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OPINION: Why is the City of Houston always short of money? – Part I
By Bill King | Feb 19, 2024
As many of you know, I have been closely following the City of Houston’s finances for nearly two decades. Over that time, the City of Houston has been chronically short of money to fund basic municipal services. One major result of this has been a historic underfunding of infrastructure. The most glaring example of this can be seen in the condition of our streets.
OPINION: Poll shows Biden border policy has backfired with Latinos
By Bill King | Feb 9, 2024
A poll by the University of Houston was released last week on the prospects for the March primary elections and the November general election in Texas. The poll unsurprisingly projected that Biden and Trump were headed to another showdown in November, and that Trump was leading Biden in that rematch by 9% in Texas. However, what I suspect the Biden campaign team found shocking was that Biden was losing to Trump with Latino voters by a 47%-41% margin. Twice as many Latino voters had a very favorable opinion of Trump than Biden (39%-19%). Only 55% of Latino Democratic primary voters said they were committed to vote for Biden. The other 45% were undecided.
OPINION: Houston Chronicle’s campaign to unseat Kim Ogg
By Bill King | Feb 9, 2024
In the run-up to next month’s primary, the Houston Chronicle has published over two dozen derogatory stories about Kim Ogg. These stories have regularly given Ogg’s adversaries and her opponent a platform to voice their criticisms with the imprimatur of being objective news stories. Their coverage of Ogg dovetails with the its campaign to convince Houstonians that their concern about violent crime is overblown, notwithstanding that in poll after poll Houstonians across every demographic have identified violent crime as their top concern.
OPINION: Upcoming Senate Hearing with Big Tech CEOs is Missing Biggest Fish
By Matt Mackowiak | Jan 29, 2024
You don’t have to be a parent of children to be concerned about our ever-changing digital world and the unlimited ways for them to be harmed online.
OPINION: Don’t Forget About Alief
By Tommy Wan | Jan 25, 2024
As my father drives our family to dinner on Bellaire Boulevard through Little Saigon and Chinatown, my nose presses against the barren, reflective windows of our 2010 Mazda Van.
OPINION: 2023 Harris County crime stats
By Bill King | Jan 22, 2024
The Texas Department of Public Safety receives reports from all law enforcement agencies in the state of reported crimes. Those reports are summarized in a database that is available to the public and updated on a daily basis as reports are received from the agencies. A few days ago, the database showed that it had received the December reports from all law enforcement agencies in Harris County, giving us the first look at the incidence of crime in Harris County for 2023.
OPINION: Protect Texans from the CFPB’s late fee rule change
By Austin Ward | Jan 22, 2024
An alarming 89% of small businesses in the Lone Star State are grappling with the fallout of inflation. Operating costs have soared by 20% or more, creating hurdles for enterprises to hire, expand, and compete.
OPINION: Transit has a negligible effect on traffic congestion
By Bill King | Jan 8, 2024
In 2019, I attended a community meeting where a Houston Metro representative spoke to campaign for its 2019 referendum to approve an additional $3.5 billion of debt to expand Metro’s footprint. The representative began her presentation by asking, “Who here enjoys sitting in traffic?” Most in the crowd moaned or shook their heads. She continued, “That’s right. None of us do. That is why we need to make sure the referendum is passed.” Most in the crowd nodded in agreement.
OPINION: There’s no place like home for Houston children with disabilities
By Jonathan Willman | Jan 4, 2024
There’s no place like home. This old trope from a beloved children’s movie still rings true today, and for good reason.
OPINION: Metro budget will spend 18 times more on 'planning' than building bus shelters
By Kirby Jay | Dec 22, 2023
Houston Metro has, for the last year or so, been touting its program to build more bus shelters, as it has come under criticism from customers and some elected officials for leaving riders out in the weather. But how serious is it about that commitment?
Texan perspectives on electric vehicles in UH-TSU study
By Houston Daily | Dec 17, 2023
The University of Houston (UH) has revealed that, according to a survey conducted in collaboration with Texas Southern University, electric-powered vehicles have not managed to spark significant enthusiasm among Texans. This information is part of the five-year Texas Trends survey series, a joint initiative by UH’s Hobby School of Public Affairs and TSU’s Barbara Jordan–Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs.
Transit carries less than 1% of daily trips in Houston
By Bill King | Nov 20, 2023
In my recent survey on transit, I asked respondents to estimate the percentage of daily trips made by Americans and Houstonians on some form of transit. The average estimate for the U.S. and Houston were 7.3% and 4.3%, respectively. As we will see, these estimates are significantly higher than the actual ridership.
Turner is pressuring Houston first to pay $124,000 for his book
By Bill King | Nov 17, 2023
If you attended the City of Houston’s State of the City luncheon in September, you were given a copy of Mayor Sylvester Turner’s new book, A Winning Legacy – The Power of Vision, Collaboration, Resilience and Transformation. Its ninety pages narrate Turner’s life story and what a great job he has done as mayor over the last eight years.
Houston Metro’s Purple Line: A case study of the insanity of building light rail
By Bill King | Nov 5, 2023
In 2015, Houston Metro opened its Purple Line (aka Southeast Line). The Purple Line is a light rail facility that snakes 6.5 miles from downtown by Texas Southern and the University of Houston, ultimately terminating at Palm Center on Griggs Road.
Destructive Desires: What is HISD doing?
By Khalil Daniels | Oct 26, 2023
Toward the end of last summer, several Sharpstown High School students, including me, were informed that our school would begin enforcing uniforms as part of a new dress code. Hundreds of families went into an uproar about the announcement, especially because they had already purchased new, non-uniform school clothes for their children.
Recording shows Congresswoman Lee is ill-suited to be mayor
By Bill King | Oct 24, 2023
Unlike many cities with a city-manager form of government, the City of Houston mayor is the chief executive officer of the City. In addition to the mayor’s role presiding at Council meetings, the mayor also is the day-to-day manager of the city’s twenty-two departments with over 20,000 employees. The ability of the mayor to lead and manage the city workforce is crucial to the success of any administration.
City of Houston sales tax receipts up significantly in the last two years
By Bill King | Oct 24, 2023
After seven years of mostly flattish sales tax receipts, the City of Houston saw double digit increases over the last two years. However, the sales tax receipts have begun to cool and appear to be returning to historical patterns.
Day of forgiveness
By Bill King | Oct 24, 2023
Forgiveness is not a word that we hear very often on social media. The Forgiveness Project on Twitter has 8,700 followers, while all manner of hate groups garner followers in the millions. According to Google’s Ngram tracker, the word “revenge” was used ten times as frequently in books in 2019 as “forgiveness.”
Ballot measures
By Bill King | Oct 23, 2023
In the upcoming elections, voters will be asked to decide on a number of ballot measures. The specific referendums on the ballot will depend on where you live.
Results of transit survey
By Bill King | Oct 11, 2023
A little over 800 readers took the transit survey I sent out last week. Let’s start with a bit about who answered the survey because this certainly was not a scientifically selected sample. The two largest partisan groups were Independents at 35% and “mostly Republican” at 30%. Another 22% identified as “strong Republican” with 12% either “mostly Democrat” or “strong Democrat.” 73% live in the City of Houston and 93% in the Houston region. Virtually all of those living in the City plan to vote in the November election.