Commentary

A LOREN STEFFY COLUMN from the past week (or so) had this interesting observation: Five years of deficit spending have largely depleted reserve funds and left the city vulnerable to rising expenses and falling tax

KRIV-26’S ISIAH CAREY AND KPRC-2’S MARY BENTON both blog about attending Mayor White’s big local holiday media soiree. We asked our friends at Texas Watchdog why they hadn’t posted similarly exciting celebrity photos, but they

KHOU-11 reports that the city is (another) $3.3 million in the red: The variance is small — just a fraction of one percent of the overall budget — but it means some small projects may

LAURENCE SIMON describes “why the Houston Chronicle will never win a Pulitzer.” Of course, there are many more reasons, but his example is a good one.

IT’S UNFORTUNATE WHEN YOU you come back to the metro desk of a bad newspaper after not reading it carefully for a week or so and find… (1) Brad Olson offering the following: “Council member

THE CHRON’S CHRIS MORAN points out that County Judge Ed Emmett isn’t happy about the county housing director’s big pay raise this year. The housing bureaucrat’s pay jumped from roughly $100k two years ago to

AS MANY READERS know, I moved across town about a week ago… and have been busy unpacking, sorting out AT&T nonsense, etc., ever since. One of the best things about taking a week off from

CONGRATULATIONS TO ANNISE PARKER WHO WILL BE THE NEXT MAYOR: She’ll inherit many challenges from Bill White, and we wish her the best of luck.

BARC HAS A NEW BOSS: “David Atencio, the new general manager who begins Monday, hails from the private sector and has spent the past 17 years in the fitness industry, working in sales all over

REAL LIFE is intruding on the blogging, so it’s probably going to be a little quiet here over the next few days. In the meantime, feel free to treat this as an open-comment thread.