Taking it to the Streets

We're in the middle of the budget cycle right now and for the next several months when the City Council isn't talking about water they're going to be talking about streets. It's an important issues and it's overdue.

There is no doubt about it. Many (most?)  of our streets are in terrible shape. There will be lots of talk about how they got in this shape. Bad decisions were made on maintenance philosophy and priorities. We need to understand how we got here to prevent this from happening again and again. The reality is that many cities are facing the same problem with aging streets and infrastructure. It's hard to do good planning for something with a 25 year or longer life span when your only on the job for two years at a stretch. It.s easy to get hung up on finger pointing and trying to place blame. That won't fix the streets. 

It will take time, commitment, resources, and money to fix this problem. And this is where we need to pay close attention. How do we pay for these repairs. We're already hearing a lot of talk about this. City staff gave a presentation at the last City Council meeting about how to pay for this. It was really more complex than it needed to be. Here are simple basics that need to be kept in mind during this discussion.

These road repairs will be paid for by tax dollars. That's a given but it's easy to forget. It will come out of property tax, sales tax, grants from the state or federal government which are just returned tax dollars, etc.. The money can be money that's already being collected or it can be from a tax increase but fixing the roads will be your tax dollars at work.

If we use money that's already being collected we will have to spend less tax money on something else that the city is doing. Real priorities would have to be made. Some services might have to be scaled back or eliminated and roads would have to be seen as one of the basic function of our city government that they really are. I don't expect to see much of this because I doubt that many on council or staff are ready to admit that some of their pet projects don't perform as expected and shouldn't be held to the same priority as basic city services and infrastructure. They will still want to spend big bucks on things like streetscapes when the streets are bad.

 

The other way to get the money to fix the roads is to raise taxes. A lot of the presentation that staff gave was really about how do we raise taxes without actually calling it a tax increase. The slight of hand is you call the tax a fee. The one that seemed to be most favored was a "Street Maintenance User Fee" and would likely be set at a rate to collect between 2 and 3 million dollars a year. At the current tax rate, that's between 6 and 9 cents of property tax. If implemented like it's been proposed, it will also be a very regressive tax. It will be an add on to the current utility (aka water) bill and will have no real relationship to how much wear and tear you put on the roads. If you have a water bill, you will pay about $5/month even if you don't own a car while big, multimillion dollar companies with fleets of trucks that put the most wear and tear on roads will be subsidized because they will not be paying based on the damage they do to roads but how big their water meter is.

Over the past 10 or so years the City council has lowered property taxes by about $.10. They snuck in a tax increase a few years ago by adding on a storm water fee that's about equal to $.08 in property tax. They justified calling it a fee because it is somewhat tied to the amount of storm water clean up property might create because of it's impermeable surface like buildings, parking lots, and driveways. It's still a tax but at least it's somewhat based on what's causing the problem. Adding $5.00 onto the utility bill is a pure and simple tax. There is no real connection having a water bill and how much damage is done to the roads. We might have on the books a $.10 reduction in property tax but the reality we will end up with a $.05 to $.10 increase in real taxes.

San Angelo still  has one of the highest tax loads in the state, especially as a proportion of individual or family income.  Any method of paying for road repairs should do three things. It should focus on the real basic functions of the city government and recognize that some popular things need to be put lower into their proper priority. Any tax increase should designed in such a way that the people putting the hardest use on the road pay the biggest share of fixing the roads. And when taxes do go up, have the guts to call it a tax instead of hiding it behind a label of "FEE". Seems more truthful that way.

Radical

Been doing some house cleaning in emails, etc. and ran across something I wrote to a friend of mine that has some very different ideas on politics. Think it's time to share it with more people.

You asked me an interesting question the other day: Do I consider you to be radical? You seemed disappointed when I answered yes. I did tell you I didn't consider that a bad thing, but I want to give you a more complete answer.

I would be terribly disappointed in you if you weren't a radical. I
could bring up the fact that every one of our revered founding fathers
and the framers of our republic were radicals but you already know that.
I could point to countless mythical heroes and the founders of most
great religions and state that they were also radicals, at least for
their day and age. Lots of examples to show that it's okay to be
radical. Of course it's okay. That's not even the point. The question is
why be "radical?"

It's really simple. Progress doesn't happen in the middle. Growth and
change and innovation happen at the edges. Meaningful change is always
radical. You and I both want positive change for a better world. Radical
comes with the territory. We will seldom agree politically but don't
ever stop being radical. It's how we make a difference. It's how we
change the world.

Guess it's time to be radical.

A Short Observation and Question

In my ongoing research I noticed that according to the city website, there have been no scheduled meetings of the Water Advisory Board this year. The last meeting scheduled was for August of last year and the last meeting we have minutes on is from January, 2011. This has been a very important board in the past and deeply involved in the search for new water sources and planning long range water solutions. What are they doing now? Shouldn't they be very involved with the City Councils review of drought restrictions, water use and re-use and long term policies and solutions? By ordinance, the membership has special skills and input from the Chamber of Commerce that would and should be used for any water decisions. Something for the current council to look at.

A Very New Year

We are at the beginning of a brand new year and it promises to be very different. We will end up with a new Mayor and we might just have a real election in the process. Councilman Morrison is going to run for Mayor, which means someone else will have to fill the SMD 2 seat. I will be running for that seat. This blog will still be active, and I will be posting on issues from time to time but in keeping with our policy of focusing on issues not candidates I will not be using this blog for my campaign. I will set up a separate website/blog for that purpose. This blog will not endorse candidates, even me, for office. ConchoInfo will be a part of the election because the reality is my platform and issues and reasons for running have been stated on this site since 2004. What I campaign on will include what I've been saying here from the beginning. That won't change.

This will be an exciting, eventful year and the upcoming elections promises to be very important for the future of our city. Change is in the air.

A side note to Buffalo. I didn't approve your last comment yet because I thought you might want to publish it here after a little tweaking and editing. This is where it would be the most appropriate and on topic. Let me know if you want it here or there.

Again, this promises to be an interesting and exciting new year. Have a great one.

Jim Turner

Tangled Web(site)

Council meetings are usually entertaining and last Tuesday's was no exception. Sat through the morning show and left during the intermission (executive session and lunch break.) Didn't make it back before the afternoon show had started and I missed one of the most entertaining parts. An issue that I really have issues with: the City website.

The contract for the current city website was approved back in 2004. The current site is based on a proprietary system from GovOffice.com. It took a while for the site to get usable and I have several emails back and forth with city staff on problems and suggestions. Today, 8 years later there are still problems with features such as credit card information handling and keeping the agenda packets on the website. Public information staff has done a lot of work like connecting the city website with social media sites like facebook and twitter and work arounds like using slideshare to hold city council packets and information that won't fit on the website. City staff has done a lot of work to get information out and overcome the limits of the current website. I've also heard from staff members that use the system that it's a royal pain to deal with. I'd heard and seen enough problems with the site that I have been trying to get the city to change system and philosophies for several years. Earlier this year the city finally went out with an RFP for a new website.

In May, they came to council with a request to authorize a contract, not to exceed $40,000 to Vision Internet of California. From the memo in the agenda packet "Financial Impact: The costs for the website design, hosting, and training staff will be $40,000.00." A bit high but not totally unexpected. I remember this being presented to the city council as a complete, turnkey operation. Vision Internet would design and maintain the site, migrate everything from the old site to the new one, train staff to operate it, and host it on their own high availability servers. City council approved the following from the memo in the agenda packet.

• "a. Approving a recommendation from the Evaluation Team to award RFP: PI-01-
  11/Website Design contract to Vision Internet, in an amount not to exceed $40,000.00
  for design of a new, custom website for the City of San Angelo, and authorizing the City Manager to negotiate and execute a contract with the recommended vendor
• b. Authorizing a budget amendment for the project funds in an amount not to exceed
  $40,000.00 to cover costs of designing the new website, training staff, and hosting the
  newly designed site."

Looked like a done deal, and I  was hopeful a new website, at least a beta version, might be a Christmas present for the citizens of San Angelo. Last Tuesday, Nov. 20th, there was a budget amendment on the agenda that included $90,000 to negotiate a contract and amend the budget for the new website. Wait a minute. Hadn't this had been approved back in May? All of it including the budget amendment? And what was the extra $50,000 for? Simplest explanation would have been that too much time had elapsed and it needed re-approval. And maybe the $90k was just a typo and $40k was the real deal. I watched the video, and no, staff was saying that $90k was the true amount and that the $40k  was only for website design. The extra $50k was needed for training and new, upgraded servers to host the website. Like I said I wish I had been there but the replay on channel 17 was very entertaining. You could tell that staff was caught completely flat footed. The excuses they gave for the increase don't make sense when you look at what was in the May 1st agenda packet and what was recorded in the minutes. Training costs were included in the original proposal, and there was no need for additional servers at the city because the website would be hosted on Vision Internet servers. Package price, tax title and license $40k as approved in May. One further point I found out is that Vision Internet doesn't sell hardware. If there were additional servers and equipment required, that would need to be an additional contract, probably as part of the city's normal server upgrade program.

This highlights two problems our new city manager must deal with. First, staff has developed a habit of bringing parts of projects to city council piece meal and without complete project information. This time they tried to say that what was approved in May was just a portion of the total project and it was only last Tuesday they were providing information on the rest of the project. Earlier in meeting a similar situation happened on an agreement with SAPAC. The rental/lease agreement for office space was brought forward as an isolated, stand alone item. There have been some concerns about this agreement expressed at prior council meetings, and without some big picture information on the entire auditorium/city hall renovation project and SAPAC's involvement and contribution commitments it's hard to make a good decision. As presented to the council Tuesday the agreement does look and smell like a giveaway of a major city asset to a politically connected group. Add to that the cost overruns and confusion over whether or not the HVAC plant and landscaping were included in the original package voted on as part of the city hall plaza project and it's easy see how council might be getting a bit irritable. I'm sure they feel like they would if they were buying a new car and as the sales manager is handing the keys he says "Congratulation on your new car. I think now we might want to talk about putting tires on it." 

Now that I've wandered into mistakes made in handling the website contract so far, let me make a couple of suggestions. There needs to be a shift in philosophy by the city about the internet. Functionally, the city doesn't have "a" website. The main sanangelotexas.us address is effectively a portal into a series of other internet applications and sites. I could get long winded on this (actually did but erased it) but the city doesn't need a Swiss Army Knife type of website. What the city needs is a functional toolbox that allows people to exchange information and do business using those internet tools, and visible website is really just the box that keeps all these specialized tools where they can be used efficiently and effectively. This needs to be an open standards based toolbox so that as new tools are needed and developed we don't have to keep going back to a single source and hope they have an adequate tool.

Let's get ASU and their computer science department involved. They have expertise and equipment. They might be interested in doing the city's internet projects as a research and training vehicle. 

Get the city involved with projects like Code For America and see what they can surprise us with. 

Go with an open solution, preferably open source, that can help drive down the cost of government and give us greater flexibility to respond quickly in a fast changing world.

We need a new website for the City of San Angelo. We need an updated philosophy on how the city and its citizens use the internet. We need an honest, accurate, and complete plan for the projects that will get us where we need to be long term. What was put before council would barely serve us today and is not what we need for the future. We also need to get staff to keep up and do their homework before they come before city council and keep their story complete and straight.

Daniel in the Lyin Den or Welcome to our new City Manager

Our new City Manager has been here not quite a month, made it through two city council meetings and hasn't snuck back to Eagle Pass yet. He hasn't said much and seems to be taking it all in waiting until he knows the local landscape. I hope that's a sign of good things and that he is just waiting for the right time because there are some major issues he has to deal with.

I'm sure he knew that water would be a major issue when he got here. Bet he thought that reliable water sources would be his number one challenge. Instead we seem to have a number of very public failures with the water department at the center. At Mr. Valenzuela's very first council meeting they tried to sneak by $100,000 for new furniture for the water department. This is in addition to the $200,000 already spent on top of what was budgeted for the city hall renovation. And it doesn't appear that this furniture was to make up for a shortfall of partitions and filing cabinets and a few needed desks. It was a major wholesale replacement with the old furniture, which was obviously still serviceable, spread hither and yon with no accountability throughout other city departments to make up for shortfalls in other offices. Sounds very much to me like staff underestimated their furniture needs several times, and the last time tried to pull a fast one with the water department paying the bill this time. On top of that, required procurement procedures were mostly ignored. This high dollar purchase went forward without required council approval and like kids on a playground, no senior staff personnel saw what happened. We still don't know who signed the purchase order or if it was ever signed. Nice start for your first council meeting wasn't it Daniel?

By the second meeting things were getting even more interesting. Seems there was (maybe still is) a problem with water quality. It's bad that they found the THM levels in our water too high, although the actual health threat is probably not that great. What's more disturbing to me is that it was outside testing that found the problem, not our own testing procedures. The problem sample was from several months ago and just recently were corrective actions taken. Add on the fact that our temporary use of chlorine instead of chloramine probably made the problem worse and we don't really know what affect it had makes me wonder just how good our in-house testing really is. Needs to be looked at closely.

A bit of a side show to the last council meeting, still tied to the water department, is just starting to surface. Seems that an engineer on city staff was relieved for cause with no option for rehire and after a bit of slight of hand to become a private company/subcontractor was back at work as an inspector on the Hickory Pipeline, the city's main long range water project. Doesn't help that the subcontractor is the son of the water department director. Sounds like a problem of ethics and a conflict of interest that needs to be addressed.

As a long term accompaniment to all this there are problems with water bills which start with the new remote reading water meters. There were a lot of advantages claimed for the remote meters including more efficient and accurate results and near real time water usage readings that could alert a customer to potential leaks or other unusual usage patterns. Looking at how well this had worked in other cities (most of which used private contractors to make the switch) we had high hopes that this would be good for our city. Instead we have heard a fairly constant drumbeat of complaints and excuses. In 2005 the city had a chance to get a remote meter system installed for free by Siemens. Their profit, if any, would have come out of operational savings. They would have been on the hook to make the system work right. Instead  our water department has been before the city council asking for big bucks to do the whole project in house. They currently have 2 or 3 years left on the projects and the results so far have been a mixture of confusion, unrealistic water bills, rate increases, excuses and terrible customer service. The much mentioned capability of flagging usage problems doesn't seem to exist yet. Many current bills seem to be "estimates." The transition from an old meter to a new one frequently leads to a usage spike that makes one believe that either meters hadn't been read for a while or that nobody noticed that the meter had been replaced so a new starting reading should have been used instead of the last reading from the old meter. What ever the cause, our citizens and water customers are not being treated right and there are systemic problems that need to be fixed.

Which brings me to another big issue. One that hurts our economic growth and prosperity. Our city government does a lousy job at customer service. The problems in water billing are making news. Look at what happens in planning, permitting, code enforcement and inspections. I've been told that the process is like being in a pinball machine, being bounced around from desk to desk and department to department. Getting close to the end of the process only to be flipped back to another round of bouncing off desks. A process that takes one to maybe two weeks in other cities in the region takes months here. And I frequently hear that projects will almost get completed and an inspector will come out and change the rules. The plans for a roof or a wall that were approved by everyone in city hall before the project even started will get changed at the last minute by some inspector in the field which causes major added expenses and delays. Cheaper to make the changes (even major ones) then to delay business too long and pay a bunch of money to lawyers. Word of this spreads around and keeps business away. And some within city hall will say that used to happen in the past but we have changed. All I can say is what I'm hearing about are recent incidents. The Friday meeting results don't seem to be filtering down to the people on the desks and in the field.

I have been rambling on a bit here and still have only brushed on some of the high points so let me finish by saying again Welcome Daniel. Enjoy your time here in San Angelo. I hope you brought your Kevlar. You just might need it.

Redistricting for Dummies

A few stray thoughts first before I get to "Redistricting for Dummies"

I'm driving home when an SAPD marked car comes behind me on Bryant Raceway, lights and siren, northbound. I pull to the near curb; I also notice no one else in 4 lanes reacts at all. People, they are called "emergency calls" for a reason, get out of the way!

Another peeve of mine; driving S Chadbourne, I have learned to get in the center lane. On that section we have 4 lanes and parallel parking. I have had to stand on the brake to avoid tearing off an idiot's door three times this month. Driver opens the door without a glance back. I wouldn't mind taking the door and costing them instructive money, but the part where I untangle the detached left arm from my grill guard; that might give me nightmares.

Redistricting: what a FUBAR! SD 25 State Senator Jeff Wentworth has had a bill on the table since his first term on the issue. His proposal; at the decennial redistricting put 4 Rep, 4 Dems and a retired judge emeritus both parties can agree to, and that body draws lines. Legislature still has to approve or not, but coming out of such a body, Legislature is likely to approve.

This FUBAR, We have the San Antonio court, drew up new lines. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) told that Court to try again. Then parties to the lawsuit appealed to the Washington, DC Circuit Court, claiming racial/ethnic discrimination. The Texas response on that: "Yes your honors, we did our best to Gerrymand districts to Republican advantage for the next ten years, but we were discriminating against Democrats, not any racial/ethnic group covered by the Civil Rights Act." This rather unique argument so surprised the Court, DC retired to chambers and might rule by this time next month.

The San Antonio Court has a hearing this Wednesday, the 15th. One can hope they have maps drawn as a fall-back, I do not expect an agreement between litigants. IF the San Antonio court puts its map in place, both major Parties can have June Conventions, with Primary elections April 17th but that is looking dicey. San Antonio has until Feb 20 to do what SCOTUS said was its job, maybe they will.

Yeah, this is "political junkie" land. Most of you have families, jobs, and hobbies. This is my hobby, I read Court rulings for fun. We may have a Texas Primary or even a "split" Primary in our lifetimes, that is now up to the Courts.

Memorial Day

I have shamelessly neglected this space since my last post, my apologies. Let's try to make today interesting.

First, I checked on the final return of Shuttle Endeavour's final return flight. Great news for those of us who don't sleep much! It is scheduled for a "pre-dawn" return to Florida. Been done before, the actual landing is scheduled for 2:35 AM Wed. which will have it directly overhead about an hour before that here. I've had the luck to see this a few years ago, it is a spectacular show, well worth getting up for.

First time I saw a predawn return, I didn't know what it was at first, I was on a delivery truck. Looked up and saw this huge contrail, arcing from west to east really fast. Mind you, this contrail goes from west horizon to out of sight east in maybe three minutes, I'm thinking this has to be supersonic, where is the "boom"? Well, the sonic boom, actually a "double boom" comes about the time the contrail goes over the eastern horizon and it finally comes to me, has to be the shuttle, nothing else is high enough for that delay.

For background, I just thought, old fart that I am becoming, I'm talking to (I hope) two generations of people who have never heard a "sonic boom". When an aircraft breaks the "sound barrier", about 720 MPH, the airflow over the wings becomes a shock wave. In the 50s it was an awesome thing to design planes that could do that and not self destruct. I was living in eastern NC then, heard them all the time. Supersonic flight is now banned over most of the US, but it was a fact of life then. That shock wave literally broke window panes, scared the hell out of livestock and people would sue the military for damages. I recall the response: "Citizens, that is the sound of Freedom"! Really. Got to remember, the Cold War was at full throttle shall we say. The Russians were coming!

NASA loves early landings, they usually keep the crosswind problem minimal. Remember, this over-priced, under-used, but still beautiful piece of machinery is on landing, an overweight ungainly glider! It has no power, there is no wave off and approach again, this mother is going to land once approach is started, only question is whether it lands here or there and in one piece or not. Ain't the way I'd have designed a railroad, but our tax dollars at work. Whatever, we've already paid for it and it is a good show if one is awake for it. Time is tentative, everything depends on a 12 MPH crosswind limit in Florida.

On to more planet-bound concerns. I have had my sanity questioned on account of my recent divorce. No, I did not go nuts and get married again, but after many years, I have formally divorced the Republican Party, and taken up with the Libertarian hussy.

Why Ryan, I'm asked, why go to a Party with no chance of winning, why waste your vote? People, look at the Republican Presidential field. It isn't even a good joke. The Democrats are saved from similar embarrassment only by having an incumbent. I leave it to the reader whether that is a joke.

The man who recruited me into active Republican politics started the county Republican Party in 1952, the year I was born. Back then, the Republicans could hold a county convention in a phone booth and not inconvenience a caller. The Democrat Primary was the effective election. With a few exceptions, his vote and effort was "wasted" for nearly 30 years, in fact the obituary of Gov. Bill Clements today brings to mind a huge turning point in Texas politics, 1979. Anybody care to look at the state officeholders today and tell me Bob "wasted" his time?

I may rave about Constitutional shortcuts, but we still live under a government that moves incrementally, it was so designed and still limits the passions of the day. As it should be. I don't want "Change" to happen overnight, I know full well I will spend the rest of my life nudging this country in my small way in what I see as the correct direction.

At my age, I will be worm-food before we see a Libertarian President, and shortly after that, another political insurgency will rise up against the Libertarian abuse of power, I leave the naming rights to a future generation, BUT unless we have cratered as a civilization, the wheel will turn, something like this will come to pass. Ask the ghosts of the Federalists or the Whigs. Seen them on a ballot lately? They used to run the country.

The late William F Buckley is remembered for his declaration in the 50s "I stand athwart history and proclaim 'STOP'".

We are on the trembling verge of bankrupting the greatest nation in history. If America collapses, a Dark Age we cannot imagine will be our heritage. The Middle ages only had rats and plague, our world has nuclear weapons. It is time to holler "STOP!".

On a Mission

Today's Standard Times has an interesting article on the new mission statement for the city's comprehensive plan. It bothered me during the discussions the city council held, and today it finally hit me why.

First, let's look at what the mission statement is: "By the year 2027, San Angelo will be measurably the most desirable mid-sized city in the state of Texas." First, the key word here is desirable. From Websters online desirable is having pleasing qualities or properties : attractive <a desirable woman>. Desirable is about aesthetics. It's about attracting people and groups. It's about emotional responses. It's about feelings. It's about things that can't really be measured.

We need to be careful when we focus on desirable. We could have council ending up like a group of beauty pageant moms, doing whatever it takes to make the city more desirable in the hopes of winning recognition. Spending money on projects that amount to little more than expensive make up and costumes, with little thought on the basics of what make a good, healthy, safe, happy, and free community.

There has already been a lot of hype about the "desirable destinations" poll out there. Seems too much like American Idol. I don't want to see San Angelo continually competing to win Americas Favorite City Contest. I would say a healthy, safe, growing community is more important than one that is merely desirable.

Advisory Boards

It has been almost a year since Council agreed it would be a nifty idea to exercise some oversight as to the 20-plus advisory Boards/committees/commissions we have here. As I recall, we were going to start with Civic Events and move forward about one per month.

The idea was that each Board would be reviewed at least once every two years or so (surprisingly co-incidental with Council terms) for: let's short-circuit this; What have you Done for Us Lately.

I have served on one Committee, testified before several. I applaud the theory of opening access, I am all for Open Government / Open Records. San Angelo is ahead of the pack there. Nonetheless, comes a time we need to look back and see what is or is not actually working. We have Boards which routinely post cancellations due to lack of business; we have boards with overlapping areas of interest; (how many Downtown/Hysterical District Boards do we have: 6-8, a dozen?)

It is not a huge budget item. No Board member is paid; some meetings provide maybe pizza or finger sandwiches for a mid-day meet, BUT as to city staff support, someone has to open the door, record the minutes, provide staff advice and lock up after the puppies get done meeting. Not a huge item per meeting, but we have mid-twenties, 12 times a year times a few bucks per? Doesn't take long to move into 6 figures. Not saying Staff is overpaid, but they get paid more to supervise than I miss in pay when I show up.

I am a patient man, but a persistent one. I'm not going anywhere, when do we start Board Review?

A Valentine's Day Message

My latest missive had to do with a Street Maintenence Tax. This year Valentine's Day coincides with another important date: Initial filing to run for City Council. Anyone running has to be doing it for love, it sure isn't the princely sum of $45 a month

All the even numbered seats and Mayor are up for challenge. Four out of seven, there is potential for change here. I do not play the endorsement game, and my SMD is not up in any case. I'm not even suggesting any particular Council member is in need of being replaced. A lot of people got a chuckle out of the accusation I was a "lap-dog" for Council, seriuosly, we have a good Council now, better than most in my opinion, BUT...

Any job is well served by competition. Wal-Mart's prices might be higher if Target weren't right around the corner and breathing down their neck.

We are fortunate we don't "get what we pay for" on Council. At $45/ month, it costs Councilmembers to serve. SAISD, we are even luckier, we have not had an election for SAISD in three cycles, nothing corrupt, but no competition.

Hey guys, May will bring on a few changes. Algore's global warming might finally kick in. Side bet: we will see a 100 degree day before May 15.

Oh yeah, back to politics, May will bring a new Council, new issues, who knows, possibly a new New. No offense Mayor, that was too good to pass up.

I would love to see contested elections all around; even if all incumbents win, they will be better for having had a challenge.

If you are bothering to read this obscure Blog, you are interested. I literally can't afford it, and my boss can't really afford to give me two Tuesdays a month off. Maybe retired, maybe independent owner, maybe you can afford this volunteer post, because God's honest, that is what it is.

Street Maintenence Tax

This Thursday my article in favor of a Street Maintenence Tax was published in the Standard-Times. I won't reprint it here, it is available at www.gosanangelo.com

I do want to expand on the topic and cover some issues that came up in comments at gosanangelo.

I was promoting a diversion of one-eigth cent of the existing half-cent tax to streets. As is our current half cent tax, this is regulated by state statute. Actually, it could be twice that, but has to move in eigth-cent increments. It cannot increase our total tax, we are capped there by state law.

It can only be put in effect with voter approval. Council can decide to give us the option, but only if voters approve can this happen. As I mentioned in the article, unlike the 4B we now pay, a street tax HAS to "sunset" or come up for reapproval by voters again, every four years.

Legislature has provided for the street tax in a capped city to take place in one ballot proposition. In other words, we cannot find ourselves in the absurd position of approving a street tax but not approving the reallocation of the 4b tax.

The sales tax eigth-cent has to be accounted for. It cannot be used for new streets. It cannot be used for sidewalks along streets. It can only be used for "maintenece of existing streets". Sealcoat, potholes, total resurface if needed, yes.

I mentioned in the article; an eigth of anything sounds small, but here, depending on the economy and total sales tax receipts that is at least $1 million, $1.5 million
in a good year, and we've seen a bit better than that. Now we are talking eigth-cent that could replace the general fund money we now spend on streets.

Here we come to why this is a winner. While the limits on using Street Maintenence sales tax revenue are strict, the use of the general fund money freed up is limited only to what a home rule city can do now. Money is fungible. If we decide to spend that $1.5 money doubling up on street expenditures; if we decide to spend it on employee benefits; if we decide to use it for (Heaven forfend) tax reduction: we can do any of the above or any mix of the above. I would hope for some reasonable mix.

Look at it this way, if you had any involvement in last year's budget process, wouldn't you have absolutely loved a buck-and-a-half wiggle room?

The down side, if one wants to call it that is this. The 4b tax we just extended without a sunset had certain specific projects in it that are now locked in from coliseum/fairgrounds improvements to river improvements to sports facilities. Let us not forget the "water" issues, but those, being on ballot, are inviolable, they will be done. Uh, no, it won't pay for all the Hickory costs, sorry about the voters who thought that, but no one ever quite said that, best case 4b will pay about $30 million out of $150 million.

No the down side is if we approve a Street Maintenence Tax, the City of San Angelo Development Corporation will have less money to spend on what I rudely call "corporate bribery". I cannot buy the idea of government picking winners and losers and doing it better than the market. Governments love to brag on it when "economic incentives" work and hope voters will forget the ones that don't. Anybody remember Taylor Publishing? If you know someone who can use a nice empty building east of town, we have one; CHEAP!

Me, I have a job, might like better pay, but I'll get that on my own before the city gets it for me. I'd be happy with good streets to get to and from work on.

They keep on giving

The elections have been over for three months now and we will soon be seeing the impacts. In just a few days the smoking ban will go into effect, and we will finally see the impact this ban will have on local businesses. I hope the small neighborhood bars can weather this storm.

We also had a hint of the impact the Hickory water project will have on the local economy. They finally admitted in the last city council meeting that city water bills will have to go up by an average of $10 to $20 just to pay for the construction of the project. That is before they actually throw the switch and start pumping Hickory water. When that happens, if the city estimates are close, another $10 to $20 will have to be added to our water bills to pay for the utilities, people to operate the system, and everything else it takes to operate and maintain this project for the next 30 years. This doesn't take into account the fact that we're likely going to be draining the aquifer faster than it can recharge. We will probably have to fight lawsuits from the people who live over the aquifer whose wells are going dry. We might actually still have water there when we pay off the loan.

I'm sure some of you want to know who made this all possible, and the simple answer would be to check the campaign finance reports. They are on the city website under the city clerk's election section. All of Speak Out San Angelo's reports are there. Unfortunately both Smoke Free San Angelo and Citizens for San Angelo's Future are late with their required January 15 semi-annual filing. Hopefully, they will correct that ASAP. Once you check those reports, I'm sure you will know the appropriate way to thank everyone involved.

Christmas Surprise

There is an interesting item being brought back on next weeks City Council agenda. It's a letter of intent with Siemens to “design and implement a land fill gas project.”

I'm a bit concerned this is an attempt to resurrect a project that was tabled indefinitely in 2007. In 2006, Siemens brought a proposal to build a waste to energy gasification plant at our landfill. There are similar projects all over the world. Some seem to be successful, some have been dangerous failures. By 2007, a number of questions were raised about the safety, true operational costs, etc. and the item was “ tabled indefinitely.” Now, the last meeting of the year on a date that was changed when everyone is busy with Christmas and travel plans and the end of the year, etc. this is put on the agenda with almost no real public discussion for several years.

It could be this is not the gasification project proposed in 2006. It might just be a way to capture the natural methane the landfill produces and then do something useful with it. That could be a good thing, but shouldn't a project such as that be put out for competitive bid? When was the RFQ put on the street? How many bids were received? Did we go to Siemens about this or did they come to us. Would be nice to know if good background information is in the agenda packet, but that didn't make it to the city website yet so who knows.

This issue needs public input and discussion. Sneaking it in the last agenda of the year is not the way to do it.

Animals, Boards, Commissions, and Communications

I was pleasantly surprised Friday to find that once again, the city website has the agenda packet online and usable. Last meetings packet is also still up. Progress. Thanks Alicia and the staff that helped you get this done. It's appreciated. 

A quick scan of the packet shows a couple of items that really interest me. They are revising the Animal Services Board ordinance, and they are discussing city boards and commissions again, hopefully so we can have the first review in the near future.

We've known for a while that the Animal Services Board ordinance, 2.3800, and the ASB Bylaws were in need of revision. At the minimum, they were out of sync with each other. There questions about how well it tracked Texas Health and Safety code chapter 823, which governs animal shelter advisory commissions, which is one of the major functions of the ASB. There were questions about whether health director and animal services director should be voting members. The Bylaws were last approved in 2000, while the Ordinance was last updated in 2007.

A workshop was held by the ASB on March 10th 2010 to address these issues. I was invited to that workshop (which was, of course, an open meeting) to help with the discussion. It was requested that City Legal have a representative at the meeting, but none were present. The meeting lasted a couple hours, and at the end, they had a good revised set of documents the hoped were ready to go before City Council. Just needed legal review and possibly some tweaking before becoming an ordinance.

That was 7 months ago. Tuesday a new ordinance is finally on the agenda. Unfortunately, this is a mostly new ordinance to replace the one we currently have. First off, it changes the name to Animal Shelter Advisory Commission (although the new 2.3810 still uses “members of the animal service board”.) Then it reduces the number of members from 9 to 5*, all of which now have to be involved in some animal related business or activity. No plain citizen or property owners are on the board. It requires 2 veterinarians even though we've had trouble getting even one to serve. It limits the scope of the commission to just the animal shelter, ignoring the larger question of animal welfare throughout the city.

I have a number of problems with this. First, why did it take 7months for this to come before council. As far as I knew, outside of some minor tweaking, the only open question was whether or not the staff members on the board should be voting members. The proposed ordinance doesn't make it any clearer. Next, this is a very major change to the duties and the responsibilities of the board/commission members. Staff, in their briefing to council in the agenda packet, states that the ASB has "historically been called upon to provide advice beyond  the scope of the law authorizing their creation and duties." If they are referring to the Health Code, section 823, then that might be the case. The ASB was not created by section 823, but to be in compliance with section 823. It was created by a city ordinance that gives them the animal shelter advisory role as just one of its duties. A review of several other Texas cities animal commissions finds that several of them use their commission for general animal issue advice. Lubbock specifically requires their ASAC to "advise on the city's animal services program." Midland requires their Animal Control Advisory Commission to "advise on animal control issues referred by council." This pattern is common.

The proposed ordinance changes the make up of this board/commission significantly. Any change this large should be addressed as part of the board and commission review process that has still to get off the ground. At the minimum, it should be done during a joint session.

This brings us to a problem that goes to the fundamental reason we have boards and commissions. Boards and commissions work for the City Council, not city staff. They are appointed and removed by Council. They are accountable to Council. They are subject to Council guidance and limitations. They are supposed to be the expert advisers to Council, and in many cases they are councils representatives. They are an extension of City Council into many areas because there just aren't enough council people to be everywhere. They are not just auxiliary, unpaid staff.

Unfortunately, our boards and commissions are being used and treated like low level staff. They are isolated from council, their boss, by staff. With the exception of statutory appeal boards like the planning commission and the zoning board of adjustments, you never hear about a boards input on an item before council. Many board members, especially on the animal services board, don't know who appointed them. Start and end dates for their term in office are often unclear. Boards have almost no contact with the council, and are often left to fend for themselves on critical issues. What guidance they get doesn't come directly from council. Instead, it's filtered through several layers of staff. Some times staff does a great job of getting the word down to boards. More often than not, it's like the old game of telephone where the message to the boards bears little resemblance to the guidance from the council.

Boards and commissions need to have good, unfiltered lines of communication with the city council. Their recommendations should be heard unedited by the council. Staff needs to be in the loop, and the staff representative needs to make sure that the council is given staffs input on the issues. The city legal department need to be in the loop to make sure that the city stays in compliance with the law, but that is no reason to delay input to the council by half a year. If nothing else, all board decisions should be presented to the city council for discussion as a draft work in process. Even if staff has concerns, and needs to do further research the council should always know when a board votes to send something forward. That's just basic communication.

The board and commission review process the council adopted last spring will help address these problems. I think it is very premature to do a major restructuring of a state required commission before the council has done a fair review of that commission using the process they approved.

*Made a mistake on the number earlier. Was caught by a sharp eyed reader.  Sorry for the error.

Get involved

I have written on this before, but Independence Day brings it up again.

I spoke to the Tea Party group Saturday, following a lady who suggested going to Council or County Commissioners or SAISD meetings. As a "been there done that" person, I reminded the audience, ALL these bodies are open meetings. Anyone can address them in favor of or in opposition to whatever is on the agenda, in fact if your topic is not on agenda, there is a "Public Comment" opening where any citizen can suggest a new topic for the next meeting.

Texas may still have a "redneck" image, but it is perhaps the most open state in the Union. Things that twenty years ago I would have had to take a day off, physically walk from office to office, file Freedom of Information forms and wait for the beauracracy to find a reason to deny my request: I get that now at 3:00 AM in my bathrobe and slippers: literally.

You need to look at an ordinance or city Charter? Online, two clicks of a mouse. You want Texas Statutes, same thing. You want Federal Statutes, well it may take a while to download unless you have the bill number handy, but it's there. A Supreme Court decision you heard about, it's there. Maybe you don't trust the press as it reports the new Arizona immigration statute; it's there.

Recently, San Angelo even started posting what is called the "Agenda Packet", in short, all that stuff the Councilmembers have on their laptops, you can have it too, before the meeting. It's a lot of reading, tomorrow's is 360 pages+, last week was only 297 pages, BUT if you want it, it's there. Someone, I suspect Alicia Ramirez, went in to put that up today on a holiday, it was not there yesterday.

I mentioned to our Tea Party crowd, San Angelo has at least 20 Boards and Commissions advising Council and they are all open to the public. Some of them are so seldom used they might be slightly shocked to see an actual citizen, but they will also give you a hearing, probably feel complimented someone bothered to show up!

Last but not least, check any agenda lately for Council. There are ALWAYS open spots on advisory boards. Doesn't pay anything, some of them buy you lunch, but toward bottom of agenda we always have "appointment of soandso to board xyz" which in my memory is always unanimously approved.

Don't sit and bitch, get in there and make your case. You won't always win, God knows I haven't, but if you don't play you sure won't win.

Me, in a world full of wolves, I'd rather be a shepherd than a sheep.

Smoking Ordinance and Civility

I need to apologize for my post of yesterday. I was hasty in ascribing motives to what was likely a mistake. I forgot an old adage, "Never assume a conspiracy when mere stupidity will suffice as a cause".

By this afternoon cooler heads prevailed. The proposal one now finds on the City website is the correct, original petition. City issued a press release and the valid language will be published the next two Sundays. At least next time Council meets, we will all be on the same page(es). Well, it is rather long.

In retrospect, I can think of a number of ways this substitution came about accidentally. Likely as any: I've been in a political campaign or three and it is not uncommon to have two, three "draft proposals" floating about. It's entirely possible someone inadvertantly e-mailed the wrong draft to City, one that had been considered, but rejected by the initiating committee.

Between length, time pressure and tiny type, no one catches it until the comments last Tuesday start to digress from the original language I was familiar with. When I look, sure as God made little green apples, the language published as a legal notice April 18 was at substantial variance from that originally submitted. As I say, likely came about by innocent mistake, I have been called a nitpicker by more than one person, BUT...

At least we caught this while it was correctible error. Let's suppose no one caught it, the initiative moves on and passes in November. The first person given a citation under the new ordinance has a sharp-eyed lawyer who catches this technical, but legally valid violation of Election Code. Not only does the accused walk out of the ticket, the whole ordinance gets tossed and all this effort has been for naught.

Far more important legislation has been tossed for far smaller "nits". As it was, City staff members, to their credit, reacted quickly and effectively and I'm sure great attention will be paid to the details as this moves on.

Make no mistake: I oppose this measure, I sincerely hope to either amend with exemptions or defeat it if it goes to vote as written. I withdraw my comments as to motivation on the part of Smoke Free, but I withdraw none of my objections that it is an assault on property rights. Let us move on to honest debate and a clean process.

Smoking Follies

Tuesday Council meeting was the Smoke-free Initiative and Referendum "no smoking" ordinance roll-out. The Smoke-free co-chair Lisa Burger opened, as expected. She promised not to be too long, "I know we have others wanting to speak. I don't know if we'll take comment from, uh the other side". Mayor New hastened to point out that we would hear from the public, even those of us so unenlightened as to disagree with our betters.

Later during comment, Burger responded to a hotelier's complaint about the restrictions on rooms he would be allowed to designate as smoking. She assurred him he could keep 20% of rooms smoking. I tried to get recognition to protest that percentage was destined to expire in 4 years, but I had already spoken, did not get the mike.

Almost glad I didn't. Silly me, that 4 year expiration was in the OLD Smoke-free proposal, the one this group filed and collected 4,500 signatures with. For convenience I will call it SmokenannieI. I went home that evening, I'm going to write about the meeting, but just for fun, I check the City of San Angelo website, they have a handy link front and center of homepage.

I must digress here; also Tuesday we got a State Comptrollers award for open records tranparency, my opinion overdue. I've been looking at City business for a long time, and the improvement on this front is awesome thanks to a lot of hard work by staff. Without that transparency, I might not have found what I was able to.

When I checked the site, imagine my surprise at discovering we had a whole NEW Smoke-free ordinance posted, I will call this changeling child SmokenannieII. Oh, it still had to do with regulating smoking in San Angelo, it still didn't cut bars any slack, but there ends the similarity. Many definitions changed, some places (tobacco shops, hotels) had restrictions removed, bars and restaurants now find even their outdoor seating "prohibited", other "modifications" which Mr. Turner put together in a convenient comparison found [here].

In short, Smoke-free "sold" a product to 4,500 signers and then felt free to substitute a substantially different product to bring before Council.

It really wasn't that hard. I'd be surprised if 1% of those signers actually read all of SmokenannieI. I confess, when the legal document was published April 18 in tiny agate type, I did not grab the magnifying glass my aging eyes would have required to read it, I just noted "OK, they complied"; after all, I had already read it. What was published was SmokenannieII, and if anyone caught it then, I haven't heard about it. SmokenannieII had been submitted e-mail, I understand to facilitate publication.

For those unfamiliar, I started sending copies of my editorial submissions e-mail a good while back. It saves the editor the labor of re-typing hard copy. It's a time-saving courtesy. In this case, someone from Smoke-free used it to substitute a whole new document and given the length, it understandably slipped by proofreading by City or Standard-Times staff or me, or anyone.

What makes this all the shabbier, once the thing hits Council and Council inevitably makes amendments, the five members of the initiating committee have full authority to accept, reject, counter-propose and generally horsetrade on behalf of the signers they represent. It's not as though they can call 4,500 people and consult on every amendment. What I do NOT find in Charter Sec 47 is the authority to collect signatures on one document and then gut and rebuild that before Council ever sees it!

Folks, there's no other way for me to put this: Smoke-free cheated, blatantly, and they almost got away with it. I'm not an attorney or a cop, I can't say (yet) if they violated law, but they certainly violated the spirit of Initiative and Referendum. It appears they violated 277.0023 of Texas Election Code, but penalty for that is not specific.I will be advising Council to rescind its acceptance of a tainted petition and tell the players to come back when they can play by the rules.

I know for sure, there are some mighty unhappy people downtown, people who gave this supposedly high-minded, well-intentioned group the benefit of trust and are feeling betrayed. Myself, until today, I disagreed with them, was prepared for an open battle of words and will, but I respected their position and intentions. I cannot say that now.

(Original ordinance, updated ordinance, changes)

Smoking, "Rights" and Wrongs

Tuesday will see first presentation of the submitted-by-petition no-smoking ordinance. This will be interesting on two counts: we have two new members of Council; and it opens a possibility a lot of signators didn't know existed.

The no-smoke crowd got a lot of attention when their run at the May 8 election failed to make it in time. The signatures got approved (honestly, should have), so now they are on the Nov ballot Or: They get to put a penny in the electoral fusebox and Council approves as put forth, 13 pages of new ordinance that goes a lot further than "Thou shalt not smoke", tobacco cigarettes, left-handed cigarettes, or even possibly BBQ grills!

I speak from some experience, I have successfully sponsored in ten years, two amendments to animal control; Ed the pig, all of four words, and the rooster limit, a short paragraph. Both were discussed and amended before being adopted by Council.

My never-to-be-humble opinion, the anti-smokers have over-reached. Most of what they seek is already in practise; One cannot smoke in any gov't office, school, hospital, any building a person MUST enter.

Council will have two new members, but this is paycheck-to-pickle betting; should Council be favorably inclined, it is not going to adopt this entire thing unamended.

IF Council amends so much as a semicolon, it kicks back to the "initiating committee" and a majority of those 5 people have 20 days to agree or say "See you in November".

When this first came up the local forum was full of comments about smokers' or non-smokers' "rights". I took the point that the issue was primarily property rights. My view, this decision properly belongs to the business owner, the person who pays the taxes, buys the inventory and makes the payroll week to week. That person is best positioned to judge the customers' wishes, and presuming he/she wants to continue to be a business owner, will promptly respond to the customers' preference on any given rule.

Reality, the 13 pages boil down to this: restaurants and especially bars, will have this decision imposed on them and their customers. Matters not a whit to them if owners, employees, and customers ALL prefer to smoke, the smoke-nannies know what's good for us and they want their good intentions codified into ordinance.

Hope you aren't a fan of live music. Since Austin passed a no smoking law, theme song in the East Sixth St. district might be Stevie Ray Vaughn's "The Sky is Crying"; if cash registers had tears they would be crying. Many former employees are not troubled with tolerating second hand smoke, their concern is paying bills while unemployed. The smoking crowd that used to fill the tip jar is fed up with stepping outside and getting hasseled for a public intox charge. Dumb enough to smoke they may be, stupid they ain't. Word gets around, they stay home and listen to the stereo, smoke in their own back yard. Meanwhile the health nuts who passed the law are neglecting to flood into the smoke-free premises and help pay the bills.

A lot of human behavior is unhealthy. A lot of it escaped public attention until we started living long enough for the bad habits to catch up with us. Too much salt is bad for some: me, I put salt on a slice of salt-cured ham and have a BP of 115/78. Fried food, fast food, high fat diet, very bad, cholesterol will kill you. Again, my last test, 170. Smoked for 40 years, recently won a $50 bar bet, stuck my head in a bucket of water and held my breath for 3 minutes.

Yeah, I'm lucky. I will die of something, someday, but it won't be the government's business! When we have bought the last powerchair for some morbidly obese person; when we have airbagged and side-panelled our shrunken, fuel efficient cars to the point we can't cram two people and a week's worth of groceries in them; when we all are dutifully reporting for our thrice-weekly mandatory exercize sessions and the last two fast food joints are struggling to stay open selling lo-cal salads: When that glorious healthy day arrives, maybe a few of us will still be here to look wistfully back on the days when free people were allowed to associate of our own free will with our own kind and enjoy a cigarette or two while listening to some kick-ass blues band.

I have climbed to the mountaintop and I have seen the future, and the free man in me does not like it. William Buckley was right; from time to time we must stand athwart history and shout "STOP!".

An enjoyable digression and rant. My suggestion to Council is reject this for the moment. I further suggest the anti-smokers sit with us and we both come back to Council with an amendment both sides can live with. That would save me the trouble of generating a counter-petition for a more moderated ordinance. Which I am quite willing to do.

City code 8.400 could use some clarification. The practise is no smoking in city buildings, but 8.400 makes exceptions for "fully enclosed offices". I don't know anyone that high in the food chain who does smoke, but that could allow say Mr. Dominguez to shut the door and set out the ashtrays. Other particulars haven't been looked at since '93 and are internally contradictory. This sort of detail could be cleaned up without mandating policy for every tavern in town.

Unlike today's petitioners, I have read City Charter. Several times. I know the timeline; if a counter-petition is our only option, I will have to walk out of Alicia's office with it by end of month. I'll do it, but I would prefer to sit and compromise.

(Added by the Editor: The official notice is on the City Website.)

Just for Fun Friday

I normally speak to local issues, that is our charter here. I've been out of work due to a broken arm and spend more time than usual 'crawling the web". I give you a selection of items I have found amusing. Warning: this is what can happen when you simply has too much time on your hands.

No matter how stupid you may feel over some recent goof; there is someone dumber. Today in Norfolk Virginia 11 Somalis were charged with piracy and are subject to mandatory life sentences. Somali piracy in the Gulf of Aden has become a cottage industry and too often a profitable one, most shipping companies end up paying the ransom to get crews and cargoes returned. This case involves two separate, but similar incidents. Both cases, these homebrewed pirates, small craft, handheld weapons up to RPGs took on US Naval warcraft, in one case the frigate USS Nicholas, the other an amphibious landing ship USS Ashland.

I've seen pictures of both US ships and they look like just what they are; about 650' of heavily armed, well-crewed warships. The story of the ambitious ant crawling up an elephant's leg with rape as his intent comes to mind.

As long as we are on Naval issues, Sec. of the Navy Ray Mabus announced today that the next San Antonio class Amphibious Transport Ship will be the USS John P Murtha. San Antonio class ships are more modern cousins of the Ashland mentioned above. Such ships are designed to deliver up to 700 Marines and supplies with air coverage and transport capability to wherever in the world.

It is customary at this point to include language about "mean no disrespect for the dead", but in this case, I cannot do even that. The recently deceased Murtha was a king of the "earmark" second only to Robert Byrd, Murtha was well known in Pennsylvania for plastering his name on anything that would stand still long enough for the paint to dry. More to the point, Murtha had accused the Marine Corps of systemic abuse and war crimes against Iraqi civilians, a charge he had to withdraw for lack of evidence. To say the Corps is unhappy with the naming is a huge understatement and it was a tone-deaf move on Mabus' part. A popular suggestion in the blogoshere is to name a Naval "head" after Murtha, which I guess would be the John john. Or dedicate the USS Murtha to hauling supplies of pork. Three of the ships in this class are the USS New York, Arlington and Somerset, each named for a 9/11 crash site.

On to a topic just quivering of its weightiness, an Islamic cleric, one Hojatolesam Kazem Sedighi has announced that recent earthquakes have been caused by women who go about (in his opinion) indecently dressed. A Purdue University senior, one Jennifer McCreight, has taken issue with both the politics and the physics of the cleric's allegation and is inviting women around the world to protest by going about next Monday more um, skimpily attired than usual. Now this is "community activism" I can support! I hope we see full coverage of the uncoverage on the cable news channels. If the house falls in due to earthquake Tuesday, I retract all of the above, and Jan will start wearing a veil.

As serious as it has been for air travel, the story of the Iceland volcano has provided some amusement. The name of the volcano is Eyjafjallokull. Care to try to say that out loud? Don't bother, I've seen a phonetic rendering of it, unless you are Icelandic you will get it wrong. I caught a montage of brave but foolish local newscasters trying to wrap their English tongues around this name.

Anyone remember Gary Gilmore (Let's do it) the famous Utah death penalty inmate who insisted on death by firing squad? We got another one, Ronnie Lee Gardner who killed an attorney in an escape attempt, 1977. Utah has changed the law, now does lethal injection, but Gardner's case pre-dates the change, he is still allowed to choose. This will be a predictable media circus.

On to sports, some still claim baseball is the American passtime. Facts seem to argue otherwise. Last night the opening round of the NFL draft outdrew NBA playoff games. NOT a football game, but live broadcast of the draft! Me, I read it this AM, I'd as soon watched grass grow, but there it is. Also yesterday, Yankees/Bosox, A-Rod initiated the first triple play for the Yankees in 40 years! And the Yankees managed to lose the game! When I was a kid, this would have been front-page, above-the-fold headlines.

Don't know if they still do, but science teachers in my day (about Paleolithic it seems) would take a helium balloon, have one of us breathe it and then speak in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. Object was to demonstrate the higher velocity of lighter gasses. Judge Matthew Sciarrino has cleared the Manhatten DA (think Jack McCoy on Law & Order) to proceed with prosecution of a ballon seller outside Madison Square Gardens at a Phish concert for "distribution of a noxious substance". Seems the arresting officer observed "unnamed, unarrested persons" inhaling a balloon, I'm guessing doing the same amusing thing my science teacher did 40 years ago. Officer Nosy then busted the vendor. Texans should feel insulted, the field out of Amarillo is America's only natural source of helium. If helium was the most "noxious" substance at a Phish concert the kids of today just ain't trying.

OK, just a few selections from the dream factory. One note, this Sunday WTOS will present a candidates' forum, 3:00 PM at St Paul's church, N MLK, another chance to see who's running May 8. Later this weekend I'll be going through our trash from the truck's point of view.