Month: February 2019

I got up far too early this morning but couldn’t get my brain to spin up to a speed sufficient to write.

So, after scrolling through the twitterverse and facebookland,  I read.

In no particular order, these are the news stories that stayed with me from this morning’s reading.

 

Let us gather at the Texas cesspool

.. perhaps it’s we the people who lack ethical backbone. Despite the fact the attorney general above all should stand free of even a hint of corruption, Ken Paxton won re-election last fall. Given the lack of accountability prevalent in American politics, it’s little wonder then his wife filed this legislative indiscretion for all to ponder. — Waco Tribune editorial

This story broke last week. The story (and editorial) concerns a bill filed in the Texas Senate that would make registering as an investments counselor essentially unnecessary. Under present law, failure to register is a felony — exactly what Ken Paxton, our sitting Attorney General, has been indicted for. What’s, uhm, interesting, is that the bill was filed by a freshman senator, one Angela Paxton, Ken’s wife.

Does anyone remember Ma & Pa Ferguson? Well, my Taylor friends should because Dan Moody, then Texas Attorney General, led the investigation that saw Ferguson impeached for “misapplication of funds,” among other charges. Later, in 1926, Moody defeated Ma Ferguson for governor. I just thought this and the Paxton stories resonated.

Read original Texas Tribune story here and the Waco Tribune’s editorial here.

State leaders proposed a low-balled rollback property tax rate. It doesn’t look like that low rate will stick.

“We do our worst work when we work under deadlines — especially artificial deadlines.”  — Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio)

A few weeks ago, the Governor, Lt. Governor and Speaker of the House announced they would push for a 2.5% rollback rate on property taxes. That number is beginning to look a little squishy, which is good news for local governments but maybe not-so-good for cash-strapped property tax payers.

The fact is, we’ve been in a quandary about how to fund state and local services for decades. Right now, cities, schools and counties depend mostly upon property taxes. The state depends upon sales taxes, along with taxes on oil and gas production.

During one of the many school finance reform battles from earlier this century, I asked a Republican state senator what the answer was. He replied “We need a way to spread the tax burden out over the largest number of people possible. Not only would that be more fair, it would probably raise a bit more money.”

“You mean, like a state income tax?” I asked.

Startled, he looked at me and said, “Yes, but you can’t quote me on that.”

Anyway, the Texas Tribune story on the most recent developments in the state’s effort to curb property taxes while also adequately funding public school is here.

 

State lawyers say county election officials are the ones breaking the law

The slow moving train wreck that is the botched rollout of a list of 95,000 Texas suspected of voting illegally took a strange turn in a San Antonio federal court yesterday.

From the linked Texas Tribune story: That list was accompanied by press releases by the secretary of state’s and attorney general’s offices that said the voters had been “identified by [the Department of Public Safety] as non-citizens.” Attorney General Ken Paxton (remember him?) touted the release on Twitter with the preface “VOTER FRAUD ALERT.” President Donald Trump also tweeted about it, falsely claiming that “58,000 non-citizens voted” in Texas.

Despite this, a lawyer for the state insisted that the list, and accompanying advice, was in no way license for county elections administrators to purge any voter roll. Some election administrators insisted that it was.

That hearing continues today but you can catch up on all the drama here. And here. And here. And watch for a forthcoming Ragged Edge, “Why does Texas make it so danged hard to vote?”

 

Can you say “bi-partisanship? Sure, I knew you could!”

“You can be 100 percent right on any issue, but unless you can convince 217 of your colleagues, it ain’t going to happen. Majority rules, with plenty of protection for the minority, but majority has to rule … How do you get somebody to agree with you? It helps to be right, be persistent and don’t mislead them.” — former West Texas Congressman Charlie Stenholm

My friend Harold Cook (@hcookaustin) posted this story this morning and it gives me a bit of hope, or nostalgia, and harkens back to the good old days when politicians could reach across the aisle. Now they do that only to give each other a good whack, if they do it at all. It’s a quick read from the Amarillo Reporter.

 

 

I haven’t seen the most recent edition, but I hear Taylor got a mention on last night’s PD Live! It seems every time the show visits Williamson County, Taylor is somehow featured.

It doesn’t show Taylor in its best light — none of the towns that regularly appear in the show are — but it paints an inaccurate picture of how well Williamson County deputies cover East WilCo.

It’s also a bit disingenuous.

The way the teevee show tells it, WilCo patrol deputies are in Taylor every night, chasing drug dealers and car thieves.

They aren’t. Absent a disaster of some sort, or riding in an armored SWAT vehicle in support of a drug bust, they’re only here when the cameras roll.

And, when they roll, Taylor looks bad.

Look, Taylor doesn’t need help to look crime-ridden. In just this last year, we’ve made the news because stupid people trafficked in XTC-laced kids meals and stupid teenagers plotted terror in the school cafeteria.

But this seems like piling on.

Taylor has come a long way from its history of poor schools and racial strife. Yes, a great deal of work remains but this town is popping and we don’t need our momentum dogged by exaggerated depictions of low-level crime.

What you see on PD Live is not reflective of Taylor. It’s not really representative of Williamson County.

I get it. Low-level crime has entertainment value. Truth is, stupid criminals make good copy, a fact newspapers have exploited for as long as newspapers have been printed. Reporters in every newsroom I’ve ever run have chortled over the antics of local low-lifes, and we tell those stories in gleeful detail.

It’s little wonder there’s a cable television show devoted to the topic, and that it has decent enough ratings to stay afloat. After all, the same network that airs PD Live! devotes hours of programing to people fighting over the contents of abandoned storage units.

The truth is, I understand why sheriff’s deputies don’t patrol East WilCo more frequently. Williamson County covers 1,100 square miles and the part of it west of SH 130 is much more heavily populated than we are. They just don’t have the resources to give us much more than a lick and a promise.

That said, it’d be one thing if we saw WilCo patrol cruisers on our county roads every day … but why — oh, why — do deputies race to Taylor when the cameras come out? The population centers of the county are in Round Rock, Georgetown, Leander, Cedar Park and Liberty Hill. Hell, judging by social media, Hutto is a target rich environment worthy of several episodes.

You’d think supporting those police departments would keep them busy but, evidently not, not when PD Live is in town.

Frankly, that show is a venue for show boating, publicity-hungry law enforcement agencies. It ekes out every drop of entertainment value there is in a call for service report. It caters to a certain type of agency which, by every other metric, could very well be doing a great job but, exposes dark and unseemly aspects by the very notoriety it seeks.

Our sheriff ought to think about the damage this show does to our communities and re-consider this project. It’s not a good look — for him or for us.

 

 

 

 

Back in the old days, when reporters wrote stories on typewriters rather than these sleek, modern computer keyboards, we’d type “-30-”, centered, at the end so the typesetter would know when to move on to the next piece of copy.

It means “the end,” and it’s traditional for an editor, publisher or columnist to close out one’s tenure at a newspaper with a 30 column.

I’ve written several 30 columns during my newspaper career but, this is the first time I’ve penned one with the appreciation that what I write will be the last piece I write as a publisher.

It’s unlikely I’ll stop writing — indeed, my wife has charged me with writing 1,000 words each day — but future commentary will be published at someone else’s sufferance.

It’s more than a little weird. First of all, I’m unused to gaining permission to print what I write.

Then there this: what do you say after 30-some years of newspapering?

I started back in the early days of MacIntosh computers but we used Exacto knives, line tape and pica poles daily. We printed copy in galleys then cut the columns to fit the space. We didn’t paste the paper to the layout sheet — we used wax.

It required a steady hand to lay out a newspaper.

We knew we were in for a rough week if Monday morning failed to deliver the aroma of melted wax. Waxers were as important — perhaps more so — as cameras and computers.

Up until turn of this last century, every newsroom came equipped with a dark room. I remember when taking a hand-rolled, 36-exposure canister of film to a football game was an extravagance — we issued 8-exposure rolls of film for a typical news story. I also remember developing those negatives after the game and being delighted if I captured two print-worthy images. I also remember the devastation of realizing that, out of 36 attempts, I had no print-worthy images.

I got my first laptop in 1993. It was a Mac, had a black-and-white LED screen, weighed 25 pounds and had no provision for internet access. Still, I lugged it everywhere.

And, it wasn’t that long ago that any newsroom worth the name was filled with the background chatter of a police scanner. These later days of secure, deeply encrypted (and horridly expensive) communications gear has left most small-town newsrooms dependent upon social media for those kinds of news tips.

The way we do this business has really changed. It’s not unusual for us to shoot 200 images at a football or basketball game. I can work from home as easily as I can from the office. Where we’re going, who needs offices?

Yeah, a lot has changed in 30 years.

I see by my word count that I’m nearly out of space so I’ll leave you with this final thought: please urge your friends to subscribe to and read the Taylor Press. It is very important to the health of the paper and to civic life in Taylor. If you run a business, buy some ads. If the ad campaign includes your value proposition and a call to action, it’ll probably bring business so it’s a win-win.

Finally, Tia and I aren’t going anywhere. She loves her job at the Chamber and we love this town. And, be assured that I will keep my hand in.

-30-