Naked City

Austin may be (or is that may have been?) the tech Mecca of the Southwest, but you wouldn't know it from looking at some state officials' campaign finance filings at the Texas Ethics Commission. According to Texans for Public Justice, last year 66 state officials claimed exemptions from electronic finance disclosure requirements implemented in 1999. The new law, intended to increase public access to campaign finance information, requires state officials to file their donor and expense information electronically, so it can be posted on the Internet by the Ethics Commission. The "Luddite" loophole, as TPJ calls it, allows legislators, judges, and other officials to avoid filing electronically as long as they either do not spend more than $20,000, or "do not use computer equipment to keep current records of political contributions, political expenditures, or contributors."

This raises a somewhat disturbing question: Could 66 state officials really be so computer illiterate that neither they nor any of their staff members or campaign consultants "use computer equipment" to keep track of donors and expenses? TPJ thinks not, pointing out in the report ("Luddite Lawmakers and Other Officials," www.tpj.org/reports/luddites/luddites.html) that the 66 officials claiming the exemption collectively raised $2.5 million in the 2000 election cycle, suggesting that they ran "expensive, sophisticated campaigns." Not that electronic filing requires a whole lot of sophistication: All you need, according to the Ethics Commission Web site (www.ethics.state.tx.us), is a copy of its free software (or an Internet connection) and access to a 166 mhZ computer. Around Austin, four officials -- state Rep. Dawnna Dukes (who raised $111,743), Appeals Court Judges David Puryear ($37,188) and Jan Patterson ($3,625), and state school board member Cynthia Thornton ($41,290) -- claimed the exemption. A Dukes aide said she didn't know why the Austin rep hadn't filed electronic reports, but guessed it was "because it's easier" to deal with paper than computer files. After sifting through countless reams of contribution and expenditure reports at the Ethics Commission during past election cycles, however, we're not so sure we agree…

While the capital murder trial of Robert Springsteen IV -- the first of three defendants to be tried in the infamous "yogurt shop murder case" -- draws to a close, one witness remains incarcerated downstairs in the Travis County jail for contempt of court. On May 14, Roy Rose, a friend of Springsteen's from West Virginia, declined to testify against Springsteen. Rose, who is not a suspect in the killings, has said he is afraid he may be prosecuted on perjury charges stemming from "inconsistent" statements he made to Austin Police Department detectives who interrogated him in West Virginia in 1999.

On Sept. 16, 1999, Rose told APD Detectives Ron Lara and Robert Merrill that Springsteen had talked to him "on numerous occasions about a crime in Austin, Texas," and gave details about how Springsteen raped and shot one of the four teenage girls. According to his wife Charlene, Rose called Lara shortly after he left the original interview to recant his statement. In a second sworn statement, Rose described how the two detectives fed him details of the crime and accused him of lying when Rose told them he had no information about the crime. "They were on a big fishing expedition," says Rose's Austin attorney Carolyn Denero.

Under Texas law, a witness can be charged with perjury (a felony) if what he testifies to in court conflicts with any previous statements he has made. In this case, since Rose has made two distinctly different statements, whatever he says on the stand will necessarily conflict with one of his previous statements. Because the immunity deal that the prosecutors offered to Rose in exchange for his testimony would not shield him from charges of perjury, Rose has refused to testify and has spent the last week in the Travis County jail.

The additional problem, says Denero, is that Rose is a very sick man. He reportedly suffers from diabetes, fibromyalgia, Hepatitis-C, and cancer. He is on numerous medications, needs regular radiation treatments, and requires a special diet, Denero says. But, she claims, for the first 19 days of his incarceration, Rose was denied food and access to clean drinking water. "They told him he could drink out of the bathroom sink, and he wasn't even given a cup," says Denero.

While Rose has been transported to the Austin Cancer Center for his radiation treatments, his wife says he's still not getting enough food, water, and medication. "He's getting weaker every day," she says. "He's just not getting proper nourishment or all of his medications." TCSO spokesman Roger Wade says jail administrators refute Rose and Denero's claims. "They cannot corroborate anything [Rose or Denero] are saying," he says. "They are following his prescribed treatment and the nursing staff checks on him on an hourly basis."

On May 19, Texas' 3rd Court of Criminal Appeals denied Denero's request for a writ of habeas corpus. Shortly thereafter, Denero presented Rose with his options, one of which was to relent and testify. "But he's decided to have her try and file a federal writ," says his wife. "He wants to tell the truth and he doesn't want to go to prison."…

It's official: The TAAS-2 is failing educators' tests. According to a new statewide survey, the new, more rigorous TAAS tests, which will measure high school juniors' progress in social studies, algebra, geometry, biology, chemistry, and physics, have earned a solid D-minus among teachers, principals, and other school personnel. According to the online survey, conducted by the private Public Education Information Management System, some 68% of public school educators agreed that the new TAAS requirements are "likely to cause a large increase in the number of seniors who will NOT receive diplomas"; only 16% disagreed. Of the 361 teachers surveyed, fully 76% agreed that it isn't realistic for the state "to expect districts to make up a 40% deficit in algebra within 3 years." (Students will begin taking the TAAS-2 in 2003.) Only 25% agreed that their district had sufficient resources to prepare students for the new TAAS (58% disagreed), and only 16% believed that the Texas Education Agency had provided "ample resources and guidance to districts to help them meet the expectations of the new, more rigorous TAAS test." Check out the survey at www.collectiveperceptions.com/taassurvey/results.cfm…

Hyde Park received a mixed blessing from the Planning Commission Tuesday night, when the Hyde Park neighborhood plan, which calls for shorter buildings, larger setbacks, and more restrictions on commercial uses in the neighborhood, was approved and sent to the City Council, with the caveat that the land encompassed by Hyde Park Baptist Church's 1990 Civic Neighborhood Conservation and Combining District would be governed by the rules of the older zoning overlay. In all cases where the old NCCD appears to be silent on zoning rules such as impervious cover and height restrictions, the base zoning in place in 1990 would apply. That change means that, contrary to neighbors' wishes, the impervious cover and height restrictions in place in 1990, not the more stringent requirements contained in the neighborhood plan, would govern zoning on church property. But in voting to assume that the base zoning applies to church property wherever the church NCCD is silent, the commission essentially validated neighbors' strongest argument against the church's proposed five-story parking garage. For years, Hyde Park residents have argued that because the church's NCCD doesn't specifically override the single-family zoning on the garage site, the underlying zoning restricts the garage to 40% of the site. (That question will ultimately, of course, be decided in federal court, where the church is currently battling with the city.)

The PC also rejected the church's request to retroactively include the Jacksonian apartments on Speedway into the 1990 NCCD -- a change that would have exempted the tract from current site development standards -- but they did add another small tract on Speedway to the 1990 overlay.

Both requests had been postponed for a week after church attorney Richard Suttle unexpectedly left town for the originally scheduled hearing, much to the dismay of the 30-plus neighborhood residents who turned out to support the plan. Sadly, one of those who was there to speak at last week's meeting -- Debra Prokop Bodenschatz, a longtime Hyde Park resident and mother of two -- was killed Saturday when her bicycle was hit by a pickup truck at a four-way stop at 44th and Ave. G. She was 45.