County Crumpets & Crumbs

Here's something for all you "why-don't-you-ever-cover-good-news?" people out there. Travis County Auditor Susan Spataro was honored Wednesday with a prestigious award – the 2007 Sam Seale Trailblazer – by the Texas Assn. of Counties Leadership Foundation. From an inside baseball perspective, the award is a big deal for a number of policy and political reasons. (And this is where the "good news" falls by the wayside.) As a couple of examples, the statewide recognition validates Spataro's spot-on attention to detail, thus creating the perception that the county is head and shoulders above the city on matters of "internal controls." Additionally, when former county attorney Ken Oden makes his annual pitch to privatize the county's delinquent tax-collection business, Spataro the trailblazer will be at the ready with Exhibit A – a veritable chapter detailing all the reasons why the county shouldn't turn over its cash cow to a private for-profit shop like Oden's law firm.

Speaking of Oden, one of his strongest anti-privatization adversaries is back at the county! That would be former Commissioner Karen Sonleitner, who owes her crushing defeat at the polls in part to Oden's bankrolling hand in the campaign of her opponent, victor Sarah Eckhardt. Anyway, Sonleitner is now working as a planner in the auditor's office, so there you have it.