As regular readers might recall, I was stridently opposed to last May's school bond, in point of fact, I registered as treasurer of an SPAC committee formed to defeat it. Then and now, I admitted that SAISD needs a bond issue, something in the range of $100-150 million for capital improvements. Where I and the voters, by nearly 2 to 1, fell out was where and how that sum would be spent.
At risk of dating myself, this bond is "Not Your Father's Oldsmobile". Some elements of it may sound familiar, but its direction is materially different from that which got thumped last May.
As to strategic direction, the last bond emphasized bulldozers, consolidation and new construction, both in primary and high school measures. For instance, last bond would have closed San Jacinto and Holiman, essentially sending every kid in north-east Angelo to an expanded Bradford campus. Crockett would have been moved from the Johnson St. site to one outside walking distance of its constituent students.
Prop One of this bond will dedicate $100 million to renovation/expansion and ADA compliance at 8 elementary campuses, $13 million at Lee Middle school, give Lakeview the $2 million "stolen" (we will return to this term later) from the fire insurance settlement, and do $40 million in overdue upgrades at the Central campus.
Let me say from jump street, I know several of the Facilities Committee members, I have respect for their effort, and I sincerely thank them for it. As me Irish forebears would say, the devil is in the details, and I fear the details might yet sink this new bond.
When the Facilities Committee put forth its original proposal, one of the first questions I heard was why a 1,200 square feet classroom was going to cost more than a new home twice that size. Asst. Superintendent Jeff Bright correctly pointed out that school construction is unavoidably more expensive than housing. That still leaves the voters mystified as to why one classroom at Reagan costs $375,000 while 4 classrooms at Goliad come in at $2.5 million, or about $520,000 each, a fine point that Mr Van Hoozer pointed out to Board before I could jump on it.
In fairness, the Committee took as a baseline the estimates of the Huckabee firm hired for the last bond. Those are not bad estimates at all, Huckabee was lusting after a $130 million contract, and had about 8.5 million reasons to be as thorough as possible. Unfortunately, in the construction business, estimates are just that, guesses. One can factor in inflation, but we might as well try to project the price of gas next January. If my notes are accurate, the Committee took the Huckabee numbers, factored in a 39% inflation and roughly went with that.
Unfortunately, this leaves them and SAISD looking silly on some particulars. I work for a dirt-work/paving business and without speaking out of turn, I imagine my boss would jump all over a $450,000 contract for a drop-off lane at Holiman and throw in the "additional parking" for all the driving students there for free.
There lies the "devil in the details". On the one hand, the Facilitory Advisory Committee Report of April 14 is still the actionable item. As an example, item 2, Bradford Elementary lists at $5,308,132. Are we sure that might not be $5, 308,136? Of course not, no figure past the first two digits is worth mentioning.
Now we come to Prop Two, the $30 million for a new big-block Central on the existing site. It would take the $39 million for Central upgrades in Prop One, add $30 million, and result in a spanking new Central. Mind that the notion of a three 4A high school plan was shot down because estimates for that ran close to $90 million according to Asst. Superintendent Jeff Bright, plus loss of economy of scale and life-cycle costs.
This is not as silly as it sounds. A new Central would preserve the main Gym and a really beautiful theater, not to mention a natatorium (swimming pool) that would cost $5 million to replace elsewhere.
School bonds in Texas are the capital improvement mechanism, and nearly 90% of them pass. The only one to fail in our area I know of lately is Abilene's last attempt, and it went down due to voters' suspicion a big chunk of the money was going to a sports complex rather than education.
The last successful bond here is nearly paid off, it passed because we trusted the SAISD board to use the money well. I was involved in that bond, and by and large, the money was spent well.
That is going to be THE key to passing this bond, trust. To get there, the Board will have to do some serious tinkering with the proposal before we get to ballot language. SAISD has done a lot towards correcting the maintenance downsizing of 2000, they ain't there yet, but they really are trying. As it stands, the bond proposal is saying "trust us, we will spend it well". The last bond election voters clearly said, "We don't trust you as far as we can throw you".
I have suggested to Board that they do some real polling; not the push-poll they did last May but some genuine sampling of public opinion. Every source I've seen advises polling as part of the bond design process. San Angelo is small enough that very little polling is done, and so we are sometimes surprised. In our most recent election for Police Chief, it was taken as a matter of faith that there would be a run-off, with Davis as the surviving contender. Surprise! In he context of a $130 million bond, $15K for a good poll is not irrational. It just might give us direction as to voter preferences.
The last thing we need is for a second bond to fail. On that, I agree with Dr. May, Superintendent Bonds and the SAISD Board. That said, I have serious problems with the bond as presented. For one thing, I am glad I have the original Facilities Committee Report in ink-on-dead-trees format, it takes quite an exercize to get it out of SAISD website. The justification for approval last Monday (sorry, I was in Midland) was to allow the Facilities Committee to form up in support, a good idea of itself. BUT, if we are serious about selling this bond, we need to be up-front and honest. The Bond should be a highly visible link on the SAISD homepage, not something it takes a computer geek a half day to find.
Now, back to the "stolen" term used in reference to Lakeview, you are going to need Lakeview voters to pass this bond. It is well remembered that the insurance money from the fire was $2 million more than was spent on the new campus. I will not argue here whether that was a justifiable decision; the fact the $2 million (pardon me, $2.085,000) in this proposal is supposed to "replace portables" argues for itself. Like it or not, the north/south electoral divide in Angelo is a reality this bond will have to deal with if it is to pass.
Board, Superintendent Bonds, Dr. May; I am honestly on your side. I know the district needs this much money and more. That said, spend some time talking to a used-car salesman. You are selling a product, (the bond) to a resistant buyer (voter) who has all too recently told you to pound sand. There is only one option available to you, the last resort of the used-car salesman as it were: tell the truth and convince the voter you are telling the truth. We must earn the voters' trust, we do not have it now.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
A note on TIRZ
One of the most contentious issues at the last few City Council meetings was our Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone or TIRZ. Almost a half hour of public comment was devoted to problems with a decision on TIRZ at the last council meeting. We have been remiss in coverage of this issue, and hope to correct that starting now.
First off, what is a TIRZ? A TIRZ is an area where Tax Increment Financing or TIF can be used to attract development or redevelopment. I know, another acronym. Here is how it basically works. Say you have an area that needs some serious help, like our downtown and north Chadbourne areas. At one time they were thriving corridors of commerce. Now they have many run down and vacant buildings, and only a few thriving businesses are located there. TIF is a method of encouraging commercial development in such a zone. When you establish a TIRZ, you set a baseline for all the property values in that zone. Sometimes you do the same for sales taxes. Any property (and sometimes sales) taxes collected on that baseline go into the regular city budget. When property values and sales increase in the zone, a portion of that increase, an increment, is set aside in a special fund that can only be used for public improvements and infrastructure in that zone. This is to help guarantee that the tax growth in the targeted area is used to help that area instead of being siphoned away for projects in the high rent district. This encourages businesses to locate and invest in these areas because they know that as their property value and business increases, most of their extra tax money will go right back into the area they are investing in, which will help grow their business and investment. The TIRZ is overseen by a board that uses this extra tax money to establish programs that develop and diversify the economy of the zone, eliminate unemployment or underemployment in the zone, develop or expand transportation, business or commercial activity in the zone, make grants and loans, and stimulate business and commercial activity in the zone. Key component is that the benefit must be primarily for commercial development within the TIRZ zone.
San Angelo, after years of work, finally established a TIRZ. They could have established two TIRZ, but for reasons of politics and efficiency established a single zone with 2 halves, a north half and a south half. The fund would on paper be split into two funds, but the decisions for both halves would still be made by a single board. When the TIRZ and its board were approved, city council set down the condition that funds collected in each half would be spent in the half where they were collected. Everything was going fine until the April 15th council meeting. The TIRZ board forwarded a recommendation to the city council that $140,000 in TIRZ funds be used as matching funds for a grant for sidewalk and right of way improvements around the new library. This would have to come mostly from the north TIRZ fund because the south fund hadn't collected enough yet to cover the request. At that time, the council voted to send it back to the TIRZ board to consider borrowing the money from the north fund with some repayment plan as the south fund grew. At the May 6th meeting, the original proposal with no changes was resubmitted to the council. After some intense discussion, it was passed by a 4-3 vote. At the next meeting, on May 20th, the bulk of the public comments portion of the meeting was probably close to a dozen speakers, many from WTOS, calling the council to task for going back on a promise of how TIRZ would operate.
So why the controversy. During the discussions at the council meetings, it was stated that the library project was a once in a lifetime project that serves the entire community. It benefits both the north and south halve of the TIRZ, as well as the entire county. There are some problems with these arguments.
First off, this is not the only "once in a lifetime" project that will occur within the TIRZ as a whole. Prior to this another "once in a lifetime" project that will benefit both halves of the TIRZ and the entire community was given north fund money: the new transportation terminal that is going to be built soon just south of the loop on Chadbourne. There was never discussion of using south fund money for this project. It was in the north zone so the north paid for it. There are certain to be more "once in a lifetime" projects in the future. Should north fund be used to help remodel the City Auditorium/City Hall? That is far older than the current library we are moving from, and as a historic landmark improvements definitely qualify as "once in a lifetime." Where else? River walk? Convention center? Parks? The reality is that there are a large number of project that are "once in a lifetime" and "benefit the entire city", but that is not what TIRZ is supposed to do.
If you read the statutes and guidelines on TIRZ, they recognize that all TIRZ projects should benefit the entire community. They also explicitly state that any TIRZ funded project PRIMARILY benefits the TIRZ area. We split our fund in half so that south funds would primarily benefit the south, and the north funds primarily the north. TIRZ was not intended to fund projects just because they benefit the entire community. TIRZ is supposed to promote commercial growth and revitalization within the zone. Then the benefit to the whole community comes when the area is healthy and vital and no longer needs special treatment. That is the promise made to the community when you form a TIRZ. That was the promise the council made to the community when they split the TIRZ into two halves. At the May 20th meeting, a great many citizens said they thought the council broke that promise, and they don't want to see it happen again.
Most of this post I wish I had made after the April 15th meeting. Lots of excuses, but no good reasons. Will try to be more on top of issues like this in the future.
First off, what is a TIRZ? A TIRZ is an area where Tax Increment Financing or TIF can be used to attract development or redevelopment. I know, another acronym. Here is how it basically works. Say you have an area that needs some serious help, like our downtown and north Chadbourne areas. At one time they were thriving corridors of commerce. Now they have many run down and vacant buildings, and only a few thriving businesses are located there. TIF is a method of encouraging commercial development in such a zone. When you establish a TIRZ, you set a baseline for all the property values in that zone. Sometimes you do the same for sales taxes. Any property (and sometimes sales) taxes collected on that baseline go into the regular city budget. When property values and sales increase in the zone, a portion of that increase, an increment, is set aside in a special fund that can only be used for public improvements and infrastructure in that zone. This is to help guarantee that the tax growth in the targeted area is used to help that area instead of being siphoned away for projects in the high rent district. This encourages businesses to locate and invest in these areas because they know that as their property value and business increases, most of their extra tax money will go right back into the area they are investing in, which will help grow their business and investment. The TIRZ is overseen by a board that uses this extra tax money to establish programs that develop and diversify the economy of the zone, eliminate unemployment or underemployment in the zone, develop or expand transportation, business or commercial activity in the zone, make grants and loans, and stimulate business and commercial activity in the zone. Key component is that the benefit must be primarily for commercial development within the TIRZ zone.
San Angelo, after years of work, finally established a TIRZ. They could have established two TIRZ, but for reasons of politics and efficiency established a single zone with 2 halves, a north half and a south half. The fund would on paper be split into two funds, but the decisions for both halves would still be made by a single board. When the TIRZ and its board were approved, city council set down the condition that funds collected in each half would be spent in the half where they were collected. Everything was going fine until the April 15th council meeting. The TIRZ board forwarded a recommendation to the city council that $140,000 in TIRZ funds be used as matching funds for a grant for sidewalk and right of way improvements around the new library. This would have to come mostly from the north TIRZ fund because the south fund hadn't collected enough yet to cover the request. At that time, the council voted to send it back to the TIRZ board to consider borrowing the money from the north fund with some repayment plan as the south fund grew. At the May 6th meeting, the original proposal with no changes was resubmitted to the council. After some intense discussion, it was passed by a 4-3 vote. At the next meeting, on May 20th, the bulk of the public comments portion of the meeting was probably close to a dozen speakers, many from WTOS, calling the council to task for going back on a promise of how TIRZ would operate.
So why the controversy. During the discussions at the council meetings, it was stated that the library project was a once in a lifetime project that serves the entire community. It benefits both the north and south halve of the TIRZ, as well as the entire county. There are some problems with these arguments.
First off, this is not the only "once in a lifetime" project that will occur within the TIRZ as a whole. Prior to this another "once in a lifetime" project that will benefit both halves of the TIRZ and the entire community was given north fund money: the new transportation terminal that is going to be built soon just south of the loop on Chadbourne. There was never discussion of using south fund money for this project. It was in the north zone so the north paid for it. There are certain to be more "once in a lifetime" projects in the future. Should north fund be used to help remodel the City Auditorium/City Hall? That is far older than the current library we are moving from, and as a historic landmark improvements definitely qualify as "once in a lifetime." Where else? River walk? Convention center? Parks? The reality is that there are a large number of project that are "once in a lifetime" and "benefit the entire city", but that is not what TIRZ is supposed to do.
If you read the statutes and guidelines on TIRZ, they recognize that all TIRZ projects should benefit the entire community. They also explicitly state that any TIRZ funded project PRIMARILY benefits the TIRZ area. We split our fund in half so that south funds would primarily benefit the south, and the north funds primarily the north. TIRZ was not intended to fund projects just because they benefit the entire community. TIRZ is supposed to promote commercial growth and revitalization within the zone. Then the benefit to the whole community comes when the area is healthy and vital and no longer needs special treatment. That is the promise made to the community when you form a TIRZ. That was the promise the council made to the community when they split the TIRZ into two halves. At the May 20th meeting, a great many citizens said they thought the council broke that promise, and they don't want to see it happen again.
Most of this post I wish I had made after the April 15th meeting. Lots of excuses, but no good reasons. Will try to be more on top of issues like this in the future.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Free Speech: I've heard of that
Jim Ryan's recent BLOG article on the privacy SNAFU at the Standard Times covers the bases pretty well, but I think I need to add some of my own thoughts on this issue. This is about confidentiality and free speech.
Anonymous free speech has a very long connection with our country, going back to the pre-revolutionary days when anonymous pamphleteers risked everything to call for first tax resistance and then independence from England, the most powerful country in the world at the time. This tradition was carried further in debate on the constitution through the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers - the 1700's version of the BLOG. Anonymous and confidential writing was essential to the abolitionist movement which helped end slavery. It has been found to be an essential part of free speech by the Supreme Court and deserving of diligent protection. When the Standard Times had the "privacy controls" reset, which exposed the identities of online posters to the world for a short time, they failed to provide that protection. Their explanation seems a bit simplistic and hollow.
The E.W. Scripps company lists 19 online newspapers. I visited most of them in the last couple days. All of them have a privacy policy essentially like this one, with only the name and/or web address of the paper being changed. In every one of them there is this key phrase: "We do not share personal identifying information with any third party without your permission." This is part of what all posters agreed to before they were allowed to post. This is the official privacy policy of every online newspaper that Scripps lists, not just the Standard Times. I regularly read and occasionally post to other Texas Scripps papers such as the Abilene Reporter News, the Wichita Falls Times Record News, and the Corpus Christi Caller Times. In no case do they display any personal information beyond the posters username. In some cases they are set up to where you can click on a poster, you will also get posting history for that username. Some of them have a way to contact a poster, but in that case they will forward the message for you, they don't display an email address or other personal information.
Like I said, I visited most of the Scripps online papers this weekend. In a few cases, commenting is not allowed. In every case where comments are allowed, no personal information beyond the user name is displayed. In some cases, a posting history is available, and in some a way of forwarding emails without providing email addresses is provided. In no case was personal identifying information revealed.
It is likely that they were trying to make the Standard Times look like this, and if you click on a username in a post you get something like this. That is much different the the detailed personal information that was reportedly presented to readers last week. That is not a slight reset of privacy controls, that is a major privacy breach. If it did happen across the Scripps line of papers it would have serious consequences. This is not some minor difference where the Standard Times is trying to keep data private that other papers make public. We are talking a wholesale breach of the privacy agreement that users are asked to trust to protect their anonymous speech online. That trust has been broken, and the response has not yet risen to the level needed. As noted in Jim Ryan's recent article, at least one of the remedies tried so far has been less than useless.
Free speech in San Angelo took a serious blow. It is likely some peoples livelihood and jobs will be affected. It is suspicious that the only usernames being mentioned are involved in the chief's campaign, when the damaging information was available on all issues. This includes contentious school issues and the FLDS allegations. Did this put some teachers jobs at risk? Did this affect the ongoing CPS or criminal investigations? We might never know.
My advice for people posting comments on the Standard Times is to either identify yourself, like Jim Ryan and I have and then post carefully, or get a throwaway Email address from Yahoo or Google or AOL, and register with fictitious information. It looks like it will take the Standard Times a while to figure out the whole internet and privacy thing. Protect your own freedom of speech. The First amendment isn't just to protect reporters and columnists. It is also supposed to protect anonymous writers no matter if they are an average Joe or even a political candidate.
Anonymous free speech has a very long connection with our country, going back to the pre-revolutionary days when anonymous pamphleteers risked everything to call for first tax resistance and then independence from England, the most powerful country in the world at the time. This tradition was carried further in debate on the constitution through the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers - the 1700's version of the BLOG. Anonymous and confidential writing was essential to the abolitionist movement which helped end slavery. It has been found to be an essential part of free speech by the Supreme Court and deserving of diligent protection. When the Standard Times had the "privacy controls" reset, which exposed the identities of online posters to the world for a short time, they failed to provide that protection. Their explanation seems a bit simplistic and hollow.
The E.W. Scripps company lists 19 online newspapers. I visited most of them in the last couple days. All of them have a privacy policy essentially like this one, with only the name and/or web address of the paper being changed. In every one of them there is this key phrase: "We do not share personal identifying information with any third party without your permission." This is part of what all posters agreed to before they were allowed to post. This is the official privacy policy of every online newspaper that Scripps lists, not just the Standard Times. I regularly read and occasionally post to other Texas Scripps papers such as the Abilene Reporter News, the Wichita Falls Times Record News, and the Corpus Christi Caller Times. In no case do they display any personal information beyond the posters username. In some cases they are set up to where you can click on a poster, you will also get posting history for that username. Some of them have a way to contact a poster, but in that case they will forward the message for you, they don't display an email address or other personal information.
Like I said, I visited most of the Scripps online papers this weekend. In a few cases, commenting is not allowed. In every case where comments are allowed, no personal information beyond the user name is displayed. In some cases, a posting history is available, and in some a way of forwarding emails without providing email addresses is provided. In no case was personal identifying information revealed.
It is likely that they were trying to make the Standard Times look like this, and if you click on a username in a post you get something like this. That is much different the the detailed personal information that was reportedly presented to readers last week. That is not a slight reset of privacy controls, that is a major privacy breach. If it did happen across the Scripps line of papers it would have serious consequences. This is not some minor difference where the Standard Times is trying to keep data private that other papers make public. We are talking a wholesale breach of the privacy agreement that users are asked to trust to protect their anonymous speech online. That trust has been broken, and the response has not yet risen to the level needed. As noted in Jim Ryan's recent article, at least one of the remedies tried so far has been less than useless.
Free speech in San Angelo took a serious blow. It is likely some peoples livelihood and jobs will be affected. It is suspicious that the only usernames being mentioned are involved in the chief's campaign, when the damaging information was available on all issues. This includes contentious school issues and the FLDS allegations. Did this put some teachers jobs at risk? Did this affect the ongoing CPS or criminal investigations? We might never know.
My advice for people posting comments on the Standard Times is to either identify yourself, like Jim Ryan and I have and then post carefully, or get a throwaway Email address from Yahoo or Google or AOL, and register with fictitious information. It looks like it will take the Standard Times a while to figure out the whole internet and privacy thing. Protect your own freedom of speech. The First amendment isn't just to protect reporters and columnists. It is also supposed to protect anonymous writers no matter if they are an average Joe or even a political candidate.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Privacy; Not So Much
I quote here from the Standard-Times Privacy agreement offered to all posters on the gosanangelo online site, "III. We do not share personal information with any third party without your permission".
There is much more than that, but the rest is legalese ruffles and flourish, that sentence captures the promise the newspaper made to posters. That promise has been broken and the newspaper's reaction to the situation has been late and negligent at best. The print edition article in Sunday, May 4 edition is the first print acknowledgement the problem existed, and it was not only inadequate, it served to compound the error.
For those who do not follow the online version, a little background. The online edition has a feature that allows posters to register under a screen name and comment on articles or editorials in an ongoing forum. It has been a lively, close-to-real-time open comments back and forth, for the most part lightly moderated. Comments are subject to being removed for libel, obcenity, cuss words and such, many such comments have been pulled. A few posters have been outright banned for repetitive violations. In my case, the anonymity was never an item, I self-identified during the Charter Amendments debates as "barkeep". I posted often and enjoyed the free exchange beyond what deadlines and ink-on-dead-trees could possibly provide.
On April 25, I was told that lists of posters' real names were being bandied about in the Police Dept. and that officers who had posted for or against certain candidates were in fear of reprisal. Frankly, I knew that several officers from various candidates' camps had been posting under screen names, but I simply did not credit that the Standard-Times would give out a list, I blew it off as overly paranoid. That weekend, I heard from several sources the same story. Depending on which candidate a source supported, these people had varying ideas as to who had engineered this opening of user profiles, but the basic facts were congruent and stand without resort to conspiracy theories.
A change was made to the content management system that allowed, for about a day, any viewer, from any internet connected screen, to click on a screen name and get the registering user profile (real name, for those who didn't bother to lie when they registered) and complete posting history for that user. While my informants were concerned with Police Department posters, it worked for any poster, any topic, full history. One person expressed concern for teachers' privacy over a performance review topic that had been hot a few months ago. I wondered aloud had anyone bothered to check on true names of some of the FLDS posters. To be sure, blame notwithstanding, this leak was common knowledge by 4/24 PM. Personal note: by the time I heard of this, the barn door had been closed, I do not have the list so many people obviously do have.
Seeing nothing in the paper, I forwarded a heads up to Ty Meighan, along with some speculation, labelled as such, on Monday, 4/28, later acknowledged by e-mail. Late Wednesday, one WhiteHorseman "outed" 9 screen names, obviously taken from this leak. 1:15 AM 4/30, I posted as barkeep and made explicit for those who had not yet heard that which I outlined in the preceeding paragraph. This set off a flurry of "I know who you are; nyah, nyah, no you don't I lied" yadayada that continues to this day.
Finally, today, Sunday May 4, the Standard-Times publishes a story letting the rest of the world know that the privacy promised to posters had been breached 10 days before. As if the delay were not bad enough, the story in which this revelation is finally stated compounds the original breach. During that interim, nearly every correspondent to the online version has become aware the loss of privacy occured, but as in my case, not all of them had access to the full list. Readers of the ink-on-dead-trees paper were likely unaware this leak happened.
In the same edition where the Standard-Times endorses Tim Vasquez for re-election, the article announcing this violation of their privacy agreement leads off by blowing the apparent screen name of Vasquez' widely accepted as nearest contender, Jeff Davis. While not specifically naming them, the article goes on to say "At least four members of the officers' meet-and-confer team also have names attatched to comments...The city and its attorneys aren't likely to forget that when negotiations resume in the fall, and the ramifications go beyond that-the City Council could decide not to negotiate." Leave aside whether this effectively outs the meet-and-confer team, on what basis does the S-T allege the Council even can, let alone is likely to, refuse to negotiate? What part of meet and confer statute allows the city to unilaterally refuse to talk to the officers' duly elected representatives on the grounds of "we don't like what you said last spring"?
It appears Davis did handle this poorly, but, so long as The Standard-Times is "outing" posters, why not supporters of other candidates? I am unaware of any screen name directly tied to any other candidate specifically, but I have been keeping up with this race, and have probably read most of them. I can tell you this; advocates for, if not the actual candidates have played the "I know who you are" game and some made comments rude enough to rate removal. While I do not endorse, just to be honest, in the heat of this I had a first-time removal; after a poster wished I had been aborted, I responded with someting rude enough to get (justifiably) removed.
Critical to understanding this issue, for those not using the online forum, is the meaning of "user profile" the actual information revealed. When a poster registers, the one verifiable field is the e-mail address. Should one care to, one can fill in name as Mickey Mouse, address Disneyworld. At least one poster was revealed to be using three screen names, different e-mail links for each. The information that was revealed consisted of these self-proclaimed user profiles. Some people gave aliases there as a second layer of identity protection, in retrospect, not unreasonably. Those immediately revealed were those who were most trusting in the privacy agreement and didn't bother to lie, or the few, such as myself, who didn't care. I went with "barkeep" because I have used it for many years on many other forums, not for concealment.
I have sworn to protect confidential statements, not necessarily to believe everything I am told, but if I tell someone I will not say where this came from, I won't. People from different camps talk to me, and I stress here, candidate advocates, no candidate personally does. I have not and will not endorse a candidate, and I try to weigh the bias of sources who talk to me. That clear, there is a huge misunderstanding about this breach of the privacy agreement. I hear from different sides "so&so outed me, everybody knows so&so is a mouthpiece for Candidate X".
Please people, the party responsible for revealing user profiles, to the extent they are true names, that party is the Standard-Times. This person or that may have taken advantage of that information in ways I would find ethically questionable, but they could never have done so had the Standard-Times not made the information available in contravention of an explicitly stated privacy agreement.
That said we move to the handling of this breach by the Standard-Times. I think in legalistic terms, my Blog partner Mr. Turner thinks in computer geek terms, I came up with "negligent", he prefers "incompetence". I only diferrentiate because negligent has legal implications in tort law that incompetent doesn't necessarily encompass.
The explanation offered in today's Standard-Times article states this was, "not a hack into the Standard-Times' site by supporters of a certain candidate, as conspiracy-minded commenters have suggested". I may have missed a comment here or there, but no one I've talked to thought this was an outside hack. By accident or no, there are people who find it remarkably coincidental that this "open door" was coincidentally tripped over by people willing to take advantage of it. I won't say that didn't happen, but I'm a fairly successful gambler and I didn't get there drawing to inside straights.
The genesis of this information leak had to be in-house, and today's article says as much. To be perfectly clear, I do not mean, necessarily, in house as to the confines of the Standard-Times Harris St. building, but corporate in-house. After that, the explanation gets thin real quick. The mistake is attributed to "new employees in Knoxville" who were in a weekly process which "reset privacy controls for newspapers across the chain, not realizing the Standard-Times wanted to keep profile data away from the public". Excuse me, but which Scripps Howard newspapers DO intend to make user profile information public? Last time I looked in on the Abilene Reporter News, they didn't. Did they last Thursday? Scripps Howard has, I believe, 19 newspapers, not all have online comments, but those which do, have identical privacy agreements.
Why did the Standard-Times wait 10 days after they say their people were advised of this breach to make a public statement alerting users it had happened? If the reader is unfamiliar with the online edition and the comments section, it has been an open free-for-all with commenters from every side calling out their opposition advocates since WhiteHorseman ID'd 9 posters April 29th. Don't bother to look for WhiteHorseman's original posts that evening, they have vanished. In fine point of fact, their reporter inquired of me had I happened to print out those comments, he could not access them. As it happens, I had, I may have the only existing copy of those comments as they originally appeared. Don't even ask which rock that is buried under.
The article states that their online director Betty Brackin "is working individually with those wishing to reclaim their anonymity". Maybe so, but even that help is limited to those posters who are already aware they were outed and ask for help. For all anyone knows, posters on say the teacher evaluation subject may not have checked in lately, may have been utterly unaware that their personal information and comment history is open to any inquiring mind who knew about this "window of opportunity". This should have been as public as an automobile safety recall. In truth, I have been too patient. The Standard-Times article Sunday says they were aware of this Friday, April 25. Give some allowance for getting the full story, the Standard-Times should have had an alert in print sometime that weekend, before I sent them my heads-up letter.
That aside, how well has their remedy worked? One case I have tripped over, a poster did ask Ms. Brackin for help. Sho' nuff, poster X was given a new screen name, and the old posts were removed. Unfortunately, when I went back to posts put up a week before the leak, I see this: The post by X in support of candidate Y was removed; two responses to that post are still there, only now they read "response to (new screen name X)" then in the body of the text response, the old screen name is used. In short, this poster has been retroactively "outed" a second time, backdated to a week before the original leak happened!
Make no mistake; I appreciate the Standard-Times, in this case I have often complimented the reporter who wrote the story I have objections to. I enjoy the online trading of opinion. In this case, the story, the revelation of identity, the remedy for it and the explanation of it has been poorly done. It cannot escape attention that in the same edition where the paper's endorsement of incumbent Chief Vasquez includes this: "the incident eventually led to a Texas Ranger investigation after Vasquez disclosed to the Standard-Times that the woman was an informant for SAPD Sgt. Jeff Davis. Revealing such information is a felony...", the Standard-Times compounds its own violation of confidentiality by disclosing the identity of Vasquez' most threatening opponent to print edition readers who may have been completely unaware of this tempest. I have my own copy of the "AP Stylebook" 2007 edition and its guidelines to confidential sources. If ya'll need one Hastings has them in stock. I gave you the Palmer file for free, this you can buy.
There is much more than that, but the rest is legalese ruffles and flourish, that sentence captures the promise the newspaper made to posters. That promise has been broken and the newspaper's reaction to the situation has been late and negligent at best. The print edition article in Sunday, May 4 edition is the first print acknowledgement the problem existed, and it was not only inadequate, it served to compound the error.
For those who do not follow the online version, a little background. The online edition has a feature that allows posters to register under a screen name and comment on articles or editorials in an ongoing forum. It has been a lively, close-to-real-time open comments back and forth, for the most part lightly moderated. Comments are subject to being removed for libel, obcenity, cuss words and such, many such comments have been pulled. A few posters have been outright banned for repetitive violations. In my case, the anonymity was never an item, I self-identified during the Charter Amendments debates as "barkeep". I posted often and enjoyed the free exchange beyond what deadlines and ink-on-dead-trees could possibly provide.
On April 25, I was told that lists of posters' real names were being bandied about in the Police Dept. and that officers who had posted for or against certain candidates were in fear of reprisal. Frankly, I knew that several officers from various candidates' camps had been posting under screen names, but I simply did not credit that the Standard-Times would give out a list, I blew it off as overly paranoid. That weekend, I heard from several sources the same story. Depending on which candidate a source supported, these people had varying ideas as to who had engineered this opening of user profiles, but the basic facts were congruent and stand without resort to conspiracy theories.
A change was made to the content management system that allowed, for about a day, any viewer, from any internet connected screen, to click on a screen name and get the registering user profile (real name, for those who didn't bother to lie when they registered) and complete posting history for that user. While my informants were concerned with Police Department posters, it worked for any poster, any topic, full history. One person expressed concern for teachers' privacy over a performance review topic that had been hot a few months ago. I wondered aloud had anyone bothered to check on true names of some of the FLDS posters. To be sure, blame notwithstanding, this leak was common knowledge by 4/24 PM. Personal note: by the time I heard of this, the barn door had been closed, I do not have the list so many people obviously do have.
Seeing nothing in the paper, I forwarded a heads up to Ty Meighan, along with some speculation, labelled as such, on Monday, 4/28, later acknowledged by e-mail. Late Wednesday, one WhiteHorseman "outed" 9 screen names, obviously taken from this leak. 1:15 AM 4/30, I posted as barkeep and made explicit for those who had not yet heard that which I outlined in the preceeding paragraph. This set off a flurry of "I know who you are; nyah, nyah, no you don't I lied" yadayada that continues to this day.
Finally, today, Sunday May 4, the Standard-Times publishes a story letting the rest of the world know that the privacy promised to posters had been breached 10 days before. As if the delay were not bad enough, the story in which this revelation is finally stated compounds the original breach. During that interim, nearly every correspondent to the online version has become aware the loss of privacy occured, but as in my case, not all of them had access to the full list. Readers of the ink-on-dead-trees paper were likely unaware this leak happened.
In the same edition where the Standard-Times endorses Tim Vasquez for re-election, the article announcing this violation of their privacy agreement leads off by blowing the apparent screen name of Vasquez' widely accepted as nearest contender, Jeff Davis. While not specifically naming them, the article goes on to say "At least four members of the officers' meet-and-confer team also have names attatched to comments...The city and its attorneys aren't likely to forget that when negotiations resume in the fall, and the ramifications go beyond that-the City Council could decide not to negotiate." Leave aside whether this effectively outs the meet-and-confer team, on what basis does the S-T allege the Council even can, let alone is likely to, refuse to negotiate? What part of meet and confer statute allows the city to unilaterally refuse to talk to the officers' duly elected representatives on the grounds of "we don't like what you said last spring"?
It appears Davis did handle this poorly, but, so long as The Standard-Times is "outing" posters, why not supporters of other candidates? I am unaware of any screen name directly tied to any other candidate specifically, but I have been keeping up with this race, and have probably read most of them. I can tell you this; advocates for, if not the actual candidates have played the "I know who you are" game and some made comments rude enough to rate removal. While I do not endorse, just to be honest, in the heat of this I had a first-time removal; after a poster wished I had been aborted, I responded with someting rude enough to get (justifiably) removed.
Critical to understanding this issue, for those not using the online forum, is the meaning of "user profile" the actual information revealed. When a poster registers, the one verifiable field is the e-mail address. Should one care to, one can fill in name as Mickey Mouse, address Disneyworld. At least one poster was revealed to be using three screen names, different e-mail links for each. The information that was revealed consisted of these self-proclaimed user profiles. Some people gave aliases there as a second layer of identity protection, in retrospect, not unreasonably. Those immediately revealed were those who were most trusting in the privacy agreement and didn't bother to lie, or the few, such as myself, who didn't care. I went with "barkeep" because I have used it for many years on many other forums, not for concealment.
I have sworn to protect confidential statements, not necessarily to believe everything I am told, but if I tell someone I will not say where this came from, I won't. People from different camps talk to me, and I stress here, candidate advocates, no candidate personally does. I have not and will not endorse a candidate, and I try to weigh the bias of sources who talk to me. That clear, there is a huge misunderstanding about this breach of the privacy agreement. I hear from different sides "so&so outed me, everybody knows so&so is a mouthpiece for Candidate X".
Please people, the party responsible for revealing user profiles, to the extent they are true names, that party is the Standard-Times. This person or that may have taken advantage of that information in ways I would find ethically questionable, but they could never have done so had the Standard-Times not made the information available in contravention of an explicitly stated privacy agreement.
That said we move to the handling of this breach by the Standard-Times. I think in legalistic terms, my Blog partner Mr. Turner thinks in computer geek terms, I came up with "negligent", he prefers "incompetence". I only diferrentiate because negligent has legal implications in tort law that incompetent doesn't necessarily encompass.
The explanation offered in today's Standard-Times article states this was, "not a hack into the Standard-Times' site by supporters of a certain candidate, as conspiracy-minded commenters have suggested". I may have missed a comment here or there, but no one I've talked to thought this was an outside hack. By accident or no, there are people who find it remarkably coincidental that this "open door" was coincidentally tripped over by people willing to take advantage of it. I won't say that didn't happen, but I'm a fairly successful gambler and I didn't get there drawing to inside straights.
The genesis of this information leak had to be in-house, and today's article says as much. To be perfectly clear, I do not mean, necessarily, in house as to the confines of the Standard-Times Harris St. building, but corporate in-house. After that, the explanation gets thin real quick. The mistake is attributed to "new employees in Knoxville" who were in a weekly process which "reset privacy controls for newspapers across the chain, not realizing the Standard-Times wanted to keep profile data away from the public". Excuse me, but which Scripps Howard newspapers DO intend to make user profile information public? Last time I looked in on the Abilene Reporter News, they didn't. Did they last Thursday? Scripps Howard has, I believe, 19 newspapers, not all have online comments, but those which do, have identical privacy agreements.
Why did the Standard-Times wait 10 days after they say their people were advised of this breach to make a public statement alerting users it had happened? If the reader is unfamiliar with the online edition and the comments section, it has been an open free-for-all with commenters from every side calling out their opposition advocates since WhiteHorseman ID'd 9 posters April 29th. Don't bother to look for WhiteHorseman's original posts that evening, they have vanished. In fine point of fact, their reporter inquired of me had I happened to print out those comments, he could not access them. As it happens, I had, I may have the only existing copy of those comments as they originally appeared. Don't even ask which rock that is buried under.
The article states that their online director Betty Brackin "is working individually with those wishing to reclaim their anonymity". Maybe so, but even that help is limited to those posters who are already aware they were outed and ask for help. For all anyone knows, posters on say the teacher evaluation subject may not have checked in lately, may have been utterly unaware that their personal information and comment history is open to any inquiring mind who knew about this "window of opportunity". This should have been as public as an automobile safety recall. In truth, I have been too patient. The Standard-Times article Sunday says they were aware of this Friday, April 25. Give some allowance for getting the full story, the Standard-Times should have had an alert in print sometime that weekend, before I sent them my heads-up letter.
That aside, how well has their remedy worked? One case I have tripped over, a poster did ask Ms. Brackin for help. Sho' nuff, poster X was given a new screen name, and the old posts were removed. Unfortunately, when I went back to posts put up a week before the leak, I see this: The post by X in support of candidate Y was removed; two responses to that post are still there, only now they read "response to (new screen name X)" then in the body of the text response, the old screen name is used. In short, this poster has been retroactively "outed" a second time, backdated to a week before the original leak happened!
Make no mistake; I appreciate the Standard-Times, in this case I have often complimented the reporter who wrote the story I have objections to. I enjoy the online trading of opinion. In this case, the story, the revelation of identity, the remedy for it and the explanation of it has been poorly done. It cannot escape attention that in the same edition where the paper's endorsement of incumbent Chief Vasquez includes this: "the incident eventually led to a Texas Ranger investigation after Vasquez disclosed to the Standard-Times that the woman was an informant for SAPD Sgt. Jeff Davis. Revealing such information is a felony...", the Standard-Times compounds its own violation of confidentiality by disclosing the identity of Vasquez' most threatening opponent to print edition readers who may have been completely unaware of this tempest. I have my own copy of the "AP Stylebook" 2007 edition and its guidelines to confidential sources. If ya'll need one Hastings has them in stock. I gave you the Palmer file for free, this you can buy.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Surprising San Angelo and FLDS
A few years back, a billboard on Knickerbocker greeted Mathis Field visitors with the "Surprising San Angelo" slogan. We might think about reviving that slogan, it is inarguably true.
This past week, we had an early AM, thankfully minor, tornado or two. As it happened, CNN national feed beat the local alert system on the report by a few minutes. That is not a slap at the local system, we just happened to have in town a hundred or so of the hungriest news hounds on the planet covering the FLDS sect story. Given the time of day (OK, night), the CNN crew might well have been making their way home from Fat Boss Bar when they personally encountered this remarkably fast moving storm. Don't know that, pure speculation, but...
The Standard-Times is really doing a pretty good job, but they are running out of front page space. Had someone told me last May that the next SAISD Bond proposal would be buried under more urgent news, I'd have told them straight up to activate the third brain cell, no way. Oops!, would have lost that dollars-to-donuts bet. BTW, yours truly will be truly busy Monday, SAISD will hear a second presentation of the bond Committee and at 7:00 PM the ASU College Republicans will host another police chief candidate forum in CJ Davidson Center. With luck, I can catch most of both. Conchoinfo does have limited staff.
S-T has done a remarkable job of reporting this FLDS mess, but I have a few points worth mentioning. Using the term "sect" in the paper instead of "cult" was a good starting point. More on that point later.
Before I wander afield in general speculation, let me make clear; I support the idea of prosecuting any genuine statutory, even more vigorously any forcible rape arising from this investigation. Freedom of religion has limits. The Supreme Court may allow a Santeria believer to sacrifice a chicken to his God, but human sacrifice, be it mortal or rape, is clearly out of bounds. Christian Scientists are allowed to refuse medical treatment and die in good faith, but they may not withhold it from their underage children.
When FLDS bought the Eldorado property, a lot of people went into panic mode, not without reason. The history of this group in Colorado City, Az. or Hilsdale, Utah was scary. There, they had registered voters, put people on ballot, and in essence, they were the city gov't and police force. Had FLDS tried this in Schleicher County, with its limited number of voting age eligible, they probably could have owned Eldorado, politically. One of "Prophet" Jeff's policies was to withdraw from, rather than engage in, local affairs. Where the twin towns of Hildale and Colorado City had attracted enough attention that the states took over, Jeffs counseled the FLDS that flying "under the radar" would be more effective for the sect's interests than an overt takeover.
I am a little concerned that the breadth of the warrants issued might exceed the scope justified by a slightly shaky, second hand report, recanted in the last phone call to a non-gov't agency by a 16 year old as yet unproduced. Note here; law enforcement from two states have interviewed the alleged offender and chosen not to make an arrest as yet. Fortunately or not, Texas Statute gives Child Protective Services standing here that nearly no other criminal investigating unit gets. If this were an old-fashioned drug-trafficking case, it would take a high pockets Miami lawyer about two minutes to shred the warrant and the subsequent "fruit of the poisonous tree", effectively dumping a week long investigation in the nearest bar ditch. If one is curious, the warrant application is here.
As has been reported, State Rep. Hildebrand (Kerrville) put forth several legislative changes in response to FLDS. The most important was the change in the age at which a marriage can be "blessed" by the state from 14 to 16. There was also an "anti-polygamy" law which has yet to be tested in the real world.
To me, the most under-appreciated player in this drama is Schleicher Co. Sheriff David Doran. By approaching the FLDS leaders non-confrontationaly, he at least got their ear. Thanks to Doran and his connections, FLDS elders cannot claim ignorance of the change in statute: also thanks to Sheriff Doran, this raid did NOT turn into a Waco, Branch Davidian armed stand-off. Should it come to pass that the authorities over-reacted, at least everybody will be alive to hear that judicial determination. If Sheriff Doran comes off as "Andy of Mayberry", well look back at that TV series and its stress on common sense: good ol' boy Andy Taylor was hardly an idiot.
FLDS is one of the original spin-offs from the Utah statehood/Mormon agreement to ban polygamy. The Mormons disavowed polygamy in 1890 and Utah was given statehood in 1896. FLDS is not the only polygamist sect out there, they just get the headlines. Most of the 40-50,000 polygamists tracing back to some sect of Mormon belief escape official attention by drawing a bright line at age 18. Once past the age of legal consent, "spiritual unions" escape most polygamy/bigamy laws by not sanctioning with state license. In the eyes of the law, they are no different from any unwed "shack-up" relationship.
My "Let's take a deep breath" moment on this comes to considering the application of the legal changes not to this sect, but to society at large. We all know that there are an unfortunately large number of under 16 girls in Texas who somehow manage to produce babies each year, completely unrelated to FLDS, virgin birth, or anything remotely religious. If it is society's will that these children be consigned to illegitimacy, something the 14-with-parental-consent law sought to avoid, well, bastardy isn't the social burden it was in my youth, so be it. Do we intend to go after the fathers of these children as criminals?
I grant that FLDS has demonstrated a pattern of forced under-age marriage beyond anything society should tolerate in the name of religious freedom going back to the 1890 schism from the Mormon Church. I am afraid the tools we craft in haste to go after FLDS will turn into an instrument of prosecutorial discretion which could later be used against individuals or groups which simply happen to be out of favor.
I recall the 70's when a few states dusted off the old, long dormant laws prohibiting unwed cohabitation. They were almost always used against "Hippies", mixed-race relationships, or whomever the local law thought to be "subversive". We saw police raiding large houses, counting noses, counting bedrooms, checking whose clothes hung in which closets, and busting unwed adults for sleeping in the same bed. As I recall, the passion for this sort of suppression weakened about the time the Governor's daughter was charged along with the Mayor's son, but perhaps you see where I'm going.
We need to take whatever time is needed and craft laws that are directed to the act we want to abolish, not suppression of a religion most of us find to be "weird". By definition, any religion, being a belief in something supernatural, requires a "suspension of disbelief". Typically, if it is our religion, we call it "Faith" and hold it in high esteem; if it is someone else's religion, we pity the poor brainwashed fool. When Thomas Jefferson forced into reality the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the most notable "cult" protected by it was some new-fangled bunch of deranged Protestants known as "Baptists".
Take the following thought experiment. The majority of us are Christian, so assume we are describing our belief to someone of average intelligence and good moral character, but he is from the other side of the world and knows nearly nothing about Christian doctrine. After you have thoroughly befuddled him with the mystery of the Trinity and the duality of Christ's manhood/Godhood, throw in an explanation of a core Christian doctrine, the Miracle of Transubstantiation. Just for fun, explain that while taking Communion. Assuming he believes you, don't be shocked if he becomes physically ill watching you (from his point of view) drink blood and indulge in cannibalism.
I am not mocking my own religion, I am making the point that to a non-believer, ANY religion is horsefeathers. Civic law needs to rest on non-discriminatory legal precedent, not anyone's Holy Book. To do otherwise invites another generation, using another Holy Book, to turn the tables on us.
This past week, we had an early AM, thankfully minor, tornado or two. As it happened, CNN national feed beat the local alert system on the report by a few minutes. That is not a slap at the local system, we just happened to have in town a hundred or so of the hungriest news hounds on the planet covering the FLDS sect story. Given the time of day (OK, night), the CNN crew might well have been making their way home from Fat Boss Bar when they personally encountered this remarkably fast moving storm. Don't know that, pure speculation, but...
The Standard-Times is really doing a pretty good job, but they are running out of front page space. Had someone told me last May that the next SAISD Bond proposal would be buried under more urgent news, I'd have told them straight up to activate the third brain cell, no way. Oops!, would have lost that dollars-to-donuts bet. BTW, yours truly will be truly busy Monday, SAISD will hear a second presentation of the bond Committee and at 7:00 PM the ASU College Republicans will host another police chief candidate forum in CJ Davidson Center. With luck, I can catch most of both. Conchoinfo does have limited staff.
S-T has done a remarkable job of reporting this FLDS mess, but I have a few points worth mentioning. Using the term "sect" in the paper instead of "cult" was a good starting point. More on that point later.
Before I wander afield in general speculation, let me make clear; I support the idea of prosecuting any genuine statutory, even more vigorously any forcible rape arising from this investigation. Freedom of religion has limits. The Supreme Court may allow a Santeria believer to sacrifice a chicken to his God, but human sacrifice, be it mortal or rape, is clearly out of bounds. Christian Scientists are allowed to refuse medical treatment and die in good faith, but they may not withhold it from their underage children.
When FLDS bought the Eldorado property, a lot of people went into panic mode, not without reason. The history of this group in Colorado City, Az. or Hilsdale, Utah was scary. There, they had registered voters, put people on ballot, and in essence, they were the city gov't and police force. Had FLDS tried this in Schleicher County, with its limited number of voting age eligible, they probably could have owned Eldorado, politically. One of "Prophet" Jeff's policies was to withdraw from, rather than engage in, local affairs. Where the twin towns of Hildale and Colorado City had attracted enough attention that the states took over, Jeffs counseled the FLDS that flying "under the radar" would be more effective for the sect's interests than an overt takeover.
I am a little concerned that the breadth of the warrants issued might exceed the scope justified by a slightly shaky, second hand report, recanted in the last phone call to a non-gov't agency by a 16 year old as yet unproduced. Note here; law enforcement from two states have interviewed the alleged offender and chosen not to make an arrest as yet. Fortunately or not, Texas Statute gives Child Protective Services standing here that nearly no other criminal investigating unit gets. If this were an old-fashioned drug-trafficking case, it would take a high pockets Miami lawyer about two minutes to shred the warrant and the subsequent "fruit of the poisonous tree", effectively dumping a week long investigation in the nearest bar ditch. If one is curious, the warrant application is here.
As has been reported, State Rep. Hildebrand (Kerrville) put forth several legislative changes in response to FLDS. The most important was the change in the age at which a marriage can be "blessed" by the state from 14 to 16. There was also an "anti-polygamy" law which has yet to be tested in the real world.
To me, the most under-appreciated player in this drama is Schleicher Co. Sheriff David Doran. By approaching the FLDS leaders non-confrontationaly, he at least got their ear. Thanks to Doran and his connections, FLDS elders cannot claim ignorance of the change in statute: also thanks to Sheriff Doran, this raid did NOT turn into a Waco, Branch Davidian armed stand-off. Should it come to pass that the authorities over-reacted, at least everybody will be alive to hear that judicial determination. If Sheriff Doran comes off as "Andy of Mayberry", well look back at that TV series and its stress on common sense: good ol' boy Andy Taylor was hardly an idiot.
FLDS is one of the original spin-offs from the Utah statehood/Mormon agreement to ban polygamy. The Mormons disavowed polygamy in 1890 and Utah was given statehood in 1896. FLDS is not the only polygamist sect out there, they just get the headlines. Most of the 40-50,000 polygamists tracing back to some sect of Mormon belief escape official attention by drawing a bright line at age 18. Once past the age of legal consent, "spiritual unions" escape most polygamy/bigamy laws by not sanctioning with state license. In the eyes of the law, they are no different from any unwed "shack-up" relationship.
My "Let's take a deep breath" moment on this comes to considering the application of the legal changes not to this sect, but to society at large. We all know that there are an unfortunately large number of under 16 girls in Texas who somehow manage to produce babies each year, completely unrelated to FLDS, virgin birth, or anything remotely religious. If it is society's will that these children be consigned to illegitimacy, something the 14-with-parental-consent law sought to avoid, well, bastardy isn't the social burden it was in my youth, so be it. Do we intend to go after the fathers of these children as criminals?
I grant that FLDS has demonstrated a pattern of forced under-age marriage beyond anything society should tolerate in the name of religious freedom going back to the 1890 schism from the Mormon Church. I am afraid the tools we craft in haste to go after FLDS will turn into an instrument of prosecutorial discretion which could later be used against individuals or groups which simply happen to be out of favor.
I recall the 70's when a few states dusted off the old, long dormant laws prohibiting unwed cohabitation. They were almost always used against "Hippies", mixed-race relationships, or whomever the local law thought to be "subversive". We saw police raiding large houses, counting noses, counting bedrooms, checking whose clothes hung in which closets, and busting unwed adults for sleeping in the same bed. As I recall, the passion for this sort of suppression weakened about the time the Governor's daughter was charged along with the Mayor's son, but perhaps you see where I'm going.
We need to take whatever time is needed and craft laws that are directed to the act we want to abolish, not suppression of a religion most of us find to be "weird". By definition, any religion, being a belief in something supernatural, requires a "suspension of disbelief". Typically, if it is our religion, we call it "Faith" and hold it in high esteem; if it is someone else's religion, we pity the poor brainwashed fool. When Thomas Jefferson forced into reality the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the most notable "cult" protected by it was some new-fangled bunch of deranged Protestants known as "Baptists".
Take the following thought experiment. The majority of us are Christian, so assume we are describing our belief to someone of average intelligence and good moral character, but he is from the other side of the world and knows nearly nothing about Christian doctrine. After you have thoroughly befuddled him with the mystery of the Trinity and the duality of Christ's manhood/Godhood, throw in an explanation of a core Christian doctrine, the Miracle of Transubstantiation. Just for fun, explain that while taking Communion. Assuming he believes you, don't be shocked if he becomes physically ill watching you (from his point of view) drink blood and indulge in cannibalism.
I am not mocking my own religion, I am making the point that to a non-believer, ANY religion is horsefeathers. Civic law needs to rest on non-discriminatory legal precedent, not anyone's Holy Book. To do otherwise invites another generation, using another Holy Book, to turn the tables on us.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
New Bond; A Qualified Winner
Before the new school bond was unveiled Monday evening, I posted here some things voters should look for in a new bond, knowing that something was to be presented Monday night. The early hints had the bond total at $99 million, the origin of my reference to it as a "99-cent sale".
Many of the things I asked voters to look for were indeed present. The only surprise was a Proposition 2 asking for $30 million above that to build a new Central on the present site. I will come back to that Prop later.
As to the foretold $99 million bond, Proposition 1 as now styled, I find few faults with it. It is specific, possibly overly specific, but in contrast with last May's proposal, a huge improvement, and I can say now, I will support it. There is some needed new construction, but rather than the "tear it down and build new" focus of the last bond, this bond looks to maintain and improve on existing schools at existing sites.
The very first item contrasts 180 degrees from the failed issue. It proposes $5.28 million to expand Holiman. A year ago, Holiman and San Jacinto were to be closed and consolidated with Bradford. Coincidentally, the same SAISD meeting announced that Holiman had received recognition for educational excellence limited to 146 schools, not systems, but schools, statewide, and Holiman was a school the last bond would have closed.
San Jacinto (my attendance area school) will receive $6.4 million in upgrades, with $1 million going to new construction to replace "portable" classrooms. Hey, that's OK, call them "trailers", a lot of hard working parents and kids on this side of town still live in "trailers", we're almost perversely proud of being " trailer trash". Bradford, without the consolidation will still get $5.3 million in improvements with a new cafeteria and classrooms. Crockett, instead of being moved to an industrial park where nobody lives, will remain in its neighborhood, and get $8 million in improvements.
This tells me the facilities committe listened to parents and recognized we want our kids going to neighborhood schools. If we sacrifice some economy of scale, so be it. The population in the Lamar area is large enough that a 600+ student size is still "neighborhood", but regardless, we want youngsters to be going to school close to home, and we'll pay the differential. Glenmore, Reagan, Goliad, Santa Rita, all get similar improvements, similarly detailed. Lee middle school, it's in there, in detail.
This bond tells us transparently how much money will be spent on each campus and for what. I have to say, I've been over it several times, I do not find any project our schools don't absolutely need. If anything it is over-specific, might nudge the contractors' bids high. I mean, well, take Santa Rita, scheduled for $6,430,696 in updates. Are we that sure the correct figure might not be $6,430,692? Honestly, in projections such as this with construction costs inflating as I speak, only the first two digits of any figure are significant.
In others details, Lee middle school will see $13 million and Lakeview, the newest campus since the fire rebuild, gets about $2 million, very neatly replacing the same sum which was "diverted" from the insurance check after the fire.
One thing I advised voters to look for was "vision", a long term plan that would leave the children of today's students proud to attend the schools we build or renovate today. This brings in Proposition 2, $30 million which in addition to the $39 million in Prop 1, would rebuild Central as a single building "box" school at the present location.
Trustee Cookie Roberts was not alone in questioning this unanticipated Prop 2. This is crunch time for the future of secondary education in San Angelo. I mentioned Max Parker's "Viewpoints" article on the difficulties imposed on us by UIL district "redistricting" . The idea of SAISD moving toward a three 4A high school system has been kicking around for at least twenty years. The population is moving southwest, and shows no sign of changing, exception to Holiman, which is growing. If we were to go to a three 4A design, we would be halfway to a UIL district in the city limits. As Roberts pointed out, a third high school would increase the opportunity for students to engage in extra-curricular programs, especially sports.
Dr. May stated that, "I don't think there is a single committee member on the advisory board that wouldn't like to have three 4A high schools. It was a level of affordability, we didn't feel we could go there." Here is where the "Vision" comes in. If all the committee members, like it, why not give the voters a chance to speak? I have advised polling on the bond since the defeat of the last bond.
Now I sense, from taking comments over the years, this may be an area where, like smaller elementary schools, voters may be willing to forego big-box efficiency in favor of three high schools placed where the students live. I do not know this, but neither does the committee or the SAISD Board until we have some legitimate public opinion survey. Saints preserve us, not another push-poll such as failed us so badly last time, but a 5-600 respondent demographically diverse honest poll. In the context of a $130 million bond, low 5 figures for a good poll is cheap. As it stands, both SAISD and I are guessing as to voter preference.
I will not revisit arguements "fer or agin" here, but I think that polling is crucial to selling this bond. We have seen last May what happens when we try to sell voters a product they don't like.
From the Sunday post, "What to look for in a Bond", I suggested it might have been wiser to hold off the unveiling until after the HOT poice chief race. I have been making a nuisance of myself at work, the watering holes, anywhere I can get someone to stand still and listen, doing some very "selective" polling on my own. Last night I bought one gentleman an adult beverage, he was the first I had asked who even knew this bond was out there, and he had it confused with the last one. I still awarded him my "gold star for civic interest"; between a mysterious murder, a chief's race, water line breaks, he was the only person I asked who even knew this was on the table.
Trust me that will not hold, not posed on a November election. Unless something changes, I am putting the over/under on voter turnout at 33,500 in Nov. a record setting 60% turnout. Problem is, we will get a lot of voters who will be primarily there for the Presidential, who may or may not know squat about the bond. They will just trip over it on the ballot and think, "Sounds like money out of my pocket, no thank you". On strictly process electoral terms, the bond should be THE headliner on whichever election date it is placed. Well, it is what it is.
I will say this; if I am proved wrong as to voter sentiment, I will give my full-throated support to both Propositions. For now, I will lobby hard to get consideration of a three high school vision, but I am hardly ready to oppose either, if that is what we go with. On Prop 2, I am for the moment, frankly, dithering.
Board members, Superintendent Bonds, you know I have read all the Huckabee material the Committee saw, possibly other info they did not review. The last successful bond was amended before it was put in formal ballot language, we have time to "take the temperature" of voters now, and amend if necessary. If I am "dithering", where do you think the voters, who may well think you are selling the last bond again, might be?
We cannot afford to lose two bonds in a row. If voters really prove to prefer the 5A/4A two high school vision, I will accede to that preference and do what I can to help sell it. The fact that the committee preferred the three school vision tells me we really need to look at that idea before we let the bean-counters flush it.
Many of the things I asked voters to look for were indeed present. The only surprise was a Proposition 2 asking for $30 million above that to build a new Central on the present site. I will come back to that Prop later.
As to the foretold $99 million bond, Proposition 1 as now styled, I find few faults with it. It is specific, possibly overly specific, but in contrast with last May's proposal, a huge improvement, and I can say now, I will support it. There is some needed new construction, but rather than the "tear it down and build new" focus of the last bond, this bond looks to maintain and improve on existing schools at existing sites.
The very first item contrasts 180 degrees from the failed issue. It proposes $5.28 million to expand Holiman. A year ago, Holiman and San Jacinto were to be closed and consolidated with Bradford. Coincidentally, the same SAISD meeting announced that Holiman had received recognition for educational excellence limited to 146 schools, not systems, but schools, statewide, and Holiman was a school the last bond would have closed.
San Jacinto (my attendance area school) will receive $6.4 million in upgrades, with $1 million going to new construction to replace "portable" classrooms. Hey, that's OK, call them "trailers", a lot of hard working parents and kids on this side of town still live in "trailers", we're almost perversely proud of being " trailer trash". Bradford, without the consolidation will still get $5.3 million in improvements with a new cafeteria and classrooms. Crockett, instead of being moved to an industrial park where nobody lives, will remain in its neighborhood, and get $8 million in improvements.
This tells me the facilities committe listened to parents and recognized we want our kids going to neighborhood schools. If we sacrifice some economy of scale, so be it. The population in the Lamar area is large enough that a 600+ student size is still "neighborhood", but regardless, we want youngsters to be going to school close to home, and we'll pay the differential. Glenmore, Reagan, Goliad, Santa Rita, all get similar improvements, similarly detailed. Lee middle school, it's in there, in detail.
This bond tells us transparently how much money will be spent on each campus and for what. I have to say, I've been over it several times, I do not find any project our schools don't absolutely need. If anything it is over-specific, might nudge the contractors' bids high. I mean, well, take Santa Rita, scheduled for $6,430,696 in updates. Are we that sure the correct figure might not be $6,430,692? Honestly, in projections such as this with construction costs inflating as I speak, only the first two digits of any figure are significant.
In others details, Lee middle school will see $13 million and Lakeview, the newest campus since the fire rebuild, gets about $2 million, very neatly replacing the same sum which was "diverted" from the insurance check after the fire.
One thing I advised voters to look for was "vision", a long term plan that would leave the children of today's students proud to attend the schools we build or renovate today. This brings in Proposition 2, $30 million which in addition to the $39 million in Prop 1, would rebuild Central as a single building "box" school at the present location.
Trustee Cookie Roberts was not alone in questioning this unanticipated Prop 2. This is crunch time for the future of secondary education in San Angelo. I mentioned Max Parker's "Viewpoints" article on the difficulties imposed on us by UIL district "redistricting" . The idea of SAISD moving toward a three 4A high school system has been kicking around for at least twenty years. The population is moving southwest, and shows no sign of changing, exception to Holiman, which is growing. If we were to go to a three 4A design, we would be halfway to a UIL district in the city limits. As Roberts pointed out, a third high school would increase the opportunity for students to engage in extra-curricular programs, especially sports.
Dr. May stated that, "I don't think there is a single committee member on the advisory board that wouldn't like to have three 4A high schools. It was a level of affordability, we didn't feel we could go there." Here is where the "Vision" comes in. If all the committee members, like it, why not give the voters a chance to speak? I have advised polling on the bond since the defeat of the last bond.
Now I sense, from taking comments over the years, this may be an area where, like smaller elementary schools, voters may be willing to forego big-box efficiency in favor of three high schools placed where the students live. I do not know this, but neither does the committee or the SAISD Board until we have some legitimate public opinion survey. Saints preserve us, not another push-poll such as failed us so badly last time, but a 5-600 respondent demographically diverse honest poll. In the context of a $130 million bond, low 5 figures for a good poll is cheap. As it stands, both SAISD and I are guessing as to voter preference.
I will not revisit arguements "fer or agin" here, but I think that polling is crucial to selling this bond. We have seen last May what happens when we try to sell voters a product they don't like.
From the Sunday post, "What to look for in a Bond", I suggested it might have been wiser to hold off the unveiling until after the HOT poice chief race. I have been making a nuisance of myself at work, the watering holes, anywhere I can get someone to stand still and listen, doing some very "selective" polling on my own. Last night I bought one gentleman an adult beverage, he was the first I had asked who even knew this bond was out there, and he had it confused with the last one. I still awarded him my "gold star for civic interest"; between a mysterious murder, a chief's race, water line breaks, he was the only person I asked who even knew this was on the table.
Trust me that will not hold, not posed on a November election. Unless something changes, I am putting the over/under on voter turnout at 33,500 in Nov. a record setting 60% turnout. Problem is, we will get a lot of voters who will be primarily there for the Presidential, who may or may not know squat about the bond. They will just trip over it on the ballot and think, "Sounds like money out of my pocket, no thank you". On strictly process electoral terms, the bond should be THE headliner on whichever election date it is placed. Well, it is what it is.
I will say this; if I am proved wrong as to voter sentiment, I will give my full-throated support to both Propositions. For now, I will lobby hard to get consideration of a three high school vision, but I am hardly ready to oppose either, if that is what we go with. On Prop 2, I am for the moment, frankly, dithering.
Board members, Superintendent Bonds, you know I have read all the Huckabee material the Committee saw, possibly other info they did not review. The last successful bond was amended before it was put in formal ballot language, we have time to "take the temperature" of voters now, and amend if necessary. If I am "dithering", where do you think the voters, who may well think you are selling the last bond again, might be?
We cannot afford to lose two bonds in a row. If voters really prove to prefer the 5A/4A two high school vision, I will accede to that preference and do what I can to help sell it. The fact that the committee preferred the three school vision tells me we really need to look at that idea before we let the bean-counters flush it.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
What to Look for in a School Bond
I find myself in an odd position. After chiding the SAISD Board for its glacial pace in deciding to move to a new bond after last year's first ever defeat of a bond, now that they have decided to move forward, their new advisory committee is certainly wasting no time. After a total of three, maybe four meetings, they plan to unveil the new bond to be placed on the November ballot.
There is a hard deadline of August for ballot language, and one would hope for an unveiling far enough ahead of that to take the voters' temperature and allow some amendation before going "all in" betting the hand. Perhaps the idea is to start that taking of the temperature early, may be merit in that. We do need that time, the '96 bond had to be modified from four separate issues to two to assure passage. Speaking purely to political process, I would have advised we not go with the unveiling until after the May city elections. We are looking at a hot Police Chief race. I think it would be wiser to wait until the bond was not competing with that for voter attention.
Well, it is what it is. While I have some insight from committee members, I will hold comments on the specifics until we actually get a look at the showroom floor model tomorrow.
I share some thoughts as what we as voters should look for generally in a workable bond. I stress here, I want us to come up with a bond that will sell, I admitted last time we knew the system needs money, frankly, more money than is addressed in this bond, assuming the committee does actually go with this "99 cent sale" figure. I think it is critical we do not lose a second bond, we don't want our voters to get in the habit of saying "NO". Something close to 90% of Texas school bonds pass, and a thumping defeat such as we had is passing rare, the voters sent a message, actually several messages, this bond must address if it is to pass.
First, details, lots of details. Prior to last bond, we forwarded to our Board the Midland ISD bond, which passed handily. It was clear and specific. It put classroom construction in one issue, athletics in another. It detailed things such as "School A will get 4 new classrooms, School B will get 6" and in similar detail told voters where ballfields would be built or upgraded. Clarity and transparency will be vital to a successful bond here. Our voters sent a resounding message they did not trust the system to take a large sum and "do something" with it. The very late and unclear drawings of new schools offered obviously did not reassure the customers. This bond will need to be at least as open as the last successful bond was.
One example here: during the debate over the failed bond, we were told repeatedly that it would require $50 million to bring the Central campus up to specs if we turned down the new Central. How much of this proposal will go to Central, and specifically what will it be spent on. One glaring deficiency at Central is the "two-pipe" heating and cooling system. About half the buildings on campus have independent HVAC units from the last bond, and one gym has nothing at all. Will that upgrade be a part of the Central improvements?
Honesty is also critical. The last bond was at least forthright in telling us it would be phase one of three, the later phases to be brought on as the first was getting close to paid off. We are told the advisory committee relied heavily on the Huckabee assessments of needs, as it should have. Huckabee did a lot of good work looking at physical plant needs. My opinion, and apparently the voters' also, their recommendations went too strongly for new construction, but the base assessment of problems was a pretty thorough work product.
Now subtracting the new schools, Crockett and Central, but adding back the renovations needed at existing sites, I still come up with a grand total, all three phases, somewhere on the high side of $400 million. Either the Huckabee work on which this committee relied was off by about $300 million, or this $99 million bond, if that is all they are selling, is a drastic understatement of needs. In that a school bond is comparable to a house mortgage, it would be roughly equivalent to signing an adjustable rate mortgage, and I'd hate to try to make a living selling that in today's market.
Now before anyone runs screaming into the night, that $400 million is money spread out over a 20- 30 year period. If I am lucky, I will still be above ground and sucking wind then, but it was a long-term plan.
That brings up another thing this bond should address. A good bond should sell more than bricks and mortar and ballfields. It SHOULD be bold enough to look far ahead and sell a vision, a concept that once brought to reality, parents and children can be proud of when the grandchildren of today's students are going to the schools. Superintendent Bonds, Board members, the margin of last year's defeat should inform you, but don't let it scare you. I have told you and written elsewhere repeatedly, the last bond did not fail over the amount of money, it failed for, among other things, being a vision the voters did not support.
Today's Central was sold to voters during a period of drought and hard times for West Texas, but it was sold. The vision was, and I quote, "America's first ageless, campus style high school". Had it been properly maintained, that would still be undeniable. You are doing better on the maintenence, lots of room to improve, but it seems that lesson at least was taken to heart.
What I fear on this bond is that someone decided we needed to "go cheap" just to get something approved. We didn't sell the Edsel last time, so now we have a new sales staff and we're going to try to sell'em a Yugo. Then we come back when the Yugo dies and try to sell the Cadillac we really need.
Did this advisory committee honestly put all options on the table? Voters will insist on that. Trustee Max Parker wrote a timely and thorough Viewpoint article last Thursday on the problems with the new UIL district, and the process by whch it was arrived at. Mr. Parker is quite correct, this puts too much expense on us, not only monetary, but student-athlete time from studies. I've tried it, admittedly a long time ago, but laptops or pen&paper, let's not pretend these kids are going to get a lot of school work done during long bus rides. Mr. Parker suggests we get Rep. Darby to take our concerns to the UIL legislatively. I am first in line to admire Darby's effectiveness, maybe he can pull another rabbit out of the hat. Let me suggest an option we have local control over.
What if we consider that all those kids in Lamar and southwest Angelo are going to be in high school soon enough. Instead of building an overpriced 5A school, we shift to a three 4A high school model, "vision", if you will? We're then halfway to a UIL district in the city limits. I didn't dream this up last night, this concept as been discussed for at least twenty years. Had not Grape Creek pulled its students, the pressure for it would have come to a head a few years ago, but we are back to gaining population. If SAISD treated high schools as a district resource rather than stand-alone institutions, there is no reason 3 4A high schools could not offer as many, if not more, diverse course programs as a 5A school. Voters made it clear they prefer community based elementary schools, they will accept losing economy of scale to keep kids that age close to home. High school is a different item, by that age students are starting to choose between college bound or vocational preference and San Angelo is not so large as to make transportation to the school specializing in one area or another a big problem.
I didn't throw that out as something SAISD has to do, but as an example of what we need to seriously consider as we determine the direction we will go for the next few decades. Was it honestly considered?
Unless Huckabee and I and the Board were all wrong a year ago, a stand-alone $99 million bond will not adequately address our long term needs. This is not to say that if this "99 cent sale" is the best Board can bring itself to put forward that I will vote "no". The schools do need the money and the improvements. I will be disappointed in the lack of vision and honesty, and I will still believe that when the Yugo is "dead on the road" a few years hence, the voters are going to feel twice stung and selling that Cadillac is going to be double tough.
I sincerely hope I have to correct some of this after Monday's presentation. We need a bond, but we need a bond with a vision that might outlast some of us. You didn't take my advice on election date, but please consider this; better to suck it up now, give a good shot. The voters might well surprise you what they are willing to embrace IF they think they are being honestly dealt with.
There is a hard deadline of August for ballot language, and one would hope for an unveiling far enough ahead of that to take the voters' temperature and allow some amendation before going "all in" betting the hand. Perhaps the idea is to start that taking of the temperature early, may be merit in that. We do need that time, the '96 bond had to be modified from four separate issues to two to assure passage. Speaking purely to political process, I would have advised we not go with the unveiling until after the May city elections. We are looking at a hot Police Chief race. I think it would be wiser to wait until the bond was not competing with that for voter attention.
Well, it is what it is. While I have some insight from committee members, I will hold comments on the specifics until we actually get a look at the showroom floor model tomorrow.
I share some thoughts as what we as voters should look for generally in a workable bond. I stress here, I want us to come up with a bond that will sell, I admitted last time we knew the system needs money, frankly, more money than is addressed in this bond, assuming the committee does actually go with this "99 cent sale" figure. I think it is critical we do not lose a second bond, we don't want our voters to get in the habit of saying "NO". Something close to 90% of Texas school bonds pass, and a thumping defeat such as we had is passing rare, the voters sent a message, actually several messages, this bond must address if it is to pass.
First, details, lots of details. Prior to last bond, we forwarded to our Board the Midland ISD bond, which passed handily. It was clear and specific. It put classroom construction in one issue, athletics in another. It detailed things such as "School A will get 4 new classrooms, School B will get 6" and in similar detail told voters where ballfields would be built or upgraded. Clarity and transparency will be vital to a successful bond here. Our voters sent a resounding message they did not trust the system to take a large sum and "do something" with it. The very late and unclear drawings of new schools offered obviously did not reassure the customers. This bond will need to be at least as open as the last successful bond was.
One example here: during the debate over the failed bond, we were told repeatedly that it would require $50 million to bring the Central campus up to specs if we turned down the new Central. How much of this proposal will go to Central, and specifically what will it be spent on. One glaring deficiency at Central is the "two-pipe" heating and cooling system. About half the buildings on campus have independent HVAC units from the last bond, and one gym has nothing at all. Will that upgrade be a part of the Central improvements?
Honesty is also critical. The last bond was at least forthright in telling us it would be phase one of three, the later phases to be brought on as the first was getting close to paid off. We are told the advisory committee relied heavily on the Huckabee assessments of needs, as it should have. Huckabee did a lot of good work looking at physical plant needs. My opinion, and apparently the voters' also, their recommendations went too strongly for new construction, but the base assessment of problems was a pretty thorough work product.
Now subtracting the new schools, Crockett and Central, but adding back the renovations needed at existing sites, I still come up with a grand total, all three phases, somewhere on the high side of $400 million. Either the Huckabee work on which this committee relied was off by about $300 million, or this $99 million bond, if that is all they are selling, is a drastic understatement of needs. In that a school bond is comparable to a house mortgage, it would be roughly equivalent to signing an adjustable rate mortgage, and I'd hate to try to make a living selling that in today's market.
Now before anyone runs screaming into the night, that $400 million is money spread out over a 20- 30 year period. If I am lucky, I will still be above ground and sucking wind then, but it was a long-term plan.
That brings up another thing this bond should address. A good bond should sell more than bricks and mortar and ballfields. It SHOULD be bold enough to look far ahead and sell a vision, a concept that once brought to reality, parents and children can be proud of when the grandchildren of today's students are going to the schools. Superintendent Bonds, Board members, the margin of last year's defeat should inform you, but don't let it scare you. I have told you and written elsewhere repeatedly, the last bond did not fail over the amount of money, it failed for, among other things, being a vision the voters did not support.
Today's Central was sold to voters during a period of drought and hard times for West Texas, but it was sold. The vision was, and I quote, "America's first ageless, campus style high school". Had it been properly maintained, that would still be undeniable. You are doing better on the maintenence, lots of room to improve, but it seems that lesson at least was taken to heart.
What I fear on this bond is that someone decided we needed to "go cheap" just to get something approved. We didn't sell the Edsel last time, so now we have a new sales staff and we're going to try to sell'em a Yugo. Then we come back when the Yugo dies and try to sell the Cadillac we really need.
Did this advisory committee honestly put all options on the table? Voters will insist on that. Trustee Max Parker wrote a timely and thorough Viewpoint article last Thursday on the problems with the new UIL district, and the process by whch it was arrived at. Mr. Parker is quite correct, this puts too much expense on us, not only monetary, but student-athlete time from studies. I've tried it, admittedly a long time ago, but laptops or pen&paper, let's not pretend these kids are going to get a lot of school work done during long bus rides. Mr. Parker suggests we get Rep. Darby to take our concerns to the UIL legislatively. I am first in line to admire Darby's effectiveness, maybe he can pull another rabbit out of the hat. Let me suggest an option we have local control over.
What if we consider that all those kids in Lamar and southwest Angelo are going to be in high school soon enough. Instead of building an overpriced 5A school, we shift to a three 4A high school model, "vision", if you will? We're then halfway to a UIL district in the city limits. I didn't dream this up last night, this concept as been discussed for at least twenty years. Had not Grape Creek pulled its students, the pressure for it would have come to a head a few years ago, but we are back to gaining population. If SAISD treated high schools as a district resource rather than stand-alone institutions, there is no reason 3 4A high schools could not offer as many, if not more, diverse course programs as a 5A school. Voters made it clear they prefer community based elementary schools, they will accept losing economy of scale to keep kids that age close to home. High school is a different item, by that age students are starting to choose between college bound or vocational preference and San Angelo is not so large as to make transportation to the school specializing in one area or another a big problem.
I didn't throw that out as something SAISD has to do, but as an example of what we need to seriously consider as we determine the direction we will go for the next few decades. Was it honestly considered?
Unless Huckabee and I and the Board were all wrong a year ago, a stand-alone $99 million bond will not adequately address our long term needs. This is not to say that if this "99 cent sale" is the best Board can bring itself to put forward that I will vote "no". The schools do need the money and the improvements. I will be disappointed in the lack of vision and honesty, and I will still believe that when the Yugo is "dead on the road" a few years hence, the voters are going to feel twice stung and selling that Cadillac is going to be double tough.
I sincerely hope I have to correct some of this after Monday's presentation. We need a bond, but we need a bond with a vision that might outlast some of us. You didn't take my advice on election date, but please consider this; better to suck it up now, give a good shot. The voters might well surprise you what they are willing to embrace IF they think they are being honestly dealt with.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Free Money
I received an unexpected bonus check this week, and after careful consideration, decided to use it for pure indulgence, a pricey meal at a local restaraunt. The "economic stimulus" crowd of federal gov't would be proud of me, as will the eatery and the Chamber of Commerce.
We do limit ourselves to local issues, so I spare my loyal readers a symposium on Keynesian macroeconomics.
I did think it worth an alert to pass this on. My roommate is retired, Social Security income, and does not have to file tax returns, as she has no additioal reportable income. Something I heard on NPR Sirius radio, the "economic stimulus rebate" will go to last year's filers, just for an address base. Roommate owed no taxes, could have skipped filing altogether, BUT...
She went down to the local federal office, explained her situation to the helpful soul there, he filled out her 1040EZ return and she will get a Gov't check for about $300 this May! Same result for at least two other retirees we personally alerted. Now whether they will use it to pay bills or stimulate the economy is up to them, my opinion, as long as the feds have been taking their money, they are entitled to get some of it back.
We have plenty of people in my roommate's situation as a retirement city. If this circumstance applies to you, or someone you know, make sure they file for the "free money". No guilt about being welfare queeens here, anyone qualifying will have been a long-term tax payer.
Good luck; the local economy is so diverse, failure in one aspect won't kill the deal. If my job is senior supervisor of buggy-whip manufacturing, I should worry. San Angelo may not be the town to get rich in, but damned if it ai't fun
Just another helpful hint from conchoinfo.
We do limit ourselves to local issues, so I spare my loyal readers a symposium on Keynesian macroeconomics.
I did think it worth an alert to pass this on. My roommate is retired, Social Security income, and does not have to file tax returns, as she has no additioal reportable income. Something I heard on NPR Sirius radio, the "economic stimulus rebate" will go to last year's filers, just for an address base. Roommate owed no taxes, could have skipped filing altogether, BUT...
She went down to the local federal office, explained her situation to the helpful soul there, he filled out her 1040EZ return and she will get a Gov't check for about $300 this May! Same result for at least two other retirees we personally alerted. Now whether they will use it to pay bills or stimulate the economy is up to them, my opinion, as long as the feds have been taking their money, they are entitled to get some of it back.
We have plenty of people in my roommate's situation as a retirement city. If this circumstance applies to you, or someone you know, make sure they file for the "free money". No guilt about being welfare queeens here, anyone qualifying will have been a long-term tax payer.
Good luck; the local economy is so diverse, failure in one aspect won't kill the deal. If my job is senior supervisor of buggy-whip manufacturing, I should worry. San Angelo may not be the town to get rich in, but damned if it ai't fun
Just another helpful hint from conchoinfo.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
NAACP Chiefs Forum Last Questions Part 2
Answers to the second and last group of questions at the NAACP forum, March 1st. This is split into two videos to meet time and size restrictions.
This second clip contains answers from candidates Cunningham, Burkett, and Vasquez.
This second clip contains answers from candidates Cunningham, Burkett, and Vasquez.
NAACP Chiefs Forum Last Questions Part 1
Answers to the second and last group of questions at the NAACP forum, March 1st. This is split into two videos to meet time and size restrictions.
This first clip contains answers from candidates Kading, Davis, and Mida.
This first clip contains answers from candidates Kading, Davis, and Mida.
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