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    curry for council

    Ken Hoffman polls a former TV meteorologist running for City Council to help Houston weather big storms

    Ken Hoffman
    May 1, 2023 | 10:10 am
    Casey Curry Houston

    Casey Curry is the latest Houston celeb seeking elect office.

    Photo courtesy of Casey Curry.

    It’s become a thing, celebrities from television and movies running for political office.

    Let’s see, Jerry Springer, who passed away last week, bounced from being a city council member in Cincinnati to mayor of the Queen City to TV news anchor and eventually host of the wildly successful, bonkers, and potentially harmful, some say Jerry Springer Show. More on Springer later.

    Former President Donald Trump was bigly into real estate in New York but the bulk of his national prominence came from hosting The Apprentice. Former President Ronald Reagan was a movie star before becoming governor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger took the same route to the California governor’s mansion. Voters made Clint Eastwood’s day when they elected him mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

    Sonny Bono went from being the butt of short jokes on the Sonny and Cher Show to mayor of Palm Springs.

    The most amazing example of show business as a stepping stone to politics is Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the current wartime president of Ukraine. Before assuming leadership of his country, Zelenskyy starred in a sitcom, was a standup comic and contestant on Dancing with the Stars.

    Sometimes being a celebrity isn’t enough to achieve political success, though.

    Dr. Mehmet Oz was a TV talk host, then ran for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania. He lost.

    Al Franken was a cast member on Saturday Night Live and became a U.S. senator from Minnesota. He later resigned over accusations of sexual misconduct. Cynthia Nixon from Sex in the City ran for governor of New York and didn’t come close. She lost to Andrew Cuomo, who’s a whole other story.

    It does sort of look like movies and television have become to politics what college football is to the NFL.

    Now, we have a former local TV weather forecaster hoping to become a Houston city councilmember.

    Casey up to bat

    Local TV personalityCasey Curry predicted the weather on Channel 13 from 2006 to 2017. After leaving Channel 13, she popped up on Channel 2 and Channel 26 for short stints. Since then she’s worked in the private sector running a company’s philanthropic efforts. She’s also raising daughter Winnie with her husband Carl.

    Curry is running for the At-Large Position 1 on city council, meaning voters who live anywhere in Houston can vote for those candidates. There are five At-Large positions and 11 district positions that represent specific areas of Houston.

    Members are elected to four-year terms. Council elections are non-partisan. Candidates don’t have an “R” or a “D” next to their name on the ballot. The position pays $60,000 a year. Election Day is November 7.

    Curry’s top priority plays into her background as a TV meteorologist. She wants to help Houston better deal with weather emergencies. The city has been through it all in recent years: hurricanes, floods, searing heat, and the Big Freeze.

    “As a meteorologist I understand this issue. I understand flooding. I understand storms. I have a different perspective on this subject,” Curry says.

    “I don’t think we’ve done a great job of spending the money that’s been allocated to us. I understand that we still have money left over from Hurricane Ike in 2008 that we haven’t spent. So we have to do a better job with the money that is available to us after a big storm.”

    Taking care of Jerry

    I always was a Jerry Springer fan. My only complaint about the show was his “floor managers/bouncers” broke up the guests’ fights too early.

    In fact, I dedicated my book to Jerry Springer – it’s right there on Page 2. Yes, I wrote a book. You can still buy it on Amazon. But, if you pay more than 50 cents, you’re getting robbed. (Editor's note: Thank goodness for Jeff Bezos' return policy.)

    Ken Hoffman book You Want Fries with That?Our columnist dedicated this book to Jerry Springer.Photo via Amazon

    In 2020, near the start of the global pandemic, I was watching NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, and the anchor ended the show with his new catchphrase:

    “Please take care of yourself … and each other.

    Seriously?

    Holt is still using the sign-off. That’s practically word for word Jerry Springer’s catchphrase, one that Springer used for more than four decades. After the mayhem of each show, Springer would turn to the camera, say something affirmative and end with “Take care of yourself … and each other.”

    I called Springer to squeal on the NBC News anchor and get a comment: “Are you aware that …?”

    His response, dignified as always, was “I anchored the evening news in Cincinnati for 10 years before I started the talk show. It was the early ‘80s, the ‘Me Generation,’ and everyone was saying ‘take care of yourself.’ I thought it wouldn’t hurt if we also cared and helped take care of each other. So I decided to end each of my newscasts with that line.

    “When the talk show started I just continued to use those words because after observing for an hour what happens when people aren’t caring about each other, I thought the sentiment was the perfect antidote to the circus we just witnessed.

    “I knew Lester in Chicago. He interviewed me there. He’s so classy and so smart, I’m not at all surprised he shares the same sentiment. His heart shows. It doesn’t matter how he decided to use that sign-off. The times certainly warrant it.”

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    children don't come cheap

    This is how much the cost to raise a child in Houston increased in one year

    Amber Heckler
    Jun 23, 2025 | 11:38 am
    Family, raising a child
    Photo by Jimmy Dean on Unsplash
    It costs more than $24,000 to raise a child in the Austin area in 2025.

    A new national study has revealed it now costs $472 more to raise a child in the Houston area than it did last year.

    SmartAsset's report "Cost of Raising a Child in Major U.S. Metros – 2025 Study" compared data from MIT's Living Wage Calculator to determine the annual costs for raising a child in 2024 and 2025 across the 48 biggest metropolitan areas in the U.S. Factors that contributed to each metro's total included the cost for childcare, additional housing costs, food, transportation, medical costs, and "other necessities."

    In 2025, it will cost $21,868 annually to raise a child in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlandsregion, the report found. That amount has risen 2.21 percent since 2024, when childrearing in the Houston area cost $21,396 a year.

    Houston only has the third-highest costs for raising a child out of the four biggest Texas metros, and even though that cost has increased slightly in the last year, it's still on the low end nationally. SmartAsset said Houston is the 8th most affordable U.S. city, ranking 41st (out of 48) in the overall ranking of metros where the cost of raising a child is the highest.

    "The cost of raising a child can change quickly, making it important for budding families to keep an eye on trends in their locale," the report said. "Between 2024 and 2025 alone, the average projected annual cost of raising a small child changed by a range of -15 percent to +22 percent, depending on the metro area."

    Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Massachusetts led the nation with the highest annual cost for raising a child, totaling more than $39,000, up from $37,758 in 2024.

    Costs for raising a child in other Texas metros
    Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos is – unsurprisingly – the most expensive Texas metro for raising a child, with costs surging nearly eight percent from 2024. It now costs $24,188 to raise a child in the Austin area, compared to $22,406 the year before.

    There's better news for families in San Antonio. The San Antonio-New Braunfels area clocks in as the fifth most affordable U.S. metro in the study. In 2024, it cost $21,014 to raise a child in the Alamo City, but in 2025, it costs 0.33 percent less, at $20,945.

    This is how much it costs to raise a child in San Antonio, according to SmartAsset:

    • Cost of childcare: $9,123
    • Housing costs: $3,232
    • Food costs: $1,644
    • Medical costs: $2,590
    • Transportation costs: $3,090
    • Civic costs: $474
    • Other costs: $791

    Raising a child in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington now costs $22,337 per year, which is only $411 more than it did in 2024.

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