Texas Jeff

You are completely correct that too much money is leaving AISD for Robin Hood. I don't think AISD or the citizens of Austin have any power to do anything about it.

The tax rate to pay for this bond will go up one penny, which is $50 per year for the owner of a $500,000 home.

+1 for asking y'all to vote in favor of the AISD bond packages. In 2017, AISD created a long range facilities plan that will gradually update or replace all of the district's schools, so that every kid will have the chance to attend a modernized school. Many of the schools are 50-70 years old. The 2017 bond was the first bond package of probably 5-6 needed to make this happen. This is the second package. These large requests will probably be spaced out every five years or so. They can't repair the entire district at once because there are not enough district employees to coordinate the effort and it would overwhelm the Austin construction industry's ability to build. So large phases are needed. Most of the replacement work for this package is going to go to schools with high populations of economically disadvantaged students. As an example of this, Travis and McCallum are about the same age and condition, but Travis is getting prioritized because of the higher ecodis population. McCallum will still get needed repairs now and likely a full replacement later. If the bond fails, both schools will just get older and we'll be talking about the same issues five years from now. Modernized schools are going to help keep families in AISD, help AISD recruit teachers, and lower maintenance costs. The bond funding is not subject to recapture, so every dollar the voters approve will be spent here in Austin. Every high school in town is going to get an on-campus artificial turf football field to replace grass fields, with a small seating capacity of less than 1000 seats. Almost every other high school around AISD already has these, but in Austin only Anderson (via a donation) and Ann RIchards (via a rebuild) have these fields. The on-campus turf fields are going to benefit our sports and band programs. Our marching bands will have a chance to rehearse on an actual field rather than a parking lot. The district wants to bring a lot of smaller games back to campus sites. This will make it easier for the home team to get to games and will hopefully increase participation in band and athletics, while reducing pressure on Nelson Field, House Park, and Burger. They also want to bring some middle school games to the high school fields, to better connect the vertical teams. The bond package was split into three propositions because state law requires some items to be separately considered. So you'll see three propositions on the ballot. One is for buildings, one is for technology, and one is for district wide athletics. Please consider voting for all of them.

100 years ago, same drum: The first Big Bertha outlived that stadium, the Manhattan Project, and the UChicago football program and survived many, many road trips with LHB...

2022 tax rates are now being set, and I calculated my tax bill to see how much it went up. Thanks to tax compression, my homestead exemption and the 10% appraisal cap, my taxes are up 0.1% from last year even with the huge home value increase. Considering inflation, they're down a bunch. I didn't fight TCAD at all because it was pointless, they would have had to cut the value of my home almost in half for me to realize savings. Maybe next year.

Texas 35, Iowa St 20, Big Bertha turns 100 31 for 175

Lots of Austin city council districts are like that. I made a map a few years ago of where all of the city council candidates lived and the winners were pretty much a ring around city hall. The two East Austin reps live close to the western edge of their district. Ann Kitchen lives at the far north of her South Austin district. The mayor lives in a downtown high rise.

MaxPreps Statesman this thread...

Texas 48 West Virginia 24 RB 270 Number of days until we join the SEC drops by one...

Most of the time, sure... probably... Texas and Rice need to play -- for the good of the space program...

Hard to tell. This 2020 analysis from the Brookings Institute says that revenue dropped for 2018 from what they would have been without the tax cuts, although revenue did rise: https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/did-the-2017-tax-cut-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-pay-for-itself/ The argument is that revenue did go up, like it does most years because of inflation and economic growth, but revenues went up by less than they would have if the tax cut did not happen. Gross revenues going down is kinda rare. It generally happens during bad economic times. That survey links to a spreadsheet showing revenues from 1969-2018. Revenues fell in 1971, 1983, 2001-2003, 2008-2009. Those are mostly years around the times of stock market declines. Personally, as a taxpayer over the past 30 years, it feels like the federal tax burden has gone down and the local property tax burden has increased.

Obviously everyone should make the best decision for themselves -- just trying to give reasons to get one at this point. Unfortunately I think COVID is more like the flu than the measles. It's not a one and done forever vaccine. These waves of illness happen because a new variant pops up and people get it, which raises their immunity, which eventually stops the propagation. Boosters help reduce propagation. I think you body needs an occasional "refresher" to up the level of antibodies. COVID will continue to mutate and one of those mutations may go right around the vaccine. Or, it may not. This is the game that the flu vaccine folks have been playing for a long time. I had a chance in May to get in the car with my wife and get boosted. I said no thanks. I got COVID in late June at a company all-hands meeting, along with half my company. Two people got everyone sick. They were younger employees who had "allergies" and toughed it out to come to the meeting. It bounced right off my boosted spouse. I'm not passing up another chance to get a booster, although I'm trying to time mine based on my prior COVID dates and the likely time when it will protect me the most from an inevitable winter surge.

The CDC has info here with a little quiz you can take to determine when you may need a booster: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html It asks about a "primary series" which means the first two shots you had and an "updated booster" which means the invariant boosters (Omicron plus classic COVID) that just came out.

Well, here are some reasons I can think of: You get to feel slightly bad at a time of your choosing rather than getting sick when it may be less convenient If you do get COVID, you lower the risk of passing it to people around you who may be at higher risk of complications Similar rationale to a flu shot. You reduce your personal odds of a bad case, you control the timing, and you help grandma make it through the winter. Maybe you save a bed at a hospital and make lives a little easier for those that work there, by stopping someone else from having it at all.

more parents... sometimes you might have two kids on a prop to start and that gets cut to one kid.

Some of the kids moving props are being held in reserve because of no pass no play. The end of the first grading period is right in the middle of marching band contest season, and inevitably some "marching" kids won't make grades and won't be able to participate. The prop kids are moved into the show to backfill for the kid that failed. This is one of the impacts of no pass no play. Band directors have to figure out based on history how many kids won't make it to the end of the season and plan ahead, so not every kid gets a spot on the field at the beginning of the year. Not saying this happens everywhere, but it does happen.

Texas / Texaco - an iconic brand that everyone associates with the Lone Star State Texas A&M / Bucee's - surprisingly large for something in the middle of nowhere Texas Tech / Allsup's - people from West Texas know what it is

Hey, there are butts in seats and they are selling beer so it's working for them. The club music is crowd Viagra. Students shouldn't need it, but everyone's doing it. They have taken a lot of stuff that used to be organic: cheerleading, the band, the Texas Fight cheer, etc, and turned it into a sequence of events. There's only one Texas Fight chant per game because they do it when the Jumbotron tells them to do it and it would not occur to anyone to do it spontaniously. I remember a mid-90's Texas/OU game when our offense was in neutral, but the defense was kicking butt. The Texas side started doing "Defense" chants during the second half for every play, every series and the defense kept getting better and better. It was awesome and a lot of fun. That's not going to happen when you rely on a sound system. I remember a game when the starting QB was struggling and the cheerleaders were leading a cheer that was "What do you want? TD. What's that? Touch down!". The students changed it to "Who do you want? JB. Who's that? James Brown!" Hilarious and the students went nuts when Brown got into the game. He deserved to start and he's still one of my favorite Longhorns. Longhorn Band is still awesome, but they can't compete with artificial noise. They are coming back from some down years, with COVID hitting at the same time that the "Eyes of Texas" controversy hit. They are working hard to be more diverse. The administration and alumni are supporting them and they are well funded. Texas high school bands are the strongest in the nation and the band gets smart kids from those bands that can play their butt off. Some of these kids come to Texas to become the next generation of music educators and some will become our next engineers, business leaders, doctors and lawyers. It would be great if they were featured more in the stadium but they are still students having fun getting ready to be leaders, just like those before them.

My wife likes "Murder She Wrote". This little bit got me on her bad side: You know that chick on "Murder She Wrote"? She killed every one of those dudes, every week. I'm supposed to buy the idea that every week she, a murder writer, just stumbles upon a new murder and has to solve the case? It was her all the time. No way. She was a friggin' mass murderer.

Here's the original from 2004. My bad if it has expired... Obviously the city would have to negotiate with the land owner. But only one land owner. Exhibit E shows the special zoning allowed by the agreement. 200 ft tall allowed for multi-family. The ranch has huge potential with the Red Line running right through it and a toll road. Austin is not out of space.

In my experience, no one is a NIMBY when it's not your backyard. When it is your backyard, NIMBY shows up. Would anyone today in a SFH really enjoy having two giant buildings built on either side of your house, with cars and trash cans all up and down your street, or would you just sell the "dirt" and move? I'm OK with duplexing, like much of central Austin already is zoned. Those were the rules when most people bought their properties so they shouldn't be surprised when someone uses those rules. Propose duplexed zoning for Circle C -- watch out for NIMBYs. I actually rode CapMetro the other day. I had to make a carless trip back home and decided to give it a go, a rapid route connecting to a local. The rapid routes are pretty nice and frequent. That's where we should be increasing density. The local routes suck. CapMetro ended up taking twice as long as walking would have. I did it in 90 degree weather and I was still soaked in sweat when I got home. No one is going to ride CapMetro in 105 degree heat unless they absolutely have to, or unless they have a cool, safe place to wait for a convenient trip. I'll always point to Robinson Ranch when someone wants to rezone SF neighborhoods ... vacant land ... almost unlimited zoning ... rail cuts right through it ... Apple nearby ... ... rail goes to the Domain and downtown ... zero development. Why no action?

It is not. Not sure what they're going to build there but the building is gone. It was there pre-COVID.

Texas 35 UTSA 10. Wright tosses an TD to RoJo, RoJo returns the favor by tossing a TD to Wright. Bijan turns a little dump-off pass into an 80 yd TD. Defense gives up 186 yards. If App State can hold Texas A&M to 186 on the road, we can hold UTSA to 186 at home.

I love our chances in the SEC.

COVID did a number on fine arts and athletic participation, especially at lower socioeconomic schools. Last year was my final year as a band parent and I was shocked to see the change in the size of bands at UIL. The poorer the band, the more they lost. Akins enrollment has peaked and is headed down, along with almost every other AISD high school. The district is slowing repairing the schools -- but it's just too expensive to live in Austin. I predict that by 2032, Austin ISD will not have a single 6A school. "Early College High School" means that they partner with ACC to offer college hours for high school classes, so that kids can graduate with an associate's degree and shave a year or two off of their college costs.