Ross

I think all of the sex crimes have been investigated to the extent possible. If HPD cannot find the victim, there's not much they can do unless the victim contacts them. That's just the reality of crime investigation. It's like when there are shots fired and people on Nextdoor are asking why HPD isn't doing anything, it's because without any sort of video or other evidence, there is nothing the police can do except take a report.

The paint lines look a bit...strange. They appear to based on distance from the top of the windows instead of being the same on all sides. I don't think I've seen that color scheme before, so that's at least something different.

The Admiral Byng of HPD? Something about "to encourage the others"?

We do not need images of sign permits. Just stop. You already put the essential information in text. The images just slow down page loading, even with gigabit fiber and a high end PC.

2023 Chronicle article on police staffing and some of the issues https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/houston/article/houston-s-1b-police-budget-won-t-fill-staff-18108477.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaG91c3RvbmNocm9uaWNsZS5jb20vcG9saXRpY3MvaG91c3Rvbi9hcnRpY2xlL2hvdXN0b24tcy0xYi1wb2xpY2UtYnVkZ2V0LXdvbi10LWZpbGwtc3RhZmYtMTgxMDg0NzcucGhw&time=MTcxMzMxNTI5MDc2OQ%3D%3D&rid=NDhhN2ZkODktOTA0Ny00ZjM0LWEyNjgtNThhNWNkY2RlZjY3&sharecount=MA%3D%3D Detailed FY2024 HPD budget is here https://www.houstontx.gov/budget/24budadopt/III_HPD.pdf The budget shows 2875 patrol officers and 1357 investigators. If you assume the patrol officers are split into 7 shifts to provide 24/7 coverage, that means that at any given time there are about 400 officers on the street to patrol 600+ square miles. The real solution is to hire 1,000 or more new officers.

The mindset of police in the 1950's was to beat up Blacks and blame them for every crime. HPD is very short of officers. Hiring an officer costs about $100,000 per year all in, so hiring 1,000 more is another $100 million. Protections for police and fire pensions are enshrined in State law, they aren't going anywhere. How would you measure police performance while not providing incentives for them to game the system?

I am going to be the mean guy today. Those pictures are copyrighted, and you CANNOT store them and repost them unless you are willing to risk massive fines for infringement. Like it or not, Cityliving has absolute control of the images, they are his intellectual property, and he can stop anyone from using them without his permission.

The 1% sales tax that Houston gets is budgeted to raise $865 million. That tax it at the maximum allowed by state law, so it's not going up. We will probably see a garbage fee sometime in the near future. If it's like Dallas, that will be $35 per month. The tax money for solid waste now is $20 per month. Water delivery is not covered by property or sales taxes, that's an enterprise fund with its own budget.

Houston company that does amazing wood work for commercial buildings. They've been around for decades https://brochsteins.com/

Are you saying we don't need to pay any taxes? That crimes will magically solve themselves? Houston is short of about 1,000 police. Adding that many would cost $100 million per year. Currently, the HPD and HFD budgets exceed property tax collections by over $200 million and firefighters are going to be entitled to over a billion dollars from the contract settlement. The City has a revenue cap that limits increases in property tax collections to the lower of 4% or the combination of population increase and inflation. Unless you think there is a few hundred million dollars the City can cut from the non-public safety portions of the budget, there will have to be a tax increase to increase the number of police and to pay for the HFD pay raises and back pay.

Usually a better deal on rent. On the cynical side, another reason is proximity to the CEO's home. But, the Noble CEO lives in River Oaks, and I doubt that CityWest is easier to get to than Sugar Land.

The barriers are great. It's always fun to watch some idiot not paying attention hitting one of those barriers and destroying a tire and wheel, and hopefully a lower control arm. I saw that just East of Shepherd where a Honda Accord driver tried to speed up and get into the left lane rather than waiting their turn. Bam! they paid the price.

The existing townhomes in Midtown generally have the parking in the back, not facing the street.

One of the empty blocks is the old YMCA location owned by Chevron. The taxes on that property are about $500,000 per year. The block immediately to the North is also owned by Chevon and the taxes are just under $7 million. Under a LVT would the tax on the vacant property also be $7 million, or would the developed lot drop to say $3 million and the vacant lot increased to $3 million? Or would the vacant lot be taxed at $7 million and the developed lot at $3 million? The land value for both those blocks is about the same under the current scheme as $32 million, but the developed block is valued at $334 million. Is the thought that Chevron would build a 40+ story building on the empty lot? Who would occupy that space? Or would we get another 5 story apartment building? I suspect that Chevron would just pay the taxes on the vacant land and leave it undeveloped.

An LVT would force land owners to build buildings that are not needed and that would not produce enough income to cover the costs of the development. If buildings were economic to build, land owners would build them.