January, 2011:

Interview with David Feldman

The main focus in Houston over the next few months will be Council expansion and redistricting. One of the people who will do the heavy lifting on this is City Attorney David Feldman. If you haven’t watched this video from a recent Council session in which Feldman outlined the history, legal process, and parameters for redrawing Council boundaries (Mayor’s Report, part 1), you should, it’s very informative. I wanted to know more, of course, and I had a few questions about some other recent city business, so I asked for an interview with him. Here’s what we talked about:

Download the MP3 file

My thanks to David Feldman for taking the time to talk to me.

Kicking Grandma to the street

Jan 31st, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Another feature of the Republican budget.

Hundreds of nursing homes, including dozens in Dallas-Fort Worth, may close if lawmakers cut Medicaid as leaders propose, industry officials said Thursday.

Since last week, GOP leaders have introduced budgets in both chambers that would reduce by one-third the state’s budget for its 56,000 nursing home residents on Medicaid. Two-year spending would sink to $2.8 billion, from $4.2 billion.

“We are not crying wolf. Pieces of the sky are falling,” said Tim Graves, head of the Texas Health Care Association, a trade group that represents 500 nursing homes, most of them for-profit operations. He said the cuts would jeopardize about half of the state’s 1,100 nursing homes: those with 70 percent or more of patients on the Medicaid rolls.

Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, though, said he was “expecting that kind of input” and it’s why he’s opening budget hearings next week with a look at social services.

“The worst news is already out there,” said Ogden, head of the Senate Finance Committee. “Over the next few months, we’re going to try to improve it so at the end of the day, these cuts are not fatal.”

You’ll note that Sen. Ogden doesn’t make any actual commitment to keeping any of these nursing homes open, just that maybe the final budget wouldn’t suck quite as much for them. To be perfectly fair, I do believe that Sen. Ogden wants to minimize this, and that there will be plenty of support for that. But let’s not kid ourselves, the Republican Party is full of people – elected officials, outside agitators like Talmadge Heflin and Michael Quinn Sullivan, and everyday selfish types – who are perfectly happy with this state of affairs and just don’t care about the effects. When, not if, nursing homes are forced to close down because of Medicaid cuts, the responsibility for it is theirs.

Castro gets involved with school politics

Jan 31st, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

This will be interesting to watch.

Mayor Julián Castro will take an active role in local school board elections and superintendent appointments, he said in an interview Saturday outside SA2020’s final community workshop, one in which education was heralded as key to the city’s future.

Castro, stepping directly into a domain previous mayors have avoided, said his plan begins with refusing to accept failure from the city’s “urban school districts.”

“I envision, for instance, coming up with a system of measuring the progress of these urban school districts in a mayor’s scorecard on their progress and holding them accountable for student success,” he said. “I believe that getting more involved in ensuring that there are knowledgeable and strong board members at these school districts needs to be a part of my job.

“We have sat too long and allowed our school districts to not have as top-notch leadership as they could have, both in superintendents and in school boards.”

[…]

On Saturday, as about 1,000 people wrapped up SA2020, Castro’s collaborative long-term planning effort, it was clear that for San Antonio to succeed during the next decade, improving education would be pivotal.

During the session, participants discussed how to connect seemingly disparate issues — from downtown development to economic competitiveness and family well-being.

Ann Stevens, president of BioMed SA, said education “is the river that runs through our lives and binds us together as a community.” Several other speakers, representing the collective thoughts of their working groups, pointed to a strong education system as a game changer — a daunting task made more difficult by looming state budget cuts in the Legislature.

Two points here. One, you may recall that Peter Brown made Mayoral involvement in education a part of his campaign. Nobody else followed his lead, so watching Castro will give us some idea of what might have been. This could be a brilliant, game-changing idea, and it could be a political tar pit. Who knows? I look forward to finding out.

And two, if Castro is gearing up for a future statewide run, something like this could be an excellent springboard, and it could be a great way to set himself up as a counterweight to Rick Perry. (He’s running for re-election this May, but that doesn’t preclude anything for 2012 or beyond.) The contrast between the Mayor rolling up his sleeves and getting personally involved in making his schools better against the Governor who’s making things like voter ID and so-called “sanctuary cities” emergency priorities while public education is being cut by $10 billion is striking and potentially quite compelling. I have no idea if this is something he has in mind, and there’s the very real risk that he’s bitten off more than he can chew, but I have to think the idea has occurred to someone besides me. Like I said, we’ll see how this goes.

Dallas County’s elections administrator resigns

Jan 31st, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

I spotted this story in the DMN the other day.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins has called a meeting of an obscure commission charged with appointing a county elections chief, raising the suspicion that it’s an attempt to oust longtime Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet.

The County Election Commission, which county officials say has not met since the late 1980s, is made up of Jenkins, Tax Assessor John Ames, County Clerk John Warren, local Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Neerman and local Democratic Party Chairwoman Darlene Ewing.

The meeting has been set for 3:30 p.m. Friday at the Fox conference room in the Dallas County Administration Building.

Jenkins said Tuesday he is not targeting Sherbet for removal but simply convening the meeting because state law says it must meet every two years.

“What this is to me is following what I understand to be the law,” Jenkins said. “All the members of the committee are free to nominate whomever they want to.”

Jenkins, who said the meeting would take five minutes, did not comment specifically about Sherbet or his job performance, saying it would be inappropriate for him to do so since he is county judge and Sherbet is a county employee.

The newly elected county judge, however, did not rule out that a vote on Sherbet would be taken at the meeting.

Neither of the two party chairs had any desire to make a change, according to the story, so the four-fifths majority to remove Sherbet didn’t exist regardless of what Judge Jenkins has in mind. In the end, that didn’t matter because Sherbet resigned later in the day. I know nothing about Bruce Sherbet and have no opinion as to how good a job he did, though clearly a lot of people liked him, I’m just noting this story out of curiosity over how Judge Emmett’s proposal for an elections administrator for Harris County is doing. I suppose the fact that the county is firing people left and right and is supposed to be under a hiring freeze would create obstacles to the creation of a new position. Still, I haven’t heard anything since Don Sumners’ post-election tantrum about the idea and the subsequent kerfuffle over his attempt to make voter registration more difficult, so I thought I’d throw this out there and see what happens.

Weekend link dump for January 30

Jan 30th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Personally, I think A Very Special Episode Of Blossom would make an awesome band name, but maybe that’s just me.

If only Little Red Riding Hood had had Creed on her iPod, she could have avoided all that trouble.

“Doctor! Doctor! It hurts when I do this!” The solution is left as an exercise for the reader.

For all the talk about “toning down” the political rhetoric lately, there’s still a lot of violent language being used on the right.

It would be nice if Supreme Court justices obeyed the law themselves. Heck, I’d settle for them not making excuses that assume we’re all stupid, if that’s not too much to ask.

You can always achieve consensus if you define what “consensus” is properly.

RIP, Jack LaLanne.

Tort “reform” is a scam, and a very hurtful one at that.

Tweet carefully, or else.

There are many things that should be taken into account when trying to improve the economy, but the fragile fee-fees of businessmen should not be among them.

“Oh, Lord, please send us another tech bubble. We promise not to piss this one away.”

I miss Norbizness, too.

You want high deductible health insurance policies, you can have them.

For most people, a choice between pr0n and Mitt Romney would be a no-brainer.

The world’s hottest chile is apparently too hot to actually eat. Which kind of defeats the purpose, if you ask me.

Ah, the good old days of computing. How I don’t miss them at all.

It always fascinates me how some people who would claim that people should be held accountable for their actions will absolutely refuse to hold prosecutors accountable for theirs when they wrong someone.

Calling all haters, this show is for you.

Nobody is surprised by this, right?

I’m so old, I can remember when Mean Jean Schmidt was considered the craziest member of Congress.

All Mondays in January are Blue Mondays to me. It’s just that time of the year.

You’d never run your household or your business by ignoring investment. Unless, of course, you’re a Republican.

The US Chamber of Commerce is in it for itself, not for the local chambers.

Visiting the alternate universe in which Mitt Romney was elected President in 2008.

When in doubt, read Ta-Nehisi.

Being disingenuous is always a good rhetorical technique.

Remembering the Challenger disaster, 25 years later.

Fly, ankylosaurus, fly!

Some reactions to Wal-Mart’s announcement of its new, healthier foods initiative.

Yeah, where have all the “Baby On Board” signs gone?

Atlas Scammed.

Coming soon to an empty lot near me

Jan 30th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Some neighborhood news from Swamplot.

Details on the 6-story mixed-use building being planned for the corner of Studewood and 11th 1/2 St. in the Heights will be announced “very soon,” a representative of the new property owner promises Swamplot.

[…]

They’re planning a cast-in-place concrete structure with an all- or mostly masonry exterior, containing apartments or condos and “some retail.” Also included: some multi-level parking and some “really cool green space.” Car entrances will be on both Studewood and 11th 1/2. The architect is from San Antonio; a local historical consultant is working to make sure the design is what the developer considers “period appropriate.” The long-vacant site is the former home of the Globe Laundry; the new project is registered under TCEQ’s Dry Cleaner Remediation Program, which the developer says doesn’t appear to require any solvent cleanup on the site. Vita Nuova plans to put a sign up soon announcing more details in the next 30 days.

Pictures and more discussion are there and at The Heights Life, which was first to note the activity. As with the other Heights highrise in the works for White Oak, I’m basically OK with this. Viula thinks six stories is a bit too tall for the area, but I don’t. I wouldn’t want to go much taller than that, but I think it’ll be all right. I’m not too worried about the traffic impact – the Starbucks drive-thru that one of the Swamplot commenters is rooting for would be much worse for traffic, as anyone who’s gotten caught in the snarls at the drive-thru on Shepherd just north of Westheimer can attest – though I do wonder how they’ll fit enough parking in. I also wonder if the ground floor retail will include a restaurant, as they are all the rage these days as development anchors. All in all, I think this will be fine and I look forward to seeing what they build.

By the way, we found out recently that the developer behind the White Oak highrise is an old neighborhood friend of Tiffany’s. Houston is such a small town sometimes.

What the funding cuts to public education will mean to your school district

Jan 30th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

Read this and see.

Summary of HB 1 (Public Education Reductions)

The House introduced its initial version of the General Appropriations Act (House Bill 1) for the 2012-13 biennium on Wednesday, January 19. While it is the first draft of the state budget with many hearings and floor debates to come, it does indicate that substantial budget reductions to public education are likely.

In addition to eliminating almost all discretionary grant programs ($1.3 billion in General Revenue over the biennium) in this first draft, HB 1, as filed, reduces the Foundation School Program by $10 billion below what was requested by the Texas Education Agency. Some of the grant programs that were eliminated in the 2012-13 biennium include: the technology allotment ($270.9 million), New IFA ($52 million), property value decline protections, ADA decline provisions ($22 million), DAEP funding, the Reading, Mathematics, and Science Initiatives ($16.1 million), the Early High School Scholarship Program ($43.2 million), the Pre-Kindergarten Grant Program ($223.3 million) , all of the grant programs funded under the Student Success Initiative ($293.2 million) , the High School Completion and Success Initiative ($86 million), the LEP Student Success Initiative ($19,4 million), the DATE program ($385.1 million), science lab grants ($35 million), middle school PE grants ($20 million), virtual school network ($20.3 million), the steroid testing program ($2 million), school bus seat belt program ($10 million), the optional extended year program ($14.1 million), teen parenting ($19.7 million), and the AP Incentive Program ($28.4 million).

I confess, I don’t know what a lot of that alphabet soup means, but it doesn’t matter. After the brief intro, which lays out three different possible ways that the $10 billion reduction might be distributed, is a table of each school district, listed by county, and the amount that it would lose under each scenario. As daunting as $10 billion sounds, seeing the individual reductions for each ISD makes it even scarier. The firm that put this together is the source of that 100,000 teacher layoff figure I keep harping on. As you see stories like these two appear over and over across the state, you’ll know where they’re coming from.

Harris County braces for state budget cuts

Jan 30th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

More joy to look forward to.

Proposed state budget cuts could cost Harris County government nearly $50 million a year, according to a legislative analyst’s rough estimates, rolling back or eliminating state allowances for dozens of programs that include mental health services, auto theft prevention, alternatives to jail and a school for juvenile offenders.

The starting-point House budget introduced in in Austin last week would possibly take a $13 million chunk out of money the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County uses to treat adults and children.

[…]

If the state cuts come to pass, the sheriff’s unit dedicated to auto theft would be halved and a camp for youth offenders would have to turn away kids who need its intensive counseling to prevent them from becoming career criminals, county officials said.

In other cases, the state cuts would transfer the burden onto a county government already contemplating hundreds of layoffs.

For example, the state mandates that the county run a school for children expelled from their neighborhood schools for weapons and serious drug offenses. But the starting-point budget would take away $3 million of the $12 million the state sends to cover the cost of busing, educating and counseling kids from all over the county at a school near Reliant Park.

Tom Brooks, the county’s juvenile probation director, said the school would be “crippled” by the proposed cut and that he would ask the state to lift the mandate if the proposed spending plan is what emerges from Austin this year.

[…]

Sheriff Adrian Garcia, County Judge Ed Emmett and MHMRA executive director Stephen Schnee have been saying for months that such drastic state cuts will transfer the bill to county agencies as people who could have benefited from treatment in community centers end up in emergency rooms and jail cells.

“Harris County will pick up the tab for them to be staying in jail and the mental health care they receive in jail, which is much more expensive than in the free world,” sheriff’s spokesman Alan Bernstein said Wednesday.

The state budget in its current form would eliminate the entire $1 million in state money spent on auto theft prevention and detection in Harris County. The Houston area accounts for about 30 percent of the state’s stolen cars, according to the sheriff’s office. Sheriff’s spokespeople were particularly puzzled by the auto theft cut, since the money comes from a surcharge in motorists’ auto insurance premiums and not from taxes.

So expect there to be more firings and more crime, not to mention higher local taxes in many places as the state sloughs its responsibilities off on cities and counties. Oh, and quite possibly your insurance rates, too.

Budget drafts call for a 10 percent reduction in payments to Medicaid providers and deep cuts in health and human services spending, including mental-health programs.

[…]

Proponents of the reductions call them necessary to control spending on the state’s Medicaid program, which cost a total of $24.7 billion in fiscal 2011. The federal government picks up $16.6 billion of that.

More than $7 billion a year in Medicaid money is paid to the state’s 500 hospitals.

Texas hospitals have protested the reductions, saying they will further strain hospitals’ resources and lead more providers to drop Medicaid. The program now covers only about 60 percent of a provider’s cost for treating a patient. Less Medicaid coverage would lead more patients to seek help in emergency rooms, where care is far more expensive, hospitals say.

An effort to shift more Medicaid patients into managed-care programs could exacerbate the financial pain for providers, according to the Texas Hospital Association.

“Reductions of this magnitude will seriously jeopardize access to healthcare and shift more healthcare costs to local governments and insured Texans,” said Dan Stultz, association president, in a statement.

Funny thing, just because the state refuses to pay for a need doesn’t make that need go away. It just means some other entity winds up paying for it. In many cases, they wind up paying more than what the state would have paid. In the end, of course, it all comes out of our pockets. But hey, at least we balanced the state budget.

District representation in Austin

Jan 30th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

I have to admit, it hadn’t occurred to me that there were any large cities in Texas that didn’t have City Council districts, but Austin is such a place, at least for now.

Mayor Lee Leffingwell will soon propose sweeping changes to Austin’s elections and governing structure, including creating districts for City Council representation, an idea voters have rebuffed before.

The aim of the changes, Leffingwell said, is to compel more people to vote in council elections, which have a history of abysmal turnout.

Currently, the mayor and six council members represent the entire city of nearly 800,000 people. Leffingwell wants to replace that with a hybrid system, in which six council members would represent smaller districts and two council members and the mayor would represent the whole city.

The mayor also wants to increase the maximum amount people can donate to city campaigns (currently $350 per donor) and move city elections from May to November of odd -numbered years, which would involve increasing council members’ terms from three to four years.

Austin voters have rejected district plans six times since 1973 , most recently in 2002 .

“Even though it has failed before, I sense a different mood out there,” said Leffingwell, who will detail his plans in his State of the City speech Feb. 25 . He will also host a Feb. 28 public forum with former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros and former Houston Mayor Bill White to talk about the district idea and other subjects.

Apparently, previous attempts at this failed because the plan was put to a vote before there was a map of the proposed districts, and because the size of Council would have been doubled. With Census data coming soon, the former should not be an obstacle, and the current proposal has an increase of only two seats. So maybe this time there’s hope.

One obstacle still remains, however:

Another past hurdle that’s likely to resurface this year is the drawing of a district that has a large concentration of African American residents and that would give black voters a fair chance to elect candidates they favor.

Since the 1970s, an unwritten rule has reserved one Austin council seat for a Hispanic person and one for an African American. Some say that so-called “gentleman’s agreement” is arcane.

“The idea of holding a seat for a particular race empowers the old Austin fathers,” said Nelson Linder , president of the Austin NAACP. “It’s time for a new model that’s more competitive and inclusive and that empowers everybody.”

Because blacks are dispersed across Austin and make up only about 8 percent of Austin’s population, the city would have to draw at least 14 districts with equal populations to form just one with a majority of black residents, city demographer Ryan Robinson said.

Council Member Sheryl Cole , the council’s only black member, said she would support putting a hybrid system to a vote but questions whether the Justice Department would approve a map that includes no district with an African American majority.

A six-district map would probably have one district in Southeast Austin and one in North-Central or Northeast Austin with a majority of Hispanic residents , and one district stretching from Central East to Northeast Austin that has more black than Hispanic or white residents but not a majority, Robinson said.

Houston had a similar tradition for the At Large #5 seat, but then Chris Bell filed for it and won in a 1997 special election, and Michael Berry did the same in 2003 after abandoning his Mayoral campaign. The problem with unwritten rules is that they’re unenforceable. As for the question of drawing a Council district that an African-American could win, I will simply note that Travis County, which has six legislative districts, has counted Dawnna Dukes among its delegation for more than a decade now. According to the Texas Redistricting webpage Dukes’ district (HD46) is 27.1% black by population, 26.1% by voting age population (VAP), while the numbers for Anglos are 27.9 and 32.6, and the numbers for Hispanics are 42.1 and 37.9. Surely a suitable district can be drawn within Austin.

Saturday video break: Let’s have a little talk about tweetle beetles

Jan 29th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I give you Dr. Seuss’ “Fox in Socks”, read by someone who can read it a lot faster than I can:

She goes so fast I can’t really swear that she’s actually reading what’s on the pages in question. The loud reactions from the audience don’t help, either. It’s still pretty damned impressive. Those of you of a certain age may be reminded of this classic commercial:

You think maybe she could be his daughter?

Eversole’s trial set for February 22

Jan 29th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Indicted County Commissioner Jerry Eversole got his wish for a speedy trial.

Eversole’s jury trial is scheduled for Feb. 22.

Thursday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge David Hittner is mixed news for the Eversole camp. Eversole’s attorney, Rusty Hardin, said in court this month that he repeatedly had counseled his client against a speedy trial because of the risk that his defense team would not be as prepared as it should be.

Hardin even had Eversole stand during a January hearing and asked him if he wanted to proceed quickly despite that risk, to which Eversole replied, “Absolutely.”

Eversole has said he wants to get the trial out of the way so he can get back to commissionering. You have to admire the confidence, I’ll say that much for him.

His co-defendant Michael Surface also got his wish:

Surface’s attorneys asked Hittner for a delay until October. Hittner has also granted that request.

Chip Lewis, an attorney for Surface, said he now will have adequate time to prepare his client’s defense. He also said the severance ruling was correct.

“All of these charges were very well-publicized before the indictment,” Lewis said. “The electorate saw fit to re-elect (Eversole). He is eager to illustrate his innocence and recognize that those voters’ confidence in him is well placed.”

Well, he was unopposed. And in the environment we just experienced, in the most Republican-friendly precinct in the county, he’d have beaten anyone who had opposed him by at least 30 points. So I don’t know that I’d draw too much of an inference from that.

Happy talk about Texas employment

Jan 29th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

2010 was a better year for employment in Texas than 2009 was.

Texas employers expanded payrolls by 20,000 jobs in December, the third straight month the state has gained jobs, according to data released Friday by the Texas Workforce Commission.

The state gained in most major employment sectors, led by construction, with 8,700 jobs.

“It’s a very positive picture on job growth,” said Mine Yucel, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

The state unemployment rate edged up to 8.3 percent from 8.2 percent in November and 8.1 percent in October. But even that may be a sign of recovery, Yucel said.

To be counted as unemployed, a person without a job must be seeking work. As employers add jobs, some people who had given up looking for work are apt to start trying to find a job again.

“It means people are seeing more jobs out there, and they’re coming back into the labor market,” Yucel said, referring to the rise in the unemployment rate. “As the economy grows, we expect that rate to come down.”

[…]

During 2010 as a whole, Texas payrolls expanded by 230,800 jobs after shrinking by more than 350,000 in 2009.

[…]

“The monthly growth was strong in December, and the year-over-year growth is representative of a solid overall recovery in the Texas job market,” said Waco economist Ray Perryman.

That’s good, and I’m delighted for everyone who found a job this past year. But I wonder, is all this optimism truly warranted at a time when the Legislature is working on a budget outline that might result in 100,000 teacher layoffs, which would be on top of county and city layoffs? Sure, maybe these things won’t happen – maybe the Lege will come to its senses and use the Rainy Day Fund to blunt some of the impact of the shortfall, thus limiting teacher firings to the 10,000 range or so – but how can you not even discuss the possibility when assessing the outlook for 2011? That just doesn’t seem right to me

The cost to cities of being anti-immigrant

Jan 29th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

The Center for American Progress has a new report out called The High Price of Local Immigration Enforcement that tracks how much various anti-immigrant ordinances in cities like Hazelton, PA, and Farmers Branch have cost them. Most of those costs have been related to litigation, as they have had to defend themselves against multiple lawsuits, though they have also seen their tax bases erode. As someone who’s been following the Farmers Branch story since 2006, this was all familiar to me, but just to bring everyone up to speed, here’s the bit about where Farmers Branch stands now from the full report.

The city was hit with four separate lawsuits, including one from merchants claiming that the English-only provision had hurt their businesses. The lawsuits were eventually combined. In January 2007, after a court temporarily blocked implementation of the Farmers Branch law pending the outcome of the lawsuits, the city council repealed the original rental law and replaced it with a similar one drafted by [anti-immigrant activist Kris] Kobach that made adjustments for families of mixed immigration or citizenship status.

That ordinance was approved by voters in a May election but was declared unconstitutional a year later by a federal court on the grounds that it violated the federal supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, similar to the Hazleton, Pennsylvania, case. Undeterred, the city council passed another Kobach-authored ordinance in January, 2008, that would require all renters of apartments and houses to pay a $5 fee and state their legal status in their application for an occupancy license, thus removing landlords from the verification process.

The third ordinance also was declared unconstitutional by a federal court in April, 2010. Among its findings, the court noted that the Farmers Branch ordinance applies federal immigration classifications for purposes not authorized or contemplated by federal law. “As a result, the ordinance creates an additional restriction on alien residence in the City. The direct regulation of private contract for shelter based on inapplicable federal classifications constitutes an impermissible regulation of immigration,” the court stated. Farmers Branch then followed the path of Hazleton by asking an appellate court to overturn the lower court’s rejection of its immigration control ordinance. The case is now pending before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

All of this has cost Farmers Branch $4 million, with more to come as the current case proceeds. Read the report for all the details.

What this report doesn’t explore, unfortunately, is the potential cost to cities and the state of the various anti-immigrant bills that are pending in the Texas Legislature. I presume that the first thing that will happen after some form of one of Debbie Riddle’s bills is signed into law that Texas will be subject to similar litigation as Arizona. Even if you take lawsuits out of the equation, the so-called “sanctuary city” bills are designed to force local law enforcement agencies to do the work of immigration officials at the risk of losing some state funds, but no funding mechanism is provided to compensate them for that extra work. What would an honest fiscal note for these bills look like? Those are the questions I’d like to see addressed right now.

Where the SUPERTRAINs should be built

Jan 29th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Via Infrastructurist, a group called America 2050 recently put out a report on high-speed rail corridors with the greatest potential to attract ridership in each of the nation’s megaregions. The full report is here, and the section on Texas and the Gulf Coast, which scores pretty well by their metrics, is here. The way I look at it is this: Taking a train would be faster, only a bit more expensive, and far less stressful than driving. It would likely be comparable in terms of cost and duration to flying, and speaking as someone who lives a lot closer to where a train station would be than to either airport, more convenient. Plus, no one touches your junk before you board. I would also expect that building a high speed rail network for Texas would also spur many of the destination cities to build out their own local transit networks more – light or commuter rail in some cases, shuttles or buses in others – so that it would be easier to make these trips without having to rent a car. I just hope it can all happen a bit sooner than 2050, so I won’t be too feeble to take advantage of it. See the Dallas Transportation blog for some related information.

Friday random ten: The top 500, part 11

Jan 28th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Continuing on with the songs in my collection from the Rolling Stone Top 500 list.

1. Train In Vain – Annie Lennox (#292, orig. The Clash)
2. Heart of Gold – Neil Young (#297)
3. Like A Prayer – Madonna (#300)
4. With A Little Help From My Friends – Big Daddy (#304, orig. The Beatles)
5. Wake Up Little Susie – Simon & Garfunkel (#311, orig. The Everly Brothers)
6. I Put A Spell On You – CCR/Pete Townshend (#313, orig. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins)
7. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood – Elvis Costello (#315, orig. The Animals)
8. Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd (#316)
9. Alison – Tufts Beelzebubs (#318, orig. Elvis Costello)
10. School’s Out – Alice Cooper – (#319)

We’ve already discussed the awesomeness of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”. If you’re not familiar with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, you should be. Here’s his inimitable version of “I Put A Spell On You”:

As the Wikipedia article notes, Hawkins directly influenced performers like Alice Cooper, whose appearance in “Wayne’s World” was one of my favorite bits from that movie:

Yeah, I know, they did essentially this same bit with Aerosmith on SNL before the movie. I still love hearing ol’ Alice talking about Milwaukee.

Entire song list report: Started with “Sultans of Swing”, by Dire Straits. Ended with “Take Five”, the jazz classic from the Dave Brubeck Quartet. That was song #5200, for a total of 97 tunes this week. And we made it into the T songs at last. The last S song was “Syndicated Incorporated”, by Weird Al Yankovic, and the first T song was “T & J Waltz”, by Hot Club of Cowtown. As was the case with S, we’ll be in the T songs for awhile.

Effect of exempting schools and churches on drainage fee would be small

Jan 28th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

As we know, the drainage fee that will be collected to fund street and sewage repairs through the project formerly known as Renew Houston is intended to apply to all property that isn’t specifically exempted by state law, such as state buildings and public universities. Various entities like churches and schools and Harris County have asked for the city to exclude it from the fee, which would mean passing their costs onto everybody else, since the Renew Houston referendum requires the city to collect $125 million per year. It turns out that the cost of granting those exceptions would be fairly minimal.

A new drainage fee under City Council consideration would cost the average Houston homeowner about $5.38 per month if the city decides to exempt local government entities and churches from having to pay, officials revealed on Wednesday.

Each property owner’s fee will be determined by computer, using data from the Harris County Appraisal District and other sources, to estimate the amount of impervious surface of each residential or commercial tract. “Impervious surface” — meaning it does not readily absorb water – will include such things as driveways, decks, foundations, roofs and swimming pools.

[…]

Mayor Annise Parker on Wednesday defended her stance that everyone should pay.

“It is a relatively small amount of money in the grand scheme of things,” Parker said of the $9 million that would be paid by counties, school districts and religious organizations if they are not exempted. “If we are doing this in a fair and consistent manner, everyone should pay their fair share. People who contribute to drainage problems should pay for that drainage.”

Council members have shown little willingness to levy the fees across the board as they continue to hear objections from leaders of local governments and major churches in the city, such as Galveston-Houston Archbishop Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, who publicly has expressed concerns about the impact of the fee on small parishes.

As the story notes in the last paragraph, the fee would be $5 a month under “everyone pays” rules. You know that I agree with the Mayor’s stance on this, but I’m glad to see that if Council succeeds in pushing back on her that it wouldn’t make that much difference. If it comes to that, I’d prefer to see schools and the county be given preference for avoiding the fee, since they are going to get kicked pretty hard by the Lege. As for churches, let’s just say that some are more capable of paying the drainage fee than others. You could maybe talk me into giving some consideration to the smaller ones that Cardinal DiNardo is concerned about, but I don’t know how easily one could come up with an acceptable formula to differentiate between the two. I’d rather see none of them exempted than all of them.

The firings will continue until services improve

Jan 28th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

Harris County has only just begun to fire people.

The protective net county government weaves under 4 million people — jailing crooks, inoculating residents against disease, investigating child abuse and treating the mentally ill – would fray noticeably under spending cut plans that get a hearing later this week.

With the property tax money county government relies on to cover most of its bills plummeting, the county’s budget boss has asked each department to show what the fiscal year that starts March 1 would look like with a 10 percent cut to the overall $1.3 billion budget.

The answers have come back in grim detail: fewer checks on children who are the subject of custody disputes; the shutdown of prosecutors’ units dedicated to elder abuse, identity theft and public assistance fraud; longer pretrial waits in jail as a shrunken courts staff scrambles to catch up on a backlog of paperwork.

“Public safety is the number one priority of government. That is why government exists,” District Attorney Pat Lykos said last week. In a statement issued Monday, she said, “Further reductions in force will be devastating, delaying justice and putting the public at risk.”

I guess the public will have to get used to it, because until it demands something different, this is what it will get. If you’re not affected, or don’t know anyone who will be affected, by this, you’re a very lucky person.

You know that old story about the frog and the scorpion?

Jan 28th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

From Speak South Texas, possibly the most ludicrous bemoaning of the Pitts budget of them all:

South Texas Republicans are voicing their opposition and concern to the proposed cuts. Valley Republican Aaron Peña was among the first, telling KURV Radio’s Daily Report with Colonel Ray “I don’t agree with it. I said that from the moment I read the budget. We are still dissecting it and it’s getting worse and worse.” In the words of the famous John McClane: Welcome to the Party pal.

You knew what they were when you hopped into bed with them, Aaron. If you didn’t, it’s no one’s fault but your own.

Almost as ridiculous:

Del Mar College President Mark Escamilla said the funding cuts seem to contradict the increases in student growth many community colleges are seeing across the state. The state can’t pay colleges what they are due.

“It’s a sad day in Texas when we have to start thinking about these kinds of cuts,” he said.

[…]

Rep. Raul Torres, whose district includes Del Mar College, said he has met with Escamilla.

“But I stress the budget is preliminary,” Torres said. “These Austin bureaucrats don’t take into consideration Del Mar’s growth, and I think together we will minimize the impact.”

Let me introduce you to Talmadge Heflin and Michael Quinn Sullivan, Raul. You know, the guys who have been saying that we don’t really have a budget shortfall at all, we just need to learn to live within the lessened means that we now have. I’m sure they’ll be open to hearing about Del Mar’s growth.

Rep. Connie Scott, R-Robstown, is hopeful state revenues from sales taxes will improve by the time the House votes on the budget later this year.

“I have met with our school boards and several school board members,” Scott said Wednesday. “We know cuts will come but we hope by May that the budget scenario improves. Regardless, as I have promised, a quality education system is one of my top priorities and it also is a constitutional duty for us to provide public education.”

First, any improvement in sales tax revenues will be used to pay off the $4.3 billion shortfall in the 2010-11 biennium’s budget. Second, how exactly did you intend to pay for that “quality education system” you promised? None of your Republican colleagues seem to share that interest.

All I can say is that if cognitive dissonance is something that can be detected externally, the levels of it in Texas must be off the charts by now.

If it weren’t for Obama, we wouldn’t be having this conversation

Jan 28th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Rep. John Zerwas writes an op-ed extolling the virtues of the health insurance exchange bill he’s filed.

While it is no secret that I oppose the federal health care reform bill, if we don’t act now to create the Texas Health Insurance Connector, our state could be forced to cede regulatory control of a significant chunk of its health insurance market to the federal government. The desire to avoid such oversight has generated broad support for the connector, which I am proposing in House Bill 636. In addition to members of both political parties, a variety of groups that don’t usually agree on issues have come forward to support keeping Texas in charge of its health insurance market through the passage of HB 636. Those groups include the Texas Association of Business, Texas Hospital Association, Texas Medical Association, Texas Restaurant Association and two Texas health insurance industry groups.

Why must we do this? Among the provisions of the federal health care reforms is a requirement that an organized health insurance market known as an American Health Benefit Exchange be established in every state to provide coverage for U.S. citizens or legal immigrants who do not have access to affordable employer-based coverage. Each state must demonstrate by 2013 that it will have the structure in place to operate its exchange or the federal government will establish and manage it for that state. The Texas Health Insurance Connector, a simplified health insurance market, would serve as our state’s exchange.

Although I support the efforts by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and others to have the health care bill ruled unconstitutional, the connector proposal is more about what’s best for Texas and less about what the federal government has passed. It’s about ensuring that Texas maintains regulatory oversight over what could end up being a large segment of its health insurance market.

The exchange concept did not originate with Obamacare. The idea was first proposed in the 1970s, and the model is being used in such politically opposite states as Utah and Massachusetts. Because of the federal government’s 2013 deadline, our current legislative session may provide us the only opportunity to take action to keep the federal government out of our health-insurance market.

I’ve already said something nice about Zerwas and HB636, so I’ll just take a moment to note his almost defensive touting of his Republican bona fides in these paragraphs. It’s almost as if he’s a bit bashful about proposing legislation that would make it easier for someone to get health insurance, which is certainly understandable given the direction of the modern day Republican Party and its hostility to the concept of universal coverage. Be that as it may, if it weren’t for “Obamacare”, none of this would be a topic for discussion. In four regular legislative sessions under unified Republican control, the state hasn’t done a damn thing to improve access to health care; indeed, the two most notable achievements in that time were slashing CHIP in 2003 and settling the Frew lawsuit over Texas’ insufficient Medicaid payments in 2007. None of the bills Zerwas filed in 2009 had anything to do with insurance exchanges, which as he notes existed as a concept well before they became mandatory. It would be the same thing this year if the Affordable Care Act passed by President Obama and the Democratic Congress hadn’t forced Texas Republicans to do something. See this Trib interview with Rep. Zerwas for more.

If you thought voter ID was bad…

Jan 27th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

20 comments

Wait till you see what comes next.

State Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, has made national headlines for his “birther” bill that would require a candidate for president or vice president of the U.S. to show proof of natural-born citizenship to be placed on the ballot in Texas. He has also filed proposed legislation designed to provoke a legal challenge to the 14th Amendment, which bestows citizenship on anyone born in the U.S., regardless of the status of the child’s parents. House Bill 292, if passed, would prevent a county’s local registrar from issuing a birth certificate to a child born to undocumented immigrants in Texas.

“Instead, they will be given a notice of birth, with instructions to take it to their own consulate or embassy to get citizenship papers or a birth certificate from the country of their parents,” Berman said, explaining his bill. “If it passes, we expect to be sued immediately, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for — we want to be sued in federal court so that federal judges will finally read the 14th Amendment.” After that, he said, it’ll only be a matter of time before the federal government realizes the amendment was ratified in 1868 only for those children born in the U.S. to black slaves.

Berman has also authored a bill — HB 294 — that would ban undocumented immigrants from suing legal Texans. They could not seek “equitable relief as a counter claimant or a cross claimant,” according to the legislation.

“If you have an accident with a car driven by an illegal alien, you are going to pay for your own car. But if you hit them, they are going to get an attorney, an abogado, and they are going to try and sue you for everything you’re worth,” he said. “I have asked several lawyers, and they said it is constitutional.”

[…]

State Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, has drawn the ire of Hispanic Democrats, educators and others for her proposed legislation — HB 22 — that would mandate that public schools keep track of the immigration status of students by requiring that they submit a copy of their birth certificates or other documents indicating their residency status “for inspection” by school officials at the time of enrollment. The bill also requires school districts and open-enrollment charter schools to submit information on the number of students enrolled in bilingual education or special language programs, and to “identify and analyze any impact on the standard or quality of education provided to students who are citizens that may occur as a result.”

Critics have argued the requirement would be an unfunded mandate — the bête noire of conservative lawmakers opposed to many federal mandates — and that preventing the education of any child in Texas is inherently unconstitutional.

[…]

HB 21, also filed by Riddle, would require that state agencies report the costs of providing benefits to undocumented immigrants. Local governmental entities that receive state grants would also be required to submit that information to the grant provider.

State Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano, has filed legislation that targets legal aliens who are requesting indigent care. HB 655, if passed, would offer counties the option of adopting a policy that would consider the income of a legal alien’s sponsor if that alien applied for indigent care. A sponsored alien is one who is admitted into the country legally after an affidavit of support. The sponsor’s spouse’s income could also be included in the determination of an alien’s eligibility for indigent care.

Boy, sure is a good thing Aaron Pena became a Republican so he could be a “moderating influence” on these guys. I just know they can’t wait to be persuaded by his unassailable logic.

Still more on magnet schools

Jan 27th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

So what do we know about HISD’s magnet schools and that consultant’s report that recommended some hefty changes to them? Well, other than the consultants themselves, no one likes the report very much.

The message was clear at Lamar High School [Tuesday] night: remove the magnet designation from high performing schools in the district and Houston ISD will not only be destroying dreams and futures, but it will lose a lot of money as its best and brightest go elsewhere.

Trustee Harvin Moore, whose district includes Lamar and who has a child in a magnet school program, didn’t seem inclined to disagree.

“The board of education seemed rather frustrated by the contents of the report. I think it didn’t stand up that well, frankly,” he told the crowd that filled the auditorium. “Many of my colleagues are inclined to think there is very little in that report that we will support.”

Similar meetings were held in each of HISD’s trustee districts last night. At Lee, HISD Human Resources Director Ann Best made a brief presentation of the Magnet Schools of America recommendations — which call for removing the magnet designation from 53 of the district’s 133 magnet schools and the millions of dollars in funding along with it — stressing that in no way were the proposals board policy.

In fact, the evening seemed to be one of stepping away from the report, which cost the district $260,000. If so, that would make those in attendance very happy.

But HISD still believes that something must be done about the existing program.

[HISD Superintendent Terry] Grier and board members have said repeatedly they don’t want to dismantle the magnet program and have distanced themselves from some recommendations in the report.

But these officials also have noted discrepancies in the funding and academic performance among magnet campuses.

“It’s not going to be, ‘We get to keep ours because it’s excellent,’ ‘We get to keep ours because we have poor kids,’ ‘We get to keep ours because it’s the only one that does this or does that,’” said HISD board president Paula Harris, speaking to about 400 people at Sterling High School. “There actually have to be some parameters around it.”

Brainstorming aloud, Harris suggested such parameters could include preserving only those magnets with exceptional academics and a fifth or more of their students enrolled in the school’s magnet program, among other criteria.

May I suggest creating a task force with parents, teachers, principals, a couple of school board members, and an outside expert or two to come up with the next round of recommendations, instead of hiring more consultants to produce a report that wasn’t worth the time to read? I agree that there needs to be some criteria or benchmarks that magnets need to meet, and that we should strive to protect and hopefully try to replicate the successful ones. I still think there’s some merit to the idea of creating more magnet schools, perhaps by combining a few programs from various schools, but I have no empirical evidence for this, just my own opinion. It’s clear that everyone believes that the magnet programs are beneficial to HISD in many ways and should be supported, and I certainly agree with that. From reading these stories, though, it seems to me we also need to ensure that neighborhood schools are as good as they can be as well. Not everyone wants to specialize, and it’s probably better if fewer students are traveling across town to go to school. Having magnet programs that will attract students is great, but having schools that will attract them is better. See this op-ed by the HISD Parent Visionaries group for more.

Ames Jones jumps in, Williams to follow

Jan 27th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I don’t really think Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones has much of a chance in the race to replace KBH in the Senate. She was a fairly nondescript State Rep who got appointed to the RRC by Rick Perry then won a full term in the low-turnout 2006 election, and off the top of my head I have no idea what besides that she can claim as accomplishments. But I will give her props for this.

She said she would not resign her seat on the Railroad Commission to pursue the Senate seat, although she does not plan to seek re-election. Her term is up in 2012. Michael Williams, her fellow commissioner and a likely candidate for the Senate himself, has said he will resign from the commission April 2.

“I would never leave my post,” Jones said.

At least it’s a way to differentiate herself from the other Railroad Commish that’s seeking a promotion. And it’s one less appointment Perry gets to make, assuming the RRC doesn’t get reconstituted between now and then. There’s also the fact that she’s campaigning on a promise to do absolutely nothing constructive if elected, which is almost refreshing in a nihilistic sort of way. It might help explain why I can’t think of anything she’s done while in office, anyway. Big Jolly has more.

As for Williams, now that he’s fixing to have a lot of free time on his hands, he’s ready to jump in as well. Boy, two Railroad Commissioners in the same race – can you feel the excitement?

More on mental health

Jan 27th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Stephen Schnee, the executive director of MHMRA of Harris County, and Octavio N. Martinez, Jr, the executive director of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health and a clinical professor in the School of Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin, make the case again for not cutting mental health services in the state budget.

The Houston-based nonprofit organization Children At Risk found that in 2009, an estimated 229,055 kids in Harris County had a diagnosable mental illness. MHMRA of Harris County serves an average of 2,490 kids per month, just a small fraction of those who desperately need treatment. Houston’s mental health system is already stretched to its limits – it can take weeks for kids to receive noncrisis services, exacerbating their symptoms and creating a need for even more intense treatment and services. If devastating budget cuts come to fruition, this will further restrict access to care. See this KTRK story for more.

Texas ranks 49th in mental health expenditures per capita – how much worse can it get? We are already almost at rock bottom. If lawmakers cut funding for public mental health services, some children and families will have no place to go for care that shouldn’t be considered optional. Is this really the best we have to offer our kids? And if it is, what message are we sending to the future leaders of Texas?

That message would be “Dan Patrick’s property taxes are more important than you”. Any questions?

If we deny children appropriate mental health care now, we’ll just pay a higher cost in the future. Left untreated, kids with emotional disturbances are more likely to drop out of school – a 2008 national study found that in 2005-06, only 43 percent of kids with a mental illness graduated from high school. Children At Risk reports that high school dropouts cost Texans a huge amount in the long run – an estimated loss of up to $9.6 billion per cohort. Additionally, high school dropouts contribute to higher rates of crime, incarceration and use of welfare and social services. Given these statistics, it makes sound fiscal sense to provide adequate mental health care for youth at an early age, or else taxpayers will just pick up a much bigger tab in the future.

[…]

This is an issue where everyone can agree. Hospital districts, community leaders, advocates, sheriffs and police chiefs across Texas believe that any cutback in funding for mental health will likely result in increased traffic to hospital emergency rooms, juvenile justice facilities and jails, and that equals increased costs for government and taxpayers. Underfunding mental health services simply shifts the cost to other agencies and to local government authorities, whose budgets are already inadequate.

It’s estimated that 52 percent of youth in the Harris County juvenile justice system have at least one mental health condition. The Texas Public Policy Foundation found that youth who become career criminals cost taxpayers and victims an estimated $2 million during their lifetimes. Community-based services for youth with mental illness like those provided by MHMRA are far less expensive, and in most cases, far more effective.

Sure, this is an issue on which everyone should agree, but let’s be real. The same TPPF that recognizes the cost of skimping on early intervention is one of the leading voices right now arguing that we don’t have a budget shortfall, we just need to adjust the level of services we’re providing to the amount of revenue we have and ignore all that wailing and gnashing of teeth about the effect that would have. They don’t even agree with themselves. Good luck getting anyone in their thrall to agree with you.

Dynamo Stadium groundbreaking delayed

Jan 27th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Groundbreaking for Dynamo Stadium was originally scheduled for this Saturday the 29th, but due to a delay with City Council it has been put off till next week.

Because the city council has not yet voted on the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) that is part of the inter-local agreement between the county and city, the Dynamo’s owners weren’t comfortable proceeding with the ceremony even though councilman Mike Sullivan and other city officials were confident that everything will be approved.

“This date was a moving target from the day we penciled it into the calendar,” Dynamo president Chris Canetti said. “We anticipated the possibility that it would change. We were pushing the envelope a little bit with this timeline, but we are not far off.

“We’ll set another date in the next few days. This does not have any impact on our construction timeline and planned opening of April 2012.”

Commissioner’s Court unanimously approved the TIRZ during Tuesday’s meeting, but the Dynamo were hesitant to proceed because the TIRZ issue wasn’t added to the City Council’s agenda for Wednesday’s meeting. The issue had to be placed on the agenda by last Saturday for this week’s meeting, but it will be placed on next week’s agenda.

Look for it to happen next Saturday, the 5th. Assuming the item makes it onto Council’s agenda and doesn’t get tagged, of course.

Texas blog roundup for the week of January 24

Jan 27th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates the Packers and the Steelers as it brings you this week’s roundup.

(more…)

Have gun, can vote

Jan 26th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

During the long debate over voter ID in the Senate, the Democrats proposed many amendments, most of which were defeated on straight party lines. Here, via the Chron, is one of the very few that passed:

18. Hinojosa – Accept CHL as a form of ID. Accepted by a vote of 30-0.

Clearly, the answer to Democratic concerns about voter ID is to ensure that everyone in the state gets a concealed handgun license. I don’t even have a smartass remark for that.

Inevitably, voter ID passed the Senate – the only question was how long it would take – so next up is the House, where the only question is whether Aaron Pena goes full monty and votes for it or not. Speaking of Pena, he might want to get a new drivers license, with a photo that actually resembles him, lest he wind up getting turned away from the ballot box some day. Harold has more on that.

You can be sure that a lawsuit will be filed over this, and before that the Justice Department will presumably subject the law to a review. While it’s true that laws in Georgia and Indiana (home of those devious nuns; and may I say “The Devious Nuns” would make an excellent band name) have passed constitutional muster before, it’s also true that Texas’ law is more stringent than theirs, meaning that it’s entirely possible that whatever line exists for this kind of legislation has been crossed. The legislative fight may be all over but for the shouting, but that won’t be the end of it.

A very early look at 2011 fundraising

Jan 26th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

9 comments

A couple of weeks ago I took an early look at the 2011 city elections, but there was a key ingredient missing in that analysis: Money. The fundraising season for city candidates, which has been closed since last January, will open again on February 1. Let’s take a look at where various cast members stand now, before all the fun gets underway again.


Name                 Office  Cash on hand
=========================================
Annise Parker         Mayor     1,050,253
Ronald Green     Controller        15,677

One of the nice things about being elected Mayor is that you can hold a late-train fundraiser or two before the year-long moratorium sets in, and people with checks will attend them. Keep that number above in mind when discussing other potential Mayoral candidates. Sure, some of them would be able to raise big bucks as well, but 1) that takes time; 2) a lot of people who might otherwise like them will already be on the Mayor’s team; and 3) you can be sure she’ll have a couple of events lined up for as soon as the curtain is lifted, making the hole they start out in that much deeper. It’s a big factor, and when you hear someone say they’re “exploring” a race, what they mean is they’re calling around to see if there are enough people out there willing to write them enough big checks to make it worth their time. Waiting for term limits to do their thing is almost always the wiser course.

As for Controller Green, he defeated two better-funded opponents in 2009, so his lack of scratch is no big deal. Better yet, as you will see there’s no one out there with the kind of moolah MJ Khan and Pam Holm had to begin with. I’ll say again, it’s my opinion that Green is a lock for re-election.

The returning City Council members:


Name                 Office  Cash on hand
=========================================
Stephen Costello     CCAL#1        28,938
Melissa Noriega      CCAL#3         1,681
C.O. Bradford        CCAL#4         4,238
Jolanda Jones        CCAL#5        22,304

Brenda Stardig       Dist A        21,892
Wanda Adams          Dist D           342
Mike Sullivan        Dist E           162
Al Hoang             Dist F       
Oliver Pennington    Dist G        64,223
Ed Gonzalez          Dist H        19,975
James Rodriguez      Dist I        45,923

CM Hoang’s report was not available as of this posting. There were numerous issues with his finance reports in 2009. So far, 2011 isn’t starting off so well for him on that front.

You can see why I’ve been skeptical of the rumors about CM Bradford’s potential candidacy for Mayor. He has not demonstrated big fundraising abilities in two different campaigns, and he starts out with very little. Again, I’m not saying he (or anyone else) couldn’t do it, but the track record isn’t there, and the piggy bank isn’t overflowing.

After winning a squeaker of a runoff in 2009, it’s good to see CM Jones with a few bucks on hand. While I believe she won’t be any easier to beat this time around, she will undoubtedly continue to be in the news, so she may as well be forearmed.

CM Pennington raised a boatload of money in 2009 and won without a runoff, so I’m not surprised he starts out with a decent pile. CMs Rodriguez and Gonzalez were unopposed in 2009, and given that they may have very different diatricts this year, I’m sure they’re happy to have the head start. I’d guess CMs Adams and Sullivan will be hitting the fundraising circuit sooner rather than later.

The departing incumbents:


Name                 Office  Cash on hand
=========================================
Sue Lovell          CCAL #2        98,935
Jarvis Johnson       Dist B             0
Anne Clutterbuck     Dist C        89,534

Hard to know what the future holds for CM Johnson, but another candidacy doesn’t appear to be in the cards right now. The same can probably be said about CM Lovell, who had once wanted to run for County Clerk. That ship has sailed, and I don’t see there being much of a Lovell bandwagon these days. I won’t be surprised to see her disburse some of her funds to other candidates in the future, however.

I do feel that we’ll see CM Clutterbuck run for something again. No, not Mayor – at least, not this year. There was a time when I thought she’d be a big threat to win HD134, but unless Sarah Davis (whom Clutterbuck supported last year) stumbles badly, that seems unlikely now. She could possibly be groomed to take over for her former boss Rep. John Culberson. I’d hate to see that if it meant she’d morph into a Washington Republican – she’s far too sensible for that, I hope. Actually, what I wouldn’t mind seeing is for the redistricting fairy to move her into Jerry Eversole’s precinct (this map doesn’t quite do that, but it’s close), because she’d be an excellent choice for Ed Emmett to make in the event Eversole does get forced out before 2012. Just a thought.

Finally, a few others of note:


Name                 Office  Cash on hand
=========================================
Gene Locke            Mayor        20,645
Roy Morales           Mayor             5
MJ Khan          Controller         1,657
Michael Berry       CCAL #5        88,122
Jack Christie       CCAL #5             0
Eric Dick           CCAL #2         4,036
Mark Lee             Dist C         1,287
Robert Glaser        Dist C           301

If it’s an election year, you can be sure ol’ Roy will be running for something. Doesn’t really matter what – this is Roy we’re talking about. I’m sure he’ll let us know what soon.

Who knew Most Influential Houstonian of 2010 Michael Berry had so much cash left in his account? I seriously doubt he’d run for anything – he’s got a much cushier, not to mention higher-paying, gig now – but I suppose he could decide to throw a few bucks at someone. Hey, Roy, you got Berry’s phone number?

I have no idea if Jack Christie will take another crack at At Large #5. As I said above, I don’t think CM Jones will be any more vulnerable this time around, but who knows? It does seem likely she’ll draw a fringe opponent or two – Griff Griffin needs a race now that Lovell is termed out – so hoping for a runoff and better luck in same isn’t unreasonable. My advice, for what it’s worth, would be to start fundraising early, and not shoot your wad all in the last few days.

Mark Lee ran for District C in 2005, and for Controller in 2003. He’s reportedly looking at C again, but like Ellen Cohen will have to wait to see what the mapmakers produce. Robert Glaser ran against Clutterbuck in 2007 and 2009. Eric Dick, who as far as I know has not been a candidate before, will be running for the open At Large #2 seat; the cash on hand listed for him is the result of a loan.

There were a handful of other names listed among the reports, but none that are likely to be candidates this cycle. We’ll have a much better idea where things stand after the June 15 reporting date.

The national folks notice Texas’ budget situation

Jan 26th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

You’ve probably seen this by now, but just in case you haven’t, here it is.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry likes to tell Washington to stop meddling in state affairs. He vocally opposed the Obama administration’s 2009 stimulus program to spur the economy and assist cash-strapped states.

Perry also likes to trumpet that his state balanced its budget in 2009, while keeping billions in its rainy day fund.

But he couldn’t have done that without a lot of help from … guess where? Washington.

Turns out Texas was the state that depended the most on those very stimulus funds to plug nearly 97% of its shortfall for fiscal 2010, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

We here are all familiar with the details, but it’s nice to see it get some play in the outside world. Three points to make:

1. The story does not mention the structural deficit caused by the 2006 property tax cut, which was supposed to be paid for by the business margins tax (among other things) but has not been. It’s easy to blame the economy for the dire straits we now face, and to be sure that’s a significant part of it, but Rick Perry and his buddies blew a multibillion dollar hole in the finances five years ago, and they still haven’t done anything about it. That cannot be emphasized enough.

2. I still don’t know what to make of Perry’s supposed national ambitions. I just don’t see how he gets elected President, and it’s not really clear to me how he’s an asset as a VP nominee either, but I’ll admit to a certain myopia on the topic. That said, a story line like this, coupled with subsequent headlines about 100,000 teachers getting laid off if there are no significant changes to the budget, just don’t seem like they’d play well in Peoria. How exactly is this a model for the rest of the country to follow?

3. I will always wonder how things might have played out if Perry really tried to block the stimulus money, and not just the relatively paltry amount for unemployment insurance, in 2009. No pain in 2009 meant no real counter to Perry’s ludicrous claims about how good things were around here. You could argue that in more ways than one, Barack Obama was the single biggest reason Perry got re-elected.

You must obey these laws, but not those laws

Jan 26th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Here’s a Chronicle story profiling EPA regional administrator Al Armendariz:

That the EPA is picking on Texas, a favorite refrain of the politicians, is an “unfortunate characterization” because the agency works with the state on many issues, ranging from oil spills to clean water for impoverished communities along the Mexican border, Armendariz said in a recent interview at his office.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “the elected officials — the governor and the attorney general (Greg Abbott) – see some value in fighting the federal government for their own sake. They’re fermenting the disagreements we see. It’s bad public policy. It’s bad for permit holders. And it creates uncertainty.”

Armendariz insists that anyone in his position would be taking the same steps he has. He notes that Richard Greene, the Bush appointee who proceeded him as the EPA’s regional administrator for Texas and four adjacent states, sent “strong letters” to the TCEQ about problems with aspects of its permitting program. Armendariz later determined that roughly 130 refineries, chemical plants and factories with so-called flexible permits needed to bring them into compliance with federal law.

“The steps we’re taking are required by law,” he said. “What people are disagreeing with is the Clean Air Act, as written by Congress. What they don’t like is how the law is written.”

And here’s an Express News story about “sanctuary cities” and the legislation that will be taken up to deal with it.

Several, including one by state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, would deny state grants to cities that don’t enforce immigration laws. Several similar bills have been filed in the House, including one by state Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball. Riddle also filed a bill that would allow police to arrest illegal immigrants on trespassing charges.

[Mayor Raul] Reyes said that would put more burdens on cities like El Cenizo.

“They should be helping communities like El Cenizo,” he said. “We don’t have the economic means to hire personnel.”

Bennett Sandlin, the executive director of the Texas Municipal League, agreed with Reyes. It’s almost unheard of for city councils to tell police not to ask about immigration status, Sandlin said; most policies are set by police departments.

And he said the Legislature shouldn’t be interfering with police chiefs. On top of that, Sandlin said, requiring police to enforce immigration laws would be an added financial burden in the midst of budget shortfalls.

“In a perfect world we’d have the state and federal money to enforce immigration statutes,” he said. “But right now we’re bare to the bone just locking up the bad guys.”

Riddle said she’s confident her bills fall under Perry’s emergency item designation and will be voted on in the session’s first 30 days.

Patrick said he wants sanctuary cities done away with so individual cities aren’t thumbing their noses at federal and — assuming the Legislature passes a bill he filed that requires officers to ask anyone without identification about their immigration status — state law.

So let me see if I’ve got this straight. It’s bad for the federal government to enforce its laws in Texas. It’s good for the state to require cities to enforce federal laws, even as such requirements represent unfunded mandates and fall outside the jurisdiction of municipal law enforcement agencies. Maybe what environmentalists need to do is get someone to file a bill that would require cities to arrest violators of the Clean Air Act. That seems to be the approved method of federal law enforcement these days.

Cuts here mean hikes there

Jan 26th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

The only problem with this AP story is the headline, “Texas budget cuts may shift burden to locals”. There’s no “may” about it – the Pitts budget would absolutely shift a huge burden to local governments.

Cuts set off a domino effect: Historically, public schools raise property taxes when the state education agency sends smaller checks. Cities and counties have to pick up the bill when the sick go to the emergency room because fewer doctors accept Medicaid. And when the mentally ill don’t receive treatment, local law enforcement often steps in.

Texans pay for these services in one of two ways. Local authorities collect property taxes, and 64 percent of the state budget comes from sales taxes. Less spending during the recession has meant reduced state revenues. The state also collects a business tax, but that has never produced as much revenue as lawmakers predicted, [Sherri Greenberg, interim director of the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School for Public Affairs in Austin] said.

The draft budget assumes no new taxes and over the next two years takes $9.8 billion away from schools and could cost 100,000 school district jobs, according to Moak, Casey & Associates, a school finance consulting firm that analyzed the budget. This at a time when Texas schools is projected to add 160,000 new students, according to census figures. The Houston Independent School District alone could lose $348 million in financing, something that could result in teacher layoffs.

As the story notes, HISD is one of several school districts that has the option to rate property taxes by as much as three cents without putting it to a vote. Does anyone doubt that this is what they’ll do if faced with this big a loss of revenue? When that happens, remember that it was Rick Perry and his policies that made it happen.

Parkland Health and Hospital System is one of the largest public hospitals in Texas, treating more than 93,000 low-income patients who depend on the program each year. Ron Anderson, the CEO, said state cuts in health care merely shift the costs to counties and hospital districts, which rely on local property taxes. Parkland relies on medical school faculty and students to provide services, so cuts to the higher education budget will compound the cuts to the health budget, costing millions in local taxes.

“Sometimes you think you’re saving money with one budget, but your actually transferring the costs to somebody else and the costs might actually be higher,” Anderson said. “The taxpayers who pay these bills are actually the same taxpayers.”

Texas ranks 49th in the nation in per capita spending on mental health programs, and the draft budget would cut spending by 40 percent. When mentally ill people can’t get the help they need, they often end up in jail or worse, said Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia.

“Officers and the mentally ill will be having confrontations that will result in arrests, tazings and, regretfully, even shootings,” Garcia said. “That should not be the way that families or individuals resolve their mental health issues, but that’s generally how it works because there is a lack of service.”

The state has responsibilities. The cuts that are being proposed represent a complete abdication of those responsibilities. We can pay now or we can pay later, but one way or another we’re going to pay.

Voter ID 2011

Jan 25th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

The debate is going on in the Senate today over voter ID – it will be taken up by the House later, after committee hearings that are sure to be a freak show. You can follow the ins and outs at places like the Chron’s Texas Politics blog and the Statesman’s Postcards from the Lege; be sure to read this Seinfeldian classic so you can fully appreciate the deep unseriousness of the whole shebang. I do want to highlight one bit from this Chron preview story, helpfully flagged by TexasChick in the comments:

“This year’s Senate Bill 14, however, allows a person to vote only with a Texas driver’s license or state identification card, a valid military ID or a federal document such as a passport that proves citizenship and contains a photograph. The bill also includes $2 million for voter education and requires the Texas Department of Public Safety to issue a free photo ID card to any citizen who wants it for voting.”

Now I firmly believe that if the state is going to put conditions on citizens’ ability to exercise their rights, the very least they can do is to try to accommodate the citizens who need help meeting those conditions. As such, I’m not going to criticize the $2 million that’s to be allocated (from federal HAVA funds, mind you) to accomplish that, other than to note that it’s not a whole lot of money though it is greater than zero. I just want to point out that what this shows is that if the people in charge really want to do something, they will find a way to pay for it. So, two million bucks to help disenfranchise marginally fewer people (some people, anyway) than strictly necessary, we can do that. Public education, on the other hand, that’s gonna get cut somewhere between 9.3 and 9.8 billion dollars. Priorities, you know. Abby Rapoport, who notes that this version of the voter ID bill is more stringent than any currently out there, and as such may not survive scrutiny from the Justice Department (we can only hope), has more.

UPDATE: How could I possibly forget about the devious nuns? Gotta watch those nuns, they sure are tricky.

The Ainbinder traffic impact analysis for the Height Wal-Mart

Jan 25th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

When last we discussed the Heights Wal-Mart development, we were awaiting a traffic impact analysis (TIA) on the roads around the site, which was to be done on behalf of Ainbinder, the developer of the project. For your perusal, here is the TIA of the Wal-Mart development. I want to quote you a paragraph from the executive summary:

The results of this traffic engineering study indicate that the construction of IH-10 frontage roads and resulting changes in traffic patterns will impact both mobility and traffic operations within the study area on a much greater scale than the new trips generated by the proposed Washington Heights development. Furthermore, it was found that the addition of the proposed retail development is not expected to cause a significant reduction in LOS beyond what is expected for year 2012 No Build conditions.

“LOS” is “level of service”, and it refers to the congestion and wait-time conditions at intersections; they are given grades from A (always smooth flow, no problems at all) to F (“Unstable traffic flow. Heavy congestion. Traffic moves in forced flow condition. Average delays of greater than one minute highly probable. Total breakdown.”) based on what is observed or projected. What Kimley-Horn, the firm that conducted the TIA for Ainbinder, is saying is that the intersection of Yale and the under-construction I-10 service roads will start off as an F even if the Wal-Mart site is still an empty lot in 2012.

Does that sound credible to you? It doesn’t to me. I used to take Height Boulevard south past I-10, for several years after dropping my kids off at preschool. It was not unusual for me to have to sit through one light cycle on Heights, but that was because the duration of the green light for the southbound approach at I-10 West was only about 15 seconds. (Believe me, I timed it myself out of frustration more than once.) The folks coming from the I-10 West service road, who were the bulk of the traffic and were mostly turning left (south) onto Heights had a nice long light, and had no trouble. (A corollary to this was that the green light for the southbound approach at I-10 East, which included a protected left, was much longer. This was the only way onto I-10 East between Yale and Studemont, so a fair number of vehicles turning left from the I-10 West service road turned again onto the eastbound service road.)

The point I’m making is that before the current construction, the traffic at this intersection wasn’t bad. Most of it was for vehicles getting on and off the freeway. On Yale, traffic was even less of an issue, as there was only one light, where the westbound service road dead-ended into Yale. A few people going south on Yale would turn left at the un-signaled intersection onto the eastbound service road, but my observation was that most people heading south on Yale were aiming for either Washington Avenue, or points south, where Yale merged into Waugh Drive. This was also the only way to get onto Memorial Drive west, as that entrance is inaccessible from Heights/Waugh southbound.

What would make traffic at Yale/I-10 so much worse once there’s a service road there to connect to points west, or to handle people now exiting at Yale? Obviously, people will use this to get onto I-10, but one presumes these people are currently using either the entrance at Studemont or the entrance at Durham/Shepherd. The people who will some day exit at Yale are presumably now exiting at Studemont, making the U-turn, then turning left at either Heights or Yale. We’ve already established that pre-construction this was no big deal. Where’s all that extra traffic going to come from? Other than some reshuffling from Studemont and Durham/Shepherd, it’s not obvious to me. It’s not like there will be more residences or businesses putting traffic onto Yale by 2012.

Well, except for the one factor that this TIA wants you to think won’t be much of one, that being the Wal-Mart development. But if Yale at I-10 was going to be a nightmare anyway, then it’s not their fault, is it? How fortunate for them that TxDOT is there to take the hit for this.

Anyway. There’s a lot more to the TIA, but a couple of other points need to be mentioned. One is that the 380 agreement the city signed with Ainbinder doesn’t mention the service roads, or the intersections at Yale and Heights. The stuff that Ainbinder agreed to do as part of the 380 involve widening Yale between the train bridge and Koehler so as to allow a left turn lane into the development, and adding a left turn lane from Heights onto Koehler once the apartments in between have been torn down. The TIA suggests adding as mitigations a right turn lane from Yale onto I-10 service road westbound, and a left turn lane from Heights to I-10 westbound, but as neither of the 380, it’s not clear who would pay for them. With the TIA claiming that Ainbinder’s development would not be responsible for this traffic, don’t expect them to make any offers. Oh, and the TIA doesn’t include their full data sets, and this report apparently differs from a previous one. We’re taking their word for it on this.

Another point, separate from the traffic issues, is that the bridge on Yale between Koehler and I-10, the one that goes over the bayou, has a gross weight limit of 40,000 pounds. This wasn’t discussed before because the sign indicating this weight limit isn’t easily visible from the street. Here’s a photo so you can see what I mean. The tare weight, which is to say the empty weight, of a typical 18-wheeler is 30,000 to 36,000 pounds, and the legal maximum is 80,000 pounds. That would seem to be a problem, given the limitations of that bridge. How many 18-wheelers a day come into a Wal-Mart facility?

All of the documents linked in this post, as well as this summary doc, which notes these and other issues, came to me via RUDH. There will be a public meeting tomorrow, January 26, to discuss these items:

PUBLIC MEETING
WEDNESDAY JAN. 26th
6:30 to 7:30 PM
Council on Alcohol & Drugs
303 Jackson Hill Street
Houston, TX 77007

Here’s a map to the location. See you there.

Higher enrollment, fewer resources

Jan 25th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

I just have one question about this.

At a time of record enrollment in Texas’ colleges and universities, a state budget proposal released this week would see these institutions suffer a 7.6 percent funding cut from the last biennial budget.

University presidents called the proposed cuts, which total $1.7 billion, “dramatic” and “drastic.” The current budget was balanced on the back of higher education, which absorbed 41.5 percent of the cuts despite comprising just 12.5 percent of the budget.

This proposal for the 2010-2011 biennium, rolled out Tuesday by Texas Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, would see far less of the overall cut come from colleges and universities — but the cuts still are disproportionate, said University of Houston system president Renu Khator.

Khator and other Texas university presidents must serve rising numbers of students on falling revenue. Universities saw their combined enrollment jump 35 percent, to 557,550 students, from fall 2000 to last fall. Community colleges saw a 67 percent enrollment leap over the same period, to 720,379 students.

In what universe does this make sense? Everyone says – even the Republicans – that higher education is important, that it fuels growth, that we need to get more kids in college and more kids to graduate from college if we want Texas to be economically competitive in the future. If we actually believe that, then what the hell are we doing?

Can we please get back to the basics?

Jan 25th, 2011

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The ongoing saga of the Texas Forensic Science Commission:

Adding an unexpected twist to its investigation of the science used to convict and execute Cameron Todd Willingham for arson murder, the Texas Forensic Science Commission voted Friday to seek an attorney general opinion on the limits of its jurisdiction.

The commission is examining allegations, made by fire scientists and the Innocence Project of New York, that investigators relied on bad science and poor techniques to conclude that Willingham intentionally set fire to his Corsicana home in 1991, killing his three young daughters.

The City of Corsicana and the state fire marshal’s office, however, have long complained that the commission lacks the authority to examine their investigators’ actions and conclusions.

On Friday, as they contemplated drafting a final report in the Willingham matter, the nine commission members voted unanimously to ask Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office to determine whether Corsicana and the fire marshal are correct.

“It’s been the elephant in the room the entire time,” Commissioner Lance Evans said after the meeting in downtown Austin. Evans made the motion to seek Abbott’s opinion.

In the meantime, commissioners vowed to continue working toward a final report.

“I certainly think we could make findings … on the state of fire investigation back at that time, the evolution of fire investigation up to the present day and where mistakes might have been made,” said Evans, a Fort Worth defense lawyer.

To the best of my recollection, the FSC was created for two purposes. First and foremost, to evaluate the forensic techniques being used by Texas law enforcement agencies, to see if they were sufficiently modern and grounded in scientific principles for use in a courtroom. Second, if the answer to question 1 was “No” for something, to recommend standards that would then be adopted voluntarily or via legislative coercion if necessary. In the case of arson investigations, the clear and overwhelming answer to question 1 is “No”. If we had a commission chair, or a governor that’s responsible for appointing the commission chair, that cared about anything other than politics, we might be able to get to part two. But we don’t, so we’ll just keep wasting everybody’s time until either the Lege steps in (for good or for ill) or we all get too bored and frustrated with the process to give a damn about it. Grits has more.

January, 2011:

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