Off the Kuff | Knowledge Is Good

Eric Dick arrested on misdemeanor assault charge

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Eric Dick

Well-known Houston lawyer and Harris County Department of Education Trustee Eric Dick faces a misdemeanor assault charge, adding to his legal and ethical troubles.

The Houston Police Department arrested Dick on March 7 for hitting a female family member with his hand, according to a criminal complaint. Publicly available court records do not provide details about evidence obtained by police, statements made by witnesses and any injuries sustained by the alleged victim.

[…]

The criminal case is the second filed against Dick in the past year. Prosecutors in Hawaii charged him in May 2024 with four misdemeanor counts of attempting to unlawfully practice the law. Dick has pleaded not guilty.

Hawaii News Now reported in October 2023 that Dick’s law firm sent flyers advertising his services to residents affected by the devastating Maui wildfires, a potential violation of strict Hawaii rules and laws related to lawyers who aren’t licensed in the state soliciting potential clients.

See here for the previous Eric Dick update. He was released on his own recognizance, and I’m going to assume that some kind of plea or diversion deal will eventually be worked out. I hope that the alleged victim is safe. Beyond that I will just say that Eric Dick is the main character in some cursed reality show that we are all forced to be informed about. I hate this timeline. The Chron has more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged domestic violence, Eric Dick, Harris County, Hawaii, HCDE, Houston, HPD | Comments Off

Menefee and Edwards

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Christian Menefee has gotten off to a strong start in his candidacy for CD18.

Christian Menefee

In his congressional campaign’s first 24 hours, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee has raised contributions from more than 5,000 supporters and garnered endorsements from some of the state’s top Democratic leaders.

Menefee’s team announced Monday it had collected $100,000 from 2,000 donors in the six hours after unrolling his candidacy to represent Texas’ 18th congressional district. On Tuesday, the campaign announced it had raised more than $200,000 from more 5,000 donors. The average donation was around $40, his campaign said.

Also on Tuesday, his team unveiled endorsements from former U.S. Reps. Beto O’Rourke and Colin Allred, Harris County Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Leslie Briones, and Houston Controller Chris Hollins, along with several Houston City Council members.

“The enthusiasm we’re seeing in the first few hours is a clear message that people want bold, progressive leadership in Washington,” Menefee said in a Monday statement. “This momentum sends a powerful signal that we’re ready to challenge the status quo and lead Texas’s 18th District into a new era of leadership that prioritizes the needs of working families.”

The agility of Menefee’s fundraising was described by University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus using one word: “Stunning.”

There’s a premium on raising money early, Rottinghaus added — it indicates not only power, but a sophisticated campaign operation.

“It demonstrates that he’s the one to set the tone,” Rottinghaus said.

See here for the background. I said when Menefee made his move that I had not expected him to join this race because it meant giving up a lot for an uncertain outcome. But having this kind of groundwork laid before getting in helps. It is impressive, and speaks to a high level of preparedness. No guarantees, of course, but one would surely feel more confident with this kind of start.

Another reason to go in with that level of preparation is the expectation of strong opposition. And here it is.

Amanda Edwards

Former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards will run for the 18th Congressional District following the death of U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, Edwards announced Wednesday.

“My commitment to this community has never wavered, and I will continue to fight for the opportunities and resources our district needs,” Edwards said in a social media post. “We need the next generation of new leaders in Washington to combat Trump’s attacks on jobs, healthcare, and education.”

In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Edwards focused on the importance of the community and said she would bring new ideas and a fresh approach to the “turmoil” in Washington. She said President Donald Trump’s reversals of executive orders has caused angst and concern in the district.

Republicans control all branches of the federal government, and Democrats have been listless since Trump’s victory in November. Since falling out of power, Democrats have not messaged to supporters how to donate or how to focus their attention, Edwards said.

“Right now we’re not hearing that strategic vision on the defensive side,” she continued. “I don’t believe that sitting aside at this time is the right answer.”

Edwards unsuccessfully ran for the seat twice last year. She faced off against U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in the 2024 Democratic primary. Jackson Lee won the primary but died before the general election, opening the party’s nomination anew. Edwards came in second place in that race to Turner, the former mayor of Houston.

You know I’ve been an Edwards fan, and I expected her to enter the race. I like that all of the candidates so far have adopted a confrontational attitude towards Trump and his sycophants. Lord knows, we’re going to need all of that and more. Edwards has had a bit of hard luck in her quest for CD18 – she thought she was running for an open seat in 2024, and wound up not only running against Sheila Jackson Lee at the last minute but then facing off against Sylvester Turner in the precinct chair race. Now she gets to square off against Christian Menefee and his formidable opening bid. Whatever happens, you can’t say she had an easy path. We don’t know who else might join this as-yet-unscheduled race – the story notes that Rep. Jolanda Jones is thinking about it, and as I said before this is basically a free shot for legislators as they can keep their seats unless and until they win – but my guess is that the field is already pretty crowded. If there is a May election set, which would have to happen soon, we’ll get a definitive answer then. The Press, Campos, and the Chron have more.

Posted in Election 2025 | Tagged Amanda Edwards, CD18, Christian Menefee, Congress, Election 2024, Election 2025, Erica Lee, Harris County Attorney, Isaiah Martin, James Joseph, Jolanda Jones, resign to run, Sheila Jackson Lee, special election, Sylvester Turner, Texas | 5 Comments

Bill to ban cellphones at schools proposed

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

It’s got a lot of support early on.

Rep. Caroline Fairly

Lawmakers want Texas to join a growing number of states in restricting public school students from using their cellphones during the school day, answering calls from educators who say the state needs to remove distractions from the classroom.

Under House Bill 1481, introduced by Rep. Caroline Fairly of Amarillo, K-12 public school students wouldn’t be allowed to use their cellphones during the regular school day. It comes as at least eight states have enacted similar bans in the past two years, including Democrat-led states like California and Republican-led states like Arkansas.

The bans come as parents have become more worried about the negative mental health impacts of cyberbullying and youths’ social media use.

The bill is co-sponsored by a majority of the Texas House, including both Democrats and Republicans. Fairly, a Republican and the only Gen Z member of the Texas Legislature, said she introduced the legislation because she was “born into these devices” and understands the distraction they can cause in the classroom.

“When you see what is being pushed on social media and the distraction it causes in the classroom, there is a need for our government to support our educators in this,” Fairly said in an interview with The Texas Tribune on Tuesday.

Fairly added she hopes the ban will help improve students’ mental health and academic outcomes.

A growing body of research in recent years has suggested that cellphone use in schools can cause students to have trouble engaging in the classroom and have shorter attention spans. Several Texas school districts already have cellphone bans in place. Rancier Middle School in Killeen ISD, about 75 miles north of Austin, is one school that did so recently.

[…]

Some who testified Tuesday said that barring students from using their phones during the entire school day was too restrictive. An earlier version of the bill, filed in December, banned cellphone use during “instructional time” rather than the “school day,” meaning it left the door open for students to use their devices when they were outside the classroom.

Tricia Cave, a lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators, told committee members that while her organization backed the original version of the bill, they do not support the new language banning cellphone use throughout the entirety of the school day. She said while she still supports the purpose of the bill, the new language is “overly prescriptive.”

Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston, said during Tuesday’s hearing that she worried a cellphone ban was a step too far and would make it more difficult for students to contact law enforcement or their parents in situations where their safety was threatened. She referenced the mass shooting at Uvalde Elementary School in 2022, when students called law enforcement to alert them.

Some who testified Tuesday also said the bill would create an “unfunded mandate” by forcing school districts to comply with a new policy while not being provided the funds to do so. Mary Lowe, co-founder of the nonprofit Families Engaged for Effective Education, said that by adding a new requirement for school districts without new funding, HB 1481 would also take away some local control from these districts to determine their own cellphone policies.

Fairly said she is open to adding new funding to the bill.

I’m not opposed to this, which you can file under “easy for you to say” since my youngest is about to graduate and I won’t need to worry about it. I can believe that cellphones are a distraction, and as someone who grew up well before they existed, I know the kids can make it through the day without them. I also understand the security objection, and I support giving schools some flexibility and all of the funding they might need to make this happen. I wish there were more research to show what the best practices were, but there’s going to need to be some experimentation to figure out what those are, so we may as well try. If this passes, it would go into effect in the fall of 2025, so we’ll get some data right away. I trust there will be plenty of research done as we go.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Alma Allen, Association of Texas Professional Educators, Caroline Fairly, cellphones, schools, Texas, The Lege | 2 Comments

Texas blog roundup for the week of March 17

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance stands with Mahmoud Khalil as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Off the Kuff notes that the Trump “Justice” Department has dropped the redistricting lawsuit filed by the Biden Justice Department after the 2021 redistricting.

SocraticGadfly talked about the end of an era at Southwest Airlines, looking at the end of “your bags fly free” — and other items Southwest announced.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project reports from a protest at a Houston Tesla dealership & says the next protest will take place when you organize it.

======================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Candidus shows how Donald Trump today resembles King George III, as documented by the authors of the Declaration of Independence.

Your Local Epidemiologist answers some questions about the MMR vaccine.

The Austin Chronicle reported from a SxSW panel on modern cars and the amount of our personal data they hold.

Law Dork worries about SCOTUS taking up a case involving state bans on conversion therapy.

The Houston Press looks at the ethos behind “pay what you can” theater tickets.

The Texas Signal notes some bad polling for school vouchers.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged blog roundup, TPA | Comments Off

Third Houston measles case documented

Posted on March 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Again, we hope that’s all there is.

The Houston Health Department has confirmed the city’s third measles case, months after identifying two cases in adults which marked the first measles cases since 2018.

The Houston Health Department Sunday reported an unvaccinated infant had been exposed to measles during international travel, a news release states. The infant was hospitalized and has since been discharged and was recovering at home, it said.

[…]

The recent confirmed case is not connected to the measles outbreak in West Texas and is not related to the cases confirmed in January, the release states. Since the outbreak, one child has died from measles after being hospitalized in Lubbock.

The first two Houston cases were from January. As hoped, there was no further spread. We can hope for more of the same this time. The Houston Landing has some more information about the affected family, who had been exposed to the measles while travelling internationally. Cases are up in many countries around the world in addition to the US.

And then there was this over the weekend:

On Wednesday, a woman gave birth in a Lubbock, Texas, hospital in the middle of a deadly and fast-growing measles outbreak. Doctors didn’t realize until the young mother had been admitted and in labor that she was infected with the measles.

By that time, other new moms, newborns and their families at University Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Lubbock had unknowingly been exposed to the virus, considered one of the most contagious in the world.

Hospital staff are scrambling with damage control efforts — implementing emergency masking policies and giving babies as young as three days old injections of immunoglobulin, an antibody that helps their fragile immune system fight off infections.

A 2021 study found that the therapy is highly effective in protecting exposed newborns from getting sick.

“These babies didn’t ask for this exposure,” said Chad Curry, training chief for the University Medical Center EMS. “But at the end of the day, this is the only way we can protect them.”

Neither Curry nor UMC representatives could give an exact number of exposed newborns.

It’s unclear when the woman tested positive for measles. Public health officials are casting a wide net in an effort to contact everyone who may have been exposed to this particular patient. Viral particles can live in the air or on surfaces for up to two hours.

We’ll just have to see what effect that has. All my sympathies to the public health officials in Lubbock now dealing with this.

Those stories were from before Tuesday, when we got the latest case numbers.

Texas Department of State Health Services reported Tuesday that the state has now seen 279 measles cases amid the outbreak, an increase of 20 since the agency’s last update on Friday. New Mexico health officials reported 38 cases as of Tuesday morning.

In Texas, 36 people have been hospitalized amid the outbreak, which is still centered in the South Plains region, according to DSHS data. One school-aged child has died, the first measles death in the United States since 2015. New Mexico has reported two hospitalizations and one death, an unvaccinated adult.

[…]

More than two-thirds of cases have been in Gaines County, a small county along the New Mexico border. But there have been some cases in the Panhandle and as far as Lamar County, located northeast of Dallas along the Oklahoma border.

Gaines County remains the epicenter of the outbreak and reported 17 new cases on Tuesday. The county has reported a total of 191 cases amid the outbreak, according to DSHS data.

Cochran, Lamar and Lubbock counties each reported one new case. Cochran County has now reported a total of seven cases amid the outbreak, while Lamar and Lubbock counties have each reported five.

No new infections which reported in the other seven counties that have seen cases amid the outbreak. Of those seven counties, Terry County has seen the most cases with 36.

Of the 279 cases, 88 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 120 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17.

Only two cases have been seen in people who received at least one dose of the MMR vaccine prior to an infection.

Per the DMN, Oklahoma is still reporting four cases, same as their initial report. This is a slightly smaller bump than we’ve been getting, but it’s just a half-week’s worth of data, and there’s no particular reason to think things are slowing down. If the next three or four reports show a tapering off, then we’ll have something.

And once again, we must remind you, measles is bad.

Dr. Alex Cvijanovich has been a practicing pediatrician for more than 20 years. She says she’s still haunted by the memory of a teenage boy she treated at the start of her career in Utah.

The boy had contracted measles as a 7-month-old, when he was too young to be vaccinated. “He got the virus from a child in his neighborhood who was unvaccinated,” says Cvijanovich, who now practices in New Mexico.

It was a relatively mild case of measles, and the infant recovered. She says he grew up to be a healthy, bright kid — an honor student.

Then in middle school, he started to develop troubling symptoms. “He started getting lost between classes, lost like he couldn’t find what class to go to next,” Cvijanovich says.

Worried, the teen’s parents took him to a series of doctors to figure out what was wrong, until a pediatric neurologist finally suspected a condition called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, or SSPE. It’s a degenerative neurological condition that typically develops seven to 10 years after a measles infection. It is almost always fatal. Cvijanovich was part of the hospital team that confirmed the diagnosis.

“The problem is that there is no treatment for it,” she says. “And he basically became more and more incapacitated over time.”

Some 18 months after his initial diagnosis, she says, the teenager died.

SSPE was once considered quite rare. But Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in New York City who wrote a history of measles, says data from outbreaks in the U.S. over the past several decades suggests that may not always be the case.

“It turns out that in some age groups, especially in kids under about age 2, it’s much more common than we thought,” Ratner says.

For example, a review of measles cases in California found that, between 1988 and 1991, SSPE cases occurred as frequently as 1 in every 1,367 cases in unvaccinated children under age 5. Another study that looked at U.S. outbreaks between 1989 and 1991 put the rate of SSPE at roughly 1 out of every 4,600 measles cases.

Vaccination prevents not just SSPE, but also other serious complications that measles can cause — including pneumonia and severe brain swelling.

Those are long odds, to be sure. But how much do you want to increase the risk of death to your child? And note that in this case, the victim was someone who had been too young to get vaccinated, who was infected by someone who was unvaccinated by choice. How would you like to feel responsible for that? ABC News has more.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Austin, Centers for Disease Control, Cochran County, coronavirus, Dallam County, Dawson County, Ector County, Gaines County, Houston, Lamar County, Lubbock, Lynn County, Martin County, measles, Mexico, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rockwall County, subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, Terry County, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, vaccinations, Yoakum County | Comments Off

More on Paxton’s abortion arrests

Posted on March 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

From Mother Jones.

In what appears to be the first arrests of healthcare providers for allegedly violating a post-Roe v. Wade state abortion ban, Maria Margarita Rojas, a midwife working in the region around Houston, and her employee, medical assistant Jose Manuel Cendan Ley, were taken into custody by Texas authorities on Monday.

Court records from Waller County, west of Houston, show that law enforcement initially accused Rojas with practicing medicine without a license, but on Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he was adding the illegal performance of an abortion to her indictment—a second-degree felony in Texas, carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Ley is facing the same charges.

The New York Times reports that court documents allege that Rojas “attempted an abortion” on a woman on two occasions in March and was “known by law enforcement to have performed an abortion” on another patient this year. In his press release, Paxton claimed that Rojas ran a network of clinics in towns around Houston that “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals.” The website for the network, Clinicás Latinoamericanas, advertises urgent care services, treatment for chronic illness, and dietary counseling to a Spanish-language community. Paxton’s office said it had filed for a temporary restraining order to shut down the clinics.

On Tuesday, Paxton announced that a third person associated with the clinics, nurse practitioner Rubildo Labanino Matos, whose license is currently on probation, was arrested on March 8 and charged with conspiracy to practice medicine without a license.

[…]

The case against Rojas appears to represent the first time a healthcare provider has been arrested and jailed on charges of providing an illegal abortion. A website for a birthing center linked to Clinicás Latinoamericanas says Rojas was born in Peru, received her Texas midwife certification in 2018, and has attended “over 700 births in community-based and hospital settings.” The birthing center opened the same year Rojas got her license. Its website describes the center as focusing “on providing comprehensive care to pregnant woman and their families…Women here are treated with love and respect, empowering them to fulfilling their desire for a natural childbirth.”

Rojas’ friend and fellow midwife, Holly Shearman, reacted to the charges with shock, the New York Times reported. “They’re saying that she did abortions or something?” Shearman told the Times. “She never ever talked about anything like that, and she’s very Catholic. I just don’t believe the charges.”

According to Bloomberg, Rojas’ bail has been set at $1.4 million, and Ley’s at $700,000.

See here for the background. Here’s more from Slate.

Paxton likely picked Rojas for a reason: not just to send the message that “every life is sacred,” as Paxton told the press, but also to signal that midwives who provide abortions are unsafe, unqualified, and dishonest. Paxton’s strategy fits into a pattern of pre-Roe prosecutions, all while concealing the ways in which the criminal law related to abortion has become far harsher than it was before 1973.

Few details about Rojas’ case are publicly available, but Paxton arrested her and a staff member, alleging that they worked in four clinics across Texas’ Waller County. According to Paxton, Rojas and her colleague provided illegal abortions and falsely held themselves out as licensed medical professionals. (Rojas herself has been a licensed midwife since 2018, but Paxton appears to allege that she identified as a physician.)

The fact that Rojas is not a physician is central to Paxton’s strategy: He claims that the prosecution will protect women from unlicensed and presumably unsafe providers. His office seems to be hearkening back to horror stories like that of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of murder in 2013, and was accused of killing viable infants who were born alive, illegally dispensing opioids, and killing several patients. To date, Paxton hasn’t laid out evidence that Rojas harmed her patients beyond employing unlicensed staff.

The more we understand the history of criminal abortion laws, the less surprising Paxton’s move is. The physicians who crusaded in the 19^th century to criminalize abortion throughout pregnancy claimed to protect unborn life, safeguard marriage, and ensure that white Protestant women, rather than Catholic immigrants, populated the nation. The laws these doctors championed sometimes seemed to authorize the punishment of women as well as doctors. But in and beyond the 19^th century, prosecutors mostly charged providers, not patients, believing the testimony of the latter to be necessary to get enough evidence for a conviction.

And not all providers faced equal consequences. As historian Alicia Gutierrez-Romine has shown in her study of abortion in California, licensed physicians, who were more likely to be male and white, were less likely to face prosecution—or to face prison time if they were criminally charged. The same wasn’t true of midwives or physicians of color. Prioritizing the prosecution of a midwife like Rojas doesn’t seem like anything new.

The law in many states reinforced prosecutors’ tendency to single out some providers. State statutes included an exception for the life of the patient, which could apply either when patients intended to terminate a pregnancy or when someone required care after a miscarriage or stillbirth. Often, states exempted physicians from prosecution if they acted in good faith to protect the life or health of their patients. That wasn’t true for midwives like Rojas. Criminal laws, after all, had been designed by physicians and preserved their prerogatives. It was also easier to target midwives, who had less financial pull or political power. And in any case, prosecutors were more likely to act when a provider hurt women or seemed likely to. For decades, as historian Leslie Reagan has shown, prosecutors primarily went forward in abortion cases when a provider inadvertently killed a patient.

Paxton seems to be reading from a similar playbook, suggesting that his office is protecting women, and stressing that neither Rojas nor her employees were licensed physicians. Of course, as far as we know, he isn’t arguing that Rojas killed any patients, or endangered anyone, beyond allegedly holding herself or her employees out as possessing credentials they lacked.

If Paxton’s move in some way reflects past practice, Texas’ law and others like it are generally more punitive than what came before. Texas laws, for example, prescribe penalties far harsher than anything typical before 1973, including penalties of $100,000 per abortion and sentences up to life.

Besides, the deference to licensed physicians that defined the old regime is gone. Texas law requires doctors who intervene to protect a patient to show that their actions were objectively reasonable; good faith isn’t enough. That increases the risk for any provider addressing an emergency: The experts the state will tap to determine whether a procedure is reasonable could well come from organizations like the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which maintains that abortion is never medically necessary, and which has sent a member to the state’s Maternal Mortality Board.

There’s more from Daily Kos, the Texas Signal, the Houston Press, and Jessica Valenti. Again, we don’t know very much right now, and most of what we do know has come from either Paxton or the police, and neither should be taken as credible. At some point we will see the actual charges and we will hear from the defense attorneys, and then we can begin to draw some conclusions. Assume bad faith and bad motives by Paxton, and you won’t go wrong.

UPDATE: Here’s some new reporting from the Chron.

An anonymous one-sentence complaint submitted to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission in January started the investigation into a Texas midwife and her assistant who this week became the first person charged with performing illegal abortions under the state’s ban on the procedure.

“Hello. I wanted to file a complaint of a clinic in Texas that is offering abortions,” the tipster wrote on Jan. 17. “I know 1 person that they charge 1,300 for the abortion and as of right now [redacted] is there to get an abortion as well.”

The tip gave the clinic’s address as a 40750 Bus US-290 in Waller, the location of the Clinica Waller LatinoAmerica, a business the Texas Attorney General’s Office said is owned by Maria Margarita Rojas.

[…]

On Monday, the AG’s office also asked for a restraining order against Rojas’ four clinics – located in Waller, Cypress, Spring and Hempstead. In a petition seeking the order, lawyers for the AG’s office said the clinics were illegal operations that placed “the lives of unborn children and their mothers at risk.”

The petition, however, provides little detail about how state authorities investigated Rojas. The only evidence the petition cites is the one-sentence email the health commission received on Jan 17, and a slightly longer follow-up email the agency received on Jan. 23.

In the second email, the tipster appears to name two patients whose names are redacted in court filings.

The tipster wrote that one person sought an abortion in September 2024, when she was 3 months pregnant. Another woman sought an abortion in January, when she was 8 weeks pregnant, the tipster wrote.

“I know that this been occurring for a long time about the facility and I know that in Texas abortions [should] not be performed,” the email read. “Both abortion were not for any medical complication they were both made for irresponsibility of not wanting to protect themselves using birth control.”

It’s unclear from the filing if state investigators identified the tipster, who consented for the tip to be sent to other agencies.

Not a whole lot to go on there, and I don’t want to speculate ahead of the evidence. As I said, we’ll know more soon enough. This story notes that as of time of reporting, no restraining order against Rojas’ clinics had been issued.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged abortion, Attorney General, Jose Manuel Cendan Ley, Ken Paxton, Maria Margarita Rojas, Rubildo Labanino Matos, Texas, Waller County | 1 Comment

It’s always the highrises

Posted on March 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

We have such a weird history of them in this town.

A proposal to build a mixed-use tower in Montrose has hit a roadblock after the Houston Planning Commission rejected a variance request needed for the project, sending developers back to the drawing board amid neighborhood concerns.

The panel’s vote March 5 comes seven years after owners of Khun Kay Thai Café, at 1209 Montrose, pitched plans in 2018 to replace the restaurant with a high-rise, now dubbed the Icon M Tower.

City plans describe a 20-story tower, though the restaurant owners, who have a stake in the group developing the project, said it would have 18. The city documents show it would have 46 condominiums and a 3,200 square-foot ground-floor restaurant.

Developers sought approval to build the tower 16 feet closer to Montrose Boulevard. They argued the reduced setback was needed to build a more walkable development with an enclosed parking garage, instead of a surface parking.

Without the setback, the project’s architect told commissioners, there “was no way to do a vertical development on this property.”

But Planning and Development Department staff argued that the “proposed high rise is disproportionate to the size of the property and is inconsistent with surrounding development patterns.” They also argued that the developer didn’t prove that it would experience “financial hardship” if the request were denied.

In a video of the meeting reviewed by the Chronicle, some residents said they were worried about the effects of the project on traffic and pedestrian safety.

“When I have talked about it with my neighbors and described the plan for the site, the response has been incredulous. It’s just sort of obvious (that it’s an) inappropriately small lot for a 20-story tower,” said Sarah Frazier, president of the Hyde Park Civic Association. “We’re trading an inexpensive restaurant that’s currently there for an expensive restaurant with a bunch of luxury units and penthouses.”

Here’s a view of the block where this is. I don’t object to the idea of a highrise there – easy for me to say, I don’t live there, I know – but it sure does feel like that’s cramming a lot of building into a small space. By contrast, the infamous Ashby Highrise is sited on an entire block. I don’t know how that’s supposed to work on the Khun Kay space. Given the history of highrises in this city, it’ll be at least a few more years before we really have to contend with it. Good luck, y’all.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Ashby highrise, construction, density, Houston, Houston Planning Commission, Icon M Tower, Montrose, urbanism | Comments Off

Menefee files, Martin announces for CD18

Posted on March 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I woke up to this on Monday.

Christian Menefee

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee announced on Monday his bid for the congressional seat left vacant by the death of Democratic U.S. Rep. and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.

“I’m running because working families need a fighter,” Menefee said in an interview. “The fight for the soul of this country is happening right now in D.C., as Trump and Elon Musk roll back programs, lay off federal workers and impact people right here on the ground.”

Menefee filed his intent to run as a Democrat for the seat representing the 18th Congressional District on Saturday evening, hours after a memorial service was held in West Houston for Turner.

Menefee was first elected to county office in Nov. 2020 at 32 years old, becoming the youngest person and first Black American elected to the position, according to his office’s website. He grew up in the Houston-based congressional district and is raising his children there.

“This is home for me,” he said.

As Harris County’s top civil lawyer, he frequently challenged the state’s top Republican leaders, including over voting rights and Republican attempts to exert greater state control over local Democratic governance.

Menefee has also fought legal battles over environmental issues and sought to address the disparate impacts of pollution on communities of color. He has been a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump’s executive orders and signed an amicus brief in a federal lawsuit challenging Trump’s order to terminate birthright citizenship.

In the interview, Menefee said his experience as county attorney prepared him to take on the Trump administration and also work with Republicans when possible.

“There are going to be days where we must stand firm and fight back,” he said, including against efforts by the Trump administration to spend federal funding in a way not authorized by Congress, which holds the constitutional power of the purse. “But there’s also going to be days where it’s about collaboration … I know how to work with Republicans. I’ve done it for the four years that I’ve been in office.”

His priorities in Congress would include expanding health-care access, protecting clean air and water, increasing disaster recovery funding for the Gulf Coast district and improving affordability.

The prospect of the Trump administration ignoring court orders to pursue its agenda factored in to Menefee’s decision to jump in the race, he said. His job since the start of Trump’s second term “has been completely changed.”

“Every day, we are scrambling,” he said, trying to decipher the latest executive order or decision to cut certain programs.

“What I realized very quickly is the fight for our democratic institutions, the fight for ensuring that the branches of government work in the way that they’re supposed to, is happening right now in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “There was a lot of work that I could do as Harris County Attorney to try to blunt some of that, but it’s getting out of control, and it’s moving at a pace now to where we must do everything we can to ensure that Donald Trump is blocked in Washington, D.C.”

Elected officials who announce their candidacy in any special, general or primary election automatically resign their position if they have more than a year and 30 days left of their term, according to a provision of the Texas Constitution. But Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet declared a special election to fill Turner’s seat. Menefee was just reelected to a second four-year term in November.

Just to clarify, that Constitutional provision applies primarily to county officials. State legislators are not included in the list of affected positions. That would of course include Menefee, and the fact that he’d have to resign to run led me to believe he wouldn’t run, as that’s a lot to give up for an uncertain outcome. My interpretation of this reporting is that as there’s not yet actually an election, Menefee hasn’t done anything that would trigger the resign-to-run provision. At least, that was what I thought when I saw the original version of the story, in which Menefee had not yet commented. At this point, I’m not sure what the situation is. Obviously, we’ll know more soon enough. Because I have already been asked the question, if Menefee does resign, Commissioners Court will name a replacement, and there will be an election for the seat in 2026.

Menefee already has some company.

A few years ago, Isaiah Martin’s mentor, the late U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, told him to start posting videos on social media. That would be the future of politics, she advised. At first he didn’t think it’d go anywhere. But he was consistent, and he shared daily, unapologetic takes, mainly explaining Democratic stances on political issues.

Soon, he was in the fray.

“I would go into what was called MAGA TikTok lives,” he told The Barbed Wire. “You would have right-wing Republican creators that oftentimes would have debates 8-1 stacked up against me.”

“And I would go and cook them all.”

In excerpts of some of those live debates on his page, Martin beats back at disinformation. He denounces claims, like that cutting the corporate tax rate isn’t a boon for billionaires (the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found research that President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut boosted executives’ earnings but not workers below the 90th percentile); that President Joe Biden was responsible for increasing the national debt (as ProPublica found, Trump heralded an explosive rise in debt in his first term); and that Biden tanked the economy (the opposite is true, as The Guardian reported.)

Martin’s aim, he said, isn’t so much about converting Trump supporters as answering “those questions that they might not have heard a Democrat answer before.”

[…]

In an exclusive interview with The Barbed Wire, Martin said he’s running for Texas’ 18th Congressional District, which covers much of the city of Houston and surrounding areas, and is where he grew up.

Texas’ 18th has had a tumultuous eight months.

Jackson Lee represented the district from 1995 until her death in July of pancreatic cancer. She was succeeded briefly by her daughter, Erica Lee Carter, who completed Jackson Lee’s final term in office, and then by Turner, who had previously served as mayor of Houston after decades in the Texas House of Representatives. Turner also died after being treated for bone cancer.

The successive losses mean the 18th District will have a fourth representative in less than a year, Martin or otherwise. Although Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to announce the date of a special election, speculation has already begun over who will carry on the legacy of the political heavy-weights who have long-served Houston’s residents.

It’s a tall order.

In 1972, in that same seat, the late Rep. Barbara Jordan became the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South. Anti-poverty activist Mickey Leland also held the position and was succeeded by his friend Craig Washington, until Washington was handily defeated in 1994 by Jackson Lee.

In 2023, Martin ran to take over Jackson Lee’s district seat as she vied to become mayor of Houston. After her loss to (former state senator and current mayor) John Whitmire, Jackson Lee decided to try again for another U.S. House term, and Martin dropped out to support her. Afterwards, he said, he didn’t sit idly.

“I went to New York to go and help Congressman Tom Sazi, who’s now elected to Congress. I traveled to places like Oregon to elect Janelle Bynum, traveled to places like Alabama to go and elect people like Shomari Figures, who is right now inside of the United States Congress,” he said. “I’ve been around the country. I’ve campaigned for Democrats up and down the ballot and for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

I assume “Tom Sazi” is a misspelling of Tom Suozzi, who initially won a special election in 2024 to replace George Santos before winning a full term in November. This story also mentioned Menefee’s filing but didn’t provide a link, so as I saw this story before the Trib story I was momentarily confused. Looking at the current list of Statements of Candidacy, in addition to Menefee’s name there’s James Joseph, who ran for Houston City Council At Large #3 in 2023 and finished seventh out of nine. Martin has taken the rhetorical step, but he hasn’t filed the paperwork yet. And I got a press release yesterday from Amanda Edwards promising a “big announcement” for Wednesday, and I think we can all guess what that is. And now that we are past Rep. Sylvester Turner’s funeral, I expect to see more names out there. The Chron, Campos, and Olivia Julianna have more.

UPDATE: Welp.

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee’s decision to announce his candidacy for the vacant Congressional District 18 seat automatically triggered his resignation, and local Republicans already are campaigning for the candidate he beat last November to take over his job.

The Texas Constitution contains a provision that prohibits certain local officials from running for an office other than the one they currently hold. That provision states that any declaration of candidacy “shall constitute an automatic resignation of the office.”

Menefee’s decision to file a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission Saturday night, just months into his second, four-year term, triggered that provision automatically.

It now falls to the Harris County Commissioners Court to appoint a new county attorney that will hold the office until an election can be held. All five members of the court declined to comment or did not respond to a request to comment on Monday.

The Constitution does not set a deadline for Commissioners Court to make such an appointment, but Harris County Republicans on Monday called for the court to select local attorney and former county civil court judge Jacqueline Lucci Smith, the GOP candidate who lost to Menefee by just 17,000 votes in November.

[…]

In the meantime, the office is not truly vacant. The Texas Constitution allows for the office’s occupant to “holdover” until a replacement is appointed, Deputy County Attorney Jonathan Fombonne said.

“Nothing changes as far as we’re concerned,” Fombonne said. “We’re going to keep doing the good work we’ve been doing for the last four years until someone tells us we can’t.”

In a statement Monday, Menefee also assured the public his office — which defends county officials against lawsuits and provides legal advice to the local government — would continue to operate without disruption.

“The county attorney’s office is filled with talented, selfless public servants,” Menefee wrote. “It has been the honor of my lifetime to serve alongside them. I have no doubt that the office will continue to provide the same level of service to the county and its residents moving forward.”

It seemed increasingly likely that Menefee would indeed have to resign; the only argument against was that the election hadn’t yet been set, which to say the least was flimsy. So here we are. I will say that I have a greater chance of being appointed to replace Menefee than Jacqueline Lucci Smith does, but you go on and dream big.

UPDATE: It’s mentioned in there somewhere, but Erica Lee Carter is Menefee’s campaign treasurer. She has officially endorsed his campaign.

Posted in Election 2025 | Tagged Amanda Edwards, CD18, Christian Menefee, Congress, Election 2024, Election 2025, Erica Lee, Harris County Attorney, Isaiah Martin, Jacqueline Lucci Smith, James Joseph, resign to run, Sheila Jackson Lee, special election, Sylvester Turner, Texas | 4 Comments

Waller County midwife arrested on abortion charges

Posted on March 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Yikes.

A Houston-area midwife has been arrested on allegations she performed illegal abortions, the first criminal charges brought under the state’s near-total abortion ban, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday.

Maria Margarita Rojas, 48, was charged with the illegal performance of an abortion, as well as practicing medicine without a license, according to Paxton.

Rojas, who identified herself as “Dr. Maria,” operated a network of clinics in Waller, Cypress and Spring. According to Paxton’s news release, the clinics “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals.”

Rojas also allegedly provided illegal abortion procedures at these clinics, a second-degree felony that comes with up to 20 years in prison.

Waller County District Attorney Sean Whittmore told The Texas Tribune that Paxton’s office brought the case to his attention. The Office of the Attorney General does not have independent prosecutorial authority in Texas, but Whittmore, a former assistant attorney general, said he has invited the state to handle the prosecution. Whittmore said more charges against Rojas are expected in the coming days, and the case will next go to a grand jury to consider indictment.

[…]

Calls to Rojas’ clinics were not immediately answered Monday. Holly Shearman, a midwife who runs Tomball Birth Center, where Rojas worked part-time providing prenatal care, said she was “shocked” by the news of her arrest. She described Rojas as a devout Catholic and skilled midwife whose clinics provided health care to a primarily Spanish-speaking, low-income community.

“I don’t believe it for one second,” she said about the allegations. “I’ve known her for eight years and I’ve never heard her talk about anything like that. I just can’t picture Maria being involved in something like this.”

We don’t know a whole lot right now – as of yesterday afternoon, both this story and the Chron story had a note at the end saying this was developing and would be updated. I’m with Holly Shearman but until we do know more that’s mostly a statement of faith. On that score, I also agree with what Jessica Valenti says.

You cannot trust any information coming from Paxton’s office or Texas law enforcement. Paxton and Texas Republicans will be working overtime to paint Rojas as a villain, regardless of the truth. They know that abortion bans are incredibly unpopular, as is arresting healthcare providers. They’re not just fighting a legal battle here, but a PR one.

Consider what happened when Paxton filed a civil suit against New York abortion provider Dr. Maggie Carpenter: His office falsely claimed that the woman Carpenter sent abortion medication to suffered “serious complications” despite providing no evidence. There’s every reason to believe Paxton’s team will pull similar tactics here, coming out with all sorts of claims about this midwife and her practice.

So please pause before sharing information about this case. Right now, almost all available details are coming from Paxton or law enforcement, meaning early media coverage will overwhelmingly reflect the state’s framing. Be careful and deliberate about the sources you amplify.

And remember: The media gets abortion stories wrong all the time. When a Nebraska teenager was arrested for self-managing her abortion, national outlets falsely reported that she had sent a Facebook message about “how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body.” That quote wasn’t hers—it was something a police officer said—but the line got reprinted again and again in an attempt to make the young woman seem as callous as possible.

Something similar happened when Brittany Watts was arrested in Ohio for ‘abuse of a corpse’ after having a miscarriage. Local news stories framed her as indifferent to her pregnancy loss. Misogyny, racism, and classism all play a role in the way these cases are talked about and covered.

That’s why it’s so important we remember how abortion criminalization operates: Who gets targeted in these cases is no accident. The Texas Tribune reports, for example, that Rojas’ clinics “provided health care to a primarily Spanish-speaking, low-income community.”

Paxton, a political operator who picks cases strategically, likely chose Rojas because he believes Americans won’t find her sympathetic—whether due to racism, classism, or the stories his office plans to spin. That’s what’s happening in Louisiana, where prosecutors have arrested a mother they say ‘coerced’ her teenager into having an abortion. (Tellingly, they didn’t charge with her ‘coercion,’ just abortion.)

In other words: Republicans are strategically targeting people they think the public won’t rally behind. Let’s make sure to prove them wrong.

Duly noted. Stay skeptical and wait to see what the charges actually allege and what the defense has to say.

UPDATE: A later version of the Chron story reports that a second person was also arrested and is “expected to face the same charges as Rojas”.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged abortion, Attorney General, Ken Paxton, Maria Margarita Rojas, Texas, Waller County | Comments Off

And here comes the voluntary retirement plan

Posted on March 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Seems like the obvious move.

Mayor John Whitmire

In a letter sent to city employees Thursday, [Mayor John] Whitmire wrote that the city will be offering a “one-time Voluntary Municipal Retirement Payout Option” to employees who are eligible for retirement. The plan will include financial support and access to healthcare benefits, Whitmire wrote.

The city has also implemented a hiring freeze to all departments except fire and police and some customer service-facing roles, and it’s actively working on consolidating its departments.

Whitmire’s letter comes on the heels of the administration presenting the results of a study completed by Houston-based accounting firm Ernst & Young. The study examined each city department with the goal of examining financial and organizational efficiency.

The study found extensive problems with the way the city chooses companies to provide city services, as well as questionable usage of city employee credit cards.

“Change is never easy, but we are not simply making changes for the sake of change,” Whitmire wrote. “Every decision we make is guided by a commitment to ensuring that Houston remains a leader in public service, economic opportunity, and quality of life.”

He continued: “As we enter this new phase, your role in this transformation is essential. Your ideas, your dedication, and your passion for service are what will drive us forward. Over the coming months, we will continue to communicate openly about our progress and provide opportunities for you to engage in shaping our future.”

Whitmire’s spokesperson Mary Benton said around 2,700 employees will be eligible to participate in the program, and that discussions between the city’s human resources department and eligible employees just began Friday morning.

See here for more on the efficiency report, and hiring freeze. I’m pretty sure the freeze and the voluntary severances are out of the Annise Parker 2010 playbook. That’s not intended as snark, just a recognition that there are only so many moves to be made in this situation, especially when raising revenue is difficult.

Plus, it may have the effect of impressing certain types of people.

Now, Whitmire and his team, led by Chief of Staff Chris Newport and Deputy Chief of Staff Steven David, are trying to make Houston stand out among other blue cities to help its financial case as its deficit grows.

The key, they hope, lies with a new city-commissioned study by the Houston accounting firm Ernst & Young that analyzed the efficiency of every city department. The goal is to cut unnecessary costs and make every tax dollar count. City officials hope to show lawmakers that they’re doing their part to weed out waste.

David and Newport last Wednesday presented the study’s findings to the House’s “Delivery of Government Efficiency” committee in a pitch to receive financial help. The mayor’s office noted the city’s work on the study has been done preceded the committee, and started well before its creation.

Lawmakers praised the city’s efforts.

“Y’all are awesome … If I could clone you, I would,” said state Rep. Daniel Alders, a North Texas Republican, before asking the pair to come to Waco to show off the work.

It’s unclear whether the study’s tour across Austin during this legislative session will achieve Whitmire’s goal of getting a response to Houston’s cries for financial help.

Both Newport and David say they’re “cautiously optimistic,” and hope that even if it doesn’t reap rewards immediately, the seeds of trust might be planted to create the bouquet later.

“We’re being transparent about what our image looks like today and what we’re going to do about it, warts and all,” Newport said.

Whatever. The article notes up front that Whitmire’s Austin connections haven’t been all that useful so far, but maybe this will help. Doesn’t hurt to try, but as with the audits and efficiency studies themselves, it’s best to keep one’s expectations modest.

Finally, this was in my inbox last week:

Houston City Controller Chris Hollins today announced the release of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Audit Plan, a strategic initiative to enhance financial accountability, optimize city resources, and maximize taxpayer dollars. The plan prioritizes high-impact audits to identify cost savings, eliminate waste, and strengthen fiscal oversight and outcomes across city departments.

“As the City’s financial watchdog, my job is to ensure every dollar works for Houstonians,” said Controller Chris Hollins. “This audit plan is more than a fiscal checkup—it’s a roadmap to smarter spending, greater efficiency, and better city services. In a time of financial strain, we must proactively find solutions that set Houston on a path to long-term economic stability.”

The FY2025 Audit Plan focuses on:

Performance audits to assess efficiency and effectiveness in city operations;

Compliance audits to ensure financial policies and regulations are followed;

Contract audits to scrutinize vendor agreements and spending;

Forensic audits to detect and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse; and

Cost recovery initiatives to reclaim potential revenue losses.

The plan also includes follow-up audits to track the implementation of past recommendations, reinforcing accountability and a cycle of continuous improvement in city operations.

“Long-term fiscal health requires more than short-term or temporary funding sources,” Hollins said. “Through transparent oversight and best practices, we can help to safeguard taxpayer dollars by eliminating waste and maximizing efficiency—improving financial outcomes today while also investing in Houston’s future.”

Under Hollins’s leadership, the City Controller’s Office expanded its audit scope to incorporate enhanced performance, contract, and forensic reviews to identify financial risks before they become costly issues.

To keep residents informed, the Controller’s Office will publish quarterly audit reports on its website, providing regular updates on findings, recommendations, and corrective actions.

“While the word ‘audit’ can sound intimidating, our approach has value beyond uncovering problems—it can help drive solutions and outcomes,” Hollins said. “Through transparent reporting and communication, we will provide City leaders with a pathway to operate with greater fiscal responsibility.”

The FY2025 Audit Plan, which includes the complete list of audits, is available online at Annual Audit Plan.

Audits everywhere. Some Controllers have been busier with that function than others. I’ll be very interested to see where Controller Hollins agrees with Mayor Whitmire and where he disagrees with him.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged Annise Parker, budget, Chris Hollins, deficit, Houston, Houston City Controller, Houston City Council, John Whitmire, property taxes, revenue cap, The Lege | 1 Comment

The federal buildings that may or may not get sold

Posted on March 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Who can even tell with these incompetent wannabe evildoers?

The General Services Administration, landlord for federal government, said Tuesday it planned to sell more than 440 buildings across the U.S., including three in Houston and 21 others in Texas.

The targeted buildings in Houston were the Mickey Leland Federal Building at 1919 Smith with its passport office; the Alliance Tower at 8701 S. Gessner, with State Department and IRS offices; and the Houston Custom House, which fills an entire downtown block at 701 San Jacinto and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“Federally-owned assets in GSA’s portfolio that are not core to government operations primarily consist of office space,” the administration said in a statement posted to its website Tuesday. “GSA currently owns and maintains over 440 non-core assets comprising almost 80 million rentable square feet across the nation and representing over $8.3 billion in recapitalization needs. Decades of funding deficiencies have resulted in many of these buildings becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by our federal workforce. We can no longer hope that funding will emerge to resolve these longstanding issues. GSA’s decisive action to dispose of non-core assets leverages the private sector, drives improvements for our agency customers, and best serves local communities.

“GSA will consider non-core assets for divestment from government ownership in an orderly fashion to ensure taxpayers no longer pay for empty and underutilized federal office space, or the significant maintenance costs associated with long-term building ownership — potentially saving more than $430 million in annual operating costs,” it said.

But Wednesday morning the list at the GSA website was gone, the web page updated early in the day.

[…]

The original list identified four buildings in Austin, three in Dallas, and others in Del Rio, El Paso, Farmers Branch, Fort Worth and border patrol sector headquarters in Marfa and McAllen.

This is in addition to a bunch of leased properties that have been targeted as well. There’s no strategy or method here, it’s just slashing and burning for its own sake. As a recent viral post pointed out, you could save yourself a ton of money by selling your cars, cancelling your homeowner’s insurance, and firing the kids’ babysitter/afterschool care, but it’s unlikely any of that will leave you in a better position afterward. Even if you buy into the idea that there’s a ton of “waste” that “needs” to be “cut”, the DOGEbags are going about it in the stupidest and most harmful way possible. This is what we’re up against. The Current has more.

Posted in National news | Tagged DOGE, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, General Services Administration, Houston, IRS, Mickey Leland, National Register of Historic Places, San Antonio, Texas | Comments Off

An overview of our state water situation

Posted on March 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

It’s pretty bad.

Texas officials fear the state is gravely close to running out of water.

Towns and cities could be on a path toward a severe shortage of water by 2030, data compiled in the state’s 2022 water plan by the Texas Water Development Board indicates. This would happen if there is recurring, record-breaking drought conditions across the state, and if water entities and state leaders fail to put in place key strategies to secure water supplies.

At risk is the water Texans use every day for cooking, cleaning — and drinking.

State lawmakers are debating several solutions, including finding ways to bring new water supply to Texas, and dedicating more money to fix dilapidated infrastructure.

For most other Texans, however, the extent of their knowledge of where water comes from is the kitchen faucet and backyard hose. But behind every drop is a complicated system of sources, laws and management challenges.

So, where does Texas get its water? Who owns it? And why are we running out? Let’s break it down.

It’s a long story, it covers a lot of ground including a bunch of stuff I’ve blogged about here, so read the rest. There’s stuff that can be done, and I do expect the Lege to do some of it. But not all, because that never happens, and given the current federal hostility to renewable energy and the growing demand for power and water from data centers and artificial intelligence and cryptominers, we’re allowing a lot to happen to make things worse. There will still be things that can be done as that happens, but the choices get less appealing and the costs get higher as we go.

That’s all long-term stuff. In the short term, there are other things to be concerned about.

Texas has been in a drought as it often is, but in recent years it sure feels like we’ve been “in” drought more than out of it. Since the start of 2025, Texas has struggled mightily in the rainfall department. With the exception of the Piney Woods and parts of Southeast Texas near Houston, it has been a very, very dry start to the year.

Lubbock, Midland, and El Paso are all having top 15 driest starts to a year, with El Paso seeing less than a tenth of an inch of rainfall so far in 2025. Wichita Falls, Abilene, and San Angelo are all having very dry starts to a year, though not historically so. This has allowed for expansion of drought since the beginning of year, with the beginning stages of a rapid onset drought in the last 10 days or so.

The recent bump in windy, dry storms has helped accelerate this process. According to an early March forecast update from the National Interagency Fire Center, “Confidence is increasing in a high impact spring fire season across the southern Great Plains. The expected weather pattern and its impacts to the fire environment are of major concern, and at least weekly high-end wind events are plausible through March and April.”

So, possibly some immediate crises, and also fire risk. Happy springtime, y’all.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged climate change, drought, fire, National Interagency Fire Center, Texas, Texas Water Development Board, The Lege, water | 1 Comment

You reap what you sow

Posted on March 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I have one thing to say to this.

In early February, the Texas Farm Bureau defended President Donald Trump as he moved to enact tariffs on foreign goods coming into the United States, saying they trusted him to “protect the interests of farm and ranch families.”

But now, after more rounds of tariffs and counter tariffs by nations including China, Canada and the European Union have started to hit demand for U.S. agriculture goods overseas, Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening acknowledged his members are growing anxious.

“We understand that’s his negotiating tool, but at the same time tariffs can be hard on agriculture,” he said. “If you’re in a good spot you can withstand this, but you worry about the producer who has only been in this five or ten years and doesn’t have a lot of equity built up. Those are the operations that could be in trouble.”

Texas farmers, already struggling from drought and low commodity prices, are on the front line of a growing trade war between the United States and its longtime trading partners. And as a key Trump constituency, their discomfort is likely to be of particular concern to a White House that has already gone back and forth over enacting tariffs.

Cotton, a staple for farmers in West Texas, hit its lowest price in four years earlier this month after China announced a 15% retaliatory tariff on a number of U.S. agricultural goods. China, the largest buyer of grain sorghum in the world, has also virtually stopped buying the crop from Texas farms, Boening said.

And it’s looking increasingly likely that Mexico, a major buyer of U.S. rice, a big crop in East Texas, will be turning to farms in South America if Trump goes ahead on his threat to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada on April 2, S&P Global Intelligence, a research firm, reported earlier this month.

I have no interest in using my words here. They don’t deserve them. Here’s a video.

FAFO. The leopards thank you for the sustenance.

Posted in National news | Tagged Donald Trump, Election 2024, farming, President, tariffs, Texas, Texas Farm Bureau, videos | 3 Comments

Weekend link dump for March 16

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“The history of the present ~~King of Great Britain~~ President of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”

“It is difficult to find another person connected to DOGE who has stronger ties to Musk than Branden Spikes.”

“You cannot be unfair, but still kind. You cannot be oppressive, but still kind — or exploitative, but still kind, or predatory, but still kind, or exclusionary, but still kind. You cannot be anti-diversity, anti-equality, or anti-inclusiveness and in any way be anything anywhere close to kind.”

“More pointedly, what does the sale mean for Bond’s future? Amazon, of course, had purchased MGM, Bond’s longtime home, in 2022 for $8.5 billion, mostly to get its hands on 007 IP and build it into a Marvel-style universe filled with bingeable TV spinoffs. The only things stopping them were Broccoli and Wilson, who had very different ideas for their father’s legacy, as well as a decades-long deal with MGM guaranteeing them creative dominion over all things Bond. But now that they’re out of the picture, Amazon can do whatever it wants. A TV show about Moneypenny? Why not. A prequel about Blofeld’s teenage years? Sure. More 007 game shows? Please no. But anything is possible. Amazon is now free to milk the franchise dry.”

“Axed federal workers face relatives who celebrate their firing by DOGE”.

“Even your hobbies can’t escape global politics.”

RIP, Kevin Drum, longtime political blogger. I actually met him way back when, in 2002, when I had a business trip to Anaheim. Wild to think about now. Kevin was sane and level-headed, a whiz with graphs and charts, and a topnotch explainer of the obscure and esoteric. He will be missed. Josh Marshall, Mark Evanier, The Slacktivist, Paul Glastris at Washington Monthly, and Clara Jeffery and Monika Bauerlein at Mother Jones give him fitting eulogies.

“These are a sample of the messages that targeted Elon Musk over the weekend, as thousands of protesters across the country flooded local Tesla dealerships to express their outrage over the tech CEO’s escalating war on the federal government.”

“This edition of The Entrenchment Agenda assesses the degree to which Trump has advanced his six most extreme anti-democratic measures in ways that, ultimately, aim to make it difficult for voters to dislodge authoritarians from office: (1) pardons to license lawbreaking, (2) investigations against critics and rivals, (3) regulatory retaliation, (4) federal law enforcement overreach, (5) domestic deployment of the military, and (6) the potential refusal of autocrats to leave office.”

“In a $12 billion-a-year industry, Manfred has far more incentive to deny Rose’s reinstatement — which again, is unearned based on the deceased’s lack of contrition or reconfiguration of his life — than he does to capitulate.”

Good for Ruth Marcus, but criminy the WaPo is a trash fire right now.

“Most presidents, as a general rule, don’t go out of their way to egg a recession on, for good reason.”

“But the issue is not only Elon Musk. It’s a general problem that isn’t going anywhere. It’s the reductio ad absurdum of the economic inequality debate, when levels of super power get concentrated in the hands of a single monomaniacal individual.”

“Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, a Democrat, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a Republican, are teaming up on a resolution to allow new parents to represent their constituents by designating another member to vote for them, commonly known as proxy voting, for 12 weeks after welcoming a child. ”

“Basically: increasing greenhouse gas concentrations will reduce the number of satellites that we can safely have up in low-earth orbit, or LEO.”

“This is not just reckless; it is a betrayal of every veteran who served this country.”

“Since the arrival of a team from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Social Security is in a far more precarious place than has been widely understood, according to Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration.”

RIP, Joe Gwathmey, founder of Texas Public Radio, which brought NPR to San Antonio.

RIP, Mark Klein, AT&T Whistleblower Who Revealed NSA Mass Spying.

RIP, Oliver Miller, former NBA player who led the Arkansas Razorbacks to the Final Four in 1990.

“I appear to live rent-free in the minds of some of my Republican colleagues.”

RIP, John Feinstein, sportswriter and author whose books include A Season on the Brink and A Good Walk Spoiled.

RIP, Kenneth Hall, Texas high school football legend and Hall of Famer known as “The Sugar Land Express”, who held the national high school rushing record for almost 60 years; it was broken in 2012 by Derrick Henry.

“This is where we are. Observe, orient, decide, act. The side which acts faster and smarter wins.”

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | 2 Comments

Paxton opines against birth certificate and drivers license changes

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This fuckin’ guy…

Still a crook any way you look

State agencies should not honor court orders to change the sex on someone’s driver’s license or birth certificate, according to an opinion filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Friday.

He also said state agencies should retroactively correct any changes they’ve made to driver’s licenses or birth certificates over the years based on these court orders.

As attorney general, Paxton does not have the authority to tell other state agencies what to do, but this opinion could be cited in future executive or legislative action.

For decades, state agencies have accepted certified court orders to amend a person’s sex on government issued documents. The Texas Department of State Health Services accepted court orders to change someone’s sex on their birth certificate, and the Texas Department of Public Safety allowed changes to driver’s licenses if someone presented an amended birth certificate or a court record.

That came to a halt in August for DPS, at least, and the agency asked Paxton’s office for an official opinion in September.

Ian Pittman, an attorney who represents transgender Texans, said Paxton’s recent finding was not a surprise.

“He purports to order things he has no authority to do,” Pittman said. “It’s red meat for the base, but it doesn’t legally change anything.”

But if history is any guide, Paxton’s latest maneuver could cascade into real changes. In 2022, Paxton issued a similar opinion, finding that providing a child with gender-affirming care could be considered child abuse under Texas law. Abbott, citing that opinion, issued an executive order, directing the state’s child welfare agencies to investigate parents of trans children.

The Texas Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Abbott and Paxton had overstepped, but allowed the investigations to continue.

“It is well-settled that an Attorney General opinion interpreting the law cannot alter the preexisting legal obligations of state agencies or private citizens,” Justice Jimmy Blacklock, now the chief justice, wrote in the ruling.

Pittman said he and his clients are prepared for Abbott to issue an order requiring state agencies to comply with Paxton’s opinion, or for the Legislature to pass one of several bills filed this session that would further restrict trans people from changing their gender markers on government documents.

“What this shows us is what we already knew: If they have the ability, or think they do, they will try to do this,” he said. “But bureaucratic inertia may work in the favor of people this would affect.”

He said it wasn’t clear how easy it would be for DSHS or DPS to retroactively identify and change those records if they were ordered to do so, although he noted it might come up when people have to renew their driver’s licenses.

See here, here, and here for some background. I don’t know what happens from here, but there will be legal challenges and things will be messy and may well get worse. To say the least, it’s an extremely tough time to be a transgender person these days, and that’s even before taking into account some truly appalling bills that likely aren’t going anywhere but are scary and offensive just by their existence. Be kind to the trans, non-binary, genderqueer, intersex, and other people in your life who are under attack. We can’t be quiet in these dark times.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged birth certificate, DPS, drivers licenses, Equality Texas, Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, Lambda Legal, Supreme Court, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, The Lege, transgender rights | 2 Comments

The cost of the warming centers

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Missed this last week.

Mayor John Whitmire

The City of Houston spent about $6.5 million as the January winter storm brought freezing temperatures and snow to the region.

Mayor John Whitmire’s chief of staff, Chris Newport, told the city’s resilience committee Thursday that the 10 warming centers at their peak were filled with about 1,300 people.

“We feel that the activations went well,” Newport said. “It certainly met a need. We’re confident that lives were saved because of the city activating these warming centers.”

By contrast, the city did not initially open centers during the shorter freeze in early January. The Office of Emergency Management pointed to city policy calling for centers to only open when temperatures drop to 24 degrees for at least two hours, but Whitmire said he “worked around” those rules to eventually open centers.

During the snowstorm, two people died from exposure to the elements — one man with dementia who wandered from home and a woman who was found in a parking lot.

Pointing to vulnerable populations, like homeless people, who refused shelter, Newport said the city’s biggest challenge was “breaking through … to convince them that you can trust the offer that we’re making.”

“That’s the biggest life-saving, life-and-death stakes type of situation that will be the biggest challenge that we have,” he said.

After Winter Storm Enzo, Whitmire repeated his calls for a crackdown on the presence of homeless people sleeping on Houston streets.

“We’ll deal with that population effectively in days to come by making sure that they’re safe, secure, and let people know you can’t sleep on the streets of Houston as current ordinance allows,” Whitmire said at the time.

The main point I want to make here is just that there are always unexpected expenses in the operation of any enterprise, from your household budget to a business to the government. Stuff happens, and you need to have the capacity to deal with it. In the category of weather and climate-related expenses, you can expect them to have an upward trend; hopefully, a gently sloping upward trend, but with the real danger of spikes at any time. Ideally, this is where the federal government, with its much greater capacity to fund emergency expenses, will step up and step in to keep local and state governments afloat. Unfortunately, that’s not such a good bet right now. I’ll just say again, we better hope for a quiet, uneventful hurricane season. The downside is looking mighty scary.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged budget, climate change, DOGE, Donald Trump, FEMA, Houston, John Whitmire, warming centers | 2 Comments

The Polk Street connection

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Closing off streets is a tough thing to do.

On Feb. 1, signs went up announcing the city’s plan to abandon Polk Street between St. Emanuel and Hamilton streets. The closure is part of Houston First Corporation’s $2 billion overhaul of the George R. Brown Convention Center, aimed at modernizing the area and preparing the city to host major events like the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Republican National Convention.

The change has left some East End residents, including Farrar, concerned about losing a key access point to downtown — and worried they won’t be part of the decision-making process. A group of East End residents has raised concerns that Houston First Corporation hasn’t been transparent about the closure, warning that the East End community will suffer if Polk Street is cut off.

Coupled with the construction challenges from TxDOT’s North Houston Highway Improvement Project, residents like Amy Erickson say the closures are symbolic of how the city treats the East End.

“It’s whittling away, chopping off our access here in the East End. It’s not acceptable,” said Erickson. “We live, work and play here too.”

Erickson joined the advocacy group People for Polk to push for more community involvement in the decision-making process and to reduce the impact of the street closures. She emphasized that her group is not opposed to the convention center expansion.

“We just want there to be time for traffic studies, for alternate methods to allow us access in the meantime,” Erickson said. “If this is going to be a 15, 20 year project, we don’t want to wait that long to be connected.”

A spokesperson for Houston First Corporation said in an email to the Houston Chronicle that the expansion has always aimed to reconnect downtown with the East End through public spaces and improve access to the convention center from the east.

“However, we recognize that as impactful as that long-term plan is, shorter-term solutions are necessary to preserve access between Downtown and the East End,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The spokesperson also noted that as part of the Interstate 45 expansion, TxDOT will permanently eliminate Polk Street between St. Emanuel and Hamilton streets. Houston First plans to extend that closure by two additional blocks, from Hamilton to Avenida De Las Americas.

See here for the background. I don’t know what a good answer is for the folks who are directly affected by this, though as noted the I-45 project would be causing these problems regardless of what’s happening with the GRB. There’s a public meeting tomorrow at 6:30, see the People for Polk site for the details, if you want to speak up or just hear more about it.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged construction, downtown, George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston, Houston First, I-45, John Whitmire, People for Polk | 1 Comment

Measles update: Hello, Oklahoma

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas count tops 250 and keeps on climbing.

The measles outbreak that began in the South Plains region of Texas grew to 259 cases and spread to two more counties on Friday, health officials said.

The latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services includes 36 new cases since the agency’s last update on Tuesday. Infections have mostly been seen in children who have not received the vaccine that protects against measles, mumps and rubella.

Thirty-four people have been hospitalized amid the outbreak and one school-aged child has died from measles, the DSHS said. One death has also been reported in New Mexico, which reported 35 measles cases as of Friday morning.

Two Texas counties reported their first cases amid the outbreak, bringing the total number of affected counties to 11. Cochran County, in northwest Texas, reported six cases on Friday. Lamar County, located northeast of Dallas along the border with Oklahoma, reported four cases.

[…]

Gaines County remains the epicenter of the outbreak, adding 18 new cases on Friday. The small county along the New Mexico border has now reported 174 cases in total, about two-thirds of all cases in the outbreak.

Nearby Terry County reported four new cases, bringing its total to 36.

Dallam, Dawson, Lubbock and Yoakum counties each reported one new case. Dallam County has now seen six cases, Dawson has seen 11, Lubbock has seen four and Yoakum has seen 11.

No new infections were reported in Martin County, which has seen three cases, or in Ector or Lynn counties, which have each seen two.

Of the 259 cases, 86 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 115 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17.

Only two cases have been seen in people that have received two or more doses of the MMR vaccine; the other 257 have been in people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.

Prior DSHS updates said five cases had been in vaccinated individuals. The agency said in Friday’s update that it learned two cases were in individuals who got the MMR vaccine after they had been exposed to the virus.

The third case was a Lubbock County resident who was believed to have measles, but actually had a reaction to the vaccine, the DSHS said. That suspected case has been removed from the case count, the agency said.

The vaccine can cause side effects such as fever or a mild rash, but those reactions are typically mild and resolve in a few days, according to the CDC.

The Tuesday count was 223, so that’s 36 more in three days’ time. Up, up, and away. The fact that Lamar County now has four cases is scary, because it’s a long damn way away from the New Mexico border. Maybe they’ll turn out to be unrelated, but still. The potential for breakouts all over the state is sobering.

And as noted, Oklahoma is in the house.

On Tuesday, health officials in Oklahoma reported two “probable” cases in the state that appear to be linked to the ongoing outbreak in Texas and New Mexico.

According to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, the two people developed measles symptoms after exposure to cases associated with the Texas and New Mexico outbreaks.

The people isolated immediately after they realized they had been exposed and stayed home throughout the period they were contagious, health officials said.

Looking around, I see some stories linking the Oklahoma cases to Texas and New Mexico, and some saying they’re not part of the CDC’s official tally just yet. So let’s reserve judgment for now.

But we don’t need to reserve judgment about RFK Jr. He’s a dangerous idiot who will get people sick.

In an interview with Fox News that aired Tuesday, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that “people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves. And what we need to do is give them the best information and encourage them to vaccinate. The vaccine does stop the spread of the disease.”

But Kennedy also downplayed the safety of the vaccine and wrongly told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that measles outbreaks could be driven in part by people who have waning immunity from the vaccine.

“When you and I were kids, everybody got measles, and measles gave you … lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people for life, but for many people, it wanes,” Kennedy told Hannity.

“Some years, we have hundreds of these outbreaks. … And, you know, part of that is that there are people who don’t vaccinate, but also the vaccine itself wanes. The vaccine wanes 4.5% per year,” he said.

But Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, says that if that were the case, measles wouldn’t have been declared eliminated in the US in 2000.

There’s some dispute among experts about how much protection may wane, if at all. However, they all agree that in most cases, the vaccine confers lifelong immunity against the virus.

The current outbreak “is absolutely being driven and started by unvaccinated individuals,” said Dr. Michael Mina, chief scientific officer of the telehealth company eMed and an expert in the epidemiology, immunology and spread of infectious disease.

Even those who may have waning immunity will not transmit large amounts of virus, he said.

Levels of antibodies created by the vaccine might decrease over time, but with a virus like measles, its longer incubation period gives the body’s immune memory cells more time to help fight the infection. This enables long-lasting immunity from vaccination, Offit explained.

I mean, you can listen to the people who know what they’re talking about, or you can listen to the badly misinformed roid-riddled moron. You ought to be able to make that choice for yourself. In that spirit, here’s some of that best information for you:

Measles is unlike other childhood viruses that come and go. In severe cases it can cause pneumonia. About 1 in 1,000 patients develops encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, and there are 1 or 2 deaths per 1,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The virus can wipe out the immune system, a complication called “immune amnesia.”

When we get sick with viruses or bacteria, our immune systems have the ability to form memories that quickly allow them to recognize and respond to the pathogens if they’re encountered again.

Measles targets cells in the body, such as plasma cells and memory cells, that contain those immunologic memories, destroying some of them in the process.

“Nobody escapes this,” said Dr. Michael Mina, a vaccine expert and former professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who has led some of the research in the field.

In a 2019 study, Mina and his team found that a measles infection can wreck anywhere from 11% to 73% of a person’s antibody stockpile, depending on how severe the infection. That means that if people had 100 antibodies to chickenpox before they had measles, they may be left with just 50 after measles infections, potentially making them more vulnerable to catching it and getting sicker.

Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunology at the Yale School of Medicine, said: “That’s why it’s called amnesia. We forget who the enemies are.”

While virtually everybody who gets infected with measles will have their immune systems weakened, some will be hit harder than others.

“There’s no world in which you get measles and it doesn’t destroy some [immunity],” he said. “The question is does it destroy enough to really make a clinical impact.”

In an earlier study from 2015, Mina estimated that before vaccinations, when measles was common, the virus could have been implicated in as many as half of all childhood deaths from infectious disease, mostly from other diseases such as pneumonia, sepsis, diarrheal diseases and meningitis.

The researchers found that after a measles infection, the immune system can be suppressed almost immediately and remain that way for two to three years.

“Immune amnesia really begins as soon as the virus replicates in those [memory] cells,” Mina said.

Get informed, get vaccinated if you haven’t been before, get boosted if you have any reason to believe you need it. Vitamin A and steroids and antibiotics won’t save you. But you can save yourself.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Austin, Centers for Disease Control, Cochran County, cod liver oil, coronavirus, Dallam County, Dawson County, Donald Trump, Ector County, Gaines County, Houston, Lamar County, Lubbock, Lynn County, Martin County, measles, Mexico, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Rockwall County, Terry County, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, The Immunization Partnership, The Lege, vaccinations, Vitamin A, Yoakum County | 7 Comments

Get rid of the delinquent tax collectors

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I’m glad Harris County is out of this business.

Texas has the seventh-highest property taxes in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation, an unwelcome distinction state officials have for years tried to shed as they have repeatedly promised to ease the burden on struggling homeowners like Rojo. Yet when those same Texans fall behind on these taxes, The Texas Tribune found that the state employs one of the most punitive fee structures in America, which allows private law firms hired to collect the debts to charge an additional 20% on top of existing base taxes, penalties and interest.

No other state outsources delinquent tax collection to the degree it happens in Texas, where thousands of entities collecting local school, county and municipal property taxes do so under a system the Legislature created in 1979.

The cottage industry that grew in response is unique to the state — and lucrative. Law firms collecting delinquent taxes in the 100 most populous Texas counties earned at least $184 million in revenue in 2023 — which amounts to billions of dollars over the course of the more than four decades Texas has allowed this practice.

The Tribune calculated the collection fees for a year by obtaining contracts and payment reports through hundreds of public records requests to county tax offices, appraisal districts, cities and school districts. That sum, which is an undercount because some of the smaller counties in that group did not provide their figures, is larger than the annual budget of Beaumont.

Almost all the fees went to just three Texas firms: at least $128 million to Linebarger Goggan Blair and Sampson, followed by at least $28 million to Perdue Brandon Fielder Collins and Mott and at least $18 million to McCreary Veselka Bragg and Allen.

State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said the Tribune’s findings raise concerns about the financial burden placed on Texans, “many of whom are already struggling to pay their property taxes.” She said lawmakers should consider reforms, including lowering the fees law firms can charge.

“The fees imposed by third-party collection firms can compound the financial challenges faced by delinquent taxpayers,” Zaffirini, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an email. “This system should balance the need for efficient tax collection with fairness and compassion, ensuring that Texans are not penalized excessively for falling behind on their payments.”

The appetite for reform among Republicans, who control every lever of state government, is unclear. Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows — three of the loudest advocates for property tax relief this legislative session — did not respond to interview requests.

A House committee chaired by Burrows in 2020 examined the state’s system of allowing outsourced delinquent tax collection and endorsed it as a success.

Outsourcing is near-universal among taxing entities. But in 2023, Harris County — the most populous in Texas — began transitioning to in-house delinquent collection. Its leaders made that decision after discovering that more than two-thirds of overdue homeowners lived in poorer, majority Black and Hispanic precincts.

Travis County has never outsourced, concluding that doing so would subject taxpayers to needless extra fees with no added benefit for the government.

“It behooves me to never lose sight of the fact that there are people who are living on the edge,” said Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Celia Israel, adding that her office maintains a collection rate near 100%.

[…]

Michael Berlanga, a Certified Public Accountant, real estate broker and property tax consultant in San Antonio, said the law firms overstate the complexity of delinquent tax collection. While the firms had a massive technological advantage 40 years ago, when few tax offices had computers, financial software and data storage are now cheap and widely available.

“Linebarger, over decades, has convinced the taxing authorities ‘we’re more efficient than y’all are,’” Berlanga said. “When’s the last time… the performance of Linebarger was audited against the supposition that ‘We would have collected that money anyway?’”

I’m glad Harris County has ditched Linebarger in favor of in-house collections. More often than not, the delinquent filers have run into some financial trouble, which the fees will just exacerbate without doing anything to benefit the county. This is a more humane approach, and the county can still file lawsuits as needed with the delinquents who don’t work with them. New Tax Assessor Annette Ramirez, who is featured later in this story, was the leading champion for this approach in last year’s primary, and she had the experience doing it that way because of her time with Aldine ISD. Go back and listen to my interview with her from the primary if you haven’t already to learn more. I wish more counties would go this way, and I wish the Lege would force a less punitive approach for these collections. I don’t see the latter happening anytime soon, but you can talk to your county’s Tax Assessor about the former.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Annette Ramirez, Celia Israel, debt collections, Harris County, Harris County Tax Assessor, Judith Zaffirini, property taxes, Senate, Texas, The Lege, Travis County | Comments Off

Go Ashos! Go Tetas!

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Hilarious.

WHO APPROVED THIS?!?! 💀

— Rangers Nation (@rangers__nation) 6:04 PM – 09 March 2025

The dawn of a new MLB season has spawned a myriad of new collectible merchandise, from baseball cards to jerseys. But right now, caps are stealing all the headlines. New Era rolled out their new “Overlap” hats for the 2025 season earlier this week. However, the hats haven’t exactly been received well.

At first glance, these hats may not seem too bad. However, upon closer inspection, you might start to notice some unfortunate, questionable patterns. An even closer inspection would reveal that some of the new words created by these overlapped logos are rather NSFW. Particularly the Texas Rangers’ hat. In fact, the slip-up was so bad that the hat actually needed to be pulled from stores.

[…]

While our Spanish-speaking readers already know what this says, our non-Spanish speakers may be scratching their heads. Well, one quick trip to Google and you’ll realize that the word written on the hat above is Spanish for slang for breasts.

This is a major slip-up for a company that has made similar mistakes in the past.

Less than a year ago, New Era released the hat above, offering a similarly vulgar word in plain English. How is it possible that a company makes such a mistake once, and less than a calendar year later, they make practically the same mistake?

This time is arguably worse, though. Not only is the Rangers’ hat laughably bad, but other hats suffered similar fates, although not as vulgar.

Click over to see the rest, which includes an Astros hat that reads as “ASHOS” because of the imposition of the “H” over “Astros”. This is what happens when there are no copy editors, and also when there’s no one on staff who understands even basic tourist-level Spanish. And as noted, those hats are gone, but they are not forgotten.

Now, the Rangers hat is generating big sales on the secondary market. Since Tuesday, six have sold on eBay, ranging from $200 to $1,000. MLBshop originally listed them for $44.99. One eBay seller has also listed knockoffs of the Rangers hat for $36, with 123 sold as of midday Wednesday.

Sometimes, capitalism works exactly as you’d want it to. My ASHOS hat is tipped to whoever made those knockoffs. You, sir or madam, are a true American hero. Fangraphs, BoingBoing, and the Chron have more.

Posted in Baseball | Tagged Astros, Baseball, Houston, MLB, New Era, Texas, Texas Rangers | Comments Off

Justice Department drops Texas redistricting lawsuit

Posted on March 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Can’t say I’m surprised.

The U.S. Justice Department withdrew from a lawsuit alleging that Texas’ legislative and congressional district maps drawn after the 2020 U.S. census discriminated against Latino and Black voters by denying them an equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process.

The department made the decision last week, according to court filings.

It’s the latest in a series of moves by the Justice Department under President Donald Trump to retreat from voting rights cases initiated by the Biden administration. In January, the department withdrew from a voting rights case it had brought last year against Virginia over the removal of names from voter rolls, and last month it withdrew a request to participate in a redistricting case in Louisiana.

The case involves Texas’ 2021 redrawing of 2021 of political maps for congressional and state legislative districts after the 2020 census. The updated maps were meant to reflect the state’s population growth, which, according to the census, was driven almost entirely by Texans of color. However, the Republican-drawn maps diluted their political power, splitting up areas that had high minority populations and giving white voters even greater control. That sparked complaints from the federal government and other groups that the maps discriminated against voters of color.

Republican lawmakers and attorneys representing the state in court have denied that their work violated the Voting Rights Act or constitutional protections against discrimination.

The remaining plaintiffs in the case are coalitions of organizations representing Latino and Black Texans, such as the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Texas NAACP, and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, among others, as well as individual Texans.

They had filed suits in 2021 arguing that the Texas Legislature discriminated against voters of color in the drawing of its political district maps. Their lawsuits were later consolidated.

The plaintiffs are calling for the court to rule that the maps are unconstitutional and unlawful, and to order that they be redrawn in a way that does not “dilute the strength of Latino voters in Texas,” court documents state.

The maps have affected communities of Latino and Black voters in North Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in the Rio Grande Valley, and in Central Texas, near one of the nation’s largest military communities in Killeen.

See here for the last update that I was aware of, way back in 2022. The last update from the remaining case, with private plaintiffs, was a couple of months later. In a normal world, this would be an appalling abandonment of justice; in Trump world, it’s just another Thursday. I’d be more upset but then I never had any faith that the plaintiffs would be able to get a favorable result, given the corruption of the Fifth Circuit and SCOTUS. I admire what they’re doing, I just believe the deck is fully stacked against them. Hell, even in a more fair world we’re already in 2025 and we haven’t had a court date yet. That’s coming on May 21 for the remaining case, so we’ll see what happens. Keep your expectations very low.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Attorney General, Congress, Donald Trump, Election 2024, Election 2026, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, filing deadline, Greg Abbott, Justice Department, lawsuit, LULAC, redistricting, SBOE, SCOTUS, special session, Texas, The Lege, Voting Rights Act | Comments Off

Of course some companies will make bank on school vouchers

Posted on March 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

That’s just how this works.

In August 2024, the business magazine Inc. released its annual list of the top 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the United States. At 815th, a burgeoning upstart called ClassWallet cracked the list’s top 20 percent for the third straight year. By expanding its operations managing school voucher programs for states across the country, earnings for the Florida company grew by 610 percent over the previous three years.

Founded in 2014, ClassWallet now has more than 200 employees and has contracts to administer school vouchers and other educational programs in 18 states through its “digital wallet” platform.

Indeed, managing school vouchers has become a big business. And, as Governor Greg Abbott and the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature gear up to pass their own program this session, private companies like ClassWallet are descending on the Capitol to lobby for the vouchers legislation and the lucrative contracts it could generate. This comes as other states have drawn scrutiny over myriad problems with the private contractors, including ClassWallet, they’ve hired to administer their voucher programs.

Senate Bill 2, which sailed through the upper chamber early last month, is a universal school voucher proposal that would give students $10,000 a year to attend private school or $2,000 for homeschooling. Lawmakers have initially set aside $1 billion in funding for the Texas school voucher program in 2027, though the Senate bill’s fiscal analysis says the program’s net cost could balloon to $3.8 billion by 2030.

The bill stipulates that up to 5 percent of appropriated funds may go to pay up to five outside vendors like ClassWallet, which the legislation calls “certified educational assistance organizations” (CEAOs), to act as middlemen between the state, parents, and private schools by processing program applications and voucher payments. If the bill were to pass, these private companies could soon be reeling in tens and even hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars per year.

These private vendors could, under the bill, be tasked with managing a complex application process, connecting parents with private schools and education vendors, accepting payments, and “verify[ing] that program funding is used only for approved education-related expenses.”

“They’re a for-profit pass-through, which just means the state appropriates dollars, the vendor holds it, they reserve a small fee for themselves, and then they pass it on to the consumer,” Josh Cowen, education policy professor at Michigan State University and author of the book The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers, told the Texas Observer.

The CEAOs would have to be a for-profit or non-profit entity registered to do business in the state. The comptroller—who will likely soon be an Abbott appointee given Glenn Hegar’s pending departure—would have wide latitude to oversee the program, including awarding contracts to the CEAOs. The agency would also be able to use up to 3 percent of total funds for its own administrative costs. The comptroller and CEAOs would both be allowed to solicit donations from “any public or private source for any expenses related to administration of the program.”

What could possibly go wrong with that? And, as the story notes later on, in addition to various CEAOs making millions, they will also employ an assortment of big-dollar, well-connected lobbyists to ensure that those sweet, sweet taxpayer funds keep flowing in their direction. Just like the founders envisioned.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Brad Buckley, Brandon Creighton, certified educational assistance organizations, ClassWallet, Greg Abbott, Senate, Texas, The Lege, vouchers | Comments Off

Dispatches from Dallas, March 14 edition

Posted on March 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth, we have updates around the May elections and moving them to November; Mayor Johnson turns up in DC; a lot of news about Fort Worth and Keller ISD; how low MMR vaccination rates are in DFW; the latest on the Sands casino/stadium project in Irving; former Gateway pastor Robert Morris is finally indicted for molesting a girl in Oklahoma in the 1980s; the history of deportation in Fort Worth; some news around the infamous Doncic trade; and what’s up with the Forest Theater in South Dallas.

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Émilie Simon, the French pop singer.

Last week I found out I was one of the folks whose measles protection wasn’t up to snuff. Because I’m chronically ill with autoimmune problems, this wasn’t something we wanted to mess around with, especially as we have some travel in our near future. I have been revaccinated and so has my husband, but we were lucky: we got some of the last doses at our local pharmacy. There’s only been one measles case in the Metroplex so far and it appears to have been brought in from abroad, unrelated to the cases on the New Mexico border. That said, it’s only a matter of time until those cases spread, especially with the number of vaccine holdouts we have in the Metroplex. I spent a not-so-great few days recovering from the vaccine, but I’d rather do that than get measles, or worse, spread them to people I know and care about, or even strangers.

In the news recently:

Here in Dallas we approved moving our city elections from May to November in the amendment election last fall. Now bills to make that happen have been filed by our local legislators. Thanks to Rafael Anchia in the House and Nathan Johnson in the Senate for working to make this happen.
Speaking of May elections, Dallas County not only has a new pollbook vendor for the upcoming ballot, but our county commissioners will get an advance look. Fingers crossed it goes better than it did in November.
The Dallas Observer tells us who the 20 highest-paid employees of the City of Dallas are.
Meanwhile, our absentee mayor has been in Washington DC, testifying in front of the Senate about affordable housing. As Dallasites know, Mayor Johnson is all in favor of housing as long as it’s built by private parties, and as befits his new party allegiance, he’s all about slashing red tape now. More on his testimony from local real estate outlet Candy’s Dirt.
Ever wondered who writes the editorials for the Dallas Morning News? Here’s a current list of the editorial board’s members.
Today I learned that 75% of vehicular fatalities in Dallas are caused by drunk driving. Don’t drink and drive, friends, and watch out if you’re out when the bars close.
Today I also learned that Dallas has the second-highest rate of new HIV cases in the nation and that other sexually transmitted infections are also on the rise. Practice safe sex, too, friends. And as far as I know, these two stories are not related.
The Fort Worth City Council would like a public vote on the Keller ISD split. Related, the council is also moving forward on rezoning school-adjacent parcels of land to prevent inappropriate development in the face of opposition from the district. More on Keller ISD below.
An update on a November 2024 story from the Star-Telegram: about one-third of elementary schools in the city of Fort Worth are at risk of a measles outbreak because students are vaccinated below the herd immunity rate. Check out the table: the numbers are pretty scary.
An unusual story from Tarrant County: the Tarrant County GOP voted against vouchers!
Another failure at the Tarrant County Jail, but at least this time nobody has died: the county has merely failed to file the correct reports with the state in the statutorily required 30 days. Sheriff Waybourn blames a clerical error and the report was properly filed a couple of days later. KERA also has the story. A late filing wouldn’t be a big deal if everything going on at the jail wasn’t handled in such a sloppy manner.
WFAA has a list of the schools in North Texas with the lowest MMR vaccination rates, including public and private schools. The “winner” (loser) is the private school associated with Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth, where less than 15% of the student body has taken the MMR vaccine. The pastors at the church, including Fort Worth state House rep Nate Schatzline, have been bragging on social media about how their students’ families are exercising freedom by ignoring public health recommendations. The Star-Telegram also has this story. I sure hope none of Mercy Culture’s students catch measles and die or have permanent disabilities.
Let’s go back to Keller ISD, which is the subject of a lot of news lately. A district spokesperson are now saying that a meeting back in February on splitting the district was closed because of death threats, though law enforcement has no record of any threats being reported and public records requests to the district didn’t obtain any either. Meanwhile the district will have a shortfall next year estimated at $12.4 million. This story and one in the Star-Telegram also discuss an audit of district finances that was either conducted properly or in inappropriate secrecy, depending on your point of view. The district’s finances aren’t going to be helped by paying off the former superintendent, who will receive about $425,000 after resigning over the proposed split.
Meanwhile, absences spiking at Dallas ISD schools in January, which may cost the district some state funds. There are no clear reasons for the absences, but two candidates are illness (RSV and flu) and the Trump administration’s change in “sensitive location” immigration policy, which means students and parents without documentation might be seized by immigration authorities at schools. No arrests have happened at Dallas schools so far.
Local troublemaker Monty Bennett has had his fingers in Dallas education again. This time he put together a charter school nonprofit that most of the people who signed up for didn’t know he was behind. It’s another dirty little astroturf story covered by Steven Monacelli. Kudos to him for breaking it.
UT Arlington has placed a faculty member on leave, claiming it has received complaints about his teaching, despite a good review in mid-February. Dr. Charlie Hermes has been arrested three times in the last year: at a pro-Palestine protest and in two incidents in court and in Tarrant County Commissioner’s Court protesting deaths in the county jail.
In Plano, it looks like Council member Shelby Williams will resign to run for Place 4 on the Collin County Commissioners Court. Williams is the head of the Collin County GOP. Also on the agenda: it looks like Council will be replacing Paul Wageman, the Uber lobbyist, on the DART board with an interim member.
The Adelson/Sands plan to bring a casino resort to Irving has hit some public opposition as thousands of people have signed a petition against rezoning an area owned by them for a casino if the state legalizes gambling. As our host notes, that’s a big if. This is the big casino and stadium for the Mavericks that the new ownership wants them to occupy after their current contract with the American Airlines Center expires. (I keep thinking the patch of land the Sands bought in 2023 is in Arlington but it’s actually in Irving.)
Balch Springs, an inner ring suburb southeast of Dallas, has passed a non-disparagement social media policy for members of city boards and commissions. This week they removed a member of the Park and Recreation Advisory Board and the Flood and Drainage Committee for violating the policy with a negative Facebook post. I foresee a lawsuit.
The proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir has run into more trouble. This time it’s regional water plans: the reservoir is in the future plans for Dallas’ region but not in the east Texas region where it would be located. KERA also has the story.
Local Congressional Representative Keith Self had a rough time last week at a town hall in Wylie where he was heckled by constituents. Note that this coverage is in Newsweek, which is both national and now something of a right-wing publication, but the DMN doesn’t seem to have covered this protest and most of the news about Self this week is about his misgendering Rep. Sarah McBride and the flounce that followed when one of his colleagues called him on the carpet for his bigotry.
The latest news about Robert Morris, formerly lead pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake until it came out that he’d been molesting a young girl in the 1980s, is that he has been indicted on five counts of lewd or indecent conduct with a child in Oklahoma, where those incidents happened. He may have turned himself in by the time you read this. There’s a lot of coverage, so take your pick of stories: the DMN, the Star-Telegram, the Texas Tribune, and the AP, because this story has hit national coverage. As the Tribune notes, Morris was a spiritual adviser to our current president.
The Star-Telegram has dug into its archives to show the history of Fort Worth around deportation. The message: this is nothing new, as four headlines dated between 1911 and 1921 and the stories about Chinese, Mexican, and European immigrants (of the wrong sort, in this case Russian) show.
Congressman Brandon Gill, (R-Flower Mound), has a brilliant idea: he wants to replace Ben Franklin on the $100 with the current White House resident. In case you forgot, Gill’s other claim to fame, and the one that got him his current job, is that he’s Dinesh D’Souza’s son-in-law.
Are we over the Luka Doncic trade here in Dallas yet? No, we are not, and we’re not going to get over it. The Guardian has a report on the human element and the Dallas Observer is talking about how restaurants in Victory Park (near the American Airlines Center) have lost business on game nights. Of all the things I’ve read across local, national, and international outlets, though, my favorite comes from the Onion: Homesick Luka Doncic Gazes Longingly At Photo Of Barren Dallas Office Park.
In lieu of zoo babies, of which we have none this week, I leave you with this Instagram sizzle reel for the renovation of the Forest Theater in South Dallas, which I have talked about quite a bit in these pages. I’m really looking forward to going down there for a show when it reopens.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged Dallas, guest post, linkdump, Texas | Comments Off

Once again, don’t bet on expanded gambling

Posted on March 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

It’s the safest wager out there.

Photo by Joel Kramer via Flickr creative commons

A dozen Texas House Republicans who replaced pro-gambling lawmakers said this week they would oppose “any attempt to expand gambling” this session — a setback for efforts to legalize casinos and sports betting in the state.

The 12 GOP freshmen were joined by three returning lawmakers who voted in 2023 to allow online sports betting, but now say they will reject any such proposal. That measure passed the 150-member House with 101 votes two years ago, narrowly clearing the two-thirds threshold needed to amend the Texas Constitution.

The net loss of more than a dozen votes jeopardizes the chances of recreating that tenuous coalition, unless supporters can find votes elsewhere to make up the difference.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Rep. Ken King, chair of the House State Affairs Committee, the lawmakers sought to deal a death blow to the latest proposals to legalize casinos and sports betting, both of which were filed in the House last month. Neither has been referred to a committee this session, though both went through State Affairs in 2023.

“We are confident this legislation does not have the votes necessary to pass the Texas House this session,” the letter reads. “Given the certainty of its failure, I urge you not to waste valuable committee time on an issue that is dead on arrival.”

A spokesperson for King, R-Canadian, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The effort to legalize casinos in Texas has even less wiggle room than the sports betting contingent. Two years ago, a constitutional amendment to authorize “destination resort” casinos received 92 votes in the House, eight shy of the two-thirds mark.

Of the 15 signatories on the letter to King, nine are GOP freshmen whose predecessors voted for the casino measure. A returning member who signed the letter, Rep. J.M. Lozano, R-Kingsville, also supported casino legalization — along with sports betting — and is now vowing to oppose both.

That represents a net loss of 10 votes from the 92 who backed the casino proposal in 2023.

[…]

Efforts to loosen Texas’ gambling restrictions have repeatedly failed since they were first enacted in 1856 and further tightened in 1973. The House’s approval of the sports betting measure in 2023 was the furthest either chamber has gone toward expanding gambling, though the move was largely symbolic, because Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — a Republican who runs the Texas Senate — immediately quashed the measure in the upper chamber. Patrick has repeatedly claimed there is minimal support among the Senate’s GOP majority to expand gambling.

With the 74-year-old Patrick in office until January 2027 and vowing to seek another four-year term, the legislative battle over gambling has been centered almost entirely in the House. Supporters are aiming for incremental wins in the lower chamber that would, they hope, lay the groundwork for when the Senate is run by a more sympathetic lieutenant governor.

Boy, Greg Abbott’s tepid support for sports betting sure moved the needle. I don’t know how many times I have to keep stating the obvious, but none of this is a surprise. What is at least a mild surprise is that the gambling industry’s years long strategy of spending even more money on lobbyists has never changed despite it being such a consistently risible failure. You would think that at some point they might learn the lesson that they are going to have to try to defeat gambling opponents at the ballot box, starting with Dan Patrick, but so far there’s no evidence that this lesson has gained any purchase. I know, opposing powerful incumbents is a risky strategy, but you’d think the freaking gambling industry might have some understanding of risk and reward. And yet here we are. Better luck next time, y’all.

Posted in Jackpot!, That's our Lege | Tagged BetMGM, casinos, Constitution, Dan Patrick, DraftKings, FanDuel, gambling, Greg Abbott, JM Lozano, Ken King, Miriam Adelson, Sports Betting Alliance, Texas, Texas Sands PAC, The Lege | Comments Off

Chron calls for Abbott to get on with it in CD18

Posted on March 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I doubt he’ll listen, but it can’t hurt to try.

Rep. Sylvester Turner

When the Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee died in July, the 18th Congressional District mourned the loss of a dedicated and longtime public servant. Fortunately, there was already a well-publicized election on the calendar, and the race to replace her found a handy special election date.

Last November, district voters chose both her replacement and their next representative at the polls. Jackson Lee’s daughter, Erica Lee Carter, would fill the remainder of her term in a lame-duck session and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner would take over the following term.

After Turner’s sudden death last week, the district once again has an empty seat, and voters are once again without representation. But the stakes are a bit different this time around.

The U.S. Constitution gives Gov. Greg Abbott the duty to call a special election, but it doesn’t say how quickly he has to do it — and now, he has a political incentive to drag his feet. The seat is in a solidly Democratic district, and Abbott, of course, is a Republican. Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the U.S. House, so every vote is important. By keeping vacant a seat that’s almost certain to go to Democrats, Abbott improves his party’s chances of passing legislation.

Shortly after Turner’s death, Abbott said he didn’t yet have a plan to call a special election.

“This has real national implications,” Mark Jones, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, told the editorial board.

State law makes it easy enough for Abbott to, by the last of week of March, call for a special election that would fall on May 3, the next uniform election date. But he could also delay and set it instead for the Nov. 4 election, assuming he doesn’t call an emergency election before then. Assuming a possible runoff, that could leave the seat empty until the end of the year.

See here for some background. Abbott’s gonna do what Abbott’s gonna do. I don’t actually think he’s especially likely to drag this out, but the cold truth is that he has no reason to play it fair. As I’ve said before, I think a clear reading of the law suggests that he is supposed to act in a timely fashion, but that’s my interpretation and there’s no enforcement mechanism other than winning a longshot lawsuit. We’ll know soon enough what he’s up to – if he doesn’t call the special by the end of next week, it’s hard to see this election happening in May.

Posted in Election 2025 | Tagged CD18, Congress, Election 2024, Election 2025, Greg Abbott, Sheila Jackson Lee, special election, Sylvester Turner, Texas | 3 Comments

Texas blog roundup for the week of March 10

Posted on March 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance stands with Rep. Al Green as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged blog roundup, TPA | Comments Off

Texas measles case count up to 223

Posted on March 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Just a brief update this time.

Texas’ measles outbreak has grown to 223 cases, the state reported Tuesday morning.

The outbreak began in Gaines County, near the New Mexico border. The reported cases have not spread outside of West Texas and the Panhandle, according to Tuesday’s report.

The state’s case count is still rapidly growing, up from 198 reported on Friday.

A total of 29 people in Texas have been hospitalized, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. One unvaccinated child has died, in the U.S.‘s first reported measles death in a decade.

The Texas count does not include measles cases from a New Mexico county that borders Gaines County. On Friday, New Mexico reported 30 measles cases and one death connected to the outbreak.

[…]

The vast majority of Texas’ confirmed measles cases have been among people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.

State numbers show that, of the 223 confirmed cases, 80 were among unvaccinated people, 138 were among people whose vaccination status is unknown and five were among vaccinated people.

See here for the previous update. I may go back at some point and make a graph so we can see the growth of reported cases over time, but the main thing to remember is that this has all happened in about a month and a half. The first DSHS alert was from January 30, and we’ve gone from two cases in Gaines County to the 223 in Texas plus 30 in New Mexico since then. There’s no reason to think we’ve peaked.

There is one bit of good news in all this: Lots of people are getting vaccinated as a result of this outbreak.

Doctors warn that the highly contagious viral disease, once nearly eradicated, has made a resurgence due to declining herd immunity over the years. However, the current outbreak has prompted a significant increase in vaccine demand.

“We initially ordered up and doubled our quantity in stock, and then it became difficult to get,” said Angela Solis, director of clinical services at Lamar Plaza Drug Store.

“The demand is there. It’s being given to adults who don’t know their vaccine status, and it’s being given early before the recommended schedule now because of the outbreak.”

Some pharmacies across Texas have reported temporary shortages of the measles vaccine due to increased demand. However, larger pharmacy chains like CVS say they still have doses in stock as they work to meet the growing need.

State health officials continue to urge Texans to check their vaccination status and get immunized to help curb the outbreak.

As a reminder, you can just get the shot if you want to. There’s basically no risk. The risk is in not being vaccinated.

The outbreak is spreading now, as spring break travel is ramping up and the Houston Rodeo is drawing millions of visitors. That means the risk of transmission in our community is growing by the day. Experts are now warning unvaccinated people in our community — including babies who aren’t eligible for the measles vaccine until they reach 12 to 15 months — to avoid large crowds.

It is unacceptable that parents of young babies — who should be enjoying their first months and introducing them to the world — are now forced to live in fear of a virus that their grandparents defeated. It’s even more unacceptable that this virus is being enabled by an equally dangerous threat: misinformation.

Vaccine misinformation has been spreading for years, and during the COVID pandemic it exploded. Social media became a breeding ground for confusion; a single misleading post can reach millions before the truth has a chance to catch up. Well-intentioned parents, overwhelmed with conflicting messages, started questioning long-settled science. And instead of turning to doctors, scientists and public health experts, they were pulled into echo chambers that magnified their doubts, turning concern into fear.

Misinformation spreads like a virus. And as it has climbed, so has vaccine hesitancy.

In only a few years, our measles vaccination rates have dropped. Just six years ago, Houston-area kindergartners had a 97% vaccination rate. Last year, it had fallen to 94.5% — just below the threshold needed to prevent outbreaks. In some communities, the numbers are even worse. In Alief ISD, the vaccination rate has dropped below 85%. That’s not just a statistic — that’s an open door for measles to spread.

It angers me to see people, many in positions of power, stoke the flames of misinformation to build a following or push an agenda. But the truth is, the vast majority of parents who haven’t vaccinated their kids aren’t making a political statement. They’re making choices out of fear rooted in love for their children.

As a mom, I understand that instinct all too well. But as a former teacher and a public servant, I must tell the truth — misinformation is killing our kids, and it has to stop.

The truth is that the measles vaccine isn’t new. It’s not experimental. It has been around for more than 60 years, and it has saved millions of lives. The science is not in question. The only question is whether we will act in time to stop further spread.

If only it were that easy. Anti-vaxxers are gonna anti-vaxx. And when they do get sick, they go to quacks.

Inside the building — a “barndominium” in West Texas parlance — there’s a handful of tables and chairs set up. Sick families, mostly Mennonite, sit in a makeshift waiting room on the far left, and Dr. Ben Edwards is at a table on the far right.

One by one, families are called over to meet with the doctor.

Edwards asks about their diet and nutritional intake but does not do bloodwork to look at levels of specific vitamins or nutrients. Based on the conversations with the parents and the child, he decides whether the patient might benefit from cod liver oil, which is high in vitamins A and D. Bottles of the product — offered at no charge — line tables in the room.

If kids are having significant trouble breathing, Edwards recommends budesonide, an inhaled steroid typically used for asthma.

He does not offer vaccines.

Gaines County, where Seminole sits, has one of the state’s highest vaccine exemption rates, at nearly 18%, compared to 3% nationally. The embrace of unproven remedies shows that many members of the community are also eschewing conventional medical approaches.

“We need to help these kids out,” said Edwards, a family physician based an hour away in the city of Lubbock. Part of that help, he said, is by supplying kids and their families with cod liver oil and nutrition information, “like Bobby Kennedy is trying to do.”

Edwards is, of course, referring to newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s been vocal against proven medical practice. He’s encouraged vitamins and cod-liver oil over vaccination and isolation to control the outbreak.

There’s no antiviral or cure for measles. Kids sick enough to be hospitalized are often given oxygen to help with their breathing. Studies done in other countries have suggested that vitamin A may be helpful in treating malnourished children with the disease. There’s no credible evidence to suggest cod liver oil is effective.

Though doctors here can administer vitamin A for measles, it’s typically used for severe cases in the hospital. Most people in the U.S. have normal levels of the vitamin and don’t need extra.

Too much can be toxic, said Dr. Ronald Cook, chief health officer at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock and health authority for the city. “Before I’d give mega doses of vitamin A, I would certainly get a vitamin A level” in the blood, he said.

Any messaging suggesting that vitamin A, including cod liver oil, could be an alternative to vaccination is “misleading,” said Dr. David Higgins, a pediatrician and preventive medicine specialist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. “The goal is to prevent measles from ever occurring. Every single illness, hospitalization and death [from measles] is entirely preventable with vaccines.”

Yeah, vitamin A. You’ll be shocked to learn that this particular doctor, who was sadly trained in Houston, “sells dietary supplements, blood tests, and $35-a-month membership plans for access to his online education materials”. Because of course he does.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Austin, Centers for Disease Control, cod liver oil, coronavirus, Dallam County, Dawson County, Donald Trump, Ector County, Gaines County, Houston, Lubbock, Lynn County, Martin County, measles, Mexico, New Mexico, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Rockwall County, Terry County, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, The Immunization Partnership, The Lege, vaccinations, Vitamin A, Yoakum County | Comments Off

Remembering Sylvester Turner

Posted on March 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

A fine sendoff for a dedicated public servant.

Sylvester Turner

Sylvester Turner represented Houston on a national stage for decades as a state representative, mayor and congressman, but on Tuesday he was “Uncle Sylvester.”

Turner received one of Houston’s highest honors Tuesday as his body lay in state in the rotunda of City Hall. Hundreds gathered in the morning to pay their respects, remembering him for his laugh, his devotion to God and an ability to make everyone feel welcome.

“I wanted to give my respects to a man who devoted his life to the city, to the world,” said Rhondreka Hughes, a Third Ward resident. “He loved Houston. We loved him.”

Mayor John Whitmire welcomed the crowd of elected officials, Turner’s fraternity brothers, city employees and friends to City Hall just after 9 a.m., where a line of people wrapped around the side of the building. An honor guard led visitors into the rotunda to the sounds of a string quartet, where Turner’s casket lay wrapped in an American flag.

“Sylvester knew each and every community, and he treated everyone with equality, inclusion. That’s what made him really special,” Whitmire said. “He brought that message across not only our great city but our great state.”

As visitors left the rotunda, some friends and colleagues embraced and shared tears. Others laughed over shared memories of Turner. His fraternity brothers joined together for a photo in front of City Hall.

Turner represented Houston in public office for 35 years as a member of the Texas House of Representatives, Houston mayor and, until his death, a freshman member of Congress. He died March 5 in Washington, D.C. from “enduring health complications.” He was 70.

He was treated for bone cancer in his second term as mayor, but said during his congressional campaign last year that he largely had recovered from the disease.

His congressional predecessor, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, was the last person to lay in state in the City Hall rotunda. Turner endorsed her daughter, Erica Lee Carter, in a special election to fill her mother’s seat. Lee Carter attended the service in Turner’s honor Tuesday.

[…]

Voters elected Turner to represent the 18th Congressional District last November in a landslide after Jackson-Lee’s death. He said at the time he aimed to serve a maximum of two terms before passing the seat to a younger generation.

“Hard worker, smart worker, I mean to the end he was in DC serving the people,” Hughes said. She remembered Turner as a generous, selfless and dedicated public servant. He also was down to earth, she said, adding she and her friends would affectionately call him “Uncle Sylvester” when they saw him hit the dance floor.

“He’s going to be missed, especially people who are good natured with a good heart who just want the best for everyone,” Hughes said.

He will be missed. We await word when we will be able to elect a successor. Until then, we remember Sylvester Turner and thank him for all he did while he was with us. The Chron has more.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged CD18, Congress, Election 2024, Election 2025, Houston, special election, Sylvester Turner, Texas | Comments Off

Repair Cafés

Posted on March 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is very cool.

The Harris County’s Katherine Tyra Branch Library [was] crowded with toolboxes, sewing machines and piles of spare parts from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m on Saturday, as volunteer fixers help area residents mend everything from broken appliances to family heirlooms.

“I’ve seen everything from a bingo ball to a metronome,” said Glen Rhoden, a county employee who has volunteered at similar meet-ups in his free time since Harris County kicked off the events in 2023.

The county’s Repair Café is the first of four fix-it sessions scheduled at libraries across Harris County in 2025, with other iterations on the calendar for May 3, September 27 and November 8. Anyone can drop in with broken possessions such as small appliances, lamps, fans, clothing, power cords, toys, clocks and games. Volunteer “repair coaches” do their best to find a fix.

The Harris County Public Library and the Office of County Administration teamed up to try out the model at the county level after it started growing in popularity across the country, and found quick success. Last year, their volunteers gave over 100 broken belongings a second life.

“I do think that the Repair Cafés are filling a void,” said Laura Smith, who leads Harris County Public Library’s sustainability efforts. She said the country’s move towards mass production and planned obsolescence mean that most items which could have been repaired end up crowding the region’s rapidly dwindling landfill space instead.

The initial event was this past Saturday but as noted there are three more such events on the calendar. See here for more about the upcoming events, where and when they are, and how to get involved. I love everything about this. Kudos to everyone who has a hand in them.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Harris County, Harris County Public Library, libraries, Repair Café | Comments Off

Rural Texas’ scramble to respond to the measles outbreak

Posted on March 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I have a lot of sympathy during these trying times, but there’s a reason for all this, and we should be clear about it.

Five years ago, Melanie Richburg used a roll of duct tape, a HEPA filter and a portable fan to draw contaminated air out of a hospital room where patients were tested for the coronavirus.

Now, as the state’s largest measles outbreak in three decades sickens an increasing number of Texans in the South Plains region, the Lynn County Hospital District, where Richburg serves as the chief executive officer, is still without specialized isolation rooms to treat patients.

So, she’s prepared to bring out the duct tape again.

“If we see the volume of patients exceeds the number of beds available at children’s hospitals, we’re going to need a contingency plan,” said Richburg, whose county is 30 miles south of Lubbock and has had two measles cases. “The biggest struggle we have is the same struggle we had during COVID.”

The coronavirus pandemic underscored the need for robust public health infrastructure. And it brought to light a remarkable urban-rural divide in access to basic health services. In the months after the virus ravaged the country, federal dollars flowed to local public health districts, and policies targeting health care deserts saw a renewed push.

Yet as a disease that had been declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000 makes a resurgence, rural West Texas communities and state officials are scrambling to respond. Aging infrastructure, a dearth of primary care providers and long distances between testing sites and laboratories plague much of rural Texas, where the measles outbreak has concentrated.

At least 198 people in Texas have been infected with measles since late January, and one child has died from measles, the first such death in the country in a decade.

More measles cases are expected, and the outbreak could last for months, state health services commissioner Jennifer Shuford told lawmakers last week.

Though different from COVID in many ways, measles is similarly revealing how a lack of public health resources leaves rural communities vulnerable. What’s left are local leaders forced to scrape together the few tools they have to respond to an emergency, contending with years of lackluster investment from the state and federal level to proactively prevent emerging public health threats.

“We’re in a public health shortage area,” said Gordon Mattimoe, director of the Andrews County Health Department.“ You have to think outside the box.”

Some 64 Texas counties don’t have a hospital, and 25 lack primary care physicians, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture. Twenty-six rural Texas hospitals closed between 2010 and 2020, according to a rural hospital trade organization, and although closures slowed in the years since, those still standing are often in crumbling buildings with few medical providers.

Swaths of Texas have scant resources for public awareness campaigns. And they lack sufficient medical staff with expertise to provide the one-on-one education needed to encourage vaccination and regular visits to the doctor.

“We have a difficult time in our area finding pediatricians for our newborns,” said Sara Safarzadeh Amiri, chief medical officer for Odessa Regional Medical Center and Scenic Mountain Medical Center. “That’s a problem. If you can’t find a pediatrician, then when a serious question comes up, who do you ask?”

I have nothing but respect for the healthcare professionals and local leaders who are doing their best to cope with this situation. But this is a situation that has happened entirely on the watch of the unified Republican government in Texas. They have had plenty of time to take action to ameliorate the lack of rural hospitals, lack of doctors and labor and delivery rooms and prenatal and obstetric care if they wanted to. They haven’t, and the people who live in these affected areas overwhelmingly support them anyway. At some point, one wonders what if anything could change the status quo.

Anyway. The official case count jumped quite a bit last Friday, but there’s reason to believe it’s a serious undercount.

It’s very hard to say whether we are at the beginning or middle of the outbreak, mostly because I don’t trust the numbers. everal signs suggest substantial underreporting:

Death ratio. We’ve seen two deaths so far, yet only 228 cases have been reported. Measles typically kills 1 in 1,000 unvaccinated individuals. They were either extremely unlucky, or there are more cases than reported.

Very sick hospitalized patients. By the time these hospitalized children get to the hospital, they are very sick, meaning parents may be delaying care. The second measles fatality (which was an unvaccinated adult) never even went to the hospital.

Epidemiologists are encountering resistance to case investigations.

We don’t just have a murky numerator (case count)—we also have a murky denominator (population size). The community at the center of this outbreak is likely far larger than official U.S. Census figures suggest.

I wager the “true” count is much higher than reported. A CDC response team is now on the ground, working directly with local and state epidemiologists to help get this under control.

We may never know the true case level, but whatever it is, it’s going to keep going up for the time being.

And then there’s this:

Instead of focusing on the growing outbreak, Kennedy, a rabid anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist, is using taxpayer dollars to direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct needless trials on a disproven link between vaccines and autism. To the chagrin of “crunchy” pseudoscience advocates, numerous studies found no link between vaccines leading to autism.

That hasn’t stopped Trump’s public health goons from continuing to parrot junk-science talking points.

“As President Trump said in his Joint Address to Congress, the rate of autism in American children has skyrocketed. CDC will leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out what exactly is happening,” a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement to ABC News.

It’s unclear how the study would be conducted, who would take part in it, and how it would be different from numerous previous studies of the same topic.

Public health experts are denouncing the decision. Others are afraid of the impact Kennedy is already having on waning public health trust.

“The announcement that CDC will look at potential links between vaccines and autism means that significant federal resources will be diverted from crucial areas of study, including research into the unknown causes of autism, at a time when research funding is already facing deep cuts,” said Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Disease Society of America.

Where there’s a circus, there’s clowns. I don’t know what else to say.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged Austin, Centers for Disease Control, cod liver oil, coronavirus, Dallam County, Dawson County, Donald Trump, Ector County, Gaines County, hospitals, Houston, Lubbock, Lynn County, Martin County, measles, Medicaid, Mexico, New Mexico, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Rockwall County, Terry County, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, The Immunization Partnership, The Lege, vaccinations, Vitamin A, Yoakum County | 1 Comment

We’ve got tourists

Posted on March 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Yes we do.

Houston continues to attract more visitors, setting records in 2024 for number of visitors, air passengers and hotel revenue.

More than 54 million people visited the city last year, 6% more than the estimated 51 million in 2023 and almost 10% over 2019 volume, according to figures analyzed by Houston First, the city’s tourism bureau. Final figures will be released this spring.

“Last year’s record visitor numbers demonstrate Houston is heading in the right direction,” Mayor John Whitmire said in a statement issued by Houston First. “These efforts to promote Houston and attract conventions and tourists benefit all Houstonians by generating spending and commerce, which ultimately creates jobs in our community.”

[…]

The increase of visitors translated to record passenger volume at the region’s two major airports. More than 63 million people traveled through Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports last year, nealry 5% more than a year earlier. The number of passengers at Bush rose 4.9%, while 5.1% more traveled through Hobby.

Meanwhile, more than 25 million hotel room nights were booked last year, 8.2% more than in 2023, pushing the region’s occupancy rate higher by 7.7%. That translated to a 15.5% increase in overall hotel revenue, to $3 billion, breaking a record set in 2023.

I’m old enough to remember some cringey efforts to market Houston as a tourist destination, several of which were spearheaded by former First Lady Elyse Lanier. The 90s were quite the ride, I’ll tell you. I’d say Houston is a better place to visit now than it was thirty years ago just because it’s a much better place to eat out. No one lacks for good restaurant recommendations these days. I bring this up in part because I do think it matters, and also because according to the travel and tourism data sheet included in the story, the single biggest reason in both 2022 and 2023 for people to come to Houston was “visit friends/relatives”. Maybe that’s how we should have been marketing ourselves all along.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Hobby Airport, hotel occupancy tax, hotels, Houston, Houston First, IAH, John Whitmire, restaurants | 3 Comments

Duckees responds to Buc-ee’s

Posted on March 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Time for a litigation update.

It’s been nearly three months since Texas gas station giant Buc-ee’s, which has a rapidly growing presence and fanbase outside the state, accused another animal-faced brand of ripping it off. Now, the duck-centric competitor rivaling Buc-ee’s in its Midwestern expansion is denying all accusations of trademark infringement outright without offering much explanation.

In February, the Missouri-based liquor store and “full-service drive thru” Duckees issued its response to a November trademark violation accusation from the beaver-laden Texas travel center chain. The smaller fuel stop, which only has one location in the Midwestern state, gave a pretty basic response to each of Buc-ee’s claims: “Defendant denies all allegations.”

At its simplest, Buc-ee’s says that Duckee’s use of a smiling duck in front a yellow circle all encompassed by a black border too closely resembles the beaver’s beloved logo. Buc-ee’s, too, greets customers with a grinned animal, a rodent in their case, with a yellow circle behind him.

Though, there are some clear differences between the two. The big-time beaver dawns a red hat and is facing right. The Duckees mascot, on the other hand, is facing the opposite direction, is pictured from waist up, dons a pair of dark-colored specs and seemingly reps his own brand with a green jersey with a “D” on it. Whether that’s enough of a difference to deter consumer confusion or ensure brand recognition will be up to the courts to decide.

“On information and belief, Duckees is using the DUCKEES’ Word Trademark and DUCKEES’ logo with full knowledge of Buc-ee’s rights, and in bad faith and with willful, malicious and deliberate intent to trade on Buc-ee’s substantial recognition, reputation, and goodwill,” the claims against Duckees reads.

However, one of a few clear arguments made by Duckees in its formal response states Buc-ee’s wasn’t doing business in Kansas, or at least in Kimberling City, Missouri where the liquor store is located, when Duckees first opened its doors, meaning there was no brand recognition to infringe on.

‘[Buc-ee’s] Complaint is barred by the ‘prior use doctrine.’ Any allegedly infringing use by [Duckees] was done in good faith without knowledge of [Buc-ee’s] marks,” the Kansas City gas station wrote in its argument against Buc-ee’s. “[Duckees] marks also are used in a geographically remote area where [Buc-ee’s] marks were not generally known to consumers.”

See here for the background. I would also note that the Duckee’s duck is giving a thumbs-up, or perhaps pointing with its thumb – you know, ducks are famous for their opposable thumbs – while the Buc-ee’s beaver has no visible limbs. Clearly, I should have been an intellectual property lawyer. This has been your periodic update into the various litigation efforts of Buc-ee’s.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Buc-ee's, Duckees, Kansas City, lawsuit, Missouri, trademark | 3 Comments

Bill to fix joint primary problem introduced

Posted on March 10, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Worth watching.

What happened?

Texas state senators Thursday held a public hearing on legislation crafted to update a 2023 law requiring certain counties to drastically increase the number of polling locations if they use vote centers for countywide voting. Last year, Votebeat reported that election officials in several counties said they were struggling to comply with the law as written.

What is the legislation called?

Senate Bill 985. It’s awaiting a vote in the Senate Committee for State Affairs.

Who supports the current legislation?

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican, is championing the bill, and it’s also supported by the Texas Association of Election Officials and the Texas Association of County and District Clerks.

“Most election administrators and county clerks will tell you they’re struggling to find workers on Election Day,” Bettencourt said during the hearing Thursday. He cited an example reported by Votebeat last year of election officials in Brazos County who said they were struggling to comply with the law.

How would it work?

The bill would modify a 2023 law that made it harder for counties using the countywide voting program — where voters can cast a ballot anywhere in their county on Election Day — from combining small voting precincts with few voters into larger ones.

The bill would effectively remove a late amendment to the law that ended up raising the minimum number of polling places that counties had to offer.

Why does it matter?

Before the change, counties using the countywide program had flexibility to combine polling sites to save money or make voting more convenient.

Counties have struggled to comply with the new requirements. For example, in Harris County, the state’s largest, the county clerk told party leaders that for the 2024 primary, she had to offer more than 100 more polling locations than in 2020 and 2022. Because of that, Republicans and Democrats had to run their primaries jointly and share voting equipment, because there wouldn’t have been enough for all the locations.

In other counties, election officials said they were not able to fully comply with the law. Brazos County Elections Administrator Trudy Hancock said the county did not have available funds to staff locations and purchase additional equipment. In addition, in some areas of the county there aren’t buildings available to set up the required number of polling locations. In such cases, state officials told county election officials to carefully document their efforts to comply.

See here and here for the background. We didn’t know what was coming as a result of that previous bill until early voting for the 2024 primary was almost upon us. We made it through with a minimum of complications, but more stress than any of us needed. Hopefully this will fix that problem and make life easier for Teneshia Hudspeth and her crew, for Lord knows they deserve it.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Drew Springer, electronic voting machines, Harris County, Harris County Clerk, John Bucy, Paul Bettencourt, primaries, Senate, Teneshia Hudspeth, Texas, Texas Association of County and District Clerks, Texas Association of Election Officials, The Lege, voting centers | Comments Off

The GRB gets bigger

Posted on March 10, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Cool.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire and Houston First head Michael Heckman on Thursday unveiled plans for a $2 billion overhaul of the George R. Brown Convention Center, a project they said would “transform” the city’s downtown and east side while boosting Houston’s conventions business, entertainment industry and broader economy.

The project, which has been in development since 2023, calls for the convention center to be expanded and modernized to aid the city in the competition for events such as the World Cup, coming to the city in 2026, and the Republican National Convention, coming in 2028. Whitmire and Heckman argued that a reanimated convention center district would have a sweeping impact beyond the immediate area.

“Jobs, jobs and jobs. Guests. Land values. Revenue to the city, to use for affordable housing,” Whitmire said in an interview earlier this week. “It’ll impact every facet of Houston governance, and our quality of life issues. It’s a rebirth in downtown.”

Heckman, president and CEO of Houston First, the city’s marketing organization, said the effects of such revitalization will be felt across the region.

“World-class cities have to have a strong downtown, a thriving downtown,” Heckman said. “People want to come out of their home. They want amenities. They want walkability. So we look at this as a renaissance for downtown, not simply a convention product.”

The first phase of the project calls for the construction of a 700,000-square-foot GRB Houston South building, which would include two exhibition halls, ground-level retail and restaurants, and what is billed as the largest ballroom in Texas. It would also provide access to the Toyota Center via a 100,000-square-foot pedestrian plaza, which would extend the existing Avenida Plaza and connect to Discovery Green.

The expansion is scheduled to open in May 2028, shortly before Houston hosts the Republican National Convention for the first time since 1992. In the interim, Heckman said, the existing GRB will remain open for business and no interruptions are expected.

Subsequent phases of convention district overhaul, which is scheduled for completion in 2038, will focus on connecting downtown to Houston’s east side through public spaces.

See here for the Houston First press release. The funding mechanism for this is a bill passed in 2023 by then-Sen. Whitmire that gave the city and Houston First a share of downtown hotel tax revenues. I assume that some form of construction is already underway – the article only gave a completion date, so I’m guessing it has begun. I’m not sure how the “connecting downtown to the east side” thing is going to work with the whole I-45 expansion, but they have something in mind. The renderings look cool, and whatever we’ll have in place for the World Cup next year should be useful. Hope it all stays on schedule. CultureMap has more.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged construction, downtown, George R. Brown Convention Center, hotel occupancy tax, Houston, Houston First, John Whitmire, World Cup | Comments Off

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