Houston Informer

Mayor Annise Parker, at her weekly press conference on Wednesday, said the city was negotiating the sale of its code enforcement building, at 3300 Main. But Parker seemed to be the only one excited enough about the transaction to talk…

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Yesterday, the Harris County Appraisal District released its latest estimate of what countywide property values will be this year. Here’s our story. The data are important for local governments, which are funded mainly by property taxes, but also for h…

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This weekend, chron.com’s system of 360-some blogs will transition to a new format (WordPress, now the most popular blog platform). Most things won’t change, but a few things will. I’ll let our tech guru Dwight Silverman spell it out: For…

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Having dispensed with 39 of the 40 items on Wednesday’s agenda in 6 minutes and 14 seconds, city council proceeded to spend the next hour discussing whether and how to accept nominations for the Rebuild Houston Oversight Committee. Rebuild Houston,…
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Yesterday we shared a letter Houston Mayor Annise Parker and Harris County Judge Ed Emmett wrote to leaders in Austin asking that Harris County be allowed to keep 25 House districts, rather than shrink to 24, as under the proposal…

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As the Texas House of Representatives prepares to vote on a redistricting map, Houston Mayor Annise Parker and Harris County Judge Ed Emmett have written to House Speaker Joe Straus asking that the county be allowed to keep 25 seats….

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With gas prices climbing to levels not seen since the painful summer of 2008, you may think Houstonians would be turning to Metro services to save at the pump. But the agency has not yet seen an increase in ridership,…

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Latino leaders presented an alternative redistricting map for Houston City Council on Wednesday. Mayor Annise Parker labeled it viable, as did several council members. No map showed up in the printed paper, so we wanted to present it (and two…

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As my colleague Eric Berger shared in his report on Houston’s shuttle snub April 12, Space Center Houston officials hope they may be able to claim remnants of the Columbia orbiter, which disintegrated above Texas in 2003 during its return…

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Though Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole still awaits a second trial date in his federal corruption case, the commissioner has made a deliberate effort to lighten the mood at the two court meetings since the first round of legal proceedings…
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Last week, my colleague Allan Turner and I teamed up on a story about Mayor Annise Parker’s initial proposal to draw new districts for Houston City Council. The council will expand from its current nine single-member districts to 11 this…

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Houston Fire Department Deputy Chief Fernando Herrera has filed papers appointing a treasurer for a mayoral campaign fund-raising committee. He was the Republican candidate for District 148 state representative in 2010. He lost to incumbent Jessica Far…

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Councilman Mike Sullivan says he’s a bit pessimistic about tomorrow’s scheduled announcement of which cities will receive retired space shuttles. Houston is angling for one of the four. Why pessimistic? Because no one from NASA or the Johnson Space Cen…

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Austin Bureau reporter Peggy Fikac just posted this on the Texas Politics blog. This, of course, comes the day after City Council approved a drainage fee with exemptions for existing churches, schools and most county government facilities. The Texas Se…

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Mayor Annise Parker’s administration is presenting its redistricting plan as we speak. To watch, click here Here is a map of the existing council districts: Houston Council districts(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.ty…

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