First of all, let me say that Commentary, before Commentary, back in 1996 was hired by the Kingwood folks to help them stay out of the grasp of the City of H-Town. They didn’t want to become City of H-Town voters and I didn’t want them to vote in H-Town elections. I don’t regret trying to help them out back then.
Last night I made it up to Kingwood to attend the City of H-Town’s Redistricting Town Hall Meeting. The Mayor was there along with CMs Sullivan and Bradford. About 60 to 70 folks (including staff and security) showed up but only a handful got up to speak in what turned out to be more of a conversation than a hearing or meeting. It is apparent that some folks still haven’t gotten over being annexed.
Here is what I heard last night. Most folks clearly do not understand the concept of the Voting Rights Act. Some folks don’t want to be in a district that includes Clear Lake – good luck on that one. None of the folks support adding two council district seats. Some folks don’t want paperless folks included in redistricting or the census. They clearly made it sound like proceeding with redistricting under current city, state, and federal law and adding two council seats per the actions of H-Town voters back in 1979 was somewhat un-American – yikes!
It would have been nice to see some Dems or allies from the Kingwood area attend last night’s meeting – oh well.
Commentary thought about getting up to speak and trying to clarify stuff but I figured these folks weren’t interested in reasoning and I probably would have made the meeting last a couple of hours longer.
I wonder what those Kingwood folks think about the Chron E-Board today coming out in support of two new seats. Here is a piece of the editorial:
More than three decades ago, the city of Houston, the U.S. Justice Department and minority litigants struck a deal to reshape City Council to add district representatives. Before then, the entire body was elected citywide.
The settlement provided for nine members elected by district and five at large, which along with the mayor created a 15-member council. It also mandated a further expansion of council by two districts when the city’s population reached 2.1 million. In a subsequent referendum, voters incorporated the agreement into the city charter.
Here is the entire piece.
Way to go Chron!
There is Council Redistricting meeting this morning at City Hall and another Town Hall Meeting tonight in Clear Lake so be there.
This 1978 AL MVP winner’s numero 14 was retired on July 28, 2009. Who am I talking about?
This is also in today’s Chron:
Gayle Fallon, the president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, had harsh words for HISD board members, saying they should back Grier’s idea to raise the property tax rate as a way to reduce cuts.
"My problem is not with Terry Grier," said Fallon, who has been critical of the superintendent in the past. "It’s with this gutless board that would rather destroy the education in this system than raise taxes and risk making someone angry." Check out the entire article.
I wonder if she will ID the “gutless” trustees.
On Commentary’s website, you can scroll down and check out the separated-at-birth photos of ‘Stros pitcher Brett Myers and Fagin from “Oliver.
Check it out.
MLB Hall of Famer Jim Rice of course had his numero 14 retired by the Red Sox a couple of years ago. Jim Rice is celebrating his 58th BD today.
You can also go check out photos of the new scoreboard here.
Pretty cool if you ask me and that’s all I have from The Yard.
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