Recently, I was accused of making light of various Richardson residents' concerns expressed during the "visitors" section of City Council meetings. (By the way, the speakers are quaintly called "visitors," a descriptive term only if, at your house or office or event, visitors typically come and yell at you for five minutes before you shoo them away.) After the jump, where my critic says I erred.
My blog topics recently have tended towards two topics: the Richardson Lookout Transfer Station and the tone of politics at city council meetings (for example, see here and here). Those two topics intersect in a Twitter "tweet" from council member Amir Omar:
"Just had a very positive meeting w/ HOA Pres & stakeholder re the Richardson LOTS. Working towards a win/win solution."
I've called for the Richardson City Council to conduct more outreach to the neighborhood associations, so this news from council member Amir Omar is good news. I don't like the fact that Omar didn't tell us the name of the HOA president he met with, leaving the impression that it's sensitive information. (And, as before, I'm dissatisfied that he tells us that he's getting good ideas without ever telling us what those ideas are.) But, just hearing that someone from the council is talking to any HOA president is welcome news. The news is more welcome than the claim by someone else (anonymously) that city council members deliberately steered clear of a recent meeting of HOA presidents on the Lookout Transfer Station. If true, that would go counter to the need for more outreach. Maybe the city council can afford to limit engagement with the chronic malcontents. But it can't afford to lose the neighborhood assocations.
Richardson is not Gotham, but we've got our own little tales of citizen crime-fighters standing up to villains, even when the corruption reaches into the heart of city hall itself. Monday night is when our local heroes answer the bat-call of open mike night at the Richardson City Council meeting. This past Monday night was no exception. After the jump, five heroes' stories.
A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a disturbing development in Richardson politics. The title was "Richardson at the Crossroads: Dialog or Pitchforks?" This is an update. The good news is that the ranks of the pitchfork-wielding villagers is still limited to a handful of bloggers and commenters on Internet forums. The bad news is that there's no evidence of outreach on the part of the city council to engage the moderate members of the public. After the jump, what you are not missing by steering clear of the blogs.
In its own words, Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What's happening?
After the jump, Twitter and politics.
"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."I keep this John Kerry quote handy to remind myself how convoluted our explanations can become when trying to explain our flip-flops. It's timely because I might be in the process of making some major flip-flops myself and I don't want my own thinking to become convoluted. After the jump, four things I was against that I now just might be for.
Monday night the NTMWD addressed the Richardson City Council about plans to replace the Lookout Trash Transfer Station. Neighbors of the transfer station are objecting to the project. There are some bogus claims making the rounds. Not in what the NTMWD presented, but in what's being said by the public. The longer such claims go uncorrected, the more deeply they take root as established "facts". After the jump, two examples.
It may not generate the excitement and anticipation of, say, the opening of a new Harry Potter movie, but Monday night's Richardson City Council work session had an agenda item that some residents have been waiting months for. Trash and how to move it from here to there.
"NTMWD staff will update City Council regarding progress to date concerning the construction of a new Transfer Station at Lookout Drive's terminus point east of Plano Road. District staff will address various neighborhood concerns and present a regional solid waste system need relative to construction of a new Lookout Dr. Transfer Station. Lastly, NTMWD staff will present/explain the new station's necessary 'throughput' amount, which is of significant interest to all parties involved in these station improvements."After the jump, my own assessment of whether the work session lived up to expectations.
In November, in a blog item about organ donation, I blogged about what's known as misaligned incentives in economics. An example was offered from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's SuperFreakonomics from the ambulance business in mid-20th century America.
"Ambulances were often run by the local mortuary. It is hard to think of a better example of misaligned incentives: a funeral director who is put in charge of helping a patient not die!"Now we have another example much closer to home. After the jump, how the state of Texas encourages local school districts to get sick children to drag their sorry butts out of bed and get to school.
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| From 2009 12 Santas Village |
OK, I don't fully understand the award criteria or exactly who it was making the presentation, but that's not the point. I'm a blogger, not a reporter. Go find Ian McCann if you want the facts. The point is that it was a frigid sunny day, perfect for a Christmas parade, a lot of money was raised for charity and the awards ceremony was a lot of fun to kick off another Santa's Village, which keeps getting better and better. It's open every weekend between now and Christmas. It's free. It's great fun for kids from 1 to 92. Check it out.
More photos can be seen here.