Month: June 2020

There are times when I feel like the neighborhood scold.

It’s not an unusual position for me. Newspaper editors are often accused of tilting at windmills and similar fanciful activities. Even though we know we will change few minds, we indulge in windmill tilts with some glee.

But, here in WilCo, we are in the midst of a dangerous spike in Covid-19 infections. We only have a few tools available and, like it or not, wearing a face mask in public is one of them (this is my current scold).

That’s why I was upset to learn that a county judge in a large urban county deciphered Gov. Gregg Abbott’s most recent executive orders and found a loophole that permits local governments to mandate that businesses in their jurisdictions require that employees and customers wear masks.

Not a state mandate. And, Abbott won’t let any government at any level mandate that people wear masks when in public.

But, just like he’s done with other unpopular issues, he will let those officials push that responsibility to local business owners.

This isn’t the way it should go.

This is a public health crisis. It should not be up to local business leaders to enforce rules designed to promote public health — then, face financial liability should their customers be found to be in violation of those rules.

You will note that the Austin/Travis County area has already put those rules in place. So has Hays County. So have most of the state’s other urban counties. Not because they want to; they have no choice.

Not WilCo, of course. When I asked County Judge Bill Gravell if, in light of our surge of infections, would he place such a mandate on our area businesses, he responded, “No sir.”

He didn’t answer any of my follow up questions, the primary one being, “Will you support mayors in the county if they choose to do this?”

You should be unsurprised to learn that Leander Mayor Troy Hill said (paraphrasing here), “No way, no how, over my dead body.”

Cedar Park Mayor Corbin van Arsdale is said to be considering it, as are the mayors in Georgetown and Taylor.

Round Rock’s mayor called it an “undue burden on businesses,” and I happen to agree.

This isn’t the way to address a public health crisis.

However, Gov. Abbott has left local governments few tools in the local government tool box, which is par. He’s busily removed tools from that tool box for a couple of years, now, so this is not a surprise.

“To state the obvious, COVID-19 is now spreading at an unacceptable rate in Texas, and it must be corralled,” he said in a press conference Monday. He warned of calamitous consequences but refused any other action. Then, he encouraged everyone to wear a mask in public, donned his own personalized Texas-themed face mask and wheeled himself out of the auditorium.

I can’t help but think the Texas-themed face mask was performative. But, in addition to being an idealist, I’m a cynic.

It should come as no surprise that Austin (and Hays County)  H-E-B stores already had a plan in place to deal with this requirement and they implemented it with dispatch. They’d happily do the same in WilCo, given a chance.

Side note: We believe H-E-B should have been put in charge of our response to this pandemic from the beginning.

No, requiring our local businesses to enforce health standards among their customers is the wrong way to go about combating this pandemic.

But, what choice has our governor left us?

None.

There’s a new-ish phrase making the rounds along with the pandemic and all of the protests and rallies against police brutality.

“De-fund the police.”

Yes, some people are calling to abolish the police. But the “de-fund” movement is more about re-imagining what our police force looks like, what it’s tasked to do and how it interacts with communities.

The idea behind the phrase is this: we’ve put too many of our public safety eggs into a basket that has, honestly, only a few options when presented with tense situations.

Proponents of the movement contend that there are better ways to deal with many of societies ills than by sending an armed response.

They say that the people who respond to crises in our community should be the people who are best-equipped to deal with those crises. Rather than “strangers armed with guns,” first responders should include mental health providers, social workers, victim advocates and other community members in less visible but more appropriate roles.

In other words, proponents say, take some of the money that goes into law enforcement and re-invest it in education, in jobs, in social services for mental health, domestic violence and homelessness, among others.

Words matter. I know, I trade in written words every single day. “De-fund” the police is not a phrase that will resonate with most of America, even if some of the proposals make sense. It’s not even what this is about.

It’s sorta like folks using the phrase “global warming” when what they really need to focus on is climate change. Global warming is too nuanced. It’s what’s happening, by and large, but it’s easily mis-characterized. But, global warming is causing climate change and serious weather watchers will attest that our climate is indeed changing.

With images of police violence dominating our televisions every night (yes, I know — not all police but, too many of them are captured on video doing things that absolutely smack of police brutality), maybe this discussion has merit.

But, call it something else or this will go no where.

It’s not often that I am at a loss for words. But, here we are … early on a Tuesday morning, decidedly past my deadline, and I’m at a loss.

Saturday morning, I was all set. I knew that I wanted to write this week’s column around the manned launch from Florida. I’d seen video of the inside of the Dragon capsule, how the controls looked like a real-life version of something out of a Star Trek movie (the J.J. Abrams re-boot).

It would be so completely different from the distressing coronavirus stuff I’ve been writing. Aspirational. Perhaps even inspirational.

Then I checked the news.

I see now that was a mistake.

Instead of a giddy mob of NASA comms people chattering excitedly about this or that aspect of the launch, my news feed was filled with images of burning American cities. Of police firing “non-lethal” weapons at protestors and at reporters. Of white anarchists (from the left or the right) trashing businesses and inciting violence in what could only be an effort to smear the peaceful protestors.

The images that flash through my mind as I contemplate the weekend and early this week are horrible. And poor optics for a democratic republic. Those images are, in my mind, overlaid with a sound track made up exclusively with George Floyd’s death rattle of “I can’t breathe.”

Even Austin had trouble — and Austin is notoriously laid back, even when it comes to protests. That just shows how truly messed up this is. How truly messed up we are.

Last week, in my letter to my new grand daughter, I asked her forgiveness about how bad things seem. “We’re usually a bit better than this,” I said.

How naive. It seems that every time we hit a new low, something like this comes along to demonstrate how low the bottom really is.

But, still … I struggle to find the words that express how I feel right now.

I know it’s not all police, just like it’s not all protesters. Thankfully, some in law enforcement have found words and actions that express their feelings.

The video of Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo marching with BLM protesters Sunday was inspiring. We saw and heard similar examples from officers and police chiefs all across the country … from Washington DC, to Atlanta to Dallas to Fort Worth to Louisville.

To Leander.

“The failed actions by officers who were sworn to protect and serve were a complete failure to our police profession,” Leander Police Chief Greg Minton said in a statement Monday. “The death of George Floyd will, and should, cause police organizations across the country to take a hard look at their officers and organizational cultures to prevent these kinds of tragedies from happening in the future.”

Those words reassure and I, for one, am grateful.

So, if you find you have trouble expressing your feelings about what’s happening right now, know that you are not alone. Even some of us who do this for a living have come up empty.

Since I’m at a loss, I’ll leave you with words uttered by others.

“Here’s an example of how white privilege sounds. You keep saying, ‘It’s horrible that an innocent black man was killed but destroying property has to stop.’ You’re prioritizing the wrong part. Instead, try saying, ‘It’s horrible that property is being destroyed but killing innocent black men has got to stop.’”
— Found on social media

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” — JFK

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” — B. Franklin

“Riot is the language of the unheard.” — MLK