Texas Jeff

Moving that 400 yds will give you a few seconds of totality, which wouldn't be enough for me. It's better than the 99.9999% thing, which will be kind of a cool event but after it is over you'll be thinking what was the big deal... This is a relatively long eclipse and probably the best one to visit Texas in our lifetimes. IMHO you want to be somewhere towards the middle of the track to get the most time in totality. You don't have to be right in the middle but you want to get 3 or more minutes to check it out. Somewhere between a year and six months out, stock up on "eclipse sunglasses" or welders glass or whatever makes you feel safe. If you buy too early, the material will degrade. If you wait too late, glasses will sell out. If you stick with the 99.99999% plan, you'll need eye protection to see anything.

No need to speculate about what will happen in Texas. Here's the text of the Texas trigger law, which will go into effect 30 days after this decision is handed down: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/pdf/HB01280F.pdf Abortion in Texas will be prohibited, unless a physician judges that the health of the mother is at stake.

What is your favorite way to enjoy a football game? Sit inside the stadium and watch the game. Hang out right outside the stadium and figure out how it's going by listening to crowd noise. If you are "inside the stadium" person, you are going to want to have at least some time at 100%. Prior to 100%, you mostly see a crescent sun through protective glasses or a pinhole camera. Shadows look weird. At 100%, you have some amount of time to take off your glasses and look right at it. The closer you are to the middle of the ground track, the longer you have to look. At the one I saw, I would have been really pissed off to be at the 99% mark and never got to see the real deal. A rogue cloud can screw up the entire thing at the last minute, but you have to take your chances.

This map lets you zoom in to any spot and determine when it starts and stops, and how long the sun will be gone: http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html If you are bothered by things like goalposts not lining up with letters, you really want to be on the middle blue line or it's going to drive you crazy.

Prepare for biblical traffic jams starting five minutes after it is over. I saw the last one in Georgia, had four hours to make my flight out of ATL, made it by five minutes. Without Waze I might still be there…

Imagine the sun, but it’s black with a ring of light around it. The horizon looks like late evening, but all around, not just in one direction.

Totally agree…. Lots of folks are working for the insurance. Decouple insurance from work and make the cost reasonable. You’ll see older folks making room for younger ones and more people starting small companies because they don’t need the health coverage.

the appraisal can go up or down by whatever. If you have homestead exemption, they will only raise the amount of the appraised value that you are taxed on by 10% per year. For example, if your house was worth $100,000 last year, they can raise the appraised value to $200,000 or higher. But you will only pay taxes on $110,000 this year, then around $121,000 next year, and so on. Without the exemption you take the full hit.

Some thoughts about how to make things better. We should optimize the parts of the town that are going vertical. Today's Statesman had an article about "The Republic", a 48-story tower that is going to go where the Travis County civil and family courthouse was going to go, which is where an Austin art museum was going to go. The courthouse would have taken that block out of the tax base. Now the county is going to get $430 million in lease payments over 99 years -- tax we don't have to pay -- and I suspect the value of the building is going into the tax base. That helps. A downtown library does not help. City Hall looks comically small and half of that city block is just a giant plaza/occasional campsite. That block could be another tower, cranking out tax dollars. We have too many capitol view corridors, some of which protect views that are impossible to see. Each CVC prevents development, which reduces the possible tax base. Cut back to just the iconic views. I would like to see some "new views" put in place that are more pedestrian friendly, like a building that blocks a view but provides a public space 4-5 floors up that gives you a place to sit and have some food and enjoy a great close-up view of the capitol, rather than protect a lot of car-centric views. The capitol is starting to look really small among the other buildings. If we are going to have rail, maximize the use of it. Every stop should have a ton of tall stuff around it, and the big zoning changes should go around the rail stations. We need to enable folks to live within walking distance of one stop, ride 2-3 stops max to another stop, and walk to their job. We should not build a light rail station unless there is a serious commitment to developing the area around the station. We also have the Red Line, which takes a few people a day from Leander to downtown. It's dumb to put someone on a train way out and bring them all the way in, keeping that seat full for the entire run. Instead we should build 2-3 stops in the empty Robinson Ranch land and build high density around each stop, with double tracked rail and trains every 10 minutes. It was zoned for tall stuff 15 years ago but the city is focused on fighting with current residents to up zone existing neighborhoods. It amazes me that there is this huge undeveloped site with great zoning right in the middle of the high tech boom with rail running through it. Develop it and make it tall. I think lots of folks would live in these types of neighborhoods, although most would be single high-earners or empty nesters, but they would grow the tax base and take some of the pressure off of the rest of us.

And a note on teacher pay .... paying teachers to be able to afford to live where they teach should be the easiest thing we fund. You pay property tax to fund teachers. Taxes go up when property values go up. Logically, we should be able to keep rates at a fixed amount and the amount of money raised from property tax should automatically go up and down as needed to provide what teachers need to live in the town where they teach. But ... Robin Hood screws that up. Property appraisals skyrocket and teachers get a 2% raise. How are school districts expected to attract and keep teachers to live in their town when property values rise 30% and teachers see a 2% bump?

They will reduce property tax rates because they have to, thanks to HB3. They are only legally allowed to raise taxes by 2.5% without a tax rate election. AISD has no incentive to do this, because they would lose the additional revenue to Robin Hood, so they won't. AISD may benefit a little bit, because they can keep the I&S part of the tax bill where it is now, and this will generate a little bit more revenue. They can use this to pay off bonds faster or build/repair more schools. AISD schools are badly in need of repair or replacement. But the part of the budget that goes to Robin Hood and teacher pay should only increase by 2.5%. If inflation is higher than that, taxes will effectively drop. The burden of tax will shift more towards those without a homestead exemption. Those with an exemption will only see an appraised value rise of 10%, while those without will feel the full increase. So as a net result, taxes for those with a homestead exemption may fall a bit and renters will make up the rest.

Cap Metro had an Airport Flyer route to downtown and campus bus route that was pretty nice. From the airport I think it had 3-4 stops to campus. I think there was one somewhere on Riverside, one downtown-ish near the Red Line, a stop in front of the UT Alumni Center and one more near the UT engineering complex. It ran every 30 minutes and the fare was $1 ... UT students rode for free. They shut it down because not enough people were riding it. They NOW have route 20, which is more of a local route with a lot of stops along Riverside and through downtown. Costs $1.25 to ride .. lots of folks ride for free including UT, ACC, Austin ISD populations. It follows pretty closely what will be the blue and part of the orange light rail lines. It takes 35 mins from ABIA to downtown/campus and it runs every 15 minutes. The route continues past campus, goes through east Austin and ends up at LBJ high school. They get about 2,000 boardings per day along the route sprinkled among 66 busses, or about 30 people boarding each bus. So the airport/downtown/campus service exists today, it's just a bus. No capital investment needed. Maybe 1,000-1,500 folks are using it each day. What is the ridership of the Blue Line going to be? Is it worth it versus the bus line they have today? It's hard to find any projection on the Project Connect website.

Trains are not bad. I just took a trip to Seattle and road the Link light rail from the airport to downtown and back. Never got in a car. It was great. $3 from the airport to downtown, $3 to get back to the airport. Now, that is ignoring the billions that Seattle residents spent to build and operate the thing, but it was a nice ride for $6. A warning to Austin light rail advocates -- about 80% of the business I saw on the train was either airport to downtown folks or UW students riding for free. Not a lot of locals onboard. Trains are expensive, compared to buses. I looked at Cap Metro's budget a few years ago and it was costing Austin taxpayers about $30 to put a butt on the Red Line train, versus $6 to do the same thing on a bus. So if someone takes the train to work or to an Austin FC game, you the taxpayer are paying $60 round trip to get them there and back. If they do the same thing on a bus, you are paying $12. Is it worth $48 more round trip to put someone on a train vs a bus? Look around at cost and time overruns for other light rail systems. Seattle and Honolulu are decades ahead of us on these projects. Expect costs to double or triple, expect the route to be reduced in scope, and expect the project to be 10 years late and you will get it about right.

It’s been drinkable for weeks now….

This is exactly how it's supposed to work after the last legislative session. School district tax rates are "compressed" so that taxes do not rise by more than 2.5% (I think) per year. They reduce the rates as valuations go up. Other taxing authorities are limited using similar "compression" so that the taxes do not rise by more than 3.5% (I think) per year. UNLESS ... your local taxing authority has a Tax Rate Election, in which they can bump up the tax rate by more than these limits. That is how the City of Austin was able to raise their tax rate by 20% a few years ago to pay for Project Connect. You should hear about tax rates coming down in the fall in reaction to these steep property appraisal increases. Unless CoA decides it is time for another TRE.

Looks like Travis County appraisals are coming out. My house is up 89% from last year. Not a typo. 89%. Should I protest? I would have to get them to agree to reduce their valuation by almost 45% to benefit. The city of Austin needs to change the Project Connect tax from a fixed number of cents to a percentage of the budget or it's going to eat the rest of the city budget.

Do you think we are done with cost overruns for Project Connect? Light rail is nice but education should be a higher priority. Just this first cost overrun is enough money to fix about all of the problems with Austin ISD. I'm not talking water parks and planetariums -- hey we don't have the aspirations of La Joya. I mean modern buildings for all children that would replace buildings that are 50-70 years old. Not just for the east side or west side ... this would fix the entire district. Just this one overrun. The $100 million for the tunnel extension on S. Congress would buy three elementary schools serving 1,800 kids. Or, if you are into football, three stadiums or six indoor practice facilities (ten if you build them without walls) or two really nice performing arts centers. Austin ISD has to come to the voters and justify new projects. Project Connect does not. Project Connect has a fixed number of cents of funding in the Austin city budget. The money goes to the Austin Transit Partnership, governed by a five person board with only one or two elected officials. There is no voter approval of projects other than the initial proposal. If property tax values rise faster than 3.5% per year, the percentage of the city budget given to ATP will increase over time. It is a money machine.

La Joya ISD's water park complex also includes a natatorium, a planetarium and a district-owned golf course. This was not a bond-funded project. The water park and the golf course are losing money, and the losses are being covered by their general fund. About 85% of their general fund revenue is either from the feds or the states. Only 15% of the money is coming from local tax revenue. Melissa ISD, with a district enrollment of 4,000 and a Robin Hood payment of zero, owns this sweet indoor practice facility with an outdoor turf football field. A warning to Westlake: your facilities are falling behind Melissa: https://www.hwh1887.com/work/melissa-isd-case-study I was amazed during my travels with my kid's high school band when we visited San Marcos, home of another zero Robin Hood payment, and saw their million dollar Jumbotron. Robin Hood has been GREAT for small town ISDs who are not shy about making crazy purchases. Austin ISD struggles with Robin Hood for sure, but they've let their assets fall apart while these smaller districts have been spending and spending and spending.

This is not going to improve your mood, but your $3,900 just went to the state’s general revenue fund. The state is giving part of the Robin Hood money to other school districts, but not all of it.

As a US taxpayer, I'm counting this:

The short answer is no. The rules changed in 2019 with HB 3, and cost of living is not a big factor. There is a giant formula that determines each district's entitlement per child. The district gets their entitlement times the number of kids in the district. Everything else goes to recapture. The state could help AISD by accounting for the local cost of living and raising the entitlement so that the district could pay teachers enough for housing expenses, but that's not part of the current formula. It seems so obvious ... collect local property taxes and give enough to local teachers so that the teachers can live in the community they serve ... but it's not being done today.

And when you get on the bus, a lot of times you have it to yourself, which is nice…. ;-) I’m not buying that energy costs are too high until I see folks on the bus. The cost in time to take the bus is higher that the cost of gas for most people, unless you live and work really close to stops with a direct bus.

Just my opinion here ... but I think that today's kids are being rammed through a shallow education too fast, with no time for deep understanding. It looks advanced but it's really just a speed run through school. Take calculus, for example. It used to be a nice capstone to your high school education, maybe a preview of your freshman year. Then, it wasn't enough to take calculus your senior year, you had to take AP Calc. Then, hey, let's split it into AB and BC. Of course, your talented kid needs to take BC right? AB must suck, it's like one less letter. Some folks said, hey, not good enough, my kid needs to take it as a junior. That way their kid can get a 5, so that they can put that 5 on their college apps, so that they can get into a good school where ... upon arrival ... the parents will find that their burnt out kid needs only 2.5 more years of upper division classes to graduate. However ... the kid never really learned mathematics but just skimmed over the top of it and learned the material for the test. Everyone needs to chill out and slow down, take the time to learn something really well, figure out their passion. Last weekend, I was touring a college campus with my high school senior. The tour guide was an Industrial Engineering major. He said that he hated a LOT of his engineering classes, but that was great because it was helping him narrow down his interests. He said he loved a few of them, and that had taken him in a particular direction, and that was what he was going to do after school.

If I had one guess I would guess this is Westlake. They found out Bowie had a parking garage. They were not happy ... therefore must have parking garage.

Remember all those times in our history when a past president has gone on national TV and taken a dump on the current president? All those times when a national news network has happily given the past president airtime to do this without saying "hold on partner, we're all on Team America here". Remember all those times? Remember? Find one! ... geez what an ass.