Queblog

SA's Wild Animal Orphanage closing

As sanctuary shutters, Boris the bear is in need of a new home.

Enrique Lopetegui
candombe108@yahoo.com

It’s official: On Tuesday, August 31, the board at the Wild Animal Orphanage, a troubled animal sanctuary on the edge of Northwest San Antonio, decided to close its doors. A formal press release will be sent out this coming week.

“Due to our overpopulation, [and the fact that] we don’t have the ability to care for the animals in the manner that we would prefer, we’ve decided to dissolve the orphanage and find new homes [for the animals],” WAO secretary Suzanne Straw told the Current o ...

E-N's verdict on 1604-281 mess reeks of Zachry favors

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Northside drivers’ Public Enemy Number One was outed last week across San Antonio’s media spectrum shortly after Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas filed a lawsuit objecting to an application to proceed with the construction of a new interchange at perennially congested U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 without a full environmental study.

AGUA and equally catchy TURF (Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom) have been all over the area's highway-expansion plans for independent but complementary reasons. AGUA wants complete Environmental Impact Statements prepared due to the fact both highways — designated as hazardous cargo routes — cross the porous Edwa ...

CM Sculley’s salary SA’s own $355,000 ‘artisanal marmalade’

Tricia Llanes
tllanes@gmail.com

Everybody knows stuff that costs more is better. Why buy a $3 jar of Smucker’s when there are $12 rhomboid-shaped jars of artisanal marmalade, chutney and fruit curd on the shelf? Plus it just feels good to treat oneself to luxury.

So who can blame our City Council for scoring San Antonio one hell of a status symbol in City Manager Sheryl Sculley, whose current salary already places her well above the national median for her position, and whose proposed increase would set her pay at a monocle-popping $355,000?

gharman@sacurrent.com

First there was a call for a federal investigation into Waste Control Specialists’ growing nuke waste dump in West Texas. The August 11 press release issued by the reliably anti-nuclear Sierra Club, Public Citizen, and SEED Coalition urged the EPA (or possibly the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to take over the job of regulating Texas’ nuke trash storage and disposal from an inept Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in the same way it had some of the state’s air-permitting activities.

In the release, Texas Public Citizen Director Tom “Smitty” Smith pointed out that the TCEQ Commissioners overruled their staff’s recommendation of license denial be ...

DDT sampling around Kelly to continue after federal settlement

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Hundreds of San Antonio residents who sued the U.S. Air Force over toxic contamination impacting their homes will soon be sharing in $1,000 slices of federal settlement gains. Yet, the mystery of elevated cancers and other health complaints around the former military base remains — as do toxics in the community.

A state fishing advisory has been expanded on the Lower Leon Creek, which winds past the base’s western boundary. And recent sampling found the infamous pesticide DDT in the water and sediment at levels expected to cause damage to aquatic life there.

Funded by a grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a researcher fr ...

Spinning economy, border militarization with a rosy afterburner

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

If (White, Christian) American is sick of anything more than (Brown, possibly Muslim) America, it’s the bait-and-switch reports of the ever-coming economic recovery. Every trend daring to hint at improvement has an economic lens shoved so far up its backside that it offers up whatever conclusions the fund-hungry researcher requires.

Over in Houston, an influx of new residents and increase of homes going on th ...

Net Neutrality Proposal by Google and Verizon Sparks Fierce Dissent

Jake Muncy

jmuncy@trinity.edu

Last week, Google and Verizon came out with a controversial policy recommendation in an attempt t ...

Big Sisters? Big Brothers? ‘No thanks,’ says Sculley’s proposed budget

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Future dropout? Meet City Manager Sheryl Sculley’s proposed City budget for 2011. Y’all can, like, hang out in the garage for a little bit together, but then you’ll have to go.

Future Baby Momma? Yeah, I know the rec center is closing early these days because of the budget cuts. But we’ve got a date with an old coke buddy and don’t want you around. Can’t you find an abandoned loading dock somewhere to hang with your friends?

Wannabe gangster? For the last time, no, Big Brothers doesn’t have a mentor for you. Now shove off. The Street will look after you.

Under the City’s proposed 2011 budget, a thousand at-risk San Anton ...

City budget projected to balance on CPS Energy (again)

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Council (and cretinous Council watchers) got an introduction to the City Manager’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year this morning, one which, perhaps unsurprisingly, balances itself on expected revenues from San Antonio’s powerhouse CPS Energy and its magically* inflating natural-gas prices.

The $2.3-billion budget holds property taxes steady at their current rate and keeps the SA employee ranks relatively stable (with a 2-percent, across-the-board cost-of-living adjustment), yet makes it into the black in another economically stilted year on the promise that CPS will make up the difference. Of course, many of you may remember the relatively warm winter** we just went through. A warm win ...

Hey bloviating politicians! U.S. border towns quiet, lovely, safe

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

As a good friend announced to her family she was headed to Mexico for some R&R, her sweet abuelita objected. “It’s not safe,” peeped the timorous voice at the head of the table. “I’m not going to the border,” my friend clarified, and the family around the table visibly relaxed.

One would have thought we were talking about Afghanistan in the rainy season.

So, who would have guessed, despite news of dramatic shootouts, beheadings, and mass graves, Mexico’s murder rate is actually down from a decade ago, reports the Chicago Sun-Times ...

Fracking’s air pollution could push region toward ozone non-attainment

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Watching the regulatory kabuki up in North Texas can’t inspire a lot of confidence in the increasing number of South Texans leasing their land for so-called “non-traditional” natural gas development in the subterranean Eagle Ford shale.

Late last month, the industry’s PR front organization, the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, released a little report that could have been titled, Frack Gas: Good For You Or What?, and branded with big double-thumbs up.

Dutifully reported as a news nugget by the Fort Worth Business Press, th ...