Just My 2 Cents Worth

A Sweet Tax Coming? Not So Sweet

2012-02-03T11:46:00.003-06:00

It may be if some have their way because sugar may really be a "poison". (I thought most everything in excess was bad) Seems there is little difference between alcohol, tobacco and sugar when it comes to health risk., according to some. So before you eat that next twinkie or ding-dong or malt, you might want to read this article. After doing that, you can read this article. After that, if you want that twinkie or ding-dong, go ahead and eat it. Just make your day and say to heck with what both sides say about sweetness. And make sure to wash it down with a vanilla shake. Or not.

“Stack ‘em and Pack ‘em” Urban Failing in Dallas...

2012-02-03T08:34:00.005-06:00

... or at least one of them is failing in the Dallas area.

Some people want stack ‘em and pack ‘em to become the normal for the Dallas area, and some don’t. Victory Park was in the news today. In what is likely the biggest foreclosure posting in the Dallas area, a German bank, HSH Nordbank AG, is trying to recovery it’s money which amounts to about $79.8 million.

The median price for a condo (glorified name for an apartment) is almost $400 per square foot at Victory Park with a median price of about $640,000. Only 20 of the 132 glorified apartments have been sold since 2007. 112 still remain vacant.

The average home price is Richardson in 2010 was about $180,000 and probably priced between $80 and $100 per square foot.

In Richardson the agreement between the city and Brickrow has need to be modified several time at the developers request. The reason was because they were having economic difficult times as the plans for the place did not workout the way the project was sold to the citizens. Some of the changes were a reduction in square footage of the apartments and a reduction in the number of condos. The bottom line for this pack ‘em and stack ‘em and high density planned development and experiment in social engineering didn’t go as planned. The city leadership went along with it most likely because there were more tax dollars in it for them because they could get more tax money per acre than with the suburban sprawl of single family homes. That is also probably why the city officials were so dead set on approving the 6,000 to 8,000 apartments for the BURP area. It seems tax dollars are probably more important.

Just curious, but how many of those promoting pack ‘em and stack ‘em high density live is such an area. My guess would be that there are precious few promoters of high density that actually live in high density.

Welcome to Stepford - Or at Least Richardson's Version of Stepford

2012-02-02T11:22:00.005-06:00

"The term "Stepford wife", which is often used in popular culture, stemmed from the novel, and is usually a reference to a submissive and docile housewife." Wikipedia

In Richardson's version, it is the citizens who play the part of "robotic" wives, and the city council/city management that play the part of the controlling and manipulative husbands. That is how it has played out for years and years in Richardson. Slagel pays bribes or is extorted , that was OK. $35 a plate feasts
for the council members, OK. Slagel housing his private business in city hall, OK. Once Slagel's private business gets the boot from city hall he then uses another taxpayer supported facility, Startech (while not paying about $84,000 in rent), OK. Then there is the city using taxpayer dollars to pay for the redo of a commercial wall for one of former mayor Slagel's donors, OK. What does our fine city manager and the other council members do with regard to all those things? They just let it happen, and apparently, well, it's OK.

The "Robotic" citizens, for the most part, follow the lead of city leaders. Mark writes a fairly good post and worth reading while also pointing out and conceding, there seems to be a preconceived notion that 80-90% of the voters want direct election. Overall, Mark's pretty much argues that for Richardson selection rather than election is the best way to get a mayor. I lean more towards election than selection, but it isn't something that I just have to have, it is more of a desire.

Through the candidate forums and through candidate questionnaires, all of the council members wanted to review the charter and claimed they wanted to give a really hard look at those two things. I can't recall any of the candidates or citizens who even hinted that direct election of the mayor was something they would oppose. It was a big deal at the time.

When it comes to elections and what some candidate sometimes say, there is a huge disconnect between what they will say to get elected, and what they will end up doing. So for what ever reason they give for not following through on their promises, whether it will take too much time, or it will be too expensive, or their desires for a water park slide over doing what is in the best interests for the citizens, one thing is for sure. Direct election of the mayor reduces their chance of becoming the mayor, and it also shows contempt for the citizens as being too ignorant to know what is best for them.

Even Wild Bill had some ideas for changes and supported a charter review, with specific ideas of his own on where the charter changes need to be made. As for Mark being "... shocked that none of the council members seemed to be aware of the research already done...". It really isn't that shocking for some pretty obvious reasons. (Ask some other coalition hatchet men how the coalition treats their past hatchet men)

Candidate Questionairs from Back in May 2011

2012-02-01T16:37:00.002-06:00

There seem to have been some changes in some of the council members opinions concerning direct election of the mayor over the past year, with the exception of Mitchell and Omar. And changes in opinion of whether or not the charter needs to be reevaluated.

Back around May 3, 2011, I posted the question and written answers for all city council candidate. You can find it at this link: questions-for-candidates.html

Question #1: Should the city charter be changed to allow the direct election of the mayor and why?

Answer by Bob Townsend:
There should be a review of the city charter, including the length of terms for City Councilmen, staggered Councilmen terms, term limits, the direct election of the mayor, etc. Any recommendations made by the review should be submitted to the citizens of Richardson in an election to determine what the citizens want.

Answer by Mark Solomon:
If there is agreement among the Council that changes need to be made to the City Charter, I will support a review to include the selection of mayor and terms for the Council.

Answer by Laura Maczka:
The City Charter was established in 1956, amended in 1989 and again in 2007. It is important to occasionally review the City Charter to determine the relevancy of the way the City operates as we move through time and I would be open to considering such an effort. Direct election of the mayor is a topic that has been much discussed throughout this election and is something that I will support being evaluated.

Answer by Kendal Hartley:
I would support a Citizens Charter Review Commission to review the city charter and provide recommendations to the council. Because the charter has not been reviewed in many years it needs to be reviewed to make sure it is current and growing with Richardson. If that is what the majority of the citizens want the city council to do I would support it.

Answer by Amir Omar:
I think a charter review is overdue. I would hope that the charter review commission would consider any changes. I personally would prefer we move to a direct election, and assuming our review commission brings that forward as an option, I will support it.

candidate-questionnaire-question-1-of-6.html

candidate-questionnaire-question-2-of-6.html

candidate-questionnaire-question-3-of-6.html

candidate-questionnaire-question-4-of-6.html

candidate-questionnaire-question-5-of-6.html

candidate-questionnaire-question-6-of-6.html

Bummer... My favorite Newt is Getting a Florida Thumping

2012-01-31T18:49:00.003-06:00

Well, what can I say. The people of Florida don't like the Newt as much as the people of S.C. do. Seems Florida has plenty of anyone but Newt folks. On the bright side, it isn't as bad as the 2:1 thumping he gave Mitt is S.C.

Is it just me? Or do others get reminded of Steve Mitchell when they see a pic of Mitt?

DMN 2/1/2012

Stake in the Heart of Direct Election of the Mayor, for Now

2012-01-31T11:15:00.002-06:00

Laura M. put a stake through the heart of discussions for the direct election of the mayor when she made a motion to end discussion on the subject. She felt it was too complicated of an issue to make just a change to the City Charter by limiting the changes to one thing or so at a time and preferred to do a comprehensive review of the charter if changes are made. Steve Mitchell did point out to her that during the last change they didn't do a complete review, they just made a few select changes.

Another odd thing Laura had to say was that she looked at the city council members as, more or less, a board of directors and the mayor was the chairman of the board. She felt that since the board of directors elects its chairman from within, Richardson should follow the same model. The problem is that Richardson is not a private for-profit corporation, it is a city.

Dunn pretty much, in his own uniquely painful way, said basically he is opposed to direct election by parroting my points yesterday about "there can be only one", and we will lose good members of the council if we have direct elections. He doesn't seem to be fan of taking risks to get rewards and would rather play it safe with guaranteed seats. He also said that he currently know who he can work with on the current council leading me to suspect he was implying that there are certain people he is unable to work with currently.

The man from Louisiana commented that he doesn't see the need to change a thing in the city charter even though he claimed to have read it and claims to understand it. OK.

With Richardson seeming to place a high priority and as much like other cities as possible, it seems it is really only in certain ways they want to be like other cities.

ACM Michelle said the TML (the lobbyist for city governments) did a study and at the time only 6% of the other Texas cities have our type of mayor/council.

One comment Mr. Amir (as Dunn likes to call him) had to make was that the first time he ran for council the question everyone was asking him was "Who are you going to vote for when it comes to voting for the mayor?" He said that was very odd. Well, no it isn't. For the last several years that has been a test candidates have to face when running for office. Former Mayor Gary A. Slagel was the reason people asked that question, both those who wanted Slagel to be mayor, and those who opposed him being mayor. His actions very much polarized the residents of Richardson.

So, today it looks like we will have the council and mayor elected the same way as yesterday.

See Section D, part 1 of 2 for the start of the discussion on the city website starting at about 28:50.

Why the City Council Probably Does Not Want Direct Election of the Mayor

2012-01-30T11:18:00.001-06:00

Richardson is only one of less than a handful of cities that does not have a direct election for the mayor's throne. It is also by long ways the biggest city to not have direct election of the Mayor. This is curious considering how many times we have heard that the city needs to do this or that, because, "everyone else is doing it".

Here is my take on why the council does not want to have direct election of the mayor: They want to hedge their bets. There Can Be Only One, mayor that is. But there can be 7 council members.

Suppose we had some council members with big egos who wanted to be mayor: They would have to make a choice to run as a council member or run as mayor. If one of them decides to run for mayor, and loses, then they are out of play. It is an either/or kind of thing.

Just imagine the games and amusement the election could provide if Steve, Amir, Solomon and Laura all wanted the mayor's throne and filed to run for it. The catch for them is that one will be mayor and the other three with be out and gone from the council.

So if the council members do not allow for change of the charter allowing direct election of the mayor, my guess is it would be out of selfish self-interest. I can't come up with a good reason why they would not like to do what almost all other cities do, especially since that is the excuse they have used so many times in the past for this or that.

Rental Registration - Dearmore v. City of Garland

2012-01-29T12:54:00.006-06:00

DMN 1/30/2012

The rental registration program Richardson recently passed has not set well with me for primarily one reason: The owner of a rental property must, within 30 days after a tenant moves in, allow city inspectors access to inspect a property.

While I think that if any inspection at all needs to done, it should be when the single family home is vacant and before any tenant moves in. After all, the 4^th Amendment to the constitution states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” But the US Supreme court seems to disagree with my opinion.”

During the discussion on rental home registration several weeks ago, Mark “Monday Madness" Solomon boomed out his opinion that a rental homes are no residential properties, they are in fact a commercial enterprise that make money. I am quite sure that he would be happy to know that the Courts would agree. “Although Dearmore does not reside at his rental properties, the court views his ownership interest in his rental property as that of the owner of a commercial business, as it is used for commercial purposes. As such, he has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his rental property.”

So, as a rental home is consider a commercial property, perhaps that is why the city decided not to have inspections prior to a tenant renting a house. A city cannot coerce the inspection of a vacant residential property without probable cause. “The businessman, like the occupant of a residence, has a constitutional right to go about his business free from unreasonable official entries upon his private commercial property. The businessman, too, has that right placed in jeopardy if the decision to enter and inspect for violation of regulatory laws can be made and enforced by the inspector in the field without official authority evidenced by a warrant.”

When is comes to probable cause, refusal to comply with inspection request by city officials does not create probably cause enough to obtain a warrant. “No search warrant shall be obtained without probable cause to believe that a fire or health hazard or violation or unsafe building condition is present on the premises sought to be inspected. A search warrant is not authorized based solely upon the failure of an owner to obtain a permit under this section.” There must be some positive proof that there exists a condition in violation of city codes, not just suspicions.

As for the renter’s rights, the rental home he leases is his home. Against the 4^th amendment protect his right to privacy just as it would any business or resident. You residence is your residence whether rented or own.

The City of Richardson, if it intends to continue enforcing it’s ordinances will likely end up in the same place as Garland, the losing side of a court case.

So what can you do if you like the current rental registration program? Nothing.

But, suppose you don't like it and would like to do something about it. There is one thing you might want to do, call Metrotex and speak to Romeo Arrieta, telling him that they think the ordinance is unfair, unconstitutional, or what ever you think. His number is (972) 467-0819

Dearmore v. City of Garland

RichardsonRentalHomeInspections.pdf

Gold? Or Fool's Gold?

2012-01-29T11:00:00.009-06:00

Click on image to enlarge

Are you on the gold bandwagon? Prices have been sky-rocketing over the past few years and today's price is $1,738.35.

The best time ever to buy gold in, since 1913, was during 1970. In adjusted dollars, gold averaged $208.30 (actual nominal price was $36.02 a troy ounce). The very worst time to buy gold when it was at its highest adjusted value of $1674.61 (the actual nominal price $615).

With what seems to be everyone else demanding gold to help secure their future, I am doing what I have always done when it comes to gold: Let others take part in the legalized gambling scheme.

It may be that gold prices will continue to reach sky high limits, but I think it will crash and burn like the housing market, or like it did when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the precious metal market decades ago, and failed.

Update:
An anonymous commenter gave a few other links to take a peek at in comparing gold the the Dow Jones Average and the housing market. Thanks anonymous 2:05am. (and get some sleep, way too late to be blogging at 2 in the morning!)

Gold and the Dow Jones

Gold and Housing

And Bloggermouse provided one of his own links to look at and think about: http://goo.gl/eAv1s

Charter Change Whisperings

2012-01-28T14:25:00.001-06:00

This Monday the council will take up talking, or whispering, about changing the Richardson City Charter. You can find a link on the left side of this page for the current city charter. Lots of people, by Richardson standards, have been asking for this for some time now. No doubt Richardson's very own "know-it-all" will beg borrow and steal to get named to the Charter Change Commission. Hopefully, there will be a few smart people on the commission as well to counter-balance Richardson's very own "know-it-all".

Here are a few suggestion I have heard proposed for the city charter:

1) Direct election of the mayor

2) a combination of 4 or more single member districts where only residents of that district can vote along with 3 or more at-large districts.

OK, only two I can think of of the top of my head. But I am sure there are a lot more others can think of.

So, if you have any ideas or would like to encourage/discourage the council in changing the charter or not, be there Monday night for the discussions.

Federal Tax in Percentage of Income - 1913-2011

2012-01-28T11:08:00.001-06:00

Ever been curious to see what the federal tax table look like if you graph them? Probably not, but here it is anyways. The values were adjusted for inflation. The graph was derived from this pdf file, fed_individual_rate_history_nominal&adjusted-20110909.pdf

Low IQ Causes Prejudice, Homophobia, Racism, Resistance to Change..... And Conservatism

2012-01-27T16:46:00.001-06:00

Just in time for the election process this years comes a story on yahoo about how to identify a conservative. As well, you can tell a conservative from a liberal by their reactions to pictures.

Take a picture of a spider crawling across someones hand. A prejudiced, homophobic, racist, dumb conservative will react strongly to that picture, recognizing what could be a dangerous situation. A liberal will not have much of a reaction and go on about his business.

Conversely, when a liberal is shown a picture of something nice, like a flower say, they will get that Chris Matthews tingle going up their leg, reacting in a positive emotional manner. The conservative will just look and have little emotional reaction.

So there you have it, a simplified conservative liberal test. Only liberals will be tested on this post. Conservatives, never mind.

Richardson Sales Tax Off to a Bad Start for 2012

2012-01-24T11:34:00.004-06:00

This weekend, because of comment that referred to "Just Four Words", and because there was an ad for a sale price on a certain box T.V. series , I spent a few of my hard earned dollars. But, because of what seems to be the shortsightedness of past Richardson City Coucil members, I was unable to spend that money in a way that would help Richardson. The only nearby place to buy the DVD set was in a Plano "Big-Box" store . You know, one of those evil abominations some people love to hate, a dreaded big box store.

But fear not, very soon, if the rumor is true, Richardson will have its own bikini bar, which by the way, is "makin' the world more beautiful...one bikinis at at a time", at the wonderful "master-planned" Eastside complex, which is filled with a "refreshing blend of UPSCALE shopping, dining, office space and luxury apartments" which will complement Richardson's west-side Zone D' Erotica, conveniently located on the south-bound Central service road between Belt Line and Spring Valley across the highway and by judging from the reviews on yelp, the hooker and crack infested COMO motel , between the Continental Inn and the closed down Hobart Pool facility, which decided to get the heck out of Richardson for financial reasons and made the big move to a more promising area, the City Murphy . Not enough can be said about Richardson's Crowned Jewels of planned developments, TIF zones and social engineering attempts in Richardson. Your tax dollars at not at work, but a real gift to those select few who get the frebbies!

So while we may not have the evil abominations, some people refer to as big box stores, we do have some cash cows for sales tax coffers with our sexual oriented business. You know, sex really does sale, just not as well as the big box stores do, from a sales tax perspective.

A Forwarded Message from Move-On Dot Org

2012-01-23T15:22:00.001-06:00

Wow! This group almost sounds conservative in the email.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kat Barr, MoveOn.org Political Action <moveon-help@list.moveon.org>
Date: Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 12:49 PM
Subject: If you were mayor of Richardson
To: Deleted

More than 4,000 MoveOn members are exploring running for elected office. If you've thought about how things could be different in Richardson, you should join them! Will you join the progressive wave and consider running for office?

Yes, I'm Interested!

Dear MoveOn member,

If you were mayor of Richardson, what would be the first thing you'd do? Make sure city employees don't lose their pensions? Support green business startups? Or maybe fight back against cuts to crucial local services?

This isn't a hypothetical scenario—it's exactly what more than 4,000 MoveOn members just like you have been thinking about since taking the first step to run for elective office. And they're not just running for mayor. They're exploring running for offices including school board, town council, and state legislature in cities and towns across the country.

If you've ever thought, "I've got some ideas for doing things differently in Richardson," or seen a local politician and thought, "If that were me, things would be different," then it's time to join thousands of other progressives across the country and run for office.

And if you decide to run, you won't be alone. You'll be part of a nationwide progressive strategy to take back local offices in 2012 and beyond. To help give you the resources you need to run a competitive campaign, we've partnered with Progressive Majority to provide you with online trainings and strategic advice. Trust me—running for office is easier than you think. So what do you say?

Yes, I'd consider running for office.

Back in 2010, tea party candidates, backed by national tea party groups, were elected to hundreds of local offices. That's exactly what we're going to do in 2012—but with a wave of candidates who will stand up for the 99% in communities across the country.
If you decide to run, you'll gain access to Progressive Majority's great training programs designed to help progressive candidates in 2012. Here are some examples of what you'll have access to:

Expert training on how to run your own campaign and how to get started

Help finding the elected position that's right for you

Direct campaign support from experienced campaigners

Time-tested strategic campaign tips, and more

So if you've ever wanted to change things in Texas, or imagined yourself running for office in Richardson, now's the time.

What do you think? Are you in?

Yes, I'd consider running for office.

Thanks for all you do.

–Kat, Elena, Tate, Garlin, and the rest of the team

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. This email was sent to (delete) on January 23, 2012. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.

Landslide Victory for the "Newt"

2012-01-22T09:01:00.004-06:00

It was a good night last night seeing the S.C. win for Newt. It was almost an unbelievable night. I turned on Fox news just after 6pm and they were projecting Newt the winner. At the same time, with less than 1% of the vote in, Romney appeared to have more votes. Thinking that Fox News might be calling it too early, I unblocked MSNBC and CNN to see what they were say. To my surprise, they had also called the race for Newt.

Earlier in the week, in a bit of a sarcastic post, I mentioned Santorum had won in a landslide victory beating Romney by 34 votes. In contrast to that sarcasm, it is fair to claim last night in S.C. Newt actually did win in a landslide vote with almost a 2-1 ratio between him and Romney. Maybe others saw those results coming, but I didn't. So, for the moment, I will savor being on the winning side of the vote, something that does not seem to happen often enough.

Sticking with the coverage, I was impressed by all four candidate and what they said when the results became more concrete. They were all complimentary of each other in quite a contrast to the Super-Pac ads. Very nice to see.

But, the best speech by a long ways was given by Newt. He was able to articulate best the differences between what he sees as the mission of the republican party and where Obama has taken the country. He articulated the global weakness of Obama and his lack of true leadership. It was good to see him attacking Obama's so directly and without trying to play nice without attempting to use a politically correctness manner. So, go Newt, go. Onto Florida and then onto the rest of the U.S.

More Moves Toward More Openness with City of Richardson

2012-01-21T11:24:00.002-06:00

Judging by the "Week in Review" newletter, Richardson is going to take another step toward a more open government. While anyone is welcome to come to the CPC meetings in person, and unlike the City Council session which are record and available on the web and live, the CPC meetings have not been. This is a good step in my opinion. The more accessible the city meetings are, the better. Hopefully and eventually, all board and commission meeting will be treated as the council meeting current are treated, record, stored for playback at anytime.

City Plan Commission Meetings to be Broadcast Live on City Website and Cable TV

After a briefing from staff at Monday’s work session on the options and cost structures associated with televising additional City meetings, the City Council decided to move forward with a plan for live broadcasting of all City Plan Commission (CPC) meetings.

As part of its 2011-2013 Statement of Goals and Near Term Action items, the Council expressed an interest in evaluating the expansion of televised meetings for boards and commissions. The action items also included the evaluation of technology enhancements in the City Council Chambers.

The staff briefing provided several options for the Council to consider, which included:

Broadcast CPC meetings with no new equipment and add a part-time staff member
Broadcast CPC meetings and other high interest meetings as needed, purchase mobile broadcasting equipment and add a part-time staff member
Broadcast CPC and all the other boards and commissions meetings with no new equipment and add a full-time staff member
Broadcast CPC and all the other boards and commissions meetings, purchase new broadcasting equipment for an additional meeting room and add a full-time staff member

The City Council decided to proceed with option 1 and plans call for the live broadcasting of CPC meetings to begin in the near future.

Click on the link below to view the work session presentation.
Part 1: http://richardsontx.swagit.com/e/01162012-13/2/
Part 2: http://richardsontx.swagit.com/e/01162012-13/3/

This is Why I like Gingrich

2012-01-21T10:27:00.001-06:00

This clip is a fairly good example of why I like Gingrich and his style.

It seems most of the time he has just the right thing to say, with just the right attitude, at just the right time, with superb, sharp wit. When asked if he would like to talk about the comments his ex-wife made about open marriage, he answered with a "no, but I will..." He then proceeds to rip the moderator, without pulling punches. It is enjoyable to see some of these "arrogant, self-important" folk put in their place by someone who does not humor them as most politicians do.

While he has his own "baggage", all things considered including what I see as great overall intelligence and good understanding of the problems, he has always been an impressive person, even if he does shot himself in the foot every now and then. But, who doesn't from time to time?

Interesting Items on the CHNA Blog

2012-01-20T09:05:00.000-06:00

Find My iPhone
One of the interesting items is there is an app for iPhone that can get a thief busted for stealing your iPhone. This is exactly what happened a few days ago according the the RPD website. So, if you have an iPhone, it looks like a good app to get.

The next item is a joint meeting with the Richardson and Murphy city councils. Seems Richardson and Murphy have plans for a shared recreation center, which only makes sense. With the expensive Huffines recreation center done and what will probably be another $20 million for the Heights Park center, with its "misbehaving" cost estimates, why not dump another $20 million or so for another center to serve the panhandle area?

The third item of interest is the email program for neighborhood integrity . In the past there have been some accusations of improper handling of email addresses, city officials giving the email addresses to private parties (think Eisemann's Coalition) and other types of mishandling of the email addys. Here is another opportunity that may help you gets your email addy further distributed. But, if you are nosy enough to snoop on what your neighbor's misdeeds concerning code violations, and I am, then here is your opportunity to get informed on who is violating which city code.

The fourth item is really important: The State of the City Address. I would advise going to this event for some glad handing, atta-boys and back-slaps, maybe a slurred speech, unless of course you have some really important stuff to do, such as laundry, Simpson reruns or some other really important thing. If it were really relevant information it would better be sent out in an email from the city or one of the groups they have given the email list to (see item three above), or an article in one of the many propaganda pieces the city puts out on a monthly basis. Or, you could find out form the coalition email bomb.

Another item would be some of the pictures from the neighborhood of the Christmas lights. There were some very nice jobs done on that!

Shutdown By the Government, Go Elsewhere

2012-01-19T15:55:00.000-06:00

The self-imposed kind-of internet black out many websites yesterday didn't help some today. Earlier today they got had for actual misdeeds or alleged misdeeds. I have to admit, not have ever heard of the website http://Megaupload.com, I was pretty far out of the loop, especially since at one time it was the 13th most popular website in the world.

Also I will have to admit I don't look for songs or movies to download for free. I do however sometimes visit youtube.com searching for some song from years ago that will sometimes bug me when I remember just some of the words, but not all of them. One example is "In the Year 2525". After finding it on youtube, and listening to it, that was enough for about another decade until I have the urge again. Another one was a song my dad played on a reel to reel back around 1965, "Let Me Tell You 'Bout the Bird and the Bees" by Jewel Akens . It was another that bugged me until I finally heard it again and will probably get the urge in another decade or so. But, to my surprise, that song was done by a black guy. I never put that song together with a black singer being the one to perform it. That was from a time of radio more than TV, and reminds me of people being crazy about Chuck Berry . I can't really say if I knew much about Chuck Berry in my younger years, and it is quite possible I might not have known he was black until "Back to the Future" came out.

Maybe me being able to find those songs on youtube cost the record companies to loose a few bucks. Maybe not. I can say for sure, I would not have spent money or time searching for those songs in a record store to buy. So in the end, with me, the record companies didn't lose anything because I would not have purchased it anyway.

Stunning Election News, Santorum Win (not Ohio, but Iowa) by a Landslide

2012-01-19T08:54:00.005-06:00

In stunning news Santorum was the real and actual winner of the ~~Ohio~~ Iowa caucuses, as it turns out, because of "misbehaving" ballots. Out of a total vote, meaning vote that were found and leaving out the votes that were lost from eight precincts, Santorum won in a landslide by 34 votes.

Quite the seasoned politician, Mitt Romney is already spinning his landslide defeat as a virtual tie. Really? Losing by 0.0570049% percent of the vote, as everyone knows, is hardly a statistical tie.

My own take on this, the ~~Ohio~~ Iowa precincts who lost their ballots probably voted 100% for the "Newt" and if counted would have put the "Newt" over the top as the real winner in the ~~Ohio~~ Iowa elections (go ahead, think "black helicopter" time. I know they are real, I have seen them in the movies! As everyone knows, if it is in the movies, then it must be real.).

But none of this really matters. Come voting day in November it is expected that the voters who put Barrack [SIC] Obama in the Whitehouse in 2008 will partake of the magical mind-altering liquid compound “Milk of Amnesia” and vote for another 4 years of hoping it will change. Only four years, as everyone knows, is not enough time to do enough damage as are eight years.

And to change the subject to the good news of the day good news of the day, Rick Perry is getting out of the race and throwing his support to the "Newt".

Some Love to Love Sarah, Others Love to Hate Sarah

2012-01-18T10:09:00.003-06:00

There are about as many opinions as there are people. What one person loves, another hates. In politics, why Sarah Palin is so polarizing is one I don't think I will ever understand. She seems a fairly decent person to me.

The picture of her in the cross-hairs is fairly tame compared to some of the comments about her is articles. Tape a peek at the comments from a yahoo story about her saying she would back Newt if she were voting in S.C.

"Wow...a lying hypocritical mentally-challenged twit endorsing a master con-artist & liar". " "... Palin proved how useless she execpt at making money from her stupid followers! And Newt being a Short fat beady eyed SOB that lies every time he opens his mouth!..." to which someone else responded "Palin rose from humble beginnings to Governor and V.P. candidate with no help from anyone. Does that sound stupid to you? You are the one who probably thinks Tina fey's spoofs are actually Palin."

The Tina Fey comment was pretty hunorous. But, she doesn't strike me as mentally challenged. But then again, maybe a person if mentally challenged if there is an opinion that differs from their own.

It seems some people don't just dislike her politics, but her personally.

Some people love her, or at the least like her very much. I would fall into this category. She has done well for herself by almost any measure. She may have had some gaffs, but I would say not nearly as many as Joe Biden. And she appears to have lots of good sense and intelligence. It would be fairly hard for a dummy to become a citywide or statewide leader and governor.

Newt probably will not win the republican nomination, but it was nice to hear Sarah and Todd were "kind of" backing Newt and pretty much supported him, especially since he is my favorite as well.

Google Almost Goes Black, Wikipedia Does Goes Black

2012-01-18T07:51:00.056-06:00

Google Almost Goes Black. If it did really go black for ever, I would miss it as it is my primary search engine.

The Wikipedia English version did go black about midnight and will stay that way for about 24 hrs. I have come to enjoy Wikipedia and its article after only having discovered it about a year ago or so. But apparently Wikipedia is very important for lots of people. Now that it is black I would imagine if you tell a youngster to use an encyclopedia for the day, they would have a hard time doing so without Wikipedia to tell them what an encyclopedia happens to be.

There are other less well known sites, to me anyway, that are also be black today. Forbes dot com has a list of them.

All of these protect and actions are because of piracy it seems. From a site http://sopastrike.com/strike/ comes this message and several link to article and video:

"I am writing to you as a voter in your district. I urge you to vote "no" on cloture for S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act, on Jan. 24th. The PROTECT IP Act is dangerous, ineffective, and short-sighted. It does not deserve floor consideration. I urge my representative to vote "no" on SOPA, the corresponding House bill.

Over coming days you'll be hearing from the many businesses, advocacy organizations, and ordinary Americans who oppose this legislation because of the myriad ways in which it will stifle free speech and innovation. We hope you'll take our concerns to heart and oppose this legislation by voting "no" on cloture."

This new law under consideration is probably overkill and unneeded. I really haven't looked at it thoroughly enough to have a reasonable pro/con opinion. But the essence of what I think I understand is that rather than only hold individuals responsible for misbehaving, they want to also hold responsible the hosts of sites that contain improper material.

Voting Systems - Single Member, At-Large and Cumulative?

2012-01-17T08:56:00.008-06:00

In 405 words or less ... it seems some are against Single Member voting districts and representation. Some are against At-Large Voting districts and representation. To throw a monkey wrench into the works, how about considering “Cumulative” voting? That might make things even more interesting!

Some of the complaints of the At-Large voting system are that it allows for a small group of white, wealthy elitists who live in a few key neighborhoods and come out in large numbers and control every election and every seat on the council. Since they are also the ones who would have to approve putting single member districts on the ballot they have no motivation to do so and risk losing the power which they have. Does that sound like a description of what is going on in Richardson? You might be interested to see where that “almost” quote came from and which city it was actually referring to. It was the second paragraph of this link.

One of the reasons for Single Member district would be to enhance minority voting. Single member district may be a benefit for cities where the population is largely segregated or have other differences. To a large extent, Dallas can be looked at as a segregated city, mostly white in the north, mostly black in the south and Hispanics pretty much evenly spread out.

But what if minorities and majorities are dispersed fairly (integrated) evenly throughout a city as is the case in Amarillo? Single member districts will do little to give a good chance for Hispanic representation in a city that is very highly racially integrate, unless there is some serious Gerrymandering

Some may suggest a different voting system, a Cumulative Voting system. If there are five officials to elect, each voter gets five votes to cast however they want. That might pay off for a minority that's cohesive and organized. You could do it for the tea party, communists or others. Amarillo College and the Amarillo Independent School District use cumulative voting. Voters can picking candidates for a race with four open seats can use all four of his or her votes on a single candidate rather than picking one candidate for each seat.

If we were to use Cumulative voting in Richardson that would really shake some trees tops. Imagine one person getting 49,000 votes with only 7,000 voters. That would be a really wild ride through the elections.

Update: Here is a website recommended by Bloggermouse: Discussion of various instant runoff / choice voting methods here:
http://www.fairvote.org/

Blogspot Not Playing Nice with Internet Explorer - Gary Slagel Behind the Problems?

2012-01-16T08:32:00.006-06:00

It seems, blogspot, the host of this blog and lots of other blogs, is not playing nice with MS Internet Explorer. A case of turn-about-is-fair-play? Microsoft has been accused of not playing nice with some software developers. So maybe Google has learn from them and has decided to not play nice with Microsoft. If you use Goggle Chrome there is no problem with the blogspot sites.

Or maybe, since this blog is not quite so favorable to a certain former mayor, his software company has decided to sabotage the company that hosts this site, thereby taking down lots of innocent sites in the process. What do ya think?

Just because a person is paranoid, doesn't mean someone is not out to get them!

(Psst, Wild Bill ... Here is your chance for another rumor busting article. The title could be "Local Blogger Claims Former Mayor Gary Slagel and His Company CapitalSoft Behind Blogspot.com Problems".)

Update about 9:10 (darnit!! Can't blame Slagel now):
Mark Steger said...

If the problem you are referring to is with comments, try switching from "embedded" comments to "full page." It's a workaround until Blogger fixes the problem with embedded comments.
January 16, 2012 9:05 AM

Mark was correct. It worked. Seems you have to click on "comment" to make comments though. No automatically opening comment window. Thanks Mark.

-

Logic, Absurdity and Single Member Districts

2012-01-13T11:17:00.007-06:00

Where do the people stand in this?

While some people may argue for single member districts where only voters in the district can vote for representative of the district, there are also those ~~who~~ who argue against the same. (the following sentence added for clarification) For links and comments that could be an argument against true single member district, click here.

My argument would be first, get more voters to the polls and that take an active role in government. The more voters the better. But, let’s go with an argument that can be looked at as absurdity/non-absurdity and maybe some logic/broken-logic/false-logic.

The main argument for single member district where only voters in that district can vote for a representative of that district seems to be that the government representative will be more attentive to the needs of that district. They will be more likely to take care of their own and will represent a smaller number of people. This seems to sound good if you want you government representative to be as close to the people as possible.

The main argument for single member districts where the voting is done at large is that more of the representative represent more people and will not only represent just a small section of the people. The argument seems to be that this is a better system for the whole as opposed to just representation of multiple small groups that would pit one neighborhood against another.

So, let go with that thought, the needs of the many should be attended to and have a higher priority than the needs of particular groups of people.

Richardson has many HOA/NA associations. Using the logic of single member district with at large voting, that means the needs of individual groups are being met while possibly the needs of the whole are being ignored. Perhaps we should have just one HOA/NA in Richardson that equally serves the needs of all, rather than separate HOA/NAs that serve smaller groups.

Now the same logic could be used to justify city council elections.

Next up would be County-wide elections. Perhaps, if the goal is equal representation that would be in charge of the whole county, maybe we don’t even need city councils. City council are only responsible for seeing to it that the city is properly taken care of, and have little to no responsibility to meet the needs of neighboring cities. City councils also do not have the authority to make demands of the people in neighboring cities. So would it not be wiser, when thinking of the needs of the people in a county, that power is centered at a county level, where representatives are elected at large, from each of the cities in the county, to take charge and control all laws, ordinances and otherwise, for the betterment of the people of the county? After, it is kind of unfair for one city to have more means than another city. Would it not be best if all of the tax money were pooled at the county level and then spread evenly among the cities in that county?

Why stop there? If, for the benefit of the ALL the people in a county, it were best for all for the county to manage, collect tax, and make laws at the county level, would it not be better to have the same done at state level rather than county level. We could have just one set of laws, rules, a central collection point for all taxes and a central government which would treat all people of the state equally and ensure the collective group of residents is treated equally, without one neighborhood, city or county having more benefits than another? Spread the wealth and responsibilities equally among the people.

Perhaps if all this equality were then thought of as something our nation needs, then we could also turn over all responsibility for the equal welfare of the people to just one national government.

But why stop here. What we really need is a One World Government to make sure and take care of the needs of everyone in the world, giving no preference to those who might be more adept at making more for themselves than others, and thereby ensure an equal outcome for all. All people are created equally, so why not mandate an equal outcome for all as well?

Now we are getting pretty close to where the logic of single member districts with an election at large are about. For the good of the collective, without the petty self-centered and selfish actions of a representative being elected by the people who live in the district alone that he represents, who takes care of only the needs of the people who elect him, we can realize a much better government.

Does this all lead to a socialistic government, or a communistic government? It surely isn’t the government the writers of the Declaration of Independence or Bill of Rights thought up.

On the other hand, I'll take what we have, at worst, or single member districts in which only members living in that district can cast votes. Much better option in my opinion.

Heights Park "Misbehaving" Cost Estimates?

2012-01-13T09:05:00.002-06:00

Misbehaving? Really?

Not sure if anyone noticed this article in the Sunday DMN, but the Richardson Heights Project cost estimates came in at 1.6MM or 10% over the total budget of 16.3MM. Project Manager with the construction company, Hill & Wilkinson, wouldn’t comment, but

Director of Parks and Recreation Michael Massey attributed it to “misbehaving” cost estimates and that they have no idea why they are that much out of whack. Huh? Given my line of work, I could tell you in five minutes what they’re due to. Does the City and project manager control the costs or is it the other way around?

Is this an Eichmann Center II, on a lesser scale, in the making with multi-million cost overruns when all is said and done? Sure seems like “misbehaving” costs, deficit spending, excessive city management and employee salaries, benefits, and pensions, and debt is the norm rather than the exception in this (insert favorite and most appropriate adjective) city.

Source: An email from someone with a good sense of humor and fact. Thanks.

Rumor Has it that ...

2012-01-12T17:39:00.001-06:00

... there will be new spice at what was Boudreaux’s Cajun Kitchen in Eastside.

The pride of Richardson Economic Development, Eastside, will have a new show for the residents of Richardson. Coming soon will be a new bar. But, it will not be just any bar; it will be a sports bar. But the good news doesn’t end there for the local boozers and lushes. There will also be almost naked ladies running around service all that booze. Add to that, the possibility of more funds for those who like to drive a bit tipsy. Eastside will be a real uptown place now, and a crowning feather to the city fathers who press for this type of economic development. Three cheers for them.

Remember, this is only a rumor.

Worst State Budget Gaps in the US - List in Order of Greatest Percent of Budget

2012-01-12T08:08:00.025-06:00

Nevada

Projected Budget Gap: $2.7 billion

Share of this year’s budget: 54%

Illinois
Projected Budget Gap: $15 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 46.2%

New Jersey
Projected Budget Gap: $10.5 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 37.5%

California
Projected Budget Gap: $25 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 30.2%

Mississippi
Projected Budget Gap: $1.2 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 27.6%

South Carolina
Projected Budget Gap: $1.3 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 26.1%

Minnesota
Projected Budget Gap: $3.8 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 25%

Texas
Projected Budget Gap: $10 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 22.3%
Oh, the shame of it: The Texas government using "budget gimmicks” to hide budget deficits! OK, not really as much a shame as a sham. See Mark’s piece on how Texas is not using Red light camera revenue as promised. It kinda of reminds me of how we ended up with the lottery. Profits from the lottery were going to be used to fund the schools.

Now then, take a look at Willy’s site to see how he tries to justify and say it is really OK to use budget gimmicks and shams. He would seem to fit right in with those who like the “slights of hand” tricks to justify questionable behavior. Typical Willy behavior. A budget deficit is not a budget deficit. Right!

Connecticut
Projected Budget Gap: $3.8 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 21.6%

Louisiana
Projected Budget Gap: $1.7 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 21.2%

Oregon
Projected Budget Gap: $2.5 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 17.6%

Arizona
Projected Budget Gap: $1.4 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 16.7%

North Carolina
Projected Budget Gap: $3 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 15.7%

Virginia
Projected Budget Gap: $2.3 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 15.4%

Colorado
Projected Budget Gap: $1.1 billion
Share of this year’s budget: 15.4%

_

America's 16 Most Bankrupt Cities on the Naughty List

2012-01-11T15:01:00.003-06:00

San Diego, Calif.

Deficit through June 2012 : $73 million

Budget in FY2011: $2.85 billion

Annualized gap: 1.7%

The city's official have tried curbing the deficit by increasing sales taxes, but residents of the city strongly oppose this and have voted it down.

New York City
Deficit through June 2012: $2 billion
Budget in FY2010: $63.1 billion
Annualized gap: 2.1%

Mayor Bloomberg has already started to address the FY2012 deficit, calling for layoffs in all city agencies, closing 20 fire departments at night, and reducing services for seniors, libraries and cultural centers.

San Jose, California
Deficit through June 2012: $90 million
Budget in FY2010: $2.7 billion
Annualized gap: 2.2%

After an audit of the San Jose police department, city officials found it to have too many high paid supervisors, costing the city too much money.

Cincinnati, Ohio
Deficit through December 2012: $60 million
Biennial budget FY2009/2010: $2.5 billion
Annualized gap: 2.4%

Helping the budget in Cincinnati depends largely on changes in the police and fire departments. The city can either get $20 million in concessions from the two unions, lay off 216 firefighters, or outsource the police force to Hamilton County.

Honolulu, Hawaii
Deficit through June 2012: $100 million
Budget in FY2011: $1.8 billion
Annualized gap: 3.7%

Mayor Peter Carlisle said police officers and fire fighters will be asked to make concessions in the upcoming budget and he will also end furloughs of two days per month for public workers.

San Francisco, Calif.
Deficit through June 2012: $380 million
Budget in FY2011: $6.55 billion
Annualized gap: 3.9%

Last year's deficit approached $500 million and the city did not need to lay off any police or firemen.

Los Angeles, Calif.
Deficit through June 2012: $438 million
Budget in FY2011: $6.7 billion
Annualized gap: 4.4%

The Los Angeles City Administration Office plans to cut 225 civilian positions in the LAPD, reduce firefighting staffing, and eliminate a dozen positions in the City Attorney's Office and General Service Department.

Washington, D.C.
Deficit through September 2012: $688 million
Budget in FY2011: $8.89 billion
Annualized gap: 4.4%

Council member Tommy Wells proposed tax rate increases which were voted down, but Wells says he will continue to push his proposal. Wells' proposal seems reasonable as residents making $100,000 a year would only pay $63 more in taxes per year.

Newark, N.J.
Deficit through December 2011: $30.5 million
Budget in FY2010: $677 million
Annualized gap: 4.5%

Newark's deficit was $83 million before Mayor Cory Booker initiated a plan to sell city-owned buildings, raise property taxes to 16 percent and decimate the police force.

Detroit, Mich.
Deficit through June 2011: $85 million
Budget in FY2011: $3.1 billion
Annualized gap: 5.5%

Detroit's city government has cut costs with layoffs and by leaving currently vacant positions open. Mayor Bing's emergency fiscal plan includes demolishing houses and cutting police and trash services to 20% of the city.

Reading, Penn
Deficit through December 2011: $7.5 million
Budget in FY2010: $120 million
Annualized gap: 6.3%

Reading has been running an operating deficit for years. In September the city council said their deficit was bigger than expected, soaring to $7.5 million for the current year, which means they will have to borrow around $17 million from the state to pay off total debts.

Joliet, Ill.
Deficit through December 2011: $21 million
Budget in FY2010: $274 million
Annualized gap: 7.7%

Last year, the city increased property tax by over 12 percent and hiked water and sewer rates by 45 percent over three years to help with the deficit. The city council also cut police and public sector jobs.

Camden, N.J.
Deficit through December 2011: $26.5 million
Budget in FY2010: $178 million
Annualized gap: 15%

Despite holding title of second most dangerous city in America, Camden recently received approval to lay off half of its police force.

Hamtramck, Mich.
Deficit through June 2012: $4.7 million
Budget in FY2011: $18 million
Annualized gap: 17%

Cooper says he has already cut almost everything possible, going so far as to lay off the city's five crossing guards.

Central Falls, R.I.
Deficit through June 2012: $7 million
Budget in FY2011: $21 million
Annualized gap: 22%

Central Falls has been put in state receivership due to critical budget problems. State-appointed receiver Mark Pfeiffer thinks the best solution is for Central Falls to be annexed by its neighboring city, Pawtucket.

Paterson, N.J.
Deficit through December 2011: $54 million
Budget for FY2010: $225 million
Annualized gap: 24%

As a "last resort," Paterson is considering laying off 30 percent of its police force, said councilman Steve Olimpio. This will put 150 police officers out of work

Chicago, Ill. (Removed from the naughty list for the time being)
Deficit through December 2011: ~~$654 million~~ Closed
Budget in FY2010: $6.8 billion
Annualized gap: 9.6%

Mayor Richard Daley has balanced the budget, but absolutely ruined Chicago finances from here on.

Richardson, Texas
Not yet on the Naughty List.

Crime in Richardson and the RPD

2012-01-11T08:28:00.004-06:00

My impression, right or wrong, is that Richardson is a relatively safe place to live and is protected by a top notch police department. That is my impression anyway.

Last night the city council had a handout of some crime information with numbers that indicate crime is down 6% from where it was in 2011. Take a peek at one of the charts in the presentation below.

Click on to enlarge

One of the things that got my attention was the lack of percentage change in the number of arrests made in each category. It seems that when that change is added it make our police department out to be arresting fewer people per crime, overall a decrease of about 2.33%. But those numbers also show something else, which crimes are least likely to be solved. Here is a chart with those numbers added.

Click on to enlarge

If you just had to do something criminal in 2011, the safest criminal thing to do is “Criminal Mischief”. For 779 of the criminal mischief crimes only 44 people were arrested. The next safest criminal thing to do in 2011 was to break into a car where there were only 59 arrests for 960 MV burglaries even though the arrest per crime did go up in 2011.

Another surprise was that when it comes to robbery in 2011, robbery of a business is a relatively low risk crime with an arrest rate per crime of 21.74%. That was a huge drop in the number of arrests from the 2010 rate of 77.42%.

In another segment the arrests per crime go way up with an arrest rate of 78.21% arrests per crime for aggravated assault and 110.66% for simple assault.

Apparently there were no murders in Richardson for 2010 or 2011 as none are listed in the chart.

When it comes to crime, in my opinion, property crime is bad, but not as bad as the more serious crime involving bodily harm like assaults and murder. This seems to be where Richardson and the RPD shine best. Property can be replaced, but people can not be. The numbers indicate that overall crime declined from 2010 to 2011 and on average there were fewer arrests per crime. But with serious crime, the arrests per crime stayed relatively high.

Too bad real life crime can’t be solved as easily, quickly and as simply as it is in TV in shows like CSI. But it could probably be improved if more of the $600,000 of TIF money swept $600,000 of TIF money swept into the general fund for G&A over the past 4 years were used to increase manpower of the RPD rather than wasting it on other things.

Judge Judy - Free Money

2012-01-10T16:33:00.001-06:00

http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=15915

Thunderstorms Remind Me of Spring, Not Winter

2012-01-10T08:20:00.004-06:00

The thunderstorms of the past two nights remind me of spring weather, not winter, and weather just perfect for some good sleep. To bad the temperatures aren't warmer.

http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/radar.php?product=N0Z&rid=FWS&loop=yes

In the War of Words, Willy Flipping Out

2012-01-07T10:22:00.002-06:00

For a few weeks I have been watching a war of words spring forth on a different website between Bill McCalpin and Nathan Morgan. I was wondering when Willy would finally blow a gasket and flip out. It seems to have finally happened yesterday just before midnight when Willy posted the same comments in five different threads. Some things are just really amusing, and some people are much more amusing than others.

Cell Phone Do Not Call Registry

2012-01-06T15:40:00.006-06:00

Got an email from a friend that is worth passing on.

REMEMBER: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public this month.
REMINDER..... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls.

.... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222.
It is the National DO NOT CALL list It will only take a minute of your time.. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked.

You cannot call from a different phone number.

HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON .. It takes about 20 seconds.

The website where some of this info can be found is https://www.donotcall.gov/ or http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/04/dncfyi.shtm

Updated about 9am 1/7/12:
From http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/02/dnccellphones.shtm

For Release: February 6 , 2007
The Truth about Cell Phones and the Do Not Call Registry

Despite Re-Circulating E-mail, It is Still Not Necessary to Register Cell Phone Numbers
As the number of phone numbers on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry surpassed 139 million, the Federal Trade Commission today reiterated that despite the claims made in e-mails circulating on the Internet, consumers should not be concerned that their cell phone numbers will be released to telemarketers at any time in the near future. In addition, according to the agency, it is not necessary to register cell phone numbers on the DNC Registry to be protected from most telemarketing calls to cell phones.

The truth about cell phones and the DNC Registry is:

Contrary to the e-mail, cell phone numbers are NOT being released to telemarketers, and you will NOT soon be getting telemarketing calls on your cell phone.

There is NO deadline by which you must register your cell phone number on the Registry.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations prohibit telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phone numbers. Automated dialers are standard in the industry, so most telemarketers are barred from calling consumers on their cell phones without their consent.

The national associations representing telemarketers have stated that their clients do not intend to start calling consumers’ cell phones.

There is only ONE DNC Registry. There is no separate registry for cell phones.

The DNC Registry accepts registrations from both cell phones and land lines. You must call from the phone number that you want to register. If you register online, you must respond to a confirmation e-mail.
While the telecommunications industry has been discussing the possibility of creating a wireless 411 directory, according to the FCC, even if a wireless 411 directory is established, most telemarketing calls to cell phones would still be illegal, regardless of whether the number is listed on the federal government’s National Do Not Call Registry.
For More Information
To learn more about the National DNC Registry and the rules that enforce it, visit the FTC at www.ftc.gov or the FCC at www.fcc.gov.
The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish (bilingual counselors are available to take complaints), or to get free information on any of 150 consumer topics, call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357), or use the complaint form at http://www.ftc.gov. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.
Media Contact:
Mitchell J. Katz
Office of Public Affairs
202-326-2161
Staff Contact:
David Robbins
Bureau of Consumer Protection
202-326-3747

More Victims of the Plano/Renner Intersection

2012-01-06T10:11:00.002-06:00

Click on picture to enlarge

Nope, didn't see the wreck happen, just saw the result after hearing the collision. From what it looks like, a person trying to turn left to go south on Plano collided with a car going east on Renner. That car then collided with a mini van that was stopped at the northbound Plano light. That minivan in turn was pushed into another car sitting at the stop light.

The police came, as did an ambulance and a fire truck. It seems everyone was pretty much OK, just bumps and bruises. Still I wonder if standard sequencing of the lights could reduce the number of wreck at this intersection. Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is for sure. If the drivers paid closer attention to what they were doing there would be fewer wrecks.

Click on picture to enlarge

Bitter-Sweet Iowa (oops, not Ohio) Caucuses

2012-01-04T07:42:00.003-06:00

Why bitter-sweet? For one reason, my favorite, Newt Gingrich, didn't place first. That was the bitter portion.

Now for the sweetest part: Rick Perry is pretty much out of it. Even though Perry is a Texan, he has the wrong idea about what government should be about. More specifically, his actions with forcing taxpayers to be venture capitalist.

The job of venture capitalist should be performed by those who have money to risk, those who like to gamble on a new company being able to make a profit. Venture capitalism should not be done with taxpayer money.

When government, local, state or federal, gets involved with gambling taxpayer money, and giving a small group of people taxpayer money, that penalizes everyone who is not in that special group. In Richardson, with the city council, the city manager Bill Keffler and Bill Sproull of the chamber, the tax rate is inflated by close to 10%, needlessly, to give-away taxpayer funds to a select few special organisations. The effect of increases taxes on the residential property owners and the no so special businesses is fundamentally unfair.

It is also very wrong for our governments to give money to charities, no matter how good and needed that charity happens to be. Richardson leadership has done this with some of the non-profits and charities and in return, the city leadership gets them involved with elections.

The playing field for business needs to be level without government handouts to a select few special organisations getting taxpayer funds for electric bills, rent or anything else, which cost the majority in excessive tax bills.

Unusual Ways to Have Your Life Ended

2011-12-29T12:18:00.001-06:00

While some may prefer a peaceful departure with carbon monoxide, others seem to find a more creative way, a way that will make a statement.

For instance, if you live in an Islamic area, one of the weirdest ways to off yourself is to throw your shoes at someone. This act, for them, is considered to be the ultimate insult across the Middle East. Who says people have to be reasonable about percieved insults? But, this is the path that Rashid Shahbandi seems to have taken.

If a person has a choice of what someone else with throw at them, I think I would prefer a pair of shoes rather than something a little more exciting. Most people would most likely prefer a pair of shoes being thrown at them rather than, say a hand grenade, or bricks, or a fire bomb or even rocks. A pair of shoes looks pretty good by comparison.

Now, if you happen to live in South America, according the Hugo Chavez , the way to get yourself a deportation order from this life would be to become a political leader. Chavez, Fernandez, Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, Brazil's Dilma Rousseff and former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have all been diagnosed recently with cancer. All of them are leftists.

Hugo Chavez speculated that Latin American leaders have been given cancer by a secret machine built by the U.S. And he may not be far from the truth.

Years ago there was a movie that linked U.S. spy satellites to earthquakes in Turkey. You it has to be true if it was in a movie! After doing some research with Google, I discovered the location of the controls for the machine that causes cancer in only Latin American leftist leaders was located between the buttons that caused the earthquakes in the Middle East and the button that controlled the Bush Hurricanes.

Chavez might be onto something. But more likely, on something.

The Spin Continues

2011-12-27T12:20:00.002-06:00

Is she spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise?
Is she spinning on her right leg or left leg?
This could explain why someone who claims to check rumors so often gets it wrong by misstating facts with perceived facts.

Red Light Wrecks Caught on Camera

2011-12-22T11:04:00.003-06:00

There are many wrecks at N. Plano and E. Renner roads. There were three last week. At times, it seems as if this might be the worst intersection for wrecks in Richardson, though I doubt it is. But one day, a few years ago, I did see one lady bouncing across the intersection, on her rear, after her door came open from her car getting hit. She ended up in the flower garden of the gas station. She was one of the lucky ones. Her nerves were shot, but little damaged her.

Most of the stop lights throughout the city have the same timing. Normally, first the left turn arrow illuminates, then the green light for thru traffic. But this is not so for the Plano and Renner intersection.

Sometimes the green light comes first, then the left turn arrow. At other times, the left turn arrow is first, followed by the green light. The timing of this changes depending on the time of day. Most likely these changes through the day are done to enhance and speed traffic flow. But, for people who don't pay close attention to what they are doing and the light sequencing, it could help in providing an eventful day.

While the timing of the lights may have something to do with the number of wrecks at Plano and Renner, a bigger reason would be people not paying attention to what they are doing.

Top red light crashes in missouri.

White Christmas Events in North Texas

2011-12-22T08:56:00.002-06:00

White to almost white Christmas Events in N Texas

In 1841, in the earliest record of a White Christmas in North Texas, soldiers were tracking a bear in 6 inches of snow in what is now Dallas.

On December 24, 2009, rare blizzard conditions impacted areas mainly northwest of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Some locations received as much as 9 inches of snow from Jacksboro to Bowie to northwestern Cooke County. Winds gusted over 50 mph, with drifts as high as 3 to 5 feet. Portions of U.S. Highway 287 between Decatur and Wichita Falls were impassable from Christmas Eve into Christmas morning. The 3 inches of snow at DFW Airport was the first measurable snowfall on record for Christmas Eve. In Montague County, snow remained on the ground into the new year.

What is Important and What Really Matters …

2011-12-19T11:18:00.001-06:00

… depends. It depends on who the person is and what their personal biases may be. It also, to some degree, depends not on what the message is, but who delivers the message. This is where reactions can become very interesting, entertaining and disappointing all at the same time. It is interesting and entertaining to see who gets wrapped around the axle about what.

Gary Slagel’s actions have been a topic of discussion many times here and other places. Here are a few of the notable and questionable actions of from the past.

1. The city rents a Lear jet for Gary to go do some personal business in N. Carolina. Documents show that the cost to the taxpayers was about $14,000. City management help enable him to use taxpayer fund for his private business.

2. Gary Slagel runs his personal company out of the mayor’s office at city hall, and then moves into the city funded Startech facility. Its takes Martha Ritter chiding him to finally get him to move his personal business out of the city funded building. Documents show he left behind an unpaid bill for over $80,000 in unpaid rent. City management never demands that the unpaid rent be paid repaid to the Richardson taxpayers.

3. One political supporter of Gary Slagel receives work on his private property paid for by the taxpayers of Richardson. The cost for work on the wall was somewhat less than $50,000, and even though the maintenance of the wall is the responsibility of the owner, the Richardson taxpayers end up paying for the repairs. City management allowed this to happen.

4. A Catholic Church gets a fence paid for by the Richardson taxpayers, a Catholic church that some of the city leadership patronize. The fence is paid for with Richardson taxpayer funds and cost the citizens about $10,000. Again, Gary Slagel and city management allow taxpayers funds to be used for private purposes.

5. Gary Slagel and his company make a political donation of $5,000 to the Governor of Illinois while bidding on a $2.5 million contract. After the political donation, his company moves from fourth place to first place in the rankings. No other company competing for the contract made a political donation. Whether you want to call it bribery, extortion or pay to play, doesn’t matter. What matters is that when public officials engage in this type of inappropriate behavior and their actions indicate good character is absent.

The list could go on but I will stop here as these few examples are enough to make the point.

Now, what could possibly get some people more wrapped around the axle than the above listed examples of what appears to be a misuse of public funds and shady ethics and morals?

How about a version of “Don’t you dare say anything insulting about my mama!” type of thing?

Perhaps saying that in the RISD that RHS is rated Academically Unacceptable while including a link to the TEA website which describes the PEG and what its ratings mean, along with specifically which schools and school districts are on the list. Is that enough to send some people over the edge when they jump to the wrong conclusion by use of erroneous assumptions? It seems so.

It seems some people are very willing to overlook a city leader’s questionable ethics and morals. Some are also very willing to overlook improper actions such as bribery, extortion or pay to play, and then attempt to explain them away as that is just the way business is done. Some are very willing to overlook the questionable use of taxpayer funds to repay political and personal favors. And then some go completely nutty, losing most of their common sense when you say something unfavorable about their metaphorical mama.

Some seem to be on a mission to justify the misuse of taxpayer funds. They seem to think that kind of behavior is best ignored and make excuses for those who take part in inappropriate use of taxpayer funds.

But when it comes to talk, don’t do anything that can be improperly perceived as insult. That crosses the line.

To some, words are not so cheap, after all, and matter more than actions. And to the same, the worth of action carries little to no value.

Situational Ethics.

Hook ... Line ... Sinker

2011-12-16T11:30:00.004-06:00

This is a common saying, "he took the bait hook, line and sinker" that is sometimes used when a person who wants something so badly and when properly baited, the person can easily be manipulated into some predicable action which would defy the general use of common sense most people would exercise. The saying is based upon the idea that a very hungry fish will not only take the baited hook, but with a desire for the baited hook so intense the fish will take the line and sinker as well.

Back in September, on Mark's site, Bill made a boo-boo when he claimed I had made a specific FOI request, when in fact, it wasn't me at all. Upon him finding out that he was wrong about his assumption, he then assumed that, quite possibly, I had put someone else up to the task. He was wrong again. But the is nothing new. He also claimed that I had written the article in such a way so as to one day have "plausible-deniability" about having made the request because I did not indicate who had made the FOI request. Bill gave me lots of credit that day in putting together a plan which would trip him up 5 months later with him being caught making erroneous statements. Maybe that is just a window into his mind with a view of the actions he is most likely to take, and then project those motives onto others and how they would act.

With that in mind, could Bill have once again been duped by his own strong desire to play his own "gotcha" game by being manipulated into posting this? After all, the facts were correct. RISD, RHS and the link to the document that showed RISD was really Richards ISD, not as he assumed, Richardson ISD. No scams I am aware of provide complete and factual information along with source material.

There was the bait, complete information in a post. There was a very hungry and predictable fish, who I also believe to be my #1 viewer based on my web-logs. Then there were the actions of a very hungry and predictable fish did in fact, take the bait, hook, line and sinker.

Another case deliberate plausible-deniability? Or not? The fact remains that some people are very amusing especially when they are also very predictable.

Slagel Extorted – Claims One Slagelvite

2011-12-14T17:03:00.006-06:00

In a blog post titled “ Thoughts on the Meaning of Extortion”, the degree to which some people will attempt to rationalize away bad behavior is very amusing, and this is possibly the most amusing series of turns, twists and spins I have ever read.

See this link for what happened: http://www.senategop.state.il.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=175&Itemid=67

So, the big question seems to be did CapitalSoft and former Richardson Mayor Gary Slagel bribe their way into a winning contract? Or was the former Richardson Mayor Gary Slagel and his company extorted into forking over $5,000 to Blagojevich?

Extortion is an act of getting something of value from another, with the threat of harm, in some way or another, if demands are not met. Kind of like, “hey, give me your lunch money or I am going to beat you up.”

Bribery is giving something of value to someone who has influence and can help get you what you desire by means other than fairness and good character.

The blogger also writes, “Having been in management in a small software company, I can tell the reader from personal experience of the excruciating pressure placed on small companies to do whatever it takes to stay in business.” Maybe be, but how many actually "do whatever it takes" including illegal actions, like being party to an extortion scheme?

Whatever it takes? If that is the way he feels then I guess engaging in organized criminal activity would fall into that category of “whatever it takes”.

So what would you do if someone was trying to extort something from you? Just pay up? Or contact the authorities. Most people, I imagine, would contact the authorities and expose that kind of organized criminal activity. There is nothing that shows former Mayor Gary Slagel contacted authorities, rather it seems, he willingly engaged in what looks like organized criminal activity and paid the extortion demand, the $5,000, according to the blogger's version anyway.

In a subtitle of the blog piece, “Extortion is More Likely than Bribery”, the blogger continues with this: Furthermore, the time frame supports the "pay to play" scenario. Given the long lead-time for large scale software sales - often more than a year - CapitalSoft had likely been in the sales cycle for many months before making the contribution to the Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund. This fits with the Mayor's statement that a consultant told the company that the reason they weren't getting anywhere was because they hadn’t made a contribution to the election fund.”

Well, Bill, let me be the first to thank you for making the case that our former mayor Gary Slagel, who is now on the DART board, was an active participant in the organized criminal activity of extortion and providing nothing to indicate he did the responsible thing, contacting the authorities to stop the illegal actions you claim to occurred. To my knowledge, our former Mayor Gary Slagel, being involved with an extortion scheme is something he has never been accused of, by anyone, other than you.

That really, really, really does makes former Mayor Gary Slagel look so much better than if he were accused of participating in a simple bribery scheme, doing whatever it takes, to get more money. So much better!

UN Agenda 21 - The New Dark Age - Say Goodbye to National Sovereignty

2011-12-13T08:02:00.000-06:00

You have probably heard about Agenda 21. It is a program from the UN that place the rights of mother earth above those of people.

"Generally, more highly educated people, who have higher incomes, consume more resources than poorly educated people, who tend to have lower incomes. In this case, more education increases the threat to sustainability."

This has been tried before, keep the people ignorant. The Catholic church centuries ago wanted to keep the people ignorant and uneducated, unable to read, unable to think for themselves, and listen to the priests. It is easier to control and manipulate ignorant people, people who don't know how to think for themselves, than it is to control and manipulate educated people who think for themselves. Bruno and other early modern thinkers got burned at the stake. Galileo was kept in arrest and forced to call back his statements. The Catholic church was threatened by free thinking people, who didn't take the word of the Catholic leadership as gospel. There finally did come a time when the Catholic church lost in their effort to be the sole conduit and they have moved on.

It has all happened before, and it will happen again. Some things never change.

RHS - Academically Unacceptable

2011-12-12T16:24:00.083-06:00

The big news today for the RISD is RHS has made it to the bottom of the list, the only RISD school to do so. Time for "No Pass-No Play Sports" at RHS?

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/taa/perfreport120811a.pdf

For starters, I would like to say it is very unfair to rank the school so low. The teachers really can't help it if the students are too dumb to learn how to take a test.

The "New Math" rules have also been changed. The increase likely can be contributed to the state eliminating the controversial Texas Projection Measure this year. The measure gave schools credit for students who failed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills but were projected to pass in future years.

Potentially, the future cries for a cure to the low rating will be something like this: "Let's throw more money at the problem."

If you remember the story from the other day, it was reported in the DMN that there were about 20,000 DISD employees to go with the 157,000 students in DISD. That is almost a 7:1 ratio of students to teacher. Yet even with that many employees, this year DISD has 43 school on the list. So are the students that dumb? Or is the district so inept at doing what they are suppose to do, educate the young skull of mush?

Perhaps some personal responsibility should rein. Good teachers get rewarded, while bad teachers get fired. Maybe the spending should be more directly focused in the classrooms, not in admin or in other areas that don't relate to teaching.

You might wonder what the requirements are for a school to make the bottom of the list. One of the ways to make the bottom of the list is for a school at which 50 percent or more of the students failed any of the TAKS subjects in any two of the preceding three years (2011, 2010, or 2009), or a school that was rated Academically Unacceptable in 2011, 2010, or 2009, is included on the PEG List.

For the complete PEG-FAQ, see http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/peg_faq.html

There is also the newsletter Empower Texas sent out detailing some of the state spending on schools, where an almost $4 billion increase in state funding is called a decrease, at this link

Note 11:15am 12/15/2011: Since a couple of others have seen fit to copy and make this post available after it was taken down, here it is again with the following notes.

Update and Hint: For those that don't know about Hyperlinks , This is a Hyperlink. You left click on the Hyperlink to get more to the story or the rest of the story. Clicking on a Hyperlink will not ever bite you or harm you, just give you more information. So don't be scared of Hyperlinks . However, for the safety of your computer, hover the mouse over a Hyperlink and look at the bottom left side of your browser to see what website the Hyperlink will take you to. If interested, you can use this information to see which RISD and which RHS is being talked about.

Starry Starry Night

2011-12-12T12:24:00.000-06:00

"Hierbas Buenas" Valley Petroglyphs (Night Time Lapse Movie) from Stéphane Guisard on Vimeo.

DISD Gets a New Police Chief

2011-12-09T08:19:00.001-06:00

While that may have been the headline, what caught my eye was the number of students and DISD employees.

According to the story, there are about 157,000 students in the DISD. The article also claims there are 20,000 district employees across about 230 schools.

Doing the math, that means there are 7.85 students per employee. I don't know what the actual average class size is now, but when I was in school, it was about 30 students per teacher. If that ratio were still relatively close, that would require about 5233 teachers. It appears the non-teacher to teacher ratio would currently be about 3:1 in the DISD.

Even if class size averaged 22 students, on the low side the non-teacher to teacher ratio would be just under 2:1. Does it really take two admins to manage one teacher?

Seems to be a lot of chiefs managing just a few Indians. Seems like a problem.

In an Effort to Help Protect Those Poor Lost Souls Who We Call Renters …

2011-12-06T17:58:00.002-06:00

… We, the city staff, and we the city council, have modified our city ordinances concerning the Richardson Rental Property Program. Contrary to what some may say, this was not a back-door attempt to address the problem we are really after, too many unrelated individuals living under the same roof.

These new rules, passed under the guise of protection for the poor lost souls we call rents, will be applied equally to all of those poor lost souls we call renters, who choose rent a place to live in Richardson, that is, of course, unless the home you rent is not registered as a rental home or live in an apartment. The new changes will treat everyone equally, and just a few more somewhat more equally than others. Apartment renters, you can now sigh with relief knowing you are lesser equal that single family home renters and will not be required to submit to an inspection warrants after moving in.

These new actions and new rules and the modifications to the older actions and older rules are being performed in response to the massive perceived problems and issues at the request of the general public and are not based on actual and verifiable problems of rental homes being substandard. Perception is far more important than reality when it comes to political activity, and these actions exemplify our own major concerns in covering our political posterior to the maximum with the voters.

Holding true to our belief that government action is required, whether needed or not, we fully believe that our proposed solutions to the perceived problem that a majority of the property investors in Richardson residential properties, specifically, investors in single family homes, have no intent other than to profit in the free market by investing massive amounts of money, without desire to improve our fair town of Richardson, and to totally take advantage of those poor lost souls who we call renters, we offer this, a wonderful and grand solution, to a problem that does not exist. Or, stated in simpler terms that average Richardson resident will not understand, we have a solution in search of a problem and are acting accordingly.

Finally, we, the city staff of Richardson, and we, the city council, who have not bothered to spend the time to read the actual documents for the proposed changes in Richardson’s Rental Registration Program, in an effort to protect the poor lost souls, who we call renters, who are taken advantage of by the rich people who invest their hard earned money in some of Richardson’s residential single family homes in our free economy, are in creating and changing the rules for single family home rental, are willfully expanding the economy and the spending of money by increasing the cost of renting a home in our fair city by mandating that the tab for the additional expense be directly paid for by the investor, and indirectly paid for by the poor lost souls we call renters. The fact that the city coffers will be filled with extra money directly from the investors in Richardson residential properties and indirectly by the poor lost souls we call renters, in no way had any effect upon our decision to take the money from the poor lost souls we call renters, and put it into the General Fund to help cover the cost for our dreams, the dreams which we, as a governmental agency, specifically, city administrators, all dream about when it comes to finding the perfect non-existent problem, for which we have engineered the perfect solution.

In short, a process by which we can make it more expensive for the poor lost souls we call renters, and at the same time, provide some level of torment for the investors who invest in Richardson’s single family homes in our fine town, while at the same time reducing the investors profits, make rules in which will be applied more equally to some than others, and fatten the General Fund, for the benefit of the people of Richardson.

See our great works at http://graphics.dc-tm.com/RentalHomeInspections.pdf

It's Only $3.75 a Month - What's the Big Deal?

2011-12-02T10:45:00.007-06:00

That is the argument from some of the sympathizers loyal to whatever the city leadership proposes seem to believe. Hey, it is only $3.75 a month increase. Who can’t afford to pay $3.75? That is about what you would pay for a Vanilla Latte at Starbucks. What it seems people do not realize is that it is not just $3.75 a month, but ANOTHER $3.75 a month or $45 a year. In effect, property taxes went up, a little for some, and a lot for many more. Depending on the value of your property, the increase can be up by over 7%. You would think that would get the people’s attention, but no it doesn’t seem to do so.

If the fee is required by govenment,
then it IS a TAX

The new storm drainage fee will pay for the infrastructure to handle the run off from non-pervious areas, storm drains and such. It will also pay to maintain the creeks. The attract lots of trash and brush. In the future, the mandate also be used to control pollution, such as nitrogen from fertilizes. Also address is silt. In the past, the cost for all of this has come from mainly property taxes and funded from the general fund, as it should be. It is a problem caused mainly by everyone.

Local city leaders claim they have concerns about the local economy. The new fee does more to hurt the economy of Richardson than it does to help it. Why? Property taxes are federally tax deductible. Fees are not. Supposedly this new fee will bring in about $2.5 million in new revenue for the city. While commercial business can simply write off this new fee as part of the cost of doing business, residents aren’t so lucky. They can’t write off fee like they can property taxes. If the average person can write off about 20% of the property taxes they pay, then this transfers out of the Richardson economy about probably close to $240,000 a year out of town and to the federal government. How is that good for Richardson?

Another concern with creating a new fund for our city is how they raid the funds to cover shortfall in the general fund. Each year, most of the funds generate a profit. Some do not. Examples of funds that do not generate a profit are the Golf fund and Eisemann fund. While the Golf fund over the years has generated millions in deficits, the Eisemann fund generates million in deficits each year. Examples of funds that do make money would be the insurance fund, water and sewer funds. These funds generate so much profit the city leaders need to sweep money out of these dedicated funds to prop up the other very performing other activities.

There is one COR sympathizing blogger who claimed it would be irresponsible for the city management to ignore the ballooning fund excesses and not sweep them to the general fund. To the contrary, I would say if one of these dedicated funds is making so much money that it has to be sweep away, then maybe the charges and fees for that fund should be reduced to keep it in line with income requirements and true expenses. During the last bond election, city manager Bill Keffler admitted to the DMN that he had to take money from dedicated funds to me budget shortfalls in other areas. This is what I suspect will happen with the drainage fund as well. Funding collection will exceed needs and the excess money will be siphoned and swept into the general fund to make up for shortfalls.

The bottom line:

A fee is a tax, no matter what one would prefer to call it.

Dedicated fund sweeps are in the nature of city leadership and the citizens lose more and more with each sweep.

The use of dedicated funds should be minimal and just cover the expenses for each fund’s purpose. If that particular dedicated fund collects more money than can be spent for that purpose, the fees/rates/revenue generated should be lowered to meet expenses. Money used to pay for all other expenses should be collected through taxation, not fees.

It would be in the best interest of Richardson residents for this drainage fee to be paid for with property tax, rather than a fee. At least property tax is tax deductible.

Mark Solomon's Monday Madness Event

2011-11-30T11:08:00.003-06:00

The Monday night council meeting was fun to watch for several reasons. The new fee for storm drainage, and rental fee changes were two of these items.

Amir Oman had a few concerns to address in the rental registration program. His primary concern seemed to center around being able to reward good landlords and provide stiffer penalties for abusive landlords. For the most parts, I agreed with Amir’s concerns. Why make things more difficult or expensive for non-problem properties? From looking through code enforcement citation issued, rental properties are pretty close in line with violations as are properties that are owner occupied. The rental inspection program seems to be more about how to get money than it does about anything else.

What followed Amir’s comments was bizarre behavior and comments from Mark Solomon. You can view it for yourself on the Richardson website in the council video section, in the “Council Meeting Item 8A2”. Amir give his thought at the beginning, and Mark starts his rant around 6:39 into the video.

Mark’s Monday Madness was amusing to watch. He got a call from a lady about a water problem. When he tried to find out who the landlord was, it turned out to be a management company. He had a very entertaining rant about this.

He went on to complaint that these investors can live anywhere. He knows that some of these people do not live in Richardson, because he insures some of them. He notes that these people who invest in properties to rent are investors. Well, DUH! He goes on to say these people are investing in the property not because they love the neighborhood. He also notes that not one of these investors has come up to him and informed him of how in love with the neighborhood they are, and because of that, are going to do their civic responsibility, buy a home, invest in it, and rent it! No one investor has ever told him that, he reiterated.

He continues with saying they, the investors, are investing in it to do one thing and one thing only. Make Mo’ MONEY!

Mark them went on to say he would go alone with Amir’s suggest of making incentives for investors if the investors would go along and include a mowing fee.

???

Mark says that in the winter he has his yard mowed every three weeks. In the summer time, he has his yard mowed three times a week. OCD much?

So we have been in the middle of a drought, right? There has been very little rain this past summer. His grass shouldn’t be growing enough to mow three times a week, unless he is very active in helping deplete our water reserves.

But back to Mark’s Monday Madness comments. If I understood his rant, and the point he was making at about the 9:30 timestamp point, he said he would gladly incentivize the rental registration point if the investors would agree to a mowing fees paid to the city of $25 every week, rather than the proposed $75/$90/$120 fee structure being considered.

Mark seems to have serious problems with people who would dare to invest in Richardson property for the purposes of turning a dine in profit and pretty much says that they need to pay more to Richardson for a residential property if they have the nerve to invest and turn a dime.

The only good thing that can be said about Mark’s Monday Madness rant was that he made Scott Dunn look pretty darn good.

Assuming There Is Justification for the Need for Mo’ Money…

2011-11-29T18:26:00.001-06:00

… for storm water drainage, here are a few thoughts.

Dan Johnson, Deputy City Manager for Richardson, explained very well the storm water drainage situation in last night’s council meeting. He has always been very articulate and gives good presentations and explanations. Last night was no exception.

There were several speakers at last night council meeting. There was one person who looked at the proposition for the drainage fee as just another tax. Several of the speakers also mentioned they live right on the creek and as such, their run-off goes directly into the creek and they really should be required to pay the fee, but instead, should be getting money from the city for water that goes through their property from sources outside their property. There was one person there representing a business who said on one of his properties, 85% of the run-off goes directly into the creek. As such, their storm water drainage fee should have some major reductions. For the most part, all of the points made were good.

The concerns they brought up were not the points I would have expected, for the most part. But it was good to listen to their points of view.

While I do not know the thinking behind how the laws were originated back in ’87 and ’89, I had the impression they were initiated because of pollution and not how to safely handle run off. From the explanation I heard from Dan Johnson on the video, the fees will address both handling the water safely, directing drainage, addressing debris in the creek, and what I thought it was all about anyway, pollution of the creeks and stream and how this affects bodies of water downstream.

For all the past years, cleaning brush out of the creeks has been paid for with general revenue funds. This has seemed to be a proper way of paying for it.

Some private property owners, who have knowingly purchased home along the various creeks, have had erosion problems because of rainfall eventually making its way to a creek or stream. I have seen some of the very nice retention walls that have been built in the creek around town. Most disturbing about these walls happens to be the cost to the taxpayers and the cost to the private property owners. Dan Johnson, in response to Amir, said for every $100,000 of taxpayer money going to pay for these walls, the private property owner pays $5,000. That is a concern and seems to be a poor way to spend taxpayer money. While these walls do help with the flow of water and the prevention of normal vegetation growth along the creek, they do cost a lot. The building of the retaining wall help the city in general, protects the home owner’s property and increases the value of the property. So it seems the city, overall, benefits and the property owner benefit big-time.

As for pollution control, that is a city wide problem that needs a city wide solution. Residential and commercial property owners share in paying of taxes. The best solution would be to fund the cost for drainage control, clogged up creeks and creek pollution mitigation out of the general fund with tax payer dollars. The funding of city services proportional to property value has been the way it has been done for years, and seems to be the best way for it to continue. Not only that, but if we are going to have to pay for it anyway, why not pay for it in a tax-~~deductable~~ deductible manner? Taking advantage of tax deductions helps to expand the economy.

Towards the end of the public meeting Monday, Steve Mitchell made a point that the O&M portion of the tax rate has not gone up in 7 years. While he is close, he is a little off. The O&M portion of the tax rate has gone up by just under 4%. He goes on to say Richardson is working with the same numbers of dollars as compared to 7 years ago, FY 04-05. When the O&M portion of the tax rate is applied to the average residential home value, the number of “dollars” has actually gone up by about 16%.

So, all residents, open your wallets and get ready to shell out another $45 a year, non-tax ~~deductable~~ deductible.

AIWS - Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

2011-11-29T14:43:00.002-06:00

"Looking in the mirror and seeing your head and hands five times their real size may not mean you have "gone mad," but instead are suffering from Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS).

The most prominent symptom of AIWS is metamorphosis of the body, seeing parts much larger or smaller than they really are. Visual perception of other objects, such as buildings or cars, can look tiny to someone suffering from AIWS. Other symptoms can be distorted time perception, or time seemingly going by very slowly or quickly. Someone with AIWS might feel distorted touch perception, for example feeling like you are standing on spongy ground when it is actually concrete. These symptoms are most commonly felt at night.

Scientists are unsure of the causes of AIWS, but think there may be a link to migraines. Currently there is no treatment for this syndrome, but regulating your sleep patterns and incorporating healthy eating habits has shown to lessen the symptoms of AIWS."

Fact or Fiction?

Grab for the Cash

2011-11-28T09:39:00.002-06:00

At tonight’s council meeting, how to pay for storm water run-off will be addressed. The city leaders are proposing adding a fee to your water bill which they claim will average about $3.75 a month. As best I remember, currently Richardson dedicates about $1,000,000 a year for the program. Currently, Richardson is paying these fees out of the general fund. Proposed is that Richardson should start imposing fees on the water bill instead.

All government entities are after more and more of your money. This seems to be another one where there is little justification in getting more money.

For the past several years, these fees have been paid out of the general fund which to a large part is supported by property taxes. This seems to have been the best way to handle these fees. Most everyone pays proportional to the value of their properties. And as such, they are able to write off the payment on their federal taxes.

What is about to change is the payment for these fees, when paid through the water bill, will no longer be tax ~~deductable~~ deductible and property taxes will not be going down with the change. This will free up more money out of the general fund to pay for other things.

What is being sold to the citizens is that this will only be $3.75 a month for the average resident, or about $45 a year. Actually, it is ANOTHER $3.75 a month in addition to all the other fees already paid.

There are about 28,000 residential properties in Richardson. At $45 a year that would total about $1.2 million a year. Commercial properties will probably be hit hardest though, much like they are with the solid waste.

Now for the meat and potatoes of the fees:

Single Family Residential Property
Lot size less than 7,500 square feet: $2.75 per month
Lot size 7,500 up to 15,000 square feet: $3.75 per month
Lot size greater than 15,000 square feet: $4.75 per month

All other non-exempt property
$0.105 per 100 square feet of impervious area per month with a minimum charge of $3.75 per month.

Now that the state has authorized city governments to collect this fee, what will it actually be used for? Will there be an accounting of fees collected and actual expenses? Or will this be just another way to refill the general fund to finance bad spending?

Blogger Gets Skewered

2011-11-23T13:20:00.002-06:00

In an ongoing argument on another blog, one blogger, affectionately referred to as “Wild Bill”, seems to be coming up very short with his dialog with another person, Nathan.

What started out as questions and thoughts about Richardson’s “5 minute Rule”, also known as “the Nathan Morgan rule”, Wild Bill just can’t seem to stay focused on the discussion.

The TOMA, Texas Open Meetings Act, sets out some guideline, that to the Richardson government seem to be taken as nothing more than suggestions. The discussion covers some things from almost 5 years ago, such as the present city manager contract all the way up to just the other night when the city council again gave the city manager a raise.

It appears that there was no notice on the agenda for the motion and vote on giving the city manager a raise. Also, since there was no notice for this specific action, there was no way the public could be informed and comment before the vote to give Bill Keffler, the city manager, the raise.

For the video, see this link, “Executive Session”: http://richardsontx.swagit.com/player.php?refid=11072011-130

For a listing of the agenda, see this link: http://richardsontx.swagit.com/player.php?what=agenda&refid=11072011-130&item=0&pos=39

Seems to me Nathan has a point. How would anyone know that there would be an actual vote on anything, much less the city manager’s contract?

Not very likely based on the information available.

Flash Mob Cure

2011-11-22T15:24:00.002-06:00

While watching one of those reality crime shows, a funny scene was shown. A thief approached the counter and demanded money. In the process, he bent over the counter. A huge surprise was discovered by the thief. He found himself pin against the ceiling by a vertical was that come up out of the counter. That was almost as funny of a site as another person who tried to rob a bank in some third world country. After he pushed open the door and approached the tellers with his demand for money, all of the tellers windows were shut by the same type of device, an ascending vertical wall. We, he didn't expect that. He tried to flee the bank. When he tried to push on the door to get out, it wouldn't open, even though he kicked the door and threw things at it trying to break the door. Finally he just gave up, and leaned against a counter waiting for the police to come and get him... until, he saw a little ole lady push the door open and come in. Then, he pulled the door open to get away.

The best cure, short of an Uzi with a dozen clips, would be for the clerk to be able to remotely lock the door, locking in the thieves, have a vertical bullet proof glass rise out of the counter with a small hole in it to accept payment.

And if these flash-mobbers don't line up single file, and be polite, to pay up for what they picked up from the shelves, then unload the tear gas and let them suffer until the police get there.

Now for the other flash mob (the non-thieving kind) I would just say sit back and enjoy the show!

I "Like" It ...

2011-11-21T16:30:00.001-06:00

... and it would be nice to see it happen. Good idea Mark.

There is a New "GANG" in Town ...

2011-11-21T08:20:00.001-06:00

... according to one local blogger. According to his diatribes on another blog , the name of this new gang is "The Gotcha Gang".

What started out as comments about Richardson's "Nathan Morgan Rule" during public meetings, quickly turning into something else. It seems the blogger can't seem to stay focused on the topic. Rather it seems, he is casting a wide array of accusations in his typical fashion.

At this point, his last comment, he asks for a yes or no answer to a question completely off topic.

In keeping within the practice of off-topics ways, here is another completely off-topic question for Willy: "YES" or "NO", did Gary A. Slagel pay "ALL" of the rent due for his use of the publicly funded Startech facility? Helpful clue: Records indicate Slagel fail to fully pay rent due and ripped off the tax payers for just over $80,000, with the help of the city officials in the city manager's office.

"Yes" or "No", Willy?

Computer Hard Drive Space is Very, Very, Cheap

2011-11-19T09:11:00.002-06:00

So it make perfect sense to record all of the board meetings of the city for later viewing and to have them run live as well. The recording and posting of videos for the city council public meetings, in large part, is due to Amir Omar efforts.

According to the latest Week in Review, things may be changing and it might not be only city council meetings recorded and available on cable and the city web server. The more open, the better. The more people who know what is going on, the better.

City Considering Broadcast of Board and Commission Meetings

At Monday’s work session, the City Council reviewed broadcasting of the City Plan Commission (CPC) meetings and discussed the possibility of providing other City board and commission meetings to the City's television station (CITV) and live on the internet. During the discussion, no decisions were made regarding the televising of boards and commission meetings, and the Council decided additional discussion would be needed. The Council will take up the issue again in a future work session meeting.

In its 2011-2013 Statement of Goals and Near Term Action items, the City Council expressed an interest in evaluating video broadcasting of additional board and commission meetings as part of its commitment to promoting and fostering an open, transparent and accountable government.

In August 2009, the City began broadcasting City Council meetings live on CITV and on the internet. The meetings are also available for viewing on-demand through the City's website. A decision on whether or not to add CPC or any other meetings has not yet been made.

Let's hope they store and stream all officials meetings for all boards in the near future.

Who Wants a Pay Cut...

2011-11-18T15:10:00.002-06:00

... like the Texas schools districts got form the state? Anyone?? If you all don't want that kind of cut, let me be the first to say, I will take a pay cut like the school districts got from the state, each and every month!

Click on image to enlarge

There has been lots in the news about the cuts the Texas state government has made to the school districts. It seems typical that government entities whine about getting cuts, when in fact, their funding is increased. On the federal level you he about "cuts" when the increases aren't high enough. This is the case with Texas school as well. They have learned to whine and spin to the point of lying when it comes to money.

From the DMN , Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst puts it well, without the spin: “Under the old law, we were expected to increase our funding for public education by $8 billion,” Dewhurst said Thursday at an event sponsored by the Texas Tribune. “We increased our funding for public education by almost $4 billion. Only in government if you expect an $8 billion increase and get $4 billion is that a cut.”

In today's paper as well, there was a story about how the HS football programs are costing the school districts, rather than generating a positive revenue flow. The Richardson School district loses over $122,000 a year per school. Maybe, rather than whining about cuts that are really an increase in funding of about $4 billion for this year, the school districts could get back to what the school system should be all about, the three "r's", riting, redin and rithmatic?

Name These Richardson Celebrities

2011-11-17T11:43:00.001-06:00

Boozing it up, conscience is just a wingman.... Who would you say this might represent?

The "Baddest" in CHNA for Code Violations

2011-11-15T08:56:00.002-06:00

Are rental properties that horrible in Richardson, and more specifically in the CHNA area? The results may surprise you. After going through the code violation email neighborhood services sends out every two weeks or so, there were a total of 21 code violations for rental properties. Just 4 properties account for 71% of these violations which were abated by the city, or a ticket issued. That leave only 6 instances where there was only 1 violation per rental property where it took more than just a letter to address a code violation. Here is a list of the baddest CHNA has to offer from rental properties.

Click to enlarge

Now for the saints who own and live in their own homes.

There were a total of 135 abated/citations issued for those who live in their home in the CHNA area. These 135 abated/citations issued involved 69 unique residential properties. In this group, there appear to be at least one who is really the baddest of the bad, who ever lives at 708 Cliffside. One bad apple, if you register bad apples by the number of citations issued, a total of 21.

But further than that, the one "bad apple" is responsible for 16% of the total violations. There has to be more to the story on this. How can one of our own be so "bad"? Here is a chart of the biggest offenders from the saintly homeowner group.

click on image to enlarge

For those who have the impression, and I have heard it so many times from others, that rental properties hurt the neighborhood, this information indicates that rental properties and their owners are really no better or worst than the saintly homeowners.

It further indicates that there is some unreasonable bias within city hall that rental properties are naturally worse than those homes with owners that live in them. It also seems to indicate our city government is does what governments do best, look for new ways to expand government by having a ready made solution in search of a problem that does not exist and thereby attempt to justify their existence and their desire to expandd and take more of your money.

For a list of all abated/citation issues for CHNA, this file can be downloaded: http://graphics.dc-tm.com/CHNA-CodeViolations.xls

Regulation-Happy City Critters

2011-11-13T15:38:00.005-06:00

Nathan says it best in his latest article, "Subject to Inspection".

This one paragraph pretty much sums up what the city officials should be doing concerning rent home:

"... The solution is a resident self-inspection questionnaire/report. Provide the renter with the resources to recognize standard requirements and resolve any health or safety deficiencies. Require the questionnaire/report to be completed and delivered to the city office of the department of living standards every year. This plan will significantly reduce the size of city government, the cost of associated transportation and employee expenses. The neighbors will report any objectionable exterior issues. And, Richardson neighborhoods can maintain their drive-by appearance without undesirable government intrusion in their private lives..."

Good job at making a good and reasonable argument Nathan.

Also, here are the links to the reports by code enforcement which will probably surprise you. Someone else pointed them on is another post.

CottonwoodHeights011011.xls

CottonwoodHeights012411.xls

CottonwoodHeights020711.xls

CottonwoodHeights022111.xls

CottonwoodHeights030711.xls

CottonwoodHeights032111.xls

CottonwoodHeights040411.xls

CottonwoodHeights050211.xls

CottonwoodHeights051611.xls

CottonwoodHeights053011.xls

CottonwoodHeights061311.xls

CottonwoodHeights062711.xls

CottonwoodHeights071111.xls

CottonwoodHeights072511.xls

CottonwoodHeights080811.xls

CottonwoodHeights082211.xls

CottonwoodHeights090611.xls

CottonwoodHeights091911.xls

CottonwoodHeights100311.xls

CottonwoodHeights101711.xls

CottonwoodHeights103111.xls

CottonwoodHeights111411.xls

From Jan through the first of June, there were about 700 code violations. Of those, 51 were for rental properties. Rental properties accounted for just under 8% of the code violations. Rental homes account for just under 10% of the properties. The numbers seems to indicate the city officials have a solution for which they are looking for a problem to use it on. Kind of a backwards way of doing things. But, what else would you expect?

Fee Happy City - Richardson's Anti-Rental Property Program

2011-11-12T08:57:00.001-06:00

Roughly 10% of the propertiees in Richardson are rental properties. Richardson has setup a program to, in effect, torment the rental property owners and extort money from these people. The message is clear to property owners that want to rent their property: We (the city) want to profit from you using your property for profit.

Or so it seems.

Richardson is turning into a fee-happy city. This appear to be a way to keep "taxes" down but still get more of your money. The city officials claim that the Rental Registration Program "is to help ensure that tenants of rental homes, duplexes and townhomes have a dwelling that meets minimum property, health, fire and zoning standards". But it appear to be more about penalizing home owners who dare to profit by commercial use of their property.

From Week in Review at http://www.cor.net/default.aspx?id=12479: "Currently, there are 2,561 rental properties registered in the City. Of these, 1,799 have had at least one documented violation within the past 12 months (does not include interior violations). The average number of violations per rental property is 1.95."

A whopping 70.24% of rental homes have had "exterior" violations over the past year. The was no mention of "interior" violations in the Week in Review. So, much like owner occupied homes in Richardson, these rental home also seem to have paint problems, high grass problems and the normal kind of problems that can be found throughout the city. Is there any surprise there?

With the desire of city officials to continued policy of increasing fees, the city staff wants the city council to increase the initial inspection fee to $75 to "defray the expense incurred in administering the program".
Seems to me the exterior inspection would be covered by the normal in inspections already done. Fee-Happy city officials.

The next change proposed is to "Require inspection upon change in occupancy – within 30 days of tenant moving in". Something stinks with this one. If an inspection needs to be done, it should be done before a person moves in, not after. Is this to inspect the rental property for being up to stuff? Or is this a way for the city officials to collect names, number and information on who it is that is moving in? Since it is requires "within 30 days of a tenant moving in", I would suspect it has more to do with collecting information on who is moving in.

Also proposed is the use of a score sheet. The passing grade will be an 85. Should the score fall below 85, the city staff is proposing a re-inspection fee of $90. OK, so a full, initial inspection is $75. A more limited re inspection is $90. And why does it cost more to do a limited re inspection that a more comprehensive initial inspection? Fee-Happy city.

Other new fees the city staff are encouraging the city council to initiate? Storm Water/Drainage Utility System. See http://www.cor.net/default.aspx?id=12479 for the city's version of this fee.

The city staff, in an apparent move to free up more money to spend on things (TexKef's 2% raise and other things) want to put a fee on your water bill to pay for rain water runoff and storm drains. These fees have nothing to do with water, sewer or trash, but on your water bill is where they want to put them. The proper place for the cost of items like this would be in the place where infrastructure cost come from, and are basic services that should be paid for out of property taxes. What does the fee have to do with the water bill? Nothing.

Just more signs of financial stress from the city, and just ways to free up more of the general funds for pet projects. Fee-Happy city-critters strike again.

UTD and Richardson Officials - Same Goals - Look Good, True or Not

2011-11-10T07:55:00.001-06:00

I did a post last week based on an email. It was about bird of a feather. When it comes to wasting public money and how PR is used to make folks feel more comfortable, the city or UTD buying that good PR image is a waste of tax payer funds.

The Richardson officials hired the Cooksey Communication folks to go out and buy awards to make the citizens of Richardson feel better. They appear to be hoping actions like those make you smile and look the other way. And it seems to work.

Here is a comment worth reposting from that article which seems helps to explain the silence from the DMN.

White Dwarf said...

Maybe the reason the media does not report more information from UT Dallas is because the VP for Communications is married to one of the top brass at DMN. Of course they both have last names, Rogers does not share her husband's last name. If you do not believe me, call UT Dallas, and I assure you that they will decline to comment on the personal lives of their employees.
UT Dallas pays their best people top money to do damage control. But soon more stories will be coming out and more tax payer more will be spent to pay for the illegal actions that some executives commit or allow.
But, yet UTD is literally in bed with DMN.
Checkout our other link:
http://formerutdallasemployeesblast.blogspot.com/2011/11/restorative-justice-to-unfair.html

Amendment to the Constitution

2011-11-08T08:52:00.005-06:00

Texas seems to amend its constitution very often, with almost every election. Some idea are good, and some are not. Of the 10 propositions, there is only one that is worth while, Proposition 1.

Prop 1 extends tax breaks to the spouse of totally disable vets after they expire. Disabled vets and their families deserve special treatment. Prop 1 does this.

Prop 2 is a bad idea, very bad. To give a group of people who do not answer directly to the people in elections the ability to create even more debt is a bad idea. Just think about all the crap between the neighborhoods and Lookout transfer station during the past few years to remember how the NTWMD was willing to run over the neighborhoods.

Prop 3 is even a worse idea. Education is important and the price of education should be kept within the means of most people to pay for. The education system pretty much sucks. Look to the recent examples of misconduct at UTD for ways they have wasted money and the corruption: Smoke. Fire. Incest.

Prop 4 is a vehicle to heap more debt upon its citizen and should be voted down. The officials of the cities and their cohorts are bad enough. We don't need more organizations to expand debt. Just look at the NTTA. A quasi-government agency under the microscope of the FBI for corruption and an organization that is well adapted to wasting public money.

Prop 5 provide for any easier path to spend public money. Bad idea as well. It should be made as hard as possible for governments to spend public money when working with each other."This measure would give cities and counties flexibility without triggering the unnecessary financial requirements." Hello Greece and Italy. If we pass this, we are coming your way.

Prop 6, Hail no. How much public money for education is wasted at the top levels of admin? Paying highly paid officials to go away? I say start the big spending pigs at the upper levels of admin and get back to the basics of education. With JJ Pearce all residents could see where the priorities of RISD lay. All of the elementary schools looked the same as did the Jr highs and Sr highs. Now, it seems it must be style over substance.

Prop 7 is a no go. We don't need a constitutional amendment to pay for parks. Richardson just bought 4 houses on Weathered to place a pocket park. That will end up costing millions and we also end up losing almost a million in taxable property.

Prop 8 is all about special interests. No.

Prop 9 is a toss-up. No real biases one way or another.

Prop 10 is a no go as well. A politician should be in or out, and it doesn't take another 30 to decide. Have some cake and eat it too.

OHhhhh the IRONY - Like flies on a turd arguing over territory

2011-11-07T13:45:00.001-06:00

From this link comes some ironic news, the Occupy Wall Street protested seem to be trying to register trademarks for their movement (if you want to call it that) and are selling T-shirt. These actions to most people would probably represent "capitalism". Anyone else see the irony? Just saying ...

Another BURP (Apartment the Town) Albatross Around the Neck of Richardson Residents

2011-11-05T10:37:00.004-05:00

What should a TIF zone be? From looking at this link on the "Window on State Government" website, is say the following:

"Tax increment financing is a tool that local governments can use to publicly finance needed structural improvements and enhanced infrastructure within a defined area. These improvements usually are undertaken to promote the viability of existing businesses and to attract new commercial enterprises to the area. The statutes governing tax increment financing are located in Chapter 311 of the Texas Tax Code..."

From the city's proposition to give-away even more tax money to the select few, it seems one important factor is missing, REDEVELOPMENT. There is nothing there to REDEVELOP, primarily there is only land to DEVELOP. Already about 8% of residential property tax goes to pay for this and other give-aways to a very few select people and businesses, placing the burden on residential and commercial property owners who are just the normal Joe's of the town.

Another odd thing about the tax code concerning a TIF is that may be used for residential purposes:

The Tax Code places several further restrictions on the creation of a reinvestment zone for tax increment financing:

"... No more than 10 percent of the property within the reinvestment zone (excluding publicly-owned property) may be used for residential purposes. This requirement, however, does not apply if the district is created pursuant to a petition of the landowners..."

With Apartment the Town installing 6,000-8,000 apartments in that area, the planned apartments must be pretty darn small. But since when does it really matter what the little people in town want or deserve.

The Train is Coming Down the Track...

2011-11-05T09:13:00.001-05:00

...and John Wiley Price can't get off the tracks. And he knows it.

The grand jury is done with their deal, and indictments are out, or almost out, they are sealed.

It is a shame that someone who had such great potential to do great things will come to this end when he could have done better, for everyone. It is just the way politicians self-destruct when personal ambition and public service cross paths.

NTTA Moves to Clean Up Its Image...

2011-11-05T07:41:00.003-05:00

... but not to make itself actually better. In yesterday's DMN the NTTA announced its intention to shore up its ethics policy by putting its current ethics rules into on document rather than have it all spread out. They also noted there would be no changes in policy.

WOW! The NTTA putting all of its ethics rules into one document, and making no other changes, will help the public have a better attitude towards them?

"... The moves are mostly symbolic - the ethics rules remain untouched for now - but the NTTA Chairman Kenneth Barr said they are a necessary first step to restore the authority's deteriorating public image.."

Well, that is one way to try making itself look better. But there is also another way to make themselves look better which seems to have slipped their mind: A change in actions that will actually be, well, a change in the right direction.

They seem to have learned a thing or two from Richardson city officials. When things aren't looking so good, to things to make people think you are making changes without actually making changes. Richardson's way of doing that? Go hire the Cooksey folks to buy special awards to make themselves look better, at tax payer expense. In other words, work on PR rather than making substantial changes that will really make things better and not only "look" better.

As for the DMN headline, "NTTA moves toward tougher ethics rules", really?

UTD Corruption - Where There is Smoke, There is Probably Fire

2011-11-03T08:14:00.003-05:00

Click to enlarge

The other day I got an email about the non-saints over at UTD. Two days later (today), the DMN reports that UTD has entered a settlement to pay an ex-assistant chief, Debra Marable, $135k for being wrongfully fired for blowing the whistle on her boss.

Her boss, Collen Ridge, was accused of using state vehicles for personal use, improper use of state money for personal expenses and using state resources for a consulting business.

UTD officials fired Marable for not turning in her boss sooner.

After her whistle blowing along with 4 other commanders, UTD sent the case to the Collin County district attorney. Following the typical pattern for public officials, no arrests were made and no charges were filed. Birds of a feather protecting their own, it seems.

As a reward for bad behavior, Richardson city officials gave UTD $2.4 million to build roads, not on city of Richardson land, but on the campus of UTD. Again, birds of a feather.

Seems that if memory serves, the same type of thing happened with a Richardson city manager. Didn't he use city equipment for his own construction job? Or another example, Slagel running his private business out of city hall. Then after being shamed out of city hall, he fled to a city owned building, and still has yet to pay over $81,000 in rent owned to the city. Typical abuse of those in positions of authority.

Incestuous relationship between the city and UTD. Smoke. Fire. Incest.

Test Time for the City Council Code of Protection (Conduct)

2011-11-02T09:05:00.002-05:00

According to the code of conduct, what happens in secret conclave, stays in secret conclave and away from the rest of the residents in the city of Richardson residents, unless, you are one of the special people selected to know what goes on in secret conclave. Or so it seems from a post that has been removed from a facebook thread. See this link for the thread. See this link for the thread.

Andrew "T. L." Laska seems to have known more that the rest of the public due to violations of the code of protection the council passed for itself sometime back. Maybe Dunn didn't get the word on what not to reveal from those secret conclaves. He might have to be told a dozens times or more before it sinks in. Anyone at city hall going to bat a pretty eyelash over the code of protection violation? Nope, don't think so. Just the typical Richardson way of Chicago politics at practice in Richardson. Plus as a result of this deal, almost $700k of taxable value gets remove from the tax roles.

The city will purchase those properties for a mini-park. DCAD appraisals on those properties come to just under $700K. Wonder how much the city over paid for these properties?

Speaking of DCAD, there is a house on S. Waterview that just sold for a whopping $107,000! It is on the books at DCAD for $153k. It also took that house 197 days to sell. In 2007 it sold for $198K. Sales price was about $61 a square foot. Finally, after years of government fiddling around with the price of homes, home prices are getting back to a price level where the free market says they should be. Pending bad news for big spending local governments. Since all levels of government seem to be unable to live within their means, look for tax hikes in the near future.

Other home sales in the area:
607 Dover - $119k - 88 days - $74 per Sq.Ft. - DCAD value $72,370
1214 Dalhart - $122K - 137 days - $117 per Sq.Ft. - DCAD value $107,110
1213 Delmont - $139.9K - 35 days - $111 per Sq.Ft. - DCAD value $120,500
1225 Dumont - $145K - 14 days - $87 per Sq.Ft. - DCAD value $108,290
502 S Waterview - $107K - 197 days - $61 per Sq.Ft. - DCAD value $153,610
701 Shadywood Lane - $159K - 274 days - $71 per Sq.Ft. - DCAD value $195,050
1120 Ridgeway Circle - $137.5K - 26 days - $91 per Sq.Ft. - DCAD value $120,180
1113 Greenway Drive - $172.5K - 120 days - $75 per Sq.Ft. - DCAD value $180,760
402 S Waterview - $150k - 200 days - $76 per Sq.Ft. - DCAD value $170,280

Sales prices and DCAD values are all over the place.

UTD Problems - Birds of a Feather Flock Together, Much?

2011-11-01T17:57:00.003-05:00

I got an interesting email this afternoon. It was from a former UTD PhD student. Seems Richardson city officials aren't the only ones with questionable activities. Maybe that is why they are in bed with some of the UTD folks. So, here is part of the email, a part that was sent to the UT Chancellor:

I understand that of all the unethical actions committed and covered up by UT Dallas administrators (I am a former PhD) student, I recently found out that Dr. James Marquart, Dr. Hobson Wildenthal and Dr. David Daniel were aware that one their faculty members Euel Elliot married a doctoral student (he was on her dissertation committee) married her so she would not be deported to India. She apparently did not pass her comps. Dr. Elliot is no longer with this female student. In fact, another student informed me that she went out to dinner with him and he no longer has his wedding ring. Hundreds of students, staff and faculty attended the false wedding. The university is known for covering things up by trying to fire people. I have a least of 8 faculty members who threatened suits but settled. Please look into this!! I will be sending this information to Immigration & Customs Enforcement. Do not be surprised when the state and national papers will be given this information to research on this and other covers up that will eventually surface. Don't be surprised if you dig up some old bones in the process.

State Law Versus City Charter

2011-11-01T10:44:00.004-05:00

Which set of rules to follow has provided lots of questions and conflicts. The questions concerning the Open Meetings Laws resulted in a lawsuit that setup an election to change the city charter. Another lawsuit was filed as a result of the election to change the charter. All of our city council members, with the exception of Pris Hayes, very publicly, and at city expense, promoted the passage of the election concerning charter change.

But, as a general rule, the more restrictive law, state law or charter law, is the law that wins out.

The state law involving the Open Meeting Act allowed for private, back-door meetings for a few very limited items of discussion. The Richardson City Charter at the time said "ALL" meeting will be held in public. For many years the city council, under the rule of Gary Slagel, claim it was OK for the city to follow state law and ignore the City Charter. City officials must have realized they did not have a leg to stand on so we had an election that changed the charter.

Another topic that has come up recently is can the city issue Certificates of Obligation or not. The city charter says no to selling bonds without voter approval. But, state law say yes. State law specifically states that "(b) A home-rule municipality may use this subchapter regardless of any provision in the municipality's charter to the contrary."
State law wins out over charter in this instance.
This above statement can be found in the section of law specifically addressing state law concerning Certificates of Obligation, a copy of which can be viewed at http://graphics.dc-tm.com/CO-Information.pdf.

So in this instance, state law specifically address whether ot not state law trumps city charters. Such was not the case with the Open Meeting Act and is the reason Richardson had to change its charter to allow for secret meetings.

One of the unresolved item concerning Certificates of Obligation is how the money can be used. Can the money be used to pay for things already done? Can the money be used to reimburse the general fund for expenses already incurred? It seem the laws are pretty clear. "(a) The governing body of an issuer may authorize certificates to pay a contractual obligation to be incurred for the:"

Some of the items the money from Certificates of Obligations seem to be paying past debt and for things already purchased. That seems contrary to what the law allows. Its seem the love of Certificates of Obligation by cities is not just in Richardson, but all over Texas.

Holidays Coming - One Person's Musings

2011-10-28T09:07:00.003-05:00

Some people's writings make me shake my head, scowl or skip through with no interest. But then there are some, I thoroughly enjoy. Perhaps writings such as these are why she earned a spot with the "Voices" of the DMN. See page 5 of the pdf at http://blog.cottonwoodhna.org/2011/10/fall-2011-chna-newsletter.html for one of those articles that I find enjoyable to read.

"When I think of holidays with my family, one all too familiar dining staple immediately comes to mind: the dreaded kiddie table. This device is often times a necessity when you're forced to, er ... I mean, you have the pleasure of breaking bread with 40 of your closest relatives. There's no way we can ll fit at the "adult table" so usually the "children" are forced over to some feeble four-legged monstrosity in the corner..." - Destiny De La Rosa

On page 4 of the newsletter, Steve Mitchell also writes a short article on the most recent budget.

NTTA chairman: Attorneys don’t want board members talking about FBI probe

2011-10-25T09:11:00.002-05:00

Does that comes as a surprise to anyone? This is what the DMN reported in Tuesday's paper, page 5B of the Metro section.

"The FBI and North Texas Tollway Authority lawyers have asked agency officials to not speak about the bureau’s investigation into current and former board members’ conduct, including potential conflicts of interest, NTTA Chairman Kenneth Barr said Monday."

Normally you have agencies claiming "We will fully cooperate with the investigating agency", or something to that effect. But, no, not the NTTA. They want their secrets kept, well, secret.

As someone else said, the frying pan is getting warmer. Hopefully it will get up to full temperature and roast the ones that need roasting.

To the DART board: The warning signs are there, if you wish to pay attention.

Fogs of Fall Here Now

2011-10-24T07:40:00.002-05:00

Visibility about 200 feet or so.

Public Hearings And Vote On Establishing A Drainage Utility System Is Nov. 28

2011-10-22T11:36:00.001-05:00

From the "Week in Review" comes notice of a change in how drainage fees are collected. Being proposed is including a the drainage fee on the water bill, which is not deductable on federal taxes, and away from the property tax bill. This to me, on its surface, looks to be a bad idea. My preference would be to have as much as possible come under the status of tax deductable on federal taxes. By doing this, it seems they are just freeing up more money from the general fund to waste in other areas.

Another item in the "Week in Review" was an announcement that beginning Nov. 7 the council handouts and background materials that are relevent to the meeting agenda will be provided on the city website by 5 pm. the Friday before the Monday council meetings. About the only to to say is "It is about time!" Provided the information is the same information provided to the council members in their Thursday packet, this is a great move to increase transparency and get the public informed enough previous to the council meetings. Great step in the right direction. Here is a link to the city council meeting documents.

FBI Probes Conduct a NTTA

2011-10-22T09:44:00.005-05:00

Some of the actions and people are under investigation at the NTTA by the FBI. Generally, it appears the FBI already has the goods in an investigation before word of the investigation is made public.

Yesterday, in a precursor to today's DMN story, a departing executive at the NTTA, Allen Clemson, left with a severance package that was twice what his contract called for. It is worth about $132,000 a month plus health care for six months rather than the three months the contract calls for. Maybe Clemson is doing a little singing considering what appears to be some hostile treatment from some at the NTTA who don't want things to change.

As part of the deal, Clemson agreed to not sue the NTTA and promised to keep its secrets, secret.

Today the DMN ran a story stating the FBI is investigating conflicts of interest within the NTTA. One conflict comes to mind, and is the reason Garl Slagel left the NTTA with Steve Mitchell taking his place. At a city council meeting a few years back, Slagel said that after taking a break from the NTTA for a while, he wanted to get Mitchell off the NTTA and get his old position back. At The time, Mitchell reminded Slagel, he didn't just take a break, he was force to resign because of conflicts of interest over the NTTA hiring Slagel's company as a contractor, without many on the board knowing about the connection between Slagel and his company. Slagel's quote in the article at the time, "... Slagel apologized for never disclosing that his computer software firm, Telecentric, which now goes by the name Capital Soft, has a contract with North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) that has earned him more than $2 million ..."

The question is, will Slagel become entangled in this investigation and possibly become a roommate to Don Hill, and maybe have a future roommate with the initials of JWP? Who knows?

Will he attempt to get business from his new playground, DART, like he did from the NTTA in years past? Again, who knows?

An interesting article about Slagel's business practices.

Jean Richards Has a Few Words to Say

2011-10-21T11:36:00.002-05:00

Jean, first, thank you for your time and comments. Second, since you were called out by name, it is fair in my opinion to make your comments be more front and center rather than if left in the comments section alone. With that said, you have the floor.....

Jean Richards said... (In the comment section of another post)

My name is Jean Richards, and I am a member of the League of Women Voters of Richardson. I am not writing on behalf of the LWV, nor have I discussed this posting with any other LWV member. Having been called out by name for my actions, I would like to respond to the commenter “Anonymous,” who posted at 8:45 p.m.

I was not personally involved in planning our public meeting on the City Charter, but was asked to do the opening and closing. The purpose of the meeting was purely educational. The LWV did not advocate for any changes, but rather, simply wanted knowledgeable speakers to present unbiased information about city charters and their role in home rule cities so that voters would be better informed on the topic.

Following brief presentations by the two speakers, audience members’ questions were addressed. All questions were submitted in writing, and the LWV (and speakers) did not know what those questions would be (with the exception of those submitted online prior to the meeting, which was publicized on our website and in the media for several weeks).

During the question-and-answer portion of the program, numerous audience members talked aloud, both to each other and to the speakers. Because such talking makes it difficult for everyone to hear the program, and also decreases the quality of the audio on the videotape, I turned around several times to try to make eye contact with those who were talking in the hopes that they would stop. Because the talking continued and escalated, I eventually asked an LWV member at the back of the room to speak directly to those who were talking to ask them to be quiet.

Neither of these measures discouraged those who talked and called out comments during the program. At one point I even had difficulty, from my seat on the front row, in hearing a question due to the hoots of derision from audience members. I became quite angry on behalf of my colleagues who had worked long hours at planning and setting up this program, and on behalf of the moderator and speakers, who were our invited guests.

At the end of the program, as I was walking down the aisle toward the back of the room, I made a comment about the talking as I passed a group of people (some of whom I had actually seen speaking out several times). The woman I am accused of “accosting” was in this group, and she stopped me and asked what I had said. I told her, and said that I thought she was one of the talkers, but had not actually seen her with her mouth open. She denied having said anything, at which point I apologized. We talked a little more, and I apologized again, as I had clearly been in the wrong. I believe our conversation was civil, and that we left it on reasonably good terms.

I would like to take this opportunity again to apologize publicly to that woman, as I had indeed lost my cool and accused her of something she did not do. I was in the wrong for doing so, and am not offering excuses to justify my action.

I hope that members of the community will continue to attend League functions, and that they will be better informed voters due to their attendance. I also hope that attendees will refrain from disrupting those programs, so that all those in attendance will be able to hear the material presented whether they agree with it or not.

October 21, 2011 11:24 AM

Sue Us If You Don’t Like How We Ignore the Law … Says Scott Dunn

2011-10-21T08:53:00.001-05:00

Cheri gives her observations on how the LWV city charter meeting went from her perspective from her comments :

It was an interesting night to say the least. And though Dr Lowrey had little knowledge of our Charter specifically, he did offer up some "upside/downside" perspectives on the 4 issues he was asked to speak. How refreshing it is to hear that since that is the way the world works.

Personally, I presented two questions. The one most important to me was whether the council could approve resolutions or ordinances that changed parts of the charter and/or statutes. And though Judge Noah gave an answer of yes and no initially and then took a dialogue path to the change in the charter in 2007 regarding the executive session, that was not really my question. Dr Lowery spoke on the topic and said no to the question and then Judge Noah agreed with him. THANK YOU!!!!

The second question was regards to how and item in put on the agenda. Judge Noah stated that ususally the staff will bring items to the council due to events in the day to day workings of the city (and that is reasonable), but offered that a council member can bring an item to discussion. So some of the dialogue that a quorum has to agree to put on the agenda, or if it is not on the short term goals and initiatives seems to be smoke and mirrors by some council members who choose not to address items. Or maybe it is the 'good ol boy' control issues at work. One will have to agree to disagree as they like to tell us so often. lol

With reference to single member districts I must agree with commenter above who believes single member districts will level the playing field. As Dr Lowery pointed out, there are a few caveats that will have to be given concerted effort, but I believe it will be in the best interest of the citizens. Which is a statute requirement that is neglected and has been for a long time. Working in the best interest of the municipal taxpayer, what a concept!!

On that note, after the meeting I walked up to Scott Dunn and asked if he heard the reply to resolutions cannot trump the charter and statute. His reply was that the budget was already done so what is there to do about it? I responded that it was law, but one option was to recall the council for non-compliance. And I asked him why he would not follow the law and reminded him of the email he sent me after I spent hours compiling documents and then spent 1.5 hrs explaining them. He wrote me that he did not believe me and he believed staff. His final comment to me was to get my lawyer (and pointed to Tanner) and sue them if I did not like it. (Sound familiar to anyone!?!) Seems he has become quite comfortable in the position of a council member, don't you think?

What comes to mind is something Dr Lowery stated earlier in the evening that one of the biggest problems in government as a whole is the naivety of those running for office and giving to much power to the city manager. It takes too many terms to learn the ropes.

I think we should license politicians so they are forced to learn a skill and impact of their decisions just like lawyers, real estate agents, appraisers, mortgage brokers, CPA's, doctors, dentists, cosmetologists, financial planners, land surveyors, engineers and the like. You would never hire anyone in the above professions without a lick of experience, yet someone has that insane idea they can do this job of politics without a drip on knowledge. It just boggles the mind we have allowed this to happen in this country.

So for all of you that told me Dunn was never going to be a representative of the citizens, you were right. But I gave it a shot. You never know what people will do till you ask.

I did make the same comments to Mitchell on the resolutions and he said there were some changes that needed to be made to the charter. I told him, I agreed, but for now it would be nice if they just followed the laws that are in place NOW. Of course, he said nothing else.

I had thought there might be some prodding by the council and staff on this topic, but found out differently when Michelle Thames and Steve Mitchell became the hecklers in the back of the room. What was up with that?!?!?! And I asked one of the League members. They decided to open this door and have wanted a review since 2007, just as several of us have wanted for a long time.

Let's hope there are more opportunities to have a frank and open discussion on the intricacies of the charter and how those issues are applied to the budget/ CAFR and Code of Ordinances. Sadly, outside of Townsend and a couple of council members and 2 former council members (Murphy and Macy), it was a slim crowd 20-30 people.

What will be most interesting is what will they say when the economy finally collapses and the bond bubble bursts. Contagion is the word I heard from a financial guy the other night when speaking of the debt woes of the Euro. It is all in the math. Remember Townsend said at one of the forums another bond was needed in 2013? He seems to have amnesia on that topic now, but a play every other year to plug shortfalls in budget with bonds may not be a possible. Maybe being more choosy with budget this year might have been more prudent than stripping the funds to bare bones as they have projected. My guess is the budget shortfall this year will be more than the $2mm they declared in August. And this is after stripping every fund they could. Makes me sick. But we will have that answer the end of January when the CAFR is posted. I wonder what "mark to make believe" they will come up with this time?

Cheri Duncan-Hubert

October 21, 2011 3:43 AM

City Council Inconsequential, City Manager Top Dog ...

2011-10-21T08:40:00.003-05:00

... so says one commenter.

From here comes this comment.

Anonymous said...

Last night I attended the LWV’s Forum on the question of a Charter change.

The first thing I noticed was that so few people were in attendance. I really expected a decent turnout in spite of the Ranger’s game.

There was a greeting, and then a fairly lengthy introduction by the Monitor.

Ray Noah and a professor from UTD (whose name I have forgotten) were the speakers.

Noah spoke s a typical city “good old boy” with all the rah, rahs you would expect. Several times he mentioned that he was once the Mayor and served on the Dart board. The Professor was not well versed in local politics. He stated numerous times that he had not read the Richardson Charter. He was informative on several issues, but said he really could not apply his answers to the charter, as he had not read it. I think he had to have been disappointed at the low turnout, but proceeded as a gentleman. He also said that as long as the same city manager remains, the changes will be moot.

Both basically said the council was inconsequential, but they should definitely show authority over the city manager. Since most of them seem afraid of Mr. Keffler, I don’t see this happening.

The most interesting part of the evening was when the program ended.

Finally, this old man has learned that to stay quiet and listen is the way to learn the most! So, I stood in the aisle, and watched as Mrs. Richards accosted a woman from the audience. She accused her of talking throughout the meeting. I heard her say to this woman,” I kept trying to catch you with your mouth open, but I couldn’t” The woman replied that it was because she had come here to listen, not talk. I thought that was a great retort. The disruptions were caused by Councilman Mitchell, and as I later learned ACM Michelle Thames. They had been laughing and chatting during the entire meeting. Ms. Thames did come to the defense of the poor woman attacked by Mrs. Richards, stating that it had not been she doing all the talking. However, Ms. Thames said that it was not just her (Thames) but others as well. Then another woman called Ms. Thames to task concerning her behavior, and Ms. Thames grabbed her by the wrist and shoved her away.

I must say I was surprised to see city professionals act in this manner.

The last thing I saw before I left was a little man in glasses trying to tell the poor Professor what a great city Richardson was; winning awards, etc. etc. I believe the Professor just wanted to leave at this point, and he had two others lining up to talk to him.

It was quite a show. I would sure like to read what others thought about it.

October 20, 2011 8:45 PM

LWV Versus Baseball's World Series, First Game

2011-10-19T15:56:00.000-05:00

If I were a betting person, I would bet that baseball will get more attention tonight than does the LWV meeting about the charter. Seems like the LWV just made a huge blunder in picking tonight for for the meeting to gather information about charter issues ...... or ....... they are imitating what the council does on hot topics they want as little public input as possible. (Pssst-WJMl, here is a conspiracy theory I am actually putting forward [tongue in cheek though it may be]).

Remember the Spring Valley morontorium while most people were planning their Thanksgiving activities? If not, maybe the more recent rush to pass zoning for Apartment the Town during the Christmas rush.

So, who knows if the LWV planning is just blundering, or conniving. Take your own guess.

City Charter Meeting Not a Rumor....

2011-10-16T11:34:00.000-05:00

...but fact.

* * * * NOTICE * * * *

RICHARDSON CITY COUNCIL

October 19, 2011

6:30 P.M. Reception

7:00 P.M. Meeting

The League of Women Voters of Richardson will hold a meeting on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. in the Richardson Room of the Richardson Civic Center/City Hall located at 411 W. Arapaho Road, Richardson, Texas 75080, to discuss the current Home Rule Charter of the City of Richardson. A quorum of the City Council may be in attendance. Council members in attendance will take no action and no particular topics of discussion are known.

I hereby certify that this notice was posted on the Civic Center/City Hall Bulletin Board on Friday, October 14, 2011 at 5:00 o’clock p.m.

CITY OF RICHARDSON
__________________________

Pamela Schmidt, City Secretary

Any requests for sign interpretive services must be made 48 hours ahead of the meeting. To make arrangements, call (972) 744-4000 via TDD or call 1 (800) 735-2989 to reach (972) 744-4000

Red Light Camera Update

2011-10-15T09:04:00.002-05:00

Red Light Camera fine collection is not too bad in Richardson. About 76.2% of the fines are collected, according to a DMN article this morning. Revenue from 2008 through 2010 was reported to be almost $2.3 million. That money is badly needed revenue for our city, a city that excels in excessive spending. Spending on things like $35 dinner for each Monday night on city council meals, spends excessively, Wildflower ticket give-a-ways to the council and city employees of close to a thousand tickets a year, paid to fly the mayor on a Lear Jet to NC so he could do some private business for his company, etc.

On the other hand, there are some people who really dislike the rad light cameras because of the "invasion of privacy" problems and also those who feel red light runners invade their privacy by inserting their vehicles into the vehicles of others.
.

And then there are those who are afraid to get tickets and get slammed in the rear by those who aren't afraid to get tickets, or just aren't paying attention.

The best that can be said about this situation is that, in general, getting rear ending is much better than getting broadsided.

But, red light cameras have one big advantage for the cash strapped big spending city governments: THEY ARE CASH COWS!

For those 32.7% of the people in Richardson who are caught in the act on the Red Light Cameras, don't worry. There are few teeth to the red light camera laws that will bite in you the rear for ignoring your civil violations. It will be more of a gnawing, rather than a biting.

Another Rumor Has It that.....

2011-10-14T07:36:00.000-05:00

....while Judge Ray Noah is retiring from his position on the Dart board, rumor has it he will be replaced by Richardson's very own Slagelvich. Look for good things to happen as a result of this move, for the former mayor. Just as he seems to have used his position to sell his company's software to the NTTA, Collin County and to Blogo's state of IL tollway authority (after winning a bid, and after donating $5k to the Democratic Blogo's campaign fund), Slagelvich will probably sell software to the Dart system.

Rumor Has It....

2011-10-13T12:05:00.001-05:00

.... that the Richardson LWV and the Richardson city council will meet next Wednesday at city hall to take input on city charter changes.

It is about time (!!!) that the council review the charter.

the 1000 Foot Barrier - Works Only One Way?

2011-10-12T09:24:00.002-05:00

If you want to open a boozer barn in Richardson, there are some limitations. In Richardson, one of those limitations is that a new booze store cannot open within 1000 feet of a school. That make sense, in a way. You don't want Richardson's lushes to be within walking distance of school while waddle past the school playground and drawing a nip from their brown bag, while having the urge to water the grass with yellow water. Just imagine how that would scar a youngster's life forever.

But how about the other way around? Should school be allowed to open their doors within 1000" of the booze barns?

The Islamic Peace Academy recently opened it school doors within 1000' feet of the Low Beer and Wine store at Plano and Arapaho. Once you get past the humor in the marketing involved in the names of these two groups, you might question whether it is in the best interest of the young skulls of mush we claim to want to protect, to have a school open so close to a booze hall?

One of the things some Richardson residents could take pride in for years and years is that we did not allow alcohol sales in Richardson. We also didn't have open bars, and the bars that were here were private club. Back then, the closest place to get booze was at Centennial at the NE corner of Central and Walnut Hill. City by city started to allow for the sales of booze. Why? They wanted the tax money. During the election that turned Richardson wet, most of the people I knew voted for the wetness. I wasn't. But that is just the way it goes.

But back to protecting the young skulls of mush, from mash. Should the 1000' go BI? Or should it be MONO? Now, just for some added humor, let's see how many consevative types want to see BI win out.

Behind the Debit Card Fees

2011-10-03T10:27:00.002-05:00

There has been lot of noise about changes in debit card fees. The banking industry claims they will lose lots of money and will now have to charge their customers extra fees to make up for the losses. (Millions in bonuses come to mind for the execs at the majors banks)

So, who has been paying all that extra money the banking industry will lose? Any ideas?

We know it is not the debit card uses paying these fees, directly. The hooping and holler from debit card uses show that. And we also know it is not the banks that have been absorbing the fees. The answer is the merchants who accept credit card.

Merchants (businesses) who accept debits and credit cards pay some pretty hefty fees for the acceptance of credit cards, up to 5% on some cards. The fees are generally divided into two categories. There is the “Discount Rate” which is the price a credit card processor charges the merchant to handle the transactions. These fees can be negotiated with the credit card processor. Then there are the “Interchange Fees” which are passed on through the credit card processor to the merchant. These fees are for rewards cards. Credit card issuers give away freebies, points, discounts or whatever to their customer to help encourage the use of specific cards. The banks and card issuers would like for their customer to think it is the banks and card issuer giving away these freebies, but it is not. The banks and credit card issuers charge the merchants so they can give these items away. Sometimes these interchange fees add up to about 3% or 4% of the debit/credit card transaction. So for a $100 charge on a card, sometimes a merchant only gets to keep 95% of that transaction.

As businesses are in business to make money, these fees will be passed onto the credit card user in the form of higher prices. A business will not stay in business if they do not pass along charges.

So for all the hooping and hollering about the new regulations concerning the new laws and regulations regarding debit card fees, really, not much has changed for the consumer. They will still be paying the fees, just in a more direct manner now.

"IQ" Test for Various Health Subjects

2011-09-27T11:54:00.002-05:00

Test #1 - Backpain

Test #2 - Headaches

Test #3 - Cholesterol

Test #4 - Hypertension

Test #5 - Colon Cancer

Deloitte Touche and KPMG...Where Have We Heard Those Names Before

2011-09-26T17:49:00.001-05:00

"... Deloitte "certified TBW as a solvent, viable company with accurate financial statements every year from 2001 to 2008," one of the complaints said.

"Despite Deloitte's credentials and expertise as one of the 'Big 4' accounting firms, those statements -- and the rosy picture they depicted of TBW -- were completely false," it said.

Deloitte spokesman Jonathan Gandal said the "claims are utterly without merit."

It was the latest lawsuit to hit one of the major accounting firms over their role in the credit crisis.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers, KPMG and Ernst & Young are also facing accusations about their auditing standards by investors who collectively seek to recoup billions of dollars lost in the financial meltdown..."

More to the Story here.

Rick Perry Not Doing So Good and That Is A Good Thing

2011-09-26T11:05:00.001-05:00

So, Rick Perry isn't doing so good now that his national honeymoon ends. That is good for everyone, in my opinion. Perry would be the wrong choice.

David G. Nance symbolizes where some of the problems. He and his partners invested $1,000 in Convergen LifeSciences, Inc. which received a $4.5 million grant from the Emerging Technology Fund. While Nance and his partners invested a whole $1,000 in the company, between 2001 and 2006 he donated about $75,000 in political contributions to Perry.

Previously, an old company started by Nance, Introgen Therapeutics, went belly up and filed for bankruptcy back in December of 2010 after receiving about $2 million two years earlier by way Perry. But before the company went belly up, he made sure to pay himself $250,000 for the two years it was in business.

This makes it look like the government getting involved in handing our taxpayer dollars to a few special people is a very bad idea.

Closer to home we have the TI plant on Renner Road to look at. TI got a bucket load of abatement in return for promising to build a $3 billion facility and a promise to hire more than a thousand people. As time went by, TI found it was not going to be able to meet the terms of the agreement. They asked the city council to rework the deal. And they did. TI was able to keep the same tax abatement on the facility, 100% abatement on BPP taxes, and a water credit worth millions. The real certified property value is about $353 million. They only pay tax on about $103 million, a 71% discount on property taxes.

Not bad for TI, but very bad for all the rest of the Richardson taxpayers paying more than their fair share.

The new Blue Cross Blue Shield building, owned by KDC-Galatyn Investments I LP, got even a most special deal. Their tax abatement means they only pay taxes on 13.3% of the certified value.

What it all boiled down to is the masses of taxpayers who do not get special treatment that a very few get, pay for these abatement. For the average Richardson residential property own that means they pay about 8% more in property taxes because of the deals made by Keffler, the city council and Bill Sproull's city funded Richardson Chamber of Commerce.

Take from the masses, and give to the special few. Not good.

So, if Perry doesn't make it in the presidential primary, that will be a good thing. We don't want a person there who robs from the taxpayers for the purposes of Crony Capitalism.

And You Might Have Thought, She Is Just Another Pretty Face...

2011-09-23T18:09:00.004-05:00

"...I am now an activist and I have never felt more urgent sense of passion and purpose. As the satellite is making a beeline for earth it reminds me a bit of our situation in America. We feel the impending doom: faltering economy, strangling debt, high unemployment, disenchantment, terrorism beckoning on our doorstep and a president who has blinders on and only sees 2012. Satellite? What satellite? Ignorance is not bliss.

We are at a huge crossroads in our country. As Jackie Gingrich Cushman says in her new book, "The Essential American," "It's the desire for liberty and freedom above security and safety," that best represents the American spirit.

Ironically, the "entitlement Americans" who claim "security and safety" is their "right" are incapable of seeing the satellite that is going to crash and burn upon their indignancies. The anomaly looming in the horizon is the collapse of our society as a whole when America can no longer pay her debt..."

Read more here from the original article.

How Many FOI Requests Has Wild Bill Done?

2011-09-13T14:00:00.003-05:00

Richardson's very own city William J. McCalpin, kind of addressed the question concerning how many FOI requests he has made of Richardson officials over the years.

mccalpin said...
As for the number of open records requests I have made, what difference does that make? Does that make what I say more or less true?
However, I don't want you to waste the taxpayer's money the way your buddy David C. does (Mark, David recently filed an open records request to find out how many open records requests I have filed - what a complete waste of City staff time and taxpayer money!)....
Bill
September 13, 2011 1:25 PM

Since he did not want to answer the question when questioned by Sassy Texan, would anyone like to take a guess as to how many FOI request he has made in his efforts to save the city money? But his comments bring up an interesting point. How would Wild Bill know what I have requested by FOI, unless, he made a request to find out what my requests happen to have been?

Bill, do you waste the time of city employees and taxpayer dollars making a FOI request to see what I have been requesting? How else would you know?

Not that it matters much, but I do not recall making any FOI request to check up on his FOI requests, or lack of them, what ever the case may be.

Update: Poor ole Wild Bill! He just can't stand to admit he is wrong. He seems to have made a few incorrect assumptions. As pointed out, since about the year 2000, he has made only one FOI request ( http://dc-tm.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-many-foi-requests-has-mccalpin-made.html). He also claims, in error, that it was me who made the FOI request about the number of FOI he has made in the past decade plus. I never really gave it much thought about how or where he got his misinformation and though he would have to be treated like everyone else in search of information, FOI requests. Also in error, he claims I put others up to making the a FOI request to see how few (only 1 request in the past decade plus) he has requested. But come to find out, he is special and does not have to jump through the hoops the rest of us have to jump through. I figured he would have to go through the same process. He also claims that is saves the city money when he goes down to city hall to take up time of whoever will talk to him versus making FOI request (either way the gathering of information takes up time of the city employees).

The thing is, his responses about his incorrect assumptions are really funny to see him defend. Keep it up Bill. You provide lots of smiles and amusement. And keep on reading my blog!

Congradulations to Steve Mitchell.....

2011-09-07T15:28:00.002-05:00

He is pregnant and expecting a triple dose of the next generation!

OK, Steve really isn't pregnant, it is his wife Karen. So congrats to Karen.

Here's to hoping everything goes well and the triplets will be not only very cute and cuddly, but very healthy future COR residents!

Pics to come soon in 6 months or so.

How to Create Jobs

2011-09-07T11:50:00.000-05:00

What causes employers to hire more employees?

1. Consumer spending - demanding more services and products.

What causes employers not to hire, and to release employees?

1. Lack of consumer spending - a lower demand for services and products.

Can anyone simplify this with any fewer words or ideas?

Pretty much, if consumers are confident that spending, for what ever reason, is OK, they will spend more money at more places. That extra spending causes employers to hire more people to fill consumer demand and expands the economy.

If on the other hand, consumers at looking at things down the road that will cause them financial hard, like government debt and big government overspending, they will cut back to prepare for the hard times. The income for business goes down with the consumer spending decreases, businesses tightening their belts by laying off unneeded worker, and the number of available jobs decrease.

So what does Obama need to say in his address to address the jobs situation? He needs to say the government is going to get alot smaller, government spending will decrease right away and he will decrease the federal debt from right now going forward.

Fat chance he will say that. He sees massive government and massive government spending as the solution, not the problem. He is wrong.

The Tea Party has been getting bashed pretty good by some of the democratic leaders and Jimmy Hoffa types. The Tea Party message, as I see it, of limited government and limited spending is freaking out some people.

If those people are getting freaked-out by the notion of limited government and limited spending, I hope they go the way of the dinosaurs.

Poor Mark...

2011-08-29T17:44:00.003-05:00

Mark is getting pounded with facts. More facts than he probably ever knew existed.

But it gets even better. He is citing local know it all Wild Bill as to what makes everything ok.

Wild Bill claimed that the debt, spending exceeding revenues is really ok, because the reserve funds can be used to balance out the over spending.

Sassy Texan had this to say about Wild Bill's explanation: "One other thing! A friend just reminded me in 1999, GASB 34 was created and enacted in 2001. It holds very strict guidelines for a balanced budget to be 'total revenues and expenditures, non-inclusive of reserve fund balances'."

My, my ... can't wait to see Mark and Wild Bill 'splain their way outta this.

Jimmy Carter Presidency Gave Us Billy Beer....

2011-08-29T17:35:00.001-05:00

What does the Obama presidency bring?

His extended family are illegal aliens.

Can't hardly help but laugh at the snobbish Obama.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/29/obamas-uncle-charged-with-drunken-driving/?test=latestnews#comment

Not So Bright

2011-08-26T17:29:00.002-05:00

_
Not so Bright - Also known as young, dumb and indestructible.
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Sassy Texan Calls Out Mark on Mistaken Information

2011-08-20T16:50:00.003-05:00

When I saw Mark's numbers the other day, I thought they were a bit off the mark as well. Sassy Texan decided to call him out on it.

But, ff you look at the CAFRs for FY07-08 thru FY09-10 and the city's estimated finally number for FY10-11 and projected budget for FY11-12, add up the deficits, they will total $21,902,00. This is where the city spending exceeds revenue.

See the chart below:

Click to Enlarge

Maybe they will help Mark understand where his numbers are incorrect. Or, he could contnue to listen to Wild Bill and his wild ass, off-base, anything but the truth kind of commets.

Which ever, his choice.

City of Richardson Budget Deficit

2011-08-17T10:06:00.002-05:00

I do believe Mark is starting to get it, finally. Will have to wait and see if Wild Bill turns him back again with some convoluted excuse. In a previous post he seemed to lament the fact that the city taking in less than it spend will give some people an opportunity to complain, justifiably, about the budget deficit.

But in his most recent post, he seems to finally admit, without qualification, that indeed there is a budget deficit (spending exceeds income).

See his post here.

History of COR Deficit Spending:
FY07-08 - $10,102,000
FY08-09 - $4,877,000
FY09-10 - $3,350,000
FY10-11 - $2,094,000 (est)
FY11-12 - $1,654,773 (est)
Total Since FY07-08 - $22,077,773

That $22 million is just the budget deficits for the past few years. What is even more alarming is that this year, almost $26 million is being "swept" out of designated funds (water and sewer, solid waste, etc.) and being transfered to some of the other designated funds that are not doing quite so good. This figure can be found on page 7 of the proposed budget posted on the city website. So we vastly over pay in one area and underpay in another. Two underperforming funds are the Eisemann and Golf course funds that have under performed by million of dollars over the years.

What this means is that the city is over charging in some funds. The excess overcharging in those funds goes to other funds that are not doing so good. For instance, Tex-Keff finally admitted a few months ago that money was being swept from funds that had an excess to fund other funds that were not doing so good. Those funds came from the water and sewer and insurance funds. That means we are paying excessively high water and sewer rate and the insurance fund is collecting too much money. That means the water and sewer rates and the insurance funds should be lowered rather than "sweeping" those funds to hide problems in other funds.

That is not what is happening though. Those overcharges just become a way to fund Tex-Keff's want list.

Baby steps. Baby steps, Mark. Keep on coming this way.

As for most of the council members, especially "Bobby 1 Finger", Solomon and Dunn, give it up. You will never understand the problems.