Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Protestors Block Access to Texas Disability Assistance Office

by

Yvonne Larsen

Contrary to THIS Houston Chronicle report, approximately 30 protesters blocked access to small businesses and disrupted services used by visual & hearing impaired Houstonians yesterday. The building, at 3311 Richmond Avenue, houses the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services office. Texas DARS, in conjunction with two State agencies, recently produced two American Sign Language videos on West Nile Virus Prevention.

click picture to enlarge

The protesters, according to eyewitness reports and the below photos but NOT mentioned in the Houston Chronicle article, put themselves forth to be members of HOPE; the Houston Organization of Public Employees and the Texas Organizing Project. My source also verified bullhorns and foul language were used and protesters went into individual offices that have no association with the Harris County Republican Party, also located in the same building.

Attached are pictures taken (and printed here with permission of the photographer) of the protestors INSIDE the building with bullhorns (peaceful protest, right?).

If these miscreants are so upset over Mayor Parker’s decision to provide tax incentives for the construction of luxury high rise homes..if they’re so angry over the President’s Food & Drug Administration decision to revoke use of Avastin in breast cancer treatment, maybe they should be protesting outside Houston City Hall, the White House or the Harris County Democratic Party offices?

Good News: Engineering Firms Contributing to “Keep Houston Moving” PAC Also Contributed to the 2010 Prop 1 “Rain Tax” PAC

by

Yvonne Larsen

If you didn’t like the vote-buying, special interest, sweetheart dealings associated with the 2010 Proposition 1 “Rain Tax” imagine how thrilled you’d be to learn that some of those same engineering and related firms, still at work preserving their taxpayer subsidies, are now contributing to the “Keep Houston Moving” PAC.

What’s the “Keep Houston Moving” PAC?

Thanks to Charles Kuffner, this is the PAC behind the recent Houston Metro general mobility payments poll.  “ The poll was commissioned by Keep Houston Moving Forward PAC, a group formed to pass a ballot measure this fall that will determine the future of the mobility payments.” He wrote.

Here’s the contributions information:

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As this Houston Chronicle piece noted in February 2010, the campaign for Renew Houston “could be led by some of the very engineers who could benefit the most from the infrastructure boom a referendum would initiate.” 

And so it is for Houston METRO through the Keep Houston Moving PAC  as well….