HOUSTON PLANNING DEPT. LAUNCHES WEBSITE TO LAUNCH PLAN FOR HOUSTON 
Efforts to create an actual “general plan” for the city of Houston have revved into high internet gear with last week’s launch of the Plan Houston website. There, the planning department has floated its mission-statement-like Draft Vision for the city and is requesting public input before an April 17th deadline. In addition to the draft (shown here in full), there’s an only slightly meatier draft list of goals posted on the site (in this PDF) to mull over. (Later, the site is intended to host a mapping tool meant to allow users to look up all the plans on file for an area — capital improvement projects, parks, or TIRZ efforts, for example.) Can’t stand the phrase “resilient communities”? Think we should set our sights higher than “dynamic partnerships”? Now’s the chance to express yourself, before it gets down to the neighborhood nitty-gritty. A complete General Plan is expected to be completed by late summer. [City of Houston]
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Wow Wow! Houston plans skyline transition to solar powered UK tower of London!
Well, I searched the WEB site and looked at the site map, but I did not find the section that addresses the nasty, trash-laden, unsafe potholed streets, especially like around Montrose. But who am I to complain? The shitty streets add “character” to the fun, artsy, eclectic flair of Montrose, and we don’t want to lose that, now do we?
Hey at least Montrose has sufficient police protection. A lot of areas don’t even have that!
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But on a slightly more serious note, potholes serve as traffic calming devices. They keep traffic speeds down. No need to install road humps or lobby to lower speed limits if you’ve got nice, classic potholes doing the trick.
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But really, on a much more serious note, MontroseResident: use 311 to complain about potholes. But don’t call them. Email them. Include pictures, detailed location, and cc your City Councilman (or at least your City Councilman’s chief of staff). The emailing and cc’ing part is important. Otherwise your 311 call tends to get lost.
“Mission statements are a massive wank.”
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(That’s my suggestion for Houston’s mission statement.)