Dateline Houston

PHOTO BY WILLIAM RUB

One of Houston's new B-cycle kiosks.

Observers have long speculated that Houston’s famous weight problem might be due in part to its car dependency. Now we have proof.

A study of Texas drivers published this week in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, shows that—surprise—a long commute can make you sick. Researchers examined more that 4200 adults in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin areas and found long commutes correlated with high blood pressure, increased waist size, decreased heart function and lower likelihood of getting enough exercise. A driver with a commute of 16 to 20 miles is 52 percent more likely to be obese.

The average Houston commute? Twenty-one miles.

Research also shows Houstonians are sick of it. A Kinder Institute survey released in late April reported that 56 percent of Harris County respondents called development of better mass transit “very important” to Houston’s future, and 51 percent preferred taxpayer money go to improved rail and bus systems rather than expanding existing highways.

All of this may make Houston’s latest green move more likely to succeed. Last Wednesday, Mayor Annise Parker kicked off B-cycle, a program that lets riders check out bicycles downtown for up to 90 minutes for free. Full-day rentals are $5 and riders can buy a year-long pass for $50. The program is starting with just 15 bikes at three locations, but the mayor hopes to have 200 bikes available by the end of the year.

Fifteen U.S. cities have bike-share programs, and New York is rolling one out in July. So what if their obesity rate is only 20 percent? We got bikes!

In Houston over the weekend, patriots gathered for the national summit of True the Vote, the tea-party-affiliated poll watching outfit that might be saving democracy or destroying it, depending on whom you ask.

Reality was much in question during the two-day conference, where speakers made a sophisticated argument about the fundamental subjectivity of the human experience. In other words, they argued that if enough people think something, it must be true.

Coverage of the conference in the Nation focused on TTV speakers’ obsession with a recent Rasmussen poll that showed 64 percent of Americans believe that voter fraud exists. (Of course, an April 2011 poll found that a quarter of Americans think Obama was born abroad, so that means he’s definitely native, right?) Three speakers cited the poll as if it were actually evidence of fraud.

“They were stuck in a reality that was unfamiliar to anyone who’s been paying attention to voter issues,” writes the Nation’s Brentin Mock. “Speakers—among them Heritage Foundation’s Hans Von Spakovsky, Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton and former title-challenged DOJ employee J. Christian Adams—spoke about the voter ID cause as if they were failing, as if sixteen states didn’t pass photo voter ID laws, most of them in just the past eighteen months. As if a federal court didn’t just validate a strict photo voter ID law in Arizona the week before the conference.”

True the Vote is a project of the King Street Patriots, a supposedly nonpartisan group founded in Houston in 2009 that recently got called out by a district judge for being an unregistered political action committee (PAC) that illegally aided Republicans during the 2010 elections. True the Vote trained and dispatched about 1000 volunteers to mostly minority neighborhoods to look for voting irregularities and stare down would-be defrauders. As the Observer’s Patrick Michels reported, “[they] combined to send 800 complaints of improper voting to Harris County officials, who investigated a few but ended up taking no legal action.

“While it generated little evidence of voter fraud, the King Street Patriots’ effort did result in complaints about voter intimidation and breached ethics, a lawsuit from the Texas Democratic Party, and an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Now True the Vote aspires to send a million volunteers to do the same at this year’s elections.

The progress or failure of voter ID efforts was but one of the conference’s conflicting realities.

A dispatch on Breitbart.com claims, “The event drew protests from paid union protesters and a few known Occupiers,” –which makes one wonder who’s keeping a list of known Occupiers— but adds, “the protesters were largely ignored and left after only an hour or two.”

But Mock reports, “The only people gathered outside the conference hotel were a bunch of African-American motorcycle clubs on their bikes, a few of whom told me they had no idea who True the Vote was or that they had a conference going on.”

Why is the presence of protesters even important? Because it’s so much more exciting be a group of freedom fighters, violently opposed, the underdogs holding back the hordes of evildoers, than to be 200 largely ignored tea partiers in the ballroom of a suburban Sheraton.

“We are talking about the demise of our democracy, and it is slow-motion suicide,” warned speaker Pat Caddell, a longtime Democratic strategist turned Fox News contributor.

But if this is true the way he meant it, the motion is very slow indeed. As the Houston Chronicle noted in March in the amusingly titled, “Facts elusive in Texas voter ID fight,” “Fewer than five complaints involving voter impersonations were filed with the Texas Attorney General’s Office from the 2008 and 2010 general elections, which drew more than 13 million voters.”

But that was enough to prompt Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot to pen, in an op-ed in USA Today that month, “In Texas, evidence of voter fraud abounds. In recent years, my office has secured more than 50 voter fraud convictions.”

But hey. Definitions of “abound” abound.

Another contested definition at the conference was “nonpartisan.”

The Chronicle’s Joe Holley reports cannily, “Several speakers were determinedly nonpartisan, or bipartisan, despite the rightward leanings of their audience. ‘We don’t take a position on President Obama’s election. We take a position on free and fair elections,’ said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a Washington-based government watchdog group.

“It was also Fitton, however, who delivered a warning: ‘I fear the Obama gang is setting themselves up to steal the election.’

“He also accused the president of wanting ‘to register the food stamp army to vote for him.’”

It may have been the day’s most reality-based statement—not regarding the president’s intentions, but True the Vote’s.

Poor people voting? Who wants that?

Meet Helena Brown. The zany rookie Houston City Council member from District A has made the news again, this time for the resignations of her two highest ranking staff members. It’s just the latest in the saga of the council’s most conservative and outspoken member, a 34-year-old former receptionist who lives with her parents and sticks to her guns.

The Houston Chronicle reported Monday that Brown’s chief of staff, Leticia Ablaza, and chief deputy director, Rasuali Bray, have resigned. Another staffer resigned in March.

Brown had previously garnered press for having the council’s only part-time staff, two of whom worked 22 hours a week and five of whom worked 39, classifying all as part-time employees, which denies them health insurance, pensions, or vacations.

A statement from her office at the time characterized this as fiscal conservatism, claiming, “The Council Member and all her staff were offered benefits but declined, choosing to opt for their own health care coverage in the private sector where it is more cost effective for employees, and let us not forget, for the City too!”

That enthusiastic budget hawkery has been Brown’s hallmark in the first few months of her two-year term. By February, she had already voted against spending on “the renovation of a women’s shelter, a street’s reconstruction, the purchase of a police boat, payment to caregivers for the chronically ill, a study on people at risk for HIV infection, gas cards and the cleaning of public pools,” noted the Chronicle.

District A is the Spring Branch area, a multi-ethnic blend of working-class and middle class homes, townhomes, and apartments. In its endorsement of the one-term incumbent, Brenda Stardig, the Chronicle observed that Spring Branch is poised for economic growth but struggles with traffic, drainage, and public safety problems. Houston blogger Charles Kuffner wondered presciently, after Brown won the 2011 election with eight percent turn-out, “It will be interesting to see how CM-Elect Helena Brown reconciles her professed political beliefs with the sort of things that constituents tend to expect to get done. Maybe there is such a thing as a Republican pothole.”

Or not.

For someone in city government, Brown seems to have a very limited, tea party-flavored idea of what the government should do. At a recent meeting, she voted against two energy-efficient building projects because she felt they were part of the U.N.’s Agenda 21, a non-binding resolution to combat city sprawl passed in 1992. Conspiracy theorists on the far right have trotted out Agenda 21 as a bogeyman equating green initiatives with foreign control.

“This is the United States of America. We don’t answer to anyone but the good old U. S. of A.,” Brown said during the April 11 meeting, teetering on self-parody. “By this vote, we’re giving $26 million to a non-American initiative and interests.” She also voted for another LEED-certified project because it came in under budget, but intoned, “Let the citizens of Houston hereby know that promoting expensive artwork and conforming to Agenda 21 has priority over their well-being.”

Such pronouncements are common, made for an audience but having little effect, since Brown’s is often the only “no” vote. At the same meeting where she invoked Agenda 21, Brown also voted against funding for a long-standing program that provides birth control and education to low-income women. Her remarks, taken verbatim from video of the meeting, are worth reading in full.

“This item, number 12, an authoritarian type item here. First of all, we do not have the money. We don’t have a printing press at City Hall. The city’s broke, the state is going broke, the federal government is going broke, and to continue throwing money, hard-earned constituent tax dollars on stuff such as this, um. How about showing our young people how to free themselves from the slavery of sexual promiscuity and empowering them through abstinence education? Perhaps for some that’s a shocking consideration, but, you know, our nation needs to return to our foundation of Biblical principles being taught in schools, versus the government trying to educate folks on how to plan a family when they can’t even define a family. Rather sterilize our young girls. My vote’s no on this.”

Brown is a “real conservative,” which is the kind of conservative that questions other conservatives’ conservatism. The Chronicle’s Chris Moran, who’s been on top of the Brown beat, reported in March, “Councilman Mike Sullivan, until January by far the Council’s most conservative member, was so outflanked from the right by a Council newcomer Wednesday that he found himself uttering into his microphone: ‘I am not a communist.’”

At issue was a proposed denial of an electric rate increase in Sullivan’s district. “I understand the folks in Kingwood are conservatives,” Brown said. “They do not believe in the regulation of rates of businesses. That’s communism.”

Sullivan snapped, “Truthfully, I don’t think you have a clue what Kingwood believes in.”

Besides her no votes, Brown has also become notorious for tags. Council members can put an item of city business on hold for a week for any reason simply by tagging it. By the end of February, Brown’s colleagues were so fed up with her frequent tags that they twice voted to override them, a rare parliamentary procedure characterized as a “nuclear option” by Council member Mike Laster.

Brown led the charge against the mayor’s controversial restrictions on feeding the homeless, often chatting with and extending time for the dozens of speakers who attended three City Council meetings to oppose the ordinance. In a press release following the proposal’s passage, Brown stumped for the downtrodden and warned of the dire consequences of their neglect. “This ordinance will discourage an already discouraged people who give and it will further disadvantage an already disadvantaged people who are homeless. Crime will increase as the homeless become hungry and desperate and resort to criminal activity to survive,” she said in the statement.

But at the following week’s meeting, she voted against accepting $1.1 million in federal grants to provide housing and supportive services for the homeless. During her remarks, she claimed that the taxpayers of Houston spend $500 million annually on services to the homeless.

Her office hasn’t responded to requests for comment.

Brown has 20 months left in her term.

Gov. Rick Perry was in Houston today to unveil his Texas Budget Compact, five fiscal tenets that he hopes will influence the coming primary season and carry over into next year’s legislative session.

Subtitled “Principles for a Stronger Texas,” they were:

- Practice truth in budgeting;

- Support a Constitutional limit of spending to the growth of population and inflation;

- Oppose any new taxes or tax increases, and make the small business tax exemption permanent;

- Preserve a strong Rainy Day Fund;

- Cut unnecessary and duplicative government programs and agencies.

Standing in front of a pristine blue semi truck inside a New World Van Lines warehouse in northwest Houston, Perry addressed the press and a crowd of about a hundred supporters, who burst into hearty applause repeatedly during his half-hour speech. Arriving fifteen minutes late, Perry looked confident and clear-eyed in a dark grey suit and cornflower blue tie, his hair graying at the temples.

His remarks, and those of state Sen. Dan Patrick, a Houston Republican, and two supporters who followed, formed a kind of conservative bingo: “True conservative,” check. “Job creators,” check. Derision of Washington, Obamacare and California, check.

Michael Quinn Sullivan of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility explained that being the most fiscally conservative state was no great accomplishment for Texas, “like being the least drunk person at the bar. California is sitting in the corner drooling on itself and muttering about ex-girlfriends.” He also said it was nice to be out of “the People’s Republic of Austin.” Texas, he said, is “the shining city on a hill” that Ronald Reagan talked about. Check twice.

Perry warned that some would want to use the increased tax revenue from Texas’ recovering economy to restore budget cuts. “Going on a spending spree here in Texas is the single worst thing we can do,” he said. “We have to treat each dollar as respectfully and carefully as we can.”

Perry suggested being less careful with Medicaid recipients.

“The cost of Medicaid is a ticking time bomb,” Perry said, adding that “this process will accelerate if the Supreme Court doesn’t find Obamacare unconstitutional.” Hauntingly, he called for Washington to allow Texas to “take care of our citizens as we see fit,” by distributing Medicaid funds to the state in block grants.

In a very brief press conference afterward, Perry answered two questions from a Fox affiliate. “We’re starting to hear another round of wailing and gnashing of teeth from school districts,” one question began. Did the Governor think they “will mind” the Texas Budget Compact?

Perry replied that things were tough all over, saying this was the “same as in 1985. We managed to make our ends meet.” He added, “The school boards will prioritize what’s important and they’ll fund that.”

Perry declined another reporter’s request to name any of the programs he considered “unnecessary and duplicative,” steering clear of a familiar minefield.

He said he wasn’t going to ask for anyone to actually sign a pledge to uphold his Budget Compact—but that other organizations might. But if Perry isn’t going to ask anyone to actually sign the pledge, one might wonder just what the whole thing was about.

Photo op for a weakened politician coming off a disastrous presidential run? Check.

Update: I was in error. As wise readers alerted me, the ordinance discussed in the original post below applies to all of Houston, not just the central business district. Also: stay tuned for news on the petition drive opposing the ordinance.

For over a month, angry Houstonians have pummeled City Council with questions about why the mayor is trying to severely restrict feeding the homeless. Of the many answers offered, the most honest came on Tuesday afternoon, during the Council’s third multi-hour session of public comment. Sandra McMasters, general manager of the downtown Spaghetti Warehouse, spoke in support of the ordinance, which would require anyone feeding more than five homeless people at a time to first obtain written permission from the property owner, including the city in the case of public areas. She said her restaurant had been negatively affected by its proximity to an overpass where charitable groups often feed the homeless, causing a semi-permanent encampment with attendant “aggressive panhandling,” for which she often called the cops, and potential customers having “to walk past the smell of urine and feces.”

“I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t with my customers,” she said. Some of them want to help the homeless and some of them, she said, “It’s an out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing.”

The crowd booed. The overwhelming majority of speakers had opposed the ordinance, and they hailed from the whole political spectrum. The Food Not Bombs kids had alternated with tea partiers and clergy. Homeschooling moms, immigrants’ rights activists and several of the formerly homeless decried the new rules as an enemy of freedom, goodness, and the American Way. So why didn’t the mayor drop the rules after the first few hours of public outcry?

Ms. McMasters told us why, though she may not have meant to: visibility. The homeless ordinance, which was originally presented with a host of other stipulations and justified as, among other things, protecting the homeless from food poisoning, was really about visibility. Offering food to groups of homeless people encourages grouping, and groups are harder to ignore than individuals, even when their clothes match the color of the pavement.

The proof is in the ordinance’s evolution. The original, brought by Mayor Annise Parker, was elaborate. It required those who would feed the homeless to register with the city, prepare the meal in a commercial kitchen, serve it within four hours of preparation, have a member of their group take a food safety class, and leave serving areas as clean as they were found. The registration, she said, was intended to promote coordination and prevent waste, “so that churches, for example, don’t show up on top of each other trying to feed the same group of 20 guys,” Parker said when the ordinance was first presented in early March. The food service standards were to make sure the homeless weren’t fed less safely than restaurant diners. The original ordinance, it’s worth noting, was supported by the largest local groups who feed the homeless, including Star of Hope and SEARCH Homeless Services. But smaller groups, churches, and many individuals questioned the reasoning, asking for data on the rash of food poisonings among the homeless that must have prompted mayoral action.

In response, Parker made all elements of the ordinance voluntary except the securing of written permission by the property owner, and lowered the fine from violations from up to $2000 to up to $500. When opponents pointed out that trespassing was already illegal, making the ordinance redundant, the mayor countered that she was providing a lesser penalty than a trespassing arrest. Still, the justification didn’t satisfy.

So it was almost a relief to see the ordinance amended and passed yesterday, stripped of pretense, making perfectly plain what and for whom it really was. The amended ordinance, which takes effect July 1st, still demands that those who would feed the homeless first get written permission from the property owner—but it only applies to the central business district.