Another Sunday Ramble

Lakeview has, again, gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop on the Northside Park closing. Now, I understand, there are problems with the site that would make it good policy to relocate from the old caliche pit; my opinion, Council acted in haste and a replacement park should have been built or at least budgeted before closing Northside. There are vacant properties reasonably close to Northside.

It seemed to me Council was "nudged" by the emotional appeal of Gloria Griffin, whose 9 year old son drowned there 23 years ago. I cannot claim to "feel" her pain, my closest would be the death of my Mother this year, but Mother was 83 and in poor health. It was the anticipated order of things, parents precede children in death. The loss of a child is a much harder thing to bear.

Still, in the 23 years since her son's drowning, no one else has died in this allegedly deadly park. Then we find that the City has two churches contesting for a lease on the property to be used as: a park. Now that may turn out to be a good budgetary move by the city, but it kind of undercuts the safety issue don't ya' think?

If we were to apply the same standard to other city owned properties (no deaths in 23 years) we would close half our streets, the thoroughfares might remain as they are TXDOT roads, but streets, sidewalks and fadaluvagod erect a tall fence around Lake Nasworthy, cut off all public access, maybe drain it: it's an absolute deathtrap, especially now that "everybody knows" it has an alligator.

On this I have to agree with Councilman Morrison, it was a "stupid, stupid thing".

Now shifting gears without a segue; I would not usually pick on a particular business, but an exception I am making. Eyemart, should I find myself needing new spectacles and you have exactly what I need for half the price of X, I will go to X.
I have a longstanding exception to my normal practice; Sunday morning, I read the comics first. I have all day to catch up on the news, it is one of life's little luxuries with which I indulge myself. Before I can do that, I have to tear off your half-page perforated ad. Yes, a minor item, yes that is great ad placement in that it guarantees I will see it, but in that it mildly honks me off every time I see it, it is not, in this household, a plus for your business.

I have resisted the urge to comment on the smoking ordinance. Terms such as "carpetbagger" and "nanny" might offend, so I won't use them. I am glad that Council seems willing to amend the ordinance to allow the Colonel's Pipe and Cigar shop. Entirely appropriate, I cannot imagine either an employee or customer who found smoke offensive wanting to walk in the door of a tobacco shop.

Now we see bar owners coming before Council requesting an exemption. Sorry guys, in the face of a 60/40 vote, Council isn't going there, at least not until some businesses have actually closed, by which time it will be too late for them. I've got to ask; owners, where were you when I was asking for support as treasurer of the opposition? We got outspent at least 5/1, over half of that money from the Austin American Cancer Society. I could give better numbers, but Smoke-Free has not filed a campaign finance report covering the 10 days prior to election. Speak Out San Angelo's is posted online at city's website.

I think this is an unfortunate intrusion on the rights of property owners, but it was approved by a large majority of voters in a large turnout election. My "barkeep" handle aside, it has been several years since I was personally involved in the trade. I don't have "a dog in this hunt", I drink at home where the smoking law doesn't reach (yet).

A final note, you make the call if it is connected. On this day in history, Utah, home of the teetotalling Mormons, became the 36th state to approve the XXI amendment to the Constitution, repealing Prohibition. Hmmm.

Budget Question (updated)

The City government is in the middle of its annual budget process and this one continues the tradition of a long, drawn out affair that is entertaining to some political junkies. It looks like the final tax rate will be down by about $.005 per hundred after all the smoke clears, which will still leave us with one of the highest tax rates in the state of Texas (Ft. Worth is still ahead of us, not sure if anyone else is.) The city website has the proposed budget online, and it is full of good information such as 52% of the budget is for public safety, and 74% of the city government expenditures are for personnel. You can go through the 50 pages and quibble about this expenditure and that revenue source and who should pay for utilities at the golf course, but we really need to get to the most fundamental question to be answered for taxpayers and stakeholders of San Angelo. San Angelo's property tax rate is currently $.8275 per $100 (about a $.04 in the last 4 years.) Compare this to $.6854 for Abilene, $.4464 for Lubbock, $.4859 for Midland, $.56229 for Odessa, and $.65 for Victoria. Forget about Tyler, which has a tax rate of $.204. The question that needs to be answered is “Why is our tax rate in the top 5 Texas wide?”

I have some ideas, but I am waiting for answers.

An updated P.S. When you add in the storm water fee, it gets even worse. When you look at the impact on the local economy and community, every dollar of revenue the city collects whether it's sales tax, property tax, a permit fee, utility fee, etc. it amounts to a tax. This new storm water fee is no different. Using the numbers I have heard at the last few council meetings during the budget discussions, a one cent difference in the property tax rate is about $330,000. They tell us the new storm water fee must collect $2.9million so we can meet federal mandates. That is equivalent to about an 8.8 cent increase in the property tax rate. I'm sure it's necessary. I know there are not a lot of choices out there, but this amounts to pretty much the same as an over 10% increase in city property taxes on property owners in San Angelo. When we include the storm water requirements in the total tax bill we could well be the highest taxed city in the state. Do we really want to be number one?

Budget Machinations

I am glad I withheld my initial reaction to the July 15 Council meeting When Chief Vasquez dropped his "20% pay raise" budget bombshell. Let me say before anything else, I am glad the officers got the raise. In a gosanangelo.com comment that day, I predicted they would get 7, maybe 10%, deservedly so. Where do I keep misplacing that Karnak turban?

The process was ugly, no two ways about it. I have spoken to most of Council since, I can reliably report "stunned" would be an understatement. This was not a reasoned negotiation, this was a parliamentary mugging. Only the Mayor and Councilmembers Farmer and Silvas spoke that day. Farmer took the time to do the math and state a dollar amount and expressed her shock that Chief Vasquez seemed to expect Council to act that day absent any prior notice. Mr. Silvas, the "new kid on the block" went into a statement which, while trying to offend no one, he agreed really boiled down to, "Why the heck am I hearing about this for the first time today?". Other members told me they had stayed silent because they were so angry at this "ambush" they did not trust themselves not to say something they would later regret.

It is a safe consensus, our public safety personnel got this raise in spite of, not because of, the Vasquez presentation.

I have watched the video of that meeting several times. Jerry Sea, of the WTOS and NAACP spoke for the raise, but mentioned "This is the best City Council we have ever had". I wholeheartedly agree, 30 years of seeing them come and go, some tried, some flat lied to us, and current Council is dealing with problems unfairly dumped on them. This I state plainly: Council AND staff (we also, in my opinion, have the best City Manager we've ever had) passed a small miracle in this new budget.

Council, by ordinance and Charter change, has made the budget process more responsible and transparent than ever before. This Council did not deserve the ambush Vasquez set for them. It is to Council's credit that they overlooked the political insult and gave our officers what they rated.

Understand, we have a significant change in local government. I was in the trenches against the "ol' boy club". Folks, that is done. The oldest "rats in the barn" are Mayor Lown and Councilman Morrison, each starting their third. They are part of the cats who ran the rats OUT of the barn.

Capital Improvements is one such; we moved this, with approval of the voters, from ordinance and procedure, to required by Charter. It is new, as is the SAPD "Meet and Confer" process. In the process, some time will be lost as the bureaucrats set rules by which they play. I am inclined to give all parties, City Manager, Police Chief, City Council, a good amount of latitude for the mechanics of making reforms effective.

All that said, the cops got a raise, the Council dodged a bullet, this is as good a chance as Council will ever have to say "OK, Rookie mistakes get a pass BUT...never again". God's honest, a lot of people spent a lot of time and trouble making these budget reforms come to pass. Not picking on SAPD's somewhat unique position with an elected Chief, EVERY city department needs to be put on notice, get your requests in on time, with numbers to support them, or you will be SOL until the next year's budget.

Red Light (Camera) District

The best thing that can be said of SB1119, the statute on red light cameras, is that it at least regulates what had been a wide open race for the easy money. City Manager Harold Dominguez relates that various vendors had been beating a path to his door, trying to get San Angelo to rush into this before Sept. 1, when this statute took effect. A system adopted before that may well get a grandfathered escape from such regulation as Chap. 707 puts into law. Thanks for that, Harold.

Some of the provisions of Chap. 707 mandate that the city actually studies any intersection where they propose to install these money generators. They must include data for 18 months prior, they must study alternatives, specifically intersection design, synchronization of traffic signals, and perhaps most importantly, lengthening the yellow phase of the signal. The city must appoint a citizens committee, one appointee per Council member, and this committee shall study the question and alternatives.

The best thing that might come out of this proposal could be that the city will be forced to make an honest attempt to synchronize signals, something any driver knows we now rate an "F" on.

Key to the statute is designating the result of a red light camera as a civil matter. On the one hand, it allows the authority installing the cameras to sidestep some of those pesky "rights" granted to any criminal defendant. On the other hand, it means a camera generated "ticket" will not go on one's driving record, presumably would not affect insurance rates, but the bill leaves that to the discretion of your insurer. One cannot be arrested for failure to pay the "civil liability", but just to encourage payment, you won't be allowed to renew vehicle registration with an unpaid ticket, pardon me, "civil liability" out there.

One can contest such "notice of civil liability", but the deck is neatly stacked in the camera's favor. The city has to appoint a hearing officer to take up such contests, but they are free to designate as that officer an employee of the vendor operating the cameras. In such a hearing "Liability" (note: it is civil; guilt/innocence are irrelevant terms.) is established by the more lax "preponderance of evidence" common to civil cases rather than the "clear and convincing evidence" rule used in criminal matters. Reliability of the cameras is all but a given, may be established by "affidavit", said affidavit given by the vendor who probably employs one's hearing officer. The presumption that the owner was the driver is enshrined in statute, unless of course the "owner" is a rental/lease firm, or a car lot letting a driver take it for a spin, in which case they are compelled to rat you out.

From there, the "suspect" can appeal to municipal court, if one is willing to pre-pay costs of the court and take another day off work. With the charge limited to a $75 "liability" (remember, this is civil, "fine" is also an irrelevant term.) with a $25 late fee cap, the encouragement is going to be to just pay the damned thing and get it out of the way.

Looking at what is available in the way of "studies", can be confusing. As the Standard-Times notes, the National Motorists Association's lead guy on the topic, Greg Mauz lives just down the road in Christoval, I'm sure our citizens' committee will hear him, but NMA's bias is clear. Similarly, the Federal Highway Administration has embraced these devices as a matter of policy, so their data is similarly suspect. It's kind of like listening to a debate on global warming between Al Gore and the American Coal Council.

One thing that is crystal clear, safety issues are in dispute, but these suckers are one money generating machine. No debate about that at all. Under Chap 707, the money is split between the city and a regional trauma account, most of that half helps pay for uncompensated ER expenses. The city's half is limited to more or less traffic related use, but money is fungible, budget dollars replaced by red light camera income can be spent as the city pleases.

One provision of Chap. 707 requires any entity adopting these cameras to make annual reports to Texas DOT, which must publish same by Dec. 1 of each year. I submit, that San Angelo has lived without these things this long, we can hold off for a year until we have a relatively clean data base of real world use to judge them by.

To be honest, my opinion is similar to Councilman Morrison's, and the term "Big Brother" comes to mind. My impression is of a cash cow wearing a little "public safety lipstick". Whatever one's opinion, I do believe we ought at least wait on some less polluted data which will be available next year.

Trust or Consequences

In the course of discussing Prop 26, the appointed police chief, a recurring theme has been how much distrust voters have for the City Council, the City Manager, city gov't in general. Typical would be something like "It's all about the monied, old boy network that has always run San Angelo, they don't care about anything but themselves, can't be trusted", etc, etc and so forth.

Now it is understandable that the average citizen doesn't really pay attention to city gov't until they see utilities bills or taxes going up and it's check writing time. I have to remember, most people have a life and are not political junkies.

That said, let me point out a couple of "inconvenient truths". I have been following city affairs far more closely than most people for over twenty years. First thing, no Council ever took office by martial law, voters put them there, to the extent we are spreading blame, save a bit of that peanut butter for ourselves. Second, the "old boys" aren't there. City manager, Mayor, Councilmembers, no one has been there six years yet. In fairness, it took way longer than that for the pipes to rust out and the potholes cave in. The neglect that rose up and bit us in the nether regions last year was not the fault of the current city gov't, but it was definitely a steaming bowl of offal dumped in their laps.

Another inconvenient truth is that life ain't always fair, and nuttin's for free. We all want good streets and dependable water and by the way find a way to do $200 million of infrastructure without raising my bills. Sorry, the good infrastructure fairy seems to be out to lunch, and the money will eventually come from the same source as all gov't expenditures, our ass pocket. If you have some secret formula to make the necessary repairs at little or no cost, please share it with us.

The situation we are in is why I am especially proud of Prop 25, Capital Improvements. If we pass this measure, no future Manager or Council will be able to say "Gee, nobody told us", there will always be a detailed five year-out plan in effect, and future Councils will see it before anything else on the budget. Then they can fall out and fight for scraps going to tennis courts and lights.

The Charter Committe did not offer Prop 5, a pay raise by whatever name, to reward the oversights of Councils long gone, nor to "pay off" the existing Council. We hoped it might make it possible for knowledgable working folk to be able to afford to run and serve. As Thomas Jefferson observed, a periodic revolution is healthy for the body politic.

I know the bill just recently hit your mailbox, but the genesis of that bill pre-dates our existing city government. We are paying for mistakes made years ago, by people long gone.

Now before someone shouts "pollyanna", I don't claim the city has quite hit perfection, there are a few items left to be addressed. A $200,000 misunderstanding on water bills might be one detail, mind you that is just generating and mailing the bills, no pipes included. I think it would be nice to catch three green lights in a row on Bryant Raceway. Newest improvement there, going south from Harris, unless you floor it you get to stop at Beauregard. Then Washington. Then Av N. Then Knickerbocker.

Zoning is an ongoing nuisance for homeowners, entrepaneurs and developers. Keeping rendering plants out of residential neighborhoods is one thing, making honest businesses jump through hoops over details of fence heights and counting trees, or giving homeowners grief over two feet from right-of-way or adjoining property when no neighbors object is an impediment to growth.

More of the same, that's why government needs interested citizens looking over its shoulder, and making rude noises from time to time. that's part of what we try to do here, but we can use all the help we can get. I try to remember to give the city an "ataboy" when they get it right, this is not all negative.

All the above notwithstanding, on some items, blaming the current Council for problems handed off to them is like blaming the new driver when a thirty year old bus breaks down. We really do have new faces, new attitudes there. Try actually talking to your Councilmember, you might be surprised how receptive they are to new ideas.

By the way, KIDY is generously giving a half hour of valuable air time to a debate/discussion featuring yours truly and Councilman Dwain Morrison on the Charter Amendments. Although we deeply disagree on Prop 26, over the years I have agreed with Dwain more often than not, this should be an informative, respectful discussion of the issues. There will be a "questions" period and KIDY is soliciting questions from the public at www.myfoxsanangelo.com If you care, please contribute and listen.

Above all, early voting starts Monday. Please, please, sometime between now and election day, get up and vote. This barkeep never objected to discussing politics in a bar; they don't teach it in civics class, but the two primary sources of the American Revolution were; Chuches and taverns. I do have one rule: if you didn't vote, I don't want to hear it; voting is your license to bitch.

Email from San Angelo Ex-Pat

Sir:

I originally sent this to one of your partners in crime, but believe now I should have sent it to you since you as Webmaster solicited input from the huddled masses. Anyway...

I am a San Angelo ex-pat. I was born and raised there, moved away and back a number of times for reasons of no great import now, and currently reside in the DFW Metroplex (or MetroMess, as some describe it). I am retired and working diligently on becoming an obstreperous grizzled old fart, and doing rather well at it (according to those who know me).

Over the years I have had occasion to describe San Angelo to a number of folks, and in summary I deem it to the Largest Small Town In The United States. In terms of population some might consider it to be a city. In terms of attitude, atmosphere, and governance it clearly is not. It is a small town. I see this every time I visit, and when I'm driving there and hit Bronte I say to myself, "Self, remember where you're going. It ain't Dallas. Slow down. Put your gun in the trunk. Be civil. Smile more.".

This is not a bad thing. I have long maintained that God put some of the best people on His Good Green Earth in San Angelo, and I love 'em all... or at least, most of 'em. However,...

I read the Standard-Times Web page every day in a feeble attempt to keep current with the happenings there, and find your site to be a very worthy addition to my sourcing. I must say over time I have been at times amused and at other times distressed.

I have read of the monetary issues regarding the school district and of the deterioration of SACHS, from which I graduated in '65.

I was there when a significant part of the water supply system cratered.

I read statistics related to average pay in the area and wonder how anyone can live even reasonably well on such. If the area counts on burgeoning local job growth that is call center based, it must be acknowledged these are in general not well paying and rather crappy jobs to boot.

I noted in one of your blogs that someone considered nuclear power to be a potential godsend for the area (someone please explain the economics, licensing, waste disposal, cooling, and site location realities to this person. It ain't gonna, nor should it, happen.).

I read about the benefits of corn-based ethanol processing plants in the area when in reality the program is simply a sop for corn growers and processors like ADM. If one looks at the numbers it's a disaster, with both Republicans and Democrats proving themselves to be whores regarding the issue.

I read of water sourcing ills and proposed solutions like energy-intensive desalinization and pipelines to more reliable sources than currently available (like the Mississippi River). Face it, guys, you live in a semi-arid area that is doomed to become ever drier as population grows and farmers continue to draw down the water table with their irrigation. Then there's the issue of long-term projections of rainfall...

And the good Mr. Blaine takes his party somewhere else because of BYOB-phobes. I don't blame him.

Ah, the theatre, large and small, attendant in all this. It is entertaining, and I have touched on only a small portion of it.

Of course, I have no all-consuming answers for the ills of the Pearl On The Concho. I'm smart, but I ain't that smart. I love the place and always will. It's just that at times I find the whole thing amusing, especially when I read of things like ASU's now sucking up to the Texas Tech way of doing things and this being portrayed as being a Big Fat Hairy Deal when the area has infinitely more important issues than a local college's affiliation. I knew Drew Darby a thousand years ago. I'm still looking for him to do something significant, if he's so influential.

But then, what the hell do I know?

Peace, my new friend. Forgive my ranting.


San Angelo Ex-Pat

Water Water Anywhere?

Water has been in the news a lot lately. First there is some disappointing news from the test wells just west of here. The results show they were getting too much sand from the wells at that location, which makes it unsuitable for a well field. It is likely that drilling in another location will solve this, but we won't know until the next test well is drilled. It would be a shame if we can't get to the water because of the sand.

The next big news about the water is the rate increase. It may not seem like it, but a heck of a lot of work was done to keep the rates down. They have been working on this for over a year. This has been a balancing act of 3 competing objectives.

The First objective was to keep the water and sewer departments finances transparent and independent of the rest of the city finances. Up until a few years ago, a significant part of the water departments revenues were moved into the general fund, even when the water department was loosing money. After the previous rate increase, the council finally took steps to eliminate that transfer, and make the water department effectively a stand alone, revenue neutral department. There are some areas, like the lake and park police, that need to be looked at, but the water department is not being drained by the rest of the city government. The decisions they made much earlier on the water fund reduced the rate increase that would have been needed otherwise.

The next objective was to have a safe, dependable, well functioning water system. Almost a year ago a fire destroyed the Honeycreek Apartments. What should have been a relatively easy to contain fire got out of hand for two critical reasons. First, the nearest hydrant to the apartments was broken. It had a tag on it indicating that it had been awaiting repair for a while. When they found a working hydrant, the pressure was too low to adequately fight the fire. The water department didn't try to raise the pressure for fear of busting a main. Soon after the Honeycreek fire, the city council instructed the city manager and staff to come up with a plan to correct the current problems and a long range plan to prevent a recurrence. As part of a two day workshop the initial results were presented and these became the foundations of what is now the capital improvement plan. They were starting to implement this when the 27 inch main broke just before Christmas. The situation was very bad, but it would have been worse if the planning hadn't been started in the summer. The council and city government were late in getting started, but at least they had started. We now have a clearer long range plan for fixing and maintaining our cities infrastructure.

The last objective is to keep the rates fair to all rate payers, keep the rates affordable, and to not have a regressive rate that hurts the poorest water customers. The final rate for the lowest water user is about half what was initially proposed. First, they when to a tiered or stratified rate structure where the larger water meters, and thus the largest water users, paid a proportionately larger increase than the smaller water users did. They looked at financing and repayment options by the hundreds, looked for savings, and eventually came up with a plan that traded a little initial pain for a faster solution, and a plan where our grandkids won't still be paying high interest payments.

There is still a lot that needs to be done and is being done for the long term health of our water system. We are eventually going to have to start using underground water and build a pipeline and plant as part of that water source. We must get better at addressing maintenance issues. We do need to build in money saving technologies such as remote reading water meters. Water, like all of our infrastructure, is an ongoing project. The city government has it's work cut out, and we need to keep watching to make sure they do it.

Maintenance and Decisions

Thursday evening, I took the public tour of the Central campus. During the tour Maintenance problems and other issues were obvious. We walked by a heavy metal I beam that had a hole rusted through it. One member of the tours asked rhetorically "How many times has maintenance walked by that?"

When the Central was opened in the late 1950's, All the I beams were intact and freshly painted. The restrooms were all spotless and fresh smelling. The lighting was modern and the floor and ceiling materials used fire retardant materials for increased student safety. The gymnasium was an innovative design. The campus style layout was seen as having many advantages. The centralized heating and cooling plant was both efficient to operate and forward thinking, allowing the buildings to be used year round.

Fifty years later, rust and corrosion are everywhere. Drains have trouble draining. Asbestos that was used for fire proofing is now recognized as a possible health hazard and makes such simple tasks as installing new light fixtures a challenge. The restrooms in many buildings have an unwelcome distinctive aroma. Most doors and restrooms are too small for wheel chair accessibility. Add it all up, and you get a bond election.

Some problems, such as the problems with asbestos, couldn't have been foreseen when the high school was built. Some, like classroom sizes, are based on changing ideas in education and would require major construction. Most of these problems really have one thing in common: Maintenance, or more accurately the lack there of.

To keep a facility in good condition requires a commitment to maintenance. It has to start before construction, with maintainability a key part of the design process. The tunnels under the campus were joked about in the tour, but they are a key part of the maintainability of the campus. Some of the problems we were shown, such as those in shower rooms and restrooms, showed the original design didn't include maintenance access to in some key areas. This is expensive to add after the fact. Another part of maintainability is material selection. Take floors for example. The cost of routine cleaning and other maintenance will surpass the installation cost very early in the life of a floor. Cleaning and replacing a cheap floor could easily cost several times what a better floor would cost over the life of the floor. The same applies to the rest of the building materials. All of these factor determine the long term or life cycle cost. One common estimate is that the maintenance costs over 30 years will be about 3 times construction costs, not accounting for inflation. That means we should spend on average about $1million per year for maintenance on a new Central if it is built. I expect we should be spending roughly that amount on the the current campus.

So now we come to my real question. How much have we spent and are we spending on facility maintenance per campus? The SAISD 2006-2007 budget book includes just over $11million for plant maintenance and operations. Is that enough, and is it being used wisely? The maintenance problems I saw on the tour of the Central campus indicate otherwise. Is this a case of treating buildings as throw away items? Are we doing maintenance by bond election?

Buy the Book

One thing you will discover if you do much research on issues is that there is a tremendous amount of paper involved. The introduction of the computer into government and business has had an unintended result: We are creating more documents today then ever, and they are getting bigger. Lets take a look at some of the paper involved in the Capital Improvement Plan being developed.

The CIP will a number of sections detailing needs and justifications. These, in turn, will reflect what is in the city's Comprehensive Plan. This is a very large document that coordinates all other planning. It is both the starting point and the executive summary of a number of other plans.

One of these other plans is the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan. This is a 250+ page study plus a large update on what recreation and parks should look like here in the future. This report plus updates cost the city a lot of money, and is only available on paper. There is so much there I doubt many people outside of the parks and recreation department know more about it than the power point slide show that was presented by the consultant who developed the plan. As far as this type of plan goes, it seems to be pretty good, but there are some concerns.

Our paid consultants started with guidelines from the National Recreation and Parks Association. They then did local surveys, polls, and focus groups to fine tune and prioritize the results. A bit of fine tuning, include lists, charts maps of parks and and proposed sites, eight by ten color glossies with circles and arrows and they had a completed plan. So where is the problem.

First off, I find the NRPA guidelines a bit too generic. They start with a plan developed by Kansas City, and then expand it to fit San Angelo and New York City. I will grant you that the hope is that a consultant will really treat each study as unique, but reality, time and money have a way of interfering with that. What most of these reports end up being is a list of about 2 dozen one size fits all sports and recreation activities in the order of their popularity on the last poll and a list of possible sites. They include cost estimates for each.

The problem I have is that we end up with a list with some odd resources on it (do we really need a city owned Ice Rink?) We also see no mention of many locally popular recreations (No, I am not going to mention Mr. Ryans professional Billiard Hall.)

The other problem is that we see project appear on various plans just because some consultant said you should have one so you can keep with New York City, even though the money could be better spent on water, roads, sewer, or even recreations that might stimulate the city.

The unintended consequence of the ease with which computers allow reports and plans to be generated is there are now so many of them, and they are so thick that it is almost impossible to know what is in them. You do have to be careful that some project doesn't sneak onto the budget just because is was one page in a large plan that nobody had time to read.