More on the Pratt resignation deal

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

I’m still shaking my head about this.

Denise Pratt

The Harris County district attorney still could investigate and charge former family court Judge Denise Pratt, despite striking a deal with the freshman jurist to resign to avoid prosecution on charges of tampering with government records.

Asked to elaborate on the terms of the agreement that led to Pratt’s March 28 resignation, a spokesman for District Attorney Devon Anderson said Thursday, “If new evidence is discovered, we can investigate and move forward with charges if warranted.”

Whether the deal Anderson struck with Pratt made the former judge immune from future charges was one of many questions raised by her critics on Thursday, the day after the county’s top prosecutor revealed the agreement in a statement that said pursuing a conviction would have been difficult.

The agreement, Anderson’s statement said, was the best and quickest way to get Pratt off the bench and bring the “ongoing damage to a stop.”

The district attorney issued the statement in response to criticism from her opponent in the November general election, Democrat Kim Ogg, who said earlier this week that the evidence brought against Pratt was more than sufficient to bring charges. Ogg said the lack of charges was suspicious because Pratt and Anderson – both Republicans – used the same political consultant.

See here for the background. I keep coming back to the question that if this was such a good move by DA Devon Anderson, if this really was the only way to get Denise Pratt off the bench, then why didn’t Anderson say so at the time? Why are we just hearing about it now that Anderson’s political opponent Kim Ogg dug it up started making a fuss about it? The fact that Anderson didn’t say a word about it when Pratt resigned and claimed it was because her opponents were out to get her, the fact that we might not know any of this now if Anderson weren’t on the ballot in November, strongly suggests that maybe this deal wasn’t something to be proud of but rather something to be hushed up.

Webster family lawyer Greg Enos, whose criminal complaints against Pratt prompted at least two district attorney investigations that resulted in no charges, took issue with Anderson’s contention that the resignation was the quickest way to get the judge off the bench.

He said the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, the state agency charged with policing Texas judges, typically suspends judges who have been indicted, and that “Any brand new attorney fresh out of law school could have gotten an indictment of Pratt.”

Commission Executive Director Seana Willing confirmed that the commission typically votes to suspend indicted judges.

[…]

[South Texas College of Law associate professor Amanda Peters, a former Harris County prosecutor,] and other experts say Pratt’s alleged actions definitely would qualify as tampering with a government record under state law. Section 37 of the penal code says court records qualify as governmental records and that tampering includes “knowingly entering a false record.”

“My read of the statute is that, if it is true that she backdated court orders, knowing that she was making false entries, this should be a violation of the law,” said Sandra Guerra Thompson, director of the Criminal Justice Institute at the University of Houston Law Center.

Anderson’s statements this week, however, suggested there was not sufficient evidence to prove Pratt guilty.

“The process of getting Judge Pratt before a jury for trial would take years,” her Wednesday statement said. “The likelihood of success would be uncertain at best.”

That’s talking about a conviction, not an indictment, which would have been enough to get Pratt suspended. That’s not a “permanent resignation”, but it is at least enforceable. Looking back through my archives, here’s a copy of the first complaint that the grand jury declined to indict on, and here’s a copy of the third complaint. Maybe getting an indictment wasn’t a slam dunk, but then neither does it take years to make that determination. There is an argument to be made here for prosecutorial discretion on Anderson’s part. I’d be more willing to accept it if she’d have been willing to make it in a timely and forthright manner, instead of employing it as defense after being called out for exercising that discretion on the sly.

UPDATE: Texpatriate has more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Chron overview of Dem Ag Commissioner runoff

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

It’s the same story we’ve known all along.

Kinky Friedman

Kinky Friedman

Texas Democrats’ dreams of taking over statewide offices surely never envisioned the kind of race they have in the primary runoff for agriculture commissioner where musician and writer Kinky Friedman faces off against a Cleburne farmer who has chosen not to campaign or even raise money.

While Friedman travels the state touting a message of marijuana legalization, cattle farmer and insurance agent Jim Hogan is sticking close to home, relying on news outlets and the Internet to boost his name recognition.

As a result, the race is more likely to leave the Democratic Party with a headache than a realistic opportunity to break a 20-year Republican stranglehold on statewide office.

“One of them’s a dangerous commodity, the other’s a guaranteed dud,” Democratic strategist Jason Stanford said.

The race puts Democrats in the position of having to choose between a quasi-celebrity who some believe sapped votes from the party in the 2006 gubernatorial race and a candidate with minimal name recognition who refuses to campaign or help the party, despite winning the most votes in the March 4 primary.

[…]

Despite two decades of Republican dominance, a February letter from Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa urged voters not to overlook the race.

It included an attached letter from state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, who touted Hugh Asa Fitzsimons III, of San Antonio, who, at the time, was the best-funded party favorite for the post.

Van de Putte also made robocalls asking voters to support Fitzsimons over Friedman.

Fitzsimons, however, was eliminated in the primary.

Since then, Democratic Party spokesman Emmanuel Garcia pointed out, Friedman, unlike Hogan, at least has been touring the state and engaging voters.

“It’s encouraging to see somebody taking the campaign seriously and wanting to talk to folks,” Garcia said.

We’ve been over this before. Fitzsimons was my first choice, and he was clearly the best-qualified candidate. Unfortunately, the only thing he’ll do for Texas Democrats this year is serve as yet another lesson that unknown candidates plus few resources equals random results. Be that as it may, at least Friedman is making an effort, and at least he’s articulating some positions that make sense. I don’t blame anyone that might still be carrying a grudge from 2006 and 2010 – it should be noted that Chris Bell has endorsed Kinky, and if there’s anyone with a legitimate grudge to carry, it’s Chris Bell, so if he can bury the hatchet, anyone can – but I’ll be voting for him in the runoff, and hopefully again in November. It’s not the choice I was hoping for at the beginning of the race, but it’s an acceptable choice to me and the best one available. I don’t see any reason to make a big deal out of it.

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Shark Week in the Gulf

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

You got your goblin sharks.

Goblin shark

Shrimpers fishing in the Gulf of Mexico have pulled up an incredibly rare, almost prehistoric looking goblin shark. It’s only the second sighting of such a beast in the Gulf.

The freakish shark is one of the least-known of the shark family, usually living in deep waters off the coast of Japan. The goblin is so rare that the first Gulf sighting of one over 10 years ago resulted in a scientific paper being written.

The new shark, estimated to have been 18 feet long, was accidentally hauled up by shrimpers off the coast of Key West, Florida.

The crew had a net down in 2,000 feet of water and were shocked when they pulled up the usual barrel-load of shrimp. Mixed into their catch was the bright pink giant, which preceeded to thrash around on deck.

“I didn’t even know what it was,” said lifetime fisherman Carl Moore. “I didn’t get the tape measure out because that thing’s got some wicked teeth, they could do some damage.”

Instead, Moore quickly hoisted the creature back into the water. It was only luck that any photos were taken as Moore had only just bought a cell phone with a camera.

“My 3-year-old grandson, he just loves sharks so I’ve been taking pictures of every one we find, when I showed him this one he said, ‘Wow, Pappa!'” Moore said.

I can’t stop looking at the photos in that news story. That is a creature from your nightmares, no doubt about it.

Speaking of nightmares, you’ve also got your great whites.

Gonna need a bigger boat

Divers taking a dip in the Gulf have captured amazing video of a Great White shark that paid them a visit as they explored a wreck about 80 miles off the coast of Florida.

The video shows the group at depths of around 100 feet, looking down through a school of fish. A dark shadow can been seen swimming by with diver Dane Kelly’s brother madly trying to point it out to his dive buddies.

“My brother’s going crazy because he realizes what it is before we do,” Dane Kelly explained to NBC2 News in Sanibel, Florida.

At times, the giant fish is hard to make out but the shape of a shark is as distinctive as it is ominous. Scientists say there is no doubt it was a Great White.

“Fortunately, most other sharks in the Gulf do not resemble white sharks at all,” said Nick Whitney, staff scientist and manager at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota via email.

“About the only species that looks similar is the shortfin mako shark, which does not get as long or as girthy as the white shark. And the shark in the video is long and girthy,” Whitney said.

Whitney estimates the shark in the video is about 12-14 feet long, saying that the body proportions and tail beat give away the fish’s massive size.

I don’t have anything to add here. I just think sharks are cool.

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Friday random ten: Blame Canada

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Another Friday random ten list inspired by another list on the Internet I stumbled across. Here are ten of Canada’s favorite songs, by Canadian artists, from that list.

1. If I Had $1000000 – Barenaked Ladies
2. Heart of Gold – Johnny Cash (orig. Neil Young)
3. American Woman – Flying Fish Sailors (orig. The Guess Who)
4. Suzanne – Leonard Cohen
5. Big Yellow Taxi – Joni Mitchell
6. Summer Of ’69 – PYT (orig. Bryan Adams)
7. Angel – Sarah McLachlan
8. Tom Sawyer – Rush
9. The Safety Dance – Men Without Hats
10. Rockin’ In The Free World – Neil Young

There’s no Cowboy Junkies or McKenzie Brothers on this list, which seem like oversights to me, but then there’s no Celine Dion either, so I guess it all evens out. Have a very Canadian weekend, y’all.

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Pratt’s resignation deal

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Now here‘s an interesting twist to the story.

Denise Pratt

Former family court Judge Denise Pratt’s resignation in late March was part of a deal to avoid indictment, Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson said Wednesday, asserting that the document tampering case would have been difficult to prosecute and that the agreement was the best and quickest way to get the rookie jurist off the bench and bring the “ongoing damage to a stop.”

In a shorter statement issued the day before, Anderson described Pratt’s actions as “reprehensible” but made no mention of the deal, saying only that prosecutors concluded after investigating the judge that “while there may have been probable cause, her actions did not rise to the level of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed.”

Anderson issued that statement on Tuesday in response to criticisms from Democrat Kim Ogg, her opponent in the November general election. Ogg lambasted the incumbent district attorney this week for not prosecuting Pratt, saying the “weight of the evidence” brought against the Baytown native was more than sufficient to bring charges and that the absence appeared suspicious because Pratt and Anderson – both Republicans – had shared a political consultant when the allegations were brought.

Asked on Wednesday to clarify the statement, Anderson issued a lengthier one saying that her office “made a hard decision – not to prosecute a difficult case against Judge Pratt in exchange for her voluntary and permanent resignation from the judiciary – and we believe that it was consistent with our primary responsibility to see that justice is done.”

“The agreement we reached brought the ongoing damage to a stop and allowed the system to begin the process of repairing the harm already done,” the statement said. “Obviously, Ms. Ogg did not participate in the two-month investigation of Judge Pratt by four experienced and apolitical Public Integrity Division prosecutors and she does not have the benefit of knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence against Judge Pratt. This office does have the benefit of that knowledge, and made the professional assessment that the process of getting Judge Pratt before a jury for trial would take years and that the likelihood of success would be uncertain at best.”

[…]

She was under investigation again this year after dismissing more than 630 cases without warning to lawyers or litigants on the final two days of 2013 – the subject of Enos’ second criminal complaint, filed in January – and resigned on March 28, pegging her departure to “relentless political attacks.”

The statement announcing her immediate resignation and the suspension of her re-election campaign made no mention of a deal with the district attorney.

After Pratt’s departure, Enos and other lawyers said they believed it was tied to a deal.

Ogg on Tuesday had called on Anderson to request an independent, special prosecutor be appointed to investigate Enos’ complaints. Ogg said the county’s top prosecutor should have done that in the first place to avoid the appearance of impropriety as she and Pratt shared the same political consultant, Allen Blakemore, at the time Enos’ complaints were filed.

On Wednesday, Ogg said it was “unethical” for Anderson to use evidence that she suggested was insufficient to charge Pratt as leverage to force her resignation, describing it as a “secret plea bargain.”

“An ordinary citizen is rarely, if ever, offered an opportunity to resign from their job in exchange for dismissal of a criminal complaint and this confirmation by the district attorney of a secret plea deal reveals this district attorney’s double standard: One standard for fellow Republican judges and a different standard for ordinary citizens,” said the former prosecutor and head of Crime Stoppers.

It’s certainly the case that at the time of Pratt’s resignation, there was no mention of a deal. Does this mean that the complaints filed in Feburary have now been dropped? Here are the two statements made by DA Devon Anderson. My reading of them suggests that indeed Pratt is no longer under investigation of any kind. From the first statement on Tuesday:

In early January of this year, The Harris County District Attorney’s Office received additional complaints against Judge Pratt and a new investigation began. Prosecutors in the Public Integrity Division investigated every single allegation. The District Attorney’s Office came to the conclusion that Judge Pratt’s conduct was reprehensible, and while there may have been probable cause, her actions did not rise to the level of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed.

Sure sounds like the investigations are finished to me. Now let’s look at this bit from the second statement:

This office made a hard decision – not to prosecute a difficult case against Judge Pratt in exchange for her voluntary and permanent resignation from the judiciary – and we believe that it was consistent with our primary responsibility to see that justice is done.

Emphasis mine. With all due respect, what enforcement mechanism is in place for this? What is to stop Denise Pratt from moving to, say, Polk County and running for judge there? What’s to stop her from becoming a visiting judge? There’s no official mark on her record, after all. As I understand it, the latter complaints were both misdemeanors, so the statute of limitations will run out on them before too long. What would stop her from running for judge, or maybe Justice of the Peace in a Republican-friendly precinct, at that time? And why is this a better outcome than presenting the evidence to another grand jury and letting them decide for themselves? Maybe with an actual indictment in hand you could have gotten an enforceable deal.

I have to think that at some level, Devon Anderson gets this. If this deal had truly been the best possible outcome, and if it had been something she’d been proud of, or at least satisfied with, why wouldn’t she have announced it at the time? Don’t you tell people when you’ve done something good? Politicians running for office generally do. And when they do something they’re not all that keen about, they don’t. Anderson’s actions here are speaking pretty loudly. She could have said her piece when Pratt resigned, but instead she kept her mouth shut while Pratt blathered on about how she was run out of town by her political opponents. Maybe Devon Anderson could make a case for the deal, but I don’t see any merit to allowing the misinformation to stand. Am I the only one who thinks there’s still more to this story?

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Metro unveils draft bus re-imagining

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s your proposed new bus system.

Transit planners kicked off a major shift in Houston bus service Thursday, betting that the benefit of faster service on key routes will outweigh riders’ concerns about adjusting to new schedules and service patterns.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority on Thursday released a draft of its “reimagining” plan, intended as a sweeping upgrade to the region’s bus system. The map, which officials say will change over the next few months based on public suggestions, focuses on distributing service more efficiently.

Some officials said the plan, if approved in about four months, could help increase ridership by 20 percent or more after two years.

Metro buses, still operating on a system largely developed in the 1980s, are essentially delivering the best service for Houston in 1990, said Geoff Carlton, a consultant on the reimagining plan.

“New job centers exist that maybe didn’t a while ago and we need to respond to serving them,” Carlton said.

Often, bus routes are redundant, especially downtown, wasting resources. Some buses also take circuitous routes to cover neighborhoods where few people ride.

The changes involve about the same about of service, but make service on some major lines much more frequent by developing a grid pattern. Popular north-south and east-west routes that pass by major job centers like Greenway Plaza, southwest Houston and the Uptown area will have buses arriving every every 15 minutes or less.

Less-popular but important routes will have service every 30 minutes or less, while low-use routes in less dense areas of Houston will have service every hour or less.

With the changes, which also re-route buses to avoid some delays like freight rail crossings, 93 percent of current riders will be able to catch a ride at the same bus stop they use now, according to the analysis used to create the map.

The full Chron story is here. See TransitSystemReimagining.com for all the details, and see here for a copy of the presentation that was given to the board. As it happens, I’m in that seven percent of riders who will not be keeping his old bus stop; the current #40 bus that among other things ran down Bayland in the Heights is no more. I’ll have some other reasonable options, and as someone who generally only rides once a week it’s not a big deal. The #40 was not heavily used – the closest replacement to it, the new #17, is one of the “every hour or less” routes – and the overall gain in the system looks to be vast. Certainly, the new routes, which operate as a grid and which operate much more frequently out west where they’re really needed, are sensible and easy to understand. My first impression is positive, and I think it will go over well and will be well received. There will be plenty of opportunities to give your feedback to Metro, and I’m sure all of our friendly neighborhood light rail critics who have been just begging Metro for years to Do Something about bus service will be right there giving their honest appraisals and cheering them on. Anything less on their part would just be tacky, after all. What do you think about the new routes?

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

San Antonio City Council has its first hearing on Uber and Lyft

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Sounds pretty familiar.

Chief William McManus said Wednesday that the Police Department might impound vehicles belonging to Lyft and Uber drivers if they continue to violate the city’s regulations for vehicles for hire, such as taxis and limos.

The city has cited 10 drivers for Lyft and Uber for providing a taxi or chauffeurlike service, McManus told the City Council Public Safety Committee.

The citations, which could result in fines of up to $500, were issued because the drivers are charging for rides, he said, which makes them subject to the city’s ordinance.

[…]

Since they started operating here in March, neither company had been charging for rides in order to avoid running afoul of the law, but now both said they are.

At the crowded council committee meeting Wednesday, taxi and limo company representatives, many wearing yellow shirts with the words “Licensed. Insured. Legal,” complained that Lyft and Uber just are trying to skirt the city rules that taxis and limos must follow.

The controversy now will go before a task force, which will determine if and how the city’s ordinance could be revised to allow Lyft and Uber — which McManus calls transportation network companies instead of ridesharing services — to operate legally in San Antonio.

The task force, which would include the taxi and limo industries, the ridesharing companies and the Transportation Advisory Board, will meet with city staff and report back to the council in August.

Leandre Johns, general manager of Uber in San Antonio, called the creation of the task force a “positive development” and indicated the company has no plans to stop operations in the meantime.

He confirmed Wednesday that the company started charging passengers recently.

[…]

In a presentation to council members, Steve Baum, the assistant police director who oversees ground transportation, said the ordinance, as written, does not distinguish between a company that “connects” drivers and passengers, as Lyft and Uber say they do, and one that dispatches, like a taxi service.

He suggested the council adjust the ordinance to allow for ridesharing and to level the playing field for all vehicles for hire.

Most of the council members on the committee supported creation of the task force, but some were hesitant to revise the ordinance, which was amended in August.

Council members also raised concerns that Lyft and Uber are refusing to follow existing regulations.

So they went rogue in San Antonio, too. You know that I’ve been generally supportive of the efforts by Uber and Lyft to enter the market in Houston and San Antonio. I think they fill a niche, I think they’ll expand the market rather than steal business from the legacy cab companies, and I still can’t see any argument for keeping them out. I believe Houston is on the right track with its draft ordinance. And yet with all that, I just cannot understand their engagement strategies. I don’t get flouting the law, or claiming it doesn’t apply to you. Just play it down the middle, make your case for the technology and the free(ish) market, and do the legwork. You’d think their venture capital investors would have put a higher priority on smoothing out the local hurdles.

By the way, as long as I’m talking about better engagement strategies, I should note that Lyft is having a community meeting in Montrose tonight from 6 to 8 to rally support for their efforts. Details here if you’re interested.

Finally, I have no idea what Chief McManus is thinking with that threat to impound vehicles. Seriously? Lawsuit waiting to happen, that’s all I can say.

Here’s the Rivard Report with some more details.

Lyft and Uber drivers are not required to pay fees associated with vehicle for hire operations, obtain expensive commercial insurance, commercial licenses, or go through as extensive training/verification processes required by law. There also is a cap on how many vehicles for hire can operate in San Antonio, another aspect that may come under review by the task force.

It is, in effect, less expensive for Uber and Lyft drivers to operate by circumventing the requirements of the ordinance.

District 5 City Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales expressed concern over revisiting an ordinance that has just been through a 10-year analysis and overhaul concluding in August 2013.

“I still feel like we haven’t come to any good conclusions,” she said. “I just don’t know that a working group will uncover anything that already has been … I’d be uncomfortable,” with back-tracking the work done previously to the ordinance.

During that process, however, there was no such thing as a “rideshare” app in Texas. The startups were just starting to gain traction in California. “We were not a part of that conversation … We weren’t even conceived of,” said Uber Dallas General Manager Leandre Johns after the meeting. “These regulations don’t apply (to Uber).”

Johns said Uber is looking forward to being a part of the conversation about changing the ordinance, but that Uber will continue to operate and violate the current ordinance in San Antonio. When asked if Uber would be telling their drivers about the ordinance and citations after the meeting, Johns said no. ”We haven’t received a cease and desist order yet.”

[…]

SAPD Assistant Director Steven Baum gave a presentation of SAPD and TAB research gathered since April.

“A majority of cities have taken a middle ground,” Baum said. They don’t outright ban TNCs, but they don’t let them operate without some sort of regulation. “The transportation industry is changing … if concessions are made for one (type of company), we’d do them for all.

“The permitting process, licence process, driver qualifications …. those standards are fixed across the industry.”

District 10 Councilman Mike Gallagher voiced a concern that there might be a “relaxing” of standards to accommodate Lyft and Uber.

Relaxed is the wrong word, Baum said. “Changing the manner in which we ensure the standard is met” is more accurate.

Dozens of advocates on both sides spoke passionately in City Council Chambers to more than 100 people in the room at the peak of the meeting.

Reading from a prepared statement, 80/20 Foundation Deputy Director Scott Meltzer said the real issue was San Antonio’s lack of ”robust consumer choice options in transportation,” and how these new companies fill that gap.

“Ridesharing companies, such as Lyft and Uber, are becoming part of the menu (that) talent is looking at when they research the qualities of a city,” Metzer said.

I think that’s a bit of an overbid, but I don’t think it’s that far off. A lot can happen between now and August, so we’ll see how this plays out. The Current has more.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Combs tells strip clubs to pay up

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

Susan Combs

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs is pressing the state’s strip clubs to cough up millions of dollars she says they owe under a new “pole tax” even though the $5-a-patron fee still faces a court challenge.

“Any claim that ongoing litigation is a basis for nonpayment of the Sexually Oriented Business Fee is not valid,” insists an April 11 letter from the comptroller’s tax division that was sent to roughly 200 clubs in Texas that offer nude entertainment.

The fee, which strip club attorneys have claimed is an unfair tax, has been the subject of legal fights virtually since it was passed in 2007 as a way to fund programs for sexual assault victims and health care. The strip clubs’ lobby organization, the Texas Entertainment Association, filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the fee, arguing that erotic dancing is a form of expression protected by the First Amendment. But in 2011, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the fee did not violate free speech.

A new challenge, still under consideration by the 3rd Court of Appeals, argues that the “pole tax” is unconstitutional because the fees are not used appropriately. In the April 11 letter, Combs’ office said the continuing legal battle doesn’t mean the clubs can avoid paying all the fees they owe since the law took effect six years ago.

[…]

“They don’t like to be seen or heard,” state Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, said of the club owners. “And I think that is what caused them to get in the ditch on this thing.”

So far, Dutton is the only lawmaker defending the clubs. In an April 23 letter to Combs, he asked the comptroller why her office decided last month to send out letters while the clubs’ latest court challenge is awaiting a decision from the 3rd Court of Appeals.

“I did send her a letter, asking her what has changed,” said Dutton, who opposes the fee. He said that if sexual assault programs need money, “the Legislature ought to step up to the plate and do that.”

Instead, what often happens, he said, is that lawmakers create fees against things they don’t like, like strip clubs.

“Where does it end once you start down that road?” he said.

A spokesman for the comptroller’s office, R.J. DeSilva, indicated in an emailed response that there was nothing remarkable about the timing of the collection notice.

“Our agency regularly sends notices or updates to taxpayers on various taxes and fees,” he wrote. “This particular notice was to remind business owners that the Sexually Oriented Business Fee is still in effect while litigation continues.”

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the strip clubs’ challenge after the Texas Supreme Court determined that the fee does not violate the First Amendment.

Now, the clubs are arguing that the state “fee” is really an occupation tax that should be directed to public schools under the Texas Constitution. They contend that the fee violates the state Constitution, which requires that one-fourth of occupation taxes go to public schools, because none of the money goes to schools.

The clubs’ attorneys are also asking the court to consider free speech provisions in the Texas Constitution, which they claim are broader than that of the First Amendment.

The state maintains that the fee is not an occupation tax, though, and it rejects arguments that it encroaches on free speech.

I must have missed the news about the second lawsuit, because I didn’t find anything in my archives about it. As noted, the original lawsuit was decided in favor of the state in 2011 by the Supreme Court, so it’s fair to wonder why now, almost three years later, the state is finally demanding payment from the clubs and rejecting the argument that ongoing litigation is no excuse. That said, while I may sympathize with Rep. Dutton about how the Lege should appropriate money for various things, the fact remains that the strip club fee was passed by the Lege and has been upheld by the Supreme Court, and wishing that the Lege did its business differently doesn’t change that. Not clear what effect, if any, this may have on the city of Houston’s strip club fee, which is also still being litigated.

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Jay Aiyer: Consider a local option for pre-k

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Note: From time to time, I solicit guest posts from various individuals on different topics. While I like to think I know a little something about a lot of things, I’m fortunate to be acquainted with a number of people who know a whole lot about certain topics, and who are willing to share some of that knowledge here.

Pre-K education has emerged as the most hotly debated issue in this year’s race for Governor. Both Senator Davis and Attorney General Abbott have laid out competing proposals to provide pre-k education in Texas, with dueling press conferences and accusations flying back and forth.

What Pre-K seeks to do is to eliminate what education researchers have recognized as the single biggest impediment to improving public education—the literacy gap. For years we have been aware that because of income and parental education disparity, children from lower socio-economic backgrounds begin school at a significant disadvantage. We know that a child that reads at grade level by the end of 3rd grade has over a 95% chance of graduating from high school. When you consider the close correlation between high school graduation and the rate of poverty—you can see that the development of an effective Pre-K program in Texas has the potential of significantly reducing poverty in a generation.

While there are merits to both Davis and Abbott’s respective plans, it’s what they are missing that is most telling.

Funding
You simply can’t have an effective Pre-K system without a funding mechanism in place. Our current K-12 system is itself woefully underfunded and the object of litigation. The idea of proposing an expansion of education without addressing the underlying financial problems that exist in K-12 renders any plan proposed nonsense. You have to get the funding right.

Infrastructure
Private and religious schools largely provide Pre-K in Texas. Several ISDs have a limited Pre-K program, but the vast majority does not. In order to expand Pre-K through the ISD system, it would require a significant capital expenditure on a scale not previously seen. Buildings have to be built and that itself could be billions in additional costs.

Implementation
Every study that has been done on Pre-K recognizes that its impact is only significant if the program is comprehensive and structured educationally. State government has repeatedly shown that when it comes to the development and implementation of specific educational programs, they have done more harm than good. Rather than a large state program—local governments are better suited to making Pre-K work.

So what should we do?

The most effective Pre-K systems nationally, have been locally driven and locally controlled. Tulsa, Oklahoma is the national leader in Pre-K and has had the most effective program. San Antonio’s local initiative has also been widely praised for its approach. While applauding Davis and Abbott for their focus on Pre-K, I would argue that if they really wanted a program to be successful—develop a funding system through a local authorization process, and let city/county governments lead the way. Austin has repeatedly proven it is unable to solve big problems. It’s time to try a different approach.

Jay K. Aiyer is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs. He served on the Board of Trustees for the Houston Community College System from 2000-2008 and served as Chief of Staff to Mayor Lee P. Brown from 1998-2000.

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NDO vote will be next week

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The proposed non-discrimination ordinance was on Council’s agenda yesterday, but it did not come to a vote as it was tagged, which means it’ll be voted on next week. The Chron’s preview story gave some insight into what we should expect from the ordinance based on the experience of other cities that already have protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in their local codes.

RedEquality

Houston handles discrimination complaints from city employees and sends a hundred housing complaints to federal authorities each year, [city attorney David] Feldman said. The work added by protecting sexual orientation and gender identity and covering places of public accommodation may be modest.

Less than half of 1 percent of the housing complaints Fort Worth received last year were based on sexual orientation, and the city received no employment claims based on sexual orientation, according to an annual report

Fort Worth has received five complaints against places of public accommodation in the last two years; Austin typically sees three or fewer per year.

“The fact that it creates a scheme that is almost entirely voluntary compliance doesn’t reduce the value or the effect of it,” said Jonathan Babiak of Austin’s Equal Employment/Fair Housing Office. “Many, many people are going to comply just because it’s the law.”

Since passing its nondiscrimination ordinance last fall, San Antonio has learned of three incidents of alleged discrimination in areas other than housing, all against transgender or gay residents. The events, one involving a city contractor and two involving businesses that serve the public, have not yet resulted in formal complaints, said deputy city attorney Veronica Zertuche. One city employee also has filed a complaint based on sexual orientation, she said.

In El Paso, deputy city attorney Laura Gordon said she is aware of two incidents of alleged discrimination in places of public accommodation, both from gay couples, and neither of which resulted in a complaint. El Paso does not cover private employment.

Feldman said a Dallas official reported that city has received 12 complaints not related to housing in the decade that its ordinance has been in effect.

Feldman said he foresees Houston fielding more employment and public accommodation complaints than other cities, due, in part, to its size.

“We’ve never had it before, and now people will say, ‘Ah, there’s a remedy here,’ ” Feldman said. “But I also think it will dissipate in time.”

Houston’s added workload also would be limited by its exemption for businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Fort Worth and Austin exempt businesses of 15 or fewer employees, matching federal and state laws. Texas Workforce Commission data show 29 percent of the state’s private workforce is employed by firms with fewer than 50 workers.

Houston GLBT Political Caucus president Maverick Welsh and others want the 50-worker exemption dropped to 15. “I’m very optimistic,” Welsh told the council Tuesday. “I believe you’ll do the right thing.”

See here and here for the background. An amendment proposed by CM Robert Gallegos would lower the threshold to 15 employees; we’ll see how that one goes. As there will be another public session of Council on Tuesday the 13th, with the vote scheduled for the 14th, there will be another opportunity to address Council and show your support for the ordinance and CM Gallegos’ amendment. Email citysecretary@houstontx.gov to get on the list of speakers for that.

The late Wednesday story has more on the amendments.

Councilman Oliver Pennington proposed the most substantial changes to the measure, seeking to exempt all private employers and to permit discrimination in the sale or rental of a single-family home if the seller or landlord owns eight or fewer homes; the current drafts exempts the owners of three or fewer houses.

Pennington also seeks to allow a first-offense conviction to be dismissed if the person is not convicted of discrimination again within a year, and wants to let someone accused of denying a transgender person access to the public restroom of his or her choice to have the complaint dismissed by submitting an affidavit explaining the decision to deny access.

“The thrust of my amendments today was to promote voluntary compliance, and I know reconciliation is provided for now, but for first offenses there’s still a possibility for criminal prosecution,” Pennington said. “Whatever we can do, in the long run, to promote interaction with the affected parties on a voluntary basis will be a worthwhile thing to do and I hope we can reach that.”

[…]

Other council members sought to strengthen the ordinance.

Councilman Robert Gallegos wants the measure to cover more private employees by dropping the proposed exemption for businesses that employ fewer than 50 workers to those with 25, and then to 15 over two years.

That change had been advocated by the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, which said the stated exemption left too many workers unprotected.

“The transition from 50 to 15, which is the more common standard across the United States, was thoughtful,” Parker said. “That may be doable … .”

CM Pennington’s amendment is a non-starter. CM Gallegos’ amendment is the one to watch. Most of the rest were technical in nature.

Back to the Tuesday story:

[Mayor Annise] Parker and 11 of the 16 City Council members agreed last fall to support a nondiscrimination ordinance. Some members have expressed concerns about the item, however.

The 11 Council members that stated their support for an NDO in their screening questionnaire for the Houston GLBT Political Caucus are listed here. Of those 11, CM Christie has waffled a bit, but I think in the end he’ll be a Yes. In addition, based on his willingness to engage on the issue and the feedback I’ve heard, I have hope that CM Kubosh will vote in favor as well, though he expressed some doubts in Wednesday’s story. CM Nguyen is hard to read, CM Martin is a firm No, CM Pennington is a likely No, and as of Tuesday CM Stardig is a No. I recommend you read Brad Pritchett’s response to CM Stardig, as he says what needs to be said. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out in 2015. Be that as it may, I expect this to pass with a healthy majority next week, and about damn time for it. Texpatriate has more.

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Let’s talk about the Dome

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Time for a come to Judge Emmett meeting about everyone’s favorite historic yet threatened local landmark.

Not historic but still standing

Emmett said he wants to use the meeting next Wednesday to clear up any confusion surrounding last week’s unanimous vote by the state’s Antiquities Advisory Board to forward an application for landmark designation to the full commission, acknowledging that approval is “likely.” The vote will occur at the commission’s quarterly meeting on July 30 and 31 in Alpine, commission spokeswoman Debbi Head said.

Emmett said many people do not understand that the county-owned Dome has had protected status since February when the historical commission agreed to consider the application, submitted by two Houston residents.

“We’ve got a lot of people who are saying different things about what they think is happening and this is just to make everything clear as to what’s going on,” Emmett said. “There is no answer, there is no proposal out there right now, but it’s just to have the conversation because once the historical commission filing was made, then the county’s hands are tied to a degree already. Some people don’t understand that.”

Representatives from the Rodeo and the Texans – the primary tenants of NRG Park, where the Dome is located – are among those on the guest list. Others include Ted Powell and Cynthia Neely, who submitted the antiquities designation application earlier this year, and Dene Hofheinz, daughter of former Houston mayor and county judge Roy Hofheinz, who is credited with building the dome.

In a statement, Rodeo officials said they remain eager to find an “acceptable resolution to a closed and rotting building that sits at the center of their operations.”

[…]

Neely, part of a group that proposed turning the Dome into a movie studio, said Tuesday she is glad Emmett is holding the meeting, but that she still is wary the county ultimately may resort to demolition, which inspired her to seek the antiquities designation in the first place. She and Powell, a retired LaPorte chemical engineer who led the fight to save and restore the Hurricane Ike-damaged Sylvan Beach pavilion, successfully pushed for the Dome’s inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places earlier this year, making it eligible for placement on the state list.

“I’m going in with a positive attitude hoping that now something good will happen,” said Neely, owner of Black Gold Productions, a Houston film company.

See here and here for more on the Dome’s historic landmark designation, which at the very least would seem to take demolition off the table. Maybe. Anyway, let’s be honest, the problem has always been money. There’s no shortage of ideas of what to do with the Dome, ranging from compelling to wacko, but what they all have in common is no readily identifiable way to pay for them. I thought the 2013 bond referendum would have settled this, but I was wrong. I’m still not sure whether the reason for its defeat had more to do with people just not liking the New Dome proposal, people not wanting to pay for anything, people being distrustful and cynical about a process that has taken forever to go nowhere, or some other thing. What I do know is that if we’re ever presented with another plan that requires public funding and a vote, the powers that be need to do a much better job selling it. I also think the Rodeo and the Texans need to put some skin in the game and pledge to pay for at least a little bit of whatever gets proposed; part of the cynicism I mentioned before comes from the Rodeo and Texans are driving an agenda of demolition and that they’ve gotten all of the benefit of Reliant Stadium on our dime. A private investor would solve a lot of these problems – assuming they are sufficiently capitalized, of course – but in the absence of a sugar daddy, everyone else needs to put an oar in the water and start rowing in the same direction. Maybe then the public will go along with it.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of May 5

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance strongly supports efforts everywhere to eradicate inequality as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Davis steps up attacks on Abbott over CPRIT

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Progress Texas gets the ball rolling.

Still not Greg Abbott

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) was supposed to provide funding for cancer research. But soon after its implementation, the multi-billion dollar entity was awarding grants to donors of Rick Perry and Greg Abbott without the proper review. Scientists resigned in protest, and an investigation into the activities of the fund has since resulted in a felony indictment.

Greg Abbott, as the state’s Attorney General, was tasked with serving as a watchdog for this cancer research fund. But he never attended a board meeting – and took no action when cancer research dollars were funneled to his donors.

In a video released by the Progress Texas PAC, cancer survivors share their thoughts of betrayal on this matter. Take a moment and watch the video and then share it with your networks.

It’s unclear if Abbott was ok with cancer research fund activities, but it is clear that he never showed up to see for himself.

See here and here for the background on this. Here’s the video:

Trail Blazers neatly sums up the state of play.

After The Dallas Morning News first broke stories raising questions about funding problems, Abbott’s office announced it would investigate what went wrong at the Cancer Prevention and Research Fund. That announcement put Abbott in the position of investigating an agency over which his office already had oversight. That means the attorney general potentially is looking into the behavior of board members who are his campaign donors. Abbott says he sees no problems with these arrangements.

Yes, I’m sure he’ll be as diligent and thorough in his investigation as Chris Christie was about Bridgegate. Well, once he gets around to doing that investigation, anyway.

Shortly after CPRIT unraveled in 2012, Abbott announced his intention to open a civil investigation into the agency, even though Abbott would be investigating his own donors. That was a year and a half ago—since then, a criminal investigation by the Travis County DA’s office resulted in a felony indictment for one senior CPRIT official.

As for Abbott’s investigation? It’s unclear where that stands—if it’s still ongoing, or if it was quietly dropped sometime in the last 19 months. The Observer asked the AG’s office for an update Monday afternoon—we’ll update when we hear back.

But don’t worry, I’m sure ethics ninja Ken Paxton will get right on it after he’s elected.

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Chron overview of Senate primary runoff

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

We’ve heard this story before.

David Alameel

David Alameel

Texas Democrats trying to gain traction in statewide elections face an awkward predicament in the May 27 primary runoff election for the U.S. Senate.

If the winner is Kesha Rogers, a follower of Lyndon LaRouche, their nominee won’t even be welcome at the Texas Democratic Convention in Dallas next month. LaRouche is a perennial fringe candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination who espouses various conspiracy theories to explain world events. Since 2009, his followers have said President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act is something Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Party would have supported, a view embraced by Rogers in the Democratic primary.

“She’s not on our ticket,” said Texas Democratic Party Executive Director Will Hailer. “If she came to the convention, she wouldn’t be speaking.”

It’s a prospect Democrats hope to head off with David Alameel, a wealthy Dallas dentist better known for bankrolling races than running in them. But even as party leaders tried to warn voters off Rogers in the March 4 primary, she managed to finish second in a five-way race. More importantly, she kept the largely self-funded Alameel just under the 50 percent mark, thus forcing a runoff.

You know, the three other candidates in the race besides Alameel and Rogers were also campaigning for votes. One could quite reasonably argue that Maxey Scherr, who finished third and collected the lion’s share of Democratic club endorsements while vocally criticizing Alameel for his past history of giving to Republican candidates, is the reason Alameel couldn’t quite break the 50% mark. Given the existence of that crappy Trib poll that showed Kesha leading and had everyone freaked out, I thought Alameel did all right for a first time statewide candidate. He got his name out there and put himself in a position to win. What more do you want?

As I said the last time, this race is about getting the word out about who Kesha Rogers is, and making sure that people know they need to get out and vote. Alameel can do his part and the rest of us can do ours. I finally had a chance to do an interview with Alameel, so look for that on Monday. The Trib has more.

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It’s not so cheap to live in Houston any more

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

It’s the downside of a hot job market and an improving national reputation for being a cool place to live.

BagOfMoney

Business and city leaders often tout the Houston region as one of the most affordable markets in the country. But first-time homebuyers like the Schaefers are finding that image increasingly outdated.

“We are in a hot market, and it does pose some challenges,” said Patrick Jankowski, executive vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. “There’s a cliché in Houston that you just drive until you find something you can afford. People are finding that’s becoming a farther stretch.”

The housing market has seen sales soar, prices rise and inventory shrink. Many households now could spend up to half their paychecks on housing and commuting.

Jankowski said Houston’s job growth led to an influx of new people seeking housing options in the last few years. He said affordability could be a concern going forward, especially as longer commutes tack on more cost.

[…]

Real estate experts and economists say that, although Houston is still affordable compared to other large markets, double-digit price increases could chip away at that reputation. The pattern could alienate first-time homebuyers, leave the middle class with fewer options and drive low-income residents into rundown apartments.

“It can be a challenge to understand why home price increases can be a bad thing coming out of the recession,” said Janet Viveiros, with the Washington, D.C.-based National Housing Center, who authored a report about affordable housing this year. “House prices are surging, and rents are surging. It puts buyers in a situation where they have to make difficult decisions.”

In Houston, the fact that about 80 percent of housing activity is outside Beltway 8 contributes to its reputation as an inexpensive market.

Home sales and prices from 2013 show strong growth everywhere: Overall, home prices rose 9.4 percent, the Houston Association of Realtors reports in an analysis of sales, prices and inventory for the Houston Chronicle. Inside Loop 610, prices rose 12 percent, and they were up almost 20 percent from the Loop to Beltway 8 and 9 percent outside the Beltway.

[…]

“Is it losing some of its competitively priced housing? A little bit, but it’s not a major concern yet,” Jim Gaines, research economist at the Texas A&M Real Estate Center, said of the area. “The middle class, or working class, can still find affordable housing. It’s just not as abundant as it was.”

Still, he said, recent price increases threaten to hurt.

“If prices go up 12 percent, I guarantee incomes didn’t go up 12 percent,” he said. “If you continue double-digit price growth for several years and don’t get corresponding income, then you get out of whack.”

The median household income for Houston, The Woodlands and Sugar Land is $55,910, according to the 2012 U.S. Census American Community Survey.

The low housing stock is driving up values on all types of properties, according to Sheri Smith, an associate professor in the school of public affairs at Texas Southern University. Working Houstonians who can afford $125,000 to $150,000 houses are being priced out of the market or forced into rentals or housing in the suburban fringes.

“Middle-income individuals are not finding affordable housing,” Smith said.

A recent Rice University study found Houstonians typically pay 30 percent of their income on housing, including mortgages and rents. Compare that to those in New York City who spend 25 percent of their income on housing, 25 percent for Chicago and 31 percent in Los Angeles, based on 2011 data.

Once transportation costs are factored in, almost half of the typical Houstonian’s income – 46 percent – is gone.

I’ll bet those figures are a surprise to a lot of folks. New York especially has a reputation for being an expensive place to live, but if you’re earning enough money, it’s not a problem. Of course, you have to earn a heck of a lot of money in Manhattan or you’re screwed. So Houston still has that going for it.

As for what should be done about the problem, clearly more supply is needed. I’ve talked before about how we really have to do something with the many empty spaces in Houston. The reason so much construction occurs in the far out reaches of Harris County is because that’s where the empty land is. Empty and underutilized spaces exist in Houston, too. We need to figure out ways to encourage construction in these places. That’s going to require an investment in infrastructure in a lot of these places – fixing roads, adding drainage, etc – but the alternative is letting all the growth occur in the hinterlands and dealing with the effects of that.

Another solution is going to be more highrises. It’s the only way to increase the available housing on limited land. Houston does have some limits on where highrises can be built, but the bigger constraint these days is neighborhood resistance. Lots of places are not appropriate for highrises, and you can’t do much about aesthetic objections to them, but traffic concerns can and should be addressed. As I’ve said before, more density needs more transit. As with infrastructure, that’s going to cost some money, but it’s a vital investment. The alternative is to curse traffic for all eternity, as the folks down in Pearland are fixing to learn.

I guess what I’m saying is we can keep doing what we’ve always done and hope it works out for the best, or we can try to figure out some policies that might help alleviate the housing shortage and make the best use of the land we have available, then figure out a way to pay for it. The former is easy, of course, and it’s more or less worked fairly well for the greater Houston area, though arguably not so well for every part of it, and arguably not so well for the city as opposed to the metro area. Doing the latter is a lot harder and there’s no guarantee we can even pull it off, but it has the upside of maybe solving some of these vexing problems that the market tends not to care about. I really don’t expect anything but Door #1, but it can’t hurt to point out that we do in fact have a choice.

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We really should comply with the Prison Rape Elimination Act

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the law.

During a House County Affairs Committee hearing Monday, local sheriffs said the most problematic provision of the 2003 law is a requirement that minors be housed separately from adult prison and jail populations. Since Texas is one of only 10 states that classifies 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system, sheriffs would be required to build separate facilities or seek new housing options for these offenders.

“Most county jails just aren’t in the position to do that,” said Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk, who also represents the Texas Sheriffs Association. He said the mandate makes the law nearly impossible to implement for many counties with small staffs and tight budgets.

The law also prohibits what is known as “cross-gender viewing,” a provision that would bar female guards from supervising male inmates during strip searches, showers and other instances. Since 40 percent of Texas’ guards are women, Perry said that enforcing that provision would mean laying off female staff and hiring more men, a violation of labor laws.

Not coming into compliance brings its own costs and dangers, however. The most immediate is the possible loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants. Since 2003, Texas has received more than $3.5 million from the federal government to become PREA-compliant, far more than any other state. If Perry insists on not certifying the state as compliant with the prison rape law, Texas could lose some federal grants, according to a preliminary analysis from the Austin-based think tank Texas Criminal Justice Coalition’s Elizabeth Hennecke.

See here for the background. Seems to me that if we’ve been taking grant money meant to aid compliance with the law, the least we can do is comply with the law. If that means the Lege needs to revisit the issue of classifying 17-year-olds as minors, then so be it. Grits has more.

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The small number of competitive legislative races in November

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The Trib discusses the lack of legislative action in November.

Rep. Hubert Vo

Rep. Hubert Vo

In the House, nine Republican and two Democratic races are still undecided. An early list of competitive November races — this is in a House with 150 seats — comes in under a dozen. Put another way, there are about as many competitive races in the party runoffs as in the November general election.

In the Senate, there are only two runoffs — both in the Republican primaries. And in November, only the SD-10 seat — now held by Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth — looks from this distance like a genuinely competitive two-party contest.

The 36-member congressional ballot is just as imbalanced, with three runoffs (all Republican) next month and only one obviously competitive November race, in the 23rd Congressional District, where freshman Democrat Pete Gallego of Alpine is the incumbent. Democrats are starting to talk hopefully about the chances for Wesley Craig Reed, the challenger to U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi. That district, CD-27, was drawn to favor Republicans, however, and part of Reed’s challenge will be to overcome that advantage in a midterm election year with an unpopular Democratic president in office.

That’s the problem for challengers with these maps: Barring the unexpected — scandal, death, resignations that come too late for candidates to be replaced — most races will be over by the end of next month, if they aren’t over already.

Those are most of the caveats, along with the usual one: It’s early, and things will change. All that said, here is an early list of House races to watch in November, mostly because they are in the handful of swing districts that remain on the map.

  • HD-105: Republican state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown of Irving lost her primary to former Rep. Rodney Anderson of Grand Prairie in March. He’ll face Libertarian W. Carl Spiller and the winner of a Democratic runoff in a district where both major parties think a win is possible.
  • HD-107: Rep. Kenneth Sheets, R-Dallas, is being challenged by Democrat Carol Donovan.
  • HD-113: Rep. Cindy Burkett, R-Sunnyvale, is being challenged by Democrat Milton Whitley.
  • HD-43: Rep. J.M. Lozano, R-Kingsville, will face Democrat Kim Gonzalez.
  • HD-23: Democratic Rep. Craig Eiland of Galveston isn’t seeking another term, leaving this open seat to either Republican Wayne Faircloth or Democrat Susan Criss.
  • HD-117: Democratic Rep. Philip Cortez of San Antonio will face Republican Rick Galindo.
  • HD-144: Rep. Mary Ann Perez, D-Houston, is being challenged by Republican Gilbert Peña.
  • HD-41: Rep. Bobby Guerra, D-Mission, will face Elijah Israel Casas in this marginally Democratic district.
  • HD-149: Rep. Hubert Vo, D-Houston, is being challenged by Republican Al Hoang in a district that Vo has managed to defend — narrowly — several times.

Keeping score? That list includes four seats currently held by Republicans that the Democrats would like to take away, and five Democratic seats that the Republicans hope to grab. At the extremes, that would mean the Texas House would convene with 91 to 100 Republicans and 50 to 59 Democrats in January 2015 — about where it is today.

I’ll stipulate that once the runoffs are settled, so too are the vast majority of legislative races. There’s always the possibility of a surprise, as the story notes, but barring anything unforeseen, all the action this year will be statewide and in the counties. That’s just not what the pattern has been over the past decade, but it’s a testament to the power of the 2011 redistricting. I suspect it’s one part access to more accurate data and more powerful computers, and one part more rapid demographic change in various districts last decade, but right now these maps have the feel of permanence, barring court-mandated changes, until 2021.

I’ve got another post in the works to illustrate that in greater detail, but for now let’s look a little closer at the list Ross Ramsey compiled. I agree with the four competitive Republican seats, and while I agree that these are the five most competitive Democratic seats that are being contested – for some reason, the GOP did not field a candidate in HD78 – I don’t think they’re all in the same class. HD23, which along with SD10 and CD23 are the only seats won by one party while being carried by the other party’s Presidential candidate, is clearly a possible R pickup. I’d rate it as Tossup, possibly Tossup/Lean R. It’s tough for the Dems that Rep. Craig Eiland chose to retire, but District Court Judge Susan Criss is as strong a candidate to succeed him as one could want. As for the others, I’d rate HD41 as the least likely of all nine to flip. Rep. Guerra won with over 61% of the vote in 2012. While some statewide Republicans won a majority in 2010 in HD41, one doesn’t usually identify an incumbent that collected over 61% of the vote in his last election as potentially vulnerable. I’d rate this seat as Likely D. Rep. Cortez in HD117 might be the most endangered Dem incumbent – he won with a bit more than 52% in 2012 – but his opponent had almost no cash on hand going into the primary, not that he was a moneybags himself. Let’s call this one Lean D – for comparison, I’d rate all four Republican seats as Lean R. Rep. Perez won with over 54% in 2012 – her district performed better for Ds in 2012 than the 2008 numbers would have suggested – and her opponent this year was the lesser-regarded loser of the 2012 R primary. I’ve not heard a peep about that race. I guess a bad enough year for Dems overall could imperil her, but I’m calling this one Likely D.

Finally, there’s HD149. On paper, Rep. Vo versus former CM Hoang is an intriguing matchup. The history in HD149 is Rep. Vo outperforming the Democratic baseline – in both 2006 and 2010, he was the only Dem other than Bill White in 2010 to win the district, and 2006 was redder than 2010 – aided in part by a strong Vietnamese vote. Having Hoang on the ballot at least potentially complicates that, especially since his Council victory in 2009 was fueled in part by a strong performance in Asian boxes. However, as I’ve shown before, lots more people have had the opportunity to vote for Rep. Vo than for Hoang, the district is more Democratic now than before – Rep. Vo’s only close re-election was in 2010 with 52%; he had over 56% in 2012 – and I’d fear Hoang more if he hadn’t just lost a re-election bid to an out-of-nowhere Vietnamese candidate whose victory was abetted in large part by Hoang’s stormy relationship with the Vietnamese community. This is one to watch, but barring any future indicators of trouble for Rep. Vo, I’m calling this one Likely D. What are your thoughts?

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Why isn’t Ken Paxton releasing his tax returns?

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

This DMN story is actually about how Sen. Ken Paxton, currently in a runoff for the GOP nomination for Attorney General after leading the field in March, has done pretty well for himself as a lawyer since his initial election to the Legislature, but I kind of got hung up on the bit about his tax returns.

Sen. Ken Paxton

Ken Paxton was a small-town lawyer with no other business interests or sources of income before he was elected to the Legislature.

But since he joined the House in 2003, Paxton — now a Republican McKinney state senator running for attorney general — has started or become part of 28 business ventures, state records show.

They range from a cellphone tower company to an outfit that puts cameras in police cars. And his companies frequently trade in real estate.

Paxton, like other members of the Legislature, has voted on measures that could affect his personal holdings. State ethics law requires only that lawmakers avoid a direct conflict that affects their business. Many vote on measures affecting their broad industries.

Paxton said he’s become more active in trying to make money — not because he was a lawmaker, but because his family finally had the resources to invest.

“As many young professionals with children find, it’s their late 30s or early 40s before they are able to start meaningful savings for their retirement,” said Paxton spokesman Anthony Holm. “The Paxtons were this age in 2002 and were advised by one of their retirement counselors to begin one or two investments each year to allow them to responsibly plan for long-term financial security.”

Records show Paxton has a penchant for joining deals with other elected officials, usually friends in the Legislature or on the Collin County political scene. Those business opportunities with other lawmakers have had varying results. At least one went bust, costing Paxton and others more than $2 million.

Paxton has declined to say how much his net worth has grown since he joined the Legislature, and he’s refused to release copies of his federal tax returns. The state requires officeholders to list only broad ranges that their income and investments fall in, so it’s difficult to say how extensive Paxton’s business holdings are.

Wait a minute. Didn’t we spend almost the entire 2010 campaign debating whether or not Bill White needed to release every tax return he’d ever filed in his life and not just the ones he’d filed as Houston Mayor? Given Paxton’s disclosure issues and his susceptibility to getting fleeced by “Christian” con artists, you’d think he’d want to put his tax returns out there to head off questions like the ones being raised in this very story. Unless of course his tax returns would raise even more questions about his behavior, in which case the real question is why hasn’t Dan Branch made more of a fuss about this? To get a fuller idea of just how ethically compromised Paxton is, you should read Erica Greider’s devastating overview of his career. Here’s how she sums it up:

In running for attorney general, however, Paxton has continued to tout himself as a reformer. His campaign website lists “Protecting Taxpayers” as a priority issues, and elaborates: “The Attorney General plays a lead role in protecting taxpayers through investigating waste, fraud, and abuse, by reviewing and approving local bond packages, and through reviewing large state contracts.”

That would be nice. Unfortunately, there’s no reason to think Paxton would be well placed to do so if he wins. Looking over his record, he’s either surprisingly uninformed about what the state’s laws are, or surprisingly unconcerned about following them himself.

Go read the whole thing to see how she arrived at that conclusion. For an otherwise nondescript legislator who had people calling on Branch to clear the field for him after the March results were in, he’s sure got some issues.

On a side note, can someone please clarify for me what the unwritten rules are for statewide candidates and their tax returns? Sen. Leticia Van de Putte has released hers, while her fellow Senator and prospective opponent in the Lite Gov race, Dan Patrick is being criticized for not releasing his. My thought is that every statewide candidate ought to at least release a couple of years’ worth, for some value of “a couple of years”. If Democratic AG candidate Sam Houston hasn’t released a few of his tax returns I’d recommend he do so, and if he has or if he does I’d recommend he start bashing Ken Paxton about not releasing his. There’s clearly some material to work with here. BOR has more.

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A deeper dive into the Pratt files

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron takes a closer look at some of the people affected by the tenure of now-former Judge Denise Pratt.

Denise Pratt

Kevin Bates’ sojourn through Pratt’s court began in 2012, via a visitation dispute with his ex-wife over their 16-year-old daughter.

A court order in the couple’s divorce said the private pilot was supposed to pick up his three daughters on weekends. While the two younger sisters came to stay with Bates on weekends, his teenage daughter stayed at home with her mother. Bates, 43, let it slide for awhile, but after his oldest daughter missed a family gathering at his mother’s house, he hit a breaking point. In March 2012, he filed suit and landed back in the 311th District Court where the couple had settled their divorce a few years earlier and Pratt since had taken the bench.

Then, he waited.

For a year, he did not see his daughter while he waited for a ruling from Pratt, who missed several scheduled hearings. So much time passed that Bates eventually let his lawyer file a “writ of mandamus,” in effect, asking an appeals court to force Pratt to rule. A three-judge panel in the 14th Court of Appeals, in a ruling that came less than three weeks later, said the wait had been “unreasonable” and ordered Pratt to make a ruling within 15 days.

Bates soon learned he was not alone.

[…]

Bates eventually got a ruling in his favor, but he said that no longer is the point.

“She took something away from me I’ll never be able to get back,” he said. He no longer sees his daughter, who since has turned 18. He blames the estrangement on the year he lost to Pratt’s inaction.

In its May 14, 2013, opinion, the appeals court panel wrote that Pratt had “abused her discretion” in Bates’ case.

“A parent’s right to access to his child is a fundamental liberty interest more precious than property rights,” it wrote.

The swift ruling and rebuke were unusual enough, Bates’ lawyer, Marcia Zimmerman, said.

The resulting fax from Pratt’s court was even more so.

The paper ruling, in Pratt’s handwriting, was dated August 2012, nine months earlier. It ordered Bates’ ex-wife to surrender their daughter, pay him $2,500 in lawyer’s fees and serve probation until December 2012 – five months before.

“I looked at the date and the first thing that came to my mind was: There’s no way this judge signed this order on this date,” Zimmerman recalled.

That led to the first complaint filed against Pratt, from which all of my Pratt-related blogging flowed. As we know, she has now resigned from the bench but is still on the ballot in the May 27 runoff. From this story, it sounds like if she does manage to win the runoff she would withdraw from the race in November, but who knows what Denise Pratt will do? She hasn’t exactly been a model of rational behavior so far.

In Part 2 of this series, we get another look at just how badly effed up Pratt’s courtroom was.

Lawyers started dropping by Judge David Farr’s court about a year into Denise Pratt’s tenure, complaining they could not get the freshman jurist to hear or rule on cases and that the rulings – when they came – often were inappropriate.

Farr, the family court administrative judge, said he took the grievances with a grain of salt, reminding lawyers they could appeal or file complaints with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Anger and disappointment, after all, are far from uncommon in the high-drama family courts where divorce, child support and custody battles range from amicable to poisonous.

In a dozen years of watching case load numbers, Farr said he had never seen one swell to more than 3,000 as Pratt’s had by last December, but he did not think he had “the power to reach into another court and second guess, move cases around.”

[…]

“We all knew we had a problem when she did not appear in court at all for the first 10 days after she was sworn in,” said Webster family lawyer Greg Enos, who filed three complaints against Pratt with the Harris County District Attorney’s office that sparked investigations. “Usually, judges are sworn in and are very eager to put the robe on and take control of their courtroom.”

In the weeks leading up to Pratt’s departure, Harris County Administrative Judge Robert Schaffer said he was trying to figure out how – and if – he could intervene in her 311th District court.

“There was a time in like February or March when I did start thinking about seeing what there was I could do, if anything, on this,” the civil district court judge said. “As you know, things were not getting done in that court.”

Schaffer had been in regular contact with Farr about Pratt and her court, particularly after the notorious December case purge. Even when it was clear there were serious problems, Schaffer said he was unsure he had the authority to step in.

State law gives county-wide administrative judges general authority to “supervise the expeditious movement of court caseloads.”

Schaffer, though, said the law is not as clear as it could be, and that “traditionally, the local administrative judge has not inserted him or herself into the operations of other courts. I really feel like the Legislature has not given us much guidance on specifically what we can and cannot do.”

That is not the case in other states, said South Texas College of Law Dean Emeritus James Alfini.

Texas, he said, has a culture of giving independently elected judges free reign with little or no oversight or willingness to crack down on rogue actors.

“We have a very loosely administered court system,” he said.

Farr said a national consultant the county hired to study the local court system has been puzzled by his lack of power.

“There are states where the administrative judges can say, ‘You have too many cases. I’m moving 500 of your cases over to this court,’ but not Texas. That’s not how we do things here,” he said.

Asked whether he could have or ever considered intervening in Pratt’s court, Judge Olen Underwood – the regional administrative judge, who oversees courts in more than 30 counties, said “I’m not aware of any authority I have to do that.”

“We have the judicial conduct commission to do those kinds of things,” he said.

Yes, well, as anyone who followed the Sharon Keller affair from a couple of years back knows, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct isn’t exactly a fearsome beast. Bad judges either eventually get voted out, or the screw up big enough to make resigning or retiring look good. This leads the article into yet another discussion of Texas’ partisan election model for choosing judges and another commercial for either non-partisan elections or some kind of appointment-with-retention-elections system. Personally, I think having the Legislature spell out in more detail what the administrative judges can and cannot do, and maybe giving them the authority to reassign cases under certain circumstances would have helped mitigate the worst of Pratt’s offenses. Maybe that issue will have some salience in the 2015 legislative session, now that everyone is aware of the giant mess Denise Pratt is leaving behind for others to clean up. If that happens, then at least one good thing will come out of her three-plus years on the bench.

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Brazoria looks at desalinization

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Booming population growth plus greater upstream demands on their main water source equals thoughts of alternate water supplies.

By the time the Brazos bisects Brazoria County on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, it’s all but tapped out, unable to keep pace with new urban demands.

To firm up its water supply, a Brazoria County utility is moving quickly to pump from a massive saline aquifer beneath the Houston region’s surface. The Brazosport Water Authority’s roughly $60 million project – once the first phase is completed in 2017 – would convert millions of gallons of salty water into potable, or drinking, water each day.

The process, known as desalination, is used across Texas, mostly in the drier western half of the state. The Lake Jackson facility would be the first of its kind in greater Houston, which typically benefits from plentiful rain and full reservoirs. The city of Houston, in particular, is planning to meet its long-term needs with surface water and reused wastewater.

“It’s a bad time for rivers in Texas, and we’re only going to see more demand for water,” said Ronnie Woodruff, general manager of the Brazosport Water Authority, which has relied on the Brazos to provide water to seven cities and a massive chemical manufacturing complex. Brackish, or salty, groundwater “is a new, reliable source.”

Desalination is energy-intensive and expensive, but the stubborn drought, which now covers three-fourths of Texas, has infused the discussion about its possibilities with a jolt of urgency. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, for one, has instructed a state Senate committee to study how to expand the use of brackish water before the Legislature convenes in January.

Texas already has built 46 desalting plants for public-water needs. But there is the opportunity for manymore, considering the state holds about 2.7 billion acre-feet of brackish groundwater, the Texas Water Development Board estimates. That’s more than 150 times the amount of water the state uses annually.

For all its untapped potential, desalination of brackish water might not be a cure-all for a thirsty state, experts say. In addition to the cost, which will result in higher rates for customers, the desalting process requires disposal of the leftover brine in a way that avoids harming fresh water and the environment.

And it is still unclear how the push for brackish groundwater will impact the Houston region’s persistent problem with subsidence, the sinking of soils as water is pumped from underground. The geological condition can crack pavement and cause flooding. Several coastal communities are weaning themselves from groundwater because of the issue.

[…]

Some people worry that the project will become a high-tech monument to panic. The water authority should focus on conservation and the reuse of wastewater, said Mary Ruth Rhodenbaugh, a former Brazoria County commissioner who served on a local water-planning task force.

“God gives us water, and then He expects us to use our brains,” she said. “I’m not against brackish desalination, but I think we should be looking at other things first.”

I’ve written about desalinization a few times before. It’s an increasingly popular proposal around the state, as there’s plenty of potential supply. But it’s expensive, there are issues with what to do with the briny wastewater, and as noted no one really knows what the subsidence effect will be. No question, the best alternative is always conservation, and I don’t think that gets enough emphasis. If cities like San Antonio and El Paso can do it, surely Brazoria County can as well.

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Melanie Scruggs: Ways Houston can increase its recycling rate

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Note: From time to time, I solicit guest posts from various individuals on different topics. While I like to think I know a little something about a lot of things, I’m fortunate to be acquainted with a number of people who know a whole lot about certain topics, and who are willing to share some of that knowledge here.

Houston has significantly improved its recycling rate by expanding single-stream recycling, or the “big, green bins.” While the smaller, 18-gallon green boxes only had a participation rate of 22%, the larger recycling bins are up to 62% recycling participation since the larger bins are a better, more convenient design and they accept more materials.

Following successful models of cities like Denver, Los Angeles, Toronto, Dallas and Austin, Houston can improve its recycling rate beyond our current 6% or next year’s expected 12% by implementing education programs and incentives.

ScruggsImage1_LargeGreenBin

It all starts with consistent programs and education

First and foremost, all homes serviced by the City’s waste services need to have the same, consistent recycling program. Right now, some neighborhoods have dual stream while others have single-stream; some neighborhoods recycle glass separately and others do not. Inconsistent recycling services unnecessarily complicates City-wide public education and messaging, makes it more difficult to teach communities how to recycle and can cause people to give up on recycling properly. Consistent, single-stream recycling where all recyclables go in one container separate from trash really does simplify the process.

Next, we need consistent promotion and education to explain what items go in the recycling bins. Recycling messages may take a plethora of forms: bus signs, billboards, bill inserts, social media, speaking in neighborhood meetings and even in schools. Speaking to elementary school students is one of the most effective recycling education methods, since kids are great at teaching their parents how to recycle. This is especially true in multi-lingual homes or in homes where parents have not recycled previously. Teaching youngsters responsible, environmentally conscious behaviors such as recycling will hopefully also encourage them to be sensitive to the environment throughout their lives and future careers.

ScruggsImage2_RecycleRight

Broadly speaking, recycling media and messaging should be tailored to reach populations with different interests and values. Environmentalists are going to be compelled when you say it is good for the environment, but that’s not everybody—maybe not even most people in Houston. The City may explain how recycling creates jobs, saves tax dollars in the long run and teaches resource conservation to connect with one group; explaining how recycling means less dumping on environmental justice communities connects to another. We live in an era where mass communication can be tailored to very specific audiences. Goodness knows I saw Mayor Annise Parker’s campaign ads all over my internet; surely the City can promote recycling that effectively.

At the individual or neighborhood level, stickers on recycling bins and door-to-door communication have been proven highly effective in cities like San Francisco, where they divert 80% of waste from landfills. Some cities have also appointed neighborhood “block leaders” where neighbors encourage each other to recycle properly and help distribute recycling instructions and media. Council member Bradford once suggested that the City create some kind of recycling competition between neighborhoods and invent rewards for neighborhoods that recycle the most.

Door-to-door visits may also target areas with low recycling participation or high contamination. City employees may use stickers and notes on recycling bins to inform people what they are doing right or what needs improvement. Door-to-door visitors are very effective since they can take some time to explain what items are recyclable in the City’s recycling program, what isn’t, why it is important and make sure residents understand the incentives in place.

Incentives help to improve recycling rates

All waste services have a cost, but not all communities have waste fees or a designated monthly charge to fund trash, compost and recycling services. Some cities pay for waste disposal from general funds and are able to achieve high recycling rates through consistence services and promotion. Toronto, for example, has no waste fee and boasts 49% diversion from landfills—about 3 times that of Houston. Part of Toronto’s success is likely due to their curbside food waste collection and a commitment to strong education programs. Monthly charge-based incentives do create powerful economic incentives to increase recycling, however, and have proven successful in other cities.

ScruggsImage3_ThreeWasteBins

Unit-based or “SMaRT (Save Money and Reduce Trash)” pricing allows customers to pay less if they recycle more. While some communities may determine the amount through metering, where each load of trash set out at the curb is weighed, this is unnecessary and often unpopular. An easier solution is to offer different sized trash cans—24 gallon, 36 gallon, 64 gallon and 96 gallon—and to charge customers more for bigger cans, incentivizing waste reduction as well as recycling. In general unit-based pricing can reduce waste disposal by up to 50% and increase recycling by up to 40%. EPA estimates that PAYT policies in 2006—which covered only 25% of the US population—diverted about 6.5 million tons of waste which would have otherwise been thrown away. They estimated then that the policies reduced disposal by an average of 17%.

Mandatory curbside recycling and composting programs are controversial, but they are also very effective at incentivizing participation. Essentially these are ordinances which say that the City will not collect any waste if either recycling or composting are not also present, or if there is recycling or composting present in the waste. Customers are still free to self-haul their discards to a landfill and pay gate fees there, but City collection crews will not throw valuable commodities into the landfill themselves. Such policies are best implemented after all other incentives, education and programs have gone into effect to capture the last chunks of material after recycling, composting and other programs have become widely accepted.

Creating a City Wide Recycling Culture

Promoting recycling not just at home for homeowners, but also at apartments, condos, businesses, events and public spaces contributes to an overall recycling culture. If people don’t have recycling available until they move into a house, they are less accustomed to recycling and participation tends to be low. Consistent recycling programs at businesses, public spaces, tax-exempt institutions and schools also maximize potential job creation, revenue and conservation for the City.

Plenty of businesses take on voluntary recycling services or are interested in reducing waste in order to increase efficiencies and lower costs. Boeing and Mitsubishi for example have committed to Zero Waste to landfills and this is a growing trend in the business community. Voluntary efforts are important to lead the recycling culture, and recycling ordinances are also key to long term improvements in recycling outside of the City’s residential service area.

Note that some homeowner associations that have opted out of City waste services and in exchange for a refund or sponsorship program for private waste contracts. Houston could pass an ordinance requiring recycling in these opt-out neighborhoods or make it a condition of the grant that these neighborhoods have to provide single-stream recycling similar to what the City provides its customers.

Other aspects of a recycling culture include recruiting recycling-reliant industries, re-use centers, swap shops and salvage from bulky trash collection. Austin just started a promotional program to support local businesses that sell recycled products. Recycling is good for the environment and creates tens of thousands of jobs in our region; we should support manufacturers that use recycled content or re-use materials. Publicly committing to supporting the recycling industry will increase overall buy-in to recycling programs at home, work and play.

ScruggsImage4_PackagingWaste

In addition to recycling and compost, cities with a recycling culture are advocating for better product design. There is a nationally coordinated effort around container packaging, for instance, to eliminate non-recyclable packaging designs for certain products. Since our tax dollars pay for recycling and waste programs that dispose of millions of dollars’ worth of packaging every year, it makes sense that we should advocate for design that would lower the cost of recycling and disposal. This policy framework is called “extended producer responsibility” and aims to create economic incentives for producers to improve product design to achieve longer lifespans with greater durability and safety.

Long-term Zero Waste Goal

The big picture, long-term goal—90% diversion from landfills or higher—is often called Zero Waste. The Zero Waste International Alliance has developed the only peer-reviewed definition for the term:

Zero Waste is a goal that is ethical, economical, efficient and visionary, to guide people in changing their lifestyles and practices to emulate sustainable natural cycles, where all discarded materials are designed to become resources for others to use.

Zero Waste means designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, conserve and recover all resources, and not burn or bury them.

Implementing Zero Waste will eliminate all discharges to land, water or air that are a threat to planetary, human, animal or plant health.

Note that this definition specifically excludes phased incineration technologies such as gasification, which has been proposed for the City of Houston’s “One bin for All” proposal. In practice, local and commercial Zero Waste standards vary with 90% diversion or higher being a common goal. Both Dallas and Austin have Zero Waste goals, and San Antonio has a short-term goal to divert 60% of its waste by 2020.

Recycling, composting, and waste reduction are all higher and better uses for these materials than incineration according to the EPA. Unlike unproven technologies like gasification of solid waste, Zero Waste relies on proven technologies such as separate recycling and organics collection. We hope that as soon as the City abandons its inkling toward gasifying our trash, we will see real leadership in establishing education programs and incentives to increase participation in the “big, green bins” recycling program, which is already showing success and fostering a culture of responsibility, unlike “One bin for all,” which fosters a culture of waste. Houston’s low recycling rate is a sign of opportunities we have yet to explore and provide to all residents. We believe the right services and education programs will yield successful results just like they have in other Cities, and set a positive example for other communities to follow.

Melanie Scruggs is the Houston Program Director for Texas Campaign for the Environment, a statewide, grassroots advocacy organization for waste and recycling issues. Melanie graduated from the Plan II Honors program at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012.

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A step forward for the historic Astrodome

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

From CultureMap:

Not historic but still standing

Efforts to make the Astrodome a State Antiquities Landmark took a key step forward Tuesday as the state Antiquities Advisory Board voted unanimously to forward the application to the Texas Historical Commission. Such a designation would prevent the Astrodome from being altered or demolished without approval from the commission.

The commission will make a final decision on the application in July — and that could be the impetus (finally) for a frank and serious discussion on what to do with the world’s first domed stadium.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett plans to hold a large “stakeholders’ meeting” next month, bringing RodeoHouston and Houston Texans officials, preservationists and a host of interested parties on both sides to discuss “where to go from here,” said spokesman Joe Stinebaker. Emmett also plans to hold public meetings around Houston in an attempt to build consensus toward a solution that can be presented to the historical commission this summer.

“There is no move to tear down the Dome,” Stinebaker said. “But historical designation could tie the county’s hands in making it more difficult and expensive to do anything.”

Backers of efforts to save the Astrodome believe it cleared a “major hurdle” Tuesday with the advisory commission’s vote. “There’s no going back now,” an elated Ted Powell said in a telephone interview from Fort Worth after the vote.

[…]

Once an application is filed, no changes can be made to a structure under consideration during the review process, Texas Historical Commission spokeswoman Debbi Head told CultureMap, so the Astrodome has technically been protected from major changes or demolition while the process for antiquities landmark designation winds its way toward a resolution.

But Powell believes the vote signals an important turning point for the Dome’s future. “It brings qualified folks to the table to make sure the historical integrity (of the building) is preserved,” he said.

See here for the background. Designating the Astrodome as a historic structure doesn’t solve the problem of what to do with it, nor does it solve the problem of how to pay for whatever needs to be done. It does keep the Astrodome standing, which perhaps adds a bit more incentive to find those solutions. That’s a good thing. I don’t know how this ends, but I won’t complain about giving the Astrodome a reason to exist.

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HISD does have a role to play in the Bush Foundation literacy effort

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

I learned this from a Terry Grier op-ed in the Chron.

That’s why last week’s release of the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation’s “Houston’s Literacy Crisis: A Blueprint for Community Action,” was such a welcome event.

The foundation’s plan to unite educators, government and community programs – plus human and financial capital – in a mission of wiping out illiteracy is just the kind of comprehensive approach required. We are proud to be partners in this effort.

While HISD remains committed to decentralization – and many of our schools are showing success in their respective reading programs – Literacy By 3 will be a district-driven initiative with unwavering, uniform standards and accountability. Starting this summer, a literacy leader will be trained for each HISD campus. We will employ phonics-based instruction, strict district measurements of reading levels and growth, and we will combine those with real-world projects.

At the same time, our movement toward a digital transformation of classrooms will allow teachers greater ability to personalize learning – and reading is a highly personal, developmental skill. Not one rigid method or time frame fits all, especially when you’re dealing with the challenges of multiple languages and poverty.

What is a uniformly proven asset, though, is exposure to libraries, books in the home and to people who read. That’s where you come in. We hope to create an awareness campaign that enlists thousands of volunteers who will show youngsters that reading is not only a basic survival skill, but a rewarding part of life. We will recruit community members to read with students one-on-one, to share their own favorite books and reading lists, to conduct and contribute to book drives to help enrich schools and homes.

See here and here for the background. At least now I know that there is some kind of official interaction between HISD and the Barbara Bush Foundation on this. I still haven’t found a copy of their report, but at least I know that much.

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It’s not Tesla that’s asking for special treatment

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

A couple of auto dealers take to the op-ed pages to argue that up is in fact down.

The motor vehicle franchise laws in place do not in any way hinder innovation; instead they foster the competition that benefits consumers.

One motor vehicle manufacturer, Tesla Motors, has been seeking an exemption from the franchise laws that require new motor vehicles sold in Texas be sold through a franchised dealer. Franchise laws exist to prevent monopolies and promote competition in vehicle pricing and service to the consumer, provide for the efficient distribution of vehicles and service across the wide geographic area that is our state, and provide a local presence where Texas consumers can have service, warranty and recall work performed even in cases when a manufacturer ceases to do business.

Nothing in state law is currently preventing the delivery of new Tesla vehicles from California to the citizens of the state of Texas who wish to purchase them online. Nothing in state law prevents Tesla from using the exact same model it is using today, with gallery stores and service facilities at other locations, so long as any retail presence is operated through a franchised dealer of Tesla’s choosing.

As business owners, we can tell you first-hand that franchised motor vehicle dealers in Texas are more than eager to help Tesla succeed. In fact, numerous Texas dealers have contacted Tesla seeking an opportunity to retail their vehicles subject to Tesla’s desires. Not only will the franchised dealer absorb any capital outlays required for the Tesla model, but we also believe the franchised dealer can help Tesla sell many more vehicles over the long term.

Increased sales volume without the cost burden is a winning business model, which is why every other major auto manufacturer who sells in Texas participates in the model (not to mention those who already sell electric vehicles).

So why the request for special treatment just for Tesla?

Considering the value of the consumer-protection based system currently in place and the fact that Tesla Motors now has the opportunity to sell its cars to Texans, we do not see any compelling rationale to provide special treatment for Tesla. Other manufacturers produce electric vehicles.

See here and here for the background. Sorry, but it’s the dealers that are asking for special treatment by forcing Tesla to include them in their business model. Plenty of manufacturers are allowed to sell directly to customers. I get the dangers of vertical integration, but the existence of Apple stores doesn’t seem to have hindered innovation in the smartphone market. How would letting Tesla sell directly to customers affect innovation in the automobile market? Frankly, if anything I’d expect it to spur innovation, as it might force a reconsideration in how cars are marketed, sold, and maintained. I’m sorry, but someone who doesn’t benefit from the current setup is going to have to explain to me why it shouldn’t be changed for me to accept the plausibility of that argument.

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Weekend link dump for May 4

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

On Clyde Bruckman, one of the early pioneers of movie comedy.

Animals Sitting On Capybaras. As Fred said, you didn’t know you wanted to see this until someone made it, and now you will realize the world needed it.

“An international research team, including a George Washington University (GW) professor, has discovered and named the earliest and most primitive pterodactyloid — a group of flying reptiles that would go on to become the largest known flying creatures to have ever existed — and established they flew above Earth some 163 million years ago, longer than previously known.”

“On any given day, tourists pay nearly $100 per person to get into Orlando’s theme parks. There, they may be waited on by homeless parents. From their hotels, they jog past bus stops where homeless children wait to head to school. They buy coffee at Starbucks next to the motels that have become families’ homes.”

“So it should be no surprise that Donald Sterling likes to throw money around to nonprofit charities. What’s troubling is why an organization like the NAACP, dedicated to eliminating racial injustice, should help Sterling whitewash his reputation.”

Still using Windows XP? Those security holes aren’t going to fix themselves, you know.

There’s a tri-corner hatted sucker born every minute.

“For me, this isn’t about politics. I’m trying to help other people who are like me, stubborn and bullheaded, who refused to even look. From my own experience, the ACA is everything it’s supposed to be and, in fact, better than it’s made out to be.”

RIP, William Blair Jr, former Negro Leagues pitcher and newspaperman.

“In terms of sheer deadliness, nothing can hold a candle to mosquitoes”.

“A Chinese company harnessed 3D-printing technology to build 10 one-story houses in a day — a cheaper, faster and safer alternative to more traditional construction.”

Yeah, I’ll probably watch Grease Live when it happens. I’m not too proud to admit it.

RIP, Dr. Isaac Greggs, legendary Southern University “Human Jukebox” band director.

“In the Roberts Court, there are no Bundys and Sterlings; the real targets of the conservative majority are those who’ve spent their lives fighting the Bundys and Sterlings of the world.”

Maybe I’m the crazy one, but I think the only ingredient in beef should be, you know, beef.

RIP, Bob Hoskins, a truly wonderful character actor.

“It’s true that we’re using a bit less gasoline than in the past. But that’s not why the Highway Trust Fund is in dire shape. It’s in dire shape because the federal gas tax has been cut nearly in half since it was last changed two decades ago. In 1993 dollars, it’s now about 11 cents per gallon. If it had just kept up with inflation, highway funding would be in fine shape.”

RIP, Al Feldstein, longtime editor of MAD Magazine.

Sharknado 3 has been greenlighted, three months before Sharknado 2 premiers.

“Major restaurant chains have come under increasing criticism for paying workers so little that they need to rely on public assistance. What’s less well known is that taxpayers are also subsidizing these corporations’ executive compensation.”

“To a gambler, this list is the sweet nectar, and probably feels like it should be brought down from a mountain somewhere (probably near Las Vegas) on stone tablets by a man with a long beard. (The skies opening up and the sun beaming down would be a nice touch, as well. Also, a choir wailing in the background.) I mean, if you’re wondering who the favorite coaches are for degenerates, this is the list.”

A time capsule discussion of the preferred #1 draft pick in this year’s NFL draft. Come back in three years and see who was a genius and who was a fool.

Wait, Newt Gingrich wants to socialize the Clippers? Nothing makes sense any more.

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Paxton gets a slap on the wrist

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

That’s it???

Sen. Ken Paxton

State Sen. Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for Texas attorney general, violated the Texas Securities Act by soliciting investment clients without being registered as required by law, according to a disciplinary order made public Friday.

Under the order from the Texas State Securities Board, Paxton was “reprimanded” and fined $1,000. He is also required from now on to disclose in writing his paid solicitor relationship to any clients he refers to an investment adviser.

In at least one instance investigated by The Texas Tribune, a legal client Paxton solicited on behalf of an investment adviser had no idea the senator was getting paid for the referrals, according to court documents.

The State Securities Board, which regulates the securities industry in Texas, released a written statement about the order on Friday.

“In any action the State Securities Board undertakes, the only consideration is the facts of the case. The agency does not consider any extrinsic factors,” said board spokesman Robert Elder. “The order speaks for itself.”

[…]

According to state regulations, any enforcement activities related to the assessment of an administrative fine must be “commenced within five years after the violation occurs.”

The state’s investigation of Paxton’s solicitor activities revealed that the McKinney Republican engaged in unregistered solicitation activities at least three times — in 2004, 2005 and 2012. But only the most recent one occurred within the past five years, so the $1,000 fine assessed against him pertains to only the 2012 violation.

The disciplinary order must be disclosed in a filing to securities regulators within 30 days, meaning it will be part of Paxton’s official record as a registered investment adviser representative.

See here for the background, and here for the disciplinary order. For an “oversight” that occurred three times over an eight year period, this feels awfully light to me. Something along the lines of an amount equal to the 30% commission he got in 2012 for his illegal solicitations would be more appropriate, if only to ensure that he didn’t profit from breaking the law. If the fines for not following the rules cost less than the money you can make by being a scofflaw, then what’s the incentive to comply? If my kid steals three candy bars and I punish her by making her pay for one of them, I don’t think I’m sending the right message. There’s still a chance of federal enforcement, so perhaps Paxton hasn’t fully gotten away with it just yet.

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Endorsement watch: All for Alameel

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

In the March primary, most of the newspaper endorsements for the Democratic Senate race went to David Alameel. The one exception among major papers was the San Antonio Express-News, which went for Maxey Scherr. As Scherr did not make it to the runoff, they needed to make a new recommendation. Not surprisingly, they joined their peers in endorsing Alameel.

David Alameel

David Alameel

[Kesha] Rogers is not a credible Democratic candidate. It is difficult to envision her as any party’s nominee.

Alameel, on the other hand, would have appeal as a Democratic candidate even if Rogers hadn’t managed to make it into the runoff, itself a story of Democratic Party disarray in Texas.

Alameel has a compelling personal story and good positions on serious issues. He is a Lebanese immigrant who arrived in this country when he was 20, a U.S. Army veteran and a Dallas dentist who built a successful business of clinics.

He would bring to the Senate solid positions on sensible budgeting, immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, bringing the troops home, holding banks and Wall Street accountable and protecting Social Security and Medicare.

[…]

In the runoff, there is simply no question about the better choice: We recommend Alameel for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

No question indeed. It’s just a matter of making sure everyone who realizes this votes in the runoff. Early voting starts soon, so get ready to get out there and do your job.

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The other three foot rule

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

This is a little bold for my taste.

A Houston bicyclist is testing a year-old safety ordinance intended to ensure motorists don’t get closer than three feet from riders.

While riding in the designated bike lanes of the Memorial area this month, Dan Morgan has been filming drivers who hit a flag pole sticking out three feet from the side of his bike.

“The whole purpose of the flag was to demonstrate that we exist on the roads,” said Morgan, 47, an automation safety manager. “That flag could have been a person.”

He’s been met with anger from motorists who aren’t acquainted with the law, as seen in the videos he’s collected on his YouTube channel. Most motorists shown are angry about their cars being damaged.

Via Hair Balls, you can see some of the videos Morgan has shot on his Facebook page; here is one example. Note that Morgan is in the little bike lane by the curb – there’s plenty of room to pass him safely. I admire what he’s doing, though I don’t have the cojones to do it myself. We all know there are some reckless bicyclists out there, who ride unpredictably and who ignore the rules of the road. I’ve shaken my fist at more than a few two-wheeled idiots. But whether you like it or not, bikes have the same right to the road as you do, and it’s your responsibility as a driver to pass them safely. Remember, in any confrontation between a bike and your car, the bike and its rider are going to lose, badly. Do you want that on your conscience? If you have to slow down for a few seconds to safely pass a bike, do it. You’ll still get where you’re going. People need to live this, and HPD needs to enforce it. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the law.

Did I mention that HPD needs to enforce this law? Turns out, they’re on it.

In Houston, cops are taking a novel approach to arresting jerks who cut off cyclists. They’re going undercover on two wheels, and when things get too tight for the law, they’re calling in for support.

In 2012, if you were cycling around the country, Houston ranked as one of the worst cities to make a stop. Out of 51 American cities in the last Alliance for Biking and Walking report, listed from low to high cyclist fatalities, Houston beat out other lethal cities for number 41.

But Houston could turn itself around, especially now that it’s implementing a “Goal Zero” bike safety program that aims to keep all its cyclists alive. Last Tuesday, Mayor Annise Parker announced a series of changes to the way the city went about its transportation business. Among those changes: Sting operations from plainclothes policemen riding bikes to catch drivers who pass cyclists too closely for the city’s three-foot mandated standard.

“We asked them to put police officers in plain clothes on bicycles with support in the area, so if someone did pass them too closely, they could call on their support to pull over that driver and issue a citation,” explains Mike Payne, executive director of BikeHouston, the organization that originally went to the mayor’s office with the idea. “They just started running special missions, if you want to call them that, where they send people out to different neighborhoods to do this. And they start writing citations and warnings.”

Consider yourself warned. Pass bikes safely, and you won’t have to worry about it.

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Legalize moonshining

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

You can brew your own beer at home, and you can ferment your own wine at home, but if you try to distill your own spirits at home, you’re asking for trouble from the rev’nooers.

The movement to legalize marijuana dominates headlines these days, but another group is laboring in relative obscurity to legalize its chosen intoxicant: homemade liquor.

The newly formed Hobby Distillers Association, based in Tarrant County, aims to change a federal law that prevents anyone from distilling spirits in the home — even if you drink it all yourself and don’t sell a drop.

“A lot of people don’t realize this is illegal,” said Rick Morris, owner of Brewhaus, a Keller company that manufactures and distributes small-scale stills and related supplies to make liquor. “It’s an eye-opener for them.”

Morris, the driving force behind the new association, has scraped up the funds to hire a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm to convince Congress that hobby distilling should be put on the same legal basis as brewing beer and making wine at home.

“The beer and wine hobbyists are a little more organized,” said Paul Kanitra, president of lobbyit.com, which now represents the Hobby Distillers Association. “The hobby distillers are finally saying enough is enough.”

Federal law allows a hobbyist to brew up to 100 gallons of beer a year without getting a license or paying taxes. The same holds true for wine makers.

But distilling any amount of spirits — whiskey, gin, vodka, absinthe — could bring legal problems with the IRS and its subsidiary agency, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

Federal regulators say it’s a matter of public health and safety: It’s easy, they say, to inadvertently produce homemade liquor adulterated with poisonous chemicals or start a fire with open flames used to heat a still.

Home distillers say those fears are overblown — that their hobby is safe and harms no one.

Kanitra said he and his lobby team hope to find a member of thee U.S. House or Senate to sponsor a bill and get it passed before the end of the year.

“We have to educate members of Congress, and once we do that, they will see there is no reason to treat hobby distillers so differently,” Kanitra said.

It never ceases to amaze me how many archaic Prohibition-era laws are still on the books, being enforced. I see no reason why distilling at home should be treated any differently than home brewing or home fermenting. If there are safety concerns, then put regulations on the equipment. At least craft distillers have more freedom to operate in Texas thanks to a series of bills passed last year that were sponsored by Senator and Lt. Governor candidate Leticia Van de Putte. This one’s a matter for Congress, and they’re too busy repealing Obamacare and not passing immigration reform to pay attention to something like this. Nevertheless, it would be nice if at least one member of Congress agreed to sponsor a bill to legalize home distilling. Who wants to lead on this issue?

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Saturday video break: Barefootin’

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve sung the praises of Pete Townshend’s Deep End Live concert before, and here’s another awesome cut from it, “Barefootin'”:

Back in the day when mixtapes were a thing, I’d make party music mixes, and this would be my go-to song to lead things off and get the festivities started. I mean, come on, how could that not make you want to get up and dance? Here’s the original, from 1965 and Robert Parker:

You can see why Pete Townshend would kick off his show with this tune, but no question in my mind his cover is the better version.

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734K ACA enrollments in Texas

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Pretty damn impressive, all things considered.

It's constitutional - deal with it

It’s constitutional – deal with it

New numbers out show that 734,000 Texans bought health insurance through the federal marketplace from last October to April 19, 2014, a report released by Health and Human Services shows.

Prior to March 1, an anemic 295,000 people had signed up, but in the final stretch of the Affordable Care Act first-year sign-up, another 439,000 obtained private insurance through the exchange.

Health care advocates applauded the new sign-up numbers and said the results are impressive, especially in the face of strong opposition from virtually every state Republican leader.

“Texas has made more progress on affordable health insurance in the last six months than in the last decade,” said Stacey Pogue, a health care analyst at the left-leaning Center for Public Policy Priorities.

“We know that Texas could do much more,” she said. “Too many Texans are still one illness or one accident away from going bankrupt.”

Emphasis mine. Keep that in mind the next time you hear a Republican dead-ender talk about how horrible Obamacare is. After more than a decade in complete control of Texas government, they’ve not done a damn thing to try to solve this problem. Hell, in that time they’ve never even recognized it as a problem. Then the federal government – President Obama and the Democrats in Congress – stepped in and finally did something about it, and the Republican leadership in Texas resents it like crazy, because it so clearly points out their abject failure. The final enrollment surge, generated purely by tons of need for health insurance coverage, since the state did everything it could to impede signups, was impressive enough that even the TPPF’s designated hack had to admit is was remarkable. Just imagine what could have been if only Rick Perry and Greg Abbott and the rest of them gave a damn.

Some details from Texas Well and Healthy:

BACKGROUND ON HEALTH CARE COVERAGE NUMBERS

  • Eight-four percent of Texans who signed up also received financial assistance, lowering their monthly costs.
  • Thirty percent of Texans who selected insurance plans through the Marketplace were 18-34 years old.
  • Approximately six million Texans were uninsured in 2012. With 25 percent of the state uninsured, Texas has the worst rate in the nation.
  • About half of the state’s one million uninsured children and teens are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP.
  • More than one million Texas adults are in the Coverage Gap. Their jobs do not provide insurance, but their income is not high enough to qualify for assistance in the Marketplace. The Texas legislature can provide insurance to Texans in the Coverage Gap by accepting federal health care funds.

The overall numbers are right in line with that Baker Institute study that had pegged the figure at 746K. You can see how Texas compared to other states in the updated Kaiser numbers.

More from the Chron:

For weeks, officials have said an estimated 8 million people nationwide signed up for coverage. Until Thursday, it was unclear that a little more than 9 percent of enrollees were Texans. Before the marketplace’s Oct. 1 launch, government officials projected about 625,000 Texans would sign up for coverage.

“I’m pleasantly surprised,” said Vivian Ho, James A. Baker III Institute health economics chair at Rice University. “I thought that anyone who wanted insurance would have signed up by Dec. 31.”

Although the state surpassed enrollment expectations, Ho said millions of Texans remain uninsured. About half of Texas’ estimated 6 million uninsured residents could have applied for marketplace coverage created by the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

“We’ve only made a slight dent in the number of uninsured in Texas,” Ho said. “We need more resources down here.”

No one from the offices of U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz or Gov. Rick Perry responded to requests for comment about the number of Texas enrollments. All three lawmakers oppose the health care law commonly known as Obamacare, and Cruz repeatedly has pushed for its repeal.

No comment from any of them? Not even a smart-aleck remark? Wimps.

Thursday’s report did not include Houston-area enrollment information. In April, the Associated Press reported more than 177,000 Houston residents signed up for health coverage, exceeding expectations and indicating a last-minute enrollment push just before the March 31 deadline might have helped Texas.

Texas Hospital Association officials said they were encouraged by the enrollment update but agreed with Ho that the state needs to do more to help its remaining uninsured residents. Texas has the nation’s highest rate of uninsured residents.

Perry has refused to expand Medicaid, which would extend health coverage to more than 1 million residents who earn too much to qualify for the program and too little to afford private health insurance.

“Our federal income tax dollars are going to other states because the state’s leadership said no to connecting low-wage working families with health insurance options,” hospital association president and CEO Ted Shaw said in a written statement. “Other states have proposed innovative private-market solutions to expand coverage using available federal funding, and Texas should follow their lead.”

Maybe next year, if we have a better Governor, we can exceed this year’s totals. A statement from Rep. Garnet Coleman is here, and Progress Texas and Stace have more.

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Judge will allow Ashby to rise

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

We have a decision.

Sue me!

Developers can move forward with the proposed Ashby high-rise after a much-anticipated ruling Thursday by a judge who agreed the tower is a nuisance for its immediate neighbors but concluded there was no way he could stop the project or determine a more appropriate alternative.

“If an injunction is granted, there is no question but that it will have a chilling effect on other developments in Houston,” wrote state District Judge Randy Wilson, a stance that drew mostly positive comments from the development community for eliminating uncertainty for groups considering future projects.

But Wilson also awarded $1.2 million in damages to 20 of those residents who had filed suit against the developer, Buckhead Investment Partners of Houston. While that is $438,000 less than a jury recommended in December, it still reflects a belief that those who live closest to the project, on a 1.6-acre site at 1717 Bissonnet, will see their property values suffer.

In firmly denying the residents’ primary request, however, Wilson said a permanent injunction would be difficult to enforce and would invite an “endless series of lawsuits” testing various tweaks and revisions to the project’s scope.

“A 21-story residential development is believed by the neighbors (and the jury) to be too big,” Wilson said in the ruling. “However, this court has zero evidence with which to find what size is just right.”

[…]

Buckhead welcomed the ruling but said it would appeal the monetary damages. It also said construction will resume as soon as possible.

“With hundreds of new Houstonians moving to our city each day, this type of urban housing option is becoming increasingly more necessary and desirable,” the company said in a statement. “We remain concerned about the dangerous precedent that any fully entitled and lawfully permitted real estate project may be penalized by the awarding of damages.”

Jean Frizzell, attorney for the disappointed residents, said they are considering their legal options.

“This case has never been about money and has always been about their community and homes,” he said in an email.

Via Swamplot, you can see a copy of the judge’s order here. Judge Wilson mentioned the z-word (“zoning”, for you non-Houstonians) in his decision, which undoubtedly had a lot of people crossing themselves and fashioning garlic necklaces. I said before that I had no idea what he should do, but this seems as sensible to me as anything. Not that it matters in some sense, since it’s going to get appealed – the developers have already said they’ll appeal the damages award, and the residents may appeal the go-ahead for construction, which will happen straightaway barring any further rulings or injunctions. It will still be a few years before the last chapter of this story is written. Prime Property and Hair Balls have more.

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Sriracha for San Antonio?

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

State Rep. Jason Villalba will finally make his pilgrimage to California to visit Huy Fong Foods and try to convince them to pick up stakes and move to Texas.

State and city officials are hoping to woo the CEO of Huy Fong Foods Inc. into moving or expanding production of Sriracha, the company’s increasingly popular spicy Asian sauce, to San Antonio.

State Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas, is leading a delegation of Texas officials May 12 to meet with CEO David Tran and tour the company’s embattled factory near Los Angeles.

A California judge forced the company to shut down some production after complaints that fumes emitted from the facility caused asthma, nosebleeds and sinus irritation.

“These talks are still very preliminary and we haven’t drilled down on site-selection yet, but with it’s proximity to the Rio Grande Valley and the economic infrastructure to support this type of factory, San Antonio is high on the list,” Villalba said.

Mario Hernandez, president of San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, said the organization reached out two months ago to Tran, who indicated an expansion is more likely than a full-fledged relocation to the Alamo City, which would cost millions.

“We would welcome the opportunity on a complete relocation, but a more likely scenario is future expansion,” Hernandez said.

San Antonio is an ideal location for production of the spicy condiment because it is close to the Rio Grande Valley, a region with a large agriculture industry that could easily grow chilies for the product, Villalba said.

Because the chilies must be transported to a factory for production soon after being harvested, San Antonio, the largest city in South Texas, logistically would be a prime location for a manufacturing plant.

[…]

The Dallas Republican received an invitation from Tran last week and will be joined by state Rep. Hubert Vo, D-Houston, who speaks fluent Vietnamese; Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples; and officials from Gov. Rick Perry’s and Attorney General Greg Abbott’s offices.

“In one of the fastest-growing areas of the country there is an insatiable need for jobs of all types,” said state Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, who was invited by Villalba but couldn’t attend because of a scheduling conflict.

See here for all my previous Sriracha blogging. You have to admire Rep. Villalba for being a team player – it was originally the city of Denton that made a move on Huy Fong, but despite being in Rep. Villalba’s back yard, he’s going with the more practical possibility. I still don’t think Huy Fong is going to move its operations to Texas – if it moves anywhere, it’ll be elsewhere in California – but expansion is an intriguing possibility, one I don’t recall seeing mentioned before. If that really is on the table, it’s an attainable goal and would be a very nice coup.

Here’s a bit more on the expansion possibility from Forbes:

The city of Irwindale voted unanimously [last] Wednesday to table a vote on a resolution until the next meeting, delaying a final decision for another two weeks. If the city council had cemented their vote, the factory would have had until July 22 to stop releasing the peppery fumes that residents were complaining of suffering from heartburn, asthma and nosebleeds.

But aside from the meeting, Tran has given little indication that he is seriously considering moving out of California, where his business has operated for the last 34 years.

“We have never had any issues, so moving was never discussed,” Tran told Forbes. “But why would we need to move if we do not have harmful odors?”

One deterrent for the company to move is that the chili peppers used for the company’s sauces are geographically closer to the factory and must be immediately processed after being picked. But Tran doesn’t see either the proximity to the pepper farms or the city council’s decision to be the end of Huy Fong Foods.

“We could grow in the state [of Texas] if need be,” Tran said. “But after seeing the supporters yesterday, I don’t feel alone, so I need to try to stay here instead of relocating. There is, however, the possibility of expansion to other locations due to growing sales.”

See here for more on Irwindale City Council’s actions. I find it hard to believe the two sides won’t get this worked out. Given that Villalba and crew will be in town two days before Council votes on that resolution, perhaps his visit will serve as incentive towards a resolution.

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Enabling bike parking at restaurants

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Good to see this effort is making progress.

Public House on White Oak

It has taken some time, but a community effort to add bike racks in the Heights is seeing results.

Heights resident Mitch Cohen has placed two racks along 19th Street this year that can each store about 10 bikes and will continue raising money for more.

“I haven’t exactly taken over the area with bike racks, but it has been fun,” said Cohen, who manages the Heights’ First Saturday Arts Market and began working on the rack project about two years ago.

This grassroots effort was inspired while Cohen and other organizers of White Linen Nights in the Heights were cycling from business to business in the area to encourage them to participate.

Cycling is a popular activity and mode of transportation in the Heights, but the volunteers noticed there weren’t many bike racks along the community’s busiest streets, including 19th Street and White Oak Drive.

Cohen knew the Houston Heights Association had placed some racks in the area, and he decided to start a similar effort.

Fred Zapalac of Blue Line Bike Lab, 3302 White Oak Drive, agreed to help Cohen buy the racks at cost.

The fundraising effort got a boost in September 2012, when a couple of artists at the First Saturday Art Market raised $200 in one day by selling pins.

Cohen used that money to buy “Property of the Heights” T-shirts designed by then-Heights resident Leigh Hajovsky. From there, he was able to raise $400 by selling the shirts for $20 a piece during White Linen Nights. With Zapalac’s help, Cohen bought two bike racks with the money.

See here and here for the background. I’m not at all surprised by Mitch Cohen’s persistence in getting this done, but it sure would be nice if he had a little more help. You could probably put a bike rack in front of every business in the greater Heights for a few thousand bucks. Surely the various civic organizations, or maybe a generous donor or two, could help Mitch get this done in a much shorter time frame. The city is now officially encouraging bike parking for businesses in dense neighborhoods. We should be doing more to embrace that.

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