The Republic of Texas, the self-proclaimed rightful government of Texas, just
can’t get any rest from Attorney General Dan Morales. Last week, the AG
subpoenaed the organization’s secretary of state, Robert Kesterson, for all
faxes and e-mail messages sent to the group. Kesterson says his attorney is
studying the matter and has until Oct. 31 to respond. Did Morales likewise
subpoena the group’s Internet server, Flashnet Communications, for the names of
people logging on to the Republic’s Web site? AG spokesman Ron Dusek says
tracing Web hits is possible, but he wouldn’t provide further details: “We’re
not going to discuss, nor confirm, nor deny any investigative procedures we
might use regarding the Republic of Texas.”…
Mike Blizzard, a leader in Austinites for a Little Less Corruption, is hoping
the Austin City Council will see his side of things at this week’s council
meeting, and allow for a referendum on campaign finance reform. The city clerk
nullified the group’s petition effort on grounds that they hadn’t collected
enough valid signatures to force a Jan. 18 charter election. Blizzard says it’s
hard to believe that out of the more than 29,000 signatures collected, more
than half were invalid. “We’re going to keep pushing this thing until we get it
on the ballot,” he says…
Where would we be without ACTV? Tune in to Channel 16 at 6pm Monday, Oct. 28,
for an Austin Community Television forum. Or, hoof it down to the studios at
1143 Northwest Ave., to be a part of the in-studio audience. This promises to
be interactive media in every sense of the word…
Only six more ballot-casting days until Nov. 1, the last day to vote early
before the Nov. 5 general elections. That said, here’s a history-making factoid
to chew on: A record 10.5 million-plus residents are now registered to vote in
Texas. That’s 821,873 more than voted in the March primaries. Travis County
voters are setting records of their own. The County Clerk’s office reports that
the early voting turnout is higher this year than it was four years ago. Don’t
forget to eyeball The Austin Chronicle Election Board
(/election/) before heading to the polls. The
Chronicle offers its endorsements in “Page Two” of this issue. — A.S.
ACC’s Shadow
The Austin Community College (ACC) Board of Trustees voted Monday to pull outof the Shadowridge real estate deal, amid whoops and hollers from approving
environmentalists. Now, all is quiet as ACC’s bean counters tally up the cost
of almost buying the 79-acre tract in Oak Hill. The loss is somewhere in
the neighborhood of $100,000, which went toward feasibility studies, penalties,
and fees. The expense doesn’t cover the legal costs which ACC incurred to
defend itself in a lawsuit brought by the Save Our Springs Alliance (S.O.S.)
over the Shadowridge tumult.
“I don’t think we’ll be looking for property in southwest Austin any time
soon,” says Carol Nasworthy, who chairs the ACC board. That’s good news for
residents of East Austin, where Nasworthy says ACC will begin shifting its
focus. Dropping Shadowridge like a hot potato was the right decision, the board
chair reasons. “The judge told us we were going to lose the lawsuit anyway, so
there was no sense in going ahead with it.” S.O.S. had sued on grounds that ACC
had violated state open meetings laws when it voted to buy the Shadowridge
property.
At Monday’s meeting, the board decided 5-1 to pull out of the deal, with
Lillian Davis dissenting. Nasworthy didn’t vote, and says she would have voted
nay to Shadowridge had there been a tie.
ACC trustees also broke a previous 4-4 deadlock on appointing a successor to
Pete Foster, who resigned from the board. Trustees this time unanimously picked
Sharon Knotts Green, a Motorola executive, over Bill Spelman, a University of
Texas associate professor. Spelman made an unsuccessful bid for a trustee
position last spring, running in part on his opposition to building an ACC
campus on the environmentally vulnerable Shadowridge tract. — A.S.
Heart On for Dan
“The problem with Dan Morales,” says child support advocate Lynda Benson, “isthat Dan Morales just doesn’t get it.” That’s Benson’s explanation for the
Texas Attorney General getting this year’s Heartless Award from the Texas
chapter of the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support (ACES).
Morales has come under criticism recently for the AG’s backlog of cases in the
child support collection division. That criticism heated up this spring when he
ousted the division’s director, Charles (Charlie) Childress, and replaced him
with David Vela, a former national parks service site director.
In canning Childress, Morales’ right-hand man, First Assistant AG Jorge Vega,
offered him a horizontal transfer to the AG’s environmental division, but
Childress declined, explaining, “I’ve been a family law attorney for 20 years.
I don’t have environmental expertise and I didn’t think it would be appropriate
for me to go there.” Childress instead opted to quit. Last month, ACES honored
Childress with the Golden Heart Award at the group’s annual gathering in
Dallas. “Charlie and I would fight all the time, but at least Charlie would
listen and we were able to reach compromises,” says Benson.
AG spokesman Ron Dusek is quick to defend his boss. “They cannot afford to be
honest about the success of the [child support] program,” he says. “If they
were honest they’d be out of business.”
Bestowing the Heartless Award on Morales this year will be St. Edwards
University student Gretchen Cohenour. She’ll deliver the award to Morales’
office at 2pm Monday at the Price Daniel Building, 209 W. 14th, although she
isn’t counting on Morales being on hand to accept the honor. Cohenour grew up
without benefit of child support from her father — first under former Attorney
General Jim Mattox’s watch, and then under Morales’ administration.
Meanwhile, ACES, a 10-year-old non-profit organization, is endorsing a Texas
House panel’s recent recommendation to move the AG’s child support division to
a new independent agency. “We’ve never wanted that in the past,” Benson says,
“but we’re supporting it this time around.” — A.S.
Street Synchronicity
The Austin Transportation Study has come up with a list of priority roadprojects to fund in 1999 and 2000. Topping the list is a recommendation to kick
in $4.5 million toward a computerized traffic light system to even out the flow
of vehicles and reduce air pollution. But the Public Works and Transportation
Department estimates it will take $10.5 million more than that to do the job.
Critics say the project would increase automobile dominance and that money
could be better spent on providing a balance for other modes of travel. Still
other traffic-calming advocates aren’t so quick to criticize the synchronicity
route. They say that if timed for homogenized flow rather than maximum speed,
computerized signals can actually make roads safer by discouraging rapid starts
and racing to beat red lights.
Among other road projects, ATS staff recommended spending $4.1 million to add
left-turn lanes to Bee Caves Road, $2.7 million to widen RM 2244 in
Pflugerville, $2.5 million to improve access ramps on I-35, and $2.68 million
for bicycle and pedestrian projects.
The Bee Caves Road project is about a fourth of the amount needed to provide
left-turn lanes on that arterial between Loop 360 and MoPac. West Lake Hills
officials say the lanes are needed for safe left turns because of increasing
traffic from fast-growing subdivisions to the west — including Barton Creek
Properties. Critics point out that left turn lanes can also increase the
barrier effect of roads for pedestrians by freeing up main lanes for faster
speeds.
Though the ATS staff’s recommendations carry a reasonable amount of weight,
the final decision is in the hands of the ATS Policy Advisory Committee, a
21-member group consisting primarily of elected officials from Travis, Hays,
and Williamson Counties. The ATS has direct control over about $7.4 million a
year in federal transportation money, and that amount is expected to jump to
$9.6 million in 1999.
The ATS share is minuscule compared to the nearly $1 billion in local freeway
projects that the Texas Department of Transportation has underway, but
transportation activists consider the ATS one of the few sources of funding for
alternatives to big road projects. In the past few years, the ATS has allocated
about 15% of its money for bicycle and pedestrian projects.
Citizens can speak their minds on the proposed projects at the next ATS
meeting, Monday, Nov. 18, 6:30pm, at the Joe C. Thompson Conference Center,
next to the LBJ Library at 24th & Red River. For a list of all projects
being considered, call the ATS at 499-2275. — N.E.
Roads Scholar
Communities should focus on the most efficient ways to transport people, notthe fastest way to move cars. That’s the word from Todd Litman, who was miles
from his own Canadian home last week when he stopped in Austin to talk about
the business of automobiles and roads. Litman, who is the director of the
Victoria, British Columbia Transportation Policy Institute, suggested having
transportation decision-makers — largely the planners and politicians — spend
two weeks each year without a car, just to experience how the other side
lives.
Litman says that officials tend to look at traffic congestion as the only
transportation problem — one that’s resolved by building bigger roads, which
leads to more sprawl and automobile dependency and more congestion. And,
ultimately more road building. While city boosters often tout more road
construction as the key to economic development, such over-extension of
infrastructure damages the economy in the long run, Litman maintains. He points
to Japan as a good transportation model for North America. There, people walk,
cycle or use transit. When compared to Japan, North America spends twice the
percentage of its gross national product on transportation. — N.E.
This article appears in October 25 • 1996 and October 25 • 1996 (Cover).