Author: The Ragged Edge

I wrote a thing and it appears in this week’s edition of the paper I consult with. Since it’s been a minute, here it is.

Saturday was moving along quite well when the news about another mass shooting — this one in Midland and Odessa — battered its way to the top of my social media news feed.

I had a Beto moment (look it up), took a deep breath, then began posting what I could find to the Hill Country News’ social media.

There wasn’t much, at first, and what there was was contradictory and chaotic. This is to be expected as the active shooter was still on the loose.

Finally, I found a live news feed from a Midland television station. I posted a link to that feed, then hunkered down to watch.

Finally, about an hour later, things came to a head in an Odessa movie theater parking lot.

“Looks like it’s over,” I posted. “21 shot including 3 LOEs, 5 dead including a lone shooter.”

That was the best information we had at the time but, after I tapped the “send” arrow on my iPad, I sat back and looked at the post.

It was a box score.

We are reporting the details of a mass shooting in a box score format, as if it were a football game. That’s how normal it’s become. Number of people shot, the number of those killed. And, did law enforcement capture or kill the shooter.

On Sunday, we visited family out at Lake Buchannan. After some pretty good brisket, baked potato and corn salsa, most folks fled the shade of the back porch for the pool or the jet ski. My sister-in-law stayed behind, as did I.

She glanced over at me and asked, tentatively, “Did you cover the, uh, the … did you cover Midland?”

No, not directly, I told her, adding that I had tried to keep Hill Country News readers up to date on social media.

“Mmmm,” she replied. It was obvious she struggled with something. “I don’t know what to do.”

Then, with a look of anguish, this local teacher of five-year-olds told me that her campus had had an active shooter drill the week before.

“I had them all — 16 five year olds — crammed into the bathroom. I tried to keep them quiet — I knew it was a drill. But one of them sneezed. Others wanted to talk. I knew it was a drill, of course, but they did something different. They tried to force the bathroom door open — AND I COULDN’T STOP THEM!“

She went on for a few minutes, asking herself over and over how she could protect a roomful of kindergarteners from someone determined to do them harm. Further, how she could be expected to protect them?

Then, she said, that evening while her family had gathered around the dinner table, her 10-year-old told them about his active shooter drill at school that day.

“Really,” she asked. “This is what we talk about now? Active shooter drills at school?”

The conversation went on in that vein until some of the kids worked their way back to the patio in search of snacks and pool noodles and it wondered into less perilous territory.

But, it stuck with me.

This is the new normal. This is how we live now. And, for the most part, we appear to be okay with it. We must be okay with it because we resist any effort whatsoever to deal with it.

I won’t lay out the proposals — we can no longer have a civil discussion about it and even the most innocuous of the proposals to curb mass killings have become polarizing.

As a friend put it, any serious effort to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people died the day we let 20 children get slaughtered at Newtown and did nothing.

Instead, we report every new massacre like we report sports: in a box score.

This is our new normal. I’m gonna be sick.

Editor’s note: This piece was penned in response to an opinion column published in the Sealy News.

Let’s talk about free stuff for a minute. As in, “no one has an absolute right to free health care or higher education.”

As a communications professional who focuses on the interface of public policy and public relations, it’s apparent that the debate over how we, as a society, pay for healthcare and college has gone off the rails.

On one side are libertarians, and fiscal and social conservatives who see this talk of free services as another step to full-on socialism. On the other are progressives who see health and education as vital to a sane, civilized society. There’s a lot of stuff in between, of course, and an incredible amount of misconception on all sides but let’s keep it as simple as we can.

As the late Robert Heinlein put it, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. It’s as true today as it was in the early 1960s when he coined that phrase. Not even the most fervent dreams of a died-in-the-wool socialist can side-step that basic fact of economics.

But what the political right seems to miss in this debate is that this applies to everything society touches. Everything costs something. Nothing is free.

For instance, it takes money to build and maintain city streets and provide clean water. Professional police and fire departments are expensive efforts. Somebody pays for all of that, too. If you think your local property taxes and municipal utility bill pays the full freight for those services, you are sadly mistaken.

Still, when was the last time a police officer handed you a bill for investigating a crime on your property? Or for stopping a speeder before he drove recklessly through your neighborhood? Did the fire chief bill the owner of that house up the street that burned down last night … or the neighbors for protecting them from that fire?

No. Because police and fire protection are vital public goods. In Texas, we pay for them, in part, through our property and sales taxes. Whether or not you agree with with the way we pay for public services, it’s an economic fact that the more broadly we can spread the burden, the lower the burden is on individuals.

It seems to me that progressives are trying very hard (though not especially effectively) to redefine health care and education as public goods instead of elective activities. If those are successfully redefined, they become supported by society at large instead of as individual endeavors.

Right now, those two systems are among the most expensive in the industrial world. Health care sucks out one-sixth of our GDP — more than twice that of any other first-world country — and our citizens are burdened with $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. Yet, for all that money, we have the worst health outcomes of any other first-world country (largely because our for-profit system has the worst health care delivery system in the world) and college students begin their career with crushing debt that many will never be able to fully repay.

A tax supported health care system would see health care premiums virtually evaporate in favor of a higher tax bill. There are other reforms necessary (runaway drug costs, absolute transparency in pricing) but most studies show that individuals — and businesses — will pay far less in additional taxes for a single-payer system than we currently pay for premiums and co-pays under our bloated for-profit health care scheme.

Education would be similar. While I can’t imagine that places like Harvard or Rice would be on the list of tax-supported education providers, I can easily imagine that taxes could subsidize tuition to community colleges and trade schools.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. But, if we pool our resources, no one goes hungry, or misses out on education beyond high school, or goes bankrupt after a cancer diagnosis.

Some thoughts on tinfoil hats, mowing contracts, conflicts of interest and city hall corruption

Yeah. It looks like we’re gonna do this again … and I’m probably gonna get in trouble as a result.

*Sigh*

Area social media pages blew up Saturday when one of the leading lights of Taylor’s tinfoil hat brigade penned an incendiary post then shared it around. He’s done it before and, in most cases, folks roll their eyes and mutter something about about considering the source. I do, too … I’ve tangled with this fella before and found that Shaw’s comment about wrestling with pigs in the mud to be apt, so I tend to avoid engagement.

But, here’s the thing. His blogs carry a nugget of the truth and he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. So … people believe him. And, since his constant focus is on how corrupt our local officials are, his posts appeal to a lot of people, especially those prone to believe that folks in City Hall are lining their pockets with water revenues,  insider information and taxpayer money.

As I noted, normally I’d let it go but, that post was shared a bunch and, as demonstrated in the comment sections, people believe him. His slanted take on the conflict of interest issue alone is misguided and poorly understood, at best, and feeds the false narrative that everyone at City Hall is on the take.

It makes it hard to govern credibly.

I’ll allow that a recent city council meeting got a little childish and Robert Garcia took the brunt of the negative comments. Dwayne Ariola’s not a great communicator and can be a bit ham-fisted at times … but, he means well, mostly. His greater point is worth pursuing. Here’s a link to the pertinent portion of the meeting. Decide for yourself if any of this was justified.

I reported on (reporter-speak for “investigated”) every one of the claims that blogger made. What I learned contradicted many of his firmly held beliefs — obviously, because it made him mad and he continues to repeat the same talking points he used three years ago.

I don’t know if it’s his intention to be Taylor’s own Alex Jones or if it’s that he’s so afflicted with confirmation bias he is incapable of processing new information, especially if it contradicts his preconceived world view.

In aid of clarification, I’ve posted a half-dozen links to that reporting, and included one editorial, to give you some actual, responsible, non-alternative facts. The links are at the end of this post.

Beware, those links take you to the Taylor Press’s paywall so if you don’t subscribe (and you soooo should) and you’ve already copped your three free articles this month, you’ll have to buy a one-day subscription.

Suck it up. It’s less than a buck.

Once you are there, a word search for “mowing contract” turns up a coupla dozen stories. You get about the same number of entries with a search of “conflict of interest.” Many of them are the same (oh, and this search also showed that we lead with some form of “in the weeds” waaay too many times).

I did not include a link to that aforementioned blog. You know who he is. You know how to Google.

• October 18, 2014: Updated: HUD audit slams Taylor Housing Authority
• May 4, 2016: City is powerless over THA: Congress made housing authorities independent to help fight graft
• May 3, 2016: Mayor’s search for THA probe comes up empty
• August 18, 2016: Housing Authority sues to get property back
• August 28, 2016: Mowing bid puts council in the weeds
• August 28, 2016: The Ragged Edge: Taylor off in the weeds
• November 12, 2016: Conflict of interest made clear to council

Oh, and just for grins, here’s a column I wrote a year ago about actual City Hall corruption.

• May 12, 2018: The Ragged Edge: City Hall corruption

Those who communicate with the general public really should keep a few things in mind.

Presenters must use clear language with words that leave no room for ambiguity. They must lay out the value proposition of their ideas. They must be transparent. They must respect their audience. These are the minimum requirements but, they must be met if the presentation has any hope of success.

When that audience is known to be a bit hostile to the message, these tenants are crucial and the presenter should probably spend more time building the value proposition. Oh, and bend over backwards on that transparency part.

Tuesday’s meeting of the WilCo citizens road bond committee was supposed to be an opportunity for members of the committee to hear about proposed projects for Precinct 4. A brief question and answer period was to follow.

The meeting went off the rails long before the presenters got through all of the proposals.

There was very little in the way building a value proposition (explaining why the roads will be needed) or why the specific corridors were proposed. Until late in the meeting, the presenters failed to outline how competing projects would be chosen or even that what would be presented represented Tuesday was a “wish list” rather than a solid plan.

When a similar meeting was held last week in Cedar Park, only eight people showed up. About 100 people were at Tuesday’s meeting — most of them outwardly hostile to what they knew of the proposals.

They would be. They were mostly farmers who stand to see large chunks of their farmland sucked up by the kinds of roads (described as “transportation corridors” — please see rule number one) the coordinators envisioned. Some of these plans have been kicking around for years and these voters feel betrayed by the lack of available information and allowance for the changes they will wreak.

The development these new roads make possible will also significantly alter — perhaps even destroy — a way of life many of them have enjoyed for generations.

And to top it off, any successful bond election would see these people paying higher county property taxes for the pleasure of dealing with unwanted development.

Little wonder the proposals were often greeted with loud jeers and hoots of derision.

It was a fine example of pure frustration boiling out.

Now, in addition to helping weed through all the proposals, one purpose of a citizens committee is to serve as political cover for the elected officials. To his credit, Russ Boles, Pct. 4’s squeaky-new county commissioner, stood up and tried to re-direct the crowd’s raw anger and frustration.

His efforts weren’t entirely successful but they did deflect the meeting’s trajectory. Instead of descending into a near riot, it was merely hotly contentious.

The team responsible for that meeting were wholly unprepared for what they surely knew would be a hostile audience dubious of the central message.  Just off the top of my head, here’s a few ways they failed.

• The committee sat with their backs to the audience. This showed disrespect.
• Someone on the presentation team should have begun the meeting with stories about the dangers of unbridled development — those stories exist; Boles even told one about an hour into the event. This is part of the value proposition.
• The team needed to outline the limits of county government. And of city government. And that, in Texas, the belief that no one can tell us what we can and cannot do with our private property extends to everyone — even neighbors who are ready to sell their land.
• Someone should have mentioned that a great deal of the property in the area is already on the market; commercial and residential development is coming and designating roadways is one of the few tools available to the county to control that growth.
• Someone on the team should have discussed the bond election process, where the go/no go points are along the way and mention that nothing presented Tuesday was etched in stone — even if some of it is.

All of that — at least — needed to be conveyed before even one project was presented. If nothing else, it would have helped set expectations.

As it was, it took a herculean effort on Boles’ part to salvage anything out of that meeting. But, sadly, the county made very little headway in getting rural voters on board with the potential road projects.

“So, how’s that retirement going?”

That question invariably comes up when I run into someone I haven’t seen in a while.

Tolerably well, tolerably well. That’s my usual reply.

We’ve laid the foundation for the Next Chapter (no, I’m not writing a book), have the resources necessary and a variety of prospects in the pipeline.

In the mean time, I’ve been volunteered to help out with some Chamber projects (go figure) and I sometimes run a Meals on Wheels delivery route. Oh, and the city council put me on the brand new Public Arts Advisory Board — for my sins, the members of said board made me the chair. The more I investigate that project, the more I realize it will probably be pretty intense and intensive.

Plus, unless I’m meeting someone for coffee, I rarely put on real pants until noon. Or 5 pm (that’s a particularly satisfying win). So, I’ve got that going for me.

Yeah. So far, this retirement gig is going tolerably well … except for this one thing.

The other day, whilst wandering aimlessly in HEB (and there’s a whole blog I’ll write about THAT some day), I was accosted by a good friend who asked, innocently, if he’d been deleted from the watch list for this blog.

“I haven’t seen one in a long time,” he said. “Maybe I’m not getting the notices?”

That’s when I realized the danger, the fatal flaw of retirement.

Most of my professional career was driven by deadlines. Daily and weekly reports. Ad deadlines. Copy deadlines. More reports. Press deadlines. Suddenly, all of those deadlines evaporated.

I don’t have to worry about payroll or explaining my messy P&L during the monthly Ops Call. Creative isn’t hammering me about late ads and the copy desk isn’t waiting on my column.

So, while lifting the low-grade but constant deadline pressure that comes with running a small newspaper brought an unexpected sense of relief, it also allowed one of my more annoying character traits to burble to the fore. I wasn’t prepared for it.

The lack of a hard deadline has enabled my natural proclivity for procrastination.

Andy, that’s why you haven’t received a notice about this blog. Except for the one photo-driven post, I haven’t published a column in, oh, weeks.

In my defense, much of March and early April was consumed by a pair of short term projects. I wrote a great deal, just not for this space. Then there was the wedding in Washington state. Another wedding is bearing down like an 18-wheeler run amok.

Did I mention the volunteer work?

While I can blame my publication paucity on all of that, they are not reasons, they are excuses … because well, it’s not like that there hasn’t been stuff in the news upon which to comment (are you following the antics of the Texas Legislature? There’s some bat-shit crazy stuff going on!). Or things to write about (see the HEB note above). And, while it’s true that the Next Chapter refers to our embryonic consulting business rather than a book, there’s some sort of something like that rocketing around my noggin begging for release.

No. Procrastination is not my friend. *sigh*

I guess I need to get up from this desk and put on some real pants. And, I’ll do that. Right after I finish this cup of coffee.

Uh-oh. Now I gotta learn the Twitter.

Ross Ramsey follows me.

I only have 63 Twitter followers — mostly friends and family — though I do remember the thrill the day that M.J. Hegar became my 50th follower. M.J. is the combat helicopter pilot who nearly knocked off a long-time U.S. Congressman in the most recent general election. She’s something of a badass and I had a blast when I interviewed her. For those who want to know more, here’s a link to a recording of that live interview.

But Ross Ramsey …

Ross is the executive editor of the Texas Tribune. He’s the kindly old uncle to the brash, young crazy-smart investigative reporters and digital journalists in one of the best danged newsrooms in Texas. He’s the policy wonk who explains it all. In fact, when I edited the Taylor Press opinion pages, I often included his analysis of how those state issues had a local impact.

He has a pretty large Twitter following, including those crazy-smart reporters. I follow many of those reporters as well because they do a good job amplifying each others’ good work.

But I don’t really know how to work the Twitter machine.

I was with my daughter standing in line at the Bullock Museum to see the first of the new Star Trek re-boots when I set up my Twitter account. That was, what? May, 2009?

I tweeted once, then went silent.

Then, last year, I realized I was missing story tips. We didn’t really use it much at the paper (I’m not sure how many people in Taylor use Twitter but it’s not many) but a local law enforcement agency communicated almost exclusively through Twitter. So, I downloaded the app to my phone, dredged up the old password and began playing around in earnest.

Unlike my Facebook page — which is still replete with posts from local pages that complain about the new restaurant in town, how bad all the fast food joints are, pleas to help find lost pets (or noting where possibly lost pets wander), outrageously high water bills and the horrid condition of our city streets — my Twitter feed is fairly pristine. For Twitter, that is. That’s because I have a carefully curated list of people I follow: smart reporters, writers, authors and a very select group of politicians. A few friends managed to sneak onto that list (but most of them are also smart reporters and writers and one or two smart politicians).

And, if I find that one of the people I follow is somehow unworthy, I un-follow him. As the lady said, if it doesn’t bring you joy, jettison it. Sometimes with extreme prejudice.

As I write this, I only follow 132 Twitter accounts. Since the group is heavily weighted toward reporters, and those reporters tweet at each other almost constantly, my feed has a distinct “inside baseball” feel.

The posts tend to be witty and bitingly sharp. Some are threads that include 15-20 280 character posts that become more revealing and pithy with each entry.

I once read a short story written in a thread of maybe 18 posts. It was quite good.

And, daunting.

I like words — I use only the best words! — and I like to play around with them. But, for some reason, I’m tentative when faced with that blinking cursor in the Twitter app. Part of it could be the lack of an edit function, I suppose, but for a verbose pundit like me to hesitate …

Well, there’s nothing for it. I’ve got to step up my Twitter game.

Especially now that Ross Ramsey follows me.

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.