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September 12th, 2011:

Interview with David Robinson

Sep 12th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

David Robinson

We continue our tour of At Large #2 with David Robinson, who is an architect and neighborhood activist. Robinson has served on the Houston Planning Commission and is currently an Advisory Board Member on the Hermann Park Conservancy. He is a former President of Super Neighborhood 24, and is the current President of the Super Neighborhood Alliance. Neighborhood issues were among the things we discussed:

Download the MP3 file

You can find a list of all interviews for this cycle, plus other related information, on my 2011 Elections page.

Hurricane season is mostly behind us

Sep 12th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
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Normally, this would be considered good news.

Ironically, even as the Atlantic tropics reach their peak and Texas marks the anniversaries of 1961’s Hurricane Carla on Sunday and 2008’s Hurricane Ike next Tuesday, chances of a hurricane making landfall on the state this year are falling.

“Historically, hurricanes rarely impact the Texas coast after mid-September, and I don’t think that this year will be any different,” said Chris Hebert, a hurricane forecaster with Houston’s ImpactWeather.

After Sept. 24, just three storms have made landfall at hurricane intensity along the Texas coast during the last 150 years. And the next two weeks look to remain quiet off the Texas coast.

“The persistent ridge of high pressure which has dominated Texas through the summer will be returning late this weekend,” Hebert said. “With that ridge in place, it will be hard to get any tropical moisture into Texas.”

Long-range models don’t indicate any possible tropical threat to Texas, nor do they offer the region any hope for rain over the next few weeks, Hebert said.

But when you’re in the middle of a historically bad drought, one that may stretch on for months, if not years, the prospect of a hurricane doesn’t sound as bad as it usually does. For better or worse, we’re unlikely to get one this year.

Forensic Science Commission accepts its neutering

Sep 12th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
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Another victory for the forces of obstructionism.

Whether they like it or not, members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission [Thursday] agreed that they will use an attorney general’s opinion that severely limits the panel’s jurisdiction as a guideline for future investigations. What that means for the Cameron Todd Willingham investigation — the commission’s most important and controversial case — will be up for discussion Friday.

“While it is not binding on us, [the opinion] does carry some weight,” said commissioner Lance Evans, a criminal defense lawyer from Fort Worth.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott wrote in July that the commission could not investigate evidence gathered or tested before it was established Sept. 1, 2005. He also concluded that the commission’s authority is limited to labs accredited by the Department of Public Safety. The commission met Thursday for the first time since that ruling and since the appointment of Dr. Nizam Peerwani, the Tarrant County medical examiner, as its chairman.

[…]

Commissioner Evans said he was hopeful that lawmakers would pass a bill during the next legislative session that clarifies and expands the commission’s role. A bill that would have done that this year failed during the final days of the legislative session.

Until that happens, the commissioners said they would use Abbott’s opinion to make case-by-case decisions about which cases to investigate. As they discussed new complaints and whether to investigate them, the commissioners said they would begin sending more specific and detailed letters explaining why certain cases are not investigated.

One such complaint they discussed Thursday was brought by Sonia Cacy. She was convicted in 1993 of dousing her uncle, Bill Richardson, in gasoline and igniting an inferno that killed him. She was sentenced to 99 years in prison, but she was released on parole after just six years. Arson expert Gerald Hurst — the same scientist who analyzed evidence in the Willingham case — reviewed the evidence that landed Cacy in prison. He concluded that there was no gasoline on Richardson’s clothing.

The commission decided to dismiss Cacy’s complaint against the investigators, despite serious reservations about the science used to convict her (Cacy remains on parole). The evidence was gathered and tested long before September 2005, and the lab used to analyze it was not accredited.

“If we are to abide by the opinion, we are left no other alternative other than to dismiss the [complaint],” [commissioner Sarah] Kerrigan said. “I hate to think the credibility of the commission is at stake.”

Unfortunately, it is, and the Attorney General has decided that it’s better for the Commission to be a do-nothing. See here for the background. I can only hope that Sens. Ellis and Hinojosa are able to push through a bill that overrides the AG’s bogus ruling in the next session. More from the Trib on the Commission’s meeting is here, and Dave Mann offers some perspective.

Car charging stations coming this week

Sep 12th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Cool.

Houston became the first major U.S. city to announce an electric vehicle charging network in November with the launch of NRG Energy subsidiary eVgo.

Now it’s finally getting the chargers to match the announcement.

A number of electric car owners signed up with the company for in-home charging stations in the past year, but this week will see the opening of the first of the network’s public charging stations.

The so-called “Freedom Station” will be located at the H-E-B Buffalo Market at the intersection of Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet Street.

[…]

Each station allows for two cars to charge simultaneously. They will have a 480-volt DC fast charger able to charge an EV at a rate of 160 miles of range per hour (or about 30 miles in as little as 10 minutes) and a 240-volt Level 2 charger that can add up to 25 miles of range in an hour.

Here’s a subsequent article with a bit more.

[Mayor Annise] Parker pitched what she calls Houston Drives Electric as a continuation of the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit that has characterized Houston from its origins. Parker said the city figures to save at least $7,000 per car in fuel and maintenance costs in the first three years of the 25-car electric-only fleet it will purchase by the end of the year.

The city also has retrofitted 15 of its existing hybrid vehicles to charge off the stations. In addition, the city is installing 56 charging stations of its own – half in the City Hall parking garage to service the municipal fleet and half for public use at libraries, Hermann Park, the Arboretum and other parks. The city stations are funded by state and federal grants.

Three more of the NRG stations will open within the next week, including one downtown, and a total of 50 are slated to open by the end of 2012. Expect to see more of these around the country in the next few years as well.

Oh, and if you feel like banging your head against your desk, go wade through the comments in that Fuelfix post. If ignorance were a fuel source, we wouldn’t need to drill for oil.