13 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

How so?  It seems the church and school are building this parking garage for themselves.

From this line in the thread:

Quote

 If I’m correct it means that the church agreed to let Jim Crain build them a new parking garage in exchange for building on top of the garage. 

It seems to me like someone is building a garage for the church, not the church building a garage for themselves.

Just now, Houston19514 said:

Parishes need the permission of the Ordinary and his finance council to spend funds over a certain amount, which usually means that the purchase and sale of buildings would require the Ordinary’s permission (c. 1291). This requirement is meant to protect parishes from their pastor spending large amounts of parish funds without any check or oversight.

https://ordinariate.net/parish-property-ownership

Does "spending" exist in this context?

When a church I used to attend let a developer turn its parking lot into a residential skyscraper over a church parking garage, it didn't "spend" anything.  In fact, it makes money each year from the lease of the land to the developer, which built and owns the building.  That seems to be what's happening here, too.

6 minutes ago, samagon said:

maybe the city should get rid of the ridiculous rule that bans advertisements on public transit, create more income streams.

I for one would love to see the fun advertisements that Pusch and Nguyen could come up with.

That made more sense pre-COVID.  

Chicago used to have a massive advertising program on its trains and busses.  Demand was so high that if an ad agency couldn't get space on a placard, it would sometimes hire actors to walk around a train to talk up their product.  As a keen observer of advertising, it was very interesting to watch so many brands trying to get exposure on a single transit system.  It approached Tokyo levels.

When I went to Chicago post- COVID, there were almost zero ads left on the trains and buses.  From what I've read, the whole ad industry is going through a major shake-down that's affecting every medium from social media to web to TV and on.

Also, I'm not sure it's completely correct to say that advertising is banned at Metro.  I've seen several advertising campaigns on the Red Line.  The most recent one was for Dick's Sporting Goods, which included wrapping trains, and comping fares with big Dick's stickers over the card readers.

14 hours ago, Some one said:

I said it in another post, but I'll just post it here too

  

To add onto that, I'd extend the Green and Purple Line up Houston Ave (suck it Trinity Downtown) then it turns left on Washington Ave, runs through Washington Ave (and Westcott St) and Old Katy Road to the NWTC. From there it'd turn right on Post Oak and follow the (future?) Uptown/Inner Katy BRT to the Northwest Mall (assuming the high-speed rail even gets built). I'd also have it connect to the (imaginary) 290 commuter rail.

I'd also have a rail or BRT down Highway 6 between Westpark Tollway and the Energy Corridor (and maybe extend it further north and south).

My suggestion is that one line goes down Washington, and one goes up Houston.  

On 5/16/2024 at 3:29 PM, Texasota said:

No, the problem is the archdiocese. This garbage is 100% in line with their other projects.

You seem to be under the impression that the archdiocese is not part of Houston.

Also, while I'm not privvy to any of the arrangements made, generally speaking such a deal would be between the church and the developer, with the archdiocese serving only a distant advisory role.  In the Catholic Church, the parishes are organizationally separated from the Church as a whole.  

It's the reason that when the roof of the church I belonged to burned, the parish had to foot the bill for its reconstruction (and then it burned again), and the archdiocese wouldn't even lend us money.  It's also  one of the reasons that it was so hard for so long for people to sue the Church (big C) over sexual abuse that happened in a church (little c) or parish.  

21 hours ago, august948 said:

For specifically Japanese products, you can try Kinokuniya in Katy Asia Town.

 

Tried that, and it wasn't good at all.   Very disappointing.  I was hoping for something like Itoya, but it was really for wannabe teenage Japanophiles and manga enthusiasts who have never been, and likely never will be, in Japan.  

It takes forever to get stuff delivered from Itoya, but it's worth the wait.

My wife gets her fancy ink from Dromgoogle's in Rice Village.  Does anyone know of any similar stores in Houston?  Or even southeast Texas/Louisiana?

8 hours ago, 004n063 said:

Sometimes paying for a subscription to the Chronicle feels like buying my students' artwork.

Most days it seems like the Chronicle is 40% restaurants and food articles.   It would be nice if two of those food reporter positions could be converted into one local news reporter position, instead of what appears to be farming a good portion of the "local" content out to interns in San Antonio.

/Dead tree subscriber

8 hours ago, 004n063 said:

The third story bit is kind of a fair point. The rest is culture wars mumbo jumbo.

Hamburgers are culture wars now?  It's getting hard to keep up.

The New York Times sent out a national alert about it.  Here's a gift link to the photos its using:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/weather/houston-storm-photos-video.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sk0.k9kf.bepQAZCSmAmR&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

46 minutes ago, Purdueenginerd said:

One thing to note about hotel companies is that theyre often franchised, and so while some of them are operated by large companies, sometimes theyre not. Sometimes the owner is ignorant of typical processes and/or used to skirting regulatory laws. Generally my experience with Hotel Renovation projects is the ownership/property management is pretty naïve and  ignorant of building construction. 

Of course, you are correct about the franchising and the owners not being versed on every local regulation.  But that's why they hire general contractors and other people experienced in this sort of thing.  They're supposed to make sure everything is correct.  I didn't necessarily mean to imply that Marriott Corporate was at fault.  

I went down to CVS to get milk. Lots and lots of workers cleaning things up.  Looks like they've been at it since the wee hours. 
 

This stuff is everywhere. But a lot of it is under leaves, so be careful walking. 
 

From Radio Discussions:

From Metro:

Park & Ride Service Suspended, HOV/HOT Lanes Closed Following Severe Weather

As a result of last night's severe weather, METRO has made the following service adjustments:

Friday, May 17

• All Park & Ride service is suspended until further notice.
• Expect delays on local bus, METROLift and curb2curb service.
• Reduced frequency, bus shuttle service on portions of Red, Green and Purple METRORail lines.
• Silver Line will run in the curb lane. BRT lane is closed. 
• METRO RideStores will be closed.

METRO HOV/HOT Express lanes will remain closed through morning and afternoon commutes, impacting the following roadways:

• I-45 North (North Freeway)
• I-45 South (Gulf Freeway)
• I-69 / U.S. Hwy. 59 North (Eastex Freeway)
• I-69 / U.S. Hwy. 59 South (Southwest Freeway)
• U.S. 290 West (Northwest Freeway)

METRO is committed to ensuring the safety of our customers and employees. Crews will continue to assess conditions through the day and we will issue further alerts if there are any updates to service.

The weather guys were really on it. More than 24 hours notice that this was going to be really bad, and then it arrived right on time.
 

David Paul said downtown at 6:31pm, and it arrived right at 6:30. 

Lots of downtown streets are closed because there's so much glass everywhere. It's really hard to resist going outside and looking, but i know the good citizen thing to do is to stay out of the way. 

A friend of a friend sent this to me from the area of Franklin and Travis.

On 5/14/2024 at 8:47 AM, ChannelTwoNews said:

What I always thought was interesting is that they (IMO) didn't hit their rhythm until about 5 years after the purchase. WFAA had always been the crown jewel in the Belo group, but if you watch the clips of all of their stations from that time, KHOU consistently looks the most contemporary and up to date, especially when 1989 (that 5 year mark) hits and all of the pieces are in place for success. That, however, is another story.

Yeah, KHOU was treated as the bastard stepchild in the Belo family.  It was a waterfall.  The money, praise, support, and attention went to the Dallas Morning News first, then WFAA, then KHOU.   I always felt bad for the KEYE people; they weren't even on the radar.

I was once told that there were people up at WFAA who were mad that CBS had its Texas mini-bureau/office at KHOU, and not at WFAA.  They thought that it should rightly be in Dallas.

Since I've returned to Houston, I've watched the local newscasts occasionally, and few of them are better than when I left.  Then I stream the stuff from Dallas, and what I've watched is really quite bad.  90% hype and fluff, and the anchors seem to think that one tube of makeup is a single serving.

On 5/13/2024 at 9:26 PM, ATH said:

Permit procurement is difficult at best in the City of Houston.  Not enough reviewers, not enough pay.  I'm told that Mayor Whitmire is getting ready to name some really strong people to a committee to try, again, how best to improve the permit procurement process.

"It's hard" isn't an excuse.  It's their job to get permits.  They're not doing their job.  

On 5/13/2024 at 8:41 PM, trymahjong said:

18-19 years ago when the metro train was first talked about- a bunch of us went and pitched the idea of a raised metro line—- on Westheimer—oh my— the blowback we received.

 

i’m trying so hard to be a voice in the wilderness about - all types of alternative to try and limit our car dependence……..but still keep traffic manageable. Somehow nothing ever gets heard.

I'm not sure elevated is the way to go on Westheimer, but a train of some sort would be perfectly suited to the area.  

In an ideal world, it would be underground, but then you get shouted down by thousands of people who make their money from burning dinosaurs; or think that subways are somehow magic fountains that spew crime; or (a HAIF favorite) believe that you can't build tunnels in Houston, even though we've had a tunnel underneath the ship channel for 75 years.

For reference, here's what freeway caps look like elsewhere.  I picked a few in Seattle, because those are the ones I'm most familiar with:

(Sorry about the "crazy old man having a stroke" random text styling.  I just want to fit in with the rest of the thread.)

15 hours ago, Texasota said:

Exactly. What else was anyone really expecting?

Parking garages can be done very well.  The problem is that the Houston ethos is "good enough."

On 5/7/2024 at 9:12 AM, samagon said:

I mean, sure we can get all conspiracy theory about why he would go from having this stance in 2019:

"The reconstruction of Shepherd and Durham are critical components of the transportation infrastructure for the City of Houston, the Houston-Galveston region, and ultimately, the State of Texas," Whitmire wrote on June 24, 2019

to the stance he has now where he wants to stop the project after half of it is complete, but simply, donors speak loud.

and to be sure, he doesn't care about Jane VanSanten's $4 contribution, it's more the $30,000 donation from TAR, $20,000 from HPOU, Cobb Fendley, ACEC Houston, or feel free to investigate his donations for yourself. https://www.transparencyusa.org/tx/candidate/john-whitmire/contributors?by=electionAmount

Maybe a worm died in his brain?