Former City Workers Accept Responsibility

When I first heard about the four employees who illegally gave themselves bonuses, I said to myself - they have a lot of hootspau. Now it is nice to learn that they have accepted responsibility and cleared two other workers who were falsely accused.

More than two years after Mayor Bill White condemned four City Hall staffers for committing a "betrayal of trust" for taking unauthorized bonuses and raises, two of the workers agreed Friday to apologize, spend 10 years on probation and pay back their profits.

Rosita Hernandez and Florence Watkins were running the Office of Mayor Pro Tem in 2006 when authorities began questioning bonuses and raises worth more than $209,000 for themselves and two underlings. All four were fired in March 2006.

Hernandez must repay $77,000 as part of the plea agreement on a felony theft charge. Watkins agreed to pay back $67,000. Both took the stand briefly to clear the names of two lower-level Office of the Mayor Pro Tem employees indicted in the case.

After hearing from Hernandez and Watkins that co-workers Teresa Orta and Christopher Mays didn't know anything about the scam, prosecutors dismissed the charges against Orta and Mays.

'Road Home Program'

Some Road Home stories can be truly heartbreaking:

It was one thing for Leatrice Roberts to find out that the government had sold her a townhome built on top of a waste dump. But it was mindboggling to learn, at age 74, that the Road Home can't buy her out because the land is contaminated.

On the other hand, there has not been any good news lately concerning the Road Home program.

Tejano Star Improving

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Grammy-winning Tejano music star Emilio Navaira's chances of survival are improving, his doctor said on Wednesday, following a crash this week in which he was thrown through the windshield of his tour bus.

Key To New Orleans Recovery

It is time for City leaders to take note:

Researchers for the Virginia-based Mercatus Center are reporting the neighborhoods that rebounded the fastest generally had the strongest community leaders -- not the most government help.

Mercatus proposes that New Orleans do more to encourage expansion of neighborhood associations, which it says are better equipped to oversee local redevelopment than centralized city planning departments.

Mercatus said the future of New Orleans is dependent on the city government giving more flexibility to local neighborhood organizations to develop recovery plans that suit their special circumstances.

What they have been doing has not been working so why not try and follow this approach.

Free Wireless Internet

Houston is planning on building 10 free wireless network "bubbles" in low-income parts of the city to give residents access they otherwise might do without.

Monday's announcement launched the first bubble in the densely populated Gulfton area of Southwest Houston. The city is establishing a committee to determine where future networks will be located. Build-out is expected to happen over the next two years.

Rest In Peace, Al

T-P:

Al Copeland, a hard-charging, high-living entrepreneur who built an empire on spicy fried chicken and fluffy white biscuits, died Sunday in Munich, Germany, of complications from cancer treatment. He was 64.