Ross

by revenue they are #1

http://money.cnn.com...shots/2255.html

Using revenues alone as a measure of corporate size is utterly without merit, and one reason I've always thought the Fortune numbers were useless. Any reasonable method has ExxonMobil at the top. More profits, more shareholder's equity, more value in the market, etc.

The point being - building something 45 miles out from the city center is still not necessarily the best strategy if you want to appeal to the largest labor pool. I'm sure Exxon has done their homework, and I'm sure they understand they are going to lose some folks during their move - and they are OK with that.

The XOM campus isn't 45 miles from the center of town. It's 24 from my house in Timbergrove.

It was a self-depricating joke; not particularly untrue (before or after), but nothing more. And don't get me wrong, it flatters me that y'all think that I'm a success, but you have no idea how little I get paid these days.

At least you aren't standing around City Hall demanding we pay your way.

WalMart isn't the biggest corporation in the US.

And, Ainbinder and WalMart aren't padding their profit margins with the $6 million from the 380 agreement, they have to pay that money out up front, and get reimbursed later. You can argue over whether the City should have to pay for the infrastructure (I say it does), but there's no $6 million gift to developers. And, really, we wouldn't be having this conversation if it was HEB or Whole Foods. RUDH only hates certain developments, not all of them, and that makes them hypocrites.

I love that bldg. on Wash. Ave. with the black tiles, that really needs to be preserved. What was originally next to it, looks like another store connected.

The entire building was the Weingartens, according to a friend who delivered soft drinks there 30+ years ago. Ther'es a full size basement underneath the building, as well.

What are you talking about?

Humor. You wanted to know how the proposal would reduce variance requests. I replied that the way to reduce the variance requests is to make the submission address impossible to find, and to return improperly addressed variance requests, ie those sent to City Hall or the Mayor, to the requester with a note to send it to the correct, but impossible to find, address. Much like the joke Jeff Millar used to write about regarding the insurance company with the unlisted claims number that greatly improved profits.

LOL, how exactly will this cut down on the number of variance requests?

That's achieved by making the address for requesting a variance unlisted, and returning any variance request that doesn't go to the right address to the requester.

Why should i respect thug life when it doesn't respect me?

If the sidewalks are too bad to use, complain to the City to force the property owners to obey the law and fix them. In the meantime, stay out of the street.

If you are in a car, assume that pedestrians always have the right of way, regardless of the rules.

That's pretty much my assumption when I drive, especially in the Greater Heights area. However, when a stupid pedestrian darts into a traffic lane from behind a car, or a tree, or other obstruction, and doesn't look for cars, there's not a lot a driver can do. I am also appalled by the number of joggers that think the street is an appropriate place to run, and the parents that push a stroller in the street. My other pet peeve is the parents around Harvard Elementary who get their kids out of the car on the street side instead of the sidewalk side. Whatever happened to thinking before acting?

Yeah I run all the time and carry nothing. I sweat like a damn pig, anything I carry would be destroyed. Big government should just give me my barcode tattoo or chip implant so I can be located whenever I go off my rocker and get lost.

You might be able to convince a vet to chip you like a dog. Or, there's nothing to stop you from having your name and other details tattooed on your arm.

I think this is actually the NorthWEST corner. The NE corner is food oriented

I wasn't clear in my earlier post that Buffalo Speedway didn't exist South of Bellaire Blvd.in 1944. It did run from Westpark to Bellaire. The topo map does show a race track on Westheimer near the path of Buffalo Speedway, so that may be where the track was.

The big track on the Pershing Jr High site is about a mile in length. The smaller one is about 3/8 of a mile. I don't see any grandstands or other facilities, but early races were run on pretty rudimentary tracks. The 1953 aerials show the school in place and the houses that were built between 1944 and 1953 as Hosuton expanded in the post war boom. If you don't have Google Earth, it's a great tool for this sort of thing, and we are lucky that Houston seems to have more data available than many other cities.

This has been discussed here before, I think. If not here then I've definitely read about that track somewhere and, yes, it said that that's how Buffalo Speedway got its name. it was a stock car track.

I think Buffalo Speedway and Stella Link date to before the war though. I'll look at Historic Aerials and some old maps later.

Stella Link was there in 1944, Buffalo Speedway wasn't.

Does anyone know anything about this swimming pool that's North off Bellarie Blvd. It looks like it's now an indoor tennis courts.

That's Colonial Park, a West University Place city park. The pool in hte photo was built between 1944 and 1953, as it appears on the 1953 Google Earth aerial, but not the 1944. There's a different pool there now.

ExxonMobil building was built in 1963 or so. From Google Earth, it looks like there were some one story buildings there, and some parking. I don't think there was much of significance lost. MOst of those areas had been rebuilt several times over the years, starting with houses, thne businesses, then high rises.

Goatman, I've used tinypic.com to post photos on other forums. Once you put the pictures there, it gives you a link to embed.

Easily the best kept secret in Houston. This cheesesteaks at this place are incredible and they make every other cheesesteak place in Houston look like amateurs.

I've wondered about this place, since I drive by it every day. I'll have to try it.

Here you go, a history of Treeline, straight from the horses mouth http://www.treelinegolf.com/history.htm

Google earth is a good place to start. The historical images help a lot, assuming there is coverage.

They have spotlights. I've seen them flash across my neighborhood.

Property tax per square foot is a meaningless number.

I think the checkerboard building is the hotel near 600 Jefferson, whose name escapes me. It was closed for a number of years, then renovated and reopened.

I would argue that it's the consumers who pay sales taxes, with the retailer acting as the facilitator. And a new store in an established market like ours will primarily take revenue away from other retailers, so there is not much of a net increase in sales tax revenue. It takes things like population growth, rising salaries, and increased tourism to add real revenue to the area's retail base, not just adding more redundant retailers that borrow customers from one another.

I think the reason the city likes to annex commercial areas is for simplicity and lower risk. The city gains a significant chunk of revenue by dealing with small number property owners who own large tracts of taxable real estate in adjacent areas. Residential, by comparison, is composed of many smaller plots, and of course as you said, noisy homeowners are much more of a hassle to work with, and worse yet, they are voters who could pose a threat to those in office if annexation is not desired.

I do agree that this is more complicated than looking at property tax bills. More than anything, it doesn't account for the impact on public assistance from Walmart employees. Less than half of Walmart employees receive healthcare through their employer, and according to this source, Walmart employees cost taxpayer money for a variety of government programs, at an average cost of $420,750 to taxpayers per store. Those may be primarily federal programs, but regardless of the government entity they are drawing from, it is hard for me to believe that Walmart is subsidizing the public with the massive amount of evidence contradicting this claim.

What would be the plight of the workers if they weren't working at WalMart? Would they be using even more public assistance? Could it be that they woek at WalMart because it's the best job they can find? If WalMart paid higher wages and more benefits, would the workers attracted be of a higher caliber, thus leaving the current employees back on the dole?

Maybe owners of historic homes should get more tax exemptions beyond the standard homestead exemption. After all, we are now the stewards of homes that can only be modified with the City's HAHC approval, and we pay more to maintain and update our homes to adhere to these rules.

Your home is no more historic, and no more important, than my generic 1952 Timbergrove ranch. It's just older. Of course, for those stupid enough to support the concept of "historic" districts, karma will appear at the suitable moment.

As far as paying less proportionate tax than Walmart, how do you compare a 152,000 retailer to a single family home? The tax rate does not really take into account the return on investment each receives from city resources for things like infrastructure and public assistance. Walmart encourages employees to draw from public assistance to compensate for the low pay and meager benefits they receive. Their "low" prices are achieved through fancy management that offsets the cost by relying on others as much as possible. As taxpayers, s3mh and others have a right to complain about this and oppose this project.

WalMart isn't receiving public assistance. in fact, the City is going to be able to make necessary infrastructure improvements ahead of schedule due to the generosity of the developer in funding those improvements. I really don't understand the hatred for WalMart. It's a business. Don't like them, don't shop there. Perhaps it's jealousy that someone else is more successful. in any case, WalMart has as much right to operate as anyone else.

If anything, those living in historic homes in the Heights are subsidizing the property tax system. The houses are appraised higher per square foot than many other parts of town, even as they need more attention and cost to maintain. The majority of homeowners, at least in my neighborhood, do not have kids attending HISD. And most Heights homeowners are probably not relying on public assistance to make ends meet; otherwise those folks would be finding less expensive areas to live. And I'm not complaining about the unfairness of the tax system when it comes to citizens, but it does bother me when corporations or developments of a certain size suddenly become outliers of the tax system that the rest of us have to subsidize.

You aren't subsidizing WalMart. They are subsidizing you.