Happiness Is Lubbock, Texas, in my Rear View Mirror

Lubbock County Judge Tom Head and Commissioner Mark Heinrich went into great detail Monday night on FOX 34 News @ Nine about why it is necessary to raise the tax rate by 1.7 cents the next fiscal year.
...
Judge Head said he and the county must be prepared for many contingencies, one that he particularly fears, is if President Obama is reelected.

"He's going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the UN, and what is going to happen when that happens?," Head asked.

"I'm thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we're not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we're talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.

"Now what's going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He's going to send in U.N. troops. I don't want 'em in Lubbock County. OK. So I'm going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say 'you're not coming in here'.

"And the sheriff, I've already asked him, I said 'you gonna back me' he said, 'yeah, I'll back you'. Well, I don't want a bunch of rookies back there. I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me."

Source: Fox34 News.

What's there to say? I understand what prompted Mac Davis to write the title to that classic song about leaving Lubbock.

A Curious Public Hearing on the Budget

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

Source: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Richardson City Council held a public hearing on the proposed budget for fiscal year 2012-2013 and the proposed tax rate of $0.63516 per $100 valuation.

Members of the public got their five minutes in the spotlight to come before the council and find fault. You know the drill. Taxes are too high. You're spending too much. You're spending on the wrong things. You're loading up our children with an unbearable burden of debt. You're corrupt. You're stupid. You're not listening to us (that is, to me).

After the jump, the curious turn that Monday's public hearing took.

Review: Absolute Monarchs

Amazon

From Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, by John Julius Norwich

The next two popes, Stephen V and Formosus, died in their beds, but on the orders of his successor, Stephen VI, the body of Formosus was exhumed in March 896, eight months after his death, clothed in pontifical vestments, propped up on a throne, and subjected to a mock trial on charges of perjury and of coveting the Papacy."

After the jump, my review.

A Bridge. A Trail. A Fail.

Recently, I talked about bridging some divides in Richardson. I focused on West Spring Valley Rd because there are good things beginning to happen in southwest Richardson. I talked about bridges and creeks and parks and pedestrians and cars. There's a place in east Richardson where these careabouts all come together in miniature, at the intersection of Yale Blvd and Apollo Rd, where Duck Creek flows under the streets.

After the jump, catching up at an urban planning fail that's so easy to solve, why hasn't it been fixed?

Chemical Warfare in Richardson

Source: Life Magazine.

If you're reading this, it means you survived last night's aerial bombardment in Richardson's escalation of chemical warfare against the lowly mosquito. Hallelujah!

After the jump, all I'm going to say about that.

Bridging the Divides in Richardson

Source: City of Richardson.

A week or so ago, the City of Richardson announced they had bought the old Continental Inn and had begun demolition of it in anticipation (I presume) of reselling it to a private party for redevelopment. This week, the Richardson City Council reviewed plans for rehabilitation of West Spring Valley Rd, including designs for bridge renovations. This is all good news. After years of talk, this long-neglected part of our city is finally making visible progress towards redevelopment.

A back story to the bridge renovations also contains good news. The city appears to have engaged the neighborhood in the process. The result is a design that's modern and, more important, popular with nearby residents. The process for coming up with that bridge design highlighted a divide between city planners and local residents, a divide that's been bridged (pun fully intended).

After the jump, some of the divides that remain.

Taxation Without Representation in Richardson

In comments to a previous post, a reader charges that Richardson practices taxation without representation. Of course, that's the practice of the English Parliament that led to the American Revolution. It's not democracy. It's tyranny. In other words, it's pretty serious, tri-cornered hat kind of stuff.

After the jump, does our reader have a case?

Repeat Tweets: A Bake Sale for Science

Repeat tweets from July, 2012:

• 2012 07 01 - "Bake sales can't fund the exploration of space" http://t.co/T5cFajnz
  
• 2012 07 03 - My theory why Texas GOP is on record against teaching "critical thinking skills." They mistake critical for faultfinding, not analytical.
  
• 2012 07 04 - Mark's Stylebook: Be careful this year sorting the photos that accompany your stories. Don't confuse Higgs boson tracks with fireworks pics.
  
• 2012 07 05 - Organizers of petition drive to force referendum on direct election of Richardson's mayor claim to have the signatures needed. Submit today.
  
• 2012 07 06 - Texas. Dead last in adults with HS diploma. Now, dead last in health care. You get what you pay for. http://t.co/SfvhoZj7
  
• 2012 07 06 - Richardson Public Library's new long-range plan includes the goal "Continue to dream and plan for the future." Dreaming is good.
  
• 2012 07 06 - Kudos to David Morgan, new City of Richardson Deputy City Manager and winner of the Eddie Munster lookalike contest. http://t.co/J9Lt4zh3
  

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Richardson's Budget - Black or Red?

If you've been a regular reader of this blog for more than a year (I'm deeply sorry) then you know of my quest for a "balanced budget." Each year, Richardson claims to have a "balanced budget," yet often expenditures exceed revenues. What gives?

In 2011, when I last explored this subject, I came to two conclusions.

First, that Richardson considers the budget to be balanced if expenditures are less than revenues plus reserved fund balance, and other financing sources.

Second, that over a multi-year cycle that reserved fund balance sometimes has a surplus that can be drawn down, and sometimes it doesn't. So, even with the more common dictionary definition of balanced budget, one that doesn't consider reserved fund balances, Richardson's budget is cyclically balanced, even if year by year it might run slight deficits or surpluses.

Still, my hope each year is this will be a year in which Richardson doesn't rely on reserved fund balances to make up for an excess of expenditures over revenues. I vowed I wouldn't make a big deal of it again this year, but I confessed that I wouldn't be able to resist taking a sneak peek at those bottom line revenue and expenditure numbers.

After the jump, that sneak peek. Revenues vs expenditures. Black or red. Which is it?

Online Clues to Election Politics

It's said that in 2008, the Wikipedia entry for Sarah Palin was modified, presumably by campaign staffers, dozens of times in the day or so before she was named by John McCain as his pick for Vice President.

So, this year, Wikipedia entries for Paul Ryan, Rob Portman, Tim Pawlenty and others have been closely watched. Then, Wikipedia itself put an end to this potential tip-off by locking those entries, supposedly to keep pranksters at bay. Way to mess things up, Stephen Colbert.

So, that set me to thinking. Are there any similar indicators, closer to home, that might be telling us something about the state of Richardson's own city council elections in 2013? After the jump, maybe a clue.