Shelley Sekula-Gibbs feels compelled to add her personal two cents to anything any citizen happens to say during the City Council public session. A dermatologist, Sekula-Gibbs has also appointed herself the resident expert on all matters medical. Like any gadfly, she means well but can drive colleagues up the wall with her time-consuming gab.

Most courts wouldn't take much time with an 11-year-old troublemaker. But J.P. George Risner did what the Houston school district had refused to do: have the imbalanced youngster checked out by mental health professionals. Now the youth is on medication -- and back on track in school. Risner, in his 14 years on the bench, has proved time and again that he's determined to take his responsibilities far beyond just clearing dockets. He's held court at night and on weekends to be more accessible to the public and to parents. The former Houston building inspector has a rock-solid record in innovative programs to fight youthful problems such as truancy and juvenile delinquency. While Risner has received extensive training, he doesn't have a law degree. What he does have is more than enough: common sense, innate fairness and a keen interest in helping others.

Call it big-time seller's remorse. Former Coastal Corporation CEO Oscar Wyatt Jr. voted as a board member to sell the company for $22 million to El Paso Corporation in 2001, then decided he'd made a big mistake. He became the lead plaintiff in a shareholders' suit alleging the management of El Paso violated federal securities laws. Wyatt took out full-page newspaper ads skewering El Paso management and then led an attempt to oust the executives at an El Paso shareholders meeting in Houston. Wyatt and shareholder Selim Zilkha spent $6 million on the effort but ultimately lost the fight when the shareholders stuck with the old order.

Retiring Harris County elections supervisor Tony Sirvello, a veteran at the county for two decades and a favorite with media, oversaw the computerization of county election returns as well as the installation of a new computerized voting system to replace the much-maligned "hanging chad" punch ballots. He wanted to stay through the fall general election, but County Clerk Beverly Kaufman decided otherwise, forcing his resignation. Sirvello won the respect of Houston political reporters and campaign consultants through his accessibility and nonpartisan handling of his job. The jury's still out on Kaufman's new election crew. It took three people to replace him. Can they fill his capacious shoes? Wait and see; time will cast its vote.

This Houston developer shelved his mayoral ambitions earlier this year and dived into the less glamorous assignment of spearheading Metro's campaign to pass its upcoming transit referendum. Wulfe, an informal member of Mayor Lee Brown's kitchen cabinet for the last six years, is the commercial force behind the revitalization of the venerable old Gulfgate Shopping Center and surrounding area in southeast Houston. He also chairs the Main Street Coalition, which is planning the development of the corridor along the rail line from downtown to Reliant Stadium. As if that weren't enough, Wulfe also helped tune out a city sour note this spring by directing negotiations between Houston Symphony officials and performers that resulted in the settlement of a 24-day strike. With a track record like that, maybe he should give a second thought to running for mayor.

Of course, the travesties continue: tearing down the old Gulf Publishing building on Allen Parkway, bulldozing bits and pieces of the precious past, flushing out Houston's final habitat hideaways for the sake of nothing more than the sameness of another new Rolling-Creek-Timber-Valley-Plantation-Estates subdivision. But the Bayou City shows more indications than ever that it just might be starting to appreciate its heritage. The rebirth of downtown awoke the greediest of developers to the potential for profits in preserving historic structures, even through costly conversions. Blocks of buildings restored as lofts are beginning to line the central city. Commercial uses are coming back as well. It seems that restorations are being considered for many more buildings (at least the ones not owned by Hakeem Olajuwon). Coupled with that are more aggressive wetlands preservation programs and nature centers. However, the most honorable of efforts can't begin to compare to the Restoration of 2001. This one involves several hundred square miles of the region. The rehab bill ran $5 billion and up for a collective project to rehouse about 100,000 residents and restore about half that many vehicles. The very heart of Houston -- the Texas Medical Center, colleges, the criminal courts system and the fine arts institutions -- had to be rebuilt in many ways from the devastation of Tropical Storm Allison.

Brenda Flynn Flores, an Arkansas-born mother of ten, is the electronic bullhorn for a group of municipal workers who call themselves "The Silent Voice." Since HOUSNITCH's founding three years ago, hundreds of would-be whistle-blowers have found a forum to vent their grievances -- and internal documents -- for all to see. Flores, nicknamed Juera, or Blondie, is far from perfect, and at times the Web site has seemed more like an out-of-control attack vehicle for her political allies, like District A Councilman Bruce Tatro. Nevertheless, Flores continues to be a thorn in the side of complacent city bureaucrats and incompetent public works managers. Long may she snitch!

Party on the Plaza has been the most popular way for Houston's music lovers to let off a little steam in the summertime for years. Working-class stiffs and yuppie execs have packed this little grandstand in the middle of downtown every summer since the 1980s. And it's no wonder: Houston proper doesn't have a lot of natural resources to help us keep cool. So where does one turn? To beer, of course. A happy hour tradition, the original Party on the Plaza still goes strong, though it's now controlled by Clear Channel and most of the acts fall into the Texas C&W realm. A few other groups have made good use of the plaza as well in recent years. So on almost any given Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evening from Memorial Day to Labor Day, you can hear live music, drink cheap beer and dance your wahoos off under the stars, just steps from your office door.

The best smell? Coffee, of course. And there's no bigger coffee smell in town than the odor steaming out of Kraft's Maxwell House factory, a few blocks (and miles of attitude) east of Enron Field. Most days the prevailing winds blow that smell, ooh that smell, in a northwesterly direction, toward the north end of downtown and away from most eastside residents, many of whom can more or less stand on their porches and read the smoky plume from the one-million-square-foot facility for changes in the weather. And a fine day it is when the winds change, blowing that slightly processed coffee smell back over the near east side, where it mingles with, and partially masks, the cabbagy stink of wastewater treatment facilities and some of the ranker stretches of Buffalo Bayou. Fusion City, indeed.

Sure, they love him out in Sugar Land, but to many people across this country, U.S. Representative Tom DeLay is a bombastic, moralistic, self-righteous -- you get the idea. So when his adult daughter, who works for him, hit the newspapers in a story about Las Vegas hot tubs, lobbyists, and champagne being tossed on people's heads, it brought a smile to a lot of faces. Dani Ferro's brief moment in the spotlight began when the Capitol Hill weekly Roll Call broke the story last fall, quoting a witness as saying Ferro was "among the revelers" at a late-night party and "there were a lot of lobbyists in the hot tub, pouring champagne on each other." And no doubt discussing those sybaritic Democrats. DeLay quickly turned to his hometown newspaper to deliver the spin he wanted on the incident: "A totally innocent thing has been blown terribly out of proportion," the Houston Chronicle quoted one "steamed" (and anonymous) DeLay aide as saying. The Official And Complete Explanation of what happened, as delivered by the aide through the Chron: "Ferro and a female colleague donned swimming togs and climbed into the hot tub. A lobbyist came onto the balcony and, after a brief exchange with Ferro and her colleague, dumped a glass of champagne over Ferro's head, then left." Well, that explains everything...