but lost the District 4 seat, also in Hyde Park.
In Hyde Park, former Legislator Robert Clearwater reclaimed the District 4 seat from incumbent Democrat Diane Nash, while Democrat Dan Kuffner outpolled incumbent Republican Noreen Reilly in District 7.
Clearwater oupolled Nash 1,054 to 1,000.
Clearwater, 56, had held the seat from 2001-05, losing to Nash, 52, in the 2004 election. District 4 encompasses the western half of Hyde Park.
In District 7, Kuffner, 60, a political newcomer, defeated Reilly, 63, a six-term lawmaker and current majority leader of the Legislature, 1,148-916. District 7 encompasses the eastern half of Hyde Park.
[...]
Each party went into the race with 11 incumbents, and each party fielded challengers to nine incumbents, leaving two Democrats and two Republicans unchallenged in their re-election bids.
There were no incumbents in the District 1 town of Poughkeepsie, District 9 city of Poughkeepsie, and District 12 East Fishkill races, leaving those seats up for grabs.
A Democrat claimed victory in District 1, removing that seat from GOP control, while a Republican won the previously Democratic-controlled seat in District 9. A Republican also won the District 12 seat, meaning the GOP retained control of that seat.
But Democrats also picked up the District 24 seat, which encompasses the town of Dover and a portion of Union Vale, giving the party the one seat they needed to claim the majority.
There still were roughly 3,200 absentee and affidavit ballots to be counted before election results could be declared official. Elections commissioners are expected to begin ruling on the validity of those ballots on Nov. 13.
Way to go, Uncle Dan!
Continuing on from last night...
- The HISD bond referendum squeaked through, with 51.2% of the vote. There's a lot of people breathing a sigh of relief today, especially when you consider that it only had 48% of the early vote, and had lost the early in-person vote.
- Four out of five Harris County bonds make the grade, with new-jail Prop 3 failing, much to my satisfaction.
County Judge Ed Emmett said the latest poll indicated that the jail bond would narrowly pass, but those who favored the issue must have turned out in fewer numbers than those opposed to it."There is no question that we need more jail cells," he said.
There's no question that we don't need them. Maybe this will send a message; whether it will be received, I couldn't say.
- The Council results story. Brief summary: It's Wanda Adams versus Lawrence Allen in D, Michael Sullivan versus Annette Dwyer in E, and Jolanda Jones versus Joe Trevino in At Large #5. For those of you keeping score at home, if this election was a test of Latino political power, I'd say that between HISD winning and Trevino's showing, the result is an A.
- I still can't believe Sue Lovell nearly lost to Griff. That would have been the upset of the ages, and for no discernable reason I can fathom. At least Melissa Noriega put what I hope is the final nail in the coffin of Roy Morales' political career with her 65% win.
- Was this a bad night for the local GOP or what? Never mind that their two candidates for At Large #5 combined for less than 25% of the vote, with nobody from their team in the runoff. That means that no Republicans will hold citywide office, quite a turnaround from 2003 when three At Large Council seats were won by GOPers. What really has to sting is the fairly easy win by the Cy-Fair school bonds, which will mean a property tax increase and which the locals thought they could beat because it's one of their strongholds. I don't know about you, but I'm thinking this doesn't bode well for them in 2008. Greg piles on as well.
- In the HISD trustee races, Paula Harris won by a surprisingly (to me) large margin in #4, while former Council members Carol Mims Galloway and Michael Yarbrough head to a runoff in #2. Sadly, Reginald Adams did not make a ripple in that race. It was a tough field for a first-time candidate, but I had some hope for him, and I hope we'll see him again.
- In HCCS, Yolanda Navarro Flores held off Kevin Hoffman in a tight race, one in which Hoffman had the early lead. Neeta Sane won the open-seat race to replace Jay Aiyer. - I guess there's no runoff for HCCS, since she had 43% in the three-way campaign.
(UPDATE: I hadn't realized that HCCS District 7 includes part of Fort Bend County, which Sane won by a sufficiently large margin (PDF) to achieve an overall majority, with 51.46% of the vote. My apologies for the error.)
- Elsewhere in the area, the Pearland kids won a resounding victory for their anti-smoking ordinance, and voters in The Woodlands approved by a "significant" but unspecified margin the three propositions to ratify the no-annexation deal with Houston. Does this mean we have to look forward to another Roy Reynolds column in which he tells everyone who doesn't agree with him what idiots they are?
- Last but not least, Dan Barrett led the way in the HD97 special election, which one can view optimistically or pessimistically. On the one hand, he was the top votegetter. On the other hand, the combined Republican vote was almost 70% of the total. On the third hand, Barrett ran a fiscally efficient campaign, and should have more resources available in the runoff. As always, these things are determined by turnout. The locals have asked for a December 11 runoff date - stay tuned.
That's it for now. What do you think about what happened?
Wanna see a building implode? Sure you do - who wouldn't? Well, you're in luck, because one is going to meet its maker this weekend in such a fashion. Swamplot has the details.
At 7:10 on November 11th, the Crowne Plaza Hotel across the street at 6701 Main will come down in a cloud of dust, to the cheers of onlookers able to sneak into prime viewing areas -- such as the south side of the soon-to-be-the-former John O'Quinn Medical Tower. If you're an explosives fan but don't have that kind of access to medical-office space, you can try the view from Southgate, east of Travis.Fannin and Main Streets will be closed from Dryden to Holcombe starting at 6:30 a.m.
Click over to see their suggestion for the best spot from which to watch the carnage. And as always with things in the Medical Center area, take the train and avoid the hassles of parking. Happy viewing!
Grits has a fascinating overview and followup on this research paper considering plea bargains as economic transactions. I can't really do it justice with a short excerpt, so just go read both posts. There's a lot of food for thought in them.
All results can be found here (PDF) or here, though it loads much more slowly. Just a quick recap of some highlights before I go to bed:
- Mayor White is at 86%, so the under will win. Still a pretty impressive total, and note that the undervote is quite small, less than 7%. In the At Large races, it's at least 18% in each. It's not the case that people are skipping this race.
- Biggest surprise is Sue Lovell at only 53% against Griff Griffin. I have no idea where that is coming from. Next biggest surprise is James Rodriguez running away with it in District I - he's over 58% at this writing. I expected that race to be close, but it sure wasn't. Third in the surprise line is At Large #5, where the runoff appears to be between Jolanda Jones and Joe Trevino, who sneaked up on a lot of people. I'm happy for Joe, and especially happy that Tom Nixon won't be on the ballot in December.
- What is close is the HISD bond referendum (50.49% in favor with 82% of precincts reporting) and Harris County bond propositions 1 (50.40% in favor), 2 (51.74% in favor), 3 (51.26% against - woo hoo!) and 5 (50.11% in favor), with 87% reporting. All state props are passing easily, as is the port bond.
- Finally, up in Fort Worth, Democrat Dan Barrett is leading the field in the HD97 special election, with the Craddick-backed candidate coming in fourth. BOR has the details.
Much more in the morning. Good night.
Looks like my prediction that Mayor White will break 90% of the vote today has drawn some interesting responses. Matt Stiles thinks it's too high, noting that Bob Lanier only got 82% going into his third term, and provides a useful spreadsheet of mayoral electoral data to peruse. Greg also thinks I'm aiming too high. Los Dos Professors are with me, though they warn to look at the undervotes in that race.
For what it's worth, my prediction was mostly based on the fact that White's opposition is truly fringy, as it was in 2005. Looking at Stiles' spreadsheet actually made me feel better about that, because it made me recall that Lanier's '95 opponents were, unlike Amanda Ulman and Outlaw Josey Wales, people who could reasonably have claimed to have had bases of support. Small ones, obviously, but not nonexistent ones. See my comment to Stiles' post for more on that. It's all still a guess I've pulled out of my ear, of course, and I think the Profs' note about the undervote is worth remembering, but at least there's some foundation for it. In fairness to the Outlaw, I should note that he did do pretty well against Lee Brown in 1999, though that may be more of a statement about Brown than anything else. Of course, if that's the case, then there shouldn't be much of an undervote in the Mayor's race - if you're bothering to vote at all, you'll vote for him or against him, but you won't take a pass. Who knows? This is why guessing is both fun and a complete fool's errand. We'll know soon enough.
I'll be at the Melissa Noriega party tonight, for those who will be out and about. I'll post some results after I get home.
Mayor White has turned his attention once again towards the big polluters in the Houston area with a message to shape up or else.
Mayor Bill White on Monday gave industrial polluters six months to clean up their act.His warning came after an industry-led task force delivered a report earlier in the day calling for chemical plant operators to act voluntarily to limit their emissions and improve Houston's air quality.
Endorsed by the Greater Houston Partnership and developed during the last half year, the new plan seeks to stem a controversial effort by the mayor to regulate local polluters. The partnership supported development of the plan to avoid a standoff between the city and the region's vibrant chemical industry.
White said he was unwilling to wait much longer to see if the voluntary plan works.
"If we have eight meetings about this, but the level of benzene goes up, the community has been defrauded," the mayor said.
While saying he welcomed the industry plan, White also employed one of Ronald Reagan's signature phrases, saying the city would "trust but verify" industrial efforts to address air pollution.
The task force's chairman, Dan Wolterman, said six months was not enough time to determine if the voluntary actions recommended in the report, such as funding efforts to improve pollution monitoring, would help Houston's air.
"A lot of the industry is just gearing up with the new technology," said Wolterman, who is president and chief executive of Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. "I think one year is a more reasonable time frame."
[...]
In the new plan there are no carrots for industry to clean up its act, said Matthew Tejada, executive director of the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention. And the only two agencies with a stick to force change -- the Environmental Protection Agency and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality -- have refused to bring it down upon industry, he said.
The effect of the industry plan, with its voluntary actions, public outreach and call for more study, will be to further delay regulatory action against the biggest industrial polluters, Tejada said.
"This is the most vanilla, unimportant thing they could have possibly done to address air pollution," Tejada said of the task force.
Wolterman said it wasn't easy to agree upon recommendations with all participants of the task force, which included industry members such as Empfield as well as local professors and quality of life advocates, such as Anne Olson of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership.
The alternative to continuing the dialogue between the industry and city of Houston, Wolterman said, was fighting costly court battles over air pollutants.
Mayor White appeared ready to do just that if the voluntary plan fails to show progress.
If that happens White intends to revive his nuisance ordinance, which would enable the city to cite facilities outside its borders that contribute to risky concentrations of pollution inside Houston. Fines would range from $500 to $2,000 each day the ordinance was violated. White was able to stop an effort in the Texas Legislature this spring to block his proposed ordinance.
Three points:
1. Six months or a year, it doesn't really much matter to me. What matter is that there's a firm deadline, and a definitive metric to check. What cannot be allowed to happen is for the goalposts to get moved, either in terms of delays or lowered standards. We've had more than enough of each by now.
2. Even if the claim that six months is too short a time frame to know whether the whizzy new technology that the plants plan to implement will have the desired effect, it doesn't mean you can't set a checkpoint at six months to see if there is sufficient progress in actually implementing said whizzy technology. I could live with that, and with letting the deadline for actually reducing the pollution by whatever amount be extended to one year.
3. In regard to Matthew Tejada's statement, I think letting the rules be voluntary and blessed by an industry task force is plenty of carrot. The Mayor has a stick at his disposal, and it's high time it gets wielded if need be. I'm not sure what further incentive is needed here, or what good it might do.
Can I say again how glad I am that SB1317, which would have taken that stick out of Mayor White's hand, failed to pass out of the Lege this past spring? And that the guy who tried to ram SB1317 through the Lege is in for the fight of his life next year? These are good things.
When you read a headline like Slower I-35 part of deal on toll road, it becomes abundantly clear, if it wasn't already, why so many people believe so many outrageous things about the Trans Texas Corridor. Note to Governor Perry: If you want people to stop saying sinister things about the TTC, then stop doing sinister things on its behalf. It's really not that hard.
The privatization contract for Texas 130 from Austin to Seguin, cutting a parallel path east of I-35, was quietly signed in March amid a legislative furor over whether to freeze such agreements. It includes a controversial clause that penalizes the state for widening or building competing roads.If a project over the next 50 years -- with some exceptions -- interferes with Texas 130 toll traffic, the Texas Department of Transportation would have to pay Cintra of Spain and Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio for their lost profits.
But the state can also get credit, though not payment, for driving traffic to the tollway, including by lowering posted speeds on I-35.
Not that TxDOT would do that, and certainly not for financial gain, spokeswoman Gaby Garcia said.
"We don't expect to be reducing speed limits on I-35," she said. "They are set by traffic engineering studies and not by economic gain."
But toll critics say a gate is open to the manipulation of I-35 traffic to ensure toll profits, and they don't trust TxDOT as the sentry.
"Our highways are being hijacked for private interests," said Terri Hall of Texans United for Reform and Freedom. "Who's going to rein in this agency? It just baffles me."
[...]
If TxDOT raises the speed limit on I-35, it must pay Cintra-Zachry for any toll losses, according to a maze of requirements in the 192-page toll contract and its 476 pages of support documents.
Oddly, any improvements to the freeway are exempt from the competition clause. Also exempt are projects in existing 25-year plans.
The contract doesn't stop there -- it also covers speed limits for the 40 miles of Texas 130 that will run from Seguin to south of Austin, where it'll hook up with another segment that now loops around the city.
Cintra-Zachry will pay TxDOT $25 million upfront if the limit is set at 70 mph but will fatten the offer to $92 million for 80 mph and $125 million for 85 mph, which state law allows. The agency could opt instead to take a growing bite of profits.
This is crazy, and it's exactly why I oppose the TTC, even though I don't think toll roads in general are evil. As with so many privatization efforts, it's more about larding up the pork and distorting whatever market effects there might otherwise be in order to ensure a good return for the private investor. If a privately owned toll road is such a great idea, it doesn't need the state to make its publicly owned free roads less attractive.
I should note that I don't necessarily oppose the idea of allowing SH130 to have higher speed limits, which is something we've discussed before, in return for greater toll fees. I personally would be less likely to drive such a road, and there are certainly good arguments from a safety and environmental perspective against such a thing, but I don't have any philosophical qualms about it. It's all the other stuff that's designed to drive traffic to that road by making all other options less viable that makes me mad, and should make you mad, too. Link via Eye on Williamson.
You know what to do.
If you need to know where to vote, go to Harris Votes and click on Voting Information...Election Day Voting Info. You can search for your polling place by precinct, or by name and address. Polls are open from 7 to 7.
UPDATE: One more analysis of the state constitutional amendments, by George Nasser, just in case you still need it.
UPDATE: Meant to have this up earlier, but here now is a complete guide to all the candidate interviews I did for this cycle.
UPDATE: Burka speaks on the amendments. Another pro-Inspector of Hides and Animals constituency heard from!
So. Election Day. Not very high-profile today in Houston, but elections are always interesting to me. I try to avoid trafficking in electoral predictions because they're a great way to look foolish, but what the heck. A little skin in the game makes it more fun, right? So, inspired by Greg and Jennifer Radcliffe, here's what I think.
Mayor - The over/under line for Mayor White is 90%. I think he just slides over it.
Council At Large #5 - It's tough, but I'm going to guess Zaf Tahir and Jolanda Jones make it into the runoff. Like Greg, I think there are several scenarios that are about equally likely to occur, so I will not be surprised at all to be wrong about this one. I think the leading candidates will have about 20% of the vote, and that as many as six candidates could get at least ten percent.
Council Districts D, E, and I - I'm not in these districts, so I'm not too comfortable making predictions about them. That said, I think Wanda Adams will lead the field in D, and I think I is close enough that there will still be a runoff even with third candidate Brad Batteau drawing three percent or so.
Other contested Council races - Incumbents across the board. No surprises.
HISD and HCCS Trustees - Again, no predictions. But don't let that stop you from making some!
HISD bond referendum - Passes with a close margin, say 52-48. Go read Greg for the number-crunching.
Harris County bonds - All pass, none in any danger of not passing. Which sucks for Prop 3, but what are you gonna do?
State constitutional amendments - All pass, though some of the bond proposals are close, say less than 55%.
That's what I think. What do you think? Fire away in the comments.
If it's true that you aren't anybody in this town until Miya Shay takes a picture of you at an event of some kind, then I can now say that I am somebody.
The more important aspect of Miya's story is that it features our friend and neighbor Ashish Mahendru, who is running for the 125th Civil District Court here in Harris County. Ashish had a successful fundraiser recently, and like many of the Democratic judicial candidates for next year, he's been busy on his campaign. The difference in visibility alone for the class of '08 is a big reason why there's so much energy and enthusiasm about next year's election among us Democrats. You'll be hearing a lot more about this as we go, of course, but for now, take a moment to check out Ashish Mahendru and his campaign, and know that at the very least, he and his wife throw a heck of a party.
I missed this bit of great news over the weekend.
How appropriate today, Day of the Dead, to celebrate the resurrection of Cactus Music & Video. The venerable Houston store that died and was buried a year and a half ago is coming back to life."Finally, I get to go buy records again," said local singer-songwriter Tody Castillo, who was helping set the place up on Thursday.
The store won't open until sometime next week -- managing partner Quinn Bishop was purposely vague about the details -- but those wanting a sneak peek are invited to an art opening tonight at the new incarnation, Cactus Music, at 2110 Portsmouth. That's across from the eclectic little shopping center that is home to everything from Amy's Ice Creams and the Stag's Head Pub to the Tuesday Morning discount retailer.
"It's a weird little corner at Portsmouth and Sandman," said Bishop, who will be circulating and showing off the new digs at tonight's reception. "But it's a great space. I think people will be knocked out by it. This is our way of having a little fun and building the anticipation."
Cactus returns as a full-service store, with vinyl records as well as CDs, but it also will house a showplace for music-themed art called the Record Ranch Gallery. The first exhibit is Day of the Dead Rock Stars, a series of Day of the Dead-inspired portraits of deceased music icons such as Johnny Cash, Kurt Cobain, Patsy Cline and Jimi Hendrix.
Excellent. I'll check it out next time I grab a burrito at Freebird's. Thanks to stina for the catch.
Today is Election Day. Before you go vote, check out what the Texas Progressive Alliance bloggers have been saying this past week. Click on for more.
The Texas Cloverleaf looks at the final installment of Trinity Trickery and implores Dallas residents to Vote Yes on Prop 1 on November 6th!
At Bluedaze we learn from TXsharon that the FWISD Participates in a Web of Deceit with Barnett Shale Producers and how the school district helps spread oil company propaganda at the expense of education.
Hal and some friends attended Nick Lampson's (TX-22) NCLB Town Hall Meeting this past week and reports from Half Empty.
Bill Howell of Stoutdemblog quotes from and links to the firestorm on the web over Barack Obama's knowing use of a homophobic hatespeaker as emcee of a campaign rally in I Love A Tirade.
Upset about the enthusiasm of some in Congress for an AG that thinks torture is OK and views Constitutional check and balances as 'quaint'? So is McBlogger.
Off the Kuff looks at the fate of the Astrodome now that the Texans and the Rodeo have come out against a plan to redevelop it as a hotel/convention center.
North Texas Liberal's Texas Toad tells us a Halloween horror story about global warming deniers Fred Singer, Don Erler, and their ilk in Planet Purgatory Parts One and Two.
Would you feel honored if a city named a street after you? What if the street was broken into non-continuous segments and wound its way through backwater sidestreets of town? What if no one even knew where the street was? Well, that's how Lubbock has "honored" Cesar Chavez, notes Blue 19th.
Over at Texas Kaos, there's a report on Texans giving Darth Cheney a well deserved reception up in Dallas. Succinctly put, Don't Iraq Iran!
David Van Os has an opposing viewpoint of several of the constitutional amendments on Tuesday's ballot, and shares it at Brains and Eggs.
Over at Three Wise Men, Nat Wu analyzes the situation in Africa, particularly renewed talk of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, while Xanthippas takes on Scott Horton's view that being "grown-up" Democrat when it comes to foreign policy is giving Bush what he asks for.
Vince at Capitol Annex notes that if screwing the middle class was a Congressional sex scandal, Texas' GOP Congressmen would be making serious headlines.
NYTexan at BlueBloggin explores Bush's endless veto pen and his continued disregard for the Katrina victims.
WCNews at Eye on Williamson asks why is every former Bush administration official from Texas always rumored to running for public office in Texas? In The Definition of Insanity.
This week's episode of TheTexas Blue's Who's Blue interview series features former Texas Congressman and Attorney General Jim Mattox, who shares with us his observations on Texas campaigns throughout his career and how the national mood may affect the coming election cycle.
I mentioned last week that Lord Cheney was skulking into Texas for a fundraiser in support of John Cornyn (who as it happens couldn't be there for it; he was back in DC voting against S-CHIP yet again). Cheney's visit is to be followed this week by President Bush, for the same purpose. So, in the spirit of the Darcy Burner campaign, we'd like to welcome Bush back to Texas with a fundraising effort for Rick Noriega. I'll save myself a little typing and simply point you to these three diaries for the details. This is going to be a week-long effort, with some great announcements to come as we go, so I hope you'll get in the spirit of things and visit the ActBlue page for this effort. And stay tuned for more information. Thanks very much.
Anybody else do a double-take while reading Rad Sallee's column about hype and truth regarding Metro? You have to read it a little closely because he never comes out and says it, but the bottom line is that there are a lot of dubious claims being made by anti-rail activists; Sallee does a good job of debunking them in turn. Sallee gives these folks the benefit of the doubt as far as their intentions go, but I'm not so charitable. My first reaction upon finishing Sallee's piece was to think about Daniel Davies' classic post The D-Squared Digest One Minute MBA - Avoiding Projects Pursued By Morons 101 (which, if you've never read, I highly recommend), in which he posits that "Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance." Seems to me that there's a corollary to this as well, which is that bad ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public opposition.
Read the column for yourself and see what you think. I'll add that Tom Bazan, whom Sallee addressed three times in his column, sent out a long email to Sallee and others (on which I was BCCed) disputing everything Sallee said, mostly by repeating his previous claims. I'm sure it will turn up in some other forum, so I don't see the need to give it space here. My kudos to Sallee for taking on this task in a straightforward manner. I feel confident a repeat effort will be needed before all is said and done, but for now, this will do just fine.
TOMORROW magazine, whose current issue (8 MB PDF download here) is all about "the food supply for the Houston region's growing population of 5.5 million people, the local agriculture infrastructure, possibilities for a sustainable future for the region, and the expansion of local farmers' markets and community gardens", is having a release party tomorrow night (see invitation here). The party is from 6 to 8 at 13 Celsius, which is in Midtown at 3000 Caroline (map), so you can attend that and still get to whatever campaign victory party you want to get to in time to see the results. Anyone interested in attending should drop a note to Jay Crossley at crossley@gulfcoastideas.org. Enjoy!
So, how did you and your supposedly auto-adjusting timepieces do with the later-than-before end to Daylight Savings Time this weekend? Here's my report:
1. Spiffy new alarm clock, which supposedly tracks DST information: Did not auto-adjust. So I figure either its DST feature is just for show, or it couldn't handle the change. At least resetting the clock was easy enough to do.
2. Cellphone: Did not auto-adjust, at least right away. When I checked it a little after 7 AM (which in context represented sleeping in - with small children, you don't get an extra hour of sleep at this time of year, you get an extra hour of day), it was showing the DST time. I checked it again three hours later, and it had corrected itself. Why AT&T would be so slow on the uptake, I couldn't say, but at least they got it right before I had to try and figure out how to fix it myself.
3. BlackBerry: Adjusted just fine. That patch we rolled out in February to deal with the front end of the DST change also worked for the back end.
4. Computer: Adjusted just fine, though one older PC I have at work that isn't used for network logons (and thus doesn't get logon scripts run on it) fell back last week. No biggie.
How did your electronic gizmos handle the new reality?
We knew that the Saint Arnold brewery was looking for new digs, and that they had their eye on a place north of downtown. Now Nancy Sarnoff informs us that they may have been successful in their pursuit of that new place.
The homegrown craft beer maker was the top bidder for a building just north of downtown and across Interstate 10 from the warehouse district.The Houston Independent School District is selling the building, which is being used for food storage. Saint Arnold's bid came in at just under $1.4 million in the sealed-bid sale.
The property includes a three-story structure with more than 68,000 square feet at 2000 Lyons Ave., according to HISD.
The board will vote on accepting the bid on Thursday.
Founder and brewer Brock Wagner was mum on the sale because the deal hasn't yet closed.
He's recently been looking for a new home to accommodate more beer production and a larger space for the hundreds of visitors he gets a week.
Can't wait to hear some good news about this. You just know their housewarming party will be the event of the season.
Another audit, another bad report for the Texas Integrated Eligibility Redesign System, a/k/a TIERS.
Auditors didn't find any significant errors in how eligibility was determined and benefits were calculated in the cases they studied.But, they concluded, the Health and Human Services Commission "will need significant additional processing capacity and storage to support a statewide rollout of TIERS," including the addition of the Children's Health Insurance Program, scheduled for March.
CHIP will add about 325,000 active and 650,000 inactive clients to the system, the report said.
It also criticized a "poor architectural design" that made the computer system cumbersome to use and hindered TIERS' ability to process and maintain the integrity of data. It also said DHS should consider streamlining its application process for public assistance, including the adoption of a shorter application form.
[...]
According to the new audit, the TIERS application/database was down for more than 27 business hours in July during the contract transition period. DHS said the down time was unusual and had been reduced to only 19 minutes in September.
The auditor estimated that TIERS will need at least 230 additional computer processors and an unknown amount of additional storage for a statewide rollout of the system.
DHS spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said more than $2 million already has been budgeted for additional hardware. She said the addition of CHIP to the system will represent a major step in taking the system statewide.
But she said she didn't know when the process will be completed because federal approval will be required for some programs.
She said TIERS already serves about 12 percent of the state's health and human services caseload.
"It already has more cases than many other states have total," she said.
All things considered, this report isn't as bad as others have been for TIERS. It's only taken eight years to get to the "all things considered" point, of course. See here, here, and here for earlier installments in the TIERS saga.
From the Creative Uses For Hot Sauce Department:
Devil's Revenge. Spontaneous Combustion. Hot sauces have names like that for a reason. Now scientists are testing if the stuff that makes the sauces so savage can tame the pain of surgery.Doctors are dripping the chemical that gives chili peppers their fire directly into open wounds during knee replacement and a few other highly painful operations.
Don't try this at home: These experiments use an ultra-purified version of capsaicin to avoid infection -- and the volunteers are under anesthesia so they don't scream at the initial burn.
How could something searing possibly soothe? Bite a hot pepper, and after the burn your tongue goes numb. The hope is that bathing surgically exposed nerves in a high enough dose will numb them for weeks, so that patients suffer less pain and require fewer narcotic painkillers as they heal.
"We wanted to exploit this numbness," is how Dr. Eske Aasvang, a pain specialist in Denmark who is testing the substance, puts it.
Chili peppers have been part of folk remedy for centuries, and heat-inducing capsaicin creams are a drugstore staple for aching muscles. But today the spice is hot because of research showing capsaicin targets key pain-sensing cells in a unique way.
California-based Anesiva Inc.'s operating-room experiments aren't the only attempt to harness that burn for more focused pain relief. Harvard University researchers are mixing capsaicin with another anesthetic in hopes of developing epidurals that wouldn't confine women to bed during childbirth, or dental injections that don't numb the whole mouth.
And at the National Institutes of Health, scientists hope early next year to begin testing in advanced cancer patients a capsaicin cousin that is 1,000 times more potent, to see if it can zap their intractable pain.
[...]
There's a huge need for better surgical pain relief, says Dr. Eugene Viscusi, director of acute pain management at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, one of the test sites. Morphine and its relatives, so-called opioid painkillers, are surgery's standby. While they're crucial drugs, they have serious side effects that limit their use.
Specialists are watching the capsaicin research because it promises a one-time dose that works inside the wound, not body-wide, and wouldn't tether patients to an IV when they're starting physical therapy.
"It's in and it's done," Viscusi explains. "You can't abuse it. You can't misuse it."
Oh, I wouldn't be too sure about that. Never underestimate the fervor of hot sauce fans, including those who use it for evil.
Here's the sweetest thing you'll read today:
Five council incumbents -- Adrian Garcia, Ronald Green, Pam Holm, M.J. Khan and Toni Lawrence -- are unopposed, and five others: Peter Brown, Anne Clutterbuck, Jarvis Johnson, Sue Lovell and Melissa Noriega, are expected to win re-election against minor challengers.
"Minor challenger". Yeah, that would be ol' Roy. If you haven't done so already, please make sure you help make this a sound prognostication on Tuesday. You know what to do.
Thanks very much.
Earlier this week, Matt Stiles noted that Mayor White had not yet taken a public position on the HISD bond referendum. Well, now he has, with an endorsement op-ed that's in the print edition of today's Chron but which for some reason I can't find online.
Nothing is more important to our city, state and nation than the education of future generations. I personally have seen schools within the Houston Independent School District in need of repair or reconstruction. So I support the issuance of bonds by the Houston Independent School District to pay for these school improvements. The alternatives would be to increase tax rates by financing improvements without the use of debt or to allow schools to deteriorate even more.I urge citizens not to vote against HISD's bond issue in protest. Students should not suffer because of the errors of individuals within school governance and administration.
Many citizens have doubts about HISD's bond issue because of concerns about school closings and consolidations. I share their questions about school closings, and have expressed myself forcefully to HISD. But school board elections, not the bond issue, are the best way to act on these concerns without hurting students.
[...]
[T]he way to fight any particular school closure or consolidation is not to vote down the bond issue where the overwhelming bulk of the funds would be used to undertake the rehabilitation of existing facilities and expansion to accommodate overcrowded schools.
HISD worked constructively with me and others on the financing plan to eliminate the property tax rate increase which was originally contemplated. Superintendent Saavedra has given me his word that he and members of his management team will defer any final recommendations to the Board to close or consolidate schools until they can demonstrate to a broad group of stakeholders - including the business community through the Greater Houston Partnership and state and local elected officials - that the district explored and implemented every practical alternative. This includes the 16 elementary schools proposed to be consolidated into 8 new facilities built using bond debt.
[...]
My Houston Hope program is resulting in hundreds of new homes being built in neighborhoods where few had been built before, giving us hope for reversing declining school enrollments and avoiding costly leapfrog development. Obviously there is some point at which a school is "too small," although many fine schools operate at smaller sizes than what HISD today considers a minimum. But if HISD decides to close neighborhood schools, over the community's objection, without viewing that measure as the last resort, then voters across the City in the next school board elections will hear from a new political action committee I will form this year. That is not a threat. It is a promise to those who join me in supporting the HISD bond issue despite their reservations about consolidation plans.
That last paragraph sure is interesting, no? I'm wondering what the purpose of the Mayor's new PAC would be. An obvious possibility is electing HISD trustees who will fulfill the promise of the bond referendum, at least as the Mayor sees it. That may be a promise, but it still sounds a bit like a threat to me. I'm going to have to ask around about this. What do you think?
Meet the chupacabra, such as it is.
The results are in: The ugly, big-eared animal found this summer in Cuero is not the mythical bloodsucking chupacabra. It's just a plain old coyote.Biologists at Texas State University announced Thursday night that they had identified the hairless doglike creature.
San Antonio television station KENS provided a tissue sample from the animal for testing.
"The DNA sequence is a virtually identical match to DNA from the coyote (Canis latrans)," bioligist Mike Forstner said in a written statement. "This is probably the answer a lot of folks thought might be the outcome. I, myself, really thought it was a domestic dog, but the Cuero Chupacabra is a Texas Coyote."
[...]
Chupacabra means "goat sucker" in Spanish, and it is said to have originated in Latin America, specifically Puerto Rico and Mexico.
"This is fun, not scary, but if people are worried about the chupacabra, it is probably even more important that we explain the mystery," he said. "Folks can fear what they don't understand, and a big part of the goal in science is to explain the natural world."
He said additional skin samples have been taken to try to determine the cause of the animal's hair loss.
I dunno, I think "hairless doglike creature" sounds plenty scary. And that picture is probably enough to generate a nightmare or two for some folks. Who needs monsters when we have reality?
(With apologies to the folks at Zippidy Doo Da for the shameless appropriation of their post title.)
Given a choice, would you have preferred that Harris County finance some of the projects it wants to float bonds for with general revenue instead? Because that token tax cut will cost more money than several of those items on the ballot menu.
Harris County could have generated as much as $400 million over 10 years had it not cut the property tax rate by a penny last month -- money that could have been applied to pay for $880 million in bond projects being put before voters next week.The bond projects, if all are approved, would end up costing taxpayers around $1.8 billion with interest.
Could the county have saved money had it kept the tax rate where it was and applied the $400 million in revenue to projects that could be paid for with bonds?
"It is always cheaper to pay as you go," said Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt. "But it is hard to pay for projects over $100 million without taking out bonds. But you can pay as you go on projects under $100 million."
[...]
The court approved a 1-cent decrease in the county property tax rate last month. The cut will save the average homeowner about $12 annually, according to Bettencourt, who said he does not oppose any of the county bond propositions.
The county will forgo as much as $400 million in revenue over 10 years as a result of the penny tax rate cut, said Edwin Harrison, the county's director of financial services.
Barton Smith, a University of Houston economics professor and director of its Institute for Regional Forecasting, said governments can save millions in interest by paying as they go and not relying on bonds.
But massive projects such as the $245 million jail, he said, would be hard to carry out without bonds.
"For big projects, pay-as-you-go is not an option," he said. "Money is often due in a large lump sum. But when you are talking about smaller road projects, certainly, you could pay as you go."
[...]
County Judge Ed Emmett said he did not push through the tax cut to seek favor among fiscal conservatives likely to vote in the March GOP primary.
Former District Clerk Charles Bacarisse, his opponent, called for cutting the county property tax rate five cents -- a cut that would have forced the county to forgo $817 million over five years. Bacarisse said he supports the $880 million bond packages.
Emmett said he does not believe the county would have been better off if the court had kept the existing tax rate and used the $400 million generated by that 1 cent on the tax rate to pay for the projects.
"You can always argue that," he said. "It's kind of like deciding whether it is better to finance a car or pay for it with cash."
He said he sought the 1-cent cut because county property valuations rose 12.5 percent on average this year, and he favored giving back some of the money generated by increased appraisals to taxpayers.
Three points:
1. Concerns about how much interest on bonds will ultimately cost taxpayers have been cited as reasons to vote against the state and local propositions, by advocates in both parties. It's interesting that Paul Bettencourt, one of the most zealous tax-cut advocates around, is content to give the Harris County bonds a pass on that.
2. When was the last time you saw a tax cut being framed in terms of how much the lost revenue might cost taxpayers in other respects? Imagine that - tax cuts can have unintended consequences, too.
3. That $245 million for a new jail still chaps my hide. Its real costs will go well beyond just paying off the interest on the bond. I wish I had more hope that it would be defeated.
That's all I got.
The TxDOT advertising blitz has drawn some scrutiny from state lawmakers.
"My concern is that Texas agencies, including TxDOT (the Texas Department of Transportation), have exceeded the proper role of state government and, potentially, their legal authority provided by state law," Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said in a letter this week asking Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to assign a Senate committee to study the matter. His request followed one by Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, to House Speaker Tom Craddick."We (lawmakers) are potentially curtailing their (TxDOT's) ability to do tollways and maybe push forward the Trans-Texas Corridor," Paxton said. "It appears that now they are trying to lobby the public to be favorable towards these particular issues, and I'm not sure that's a really good use of taxpayer money."
TxDOT has said the Keep Texas Moving campaign is within its legal authority and represents a response to demands from lawmakers and the public for more information.
"We will not solve the transportation challenges facing Texas without public involvement and public input," said agency spokesman Randall Dillard.
Paxton said when he learned of the TxDOT campaign, estimated to cost $7 million to $9 million in highway funds, "I thought, 'Wow, I wonder how many other agencies are doing this, and how much of our taxpayer money is being spent on it?' "
[...]
The comptroller's records showed all state agencies together spent $97.8 million in state and federal funds in fiscal year 2006 and $93.3 million in fiscal year 2007 in those three categories pertinent to marketing -- advertising, promotional items and publications.
Such expenditures aren't precise reflections of promotional efforts, however. The advertising category, for example, includes such items as job ads and legal notices. At the same time, other spending on promotional campaigns may be overlooked if agencies code it accurately, but broadly as "professional services" rather than ads.
I think the concerns raised here by Sen. Patrick and Rep. Paxton are legitimate, and I hope there's some follow-through on them. I think agencies should be given some leeway because there are legitimate reasons to spend money in this fashion, but some kind of guidelines, even subjective ones, should be used. Rep. Paxton has correctly framed the problem with what TxDOT is doing, and I hope some appropriate action is taken as a result.
The Chron deals with all 16 state ballot propositions in one fell swoop, by giving a thumbs up to each one. I find that pretty remarkable, given that I've come across at least one argument to vote against each one (yes, even Prop 10 - I didn't say they were all good arguments, just that they existed), but apparently no such arguments were persuasive to the editorial board. Make of that what you will.
Houtopia continues the comparision of Early Vote 2007 to 2005, which he first looked at earlier this week.
2005 in-person early vote through Day 11: 53,152
2007 in-person early vote through Day 11: 32,947 (62% of the 2005 number)2005 mail ballots returned through Day 11: 3,618
2007 mail ballots returned through Day 11: 6,432 (up 77% from the 2005 number)2005 total votes through Day 11: 56,770
2007 total votes through Day 11: 39,379 (69% of the 2005 number)So, while early in-person voting is way down from 2005, mail ballots are up significantly. In total, we are at 69% of the 2005 number. If the trend holds today and next Tuesday, that would put the City of Houston vote at about 132,000, and the countywide vote at about 229,000 - turnout in the neighborhood of 11-12%.
He's got a closer peek at some of the specific locations, and some reasons for why they may be up or down. Check it out.
He's also more optimistic than the Harris County clerk.
About 10 percent of registered voters will have cast ballots by the time the polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday, including those cast during the past several days, according to projections.In Harris County, that turnout level is even lower than what would be expected normally for an election that essentially lacks drama and high-profile races, Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman said.
At first she thought about 15 percent of the county's 1.8 million registered voters would show up for the election, she explained, but she lowered her forecast after the number of people who took advantage of early voting fell short of projections.
The number who voted early in the county hit 50,000 as the 33 balloting sites closed, down markedly from the November 2005 election at the same juncture, officials said late Friday.
"It's just phenomenally low to me, considering what we have on the ballot," Kaufman said. The ballot includes votes on bond issues for school districts in Houston and some suburbs, mayoral and city council seats and a state proposition to issue bonds for cancer research.
Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson predicted Friday a low turnout of 9.5 percent for Tuesday's constitutional amendments election.
"This election is important, and I encourage Texans to head to the polls and prove me wrong," he said in Midland, according to The Associated Press.
[...]
A 10 percent turnout of the city's 911,000 registered voters -- about half of the county's voter rolls -- would yield about 91,000 votes in a city of 2.1 million residents.
In the 2005 election, 189,000 people voted and gave [Mayor] White 93 percent.
The City of Houston has 911,000 voters, and Harris County has 1.8 million. Houtopia's projection comes out to about 14% for Houston and 13% for Harris County. I think he's closer to the mark, since it doesn't appear that turnout is down by more than half, which is what would need to happen for there to be only 91,000 votes cast in Houston. We'll see who's right. What's your guess?
Tory sees three possible ways that the Reliant and Rodeo versus Astrodome Redevelopment battle can be won by the Dome folks.
1. ARC finds a way to throw enough money at them they drop their opposition
2. Public outrage at the "Astrodome wreckers" worries the Texans/Rodeo enough that they back down, fearing a collapse in fan/customer support (the Rodeo seems particularly susceptible to this)
3. Behind the scenes arm-twisting by city and county power brokers, esp. on the Rodeo board of directorsSince it seems to be the way things are typically done in Houston, #3 seems the most likely, maybe with a little #1 and a threat of #2 thrown in.
Seems reasonable enough, though how likely any of it is I can't say. More on the fate of the Dome from Tom Kirkendall, Miya Shay, HouStoned, and Swamplot, who wins the award for Best Post Title, then follows it up with more fine snarkery. Check 'em out.
Karen Brooks writes about the upcoming primary fight between State Rep. Corbin Van Arsdale and Sen. Dan Patrick, who has apparently succeeded in recruiting a proxy to wage that battle for him.
Patrick - one of the most conservative senators in the chamber - told the Houston Chronicle a month or two ago that his recruiting against Corbin had nothing to do with that, but instead because it is "clear that Mr. Van Arsdale has not voted in line with his district, and he has surely not voted in line with me."You know ... ok. I haven't looked at each one of the 47,000 votes the lawmakers took over the course of the session. But I have seen CVA's voting patterns over the last three (and many special sessions) - and I can say with absolute authority (and we know how powerful that is...) that he ain't no liberal. Or even a moderate.
But in the interest of truthiness, to check Patrick's statement, I looked for conservative rankings of the legislators and found this chart from the Heritage Foundation - which, by the looks of it, is about as far right an organization as you can get.
Out of a possible 100, they gave Corbin an 85. Patrick scored a 77. From what I remember from high school, Corbin just got a B to Patrick's C-.
Well, whaddaya know. Patrick's correct. Turns out they didn't vote the same...
I think that would technically qualify as a C+, but you get the idea. And just to prove that snarky minds think alike, Los Dos Professors made the same observation. I guess that's the downside of being an attention hound - people listen to what you say even when you'd have been better off being ignored.
More unintentional hilarity comes from the Chron story on this potential race.
In September, Patrick sent precinct chairs an e-mail that fell just short of endorsing his business partner Michael Kubosh.Kubosh, who voted in the 2006 Democratic primary and ran as a Democrat against Patrick, isn't running, said political consultant Court Koenning.
He said Kubosh was worried that his work as a bail bondsman would be targeted in campaign ads.
He's more worried about his work as a bail bondsman being targeted in the campaign than the fact that he ran as a Democrat (sorry, "ran" as a "Democrat") against Patrick in 2006? Those are some interesting voters out in HD130. But it's all good as far as I'm concerned. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to tend to my popcorn before it burns. Mmm, popcorn...
Here's one book by JK Rowling that won't sell a gazillion copies.
A set of fairytales mentioned in the final Harry Potter novel, which have been handwritten and illustrated by JK Rowling, are to be auctioned off to raise money for a children's charity.The author has handwritten and illustrated just seven copies of the Tales Of Beedle The Bard.
It is her first work since the last Harry Potter book was published in July.
While one copy will go under the hammer at Sotheby's in London next month, the others will be given away by Rowling to those most closely connected with the Potter books.
Her agent? Someone at the publisher? Daniel Radcliffe? Melissa from The Leaky Cauldron? I can say with some confidence that I am not on that list.
The Tales Of Beedle The Bard played a central role in the seventh book about the boy wizard, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.Only one of the five fairytales, The Tale Of The Three Brothers, is recounted in the book.
Now for the first time, Rowling is revealing the four remaining untold stories which make up the set.
They are The Fountain Of Fair Fortune, The Warlock's Hairy Heart, The Wizard And The Hopping Pot, and Babbitty Rabbitty And Her Cackling Stump.
Rowling said: "The Tales Of Beedle The Bard is really a distillation of the themes found in the Harry Potter books, and writing it has been the most wonderful way to say goodbye to a world I have loved and lived in for 17 years."
The aforementioned Leaky Cauldron has more. One presumes that a non-handwritten version will hit the bookstores presently, but the AP version of the story makes it seem like that may not be the case. It also mentions that Rowling is back at work:
Rowling said she was working on a new book, "a half-finished book for children that I think will probably be the next thing I publish."
One way or another, she'll be back in bookstores.
Well, that answers that. Apparently, the Chron just hadn't gotten around to those other county bond propositions, because today it endorses the remainders.
Harris County Proposition 1 -- This proposal would authorize the county to issue $190 million for road projects. These road expansions and improvements will be needed to keep traffic moving and accommodate development and growth.Harris County Proposition 2 -- This would allow the county to issue $95 million for parks. This region and state are underparked. More public green space is needed to improve the quality of life for today's residents and assure park access for the many more who are on the way.
Harris County Proposition 3 -- If approved, this measure would let the county issue $195 million to build a central processing and adult detention center. This jail facility is necessary to relieve unsafe and improper overcrowding and to deliver adequate health care to inmates. The center also would screen inmates for mental illness and humanely direct those who need it to treatment. County Judge Ed Emmett has promised that the building's site on Buffalo Bayou would not interfere with long-planned hike and bike trails.
Harris County Proposition 4 -- This would authorize $80 million in bonds to build a medical examiner's forensic center. The facility would include a morgue and crime labs. The chronic, expensive problems at the Houston Police Department crime lab, from leaking roofs to incompetent employees, suggest that spending on the latest crime lab technology is a good investment.
I don't remember if they've already dealt with the port bond (County Prop 6) and I missed it, or they've still not gotten around to it. No rush, y'all!
As you know, I voted No on Prop 3. I strongly disagree with their stated logic here. What we need is smarter bail setting, better probation management, and just generally using our existing scarce resources more wisely. The Chron has done some excellent reporting on the overcrowding at Harris County's jails. It's a damn shame that the editorial board has chosen to wave its hands at the underlying causes for that overcrowding and endorse spending almost $200 million on new jail space that we shouldn't need. I'm sorry, but that's irresponsible to the point of negligence. Let's get our house in order first, then we can see if we really need to build.
Culminating their week of activities related to contract negotiations, the Houston Organization of Public Employees (HOPE) had a candlelight vigil at City Hall last night.
Hundreds of Houston civilian employees gathered on the steps of City Hall on Thursday evening to call for higher wages."We want to be reasonably compensated for doing the work that helps make Houston the world-class city it is," said Jere Talley, a member of Houston Organization of Public Employees.
[...]
The city has offered a two percent across-the-board pay increase each year for four years, but union members say that's not enough. They earn at least 21 percent less than similar employees in other large cities, Talley said.
"I'm with them," said City Councilwoman Sue Lovell, who attended the rally. "I think we have some of the best city workers in the United States. I would like to see if we can find the resources to offer more than the two percent."
Organizers said about 600 workers attended the event. The union leaders said they have been negotiating with the city for seven months and among other issues, they want every city worker to earn at least $10 an hour.
I'll say again, putting in a floor of $10 an hour for all city employees is a very reasonable thing to ask for. This is a fairly inexpensive place to live, but it ain't that cheap. I hope the city does right by its employees. Miya has more.
He's probably right. At least, I wouldn't bet against it.
Gov. Rick Perry expressed confidence Thursday that a $3 billion bond proposal for cancer research will pass easily next week.Speaking during the Texas Life Science Conference in Houston, Perry said of Proposition 15 on the Nov. 6 ballot, "This is one I don't worry about at all. It will pass."
With a high-minded goal of finding cures for cancer, the proposition has won widespread bipartisan backing in the Texas Legislature, and other supporters include former Democratic Comptroller John Sharp, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and the American Cancer Society.
But recently some opposition has emerged. Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum, has cautioned fellow Republicans that the borrowed money -- $300 million annually for a decade -- might not stay in Texas and could be used for embryonic stem cell research.
Saying the measure to borrow funds to pay for research is fiscally irresponsible, the Harris County Republican Party has also said it opposes the cancer initiative.
As I've said before, there is an argument to be made against the bonds, both from the right and left. I can't say I've been terribly impressed with the case that has been made by conservative activists, but maybe it'll resonate with some folks. Be that as it may, even with crappy turnout, I think this one sails home.
Some progress on the HPD Crime Lab case review front.
Since Oct. 22, Judge Mary Bacon, a retired state district judge overseeing the review of 180 convictions with flawed blood-typing evidence, has conducted hearings with all inmates currently incarcerated in those cases. Of 160 inmates contacted at various Texas prisons via video conferences, all but four agreed to have their cases reviewed.The hearings are the first step in a plan that Harris County's 22 criminal state district judges developed last month to review cases with problematic blood-typing evidence from the Houston Police Department's crime lab.
A team will review the 156 cases to determine how essential HPD's analyses were to securing the convictions, according to attorney Bob Wicoff. Wicoff will be joined by two other lawyers, who should be named next week, and volunteers including other lawyers, students and academics.
"I am trying to marshal all the help I can get for this undertaking," said Wicoff, who represented Josiah Sutton, the first man exonerated in the HPD crime lab scandal.
The team will contact defendants they have not yet reached.
Lawyers are expected to report to Bacon in early December on who has been assigned to what case and what progress has been made.
I look forward to hearing that report. I've said before that I have hopes for this review panel (which still needs a couple more staffers). We'll see how far they get in the coming month. I don't want to set the bar too high, but I do expect that they will move some of these cases, which have languished for years now, closer to a resolution. I wish them well.
Have you voted yet? Today is the last day for Early Voting. Polls will be open from 7 AM to 7 PM, and you can find your early voting locations here. If you don't vote today, your last chance is on Tuesday.
If you're still thinking about how to vote on the state ballot propositions, here's one more set of recommendations, from David Van Os. He disagrees with me on a number of points, so I can't say I recommend his recommendations, but more information is always better than less. Gary Denton has his endorsements as well. Check 'em out.
Looks like Tom Nixon has claimed the distinction of Candidate With The Most Signs In Empty Lots, in an upset over the strangely quiet Roy Morales. Just yesterday, driving home from work, I saw Nixon signs on the fences surrounding the River Oaks Shopping Center and Allen House demolition sites. There's a strange karma to that, now that I think about it.
There's nothing strange about this, though:
Please remember to vote. Thanks very much.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office said Wednesday it will place some of its capital cases on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the lethal injection process next year.It made little sense to pursue execution dates when those who already have them are receiving stays, District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said.
"Since we don't know when the Supreme Court will rule, we thought we'd wait until they decided and then set them all," Rosenthal said.
The decision will affect only defendants who have been convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, and whose appeals are nearing an end.
Seems reasonable. Why go through the motions when you're just going to be made to wait anyway? These guys aren't going anywhere. Grits suggests they may have to wait a little while, but again, what's the big deal? Any other action by the DA would have been pointless and wasteful, so good on him for seeing it this way.
The high court agreed in September to hear the appeal of a Kentucky inmate who argued that the lethal injection method of execution violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Such appeals have argued that the chemical cocktail used in most states could cause excruciating pain while masking the condemned prisoner's ability to express it.That court's acceptance of the case has resulted in a de facto temporary ban on executions across the United States. On Tuesday, Supreme Court justices stepped in again, staying the execution of Mississippi killer Earl Berry just minutes before he was to die.
The only exception was 48-year-old Michael Wayne Richard of Houston, who went to his death just hours after the court said it would consider the Kentucky case. His lawyers contend they were unable to get courts to properly consider their last-minute appeal in light of the day's developments.
Yes, well, we know who was responsible for that. The DMN has now hopped on the condemnation wagon.
It may be impossible to remove the stain that Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, has placed on the state's judiciary. But two lawyer-driven actions might keep it from spreading.More than 300 members of the Texas bar joined a petition last week asking Judge Keller's court to adopt modern procedures and allow e-mailed filings in death penalty cases. Of course it should.
[...]
If the Court of Criminal Appeals hesitates, state lawmakers could force the issue in their 2009 session by inserting an imperative in the Code of Criminal Procedures. It would be a disappointment if things came to that.
Good point. Add that to the to-do list for the 81st Lege, just in case.
Separately, lawyers across the state are seeking to have Judge Keller disciplined as a result of her decision to bar the courthouse door. One of the complaints filed with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct accurately states that she is a "source of scandal to the citizens of the state." It might add that she makes the nation's leading death penalty state look overeager to carry out its grim business.Her decision is particularly hard to stomach because other judges who were working late Sept. 25 said they would have reviewed the post-deadline appeal.
Judge Keller's judgment is morally offensive. Texans deserve to know whether it also offended legal or judicial standards that seek to keep the court system open and fair.
Now we're just waiting for the Commission to act. Anyone know what kind of timeline they operate on?
Something to remember as the glow of Metro's recent announcement wears off and the reality of many long months of construction sets in: We're way better off right now than Austin is. Hold on to that thought once the streets start getting torn up and the complainers are at full volume.
How much better off are we than Austin? Enough to make Austinite Suzy Banks jealous.
It's a steamy Friday afternoon, and I'm fighting for my life on Interstate 10 heading into Houston, battling never-ending construction and kamikaze drivers. Why? Because of jealousy: Houston, which I relentlessly belittle, as every loyal Austinite should, has a newly minted light-rail train system. My oh-so-progressive city doesn't. And although the sole route, the METRORail Red Line, is a mere 7.5 miles long--running from downtown to just south of Reliant Stadium--and serves only a snippet of the nearly 600-square-mile metropolis, it still manages to link a lion's share of the city's tourist hot spots. The lure of exploring Houston, of all cities, without a car is so irresistibly counterintuitive, I've decided to swallow my envy and spend some time train hopping.[...]
The entire trip, from the beginning to the end of the line, at Fannin South, takes exactly the 32 minutes allotted. But for a visitor, the train's appeal lies not only in its zip (and air conditioning) but also in its destinations. So, on the return, I disembark a few times to do touristy things: once to shop, once to explore a blossoming urban neighborhood, and then to prowl downtown. I begin at the Museum District, which some people tout for its culture (must be the dozen or more high-brow institutions clustered here) but which I unapologetically laud for its gift offerings. Shops at both the Museum of Fine Arts and the Contemporary Arts Museum offer scads of artsy and edgy baubles, bags, books, and glassware. In the exhibit space at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, a few blocks away, I am astonished by the creative possibilities of dried lotus blossoms and pistachio shells; in its Asher Gallery, I am equally wowed by the scope of jewelry for sale, from the Flintstone-esque to the downright diaphanous.
Next stop: the Ensemble/HCC station. A group of businesses directly across the street--a music club, a record store, a taco bar, and a white-tablecloth bistro--hint at the renaissance the entire Midtown neighborhood has experienced in the past ten years or so. Half a block away is the trendsetting restaurant T'afia, whose credo to "eat where your food lives" has spawned a tiny Saturday morning farmers' market. (I get the good out of my 24-hour rail pass and return by train the next day to join locals stocking up on artisan cheeses, organic barbecue, botanical lotions, and good-looking produce and pretzels.)
By the time I'm back downtown, at the Main Street Square station, the place is subdued: The office workers have vanished, and the clubbers and the baseball fans headed to that night's game at Minute Maid Park have yet to appear. I stroll the streets, reveling in an unexpected perk of light-rail travel: walking. Although the selection of bars and restaurants right along the rail line is overwhelming (as are, frankly, the panhandlers), I eventually wend my way to Market Square, a patch of green flanked by some of the oldest surviving buildings in the city. I sit at a sidewalk table at La Carafe, a 50-plus-year-old bar that's still going strong (although the 147-year-old redbrick building appears a bit askew), and share a beer with my new companion, the green-eyed monster.
Come back in 2012 when you can get to places like the Galleria, too, Suzy. Then you'll really be envious.
Christof has a neat summary of an H-GAC survey (PDF) on transit ridership. I don't have anything to add to his specific points, I just thought I'd mention my own reasons for having ridden the Main Street line over the past few years. I'm not a frequent rider - overall, I'd fall into the "once a month" category - but I have found numerous reasons to hop on board. In no particular order:
- Business meetings downtown. My company has a private shuttle that goes between my location and downtown, but it only runs once an hour (and takes the lunch hour off), so the train is more convenient. Sometimes I take the shuttle one way and the train the other, as my alternate choice is waiting a half-hour or more.
- Trips to the doctor, for me and for Tiffany during each of her pregnancies.
- Visiting people at a Med Center hospital.
- Lunch (mmm...Tacos a Go Go...).
- One time, with the Rice MOB, to go to Reliant Stadium.
- To get to and sometimes from work on days when one of our cars is in the shop. Sometimes that has involved Tiffany dropping me off downtown at a station, then me bumming a ride home. Twice (including today) it means me getting a ride downtown to a station from my mechanic, then taking the train back to that station in the afternoon and walking. The mechanic is on Montrose near Gray, so it's about a mile and a half walk from the Downtown Transit Center. On a beautiful day like today, that will be a pleasure.
All of these things (save for the last one) have two things in common. One is that I could have taken my car, but chose not to even though it probably would have been a bit faster. And two, the reason why I chose not to take my car is that the hassle (and in almost every case, the expense) of parking would have far outweighed whatever time I might have saved by driving.
I don't claim to speak for anyone else. I'll have to delve into the survey to see if they explored the question of what prompted people to try the rail alternative in the first place. But for me at least, if parking is a hassle and rail is an option, I'll take it if I can. I don't know yet how much I may wind up using the new lines. I just know there are places those lines will go where I'll be happy to have that option. Judging by this survey, it's clear I'm not alone in that sentiment.
A little story to file away for when the complaints about Metro's takings for the Universities line begin.
News that the Fiesta Mart at the Katy Freeway and Blalock will close at year's end surprised and disappointed customers shopping there Thursday.The closing also figures in a dispute between the Houston-based grocery chain and the Texas Department of Transportation.
Fiesta spokesman Bernie Murphy blamed the closure on the loss of 1.3 acres TxDOT condemned for the Katy Freeway widening project.
"The state took 40 percent of our parking," Murphy said.
Fiesta is looking for another location in the area but hasn't found one yet, Murphy said.
"We're going to have to let it go," he said. "We hate it, because it's one of our better locations."
Fiesta is owned by Houston-based Grocers Supply. The company has 50 Fiesta stores, 36 in the Houston area.
By law, TxDOT must pay landowners fair market value for property it takes, and the agency budgeted $480 million for 442 parcels along the 23-mile stretch being widened, said Raquelle Lewis, a spokeswoman for the Katy project.
"They just don't go out and take people's property," she said. "The entire process is designed to keep them whole."
The matter is in litigation, and neither Lewis nor Murphy would discuss dollar amounts.
Fiesta rejected the state's first offer as well as another amount recommended by a court-appointed commission. The dispute is now set for a jury trial next year in Harris County Civil Court-at-Law No. 3, Lewis said.
As part of the valuation process, TxDOT determined that claiming part of the property under eminent domain would not force the store to relocate, Lewis said. The state pays more if a business has to move.
"The evidence that TxDOT has does not support their claim that they are needing to move because of the condemnation that is taking place along the right of way," Lewis said.
Noted for the record. Disputes over TxDOT's valuation of properties, and other resulting lawsuits like this one, has been a contributing factor to the expansion's vast cost overrun. Like I said, just something to keep in mind.
This is a no-brainer.
Local Democracy For America groups have endorsed Rick Noriega for Senate. Texas DFA members are providing boots on the ground. Now, Rick has the chance to get the national DFA endorsement, but it won't happen without your support.If we reach 5,000 grassroots supporters by midnight November 3rd, DFA will take action.
Here's the email call to action:
Rick's track record of standing for progressive values in the Texas legislature is hard to beat. After serving 14 months in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, he came home and served as the Incident Commander of Houston's Hurricane Katrina relief efforts helping thousands of evacuees put their lives back on track.Rick is committed to bringing change to Texas and moving America forward. Our question to you: Should the DFA national membership get behind this race right now and make Rick Noriega the first DFA Senate endorsement for 2008? Sign the statement of support today to make it happen:
http://www.DemocracyforAmerica.com/SupportRick
Next week could be a big week for the Noriega campaign. Dick Cheney and George Bush are coming to Texas to raise money for Rick's Republican opponent. With the national support of DFA, Rick could highlight the incredible amount of people power behind him against the back drop of a private $1,000 a plate Bush sponsored fund raiser. But we can't act if we haven't heard from you. And we only have until November 3rd at midnight to decide.
Should Rick Noriega earn the first DFA Senate endorsement for 2008? Sign the statement of support today to make it happen:
http://www.DemocracyforAmerica.com/SupportRick
Democracy for America is a member driven organization. Endorsements always start from the ground up. Let us know if you think this is the time for DFA members nationwide to take action.
It just takes a minute, and it's a fine cause. But if you still need more, consider this:
Vice President Dick Cheney landed a little while ago at Love Field. He's in Dallas to raise money at a reception tonight for Sen. John Cornyn. Unlke Mr. Cornyn himself.Alas for the senator, he's stuck in Washington awaiting a vote on controversial state children's health insurance program. Mr. Cornyn is keen to help kill the Democrats' plan to expand SCHIP, though his stance has earned him many nasty editorials.
He will call into the reception.
"Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it," Mr. Cornyn said. "I'm pleased that the vice president would take time out of his schedule to assist us in that effort."
Cheney's visit will be followed next week by one from President Bush. That's what John Cornyn is about. Need we say more?
BOR has more.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who last month was the highest-ranking Republican to support a Democratic bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, flipped her stance Wednesday on a key procedural vote.The Texan essentially voted to filibuster the legislation, reversing the stance she took last month when Congress passed a $35 billion expansion of health insurance coverage for lower-income children that President Bush promptly vetoed.
Despite the switch by Hutchison and Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., the bill cleared the 60-vote hurdle required to survive and is slated for a final vote later this week.
[...]
Hutchison, a longtime defender of the SCHIP program, said Wednesday that she cast her vote in protest of the Democrats' refusal to hash out a deal with the White House. She made it clear, though, that she will support the legislation when it comes to a final vote.
"Regrettably, today's procedural vote in the Senate was on SCHIP legislation that was passed by the House without any collaboration with the president," she said. "Some in Congress have chosen to play politics with this issue, rather than sit down and negotiate a bipartisan compromise."
Hutchison urged Democratic leaders to "abandon this political gamesmanship and work toward a bill the president will sign."
But it was a Senate Republican leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, who forced the bill to the floor even as Democrats were willing to allow more time for the bill's Democratic and Republican supporters to negotiate.
[...]
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has parted company with Hutchison over the bill, calling it a step towards socialized medicine. In a floor speech Wednesday, he accused the Democrats of putting politics over policy and refusing to negotiate.
"This bill has become just another political football in a game that's been raging for months," he said.
Cornyn, who is up for re-election next year, has seen his opposition to the SCHIP bill used against him by his would-be Democratic rival, state Rep. Rick Noriega, and other Democrats.
Hutchison, in contrast, has been lauded for her years-long support of the children's health program and her fight to retain funding that the state of Texas declined to spend on the program in earlier years.
The Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, which is pressing for the $35 billion expansion, remains confident of Hutchison's support for the program notwithstanding her vote Wednesday, said associate director Anne Dunkelberg.
"It's an understandable sort of signal of her loyalty to her party and her desire to see a compromise have time to be developed," Dunkelberg said.
This is just a little bit of cover for our junior Senator. He's gotten pilloried in the editorial pages for his heartless and dishonest posturing on S-CHIP, with Big Sister Kay being held up as the good example. So she stepped out on a vote where it didn't matter so she could say a few meaningless words about "negotiating with the White House", which everybody in the world by now understands to mean "do exactly what the White House wants and pretend to like it", so that Junior knows she's got his back. We all clear on this now? Good.
The Chron comes out in favor of one of the Harris County bond proposals.
On the Sept. 6 ballot is a bond proposal to issue $70 million to build a new Family Law Center. The facility is urgently needed, and the Chronicle urges voters to approve Harris County Proposition 5.The aging Family Law Center here is too small to accommodate the 120,000 litigants that pass through its halls every year. The center's four elevators are inadequate to the need. The building is decrepit, and mere refurbishment would little improve the situation.
[...]
Harris County's population is booming and stress on families is increasing. Large investments in social services are necessary to treat some social ills and prevent others. The Chronicle urges a vote for Harris County Proposition 5 to provide for a new Family Law Center. The bonds issued for the new building would require no new taxes.
I voted for HC Prop 5, so I have no quarrel with any of this. But, um, there were five other County bond propositions on the ballot. What is one to conclude from the fact that the Chron has only seen to address one of them by this point, with only two days of early voting left? I must confess, I'm a bit baffled.
The Chron editorialized yesterday in favor of the proposed anti-Bissonnet High Rise ordinance, echoing some familiar themes along the way.
If the public works director determines that the development would excessively impact traffic in the area, city officials could force the builder to make whatever design changes are necessary to bring the project into compliance. According to White, the Ashby high-rise "exposed a loophole" in the city's ability to control residential construction that has negative fallout for traffic and public safety in an area.The ordinance is one more sign that city government is taking quality of life far more seriously than it did in the past. This year City Council has passed legislation to establish the first historic preservation district and to make developers responsible for contributing to the acquisition of parks in areas where they build.
Company officials seeking to build the Bissonnet project charge that the ordinance is aimed at them, and that is undoubtedly true. By pushing ahead with a plan that would severely affect affluent neighborhoods in the area, they stirred up a hornet's nest of residents with the clout and connections to make their protests heard at City Hall.
If the dispute results in the crafting of sensible land-use regulations that will apply to everyone in the future, then all Houston communities will benefit. In protecting their own neighborhoods, the Ashby Street protesters have done us all a big favor.
As you know, I generally agree with this. I also think that traffic isn't the biggest factor - it's certainly not the only one - and as such I hope it's not the only thing taken into consideration by any new ordinance. We'll see.
Want a County Judge that won't be distracted by trivialities? That would be David Mincberg.
Businessman David Mincberg announced his candidacy for Harris County judge at a campaign kickoff and birthday party celebration Tuesday.The campaign party at Gochman Studios, near Rice University, was a family event, with Mincberg blowing out the candles on a large chocolate cake. Today is his 57th birthday.
Mincberg, the former chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, pledged to be "a hands-on CEO" who will provide leadership to manage the region's growth. He is the first Democratic candidate in the race.
If he wins his party's primary next March, Mincberg will face the winner of an already lively Republican primary contest between Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and former Harris County District Clerk Charles Bacarisse. Emmett was appointed to the post earlier this year when County Judge Robert Eckels resigned.
Citing his business experience and his involvement in civic and charitable affairs, Mincberg said Harris County faces issues resulting from the area's rapid growth.
While it is of course always possible that someone might jump into the primary for this, I've not heard a peep to that effect. I can't imagine anything but a token opponent to Mincberg. For all intents and purposes, he's the nominee. And I think he's going to give whoever survives the GOP primary a hell of a fight. I'm very much looking forward to it.
The Democratic countywide slate at this point is just about complete. It's a bigger list than usual, thanks to the elections to fill the unexpired County Judge and District Clerk terms. Here's the list as I know it:
County Judge - David Mincberg
District Attorney - C.O. Bradford
Sheriff - Adrian Garcia
District Clerk - Loren Jackson
County Attorney - Vince Ryan
Tax Assessor - TBD
Judicial candidates - full list here
I think everyone is aware of the first four. Ryan is a former Houston City Council member. That's not cast in stone yet, but it's what I've seen and heard. As for Tax Assessor, I've got nothing. If someone is even talking about running, I'm not yet aware of it. It'd be mighty nice to have a woman on the ticket, and it would be nice to have someone who isn't a "city of Houston" candidate, but first we need a candidate. Anybody out there hearing anything?
The following is from State Rep. Jessica Farrar:
Please Support the Naming of the Joe Moreno Community CenterOn May 6, 2005, I lost a great friend and Texas lost a hero. When Representative Joe Moreno passed away, he left behind large shoes to fill - both figuratively and literally.
I am writing to ask you to support the City of Houston's proposal of renaming the Denver Harbor Multi-Service Center to the Joe Moreno Community Center. I cannot think of anything more fitting for a man who dedicated his life to serving that community.
If you would like to deliver a message of support, there are three ways you can do so. Comments may be made in writing by:
- Delivering comments in person to:
Issa Dadoush, Director
General Services Department
900 Bagby, 2nd Floor
Houston, TX 77002
- Emailing comments to:
issa.dadoush@cityofhouston.net
- Mailing comments to:
City of Houston
Issa Dadoush, Director
General Services Department
P.O. Box 1562
Houston, TX 77251-1562
All comments must be received by the city by Thursday, November 1. Please join me in doing our part to honor Joe's memory.
I think that's a fine idea, and I have sent my comments accordingly. If you agree, please do so as well today. Thanks very much.
The Dallas suburb of Highland Park wants to ban cellphone use while driving through school zones.
If the proposal is approved next month, officials say it would be the first time that a city in Texas has taken the step of legislating cellphone use for drivers. And that's only the beginning - Mayor Bill White said if the ban passes, it could eventually be expanded citywide."Let's see how it works from an educational standpoint," he said. "You've got to walk before you run."
Yes, Highland Park's Mayor is also named Bill White. Your eyes are not deceiving you, and our Mayor is not moonlighting - at least, he's not moonlighting there.
The ban would restrict drivers from using cellphones while they pass through one of 12 school zones surrounding three schools in Highland Park. The restrictions would apply only while the zones are active, during the morning and for a period in midafternoon. The use of hands-free cellular devices would be allowed.The proposal will be reviewed by two city committees, including one Thursday, before the council is expected to consider it Nov. 12. But town officials, parents and residents say they're in favor of the ban.
Council member George Reynolds said he hasn't seen the proposal but he hasn't heard any objections to it.
"I'm highly in favor of it, and I think it's something we absolutely need to do," he said. "I think people will be happy that we're doing this."
If such a proposal were to pass, Highland Park would be treading where few entities have gone.
In Southlake, the Carroll school district asks parents to turn off phones in pickup and drop-off lines at schools. But as an ordinance, Highland Park's ban would have legal teeth, enforceable by a fine.
Meanwhile, banning drivers' cellphone use has been considered by other Texas cities, including Rowlett, which took up the issue this spring. But none have passed any ordinances.
Proposed statewide bans have failed multiple times, although the Legislature did pass a law in 2005 barring cellphone use by teenage drivers during the first six months after they receive their license.
Highland Park's ban would apply only to school zones within the town, not those in neighboring University Park, where there are several schools in the Highland Park district, including Highland Park High School.
I have no problem with this, though best I recall the main issue with talking while driving is one of mental distraction and not of having two hands on the wheel. In other words, the hands-free devices don't really help that much. It's probably easier to pass a ban that includes this loophole, however. I expect that this is a first step and not a final destination. We'll see.
You won't see this again any time soon:
That's because according to Houstonist, the old building on Bolsover where that sign was has now been torn down. I did a driveby yesterday and confirmed it, as well as the fact that Bolsover is officially closed off between Kelvin and Morningside. Sounds like construction is going to begin relatively quickly, too, though in this town that could still mean months. I'll try to keep an eye on it.
Meanwhile, Swamplot notes the next large Inner Loop structure that's on the endangered list:
A local investment group has obtained a $10-million loan to buy the 145-unit Greenbriar Chateau in the near southwest submarket. Given the location, it could end up as a conversion into a higher-density project.Bammelbelt LP bought the complex, built nearly 40 years ago at 4100 Greenbriar St., a prime infill location within minutes of Rice University, Hermann Park and the Texas Medical Center. Sources familiar with the area say rising land costs for infill sites could prompt similar deals by investors buying aging properties as land plays.
That's just north of US59, immediately after the under-construction bank where the old Texaco station used to be. It's also right across the street from where our pediatrician is.
Situated on 3.6 acres, Greenbriar Chateau has a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartments with rents ranging from $790 to $950 per month. Bammelbelt LP will manage and lease Greenbriar Chateau.
And as with the late Allen House complex, that's one less inexpensive apartment option in town. We'll see how high-end the new thing is, assuming such a project does go forward.
Speaking of Allen House, the buildings on the south side of West Dallas and west of Dunlavy are all gone. I'd post a picture but there isn't really anything to see, just empty space. There's still a section of Allen House standing, east of Dunlavy, and as reported before, it still appears to be inhabited. For how long, I couldn't say.
Finally, I noticed a few days ago that the fencing that had surrounded the now-demolished portion of the River Oaks Shopping Center has been taken down. The area has been paved over and striped for extra parking, for which the need is unclear. At least, by my observation, it isn't being heavily used. But I guess it may as well be used for something till the big shiny new Barnes and Noble (at which I will not shop) gets built.