Month: December 2009

THE CHRON’S MIKE SNYDER reports that carpetbagger councilmember-elect Al Hoang’s “extra” homestead exemption is valid (this year). As for all the other concerns raised about Hoang’s campaign-finance disclosures and residency, well….

IN A FITTING END TO HIS TERM, Mayor Bill White announced the formation of a commission to recommend changes to (but not elimination of) the city’s term limits: White, in announcing the commission, said he

ANTI DEATH PENALTY ACTIVISM POSING AS JOURNALISM may have taken a hit at the Chronicle due to layoffs and a decline in death-penalty sentences (relative to Bexar and Tarrant counties), but it’s good to see

MICHAEL REED follows up his earlier reporting on METRO’s coming light-rail mobility mess on Post Oak. Remember after Reed’s earlier reporting when METRO’s army of PR spinners assured that the organization was working closely with

SLAMPO LAUNCHES his Bob Stein Watch (so the rest of us are saved the trouble of tracking when the pro journalists at the Chron and elsewhere get lazy and tap an easy quote from Houston’s

THE END OF THE YEAR does bring news that transportation reporter Carolyn Feibel will be departing the Chronicle. We had thought her last column might offer readers yet more information about personalized license plates (covered

WE’RE MOSTLY CONTINUING our holiday slowdown, but here’s a question some readers might be able to help with: Is there something in the official MSM Journalism Handbook that requires endless, tiresome, repetitive end-of-decade/looking-ahead summaries* the

TOM BAZAN passes along the latest dismal METRO ridership and fare collection statistics, which we have posted for public review. Tory Gattis posts separately that “an immediate deep-dive audit and analysis of Metro’s cloudy future

IN AN ALL TOO RARE POST, The County Seat mocks the Chron Editorial Board’s Christmas wish list. Our newsy wish list for the nation’s fourth largest city would include a newspaper metro desk befitting the

ONE SLAMPO VS. FOUR CHRONNIES: Almost ten days after Slampo first highlighted the curious residency situation of District F Councilman-elect Al Hoang, and almost a week after Slampo questioned Hoang’s campaign finance reports, the Chronicle‘s