A things to help wrap up our look in 2306 at local government. I'm just pulling applicable stories from KUHF's local news website (which is assembled in cooperation with the Texas Tribune) you can find more yourself by looking through it. Some stories have been covered already in previous posts.
- Houston's Municipal Courts Department extanded an amnesty program for people with arrest warrants to come in and begin to resolve their cases without being immediately thrown in jail. We will be looking at local judicial institutions soon enough.
- A story about female bank robbers pointed out the cooperative relationship between the Houston Police Department and the FBI Bank Robbery Task Force. This is federalism at work. Local and national officials in the same place with overlapping jurisdictions.
- The Harris County Department of Education sponsored a training for 30 area independent school districts on how to deal with an active shooter.
- Houston's Mayor announced that the improved economy has increased city funding to the point that public library hours can be restored to pre-recession levels.
- Some recent schools constructed by HISD have been recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council as being LEED certified.
- Harris County has opened up the Emergency Notification System to cell phones. Previously one could only get notifications though land lines - which are increasingly less useful.
- Houston City Council members, along with Houston's Sustainability Director, are highlighting the lack of supermarkets in poor neighborhoods and are determining how to create economic incentives for the development of stores in those neighborhood. The concept of a "food desert" has been developed to refer to this situation.
- Houston schools recognized anti-bullying week for the second year.
- Houston will host the NBA All-Star game soon and the Greater Houston Convention and Vistors Center wants to make sure that there not only enough taxis for visitors, but that the drivers have enough information about the city to provide to visitors who might like to learn more about it.
- The Houston City Council continues to toy with the idea of regulating payday lenders.
There's more to cover of course, and I need to add information about activities in Brazoria County - that's just more difficult to root out.
