Screenings at MFAH include:

Flame & Citron (Flammen & Citronen)
6 p.m. on March 13 and 3 p.m. on March 21
While the Danish population hopes for a swift end to the war, freedom fighters Flame and Citron secretly put their lives at stake fighting for the Holger Danske resistance group. The film is based on actual events and eyewitness accounts.

Ajami
8:45 p.m. on March 13 and 3:15 p.m. on March 14
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2010 Oscars, Ajami is a powerful crime drama set on the streets of Jaffa. The stories of a young Israeli, a Palestinian refugee working illegally, a Jewish police detective, and an affluent Palestinian intersect with tragic consequences.

Hey, Hey It’s Esther Blueburger
1 p.m. on March 14
Esther Blueburger’s (Danielle Cantanzariti) quest to fit in begins when she escapes from her Bat Mitzvah party and is befriended by Sunni (Keisha Castle-Hughes), the effortlessly cool girl who is everything Esther thinks she wants to be. With the help of Sunni, Esther goes AWOL from her ordinary life, leaving behind her dysfunctional Jewish family, to hang out with Sunni’s super-hip single mom (Golden Globe winner Toni Collette) and attend public school as a Swedish exchange student.

The MFAH will screen additional movies the weekend of March 20 to 21. Check the Website for details.

Homemade clocks, t-shirts, jewelry and more items students created in an after-school program recently raised $1,270 for the Haiti relief efforts.

The Weekley Family YMCA and St. Stephen’s Havens Center’s after school program, R PLCE, held an Art Gallery and Ice Cream Social on Feb. 19 at the Havens Center.

The students designed and created clocks, candle holders, t-shirts, tote bags, jewelry and paintings during their weekley art class to be auctioned off at the event. Ben and Jerry’s volunteers scooped over 200 cones of ice cream for the art collectors in attendance.

“R PLCE” stands for Our Place and is a collaboration between the Weekley Family YMCA, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church and Lanier Middle School. It is an after-school program for students who attend Lanier Middle School, offering varieties of classes like athletics, filming, African dance and drumming, and more.

Dr. Ashish Kamat lives in the 2900 block of Tangley Road and works as an associate professor of Urology and director of M. D. Anderson’s Urologic Oncology Fellowship Program. He co-authored the study with Dr. Jose Karam, a fellow in M. D. Anderson’s Department Genitourinary Oncology.

Early-stage bladder cancer, or non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, has a high rate of recurrence. Patients are tested every three to six months, often for the rest of their lives, with the goal of catching the cancer early if it returns.

Ashish Kamat

The researchers found the best testing method for recurrence is cystoscopy, an outpatient procedure in which a tiny tube with a small camera attached is inserted through the urethra into the bladder. Doctors then are able to visually examine the inside of the bladder for tumors. Many times, in efforts to ensure accuracy and early detection of bladder cancer recurrence, other tests are added to cystoscopy.

“The tests frequently added to cystoscopy have many more false positives than commonly believed, and they can lead to unnecessary work-ups. Our findings also may help reduce the cost of caring for bladder cancer patients, which currently in is the range of $4 billion annually,” Kamat said in a statement.

Using data from Medicare in 2009, the researchers looked at the number of tumors detected and the cost of the tests, plus the cost of work-ups for a false positive result. Researchers arrived at a cost per tumor detected for each method. Cystoscopy alone was the least expensive at $7,692, while cystoscopy plus fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was the priciest at $19,111.

But despite their added costs, additional tests did not give better results. Cystoscopy had two false positives, the fewest of any test, while cystoscopy plus FISH had the most false positives at 30.

Kamat said he would like to see the findings of this study confirmed in the near future by a multi-center co-operative study.

The city will plant the new tree at Edloe Street and University Boulevard.

As part of Arbor Day festivities on March 27, the city plans to plant the new tree, and distribute fifty free trees for lucky residents to plant at home.

“This will be the third year my wife gets there early to get one,” joked Councilman George Boehme at Monday’s city council meeting.

Hosting the celebration allows the city to participate in the Tree City USA program, organized through the Arbor Day Celebration to promote community forestry programs. This will mark over 20 years that West U. received the Tree City designation.

“It’s something you can take great pride in,” Public Works Director Chris Peifer told city leaders.

The council issued a proclamation supporting Arbor Day that notes the many benefits trees provide to West University Place, including increasing property values and beautifying the community. The proclamation stated trees provide environmental benefits worldwide — Cleaning the air, providing wildlife habitat, cutting heating and cooling costs, and more. It also noted the important products that come from trees, like paper and fuel.

“As the third-largest county in the nation, our communities stand to gain billions in federal dollars for transportation, infrastructure, health care, essential social services and more—but a complete count is necessary,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett in a statement.

Census forms will be mailed out on March 16 and must be returned by April 15. Harris County residents should not expect to have a Census worker knock on their doors unless they don’t return their completed questionnaires on time. But after the deadline, Census representatives hit the streets to ensure everyone in Harris County has participated.

To protect personal information from potential scams, residents should keep in mind the following:

• This week, residents will receive a letter from the Census Bureau director notifying them that their household will soon receive a form in the mail, a phone call from the Census Bureau, or a visit from a Census Bureau representative.
• Never give Social Security numbers or other sensitive financial information, including bank account numbers.
• The Census Bureau will never contact you via email, and questionnaires may not be completed online.
• Census employees will carry an official identification badge with an expiration date and a Department of Commerce watermark.
• Census takers are trained to conduct business outside the door, so residents should be cautious of people who insist on entering their households.

The Census gathers information to produce statistics, minus any identifying characteristics, and responses will not be shared with anyone, including other federal agencies and law enforcement. Additionally, all Census Bureau employees take the oath of nondisclosure and are sworn for life to protect the confidentiality of the data.

An officer pulled over the vehicle in the 4200 block of Bissonnet Street because it was speeding 11 miles over the posted speed limit. The officer smelled pot when he approached the car, and a search revealed one bag of marijuana stashed between the driver’s seat and center console. Two more plastic bags of pot were located behind the console. Police arrested the man and charged him with possession of marijuana.

A West U. resident visited the police department on March 1 to report his son had assaulted him at home in the 2600 block of Pemberton Drive. The man didn’t want to press charges, but he filed a report of assault family violence to document the incident.

Another resident visited the police station on March 5 to report that someone had stolen her son’s bicycle from the family’s front porch in the 3800 block of University Boulevard.

Two people became the victims of car burglaries during the week of March 1 to 8.

• On March 2, an officer responded to the 4200 block of Judson Street after a resident reported someone had stolen checkbooks from his vehicle.
• On March 6, a resident in the 6400 block of West Point Street reported to police that someone had broken into her vehicle and stolen items.

Other incidents during the past week included:

• On March 3, an officer pulled over a vehicle because it had an expired registration sticker. During the traffic stop, the officer found the driver had an invalid license, an expired registration, and a past record of carrying no car insurance.
• On March 1, a resident visited the police station to report someone had struck the victim’s vehicle while it was parked at the curb in the 3500 block of Tangley Road, but no one stopped to provide insurance information.
• On March 4, another resident reported a hit and run. Someone hit the victim’s car while it was parked in the 3700 block of Georgetown Street.
• On March 1, an officer pulled over a vehicle that had no brake lights. It turned out the driver had outstanding warrants in Houston, and West U. police arrested him until Houston police could come get him.
• On March 3, 4 and 5, officers picked up three other suspects who had been caught by other police agencies with outstanding West U. warrants.

Rick Gardner said he has lived in the 3600 block of Amherst Street for 43 years with no problems from commercial tracts on Edloe Street, which are behind his property, across Poor Farm Ditch. Matthew’s Market is his first complaint, and he’s taking it seriously.

“I would like to go to sleep at night without listening to the roar of Mr. Reid’s generators,” Gardner said. “Gentlemen, I’d like a little peace and quiet.”

He said his attempts to reach an amicable solution with Matthew’s Market owner Jim Reid failed. So he prepared 14 photographs, a 10-minute audio recording and organized five neighbors to sign complaint letters that claim the grocery store and restaurant harms Amherst Street residents’ quality of life and decreases their property values.

Six residents of Amhearst Street, behind Matthew's Market, complained the store makes too much noise from equipment and outdoor diners.

Neighbors are complaining about noise from mechanical equipment behind the market, noise from customers dining on the patio, and bright lights coming from the building at night. They are also concerned about the safety of a chain link fence between the store and Poor Farm Ditch.

During the public comment section of Monday’s city council meeting, Gardner asked the city to take action to relieve the constant noise from the market’s mechanical equipment.

Reid did not immediately return messages seeking comment, but InstantNewsWestU will update this story if he does.

The council assured Gardner they took his concerns seriously.

“I think you can be completely confident every member of this council is going to be following up with staff about this,” said Councilman George Boehme, who himself owns another restaurant on Edloe Street. “You can rest assured we are all going to be on top of this.”

Public Works Director Chris Peifer said staff members with the code enforcement and zoning departments visited Matthew’s Market on Monday in response to the residents’ complaint.

“The staff walked the property with the owner and pointed out a few things, some of which were tied to the complaint and others that were discovered as they walked through,” Peifer said.

Staffers found violations in the building’s outdoor lighting, one of the residents’ complaints. Also, outdoor tables were placed in a rear employee parking spot that was supposed to remain clear, and indoor tables were arranged to allow greater density than previously approved. Peifer said he thinks Reid plans to work with the city to resolve the issues.

The city plans to investigate further about the residents’ most pressing complaint — Noise from the equipment and outdoor patio. The West U. noise ordinance allows 70 decibels, measured from the property line, which is in the middle of Poor Farm Ditch in this case.

In previous measurements, noise from Matthew’s Market complied with the city’s noise ordinance. But Peifer said levels could be different with new equipment, or when all machines are operating at the same time.

The city’s code enforcement officer has already visited the property multiple times since the residents complained to take decibel readings, said City Planner Debbie Scarcella. So far, noise has not exceeded 68 decibels, which is legal under city laws. But city staff plan to take more measurements over the course of the week.

“We want to go out and get a reading that is indicative of what the residents are experiencing,” she said. “One random reading may not be indicative of what they experience when it’s a full, packed house.”

West University Little League Opening Day and Carnival on March 6 attracted  large attendance numbers and allowed families and neighbors to enjoy playing games, dancing, shopping at the bazaar, food and more. The season is officially open, and Challenger Opening Day will be March 28 at 2 p.m. on Wallin Field.

HISD Superintendent Terry Grier signs the $850,000 settlement. Photo courtesy of HISD Media Relations.

The settlement, which stems from a 2006 investigation that found HISD employees reportedly taking gratuities from technology vendors and falsifying information given to federal auditors, will free up millions of dollars in federal aid that was frozen following incident, the district said.

The violations cited by the government also included non-competitive bidding by the district, as well as district officials receiving trips, meals and loans from vendors.

The E-Rate program, which Congress created as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, was designed to bridge the digital divide between more affluent suburban students and urban students who are at or below the poverty line. More than 78 percent of HISD students qualify for free and reduced-price school meals, which is an indicator of poverty.

Under the program, which is funded by fees collected from telephone users, schools apply for funds to pay for hardware and monthly connectivity service fees. The FCC oversees the E-Rate program.

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West said the settlement resulted from an ongoing federal investigation of possible fraud and anti-competitive conduct in the E-Rate program in Texas by the Justice Department’s Civil Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, and the FCC Office of the Inspector General.

“The E-Rate Program provides critical support for Internet access and wiring to the most under-served schools in the country,” Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West said. “We are committed to protecting the integrity of this important program that benefits our neediest children.”

For its part, the school district said it signed the settlement in order to release as much as $89.4 million in school technology funding awards that were frozen in 2006 when the investigation first uncovered wrongdoing.

As part of the settlement, HISD agreed to hire an e-rate compliance officer to closely monitor the program. The district picked veteran compliance officer Richard Patton to keep the program in check.

Patton has nearly 30 years of audit and compliance experience, the district noted. He spent 23 years with Duke Energy, Panhandle Energy and Texas Eastern Transmission in Houston in various financial audit and compliance capacities. For the past six years, Patton served as the chief compliance office for Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP and Koch LP in Houston.

Patton, who is both a certified public accountant and a certified fraud examiner, said the district “has shown incredible commitment and teamwork” to restore the funding.

“As part of that effort, the district has strengthened its gift policies to the point that any employee who deals with an E-Rate vendor can’t accept so much as a McDonald’s hamburger,” Patton said. “The funding can be used for telecommunications services, Internet access, internal connections and maintenance of internal connections.

HISD has been trying to restore the funding for several years. When Dr. Terry Grier became superintendent last year, he made it a priority reach an agreement with the government to settle the court action. The HISD Board of Education agreed and authorized the district’s attorneys to expedite the settlement process.

HISD Board President Greg Meyers called the settlement “sound business.”

“It is a sound business decision to settle this and move on in order to help level the digital playing field for our students.”

“We’ve got a victim,” called the tinny voice. “We’re trying to bring him out.”

Over the next 10 minutes, the pair struggled to pull a 200-pound dummy through the house, unable to see their path through the thick of fake smoke. The exercise simulated what a real fire would have been like, without the fire.

The display was part of a rare but valuable training opportunity given to firefighters from the West University Place Fire Department. Over the past couple of weeks they’ve been able to practice life-saving fire drills just blocks from their station, saving the department money while helping fulfill the firefighters’ continuing education requirements. It’s all thanks to Abhishek Gami and his wife Candace TenBrink, West University Place residents of just six months.

The Gami family purchased the lot directly behind their own house to transform it into a new backyard, and they said they wanted to somehow give back to the community in the process. That’s when they decided to donate the old cottage in the 4200 block of Byron Street to the fire department for a few weeks before demolishing the house.

“We love the fire department, we love the work they do. We’re really happy to let them have their chance and do their work on the house before we hack it up and haul it away,” Gami said. “Why not have them get a lot of value from something that’s not useful to us?”

Firefighters have used the house to practice primary search techniques — Searching for victims and rescuing them, and finding and extinguishing the center of the “fire.” They have practiced methods of ventilating burning structures to get the heat and smoke out while firefighters enter to do their work. They have hacked multiple holes in walls to practice how to escape when walls or ceilings collapse.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to come and get some hands-on training,” said Lt. Aaron Taylor, who supervises the department’s “C” shift. “We don’t have a whole lot of fire calls in West University. When we do, that’s the most dangerous thing we do. It has to do with firefighter safety, and the more we can train on it, the more prepared we’ll be when that day comes.”

Click photos to enlarge. Story continues below.

West U. Fire Chief Steve Ralls said he estimates the department gets about two donated homes per year for training exercises, although the number could be more or less depending on the year. When residents donate houses, it brings several benefits over and above the inherent value of the training itself. Firefighters are required by law to get 20 hours of continuing education in firefighting per year, and the exercises at donated homes count towards that requirement.

Training at donated homes also saves money. The department must pay rental fees to conduct training exercises at official fire training facilities, and also pays overtime because the facilities are too far away, requiring firefighters to train while off duty since they wouldn’t be able to return to West U. fast enough if there were a fire.

“We’re happy. We like to be able to stay in the city and train, and have this hands-on, practical experience,” Ralls said. “We can’t get that every day.”

The training at the Byron Street house has been so lifelike it has garnered attention from many residents on the street. Henry Stelzig, who lives right next to the house, said he thought it was a real emergency, and he wished firefighters would have notified neighbors not to worry.

“We were alarmed because, gosh, they had two ambulances out here, they had two fire trucks, they had everything,” Stelzig said. “We thought the house was on fire.”

But Gami, who already knew the commotion was only a training drill, said the department’s activities have been a new source of entertainment for the whole family, including his 4-year-old daughter, Ava. The family watches the drills through their upstairs window, and frequently visits the firefighters during training time.

“They show her all their gear, they let her jump on their fire engine and check it out,” Gami said. “Our daughter just loves it.”

This compares with the national average that increased 4.6 cents per gallon in the last week to $2.74 per gallon, according to gasoline price website HoustonGasPrices.com.

Last week’s increase was on top of a 6-cent rise the week before.

Including the change in gas prices during the past week, prices today are 79.2 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago and are 11.6 cents per gallon higher than a month ago.

The national average has increased 9.6 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 80.7 cents per gallon higher than this day a year ago.

HoustonGasPrices.com is part of a 200-website national gas tracking and analysis organization operated by GasBuddy.com.

The trial was set to begin today, but another case in the 232nd Criminal Court of Harris County has taken longer than expected. Judge Mary Lou Keel reset the trial for May, when the court will be able to focus only on the Cotton case.

It’s the second time this year the trial has been pushed back. Originally scheduled for Jan. 25, the defense attorney asked for a later date because an expert witness was out of town.

Many facts about the criminal case against Cotton have been kept secret since his indictment in April 2009. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office went to the grand jury and secured an indictment with results from an investigation into the shooting. This bypassed the requirement for a probable cause hearing that would have made public the criminal complaint against Cotton.

Read more here.

This Covington-built home in on Tennyson Street had four outstanding inspections, including its tree inspection.

If Robert Covington, owner of Covington Builders, had not checked off all the outstanding inspections on 10 homes he’s built since 2000 that failed to earn certificates of occupancy, the West University Place Building and Standards Commission was poised last Thursday to consider revoking Covington’s license to work in West U. The certificate of occupancy is an important document that proves a newly constructed home is safe and meets all city building codes.

“The whole intent of that process, or in any of the processes we go through in this endeavor, is just to get builders … to finish the work required by our law,” said West U. Chief Building Official John Brown.

The Building and Standards Commission tabled another hearing on Feb. 4, telling Covington he needed to clear all his outstanding inspections within 30 days or he may lose his licence. Read more here.

Covington did not immediately return a phone message or email seeking comment, but InstantNewsWestU will update this story if he calls back. Covington’s attorney, Ron Simon, also didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.

Brown said after the Feb. 4 hearing, Covington scheduled appointments with city inspectors and the city forester. Tree inspections were outstanding on seven of the 10 Covington-built homes without certificates of occupancy. West U. building laws require builders to replace trees they remove during construction. If the correct volume of foliage won’t fit on the lot, builders must pay into a tree fund the city uses to plant trees in parks and public spaces.

Covington scheduled one of his employees to meet with the city forester to clear the homes without tree inspections, Brown said.

“They went to them and were able to determine what trees were there, measured the inches. I gave him some credit for some of the growth inches that were there, over time,” Brown said. “He paid the tree trust the balance of money that was owed, which closed out his cases.”

Covington paid about $8,250 to the tree fund for the 82.5 tree inches that were missing on the seven outstanding properties. Before completing all the inspections, the city had estimated that Covington owed $10,300 to the tree fund.

While the city was researching building records in preparation for the Feb. 4 hearing against Covington, Brown created a list of 39 homes over the last decade that never received certificates of occupancy. Brown’s office sent letters to 10 builders on that list, informing them they needed to work with the building department to bring the homes into compliance by March 12. At this point, a majority of the builders are working with the city to clear outstanding issues, Brown said.

“We’ve had good response on that,” he said. “We’ve done some inspections. We’ve had some builders come in and schedule inspections with the homeowners, and we’ve gone on and done those. So it’s working good, just like we’d hoped.”

The three new exhibits at Houston Center for Photography, 1441 W. Alabama St., include:

Anthony Goicolea’s Related
March 12 to April 25
Opening Reception: March 12, 6 to 8 p.m.
Artist Talk with Anthony Goicolea: March 12, 5:30 p.m.
HCP’s Main Gallery features first generation Cuban-American Anthony Goicolea’s Related. The artist strings together a complex series of dialectics denoting the Cuban-American experience of assimilation and desire to maintain ancestral histories. The focal point for this body of work is Goicolea’s family: four generations of Cubans who fled for the U.S. in 1961. They exited their country with little more than photographs – studio portraits of relatives in their prime, wearing their Sunday best.

Beatrix Reinhardt: Members’ Only America
March 12 to April 25
Opening Reception: March 12, 6 to 8 p.m.
Artist Talk with Beatrix Reinhardt: March 13, 5 p.m.
Social space – how we sculpt it, utilize it, and interrelate within it – is the subject of artist Beatrix Reinhardt’s work. While conducting a residency in Australia, Reinhardt took an interest in the world of private clubs, sites where social networking occurred. The East Germany-born artist was struck by how common it was for many Australians to embrace these institutions, often belonging to several clubs at once. Within the club environs are physical remnants of events past: trophies, carpet worn in a particular fashion marking the flow of human traffic, stacked metal chairs, team posters. The physicality of such spaces suggests the importance of “togetherness” – social landscapes where commonalities such as values, hobbies, ethnicities, and heritage unite individuals in celebration.

American Photographs Before 1950 from Collection Blind Pirate
March 12 to April 25
Opening Reception: March 12, 6 to 8 p.m.
Discussion with W.M. Hunt and Edward Osowski: March 12, 5 p.m.
W.M. Hunt will curate an exhibition of his recently formed personal collection of American groups in HCP’s X&Y galleries. This assemblage, known as Collection Blind Pirate, has never been exhibited before and is at once a massive and eclectic collection representing various societies, clubs, schools, rallies, and posses that make up part of the history of 20th century America. This selection of photographs at HCP includes over 150 groups of people and speaks to the importance of group culture.

Bagpipers perform at last year's Scottish Festival. Photo courtesy of David Graves.

The 7:30 p.m. show on March 11 is at the Toyota Center, 1510 Polk St. It features the St. Thomas’ Episcopal pipe and drum band – five-time juvenile world champions in 1985, 1995, 1998, 2004 and 2006. The performance also features Scottish Highland dancers from a program that has won the United States Highland Dancing Championships more than twenty times.

For the past 45 years, this event has enlightened and entertained audiences in Houston—keeping alive the music and dance of the rich Scottish culture and heritage. Tickets may be purchased online at www.toyotatix.com, or call St. Thomas’ Episcopal School, (713) 666-3111. for more information visit www.scottishfestival.net.

The administrators are all leaders who will provide coaching, mentoring and support to HISD elementary, middle and high school principals and staff to improve student achievement and share best practices.

Instead of working with multiple school levels in a feeder pattern like the current executive principals, the school improvement officers are assigned to either elementary, middle or high schools. They will report to three chief school officers.

The search resulted in more than 200 applications from all over the country. Grier said in a statement that it was important in the search to find educators whose values aligned with the district’s beliefs and vision.

“We have a good mixture of leading educators from HISD and across the country and I am very excited to welcome them to Team HISD,” Grier said in the statement.

The School Improvement Officers named today are listed below along with their current positions:

Elementary School
Ann Sledge, Executive Principal, HISD
Deborah Crowe, Executive Principal, HISD
Kim Fonteno, Executive Principal, HISD
Ted Villarreal, Executive Principal, HISD
Marshall Scott, Principal, Alcott Elementary
Karla Loria, School Improvement Officer, San Diego ISD
Rodney Watson, Principal, Hickman School District, MO
Jocelyn Mouton, Executive Principal, HISD
Andre Spencer, Network Team Leader, Baltimore City Public Schools

Middle School
Anastasia Lindo-Anderson, Principal, Revere Middle School
Julia Dimmit, Executive Principal, HISD

High School
John Allen, Principal, Sharpstown High School
Pamela Randall, Regional Manager, HISD
Armando Alaniz, Executive Principal, HISD

Two of the three chief school officers have been appointed. Current East Region Superintendent Sam Sarabia will be the Elementary School chief and former Richardson ISD Superintendent David Simmons has been appointed chief for high schools. After the first candidate decided he didn’t want the job after all, the nationwide search continues for a middle school chief officer. The district is also looking for the remaining eight school improvement officers.

Former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby

Former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby Jr. will talk Texas people and politics in his free presentation, “A Political Atlas of Texas,” at 1 p.m. on March 10 in the Robertson Auditorium in the Academic Building at the University of Houston-Downtown. UHD will hold a reception for Hobby after the lecture at 2:30 p.m. in the Coffee House next to the auditorium.

Hobby served 18 years as the state’s lieutenant governor and two years as chancellor of the University of Houston System. His book, “How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics,” will be out this fall.

In his UHD presentation, Hobby examines the Republican vote percentage and election results in terms of the Voting Rights Act variables considered in redistricting. He also uses county census data and demographic information such as age, race, ethnicity, income and education. The numbers produce some interesting results. For example, 27 percent of all Texans live in two counties, Harris and Dallas.

His new book deals more with how the legislature works from his unique perspective. Hobby notes that the Texas political climate has changed in recent years and not all of those changes have been for the better.

“Partisanship now is as important as it ever was in Washington and that’s a change for the worse,” Hobby said. “For many years, partisanship wasn’t a big thing (in the state legislature). When they take the oath of office it doesn’t say, they swear to defend and protect the Democrats or Republicans. It says they swear they’ll do the best job they can. In other words, they need to read the directions.”

Hobby’s lecture is one of the week’s highlights as UHD officially welcomes its fifth president, William V. Flores.  The formal academic ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. on March 11 at the Wortham Center.

The trial on Cotton’s charges of aggravated assault by a public servant is set for May 3 March 8 in the Harris County 232nd Criminal Court, but it could be postponed because another trial is still ongoing in that court, said David Donahue, legal administrator for Cotton’s attorney, Paul Aman.

“I believe prosecution is ready, and we’re ready. Now it’s just a matter of getting in there,” Donahue said. “It’s tough on everybody.”

Many facts about the criminal case against Cotton have been kept secret since his indictment in April 2009. Cotton is accused in the Dec. 31, 2008 shooting of Bellaire resident Robbie Tolan, who was stopped by police on his front lawn after officers mistakenly thought he and his cousin were driving a stolen vehicle.

After the shooting, the Bellaire Police Department released statements that an “altercation” lead to Cotton shooting Tolan. But a civil lawsuit the Tolan family filed in April 2009 against Cotton, city officials and the police department challenges that story.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office investigated the incident, and in April 2009 prosecutors went strait to the grand jury with the investigation findings and secured the indictment. In a rare occurrence, this bypassed the requirement for a probable cause hearing that would have made public the criminal complaint against Cotton.

Donahue said that once Cotton’s trial begins, he estimates choosing a jury could take a full day. The actual trial could begin in the late afternoon, or the next morning.

“We feel the prosecution is going to take at least a day, maybe a day and a half,” Donahue said. “We’re looking probably to take the rest. Probably three days, maybe four.”

Assistant District Attorney Clint Greenwood, who is prosecuting the case, agreed the trial may take about a week. Greenwood has said previously he is unable to divulge information about the case due to the secretive nature of grand jury proceedings.

Afterwards, the jury will deliberate on the verdict — Jurors must agree unanimously, which can take time if there are any holdouts. If the jury finds Cotton is guilty, the sentencing phase of the trial will follow.

“It’s just going to be an acquittal, they’re not going to find him guilty,” Donahue said.

Previously, the trial was scheduled to begin on Jan. 25. Cotton’s defense attorney, Paul Aman, asked the court to postpone it because an expert witness was not available at that time, and another of Cotton’s attorneys was scheduled to be in court on another case. Also, Aman was still waiting on completion of a court order for Robbie Tolan’s medical records from the Bellaire Fire Department Emergency Medical Service.

According to court documents, expert witness Jim Conley said he couldn’t attend the Jan. 25 trial because his family had planned a homecoming in Florida for his daughter, who was on leave from serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army Reserves. Aman plans to call Conley as a witness to “testify about the use of force by police officers and police tactics,” according to court records filed on Jan. 11.

Because facts in the criminal case haven’t been aired in public, and Bellaire officials will not discuss the case, the most information about what happened that night comes from the Tolan family’s civil lawsuit. The lawsuit accuses Cotton of throwing Robbie’s mother, Marian Tolan, against the garage door when she protested there was a misunderstanding, and her son was not driving a stolen vehicle.

While he was laying on the ground as police had instructed, Robbie Tolan then yelled at Cotton, “Get your f***ing hands off my mom,” the lawsuit said. (Note: InstantNewsWestU removed the expletive.)

“Immediately after Robbie told Cotton to stop assaulting his mother, Cotton drew his gun and shot Robbie in the chest,” the lawsuit said. Doctors couldn’t remove the bullet from Tolan’s liver, casting doubt about whether he will be able to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a professional baseball player, like his father Bobby Tolan. After the shooting, police separated the Tolan family in the backs of police cars and refused to tell them whether Robbie was dead or alive, the lawsuit said.

The Tolans’ lawsuit claims the incident was a result of racial profiling and there is a culture of racism running rampant in the Bellaire Police Department. The Tolan family is black, while the officers involved in the incident are white. Read more about the family’s lawsuit here.

Phone calls to Assistant District Attorney Clint Greenwood, who is prosecuting the case against Cotton, were not immediately returned today. InstantNewsWestU will update this story later if he calls back.

But everything will come out in court next week, or whenever the court is clear for the trial to begin. Check InstantNewsWestU for updates about the proceedings.

Dr. George Chang

Dr. George Chang, who lives in the 2900 block of Cason Street in West U., worked with Dr. Isabelle Bedrosian on a population-based study about contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, a preventive procedure to remove the unaffected breast in patients with cancer in just one breast. The researchers found that the procedure will only help patients age 50 and younger, who have the early-stage disease and are estrogen receptor negative.

Chang and Bedrosian recently published their results in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The findings should offer evidence to both the women making this often agonizing decision and the physicians responsible for their care.

“In our clinic, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of women requesting [contralateral prophylactic mastectomy], and across the breast cancer community, studies have shown that the utilization of the procedure is skyrocketing,” said Bedrosian, assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Surgical Oncology. “Until now, we’ve counseled these patients on a very important, personal decision in a vacuum. With our study, our goal was to understand the implications of the surgery and who may benefit.”

The researchers used a national cancer registry to identify 107,106 patients who underwent a mastectomy for treatment, as well as a subset of 8,902 women who had contralateral prophylactic mastectomy. Chang said they carefully designed their study to consider all types of factors that would affect survival benefits of the procedure.

“All alternative analyses resulted in the same conclusion; we found one group for whom this surgery offers a true survival benefit,” Chang said.

That survival benefit is for a select group of women that represents less than 10 percent of the breast cancer population. Those younger than age 50 with stage I or II cancer with estrogen receptor negative disease had a survival benefit of 4.8 percent at five years. However, both Bedrosian and Chang expect that future research will show increased survival benefit with longer follow-up in the population, as a patient’s likelihood of getting a second breast cancer increases with time.

While the findings should serve as a guideline for breast cancer patients and their physicians to have an informed, medically-based discussion about the procedure, they do not determine that it is medically inappropriate for all others with the disease, said the researchers.

In addition to Bedrosian and Chang, Chung Yuan Hu in the Department of Surgical Oncology, also authored the all-M. D. Anderson study.

Texas Citizens Bank Directors Duncan Stewart and Tom Watson, bank manager Irene Duque, and other bank employees. Texas Citizens Bank is the Grand Carnival Sponsor and will open a West U. branch in March.

It’s time to play ball! This Saturday the West University Little League season officially starts with the Opening Day Ceremony at 11 a.m. on Wallin Field, followed by the WULL Go Green Carnival. All are welcome and admission is free.

Former Little Leaguer Will Duson and his sister Gracie will sing the National Anthem. Monsignor Bill Young, Pastor of St. Vincent de Paul parish, will do the invocation. Cullen Stewart, son of Duncan Stewart of Texas Citizens Bank, will throw out the first pitch. A number of local dignitaries will be on hand to help celebrate the start of another great season.