Tag: houston

Nightmare on Shepherd Drive

I will admit Wayne Dolcefino drew my ire years ago with one of his investigative reports that had some annoying consequences for me personally. I’m not going to go into details but it’s been well over a decade ago now and it’s water under the bridge. Anyway, this is 2010, and Wayne’s latest report about the Houston Police Department’s dubious speed traps got my undivided attention for a few minutes yesterday. As a former courier I would frequently see HPD officers, almost certainly including the mentioned and shown “ticket champion” Matt Davis, staked out at the 700 block of North Shepherd, in both directions (as it happens, I made a fair number of my paycheck deposits at the Capital One branch in the area).

The interesting part of the story here is from Victor Trevino, Precinct 6 Constable, who is quoted as saying:

If you’re writing tickets at this location, and we don’t have any complaints from citizens and you don’t have any accidents out here, then what is your logic?

…

I don’t think anybody in law enforcement or any public official is actually going to admit that [this is about money instead of public safety], but it’s what it would look like to the common-sense person.

It is indeed rare for me to praise a law enforcement officer. However, I applaud Constable Trevino for his efforts to defend the public image of law enforcement in and around the Houston area. It looks bad on not just HPD but every law enforcement agency in the area when these kind of speeding tickets are written for what must be obvious revenue generation as opposed to safety. Like it or not (and believe me, I don’t), the image of the entire city can be affected by what its police officers do.

So this is what I suggest to my readers: If you get a speeding ticket written by Officer Matt Davis, don’t get mad, get even. Plead “not guilty” and set it for trial. Talk to an attorney. If enough people do this instead of quietly pleading guilty and paying up, Officer Davis and HPD will get the message, because there is no way a million dollars’ worth of traffic tickets will ever make it to trial. And that message is that we as a community condemn the practice of traffic tickets for revenue generation.

Wayne’s story includes a link to a Google map showing the ticket hotspots for surface streets and the number of tickets issued. It’s worth a look, especially if you regularly travel the entire city as part of your job as I once did.

Above the law: HPD officers told to ignore subpoenas

A recent Houston Chronicle story outlines the deserved low public opinion of a new Houston Police Department court appearance policy. Specifically, HPD officers are instructed not to show up in court until 1pm on trial days, even if the subpoena says 8am or 10:30am.

Unlike the police officers, defendants (the citizens on trial) are not allowed to leave the courtroom except for bathroom breaks or to put money in the parking meters. (Or possibly for lunch at noon, though the story does not mention this in particular.) Of particular note is this part of the story (emphasis added):

[Mark] Adlam [a defendant awaiting his speeding ticket trial that day] said that under the previous policy, his lawyer would quickly know if the complaining officer was available to testify. If an officer did not show, Adlam said, prosecutors would have no choice but to dismiss the ticket.

[Gary Blankinship, t]he head of the Houston Police Officers Union said the new policy — which was distributed late Friday and took effect Monday — will lead to massive gridlock of the municipal court system, as well as exposing officers to possible arrest for ignoring a lawful subpoena.

Normally I do not so readily concur with someone representing law enforcement, But when the HPOU leader sees the potential for officers to be arrested for ignoring the subpoenas, it’s obvious the policy is on its face illegal, in addition to being bad for the public opinion of Houston’s government.

Specifically, that opinion is that the potentially five-hour-long wait now encourages more citizens to just plead guilty so they can go back to work. Note that if a defendant does not show for trial, they are subject to an immediate citation for failure to appear (class C misdemeanor). Not surprisingly, the cops can come and go as they wish.

To his credit, the HPOU president, Gary Blankinship, has told officers to do what the subpoena says and disregard an “illegal order” by the chief. I admire and respect that, but at the same time, I recognize that an unwillingness to back down to Mayor Annise Parker and Chief of Police Charles McClelland is bound to come with its own share of consequences. Indeed, doing the right thing is against one’s best interests so often it’s not funny.

In case anyone’s wondering, this kind of thing is why I did not vote for Annise Parker for mayor. I would like to think Gene Locke would have handled this better.

Shocking and revolting: an unjust attack on Houston’s all-electric jitney

In 2010 Houston got its first all-electric jitney service, REV Eco-Shuttle. REV may be the only all-electric jitney service in the entire USA. However, just this past week, a revision to the city’s jitney ordinance threatens its continued operation.

Specifically, the revision increases the minimum seating capacity to operate a legal jitney from four passengers to nine. I have yet to learn of the official rationale behind this amendment, nor who is sponsoring it. I can think of no good reasons for this law to pass, and plenty of bad ones.

It has been suggested that the taxi lobby is behind this. Indeed, REV undercuts (by a dollar) the city-regulated $6 fare for taxis within downtown. However, unless I grossly misunderstand the current state of affairs, taxi drivers make far more money off of trips to and from the airports, and to and from bars after last call (REV ceases operation nightly at 2am Thursday through Saturday, and 10pm the other four nights of the week). It does not make sense for a taxi driver to concentrate strictly on trips within downtown when there are more lucrative opportunities available. There is also a segment of the population that will prefer to ride a real taxi over REV, no matter what. I personally fail to see how more choices are a bad thing.

Whatever the motivation, this absolutely, positively, galactically stupid amendment to the city’s jitney laws is unneeded and devoid of merit. REV has posted information on their website, linked above, on how to contact City Council members. Please, let them know this proposed law is a non-solution to a non-problem.

Walmart: A curse on the American dream

ABC News recently reported on an artifact of a meeting of city aldermen in Chicago. In the middle of a quest to get higher hourly wages for Walmart’s future employees, one of the aldermen, a man named Ed Smith, did the math on Walmart CEO Michael Duke’s salary, and found out that recalculated as an hourly wage and assuming a 40-hour week, it is more per hour than most rank-and-file Walmart employees make all year. That’s pretty much the definition of what I’ll refer to here as “[beep] you money.” (No, I still don’t swear in my blog posts.)

I do understand that a CEO should be compensated for his/her effort leading a company.  There comes a point, however, where a company’s performance and reputation should reflect back on the CEO. I think the alderman said it best:

“How can you go to bed at night and sleep knowing you make this kind of money and the people working for you can hardly buy a package of beans and rice?” [alderman Ed Smith] asked in an interview with ABCNews.com.

Indeed, Walmart is known for treating its employees terribly. A documentary about the retail behemoth, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (which for lack of a better abbreviation, I’ll simply refer to as “the movie” for the rest of this post), tells many stories of abuse by the company and its management. In particular at about 36:30 into the movie, a Walmart manager relates the story of another manager telling him how to cheat on payroll and deny workers of overtime. Later, at about 38:00 into the movie there’s an anonymous Walmart worker referring to only 19 hours per week, and saying “you can’t pay bills with that… it’s not right at all.”

In just about any other company, the union would be all over this and causing all kinds of hell for Walmart. However, Walmart is also known as one of the most egregious union-busting companies in the US, and its stores as crime magnets. In at least one case Walmart installed security cameras not to protect its shoppers or even for direct loss prevention, but for the surveillance of employees attempting to organize a union! At about 1:23:30 into the movie, former Walmart loss prevention manager Stan Fortune explains this as it relates to the surveillance footage related to the murder of Megan Holden.

But it gets even worse; about a minute later there’s a big long list of crimes occuring on or near Walmart property during the first half of 2005 (the year the movie was made). Of particular note are four that I noticed in the Houston area, including one in Sugar Land (a purse snatching), a suburb known for its low crime rate!

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should; DVDs are still for sale at the movie’s website.

This response from Walmart’s public relations guy to ABC News is quite chilling:

“I don’t think Mike Duke needs, as the CEO of a Fortune 1 company, needs me to defend his compensation package,” said Walmart director of community affairs Steven Restivo, referring to Walmart’s status as the largest company on the planet.

Not surprisingly, I disagree; there’s no way even the most skilled public relations practitioners could defend with any credibility this kind of obscene salary for a company with Walmart’s track record. As a public relations consultant myself, it’s certainly not a job I could ethically accept, nor is it one I would want.

My challenge to Walmart is this: first pay the rank-and-file workers a fair, living wage, and treat them like human beings, then worry about your CEO paying up all of his yacht club memberships and keeping his entire fleet of luxury cars and private jet fueled (or whatever the hell he does with such an obscene amount of money).

Another thing Walmart needs to fix: this pattern of flatly crushing local businesses and then on the eve of tax exemption expiration, moving just outside of city limits, leaving behind an empty store building that no other retailer is large enough to fill. (Also documented in the movie.) In general, Walmart is a nightmare for many local businesses, and plans to construct a new Walmart in the Houston Heights area sparked a petition against it, spread by many people including a group called SLGT (Support Local, Grow Together). I agree in principle with the mission of SLGT and hope their effort to keep Walmart out of the Houston Heights is successful.

(Some opponents of the Heights Walmart point to another Walmart store going up at Fulton and Crosstimbers, in the shadow of the Northline shopping center. Unfortunately I didn’t hear about that one until it had already been halfway built, especially since it’s much closer to me than the Heights store would be; we don’t need that Walmart, and we we certainly don’t need two Walmart stores that close to each other.)

Red light camera tickets and bully tactics

A recent KTRK-TV news story investigates the Houston Police Department’s red light camera program and the delinquency letters which recently went out to scofflaws who have not paid the fine. These letters threaten a hold on the vehicle’s registration if the fine is not paid, and that is where the issue lies.

Quoting from the Web version of the story:

“That’s just a false statement,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.

Harris County commissioners have refused to let the city use its tax assessor collector’s office to withhold registration renewals for delinquent red light violators. There was a unanimous vote a few months ago. Commissioners said it was based on issues, some said it was politics. HPD’s chief financial officer doesn’t understand.

Now, I’d like to make it clear I support the obedience of most traffic laws, and that specifically includes properly timed and warranted traffic signals. On the whole, disregarding (running) a red light is dangerous, both for the violator and the cross traffic at risk of a collision. Don’t do it. (Some of you may already wonder why I say “most” and not “all” and I’ll address those in a later post.)

That said, I have a huge issue with red light cameras. It would appear to me that HPD is trying to send a message to the people who whiz through at the last tenth of a second, sometimes at 10 MPH or more over the speed limit, trying to beat the change to red. However, I have observed some intersections with a camera and noticed the vast majority of presumed violators are those poking through at the tail end of a large group of vehicles–hardly the real danger to safety when one hears or reads “red light runner.” Unless you have someone who bolts out at the first sight of a green light–not a wise idea in Houston or any other large city–these drivers rarely pose a real risk to safety and are more of an annoyance. (The case could be made the driver who gives a traffic signal the race track treatment is the bigger risk to safety.)

Someone I know got a ticket for failing to come to a complete stop before a right turn on red. Originally, these types of violations were not going to be ticketed. Apparently, someone saw the dollar signs and said “Who cares if the city doesn’t get the money and it all goes to hospitals? Let’s max it out anyway.”

We already know HPD is willing to lie and usurp the FAA’s authority over airspace when it suits their best interests. It is not surprising to me at all that HPD is also willing to bully red light camera ticket recipients with an outright lie about vehicle registration.

Local traffic ticket attorney Scott Markowitz decries the misleading warning as “at best a hollow threat, at worst is fraud.” And I’m inclined to agree. Until HPD realizes red light cameras rarely if ever catch the real risks to safety and on the whole don’t work, the best we can hope for is at least some semblance of truth in the delinquency letters.