Today's Quality of Life Update: How to Report Dead Street Lights, and TX-OU Tow Warnings

Amazing the things you learn from city council briefings. Like this: Oncor has a Web site that allows you to report street-light outages by address or pole numbers. It's been operational since August, but the council's Quality of Life Committee is getting a briefing on the subject today. The Web site's a good time suck if you're curious about how many public and private street lights are in your neighborhood -- just type in your address and have at it. Another fun fact: There are 86,000 public right-of-way street lights citywide, all of which are maintained by Oncor. But keep this in mind: "Alley lights are the responsibility of property owners." So there.

Here's another timely Quality of Life committee briefing: Motor Vehicle Tow Plan for the State Fair of Texas. Wait -- isn't the Fair over on Sunday? Regardless, seems Public Works wants to calm the council before Texas-OU, since last year's Red RIver Shootout ended with unsuspecting Fairgoers getting their cars towed illegally. As it happens, on September 22, the city hand-delivered to all licensed tow companies a letter warning them that "violations of the City Code will not be tolerated." And if they are, well, there will be ramifications ranging from a $1,000 Class C misdemeanor ticket to a 10-day suspension to a two-year revocation of two licenses. The missive's included in the briefing.