NEWS ARCHIVE:
7/13/08
The issue of short term rentals continues to be in the news. Refer to the Archives for more background on the issue. Below is the most recent revision of an ordinance presented at our last council meeting (what is referred to as Proposal #2).
MS Word version with revision markings
Text version without revision notations
There is another draft being worked on. Here are some comments I have sent to staff regarding a new draft:
It seems to me that when there is a nuisance situation, the violators as well as the property owner should be held accountable. I would suggest the first offense be a warning that the officer has the discretion to give. If someone is loud and the officer has to knock on the door, most of the time they will quiet down and the problem is resolved. If it re-occurs, reciprocity should be assessed on an escalating basis. This goes to both the offender and the property owner. There is a de-escalation procedure so that the property doesn't forever carry an oppressive penalty.
For example, a person calls and complains that it is late and someone is being loud. The officer responds as under our existing ordinance and knocks on the door of the offending party. If the occupant is cooperative and promises to quiet down, the officer notifies them that they have been warned and leaves. A letter will be mailed to the property owner notifying them of this warning. An hour later the same person calls and says they are at it again. This time the officer issues a citation, which will also be sent in the mail to the property owner. A week later there is a call that the same house is being loud, and the officer finds a different occupant in the house. The citation escalates and the property owner gets the escalating penalty. The property owner who has been renting out this property finds all these escalating penalties in the mail and starts scrutinizing renters closer. For the next 6 months there are no complaints. Then there is another call with a complaint. The officer responds and issues a warning because the record has been clean for a sufficient time to clear the record.
I suggest that if the penalty be a fine, it be based on the cost of our involvement. The time the dispatcher, officer, and staff take to administer this incident should be the starting point, and the second offense should double it, the third will triple, and so on.
So how does the fine get paid? Either the occupant or the property owner can pay, but it will escalate to the point that the property owner will be involved. For example, if the officer issues a $1,000 fine to the occupant at the time of the incident, there is likely to be sticker shock. The occupant and the property owner are going to have to figure out how they are going to handle this. Ultimately we should hold the property owner responsible for paying if the occupant is non responsive.
There is the argument that if someone gives someone else a gun and that person kills someone you don't send the gun owner to death row. However if they are an accomplice they are guilty. I am proposing the same approach here.
You notice I don't mention anything about a permit or a registration as was mentioned at our last meeting. That is intentional. I think that approach creates more bureaucracy, more enforcement challenges, and really does not address the nuisance issue effectively. To me the only issue is one of nuisance.
I hope this is helpful. I understand there are details to be filled in, but I would like to see an approach like this form the basis of the remedy.
No action has been taken at this time. We want to take our time and do this right.
7/2/08
First we will start off with my 15 minutes of national fame, from the June 23rd USA Today:
Now to the more mundane matters of Lago Vista city council.
Tonight's meeting started off with a discussion of the short term rental issue. The background is that it is currently illegal in Lago Vista for a person to rent out their house to someone else. This may come as a surprise since a lot of people do this not thinking it would be illegal. When I first moved here I got a long term assignment in Virginia and considered renting out my house to someone. I would not have imagined I would be breaking the law. What harm would it do to anyone?
The first question is whether it should be legal for someone in a residential area to rent their house. The argument against says this violates the zoning which is single family residential, not multi family commercial. It also causes trash, noise, and parking nuisances.
I disagree. The fact is that this law is unenforceable and we already have lots of people in violation. I do not think government has any business telling me who can be on my property. There are only 2 ways I can think of to enforce this. One is to have police responsible for finding out what people are in what buildings. This is Orwellian and I do not think police want to be in that business. The other way is if a neighbor complains. We have all heard of cities where neighborhoods use intimidation tactics to shut out people of a particular ethnicity, faith, or lifestyle. I am not sympathetic to someone saying they do not want someone in their neighbor's house. I do not care what people are in what building. The only complaint I am sympathetic to is if their neighbor is causing a nuisance.
The way to address that is to enforce nuisance laws, not through zoning. Our city staff is concerned that a renter gets a citation one week for a loud party, next week a different renter blocks traffic on the street, next week a different renter has a loud fraternity party. If you fine the renters, you cannot eliminate the problem.
The solution is to hold the property owner accountable. If the owner is irresponsible in allowing someone to disturb his neighbors, make the owner responsible and impose retribution. Escalate the penalty for repeat offenses. If it were up to me, I would have no restriction on what happens inside a house and enforce nuisance laws against the property owner. That would handle it.
We agreed to have city staff issue another draft to provide a simple process to make short term rentals legal. Understand again that the current laws says this is illegal, so we are trying to find a way to make short term rentals legal.
We then had a presentation from the Master Planning Committee on their revisions of the Master Plan. I want to mention that these volunteers have put in a lot of work over the last 20 months and their effort is appreciated.
However I must respectfully admit that I have a deep philosophical opposition to the goals and objectives expressed in the Master Plan. Any rational reader of this plan would have to admit that it is fundamentally opposed to the principles of a free market. Forgive me, but the goals and objectives of this Master Plan are socialist.
Consider Objective 2.5:
Objective 2.5: Identify and pursue the types of businesses that allow the City of Lago Vista to be more self sustaining and take advantage of existing commercial and recreational facilities, proximity to Lake Travis and natural hill country aesthetics.
Most of you probably find nothing wrong with that. I do. It states that is is government's objective to decide which businesses we have. It clearly rejects the free market. When the market dictates demand for a particular good or service, supply meets the demand. When government thinks it is smarter than the marketplace, you have socialism. The Soviet Union crumbled, North Korea is starving, and Cuba is 50 years behind the times.
Consider this one:
Objective 4.3: Develop programs that encourage and provide incentives for the construction of energy efficient residences and use of native plants an low water-use landscaping.
A lot of free market principles are under attack from global warming alarmists. They want government to tax you to create house that Al Gore and Austin mayor Will Wynn want you to have. If you want efficiency, make sure that fuel and water prices accurately reflect their true cost. Let people make their own decisions with their own money.
Look at this one:
Objective 4.5: Investigate providing City utilities to predetermined underdeveloped areas within Lago Vista as a development stimulus.
So we take areas where someone didn't want to develop and force taxpayers to make them develop anyway? A developer should put their own money into the project and not force you to subsidize them. That is the way the market works.
The last one I will mention is:
Objective 8.6: Initiate and develop recreational programs needed by the community that private associations or private interests are not able to provide.
In order to accept the premise of this objective, you must reject the free market and adopt socialism. The premise is that if someone wants something that they can't get enough other people to support, they can use the coercive powers of government to force you to pay for it. I cannot help but think what Patrick Henry would think if he knew that people are so willing to give up liberty because government thinks they should force recreational programs on the taxpayers.
I fully expect this Master Plan to be adopted. It does not become law but is regarded as a guide for planning and zoning. Regardless, I cannot put my name behind something that I reject in principle.
We then had liaison assignments and I picked up the LCRA and FEMA floodplain responsibilities.
Lastly we discussed the water and wastewater rates. I was encouraged to hear unanimous support for lowering our tax rate and adjusting our water rates to cover their costs. We have had rates that were well below that actual cost so we would lose money if we provided service to properties outside of the city that didn't pay property tax. We are working toward having the utilities be a self sustaining operation and lower you increasing property tax burden.
That will do for now. Have a great Independence Day and remember the principles of economic and individual liberty that are the foundation of our country.
6/19/08
I enjoy the opportunity to state my oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. Some may consider it a formality, I consider it an obligation:
Now for the news:
Our council meeting tonight began with discussion of a request to use the city's swimming pool to run a for-profit swimming lesson. I support people that get out there and create a profitable business. However, the pool is fully booked and we would have to bump someone off the schedule to allow this. I would only do so if the business was charged a reasonable fee to cover their impact on maintenance. I frankly do not support government getting outside of its core business, and running swimming pools is not a core function of government. I know it is a popular amenity, especially this summer, but that doesn't mean it is the business of government. The person requesting the use of the pool did not appear and the request was unanimously denied.
Next we had several approvals for a project called The Majestic and Keegan's Crossing. These were unanimously approved by the planning and zoning committee, and our council also approved them.
We then considered approvals regarding Villa Montechino. The primary concern expressed by Richard Wainright is the location of buildings near the perimeter of the property, which puts them in proximity to his property. Previous to my term, the council had approved the zoning to permit this, and to deny this request would have sent everything backwards and overturn the previous decisions of the planning and zoning and city council. I understand some people have the expectation that they will always be surrounded by pristine wilderness and that zoning will protect them. Zoning is a poor substitute for private property ownership and binding contracts.
We had a lengthy discussion about a sign variance for the Lago Vista Coffee Co. This property has been several businesses over the years and I think the signs on the property have been there for quite a while. Right now the sign has the gas station's price board on top, the coffee shop's logo in the middle, and the coffee shop's message board with changeable text on the bottom. The sign ordinance says this is out of compliance because it gives the business too much sign area; don't you just love government? The memo from the building committee stated that they approved of the sign displaying the business logo but does not recommend approving the one on the bottom with the text. I presume this would mean the sign on the bottom would have to be removed or just sit there blank without being used. Susan Euresti made a motion to approve a variance to allow the sign with the logo. The meaning of this motion appeared to be unclear to some, but to me it looked exactly like what the building committee recommended. My intent was to make sure this business at least had a sign permitted. I don't like government making things harder for our local businesses. I was then considering a substitute motion to be more lenient when the coffee shop owner presented a compromise proposal consisting of the message board remaining and replacing the large logo sign with a smaller one. I voted for the original motion by Susan but it was defeated. I then made another motion approving the compromise as illustrated in the drawing supplied by the owner. This passed. A lot of talk about a sign.
We then discussed budget priorities. I decided to become a punching bag by making the following recommendations:
- Lower the ad valorem tax rate in order to balance the utility rates. For some time I have told you that we sell water for less than it costs. This is a disincentive to conservation and prevents serving utilities outside our city limits, which eliminates a potential revenue stream. It looks like we have made some progress on this, but I would like to see continued progress in this budget. When you are getting killed on property taxes, we need to help give our people a break.
- We have a bed tax that accrues money in a fund that can only be used to promote tourism. I propose abolishing the bed tax and liquidating the funds for their intended purpose. We are actually hurting tourism by taxing the people trying to promote tourism. No matter how good our city staff is, it is tremendously inefficient to tax the tourism industry and have government try to promote tourism. Let's get government out of the tourism industry.
- Our city participates in a plan that imposes a 1% retail tax on all our local business. Cities like Rollingwood, Westlake, Cedar Park, and Pflugerville tried it for a while and then found out it was not a good deal and dropped out. What I referring to is Capital Metro. There are alternatives like CARTS. We need to be be responsible stewards of your money and be fair to our local businesses.
That concludes the bulk of the council meeting, but I do want to mention an item that has much bandied about. There is a proposal to pass an ordinance addressing the ability of a person to rent out their residence to someone else. It is referred to as "short term rental". I have been getting a lot of email about it. Those that know me know where I stand. It is your property. You own it. You make the decisions about what happens on your property. As long as you don't harm anyone else, government should leave you alone. There are some that think government should micro-manage what you do on your property to prevent the possibility that you could harm someone else. By that logic, we should put everyone in prison to prevent crime. Our police department already enforces nuisance laws. We have noise ordinances. If you rent your house to someone that has a party, police can respond if things get too loud. By the way, if we outlawed renting out your residence, how would we enforce it? Would we ask our police officers to randomly knock on doors and make you prove that you are the owner of your home? Let's not create more wacky laws, but repeal the ones that try to micro-manage your life. If you haven't hurt anyone or their property, government should leave you alone.
See you next time!
6/5/08
Back in the hot seat again! My re-election was greated with the following fanfare:
So here is the news:
We started with approval of a bond for expansion of water and wastewater, police building, drainage study, traffic improvements, and fire hydrants. Being a Libertarian you might think I would vote NO anytime we incur tax obligation or debt. However, like the 2006 bonds there is impact fee financing behind these bonds, which are a user fee. User fees are better than taxes; the people benefitting from the service are the ones who pay. I made the motion to approve the $2 million bond.
We then had a lengthy discussion of the Property Owners Assn asking to overturn the decision of Planning and Zoning for Emerald Park. P&Z turned down a request for P1-B zoning and recommended P1-A. The difference is that P1-B allows structures such as those currently in other parks like Bark K (large picnic shelter, guard house, gates, permanent rest rooms, etc). P1-A does not permit hardly any structures. In my opinion the park would not be very usable under P1-A. P&Z turned down P1-B because it provides for residences such as mobile homes on the property. However, council would have to approve of the location and the POA has no intention of placing residences on the property. It seems P1-B could be employed and mobile homes could be excluded as written, but P&Z and some council members think this is too broad. I moved to approve P1-A now and get the process started for a PDD (Planned Development District). The PDD could simply say that the park would use P1-B zoning except that there would be now residences or mobile homes. I think that would meet everyone's needs.
We next discussed a new sign ordinance. While in some cases it makes reasonable accommodations for signs that are illegal under the existing ordinance, upon questioning it seems the ordinance overall is much more restrictive. The member that presented the ordinance was Susan Euresti. I respect Susan and think she is a fine person, but I must make a comment. She stated that one of the council candidates (Brad Waite) had 1 sign that was illegally placed under the current ordinance. However during Susan's 2007 campaign she had many violations. She had a huge sign (must have been 4 foot square) on a hillside, several attached to trees, and many yards with more than one of her signs. These are all violations under the current ordinance. I mentioned that it is hard to justify making police do more when the existing ordinance is not being enforced. You don't get more enforcement by passing more laws. It is really an unfunded mandate. I would ask the proposers of such ideas to first demonstrate they themselves would comply with the existing law, then provide the funding to enforce what they propose. I was the lone dissenting vote.
I moved to extend the development agreement for The Falls by an additional 18 months. The explanation is that they have been heavily involved in zoning issues and need more time to compete the project. Don't you just love zoning? The motion passed.
I also moved to reduce the letter of credit for the Brian Atlas "Villa Montechino" project by a half million. City staff have already confirmed that the amount of work that Atlas has completed is more than the reduction in the surety. Atlas needs to borrow more money to complete the project and reducing hits debt obligation helps him with the bank. The motion passed.
Lastly I will explain my dissenting vote on using $2.4 million from the 2006 bond to buy the Lago Vista golf course. It was basically a protest vote that I knew I would loose. When I was recognized I told council that council already voted to buy the course and the matter on the floor was whether to finance it this way, but I asked if I could discuss the effluent situation. I heard no objection, so I proceeded to say that we currently have the following acreage in use for effluent disposal:
Lago Vista golf course: 96 acres
Bar K (The Hills) golf course: 26 acres
Cedar Breaks: 67 acres
What we are not using that we already have set aside are:
Cedar Breaks: 220 acres
Turnback Canyon: 70 acres
At the same time, the POA parks would like to have us spray water on their lands. This adds up to:
Cody Park: 61 acres
Arrowhead Park: 63 acres
Greenshore Park: 20 acres
Hancock Park: 40 acres
Paseo de Vaca/Bar K park: 119 acres
TOTAL: 303 acres:
Therefore, we are using 188 acres, but potentially have 773 acres available. I fail to see the urgency for using the golf course for effluent. We do need to stay ahead and use impact fees to buy future acreage or allow subdivisions to set aside this land like Turnback Canyon did.
At this point a point of order was raised that my discussion was not pertinent. This was correct, but I thought I had requested to speak tangentially with approval.
So what if we didn't need the effluent capacity urgently. What about the need to keep a golf course open? Would you say the same thing about bailing out a factory that closed down? Do you believe in the free market, or should government impose taxes to take over failing businesses. Dr Milton Friedman always said the failures are just as important as the successes.
Well I am tired, but happy to be back on council. Despite disagreements I think our council and staff are composed of good people and I look froward to the next 2 years working with them.
5/20/08
First, I would like to commend Marcia Gully for running for office and giving the voters a choice. All the candidates gave an opportunity for the people of Lago Vista to determine who is the best person to represent them on city council.
My margin of victory was not large. I understand that many people may not have been voting for Marcia but against me. There may have been some that thought neither of us were the ideal choice. Of course if you want to elect someone that you agree with all the time, elect yourself! You are not going to find someone that agrees with you on everything.
There are other voting methods that give more power to voters. One option is approval voting, where you cast a vote for every candidate that you approve of. For example, if candidates A, B, and C were on the ballot, you could vote approval for A and B. Another could vote approval of A and C. Another votes only for A. A would have the most votes and win. Also, None Of The Above (NOTA) could be a candidate. If NOTA gets the most votes, that says none of the candidates were acceptable and the office is unfilled.
Both techniques have been used before and are commonly used inside the Liberarian Party. It works well by giving voters more power and keeping bad candidates out of office.
One of the problems I have encountered in running for office is the perception people have of me. I know many of you are busy and do not have time to research every candidate. Therefore, when The LOG prints cartoons of me with Micky Mouse ears, it leaves an impression.
Being our local newspaper of record that everyone receives, The LOG is able to reach a lot of people and influence perception. Clearly The LOG has not liked me too well over the years. Just check the Archive on this site for evidence.
In this recent election The LOG printed a story about the candidate forum. I think anyone who attended had a different understanding of what I said than what The LOG printed. Not only were The LOG's quotations of me inaccurate, but they were grammatically dubious.
Though a juxtasposition of my fustian locution with the adroit eloquence of William F Buckly would manifest my rhetorical flaccidity, admonitory would greet adumbrate prose that would matriculate my parlance with the petulant and puerile. I say Shibboleth!
Then comes the matter of printing my opponent's responses to candidate questions 2 days prior to the election, while mine were included with everyone else's a week earlier. Did Marcia miss the deadline? Would I be allowed to miss the deadline? How is it that The LOG decides to print one candidate's campaign promotion for free just prior to election day?
I will defend The LOG's ability to print anything they want. If they want to takes sides, fine. In the battles of Hamilton and Jefferson, The American Aurora and Gazette of the Unites States fought each other in the battle of persuasion, often with questionable ethics.
This website will offer truth and opinion. I will tell you what I know and what I think. You can contrast it with The LOG and decide what you believe.
I will do my best to serve you and uphold the principles of Liberty.
4/24/08
When you put yourself in the spotlight it is easier for people to shoot at you. I wanted to give you an idea of what I mean. The following audio is highly obscene and not for the timid. I received a call at approximately 23:50 on Wed 4/23/08 and the person seemed to have dialed a wrong number when I answered. They called again approximately at midnight and left the following message on my answering machine:
Quicktime file (.mov)
MPEG-4 file (.mp4)
Wave file (.wav)
Audio interchange file format file (.aif)
3/12/08
This letter was posted in this week's newspaper, The LOG:
5/20/07 This is my final post to the site. It has been an adventure. I wish the best to the new council members. Take care!
5/17/07 It was my last council meeting, and I went out with a bang.
First we considered a variance to allow Villa Montechino, the development on what used to be Marshall Vista, to put signs on their lake front to advertise their development. While they are placing the signs on their own property, the property they are placing the signs on is not in the development they are advertising. Our sign ordinance does not allow putting signs to advertise a development that is not within the development they are advertising. Council voted to approve the variance as the signs would only be seen from the lake and would not be seen by property owners in Lago Vista. However I have another reason for approving the variance that I did not mention at the meeting. I do not intend to insult staff or anyone else, but our recent election demonstrates that the sign ordinance we have is ignored by the people that are supporting it. I can say in my case every single one of my signs was in compliance with the ordinance. In every case I asked consent of the property owner before I placed a sign on their property. I made sure we only had one sign per lot. Saturday evening at 11 PM I drove all over Lago Vista and picked up every sign I had out there. Sunday morning all my signs were removed. How could we deny someone that jumps through the hoops for a request to put a sign on their property when we have people ignoring the ordinance and getting away with it? It appears to me we should not even have the ordinance if it doesn't mean anything.
Next I will come to the confrontation of the evening. Some of you are aware that there are ongoing issues with the Deli Werks that have been building to a climax. The short history is that the city understood when this area was changed from residential to commercial zoning it was with the understanding that this would not become a bar and music hall. The owner does not accept that such restrictions were agreed to. We now have a popular restaurant and entertainment venue that in the opinion of the city is not in compliance with the conditions under which it was created. On the agenda tonight was a request for variances from the Deli Werks in order to resolve all of these issues and have them considered to be in compliance.
As many of you know we have been working on a revised noise ordinance. The live music at the Deli Werks was the reason we considered modifying our noise ordinance. Much work has been done on this and I think we can address some of the issues with the Deli Werks in this ordinance while applying a fair treatment to other noise issues in the city. I saw this as a first step to resolve issues with the Deli Werks.
I spoke with the owner Alan Carlson about this last week and we both agreed that the request for variances is premature until we resolve the noise ordinance. I would prefer to handle one issue at a time and see if we can find some common ground. Hopefully we could resolve some of the easiest concerns and narrow down the issues to a few. Trying to resolve every issue in one meeting is not a good approach.
When the item came up on the agenda, councilman Hugh Farmer made a motion that we not consider the request for variance and remove it from the agenda. I agreed with this for the reasons I stated. In my mind it was basically the same as a motion to remove the item from the agenda or to table consideration. I will now bore you to tears with proper meeting procedure. Technically such motions are not debateable and should be voted on immediately, however council members began speaking to the issue. I mentioned that I agreed with the motion because I did not think we were prepared to solve all of these issues tonight. The mayor allowed Alan Carlson to speak and it became rather animated. There was a back and forth about these disagreements that continued to escalate into threats of lawsuits. As I felt council had consensus on approving Hugh's motion I called the question, meaning "Let's all stop talking and vote". I was trying to avoid an every escalating confrontation. It then appeared council wasn't sure what we were voting on. The secretary re-read the motion Hugh made, but some council members didn't like it and wanted tougher language that basically said we were no longer going to discuss these issues with the Deli Werks and enforce penalties on them. Hugh then again stated his motion which I understood to be that we not consider the request for variances and remove it from the agenda. There was no amendment to this language and we voted in favor. Therefore nothing happened and the issues we had prior to the meeting remain the same. My hope is that we can keep this out of the courtroom and handle one issue at a time.
Next we discussed calling a letter of credit on the Lago Vista Retail Center development. This is the site of the Super S grocery store. There is a water retention pond that is supposed to be built on the site but has not been completed. The developer does not seem to be living up to the contract they agreed to. As part of the agreement they secured a letter of credit which would provide funds to the city to complete work if the developer failed to do so. On our agenda was a motion to call a letter of credit to force the developer to give us the money to complete the retention pond. The city will not allow other stores in the retail center to open until this work is complete. We agreed for the city to send a letter to the developer stating our position.
Those were the big items of the night. It was a sufficient send off to my rewarding yet challenging 2 year tenure on council.
Before I go I want to give you a little food for thought on a major topic. Many of you know me as an environmentalist. You really should take a look at the following:
Documentary on British Channel 4
US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
I hope you have enjoyed my updates on this site and wish you well for the future.
5/12/07
Pat Dixon 443, Susan Euresti 614
Congratulations to Susan Euresti. I wish her well for the next 2 years on city council.
[IF]
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
--Rudyard Kipling
This website will be shut down in 2 weeks.
5/9/07 Election day is Saturday.
I first want to tell you about 1st Lieutenant Jacob Warshavsky. Several weeks ago Jacob found out about my campaign and asked if he could help. He is a 2004 graduate of West Point, last year served in Iraq, and is now a Troop Executive officer at Fort Hood. He drove to Lago Vista through a heavy rain storm to help at the event we held a few weeks ago. Those of you that met him know the quality of this man. We should all be proud of those that put their lives on the line in service of our country.
I want to let you know about something I have been working on for the city. I have discussed this with city staff and expect this to be available soon. Below is a description.
LAGO VISTA ALERT
The city of Lago Vista has a new service to send public alerts. This system in not a substitute for emergency alert systems for severe weather, national emergencies, or other critical conditions.
Subscribing to the service is simple. A subscription feature is provided on the Lago Vista website www.LagoVistaTexas.ORG and at www.PatDixon.org. A person enters their email address into the entry box provided which is labeled "Subscribe to LagoVistaAlert". A confirmation message will be sent to this email address asking the person to reply if they want to subscribe. By replying to the message, they will now be able to receive alerts.
The person can unsubscribe at any time by sending a blank email message to LagoVistaAlert-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.
For city staff the process is very simple. When a concern such as a street closure, boil water notice, or safety related issue occurs, city staff can send an email message to a single email address alerting people of the situation. Every subscriber will receive a text message of the alert. Only city staff can send this alert and no subscriber can send messages to the group.
The system will work for anyone with an email address, including those with text message capability on their cell phone, pager, or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) such as a Blackberry.
The City of Lago Vista does not accept liability for failure to inform the public of every situation. This is a service that the city did not previously have and allows the city to facilitate informing the public of issues in a timely and convenient manor.
This system was developed at no cost by making use of publicly available services on the Internet. There is no cost to the city to maintain this service and there is no subscription fee to the subscribers.
Below is the subscribe button, which will be placed on the city website when it is fully implemented. If you want to sign up during the testing period, feel free.
We recently had one of the all-time record quickest council meetings, only 35 minutes! Believe me, they aren't all like that. However, I think it is important to make sure your concerns are heard. Public sessions can take quite a bit of time, but are very necessary.
That is all until after election day. I am doing my best to serve you and ask for your vote on Saturday May 12.
4/25/07 It has been a busy time and I am overdue for an update.
I first want to tell you about 1st Lieutenant Jacob Warshavsky. Several weeks ago Jacob found out about my campaign and asked if he could help. He is a 2004 graduate of West Point, last year served in Iraq, and is now a Troop Executive officer at Fort Hood. He drove to Lago Vista through a heavy rain storm to help at the event we held last week. Those of you that met him know the quality of this man. We should all be proud of those that put their lives on the line in service of our country.
I next want to talk a bit about the biggest issue discussed at our last council meeting, the proposed noise ordinance. First I want to say that I have spent significant time with the parties involved and believe a reasonable solution can be derived. The issue is that a business received 6 citations last year for violating the existing noise ordinance while they had a band playing at their location. In my observation of the video recording of these incidents, the police are doing exactly what the ordinance says they should do. In at least one of the cases I believe there was a band playing outdoors. Most of the complaints that occurred later in the year were with a band playing indoors with doors closed. The business owner believes the complaints are frivolous, and police do not have any discretion to waive the citation.
In our discussion we agreed that we cannot write laws that only apply to one business. The law needs to apply evenly and fairly to anyone that might be subjected to noise from a business, construction, neighbor, or any other offending source.
In my research of the approach of other cities and several experts, I think a reasonable solution should measure the noise level at the receiving property, not the source property. The person filing the complaint would have the officer measure from their property line to the direction of the noise source. It is basically the same as the current procedure except that currently the officer has no metric to determine whether the complaint is a violation or frivolous. By including a sound level measurement they now have the criteria they need.
This is a difficult issue and it will take some time to work it out. If we have open discussions and build some consensus, I think we can find a reasonable solution.
4/7/07 First, you are all invited to a Meet the Candidate event at Remington's with free Beer, Drinks, and Appetizer's. It will be Tuesday April 17 at 7 PM. What better thing to do than sip a beer after you file your 1040 form and talk about how we can lower your taxes next year? If you have questions, are interested in helping with the campaign, or just want to kick back after dealing with the IRS, come on by! Remington's is located at 20602 FM 1431, behind Diamond Shamrock at the light on Lohman's Ford, 267-7292.
Also, you can submit questions for the candidate debate held April 30 at K Oaks. You can hand them in at the city hall, library, or LVISD administration building. They have question boxes to deposit your question.
Let's talk about Thursday's council meeting. I want to say that I appreciate any of the volunteers that help out on our committees. The Master Plan committee has been drafting a revised set of goals and it was presented to council at the meeting. A goal that I hold to and we have stated as policy is that growth should pay for itself. It should not be the taxpayer subsidizing the developer or business to move in. My read of the goals in the master plan seems to contradict this. I see statements about providing development stimulus, incentives, and promoting growth. I will try to attend these committee meetings as they work on further aspects of the plan.
The big item was the Planned Development district for the Turnback Ranch project. There have been some people that expressed great concern with this project. There has been some misunderstanding on some points. Some have stated that this property is protected as wildlife habitat. I do volunteer work in the Balcones Canyonlands wildlife refuge and am familiar with protected habitat. I have investigated the property ownership history of this land and at no time am I aware of any involvement of the Forest Service or federal agency ownership of this land. Apparently some were under the impression that this land could never be developed. They may want to contact their original seller for clarification. Also some have said that a PDD should not be issued because the land should adhere to the same zoning standards as everyone else. This property was not zoned previously. Someone could have built the Eiffel Tower on it. Of course the Parisians hated the tower initially, but everyone loves it now. Anyway the PDD now clarifies the nature of the development. There were a lot of questions asked and I got the sense that the public understands what is happening. Mayor Jones commended the city manager for holding informal meetings with the developer and property owners to work out their concerns, and I agree. There are still several more steps in the process.
We had a long talk about the proposed new noise ordinance. It looks like an improvement that will address most of our concerns. It basically follows the principles I had proposed earlier of combining a decibel meter threshold with some discretion from the officer. We will probably vote on it at our next meeting.
I will note that Brian Schwab and the city manager had a constructive discussion about requirements for vegetation on lots during a drought. It seems silly to mandate that a person put in a lawn and vegetation but they cannot water it if we are going through rationing restrictions on water use. I really wonder if the supply-demand governance and the price mechanism isn't the simplest and most effective way to address this.
Lastly the city manager complimented city council for the new Super S grocery store. While I do enjoy the new store and appreciate Bill's sentiments, I don't think city council should accept any credit. It wasn't our money that an entrepreneur invests in a new business. It isn't the politicians taking the financial risk. All compliment should go to the risk takers who step out there and give it a try.
I hope to see you at Remington's on the 17th!
4/1/07 An update to the website was in order. I had compiled 2 years of archives from this site into a new page called "Archive". That way I keep this opening page pretty clean with the latest stuff, and people can access any of the old stuff on the new page.
I was at the Super S opening Saturday at 7:15. I got in before the crowd. It is a nice store and is a welcome addition. Would I still vote against a tax subsidy for this store when Super S Corp said they did not need it? Yes.
I then built a hiking trail with some volunteers in the Balcones Wildlife Refuge. It was a beautiful day to be outdoors after the rains we had last week.
I then attended the dedication of the F4 fighter plane monument at the airport. The volunteers that did this work did a great job. Mayor Jones applauded the fact that all the money that went into this project was donated voluntarily, which is terrific.
I also spent much of the weekend talking to many of you. My signs will be ready soon and if you would like one just get in touch. Here is what they look like:
3/26/07 I want to give you an update on an item that has been a long time in coming.
We now have all of our local code online at the new city website http://www.lagovistatexas.org. If you select the "Information" menu and select "City Ordinances", you can then select the "Lago Vista City Ordinances" link to view all of our code in the Franklin Legal Publishing system. I can accept some small degree of credit for pressing this issue to completion by bringing it up at council meetings and keeping it on the docket. The real credit goes to city staff for getting this done amidst everything else they do. It takes a lot of work to cross check all the paper records with the electronic compilation of these rules. Also much thanks goes to Cathy Harrington for the work she has done on the new website. I think it is a tremendous benefit to allow you to drill through our local code and find the information you need. I also think it is good for you to be able to contact me with recommendations for improvements on these rules now that you can search through them and drill down into the language.
I have had many good discussions in the past few weeks about my campaign for re-election. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the issues that are important to you and welcome your comments. I hope to continue to serve you and would appreciate your support on the May 12 election.
3/2/07 Get ready to drink from the fire hose. There is a lot of news, so here it goes.
First, the discussion concerning building heights ran long and will require subsequent discussion. Some of the discussion may have been confusing, but I think it was effective at pointing out the difference between public and private legal arrangements. Deed restrictions and restrictive covenants are private contracts which are enforced by the parties under contract. The court is the recourse for mediating any disputes involving such contracts. Zoning is a public approach to restricting property uses. The question posed was whether changes to zoning restrictions on building height would conflict with deed restrictions. I believe from our discussion the answer is that there is no conflict; they are separately enforced between different sets of parties. There was no sense of consensus from the planning and zoning committee where they stood on the issues.
Next, we go to an issue of property concerning Turnback Canyon. This is a proposed development just north/west along the lake next to Bark K park. The primary issue is several adjacent residents stated that they bought their home with the understanding that this property was dedicated park land or had some other use that precluded development. In fact this area was not zoned at all. I don't know who told them that it could not be developed. Sometimes a property owner can get the wrong impression. When I moved into my house there were signs on the windows saying "This is a protected view". When the property owner downhill from me began plans to build a house on that vacant lot, the protected view thing went out the window. That's when I bought his property.
Of primary concern in this case is a strip of land that would serve as the primary entrance into this development. It would place a street between the backyards of adjacent home owners. Some of them have children and are concerned that such a street would be a hazard.
The testimony was emotional and verbose. There will be further hearings on this subject and it might be possible that developer and property owners can mediate a mutually beneficial resolution.
We had a good discussion on the proposed modifications to the noise ordinance. There are 2 proposed ordinances. One of them in my opinion reads like a long laundry list of prohibited activities. The other incorporates a decibel meter as criteria for issuing a citation. There are concerns that efforts to use decibel meters as evidence in court. I distributed my thoughts to council which are attached here.
We also had a discussion of water service during our drought. The anticipated revenue from our utilities may fall short of budget due to the drought conditions. My comment is that the only way to address diminished supply is through price. The problem is that our water rates are the lowest in the Austin area while our property tax rate is the highest. This is out of balance. We need to bring down our taxation and have people pay what the water actually costs. It makes no sense to subsidize low water rates with high taxation, especially in drought conditions. We should be encouraging conservation through setting the right price.
On that subject, I was recently in Montreal and saw an article in the Globe and Mail that is pertinent to this issue. The article was about energy company Direct Energy calling for an end to government subsidies to lower prices because they discourage conservation. I understand the cynical view that the energy company just wants higher prices. However, any comprehension of the market states that higher prices will lower demand. At the same time, the energy company replaces a guaranteed revenue stream with one that requires performance to earn its revenue. That is just like our situation with water usage.
Lastly, I will recommend the following for your required reading. First is a book by ABC News reporter John Stossel "Give Me a Break" . I met John in New Hampshire recently and I find this book very informative and entertaining. Next I will recommend "Somebody's Got to Say It. by my buddy Neal Boortz. Neal was in town for a book signing recently. This book will entertain, challenge, and enrage you.
Happy reading!
2/27/07 Thursday night there will be a discussion on changes to the zoning ordinances. The purpose of this meeting is to determine of changes to a zoning ordinance would have any legal conflicts with existing deed restrictions and to gauge to P&Z opinion of restrictions to building height. I feel it is important to be very forthcoming and open about what is being discussed. Below are some of the documents that will be reviewed:
(1) Letter to Planning and Zoning discussing proposals.
(2) Proposed simplification and consolidation, Table A/B.
(3) Tommy Thompson's proposed modifications to height restrictions.
(4) Tommy Thompson's discussion of proposed changes.
(5) Analysis of lot vacancy and densities.
2/13/07 I begin with a clarification of my posting on Jan 18. I referred to the misfortune of items that were removed from our agenda due to the ice storm that we had. I want to make clear that the city is not at fault for having to delay these issues. This was an act of nature that precluded matters from being prepared for our meeting.
I also want to clarify a few items about the front page article in the Log about the post office. The US Post office does list the 78645 zip code to include Lago Vista, Jonestown, and Point Venture. When we began our investigation, we did not know this. The assumption was the the Post Office listed only Leander in this zip code and that through a simple database change we could add our cities to the system. The only 2 remedies to eliminating Leander from the 78645 zip code are to ensure that vendors address their shipments accurately or to get big enough to have our own main office for the postal system.
Lastly, I am announcing that I will run for re-election to city council place #1. I look forward to representing you for another 2 years on council.
2/1/07 We had council meetings the last 2 evenings.
On both nights we had public hearings on an annexation. The annexation is to extend our jurisdiction over property that currently includes regulations from Lago Vista, Austin, and Travis County. Through the annexation it will allow Lago Vista to have jurisdiction and not deal with conflicting regulations. I think this is clearly a good idea, but some people are concerned that there are ulterior motives in that it will impact property on Draper's Cove. The annexation would not affect those properties.
Another hotly contested issue if the proposed zoning for the Peninsula project. This was formerly the Lago Vista Resort/Inn, which has gone bankrupt several times. It is currently boarded up with chain link fence around it. The developers has spent a long time working with the city and adjacent property owners to work out an agreeable proposal. Still, some property owners in The Cove are insisting that only a project that is constrained to existing zoning will be acceptable. The P&Z recommended the zoning proposal be tabled. Council had a vote to table the request and I voted No. The vote to table prevailed.
By the way, I want to commend Richard Wolf for recusing himself from P&Z for this item as he has a conflict of interest. Chapter 171 of the local government code prohibits someone with a conflict of interest from participating on such a decision. I also want to commend Susan Euresti for the way she presided over the meeting.
In the matter of The Peninsula, I kept hearing from people that said they definitely want this property developed but only under the existing restrictions. I don't know how businesses that continue to fail under these restrictions will lead to another business that will succeed under these same restrictions. I wonder if those opposing this project are willing to purchase the property and invest their own money to build a viable business under these restrictions. At the rate they are going it seems they will end up 10 years from now next to property that has remained a fenced off abandoned hotel. What will happen to their property value then?
Let me be completely honest here. I think government is too big and too intrusive. I think it micro manages peoples private property and private affairs too much. While I believe these are the fundamental principles of this land of liberty and many claim to support these principles, a lot of people do not. They are less concerned about protecting their property RIGHTS than ignoring the property RIGHTS of others in order to maintain property VALUES. It is shameful that these words are today regarded as radical and extreme. I do appreciate that people have purchased property with the notion that zoning will keep adjacent properties unchanged forever. The fact is that things do change and zoning laws change. If you want guarantees, buy the property. I bought the property behind my house. If you are dependent on politicians do deny your neighbor from using their property and never making use of the process for changing zoning, you have a bad bargain.
Lastly, I gave an update on our Post Office. Some business have been concerned that their suppliers are often getting packages labeled Leander instead of Lago Vista. Delivery trucks run around Leander looking for the address and don't find it. It was hoped a simple database change could list Lago Vista in the 78645 Zip Code and solve the problem. I spent some time with the office of Congressman Ron Paul. They were extremely helpful and I am very appreciative of their help. We found that the 78645 Zip Code already lists Lago Vista as well as Jonestown and Point Venture in the US Postal System. The problem is that Leander is the main post office and ours is just a branch of Leander. Even though 78645 is completely outside of Leander, it still lists Leander as the primary city because that is where the main post office is. There is no kind of database change in the US Postal system that would help. The only way anything would change is if Lago Vista had its very own stand alone post office which was independent of Leander. The US Postal system would not do that until Lago Vista grew by about a factor of 5 times what it is today. Simple economies of scale apply here. Therefore, to anyone that wants to ensure shipments get to Lago Vista, work with the shipper to ensure they address Lago Vista instead of Leander. The shipper has to take this responsibility.
That's all for now!
1/18/07 I think we set a record for shortest council meeting tonight. YEEHAW!!!
Actually, it's not all good. There were several pending matters that we are having to delay due to the ice storms that shut down the city for 3 days this week. This is not good news for the people that were hoping to get approvals to move forward on these pending matters. For you out of towners, here is some of the evidence of our misfortune:
I know you people in Ohio have no sympathy whatever. I grew up the the Cleveland snow belt and still remember snow drifts bigger than me. And yes, I still have my Christmas lights up.
What we did get done is approval a permit for Bruce Fowler to store an airplane at his residence. Some complaints were registered that this would cause too much noise. Noise is a subject of some debate as you may know. There is an ongoing court case involving the DeliWerks, and the ordinance is being scrutinized for possible modification. However, the issue of noise is the same whether it is a barking dog, a loud car engine, or a lawnmower. I have no problem with what someone stores in their home. The only role for government here is the harm it may do to someone else. We approved the permit for Mr Fowler.
That is the only real action that occurred. While I have you, let me open up another topic that I have been asked about recently.
I am getting asked "Are you going to run for office again"? Elections are in May and my 2 year term will expire. I have no problem being completely honest with you about my sentiments. These are my options:
1. Don't run. I am very busy and am involved with several volunteer and non-profit orgs. Oh by the way, I also run a consulting business. It is not like I need more things to do. Unlike most of politicians I am not looking to make a career out of being in power. George Washington was a role model for us all by refusing to accept monarchical powers and extended duration in office.
2. Run again. I do enjoy working with people and taking on the challenges that face a growing city. My client workload is quite steady and predictable.
3. Some of you have asked me about running for mayor. My observation is that this would take about 8 hours a week during business hours to meet the demands of the position. I do not know if I can commit to that level of personal sacrifice. It would mean significant loss of billable hours and income from my clients.
A decision is not urgent at this time. I will continue to focus on the immediate issues before us and be ready to chart my course when candidate filing commences.
1/4/07 Happy New Year! We kicked off the new year last night at city council. Here is what happened.
We began with a presentation by Carole Roseberry and her neighbors regarding trees that they would like to remove or trim. They claim the trees are blocking their view of the lake and reduce their property value. The trees they are referring to are not on their property, but they have written permission from Mr Eckerd to remove or trim certain "trash" trees. The problem is that it is unclear whether Mr Eckerd owns this property. This is being disputed in court and until that is settled the city cannot grant permission. For example, I cannot permit you to cut down trees on my neighbor's property. You have to get that permission from my neighbor, not from me. Another concern is the impact on drainage if trees are removed which could require a non-source point permit. I asked Carole if it was permissible to trim the trees on a routine basis instead of removing them. I did not get a clear answer on that. We will have to wait until the courts settle the property ownership before any action is taken.
We approved several projects including the request by The Hollows to amend their Planned Development District (PDD) to allow for a taller structure. Council and P&Z visited the site to determine the impact of this structure and determined that it would not have a significant detrimental effect.
We then discussed the ordinance mandating specific types and percentages of building materials on commercial buildings. This would make buildings like the Rolling Hills Church, ATA Martial Arts Academy, and Super S grocery store out of compliance. I feel this is micro-management. Owners of these commercial properties purchased their property under one set of zoning rules and now we are changing those rules in a way that may not permit them to proceed. I was the lone NO vote.
We filled several vacancies on the various committees. We still have one vacancy for an alternate position on Planning and Zoning.
Lastly I asked the mayor to add an item on our next agenda to approve a resolution on our post office. This is an effort to have the postal system officially recognize Lago Vista. Currently some businesses are hurt by deliveries addressed to Leander. People delivering to these businesses are apparently driving around Leander and not finding them. I have been working with the office of Congressman Ron Paul to have this changed. I would like council to formally approve of the action that we would like to be done. The expected result would be that the 78645 zip code would be listed as Lago Vista instead of Leander. This would help our local businesses.
12/14/06 We had a show cause hearing last night regarding the property owners of Marshall Harbor. I think the people who came to speak may not have understood the purpose of the hearing.
Council previously passed an ordinance stating that the property owners of Marshall Harbor were responsible for providing the infrastructure (water, sewer, etc) for their property. After this development went bankrupt, the responsibility passes on the the successors and assigns. The purpose of our hearing was to allow these property owners to state why they might disagree with our action. There was an opportunity to persuade council that we had made the wrong decision and that we could appeal or alter the ordinance.
We found that most of the owners did not want to respond to our questions. That made the meeting go quickly and no action was taken. The issue is still pending in court.
On another matter, Congressman Ron Paul's office is helping to get the postal system to recognize Lago Vista. Currently, mail coming to Lago Vista is listed as Leander. This is a problem for several businesses who are having trouble getting delivery trucks to find them. The solution proposed by Dr Paul's office would keep our existing area code of 78645 but officially recognize Lago Vista in our address. I want to make sure that before we go forward that we are agreed on how we want this to work. If you are a business owner that is affected by this, feel free to contact me with any comments.
Please visit the Donate page and help our local organizations.
12/11/06 I have a couple of updates on my Donate page. Please click on Donate and consider supporting our local organizations with a tax deductible contribution.
12/7/06 A very busy evening at city hall, but first a request.
As I did last year, I ask your support for our local organizations. Many of you are looking for tax deductible contributions to make by the end of the year. You can make contributions in our community to the many organizations that we have. Please visit the Donate page for information about these organizations.
Last night began with a planning and zoning meeting. One of the items discussed was a procedure for replacing members that are missing meetings. It is very important that this committee make quorum as council must have planning and zoning render decisions before council can take action. If they do not make quorum, then we have to tell a property owner that they need to wait another month before we can consider their request. This is unacceptable. The committee voted to adopt a policy that after 2 consecutive missed meetings, the chair will call and send a letter to that member inquiring if they intend to serve. If the member misses a 3rd consecutive meeting, they will consider the member to have resigned and report the position to council as vacant. I support this policy.
The council meeting began with several public hearings on proposed developments. One of the proposals from Centex discussed allowing construction of taller structures and higher density. There was some public discussion of this issue, but I took special notice of comments by Don Groody. Several months ago Don presented a proposal to allow variances on a structure that he intended to develop. Many nearby property owners spoke out against his development saying that it would increase density, create an eyesore that they didn't want to look at, and be at odds with the zoning for that area. Last night Don rose to speak against the Centex proposal because it would create more density, create something that he didn't want to look at, and be at odds with the zoning we have adopted in this city. I could not help but point out the contradiction in his statement. The result of last night's action was to approve the Centex proposal with the exception of allowing the height variance they requested. Further consideration of the building height will determine the outcome of that concern.
At citizen inquiry, Mark Alger of the Deli Werks spoke about problems with the current noise ordinance. He said that he is getting citations when the noise level is not perceptible outside his building and this is hurting his business. I think there is general consensus among council that the current ordinance needs to be addressed. The principle here is that if a person moves in next to an airport, they can't complain about the noise. However, if your neighbor starts playing his electric guitar at 2:00 in the morning it is more than an inconvenience. The current ordinance puts the police department in a difficult situation. The rule of law dictates we enforce the law as written, but I think a sub committee can be formed to come up with a better approach.
We also had a performance review of the city manager. Council is in agreement that Bill Angelo is doing a very good job, especially in regard to fiscal management.
Please consider supporting our local organizations this Christmas and visit my Donate page for more information.
11/30/06 A short update tonight, but I have a special treat at the end of this message!
We had a short council meeting tonight to discuss the Villa Montechino project. As you know, this is the effort by a new developer to complete a previously incomplete and bankrupt development called Marshall Harbor. What we did tonight was NOT repeal the development agreement and Planned Development District (PDD, a custom made zoning agreement) that had been previously approved when the new developer first approached our city council. In addition, we approved a new utility agreement and subdivision construction agreement. You may know that there is a complex pending lawsuit regarding a few of the current property owners, and these new agreements address some details and risks to the city associated with this project.
Now for the treat. If you only have 28 minutes to spend, please view the following video of Milton Friedman in the 1960s (Dr. Milton Friedman interview). If you have another hour, it is well worth listening to this vintage debate with Dr Milton Friedman, again from the 1960s (Debate with Dr Milton Friedman). A great demonstration of the greatness of this man.
11/16/06 Back from a break, I have 3 items for tonight's posting:
(1) Dr. Milton Friedman
(2) Tonight's council meeting
(3) City dining tab
(1) The greatest economist and advocate for the free market of our time passed away today. Dr. Milton Friedman was recognized by many as an effective and persuasive promoter of minimal government intervention, social tolerance, and fiscal responsibility. On any matter of economics, he is my primary reference. If you are not familiar with Dr. Friedman or his great work "Free to Choose", please click on these links.
(2) Tonight's council meeting began with an overflow crowd to discuss the proposed development at the sight of the current Lago Vista Resort/Cabo Loco. The current operation is out of business. The new developer wants to put in a high scale condominium project with public access to restaurants. A Planned Development District agreement was presented, but it was clear from the developer and the city that it is preliminary and many in the public still have concerns. Nothing was approved tonight, but it appears there is still room for discussion between the developer and property owners to achieve consensus.
We then discussed the results of the deer committee. I commend Randy Kruger and members of the committee for taking on this emotional issue. I think it was good that we discussed it and conducted the survey. While many of the responses I got were emotional in nature and marginalized the messenger, there was some good and reasoned discussion. Some of the recommendations of the committee are reasonable and perhaps helpful. I want to make sure anything we do does not put city staff and police officers in a position where there are very reluctant to enforce what we pass into law. In general, I think at this point the best action is no action. My original concern on this issue was expressed early on after I was elected and I expressed my concern about the number of deer incidents in the staff reports. The safety and traffic accident issues are my primary concern. However, you cannot bullet proof the world and people need to accept responsibility for themselves.
We also approved contracts to repair a water tank and acquire vehicles for which funding was approved in the bond and budget proposals.
I cast an unpopular vote regarding a resolution for the library. From what was presented, the state is having to cut back on grants available to libraries. Of course, this money comes from taxes. You know that I am in favor of lower taxes and lower government spending, putting more money back in your pockets so that you can spend it. If you have any questions about that, go back to those links for Dr. Milton Friedman. The resolution requested that our city oppose these cuts because we need the funding. I cast the lone dissenting vote. I later had a conversation with 2 representatives from the library who expressed the concern that the state's changes put smaller libraries at a major disadvantage. I got the impression that the process is not a level playing field, and that the intent of the resolution was not so much to oppose lower spending but to make the process more fair to all grant applicants. I am certainly in favor of equal treatment and a fair process.
I requested that council allow volunteer groups to present themselves at our next meeting, as we did last year. The intent was to allow the volunteer groups to promote themselves as taxpayers are looking for end of the year income write offs which will keep more money in town. Regrettably, I got no support from council.
I also mentioned that the work on simplifying and consolidating the zoning ordinance, as well as proposals for dealing with height restrictions, will probably be presented to Planning and Zoning in January. I had planned to do this in December, but we cancelled the Dec 21 council meeting. Also, I mentioned I am working with Congressman Ron Paul's office on trying to get our own zip code for Lago Vista.
Fred brought up the idea of having our executive sessions changed so that the public doesn't have to wonder how long before the public session resumes. In other organizations, the way it is handled is that the committee goes into executive session for a specific time period. When that time is up, the public session reconvenes. I am generally supportive of this idea. I think we should state before we go into executive session how long we will be in there so that the public isn't sitting around all night wondering if they should stay or go home.
(3) Now, let's talk about that dinner tab. I WAS FRAMED! In my previous post I told you exactly what happened at Sullivan's Restaurant in downtown Austin. What I didn't know is that Fred was telling me a fib. He said the the city (meaning the taxpayers) would pay the dinner bill. Tonight I was told that what actually happened is after I left Sullivans, the rest of them paid out of their pockets against the city manager's credit card. When tonight's meeting began, Bob Bradley made a reference to a letter in today's LOG and mentioned that no tax money was used. I had not read the LOG yet so I didn't know what he was talking about. I found Brian Schwab had written a letter about my previous post. Therefore, both I and Brian have some egg on our face. No hard feelings Fred, you got me! I am glad that it was handled this way and that your tax money is going towards its intended purpose.
That's the way uncle Milton would want it (RIP).
10/26/06 Some people may not like me to mention this, but I think it would be good for you to know where your tax money is going.
This evening your city council had dinner together at Sullivan's in Austin. Sullivan's is a high priced restaurant downtown. The annual meeting of the Texas Municipal League (TML) is being held in Austin this week, and it was suggested we get together downtown for dinner tonight. All of your city council members are attending this conference except myself. I am very busy with clients and campaigns right now, but I was able to break away for dinner.
Joining me tonight were Bill Angelo, the Harless's, the Farmer's, the Jones's, and the Bradley's. I am not concerned with any open meetings rules issues on this matter, since I am not aware of any city business that was discussed and would find any such complaints frivolous.
My concern is what happened after dinner. Perhaps I was naive when I asked how we were going to settle the bill. I expected each of us would either decline if we thought it was too expensive or accept the invitation and pay our own way. Fred Harless said the city is paying for it. The bill was about $500. While this is hardly noticeable in a budget that exceeds $3 million, I informed Fred that what he really means is the taxpayers of Lago Vista are paying for it. I pulled $40 cash out of my wallet and laid it on the table. I do not think the role of government is to take your tax money for city council to wine and dine themselves in a high priced restaurant. Fred said that is the way they always do it, and I am sure lots of other cities do the same thing. That doesn't make it right. This attitude can result in many small expenses adding up to significant tax burden for you.
I will not be able to attend the Nov 2 council meeting. Keep an eye on things.
10/20/06 "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in defense of justice is no virtue", Barry Goldwater.
Let me begin with last night's council meeting. Things went pretty quickly and productively. We approved the contract for Quality Assurance Health Service to provide for the restaurant inspections mandated by state law. I do no like excessive regulation, but we are forced to do this. It is good that we now can make choices about who we select to provide this service. I moved to approve relaxing some dates in the agreement with Super S to complete their grocery store project. I still oppose targeted tax subsidies, but do not want micromanagement to cripple the development of this project. The last action was an agreement to install a line to provide water plant effluent to the Hills at Lago Vista golf course. This will cost about $24k for the city to install the line, but is a better financial arrangement than having to expand our Cedar Breaks effluent dispersing system.
Now I would like to comment on feedback from the previous meeting. Many of you read what I posted and sent me replies. Most were supportive, a few critical. However, many misunderstood the context. I am not making personal attacks. I am criticizing specific decisions. On this website I have often mentioned that I think the members of council are good people that mean well. Last night's council meeting was an example of people working together and achieving consensus with decorum.
However, when there is bad judgment, I will say so. Examples that I have posted on this site are:
- Approving the mayor's ordinance on meeting rules which had only been introduced the day of the meeting in a private email to council
- Ignorance of proper procedure when residents want to speak on a matter that affects their property
- Hypocrisy on the issue of eminent domain
These are specific issues that I have criticized. Many of the actions our council has taken have been unanimous and I have supported those decisions on this website. However, when the actions of council are contrary to the principles of liberty, free markets, and private property rights, I will not moderate. I will not shrink from my responsibility as your elected representative. I will speak.
10/7/06 Anyone lose a bird? This little guy showed up when I was riding my bike. I was on Oak Ridge coming up to Branding Iron, and I noticed this little guy fluttering away. I noticed it is clearly not indigenous and could not get more than a few inches above ground. It appeared to be injured. It took about a half hour of gently approaching the guy before it would let me touch him and have him jump on my finger. I have a neighbor caring for it for the time being. She has bird food and a cage. If anyone claims this little guy, contact me so we can get this pet back to the owner.
10/5/06
HYP-O-CRITE: One who affects virtues or qualities he does not have.
I have said before that I think my fellow council members mean well. I do not regard them as evil, and I am sure that in their minds they think they are doing the right thing.
Yet, how can I respect people that say one thing and do another? How can I respect people that will criticize others for the speck in their eye, but ignore the log in their own eye?
Last year, this was my resolution that your city council unanimously approved:
BE IT RESOLVED: That the City of Lago Vista proposes that the Texas Municipal League promote to its members cities the importance of defending property rights and limiting municipal eminent domain powers by clearly stating the limits of these powers in their charters and ordinances.
Tonight, when the mayor got to the item that I had placed on the agenda, he immediately asked for a motion. This is proper, but very unusual. In every case I can remember, the mayor allows Fred Harless, Hugh Farmer, or someone else to advocate their proposal before a motion is made. When it came to my resolution, he did not ask me to present it. He did not ask for discussion. He immediately asked for a motion. I perceived that the mayor was trying a deliberate tactic to prevent me from speaking. I made a motion to approve the following resolution:
BE IT RESOLVED: The City of Lago Vista formally requests that the next Citizens Review Committee address the definition of "Public Purpose" in section 2.03 of the city charter and consider language to prevent the use of eminent domain for taking private property from one private entity and transferring property to another private entity.
It was quite apparent that my fellow council members did not even read the one-page resolution I had placed in the binders that all council members received last weekend. I would also bet they didn't read anything I had put together and placed in the binder at our last meeting concerning this subject. As proof, the mayor did not know what resolution I was referring to, and I had to tell him where it was in the binder and show him the paper copy.
The mayor asked for a second to the motion. We waited. Nobody said anything. Nobody did anything. Nobody did as much as ask a question. Nobody would second my motion. The motion failed.
Perhaps they would be more receptive to this motion:
Mayor, I move that the person reading this website have their property condemned and acquired through eminent domain so that we can give it to someone else that we can take more tax revenue from.
Apparently, your council members are much happier about endorsing such an assault on private property rights, but they would probably find an excuse to have a closed door executive session to hide such intentions.
Why will council not even discuss the issue of private property rights in Lago Vista? They are very willing to talk about how terrible some other city is, but when it come to accepting responsibility for cleaning up our own issues, they ignore them and continue to criticize others for the same laws we have on our own books.
HYPOCRITES!
Perhaps there is a reason there was no discussion. Perhaps they already had the discussion. I have a suspicion that the other council members already had their discussion privately before the meeting. How can you explain that nobody even asked a question? Nobody would even second the motion just to discuss it? Does this represent independent thinking? Can you believe that 6 council members would just sit there speechless, motionless, unless they had already had their discussion and were following orders?
This has happened before. This council has shown little concern for the Texas Open Meetings Act and has skirted this law to defeat my efforts for more open and honest government in the past. If they continue to succeed in absence of ethical scruples, why change?
They do not care for your property rights! They do not care for open discussion! They just don't give a damn.
AND NEITHER DO YOU!
Where are you when it comes to defending your property rights? Where are you when I am trying to do the right thing for you? Where are you when I make efforts to follow through on the issues I promoted in my campaign?
I am alone. Maybe it just isn't worth it. If you don't care enough about your rights, maybe I shouldn't either. I don't need this. I run a consulting business that pays me every hour I work. I run several non-profit, volunteer organizations. I don't have cable TV because I don't have time to watch it. I have plenty of productive things to do that keep me fully engaged and allow me to work with good people and achieve great things.
HYPOCRITES!
At the close of the meeting, the mayor asked if there were any items for future council meetings. I seriously considered the following:
Mayor, I would like an item placed on the agenda to condemn the properties of Randy Kruger, Mike Thornton, Hugh Farmer, Fred Harless, Bob Bradley, and Dennis Jones to acquire through eminent domain and place a mini Wal-Mart on each one.
You are the ones that have the power. You have the vote. You are "We The People". You get to determine whether those that represent you will follow through on their commitments, do what they said they would do, or you can elect ...
HYPOCRITES!
10/3/06 "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice that log that is in your own eye?" Matthew 7:3
On Thursday I will make a motion to ask council to pass a resolution. A resolution is not law. It is a formal statement from council. The statement on Thursday will be for council to back up what they said last year on the subject of eminent domain.
Last year council unanimously passed a resolution stating that cities in Texas should ensure their charters and ordinances prevent the type of private property seizure that occurred in the famous Kelo case. Yet, we have not done anything about our own laws. Are we going to criticize other for their faults but not address our own?
Lago Vista is likely to grow significantly. With growth comes pressure for council to favor developers and corporations over private property owners. If we want to prevent this type of abuse, now is the time to do it.
Next year, there will be a citizens review committee to review the city charter and make recommendations. The current language in the charter says that eminent domain can be used "for any public purpose". There is no definition of what "public purpose" means. In the wake of the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, "public purpose" could mean just about anything. By passing this resolution on Thursday, council is giving this committee a specific item to address. It is not binding and the committee is free to do as they wish. However, council will be on record stating their expectations from the committee.
The resolution is:
A RESOLUTION REGARDING THE DEFINITION OF THE "PUBLIC PURPOSE" CLAUSE IN SECTION 2.03 (EMINENT DOMAIN) OF THE CITY CHARTER
WHEREAS: The June 2005 US Supreme Court ruling in the Kelo vs. New London case further exposed the threat of private property owners to government condemnation and taking of their property to transfer to private entities;
WHEREAS: In the wake of this ruling, cities across the United States and Texas passed ordinances restricting the eminent domain powers of government;
WHEREAS: The City of Lago Vista unanimously passed a resolution in 2005 "That the City of Lago Vista proposes that the Texas Municipal League promote to its member cities the importance of defending property rights and limiting municipal eminent domain powers by clearly stating the limits of these powers in their charters and ordinances.";
WHEREAS: The property owners of Lago Vista depend upon city government to defend their property rights;
WHEREAS: Per section 11.14 of the city charter, there will be a Citizens Review Committee established in 2007 to review the city charter and recommend changes;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF LAGO VISTA, TEXAS, THAT:
The City of Lago Vista formally requests that the 2007 Citizens Review Committee address the definition of "Public Purpose" in section 2.03 of the city charter and consider language to prevent the use of eminent domain for taking private property from one private entity and transferring property to another private entity.
Let's hope that on Thursday, council will recognize the log in our own eye and back up what we said last year.
9/21/06 Do you want to empower government to take away your property, or empower yourself to protect your property?
We got some clear answers tonight on where council stands on protecting your property rights. I support you. The rest support more government power and control.
At the last council meeting I asked the mayor to add an item to the agenda. I specifically requested a working session, not an action item. I wanted to discuss the issue of eminent domain among council to see where we stand on the issue before we vote on anything.
Unfortunately, the agenda listed an action item for a resolution to the Texas Municipal League on eminent domain. This was clearly not what I requested. I did that last year and specifically told council I was not doing it again this year. Instead I was asking council to follow through on the resolution they unanimously passed last year to make clear what the eminent domain powers of the city are.
Let me step back a minute. Last year the Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo vs New London case that a city can take your property away from you and give it to a private entity, such as a corporation. Ordinarily cities could only take property for a "public use", which traditionally means a city owned and operated item such as a road, police department, utility, etc. The Court ruled that "public use" could also include a city using eminent domain power to take away your house and property and giving it to a corporation because they will get more tax revenue.
There was widespread outrage and cities across the country changed their laws to prohibit such practices. Councilman Brewster McCracken passed an ordinance in Austin that further restricted taking away property. The Lago Vista city council unanimously passed a resolution requesting that all cities address their rules and make very clear what "public use" means and under what conditions eminent domain power can be used to take away your property.
Apparently these council members didn't really mean it. I find it hypocritical for council to say that other cities should fix their laws, but to refuse to fix our own.
I began tonight by presenting a draft version of an ordinance which would further define the "public use" definition. It also included a provision for preventing a developer or corporation to get a city to take away your property under the pretense of using it for a "public use" (like a new city hall) and a year or so later letting that developer or corporation take over that property. This really does happen! They use it to purchase property cheaper than by actually having to deal with the property owner.
After I had presented all the background information which I printed and distributed to council, I asked how many on council would support this. I was the only one with a hand raised.
The mayor agreed to add an action item on the next meeting agenda on the issue of eminent domain power and defining "public use".
In other matters, we passed the budget and adopted the lower 0.5959 tax rate. It was originally proposed as 0.61, but fortunately we approved a more fiscally conservative approach.
We also had a vote to recommend setting the flood plain at the 722 level. I commented that really we are voting under duress. We don't have a choice in this matter. The federal government has mandated this decision by threatening to deny flood insurance if we do not comply. I reluctantly voted in favor. The only real recourse is to send people to Washington that respect private property rights.
Lastly, I will mention yet another property rights case. This is the case of Bruce and Stephanie Fowler. They are building a home here and are getting trapped in the nightmare of zoning code. Bruce has a small sea plane. The house will be on the lake, and he simply wants to build his garage so that he can store this little plane in there. No possible harm can come to anyone else by having this is his garage. We all have cars, lawnmowers, boats, and gasoline in our garages. What is the big deal? Well, the zoning code we have tells you everything you are allowed to do on your property. This means that if the law doesn't let you do it, you can't do it. For Bruce's home it does not say you can put a plane in your garage. Therefore, according to the code, he can't do it. Nuts, isn't it? This code is exactly backwards from the way other cities do it. They write code that says here is what is prohibited. If it isn't prohibited, you are free to use your own property. The likely result is that Bruce and Stephanie will go through an arduous process of trying to get the code changed just to put something in his garage.
It used to be that the United States was great and prosperous because we had private property rights. The more time I spend on city council, the more I see how these rights have eroded. Will you wait until your property is taken away before you do something about it?
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Scott Stantis
Birmingham News
Mar 17, 2006
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9/7/06 It was a marathon meeting tonight. Here is the news.
First, you may accuse me of being a hypocrite. I made a motion to incur $6.5 million in debt. How can someone call them-self a fiscal conservative and vote to incur debt?
The alternative was basically to close down Lago Vista. Sorry, no more homes built here. No more developments, no more stores. We do not have the utilities to serve you.
That may have some appeal. I personally do not care if Lago gets bigger or not. Government's job is to protect your rights and property. Period!
However, the fact is that the city has a monopoly on the water and sewer service. So, as the business owner of the water and sewer, do we meet the demand or not?
I have been working hard to get the utility rates to cover the cost of the utility service. It looks like I will fail. However, we are using impact fees to pay for this infrastructure. This is a Libertarian concept; the developers that get the benefit of the additional capacity pay for it. Unfortunately, so do taxpayers. I am working to get a better balance on who pays, but it may take some time. The point is that much of the cost for the $6.5 million bond will be borne by the developers that are adding demand. That is something I can support.
In other matters, we had several public hearings. Unfortunately, we really didn't hear the public. Nobody had anything to say. It saved time, but made the proceedings somewhat mundane.
The item that may take on the most interest was a motion to force the Marshall Harbor property owners to comply with their original contract. Marshall Harbor is a development that went bankrupt several years ago. The developer never installed the utilities as per the contract. Further development efforts have been held up in court with disputes about what utilities are supposed to be provided by whom. The city's current position is to remain somewhat neutral and simply sustain the existing contractual obligations the property owners have.
We approved several development efforts for the Centex "The Hollows" and a marina for "The Island".
We approved a contract for the vendor that supplies airplane fuel to the airport. The previous concern was that the city was not protected in case of an accident. The agreement requires the vendor to insure against such accidents and include the city as a named insured to prevent financial impact to the taxpayers.
There was a bit of debate about changes to the drought contingency plan. The proposal was a simple change to the watering schedule under severe rationing conditions. The original ordinance had a schedule that was an outlier to every other city in the area. What we did was change the schedule to be the same as everybody else. That way, when people see that Leander, Lakeway, and Austin have their day to water, it is the same in Lago Vista.
While we were discussing this, some council members expressed concern that the trigger points for rationing should not include lake level. At first hearing, I strongly disagreed. If you can't get water into the plant, you cannot provide it. Upon further discussion, it appeared the concern was that trigger points should only be applied when we are getting close to the intake level. We should not have trigger points 30 feet before we get in trouble. In defense, Mike Thornton said the ordinance gives latitude to the city manager to determine whether the lake level trigger should be used as a criteria. Hugh Farmer said this is what concerned him, and I agree in principle. The rule of law, not rule of man, should apply in a non-arbitrary way. On the other hand, sometimes you can legislate minutia that takes rational thinking and common sense out of the discussion.
In the end, despite all the discussion about lake level triggers, nobody moved to amend for this concern. All we had on the floor was a motion to synchronize the watering schedules. I voted in favor and it passed.
Lastly, I asked the mayor to put a working session on our next agenda for the issue of eminent domain and the definition of "public use". Many of you are aware of the Supreme Court's Kelo decision that allowed a city to take away someone's property and give it to a private company, claiming it was a "public use". In the wave of that atrocity, many cities, including Austin, tightened up their ordinances to restrict the definition of "public use". Why hasn't Lago Vista done this? Does Austin respect private property rights more than Lago Vista? Let's get with it!
That's all for now.
8/24/06 "The reason poor people are poor is that they keep doing the things that make them poor." Neal Boortz, Boortz.com
This morning we had our budget meeting. One of the items that was discussed concerned Capital Metro
There have been 4 cities (Rollingwood, Westlake, Cedar Park, and Pflugerville) that have all left the Capital Metro service plan. The concern is how much in taxes are being paid for the services provided. Every retail business in Lago Vista adds a 1% tax on every item sold. Capital Metro collects this tax from cities that participate in its service plan. A Capital Metro shuttle picks up people in Lago Vista and makes several stops on its way to Lakeline mall. They also occasionally provide service for shuttling people to events in the town, like the Hill Country Days fair. There is also a van service for people who carpool. Disabled people can also be transported by Capital Metro. They also provide some money to the city to maintain roads.
How many people ride Capital Metro in Lago Vista? It looks like about 15. Capital Metro's planning department reports only 64 average daily boarding on the route from Lago Vista to Lakeline. There are 6 major stops on the way through Jonestown and Cedar Park. With 64 daily boarding, that would be 32 round trip. They do not provide any finer breakdown on the boardings, but there is unlikely to be more than 15 riders from Lago Vista.
Is it worth $188,000 to transport 15 people?
In the budget discussion, we discussed the need to get more details on what we are getting for our money. The main points of discussion were that public transportation will never be cost effective, but you have to provide it for the poor people. The consensus was that council needs more detailed information about
I must commend councilman Fred Harless. As many of you know, Fred is the board secretary of Capital Metro. Fred was very rational and cooperative in discussing this issue. We learned quite a bit from this conversation.
The other major issue I brought up was the utility rates. As I have mentioned several times, I want a better balance of lower property taxes and utility rates that cover the cost of utilities.
I began with a presentation of the city's current ranking of tax and debt. The Texas Municipal League did a survey in 2005 of 604 Texas cities. Lago Vista scored ranked 512 highest property tax, ranked 535 highest Debt/Valuation, and ranked 587 Debt/Population. That means that out of 604 cities surveyed, Lago was near the very highest tax and highest debt ratios in Texas. We are moving in a direction of lower taxes and debt, but it is important to know where we stand today.
The proposed tax rate in the budget would drop for 0.6754 to 0.5959. However, much of this reduction is due to higher tax appraisals. I presented a plan that would drop the rate to 0.55 while raising utility rates to roughly the average of other cities in the area. I did not get consensus from council on this proposal. There was a sentiment that poor people could not pay higher utility rates, and that apartment landlords would not reduce their rent with lower property taxes.
On both issues, council defended tax subsidized services to make things easy for poor people to be poor. I think most of us are compassionate and willing to help each other through voluntary means. However, I oppose government coercion and threats forcing people to be generous. You do not help poor people by making it easy to be poor. You do not encourage people to take personal responsibility for their condition by playing Robin Hood. It is also remarkable how little respect politicians have for the free market.
In general, I support the budget. There are lots of things I would like to do to lower taxes and spending in the budget, but the general direction of the budget is in the right direction.
We also had a meeting of our height committee tonight. We have a proposal we are working on that consolidates and simplifies the zoning tables while making more allowances for taller homes. We expect by next meeting we will have something to formally vote on.
8/18/06 A pretty uneventful council meeting last night. Here is what happened.
During citizen inquiry, I mentioned that the PAWS animal shelter still needs donations to cover the cost of the emergency air conditioning repair. I thanked the LOG newspaper for printing a story about this problem. We then went into executive session, and when I returned there was a check placed on the table in front of me for $150 to PAWS from Jerry Sisemore. I hope he doesn't mind that I mention this, but thanks Jerry!
We approved the site development plan for Phase 2-A of the Centex "The Hollows" project. We also tabled action to approve a development agreement for "The Falls" subdivision. We also tabled action on a resolution for the hotel occupancy tax (bed tax). We had already passed a new ordinance on this tax, and the resolution is intended to help define policy on its use. We didn't have much time to review this resolution before the meeting, so we tabled it for future consideration.
I made an appointment for the vacant position on the Planning and Zoning Committee. We currently have 2 alternates, Susan Euresti and Richard Wolf. Both have shown excellent attendance and a good understanding of code. I felt they were both well qualified. I made a motion to have Susan fill the vacancy, which passed unanimously.
We then had a vote to set the temporary ad valorem (property) tax rate. This is the rate that will be published for public meetings. We can lower the rate in its final adoption, but cannot raise it above the temporary rate. The staff's draft budget proposes setting it at $0.5969/$100 valuation. This is a reduction from the current $0.677 rate. A motion was made to set the temporary rate at $0.61 in order to give some flexibility in case we want to spend more money. I preferred to stick with the lower tax rate in the budget, so I moved to amend the motion and replace the $0.61 rate with the $0.5969 rate from the budget. Fred Harless seconded the motion, but later said he wanted to withdraw his second. You can't do that, so I raised a point of order to have a vote on my amendment. I was the only one in favor of my amendment for the lower tax rate, so we ended up approving the $0.61 as our temporary rate. I hope we end up setting the final rate at or below $0.5969.
We set public hearings for Sept 7 and 14. I have a conflict on Sept 14, so I will not be able to attend.
That does it for now. For all who have helped with donations to LV PAWS, thank you!
8/13/06 PLEASE HELP!
The Lago Vista PAWS animal shelter recently had an emergency. The air conditioning unit died, and they had to get an emergency replacement. Can you imagine with the heat we have had what kind of suffering conditions those animals would have had to endure?
The shelter will be billed about $6,000 for this replacement. They were able to get a grant from a humane society for $3,000. There remaining $3,000 is money that they did not anticipate spending on this emergency and seriously impacts their budget.
I offer this challenge to you. I am looking for 29 people to join me in donating $100 to pay for this emergency repair. I urge you to contact me or the PAWS shelter (see www.lvpaws.org). LV PAWS is a 501c3 non-profit and your donations are tax deductible.
Please help!
8/7/06 I am overdue for an update, so here we go.
Thursday night I made a presentation to Planning and Zoning about the simplification of our zoning ordinance. We have more zoning categories than cities 10 times our size. We are trying to make things simpler for staff to enforce and for property owners to understand. Some of the zoning classifications have minimal differences between them, and can be consolidated. The proposal is not ready for a vote yet. Any zoning change would require a new zoning map, which takes some significant work to produce. Since our Building Height committee is also considering proposals that would affect the map, we will see if the consolidation and height proposals mesh and present one proposal for a vote. We don't want to change the zoning code once for consolidation and then again for height, which would be confusing and cause a lot of extra work.
The council meeting began with an executive session. After the executive session, Mike Thornton made a motion to instruct the city attorney to present a contract to intervene in a case against Kyle Texas. The case is one in which the NAACP and Home Builders Associations are suing Kyle for increasing the minimum area of home built in Kyle. This could affect lots of cities. All of this is publicly available information (US District Court, Western District of Texas, Austin Division, Civ No A05CA979).
Some of you may be aware of issues with growth in Kyle. There was a story in the Austin Statesman about Kyle considering stopping construction of churches because they have 51 of them and think they would rather get more revenue from non tax-exempt businesses. That is the problem when politicians are motivated by tax revenue.
The mayor then said Mike Thornton had made a motion to intervene in the case. I raised a point of order, as that was not Mike Thornton's motion. He asked to get a contract from the attorneys that we could review prior to voting on intervening. The motion was clarified and we approved instructing the attorneys to present us a contract.
Fred Harless then made a motion to repeal the existing bed tax ordinance and replace it with a new one. I have made it very clear that I oppose a tax that is targeted on a specific business and empowers government to control the economy and promote tourism instead of allowing the entrepreneurs to risk their own money and allow the free market to work. I made a motion to divide the question. This is a very common procedure. I wanted to vote YES to repealing the existing ordinance, and vote NO to replacing it. Nobody on council understood what "divide the question" meant, so I had to explain it. Council did not allow the motion to be divided, so I had to vote YES on the motion since the new ordinance in an improvement on what we had.
There was quite a bit of discussion about the city's relationship with the airport property owner's association. There is a lot of complexity involved in the insurance requirements and liability if an accident occurs. The provider of airplane fuel does not carry insurance for such accidents and is unwilling to do so. If the city had to cover this, then each taxpayer would then be liable for the risk and have to contribute to insurance premiums. The problem is solved if the airport were privately owned. The airport POA should be the ones that operate the airport and cover the costs of operations and insurance.
There was also another presentation by developers of The Falls. They had made a presentation a few months ago on this project. We found quite a few residents were hostile to this development and accused the developers of being "land flippers". There will be several public hearings before approvals are considered for this project.
The annual budget was presented, and I asked if it would be appropriate to add an agenda for our next meeting to consider a resolution instructing the city manager on setting the tax and utility rates. Our current procedure is quite informal. Council just sorts of talks about things, the city manager writes the budget proposal, we have a retreat to discuss it, and then it is presented for a vote all at once. The problem is that there is no formal record of council setting priorities and policy for the budget. It is unfortunately pretty late to have such resolutions, since the budget draft has already been produced. I should have started this earlier and had such resolutions presented to council for a formal vote so that the city manager has more assurance on the direction council would like the budget to go. Council was reluctant to do so at this time and would not allow this to be added to the next meeting agenda.
Additionally, the mayor mentioned that the city's property tax base had grown dramatically this year, and he said this was due to tremendous growth in the city. WRONG! I think the mayor simply made a mistake. It is well known that the tax appraisal district dramatically raised the appraised values this year. While we have some more homes built and some more retail, the increase in the property tax base is largely due to the rise in appraised values of existing properties.
That's all for now. Stay tuned!
7/21/06 WARNING: The following is political suicide. No pandering found here.
Last night we approved a drought contingency plan. We are already in the mild condition of this plan with our lake level at the 655 ft level. It is expected we will get to the moderate or severe level of this plan this year, at which point there will be prohibited water usage.
SUICIDE NOTE #1: However, I want to go back to the start of our meeting at this point. We began with an invocation from Bob Bradley. I respect Bob a great deal. Yet in his prayer he asked the Lord that we "do what is good for the majority and not for the benefit of a few". I respectfully disagree. Nowhere in the Constitution does the word "democracy" or "democratic" exist. The Constitution does say in Article 4 Section 4 what kind of government we will have: a Republic. In a Republic, the will of the majority cannot overrule the rights of the minority. It is the job of government to protect the rights and property of every individual, and not be subject to mob rule. This is pertinent to the following suicide notes.
SUICIDE NOTE #2: On the agenda was the approval of re-zoning a parcel from single family to multi family usage. The lot is located up where Boggy Ford and Highland Lakes splits. The area is currently zoned single family. We received copious letters and public testimony in opposition of rezoning this lot. I believe it was 65% of the property owners in a 200 ft radius of this lot were opposed. These people felt that they purchased their property with the understanding that it would remain single family, and that allowing a multi family development would present problems that would make the area unattractive. At the last meeting, the Planning and Zoning voted to deny rezoning this lot. Last night a motion was made from council to also deny rezoning the lot. There were several people in the audience wearing stickers that said NO to ReZoning this lot.
I voted no. Why?
The motion was to prevent a private property owner from using their property unless it complies with everyone else's ideal. There is an assault on private property rights in this country. The Supreme Court's Kelo decision was only an exposure of a problem that has been growing for some time. When the majority can gang up on an individual and micro-manage what they can or can't do on their own property, I will defend the rights of the property owner.
I am sensitive to the arguments of neighboring property owners. I understand that the lot owner bought the property when it was zoned as single family. However, last night our council could have legally rezoned this lot. If you are really concerned about what might happen to the property next to you, do not rely on 7 council members to protect you. Zoning can and does change. Do what the conservancy agencies do. Purchase the property and put deed restrictions on it. That is the best way to preserve your interest.
Is this suggestion irrational? It is exactly what I did when my lake view was threatened. My neighbors and I bought the property below us when the owner planned to put a house on it. Even with the 15 ft height restriction, the house would have impaired our view of the lake. Now we own it, and I don't need to beg 7 council members to feel sympathy for me.
This nation and this state was built on the principles of private property rights. Let's keep them.
SUICIDE NOTE #3: We heard several requests for money from groups in town. The total price tag was around $75k. This does not count a suggestion that we spend $60k to heat the city pool. Most of them currently receive a percentage of money from the hotel bed tax, which is used to promote tourism.
While $75k is paltry in comparison to the overall budget, I oppose forcing you to pay for things that you can voluntarily do on your own. I have cons
