No First Place

I am glad to see this. I wanted to sign the petition, but I never ran into a signature gatherer.  See this from the front page of today’s Chron:

This November, Houstonians are expected to vote on whether the city should hold more sway in the Houston-Galveston Area Council, after more than 23,000 residents signed a petition to address what they consider unfair distributions of federal funds by the regional planning body.

While Houston represents over 30 percent of the population under H-GAC’s jurisdiction, the city only has two seats on the council’s 37-member board. To boost the city’s influence, about 200 Fair for Houston volunteers canvassed the city over the past four months. They submitted 23,665 signatures to city officials Wednesday.  

Pending the city’s verification, the number of signatures is enough to add a charter amendment to this year’s municipal elections in November that would compel H-GAC to revise its voting structure.

“We feel really confident about the counting because we have done so much verifying ourselves,” organizer Alexandra Smither said. “We are seeking to fundamentally restructure the way Houston receives its federal funding for things like infrastructure, flood mitigation, and just create a fairer system for our city.”

And this:

“We didn’t get a fair share of (the flood mitigation) funding based on size and population,” said District A council member Amy Peck, one of the two Houston officials on H-GAC’s board of directors. “While all of the other entities in each county definitely deserve to have representation and funding as well, it has to be based on something other than what we have right now.”

Here is the entire read: Houstonians to vote on giving the city a larger voice at on H-GAC (houstonchronicle.com).

Even a GOPer like Council Member Peck thinks the current system isn’t working for H-Town.  I wonder if organized opposition to this will emerge between now and November in H-Town. If so, what will be their argument against. 

Stay tuned for sure.

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We have played 87 games or nearly 54% of our season and we have never been in first place this season. Not once.

We started off the season with a loss against the White Sox. We have been 6 ½ games behind three times, the latest on June 24 after a loss to the Dodgers.  Today we are two games behind the Rangers.  Considering all the players who have been dinged up this season, that is not bad at all.

The surprise this year has been the play of rookie Yainer Diaz, our back-up catcher and sometimes DH and first baseman. In 48 games, he has 10 dingers, 11 doubles, 44 base hits, and 21 RBIs.  He had a two-dinger game yesterday. Nice.

The Mariners are in for four games.