The HCC Board of Trustees has named a replacement for the outgoing Richard Schechter. Houston Community College trustees unanimously agreed Thursday to appoint attorney Leila Feldman to fill a recently vacated seat on the school board. Feldman served as associate general counsel for HCC from March 2009 to June 2010 and is now the general [...]
Posts Tagged ‘HCC’
Tell us more about these HCC concerns
The Chron expresses some concerns about recent happenings with the HCC Board of Trustees. As many longtime Houston residents are well aware, HCC has too frequently been plagued by problems involving the approval of contracts to board members’ supporters and relatives. Our endorsement of the bond issue was conditioned on the assurance that such problems [...]
One more election for 2013
There will be another special election in November to replace a departing member of the HCC Board of Trustees. The Houston Community College board will have two new faces after trustee Richard Schechter submitted his resignation and Mary Ann Perez was elected to the state House. HCC trustees will swear in former trustee Herlinda Garcia [...]
A first look at the 2013 elections
It is 2013, right? So while we have the SD06 special election and the new legislative session to worry about, it’s not too early to start talking about the 2013 elections. Let’s start with a peek at the campaign finance reports from last July of the Houston officeholders who will be on the ballot this [...]
Precinct analysis: HISD and HCC
I was reasonably confident that the HISD bond referendum would be successful, mostly because there wasn’t any real opposition from officials or constituencies that would normally be expected to support it. It had a much smoother path than the 2007 referendum, which still managed to pass, so it wasn’t hard to see this one making [...]
Not a surprise that the bonds passed
All of the bond issues on the ballot this year had favorable conditions working for them, so their ultimate passage should not be a surprise. The dire warnings of crippling debt, the long presidential campaign conversation about the limits of government and the potential for sticker shock over local governments’ asking to borrow $2.7 billion [...]
Endorsement watch: For the bonds
The Chron reiterates its support for the bond issues on the ballot. While all eyes are on the presidential race, we would like to remind voters that some of the most important issues for Houstonians aren’t on the first page of the ballot or covered by selecting straight-ticket voting (which we don’t advise in any [...]
All the interviews for 2012
As we begin early voting for the November election, here are all the interviews I conducted for candidates who are on the ballot as well as for the referenda. These include interviews that were done for the primary as well as the ones done after the primary. I hope you found them useful. Senate: Paul [...]
The opposition to the bonds
Noted for the record. Longtime City Hall naysayer Dave Wilson and other anti-tax activists gathered on the grounds of an elementary school that was slated to get $3.7 million from the last Houston Independent School District bond measure but instead was closed for lack of enrollment. Their message was that politicians cannot be trusted to [...]
Interview with Richard Schechter
The last bond referendum I’ll be discussing is the one that’s received the least attention so far, and that’s the HCC bond referendum. This isn’t terribly surprising, since HCC Trustee elections tend to be low-profile as well, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Indeed, given how much the HCC system has grown in [...]
Endorsement watch: HAR for the bonds
The Houston Association of Realtors has announced its endorsement of all of the referenda on the November ballot. The Houston Association of REALTORS® (HAR) board of directors has approved motions supporting the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (METRO) General Mobility referendum and bond packages proposed by the City of Houston, Houston Independent School [...]
Favorable poll for HISD and other bonds
It’s a good start. Most Houston-area voters plan to support $2.7 billion worth of city, public school and community college bond packages on the November ballot, according to a new poll. The results defy conventional wisdom that a crowded ballot makes passage of multiple bond measures less likely because of sticker shock. “Voters are in [...]
Endorsement watch: For HCC bonds
Apparently, the Chron has decided to get into the endorsement business early this year, certainly earlier than I’d have expected them to get into it, as they come out in favor of the HCC bond referendum. “We can either train and educate Houstonians to provide the skilled work force Houston businesses need, or we can [...]
HCC board approves its bond package
More bonds for your consideration this fall. Houston Community College trustees voted Thursday to placea $425 million bond referendum on the November ballot. If approved by voters on Nov. 6, the bond would help update classroom technology, build a new medical center facility, expand campuses and boost workforce development programs. It would also phase in [...]
Jamaal Smith: Cracking Down on For-Profit Colleges in Southwest Houston
The following is from a series of guest posts that I will be presenting over the next few weeks. I come from a family of educators. Four out of five of my aunts were teachers, and my wife is currently working on her Doctorate in Education. I was made to understand from an early age [...]
Interview with Mary Ann Perez
We come now to my final interview for Harris County and for the State House. Next week I will start running interviews with Congressional candidates from elsewhere in Texas. Today’s candidate for HD144 is Mary Ann Perez. Perez was elected to the HCC Board of Trustees in 2009 and currently serves as the Board President. [...]
The “Crazy College of Qatar”
As you may know, Houston Community College opened a satellite campus in Doha, Qatar, a couple of years ago. Apparently there have been a few bumps in the road along the way. The dean chosen by the Qatari government was replaced in November by a veteran HCC employee, Butch Herrod, as part of an administrative [...]
Lawsuit against HCC Board of Trustees dismissed
A good outcome for eight of the nine members of the HCC Board of Trustees. Houston Community College trustee Yolanda Navarro Flores must pay the school $35,700 to cover attorneys’ fees after a judge Friday dismissed the defamation lawsuit she filed against her colleagues. [...] Flores, reached Friday afternoon, said she did not know about [...]
Evaluating the endorsers
As you know, I kept track as best I could of endorsements that candidates received on my 2011 Election page. Now that the regular election is over, I thought it might be interesting to go back through those endorsements and see how many winners and losers each organization picked. The full results are beneath the [...]
2011 Houston results
Let’s go through the races… – Mayor Parker won with a shade under 51%, with none of her opponents cracking 15% on their own. Obviously, this is not a position a Mayor with no serious opposition wants to be in, and it won’t surprise anyone if one or more potential opponents for 2013 are on [...]
Endorsement watch: Robinson for HCC
The last two contested races awaiting Chron endorsements are the two HCC Trustee elections. They deal with the open seat race in District IV by recommending Carroll Robinson. The contest to replace outgoing Houston Community College District IV trustee Michael Williams pits two well known former Houston City Council members against each other. The similarities [...]
Interview with Jew Don Boney
We conclude this interview cycle with a familiar name in Houston politics. Jew Don Boney, who is running for the open HCC District IV seat, was the Council member in District D from 1995 to 2001; he was my Council member until I moved to the Heights in 1997. He is currently the Associate Director [...]
Interview with Carroll Robinson
The other contested race for HCC Trustee is in District IV, which is the open seat being vacated by Michael Williams. It features two former City Council members, the first of which is Carroll Robinson, who served in At Large #5 from 1997 to 2003. Robinson is a professor at Texas Southern, Chairman of the [...]
Interview with Wendell Robbins
Opposing Chris Oliver in District IX is Wendell Robbins. Robbins was a late entrant into the race whom I noticed when he picked up the endorsement of the Harris County Tejano Democrats. Robbins owns a construction company. This is his first run for public office. Here’s the interview: Download the MP3 file You can find [...]
Interview with Chris Oliver
There are two contested races for HCC Trustee seats this year. Chris Oliver is the incumbent in District IX. He was first elected in 1993 and first served as Board Chair in 1999. Oliver is a businessman who has also worked in the U.S. Department of Labor as an EEO specialist. Here’s the interview: Download [...]
Interview with Richard Schechter
Along with HISD Trustees, there are three HCC Trustee races on the ballot. First up is Richard Schechter, who is serving his first term in District V. Schechter is an attorney who has also taught law classes at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law. He helped point me in the right direction to get my [...]
My overview of the 2011 election
Note: I was asked to write a guest post at BOR to summarize the 2011 Houston elections. I figure if I’m going to put all that effort into something, I may as well use it here, too. It’s mostly familiar stuff to you if you’ve been reading here, but feel free to clip and share [...]
FBI investigation of HCC
Any time the FBI comes to town to investigate possible corruption in your business, it’s not a good thing. The FBI is investigating possible corruption at Houston Community College, an inquiry that appears to involve its former chief financial officer and a construction company founded by a friend. The college has cited an ongoing law [...]
Your 2011 electoral lineup
There are many candidates running for office this year. Some of them have a better rationale for running than others, but thankfully for them that’s not a requirement. A flurry of late filings to run for city office Wednesday filled out an election ballot that left only two Houston officials unopposed for re-election in November. [...]
Texas Watchdog followup on HCC reports
So after I published those HCC Trustee campaign finance reports, I got an email from Jennifer Peebles of Texas Watchdog, who asked me if I had redacted the files to hide the mailing addresses of the trustees and their donors. I said no, I had uploaded exactly what they gave me. Turns out they should [...]