Information Freedom

You have probably heard this verse "And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. (John 8:32)." This is one of the reasons we are doing ConchoInfo.org. Easy access to information is necessary to get at the truth. Easy access to the truth is absolutely necessary for freedom to flourish.

Much of the research on any issue is done over the internet today. You can wake up at 3:00 am and check out the facts on that idea you just had. No need to wait until the library opens the next morning. No reason to trek through the cold and spend hours searching the stacks.

The Standard Times, our major local news paper, used to have their complete archive on line back to 1996 for free. This was a great service for politically active or just interested individuals. Use it to research who said what about the sales tax or tennis court or proposed prison. It was quick and easy.

Some time this year, the paper changed their web presence and services. They added some blog like capabilities so readers can comment on articles right there, and they are occasionally publishing these comments like they used to run Speak Your Mind, a great way to get reader feed back.

They also changed their Archives. If you use the basic search, you get any article from the first of the year. Any article older than that requires you to search their archive separately. The titles and first paragraph comes up, but if you click for the full article you are redirected to a site ran by newsbank.com. You will be presented with a price list that starts with $2.95 for a single article, and ranges up to $1995.00 for a one year, 1000 article max annual subscription (they do have a $995 plan that allows 500 articles a year.) Talk about sticker shock.

If you go directly to newsbank, you can save yourself considerable money. It still costs $2.95 if you just want a single article, but if you sign up as a researcher or free lance writer (not sure about other plans) you can get 50 articles a month for $19.95, which they will bill monthly. This access also allows access to a number of papers that are signed up for their news library service. Still a bit high, but affordable.

I understand that print media such as newspapers are facing financial challenges. They are struggling to make money off their articles, etc.. A reasonable charge for past articles, if you can't figure out how to pay for views through advertising, is also reasonable but lets be reasonable. The New York Times has free registration which allows access to current news and a significant part of their articles. They have a full access service called times select that is only $7.95 per month or $49.95 a year. It is hard for me to swallow that Standard Times articles cost that much more than articles from the premier American paper.

In a way, I find this a step backwards. It limits article access to those with deep pockets. NewsBank seems to be archiving a lot of regional and small town papers. With that number of papers they could charge a more modest fee and actually make more money.

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.

Capital Fun

The city government is finishing up work on a Capital Improvement Plan. As recent events have shown, it's about time.

At the last City Council, the various departments gave a short synopsis of what they see as the capital needs. They gave out a handout with projects, costs, and justifications for the projects they want funded which I have scanned in and put here on the main web site. This is a wish list of all the capital expenditure type projects in the city. You will find projects such as a new ambulance, upgraded communications, airport public restrooms, etc.. There were nine separate sections in the handout. Lots of numbers and so-so pictures. The power point slides and presentations by the department heads was much better and more informative. The handout was just for background reference.

This handout seems to be very complete including projects that may not be able to justify much priority. Some of the sections, such as IT are pretty thin. Sewer and Water seem thin until you realize the scope of the projects on each page. The thickest section is from Parks and Recreation. Part of the reason is there is one page for each park and recreation center, so that is not too surprising. Still, there are some surprises in this handout. We will cover some of them in future blog articles. Until then, take a look for your self and see what you think should be the priorities, and see what they might have missed.

Citizens Voting Committee

In case you haven't noticed, I am on the Citizens Voting Committee. We had our second meeting yesterday and there are some good things to report.

First off, the elections office is now up to authorized strength again. They could probably use more people, but that will be looked at when we are farther along. They have looked at some of the procedures and paperwork and started making the process manageable. There is still a lot of work to be done.

They are contracting for more training. The consensus is that the majority of the training needs to be hands on. At the same time, there is a serious need for more election judges, clerks, etc.. The pay is low, the hours are long, but the rewards are a functioning election system that is necessary for good government.

We have heard from election workers and party regulars, but we still need input from more people on their concerns about our election system. If you post a comment here, I will take it with me to the elections committee. You can also email them at elections@co.tom-green.tx.us directly.

Your suggestions and help will be deeply appreciated. Don't wait too long, the May elections are just around the corner.

School Bond Thoughts

The School trustees seem to have decided to go for the May election date on the school bond. We have reviewed the Long Range Facilities Plan and the results of the Turco poll commissioned by the trustees and talked to people in SAISD administration. In an earlier Blog we mentioned some questions about the poll itself. The trustees have until March 12 to nail down final ballot language, but assuming the information I have so far is in the ballpark, I think it is time to start this discussion. About the only new info out of last night's Trutees/Task Force workshop meeting is that the Trustees feel free to make a very pricey package even more costly if they choose to build a new Crockett on new property instead of the current site.

First, for context, I supported the last bond in '96, wrote a guest column in the Standard-Times and did what I could to help pass it. I do not want the following remarks to be characterized as those of a constant, reflexively anti-tax “aginner”. I have no doubt a bond can be justified, but we need to look carefully before we bite into this particular quarter-billion dollar apple.

If that figure sounds unfamiliar, it could be because neither the poll or the Plan mentions it. True, the bond we will be asked to approve in May is estimated at $128 million, but it is phase one of three put forth by the Facilities Task Force. Here it gets a little tricky. For everything in the Long Range plan to come to pass, all three will have to be approved, one now; another roughly 2016, or about the time the current bond is paid off, for a ballpark $100 million+; and the third in about twenty years, no price available yet. Administration thinks only the first two are relevant now. Since most of the action happens in Phase I & II, let's go with that, but we are still looking at a quarter-billion before debt service cost. Another reason I am willing to limit discussion to Phases I&II for now is that these two parts are so interdependent in the Long Range Plan, if we are not going to approve both, SAISD needs to drop back and punt anyway. Note here, the Turco poll gave under 10% approval to a bond amount in excess of $200 million. Since the poll discussed the first two phases almost interchangeably, I'm sure a lot of respondents thought they were pricing both phases for $128 million.

The “central” item in Bond 1 is $90 million for a new Central High. I understand we don't have a street address yet, but could we get a clue as to where it will be within a school attendance zone or two? Among other things it might help voters decide whether the on-site athletic practice fields are a “basic need”. It is hard to picture a site for a new Central that would be further from Bobcat Stadium than is Lincoln/Lakeview, from whence parents regularly shuffle their kids back and forth.

Question 15b on the poll measures agreement with the statement, “I would rather enlarge the current high school than construct a new one.” I hold a statement that should have been polled would be, “I would rather expand Lakeview, refurbish Central, and equalize the size of our two high schools than construct a new one.” Please, please don't tell us the controlling factor in deciding to go with a $90 million item was the absolute educational necessity of having a sole 5A football team in town, although that is pretty much what question 16h states. Actually, the very phrasing of 15b is insulting to the northside, it implies that Central need not even be named, that “the current high school” defaults to Central as the one that really counts.

Implied throughout the Long Range Plan, the poll, and a collection of captioned pictures titled “What you see, what you don't”, is that buildings 40 years old are inherently inadequate to allow a proper education. Flatly stated in the Plan is that the cost of upgrading existing buildings would be 60-70% of new buildings. I question both assumptions.

I have shared the pictures, [which can be viewed here] presumably a collection of worst cases, to friends with experience in the construction trades and IT installation and upgrades. This collection of pictures shows some serious problems in ongoing maintenance, frankly many of them problems I had hoped the last bond issue would cure. As to justifying tear-down and rebuild, we were uniformly underwhelmed. A great many people in San Angelo live and work in buildings well over 40 years old, and some of us have managed to install state of the art computers without burning the place down, and ADA compliant restrooms without resorting to the wrecking ball.

Locally, a lot of individuals are contributing millions in privately donated funds to proudly transform the going-on-forty Hemphill-Wells building into a library that will be a centerpiece of downtown revitalization, one which will hold a surfeit of new IT equipment. I suspect Harvard, which still uses some of its 18^th century buildings would be amused by our theory that modern education cannot take place in buildings out of the (gasp!) 60's.

Actually, if Harvard did decide to rip it out and go with new construction, at least as the most richly endowed University outside of Dubai, they could afford it. If we were rolling in oil boom cash and had all the credit cards paid off, maybe all this new construction would be defensible. Not only does that description not apply, but since the Task Force forwarded this plan, taxpayers have gone four days without showers and have been hit with a quarter billion dollar plumber's bill which isn't very negotiable. I know SAISD has no responsibility for the city's water problems, but it has a responsibility to take notice of economic reality, which in this case is that all that money comes out of the same well, the taxpayers' pocket.

I really don't want to be the Grinch that stole Christmas, but SAISD needs to quit thinking of the taxpayers as a deep-pocket Santa Claus. I think if we make an honest effort and give ourselves until November, we can come up with an adequate, affordable bond issue that will pass. We can take a lot of ornaments off this tree and still give kids a better education.

School Survey Results

The results of the SAISD bond survey are in. We have them and they are available for your viewing pleasure here. The results are not terribly surprising, but some of the questions are very interesting in what they imply.

Section 15 and 16 try to make some interesting impressions. Section 15 implies that a new grade alignment requires new construction. It implies that letting buildings deteriorate to the point they need to be torn down and replaced is being pro-active in planning for the future. Section 16 implies that a school building should be replaced just because it is old. It implies that the most up to date technology can only be put in a new building.

There are similar implications in the rest of the survey. Read the questions and results for yourself and let us know what you think. Might want to let the school board know as well

Karnak at the Council

Back in the day when this author was one of the more vocal opponents of the 4B half-cent tax, one of the arguments I used through five campaigns was to point out an inevitable downside, namely the predictable howls of outrage when the Development Corp. gave a (grant, subsidy, bribe, pick your term) to a new business which would be directly competing with an established firm.

Well, just that played out in Council meeting today, in four part harmony. Diversified Collection Services got a package of incentives in 2002, has created 400 some jobs, and has since come under new ownership. COSADC had negotiated a similar, but larger package for Account Control Technologies, which also specializes in student loan collections. Jon Shaver, owner of DCS cut no slack in letting Council know his company felt betrayed and that this move would kill a 200 job expansion DCS had planned. If he was peeved that ACT was to get a more generous package than had DCS, that beef was soft-pedaled in an hour long protest by Shaver and several DCS employees.

As I predicted over 10 years ago, it was far from pretty. DCS won this scrimmage, ACT threatened to pick up their marbles and go home. Meanwhile Council accused COSADC of leaving Council in the dark during the process, and COSADC's feeling were hurt, after all, you told us to go bribe companies boss, Whassamata now? Matt Lewis told a reporter we need a new mayor, but declined to run himself. A kiss-and-make-up joint meeting of Council and COSADC is scheduled, but at Council meeting Tuesday Jon Shaver and employees owned the only happy faces in the house. Chalk one up for my Karnak the Magnificent file.

Interestingly, ACT relented and announced, with a slight backhand to Mayor and Council, that they would be coming to Angelo anyway. Seems debt collector is a hard job to fill and our pool of workers, including former DCS employees is hard to find. Allow me to don the Karnak turban: ACT will be here longer and will create more jobs at higher pay than say, Taylor Publishing. Not unlike a romantic relationship. If you court and woo a lady, convince her your interests coincide, you might end up with a wife. If you short circuit the process with cash, you get what you pay for and they don't respect you in the morning.

In other action, Council approved, as expected, the tennis courts deal. I seem to have gotten their attention by appealing, tongue in cheek, for funds to provide the San Angelo Billiards Association, of which I am a member, a central pool hall with say, 24 regulation size tables. Discussing this later with individual members, I was surprised that almost none seemed to have considered the possibility of creating a Facilities Corp. to deal with the now inevitable requests from every sports group in town. “If tennis gets money, why can't (curling, archery, paintball, pick your pet)”, will be the litany. Tennis got a rather substantial sum, by the way, $750,000 total. With that precedent, I can promise you other sports enthusiasts will be appearing before Council, hat in hand, asking that said hat be filled with public money.

I was surprised at the lack of consideration of a facilities Corp. as it played so large a part in the Faith-based Prison issue. Actually, the only reason it would not have worked for the prison was that other laws would reasonably not allow us abandon a few hundred human inmates post-default. If a group of sports enthusiasts raises money for their idea under the facilities umbrella, the money is entirely between them and the bondholders, worst the city gets is a padlocked playground.
There will be more detail on the Facilities Corp. idea here, especially as other groups come forward . I can tell you, that of the members I was able to personally speak to on this, the initial reaction to the rough sketch of the concept was favorable.

Charter Member

The city council is looking at revising the City Charter. You can find the official version here, and a pdf version with some suggestions highlighted here.

There are a number of places that need to be reviewed. Sections 60 through 64 on the chief of police will get some review. Not sure if they are ready to try an appointed chief yet, but there is probably some clean up needed to bring it current with state law.

There are many changes needed to adjust for inflation. As unpopular as it might be, the maximum fine in section 5 is probably too low. Section 10, which sets compensation for the Mayor and Council members, needs some serious consideration. If these are paid positions, then lets at least get them up to minimum wage levels. They shouldn't be getting rich from being on council but the pay should be reasonable.

They need to look at Section 36, the Lake Nasworthy trust fund . Additional flexibility to use that fund for projects around Lake Nasworthy would help solve some long standing problems.

Section 65, on the parks commission, should be reviewed. At a minimum we probably need more than 3 park commissioners. The size of the city and the number of parks has grown significantly since the commission was formed. The small size of the board causes problems because of the open meetings act. We also need to see if the section on it's financing should be changed.

There is section 66, a Board of City Development, which was used before we had the Chamber of Commerce. Probably needs to be removed because it is no longer being used.

There is also a need to put the Cities stance on eminent domain in the charter.

These are just the highlights. Take a look at the charter, and give us input. The charter commission will be forming soon, and it would be good to have things ready for a November election.

Tennis Thoughts

There has been a lot of criticism of the councils decision not to fund the tennis complex. Criticism is deserved, but not for the reasons I hear the most. I really feel the council made the right decision, but for the wrong reasons.

Tennis is a popular sport around the country. Locally, there are a number of tennis players that play at country clubs, at school or on various free courts such as those at the recreation centers. The following is not as large as football, baseball or soccer, but there are a number of people that play. I support them having quality facilities that are open to the public. That is not where I have a problem.

I have a problem with what the ½ cent sales tax is degenerating into. Watching and following the debate on the tennis facility is like watching kids in a candy store complaining because someone got more chocolates or peanuts or peppermint than they did and its just not fair. Realistically, candy has been distributed pretty broadly with various sales tax projects in all the cities districts. When we have to get out scales or tape measures or balance sheets to make sure the split is "fair", there is a problem.

I have a problem with the continual justification of these projects for their economic impact. Last time I looked at a breakdown of San Angelo's jobs, two things jumped out at me. First, the travel, tourism, food service, and leisure business areas which are where the sports facilities create jobs, are among the lowest paid jobs we have. Second, I notice that San Angelo's median income is about 20% below that of Texas as a whole. This is in spite of the fact that our cost of living has caught up with other cities our size. One of the reasons for this gap is the number of jobs in the industries I have just mentioned. One quarter of the sales tax is required to be used to attract or support jobs close to the average wage of San Angelo. Much of the rest of the tax money supports projects that only create jobs at the lowest pay scale. I have a problem calling that economic development.

Finally, I have a problem with government at any level promoting sports and deciding what sports should be subsidized with free money. Tennis is a wonderful sport. It is one of 35 sports currently in the Olympics. That doesn't include the sports recognized by the Olympics and the International Sports Federations, popular sports such as bowling and billiards, or up and coming sports such as skate boarding and paintball. Many of these sports are at least as popular as tennis so what do we do when they ask for a public facility of their own? There are alternatives to tax handouts to build sports facilities. We need to look at them closely. There are also opportunities for multi-use facilities that can react to changing public tastes, and can have strong, popular sports help support new sports as they get established.

In the end, I hope that a tennis facility, hopefully as part of a flexible multi use facility gets built. At the same time, I believe that tax dollars should be used to provide a healthy economic diet before supporting candy store projects. That will take some political courage and voter approved changes to the sales tax, but I don't see a better solution.

Crystal Ball 2007

It is once again crystal ball time, when pundits traditionally test their powers of foresight with New Year's predictions. I dug up my comments from last year here (comment on JWT's Jan 1 offering). Overall, in utter lack of modesty, I did pretty good.

Starting with my true area of expertise, I predicted the Texas/USC match would be “one of the best bowl games in recent memory, nod to Texas.” This year's championship should go to the favorite, but I doubt Ohio St will cover an 8 point spread.

The prediction I am most pleased with is that the faith-based prison would crater, probably over money. When that project began getting notice, one of the Commissioners told me that though he opposed it, “The votes are there, I don't think we can stop it.” Thanks to the untiring efforts of many, many active citizens, this huge potential hole in the county's budget was finally plugged. Sadly, I note the death of one of these activists, Christine Vines. She and her surviving husband Lonnie were central to the opposition. RIP Mrs. Vines, our prayers are with you.

I suggested a quick start on a Charter Review Committee. Better late than never, but we now have one forming, and two items that I think it will address are the elected/appointed police chief and city limits on eminent domain, among others.

A sound local economy, stable oil prices, progress on the new library, negligible impact of the local Klan (anybody even remember that nut's name?), all in the plus column for this amateur Karnak. A brief $3.00 spike notwithstanding, gas is about where it was a year ago, and the all time high in inflation adjusted dollars is still 1980. We didn't do much on traffic lights, but that came in behind obviously critical water system problems as a matter of interest. It was noted in Council and looked at. One can hope for this year.

Water brings up a good point at which to segue into predictions. It will require an election, probably next November, but now is an excellent time to start considering alternatives which would allow us to move some of our half-cent sales tax revenue and free up money for pipes and valves, lots of valves. My favorite at this time is a Street and Bridge quarter cent, which would generate $2-2.5 million for that purpose, freeing that amount of the city budget. Money is fungible, and a few days without a shower seems to have moved tennis courts and corporate bribery onto the back burner in the voters' minds. More details later, but this discussion is going to take place, and I predict voters will approve a logical shift in that spending.

Both locally and nationally, election reform will be a hot issue. San Angelo has been a microcosm of everything questionable about E-voting, especially as relates to recounts. In full disclosure, I have toiled long in the Republican vineyard with our newly appointed elections administrator, Vona McKerly and her husband Dennis. I can certainly understand the concerns of our new Democrat chair, Linda Shoemaker. Unfortunately, one is unlikely to take up the minutiae of election code and election mechanics as a hobby without having a political interest to encourage that mastery. Vona is as well qualified as anyone I am aware of locally, and I know her to be a person who understands an oath. She has a daunting task in restoring the voters' trust in this crucial office. Godspeed on this task, Vona. Faith in the election process is central to faith in government. As problems continue to be documented by hundreds nationally, more and more people will question the decision to rid elections of those pesky, but imminently recountable, bits of paper.

The school board will be asking for a major bond issue. Too little information is available to make a call yet, but if the polling went as I suspect it did, we are likely to see significant revisions before this gets on the ballot. I supported the last one, but it is too early to call this one. I suspect proponents will have to give up the notion that school buildings automatically disintegrate at age 40.

I still hold that our current City Council and management team are the best we have had in a long time. To be sure, they have some critical issues to deal with, but it is quite unfair to lay the blame for decades of neglect on the shoulders of a largely new batch of officeholders. As the billboard points out, San Angelo is already the second highest taxed city in Texas. Making necessary repairs without claiming undisputed number one status will require our best efforts, but things have already been done which will help. The water fund is fiscally healthy, there are funding sources, and we just might be able to have streets, lights and pipes that work without raising rates.

A safe prediction is that more regular people will take a personal interest in local issues. On this I say, come on in, the water's fine. There has never been a better, easier time for voter involvement. Information that once required hours searching the dusty stacks is now available online, in the bathrobe and slippers if one wishes. My only cautionary note; do get the information, take the time to know the facts. Few things in life are more embarrassing than rising to make an impassioned plea before a public body, only to discover the factual basis of one's argument is built of moonbeams and pixie-dust.

All in all, we are poised to make very real and lasting improvements to a city I have come to like very much. Life is never without problems, but problems most often offer opportunities, if we can only find and seize them. I look to a good year in 2007.