STEVE RADACK’S NEXT LITTLE IDEA “When people find out this is here — you wait!†commissioner Steve Radack tells the Chronicle‘s Chris Moran. He’s talking about his new $2.3 million soapbox derby park, set to open shortly at 28515 Old Washington Rd. in Hockley. It’s a 985-ft.-long, 46-ft.-high hill built up from Katy dirt, with 240 parking spaces. But Radack’s got more schemes in mind for the little ’uns: “His idea for the next publicly funded signature park scales back his ambition from four wheels to three. But it demonstrates no less imagination than a man-made hill made out of the bottoms of man-made lakes. Precinct 3 could one day be home to a tiny tricycle city, where kids can pedal down a Main Street between rows of dollhouse-size buildings.” [Houston Chronicle]
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Get past Radack’s memorial building around precinct 3, he has done a lot of good by building parks left and right. It wouldn’t surprise me if much of the dirt came from the large Harris County Flood Control District detention basins being built on White Oak and Brays Bayou. Much of that money is pure haul costs.
I’ve always thought Derby Mountain was pure folly and a misguided throwback to 1950’s nostalgia…until I heard about Trike Town. Wowza. Politics aside, he has done a lot of positive things for his precinct and Terry Hershey Park, alone, is pretty damn sweet. I can’t believe one of the corporations he’s done “consulting” work over the years, while he’s been a commissioner, won’t pony up for the naming rights.
Friggin Hockley? Why don’t they build it near where people live? Unless of course, it’s being built to assuage the hyperconservatives that live out in those parts and want a yesteryear reminder.
SL,
It might help you to get out once and a while. There so much to do in the non-urban areas of the county and region.
Absolutely, we should build all community services far away from where people actually are. That will encourage them to get out more. And those without cars can just use our highly efficient public transportation network.
This brings visions of a parking lot filled with giant SUVs and a hill covered with suburban patio men trying to bring meaning to their meaningless lives by racing tin cans with wheels. Score one more for the wretched suburbanite.
I always practice “out of sight, out of mind” with Steve Radack which is probably the best approach to all our county commissioners. They have their little kingdoms. We pay the taxes. They spend the taxes. On all sorts of things. They are the kings. We are the serfs. And if you get too inquisitive, they send the constables out to get you. Literally as well as figuratively speaking. They are the best reason to term limit all politicians. They are also the prime example of why we never will. One does not oppose the king.
Parks are nice. My question is how much do all the parks really cost us? But then I learned not to ask questions.
You could say the same damn thing about Bill White.
Steve, I live within spitting distance of
River Oaks, and can’t get my pothole of an excuse for a street filled in (Colquitt by name). The city absolutely refuses to fix it. Send some dirt my way.
Miss_msry, too true. What is it about Colquitt? I have seen other streets in your same zipcode surfaced twice in the last dozen years, while certain blocks of Colquitt (the high teens) look like Beyond Thunderdome. I am not so naive as to be ignorant of why some streets get better attention than others, but who did you Colquitters piss off?
You could say the same damn thing about Bill White.
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Oh, I do. And much worse.