Congratulations to the residents of Texas City, who will benefit from a $5.5 million donation from BP to fund two new parks. They are expected to open within the next year.
TEXAS CITY
Gift will help pay for two new parks in city
By THAYER EVANS CHRONICLE CORRESPONDENT
– Houston Chronicle2
A pledge of $5.5 million by BP will help fund two new parks in Texas City, one of which will be a 45-acre sportsplex that could open by the end of 2009.
The energy company already has provided $2.5 million, Mayor Matt Doyle said. Another $2 million will be given to the city next year and the remaining $1 million will come in 2010.
[snip]
The sportsplex will be called Magnolia Park and is estimated to cost $3.5 million, he said. The price of a 338-acre environmental park that will be called Central Park is not yet known.
The city already owns the property for both parks, Doyle said.
In addition to the parks, approximately $500,000 of BP’s pledge will be spent on solar panels for the new $4.5 million Sanders-Vincent Community Center, a 15,000-square-foot facility, which is being built on five acres in the 500 block of Third Ave. N.
[snip]
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.
News
“Employment Report: Total PR Jobs Up 4.2%, Advertising Down 2.1%” reports MediaBistro from an Advertising Age report. MediaBistro writes:
[snip] …one part of the issue we’re especially interested in is the U.S.
Media and Advertising/Marketing-Services Jobs report. According to
AdAge’s numbers, PR gained 2,100 jobs from 12/07 to 10/08, which
accounts to a 4.2% overall increase. Meanwhile, ad agencies saw a loss
of 4,000 jobs for a 2.1% overall decrease.
The hottest growth sectors overall were Internet Media Cos./Web
Portals, which grew by 6.5% and Cable TV, which grew by 5.2%. Read the
full report here.
Interesting. Yet I keep running into PR professionals that are looking for jobs.
General
The Houston Chronicle’s Inside the Bay Area asks the question “should UH-Clear lake be a four-year university?” From a quote in that blog post:
For the community, the benefit is that we’d be able to reach out to more students. The number of high school students in Texas will increase my 25 % between now and 2012.
Interesting. What do you think?
News
Gates Foundation supports broadband in libraries
– Houston Chronicle2
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is revisiting its commitment to American libraries by awarding $6.9 million in grants to upgrade public libraries in seven states to faster Internet connections.
The grants announced Thursday will help libraries in Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas and Virginia. The money goes to Connected Nation, a nonprofit broadband advocacy group, and the American Library Association.
A recent report compiled by the American Library Association says 73 percent of public libraries are the only source of free, public Internet access in their communities. But a third of libraries have Internet connections that are too slow to access multimedia content.
[snip]
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.
News
Free law school? SoCal university makes it reality
– Houston Chronicle2
A new law school opening next fall in Southern California is offering a big incentive to top students who might be thinking twice about the cost of a legal education during the recession: free tuition for three years.
The financial carrot is part of an ambitious strategy by Erwin Chemerinsky, a renowned constitutional law scholar and dean of the new school at the University of California, Irvine, to attract Ivy League-caliber students to the first public university law school in the state in 40 years.
Scholarship winners will be chosen for their potential to emerge three years later as legal stars on the ascendance. Only the best and brightest need apply, but the school hopes to offer full scholarships to all 60 members of its inaugural class in 2009. Subsequent classes will be on a normal tuition basis.
[snip]
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.
News
Speaking with one voice for Latinos
Rodriguez now the sole Hispanic on City Council
– Houston Chronicle2
The volume of calls that pour into City Councilman James Rodriguez’s downtown office has grown considerably since Nov. 5.
The calls have translated into more invitations to community events, more pleas for help with local problems such as gang violence and far, far more requests for political support.
The calls have come not because of any change in Rodriguez’s status as a council member, he says, but because it was on that day when it became clear that he would be the sole Hispanic on the 14-member council.
He is fond of saying that when Councilman Adrian Garcia was elected to be the next Harris County sheriff, Rodriguez’s southeast Houston constituency grew by nearly a factor of four.
[snip]
A host of candidates already have lined up to replace Garcia in a special election for District H expected to be held in May, and most political observers expect that a Hispanic ultimately will win the seat.
But for many, six months with only one Latino council member is far too long in a city in which at least 42 percent of the population — more than 850,000 people, according to census figures — is Hispanic.
[snip]
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.
News
Do you use embargoes? In my career, I’ve only had to use them sparingly. I don’t like to do that because it puts the entire project on a different playing field. And, yes, I do often worry that the other side won’t honor the agreement.
Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch has announced that not only will they not honor embargo requests, they will promise to honor it then go ahead and ignore it (according to shel’s post). This is very disturbing.
More important is shel’s observation that
I feel Michael Arrington’s pain. Honoring embargoes has enabled competitors to ignore the embargo and break news first. But Arrington’s response reflects a disturbing trend: People who don’t like the behavior of PR people and respond by deliberately doing something worse. Chris Anderson did it when he published the email addresses of PR people who had spammed him. Now Arrington has done it by asserting that he will promise to honor an embargo when he has no intention of keeping the promise. In other words, he has publicly stated that you cannot trust his word.
Scary stuff.
General
You call that art? Sure
Looking forward to a 2009 filled with new public art in Houston — and to a lively discussion of its merits.
– Houston Chronicle2
AT the risk of jumping the gun a bit, here’s to 2009! By the end of the coming 12 months, Houstonians will be able to cast their gaze (and highly critical eyes, we have no doubt) on eight new public works of art. That is something to bring civic cheer, particularly in these gloomy economic days.
If history is any guide, these new oeuvres d’art in the local public square will also be something for Houstonians to cuss and discuss in public and private, as each comes into view.
[snip]
The new pieces appearing across our local landscape will range from a “bouquet” of seven overflowing bathtubs that will be located outside the Houston Water Museum and Education Center scheduled to open in northeast Houston, to an interactive sculpture titled “Open Channel Flow” at the Sa-bine Street Pump Station, and commissions destined for the city’s two major airports.
Houstonians can thank the publicly/privately funded Houston Art Alliance for the coming artistic bounty. Established in the late 1970s, the group, which spends funds set aside in the city’s capital-improvements budget, “manages, grows and maintains the City of Houston’s Art Collection.” It is admirably ambitious in this task, seeking to make this city the home of “the country’s next great civic art program,” according to Jonathan Glus, the alliance’s CEO.
[snip]
It should be interesting to see what the response is to the new public art projects, once they’re done.
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.
News
In case you’ve missed how tough times are for libraries across the nation, check out these headlines:
And yes, all this despite the fact that libraries are picking up business in this bad economy (according to MSNBC and others).
News
Casinos the answer to Galveston’s woes?
City that was ‘wide open’ in a past era weighs gambling as path to Ike recovery
– Houston Chronicle2
Casino gambling is increasingly seen by some as a way to revive this island city, which is reeling from Hurricane Ike and 3,000 layoffs by its largest employer.
The Strand Merchants Association believes gambling would bring in tourists with more money who would patronize the downtown historical area shops, many still struggling to reopen after being inundated with as much as 10 feet of storm water Sept. 13.
The increased tourism could help replace the patrons who won’t be coming back because they were laid off by the University of Texas Medical Branch last month, casino gambling supporters say.
[snip]
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks.
News
