Category Archives: News – Houston Local

A couple of Houston legal legends

Posted on by
Reply

jamail%20and%20haynes.jpgIf you didn’t catch it over the weekend, don’t miss Mary Flood’s article and related blog post on two legends of the Houston legal community, plaintiff’s lawyer Joe Jamail and criminal defense attorney, Richard “Racehorse” Haynes.
I’ve been blessed to have had the opportunity to watch both of these masters in action over the years. Jamail’s special talent is in his ability to talk to and relate with jurors, while Haynes is, bar none, the best craftsman of cross-examination that I have ever seen in a courtroom. Take a moment to learn more about two of the most important Houston lawyers of our time.
Photo of Jamail and Haynes by Johnny Hanson.

What to do with the Dome?

Posted on by
1

ReliantStadium%20and%20the%20Astrodome%20091007.jpgThere has been an interesting disparity in media reports about the Astrodome over the past couple of weeks. First, this one from Channel 13 investigative reporter, Wayne Dolcefino:

The county judge warns the aging Houston Astrodome may soon become too dangerous for people to even go inside.
What do you do about an important piece of Houston history? Do you tear it down? The Eighth Wonder of the World has now become a legacy of how not to pay for a sports stadium. Long after the Oilers left and seven seasons after the Astros stopped playing here it sits.
When we went to the dome this week, it was warm inside and didn’t smell too pretty. It’s home to a few offices but the floor of the Dome floor is now just concrete.
“The dome is old and it’s falling apart,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. “It’s time as they say to fish or cut bait.”
“Now we’ve got a situation where we have what was the Eighth Wonder of the World sitting there effectively unoccupied,” said Harris Co Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt.
And you are still paying. They are numbers many public officials probably had a hard time figuring out themselves. You still owe $38 million on the Astrodome. It’s property tax money and every year it’s costing millions just to keep it operating. In the last five years it cost $18 million. The tax assessor calls it a money hole.
“We’ve got to decide what to do with the domed stadium,” said Emmett. “It’s time to put up or shut up frankly.”
Hurricanes have nearly doubled insurance on the dome. The bill has been $894,000 just this year. And you think your utility bills are high? Look at this. The bill was $1.1 million. Operating expenses this year alone were $2.75 million.
The biggest money maker at the Dome is The Hideout. That’s the bar the Rodeo operates on the floor of the Dome. We get no money for that. The rest of the year the Dome was used just 13 days, making just $100,000.
“Frankly we can’t let people use it much longer, it will become a dangerous place,” Emmett said.
“The question we have to decide is if we can’t find something for the Dome to become, then they have to think seriously about tearing it down,” said Bettencourt.

Then, this one on the interminable Astrodome hotel redevelopment project:

Entrepreneurs looking to turn the iconic Astrodome into an upscale convention hotel have scrapped a “best of historic Texas” theme for a more modern, streamlined look.
A faux Texas courthouse and other features that played on the state’s past are out. Plans now call for including a section of the Dome’s seats, part of the diamond and an overall contemporary design that plays up the building’s cutting-edge nature when it opened in 1965.
“We’re going to have rides. There could be air rides that take you off the ground and make you say, ‘Wow,’ ” said Scott Hanson, president of Astrodome Redevelopment Co., the firm hoping to transform the Dome. “We’re going to have a few of those. They would be easy-going rides that would show off the venue.”
Astrodome Redevelopment still has hurdles to clear before it begins work. Willie Loston, director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp., which oversees Reliant Park, will update the Commissioners Court on the company’s progress in executive session Tuesday.
The court’s approval is needed before work could begin. And Astrodome Redevelopment needs to work out revenue sharing and parking deals with the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the major tenants of Reliant Park.
But Hanson and Astrodome Redevelopment’s chief executive, John Clanton, said the company is making progress and hopes to begin work on the interior as early as next April.
Hanson previously said the company had obtained financing for the $450 million project. But he and Clanton publicly announced the lender, Deutsche Bank, for the first time Thursday.

The article goes on to claim that the “entreprenuers” of the project have a new Atlanta-based partner who will supposedly add equity to the deal and make it more viable.
Frankly, this silly notion that entreprenuers can arrange private financing for the conversion of the Astrodome into a hotel has been going on for three years. Now, the Chronicle would have us believe Deutsche Bank has approved a $450 million financing commitment on a highly-speculative covention hotel project in during the tightest credit market in years? I’m willing to bet that any such commitment has more outs than the Stros lineup this season.
All of this imagery about the proposed Astrodome hotel would be all fun and games except that it is costing the County real money to maintain the Dome, probably around $10 million just since the dome hotel project was first floated. Given that we are three years into this and the entreprenuers are not even at the stage of cutting deals with the Texans and the Rodeo over use of the Reliant Park property during times of mixed use, just how long is the County going to dawdle over the Dome before moving on to more realistic uses of the property?

The Wyatt Oil-for-Food Trial

Posted on by
Reply

Oscar%20Wyatt%20090507.gif83-year old legendary Houston oilman Oscar Wyatt will be fighting to live the remainder of his life as a free man beginning today in a U.S. District Courtroom in New York City. Wyatt is being tried on criminal charges that he bribed Iraqi officials in a scheme to acquire Iraqi oil in violation of the United Nations’ oil-for-food program (previous posts here, here, here and here). The Houston Chronicle ran major stories here and here on the trial over this past weekend, and the NY Times story on the beginning of the trial is here.
The Wyatt trial has the potential to be particularly noteworthy because of a part of the defense strategy — to paint the prosecution as political payback by two of Wyatt’s old oil field rivals, U.S. President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, the former president.
Wyatt is charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and trading with a country that supports terrorism. The indictment essentially alleges that he arranged for about $4 million in secret payments to Iraqi officials funneled through shell foreign companies and Swiss intermediaries to the Iraqi government from 2000 through 2002. In response, Wyatt contends that the U.S. government has targeted him for prosecution because he has been an outspoken critic of the two Bush administrations, particularly over the two wars in Iraq. Wyatt is the most prominent U.S. businessman indicted in the affair, althought eight other individuals have been convicted or pleaded guilty to similar charges to those against Wyatt. Likewise, charges are pending against five others.
A 2005 report from a commission led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker alleged widespread corruption in the $64 billion oil-for-food program, which was created to allow Iraq sell oil and use the proceeds to buy humanitarian goods to offset sanctions imposed after the Desert Storm War in 1991. Mr. Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The Volcker commission’s report accused 2,200 companies from 40 countries of conspiring with Saddam Hussein’s regime to divert $1.8 billion from the supposedly humanitarian campaign.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin today and the trial is expected to last four to six weeks. Wyatt and his defense attorney — noted New York criminal defense attorney Gerald Shargel, who previously represented the late reputed mobster, John Gotti — have not yet decided whether Wyatt will take the stand in his own defense. This one looks to be worth the price of admission, so stay tuned.

A worthy campaign

Posted on by
Reply

herskowitz235-2.jpgJames Anderson over at AstrosDaily discovers a glaring oversight — the dean of Houston sportswriters, Mickey Herskowitz, has not been elected to the sportswriting section of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Not only is Herskowitz the finest sportswriter of the past generation in Houston, he was also intimately involved in encouraging the investors who ultimately brought Major League Baseball to Houston in the early 1960’s. As Anderson notes, Herskowitz is richly deserving of this honor and all longtime Houstonians who have had the opportunity to enjoy his work over the years should be squarely behind the campaign to award him this honor.

The NCAA sinks to a new low

Posted on by
5

ncaa%20logo.gifAs regular readers of this blog know, I maintain that the NCAA’s administration of big-time intercollegiate athletics has outlived its usefulness for a long while. On the heels of a shooting incident in Houston over this past weekend that killed one of the area’s most promising high school football players, the NCAA once again proved that it has taken over-regulation to new heights of absurdity:

Just hours after Oklahoma football recruit Herman Mitchell was shot to death Friday in Houston, Adam Fineberg started raising money for Mitchell’s family.
But after raising $4,500, enough to cover almost half the cost of Mitchell’s funeral, Fineberg stopped. An OU compliance officer told him his actions would constitute an NCAA rules violation against the Sooners.
Now, Mitchell’s mother likely will never receive that money.
That money is considered illegal financial assistance under NCAA rules because Mitchell’s brother is a sophomore fullback at Westfield High School in Spring, Texas, and because Fineberg is an OU fan who attends Sooner football games and solicited donations through an OU fan Web site. [. . .]
OU spokesman Kenny Mossman said the an official with the university’s compliance office contacted Fineberg on Monday asking to him halt his fundraising efforts until the OU received a rules interpretation from the NCAA. That interpretation came Tuesday.
“This is not a permissible expense for OU or someone who could be construed as an OU supporter,î said Mossman, an associate athletic director for communications. “We’re not trying to be the bad guys, but we have to play by their rules.î
OU could apply for a waiver that would allow Fineberg to resume his fundraising and allow the Mitchell’s family to receive the money, an NCAA official said late Tuesday.
“We would consider that if the university chose to go down that avenue,î NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson said.

All heart, those NCAA folks, eh?
Update: After a public outcry, the NCAA comes to its senses.

Big downtown building deal

Posted on by
Reply

Bank%20of%20America%20Center.jpgThe Bank of America Center in downtown Houston — the distinctive Phillip Johnson and John Burgee-designed building that graces this blog’s heading — is changing hands in a record-setting deal:

Bank of America Center has just sold for about $370 million, a record-setting price for a Houston office building.
Novati Group, a new Dallas-based real estate player, and the General Electric Pension Trust, which was advised by Stamford, Conn.-based GE Asset Management, paid about $295 a square foot for the building at 700 Louisiana, according to sources familiar with the deal. The seller was Houston-based Hines, which developed the 56-story, 1.3 million-square-foot skyscraper in 1983.
. . . the reported total price is record-breaking, as well as the price per square foot. The deal edges out the $286 per square foot record set in December 2005 when the 581,000-square-foot 5 Houston Center was purchased by Wells Real Estate Investment Trust II Inc. for $166 million.

This building, which is at 700 Louisiana in downtown Houston, has always been special to me. My old firm was one of the original tenants in the building and we occupied the 51st and 48th floors for 18 years. Known for its unique architecture, the building has three major setbacks tha tmke it appear to be three adjoining buildings. The exterior is made from deep russet-colored granite, known as Napolean Red, which was quarried in Sweden and finished in Italy. Since it was built, the building has always had the highest occupancy of any building in downtown Houston and is currently 93% leased.

The Slade trial begins

Posted on by
Reply

slade%20082407.jpgThe criminal trial of former Texas Southern University President Priscilla Slade on charges of misappropirating TSU property begins today at the county criminal courthouse in downtown Houston (previous posts here). Harris County prosecutors and Mike DeGeurin, Ms. Slade’s defense counsel, spent the last several days picking the jury.
Meanwhile, life goes on as usual over at TSU:

Texas Southern University’s accrediting agency is taking a deeper ó and unscheduled ó look into financial accountability and leadership at the state’s largest historically black university.
In an extraordinary move, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the regional accrediting body for 780 colleges and universities in 11 Southern states, has ordered TSU to provide audits, rehabilitation plans and other documents by Oct. 1. [. . .]
The worst-case scenario for TSU is the loss of its accreditation. Without it, the federal government would stop providing financial aid to students.
Nearly two-thirds of TSU’s 11,000 students receive Pell Grants, which are awarded to low-income students.

There are many sad aspects to this entire affair, but one of the saddest is that Ms. Slade’s trial will almost certainly garner far more of the public’s attention than the continuing failure of local and state officials to take any meaningful steps to begin solving the chronic problems at TSU.

One of downtown Houston’s charms

Posted on by
Reply

tunnelmap.gifThe New York Times discovers one of the literally coolest characteristics of downtown Houston — the pedestrian tunnel system:

Where is everybody?
Seared by triple-digit heat and drenched by tropical storms, midday downtown Houston appears eerily deserted, the nationís fourth-largest city passing for a ghost town.
On the street, that is.
But below, there are tunnels at the end of the light ó nearly seven color-coded miles of them connecting 77 buildings ó aswarm with Houstonians lunching, shopping and power-walking in dry, air-chilled comfort. [. . .]
Other cities, notably Montreal, Toronto and Minneapolis, are renowned for their extensive tunnel and skyway networks. But Houston may be alone in the extent and nature of its pedestrian circulation system of tunnels and skywalks that become particularly popular on days like Aug. 12, 13 and 14 when temperatures hit 102 and 101, or last Thursday, when Tropical Storm Erin flooded many streets.
It was not centrally planned; it just grew, inspired by Rockefeller Center in New York. But it is not connected to a transit network. And, befitting Texansí distrust of government, most of it is private; each segment is controlled by the individual building owner who deigns to allow the public access during business hours ó and then locks the doors on nights and weekends. Some parts, like those belonging to the former Enron buildings now leased by Chevron, are closed to outsiders altogether.
Few claim mastery of the labyrinth.
ìItís one of Houstonís best-kept secrets,î said Sandra Lord, widely known as the Tunnel Lady, a Yankee transplant who dispels the mysteries for $10 a head and roams the downtown underworld with proprietary aplomb, sometimes stopping strangers to ask, ìAnd you are?î Corporations pay Ms. Lord to orient new employees below ground, and nearly 45,000 natives and visitors have taken her Discover Houston Tours since 1988. [. . .]
The tunnels are remarkably diverse, lined with restaurants and coffee bars, boutiques, florists, shoe-repair shops, jewelers, dry cleaners, dental clinics, optometrists, pharmacies, beauty salons, barbers, copy and printing services, banks and post offices.
And they are clearly amenities. ìItís extremely difficult to be a Class A building without being on a tunnel,î said Laura Van Ness, business development director of Central Houston Inc., the nonprofit downtown organization. . . .

As the article notes, the tunnel system is largely the product of private enterprise. Sort of makes you wish that the decision on whether to invest in this to private enterprise, as well.

Sports talk radio overload

Posted on by
1

radio_microphone_hg_wht.gifWhy on earth are there now four sports talk radio stations in Houston? Chronicle sports media columnist David Barron reports (related blog post here) on the rather rocky first day of the city’s newest sports talk radio station:

KGOW (1560 AM), the city’s fourth sports-talk station, launched Monday with the usual shakedown issues that accompany any new venture, plus a new glitch that prevented the station’s signal from being heard in parts of metropolitan Houston.
David Gow, the station’s president, said equipment called an exciter failed last weekend at the station’s 50,000-watt transmitter southwest of Houston. The station signed on Monday at 1,000 watts from a backup transmitter on the city’s south side.
“We anticipate the situation being remedied shortly,” said Richard Topper, KGOW’s general manager. “We hope to be at full strength as soon as possible.”
Listeners commenting at the Sports Media blog at www.chron.com reported hearing KGOW’s signal in Pearland, Kemah and Cypress, but others reported problems listening in downtown Houston, the Heights, Kingwood, Spring and northwest Harris County. [. . .]
Some hosts struggled with telephone problems. Chronicle columnist Richard Justice, the station’s late-morning host, began an interview with a greeting from Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops, but Stoops was off the line by the time Justice finished asking his first question.
After a break for a station promotion, Justice returned with a telephone interview with baseball commissioner Bud Selig. [. . .]
After its last local talk show ended at 6 p.m. Monday, the station went to automated music rather than a syndicated sports talk show because it has not received the satellite equipment needed to download the program.

Having Richard Justice talk about sports is bad enough. But does anyone else have the sense that this latest venture in local sports talk radio sounds a bit like a junior high science project?
By the way, in other sports media news, Houston Chronicle sports columnist John Lopez announced yesterday that he is leaving the Chronicle after almost 20 years as a reporter and columnist.

An easy prediction

Posted on by
Reply

Metrorail%20car-Houston080807.jpgBuried in the Chronicle’s article on the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s latest propaganda release regarding the proposed University light rail line is the following snippet:

The study estimates say the Cummins-Wheeler-Elgin combination is the least expensive of the routes considered, at $715 million, compared with $836 million for the Southwest Freeway-Alabama combination.

Prediction: Both routes will cost substantially more than the estimates and the revenue generated from the ridership will not come close to meeting the operating expenses of the line.