Houblog

There’s been some confusion over a request by Ed Wulfe to swap some land and a public road in the Galleria area for his Boulevard Place project. After looking at the maps and reading the proposed ordinance carefully, I wanted to post to set the record straight. This is not S. Post Oak […]

City Controller Annice Parker finally gets involved in the debate.
“My first concern is for the land acquisition. While there has been public speculation about the use of the land, the request for council action identifies no specific public purpose. That is backward public policy,” the controller stated. “The city is not […]

I haven’t written much about the Bozonicle lately (well, truth is, I haven’t written much at all), but I caught something in the former “City Hall Blog” over there today. You know, the one that’s now about politics in city and county, instead of, you know, news. Since Matt’s been reined […]

The mayor announced in a voice mail to all employees today that an agreement has been reached with the pension system. Highlights: increased employee contributions, no loss of benefit for current employees, new plan for new hires beginning in 2008. I’m a little skeptical of that “no loss” part; I think the DROP […]

“We didn’t make no steenking promise!”
The following bundle of joy from Bill “the Pill” White was in my mailbox this morning. Check the highlights I added:
The Chronicle’s May 14th headline that said that the city of Houston “can’t keep its promise to the pension fund’’ was simply untrue. This administration has increased the […]

Life just doesn’t play fair. I don’t have the TIME right now!
Mayor breaks pension promise. Is there another exodous coming? And can the city afford it?
Our contractors hire only top-quality pervs. Hey, I wanted to fire them for incompetence and theft (as in taking a paycheck and not doing their […]

In prior segments of this series, I’ve hinted that the new “heavy trash pickup fee” (which we should really be calling the “garbage service tax”) may be impossible to administer fairly. Today, I’ll discuss why, but be warned–there’s a lot of parenthetical comments coming because there are so many interrelated side issues, it’s not […]

I have a lot going on in my personal life right now (I think I’ve said that before, haven’t I?) and unfortunately, my normal mode of dealing with stress is to either get very irritible, or bury myself in leisure activities. Doing anything that resembles work becomes harder and harder, whereas computer games and anime […]

Laurence Simon sums up in one simple sentence everything I find wrong about unions today, and why I have no desire to join HOPE, the combined AFL-CIO-SEIU union for Houston city employees:
A Union is not there to get its members all they can get. No, it’s there to represent the members to help them get […]

Hat tip to Instapundit for the above quote and link to this story out of Cleveland. How long until we see the same things here?
Motorists prove red-light cameras don’t work:
[Dave Hatala] got a ticket in the mail saying he was speeding on Chester Avenue at East 71st Street. He was cited for going 48 […]

The Municipal Channel (a.k.a. Administration Propaganda Station) has an exciting slate of programs for us all this month. Whoo-weeee, I might have to pass up on the Super Bowl to watch these. Might even have to pass up on the Super Bowl commercials.
Mayor’s State of the City Address — 2007 […]

Why the hell is Mayor White so worried about what janitors for private businesses make here in the City of Houston, when he can’t even give city employees a cost of living increase? He’s seeing to it that janitors get raises of up to $2.00 an hour and health insurance, but he can’t be […]

I was going to make a snarky comment about what Pasadena’s city leaders might think of Houston planting these signs along Spencer, but when I went to look up info on the event, I realized that despite the name and location, this is not a celebration put on by the City of Houston. I […]

Isn’t it odd how things like this are announced on a Friday afternoon just before a holiday?
(see the full write up over at blogHOUSTON.)

Controller Anise Parker has posted the Fiscal Year 2007 audit plans on the city’s website. Notably missing from the list is any operations of the Housing and Community Development Department, which have proved to be so embarassing in the past, despite the evidence that little has changed. (Item #40)
Just as an aside, you […]