Kristen Mack, who has been disappointing as the Chronicle‘s replacement for former political writer John Williams, nevertheless occasionally provides some humor.
Take last week’s column on former mayor Lee P. Brown, who is wrapping up his year as politico in residence at Rice University.
According to Mack, Brown doesn’t seem quite ready to abandon campus life:
He hopes to continue his relationship with Rice after next week and has founded the Lee P. Brown Center for Public Service that he hopes will be located on the campus.
The nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank will provide “research and solutions” for local governments. He also envisions that it will provide experience for people, especially students, who are interested in local government and public service as a career.
“I couldn’t find anything like that in the country,” Brown said, citing federal government equivalents such as the Brookings Institution in Washington. “I think it fills a void. As mayor, I found myself dealing with different issues every 15 minutes. It would be nice for government to have somewhere they can call and share an issue and have research done.”
Hopes? Will it be at Rice or won’t it? Is Rice tired of the former mayor? Don’t they want a bigger piece of Lee Brown than his Endowed Dumpster? Do Chron reporters actually do any reporting?
We don’t mean to make light of Mack or Brown, but after reading this we just couldn’t help it:
Meanwhile, Brown has launched a new consulting firm, Brown Group International, to “assist public agencies and private corporations in developing and implementing cost-effective, high-impact strategies to address numerous challenges.”
The firm’s specialties will be public safety, homeland security, crisis management, government relations, personnel selection, litigation support and international trade.
It will employ about a dozen people he’s worked with over the years, including former Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford.
Brown Group International should indeed be able to draw on Brown’s special expertise in crisis management, government relations, personnel selection, infrastructure management, transparency in government, visual pollution control, technological innovation, and pension management.
Bradford, too, should certainly be an asset, with his own experience in personnel management and crime lab procedures.
Perhaps Kristen Mack can continue this theme next week with a profile of Ken Lay. There are rumors floating about that he’d like to found a new academic Center for Corporate Accountability, and she seems like just the right Chron reporter to go sniff this one out.
