Meet the city's human Swiss Army knives

We really don't know what we've done to deserve this, but this week has been like Christmas in July when it comes to stories about parking enforcement. Yesterday there was word that the city might start cracking down on disabled parkers, and now we learn that Houston's meter maids people do so much more than just writing tickets — in fact, they're (in KUHF's words) "downtown ambassadors." Dang, that's impressive.

Parking Enforcement Assistant Director Liliana Rambo explained that the city's parking enforcement officers' job descriptions have been expanded so they can give directions, answer questions about Houston and its history and even talk about events going on downtown. If they could just give out current traffic conditions and movie times, we'd never have to use that expensive info line on our cell phone again!

The officers do some official police-like business, too, including providing minor crowd and traffic control when needed. They can also respond to health emergencies — they're apparently trained in CPR and using defibrillators, which makes them potentially effective first responders. All this new information is covered in an intensive two-week training course: "It's an 80 hour training course that is being offered at the Houston Police Department Academy," Rambo said. "The first group just went through three weeks ago, and this is the second group to be going through the training."

All of which makes us wonder: With PEOs darting around being friendly and saving people's lives, how are they going to find the time to crack down on the parking problems?