The honorees this year are Verizon and the Verizon Foundation, one of the leading corporations in the United States dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence, Helen Knaggs, a 44 year Verizon employee, the first Hispanic lobbyist in Texas and longtime advocate for domestic violence victims, Jessica Bair, Mary Kay Ash’s great granddaughter and Houston City Councilwoman Ellen Cohen, who served as the head of the largest domestic violence shelter in Texas, the Houston Area Women’s Center, for nearly two decades.

For more than a decade, Verizon has been a national leader in the education and prevention of domestic violence. Verizon and the Verizon Foundation have a long history of corporate philanthropy and partnership with the Texas Council on Family Violence.

Jessica Bair is following in her great grandmother’s footsteps in service to others. Mary Kay Ash established The Mary Kay Foundation in 1996 to fund research for cancers affecting women and expanded its mission in 2001 to provide funding to domestic violence prevention and awareness programs. The Foundation has given $28 million to domestic violence programs. Jessica volunteers at The Foundation assisting with grants that are given annually to domestic violence shelters and programs across the United States.

“Jessica represents the next generation of visionary leadership for young women who are committed to helping victims of domestic violence. She is carrying on the tradition of philanthropy, started by her great grandmother Mary Kay a half century ago and continuing the strong legacy of service to others, said Gloria A. Terry, TCFV President. “We are also pleased to honor Verizon with the Corporate Visionary Award and to give special recognition to Helen Knaggs, who worked at Verizon for 44 years. Helen has been a trailblazer for Hispanic women in Texas and all women and has been a tireless advocate for the Texas Council on Family Violence,” said Terry.

Ellen Cohen has achieved many accolades in her life. She currently serves as the first Jewish woman elected to the Houston City Council and served a decade as Executive Director of one of the nation’s premiere human relations organizations, the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

After a decade with AJC, she served as President and CEO of the Houston Area Women’s Center (HAWC) for 18 years. Dedicated to eliminating domestic and sexual violence and to providing services for survivors, the Center again allowed for the blending of her executive leadership abilities with her compassion. Ellen continued her leadership in the Texas legislature and is recognized nationally as an expert on domestic and sexual violence issues.

“Ellen is a committed and dedicated leader in helping victims of domestic violence. She has used her influence throughout her career, leading the largest shelter in the state of Texas and as a legislator passing laws to help victims and hold offenders accountable,” said Gloria A. Terry, TCFV President. “This event is part of TCFV’s efforts to increase awareness in the community about domestic violence and provide a positive message about women who touch our lives and affect our character forever,” said Terry.

Academy Award Winning actress Marlee Matlin will be the keynote speaker for the event. Matlin received worldwide critical acclaim for her motion picture debut in Children of a Lesser God, earning her the Academy Award for Best Actress. At age 21, she became the youngest recipient of the Best Actress Oscar, making her one of only four actresses to receive that honor for a film debut. Matlin serves on the Celebrity Board for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus will also be a featured Speaker. The Speaker has authored legislation to protect victims of domestic violence and has been a leader as Speaker protecting victims of crime. KVUE anchor Terri Gruca will emcee the luncheon.

“TCFV Honoring Women in Our Lives Luncheon” will be hosted at the Four Seasons. The luncheon will be held from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 3, 2012 to benefit the Texas Council on Family Violence. Honorary Chairs for the event are Texas House Speaker Joe Straus & Julie Straus and Event Chairman and Sponsors Craig Hester of Hester Capital Management, LLC and Paul Holubec of Plains Capital Bank. Tables and individual tickets are still available for the event. For more information call Kristin Delong at 512-794-1133 or rsvp@tcfv.org or go directly to the website to purchase tables for the event or tickets.

http://www.honoringwomen.org

The Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV), formed in 1978, is one of the largest domestic violence coalitions in the nation. TCFV promotes safe and healthy relationships by supporting service providers, facilitating strategic prevention efforts, and creating opportunities for freedom from domestic violence.

Public meetings are scheduled through the next several weeks so that the City can share information on this issue and solicit feedback from the community. Please don’t miss the opportunity to learn more about the Hobby expansion and to weigh in on the proposal at one of the following upcoming meetings:

City Council Chambers
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
9:00 a.m.
(MAP)

• Presentations by HAS consultants, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines
• Public Comment

Doubletree Hotel JFK
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
15747 JFK Boulevard
Houston, TX  77032
(MAP)

• Presentation by Aviation Director Mario Diaz
• Public Comment

Marriott Houston South at Hobby Airport
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
9100 Gulf Freeway
Houston, TX  77017
(MAP)

• Presentation by Aviation Director Mario Diaz
• Public Comment

Nick Brines—2012 Pride Marshal
The owner and business manager of Azur Salon, Nick Brines first joined Pride Houston’s Pride Committee in 1994. As a member of the fundraising committee, Brines created the gala event “Pumped Up Art” which featured celebrity-signed shoes remodeled by local LGBT artists. In 1997 Brines moved to a position on Pride board of directors where he’s worked steadily to bring Pride’s fundraising to new heights.

Jenifer Rene Pool—2012 Pride Marshal
A child of a WWII vet, Jenifer Rene Pool grew up with the belief that service to one’s country and neighbor is every citizen’s duty. Pool is dedicated to service to her city and her community. She has served as commissioner of both the Police Advisory Committee and Building and Standard Committee under Mayor Annise Parker and Mayor Bill White before her.

Ellen Cohen—2012 Pride Marshal Ally
City Councilmember Ellen Cohen has a long history of progressive activism beginning with her founding of Reach to Recovery of Canada, a support group for post-mastectomy breast-cancer patients. After moving to Houston in 1977, Cohen became executive director of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and CEO of the Houston Area Women’s Center (HAWC). In these positions she advocated for domestic partnership rights of same-sex couples for city employees. She continued her advocacy for LGBT rights as a Texas legislator for statewide LGBT rights and now, as a city councilmember for District C, she continues to work toward equality for all.

Congratulations again to this year’s LGBT marshals. We look forward to seeing them at 2012 Pride Houston Parade in June.

BARC Animal Shelter & Adoptions is competing for a chance at more than $500,000 in grant funding, including a grand prize of $100,000. BARC needs your vote now and every day until April 16th! Supporters of BARC can help by voting online at http://votetosavelives.org/ and selecting “BARC Animal Shelter & Adoptions”. BARC is now ranked #25 overall in the voting and still #5 in our division in the ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge. We need your continued support to keep moving up! C’mon – Houston is the 4th largest City in the Nation – let’s show our strength by the number of our votes!

Please share with everyone you know and remind them to vote every day…only 6 days left to Promote the Vote!

We greatly appreciate everyone’s efforts to help us make the Challenge. This is a wonderful opportunity to come together as a shelter and community to Save More Lives. The attention it can bring our shelter is invaluable, not to mention the funds that are available to win.

It’s so easy to show your support!

1. Visit www.votetosavelives.org
2. Select BARC Animal Shelter & Adoptions
3. Click Vote Today!
4. Enter your email address and click Submit Vote.

If it is the first time you are voting, you must check your email for the confirmation from the contest and click through to acknowledge your email.(You will see a message that you need to confirm after click Submit Vote if your confirmation hasn’t been received)

Vote every day through April 16 and get everyone you know to do the same!

You can visit our Facebook page for updates. (Please like our facebook page if you haven’t already—we promote many of our events and promotions, as well as adoptable dogs and cats on our facebook page!)

Feet on the Street: We’ve got plenty of more cards with voting instructions and information for you to share with your community. Pick some up at the 2700 Evella Street guardhouse any time of day. Let’s get the word out and show Houston that BARC is here and we need help!

Remember: Vote, Promote, and Repeat!

My first few months in office have been both challenging and productive. In addition to responding to over 1,000 constituent requests, we have been focusing on a number of critical items, including several that have come through the Public Safety Committee. As Vice Chair of that committee, I’d like to update you on those issues.

Council recently approved plans to open a Sobering Center. Millions of dollars are spent every year incarcerating intoxicated individuals which diverts law enforcement personnel and public safety resources. The Sobering Center is a way to manage these cases while ensuring the safety of the individual and the general public. Currently, intoxicated individuals are jailed. The Sobering Center would provide an alternative in which non-violent individuals are monitored and given time to sober up. Not only will the Sobering Center free up jail space and allow law enforcement to deal with more dangerous offenders, it will also provide a point of intervention and access to resources for outpatient treatment of alcohol and substance abuse. The Center will be operated by a Local Government Corporation. HPD, HFD, and Health & Human Services will provide city services and Star of Hope will provide referral and counseling services. The Sobering Center is the most efficient and compassionate way to deal with the cases and it will lead to a safer city for all Houstonians.

The Public Safety Committee is also studying the proposed Forensic Center. HPD has long been plagued with crime lab issues. Currently, the crime lab reports to the Chief of Police, who reports to City Council. The new Forensic Center would be operated by an independent board of directors. This allows for true impartiality and prevents persuasion from those who might have an incentive to attempt influence, including law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and elected officials. I believe a truly independent crime lab is needed.

Houston Infrastructure on Agenda at CIP meeting

The Capital Improvement Project (CIP) Town Hall Meeting was held at the West Gray Metropolitan Multi-Services Center. Over 200 constituents were briefed on proposed infrastructure improvements and were given an opportunity to provide feedback on which high-priority projects in their neighborhood. Learn More »

Ashby Highrise Settlement

Nearly 400 residents took part in the recent Ashby Highrise town hall meeting. Watch the Video »

Sunflower County, Mississippi Comes to Houston

It was a thrill for the District C office to host youngsters from the Sunflower County Freedom Project during their visit to City Hall. The Project offers academic enrichment for children living in the Mississippi Delta region. One of the Project’s founders is Shawn Raymond, the immediate past president of the Houston Area Women’s Center and Susman Godfrey partner.   View Photo Gallery »

The meeting, set for 7 p.m. at the Heights Fire Station, 107 West 12th at Yale, will focus on informing Cohen, the former Texas State Representative for District 134 and CEO of the Houston Area Women’s Center, on the Heights perspective on issues ranging from historic preservation to appropriate and sustainable development and transportation.

Also on the agenda are the final housekeeping items related to the Home Tour and Candlelight Dinner and Auction, as well as a look ahead to the next major event — the Heights Fun Run on June 2. For more information, visit houstonheights.org or call 713-861-4002.

The City of Houston is working towards providing a city-wide bikeway network to enhance mobility for all skill levels of bicyclists, so dust off that bike, pump up your tires and join neighbors at City Hall as Houston celebrates Friday, April 13, 2012 as Bike to Work Day.

During the City Hall presentation, bicyclists will learn more about upcoming projects and green initiatives, as well as talk about how easy it is to travel thru Houston on a bicycle, share information about favorite bike routes and trails.

Starting locations:

• Sun & Ski – Memorial Park Picnic Loop (official start)
• Bikesport 713-850-0250
• Bike Barn 713-529-9002
• Bicycle World & Fitness 713-529-0140
• Daniel Boone Cycles 713-526-7011
• West End Bikes 713-861-2271
• Blue Line Bike Lab 713-802-1707

For more details contact Dan Raine at (832) 395-2692 or email him at dan.raine@houstontx.gov. All riders are encouraged to wear bike helmets while cycling as well as get a bicycle tune up periodically.

This mayoral proclamation will highlight the phenomenal accomplishments of the Beren Academy boys basketball team, which placed second at the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) 2A state tournament last month in Fort Worth.

“I’m honored to co-sponsor this momentous occasion with Council Member Cohen as we acknowledge Beren Academy for finishing second in the TAPPS 2A Basketball Championship and giving them their much-deserved accolades,” said Council Member Green.

The Beren Stars nearly had to withdraw because the semifinals and finals were scheduled for the Jewish Sabbath. However, admiration and support to change the time of the games came from dusty Texas towns to distant European capitals and from such individuals and organizations as the White House, Mayor Parker, local, state and federal Texas elected officials including Council Members Cohen and Green, former Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy, sports columnists, rival schools and the Union for Reform Judaism.

The IBM computer, ranked as the 230th most powerful system in the world by the TOP500 Supercomputing site, will also allow the Houston institution to strengthen its international ties.

This week a delegation from Rice, including school president David Leebron and Houston Mayor Annise Parker, signed a collaborative agreement with the University of São Paulo in Brazil to share operation of the supercomputer.

“The great institutions of the 21st century will have to be great international universities,” said Rice Provost George McLendon. “Partnering with Brazil’s largest university is a good fit for us because Houston is a major trading partner with Brazil.”

Both U.S. and Brazilian scientists will use and support the supercomputer.

Supercomputers have become increasingly essential to scientists seeking to study and model all manner of problems, from energy to geophysics to weather forecasting and the basic life sciences.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but both Rice and IBM say they invested heavily to bring the Blue Gene machine, which became operational this week, to the Houston campus.

Richard Talbot, director of Power Systems for IBM in Austin, said the company was eager to work with Rice, which has previously used supercomputers to attract researchers from the nearby Texas Medical Center.

“Traditionally there has been a big gap between the biologists and the doctors and the computational scientists,” Talbot said. “One of our most significant challenges was how to bridge that gap and allow computer scientists to work with doctors. There are a lot of people talking about how to bridge the gap, but Rice is now way beyond the thinking stage – they’re actually doing it.”

José Onuchic, a Rice physicist, was one of five National Academy of Sciences researchers recruited to Houston last year. He came from the University of California San Diego to further his use of physics to investigate cancer.

“Rice allowed us the opportunity to take the next step in our research,” Onuchic said, “and this supercomputer is one of the main tools that will allow us to do that.”

Supercomputers are just becoming powerful enough to allow researchers to model the extremely complicated interactions of proteins, which break down food and moderate the body’s chemistry, in cells.

Scientists would like to be able to model these interactions, and then change the system to see if, for example, blocking a certain protein from functioning would halt the spread of cancer.

IBM has deployed about 40 of its Blue Gene supercomputers around the world. The systems are noted for packing a lot of computers together in a small space, to create a supercomputing system that’s as energy efficient as possible.

Rice’s model has six racks, meaning it contains nearly 25,000 processor cores that are capable of conducting about 84 trillion mathematical computations each second.

At other sites the Blue Gene computers are used for a variety applications, including running some of the United States’ major weather forecast models.

What the District C council representative is unsure of is where funding would come from to rehabilitate the Heights-area bridge.

“I am open to seeing what funding may be out there to rehabilitate the bridge,” Cohen said, adding that she understands the importance of keeping intact the historic integrity of the bridge, which was built in 1931.

The bridge is on Yale Street between Washington Boulevard and Interstate 10 and crosses White Oak Bayou. For now, the city has issued a load-limit restriction to extend the life of the bridge, which means commercial trucks such as box trucks, fire trucks, buses and even UPS package delivery vans may not cross the structure.

Cohen is arranging to meet with leaders from the community group, Responsible Urban Development for Houston, to discuss concerns the group outlined in a letter sent to her office March 7.

In the letter, RUDH, a volunteer group of citizens from the Heights and West End neighborhoods of Houston, states that its most immediate concern is keeping construction vehicles traveling to the nearby construction site of a Walmart from using the bridge.

The Ainbinder Co., a Houston-based real estate firm, is developing the site. As of presstime, representatives with Ainbinder and Walmart did not responded to calls and emailed messages.

In a letter to Cohen, RUDH wrote, “We would like to know what steps your office is taking to prevent hundreds of 70,000 pound cement mixers from staging on and traversing over the Yale Street bridge.”

Cohen said that a member of her staff has contacted the real estate developer to discuss the safety of the bridge and urged them to adhere to load-limit restrictions. She said no one from her office had contacted Walmart regarding the bridge.

Cohen wonders if a private-public partnership could be formed with the real estate developers or Walmart to help fund the bridge’s rehabilitation.

“If they want to be a part of the community, it may be wise to partner with the community in rehabilitating the bridge,” she said. “It would be a strong community revitalization effort on their part.”

The Texas Department of Transportation performs bridge safety inspections under the state’s Bridge Inventory, Inspection and Appraisal Program. A recent assessment of the Yale Street bridge performed by TxDOT resulted in reduction of the maximum traffic-load rating.

The bridge’s rating was reduced from a previous maximum weight load of 40,000 pounds and 21,000 pounds per tandem axle on a vehicle to 8,000 pounds per single axle on a vehicle and 10,000 pounds per tandem axle. In comparison, federal interstate standards set a limit of 20,000 pounds per single axle and 34,000 pounds per tandem axle.

For a standard passenger car with two single axles, the maximum acceptable weight on the Yale Street bridge would be 16,000 pounds, Houston Public Works and Engineering Department spokesperson Alvin Wright said.

“The bridge is safe,” he said. “There is no danger to the public, and they should continue to use the bride as they normally would.”

If commercial trucks continued to use the bridge, Wright said the structure’s life would be shortened, “but will not result in a total failure.”

The city is restricting all commercial trucks, including standard semi-tractor trailers, from using the bridge. Signs noting the restrictions and directing trucks to an alternate route were installed Nov. 22.

The Houston Fire Department, the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Houston Independent School District have been notified and have made route changes as necessary, Wright said.

Despite the posting of “No Thru Trucks” signs, RUDH director Jeffrey Jackson said over-limit dump trucks and cement mixers continue to cross the bridge to access the Walmart development site.

“Signage is clearly not sufficient to stop abuses,” RUDH wrote to Cohen.

In addition to the signs, the Houston Police Department’s Truck Enforcement Unit has been monitoring the bridge for violations on a daily basis, HPD spokesman Kese Smith said.

Since mid-January, the police unit has issued 30 citations to truck drivers in violation of the load-limit restriction. Officers have also conducted a number of truck inspections while monitoring the bridge, Smith said.

“The inspections are less bridge-related, but check to make sure the trucks have proper equipment, breaks are up to speed, and that they are not a hazard to other motorists,” he said.

TxDOT is scheduled to inspect the bridge again January 2014.