Good morning, Houston. Did you watch last night's Emmy Awards show with bated breath? Yeah, neither did we. If you want to check out the winners, the Chron has a nice cheat sheet that will bring you up to speed for today's water cooler conversation. We did get to wondering where the name "Emmy" came from though, and turned to Wikipedia to ease our minds. Turns out it's a feminization of the word "immy,"......

...for demolitionToday, Houston City Council voted to designate the River Oaks Shopping Center, River Oaks Theater, Alabama Shopping Center, and Alabama Theater as historic landmarks, though it will not afford the structures any protection from Weingarten Realty's current and future decisions to demolish them. According to Historic Houston, there were three dissenting votes from council members Michael Berry (big surprise), Addie Wiseman (who tagged this measure last week), and Pam Holm. Save Our Landmarks invites......

This morning, Houston City Council designated Old Sixth Ward as the first and only Protected Historic District in the city. This new status will enable the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission to prohibit the demolition of historic structures within Old Sixth Ward's 33.8 acres. There was only one dissenting vote for this measure, which came from council member/real estate broker Michael Berry. As far as actual limitations on properties within the district, the Greater Houston......

Biggio and Infernal Bridegroom Productions announce they're leaving us on the same day? Say it ain't so, Tamarie. Unfortunately for us, it is: IBP announced in a press release that was also posted on their website yesterday that they have "ceased operations this month due to insurmountable financial difficulties." Is it too late to get the mayor's fundraising people on this? IBP produced 68 plays since their founding in 1993, and we're sure each......

We're sure glad that City Council isn't our mom - they're strict. Yesterday, the council decided in an 11-3 vote that children 16 and under must be off the streets by 11 pm on weeknights. The previous curfew was midnight, which still applies to Fridays and Saturdays. There are a number of exceptions, including children who are accompanied by a parent or participating in school or church-sponsored events. Those delinquents who violate the rule will......

We learned from former ABC 13 weatherman Ed Brandon's guest post on the mike mcguff blog this week that Tuesday was Ed Brandon Day. How did you celebrate? At City Hall on Tuesday, Brandon was presented with a fancy plaque and there were all sorts of festivities. Brandon himself seemed more than a little excited to commemorate his holiday, and he has big plans for next year. Included: an Ed Brandon Day Parade (or parades!).......

Remember the city's proposal last year to set a 10 p.m. curfew for kids under age 17? It never really went anywhere, and now City Council is trying again: Yesterday, councilmembers began discussing a proposal to set Houston's juvenile curfew at 11 p.m. HPD Assistant Executive Chief Mike Thaler told councilmembers that the earlier curfew — it's now set at midnight on weekdays — would not only help curb juvenile crime, but would also give......

Houston City Council passed amendments to the current preservation ordinance that will make it easier for residents to designate neighborhoods as historic districts, and a two year building permit penalty if any historic landmark or structure in a historic district is demolished. For district designation, there will need to be a 51% consent of property owners, down from 67%. The permit penalty will prohibit the city from granting building permits for a site where a......

The Chronicle reports today on an interesting land deal going down in Midtown: Metro is buying two blocks of Main Street property from a developer with plans to sell it back to the developer after a few months so the developer can build a transit-oriented development there. For developer Robert H. Schultz of RHS Interests, it's a pretty sweet deal: He gets cash in hand for the property now, a year-long guarantee that he can......

This is the second in a series of posts about upcoming City Council races. Check out this week's earlier post about District I, and keep reading Houstonist for more campaign coverage. District E, currently represented by Addie Wiseman, connects the heavily Republican suburbs of Kingwood and Clear Lake by a narrow strip of land, and this year's City Council race reflects this odd districting. Candidate Annette Dwyer hails from Clear Lake and has served on......

A couple more details today on Houston's municipal Wi-Fi plan: According to the AP, pending City Council approval, Atlanta-based EarthLink Municipal Networks would spend $50 million to set up the 600-square-mile network, which will require 10,000 transmitters to be placed on light and utility poles (and, perhaps, rooftops) across the city. In short, it's going to be big, and Mayor Bill White didn't miss out on a chance to do a little bragging yesterday: Referring......

Houston's 2006 crime statistics were announced yesterday, and there's some good news: The city's overall crime rate fell 5 percent last year, meaning you're less likely to be robbed, raped, assaulted or have your car stolen. But while we're patting ourselves on the back, we might want to be a little careful we don't get murdered: Houston's homicide rate increased by 5 percent last year. Around every silver lining, there's a dark cloud. According to......

More on the possibility of the city having to hold a costly special election to fill Shelley Sekula-Gibbs' vacant City Council seat for a few months: According to the Chronicle, Mayor Bill White plans to ask the state Legislature for some leeway in the election law that would require a special election. The issue: A special election couldn't be held before May, meaning that whoever won it would have to run again in a general......

Smokers, you'd better light up while you still can: Thanks to a 13-2 City Council vote today, smoking will be banned in most bars come September. After much discussion over alternate proposals, councilmembers decided to stick with the ban Mayor Bill White and Councilwoman Carol Alvarado supported, which prohibits smoking in all workplaces (with exceptions for a handful of situations, including cigar bars, tobacco shops, hotel meeting rooms and outdoor patios). The overwhelming support for......

Is it just us, or has the city's proposed graffiti crackdown been going on for a while? We first talked about it in late June, and then it came up again earlier this week. And after City Council discussed the would-be ordinance yesterday, councilmembers delayed a vote on the matter. Stamping out graffiti must be harder than it looks! Councilmember Adrian Garcia has reportedly been working on the tougher graffiti ordinance for about a year;......

As expected, City Council delayed a vote on expanding the city's smoking ban at its meeting yesterday — and with councilmembers divided between a variety of proposals, it's anyone's guess how the vote will go when it's actually taken. Mayor Bill White, who supports a smoking ban at all enclosed workplaces with exceptions for cigar shops, certain meeting rooms, private functions and a handful of other situations, said things are close: "I think the majority......

Late last week, it looked like there wouldn't be a Veterans Day parade in Houston this year because the holiday falls on a weekend — Saturday, Nov. 11 — and organizers were worried no one would show up. But as you might expect, that didn't sit well with veterans, so it turns out there will be a parade after all. Talk of calling the event off this year came up based on low turnout in......

Even though the support continues to grow for the preservation of the River Oaks Shopping Center and Theater, many questions remained unanswered, and Weingarten has continued to keep their reticence. Rumors and some evidence throw a mix of names into the equation: Hermes Architects for the northwestern curved section, Wallace Garcia Wilson Architects for the highrise, and Barnes and Noble for an anchor. While concerned patrons, shareholders, and members of the community continue to......

So we've heard a lot lately about the city's attempts to clean up graffiti. Given that, it's not surprising — kind of dumb, but not surprising — that a weekend graffiti-art event is ruffling some feathers. The event is the Hawaiian Punch Graffiti Jam, scheduled for 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow at the Southside Skate Park, 510 Iowa Ave. in South Houston. Professional graffiti artists will paint a mural and will teach all comers......

Houstonist doesn't know if you realized it, but Houston is trying to put itself on the cutting edge of water meter technology with meters that read themselves, sorta. Problem is, it doesn't seem to be working. As KPRC reports, the automated metering system is years behind schedule and millions over budget — and the new meter reading system has a 47 percent failure rate. The system is based on radio transmitters that are installed on......

The latest twist in the mayor pro tem saga: The discovery of a dented filing cabinet in City Hall that may or may not have been jimmied open to retrieve ... well, we're not sure what. The black, 5-foot cabinet was kept in an unlocked City Hall break room adjacent to the pro tem office, where four workers reportedly helped themselves to a couple hundred thousand dollars in unauthorized payraises and bonuses. The damage to......

Agents from the city Office of the Inspector General raided the office of Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado today, taking equipment and putting employees on administrative leave after the city finance director got reports of payroll irregularities. Details are scarce, but KPRC reported computers were confiscated and the office's door locks were changed. Four employees were placed on leave, but officials didn't comment on Alvarado's status. As mayor pro tem, she handles administrative functions for......

An ordinance under consideration by City Council would target the oldest profession by making it a crime for hotel and motel employees to rent rooms knowing they would be used for prostitution. The problem is that the law would require a high burden of proof — police would have to prove in municipal court that a motel employee knew a room would be used to turn a trick. Houstonist doesn't make a habit of hanging......

City Council delayed a vote this week on a proposal to ban people under the age of 16 from soliciting donations for charity on Houston streets. Instead, councilmembers decided to make the discussion broader — now it's about cutting the number of homeless window-washing panhandlers. Councilman Michael Berry introduced a proposal last week to prohibit all minors from soliciting for charity and to ban anyone, regardless of age, from "entering roadways or obstructing traffic to......