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At the behest of some readers, including Martha Seng, AIA-Houston President, the Houston Chronicle is considering FINALLY hiring a columnist to serve as architecture/design critic. It's been embarassing and unfortunate that the country's fourth largest city has been without such a voice in its most read and most influential newspaper. I'm told that the editors are considering the desire among its readers for such a column. If you believe that this city deserves/needs/ought to have this position created and filled, drop an email to the Chronicle. Write to James Campbell, the reader representative at readerrep@chron.com. Do it soon! Do it now!

Word is that McElvy Partners sold to a group that owns Village Voice and LA Weekly. I miss the old Leader before McElvy bought it. They used to get out into parts of the Heights and GOOF that got little attention. McElvy almost ruined the Leader when he tried to turn it into a neighborhood version of FoxNews, railing against the historic districts and printing some utter nonsense on the subject (law professor claimed that HDs were unconstitutional despite US Supreme Court holding that historic preservation passes constitutional muster). Clearly at some point, McElvy figured out that no one wanted a caustic right leaning neighborhood news paper and toned it down (McElvy then stepped down as publisher). Since then, the Leader has done a decent job of being a community news paper more like the Leader of old. I am concerned that the new owners may see the all the money coming into the neighborhood as an indication that the Leader needs to be more like something someone would read in Bushwick or Park Slope instead of focusing on community affairs, like schools, City of Houston issues, etc. But we shall see.