Posts Tagged ‘Bill Aleshire’

Lawsuit Filed To End Austin Toy Train Tax

Thursday, August 29th, 2024

We had previously covered the various failures of Austin’s toy train Project Connect light rail project to achieve its stated goals. Now a lawsuit has been filed to put the light rail tax out of our misery.

A new class action lawsuit filed in Travis County 126th District Court claims that the City of Austin is collecting annual property tax illegally to fund Project Connect since the project is not following through on delivering the public transit development that voters agreed to in 2020.

As KVUE reported, voter-approved Project Connect has faced legal action in the past from taxpayers and is now facing another lawsuit brought by the same group of plaintiffs who want to prevent the city from continuing to collect millions of dollars in property taxes to fund the now reduced Project Connect plan.

The plaintiff’s lead counsel, Bill Aleshire, said, “They’re pursuing what I call a ‘miniature’ Project Connect that’s not city wide.”

Aleshire explained that Project Connect “started as a $7 billion plan that included 30 miles of rail, a route to the airport and downtown, now has a more than an $11 billion price tag and half the routes.”

He also argued that the city “miscalculated” its 2024 tax rate and that the funds already collected are not being spent on the transit project.

“Not including this year’s $187 million, Austin’s Project Connect tax levy has been for over $630 million. But there is $476 million on hand, unspent, uncommitted,” Aleshire said.

Project Connect managers, the Austin Transit Partnership, described the lawsuit as “baseless” and stated the funds collected would be utilized in the future, according to KVUE.

Lead plaintiff Cathy Cocco referred to the transit project as “an unaffordable, outdated, yesterday idea not suited for the 21st century city that needs to be efficient, agile, affordable, and more equitable for all Austin residents.”

While Project Connect had the potential to benefit the Austin community, Cocco sees the plan as a “bait and switch scheme.”

The group wants city leaders to stop the tax, revisit the project, and ask Austinites to vote on it again.

Note that previous Project Connect lawsuits remain unresolved.

At this point it’s obvious that Austin voters were sold a bill of goods. They’ve coughed up a lot of taxes and gotten an underutilized toy train that doesn’t meet the promises made in the bond language. The entire project should be scrapped and money returned to taxpayers. Of course, that would mean Austin’s ruling political establishment would have to admit they were wrong and give up control of a big bucket of money, so we know that’s not happening without a fight…

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Posted in Austin, Democrats, Texas | 5 Comments »

Wilco LivePD Pissing Match: Take Two

Thursday, May 7th, 2020

Dwight sent this over, and it’s certainly something:

Williamson County commissioners took a step toward suing Sheriff Robert Chody when they voted Tuesday to hire lawyers for a possible lawsuit over a contract he signed for the “Live PD” television show.

LivePD is sort of “NFL RedZone for Cops.”

Chody did not get permission from the Williamson County Commissioners Court before he signed an agreement in March allowing Big Fish Entertainment, the production company for “Live PD,” to resume filming sheriff’s deputies.

In August, the commissioners canceled the county’s contract with “Live PD” after the show had come under fire from prosecutors and defense attorneys who cited a lack of access to potential evidence gathered by film crews, and from officials who said it portrayed the county in a poor light.

Chody did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. He has hired, at his own expense, attorney Eric Taube to represent him, Taube said in an email Tuesday.

“While the sheriff would have preferred to resolve this issue with the commissioners with civil discussion and dialogue, it appears that the commissioners would rather attempt to go down a different path,” Taube said.

“The sheriff is happy to resolve this issue based upon the law and not on politics, and will look forward to continue to exercise his discretion as a law enforcement officer to serve the citizens of Williamson County as he believes most effective.”

Taube did not respond to a request for comment on why the sheriff decided to sign an agreement with the production company without getting permission from the Commissioners Court, as had happened with the original contract.

Jason Nassour, general counsel for Williamson County Attorney Dee Hobbs, sent the commissioners a letter Friday saying that, although the commissioners have the power to determine the sheriff’s budget, they cannot “decide how an official uses those resources once allocated and may not micromanage an official’s decisions as to the use of those resources.”

The letter also said that what the sheriff signed with Big Fish Entertainment was not a contract but an access agreement.

“The court has attempted to assert control based on the premise that the access agreement is a contract rather than what is actually is the sheriff’s lawful authorization to allow Big Fish representatives into those areas controlled by the sheriff,” the letter said.

Commissioners have disagreed, saying what the sheriff signed was a contract and that the law gives the county control over how the sheriff’s facilities and equipment are used.

Austin attorney and former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire said Tuesday, “The sheriff has almost no authority to contract with a vendor without approval by the Commissioners Court.”

“But the sheriff has independent authority to operate his office, including deciding who can and who cannot be present on calls the deputies go out on. Having disputes between county officials that give rise to litigation is not common, but there have been plenty of them over the decades.”

On Tuesday, the Commissioners Court unanimously hired the law firm of Howry Breen & Herman LLP and the law office of Randy Leavitt to represent the county in the dispute.

“We are in the middle of a disaster, a pandemic, and people are sick, and people are losing their jobs … and the sheriff is playing on TV,” Commissioner Russ Boles said after the court approved hiring the lawyers.

County Judge Bill Gravell abstained from voting on the hiring of the law firm and said he would not take part in the discussion of it in executive session. Gravell said there were “attorneys involved” that would cause him to abstain. He made no further comments.

You may remember my post on the original LivePD ban, which seemed to be in response to various non-PC events at the Sheriff’s office.

Chody reinstating LivePD after the Commissioner’s Court banned it once suggests there’s some sort of deeper pissing match going on there. Chody was an APD officer before he and his wife literally literally won the lottery, which would suggest that money isn’t a factor in his insistence on keeping LivePD filming.

Both Chody and three-quarters of the commissioner’s court (along with Gravell) are Republicans, but the commissioner’s court voted unanimously to fill a cease-and-desist letter over LivePD. Chody attended President Donald Trump’s 2019 State of the union address at the invitation of Congressman John Carter.

Does Chody like the fame LivePD brings him? Probably. Does the commissioner’s court have a grudge against him? Probably. But it feels like something else is going on here, and I’m not sure what it is.

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Posted in Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »