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Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/27/08 08:27 PM | Houston Blog Talk |
KHOU-11's Lee McGuire reports that some city councilmembers had the temerity to ask HPD for an accounting of previous funds that were allotted for recruitment advertising. This came about as HPD was requesting another $750,000 for the same thing:
Several councilmembers, including the budget chair, refused to back a request by the Houston Police Department for another $750,000 for recruitment advertising.
They said HPD has been unable or unwilling to provide information on how many recruits came on board because of the last round of advertising. Councilmember Green said he's been “banned” from asking questions of the HPD public information office and instead has been told to go through the legal department.
Councilmember Anne Clutterbuck said she was shocked that she couldn’t find HPD job openings on common job search Web sites, while the Dallas Police Department came up all the time. She said when she asked HPD about it, all she got back was “rhetoric.”
A councilman has been banned from asking questions??? No HPD jobs are listed on job search websites???
That's some fine leadership from Chief Hurtt.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/27/08 05:58 PM | Houston Politics | Comments (3)
The last time HPD "cracked down" on the homeless was in September, 2007.
Almost one year later, it's time to do it again (via KHOU-11):
Three Houston Police divisions are preparing for a zero tolerance initiative against the homeless.
Starting on Tuesday, the Houston Police Department will crack down on the city's homeless. Some who know about the new initiative call it HPD politics, while others said it was a good move for safety. But whatever people said about the program, it was not a secret to those living on the streets.
Oooooo, zero tolerance! After today's sweep, stay tuned for the next crackdown in late summer 2009.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/26/08 04:52 AM | Houston Miscellany | Comments (14)
As the end of the city's fiscal year was approaching, what did city councilmembers do with the remainder of their office budgets? The Chron's Matt Stiles and Carolyn Feibel asked for all the spending records and wrote it up. Here's an excerpt:
Six council members bought new TVs with their budget funds. Some mounted large-screen TVs in common staff areas, while others bought each staffer TV sets for their desks.
Two new councilwomen, Wanda Adams and Melissa Noriega, bought five televisions each.
[snip]
Other council members who bought televisions with public funds include Ron Green, Jolanda Jones, M.J. Khan and James Rodriguez. In all, 22 new TVs were purchased for the council floor, at a cost of $8,705.
[snip]
District A Councilwoman Toni Lawrence said the council floor has too many televisions in use.
"Sometimes I have to close the door because of the TV noise," she said.
Be sure to read the entire story for more taxpayer-funded highlights, and don't forget the comments at the end of the Chron's story.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/25/08 05:06 AM | Houston Politics | Comments (13)
Last week the Chron's Jennifer Radcliffe wrote a story with the following thesis: School district utility bills have gone down since the Lege ordered later start dates:
Texas public school leaders may still be fuming about the legislative mandate that delayed the start of the school year until the last week of August, but advocates point to lower utility bills as a sign that lawmakers made the right choice.
In the first year, schools statewide appear to have saved millions of dollars in August utility bills. The Houston Independent School District's monthly payment to Reliant Energy, for example, dropped almost $200,000 between August 2006 and August 2007. Officials attribute about $66,000 of the savings to lower electricity costs.
You might already be able to see the problem with Radcliffe's story: She focused on August utility bills alone. Guess what? A later start date means a later end date, which means the possibility of extra utility usage at the end of the year. Might the savings have been offset by that? The Chron doesn't know:
HISD spends about $57 million a year on electricity, meaning $66,000 is a slight savings, officials said. And they said some of the savings probably were erased by extra days in May and June, but they couldn't provide the figures.
We heard from HISD's Terry Abbott who disputed Radcliffe's conclusion. Abbott said HISD advised Radcliffe the assertion might be wrong, and that HISD was running the numbers to see if the savings held up with the addition of the extra days at the end of the year. As it turned out, HISD's month-by-month electricity usage analysis did not show a savings; in fact, HISD's electricity usage and costs were higher for the 2007-08 school year when compared to the 2006-07 school year.
Abbott requested a correction or retraction from the Chron, but so far the editorial leadership has declined.
While Radcliffe's story features HISD, a sidebar notes August utility savings for fourteen school districts. In asserting that Texas schools "have saved millions of dollars," did Radcliffe get the last-month-of-school numbers for any of those school districts? If she did, they're not listed; therefore, Radcliffe's conclusion (millions saved) is not supported by her partial facts (August numbers only). To come up with that conclusion she needed to get complete utility numbers for all the districts.
Did any other districts try to warn her against using incomplete data? Unclear, but it doesn't appear the Chron is going to revisit the issue, and this will be the end of the story for Houston's daily newspaper of record.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/24/08 01:55 PM | Houston Chronicle | Comments (1)
Last week the Chron's Liz Austin Peterson reported that Mayor White was not overjoyed with county judge candidate David Mincberg's presumptive use of the mayoral likeness in the wannabe judge's first TV ad:
Democrat David Mincberg makes liberal use of Mayor Bill White's name and picture in the first television ad of his county judge campaign, touting his work in the popular leader's administration and comparing their business experience and management styles.
However, he did not seek permission from White, who generally stays out of local races and has been working to cultivate a good relationship with Republican County Judge Ed Emmett.
White since has made it clear to Mincberg's campaign that he prefers people to ask permission before using him in a campaign ad, said Michael Moore, the mayor's chief of staff.
"He does not want that (ad) to be interpreted as an endorsement," Moore said Wednesday. "The mayor works well with Judge Emmett and has worked well with David Mincberg."
We are thrilled to learn Mincberg plans on running on his "accomplishments" as the city's multi-family housing czar, especially since one could argue that his time in that position appears to have been intended to fluff up his résumé for a future political run. Certainly, the city got its money's worth out of the $1 per-year salary arrangement:
David Mincberg had worked on this a bit, and the City has been grateful for his services, but he has been asked to pass off responsibilities for this because of other time commitments and pursuits.
The "this" referenced above that Mincberg failed to focus on was actually pretty important, as Mayor White described it:
Our central idea is that there should be effective standards and enforcement of standards on the habitability of multi-family units. They should include aspects such as lighting and the ability of law enforcement to get to where they need to, as well as those codes which could create a hazard for electrocution or fire.
As the titular head of the city's multi-family housing program, Mincberg lost interest, and Mayor White had to find someone else to carry on the important work. But that doesn't stop Mincberg from praising his time with the city on his campaign website:
David Mincberg understands that honesty and efficiency are the keys to any successful operation. David’s ability to think strategically is why in 2006, Mayor Bill White asked him to run the City of Houston’s Housing and Community Development Department as a Dollar-a-Year executive. David turned down a salary and instead volunteered his time for this full-time position..
During his tenure as the Dollar-a-Year executive for the City of Houston, David Mincberg:
Managed the Housing Department
Established impartial systems for assessing and improving apartment safety, resulting in the Apartment Security Ordinance.(Ordinance #2006-1124)
Envisioned and created the Better Neighborhoods program by targeting Federal funds strategically to leverage impact.
And yet, in spite of those accomplishments, he was asked to move along so someone else who wasn't so preoccupied could get some work done.
BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/24/08 07:46 AM | Houston Politics | Comments (1)
KPRC-2 has a story posted about how METRO's "Three Strikes, You're Out" rule for bus drivers is just more hot air from the transit agency that could power its own wind farm:
Motorists reported some startling behavior by bus drivers, including road rage, speeding through school zones, cutting off other drivers by swerving into lanes, aggressive lane changes, and nearly running people over in crosswalks.
"We play just like baseball," said METRO Vice President of Operations David Feeley. "Three strikes and you're out. If you have a particularly egregious situation, we say goodbye pretty quick."
Despite that policy, Local 2 Investigates found some drivers remaining behind the wheel with as many as nine or 12 strikes, including numerous complaints alleging the same sort of dangerous driving behavior.
Here's the best part:
Overall, [VP Feeley] said dangerous driving complaints are down 23.9 percent from last year.
"We're doing something right," he said.
And:
Hers was among 7,236 pages of complaints reviewed by Local 2 Investigates, starting from July 2007 and continuing through July of this year.
The 7,200 complaints is a declining trend -- woo!
In completely unrelated news, Rad Sallee reports METRO CEO Frank "Procurement Disaster" Wilson is getting a retroactive pay raise:
The Metropolitan Transit Authority board approved a 10 percent raise Thursday for president and CEO Frank Wilson, bringing his total compensation to more than $340,000.
Board member George DeMontrond said Wilson's annual performance review was "most satisfactory" and noted that he did not receive raises in 2005 or 2007. Wilson's new base pay will be $307,340.
DeMontrond said the increase in base pay — 21 percent since Wilson was hired May 3, 2004 — was "nominal" in view of inflation. The raise will be retroactive to May 3, 2008, said Metro spokeswoman Raequel Roberts.
[snip]
Although his new contract details were not immediately available, Wilson in 2006 also received $20,000 per year in salary deferred until retirement, a car allowance of $12,600 and membership in the Houston Club. Roberts said those items have not increased.
He still has his car allowance. Because he's too important to ride public transportation.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/22/08 06:11 AM | Houston Transit | Comments (9)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/21/08 11:29 PM | Houston Blog Talk |
Earlier in the week, both KUHF-88.7 and the Chronicle reported that University of Houston-Downtown officials would like to change the institution's name.
Some ideas that have been tossed out include Houston International University, Gulf Coast University and Houston University.
It's all well and good that UH-D officials want more glamor than "Downtown" offers. However, since the university is to remain a part of the University of Houston system, shouldn't the University of Houston remain part of the name (even if Downtown is replaced)?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/21/08 11:21 PM | Houston Miscellany | Comments (8)
KHOU-11's Lee McGuire reports on a drainage-fund proposal developed by Councilmember Khan and supported by Mayor White:
A plan to create a special fund in the city’s budget to act as like a detention pond for dedicated tax dollars was scheduled for a vote [Wednesday], but two members of the City Council asked to hold off on a vote for a week.
Council members Anne Clutterbuck and Pam Holm said they support the measure, but requested the extra time to gather additional comments on the measure from the community.
Even so, it appears the full council will vote to support the measure next week. The plan will funnel roughly $211 million into a dedicated fund over the next five years. That money will be used for infrastructure projects targeting neighborhoods that flood during heavy rainfall.
M.J. Khan, who chairs the flooding and drainage committee and developed this plan, said it cannot fix all of the city’s flooding problems.
“If you talk to the professionals in the engineering community, they will tell you that this is just a small portion of what is really needed,” he said. “The real numbers are upwards of two billion, or three billion. The important thing with this fund is that we’re not taking money from the general revenue fund – we are allocating money that we do collect and putting it in this dedicated fund before it goes somewhere else.”
Council member Mike Sullivan, who opposed the creation of a drainage enterprise fee during his campaign, says he supports this plan because it does not impose a fee or tax on residents.
“I’ve always said I think we can find funding to get the projects done without a tax,” he said while explaining his support for this measure. “Here we are.”
Houston Mayor Bill White explained that a dedicated budget pool for drainage improvement projects will allow future administrations to tap money for infrastructure projects without suffering the political consequences of cutting other areas of the city budget to pay for them.
This seems like a sensible move on its face. It's good to see Mayor White and Council trying to tackle the real problems in the city (without creating new revenue streams in the process).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/21/08 11:16 PM | Houston Miscellany | Comments (1)
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