Posts Tagged ‘Brad Johnson’

Roundup For Today’s Texas Runoff

Tuesday, May 28th, 2024

If you live in Texas, today is primary runoff election day. In particular, Dade Phelan and a whole lot of his coalition cronies are fighting to stay in power, and voters can slam the door shut on them today.

Brad Johnson at The Texan has an overview of what’s a stake in today’s runoff.

House District (HD) 21 is the largest chip on the table and the warring sides in this raging intra-GOP trench war have gone all-in.

Including third-party groups, more than $12 million is likely to be spent on both sides of the clash between Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) and David Covey. The challenger beat the incumbent by 3 points in the primary, but this round is winner-take-all.

Not only is a legislative seat on the line, but so is a speakership, one that comes with lots of influence for the area — a fact that’s been fashioned into an argument by Phelan and team.

The last time a speaker lost re-election was in 1972, though it was a substantially different circumstance.

Legislative hopes for next session are on the line — both in terms of what Phelan himself hopes to accomplish in 2025 and for everything that may end up on the chopping block should he and other incumbents survive, opening the door for a kind of revenge tour against Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Patrick’s legacy as one of the most influential and powerful politicians in Texas history is already cemented. But he never likes losing a fight; he wouldn’t be where he is if he did. To that end, Patrick wants to ensure the speaker with whom he’s feuded so prolifically and publicly meets his political end on Tuesday…and Phelan hopes to deny Patrick what he wants yet again.

The lieutenant governor has likened the speaker to everything under the sun except the first over the wall at the Alamo. And the speaker has returned fire in-kind. Fences can always be mended, but this fence is more like the Great Wall of China or the Trump border wall that was never finished.

Should the speaker escape his political doom tonight, it’s more likely than not that slings and arrows will again be lobbed as the Legislature is eventually brought to a grinding halt.

Whether they’ll admit it publicly or not, more members than one might believe think Phelan will retain the speakership in that scenario; pour one out for all the “the King is dead”-type of columns written right after the primary.

And if Phelan loses tonight, that’ll mark the true beginning of the 2025 House speaker race. Jockeying for position behind the scenes has been going on since November, but at that point it would significantly ramp up.

The bomb-throwing contingent on the right of the House GOP caucus is bigger than it’s ever been and will have a legitimate run at pushing for various reforms. And after their faction won the Texas GOP chairmanship, the political relevance that waxed last year and during the primary waxed further.

Instead of “bomb thrower” I’d call them “the Republican wing of the Republican Party,” the one that actually wants to enact conservative policies and the one that doesn’t want to rule at the head of a Democrat-dominated coalition. Unlike Phelan.

Given widespread Republican dissatisfaction with Phelan’s faction, who is throwing money to keep Phelan’s toadies in office? Gambling interests.

Special interest casino gambling is spending big to protect incumbents who have carried their water in the Texas legislature.

According to campaign finance reports filed on Monday, Sands PAC donated nearly $650,000 in a mixture of races, including returning incumbents, failed candidates, and those taking part in primary runoff elections,

Already defeated incumbent Kronda Thimesch (R-Lewisville) received $54,000 from the PAC following her loss to attorney Mitch Little in the March primary. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo), who notched an unimpressive primary victory in March, received $25,000.

Embattled House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) received $100,000 in direct contributions from the Sands PAC and $512,163 in-kind spending, which the Speaker and other candidates obtained from a newly formed and well-funded vehicle for Sands and its owner.

Earlier this week, Texas Scorecard reported on the political spending of the “Texas Defense” PAC, a newly established committee funded by Miriam Adelson, the owner of Sands Casino.

Along with Phelan, the Texas Defense PAC supports embattled incumbents Frederick Frazier, Justin Holland, John Kuempel, and John McQueeney, a candidate for the open seat vacated by State Rep. Craig Goldman.

Frederick Frazier’s felony-plagued candidacy received $496,000 from the Defense PAC and $50,000 from Sands, as did Holland.

Seguin-based State Rep. John Kuempel also received $50,000 from Sands. Kuempel’s father, the late John Kuempel, was a proponent of expanded gambling and authored measures during his time in the legislature to that end.

Alan Schoolcraft, a former lawmaker, is challenging Kuempel and has the backing of Gov. Greg Abbott after Kuempel voted to strip school choice from an omnibus education bill in 2023.

All incumbent lawmakers forced into runoffs (Frazier, Holland, Kuempel) voted to expand gambling in Texas during the 2023 legislative session, despite the issue not being a priority for Texas voters. The only incumbent who missed out on funding and voted likewise was Gary VanDeaver (R-New Boston).

Democrats Jarvis Johnson and Nathan Johnson (no relation) received $50,000 and $9,000 in funding from Sands, respectively.

Today will also decided the runoff between gun YouTuber Brandon Herrera and incumbent Tony Gonzales for the 23rd Congressional District.

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Posted in Elections, Republicans, Texas | 3 Comments »

Biden Administration: You’re Not Exporting Any Of That Dirty, Sinful Natural Gas! Ted Cruz: Guess You Don’t Need Any Of These Department Of Energy Nominees Approved, Then. Biden Administration: [Folds]

Wednesday, December 21st, 2022

The Biden Administration, in its never-ending quest to punish the oil and gas industry for supplying cheap, reliable energy, tried to block the export of liquefied natural gas to Asia. Then Ted Cruz stepped in.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the approval of permits to export liquefied natural gas to Asia after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) held four agency nominees hostage.

Two Sempra Energy facilities on the West Coast will now be able to ship Texas-produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Asia, increasing the supply that competes with Russia to fuel the rest of the continent. They will also allow the transport of LNG supplies by pipeline to Mexico.

The approvals come after the Biden administration’s reticence and Cruz’s corresponding holds placed on four nominees to positions in the DOE. Those nominees are David Crane, to work under DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm; Jeffrey Matthew Marootian and Gene Rodrigues, both nominated to serve as assistant secretaries; and Evelyn Wang, up for director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

A Senate procedural tool, the hold is “an informal practice by which a senator informs Senate leadership that he or she does not wish a particular measure or nomination to reach the floor for consideration.”

Cruz used a similar maneuver back in May to force permit approvals, including one for a Port Arthur facility.

“This decision is a long overdue win for Texas and America,” Cruz spokesman Dave Vasquez said in a statement provided to The Texan.

“These permits will enable West Coast liquefied natural gas export facilities to send U.S. natural gas from Texas and other Western states by pipeline to Mexico, and from there export the LNG to Asia. As a result, American allies and partners in Asia will have access to newer and cleaner alternatives to the coercive energy blackmail pushed by Russia and China.”

The permits will enable the cheaper sale of Texas LNG supply to Asia; it also enables shippers to avoid the congested Panama Canal, thus expediting the supply. In total, the two permits will allow the exchange of 2.33 trillion cubic feet per year of LNG.

In 2021, Texas producers generated 10.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

It’s good to have a senator on your side that knows how to play the game…

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Posted in Regulation, Republicans, Texas | 5 Comments »

More Donna ISD Weirdness: Active Shooters Thwarted?

Wednesday, June 1st, 2022

This is a small post-Uvalde-shooting story that I might not have posted had it not happened in Donna ISD.

Four students at a high school in Donna, TX were arrested last week for making terroristic threats towards their school just days after the Uvalde shooting.

Two 17-year-old males — Barbarito Pantoja and Nathaniel Montelongo — were arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Both were held on $750,000 bond. That charge, if convicted, carries with it up to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000.

An anonymous tip was made on the same day as the Uvalde shooting in which 21 people, including 19 children, were murdered.

Police investigated the tip, which led to the arrest of Pantoja and Montelongo, along with two other students, to-date unnamed juveniles, who were also arraigned last week.

Classes resumed Tuesday in Donna Independent School District after the administration canceled classes for the week once discovering the threat. “We’ve received a credible threat of violence that is currently under investigation,” the district’s statement to parents read. “In light of the recent events and in an abundance of caution, we will be canceling school district-wide and staff will work from home.”

According to initial reports, an AK-47 and a “hit list” were found at the home of one of the students, but Donna Police Chief Gilbert Guerrero later said his department found no such list and did not specify whether a firearm was found.

Time to dig this handy visual aid out again:

Absent an actual weapon, I suspect there’s less to this story than meets the eye, and is probably nothing more than a case of disgruntled teenagers shooting their mouths off. What really caught my eye was the fact this happened in Donna ISD, which punches well above its weight for stories of weirdness and corruption. Previous Donna ISD stories:

  • School board members were convicted of extortion.
  • $1 million in missing funds.
  • Vote-Buying and Suicide Over a School Board Election?

    • And that’s to say nothing of Round Rock ISD importing sketchy Superintendent Hafedh Azaiez from Donna ISD.

    I don’t know what it is, but Donna ISD produces more notable news stories than every other Rio Grande Valley school district combined.

    Maybe there’s a South Texas version of the South Florida Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet…

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    Posted in Crime, Texas | 3 Comments »

    Austin City Council Wants To Pay People $1,000 A Month For Breathing, Rake Off Graft For The Radical Left

    Wednesday, April 20th, 2022

    The Austin City Council, always on the cutting edge of finding new ways to waste taxpayer money, has come up with a doozy: paying people $1,000 a month for breathing.

    The Austin City Council will consider approval of a $1.18 million universal basic income (UBI) pilot program that will award 85 families $1,000 per month for one year.

    It is part of the “Mayors for Guaranteed Income” initiative of which Austin Mayor Steve Adler is a member, along with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg. “Even prior to the pandemic, people who were working two and three jobs still couldn’t afford basic necessities,” reads that website.

    “COVID-19 has only further exposed the economic fragility of most American households, and has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown people.”

    At a Monday morning roundtable about the topic, Adler said that a couple years ago when this topic was first broached with him, he was initially “questioning of such a program.”

    “There’s always a question about using taxpayer dollars [this way],” Adler said, adding, “[but here the beneficiaries] might know better than we do how to spend this money.”

    I’m pretty sure that the average Austin taxpayer knows that they know better how to spend their own money than letting the Austin City Council hand it out to randos. (Actully, I doubt it will be handed out to rando or “deserving” families; I fully expect it to be yet another mechanism to rake off graft to the hard left.)

    The first such program began in Stockton, California in 2020 and it has extended to dozens across the country.

    On the council’s Thursday agenda, the pilot program falls under the city’s Equity Office and the funding will come out of the General Revenue fund. Chief Equity Officer Brion Oaks said on Monday that the pilot will inform the city of best practices to implement a larger program down the road.

    You may remember Brion Oaks from such hits as “Defund The Police And Give All The Money To Leftwing Activists.” What do you think the odds are that the families Oaks will pick for this program will have connections to radical leftwing Democratic social justice activists?

    The program’s design, including which families will take part, is still up in the air and will begin to be sorted out after the council approves the item this week. He did say that “housing insecurity” will be prioritized in that selection process — something loosely defined but may include eviction history, poverty status, and applicants’ ability to pay bills on time.

    Deadbeats only need apply.

    UpTogether, which runs a nationwide private UBI program, is the vendor chosen to oversee the program which is estimated to begin either in late May or early June should the council approve it. Oaks said the $1,000 figure was arrived at as roughly half of the average monthly rent in the City of Austin.

    UpTogether is run by FII-NATIONAL, and both of which are run by Jesus Gerena, whose own biography describes UpTogether as “an antiracist change organization.” So the radical leftwing social justice warrior Austin City Council wants to take taxpayer money and have radical social justice warrior Brion Oaks oversee radical social justice warrior-run UpTogether run the program.

    Why, it’s almost like a pattern.

    What do you want to bet that there will be no external oversight to the program, and that privacy rules will prevent us from ever learning which “families” will be chosen to receive such taxpayer-funded largess?

    Even by the standards of welfare statism, this is an egregious misuse of taxpayer money to fund radical leftwing pilot programs.

    The City Council will reportedly be voting on this idiocy on Thursday. Austin taxpayers who oppose it should show up and say so.

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Welfare State | 3 Comments »

    Election Day! Go Vote!

    Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021

    Today’s Election Day in Texas, Virginia, and several other states! If you haven’t already voted early, find your voter registration card, grab your ID and head off to the polls!

  • Travis County polling locations.
  • Williamson County polling locations.

    • Now a few election roundup bits:

  • Tons of out-of-state money is flowing in to defeat Pro A.

    Among several reforms, the proposition would enact the nationally recognized “Safe City Standard” in Austin to require two police officers per 1,000 citizens.

    Texas Scorecard previously reported that New York billionaire George Soros recently intruded into Austin and gave $500,000 to oppose Proposition A. Now, other big players are joining him. Washington, D.C.-based labor union The Fairness Project and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (the largest trade union of government employees in the nation) are also pumping money to defeat the citizen-led effort.

    The Fairness Project, which has previously supported harmful employer mandates in Texas, poured in $200,000 to kill the police campaign, while the big-government union tossed in $25,000.

  • More background on the Austin Justice Coalition, the main local anti Prop A group:

    Founded by Chas Moore, the AJC has reached new heights of influence within the City of Austin. Before launching the coalition, Moore “served as a student activist fighting many social issues at The University of Texas at Austin and in the broader Austin Community.”

    Snip.

    Moore describes himself ideologically as a “liberal, radical, abolitionist, [and] afrofuturist.” He founded AJC in 2015.

    According to the Internal Revenue Service, AJC had its tax exempt status revoked in August of 2019 for failing to file a Form-990 return for three consecutive years.

    Moore said that there was a misunderstanding between himself and the organization financing AJC at the time, the Texas Fair Defense Project, as to who was responsible for the tax filings. He said that the misstep was rectified by filing backdated 990s and their status was reinstated in 2020.

    Under Moore’s tutelage, AJC has prodded the progressive-dominated city council to adopt a sea change in policies.

    One of AJC’s biggest triumphs includes its successful effort lobbying council to scrap a 2017 APD labor agreement and the eventual final product that included the creation of the city’s Office of Police Oversight — which expanded on the responsibilities of its predecessor, the Office of the Police Monitor. Another more recent and monumental gain is the 2020 cut and redirection of $150 million from the Austin Police Department (APD) budget.

    Other big issues AJC and its sister organizations, such as Texas Appleseed, the Texas Fair Defense Project, and Just Liberty, pushed for include a 2017 ordinance mandating the municipal court prioritize personal recognizance (PR) bonds for defendants classified as indigent, the subsequent ousting of five judges who did not abide the policy change, and the 2019 recission of the citywide prohibition on camping and laying.

  • In Virginia, more gaslighting by the same people who hired the fake “white supremacists”:

  • Man, Terry McAuliffe sure likes to hire jerks:

    What’s wrong with not just saying “Sorry, he’s not taking questions” rather than yelling “THANK YOU FOR COMING” over and over again?

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Texas | 9 Comments »

    Austin Police Department Morale Hits Bottom

    Wednesday, October 20th, 2021

    When we last checked in on the Austin Police Department, it was plagued by staffing issues due to the City of Austin defunding the police and cancelling two cadet classes, as well as Travis County DA Jose Garza’s refusing to prosecute numerous felonies, thus putting numerous criminal back on the streets to commit more crimes.

    Now this piece from Brad Johnson paints a picture of an undermanned department with a morale crisis.

    The Austin Police Department (APD) is bleeding 15 to 22 officers per month as those departing join other departments or leave law enforcement entirely. With them goes decades of irreplaceable experience and left over is a void the City of Austin aims to fill with green recruits and a “reimagined” approach to public safety.

    Political upheaval in Austin is not unlike any other situation in big cities across the country. Mass protests swept Austin as they did the nation last year after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, preceded by months of societal discord caused by the pandemic and related government shutdowns.

    That was followed by grandiose promises by progressive politicians to “reimagine” the way police interact with their community.

    Currently, APD has 200 vacancies and 104 officers on leave on top of the 150 positions eliminated during the 2020 budget cut and redirection. The department’s average response time ballooned from seven minutes to nearly 10 minutes since the summer of 2020. Specialized units are being disbanded and the officers who stay are being redeployed to street patrol to fill the gaps.

    Snip.

    Michele Aparicio first joined APD in 1997. She lasted 23 years with the department before retiring in 2020 a few months into the pandemic.

    Aparicio, a Hispanic, told The Texan that morale has long been a problem within APD and pointed to leadership and its internal decisions as its cause. “Surely seniority and experience had always played a role in promotions, but it got to the point where demographics took precedence over all else,” Aparicio said.

    This, Aparicio said, had plagued the department’s morale and devolved into poisonous interactions with its leadership.

    “There was a point where we had a meeting with Chief Manley and I asked him what he was going to do for morale, and he just put it back on me as a supervisor,” Aparicio said, adding that she was later approached by one of her superiors who informed her Manley didn’t approve of the interaction.

    “I had a lot of respect for Acevedo, he had his flaws, but he was not scared to speak up for what he believed and for all the officers of APD,” said Kyle Sargent, a former APD officer of 15 years.

    Contrasting Acevedo with Manley, Sargent added that he felt the latter began falling more in line and catering his decisions with the city council in mind — then beginning to lurch even further left than it already had been. Officer morale, Sargent said, took a hit with that transition and as Manley’s tenure unfolded, but nothing sped up the trend like what’s unfolded since.

    Snip.

    One contributing factor Aparicio identified was the racial sensitivity trainings officers were put through. “They were literally calling us racist and homophobic officers — a whole class designed to make it seem like we were guilty of being racist, of being homophobic, and that we treated other people differently,” Aparicio said.

    “It wasn’t presented as something like ‘Hey, this is what the nation is going through.’ No, it was presented as APD needs this because y’all are a bunch of racists.”

    “So, the morale was already s— to begin with and then this was forced upon us,” Aparicio emphasized. During those classes, she added, the presenters faced some serious pushback from the APD rank and file and so they “were toned down a little bit.”

    But it didn’t end there.

    Continuing that trend, this year the Austin City Council entered a contract with a consulting firm to provide racial sensitivity training for its police heavily imbued with critical race theory teachings. The city is paying the consultant $10,000 per day.

    See more on that story here.

    Things are about to get worse.

    A change in that buying forward rate is coming early next year. Sargent told The Texan he’s heard as many as 150 to 200 officers could leave in January next year before the change starts in February.

    That would be over 13 percent of the current APD employment leaving in the blink of an eye.

    When officers leave, they are often able to purchase their gun and badge as mementos of their career. But when Sargent resigned, this courtesy was denied to him per a new policy from interim Chief Chacon.

    “It was just vindictive — I felt like he was just trying to punish us for leaving and it sort of put an exclamation point on my decision,” Sargent said. “It’s a small thing but it’s that kind of stuff that just brings morale from low to even lower.”

    Other APD tidbits:

  • Speaking of low staffing:

  • Even critical departments are undermanned:

  • Making it worse: cadets that contract Flu Manchu are being told to quit…or be terminated:

    • It’s going to take proposition A passing in November to keep things from getting much, much worse.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Texas | 12 Comments »

    Austin Update For January 17, 2021

    Sunday, January 17th, 2021

    Austin news has been accumulating in heaps in drifts like trash strewn from a homeless encampment in a public park. So let’s grab a shovel:

  • First up: the case of the missing $6 million:

    More than $6 million in taxpayer money flowed to Austin nonprofits affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but taxpayers might never learn the identities of the organizations that got the money or get a chance to dig into their stated need for assistance.

    Citing a little-known state law that government transparency experts are only now learning exists, the city has refused to turn over a list of the 365 nonprofits that were granted the funds.

    The $6 million was funneled through the city from the federal government and distributed out of the Austin Nonprofit and Civic Health Organizations Relief fund, more commonly known as the ANCHOR fund.

    On Oct. 19, the American-Statesman requested a list from the city of the fund’s award recipients. On Nov. 16, the city denied the newspaper’s request, saying in a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that it thought the information was exempt from public disclosure and requested that Paxton’s office affirm that determination.

    The law invoked by the city’s legal department, House Bill 3175, went on the books after the 2019 Texas legislative session.

    Filed by state Rep. Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont, the bill made confidential the name and other identifying information of individuals and businesses that apply for state or federal disaster recovery funds. The definition of disaster, as spelled out in the law, includes such things as floods, earthquakes and hostile military action. It also includes epidemics, such as the COVID-19 crisis.

    The disclosure of federal relief dollars is not exempted from public records if the money is awarded by the federal government. For example, news organizations, including the Statesman, have obtained through public records the names of businesses that received financial assistance through the federal Paycheck Protection Program.

    But under the new state law, Austin was able to withhold the identities of businesses that received assistance from the ANCHOR fund because the money, although originally from the federal government, went to the city before it was distributed to the nonprofits.

    I just naturally assume the money was handed out as graft to members of the Homeless Industrial Complex, Greg Casar’s leftwing cronies, and various antifa/#BlackLivesMatter riot instigators (I’m sure there’s a lot of overlap between those categories).

  • Speaking of the homeless, Austin’s homeless situation continues to get even more out-of-hand. “It’s not uncommon to walk out the door and find a pile of human feces on the patio behind us.”
  • A close, personal look at the problem:

  • If you live in Austin, you have until tomorrow (Monday, January 18) to sign the petition to reinstate the homeless camping ban. Go here to sign the petition.
  • There’s also a petition drive to recall various City Council members who reinstated the homeless ban. But you have to live in their respective districts to sign the petition.
  • I know you’re going to be shocked, shocked to find out that the City of Austin give preferential treatment to leftwing businessesin the form of property tax breaks…including one for Mayor Steve Adler’s own law firm.
  • Matt Mackowiak and Brad Johnson discuss the Austin homeless problem.

    • As the cherry on top, the City of Austin’s Stage 5 Wuhan coronavirus restrictions are still in effect through February 16…

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 3 Comments »

    Austin Police Defunding/Homeless Update

    Thursday, August 20th, 2020

    In a follow-up to last week’s police defunding story, here are a few tidbits of Austin news related to police defunding, Adler’s bumsvilles, etc.

  • Texas Governor Greg Abbott says he will freeze property taxes for cities that defund the police.

    “[T]hey will lose the lifeblood of the revenues they receive from property taxes in Texas,” Abbott explained. “What this does, in English, is it is going to defund cities and cities’ ability to operate at all if they try to defund law enforcement.

    “We believe in law enforcement in Texas and we are not going to allow a replication of the types of policies we’ve seen destroying cities like Seattle and Portland and others.”

    Abbott accused such liberal precincts of “caving to the forces of socialism” even as crime increases, and added that some are allowing their municipalities to be “hijacked.”

    “So Texas is laying down a marker and that is, whether it be the city of Austin or another city, such actions are not going to be tolerated. In Texas, we embrace law enforcement, we will not accept turning power over to these socialistic forces that seek to abandon the rule of law and abandon the law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line to keep our communities safe.”

    However, unlike Abbott’s various Wuhan Coronavirus mandates, this will require the Texas legislature to enact, which won’t happen until next year. And Socialist Austin city councilman Greg Casar says it won’t deter his anti-police agenda.

  • Meanwhile, Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell blasted Austin’s defunding vote and asked Gov. Abbott to send more law enforcement. “In the correspondence, Gravell blasts Austin City Council members for cuts to the Austin Police Department valued at $150 million — including some $20 million in immediate budget cuts and a transfer of several departments away from police oversight to civilian functions, such as interacting with the homeless and dealing with mental health-related cuts.”

    It always seems to go back to the decision to make Austin bumsville, doesn’t it?

  • Brad Johnson of The Texan brings us news of what a trash heap Adler’s bums have made of the Windsor Park area of east Austin:

    “There were thousands of pounds of trash, human waste, and needles washing through our backyards and the creek bed.”

    Kevin Ludlow struck a nerve after posting his time-lapse video of the Windsor Park creek, which runs from Cameron Rd., into the neighborhood behind Ludlow’s house, and continues east. It even runs past a new community pool and water park.

    The video in question:

    The portion of creek bed which runs the length of the Heritage at Hillcrest apartment complex, behind his back yard, and down a couple of blocks further is prime real estate for the city’s growing homeless population because of its shade and relative seclusion.

    Since the beginning of 2020, Ludlow noted the population of homeless individuals living in the creek bed grew to a few hundred people until its apex a couple of weeks ago. A storm came on July 31, causing the creek to flood and wash the piles of debris further down the area.

    The issues that have arisen downtown and in the city’s business-heavy districts have been well-documented, but it has extended beyond these areas.

    Snip.

    In his video, Ludlow was able to record footage of campers smoking crack and shooting up heroin. Multiple times, campers became confrontational over his documentation.

    He added that because regular syringes can be hard to come by, campers turn to insulin needles — which are much smaller both in length and tip — of which he’s found numerous on the ground.

    He underscored, “I’m a pretty progressive-left guy, but [allowing homeless camping] has helped nobody, especially the homeless.”

    Snip.

    Back in October, Austin Police Department Chief Brian Manley reported statistics showing a 15 percent increase in violent crimes wherein both the victim and the suspect were homeless from July through September of 2019 compared with the same time frame the previous year.

    Austin’s homeless problem has been growing for decades, but a watershed moment occurred last year.

    In June of 2019, the Austin City Council approved the rescission of its public camping and lying ban. It went into effect in July and has led to a massive uptick in the unsheltered homeless population ever since, as more transients made camp on public property ranging anywhere from parks, sidewalks, underpasses, and more.

    The city’s stated intention was that the policy change would bring the homeless population into sheltered facilities wherein they could receive whatever aid they needed.

    In this year’s homeless population survey, the city recorded a 45 percent increase in its unsheltered population and an 11 percent decrease in those sheltered. There was an unmistakable incentive to leave shelters or the woods and live on the streets.

    The city eventually reinstated some of the restrictions in place before July 2019 but stopped well short of fully reinstating the ban. The issue has grown substantially and fractured the community and its elected council considerably.

    Read the whole thing.

  • Speaking of crime and the homeless:

  • Things that make you go “hmmmm”: “Austin council member Jimmy Flannigan has received more than $17,000 in contributions from members of a real estate development company that has worked on several city projects, as well as a lobbying firm that has many real estate, business and events clients, according to his latest campaign finance report.”
  • Speaking of Jimmy Flannigan:

    “Funding that upholds our dignity.” What bilious, gaseous nonsense. What he probably meant to say is “the graft that lines our pockets.”

  • Cahnman floats a radical solution: revoke the City of Austin’s charter, abolish the city council and have functions carried out by the county and state.

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    Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Texas | No Comments »