Immodest Proposal: Tax The Homeless

February 10th, 2021

Remember how Governor Greg Abbott said he was going to clear homeless camps out from under bridges and highway overpasses in Austin? TxDOT was supposed to enforce that edict for state highway underpasses, but I can tell you that every time I drive under the McNeil/183 underpass, that’s not being done.

If highway underpasses are indeed state property, then I have an immodest proposal for solving the problem: The state of Texas should pass a law taxing homeless camping under state highway overpasses.

After all, subsidize something (like the Austin City Council has done for homelessness) and you get more of it. Tax it, and you get less of it.

Want to pitch a tent under a state overpass? Fine. then you can pay $10 a night for the privilege. That’s still cheaper than renting an apartment, but no longer free, and it helps to offset the considerable expense of cleaning up those homeless camps. But contrast, designated homeless areas like Camp RATT in East Austin would remain free, theoretically providing incentives for the homeless to take up legal residence elsewhere.

Gov. Abott has once again been warning Austin that if they don’t reinstate the camping ban, he’ll take action:

All well and good, but we’ve heard this before, and the problem continues to get worse:

Something certainly needs to be done about the situation. Issuing press releases and throwing more money at the problem to be siphoned into the pockets of leftwing activists isn’t going to solve the problem.

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Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 10 Comments »

Biden’s CIA Pick Runs Think Tank Filthy With Chinese Money

February 9th, 2021

Well, this seems like a huge conflict of interest:

William J. Burns, who is President Joe Biden’s nominee for director of the CIA, is president of a think tank that has received up to $2 million from a Chinese businessman as well as from a think tank with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

As president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Burns also invited nearly a dozen congressional staffers to attend a junket to China, where they met with a communist party operative and a president of a Chinese front group.

Burns, who was paid $540,580 last year as president of Carnegie, will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a confirmation hearing likely to be held this month. He has been president of Carnegie since March 2015.

During Burns’ tenure at Carnegie, a businessman named Zhang Yichen joined the think tank’s board of trustees.

“We are very fortunate to have Zhang Yichen on our board,” Burns, a former deputy secretary of state, said in a statement in October 2016. “I look forward to working with him to make Carnegie an even finer institution.”

Zhang, the CEO of CITIC Consulting, a China-based investment firm, donated between $500,000 and $999,999 to Carnegie from July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2018, according to Carnegie’s website. He gave between $250,000 and $549,999 in the 2020 fiscal year, according to Carnegie’s 2020 annual report.

Zhang is a member of two organizations linked to the Chinese Communist Party, according to his biography at CITIC Capital: the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the Center for China and Globalization.

Can you imagine any Cold War president nominating a CIA director who worked for a think tank that took Soviet money? “Sure, Hubert J. Kissup’s Detente Institute took money from the Young Communist League, but you should confirm him because he’s a swell guy!”

Notice how quickly our garbage elites went from “Ivanaka Trump sells clothing in Russia! This is a huge conflict of interest!” to “CIA director bringing in a half million dollars in Communist Chinese money at his last gig? Nothing to see here! Move along, pleb!”

President Trump’s list of his administration’s accomplishments cites numerous instances of confronting and reigning-in communist China. However, Democratic Party grandees seem far more concerned with sucking up to, appeasing, and profiting off China than confronting it. From Hunter Biden’s documented payoffs from China to universities taking money from China to Hollywood studios bowing to censorship pressure to attempting to repress any mention of the possibility that the Wuhan cornavirus escaped from a Chinese lab to getting a case of the vapors over mentioning Flu Manchu as the “China Virus” to a sitting Democratic congressman literally banging a communist spy, our garbage Democratic ruling class is in bed with communist China both literally and figuratively.

The Burns nomination should be rejected on the basis of his Chinese ties alone.

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Posted in Communism, Democrats, Foreign Policy | 1 Comment »

George Shultz, RIP

February 8th, 2021

George Shultz, who served as Secretary of State for Ronald Reagan for six years, died yesterday at age 100.

Reagan assumed the presidency at a time when the existence of the Soviet Union and its domination of eastern Europe was regarded as an immutable fact of world politics. Taking office after Alexander Haig, Shultz helped implement Reagan’s vision of containing and rolling back communism across the globe. From supporting Solidarity in Poland, to backing anticommunist rebels in Reagan Doctrine countries like Afghanistan and Nicaragua, to the liberation of Grenada, to deploying intermediate nuclear missiles in Europe, to a hundred other policies, the Reagan Administration pressed Soviet communism in ways that would eventually force not only the liberation of Eastern Europe, but the demise of the Soviet Union itself. Shultz would play a key role in keeping American allies onboard with the program, and eventually in negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that would lead to the end of the Cold War.

Compared to Haig, Shultz was a low-key, drama-free professional who skillfully kept a wide variety of western governments broadly aligned with American goals, and for that he deserves credit. That he was wrong about much outside the Cold War (the gold standard, carbon taxes, and Brexit, to name but three) should not take away from his central achievement. With James A. Baker III, Secretary of State under Bush 41 (who largely followed the policies laid down under Reagan), Shultz presided over the most successful period of post-World War II diplomacy in American history, and his achievements were far more lasting than those under flashier Secretaries of State like Henry Kissinger or Colin Powell.

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Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy | No Comments »

Mike Lindell’s Absolute Truth Documentary on 2020 Presidential Election Fraud

February 7th, 2021

I kept meaning to put up this 2020 Presidential election fraud documentary by Mike Lindell (the MyPillow CEO), but YouTube keeps taking it down, so here’s a BitChute version:

I haven’t watched all of it it yet, but it’s more proof that there’s a lot of evidence out that there the 2002 Presidential election was rigged, and that very powerful people in the Democratic Media Complex want to keep you from examining the evidence for yourself. And I wanted to put up a copy that I don’t think is going to disappear…

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Posted in Crime, Elections, Media Watch, video | 4 Comments »

Supreme Court Strikes Down California’s Church Service Ban

February 6th, 2021

Evidently Americans do continue to enjoy some modest minimum of freedom of religion, as the Supreme Court just struck down California’s ban on indoor church services:

Late Friday evening, the Supreme Court, in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, issued emergency relief suspending California’s broad ban on indoor religious services. The Court ruled that California was “enjoined from enforcing the . . . prohibition on indoor worship services . . . pending disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari.” The order is limited: Relief was “denied with respect to the [25%] percentage capacity limitations” and denied with respect to the prohibition on singing and chanting during indoor services,” although the Court left the door open to hear any “new evidence . . . that the State is not applying the percentage capacity limitations or the prohibition on singing and chanting in a generally applicable manner.” This lifts some of the most stringent restrictions on religious services in the country. Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito wanted to grant broader relief on these fronts; Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh thought the evidentiary record was too unclear.

The Court was yet again divided on these issues, but not entirely along the same lines as in prior cases. Chief Justice Roberts, who dissented when the Court ruled against Andrew Cuomo’s restrictions in November, reiterated his view that courts should defer to elected officials and public-health experts, but thought that California had gone too far this time: “The State’s present determination — that the maximum number of adherents who can safely worship in the most cavernous cathedral is zero — appears to reflect not expertise or discretion, but instead insufficient appreciation or consideration of the interests at stake.” Justice Gorsuch argued that California was overgeneralizing the risks of religious services:

California . . . insists that religious worship is so different that it demands especially onerous regulation. The State offers essentially four reasons why: It says that religious exercises involve (1) large numbers of people mixing from different households; (2) in close physical proximity; (3) for extended periods; (4) with singing . . . California errs to the extent it suggests its four factors are always present in worship, or always absent from the other secular activities its regulations allow. Nor has California sought to explain why it cannot address its legitimate concerns with rules short of a total ban . . .

On further inspection, the singing ban may not be what it first appears. It seems California’s powerful entertainment industry has won an exemption. So, once more, we appear to have a State playing favorites during a pandemic, expending considerable effort to protect lucrative industries (casinos in Nevada; movie studios in California) while denying similar largesse to its faithful. . . . Even if a full congregation singing hymns is too risky, California does not explain why even a single masked cantor cannot lead worship behind a mask and a plexiglass shield. Or why even a lone muezzin may not sing the call to prayer from a remote location inside a mosque as worshippers file in.

Gorsuch concluded:

[California’s] “temporary” ban on indoor worship has been in place since August 2020, and applied routinely since March. California no longer asks its movie studios, malls, and manicurists to wait. And one could be forgiven for doubting its asserted timeline. Government actors have been moving the goalposts on pandemic-related sacrifices for months, adopting new benchmarks that always seem to put restoration of liberty just around the corner. As this crisis enters its second year — and hovers over a second Lent, a second Passover, and a second Ramadan — it is too late for the State to defend extreme measures with claims of temporary exigency, if it ever could. Drafting narrowly tailored regulations can be difficult. But if Hollywood may host a studio audience or film a singing competition while not a single soul may enter California’s churches, synagogues, and mosques, something has gone seriously awry.

The three liberal justices dissented, asserting that the opinions of unelected experts should trump enumerated constitutional rights.

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Posted in Supreme Court | 2 Comments »

LinkSwarm for February 5, 2020

February 5th, 2021

Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! The Biden Administration is moving full speed ahead hard left:

  • Kurt Schlichter: The Matrix has you:

    There’s nothing more tiresome than hackneyed references to The Matrix, except for the constant propaganda we’re hosed down with by the Establishment and its media lackeys about how everything is groovy in our totally free, free enterprise paradise of freedom and happiness and more freedom. Some of us have been woke for a while, having realized the undeniable truth that the system is rigged for the benefit of a garbage ruling class, whose sole accomplishment is to perpetuate a paradigm in which they maintain power and prestige by controlling institutions they didn’t create or build. Instead, they are cultural trust fund babies, the equivalent of third generation Kennedy brats with substance issues who got into power by getting into the right schools and modeling the right SJW attitudes. These oligarch overseers rely on us to toil in their figurative fields while they sit on their figurative porches, sipping locally-sourced figurative mint juleps.

    I say burn it all down and rebuild America into what it is supposed to be, that is, what they tell us it is when they lie to us.

    I’m not alone. We’re primed for some conservative anarchy. The normals’ resistance cannot be quelled; the revolution will be Telegrammed. Everyone’s gobbling up red pills, the one medication our incompetent Establishment is fully capable of distributing efficiently and effectively. You drop one and you see the Matrix. You see the lie. You see that it’s all rigged.

    Snip.

    I mentioned GameStop and these ladies not only knew what it was, but they cheered the armchair day trader anarchists. And they booed the hedge funders.

    Rich Orange County Republicans booed the hedge funders.

    And they booed Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, with one exception, Nikki! Haley too. The ones who had heard of the Bulwark booed it as well, so there were like three of those.

    Populists in pearls, fully red pilled and woke as hell. They saw how the Establishment has been lying to them. They realized that they were never really members of the ruling caste despite their sweet rides and bank accounts. They were allowed its material trappings, but they were excluded from the real power, the power to govern themselves.

    They have more in common with the Keystone pipeline worker John Kerry wants to go make solar panels – which seems unrealistic, since his Chi Com collaborators make them all – than with the rich and truly powerful elite.

    People are getting woke – the red pill is socio-political anti-Ambien because it keeps you from falling back asleep and not seeing that everything is rigged.

    They see how the ruling caste allows you this little band of autonomy, and how you are allowed some leeway to improve your material life, but the instant you try to assert power that threatens the status quo, the Matrix kicks in and its immune system reacts to snuff you out.

    That was the revelation of the GameStop Revolution. You’re allowed to put your money into Wall Street and they might let you take some pennies out, but if you try to go big and play at the same level as the anointed, oh no. You don’t get to. The system shuts you down – literally. You can’t buy the hot stock. Does that apply to the hedge fund guys? You think they can’t play after you’ve been sidelined? Come on. It’s blatant market manipulation, but Wall Street owns the Asterisk Administration – Treasury Secretary & Lord High Protector of the Masters of the Universe Janet Yellin took nearly a million bucks to “speak” to the lever-pullers behind the RobinHood app – and the Administration owns the SEC, and do you think it will investigate the hedge funders who changed the rules? No, but look for FBI SWAT teams to be hitting the basements where the Reddit rebels live. That is, right after they bust more conservative meme guys for illegal memes.

    Read the whole thing.

  • Are Democrats trying to infect the military with Social Justice?

    Now, in perhaps the most chilling move yet from the new administration, the newly minted Defense Secretary [Lloyd Austin] plans to direct a military-wide stand down, reportedly to address “extremism” within the ranks.

    Austin wants all military units to take an operational pause to discuss extremism as he works to grasp the full scope of the issue and better address the longstanding problem, John Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, told reporters Wednesday. The pauses are expected to occur within the next 60 days, but Austin has yet to determine how the stand downs are to be completed, Kirby said.

    “The intent is to reinforce the [Pentagon’s] policies and values with respect to this sort of behavior and to have a dialogue with the men and women of the force and to get their views on what they are seeing at their level,” Kirby said. “He wants commands to take the necessary time to … speak with troops about the scope of this problem. It’s a two-way conversation.”

    Austin spoke frankly with the acting service secretaries and uniformed service chiefs about his concerns about extremism in the military, including white supremacism, said Kirby, who attended the meeting. The new defense secretary, who is the first Black leader of the Defense Department, wants the service leaders to better grasp how pervasive the issue is within their formations and work with leaders to stamp it out, Kirby said.

    We have gone in a few short months from President Donald Trump preventing “critical race theory” dogma from being imposed on federal employees to the possibility that the armed services will have to apologize for their privilege.

  • Will fake moderate Biden get pushback for his hard left turn?

    it seems that Biden is intent on provoking just such a pushback by his record number of early and often radical executive orders — a tactic candidate Biden condemned.

    On almost every issue — open borders, blanket amnesties, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, promoting the Green New Deal, and hard-left appointees — Biden is touting positions that likely do not earn 50 percent public support.

    When Biden made a Faustian bargain with his party’s hard-left wing of Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to win the election, he took on the commitment to absorb some of their agenda and to appoint their ideologues.

    But he also soon became either unwilling or unable to stand up to them.

    Now they — and the country — are in a revolutionary frenzy. The San Francisco Board of Education has voted to rename more than 40 schools honoring the nation’s best — Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln — largely on racist grounds that they are dead, mostly white males.

    Statues continue to fall. Names change.

    The iconic dates, origins and nature of America itself continue to be attacked to meet leftist demands. And still, it is not enough for the new McCarthyites.

    Social media are banning tens of thousands. Silicon Valley and Wall Street monopolies go after smaller upstart opponents.

    A wrong word destroys a lifelong career. Formerly sane pundits now call for curtailing the First Amendment. Thousands of federal troops blanket a now-militarized Washington, D.C.

    If Trump’s pushback tried to return to traditions ignored during the Obama years, Biden’s reset promises to become far more radical than Obama’s entire eight years.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Looking at Slow Joe The Unpopular’s approval rating sure as hell doesn’t look like a mandate for radical change:

    Biden has not been above water a single time in the Approval Index rating. This index is the difference between how many likely voters strongly approve and how many strongly disapprove. Total approval has hit 50% once so far…

    This result is astonishing when you think about it. President Biden has the full weight of nearly every corporate media outlet, tech company, and cultural institution behind him. They have been drooling all over themselves to convince us this is a return to unifying normalcy. After all, his favorite ice cream is chocolate chip, and his two German Shepherds just love their new digs. So normal. So unifying.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declares war on Big Tech:

    While other Republican legislators complain and pontificate about Twitter, Facebook and Google’s interference in our elections and censoring of conservative voices, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared war on the tech giants.

    DeSantis is proposing legislation that asks the Florida state legislature to impose stiff fines – up to $100,000 per day – on tech companies that “deplatform” political candidates running for office in his state. Candidates like, for instance, Donald Trump.

    Calling the tech giants “enforcers of preferred narratives” whose interests are “not in the public interest,” DeSantis, a Republican, wants to “ensure the protection of the people and their rights.” His proposed bill would allow individuals and the Florida attorney general to sue firms that violate newly established safeguards against privacy violations and censorship.

    DeSantis also suggested that other activities, such as colluding to ban people or companies from payment platforms or from cloud services, could also be outlawed.

    Presuming that the popular governor can get his measure passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature, it could become a template for the other 23 GOP-led states. It could, in effect, be the beginning of a revolt against the unacceptable dominance and manipulation of our nation’s discourse by Big Tech.

    It’s a start.

    (Hat tip: Real Clear Politics.)

  • The Trump comeback begins:

    Here’s my game plan for how Trump can make Trump and America great again.

    First, Trump must become the kingmaker of the GOP. The Trump Army is 74 million strong. The Republican Party belongs to Trump. He should remake the party in his image.

    In some ways, his defeat was empowering. As president, Trump couldn’t get rid of RINOS and never-Trumpers, because he needed their votes. But from the outside, he can remake the party, elect allies and end the careers of the GOP traitors who stabbed him in the back. Are you listening, Rep. Liz Cheney?

    Trump should recruit, endorse and campaign for Trump Republicans in each GOP primary where they’re running against RINOS, never-Trumpers and backstabbers. Seventy-four million Trump voters will vote for his chosen candidates in GOP primaries. By 2022, the GOP will be 100% remade in Trump’s image.

    Secondly, Trump should spend the next four years fixing voter fraud at the state level. Trump should recruit his billionaire buddies to put up hundreds of millions to attack this problem. Trump’s goal should be to reform election law in just the handful of states that cost him the election: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona.

    If Trump spends his time, money and focus on reforming election laws in those six states, the GOP will be back in business in 2022 and 2024.

    Thirdly, Trump needs to raise billions from his billionaire backers to build TMN: Trump Media Network. That should include a national cable TV network; a national talk radio network; a new version of Drudge Report (called Trump Report); and conservative versions of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Conservatives will never again have to depend on the mainstream media or Silicon Valley to broadcast their news and opinions.

    Only Trump has the money, brand and fundraising ability to change the media and social media landscape like this. And think of the amazing bonus: Not only will 74 million Trump voters have permanent places to communicate but if we all move away from mainstream media and social media, they will collapse. Trump will cripple his enemies and put many of them out of business.

    However, I’m not a fan of Root and others idea of Trump running for the House.

  • Bryan Proffitt, “the Vice President of North Carolina’s largest teachers’ association is a self-avowed Marxist activist linked to Liberation Road – a ‘revolutionary socialist‘ group that follows the teachings of Karl Marx and Mao Zedong.” Sounds like a good reason to put your children in a private school. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • There’s now a website to fight critical race training in education. You might want to bookmark that site. (Hat tip: Kemberlee Kaye.)
  • The Biden Administration hates private space ventures and pulled permission from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to fly. Punishment for Musk supporting the GameStop squeeze? Either way, it’s blow to American space capabilities and a boon for Chinese domination of space. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • Speaking of which: Chicom rocket goes boom.
  • “Joe Biden put me out of business by suspending new oil and gas leases and drilling permits. I am a petroleum geologist and generate drilling prospects in the Rocky Mountains on federal lands. I worked six years to get a prospect ready to drill and Biden just illegally broke the terms of the lease, killing the deal.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Police dismantle world’s ‘most dangerous’ criminal hacking network.”

    International law enforcement agencies said on Wednesday they had dismantled a criminal hacking scheme used to steal billions of dollars from businesses and private citizens worldwide.

    Police in six European countries, as well as Canada and the United States, completed a joint operation to take control of Internet servers used to run and control a malware network known as “Emotet,” authorities said in a statement.

    “Emotet is currently seen as the most dangerous malware globally,” Germany’s BKA federal police agency said in a statement. “The smashing of the Emotet infrastructure is a significant blow against international organised Internet crime.”

  • “Cornyn, Crenshaw, Cruz Lead Fundraising in Final Quarter of 2020.”
  • Blackpool, UK, is preparing to seize land to make into a Chariots of the Gods theme park.

  • “Number of Texans with at least one vaccine dose surpasses number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.” Faster, please. (Hat tip: Texas Governor Greg Abbott.)
  • CEO: “We tried paying everyone the same salary. It failed.”
  • Good news! Gay Patriot blog relaunched. (Hat tip: Instapundit.) Also see this Twitter account, which may look familiar…
  • Once again social justice warriors fail to cancel Chris Pratt.

  • 21st century headlines: “Scientists have now taught spinach to send emails warning of landmines.”

  • “Snopes Rates AOC’s Account Of Capitol Attack As ‘Factually Inaccurate But Morally True.'”

  • “AOC Recalls How She Barely Survived Terrorists Seizing Nakatomi Plaza.”
  • “Hey Strongbear, do you like techno?”
  • What it was like to see Star Wars in 1977.
  • Heh:

  • Funny dog tweet:

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions | No Comments »

    Followup: Austin City Council Votes To Purchase Wilco Homeless Hotel

    February 4th, 2021

    Today (not yesterday as the Statesman had reported), the Austin City Council voted to purchase the Candlewood Suites Hotel at 10811 Pecan Park Boulevard over the strenuous opposition of local reasidents. The vote was 10-1, with only Mackenzie Kelly voting against.

    Condolences to area residents who are sure to see crime and disorder skyrocket. Here’s hoping Williamson County sues to stop the purchase.

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    Posted in Austin, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Reinstatement of Austin Camping Ban Makes May 1 Ballot

    February 4th, 2021

    A tiny bit of good news in a sea of gloom: The petition to restore the camping ban has been garnered enough signatures to be placed on the May 1 ballot:

    A group’s petition to reinstate Austin’s camping ban will appear on the May ballot after the city clerk certified enough signatures.

    The Office of the City Clerk confirmed Thursday the petition submitted by Save Austin Now met the minimum requirement of 20,000 verified signatures to put it before voters. This is the second time Save Austin Now has attempted to bring this issue to the ballot, the first time they gathered signatures during the summer of 2020, the city’s analysis indicated the group did not gather enough valid signatures to do so.

    A city spokesperson told KXAN that the City Council will now have to decide whether to adopt the ordinance changes as written in the petition, or call an election for May 1. The council has until Feb. 12 to make this decision, and there is expected to be a special meeting to discuss these issues on Feb. 9.

    Up to this point, Save Austin Now has identified as an educational nonprofit and is led by Matt Mackowiak (the chair of the Republican Party for Travis County) and Cleo Petricek, who has been vocal about her opposition to the city’s recent policies related to homelessness. The Save Austin Now website notes its leadership includes Austin Police Association President Ken Casaday, president of UT safety group SafeHorns Joell McNew, and former Austin City Council Member Ora Houston. Now that this measure will be going before voters, Save Austin Now will have to register as a Political Action Committee with the city to handle activities for the election.

    It’s good that they finally got enough signatures to exceed the threshold of fraud.

    An Austin City Council who respected common sense and the will of citizens would go ahead and reinstate the camping ban, so that will never happen. Instead expect a vicious campaign from Mayor Steve Adler, Austin City Councilman Greg Casar and the other advocates of the Homeless Industrial Complex to smear those backing reinstatement of the ban as “white supremacists” (the reflexive go-to smear for the hard left in 2021) and wanting homeless people to die.

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    Posted in Austin, Texas | 3 Comments »

    Glass Shotgun Slug?

    February 4th, 2021

    I’ve got a whole bunch of longer posts in various stages of construction, so enjoy this video of some guys firing hand-crafting glass shotgun slugs:

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    Posted in Guns, video | No Comments »

    Austin to Vote on Wilco Homeless Hotel Today

    February 3rd, 2021

    In their ongoing attempt to inflict bumville on as much of Austin as possible, today the Austin City Council is scheduled to vote on buying a Williamson County hotel to use as a homeless shelter.

    The Williamson County Commissioners Court has asked the Austin City Council to delay a decision for six months on whether to buy a hotel to house homeless people. The hotel, the Candlewood Suites near Texas 45 and U.S. 183, is in part of Austin in Williamson County.

    Commissioners said Tuesday they did not learn about the city’s possible $9.5 million purchase until recently, and have not had time to assess the effects of the purchase.

    “I am asking the city of Austin to communicate with stakeholders,” said Commissioner Cynthia Long. The hotel is in her district.

    “As of last Friday, the city of Austin has not reached out to any government that might be impacted — not Williamson County, not Round Rock ISD, not Bluebonnet Trails (the local mental health authority), not Williamson County and Cities Health District,” Long said.

    The Austin City Council postponed a decision on whether to buy the hotel at 10811 Pecan Park Boulevard from Jan. 27 to Wednesday at the request of Council Member Mackenzie Kelly, who represents the district where the hotel is located.

    For those unfamiliar with Austin geography, that’s way out in suburbia near the intersection of 183 and 620:

    Kelly is hosting a town hall meeting about the hotel from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday at [zoom link].

    Austin officials notified Long about the hotel on Sunday, said Andy Hogue, a spokesman for Kelly, on Tuesday. Hogue declined further comment.

    Kelly, who was elected in November, campaigned heavily on a platform that many of the city’s policies regarding homelessness were not beneficial.

    On Sunday, residents of the Pecan Park and Anderson Mill neighborhoods held a protest about the plans for the hotel.

    Hotel owners and residents who own property near Candlewood Suites told commissioners on Tuesday that homeless people who camp in the area already were causing problems.

    “If the city buys Candlewood as a homeless shelter it would just zap our business,” said Marie Chaudhari, one of the owners of the Hampton Inn that shares a driveway with Candlewood Suites.

    “Ever since homeless camping was allowed on the streets,” Chaudhari said, “crime has increased so much we had to hire a security guard.”

    More:

    Candlewood Suites is located in the Williamson County portion of NW Austin. The city wants to buy it and transform the property into a homeless shelter and resource center.

    Tuesday, members of the Williamson County Commissioners Court made a formal request for the city to hold off for 180 days. It’s because they learned about this project a few days ago.

    The motion to hit the brakes was made by Commissioner Cynthia Long. “My hope is that the city of Austin will hear what we said and it’s an ask to work with your neighbors,” said Cynthia Long, Williamson County Commissioner for precinct 2

    Residence and business owners near the hotel say they were also blindsided by the city plan. “I think it would be important to have the public to have input to help out affect their neighborhoods,” said a woman who lives near the hotel.

    Those who attended Tuesday’s meeting asked county officials to step in and help. “As Williamson County judge I’m deeply disappointed and that someone did not communicate with this court prior to the decisions they made,” said Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell.

    The unanimous vote to make an official request for a 180-day pause was celebrated as a big step — but not a win.

    “Yes finally, it should’ve been City of Austin‘s job to listen to its constituents but apparently at least, I’m so thankful for Williamson County to be present for us out here,” said Rupal Chaudhari, who works next to Candlewood Suites

    The goal is to convince the city to do an economic impact study; similar to what the city requires private developers to do. Residents believe the study will show that property values will collapse and businesses will close.

    The continuing lockdown has proven that Mayor Steve Adler and the Austin City Council really don’t seem to care how many local businesses close.

    “Freda I think has about 50 employees we have about 20 at one hotel and the next hotel will have about 30 so that’s hundreds of jobs impacted just right there,” said Sanjay Chaudhari, the Hampton Inn & Suites General manager which is next door to Candlewood.

    Williamson County commissioners questioned why the city chose a northwest Austin site for its homeless hotel idea after a similar plan for a South Austin site failed last year. They also want to know more about how the city will address transportation issues, security, as well as what type of social programs will be provided; and where the funding for that will come from.

    “Actually it’s not weighing in on the proposal at all because quite frankly I don’t know enough about the proposal to be for or against it I’m simply asking and I think the commissioners’ court is asking to work with the county to work at the school district to work with the surrounding neighbors to talk about this,” said Long.

    If the city ignores the county request, commissioners sent another message. They’re willing to explore all options in order to have their concerns addressed.

    Hopefully that includes lawsuits.

    The repeal of the camping ban has created homeless encampments under virtually ever overpass along 183. My amazing psychic power predict that the new homeless hotel will have absolutely no effect on those existing Adlervilles, but will only draw more transients (and crime) to north Austin.

    It would be nice to think that the Austin City Council might listen to citizens for a change, but they seem hellbent on shoveling more money into the Homeless Industrial Complex.

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    Posted in Austin, Democrats, Welfare State | 3 Comments »

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