 |
 |
|
|
Trail MIX |
|
May 2008
Categories
More KHOU Blogs
|
Lee McGuire: March 2008 Archivesby Lee McGuire / 11News -- Inside the City Council chamber Following a rash of violent robberies and shootings, the Houston City Council has passed a series of ordinances aimed at cutting convenience store crime. The City has been working with convenience store owners for nearly a year and a half to come up with the requirements. Among them, convenience store owners will need to register with the Houston Police Department and post a registration decal inside the store. Here are some of the other new rules: by Lee McGuire / 11News -- Inside the City Council Chamber After months of sometimes tense negotiations, 13,000 City of Houston employees have won a new contract -- and a pay raise. The new terms include a three percent across-the-board pay raise beginning in the next full pay period. Another raise comes in 2010, and again in 2011. The contract also calls for 25% "performance pay pools" to reward high-performing employees. In addition, the contract increases the base pay of the city's lowest-paid workers to $9.50 an hour in the next pay period, then $10.00 an hour beginning in Septe... by Lee McGuire / 11News (note: This updated blog entry corrects errors in the data sent to us this morning by HAR) Just-in housing figures from the Houston Association of Realtors show that housing sales in the greater Houston area continue to slide. In February, sales of single-family homes fell to the lowest level since January 2008, according to HAR. Property sales for February, 2008 fell 13.1 percent compared to the same period last year. That said, the average price for a single-family home rose 5.6 percent in February, 2008 compared to February, 2007. That's t...
by Lee McGuire / 11News Hours after Governor Rick Perry appointed a new Harris County District Attorney, former DA Chuck Rosenthal filed a sworn statement with a federal court explaining discrepancies in previous sworn testimony. Read Rosenthal's two-page sworn declaration here: Judge Kenneth Hoyt set a 4:30pm deadline today for Rosenthal and his physician... by Lee McGuire / 11News No details yet beyond what's in this news release, but the city of Houston and the HOPE employees union have reached a tentative deal after a tough few months of contract negotiations. Employees had been pushing for a guarantee that all would make a minimum of $10 an hour, and it appears they're going to get it. The joint news release just issued from the union and the Mayor's office is after the jump. ...by Lee McGuire / 11News The City of Houston has completed the purchase of a six-block, $15.9 million welcome mat for the Houston Dynamo. Three council members voted "no," but a majority approved the plan to dedicate up to $20 million from an economic development fund to pay for land the Mayor hopes will become the site of a new MLS soccer stadium. The land, a series of adjacent parcels owned by former City Council member Louis Macey, is located just east of downtown Houston, a few blocks east of Minute Maid Park. ...By Lee McGuire / 11News The Houston City Council on Tuesday strengthened its fledgling ordinance designed to crack down on crime-ridden 'game rooms.' Council member Toni Lawrence, who helped author the original rules, presented a new set of additions Tuesday morning. ...by Lee McGuire / 11News at 8:33pm We've heard from both Kelly Siegler and Pat Lykos, who are poised to face off in a runoff election for Harris County District Attorney. Siegler is here now at the "Ragin Cajun" restauraunt at Westheimer and Gessner, and Lykos is celebrating with friends and supporters in River Oaks. ...by Lee McGuire / 11News 7:50pm We're still waiting for the arrival of Kelly Siegler here at the Rajun Cajun, scene of Siegler's campaign watch party. So, the waiting continues -- but the watching is over. Early voting in Harris County has split largely between Siegler and former District Judge Pat Lykos. The two are likely headed to a runoff. ...by Lee McGuire / 11News 5:36pm One of the problems with covering a race with 4 candidates (or, like Brad Woodard, 10 candidates) is that you need to put your live truck somewhere to cover the results. We don't have four live trucks available to hang out at every watch party. And live trucks are cumbersome monsters that, once set up, are difficult to move. ...by Lee McGuire / 11Newsroom For a week now I've been staring at daily reports from our tracking poll. The bottom line for the last seven days is that the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is far too tight for any poll to meaningfully predict. However, we did get some firm (ish) numbers on early voting. We've been telling you for a few days that our poll indicates the early vote went for Obama by about 8 points, 54% to 46%. My question is -- how will our poll perform? ...After a conference call with our pollsters, we've made the decision to release the final round of BELO Texas poll results at 5pm today. Last night our tracking poll had support for Clinton and Obama identical at 46% each. Today -- it appears that things are shifting (again). ... |
|
|
|
|
