Crystal Ball Time

ConchoInfo has been up and operational for just over 5 years. At this time of year we seem to have too much time on our hands and attend too many festivities so we have a habit of firing up the crystal balls to see what we can see from the past and maybe the future.

Five years ago, water rates and sources were definitely major concerns. Water rates were going up. No way to stop it. Luckily, the City Council managed to eliminate a roughly $1,000,000 drain from the water fund to the general fund called Pilot. They also implemented a tiered meter fee which more equitably spread the cost across all the users. The major search for long term water was still in the future, but one of the few justifiable parts of the half cent sales tax was money for a long term water source. Water has been pretty constantly in the news since then and will continue to be as far as we can see in the future. We have started a capital improvement plan that prevented a recent 16” main break from being a major catastrophe like it was in 2006. This time instead of killing 2/3rds of the city's water and the majority of retail businesses, we mostly heard complaints that a mostly precautionary boil notice wasn't seen by absolutely everyone in the area. The outage was confined to a smaller area for about half a day. Infrastructure is still a major problem, and the city still needs to improve, but we are much better today than we were 3 years ago. Our city will have to keep spending major money to fix our infrastructure. Besides water, most of the utility services in the city, including those of private utilities, need work. Lots of work.

Our searches for water sources have made major progress in the last few years. Probably a million dollars of sales tax money has been spent testing various well fields and possible drilling sites. The ones west of here are not usable so far. Everyone expected the water to be brackish (i.e. salty) but no one expected the very fine sand/silt that makes pumping this water in any volume infeasible today. We are moving forward with the Hickory field but I don't see this a complete long term solution. Hickory already has a number of other users and is likely being lusted after by San Antonio. In addition, the recharge rate of Hickory is not all that fast. Hickory is a good resource but not a complete solution. We need to keep looking. We also need to work on area partnerships. Water is not just a San Angelo problem. All of our neighbors are in the same boat, and if they are hurt by water shortages so are we.

Elections have changed a lot in the last few years. In 2006 we got a new elections administrator and new equipment. Problems started early and continued for the rest of the year. After some bad international publicity over a poorly run election and recount, the election administrator resigned under fire. The new one, Vona McKerley started with basically a clean slate and a new year. She provided leadership and sought outside help from a number of citizens of all parties and political persuasions. The improvements have been steady, impressive, and largely taken for granted. She has recruited a wonderful staff, improved procedures for all election workers, and recruited a citizens committee that grew up to be the Tom Green County Elections Support Association, a one of a kind advisory committee with members of all political persuasions that work together for great elections. The process is now working so well and people are working so hard that from the outsides the elections look easy. I have heard several reporters praising the fact they could get the results in time for the 10:00pm New broadcasts. The last complaint I heard was that the early results cut the election night party too short. Watch closely or you won't notice the incremental upgrades that are being made to the system. In the future expect to be able to cast your vote at any polling place.

The lack of problems in the election system has been made up for by recent elections themselves. Voters turned down the first school bond in the history of the city. Wasn't even close. The boards campaign that focused on maintenance failures was the best campaign material the opposition could have hoped for. The major shift from the beloved downtown campus to a southern site that no one seemed to like or understand. It took about a year to get a plan that the voters could support, and even there only one of the two issues passed. I will have much more to say on this in the future but quite frankly I have been frustrated by the current board. I'm waiting for some new blood to show up, but it will likely be a long wait.

We had a successful charter review and most of the needed changes were passed. The appointed chief proposal was defeated again and I am happy with that result. The previous attempt at an appointed chief hadn't even been pushed by the people that put it on the ballot. It was, in reality, a maneuver to delay charter review. After we presented the information to the voters on the various needed changes they made their decisions with much better information than was available before, including a televised debate. There was an unintentional side effect of one of the defeated measures that council members lost insurance coverage but for the most part we passed needed updates to the charter. Best part: We made capital improvements a permanent part of the budget process. They can still ignore capital maintenance, but it will be much harder now.

The last chiefs election was very interesting. If you like politics as theater, then this was your election. There were a large number of candidates, strong language, flame wars on the Standard Times readers comments, and various hints of scandal including one minor ethics violation fine. In the end, Chief Vasquez won the race without needing a recount. A case for study in grass roots politcs.

The last Mayors race continued the trend. The election itself was almost a non-event with neither of his opponents a serious threat. The count was done early, the process was going along smoothly until JW resigned from Mexico instead of showing up to take the oath of office. Still don't understand what he was thinking, but the special election it caused gave us the longest, most expensive Mayors race this city has ever had. Thankfully we will be able to start the new year with a full council. We will wait and see how this Christmas present to the city plays out in the long run.

Public safety has been in constant motion over the past few years. When ConchoInfo started, a faith based prison was being proposed. We still think that Faith Based programs and Prison Industry have a significant place programs that reduce recidivism and prison crowding. We still don't understand why we have the highest incarceration rate on the planet. On the other hand we were smart not to buy into the snake oil that was being peddled by CCI. Our community is better off for dodging that bullet.

There is one trend in public safety we need to take a close look at. Tom Green County had 9 murders in 2009, up from 5 in 2008 and 1 in 2007. I have to agree with Chief Vasquez: this is not a failure of law enforcement and the police department. There little the police could do except cleanup the mess after the fact and help bring the guilty to justice. At the same time, these crimes are the canaries in the coal mine. There is something problematic in the social atmosphere. Most were senseless acts. There were warnings of a sort for some of the cases. A history of erratic or nasty behavior that wasn't seen as more than annoying and slightly crazy. Nothing that police or courts could act on. It's not illegal to be crazy, thank God. Still, we need to really stop and sample the community atmosphere. There is something in the air. We need to find out what it is.

There is much more on the Crystal Ball, but the low battery signal is flashing so I need to stop here. These are my observations for this time of year. Jim Ryans are already up as well. We both agree that it will be an interesting future and San Angelo is a great place to spend it.

Father's Day Freestyle

OK, I am overly fond of alliteration, but I wanted something distinct from the Sunday Ramble. I hope by now we have all talked to Dad. Of trivia interest, Father's Day was not invented by Hallmark Cards. In fact, there is lively debate amongst grammarians whether the correct term is "Fathers' Day" (plural possessive) or the common Father's Day. I am old enough, old-fashioned enough, to have had my knuckles smacked by obsessive grammar teachers, but I obviously hold with the singular possessive. To my mind, this is my Father's day, as it is also that of yours.

Best I can find, Father's Day was originally put forth by Mrs. John Dodd, a widowed single parent before single parents were cool, in 1909 in Washington state. A tribute to little people having big ideas, Spokane, Wa. is the first officially declared Father's Day I find, June 19, 1910. Calvin Cooolidge was the first President to propose it in 1924. By my time, Hallmark et al was already selling cards, but it was not until a Presidential Executive Order in 1966 by LBJ that Father's Day was federally official.

Last week I mentioned stormwater regulation hearings. My mistake, I thought they were last week, but that was capital improvements presentations. This week there will be three public meetings. June 17 at TxDot HQ on Knickerbocker, just south of the Loop 306 bridge, Wed at Station 618, 618 S. Chadbourne, and Thurs. at North Side Rec. Center on N. Magdalen; all at 7:00 PM. Again, this is a poster child for unfunded mandates. City has no realistic choice but to comply, question is how to do so and how to pay for it. Last week had a lot of paving days for me, I'm hoping I can make at least one of these. This will be a good chance to see our city people at work one on one. It might surprise one how competent they really are nowadays.

The same edition of S-T with the "anonymity" letter I responded to had a submission by Susan Cole advocating San Angelo becoming a "smoke-free" city. I was there the last time this came up. Essentially, San Angelo Council came down on the side of property owners' rights. As it stands, smoking is banned in ALL gov't sites, jail included. Nearly all shopping venues, even convenience stores, ban smoking. I am a smoker, trying to cut down, but I no longer request smoking section in a restaurant, one of the few retail establishments to allow smoking at all, I can last that long.

This has become a "holy war" without recognition of reality. I quote Peter Viereck, " Reality is that which, when you don't believe in it, doesn't go away". The general pop demographic has smokers as roughly 25%. My "barkeep" handle is not by accident, I've tended bar for many years, and I tell you, that demographic reverses in beer-joints. If Ms. Cole really thinks going smoke-free in a bar will increase trade, jump right in. Buy one, pay for the license, payroll, taxes (and you ain't seen taxes 'till you've run a bar), light up the sign, hire the band and wait for the flood of appreciative customers. And wait, and wait, and wonder "what have I done wrong?" I have yet to see a smoke-free bar make the "nut" absent a local ordinance forcing its competition to go "smoke-free" by law.

Yes, I know quitting would be good for my health, but when did this become the job of the "Nanny-state"? Are we next going to require customers to step on a scale before ordering a double cheeseburger? Risk assessment is something America is doing a poor job of. I am healthier than I have any right to be at 55, I eat too much salt (BP 117/73), I smoke but ask Joey G. if I can put my head in a bucket of water for 3 minutes, cost him $50 to discover that. Point is, risks which are individual ought be left to individuals. I promise you, there are enough greedy entrepreneurs out there, if a smoke-free bar were a profitable venture, some greed-head would open one. I add, if said greed-head booked a really good band, I'd pay the cover and go, taking breaks outside as my addiction demanded. Fair's fair.

I am home this weekend for the first time since 1994. Every other two years, I have been at the State Republican Convention. Last two, I was Sd 28 Rules Committee representative. I mention this in connection with one of those state issues with local implications, namely the Trans-Texas Corridor. The state GOP let Gov. (39%) Perry open with a "Let's come together in November" speech, but the Platform Committee spanked him thoroughly over the TTC issue at the Houston Convention.

For those unfamiliar, TTC would be a toll replacement of I-35 and Southeast Texas highways. Without going into details available on a Google search, it would have sold taxpayers a "details are secret" contract with a Spanish company to replace I-35, would have led to unprecedented use of eminent domain takings, and among other things, would have cost travelers about $60 to go from Austin to Dallas, truckers more, and guess who would have eaten the truckers' costs?

Now I have made the point that without a similar commitment to a West Texas N/S highway, this TTC benefits no one west of Austin. San Antonio Express-News June 5, Texas Atty Gen GregAbbott ruled that the TX-DOT/TTC people actually had to reveal to Texas voters the contract.

Lots more to that shabby story, but it can be found by Googling "TTC", I leave that to the reader. Point is, the Express-News is opining that TX DOT has lost "trust" with the voters by spending $9 million of tax money to promote the secret contract. Now in TX DOT terms, $9 mil ain't much, about what Sherwood Way will cost. For comparison, the latest MetroPlex Mixmaster interchange was $256 million. The point is, Sherwood Way or the Mixmaster was spent on concrete and asphalt the public might benefit from. The $9 million was tax funded lobbying for a private firm that will net 10, not nine, but 10 figures left of the decimal point over a 50 year contract. If Cintas wanted to spend $9 million promoting it, OK, but not my tax money.

It is very possible that this TTC is dead. It will not be because "money buys politics", if that were the case East Texas farmers would be moving already and paving contracts let for bid. Little people, lots and lots of little people, killed this monster.

Point is, "trust" is essential to good gov't. Translated locally, City Council is doing a B+, A- job of explaining things to voters. Capital improvements meetings, the upcoming stormwater meetings, if you go to the trouble of showing up, they will try to explain the details. Capital improvements came in a little later than planned, but this is the first time since the Charter election, I give credit for being thorough and making good effort.

School Board, not so much. A new bond is truly needed. The new bond, at least Prop One, has a new direction from the one we blew off 2 to 1 a year back, but SAISD is doing a poor job in hard times of selling the bond. Once more with the "vision" thing. The existing Cental campus, honest to God, influenced high school architecture nationwide for thirty years. It was sold to a skeptical, drought-ridden, penny-pinching electorate. Where is the effort on this one? Folks, you need to get out front. You chose an "interesting" Presidential race to compete with. If you wait for a last minute surge, you find out how George McGovern felt on the first Wednesday after the first Monday in November, 1972.

All sorts of things have interfered in the normal selling of a school bond. We had a six-way race for police chief, then an FLDS custody case that set records for international press coverage, the longest running Presidential Party Primary season since primaries took the place of "smoke-filled rooms", gas prices over the moon. Voters will parse out the property tax bill and find the SAISD component of that bill to be the biggest part. You are not going to sell this on a basis of "trust us, we will spend it well".

That's a shame, because SAISD has listenened to voters. Maintenance has been much improved, less than where we want to go, but still being improved. I believe that message has been heard, and I believe staff is working hard on it. Problem is, you don't have to convince me, you have to convince about 6,500 voters. Git'er done. Lose this bond and we have real problems right here in River City.

TTC: Another sign of things to come

We recently mentioned the Trans Texas Corridor on this BLOG, and how it is also our issue. Apparently someone else realizes it because I saw this sign just south of town on Hwy 67.


While you want to check their website, you also want to check out CorridorWatch.org. They have information that is hard to find. Also check out this report and this article.

My opinion on this project so far is that it would be a disaster for West Texas. I am especially concerned that they are trying to pull the Port to Plains project into this mess, and that I-10 and I-20 will likely get "improved" into toll roads as part of the TTC. There has got to be a better way to build roads.