Don't Look Now At Rick Perry's Tweets

If you're a member of the press, he just might have blocked you from seeing his tweets. Reporters are eagerly checking if they are on Tricky Rick's enemies list. Regular people (and by regular people I mean me) are wondering if this doesn't inhibit communications between the governor and the people of Texas. Well, yes, it does. But it's much more than that.

It's actually a brilliant political move on Rick Perry's part. Not only does he stick a finger in the eye of the press, thereby winning hearts on the right, but he gets a ton of free publicity for his Twitter PR stream. I'm sure he won't mind if people reading this check it out. Like Sarah Palin, Rick Perry is shoving aside the press and communicating directly with the public. Brilliant. And by brilliant, I of course mean petty, vindictive, divisive and endearing to his (2012 national) base.

Fossil Watch Moving, Galatyn Overpass Isn't

Fossil Watch announced plans to move its corporate offices to the former Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas campus at US 75 and Spring Valley. Fossil will be vacating offices on both sides of US 75 in Richardson near Galatyn Drive.

So much for Fossil benefiting from last year's bond item to complete the Galatyn overpass west of US 75. That overpass has been in the long-range plans since at least 1993 (see a history of the project here), but listening to the opposition to the 2010 bond election, you would have thought that it was invented as a personal treat from Mayor Gary Slagel to Fossil chairman Tom Kartsotis after Fossil bought land west of US 75 in 2005.

Maybe now we'll hear that the Spring Valley underpass near Fossil's new location, completed almost a decade ago in 2002, was actually a prospective treat to Fossil by the Richardson City Council, knowing that in 2011 Fossil would end up moving down to that part of town. Conspiracy theorists, it's your turn.

Dennis Stewart's Hat Is In, But Which Ring?

Dennis Stewart, former member of the Richardson City Council, is running for election again. The question is, which seat? His campaign website is up (h/t Destiny Herndon-DeLaRosa), but with the embarrassing notice "This site is currently UNDER CONSTRUCTION !!" (What is this? GeoCities circa 1998?) The website says to check back after March 14, 2011.

March 14 just happens to be last day for filing, which suggests that Stewart has not yet decided which seat to run for. In 2009, he was defeated in his re-election bid for the at-large Place 7 seat by Amir Omar. He said a few unfriendly things about Omar in that campaign. Stewart might be tempted to seek revenge for his loss, but if so, why wait until March 14 to file? So instead, he might be thinking of running against Mark Solomon in Place 2. In 2010, as a private citizen, Stewart joined a fairly vocal opposition to a rezoning request for a senior living center at Renner and North Star, which council member Solomon (and Omar) voted for. So, maybe Stewart will try to rally the NIMBY crowd to unseat Solomon. Or maybe Stewart might decide that it'll be easier to win one of the open at-large seats and doesn't want to tip his hand about which one until he knows who all he's up against.

Ian McCann, in The Dallas Morning News, reports that, as of today, only one of the seven seats on the council is contested. We know that many more potential candidates picked up packets from city hall. That suggests a lot of them are taking a wait and see attitude before deciding which seat to file for. It promises to be a busy day at city hall on March 14.

What's in a Name? CarFreeinBigD

On long road trips, some people play the license plate game. My family used to play the shortsighted-business-name game. For example, McDonald's was a genius business name, even if accidental. When the market for hamburgers was saturated, this fast-food restaurant chain branched out into McChicken sandwiches and -- yikes -- McRib sandwiches, finding a way to use its brand name as a marketing aid, not a drawback. Even breakfast was able to fit comfortably under the Golden Arches. All things that, say, Burger King or Pizza Hut could never do easily because of their own shortsighted business names.

The most limiting names are on the mom-and-pop businesses. For example, "Best Thai Richardson" might have the best Thai food in Richardson hands-down, but its name suggests its owners have no ambitions higher than operating a Thai restaurant in Richardson. Even if they just wanted to open just a second location, what would they call it, Second-Best Thai Richardson? (On the other hand, the name is a Google-genius name. Google "Best Thai Food Richardson" and which restaurant do you think is going to be at the top of the listings? Maybe that makes up for its limited expansion options.)

I thought of the shortsighted-business-name game this morning when I read a tweet from Patrick Kennedy, the urban designer better known as the car-free guy. He used to have the Twitter name @carfreeinbigd (but now uses @WalkableDFW) and still has a website carfreeinbigd.com (although the title of the home page is "WalkableDFW"). Those name changes hint that he realized that having car-free in the name was boxing him in just a little. Today's tweet showed how. Kennedy tweeted, "In the market for some kind of Vespa/scooter. Who has a line on best place to get one?" In other words, the car-free guy is in the market for a two-wheeled car. CarFreeinBigD is an example of a moniker that would have scored well in the shortsighted-business-name game (and by "well" I mean high on the shortsighted scale) .

---

By the way, I recommend reading Kennedy, even if he does tend to view livability issues as pitting cities against suburbs. Driving wedges won't increase livability for either. We're all in this together.

Nitpicking the RISD Bond Election

The board of trustees of the Richardson school district (RISD) called for a $170 million bond election for May 14, 2011, to fund infrastructure and other capital items for RISD's 55 schools. The bulk of the bond will go for things like A/C, heating, roofs, plumbing, computer networking equipment and servers. Passage of the bond will not require a tax increase for RISD taxpayers. (The Wheel offered an early look at this election here.)

The Dallas Morning News's editorial writer Rodger Jones has come out against the bond. Well, he doesn't explicitly reject it. He nitpicks a few items, implying they are frivolous and should not be paid for as capital assets. Like uniforms for athletics and JROTC programs. And electronic devices, which Jones dismissively calls "kiddie calculators."

After the jump, the context in which this bond package was crafted.