Recently I have been following the City of Austin’s efforts to revamp its website and some of the issues associated with this upcoming project. Back in March the city had planned to award the contract for redesign to a Cignex Technologies, a California based company that prides itself in leveraging open source technologies to provide solutions. Some of Cignex Technologies prior customers include the City of Austin and the University of Texas at Austin. Apparently Cignex developed the current website which seems to be a collection of technologies including Plone and Cold Fusion. Based on the way the bid was worded development would have to be done in Plone. After considerable citizen feedback the city has decided to rebid the contract and look at new local options. Read more…
Thursday I’m traveling to Austin with a friend to see a live performance of the hit NPR show “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” heard locally on Texas Public Radio’s KSTX at 1 p.m. on Saturdays. It’s a great show that pokes fun at current events every Saturday with both celebrity guests and listeners. Hosted by Peter Sagal along with noted radio journalist Carl Kasell, the show typically has three comedy panelists that compete throughout the show in a series of regular quizes. Usually a celebrity will join the show by phone to compete with the panelists. Okay, I think you get the picture by now. Well, there is a live performance scheduled Thursday night at Bass Concert Hall in Austin benefiting KUT, Austin’s public radio station. Read more…
I guess the economy has been saved, health care is in a perfect state, our nation’s infrastructure is top notch, and we have no problems with world affairs. So what’s left to do? Investigate the BCS and why we don’t have a college football playoff system. At least that’s what Rep. Joe Barton (R-Ennis) seems to think. He’s even held Congressional hearings on the matter and pulled Alamobowl executive director Derrick Fox on the carpet about it. Recently he even threatened to file perjury charges against Fox and threatened further investigations after a Yahoo! Sports report noted that Fox’s statement of charitable contributions by bowls may be overstated. Read more…
We’re now into the final 24 hours of business before a midnight deadline for dealing with Senate bills. SB 362, commonly known as Voter ID, is in that mix. To avoid floor debate and vote on the bill House Democrats have been “chubbing” bills on the Local and Consent calendar, effectively grinding the House to a crawl. It’s a perfectly legal tactic but it can be countered with Republicans or Speaker Joe Straus calling the question on the bill. So far that has not happened, demonstrating a sort of cordial approach to managing the business of the House and allowing sidebar discussions to occur on Voter ID which seem to be happening. Read more…
Today and probably tomorrow the Texas House is in heated deliberations and procedural gymnastics all focused around a bill that would require a photo ID or two other forms of identification to vote, commonly known as the Voter ID bill. It has locked up business in the House with occassional spurts of activity happening throughout the Memorial Day weekend. Democrats have promised stalling tactics to prevent the bill from reaching the House floor for debate and vote before the Tuesday midnight deadline. Today Speaker Joe Straus (D-San Antonio) voiced his frustration at the situation, calling Democrats obstructionists only to be met with counter-criticism from the Democratic leadership. Read more…
Tomorrow Americans will celebrate Memorial Day in many ways. Over the years it has become a time to kick off the summer, start the vacations, and dig out the barbecue grills. It’s become the start of the summer travel season and many trips are based around this 3 day weekend. But its origins and traditions are vastly different than our current practices. Originally known as Decoration Day it was created in 1868 under General Order No. 11 by Major General John A. Logan, commanding general of the Grand Army of the Republic. In 1971 Congress declared it a national holiday to be celebrated the last Monday of May. Read more…
In a column scheduled for Sunday’s Express-News Jan Jarboe Russell writes that after a very successful four years as the mayor of San Antonio a movement may have begun to draft Phil Hardberger to make a gubernatorial run. It would be a good natural progression and possibly a great challenge for either Rick Perry or Kay Bailey Hutchison. However, time may be more the issue than anything in this decision. Harberger is 75 years old and would be 80 at the end of a first term as governor. So while the idea is appealing it probably won’t happen. But it does point out an interesting situation in Hardberger’s political career. Could he have reached his political peak too late in life? Read more…
After fighting a 3 month battle with the spambots I finally stopped my blog from being continually blitzed with spam about everything from Viagra to some sexual acts I’d like to forget. The CAPTCHA plugin was the final ingredient in the secret sauce that plugged all the holes. Up until I implemented it I was having to clean out up to 30 items daily from the spam bucket in comments. The Akismet plugin helped prevent them from entering the comment stream automatically but I still had to clean them out myself. That was becoming a daily chore that wasn’t too terribly hard but was annoying to say the least. Now, with the CAPTCHA plugin, I no longer have that chore to deal with.
Today the Express-News announced that columnist Jaime Castillo has joined Mayor-elect Julian Castro’s administrative team as the director of communications and senior policy analyst. According to the article “Castro said he asked Castillo to be part of the team because of his knowledge of city issues and his solid reputation in the community.” Personally I agree with this assessment and feel Castillo will make a great addition to the Castro team. However, this announcement will most definitely be met with quite a bit of skepticism and controversy. Throughout the Castro campaign Castillo wrote many pro-Castro opinion pieces that appeared in his column in the Express-News. Some may view Castro’s decision as payback for Castillo’s favorable views on Castro. Read more…
It’s finally official or at least after signing more papers than I can count it should be. I’m moving downtown after many years in the suburbs. After touring The Vistana, the new mid-rise across from Milam Park, I decided to take the plunge and become a true urban core resident. What better way to figure out how livable downtown really is than to experience it. The move doesn’t happen until mid-July but I’m already scoping things out to see how it will work. It’s also a chance for me to watch the growth of downtown firsthand as River North and many other developments happen in San Antonio’s inner city. So what would ever drive me to do such a thing? Well, I’ve written so much about downtown that maybe it’s time I joined the crowd. Read more…
Today I spent the morning wandering around the urban core of San Antonio. I contemplating moving downtown into The Vistana and decided to check things out some more while going through the application process. It’s a big move for someone like me who was born and raised in the rural area and suburbs of Arkansas and who has lived outside the loop my entire life in San Antonio. What I found was surprising and enlightening. The journey took me around the Market Square area, along the Museum Reach of the San Antonio River and ending up at the Pearl Brewery Farmer’s Market. San Antonio is at the verge of a renaissance of sorts, as my good friend Alan Weinkrantz likes to put it. Read more…
Just in case you thought all I ponder is politics, politics, and more politics there is another side to me. In reality I’m a techie nerd that just happens to have a political side to him. To the tech side, I am anxiously awaiting to see if Apple is going to come out with a new model of the iPhone. I’m not talking about the firmware upgrade that’s planned but an actual new device. The usual announcement date is at the World Wide Developers Conference held in June. That’s when the last iPhone debuted. However this WWDC is a little different in that Steve Jobs could be absent from the conference. John Paczkowski of All Things Digital reports that Phil Schiller, Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing for Apple, will be delivering the keynote address this year, a possible sign that Jobs may not be ready to return to the company he helped found. Read more…
Several have commented on the low turnout experienced in the recent San Antonio municipal election. For those who may not have heard it was the lowest turnout for a non-incumbent election in over a decade at 11%. Greg Jefferson wrote in the Express-News that early turnout for the 2009 election was low and signaled an overall election turnout to be not much better. In a commentary Wednesday in the Express-News Jaime Castillo suggested some alternatives to helping increase turnout or reduce the voter roll only to active voters. I had written a piece last month trying to understand why San Antonians don’t turn out for local elections. The bottom line is that the less local, the bigger turnout. The more local, the smaller turnout. Read more…
Last night at the Alamo Heights City Council meeting a comprehensive plan for the future of Alamo Heights was presented by Community Development Director Ann McGlone. The plan was a result of the Community Development Department and relied on both public and expert input. In an article by Colin McDonald of the Express-News McGlone stated the plan was the city’s first blueprint since 1965. The plan addresses many of the needs facing the small municipality contained within the city limits of San Antonio. Some of the areas addressed include transportation, flooding, preservation of resources, and infrastructure. After seeing some of the issues facing San Antonio isn’t it time for the nation’s 7th largest city to have a long range plan of its own? Read more…
This municipal election was a first for several of the candidates and, in speaking to them, they learned a lot about what it takes to mount a campaign in San Antonio. In many ways, this election was a new experience for me as well even though I have been an active voter in San Antonio during my 22 years here. After engaging online during the term limits election and creating an online presence in the form of RBearSAT I finally decided to start blogging. Through that process I discovered a lot of what several in the political community already knew. This aging political dog learned a lot of new tricks during this election. Read more…
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