POTD: RU LIVING in a BUBBLE?

From 2015 05 07 Portland

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Portland, Oregon. President Obama visited the city for a fundraiser downtown and a speech at Nike headquarters in Beaverton promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement. He was met by several hundred protestors, including the woman in the photo above who went to some trouble to make not just a sign but a costume. The whole scene struck me a little like something from the television series Portlandia.

Sweet Jesus, $47 Million?

"Sweet Jesus, $47 Million?" That's what Unfair Park's Eric Nicholson exclaimed when learning the total of the City of Richardson's economic development agreement for the construction of apartments, offices and retail in the Palisades development.

Is he right to be flabbergasted? On the one hand, $47 million is a big number. No doubt about that. But compared to what? And what does the city get for its $47 million? Spoiler alert: the more I think about this, the less certain I am of what I should think.

Picking a Mayor Behind Closed Doors

Two years ago, after the last city council election in Richardson, I had this to say about the new council's first agenda item for the new term:

It's that time again. Now that Richardson's city council election is over, now that the sturm und drang of an election campaign has abated, now that the voters themselves have elected their next mayor, it's time to seat the new council and have them choose from among themselves, with no say from the voters, who should be their mayor -- mayor pro tem, anyway. What?!? If that sounds like maybe we haven't made as much change as we thought we were making, it's because it's true.

Source: The Wheel.

Well, this year it's the same story. Only this time, the new council's pick for Mayor Pro Tem will immediately become Mayor and serve in that position for the next two years. (For those who have been out of town for the last two months or so, that's because Mayor Laura Maczka has said she will decline to serve another term, thus creating a vacancy to be filled by the new Mayor Pro Tem.) In effect, we're back to having the council pick not only the Mayor Pro Tem, but the Mayor, too. The amount of change our amended city charter brought us two years ago is even less of a change than I thought then.

It's interesting to re-read everything that I wrote then, given everything that's happened since. I stand by some of it. Some I would change. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide which is which.

It's worth noting that there will be one change from two years ago. A change to eliminate an innovation introduced two years ago. A change that really does take us back to the way things were done before.

POTD: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

From 2015 03 11 Jakarta

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Jakarta, Indonesia, specifically Kota, the old city, once named Batavia by the Dutch, when it was the capital of the Dutch East Indies from the 17th to 19th centuries. The photo was taken in Fatahillah Square in front of the former Stadhuis, or town hall of Batavia.

But enough of history. The point of the photo isn't how old Jakarta is, it's how young Jakartans are. And how they are like young people all around the world. Obviously these girls just wanna have fun.

City Council Election Maps

The 2015 Richardson City Council election maps tell a story. But not a surprising story. Below is the election map for the Townsend/Wilder Place 1 race, won by Bob Townsend. The precincts won by Townsend are in dark green. The precincts won by Rick Wilder are in light green.

Source: Dallas County Elections.

Given that Townsend won with an overall 62% vote, the map is mostly dark green as you'd expect. Wilder won handily in his home neighborhood of Duck Creek. He also won handily in the Prairie Creek neighborhood, the area closest to the planned Palisades development. Just to the north and south of there, the race was close, with Townsend winning by a tiny margin to the north and Wilder winning by a tiny margin to the south. Almost everywhere else in Richardson, Townsend won handily. The Palisades issue was a real one, hurting Townsend, but it turned out to be decisive in only one neighborhood.