Texas Jeff

Well, we have a new central library that is free for all to use. Come downtown, stay all day if you wish... if you park your car there over 12 hours you'll pay $30 to get it out of the garage.The library has a 37 foot clock that looks like local birds. The clock does not actually tell you the time. It just looks like a clock. Not actually a clock. You can sit down a read a book if you can handle the creak creak creak creak sound of the Escher-like stairs that fill the lobby. Or ... you can drive over to Book People , eight blocks from the library, park for free and buy a book for less than a day's work of parking at the library. When the library opened, I asked how you could sign up to use the big room downstairs, it's really nice. The woman in charge said I could sign up now for a rental fee of something like $1200 for a few hours. I said "hey, this is supposed to be a free library" and she said "well, City of Austin departments and other non-profits can rent it for half-price!". So, we built a library for all to use, and the city can rent it from themselves for half price! Great, a nice meeting space for CoA groups that is mostly not affordable for outsiders. I know I'm nit-picking a particular project but in a town that talks about affordability, the new library seems to have the absolute best of everything, built at taxpayer expense and appears to have been built at maximum cost on a really valuable piece of land. it is made more difficult to access by charging for parking. I voted for the library when it was on the ballot, but after seeing the cost of what was included in the building and paying for parking at "our" library, I am hesitant to vote for similar projects in the future.

Tiny warning for that job .... my kids never watch TV in hotels, they want the wifi password and that's enough for them. I've stopped watching TV on the road other than maybe the morning news when I travel for business. You may eventually find yourself selling something else...