Subject: Frank Michel

• Bad Medicine for Bill White

  November 1, 2006

• San Franciscans Still Can't Donate Recycling Bins To Houston

  August 8, 2008

• Mayor's Office to SF: Send Us Those Recycling Bins!

  August 8, 2008

• Two Politicians, Two Responses

  September 16, 2008

• Suburbs Get The Power, Houston Gets The Shaft

  September 18, 2008

• Six Feet Blunder

  Bring out your dead -- and wait

  September 9, 2004

• Houston's Infrastructure Wish List Is Half Of Dallas's

  With the holidays approaching, mayors across the country have published their equivalent of letters to Santa, and all they want for Christmas is a total of $73 billion in federal funding for municipal projects they say could kick-start job growth.The U.S. Conference of Mayors released this week the results of a 427-city survey asking what improvement projects each city had on its plate that could use some government cheese. The stipulation is each of the projects needs to be undertaken immediate

  December 11, 2008

• A Slight Omission

  December 1, 1994

• The Insider

  November 14, 1996

• The Insider

  December 5, 1996

• The City Of Houston Takes On Orbitz And Priceline

  The City of Houston and the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority are currently suing multiple travel websites such as Orbitz and Priceline over tax revenues it claims the sites owe it. Online travel sites pay wholesale prices to hotels for rooms and then customers book those rooms at a mark-up from that wholesale price. The sites pay taxes on the wholesale price, and keep whatever is made from the customer booking the room at the marked-up price.Houston, along with cities and counties across t

  February 11, 2009

• The Insider

  October 23, 1997

• BARC Sucks

  January 29, 2009

• RIP, Some of Our Best Of Houston® Winners

  Hardly Knew Ye

  September 25, 2008

• San Francisco Wants to Help Us Recycle

  Helping Hand Spurned

  August 14, 2008

• Hippie Cops and Loan Sharks

  June 12, 2008

• Tax Break for the Rich; Roger Clemens at the Capitol; Green Sex

  Mayor White gets help from the appraisal district

  February 21, 2008

• This Blows!

  Houston has a national rep for taking down buildings. So why are these eyesores still standing?

  February 15, 2007

• Losing Ugly

  Remember when we praised City Hall? Forget it.

  December 22, 2005

• Raking It In

  Are Houston cops trying to make up for lost revenue?

  December 15, 2005

• System Failure

  Tropical Storm Allison destroyed houses that never quite got fixed, thanks to bureaucratic bungling and cheaters

  December 8, 2005

• From Houston with Love

  The city sends a special something to Africa

  November 10, 2005

• Blocked Signals

  City, county officials silence a proposed radio station inside the Dome

  September 15, 2005

• Jailhouse Crock

  UTMB's controversial proposed deal with the city dies

  June 30, 2005

• Got Your Health

  How much more can you cut?

  June 23, 2005

• Law? What Law?

  City Council proposed; City Hall didn't dispose

  July 1, 2004

• He Won't Back Down

  The mayor was threatened -- or maybe he wasn't

  June 3, 2004

• Friends Like These

  Hermann Park vendors are begging the city: Take us back!

  April 22, 2004

• We Are Terrific!

  Houston's latest image-boosting campaign gets a big hand from the Chron

  April 19, 2001

• The Russians Are Melting

  You want oligarchs? We got oligarchs!

  August 17, 2000

• We Apply to Be BARC's Top Dog. Plus: 10,000-person-strong tea party. maybe.

  July 16, 2009

• That Hyped Program To Fix Broadway Boulevard Apartments Didn't Fix Broadway Boulevard Apartments

  Photo courtesy GHCVB​Someone asked us the other day what happened to all that grant money that was supposed to renovate apartment complexes along Broadway Boulevard and give the area a much-needed face lift. He was driving down the street and said it looked like not a single property had been fixed up. He was right.  Turns out, one developer came in with a grant proposal for a Broadway complex -- the Woodlen Glen Apartments -- but the Glenbrook Valley Civic Club, led by retired school tea

  July 31, 2009

• Timing Of Vote For BARC's "Change Agent" Contract Surprises Some, Like Councilmembers

  Photo courtesy GHCVB​Silly fuckin' us.We thought that when a Houston City Councilman says something, we're supposed to take him at his word. But sometimes we forget that this is Houston, and things are done a little differently.At the August 3 Human Services Committee meeting on Gerry Fusco's BARC contract, Councilman and Committee Chair Jarvis Johnson said he wanted to hear a progress report from Fusco on September 14, before his contract went to the full council for a vote. But Hair Balls ha

  August 18, 2009

• This Just In: BARC No Longer Part Of The Health & Human Services Department

  Photo by abcrumley​The Bureau of Animal Regulation and Control will be removed from the Health and Human Services Department, according to Frank Michel, the Mayor's communications director."We will be working to remove BARC from the Health Department over the next couple of weeks," Michel told Hair Balls in an e-mail. "The continuing issues have been a distraction for many of the good people of the Health Department who are doing excellent jobs on human health and other programs. It will

  September 1, 2009

• The "No-Kill" Advocate Issues A Report Showing All's Still Not Well At BARC

  Photo by wsliver​Hair Balls has just been making our way through "no-kill" advocate Nathan Winograd's just-released assessment of the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care, and we have one question for city officials: When are you going to sue this guy for libel?!We ask that because the BARC described in this highly detailed, photo-laden 196-page analysis is not the same BARC we've been getting vague "attaboy!" reports of since Gerry Fusco was brought on as interim bureau chief.Now, we don

  September 15, 2009

• La Plus Ca Change At BARC

  Photo by wsilver​People who aren't fans of dogs accidentally strangling themselves with their leashes aren't going to like this story: On Wednesday, a dog at the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care died after, as previously mentioned, it got caught up in its leash while a staff member cleaned its cage.Elena Marks of the Mayor's Office, which now oversees BARC, confirmed for Hair Balls today thart "it had been taken out of its cage and secured with a rope or leash while the cage

  November 20, 2009