VOL 6 No. 18
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FORT BEND FAIR. BALANCED. INFORMATIVE. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1 , 2013
Water color painting
Fort Bend County Libraries, in conjunction with Sugar Land Area Artists, invites artists and art enthusiasts of all ages, skill levels, and art mediums to meet to learn more about educational opportunities in the area. The program will take place on Saturday, May 18, beginning at 10:15 a.m, with a meeting followed by a demonstration of watercolo.r painting in the Meeting Room of the Sugar Land Branch Library, located at 550 Eldridge. Visual artist Barbara Jeffery Clay will demonstrate watercolor painting using bold, bright, dynamic colors. Get tips on composition design, values, and techniques, and learn about the patterns of shadows and light on subjects. Clay will also discuss the use of analogous colors to bring the subject into the light, as well as the usual value changes. Clay is a signature member of The American Watercolor Society, The National Watercolor Society, the Watercolor Art Society-Houston, and other watercolor organizations. Her paintings hang in many public and private collections, and her work has won many awards in juried competitions. Clay is author of the book, 10 Favorite Subjects in Watercolors, and her watercolor painting, “Snowing on St. Francis Church,” appears on Leanin’ Tree greeting cards. The program is free and open to the public. For more information, call the branch library at 281-238-2140, or the library’s Public Information Office at 281-341-2677.
Early voting in progress in local elections Early voting in local city and school board elections began on April 29 and will last until May 7. The election day is May 11. The city of Sugar Land and Stafford have canceled the election because there were no contested races. In Missouri City, election is being held for District A and District B seats, along with city charter amendments. Incumbent Bobby Marshall faces Rodney Smith and Yolanda Ford and incumbent Don Smith faces Henderson Hunter. In Stafford Municipal School District, five people are vying for three at large seats. In Fort Bend ISD, six people, including two incumbents, are contesting for two seats. Incumbent Jim Rice faces Venesia Johnson. Incumbent Dave Rosenthal faces Cynthia Lenton-Gary, Rodrigo Carreon and Keciana Enaohwo.
safety, smart economic development, fiscal responsibility, enhancing city services and listening to citizens. Marshall also pointed out that council and staff are “making things more cost effective. People want us to continue doing what we’ve been doing to maintain their property values and we’re doing everything we can to keep those values up.” He also said citizens “want us to repair streets, curbs and sidewalks now that we have available bond money to do infrastructure repairs.” Something council used bond money for a few years back was investing in Quail Valley Golf Course (QVGC). Marshall pointed out that more than 75 percent of citizens voted in favor of that bond referendum and building the tennis/ recreation center and community center. “We followed the will of the
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Fort Bend Independent, (USPS 025-572) is published every Wednesday (for a subscription rate of $20 per year) by Fort Bend Independent, LLC., 10701 Corporate Dr., #282, Stafford, Texas 77477. Periodicals Postage Paid at Stafford, Texas. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Fort Bend Independent, P.O. Box 623, Sugar Land, Tx 77487.
CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION AWARENESS FIELD. A sea of white stakes with blue ribbons behind the Fort Bend County Justice Center in Richmond marked Child Abuse Prevention Month in April. On April 18, the Exchange Club of Fort Bend, along with elected officials from Richmond and Rosenberg participated in a brief ceremony at the Awareness Field. From left to right: Dorothy Nall, Katina Scott, Ralph Piazzo, Barbara Piazzo, Mike Reichek, John Healey, Bill Dostal. Dostal , a Commissioner from the city of Richmond, joined Precinct One Commissioner Richard Morrison (not shown), in presenting Proclamations to members of the Exchange Club of Fort Bend and members of the Children’s Advocacy Center including Executive Director Ruthanne Mefford (not shown), to commemorate National Child Abuse Awareness Month, and the service which Child Advocates rendered in 2012 to 1274 abused children. Mike Reichek challenged the citizens of Fort Bend County that “ it is our responsibility to be pro-active and report all child abuse”. Joining the gathering in support was Police Chief of the city of Richmond Bill Whitworth( not shown).
County to acquire software to monitor social media By SESHADRI KUMAR Fort Bend County’s Office of Emergency Management plans to purchase software to monitor social media for monitoring and vetting social user-generated content on the Internet during emergency and non-emergency events. The item was on the commissioners court agenda last week. County Judge Bob Hebert pulled the item and delayed its consideration after Commissioner Andy Meyers said he had serious concerns about the project and had many unanswered questions. The Office of Emergency Management has received a
Keen contest in Missouri City for District A seat By BARBARA FULENWIDER Missouri City’s District A has the incumbent councilman, Bobby Marshall, running for re-election with Rodney Griffin and Yolanda Ford in pursuit of his position. Marshall, a business owner, has served two two-year terms on council and is seeking a third term because his job isn’t yet finished. “I’ve been serving the citizens of Missouri City for more than 20 years. I’ve been on my homeowners board for 20 years and planning & zoning for four years and this is just an extension of that service to the city. I’d like to continue the hard work that council has been doing to keep Missouri City moving forward and an experienced councilman in place,” Marshall said. “The city is doing well and we need to stay on track.” Marshall’s primary goals for the city are increased public
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people. They wanted new amenities and so we hope we’ve built both facilities to meet their expectations. We’re not picking one part of the city over another. It just so happens that’s where the golf course is. Overwhelmingly city wide, citizens approved of that bond election,” the councilman said. The 2005 bond election had multiple parts with $35 million in bonds going to numerous areas. In it was the building of a new community center that initially was to be next to city hall. Marshall said, “After the bonds were approved and before we were able to build it, the city was given the opportunity to buy the old tennis courts and center and it was a deal we couldn’t refuse. “The land and 20 tennis courts were acquired for a good price and we got almost a $1 million grant from Texas Parks & Wildlife. The grant paid for the majority of the land acquisition so the bond money went for construction. It was approved before anything was done regarding Quail Valley. “We just changed the location of the community center and acquired 20 tennis courts that were already built. We refurbished them with new lighting for about $12,000. We kept 12 of the 20 courts and didn’t have to spend $1.2 million to build them because they were already there. I think the city See POLL, Page 3
federal grant to purchase a regional social media monitoring system called “Swift River.” The project includes design, delivery and support of a software system which is capable of actively and passively monitoring popular user-generated content websites on the Internet for key phrases, trending keywords or themes, temperament, broadly or within several specified and configurable geographic regions. The development of a social media monitoring tool is not specifically a Fort Bend County project, but it is a project of the Houston Urban Area region. It is a regional project recommended for development by the Houston Urban Area Security Initiative program, a Department of Homeland Security grant program designed to strengthen the Houston area’s response to and recovery from a catastrophic event in our region, according to Jeff Braun, Fort Bend County’s Emergency Management Coordinator. Fort Bend County is acting as the “conduit” for the purchase of the software for the entire region. The funding for the project was allocated to Fort Bend County OEM so that it could manage the procurement process and then supervise the installation and use of the system in the region,
Braun told county commissioners, while explaining the project. The region is looking at procuring two different types of software to accomplish the above purpose; one is called SwiftRiver and the other is called Ushahidi. SwiftRiver gathers as many possible streams of data about a particular crisis event as possible (e.g. Boston Marathon bombing). Second, that stream of data is filtered through both machine based algorithms and humans to better understand the veracity and level of importance of any piece of information. Ushahidi offers many tools for visualizing geospatial data. It offers a robust platform for mapping events. The SwiftRiver platform is being sought after by the region because increasingly publicly shared information from citizens gives the best overall picture in the first hours of a major incident, according to Braun. Braun gave an example for the use of the software. During 2011 winter weather incidents, OEM used social networking sites to gather information about where roads were icy or impassable; and where accidents were causing road closures. This information was found by searching Twitter and Facebook; often
individuals are more likely to post this information on Facebook or Twitter instead of calling 9-1-1. In subsequent years, the OEM used social media to gather information about flooded intersections, malfunctioning traffic signals, wildfires, and even rumors of school shootings. During the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Tulane University students used Ushahidi, an open source software platform, to aid in the massive cleanup effort. SwiftRiver and Ushahidi combined will provide one public space, across the region, for the public to share incident reports in a secure and open platform. This Project will help the Houston region build a “stateof-the-art” social media monitoring project which will hopefully set the standard for others in the field of emergency management and homeland security, Braun says. The software will not be used to track or monitor individual citizens or used for collecting non-public information from citizens, according to Braun. The software is not capable of scanning password protected accounts or reading any individual’s email accounts. Further, the software is not able to view private posts on social networking sites.