No one knows yet how it started, Friday’s 5-alarm fire that took out the Southwest Inn and caused the death of 4 Houston firefighters working to put it out — and the hospitalization of 14 others. The investigation, says HFD spokesperson Ruy Lozano, will take time. Meanwhile, much of the attention has shifted to the Sharpstown motel’s rather colorful history.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: CHEAPER, CLOSE-IN “I would just add to what Cody said. You can avoid traffic AND get a big house and lawn here in Houston. You just need to set aside your prejudices about certain neighborhoods. We’ve been living in the Brays Oaks area, formerly known as Fondren Southwest, since 2007, and it’s wonderful. Houses prices are on-par with far-flung suburbs like Jersey Village and Spring; far less than Inside the Loop. Barring any major accidents we can get from our house to the Museum District in less than 25 minutes; the Medical Center in under 20. My commute to work only takes me one exit on the Southwest Freeway. I take a certain satisfaction and watching all the people from Sugar Land sit in traffic, knowing that they spent more and got less house than we did. (Crime issues here are overblown, by the way – the result of sensationalized local news reports. The public schools are lousy, but we have some great private schools.)” [ZAW, commenting on Comment of the Day: First We Crowd]
A Swamplot reader writes in with some identifying info about the Katy homebuilder whose Heights Blvd. townhouse construction collapsed into a pile of sticks over the weekend. The collapse of two 4-story structures under construction shortly after the end of Saturday night’s storm didn’t end up injuring anyone, but it did set back construction and marketing efforts for the Madison Park development just south of White Oak Bayou.
The builder of the toppled properties at 103-117 E. 2nd St., in a corral of townhomes built earlier by another developer, is Keystone Classic Homes, an LLC managed by Michael D. Surface. That appears to be the same Mike Surface who found himself in local headlines a couple of years ago, before and after he admitted to a judge that he intended to influence his longtime friend, Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole, with approximately $100,000 in cash and gifts. As part of a plea deal, Surface ended up pleading guilty to filing a false income tax return and making false statements to federal officials in connection with that bribery case, which centered around county contracts; in November 2011 he received a sentence of 2 years’ probation, along with a restriction barring him from being able to do any business with federal, county, or city governments for 5 years.
And then there was Surface’s job on the Astrodome.
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: CAMERAS ON THE STREET, BEFORE AND AFTER BOSTON “Before Boston, my attitute on red light cameras was (1) there is no expectation of privacy on the roads, in your cars or otherwise in public, (2) no person is actually monitoring these cameras, you paranoid freaks and (3) only those who were breaking the law had anything to worry about. After Boston my attitude is the same plus (4) WE NEED MORE CAMERAS and for tapes to be saved at least thirty days to aid law enforcement!” [mel, commenting on Headlines: Challenging Keystone Pipeline Challenge; Watching ExxonMobil Campus Grow]
MAYOR PARKER ASKS CITY COUNCIL TO DECRIMINALIZE DIVING IN PUBLIC DUMPSTERS 
A Houston man’s arrest for Dumpster diving outside City Hall was news to Mayor Parker: “And I had to say, really?” says the mayor in teevee reporter Doug Miller’s story. “There’s an ordinance for that? Give me a break.” And Mayor Parker has since requested that city council revise the 1942 ordinance that criminalizes rummaging: Lawyers who want to see it repealed, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Mike Morris, say that the ordinance “adversely impacts homeless persons and absorbs law enforcement time that could otherwise be spent preventing more significant criminal activity.” But, reports Morris, potential changes won’t mean Houstonians will be free to help themselves to whatever and wherever they’d like: “[S]pokeswoman Janice Evans said the proposed repeal will be amended . . . to ensure that it only addresses the situation which saw [the man] cited for picking through a public trash can. Rummaging through trash cans or recycling bins at homes and businesses still will not be allowed . . . .” [KHOU; Houston Chronicle] Photo of Dumpster: Flickr user nicksaltman
Thieves made off with copper wiring from UH’s University Center late Saturday night, a UH public safety department bulletin reports: A contractor noticed early Sunday morning that the wiring had gone missing; a reader tells Swamplot that this knocked out the building’s power and is delaying renovations. The Barnes & Noble and Cougar Byte stores inside the UC have been scrambling to set up temporary locations elsewhere on campus.
DEMOLISHING HOUSTON’S GRISLY PAST 
“Houstonians just don’t celebrate death and the past the way New Orleanians do,” writes John Nova Lomax in his recounting of 4 creepy tales from Bayou City history. “In fact, we tend to simply forget all the awful and weird things that have happened here over the last 176 years, and mercifully so, because there have been an enormous number of terrible episodes.” It’s much easier to forget, of course, when the gruesome settings themselves are summarily disposed of. The “Houston Heights House of Horror” — a 3-room shack at 732 Ashland St. that was the scene of a noted hatcheting in 1910 — by 1937 had been torn down and replaced. Its substitute is gone now too; a warehouse that’s home to a company called SemaSys now stands in its place. And down in Seabrook, condos occupy the site of the famous warehouse-like “Mansion on Todville Rd.” (in photo) where in 1984 a group of housesitting youngsters murdered its owner, child predator Bill List. [Houston Press] Photo of atrium, 3300 Todville Rd., Seabrook: Carl Guderian [license]
HILLCROFT HOUSTON CELL PHONE SNATCHING THROUGH THE ROOF 
Here’s a view from earlier today of the ceiling inside Rizwan Siddiqi’s Cell Phone Wholesale shop at 3633 Hillcroft. Shortly before 4 this morning, a thief dropped into the store and grabbed as many as 80 smartphones before climbing back out the way he came, through the roof. Surveillance video shows the phoneburglar missing on his first attempt to jump back into the plenum space, hitting the display case before crashing back onto the floor. A tall stool placed on top of the case eventually allowed a gentler exit. The shop is carved out of one side of the Valero In-N-Out store at the corner of Windswept. [abc13] Photo: Phillip Mena/Click2Houston
An investor in a possibly nonexistent real-estate venture headed by his friend Billy Frank Davis tells Chronicle reporter Mike Tolson that Davis didn’t let on to his friends that other friends had also invested with him: “He didn’t want word of mouth. Bill’s image was always the most important thing to him. He always portrayed himself as a very successful and wealthy person. Everybody thought Bill had money.” On Monday, the disbarred attorney pled guilty to a single count of wire fraud in connection with a Ponzi scheme that bilked his friends and golfing buddies at the Champions Golf Club, the River Oaks Country Club, and the Braeburn Country Club out of $7.8 million. According to Tolson’s report, however, the losses may have been much higher than that.
COUNTY ATTORNEY STRIPS BIKINI OFF FM 1960 STRIP CENTER BABES 
In the suit filed yesterday against the operator of strip club Babes North at 10610 FM 1960 just east of Jones Rd., Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan accuses the club, formerly known as the Bikini Wing Bar, of flouting the laws governing sexually oriented businesses. “Babes is not a bikini bar. It is a topless and bottomless den of prostitution and drug dealing.” Notably, the lawsuit is also directed at the owners of the pad site in the Cypress Plaza Shopping Center, PJM Properties — for not taking reasonable measures to prevent criminal activity on its premises. [Cypress Creek Mirror] Photo: Click2Houston
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THOSE KIDS “. . . Let me be clear. I know exactly where I live and knew where I was moving to 8 years ago. And contrary to what assumptions have been made, I love where I live and am proud of where I live. I love the history behind it. There are great people who live in all parts of this neighborhood all the way down the street to where crack is being sold. When I read this article the first thing that pops into my head is ‘park=kids=hangout.’ I am actually glad that they’re doing what they’re doing instead of putting up yet another apartment complex. The more green and conservation and beautification, the better. A park is a park, meaning where people will congregate which also means kids. Understand that when I posted this comment, I was fresh off of witnessing kids stealing a man’s phone and he being helpless to get it back. And the kids live in this neighborhood. Which just refreshed my memory of my neighbor getting his windows busted out while driving to his house by kids that live in this neighborhood who thought it would be fun to throw rocks at cars driving down the street. I think to when I was riding my scooter and kids that live in this neighborhood thought it would be fun to throw rocks at me while I was driving down the street almost causing me to wreck. I am aware that crime happens in every neighborhood. And despite the 3 instances I just wrote about I have no desire to move. I am happy to see historical sites preserved. In fact there were plans to pave some of the streets here, including mine. As many broken peices of brick there that makes it a pain on any car to drive over, the bricks are staying and will be preserved and I’m so glad! . . .” [Holly, commenting on New Fourth Ward Park of the Open Church]
If it’s, say, 1980, and you’re trying to get rid of a dead body, burying it at the foundation level of a brand-new condo complex going up over the reported site of an ancient cemetery might sound like a perfect after-offing disposal plan. But in Houston, you never know what’s going to get dug up next. HPD detective Carlos Cardenas tells Chronicle reporter Mike Glenn he doesn’t think the partial skeleton unearthed by construction workers yesterday on the site of the recently demolished Park Memorial Condominiums at 5292 Memorial Dr. (pictured above in a late stage of assisted decomposition) belongs to the native American graveyard reported to have existed there previously.
Forensic testing should give a clearer answer, but the circumstances of the body’s burial appear to tell a story on their own: The human remains were discovered along Chandler St. near Arnold, at the far northeastern corner of the complex, wedged between a retaining wall and a concrete slab that workers were taking out. The body was likely concealed there when the Park Memorial Condos were built, police detectives tell Glenn.
That new helpful “what to do if a crazed gunman starts shooting up your workplace” video posted last week by Houston’s Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security features the city’s new Washington Ave Permitting Center in a starring role, along with a cast of cleaned-up would-be plan checkers and health officials — and a bald, cold-blooded shooter wearing dark glasses and toting a menacing backpack. The gunman starts by offing a security guard and a bystander at the lobby elevators behind the receptionist’s desk, then works his way into various city departments. The video was completed 2 weeks before the recent well-publicized attack on theatergoers in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 people were killed and 58 injured. DHS’s advice for permit officers or anyone stuck in an office that finds itself suddenly transformed into a scene out of an action movie: Run. If you can’t run, hide. And if you can’t hide, fight. Here’s the scene:
The robbers who held up a couple of IBC Bank locations inside Houston-area Kroger stores in 2 separate incidents over the last few months won’t have those branches to kick around any more. The IBC Bank in the Kroger at 11565 Hwy. 6 South in Sugar Land (at the corner of West Airport) and the one in the store at 3135 FM 528 and Bay Area Blvd. in Friendswood (featured in the surveillance video still above) have now been shut down — along with 2 other in-Kroger locations. The closings weren’t a direct result of the robberies, but part of International Bancshares Corp.’s plan to close up grocery-store locations — which have grown unprofitable as a result of new restrictions on bank fees — and open a few more standalone branches. IBC closed 20 Houston-area grocery-store branches — 19 in H-E-B Markets and another inside a Randall’s — last December.
Photo of suspect in Friendswood Kroger IBC Bank: Bay Area Citizen
