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.

Trash talk

Been a while since we posted here. Time to get back to work. Going to start off with excerpts from an email we received on the pilot program on automated trash collection.

First off, here are some key facts that are not widely known that our email writer thought were important.

1. The cans must be aligned precisely with the curb, or they will not be picked up.
2. The approach to the cans must not be blocked, or they will not be picked up.
3. you must use the cans provided by the trash company, no other cans will be picked up.
4. you will be charged a monthly "rental" of $12-15 for your can, in perpetuity, you will never pay it off, and the city keeps the profit from the fees, not the trash company. (this one really ***** me off)

Our writer goes on to say: " now in (my neighborhood) there is currently a pilot program with the automated system. The automated truck drives down the street, and picks up the cans. If there is a obstruction or the can is not aligned properly, a assistant hops out and fixes the issue, moves the can, etc.. Further, a regular trash truck FOLLOWS the automated truck, picking up odd-sized garbage, leaves, branches, etc, that does not get picked up by the automated truck. The kicker is that when the program is implemented, there will be NO ASSISTANT to the automated truck (IE there will be skipped cans) and obviously no truck following behind to pick up the leftover trash. this factor has not been announced to the general public, and the city plans to just spring it on everybody when the automated system is in place."

I think our writer is legitimately concerned. Two things stand out. First, even though this will likely save the  collection company and the city a considerable amount of money, there could be a net INCREASE in your trash collection bill for the "rental" of the special trash cans. As a consumer my total bill is what matters. It does me no good that my "trash collection" bill is lower if I have to pay more for a "rental fee." This is no good for me unless my ENTIRE bill is less.

The next point that stands out is that the pilot test, as the writer reports, is not currently being done the same way it would be implemented. I can understand them gradually shifting from the current system to the fully automated system. By now, they should have made all the pilot projects as close as possible to the way they will be if and when implemented. We need several weeks, at least, of collections where there are not extra hands or trucks following on. We, the citizens of San Angelo and the people who pay for this service, need to see in these pilot projects exactly what it will be like in the future. No smoke and mirrors. No additional fine print and "adjustments" after the deal is done. I'm not saying that Trashaway and the City Council won't do that but I've watched local politics long enough to know that we, the people, need to make sure it's done.

A long run

Conchoinfo.org has been online for quite a while. On August 7th it will be 8 years since conchoinfo.org started life as the website against the first extension of the 4B, 1/2 cent sales tax. In December of 2004 Conchoinfo was rebuilt and redirected towards a more informational and local issue oriented focus. We've achieved some successes and had some failures. We've had an impact. This August the domain name and hosting contract for conchoinfo.org is up for renewal again. It's not a major expense but it's a personal expense shared among a very few contributors. I'm wondering if I should keep the domain name and site up or just let it go.

Even if we let the domain name lapse, the blog will still be here. We have had a little presence on facebook but I'm thinking of taking that down. A lot of the other ideas I had for conchoinfo have never had enough time, money, people, or other resources to come about. It's never become the information resource I hoped for and can't unless things change. Conchoinfo.org is at a real crossroads. It either needs to grow, which I don't have the time, resources, etc. to do on my own, or it needs to just fade away to become just another footnote in history and a few entries in the archive.org wayback machine. I will probably pay for another year of the domain name and hosting but unless something changes this will be the last year for the domain. ConchoInfo.org. There's not enough me (and a few others) to do it anymore.

The blog will stay here. Blogger hosting is free. I might still get worked up enough to do some posting and we can be sure Barkeep (Jim Ryan) will. That's not enough.

Ideas and feedback wanted

Jim Turner
webmaster@conchoinfo.org

Control Yourself

The June 19^th council meeting was interesting and entertaining. Some council members were offended that people were saying that the lawn parking nuisance ordinance was really all about control. I can understand why they got upset. In their heart and mind their motives were pure. They were striving mightily to protect local property values and control was the furthest thing from their minds. And they were right, but that isn't the complete picture. Let's take a step down from the council platform and into the ground level where the rest of the citizens, the political observers, and I sit and watch and participate in this whole government process.

At its most fundamental governments at all levels are about control. They may call it laws or ordinances or regulation and use fees and taxes and people with guns for enforcement but governments work by controlling certain types of behavior. They protect rights by trying to control those that would infringe them. Governments don't really build things. They don't grow things. They manage the shared resources of communities which is another way of saying they control things. So at a very fundamental level being in government is about control. It's why they were created. It's what they do. If you're in government, controlling is a major part of what you do.

By now the offended council members are likely thinking “That may be true but that's not why we are looking at lawn parking. True, we are trying to control a nuisance but our goal, our motivation is to protect property values and property owners investments.” Fair enough. So lets look at this whole lawn parking thing from down at the citizen level.

This ordinance is supposed to be about protecting property values and investments. That's a common problem so I did what I usually do and looked at how other cities are dealing with issue. Many cities, in fact most that I looked at, ignore parking on lawns. They leave it up to Home Owners Associations and deed restrictions and neighbors working with neighbors to deal with issues such as cars in the yard and ugly landscaping and paint jobs. Other cities, like Abilene declare “Vehicles in the yard of any residence excluding improved parking surfaces, or areas screened from the public view by an opaque fence” a nuisance. No exceptions. These policies apply to all residences on all streets. No exceptions. There are cities that leave it up to the neighborhood. They have an opt-in mechanism. Get 75% or 80% of the residences on a block or in a neighborhood to petition city hall and your neighborhood will have car free lawns. You and your neighborhood decides, not city hall. Lets compare that with what our city council is looking at.

The proposed ordinance starts out protecting property values by not allowing parking on unimproved surfaces. Then it goes on to add 7 exceptions to this “protection”. The city won't protect your property value if your street is 36' or narrower. No protection if the vehicle has a handicapped plate or mirror hanger. Three exceptions if your neighbors house doesn't have an "improved surface" to park on. In the end, code enforcement will have to have a 100' tape measure, a square or protractor, and probably a copy of the thoroughfare plan to determine whether or not they can write a citation to protect your property values from the nuisances caused by your neighbors. The ordinance as proposed shows an attempt at a fine grained control which in the end protects newer neighborhoods with wide streets while leaving older neighborhoods with narrow streets and dirt parking areas to fend for themselves. And it will still cause unnecessary expenses for residences with a one car curb cut and two car wide compacted dirt parking areas. In the end this ordinance creates a two tier level of “protection.” It will protect and increase the value of protected residences while likely hurting the values of those homes left unprotected. Those citizens who spoke in favor of this ordinance last time need to go check their properties closely. That investment property just might not be protected. Those new homes in the targeted neighborhoods? How wide are those streets again? They just might not be protected as well. Real estate investors? Don't bother looking on these streets. The city doesn't protect the values there. Maybe the property and investment values of all the houses with exceptions will not only not be protected, their values will be damaged as an unintended consequence.

Sitting down here in the peanut gallery it's easy to get confused when the protection is applied unevenly but the control is applied across the entire city. It's really no wonder that many people would think that it's really not about protecting the value of some residences, it's about control.

Revving up Revenue

I almost skipped the recent budget workshop. They are normally boring with few surprises. Still, I haven't missed one in several years and old habits are hard to break. I'm glad I went.

Staff is digging hard to find new revenue sources. Three of them really caught my eye. I've already blogged about the proposed use of water and sewer capital fund money to fix roads. To summarize I still think that the money you pay on your water and sewer bill should go towards those services, not fixing roads. There are two other revenue proposals that really stood out and need to be addressed.

I found it hard to believe they suggested bringing back parking meters. They estimated that after all the expenses of installation, etc. they could still bring in $340k for the first year of operation. That's assuming anyone still bothers to shop downtown after they install parking meters again. Parking meters helped kill off downtown’s across the country. Why pay to park and shop when at the mall or big box store you can park for free? There would be sometimes when you have to go downtown for example business at city hall, but this would discourage people from shopping or eating downtown. We're spending truck loads of time and money trying to revitalize downtown and then discourage people from doing business there by installing parking meters. Seems a bit silly to me.

The next revenue source they suggested was red light cameras. They suggested that they would bring in $100,000 per year. There is so much wrong with this proposal it's hard to know where to begin. First off, red light cameras in Texas are governed by chapter 707.003 of the Transportation code. This sets a limit of $75 on the civil penalty that can be charged and a max $25 for a late charge. It also requires that 50% of the money collected and left over from the expenses of installing, maintaining, and operating the system and collecting the penalties be paid to the credit of the regional trauma account. That means after the system had collected enough to start getting revenue, they would have to issue 2,666 notices of civil penalties to collect $100,000. That's a lot of red light tickets. Then you run into the little problem of chapter 707.008(2) which says “(2)  deposit the remainder of the revenue in a special account in the local authority's treasury that may be used only to fund traffic safety programs, including pedestrian safety programs, public safety programs, intersection improvements, and traffic enforcement.” Kind of limits what you can use the red light camera money for. It's no longer the general revenue source it was when this issue was first brought before council in 2007 and the money wouldn't be useable for very many projects the city needs to be doing. There is also a lot of red tape involved including the requirement to establish a citizens committee on the cameras, the need for a full engineering study before installation and annual reports to the state. The money certainly can't be used to fix streets or other urgent capital projects. It seems that staff really didn't do their homework on red light cameras.

At the end of the budget workshop I had to wonder why these three possible revenue sources were even mentioned. They all have serious flaws. Surprises like this are why I try to make all council meetings. Still, I expected better from staff.

Pilot Program

Several years ago your water bill paid for more than just water. First off, the city was transferring about three quarters of a million dollars a year from the water fund to the general fund. They called it PILOT, and it was basically the city charging water customers for the property tax that the water department would have paid if were a separate, for profit company. Starting in 2005 when a significant rate increase was enacted, we started fighting for the elimination of “PILOT”. First off, it's a bit silly for the city to be charging itself property tax. At the time they tried to justify it by saying that the water department should be paying for services like police and fire protection. Didn't make much sense since at the time the water department paid for their own Lake and Park police department which not only handled issues at the lake but all the city parks. And without the water department what kind of fire protection could really be offered. The water department was already paying for regular services the city provide such as legal, engineering, and finance personnel, etc. through whats called cost allocation. For example, the water department pays a percentage of the city attorneys salary based on how much of the city attorneys time is spent dealing with water department issues in an average years. If it's 25%, then the water department pays 25% of the city attorneys salary. The process is repeated for the rest of the functions the water department uses and that money is paid into the general fund for the services the water department receives. In addition the water department should be paying franchise fees just like any other utility. This is to help pay for the maintenance of the right of ways that the water department uses just like the gas, electric, cable, and phone utilities do. Those two payments should cover any regular expenses the water department causes the city. We have made great progress and what most of you pay on your water and sewer bills actually pays for water and sewer services. Yes, the water bill still pays for stuff like the upkeep of the lake parks and the Pecan Creek Pavilion, but those have at least some connection to water, and they do bring in a little rental revenue. Still, we've made remarkable progress.

City staff put out a proposal at the budget workshop to take $2 million a year from the water and sewer capital funds and use it to fix our streets. I can sympathize. Our streets need lots of work, and at the current rate of spending we'll never catch up. We do need to get on top of this. Still, since 2005 every council has agreed that the water fund and the water bill should be going to furnish water to the customers and nothing else. Water here is a scarce, precious commodity. It is so necessary that the sunset was removed from the 4B sales tax so that the majority of that ½ cent money could be used to subsidize the development of long term water sources. Now staff has suggested taking money that you are paying for water and spending it on roads. Mr. Morrison has asked staff in the past to rebate any excess money in all the water funds back to the customers and was told by staff that it was essential to keep the capital fund money in the fund because it would be needed to pay for identified capital needs and possible emergency needs. If the needs are so big and urgent we can't give it back to the customers then we can't justify using it to fix roads.

We need to fix our roads. There is no doubt about that. There are lots of options such as a street maintenance sales tax, cutting more unnecessary services, etc.. Taking money from our water customers is not the way to do it.

What a lucky man

It comes to me, I don't mean to be a compliainant all the time. Yes, I pick at Council, yes, I try to call them down when I see them exceeding the bounds of what my Libertarian soul sees as proper governance.

That said, it came to me that I am an incredibly lucky man. I do have to work, they keep selling me defective Lotto tickets, BUT: I get to live in a very nice house, in a decent neighborhood. The fact I can scribe this says everything needs be said on internet access. I might dissent from Council, but I can access government douments online at my convenience, and that I promise you has not always been the case.

The AC works, the water runs, the trash goes away. I can listen to great music at the touch of a button, more TV channels than I can follow or wish to. I have a lifestyle at under 30k net income that Kings and Royals of old would have envied. Yes them castles were imposing, but the fireplace didn't always keep up with the weather AC didn't exist, and the cable connection...

Point is, we are at a place in history where I can live comfortably, have the spare time to chime in on politics, and not be at risk of being literally burned at the stake for offending the powers that be. That is a recent, within my lifetime, evolution of political power.

Back when I was actually tending bar, one of my standards was someone would start beefing about this or that, get noisey enough to irritate the other patrons: I'd inquire, "did you vote last election?" Thought so. While you were busy not bothering to vote, I was taking the day off to be a precinct election judge.

We can make changes, yes, just thee and me. I have seen such change in my lifetime, BUT you got to get off your ass and make it happen. Serious now did the Civil Rights Act just trip over LBJs knee? No, Martin Luther King rattled cages that had never been rattled. Kind of hard to ignore a million or so people on the Capitol mall. I promise you this, locally a dozen citizens present and heard on any issue would blow Council's hair back!

Getting back to the Title: Yes I do consider myself an extremely lucky man.

Leave me A Lawn

Good morning and a happy July 4 to all. Among the surpises, San Angelo is not the national hot spot. Not even close, and God willing, we might get rain today. The heat and rainfall we can only pray for and hope. By the way, saw my first Cardinal of this year this morning, and I mean the red bird, not the Catholic in the funny hat. Not being disrespectful, one of my aunts is a nun, but the bird really caught my eye

On to matters we can control, let's begin with City Council and the parking ordinance. As approved last time, with some amendments, parking vehicles on unimproved surfaces would be prohibited. Last meeting of Council we saw some changes, I'm not sure anyone has specific language yet. Is the street 36 feet or 32 feet, is the parking area 90 degrees (perpindicular to, though some time was spent defining perpindicular, do we teach geometry anymore?) from the street, how many cars, etc.

Just for fun, I am including some snapshots of my block in Northeast Angelo. When I moved here twenty years ago this block had myself, a widow, one self- employed fellow, a retiree, and two dope dealers. The widow died, the retired guy sold his house to a good family, and at least one of the drug-peddlers got busted. Folks, it's a really nice neighborhood, I don't lose sleep if I forget to lock the truck.

Now look at the snapshots. The nice family is multi-generational, when everyone is home at the same time, they have 7 cars. OK, the block in general looks like a used car lot.

What I want Council to understand is they are writing law for all of San Angelo. Not Bentwood or Paseo de Vaca, but all of us paycheck-to-paycheck rednecks in north-east Angelo. OK I will drop the dreaded word, "Lakeview". I hope to live long enough that becomes a distant memory.

On my block, having a parking problem is a sign of prospertity, something to be celebrated, "Hey Carlos, I see the kid I used to buy school candy from worked hard enough to buy a car". Sometimes we do well not to park in one another's driveway or block the mailman. Yes, Neanderthals that we are, we have on street mailboxes and 50 foot frontage. One vehicle or nasty notes from the mailman. We deal with this without help from Council.

As I understand what is coming up for second reading, MY driveway will be illegal. Same drive that was here twenty years before I moved in and the twenty years since, but a 12 foot single car curb cut, Jan or I will have to decide who rides the bus, and who sells the car. Ain't gonna happen. Jan isn't giving up her car, and I'm not walking to work! Paul I'm not putting you down, but don't ignore us. We don't have the choices available to you.

One of my closing comments last time was "If this passes, maybe we can hope it is as aggresively enforced as doggie limits or garage sales, in which case it will actually bother no one". That wisecrack BTW, really pissed some folk in the room.

We have I think 8,000+ open warrants, Sheriff deputies, Warrant officers, SAPD, they are not ignorant of this but Jeez Louise, we have so many people and so much time; which side of the pile you want us to start on, and feel free to grab a shovel. Oh and do we put the current domestic abuse call on hold while we chase down a three year old open warrant?

Here is my problem with this "Cars-on-the-Lawn" ordinance. It is an open door to selective enforcement. Does it cover the boat and trailer; how about the RV one might see parked by a home? A lot of people have limited space for their "stuff". Yes, my Libertarian instinct reacts negatively to any cheese-eating ordinance we can live without. You want a good "nuisance ordinance" I want one forbidding lazy people from pulling up and honking the horn instead of getting off their duff and knocking on the door.

Here we are talking property rights, the "home as a castle" rights, and I am reluctant to give any of that power to anyone. Am I allowed to tell my neighbor "Hey, you have too much furniture on the front porch, it looks tacky and might diminish my property value if I choose to sell. Which I'm not, but I'd like to control your property, just in case". If that sounds like an improbable stretch of logic it is probably because it is. What if I choose to paint my house the color of Pepto-Bismol, or Irish green? Does City Council own my house or do I?

Lawn & Order

Well, the nuisance ordinance against parking on lawns is on the agenda for Tuesday. There have been some letters to the paper here and here written against this proposal. The majority of the comments online were against the ordinance, and I think there are some real problems with this whole proposal.

First, there are going to be a large number of homes that will have trouble complying with this proposal. We have a short slideshare show that shows a small sampling of houses with too few available parking spaces. In a few cases, like the first and last picture, there are no "improved surfaces" available for off street parking. In many cases it's apparent that there are just not enough spaces available for the number of cars owned. If the residents own the house, they might be able to make suitable parking areas available if they can find the money. If they rent, it depends on what they can work out with their landlord. If the landlord says tough, they don't have much choice except to move.

One thing that became clear is that most of the houses with problems are actually trying to make the best of a bad situation. Between Dad and Mom having separate jobs (which require 2 vehicles just to get to work), junior going to ASU while still living at home to cut down expenses, and possible extended visits by relatives, there are many cases where the "required" 2 parking spaces aren't enough (if they exist at all.) They are making their best efforts to be good neighbors, and realistically it won't affect neighboring property values much one way or the other if cars they have parked are sitting on an improved surface.

In closing I would like to quote KayTee's comment from my article to the Standard Times

"Many current zoning changes have driven down residential property values in order to support or allow nearby businesses. Ugly paint jobs and fences, bad landscaping, noisy animals, irritating neighbors and too many parties can all affect property values."

Excellent point. Nothing else really needs to be said. The city isn't and shouldn't be a substitute for an HOA. Those that want rules placed on their property that are based strictly on aesthetics can and should move to a neighborhood with an HOA.

Fortunately, I don't live in a neighborhood where lawn parking is necessary. I do have a neighbor several houses down who constructed a carport roof with a garage door and another who thought it was a good idea to paint their house the color of Pepto-Bismal. Another who has been doing renovations for the last 4 years necessitating (apparently) their indoor furniture to frequently reside on their front lawn. Should we start advocating more ordinances for these such things? Or should we MYOB and cut our losses and move when we decide our environment no longer suits us?

Exactly. What more does need to be said? Lets keep government off our lawns.

Sharing the Love

Following the example of our City Government, ConchoInfo has set up a slideshare account. We will be uploading documents and slideshows that won't fit on our blog. Hope you find this useful.