News Articles

City budget hearings round-up: Airport and IT

Jun. 17, 2013Houston Chronicle

City Council last Tuesday concluded its run of budget hearings for Mayor Annise Parker’s proposed spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Continue Reading »

Houston to Expand Automated Curbside Recycling Program to 35,000 more Households

Jun. 13, 2013Office of Mayor Annise Parker

The City of Houston Solid Waste Management Department (SWMD) is pleased to announce an additional 35,000 households (see list below) will be added to its popular automated curbside recycling program. As part of the expansion, residents in neighborhoods throughout Houston will receive one 96-gallon green automated cart similar to the black automated garbage cart. Continue Reading »

Growth off T.C. Jester prompts calls to boost infrastructure

Jun. 11, 2013The Houston Chronicle

Woodcrest resident Maxine Savino has no problem with the high-end apartment complex being developed on T.C. Jester, north of Washington Avenue. Continue Reading »

Houston City Council approves more than $20 million in infrastructure projects

Jun. 6, 2013Examiner.com

The regular Wednesday morning meeting June 5 was postponed until 2:00 PM.

Mayor Parker and all City Council members attended the memorial service for 4 fallen Fire department officers at Reliant Stadium at 10:00 AM June 5, the time normally scheduled for City Council meetings. Continue Reading »

Council may move on recycling expansion (also, more budget hearings!)

Jun. 4, 2013The Houston Chronicle

City Council this Wednesday will vote on whether to spend $2.5 million to purchase 11,408 trash carts and 34,560 recycling carts for the Solid Waste Management Department, the latter a part of the city’s planned expansion of curbside single-stream recycling service. Continue Reading »

Firefighters Prepare to Honor Fallen HFD four

Jun. 4, 2013Fox 26

At the Houston firefighter’s union hall the carefully crafted memorial ribbons number more than 10,000. It is a foreshadowing measure of homage to come. Continue Reading »

This Week at City Hall

May. 31, 2013Office of Council Member Ellen Cohen

Continue Reading »

For Houston, it’s the most wonderful (budget) time of the year

May. 30, 2013Houston Chronicle

Hearings on Mayor Annise Parker’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2014 (which starts July 1) got underway this week, to a somewhat uneven start. Tuesday saw presentations from the departments of planning, public works and engineering, and housing and community development (links go to video of the presentations). Wednesday hearings covered the departments of health and human services, administration and regulatory affairs, neighborhoods, and the city controller’s office. Continue Reading »

Houston Is Unstoppable: Why Texas’ Juggernaut Is America’s #1 Job Creator

May. 28, 2013The Atlantic

Texas is killing it.

It dominated the recession, crushed the recovery, and in a new analysis of jobs recovered since the downturn, its largest city stands apart as the most powerful job engine in the country — by far. Continue Reading »

Dirty and Dated, but Irreplaceable

May. 26, 2013The New York Times

It is one of our enduring family photos from youth baseball: my sister dutifully in attendance, my father in a tie, my mother with a confectionary meringue of a bouffant. She looks like Peggy from “Mad Men,” and she is holding neither peanuts nor Cracker Jack but a can of bug spray.

Then the Astrodome opened in 1965, and we took a couple of eager vacation trips to Houston from south Louisiana, where the temperature and humidity seemed surpassed only by the cholesterol count. Continue Reading »