The Astrodome Follies: This would qualify as the climax.

Regardless of your hopes and dreams for the Astrodome, turning it into a movie studio, a cool shopping mall, the worlds biggest shopping mall/parking garage/casino, or even something as insipid as The "New" Dome Experience, nothing was ever realistically going to happen until the Rodeo and Texans weighed in.

Well....now they have.

Rodeo, Texans have $66 Million plan to demolish Dome. Kiah Collier, Chron.com

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and the NFL's Houston Texans have devised a $66 million plan to demolish the vacant Astrodome and turn the site into an outdoor green space that is reminiscent of downtown's Discovery Green and also pays tribute to the historic stadium.
The project, titled the "Astrodome Hall of Fame," would be completed in time for the 2017 Super Bowl at NRG Stadium, according to a 37-page proposal obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

As you can imagine, the chron.commenters are having a field day with this. One commenter even compared the centuries-old Pyramids of Giza to the not-yet-century-old Dome. That's just wrong in many ways. For one, the Pyramids have held up better.  Another commenter spoke about the "Annual Animal Abuse" event which I presume means the Houston World Series of Dog Shows.  What this means is that this particular chron.commenter is probably a member of PeTA.  No one should ever listen to a member of PeTA, they should be patted on the head, be given an ear of corn and be reminded to stay at least 100 yards away from any Llamas.

Given those comments it's probably a good thing those of a more progressive persuasion are kept far away from the planning for the Dome, leaving it to people who actually have a financial stake in the mess anyway.

What we do know right now, is that former fiscal conservative Ed Emmett is is making noise that he he is quite content to continue wasting taxpayer money on this issue and that he'll stand against this plan.  Curious fiscal stances of this type have become commonplace with Emmett, especially in respect to the Dome, as has allowing his personal quest to not be in charge when the Dome is demolished.

Given that Emmett has abdicated his leadership role in this matter and Houston Mayor Annise Parker is too focused on the restroom habits of her constituency it's going to ultimately fall to the Texans and Rodeo to do the heavy lifting.  I believe this plan is the start of this movement, as both groups are growing tired of watching the Houston Region's leadership vacuum suck up yet another public issue.

At some point the voters are going to get tired of this one would think but local politics are infamous for letting bad leaders remain in their positions despite dropping the ball on many issues.  Right now Houston's leadership is failing at almost all levels. The Astrodome kerfuffle is just another log on the fire.