An argument for more council briefings from city department heads

During yesterday’s debate on whether additional money should be diverted to the Economic Development Department’s advertising budget, city council member Alex Villalobos asked department director Diana Torres why she needed the additional funds. She told him that back in February, her department had concocted the grandiose outreach plan that loosely revolved around the department’s 15th anniversary and was designed to reach those decision makers involved in business locations. “I wish I had known about that earlier,” Villalobos replied and I immediately realized “He’s absolutely correct. He should have known about that. And what’s more, we, the tax-paying citizens of Kyle should have known about it as well.”

Allow me to backtrack a bit. I’m a big fan of Kyle City Manager Scott Sellers. During my (thankfully) long (and some may say “notorious”) professional career, I’ve worked alongside, consulted, advised between three and four dozen city managers around this country. I’ve been up close and personal with the good, the bad and the ugly of city managers — from the excellent to the utterly incompetent — and, you’re going to have to trust me when I say this, but Sellers is one of the best I’ve ever seen.

But one thing Sellers could really improve on is keeping the council — and in the process, the taxpaying residents of Kyle — better informed on what’s going on within the various city government offices and departments. The most-often asked question I hear from citizens revolves around the central idea of “How are the folks at City Hall spending our tax money?” There’s an easy, efficient way Sellers can satisfactorily answer that question and that is to regularly schedule formal departmental briefings for the city council.

Which brings me back to the “I wish I had known about that earlier” comment from council member Villalobos. Back in February, when Torres conceived her outreach plan, Sellers should have prepared her to make a formal presentation to the council — and hence to the rest of us great unwashed — to announce this project, and, incidentally, lay the groundwork for the next budget discussions.

In fact, Sellers should schedule at least one formal council presentation per month by a department head, either during the first or second council meeting of each month. In the almost six years I have been following this council, the only department head I see regularly briefing council is City Engineer Leon Barba, who will briefly describe the latest reasons for delays in the road bond projects. And every once in a while, Assistant City Manager James Earp will talk about a pending development agreement, but that’s only because council action is needed on the subject. No one conducts public briefings to the council during the regularly scheduled council meetings just for the sake of keeping council members, along with those of us who supply the funds that keep them in business, informed — up-to-date — on what’s going on inside City Hall.

Following yesterday’s discussion of the upcoming budget, the council weighed in on proposed changes to the city’s charter. During those conversations, Mayor Travis Mitchell expressed his desire to somehow, some way, change the charter language in such a way as to promote a higher percentage of Kyle’s registered voters to actually cast ballots during city elections. Council member Robert Rizo mentioned the fact that just a few hours earlier the council had voted to add two more employees to the Communications Department and perhaps those folks could get the word out. At that moment, alarm bells should have sounded in the office of the city manager and in the head of Samantha Armbruster, the city’s director of communications: “We need to get to work immediately to develop a crackerjack measurable get-out-the-vote communications plan.” And once that plan is developed, but before it is launched, Sellers should schedule Armbruster to announce the plan during a formal council briefing, a  complete dog-and-pony show with slides and any other audio/visual material that would aid in selling the concept. Give council members the opportunity to ask questions about the plan, offer advice, to become a part of the project and, perhaps even more importantly, give Kyle residents a preview of what’s in store.

This is just one example of a possible subject for a monthly formal council meeting from a city department head. I trust the inventive minds of Sellers, Earp and others to think of others. Charge the individual department heads with the responsibility for developing subjects on which the council and the rest of the us, should be briefed and then prepare those briefings.

One bit of cautionary advice: prior to these department heads delivering these briefs to council, they should conduct a dress rehearsal to a small group to top city administration officials consisting of, say, Sellers, Earp, and Jerry Hendrix (listed as the city’s chief of staff, but the upcoming budget completely defunds the office of chief of staff and I have no clue what that means for Hendrix or the higher-echelon of the city’s administration). They could possibly anticipate the questions council members might pose about the plan during the presentation and then develop the best responses to those questions. But even more important, they could spot holes, weaknesses in the presentation and make recommendations for improvements before it goes to council.

These once-every-month council briefings could go a long way to not only satisfy the “I wish I had known about that earlier” concerns of Villalobos and other council members but answer that “How are the folks at City Hall spending our tax money?” question posed in one way or another by residents.

A little knowledge can go a long way.

Another one bites the dust

I must admit I’m a tad conflicted right now.

A couple of weeks ago I took Kyle’s 2018 Community Survey and, as I recall, question No. 7 asked "What specific stores and restaurants would you like to see in Kyle?" I don’t remember my exact answer to this question. Last year I replied to a similar question that I would love to have a Container Store here in Kyle. The Container Store located closest to us is across US 183 from the Arboretum in North Austin. That’s 32 miles away — 37-minute drive time if there’s no traffic. Not insurmountable, by any stretch of the imagination, but not exactly convenient either.

But when I think about it, I realize that just about anything I want from the Container Store I can purchase on-line without ever having to leave my home, without having to deal with the traffic. Then I recall what I wrote about Kyle’s Christmas period sales tax receipts taking a severe hit and attributing it to the likelihood that more and more Kyle shoppers are purchasing goods on-line. I mean, you can even get home delivery of your groceries.

Then, in today’s Austin American-Statesman I read where Toys "R" Us is making preparations to close all their stores, at least all their U.S. stores.

And this got me to wondering whether Kyle is seeking 20^th Century solutions to 21^st Century problems. Are brick and mortal retail outlets what Kyle should be working toward or what local shoppers really want?

The same is true when it comes to transportation. There are those in Kyle who are demanding mass transportation options when our neighbors to the north, who, in Cap Metro, have a well-evolved mass transportation infrastructure in place, but one that is steadily losing ridership. Here we are, entering an era when most transportation experts are predicting driverless cars will dominate our roadways, and there are those still wondering why we don’t have bus or rail service.

Council members were briefed, during the executive session at the most recent City Council meeting, on the progress of negotiations involving four economic development opportunities, dubbed "Project Maria," "Project Electric Light," Project Last Mile," and "Project Purple Mountain." Three different sources, all of whom obviously wish to remain anonymous, have told me one of those has the potential to be "a real game changer" for the city. The first three of those projects have appeared on a number of recent agendas ("Project Purple Mountain" recently replaced one with the codename "Project Caribbean Dream.")

With Toys "R" Us being the latest in a long line of retail/restaurant outlets to bite the dust, here’s hoping this "real game changer" is not a brick-and-mortar store or restaurant like one the city asked about in its survey, but a significant employment center, something that could go a long way toward solving those transportation concerns as well as generating a major new source of municipal revenue.

Yep. The more I think about, the more I realize that the last thing we need here is a Container Store — that question No. 7 is not the one the City should be asking.

Governor, lieutenant governor could kill Kyle property tax rate cut

The tone of the discussion at the City Council’s May 6 budget workshop indicated many, if not most, of the council members were leaning in the direction of shaving at least a penny off the city’s $.5748 current property tax rate. In fact, one council member proposed the radical idea of taking the tax rate all the way down to the rollback number — i.e., the rate that would produce the same amount of revenue as the General Fund collected this fiscal year.

However, if Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and his puppet, Gov. Greg Abbott, get their way, it would be irresponsible of the Kyle City Council to even consider a reduction in the property tax rate.

Patrick is trying to convince Abbott to call a special session of the legislature to enact a couple of measures that Patrick rammed through the Senate, but failed to make pass in the House of Representatives in the regular session — misguided regulations concerning public bathrooms, but, more germane to our local situation, laws that would restrict a city’s (but not a school district’s) ability to adjust its own property taxes. Currently, if a taxing authority attempts to increase its property tax rate by 8 percent or more, the voters within that authority can petition for an election that will force the rate back to the rollback number. Patrick wants to reduce that 8 percent number to 5 percent.

The problem with Patrick’s demagoguery here is (1) since it doesn’t apply to school taxes, which accounts for more than 50 percent of a property owner’s annual tax bill, the overall effect on that bill would be negligible if there is any effect at all and (2) it cripples the ability of local communities, especially smaller ones, to react in times of economic downturns and/or unforeseen budget crises. It could cripple a city’s ability to provide for the basic public safety of its citizens during bad economic times. Property tax valuations are a mirror of the current economy; if that economy goes south, property valuations drastically drop as well, which, of course, results in far less revenue a city has to provide basic city services.

It would be irresponsible for any elected city official, at least one who places more emphasis on the long-term interests and needs of his/her constituents than on his/her re-election chances, to recommend a tax cut in the middle of a good economic climate when that same or a future elected official is hamstrung from re-adjusting that rate when the climate turns bad. Especially when the corresponding school district is not similarly restricted and can still jack its rates as much as 8 percent. For some reason, when property owners complain of high tax bills, they always blame the city for the amount, never the real culprit -- the school district.

Kyle has, not that long ago, experienced a significant economic downturn that resulted in a major decrease in property values. It placed the city in a severe financial emergency that could only be and eventually was alleviated by a significant tax rate increase. If such an economic cycle happens again, the city must be allowed to respond accordingly.

Of course, a lot of this is premature. Abbott has yet to decide whether he wants to call a special session. Texas House Speaker Joe Straus successfully killed Patrick’s property tax plan during the regular session and hopefully he can convince Abbott he has the muscle to do the same in a special session as well so therefore it would be a waste of time and taxpayer money to call a special session on this subject.

The City Council is not scheduled to take up the issue of next year’s revenues and spending again until July 29, when City Manager Scott Sellers formally presents his proposed budget. I imagine we’ll know whatever the state decides to do or not do by that time. Regardless of what action the legislature and the governor take, however, a council conversation on this subject will, at least, be a reflection and a test of the council’s long-term vision for the city, or lack of same.

On the Kyle Report Smell-O-Meter, this measures Eviscerated Decomposed Body

A little more than two months ago I posted an article in the Kyle Report that began: "I may be in the minority here but, still, I don’t like the idea that the City of Kyle is using taxpayer resources to promote a pair of privately owned athletic teams that are so completely irrelevant even the local newspaper doesn’t report on them."

I didn’t push the issue after I wrote that. I figured I had made my point in that article and I let it rest. Besides, at three quarters of a century in age, I’m way too old to launch a crusade of any kind. So I let it rest.

But I can’t do that any longer — not after reading this story in the current Hays Free Press. While the story appears, to me at least, to be celebrating the fact that council member Daphne Tenorio owns the Kyle Stallions semi-pro basketball team, it sets off all kinds of alarm bells in me.

The most obvious one, of course, is what role, if any. did she play in the city’s decision to promote the Stallions on its website and in its weekly newsletters? This question is important because the obvious result of such a promotion would compel persons who otherwise might know about this enterprise (like I wrote earlier, except for this week’s article, the local newspaper does not cover the Stallions, does not cover their games, doesn’t even include the current ABA standings in its sports section) to purchase tickets to watch the team play. And purchasing tickets provides income for the team’s owner(s).

But that is not the only questions I have. Has she used her position as a member of the city council to in any way, shape or form, to influence any area private businesses to make sponsorship donations of some sort to the Stallions? This is a semi-pro team which usually means players do not receive salaries; the normal means of compensating a semi-pro athlete is through employment agreements. Has council member Tenorio used her influence as a city council member to gain employment for anyone on her team?

I’m not formally accusing her of anything, I’m just asking the questions and I know I can’t trust getting any truthful answers from anyone directly involved. That’s why I’m hoping someone — perhaps even the county district attorney’s office — will look into the matter. In fact, I’m insisting some form of independent investigation be launched to look into all of this.

Here’s why: Section 39.06 (a) of the Texas Penal Code reads "A public servant commits an offense if, in reliance on information to which the public servant has access by virtue of the person’s office or employment and that has not been made public, the person (1) acquires or aids another to acquire a pecuniary interest in any property, transaction, or enterprise that may be affected by the information." Violation of this section is a third degree felony, punishable by up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine (although I would fully expect a local elected official found guilty of anything related to the issues I’ve spelled out above to receive a probated sentence).

But the city needs to know if someone on its council, someone who represents the city with other municipalities, someone who is listed as the head of the Association of Hispanic Municipal Officials for the Texas Municipal League, has committed a felonious act. By the same token, our citizens need to be reassured that her ownership of the team represents absolutely no conflict of interest, if that is indeed the truth.

In either case, the City must act quickly, either by authorizing an independent investigation (the preferable option because it would be viewed as the least biased) or, at the very least, conducting a thorough investigation of its own. The City must realize two courts are sitting in judgment here and one — perhaps the most important one — is the court of public opinion. If our city leaders want to be retreated with respect we must be assured they are completely above approach. This situation gives the city somewhat of a black eye and as I told my former clients who used to hire me when they were dealing with crisis situations: "Bad news is like dead fish; it doesn’t smell better with age." And as I tried to suggest in the headline of this article, this smells putrid. Therefore, the sooner it’s dealt with, the better it will be for everyone involved.

One more thing about all this that troubles me. The Kyle Stallions play their home games in the Lehman High School gymnasium. Tenorio’s husband, Willie, is a member of the Hays CISD school board.

Coincidence? Personally, I don’t believe that much in coincidences.

Sales tax receipts and the “Wal-Mart factor”

For only the second time in the last ninth months, sales tax receipts for January exceeded budget forecasts, but the increase was minimal and was nowhere close to what it was the same month last year, which ended with Kyle more than a quarter of a million dollars in the red.

Kyle’s January receipts (which were just posted on the city’s website yesterday) were $536,291.12, which was $4,342.12 or .82 percent above what was forecast in the city’s FY2015-16 budget. That increase does not offset the below-forecast collections from the two previous months and leaves Kyle with a $36,287.19 deficit. Last year at this time, the city was $246,351.82 in the black, but in the last eight months of that year it fell more than half-million dollars below projections to finish the year with a $281,897.11 deficit. That’s a spectacular collapse.

Kyle ended FY 2015-16 with five consecutive months of sales tax receipts that were below projections and for the first four months of this year, receipts have exceeded forecasts in two of them.

So what is going on here? I posed that question to one high-ranking city staff member (I hesitate to use the person’s name, because I asked the question a couple of months ago and I don’t recall whether I stated our conversation was "on the record") and that person replied quite succinctly "It’s the Wal-Mart factor."

And there might be something to that argument. The Kyle Wal-Mart opened just about one year ago — last March 25, if my research is correct — and the city’s sales tax figures began to crater right around that same time. If Wal-Mart’s self-proclaimed shopping model is correct — consumers can spend less to buy the same items they previously purchased elsewhere — than it follows that less dollars spent means less sales tax collected.

This not an indictment of Wal-Mart and its business model — but a suggestion that perhaps Kyle study the effect a Wal-Mart opening in towns of comparative size to Kyle have had on their respective sales tax receipts and then adjust our forecasts accordingly, beginning with FY 2017-18.

Just sayin’.

Which acronym do you prefer: HCPUA or ARWA?

OK, the headline poses a trick question because HCPUA is not really an acronym. But, still, I hate it. Not the agency, mind you, just the initials of the organization. I avoid talking about it at all costs out of the fear that, at best, I’ll transpose one or more of the letters or, at worst, I’ll leave one of them out completely. Yessirree, Bob, I’ll take ARWA any ol’ day of the week.

I bring this up for two reasons. First, the HCPUA, which stands for Hays Caldwell Public Utility Agency (which I originally confused as Hays County Public Utility Agency, so I have had this bias for a while now), is a rather important group of which the City of Kyle is a prominent sponsor, along with Buda, San Marcos and the Canyon Regional Water Authority. Kyle City Council member David Wilson currently serves as chair of the HCPUA and its 10-member board includes Mayor Todd Webster and assistant city manager James Earp The second, and the real reason, I bring this up is because I ran across this Notice of Intent today on behalf of the HCPUA to file a bill during the current legislative session to change its name to the Alliance Regional Water Authority or ARWA. Granted, the proposed name change strips the agency of its geographic identity, but, c’mon, you gotta admit ARWA comes off the tongue far more trippingly than HCPUA.

According to the notice of intent, ARWA "would be a conservation district formed to accomplish the purposes of Article 16, Section 59 of the Texas Constitution." For those who are really policy wonks, that article, which bears the title "Navigation Districts," contains a lot of gobbledygook about how these districts are formed, how elections must to be held to establish them, how board members shall be elected before you get down to the nitty-gritty, the section labeled "Powers and Duties," which says: ""A district may be created under this chapter to provide, in or adjacent to its boundaries for (1) the improvement, preservation, and conservation of inland and coastal water for navigation; (2) the control and distribution of storm water and floodwater of rivers and streams in aid of navigation; and (3) any other purposes necessary or incidental to the navigation of inland and coastal water or in aid of these purposes."

Which is somewhat fascinating because the HCPUA currently has absolutely nothing to do with navigating waterways, as far as I can tell, and everything to do with providing water to its sponsors. In fact, right there in its mission statement, it says the HCPUA "was formed in January 2007 for the purpose of resolving the long-term water needs for its Participants." Don’t see anything there relating to "navigation," unless you want to argue the agency has successfully navigated the various ways to get waters from places where it is to places where it isn’t, but is desperately needed.

I also bring this up because, although residents of Kyle are not talking all that much about HCPUA or ARWA now, they will. And probably sooner than they would want to. They will start talking about it on or possibly even a little before they start receiving water bills that are in the neighborhood of $25 higher per month and increase even more as the months wear on. Those higher water bills are needed to pay the HCPUA’s or ARWA’s capital improvement project involving a "pipeline and pump station interconnecting the Kyle and Buda water systems. The facilities are anticipated to be used in the short-term to provide for interim water sharing and will also eventually serve as the delivery infrastructure of the Carrizo water to Buda. The pipeline will be sized to handle the full anticipated flow to Buda. The pump station will allow for expansion to provide the full contract delivery amount to Buda." That may not sound like a big deal, but it is. The pipeline, alone, is budgeted to cost nearly $7.5 million and the pump station another $12 million. That’s $19.5 million and, like Trump’s border wall, we’re going to have to pay for it. And I don’t expect the name change to make it any cheaper.

Nevertheless, I still like it. ARWA. Say it to yourself. Then try to pronounce HCPUA. It’s really no contest.

State slaps Hays schools with a grade of D, district’s response rates an F

The Texas Education Agency confirmed today what U.S. News and World Report has been reporting for years and what most objective observers already knew — at least intuitively — and that’s the public schools around these parts aren’t very good. They aren’t adequately preparing students for a life after public school.

This is the first year the TEA will be grading schools just like students in those schools are graded — on an A to F basis. This year, however, the agency issued every school in the state a separate grade in four different categories. From here on out, each school and each district will simply receive one overall grade.

The four grades for the Hays Consolidated Independent School District averaged out to a D+ — certainly nothing to brag about. But the in the category that really matters — the one that grades districts on how well they are preparing students for college and post-secondary school careers — Hays got a flat D. That’s not good.

One the bright side — if one needs a bright side to this — four of the 15 Austin-area school districts (Elgin, Bastrop, Georgetown and San Marcos) received lower overall grades than Hays. The highest ranked was Eanes, ISD; Lake Travis ISD was second followed by Austin and Round Rock, tied for third and fourth. Dripping Springs and Hutto tied for fifth and sixth place. The other districts in the area scoring higher than Hays were Del Valle, Leander and Pflugerville.

In fact, in that important category of career preparedness, Hays finished in the bottom third of the entire state of Texas. That, too, is not good.

Now, I, for one, would expect the school district’s response to this report card be something along the lines of "this is totally unacceptable and we plan to take immediate steps to improve our educational product." Instead Superintendent Michael McKie released a statement that said: "Sadly, the new rating systems is deficient in capturing all of the positive things happening in our classrooms and in schools across the state. In fact, this new rating system is damaging because it creates a false impression about students, ignores the unique strengths of each school, and unfairly reduces each student’s worth to the school’s assigned grade."

Wait a minute! A student’s individual report card does exactly the same thing! "Sorry, mom! Sorry, dad, that I got all Ds and Fs on my report card, but it really isn’t my fault. This report card is going to give you a false impression of my worth to the school." Sure. Fine, Whatever.

Additionally McKie tries to fault the system by saying "the standards for these letter grades were set by comparing scores for campuses and districts across the state; which is a departure from the current system that compares schools with similar demographics."

I hate to break this news to you, Superintendent McKie, but college admissions are also going to be based largely on comparing scores of students "across the state" and also "across the nation." Your students are going to be competing for jobs not only with those "across the state," but job seekers all over the world. Comparing scores is how the system works. The kid with the highest score gets admitted to the prestige school. The job applicant with the highest score gets the position. And the scores come from standardized tests taken by everyone. The SAT is a standardized test and, fairly or not, a student’s score on that one standardized test will most likely affect the rest of his or her life. That was true when I took the SAT almost 60 years ago and it's still true today.

So McKie’s response appears on its face to be an outright admission that he and his staff will not be working to improve the delivery of a high quality education to the students in Hays school, but, instead, an attack on the system. If you don’t like the message, kill the messenger. That’s why he also said, "This month, we will propose to our Board of Trustees a resolution, developed by TASA, that would place our district on a growing list of more than 150 other Texas school districts that are united in calling for the repeal of this new and inadequate rating system."

I also hate to break this news to you, Superintendent McKie, but TEA isn’t the only educational "rating system" that says schools in the Hays CISD are lousy. Check out what U.S. News & World Report — whose school ranking system, not only for Texas schools, but schools across the nation, is considered the gold standard — has to say about Hays’ high schools. U.S. News ranks schools according to a College Readiness Index, the percentage of graduating students with a proficiency in mathematics and the percentage of students with a proficiency in English. The scores for Hays CISD in those three categories were 28.3, 24 percent and 31 percent. Hays High School’s grades were 35.2, 29 percent and 46 percent. The scores for Lehman High School were really abysmal: 21.4, 18 percent and 31 percent. Compare those numbers to those of, say, the TAG Magnet High School in Dallas: 100, 67 percent, 100 percent. Or take the Ann Richards High School in Austin: 79.8, 86 percent, 95 percent.

You see, Superintendent McKie, higher scores are possible and it’s simply wrong-headed and irresponsible for you to blame the TRA’s system when there is supporting evidence for the system’s results.

Now you might be asking yourself what does all this have to do with city government, since this journal is supposed to be dedicated to city government. City government is actively trying to promote business development in the area— trying to lure businesses to Kyle to help offset the property tax burden currently borne largely by homeowners. But businesses are not coming to an area with schools ranked among the lowest third in the entire state of Texas. That means an increasingly high percentage of the costs of local government is going to be the responsibility of homeowners.

But a report like this could also have a significantly negative impact on property values in the area. In fact, I have already had conversations with a few city officials who are anticipating such a negative impact. That means, in order to achieve a consistent level of government services, it might be absolutely necessary to raise the tax rate.

And there’s also the case where the school district is going to be asking the voters to approve a bond sale to finance capital expenditures. I also hate to break this news to you, Superintendent McKie, but capital expenditures have absolutely no effect on the quality of the education delivered. And this report card from the TEA supported by the findings of U.S. News & World Report should be a wake-up call that you should be directing all your efforts into improving the educational product, not building things, especially when you’ve almost guaranteed that the property values that will be used to fund these bonds will be decreasing.

What these reports reveal quite clearly is that it’s time for the citizens of Kyle to wake up and quit blindly supporting the Hays schools, the Hays school district, the Hays school administrators and, most of all, the Hays School Board and, instead, start supporting the future of your student-children.

Here are the TEA’s preparing students for college and career grades for the schools in the Hays CISD:

• Armando Chapa Middle School D
• Blanco Vista Elementary C
• Buda Elementary C
• Camino Real Elementary D
• Carpenter Hill Elementary B
• D.J. Red Simon Middle School F
• Elm Grove Elementary B
• Eric Dahlstrom Middle School B
• Hemphill Elementary D
• Jack C. Hays High School C
• Kyle Elementary C
• Laura B. Negley Elementary B
• Laura B. Wallace Middle School C
• Lehman High School F
• Live Oak Academy B
• R.C. Barton Middle School B
• Ralph Pfluger Elementary D
• Science Hall Elementary C
• Susie Fuentes Elementary C
• Tobias Elementary C
• Tom Green Elementary D

Another one that doesn’t pass the smell test

I may be in the minority here but, still, I don’t like the idea that the City of Kyle is using taxpayer resources to promote a pair of privately owned athletic teams that so completely irrelevant even the local newspaper doesn’t report on them.

I posed this question directly to the city and here’s the reply I received from city spokesperson Kim Hilsenbeck:

"This is all part of Kyle's effort to be a destination city. We entered into a relationship with the soccer team in July; their home field (Gregg-Clarke Park) is a city facility. These games have the potential to bring in teams and visitors from other cities including those who may need an overnight stay in a hotel.

"While they are in town, they shop at stores, eat at restaurants and get gas.

"The same is essentially true with the Stallions, as they also draw in other teams and guests from out of town.

"Below is one of the quotes from Mayor Pro Tem Damon Fogley in July when the city welcomed the Central Texas Lobos; we held a news conference/event and Mr. Fogley said this:

"‘Becoming a recreation and event destination in Central Texas is one of Kyle’s top priorities to support our city’s economic development,’ Mayor Pro Tem Damon Fogley said at the event Thursday at Gregg-Clarke Park soccer complex, according to a city press release. ‘Because of this, we are very excited to be the hometown of the new Central Texas Lobos’."

If some of that was true — and much of it isn’t — that would be excellent reasons for the Kyle Chamber of Commerce to be using its resources to promote these teams, but there is still no rationale for the city to be doing it.

I posed a somewhat similar question to the cities of El Paso, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Texarkana, Killeen — even the tiny burg of Somerset south of San Antonio — some of the cities that are the homes of the 11 other ABA franchises that are in the same division as Kyle to see if they devoted sections of their city’s web sites to these privately owned operations that charge patrons for admission. The response was a unanimous "no."

Typical was this response I received from Bryce Bencivengo, senior public information specialist for the City of Austin: "I checked around our office and with a few other folks around the City and we are not aware of any public funds or resources spent on (Austin’s semi-pro basketball team) the Austin Bats."

In other words, Kyle is the only one of the 12 cities in the Southwest Division of the American Basketball Association that is using public resources to promote its entry. I didn’t waste my time seeking out responses from cities in other divisions of the ABA because I’m sure the answer would have been the same.

(Updated information added here) And what do those cities know that Kyle doesn't. Perhaps they've seen the studies that show athletic teams have absolutely no impact whatsoever on local economies: Michael Leeds, a sports economist at Temple University, studied Chicago, the home of five major league sports franchises and found that if every single one of them deserted the Windy City the impact on the local economy would be a fraction of 1 percent. And those are major league franchises. You can only imagine the absolute negligible effect semi pro franchises have on the local economy.

Apparently the reason for this lack of contribution is that money spent on going to see a team like the Stallions or the Lobos are simply entertainment dollars that would have been spent elsewhere in Kyle. According to Vic Matheson, a sports economist at Holy Cross University, most people have a limited entertainment budget, so the dollars they are spending when they go to a game is money they would have spent elsewhere, maybe even at a restaurant or small businesses where more money would have stayed in the community. In fact, it turns out that when the Los Angeles Lakers left the Forum, located in the Inglewood section of Los Angeles, and relocated in the downtown Staples Center, sales tax revenues from that part of Inglewood actually increased. (End of updated section.)

I have nothing against Kyle becoming a destination city, but I do have a problem with the city using taxpayer funded resources to promote private companies, especially ones that obviously will have minimal-to-no effect on Kyle becoming that destination city leaders are striving for. Want a more likely candidate to attract visitors? How about the Texas Pie Company? Why isn’t that mentioned in the city’s website and in its weekly newsletter. I would bet the Texas Pie Company attracts far more out-of-towners than the Kyle Stallions. Has anyone been to Evo lately, even on a Saturday morning? Now that is a destination. I guarantee it is responsible for more sales tax revenues for the city than either of the two semi-pro athletic teams. But I don't think the city should be promoting that entertainment center on its web site either. What about the Kyle Conservatory of Performing Arts? Doesn't the city think that might deserve a mention as a possible destination? I remember one City Council meeting in which city staff made a big deal about promoting the Katherine Anne Porter house. But, so far, not a word about it on the city's Web site.

Enter the Kyle Stallions or the Central Texas Lobos in Google News’ search engine and the only hit you’ll get is a mention of the teams making Kyle their home that was telecast last month on KXAN. But has anyone read one single game story about the Stallions in particular in the Hays Free Press? Does the newspaper even print the ABA standings each week? No. And that’s not a criticism of the Hays Free Press. The paper does a far more than just adequate job of covering local sports. In fact, the Hays Free Press even had a photo and coverage of a football game between the Kyle Police and Fire departments. The newspapers of Austin, Laredo, San Antonio, El Paso, Killeen, Texarkana and Houston totally ignore their semi-pro teams as well. Why? The obvious reason has to be there is no interest, they are simply not attractions.

I’d be willing to bet more folks come from out of town to see a Lehman High School home basketball game than come from outside Kyle to see a game played by Kyle Stallions. I would even bet that’s true when Lehman hosts a game against Hays High School because more Buda residents will show up to see that game then will come to that very same gymnasium to see a Kyle Stallions home game.

Way, way back, in the summer of 1962, I was a reporter for the Seguin Gazette. Seguin, at the time, had two semi-pro baseball teams, the Seguin White Sox and the SMI Steelers. I remember the ace pitcher for the White Sox was a young hurler named Ed Kuempel, who, during the regular collegiate season, pitched for Texas Lutheran College in Seguin. I’d be willing to bet that is the same Ed Kuempel who went on to represent the Seguin area in the Texas Legislature from 1982 until his death in 2010. The only out-of-town games these teams played were in San Antonio and I remembered the "luxurious" travel conditions of those road trips: everyone crammed into three or four automobiles owned by the players themselves, an after-game dinner we paid for ourselves at a drive-in burger joint on the way out of town (we never even got out of our cars to eat), no overnight hotel stays. I remember it because of the hilarious fit Kuempel would pretend to throw when the massive order of hamburgers didn’t arrive within 10 minutes of ordering them. Fun, it was. A significant financial investment in the town we visited, it was not.

But that is the way of semi-pro sports. It’s called "semi-pro" because the athletes on these teams are not paid a salary high enough to live on. They must have other jobs. Most, if not all, the players for SMI were employed by the team’s namesake, Structural Metals, a Seguin-based operation which used furnaces to melt scrap metal into reinforcing bars. Today SMI is known as CMC Steel and distinctively colored SMI 18-wheelers with green cabs containing shocking pink lettering no longer prowl the Texas highways.

But I digress. The point is I know from first-hand experience the games played by these teams rarely even drew the family members of the players on the team, let alone people traveling from hundreds, or even dozens of miles away — even from the outskirts of town, for that matter. As far as I can tell, these two Seguin baseball teams no longer even exist.

So, yes, I don’t like the idea that the City of Kyle is using taxpayer resources to promote a pair of privately owned athletic teams. I especially don’t like the idea that Kyle appears to be the only city I can see that uses its municipal web site to promote these teams. I’m not saying the city is doing anything illegal. I’m not even claiming that the city is throwing large chunks of money into this effort; we’re probably only talking about the small amount of time the city’s communications guru takes to place these items in the web page and to toss gratuitous mentions of the teams in the city’s weekly newsletter. It’s just that using any city resources at all to promote a for-profit, privately owned business doesn’t pass the smell test.

Sound the retreat!

Yesterday I wrote about how I am convinced it’s a complete waste of time for the City Council to conduct a retreat for the sole purpose of conducting a retreat. And it should not be held in order for various council members to wax poetically about their thoughts on the city’s "vision" and/or to complain alarmingly and annoyingly about the city’s lack of same. One of the important points I failed to mention yesterday is the fact the city already has a vision statement. It’s called the Comprehensive Plan. Read it. It’s all there. Not only that, it’s blessed with fluidity, a important ingredient most "vision statements" sorely lack.

If the City Council is going to have a retreat it must do so to learn about and begin the steps to accomplish one or more (but "one" is usually the perfect number to handle for each retreat) long-range goals for the city. Yesterday, one idea I floated as an example to illustrate this concept was a retreat to learn about various possible options to realize City Manager Scott Sellers’s vision to make Kyle a destination city.

Today I want to bring up another example of what could make a City Council retreat both viable and valuable.

I have repeatedly and consistently bored the life out of anyone who had the patience to endure my rants on the subject of Budgeting for Outcomes. I am a big fan of Budgeting for Outcomes. (Here's an excellent story on this model and how it works.) I worked for the City of Dallas when it decided to transition from the type of budgeting model used today in Kyle to the Budgeting for Outcomes model. The difference between the two models, to put it simply, is the Kyle model is one only a CPA could love, while the Budgeting for Outcomes model is more of a contract between the City and its citizens that can be monitored and scored by the City Council.

In the Budgeting for Outcomes model, instead of simply a line-item expense, a service target is projected. In other words, you inform the council and, in the process, the public why these funds are being requested. Here’s an example lifted from the City Comptroller’s budget for a city which shall remain unnamed:

• Service target for FY 2016-17: Reduce the cost per payroll transaction to $1.22.
• Major budget items: Three Payroll Specialists were transferred to the Human Resources Department.

What this allows is simple: At the end of the fiscal year the council and the public can determine the worth of the budget item simply by determining whether that $1.22-per-transaction goal was reached.

Here’s another example lifted from the Animal Services Department budget:

• "Service target for FY2016-17: "Reduce loose animal service requests through increased community engagement, expanded education, and community partnerships.
• "Major Budget Items: The FY 2016-17 budget includes startup funding for 15 positions for targeted initiatives. The increased funding will be used to strengthen and engage targeted neighborhoods' sense of responsibility for animals and address existing animal issues. The staffing will include: 1 Manager, 2 Coordinator IIs, 4 Animal Service Officers, 2 Office Assistant IIs, 2 Crew Leaders, 1 Veterinarian, 1 Manager II, 1 Coordinator III and 1 Animal Keeper II."

Here’s an example of how it could work here in Kyle. Instead of a line item, like one that was a part of last year’s budget, to hire eight additional police officers, the budget would say something like:

• Service target for 2015-16: Reduce police response time by 13 percent.
• Major Budget Items: The FY 2015-16 budget includes the addition of eight additional police officers.

I think you see where I’m going here.

Successfully switching from one budget model to another one is not as simple a task as it may appear from my description here. That’s where the retreat can come in handy. If the city decided to make an idea like this the subject of a retreat, it should be able to offer presentations from officials who have already made the switch, it has to include step-by-step instructions on how to make the switch and it must give the council the opportunity to debate and decide on its budgetary approaches. For example, budgeting for outcomes, does not list budget items by departments but according to specific targets the city has agreed to concentrate on. Where I came from, these targets were referred to as "key focus areas" and it’s the responsibility of the City Council to determine what those key focus areas should be for its own municipality. Admittedly, this should not be that difficult of a chore because most communi8ties agree on what the five key focus areas should be for any municipal operation: 1. Public Safety; 2. Economic Vibrancy (and there is a key difference between "vibrancy," which takes into account the city’s already existing economic engines, and "development," which refers only to adding more cars to the existing train); 3. Clean, healthy environment; 4. Culture, Arts, Recreation and Education; and 5. Efficient, Effective and Economic Government. I don’t believe you could pinpoint anything a municipal government does that couldn’t be assigned to one of those key focus areas. You also have to learn and understand the concepts of "setting the price of government," "soliciting offers to deliver desired outcomes," "internally as well as externally negotiating performance agreements with chosen providers." But the point here is a retreat provides the perfect setting for the City Council to learn and understand Budgeting for Outcomes and then, if it decides it wants to move forward with this model, agreeing on its key focus areas.

Regardless of whether a retreat is scheduled to further Sellers’s destination city vision, to change the model of municipal budgeting or a completely different objective, any retreat scheduled by the city for the City Council must have some specific objective designed to enhance Kyle’s long-term future as its purpose. There’s nothing wrong with merely conceptualizing at a retreat — in fact, retreats provide a perfect setting for such idealistic visualizations — but it must be on a specific, concrete (i.e., not abstract) subject that’s decided and agreed upon before the retreat is actually scheduled.

That’s my two cents.

Is Kyle beginning to over-regulate?

I hate yard work.

Detest it.

I may be the world’s foremost proponent of artificial turf.

Perhaps these feelings stem from the fact that I was born and raised on the Lower East Side of New York. If we wanted to see a tree or even a patch of grass, there was always a neighborhood park within easy walking distance. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that my parents finally succumbed to the lure of the suburbs and purchased their first house, complete with a yard. Bet you’ll never guess who got stuck with doing the yard work. The lure, to be frank, was hard liquor, a difficult temptation for a teen to pass up back then. Specifically, it was an ice cold, perfectly refreshing Tom Collins my mother always had ready for me after I completed my Saturday yard chores. I absolutely loathed the chore of mowing/trimming the law and pulling weeds, but I loved those Tom Collins.

As a result, for the overwhelming majority of my adult life, I studiously avoided residing anywhere that required anything remotely connected to landscaping. The closest I came was that I would purchase a potted plant every now and then, but I only managed to keep them alive for a month at most. Then I discovered places like Michael’s that sold realistic looking fake indoor trees and plants. Whoopee!!

A little more than 20 years ago, however, I found myself in a position where it would advance my professional standing if I became a homeowner. After much consideration, I finally opted for a townhouse in a location where the homeowner’s association was responsible for all the landscaping in the front of my townhouse and my only concern was a small yard enclosed by a six-foot tall wooden fence in back. But it wasn’t long before, in my war with nature, the weeds declared victory. I tried everything this side of napalm. I hired a professional landscaping firm that moonscaped my back yard, then blanketed it with heavy duty plastic and applied a nice looking mulch on top of that. But the weeds were not to be deterred that easily. They managed to punch through that plastic and once more take over the yard. Finally, I just said "The hell with it," and paved over the entire thing. Made one big patio out of it where I enjoyed some fine cookouts with family and friends. After all, this was my backyard. My personal property. I could do whatever I wanted do with it as long as it didn’t have a negative effect on a neighbor’s property.

Now all this took place in Dallas where its stormwater fee, both commercial and residential, is based on the amount of impervious cover on your property. My penalty, if you want to call it that, was after paving over the back yard, I had a higher monthly stormwater fee. Fine with me. At least I didn’t have ugly weeds. At least I didn’t have yard work.

Have I mentioned that I hate yard work?

I bring all this up because last Tuesday the Kyle City Council, on the same night, passed a yin and a yang of ordinance revisions. The yin revised the landscaping ordinance and the yang revised the impervious cover ordinance. And after that I began to thinking to myself that the entire globe is divided into two parts: those parts covered with impervious surfaces and those covered with some form of landscaping, whether or not it is actually landscaped in the formally accepted use of that term. Or, to put it another way, the earth is covered either by surfaces that are impervious or those that are not. And by regulating one, you naturally regulate the other. Not only that, the council decided swimming pools were not impervious. The word "impervious" is an adjective and it means "not allowing fluid to pass through." If a swimming pool is not "impervious," it desperately needs repair. One of the many listed synonyms for "impervious" is "watertight," and anyone with a swimming pool that isn’t watertight needs to replace it quickly with one that is. The council, in its attempt to make sure every homeowner who wants one can have a pool in his or her back yard has made a declaration that is tantamount to declaring "from now on three plus three in Kyle will equal 33 because, as everyone can see, that’s what you get when you put two three’s together."

But the council can achieve its "chicken in every pot" goal and yet still acknowledge that there is a difference between a swimming pool and the water contained in that swimming pool (contained, of course, because swimming pools are indeed impervious). And the way to do this is to abandon the notion that every concern can be solved with another ordinance, another regulation.

The solution to this is very simple: First, a carefully crafted landscape ordinance can include whatever impervious cover standards are needed, mainly because these standards should only apply to commercial and multi-family developments anyway. Forget about, do away with, the notion that the government should regulate what an individual homeowner can or cannot put on his or her private property, unless, of course, it fails to conform to land-use regulations already in place, violates criminal statutes or his patently and obviously offensive to the public. But we’re over-regulating when we decide percentages need to be firmly established on how much impervious cover a homeowner can have on his/her private property.

Here’s how ridiculous this whole thing is: Under the impervious cover ordinance amendments that will have a second reading at the next regularly scheduled council meeting Oct. 18, a homeowner is restricted on the size of a patio he or she can have in their back yard, but it will be perfectly allowable to convert an entire back yard into a fish pool that will become a natural breeding ground for Zika-carrying mosquitos.

Look, if a family with five teen-aged children living at home and all the members of that family have their own automobiles, want to construct a large circular driveway in their front yard to accommodate all those vehicles, they should be allowed to do so. If a family that likes to entertain wants to construct a large patio in their back yard, they should be allowed to do so. It’s their property. But let their monthly stormwater fees reflect these personal choices they have made.

The city is coming up with all kinds of excuses for why all residences should pay a flat stormwater fee. The truth is, city officials simply don’t want to go to all the trouble to determine the amount of impervious surface on each piece of residential property, even though Mayor Todd Webster predicted during last week’s discussion on impervious surfaces that the day will come — and sooner rather than later — that residential fees will be set by their impervious cover amounts. I’m betting that a well programmed and outfitted drone flying over Kyle one afternoon could provide all the photographic evidence needed that could allow city officials to accurately measure the amount of impervious surface on every residential property in the city. But, instead of doing that, the city is taking what it believes is an easier way out – passing regulations that establish the maximum percentages of allowable impervious cover on every single piece of residential property.

So my answer to the question I posed in this headline is a resounding "yes."

Personal privilege: A salute to Sellers, Mitchell, Leos

For what it’s worth, I’m taking a moment of personal privilege to salute City Manager Scott Sellers, council member Travis Mitchell and Hays Free Press News Editor Moses Leos for scaling the city’s water tower this morning to give it a good scrubbing and repainting.

This from Mitchell’s Facebook page:

"We washed and painted parts of the iconic Kyle water tower this morning. Full restoration would cost upwards of $200,000. Until money grows on trees, this is our best solution. Shout out to our fantastic City Manager, Scott Sellers, for suggesting this and for leading the city by example. #kyletx"

Leos took the above picture this morning of Mitchell and Sellers on the tower.

Transparency, Part 2: “Truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

For almost 20 years, beginning in the early 1980s, I joined with two journalists from the electronic media to form a media consulting firm whose primary responsibility to help prepare spokespersons for potentially grueling media interviews. For example, we prepared representatives who appeared on 49 different 60 Minutes programs as well as too-many-to-count appearances on such TV staples of the time as Nightline, Dateline, Meet the Press, etc. Our clients included executives from major and small corporations, political leaders (including soon-to-be U.S. presidents), sports figures, entertainers. I even made several trips to Montana to work with the leader of a religious cult.

A lot of our work involved traveling to wherever our clients wanted us to teach a one-day course on how to handle a media interview.

As luck would have it, a couple of years after the company was founded, we managed to convince the hierarchy of Texas Instruments, whose media policy at the time was a very simple and direct "We don’t talk to the press" to take our course. One of the TI vice presidents who took it was the head of sales for the company who shortly thereafter came to us and said "I have thousands of employees in our sales force who will never have to deal with a reporter, but they have to deal with even tougher questions from potential customers. Could you modify your program to help them?"

Of course we did and as a result I had the opportunity to travel to TI locations all over the globe to conduct a program we called "A Successful Strategy for Answering Questions."

One of the points I stressed in this program was a person is not required to answer a question in the way the questioner wants it answered. I called those types of queries the "When did you stop beating your spouse?" question. My favorite example was this: I’ve asked a question. You’ve answered it. And I reply: "That’s interesting, because just three days ago I was talking to your boss and he told me just the opposite. Which one of you is lying?"

I was thinking about that today because it made me realize that I forgot to mention one major category of accusers in my essay about those who accuse municipal officials of "lack of transparency." And that’s those who hear answers that don’t jive with their preconceived notions of what they believe the correct answers should be. In fact, these types even form groups, one of the most prominent being The Flat Earth Society.

These are the close-minded, the prejudiced, the ones not open to ideas other than their own, people not willing to accept the notion that what they fervently believe to be true may, in fact, not be true after all, that all their assumptions are based on false premises.

So here’s some friendly advice: Pay absolutely no attention to anyone who claims "lack of transparency." They are simply advertising their own inadequacies. If you are really interested in the topic being discussed, conduct your own independent research. Seek the truth of the matter for yourself with a completely open, unprejudiced mind and be willing to accept the findings, whatever they may be.

Incidentally, for those who haven’t already figured it out, the honest answer to the "Which one of you is lying?" question is simply "I didn’t hear my boss say that, but here’s what I know to be the facts of the matter."

Transparency: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”

I’ve been hearing a lot of cries of "lack of transparency" in connection with Kyle’s city government of late. Although faithful readers must admit I have been a severe critic of certain actions by our political leaders and municipal administrators, every time I hear "lack of transparency," I translate that as someone screaming "I’m not well informed, I don’t know enough about the facts of this situation, I’m stupid, but that’s not my fault so I’m going to blame someone else for that fact."

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution, the Texas Constitution or Kyle’s City Charter that requires someone to be well informed. Becoming knowledgeable is not a right, it’s a choice. And it’s a choice that requires a certain amount of effort. Don’t expect someone else to bless you with information and knowledge. You must seek them out for yourselves, understand them and digest them.

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if many of those individuals who have cried about "lack of transparency" even know what a CAFR is, let alone actually studied one. Simply put, it’s the most extreme example of complete transparency by any municipality. It’s available for anyone who wants to read it. In fact, I’ll make it easier for you, click right here to read Kyle’s CAFR. But you still must make the effort to read and understand it. And, if you choose not to make that effort, don't blame that on "lack of transparency."

When City Manager Scott Sellers e-mailed his proposed FY 2016-17 budget to city council members, that proposed budget was also posted on the city’s web site, available for anyone who wanted to become more informed, to read, study and learn from it. But anyone who wanted to become more informed about what was proposed for the City of Kyle for the next fiscal year had to make the effort to go to the web site. Just because the city’s doesn’t want to waste taxpayers’s money but printing and mailing a copy of that document to every citizen’s place of residence and business is not a sign of lack of transparency. It’s a recognition that the city is making wiser decisions about how to spend available resources. But, wait! I’ll make that easier for you as well, I have already provided links to the manager’s proposed budget in other posts, but here is another one. Read it. Take the effort to become more informed. (For those without access to a computer, a printed copy of the proposed budget is available during regular business hours at City Hall and the Kyle Public Library.)

Council member Travis Mitchell is apparently making the effort to share with the public the reasons why he votes on specific council agenda items. But citizens must make the effort to seek his positions out and read them. Here, I'll try to make that easier for you as well. But you will still need to click on the aforementioned link and then read Mitchell's comments for yourself. No one can compel or force you to do it.

Earlier this week Sellers gave what was billed as a "State of the City" speech to the Kyle Chamber of Commerce. In an effort to become more informed about what was happening in the community I’m proud to call home, I went on-line to the chamber’s website which provided an incredibly easy way for me to purchase a ticket to this luncheon and learn for myself what the city manager had to say. I chose to make that effort.

Now I’m hearing that this address by the city manager was another example of the city’s lack of transparency. No, it isn’t. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Don’t blame someone else because you chose not to pursue this information.

But, so the argument goes, if the city was really transparent, a citizen wouldn’t have to pay to attend this meeting. That argument is so patently ridiculous on so many levels it’s difficult to decide just where to begin. But let me start with the fact that the Chamber is a private entity, which relies for its income on dues-paying members and functions such as this luncheon. And having been a president of a Chamber of Commerce myself, I can assure you that, if lucky, these chamber luncheons are break-even affairs at best. Admittedly, this chamber does receive city funds, but those are for the chamber's economic development efforts, not for its citizen educational programs.

It should also be recognized that Sellers's address was not the revelations of encyclopedic knowledge, but one person's vision (albeit an well-informed vision) of Kyle, both today and for the future.

But more important than that, there is no law, no regulation, no charter provision, no ordinance that states the pursuit of knowledge is free. It isn’t and it never will be. That’s why more than 50 percent of your total tax bill goes to the local school district, whether or not you have someone residing with you who attends a local school. That’s why colleges charge tuition. That’s why you pay for books to learn from.

Any citizen who wishes to become more informed about what’s going on in their community must make the effort. That’s the reason for the expression "the pursuit of knowledge." No one, however, is going to force you to pursue knowledge, to make yourself more informed. We don’t live in some Orwellian, Kubrickian society where we strap our citizens to chairs, attach wires to their brains and force-feed them information. But if a citizen chooses not to pursue information, decides not to seek knowledge and, as a result, is uninformed and ignorant about what is happening around them, don’t blame someone else. Don’t cry "lack of transparency" because you chose not to learn.

This nation's protections of freedom of speech allow anyone to scream "Lack of transparency," but the fact is such screams are more of an admission than an accusation.

Random thoughts on stop signs and roundabouts

I spent time this morning, perhaps too much time, mulling over a couple of the issues discussed at last night’s city council meeting. OK, I know what you’re thinking: "Pete, you need to get a life." But that’s just the way I choose to roll.

The discussion over stop signs came about because it’s quickly becoming an epidemic around Kyle or perhaps it’s an invasion of the body snatchers, but it seems like every Tom, Dick and Harriet wants a stop sign on their corner. And, as it stands right now, the city doesn’t have a policy regulating how or even if to approve requests for stop signs.

There is an accepted formula for determining whether a stop sign or even a yield sign is necessary at any given location. And no one, absolutely no one, opposes the installation of such a traffic control devices at any location at which the formula determines such a device is warranted. The trouble is, last week, the council voted to approve the installation of signs at two different Plum Creek locations where the formula determined those signs were not warranted. About a month before that, it was the installation of unwarranted signs at four different intersections in Amberwood.

Police Chief Jeff Barnett outlined the normal routine his department follows whenever any citizen or group of citizens approaches his department seeking the installation of a stop or yield sign. First, he said, police officials study accident reports to discover whether an unusually high number of traffic mishaps have occurred at the said location and they will also install monitors for 72 hours beginning on a Friday evening to count the number of motor vehicles who pass through the given intersection. If the results of both of these efforts point in the direction of installing a sign, then he will summon the engineers to launch a pre-established "Warrant Study" (the formula I referred to earlier) that will result in definitely determining whether the installation of the requested device is warranted.

Neighborhood groups have found a way to bypass this process, however. They simply ask a friendly council member to have his or her colleagues approve the installation of unnecessary signs.

The proposal discussed last night — a proposal that was indefinitely tabled — would require that homeowners wishing to have a device installed that is deemed unnecessary, based on the preliminary study of accident reports and traffic counts, place a deposit ($500 was the one figure mentioned) to pay for a Warrant Study anyway. If the study found such a device was necessary, the deposit would be refunded. If not, tough luck.

Seems to make sense to me. I don’t think all the taxpayers in Kyle should be forced to pay for the process that leads to the expenditure of city funds for unnecessary stop signs that benefit only a small percentage of the city’s total population. But, then, I’m an idealist.

The debate on the topic revolved around two issues. The first raised by council member Daphne Tenorio and supported by council member Travis Mitchell was that it would be easier for subdivisions with homeowners associations to come up with the required deposit and, thus, those without such associations should not be required to pay it. Instead, Mitchell recommended, signatures could be collected on a petition.

Here’s my first problem with that: It seems to me, on its face, to be discriminatory. Such a policy would formally create two separate classes of residents that would be treated differently. The concept of "separate but equal" was deemed unconstitutional in this country more than 60 years ago.

Here’s my second problem with the idea: If you’re going to go to the trouble to circulate through the neighborhood collecting signatures why not instead circulate through the neighborhood collecting contributions to pay for the Warrant Study deposit? The residents could finance it with the money they save by not having to pay homeowners association dues.

The second issue was what to do about devices that were deemed unnecessary via the Warrant Study. On this issue, I go on the record as wholeheartedly supporting City Manager Scott Sellers and Mayor Todd Webster’s stance. "It is staff’s recommendation that …any sign that doesn’t meet warrant is not erected," Sellers said. "That is our position. It will always be our position." Can’t be more clear than that. After the meeting was over Mayor Webster confirmed to me what I thought I heard him say during the meeting, i.e., he would support an ordinance that prohibits the installation of unwarranted traffic control devices.

But what happens if the majority of the council would not support such an ordinance, an outcome Mayor Webster told me was more likely? No one really had a satisfactory answer for that question and I’m guessing that was one, if not the, main reason, the item was tabled.

But here is what I find particularly strange in all of this: Those council members who support, in some fashion, the installation of unnecessary traffic signs seem to also be the ones who complain the loudest about the fact that "Kyle has the highest property tax rate in Hays County." It’s an economic given: One sure way of reducing the tax rate, or at least holding it steady, is to reduce spending. And one sure target of any spending reduction effort should be to eliminate spending tax money on items recognized, and accepted studies prove are unnecessary.

The other item I spent time thinking about was the idea of TxDOT installing a roundabout at the spot where Dorman Road intersects FM 1626. I am particularly sensitive to this because said roundabout would somewhat less than a half mile from where I live. For those not familiar with that area, a left turn from northbound FM 1626 or a right turn from southbound FM 1626 would put you on the comparatively short, in length, Dorman Road, past a popular pre-school, which dead ends at a traffic circle at Cromwell Drive. Taking southbound Cromwell quickly leads to another traffic circle which, if followed to the right, will put you on Sampson which takes you into the heart of the Plum Creek subdivision. The argument for the roundabout is because of the difficulty drivers have of negotiating a left turn from Dorman onto northbound 1626, a turn I make quite frequently because I take 1626 to where I usually need to go in Austin as well as take it to Kohlers Crossing and an easier access to northbound I-35 than I have if I take 1626 southbound.

That left turn to northbound 1626 used to be far more difficult than it is today. It has become immeasurably easier since the installation of the traffic signal at Kohlers Crossing and 1626 which can act as a temporary barricade to southbound traffic and freeing up much more opportunities to negotiate that turn.

I must admit I also have a problem with a roundabout on a four-lane widely divided highway where the posted speed limit is 60 miles an hour (which means motorists travel at least 65) that is intersecting with a narrowly divided two-lane street on which the desired speed limit is 25 miles an hour but the legal speed limit is 30. I especially worry about southbound 1626 traffic careening onto Dorman right there where that pre-school is located.

Now engineers will try to convince that roundabouts are designed in such a way as to force motorists to slow down to speeds of around 13 miles an hour. Frankly, I don’t believe that. Intelligence and common sense, two attributes sorely lacking in the average Texas motorist, tell him or her to slow down around a roundabout. And why in heaven’s name would you want to slow traffic to 13 miles an hour on a road where the posted speed limit is 60 anyway?

Personally, I would be far more supportive of this entire roundabout idea if, along with it, TxDOT would establish a 45-mile-an-hour speed limit on 1626 between Kohlers and Marketplace. It seems like a common sense approach and it would be a move to additionally maximize safety (if "safety" is really the driving motivation in this project), all the while recognizing the reality of that intelligence and common sense that is lacking in Texas drivers would result in massive amounts of motorists drastically exceeding that limit. However, a few well-placed Kyle Police Department patrol cars armed with radar devices could help alleviate that on a regular basis as well.