In time for campaign season, Mayor Parker announced yesterday that the city would begin cracking down on bandit signs placed on public property by fining violators under an existing city ordinance that — as far as she knows — has never been enforced. Political candidates will be given 24 hours’ notice for each violation before being charged $200 a pop, she said. Collected funds will be used to defray the cost of removing the signs — which reached $450,000 in 2009.
The owner of the year-and-a-third-old Purple Elephant Gallery tells Cypress Creek Mirror reporter Rebecca Bennett of her plans to turn her stretch of McSwain St. off Kluge Rd. into an artsy “Old Town Cypress.” Already up: her backyard Iron Butterfly Studio and the thatched-roof Street of Dreams Palapa at 12802 McSwain, where hoopdancers attend Houston Spin Stars classes (above). Next, Debra Reese wants to turn a home she owns down the street into a restaurant.
“This has always been my dream, and that’s why I named it the Street of Dreams. You can make your dreams come true. You can even have a pig,†she said.
HOW THE KUBOSH BROTHERS PUT THE KIBOSH ON HOUSTON’S RED LIGHT CAMERAS 
Mandy Oaklander doesn’t include too many interviews with ardent red-light camera supporters in her cover story, but she does provide an engaging, from-the-top account of how the city got to its current situation: cameras turned off, lawsuits a-brewing. Tasty excerpt: “‘I agree with the Mayor,’ Feldman told city council in his low, measured voice. ‘We are in a Catch-22. No matter what we do, there is somebody out there who is going to sue us.’ Feldman cracked a rare, thin-lipped smile. ‘That’s why I became city attorney.'” [Houston Press] Photo: West U Examiner
ACCOUNTING FOR ALL THOSE OVERZEALOUS DICK SIGN POSTERS 
Political consultant and bandit-sign monitor Greg Wythe digs into campaign filings to assess a recent claim by at-large city council candidate Eric Dick — that many of the ubiquitous and often illegally posted signs advertising his candidacy throughout Houston are the work of “overzealous volunteers.” Wythe’s findings: At a sign distribution meeting held at the Captain Benny’s at 10896 Northwest Fwy. just south of 34th St. in mid-May, Dick’s campaign shelled out a whopping $22.36 to feed the overzealous crowd. But payments to a company hired to distribute the campaign’s signs amount to more than $5,000. [Greg’s Opinion; background; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Empty Lot Primary
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ENTERTAINMENT VALUE “I hope the driver pays every penny of the damages, minus comedy royalties.” [Sid, commenting on Stuck in Kirby Traffic Again, Not Going Anywhere]
LIGHTS IN THE HEIGHTS TO STAY ON, JUST TURNED DOWN A BIT 
The esplanade and corner food trucks will be gone, the parade will be “de-emphasized,” and the police will be active at the next Lights in the Heights, according to a Woodland Heights Civic Association email received by Martin Hajovsky. According to some estimates, 50,000 people attended last year’s annual Christmas-y event. To assuage neighborhood concerns about possible vandalism, public drunkenness, and commercialization, the event will be held earlier in the evening and shortened by an hour as well. [Home in the Heights, via Hair Balls] Photo: Jason Tinder [license]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SIMPLY THE BEST “My favorite Red Light Camera is the one on San Felipe & 610 S Feeder. It is so awesome! I’ve tried them all, and that one is definitely the best. Everyone should have a favorite Red Light Camera. What’s yours?” [Jackson Corbett-Bean, commenting on Red Light Green Light]
In the new but apparently burgeoning tradition of Swamplot opening-day (and opening-night) photos of Waugh Dr. parking lots comes this reader photo of the car-filled scene behind the new Tony Mandola’s Gulf Coast Kitchen at 1212 Waugh, taken from Rosine St. last night around 7 pm. Sure, residents of the Piedmont condos along Rosine now can walk to the new Whole Foods Market. But the condos “have no guest parking other than on the street. Now we will have NO guest parking at all,” reports the reader. “People are steamed.” Next on the local agenda: trying to swing permit-only parking signs for Rosine.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: PARKING EQUALITY “Public street Parking Permits should be illegal. The City should not be allowed to give a select few individuals exclusive rights to use public property. I’m surprised no one has sued the COH over this ridiculous practice. What if a neighborhood group signed a petition to only allow themselves to use the local public park, public pool, or public jogging trail because they were too crowded with “outsidersâ€? Public means public. If you want private use of the street then buy it or build you own. Our taxes pay for all the public streets and all of us should be able to drive or park legally on them whenever we please.” [Jon, commenting on Comment of the Day: Street Parking in the Heights]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: STREET PARKING IN THE HEIGHTS “West of Studewood in the Heights has a lot of unpermitted off street parking facilities on public right of ways or parking pads on streets without curbs. These are ditches that are covered up with cars parked on them. Heights residents will tell you that you cannot park in front of their houses on their pads. That leaves the houses without parking pads open to all the parking. I forsee lots of problems with residents telling people they cannot park in front of their houses when these new places come in. And yes, I see my neighbors telling people to move their cars every day. The Parking Wars are coming.” [Studes2nd, commenting on More Heights Second Locations: Sonoma Wine Bar Aims for Studewood]
JACK JOHNSON, STILL DRAWING THE CROWDS IN GALVESTON 
On the agenda for the next meeting of GRACE, the homeownership organization in charge of The Oaks housing development at 4300 Broadway in Galveston: A discussion of Earl Jones’s sculpture of former world heavyweight boxing champion and Galveston native Jack Johnson, carved out of the trunk of a subdivision oak tree killed by Hurricane Ike. Homeowners association President Frank Rivera has been campaigning to have the stature moved. His complaint: That the Johnson statue was bringing a stream of tourists and other visitors to the neighborhood, creating traffic and disrupting the peace. But a canvas of residents over the weekend by 2 housing authority board members turned up only 2 who said they didn’t want the sculpture. [Galveston County Daily News; background; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Click2Houston
“I guess I am behind the times on marketing strategies,” admits real estate agent Robert Searcy after snapping these pics of the latest offer posted on Bellfort St. near Broadway, just a mile north of Hobby Airport.
Photos: Robert Searcy
Urban-design nerds, street-festival fans, and earnest neighborhood do-gooders will converge on a block of Holman St. near LaBranch this Saturday to play a little game of make-believe: They’ll be imagining what it might be like if Houston had some sort of street life. From 10 am to 10 pm, they’ll be hanging out on a Third Ward Midtown block quickly made up to look as if it did: with painted-in bike lanes, instant street trees in planters, a pop-up cafe in a portable building parked on the street, food trucks, and maybe even a farmers’ market. And they’ll be smiling pedestrian-friendly smiles.
HOUSTON’S COMING CUDDLY ANIMAL INVASION 
Look out for a migration of flamingoes, and a few more bunnies for Easter, announces the Houston Press‘s John Nova Lomax, after an interview with stencil artist Coolidge. “A lot of people are like, ‘Aw, you need to do a cat!’ or ‘You should do a rhino!’ or something, and I’m like, ‘Well, if I was gonna do that, I’m not now.’ . . . It’s almost like I should stop doing them on city property. I should probably stick to private property. Some people have contacted me to thank me after I’ve done their buildings up. The city won’t mess with that stuff, but if it’s on their property they’ve been taking them down pretty quick.” [Art Attack] Photo of Taylor St. bridge at I-10: Alex Luster
