There has been a petition filed to place on the May ballot an amendment to the City's charter that would force the city to put some of it's day-to-day business online. This charter amendment aims to bring accountability and transparency to the higher levels of municipal government, where the primary targets are City Council members, the City Manager, Assistant City Managers, division level managers and their respective staffs. The amendment requires some very specific conditions (I'll highlight the technical ones below) but first a disclaimer.

Although I currently work for the City of Austin, I am in no way representing or advocating *any* official position of the City in this matter. I am writing this as a concerned citizen of Austin who would like to see our government as transparent and efficient as possible and I am using information that is publicly available elsewhere to make my points.

With that in mind, this is a theoretical plan so assumptions have been made which could be incorrect. At this time, I am neither for nor against the proposed Charter amendment. My focus with this post is to try and bring a technical solution to the mandated goals of the Charter amendment in which to serve as a base for discussion with the Austin community. This opinion is put forward in the hopes it will facilitate discussion and will bring other concerned citizens into the mix and to showcase the alternative technical ways to satisfy the Charter amendment if passed. So please, do not read anything into this post that is not explicitly stated.

And with that, off we go. Here are the relevant sections (italics are direct quotes from the amendment; regular text is my opinion):

• The City must, as expeditiously as possible and to the greatest extent practical, make all public information available online in real time and accessible to the public.
  OPEN ACCESS TO CITY BUSINESS
  • Within one year of the date this Amendment takes effect, applications and proposals for any permit or contract of significant value must be provided to the City in an electronic format.
  • The City must maintain a system for electronic notification (such as email lists) to interested persons of any event or new information relating to the matter.
  • All written communications between the City and the applicant relating to the matter must be posted online in real time in a manner searchable by the public.
  OPEN ACCESS TO CITY CALENDARS
  • For all matters involving City business, the following people must maintain calendars of all meetings and maintain logs of all telephone calls: (a) City Councilmembers and their staff; (b) City Manager and his or her staff; (c) Assistant City Managers and their staff; and (d) all department heads.
  • Calendars and logs must be posted online in real time and be accessible to the public.
  • This provision must be implemented within six months of approval of this amendment.
  OPEN ACCESS TO CITY ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS
  • In order to better preserve written electronic communication for public disclosure, the City must establish a system that automatically archives all incoming and outgoing electronic communication that deals with City business to and from the following people in their official capacity: (a) City Councilmembers and their staff; (b) City Manager and his or her staff; (c) Assistant City Managers and their staff; and (d) all department heads.
  • The above people are prohibited from discussing City business via any form of written electronic communication, such as a private email account, that is outside of the City’s automatic archiving system.
  OPEN ACCESS TO CITY FUNCTIONS
  • All public information that has previously been released to someone making a public information request and which, because of the nature of the subject matter, the City determines is or is likely to become the subject of a subsequent public information request for substantially the same information
  EFFECTIVE ACCESS TO INFORMATION
  • The City must create and maintain online tables of contents and indexes to enable the general public to easily find and access online City documents and public information. Information must be searchable, and be able to be located by author/submitter, individual recipient, date, and subject matter.

These are some pretty tough technical requirements but they are possible. If the city stays with its current technology (articles are located here, here, and the City's Cost Estimate) which is comprised primarily of proprietary, closed technology, this will be a *very* expensive endeavor. But, using Free Software and open standards, the city can put togther a long-term, cost-effective solution that would meet all of the above technical requirements.

The primary requirement of this plan is that all data will be created/stored/transported in XML formats. Once in XML, there are ways to work with the data that will satisfy the amendment.

• Jabber - This will be the core transport piece and the legacy application data connector. Jabber is essentially an XML router and can act as the "bridge" from older client/server applications to the charter mandated goals.
• Zimbra - This is the email/calendaring piece. At its heart, it's an XML processing engine.
• Zope/Plone - This provides the public presentation framework as well as the internal data workflow paths for data classification and dissemination.
• OpenOffice.org - This would be the city's standard productivity application for creating/editing data. All data would be stored in OpenDocument format which is basically a zipped XML file (well, actually, it's 3 files zipped into one). All citizen correspondence with the city would also be in OpenDocument format.

The Charter Data Flow diagram below shows a stylized data path and where the repositories reside in the model. It is important to remember this same model allows for a real-time and stored data repository that is controlled by the users of the system in the Plone workflows. This allows classification/declassification of data to be handled by the data custodians themselves, effectively streamlining the process. That very same system is also the frontend used by the citizens to gain access to the data. So let's break down the pieces one-by-one using the above amendment goals as an outline...

OPEN ACCESS TO CITY BUSINESS
• Within one year of the date this Amendment takes effect, applications and proposals for any permit or contract of significant value must be provided to the City in an electronic format.
• The City must maintain a system for electronic notification (such as email lists) to interested persons of any event or new information relating to the matter.
• All written communications between the City and the applicant relating to the matter must be posted online in real time in a manner searchable by the public.

If the city decides to commit to an open standards based format like OpenDocument immediately, the one year timeframe is a doable, although still a difficult timeline. As long as the city continues to accept binary, closed formats, it only pushes the timeframe of conversion and subsequent Charter amendment compliance futher into the future. OpenOffice is the perfect choice for an end-user tool as the city is not requiring the purchase of a particular company's software package to facilitate communication between its citizens and their government. Purchasing an office suite, even though it's the "market leader," puts an arbitrarily high hurdle in the way for those citizens who lack the funds to purchase the software. These disenfranchised citizens are now compelled to violate copyright laws in the attempt to communicate to their own government. With OpenOffice, the city could customize both the programs and templates required for effective communication. The city can create the exact functionality needed internally as well as customizing the functionality for its citizens externally while offering those tools to the public for no charge (for example, putting the software on a cdrom for those w/o Internet connections; creating live CDs that contain all the software and templates that can run on old, recycled machines, etc).

Further, to satisfy the electronic notification clause, a mail list management system is being integrated into Plone and there is already software available. Mailman is the most widely used mail list manager on the Internet and can be easily extended with just a bit of python code (Mailman, Zope, Plone all use python as the development language. Zimbra and Jabber can extend functionality using python so the city can standardize on one internal development language.)

And, as mentioned before, if the city standardizes on OpenDocument, incorporation of the contents of all submitted documents can be easily indexed once entered into the system (by entered I mean "saved to the storage medium.") Because OpenDocument files are just gzip'd text files, an index process can be used to unzip the files and pull just the text content (one file of the 3 contain just the content of the document w/no formatting) and make searching the repository more efficient and immediately available to the public.

OPEN ACCESS TO CITY CALENDARS
• For all matters involving City business, the following people must maintain calendars of all meetings and maintain logs of all telephone calls: (a) City Councilmembers and their staff; (b) City Manager and his or her staff; (c) Assistant City Managers and their staff; and (d) all department heads.
• Calendars and logs must be posted online in real time and be accessible to the public.
• This provision must be implemented within six months of approval of this amendment.

Access to city calendars through Zimbra should be facilitated quite easily. Either using replication within the system to provide a daily look in a downloadable format (like iCal) or the system can be setup to show real-time calendars on demand for key personnel. Public access would be facilitated through the Zope/Plone system while the actual data resides in the Zimbra Collaboration server. In regards to the phone logs, the members of government that the Charter applies to could be switched to a VoIP system in which the calls are stored in the repository with XML descriptions and metadata which would facilitate near real-time access to the actual phone calls for public review.

OPEN ACCESS TO CITY ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS
• In order to better preserve written electronic communication for public disclosure, the City must establish a system that automatically archives all incoming and outgoing electronic communication that deals with City business to and from the following people in their official capacity: (a) City Councilmembers and their staff; (b) City Manager and his or her staff; (c) Assistant City Managers and their staff; and (d) all department heads.
• The above people are prohibited from discussing City business via any form of written electronic communication, such as a private email account, that is outside of the City’s automatic archiving system.

Once again, using the Zope/Plone products, the system can be designed in a way that all information is kept within the repository and using Plone workflows, access can be facilitated.

In respect to the prohibition of those City personnel using external means to facilitate communication, there is really no way to stop this unless it is made into a law that carried some form of legal consequence. Currently, the city has too many ways to bypass the restriction (information security staff can't block all webmail sites [common sense dictates that]; councilmembers and other staff targetted in the amendment can bring in their own personal laptops and attach to the public wireless network [reference here], etc) but I would propose that the staff in which this amendment is targeted be moved on to a centralized thin-client based system to allow for easier accountability. One way to approach this would be to provide these employees with wireless tablets/laptops that tie-in to a backend thin-client system where the installation of unapproved software and traffic can be monitored. With a centralized thin-client system in place along with a legal mechanism, the system could better provide the compliance and accountablity the Charter amendment strives to achieve.

OPEN ACCESS TO CITY FUNCTIONS
• All public information that has previously been released to someone making a public information request and which, because of the nature of the subject matter, the City determines is or is likely to become the subject of a subsequent public information request for substantially the same information

This goal is already an inherent part of the envisioned system. Plone workflows will allow for the classification of data so once an Open Records request is made and the results known, the data from that request can be entered into the system and classified as public data. It could also be tagged with metadata that would enable classification of the data into Open Record groups so subsequent searches could use the narrowed down datasets.

EFFECTIVE ACCESS TO INFORMATION
• The City must create and maintain online tables of contents and indexes to enable the general public to easily find and access online City documents and public information. Information must be searchable, and be able to be located by author/submitter, individual recipient, date, and subject matter.

Again, this goal is already envisioned within the Plone content management architecture. Metadata tags can be added at will to provide the criteria needed for efficient searches.

PROS & CONS

I think the Pros of this system are self-evident as it is basically a transparent interface into the people's government. Redundancy of data and repetition of action have been minimized in the current design making the system as efficient as possible for the lowest possible cost. There are also savings by using products such as OpenOffice which can function in multiple roles thoughout the data collection/generation process as well as the obvious benefit of no ongoing software licensing fees.

Also, this plan does not replace any existing or upcoming applications like those listed in the City's cost estimate. This plan works with those systems to bring a centralized and efficient workflow with data classification to the already existing data collection process.

But there are a few Cons of the proposed design:

• Cost - There would be a hefty upfront cost for hardware and existing data conversion. The current official estimate is $24 million one-time cost and $11 million ongoing. Without getting into the specifics of cost, I feel the official costs might be slightly high as I think there could be some savings in one-time consulting fees, software licensing costs and ongoing staffing (possibly as much as $6mil in the one-time category). But the costs to implement a system like this would be high, make no mistake about it. This nut can't be cracked cheaply.
  One thing that I'd like to bring up which isn't specifically called for in the Charter amendment is data conversion costs to the OpenDocument format. Although the Charter amendment does not call for all city data to be accessible online, I would like to mention that it would be time and money well-spent. Although I couldn't find an "official" conversion efficiency rate for Microsoft Office to OpenDocument, I have found numerous articles (here's one) hinting the conversion rates are quite high. My own testing of the few hundred Microsoft formatted documents on my hard drive showed about a 90% conversion rate (by that I mean 9 out of 10 did not complain about conversion and the docs I opened up looked formatted correctly).
  So working on the assumption there is an effective 85% conversion rate, if the city has 2.5 million documents, that leaves 375,000 documents that would need some form of "hand-holding" to convert. If one employee can convert 20 documents a day, they would get through the problem documents in 51.37 years. To bring this down into the timeframe required by the Charter amendment (just for argument's sake: 1 year), the city would contract close to 50 people for document conversion (50 x $35,000/yr for a temp = $1.75 million). To me, this is a relative bargain as the city would have the bulk of it's data in a non-proprietary, easily convertible and manipulative format.
  Now, there are much better people than I to figure out total costs for a plan like this (and I would love to work with someone on this, just email me) but suffice to say, the city's official $24mil estimate would be sufficient to cover the costs of this plan. The city's official cost estimate provides for new positions (which would be needed for more python programmers, etc) so I think the cost estimate is a good attempt to "herd cats" but could be just a bit high. The silver lining is that the city should be able to recoup some (not all) of the one-time costs over the long-term with the savings of having the data in machine manipulative formats, an efficient and defined data workflow path (enhancing employee productivity) and the ongoing savings in license fees for the proprietary software replacements.
• Momentum - By that I mean that getting any large organization to change takes time. There are sure to be groups/departments/managers that are hostile to these types of ideas. But the Charter amendment demands specific goals within specific timeframes so this is the best type of pressure for a government agency (external pressure is always the most efficient). Having worked in government for the bulk of my career, I can make a safe assumption that a plan this agressive will meet with much resistance internally. It may very well take upwards of the first proposed year just to convince the parties targetted by this amendment to agree to the changes of workflow. But with public pressure and hopefully, media coverage, a change like this can be successful.

So, in summary, I believe the City of Austin can achieve the goals set forth by the Charter amendment although some additional time will be needed to allow for such massive infrastructure changes. It's important to keep in mind this proposal is just a theoretical model and may not even be possible with the aforementioned products. I'm assuming quite a bit (like ZODB will scale or can be broken into manageable chunks, the city's internal departments agree on a common plan, etc) so please take this post as a suggestion and not a roadmap. My experience in working with and for different government agencies as well as with Free/Open Software leads me to believe that the city can satisfy the requirements of the Charter amendment in a timely fashion and can provide to the public the most transparent and efficient government possible.

As always, I can be reached through comments or by email at scott(dot)brown(at)opennetworks(dot)org.

My last post put together a theoretical system that should be able to handle a near "real-time" posting of information in an online format if required. It was meant merely as a basis for discussion; to set the technical parameters of a system so we can break down specifically and in more detail, the functionality of the system in specific situations. In this post, I'll try to highlight and explain exactly how this system *should* work in situations that have been mentioned publicly. But first, a standard disclaimer:

Although I currently work for the City of Austin, I am in no way representing or advocating *any* official position of the City in this matter. I am writing this as a concerned citizen of Austin who would like to see our government as transparent and efficient as possible and I am using information that is publicly available elsewhere to make my points.

With that in mind, this is a theoretical plan so assumptions have been made which could be incorrect. At this time, I am neither for nor against the proposed Charter amendment. My focus with this post is to try and bring a technical solution to the mandated goals of the Charter amendment in which to serve as a base for discussion with the Austin technical community. This opinion is put forward in the hopes it will facilitate discussion and will bring other concerned citizens into the mix and to showcase the alternative technical ways to satisfy the Charter amendment if passed. So please, do not read anything into this post that is not explicitly stated.

I'll first discuss the situations mentioned in the ballot language proposed by the City Council. Here is the language that will be going on the ballot this May (italics are direct quotes; my responses are normal text. Further, I've changed the format of the language to make the points more clear [I don't think anyone can read big, run-on sentences very well]):

City Language

Shall the city charter be amended:

1. to require that all private citizens emails to any public official be placed on the city website in real time, including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, including the library department, police department, city health clinics and city departments handling utility bills and code enforcement, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications;
2. to require that the heads of all city departments, including the police department, parks department, library department, all city manager s staff and all city council members and their staff post online in real time information about all meetings and phone calls with private citizens;
3. prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the city and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk;
4. to require the city to create at taxpayer expense an online electronic data system for most city communications and documents, which for the most part are already available to the public; and
5. to install and permanently operate such a system at an estimated cost of approximately $36 million initially and $12 million annually thereafter if fully implemented, which could require a tax increase equivalent to three cents per $100 valuation or a reduction in city services?

First, let me say that there are those that feel the ballot language is not an accurate portrayal of the amendment's goals. I won't comment publicly my thoughts on the language at this time but I will address the technical concerns of the ballot language in the proposed system.

a) to require that all private citizens emails to any public official be placed on the city website in real time, including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, including the library department, police department, city health clinics and city departments handling utility bills and code enforcement, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications;

Email is already subject to Open Records requests and state document retention policies so the only difference in this clause from a restatement of current policy is the "real time" bit (which I will address). Further, the amendment does not require breaking any existing federal or state laws in its effort for transparency (i.e- City health clinics, police departments and utilities are bound by federal laws like HIPAA and the USA Patriot act which supercede the City Charter's authority for online posting of information.) Privacy laws (whether federal or state) still supercede any authority the city charter may have (an important concept that seems lost within the context of the current ballot language).

The relevant section(s) from the amendment is:

SECTION 2: Privacy Protected. Nothing within this amendment should be interpreted in a manner that would violate an individual’s existing constitutional or common law rights to privacy.

and

(C)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

(1)In order to better preserve written electronic communication for public disclosure, the City must establish a system that automatically archives all incoming and outgoing electronic communication that deals with City business to and from the following people in their official capacity:

1. City Councilmembers and their staff;
2. City Manager and his or her staff;
3. Assistant City Managers and their staff; and
4. all department heads.

The amendment merely calls for an archiving system for the above personnel and does not require "real time" capabilities. The city currently follows all state document retention laws which require email archiving for a period of no less than 2 years.

As it is correct to legally interpret the language of the amendment as broadly as possible, the current ballot language does not recognize that the ultimate authority of "real time" resides with the city council and not with this amendment. Interpreting the amendment as broadly as possible, it is correct to assume that "real time" posting of email would be a goal if that action was practical (that is the keyword from the amendment). The city council is the determining body of the "practicalness" of any issue that falls outside the explicit conditions set by the amendment. Hence, in this limited example of "real time" email, because it falls outside the explicit condition set by the amendment, it should be referred to council for determination of how practical the idea is (the key clause from the amendment is "expeditiously as possible and to the greatest extent practical,"). If the council found it was practical, it would then be up to the council to determine the action to best fit the situation.

Further, the OGO amendment only mentions "real time" in two explicit circumstances; calendars of the city council, city managers, division heads and their staff and written communications between the City and businesses and individuals seeking ecomonic development benefits. Anything outside the scope of the following sections would be referred to council for a practical definition. The amendment *does not* require "real time," online posting of email (even though the press continually miss this point).

SECTION 3: Open Government Online

(A)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY BUSINESS

(4)All public information concerning the matter subject to Section 3(A)(2) must be posted to the website. All written communications between the City and the applicant relating to the matter must be posted online in real time in a manner searchable by the public.

(B)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY CALENDARS

(3)Calendars and logs must be posted online in real time and be accessible to the public.

(I like to think of this situation as the city council's "Mars Mission." Even though a manned mission to Mars is possible, it still is not practical and the council could rule for various reasons [the cost is prohibitively expensive; no one is trained for the mission; the chemical rockets are not powerful enough to make it to Mars, the citizens don't want the extra $.03 per $100 valuation tax increase, etc] that the "Mars Mission" would not take place.)

The proposed system could meet the goal of "real time" posting of email if required by council at a later date. On email reception, the email is "tagged" with an OGO compliant label (the label is contained within the metadata for that message). Retrieval and display of those messages would be a simple ad-hoc query from the Zope application server to the Zimbra MySQL-based metadata store for the appropriate tag (pseudo-SQL: SELECT msg WHERE msg.tag MATCHES "OGO" AND msg.user MATCHES "Council Member"). Dependent on the tags, messages could also be grouped so a query could pull up not just one member's email messages, but a whole group (psuedo-SQL: SELECT msgs WHERE msg.tag MATCHES "OGO" AND msg.group MATCHES "city council" WHERE msg.date MATCHES "last week"). The nice thing about this approach is that by tagging the messages with metadata as they come in, we can do efficient ad-hoc querying from the Zope server to the message store while utilizing a single data repository. Furthering enhancing system performance, Zope will cache any queries on the Zope server so multiple queries for the same data will not need multiple "trips" to the message store.

I am having trouble finding where the council feels that the amendment is " ... limit(ing) the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications;". The closest section I can find is the waiver of rights in section 4(B). That section does not deal with the public-at-large though; it only deals with those individuals and businesses that are seeking economic benefits from the city and does not deal with private citizens email. I'm at a loss for where the council found that clause applicable under the "real time" section.

The next section from the ballot language:

b) to require that the heads of all city departments, including the police department, parks department, library department, all city manager s staff and all city council members and their staff post online in real time information about all meetings and phone calls with private citizens;

And the relevant section(s) from the amendment:

(B)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY CALENDARS

1. For all matters involving City business, the following people must maintain calendars of all meetings and maintain logs of all telephone calls: (a) City Councilmembers and their staff; (b) City Manager and his or her staff; (c) Assistant City Managers and their staff; and (d) all department heads.
2. These calendars and logs must contain the time, date, subject matter, and persons involved in all meetings and telephone calls involving City business. These calendars must be used to schedule and record all past and future meetings that occur after the implementation date of this section.
3. Calendars and logs must be posted online in real time and be accessible to the public.
4. “Meetings” includes all informal and formal meetings including but not limited to telephone conferences, videoconferences, happy hours, and luncheons.
5. This provision must be implemented within six months of approval of this amendment.

In the proposed model, this requirement is already addressed in the current product line. Zimbra has partnered with another open source product, Asterisk to provide VoIP and PBX functionality within the collaboration server. Asterisk is a full-featured, enterprise-class PBX so the logging of calls in or out should be easy and display of those calls should be the same as the calendar view (more information is here and here.)

The next section from the ballot language:

c) prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the city and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk;

There are no technical issues required within this clause but, for completeness, here are the relevant amendment sections:

SECTION 4: Public Information.

The term “public information” means information that is required to be produced under Texas Government Code § 552.021. Public information also includes the following categories that must be produced in response to a public information request:

1. INFORMATION RELATING TO CIVIL LITIGATION. That the City is a party to litigation does not render information relating to that litigation less important; rather it often means the information is a matter of heightened public interest. Therefore, the City must not withhold information relating to civil litigation under Texas Government Code § 552.103, but it may withhold under other Public Information Act exceptions.
2. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INFORMATION. Information relating to economic development assistance or incentives is public information to which the public has a right of access.
   1. The City must require all businesses and individuals seeking to engage in the type of economic development negotiations referenced in Texas Government Code § 552.131 to execute and deliver to the City a waiver of any rights to prevent the public disclosure of all information exchanged with the City. The City is without authority to engage in economic development negotiations with any company that has not first executed a waiver.
   2. The City is without authority to shield economic development offers under Texas Government Code § 552.131(b).
   3. Nothing in section 4(B) prevents a City from withholding documents under Texas Government Code §§ 552.104, 552.105, or 552.108.
3. AGENCY MEMORANDA. Open government in Austin ensures the people have access not only to the final decisions made by government officials but also to the process by which those decisions are made. The City must not use Texas Government Code § 552.111 to withhold information reflecting advice, opinion, and recommendations on policymaking matters, except the City may withhold attorney work product.
4. PERSONNEL FILES. The City of Austin must not maintain an optional personnel file as authorized under Texas Local Government Code § 143.089(g) for employees of the Austin Police Department, nor does the City have authority to enter into any meet and confer or other agreement with any police officer association that requires creation or maintenance of a separate file that is closed to the public.
5. EMAILS RELATED TO CITY BUSINESS. Email or other written electronic communication to or from a public official concerning City business is public information, including communications to or from privately owned email accounts or computers.

I'll address the next two ballot language sections together:

4. to require the city to create at taxpayer expense an online electronic data system for most city communications and documents, which for the most part are already available to the public; and
5. to install and permanently operate such a system at an estimated cost of approximately $36 million initially and $12 million annually thereafter if fully implemented, which could require a tax increase equivalent to three cents per $100 valuation or a reduction in city services?

The proposed model does not require any new systems to be purchased outside of the one's listed in my first post. Jabber serves as a "bridge" to connect the various existing datasources into the display architecture while the "agents" speak the "native" application language to the existing datastores (once again, I'll mention the CAPWin project of Washington, DC.) Some of the cost in the City's official estimate is for software licensing ($6mil alone just for the document management system). As I've stated in my past post, the cost estimate from the city is a good attempt at "herding cats" but until specifics are laid out, noone actually knows how much the initiative will cost.

For example, the model I propose is heavier into programming than software licensing. Most of the products I've used in this model do not have an initial or ongoing software licensing cost (however, service contracts will still need to be procured). So it can be assumed that this model will be less expensive in software licensing than the city's official estimate. I have yet to fully breakdown the initial and ongoing costs for this model (I'm more concerned about the technical issues and not cost; I leave that for people more skilled than I at cost estimation) but a quick rundown of the products listed and their software costs:

Cost estimation
Product	Initial Software Cost	Ongoing Licensing Cost	Service Contract required
Zope	$0	$0	Yes
Plone	$0	$0	Yes
Jabber	$0	$0	Yes
Jabber agents	$Unknown. Based on how many systems need to be tied in.	$0	Yes
Zimbra	$28/user	$0	Yes
OpenOffice.org	$0	$0	Yes

Please keep in mind that the service contracts will cost money as well as hardware would need to be purchased (the city's estimate on server hardware is fair and reflective; the city would not have to replace 1,540 PCs under this model saving an additional $1.2mil). Without delving further into specifics, between just EDIMS licensing and the replacement PC costs, there is a savings of $7.1mil off the projected one-time cost of $24mil and at least $1.1mil off the recurring cost of $11.6mil. (I feel the ballot language is wrong when it states $36mil upfront costs. That figure combines the one-time cost at $24mil and the recurring cost of $11.6mil. The recurring cost would not have an effect on the one-time purchasing cost of the first year. Again, if anyone is interested in fully fleshing the costs of this model out, please email me.)

So, in sum, I hope that the technical model I propose shows the flexibility and expandability sought by the OGO amendment to provide a transparent window into the people's government. I would like to re-emphasize that this model should *not* be taken as a roadmap but merely as a discussion of the salient technical issues the amendment seeks.

The Austin City Council has released the final ballot language for the upcoming propositions including the citizen-initiated Prop 1 and 2. For the first time in Texas history, a municipal council was directed by a court to rewrite ballot language as it was found that the language did not "present a fair measure of the proposed measures [and] chief features" and gave the City Council a deadline to change the language. Since I covered the last, and now found illegal, ballot language, I'll do the same for this final version. But first, the standard disclaimer:

Although I currently work for the City of Austin, I am in no way representing or advocating *any* official position of the City in this matter. I am writing this as a concerned citizen of Austin who would like to see our government as transparent and efficient as possible and I am using information that is publicly available elsewhere to make my points.

At this time, I am neither for nor against the proposed Charter amendment. My focus with this post is to try and bring a non-biased look at the proposed amendment and the ramifications it would bring if enacted. This opinion is put forward in the hopes it will facilitate discussion and will bring other concerned citizens into the issue. So please, do not read anything into this post that is not explicitly stated.

The City Council's final language appears thusly:

Proposition 1:
Shall the City Charter be amended:

1. to provide online access to public information, which for the most part is already available, by creating an online electronic data system for most City communications and documents at taxpayer expense;
2. to require that private citizens' emails to public officials be placed on the City website in "real time," including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications, unless legal exceptions apply;
3. to require that the heads of all City departments, all city manager's staff and all city council members and their staff post online in "real time" information about meetings and phone calls with private citizens; and
4. to prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the City and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk?

So let's again breakdown each section.

1. to provide online access to public information, which for the most part is already available, by creating an online electronic data system for most City communications and documents at taxpayer expense;

This is more representative than the last ballot language which included sections on certain departments possibly releasing private information (Library, Health clinics, Police Department, etc) which Proposition 1 did not call for. "For the most part," this statement is accurate and correct but it does miss a crucial goal of the amendment: efficient access to public information. While it's true that most of this information is available, the Open Records request mechanisms employed by the different departments throughout the city are not efficient. The request can take as much as 10 days before the requestor even knows if the information can be retrieved. The amendment seeks to clarify and accelerate the public's access to this public information by putting online as much public information as possible (and, most importantly, where approved by City Council) to let the public find what it needs without using valuable employee time first. As mentioned elsewhere, APD alone will have to fill 2500+ Open Records requests this year and countless hours of employee time will be used in fulfilling those requests. The amendment's core argument is that it is more efficient for the public to search these records first and then be able to put in specific requests for particular information than the current system.

2. to require that private citizens' emails to public officials be placed on the City website in "real time," including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications, unless legal exceptions apply;

This statement is still misleading. First, the premise that email will be placed on the City website in "real time" is not required by the amendment. The ballot language premise is a very broad interpretation of the clause "expeditiously as possible and to the greatest extent practical" and does not mention to the voters the circumstances that would have had to happen for that situation to become realistic. The City Council is the determining body on the practicalness of any measure that is not explicitly stated within the amendment so this situation would have to be:

1. Sponsored by some department, citizen's initiative, etc., to be placed on the Council's agenda.
2. At that meeting, Council would have to deem that situation practical.
3. If found practical, Council would have to draw up ordinances and resolutions to meet and enforce the requirements of the situation.
4. Council would have to pass the ordinances and resolutions.

So, if "real time" posting of email on the City's website ever does happen, you can lay the blame squarely on the City Council as they would have been the ones who found the situation to be for the public's benefit. Just for argument's sake, other scenarios that could have been used by the Council on the ballot that would have been just as misleading could be the amendment calls for all private citizen's Social Security numbers to be placed on the City website in "real time," or that all victim's records at APD will be placed online in "real time" (I've actually heard people mention that one). The amendment simply does not call for these scenarios nor would the amendment supercede any current state or federal laws in place to do so.

Council Member Brewster McCracken has stated that the email issue had been "[...] litigated and you all lost. ... [T]his language has been upheld as being accurate." At the time, he was talking to the amendment supporters in the Council chambers who rewarded this false statement with an appropriate response (boos and catcalls). As explained in this post, from the judge's own ruling, speaking specifically about the email issue, he stated "I don’t know that there are any city departments that would be excluded but certainly private citizens emails to any public official because there are exceptions that apply." As mentioned by myself and others, and which is validated by the state judge, private citizen's email has exemptions and, for various reasons, may not be put online. The City Council and their supporters *really* need to drop this red herring...

I'm still having a hard time finding the section that the Council is referring to when talking about "limit[ing] the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications,". There is nothing in the amendment that limits the citizen's right to privacy when dealing with their government. There is language that makes it harder for the City Council, City Managers, Division heads and their staff to keep their calendars and non-public meetings about City business with others secret. There is language that makes it harder if you are seeking economic benefits from the City to keep those negotiations secret. There is further language that makes it harder to keep the misconduct of police officers secret. But if you are a private citizen, all of the federal, state and local privacy laws on the books are not superceded by this amendment and will remain so. I can't stress this enough.

Finally, I would like to give some credit where it's due. Council Member Jennifer Kim tried to add more descriptive language to the ballot on this point. Specifically, she tried to have the words "consistent with state and federal privacy protection laws" substituted for the phrase "unless legal exceptions apply." Council Member Kim, I commend your attempt and agree that your phrase is much closer to what the judge ruled in his decision and thank you for your attempt at clarification.

When I first read this clause in the original language, I withheld my personal comments through the litigation that followed in the hopes that the Council would change the language and drop this fallacious clause. I'll go out on a limb here... If Proposition 1 is defeated, it will be challenged in court and it will appear on a later ballot because of this clause. Council Members McCracken, Dunkerly, Leffingwell and Mayor Wynn, your steadfastness to this particular language will cost the city more future litigation, the costs associated with it and another dubious legal distinction for this City Council.

3. to require that the heads of all City departments, all city manager's staff and all city council members and their staff post online in "real time" information about meetings and phone calls with private citizens; and

This is another misleading statement about what the amendment calls for. The relevant section from the amendment follows:

(B)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY CALENDARS

1. For all matters involving City business, the following people must maintain calendars of all meetings and maintain logs of all telephone calls:
   1. City Councilmembers and their staff;
   2. City Manager and his or her staff;
   3. Assistant City Managers and their staff; and
   4. all department heads.
2. These calendars and logs must contain the time, date, subject matter, and persons involved in all meetings and telephone calls involving City business. These calendars must be used to schedule and record all past and future meetings that occur after the implementation date of this section.
3. Calendars and logs must be posted online in real time and be accessible to the public.
4. “Meetings” includes all informal and formal meetings including but not limited to telephone conferences, videoconferences, happy hours, and luncheons.
5. This provision must be implemented within six months of approval of this amendment.

I highlighted the relevant sections in that clause. If you are a private citizen and you are speaking to a public official through one of the listed means about City business, then, according to the amendment, that must be noted in the appropriate log. The federal government, proposed by none other than one of the most conservative members of Congress, Newt Gingrich, follows much the same system. It is a way the public can see who their elected officials are talking to and about what subjects. If you are going to call Mayor Wynn and tell him how great or not great he is, there is no need to record the call as that is not City business. Further, if a Council Member calls their doctor, that call is not subject to the documentation clause. Only City business is required to have the notation. Another branch on that limb... This clause will also be seen by a later court to be misrepresentative and misleading and will help to overturn a defeat of the proposition.

4. to prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the City and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk?

This section must be referring to the requirement of the amendment that pertains to public information. Here is that section from the amendment.

SECTION 4: Public Information.

The term “public information” means information that is required to be produced under Texas Government Code § 552.021. Public information also includes the following categories that must be produced in response to a public information request:

1. INFORMATION RELATING TO CIVIL LITIGATION. That the City is a party to litigation does not render information relating to that litigation less important; rather it often means the information is a matter of heightened public interest. Therefore, the City must not withhold information relating to civil litigation under Texas Government Code § 552.103, but it may withhold under other Public Information Act exceptions.

First, the amendment states that the City cannot withhold information under the following Texas Government Code section:

§ 552.103. EXCEPTION: LITIGATION OR SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS INVOLVING THE STATE OR A POLITICAL SUBDIVISION.

1. Information is excepted from the requirements of Section 552.021 if it is information relating to litigation of a civil or criminal nature to which the state or a political subdivision is or may be a party or to which an officer or employee of the state or a political subdivision, as a consequence of the person's office or employment, is or may be a party.
2. For purposes of this section, the state or a political subdivision is considered to be a party to litigation of a criminal nature until the applicable statute of limitations has expired or until the defendant has exhausted all appellate and postconviction remedies in state and federal court.
3. Information relating to litigation involving a governmental body or an officer or employee of a governmental body is excepted from disclosure under Subsection (a) only if the litigation is pending or reasonably anticipated on the date that the requestor applies to the officer for public information for access to or duplication of the information.

Added by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 268, § 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1993. Amended by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 1319, § 6, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.

From this summary, under the “litigation exception,” a governmental body can withhold information about pending or reasonably anticipated civil or criminal litigation. This exception allows the government to hold back otherwise releasable public information because it feels there is or may be some sort of litigation that might include that information. This is an important concept to grasp. The information being sought by the public does not have to be actually involved in litigation; it just has to be deemed by someone in government that it might, at some point in the future, be part of a litigation claim. Further, the entity can keep this information secret until the statute of limitations expires for the whatever the phantom offense this information may be involved in.

As these examples show, this section of the Public Information Act has been abused by government entities in the past. Historically, this exemption in the Texas Public Information Act has been used in 2 ways:

1. a shelter to keep clearly public documents secret that otherwise would not be exempt and
2. as a delay tactic to allow further court motions and "grandfathering" claims to be filed on a dubious ordinance or law.

Proposition 1 still allows the broad and correct exemptions for attorney work product and attorney client privilege that will protect all information related to any litigation the City may be party to. The City does not need this exemption and it's prohibition will not expose the "City and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk." The City can still use the other numerous, broad and generous Public Information exemptions that protect Public Information through any litigation process. The prohibition in using this one exemption will make it easier for private citizens and watchdog groups to get the public information they already own even if it might cause embarassment or legal problems for some in the government.

So, in summary, I still feel the language on the ballot is misleading. I also feel that even though the City Council has tried their best to stack the deck against this initiative, it will still be a close vote come election day. I guess we'll see how things shake out.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos. Keep in mind I wrote this for non-Austinites but since it has to do with the upcoming Propositions, I posted it to AustinBloggers as well.

If you go a little over 1 mile southwest from the direct center of downtown Austin, Texas, you'll find yourself at one of the greatest natural sites left in Texas:  Barton Springs pool.  Fed by the endangered Edwards aquifer, the water is a clear and cool 68 degrees year round, making the swimming in the middle of the Texas summer at least bearable until the cool Fall breezes sweep in.  Barton Springs is in the southern part of a 12 mile long greenbelt of undeveloped land that snakes through the western edge of Austin, much of which has been set aside by the citizens of Austin in bonds to protect the green space as well as the sensitive aquifer that resides beneath it.  Most Austinites visit Barton Springs pool a couple of times a month in the summer to roast in the Texas sun and share the natural experience with other Austinites so close to the hustle, sprawl and large, multi-story buildings of downtown.  To most in Austin, Barton Springs isn't merely a swimming hole; it's a generational gift to them from their parents and a prime example of what defines Austin as a city and a culture.

Environmental protection of Barton Springs has gone on since the beginning of the environmental movement but really unified in the late 80's.  Since then, various local ordinances dealing with development over the aquifer have been passed as well as hundreds of millions of dollars for land purchases to protect the sensitive natural area from development.  But, as some would say, there's a new threat to the green space and possible future existence of Barton Springs.  And disturbingly, the threat seems to reside within the very governmental body chartered to protect the springs:  the Austin City Council.

There now exists a palpable disconnect between the Austin City Council and local environmentalists who feel that their government is no longer working for them.  Fueled by this frustration and using history as a guide, the Save Our Springs Alliance drew up and circulated 2 amendments to Austin's City Charter.  The amendments, primarily a response to what the environmentalists felt was a closed door, back-office deal brokered between a developer (Stratus Properties), a client (Advanced Micro Devices), and the City Council, strive for transparency in the land development process as well as seeking to hold local government accountable by using technology to facilitate the opening of information to the public.

Unfortunately, the current situation echoes one from just 16 years ago.  In 1990, a developer (Freeport McMoRan) sought to develop 4,000 acres within the Edwards aquifer and on top of Barton Springs by building hundreds of homes and apartments.  The citizens of Austin quickly banded together in an effort to block the development by lining up to speak against it in front of the City Council.  Over seven hundred speakers signed up to speak in front of the Council against the proposed development that night.  By the end of the epic Council meeting, the development was stopped by a unanimous vote of the Council, 7-0.  This victory essentially started the formal defense of Barton Springs (at the time named the Save Our Springs Coalition) and some much needed local ordinances were drafted to further inhibit development within the sensitive area.

But, after the Council meeting when the draft legislation was released, the lobbyists and developers tried to stop the most damaging parts of the ordinance; the "nondegradation" clauses which prohibited futher polluting within the aquifer.  After nearly a year of redrafting, the Council finally adopted a loophole-ridden version of the original draft.  Some felt this "Composite Draft" did not protect the springs adequately so the Save Our Springs Coalition wrote up a competing draft and set off to collect the required 20,000 signatures needed to put the ordinance on the ballot.

Once the signatures were collected and verified, the City Council delayed the recognition of the citizen-sponsored ordinance to where it could not get on the May 1992 ballot but it eventually made it onto the August 1992 ballot.  But in that time, the developers filed requests for development within the Barton Springs area in the hopes of "grandfathering" if the new ordinance from SOS passed.  Interestingly, it was also during this time that a Chamber of Commerce led campaign against the SOS amendment was undertaken, directed by none other than George W. Bush's right-hand man, Karl Rove.

When the election was finally held and the citizens of Austin finally had their say, the citizen-drafted and citizen-sponsored ordinance passed by nearly 2-1 (65% approval).  The ordinance finally put in place some much needed environmental protections to protect Austin's premier natural treasure.

It's with that history still fresh in the minds of the citizen environmentalists that a new threat to the springs comes forward.  Since the passage of the SOS ordinance in 1992, citizens have asked major employers to not build in the sensitive areas of the Edwards aquifer and to locate in the "Preferred Development Zone;" an area still close to downtown but not located over the aquifer and thus does not affect the water quality of Barton Springs.  That is until recently, in what these citizen environmentalists believe have been back-room deals with the Austin City Council, Advanced Micro Devices' new offices was "grandfathered" within the zone even though they appeared to have no legitimate grandfathering claim.  Worse still, the development would be a monster; a $220mil, 875,000 sq. ft. office pavillion which would serve as a "hub" for other development spurs into the sensitive area.

So, with history as a guide, the SOS Alliance drafted 2 new amendments to the Austin City Charter and went about collecting the 20,000 signatures that each amendment required to gain entry on the voting ballot.  Each amendment attacked what they saw as a problem in their efforts to be included at the discussion table for development within the Edwards aquifer and specifically with the AMD situation.  

The first amendment, now known as Proposition 1 and commonly referred to as the "Open Government Online" amendment, tries to bring tranparency to the local government and its elected officials.  It provides for new accountability and transparency standards for the highest City officials; the City Council, City managers and their staffs, and Division heads.  It requires phone and meeting logs to be posted "real time" to the City's website for those officials as well as defaults the City's Public Information policies towards openness.  It makes it harder to keep the public out of the now-secret negotiations between developers and the City as well as opening up police misconduct records to public scrutiny, bringing Austin inline with 2,000 other law enforcement agencies across the state of Texas.

The second amendment, Proposition 2 or the "Clean Water" amendment, seeks to add protection to Barton Springs and the Edwards aquifer by asking major employers to not locate on the Barton Springs watershed as well as curtailing city tax money for developing toll roads in the environmentally sensitive area.  The amendment would limit the city's authority in "grandfathering" claims that have weaker environmental standards than the 1992 voter-approved ordinances where, over the last 14 years, scores of development projects have been allowed to build in the sensitive area with only voluntary compliance to the 1992 ordinance.

Once the signatures had been collected and verified, the City Council originally drew up blatantly misleading ballot language in what seemed to be an effort to discourage the passage of the amendments.  Some citizens of Austin sued the City in court to rewrite the ballot language to comply with the state standards of fairness for ballot measures and for the first time in Texas history (and you have to think about how corrupt Texas politics can be and this was the first time...), a court found that the ballot language proposed by a municipal council would have to be rewritten.  The language originally approved by the Council was found to not "present a fair measure of the proposed measures [and] chief features" of the amendments.  But instead of trying to follow the direction of the judge (who, jokingly said that the state standard could be met by saying "This one is about open government; this one is about the springs") a few on the Council, led by Council Member Brewster McCracken opted to take out the "offending" passages but still leave enormously misleading language.  But because the Council delayed formulation of the original language and then went to court to defend itself, the final, still misleading language had to be placed on the ballot to meet the Travis County's deadline for getting ballots out to absentee voters.  

At its core, this is about how the citizens of Austin feel their government has failed them.  Austin, the poster child for an environmental town if there ever was one, with its collective of actors, artists, athletes, musicians, writers, geeks, students, Californians, Democrats and yes, even Republicans, pride themselves on just how much the environment is a part of their daily lifestyle.  Just look at any of the "Best places to live" lists and Austin is almost always on it.  And usually, at the top of those lists of the reasons why Austin is such a great place to live, it's noted how much green space is available through park lands, environmentally sensitive planning of developments and natural places like Barton Springs, Hamilton pool or Hippie Hollow.  The last thing that Austinites want is a city that looks, feels, smells and functions like Houston or Dallas.  We are all in love with the unique blend of arts, technology, people, scenery and general quirkiness that makes this city so damn appealing and most residents long to keep it that way for future generations.  This truly is a city of individuals but on one issue, Barton Springs, almost all are on the same side.  

Over the coming days I'll be cross-posting from my personal blog into this diary in an attempt to pull attention to this issue from outside of Austin.  I hope to show you, the national Daily Kos reader, the reasons why this issue is important to you even if you live in South Dakota.  As history has shown, what happens here in Austin is sometimes a national warning if we just listen.

So now Prop 1 & 2 have gone down in stinging defeats giving developers and their related industries cause for celebration along with the Austin City Council and Austin Police Department a big sigh of relief. So what caused the defeat of these proposals? Was it the deceptive advertising campaigns and interviews by the propositions opponents? (They were using quotes from the ballot language that had already been found deceptive in state court; 36 million anyone?) Was it a pattern in the media that too easily and too quickly gave a bully pulpit to current and former council members and mayors? (I watched what I would consider a "hit piece" on KVUE the night before the election that left my head shaking in awe at the extremely low quality of reporting that passes for journalism nowadays. I could easily present a case-study of all the current problems of the media with just that one news segment...) In fact, just now (5:06pm, Sun), I witnessed a report on News8 stating that Prop 1 would put all the city's documents online in real time... Geez, a day after the elections and it still isn't being represented correctly.

So there are signs that certainly point to these things being part of the reason why the propositions failed, but the most troubling sign to me would be the voting totals in my own precinct. I live in Precinct 342 (precinct totals are available here) which is the precinct directly to the east of Barton Springs. If any precinct had reason to vote for the amendments, it would be my precinct with its assorted hippies, yuppies, yippies and puppies. But, based on the vote totals, my precinct went 61% against the amendments (averaged). So almost 2 of 3 of my neighbors were either comfortable with seeing Barton Springs get paved over with more office and apartment complexes, restaurants and mini-malls or they were misled by the three-pronged approach of developer supported advertising, council member bully pulpits and misleading paper editorials. On my street, everyone I talked to except for one was in favor of the amendments. Clearly, most of the people I talked to did not have an implementation-level understanding of the propositions and it sometimes took a few minutes to explain to them what the amendments were trying to do, but every last one of them mentioned the $36 million figure which was found to be erroneous by state court and was ordered removed from the ballot language. Councilmembers McCracken, Dunkerly and Mayor Wynn owe the City's CIO an enormous thank-you fruit basket for that estimate...

But what troubles me most is not the deceptive advertising or the lax journalism, but what could be the overarching reason why the amendments didn't pass. Again, using my precinct as a lab, Will Wynn and Brewster McCracken won re-election (82% and 74%, respectively) who are possibly the most pro-growth council members/mayors in recent history. Props 4 (64%) and 5 (75%), which had to do with increasing term limits and increasing campaign contributions, also passed easily. Let's also assume that voters were swayed by the deceptive advertising which was funded almost entirely by developers and their sub-industries PACs. That means, in my precinct, one of the few precincts where Barton Springs actually touches and runs through, it appears that a majority of my neighbors are pro-industry, pro-developer and pro-growth over environmental protection of one of Austin's greatest natural treasures or my exhaustive research into the amendments are completely and utterly wrong. I'm not comfortable with either conclusion...

Now, it's true that my neighbors may not have had the time to go through all the amendments and really understand what they were voting on but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and at least assume that there was a cursory examination. So, in my precinct, located in the 78704 zipcode, the supposed hub of granola-crunching, tree-hugging environmentalism of Austin; Progressivism has died not by kicking and screaming, but by a flat-out majority suffocation. It seems to have been replaced by what I'll call "Closet Conservatism." You might know what I'm talking about here. It's like State Proposition 2 from 2004 which banned gay marriage here in Texas. That was an issue where people were quick to announce their support in front of their friends and family who may be gay but then secretly voted against it in the voting booth. The Barton Springs protection issue seems to be the 2006 version of the gay marriage amendment in my precinct...

I'll be honest. A non-progressive Austin is an Austin that scares me. I come from Dallas and lived there for 17 years and I loathe to see Austin turn into Dallas. I am not one of those people that find Trammell Crow developments on every other street corner attractive. I don't really care to have a Starbuck's within easy driving distance so it doesn't cost me more than that cup of coffee in gas to drive my SUV through the drive-thru. And I certainly don't care to see one of my most cherished things I love about Austin, Barton Springs and the accompanying greenbelt, something I use on nearly a daily basis, get paved over by the Trammell Crows and AMDs of the world. So the question is: What do we do now?

For starters, if my precinct is any measure, the election results should be challenged on the misleading ballot language. As I mentioned before, all that one needs to do is show that news report on News8 the day after the election as evidence in court to show that the ballot language was confusing and was not understood by a majority of the citizens. Also, I can't help but wonder how citizen-sponsored amendments, each of which required 20,000 signatures on a petition, managed to garner just over half of that number in support in the final election. I would think that the same 20,000 people who were motivated enough to sign the petitions should have been motivated enough to go to the ballot box. I know that you will never get 100% of those people out to the voting booth but just over 50% seems a bit low. And finally, we need to really keep a skeptical eye on this city council and it's future actions. As shown in the double-speak of the ballot language of Prop 5, the misrepresentation of Props 1 & 2, the "surprise" announcement of the new Green Water treatment plant location as well as the grandfathering of the AMD property, this council seems to go to great lengths to cloak their intentions. Hopefully, the incoming new council members will not be bullied by other members of the council and they will hold true to their campaign promises.

When I first started blogging about this issue, it wasn't because I was for or against these particular amendments. It was my belief that certain council members were not being honest to their constituents, purposefully muddying the waters to possibly benefit their campaign contributors instead of the people they are supposed to represent. After this election, I'm left with the disappointment that I find myself no longer in a progressive majority or that Austin is moving away from its environmental roots. Neither of those conclusions gives me the warm fuzzies for the coming years...

I've been meaning to comment on this story for quite some time now. Unfortunately, it's taken about 2 weeks to actually find the time to sit and jot the thoughts down. The story, which is split into 2 parts, reports that there is a Prop 2 "resurrection" movement afoot by SOS and the Council to take the best elements of the defeated Prop 2 and try to incorporate those as ordinances. Now, to me, this is certainly a fine idea and I think even the opponents of Props 1 & 2 agreed that something had to be done to protect the Barton Springs area. But, contained in the article is a quote from Council Member Lee Leffingwell (one of the most fervent anti-Proposition opponents) who disagrees with that idea:

"Not so fast, opponents say. On Saturday, 69 percent of voters cast ballots against the measure. So some neighborhood and business leaders say that those ideas have been roundly rejected and that more community input is needed to create a lasting solution to the vexing issue of development in the environmentally sensitive area.

Council Member Lee Leffingwell, who crafted the ordinance, plans to slow the process and allow for a larger community discussion to take place. Input from interested parties as well as the two city bodies now considering the ordinance will provide the springboard for conversation."

Now, some would argue (myself included) that the 69% figure used above is completely misleading. While the propositions may have been defeated by 69% that does not, by association mean that 69% of the people of Austin are against protecting the Barton Springs watershed. Most of the Prop 2 opponents had said that protection of Barton Springs is sorely needed but they just didn't agree with how the propositions sought that protection. The fact that 31% of the people of Austin still voted for the propositions considering the outright misleading ballot language is a strong indicator that the citizens of Austin really do value environmental protection over development in sensitive environmental areas.

So now we come to Council Member Leffingwell's statements. On the one hand:

"These charter amendments were written behind closed doors with no public input, no vetting and no opportunity for changes to correct errors and unintended consequences," says Lee Leffingwell, an Austin City Council member who is former chairman of the city's Environmental Board."

And now the other:

"Will you answer specifically which reforms you support and which you do not?

I AM STILL IN THE DISCUSSION STAGE WITH REGARD TO WRITING THE ORDINANCE, AND SO CAN'T COMMENT ON ANY ASPECT OF YOUR SCORECARD AT THIS TIME."

Pot, may I introduce Kettle... (More on that from a blog post by JS Hatcher).

Also, looking around in Council Member Leffingwell's campaign finance reports, one notices that the only PACs that gave Mr. Leffingwell money during that election cycle all had something to gain by defeat of the propositions (granted, these filings were in the 2005 election cycle and the Open Government/SOS amendment campaigns were ongoing but probably not a campaign issue at the time):

• Austin Apartment Association
• Austin Board of Realtors
• Austin Police Association
• BOMA
• Homebuilders PAC

Now, call me a cynic but a council member whose only PAC contributions came from developers, who is now quoted to want to slow down the environmental protections for Barton Springs and is currently doing what he accused his Proposition opponents of doing, does not instill the greatest confidence in me that he should be the one to lead the effort for protection of one of Austin's most sensitive environmental areas. Anyone else on the Council with a bit more cred care to step up?

Toby Futrell and the "Livable City"

The second part of the article is about a little spat between the City Manager's office and a report released by the City Auditors. In the report, the City Auditors:

"presented an audit that found that Austin does not have an "overarching vision for growth" or anything that ties together a patchwork of smaller city-planning efforts."

To which the City Manager took offense and disagreed with 3 of the 4 study authors by saying:

"In fact, the City has a vision and it is widely recognized. Our vision is for 'Austin to be the most livable city in the country.' "

May I introduce Exhibit A against City Manager Futrell's claim. In the studies cited in the post, Austin ranks as the third highest cost of living in the country. Higher than traditional high cost leaders San Francisco (10th), Boston (9th), Chicago (8th) and Atlanta (4th). Austin has the 4th highest average house cost in Texas (behind Ft. Worth, Dallas and San Antonio) and ranks number 12 nationally for the highest average cost of the typical home in America. These are not exactly the most livable conditions in the country.

Now, does city planning have anything to do with this rise in prices? As cited in this document, my guess is that the 29 now-under-construction-or-planned residential developments and super-condos being built on the shores of Town Lake, throughout downtown and in the ultra-swanky 2nd street area will only further inflate these cost of living indices (most have starting prices in the $200's for a 1/1). One can certainly make the argument that development should take place in downtown (I do support that) but of all the projects listed, from what I can tell, not one project is an affordable housing project.

So I have to agree with City Manager Futrell here. She does have an "overarching vision" of Austin. Under her's and the City Council's leadership, they seek to make Austin unaffordable for most residents. They seek to transform the prime green spaces and park lands of Austin into multi-story, multi-million dollar condominiums, raising the cost of living while attempting to replace the few East Austin parks with nasty infrastructure plants needed to clean the crap out of the water from these lofty, rich residents and the eventual Dallas-like sprawl of SH 130. They seek to keep their vision of Austin planted in future city council elections by raising campaign contributions, creating slush funds and erasing term limits. Yes, Ms. Futrell, you and your Council Member friends have a vision for Austin. Unfortunately, it seeks to replace what some of us have come to believe what Austin is about and replace it with a miserably cloned vision of Dallas.

I came from Dallas after 17 years of living there to Austin for the last 10, with most of that time in the Barton Hills area so I've seen the pace of change downtown under a close lens. I can't help but think that with the most developer friendly City Council in my memory along with the unification of former Council Members and Mayors against environmental protections for Barton Springs, it won't be long before we'll see the 580-ft towers being grandfathered in overlooking Barton Springs Pool.

The Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer has been declared in the Alarm Drought stage. According to the Chronicle:

"One of the drought indicators, Barton Springs, is flowing with 31 cubic feet of water per second, much less than the average 53 CFS, said BSEACD hydrogeologist Brian Hunt. Spring flows and levels in monitor wells briefly increased after rains in early May, but they have been steadily dropping since then. Currently, groundwater users, such as the cities of Buda and Kyle for example, are required to reduce usage by 20%. That could mean lawn-watering schedules or outright bans, said Hunt. Area sprawl development isn't necessarily to blame, he said, but likely exacerbates the situation. If dry conditions continue, the aquifer could reach critical stage by late summer, triggering 30% usage reductions and even lead to crackdowns on chronic water-wasters. The district is urging people to be water-wise at all times. Find more information at their Web site,http://www.bseacd.org/."

I find the timing of this announcement personally interesting based on a conversation I had with a co-worker this week. Their main point was "Who really cares if AMD puts their development within the recharge zone? It's not like that development can block recharging the entire aquifer!" Well, here's the reason why it matters. Recharge zones are typically geographically small areas where the water from the surface starts making it's way down to the aquifer. As this generalized cross-section shows, water, for the most part, doesn't make it's way down from the contributing or artesian zones. To further complicate things, different parts of the aquifer are replenished from different recharge zones (there are usually geologic features that direct water into one zone or the other). So while the Edwards aquifer may be getting recharged down in San Antonio, that usually doesn't do Barton Springs a whole lotta good.

So enter AMD and it's 850,000+ sq. ft development planted directly on top of the recharge zone. As this map shows, the recharge area for the Barton Springs area is relatively small (bisect Hays county and go north to where the aquifer zones stop and that is basically the Barton Springs Segment of the aquifer). So now add the huge AMD complex, the impermeable cover that is associated with it (roads, parking lots) and the infrastructure that will also be needed (water pipes, underground cabling, etc). The impermeable cover will collect particulate and chemical pollution from the cars/trucks riding/parking on it. When it rains, this pollution will be picked up and accelerated into the Barton Springs recharge zone and straight into Barton Springs pool (and don't tell me about the catchments they will be putting in place. No catchment can provide 100% filtration). So we will all get to swim in the eventual gasoline/oil/diesel/chemical mixture that along with low inflows/outflows to the aquifer, we'll see a rapidly degenerative effect on the quality of the water. And, I might mention, that's only if there is a Barton Springs pool left because of the reduction of water collection within the zone that the AMD and eventual future developments will provide.

So sound the alarm, I say! We need to make sure our elected officials know that Barton Springs has entered into drought stage. I hope that the rains will come this summer and replenish the stores but outside of a stray hurricane, I think we're in for another long, hot summer.

Over the last few weeks, the topic du jour for me lately seems to be growth in Austin and specifically the abundance of new luxury condominiums being built downtown. It seems that everyone I know has either been talking about it or have joined in the conversation at some point (well, I guess we "Southies" have never taken kindly to development...). I first got turned on to this topic from a post where I questioned a statement made by Austin's City Manager Toby Futrell in response to a City Auditor's report that was critical of her's and the City Council's development plans. To summarize, in the report, the City Auditors:

"presented an audit that found that Austin does not have an "overarching vision for growth" or anything that ties together a patchwork of smaller city-planning efforts."

To which the Ms. Futrell, who disagreed with 3 of the 4 city auditors who authored the report replied:

"In fact, the City has a vision and it is widely recognized. Our vision is for 'Austin to be the most livable city in the country.' "

I linked to a few indicies that refuted that claim and the post got a few comments, but none seemingly more vocal or condescending than M1EK, but he did put me on the path to research his claims which eventually led me here.

Now, M1EK's been making a claim that by building luxury condominiums downtown, by the mystical force of "trickle down," Austin's housing market will actually become more affordable (btw, he has never linked to anything that would support this point of view). I've seen this comment of his on mine and a few other blogs (actually highlighted here) and I still have serious problems with this assertion.

The vehicle that M1EK is using for this argument is now called supply-side economics. In his example, by adding more supply to the market, no matter what the price, it will eventually bring lower prices long-term to the whole market, not just the luxury segment where the current supply is being increased. While that may be true in general terms, I'll put forth that the supply isn't the greatest determining factor in this "affordable housing" scenario; I feel the demand in this limited market segment will be the more important quality as that will drive up the existing outlying property prices and will not, as M1EK asserts, increase affordability for the general public. Below, I hope to show that while in theory, M1EK's premise is generally correct for most things, there's not enough places (or plans) to build the sheer number of condominiums needed to make his assertion true in this case.

The Parking Lot

In M1EK's example:

"The only thing worse for affordable housing than building a bunch of high-priced condos downtown and continuing business as usual everywhere else is: NOT building high-priced condos downtown and just continuing business as usual everywhere else.

Trickle-down sucks in tax theory but it works like gangbusters in real estate. I own a moderate condo unit near (not in) downtown and I can tell you that it's fairly easy to observe a depressing influence on the rent I can get for it thanks to the indirect influence of those downtown units. Some folks who used to live in high-end housing in that neighborhood (Clarksville) now live downtown; some people who used to bid up the price for moderate housing like mine moved up to previously high-end condos in Clarksville."

So to begin, let's use a thought exercise... My premise is while I agree that we have to start building at some point, we're not going to get affordable housing only building luxury condos. Where I work, there are approximately 200 parking spaces in the parking garage and across the street from the building. If you're a manager, you get a reserved space otherwise, it's first-come, first-served. Out of the 200 total parking spaces, approximately 50 of them are reserved. There are about 300 employees (250 regular employees and 50 managers) in my department so on any given day, probably 250 or so show up for work and require a parking space (not everyone drives a car in; some bus, some ride bikes, some car pool, some are sick, etc). We already have too many people for the available spaces so demand has already outpaced the supply for the freely available spots (much like the overall housing market here in Austin).

Now, let's start adding new employees, say 5 per quarter (20 per year), 4 regular employees and 1 manager. We already have 250 people trying to snag one of the available 150 parking spaces so the demand is already at a premium. Now, when the new employees start, one of the freely available parking spaces becomes assigned for the new manager, decreasing the available supply for the regular workers while at the same time, increasing demand for those freely available spaces. Does this help the available supply for the regular workers? Of course not. The supply of parking spaces for them hasn't increased (this is like the current situation for affordable housing; there's only so much available within the city. And between rising property values and homeowners that are fixing up their current properties, more properties are moving out of "affordable" and into more exclusive markets).

So management decides to do something about it. They authorize redeveloping the small area where the dumpsters are right next to the building (for an additional 3 places) but they're all reserved for the CxOs, as they are ultra-swanky, shaded, cars-washed-by-virgins spots. The spaces are only for the CxOs and no one else. So here's M1EK's premise; the 3 reserved spots that used to be occupied by the CxOs have now been freed up for additional managers (the 1-for-1 property tradeoff) but did building the addtional spaces help the rank-and-file employees by increasing their supply? No. The old parking spaces remained reserved for management. So, in the next 3 quarters it takes to fill the old reserved spots with new managers, my department has now added 12 more people to the first-come, first-served spaces further decreasing the available supply where they can park. The only thing that will help relieve the demand for the rank-and-file employees is new spaces where they can park or new spaces in their segment.

So seeing that their available parking spaces have now shrunk to about 140, the rank-and-file employees submit a protest to the City Council who sympathize and decide to redevelop the field adjacent to the building (cutting down the landmark 300+ year old oak tree, mind you [look for "Rainey" on the page]) and put in an additional 50 parking spaces. But when completed, they decide that the spaces are only for City Council and management and, additionally, they deem that 40% of the spaces are only to be used by their families. No one else can park there which leaves most of the spaces unused most of the time (this is downtown development and the 2nd home thing which I'll get to below). Is this unfair to the rank-and-file employees who are still fighting over the ever decreasing spaces? You bet. Are they upset? Beyond belief. Can they do anything about it? Absolutely not.

So is this experiment wholly accurate? Of course not. In real life, the City Council would open up the new parking to tolling... ;) Actually, the only thing that is really left out of the experiment is some influx of "affordable" housing but it will be in the less desirable areas of Austin (in the situation above, those spaces would be located blocks away from the building) and since M1EK's assertion is that building downtown luxury condos will increase affordability for the average citizen, the model above is accurate enough to get the point across. But, model aside, let's try and determine some real numbers.

The Numbers (with links!)

Using M1EK's example that seemingly the only people looking to move into these downtown condos already live in Austin (a 1-for-1 property tradeoff and I know he's generalizing...), one can make the argument that demand for these downtown luxury condos will be limited to a very small percentage of the current Austin population (the current total Austin population is 690,252) and thus, will not have the effect of lowering the prices of the individual units downtown or the surrounding areas. A quick run of the numbers shows of those that can afford an average downtown property cost of over $300k, based on the 29% rule, the target buyer must be making at a minimum, $65k/yr and would probably have to make a bit more than that for credit card bills, recreational and living expenses, etc. The median income in Austin is $68k/yr so, working in *very* general numbers, we'll say 50% of the current residents in Austin that could afford the property and of those, another smaller percentage would actually be looking to move (even though this logic is a bit flawed -- median income does not evenly correlate to population -- but this is just for fun). I'll just pull a number out of the air here as I haven't been able to find this number anywhere so I'll be generous and say that 2% of the Austin population are looking to move of the 50% that can afford it . So, we have a maximum of 12,580 people in Austin who could currently afford the minimally priced condos and who are currently looking to move (not all of these properties downtown will be available at the $300k level).

Now, based on national statistics, 40% of all housing transactions last year were for 2nd homes. So let's remove from the equation 40% of the available downtown properties because these people already have primary residences somewhere else and generally speaking, the properties won't be available to those looking to move from the periphery (except maybe as rentals at some point but couldn't find a figure for how many 2nd homes become rental properties). The Council wants 20,000 eventual downtown residents so let's average 2.4 people per residency, we need about 8,400 individual properties minus the 40% that are second homes which leaves 3,360 total residential units available on the market. So, this year, we now have 12,580 current Austin residents looking to move into the eventual 3,360 average priced properties downtown.

And this figure does not take into account those people who don't currently live in Austin and are moving down here (based on census data, Austin's population grew 10,000 per year over the last 3, so we can add roughly another 5,000 additional home seekers per year divided by 50% who can afford it = 2,500). So until developers build at least 15,000 individual residences downtown and then add 2,500 additional units per year, the demand for those properties will not go down and the prices will remain where they are and will probably creep up over time.

So where do those people go who want to live downtown but the demand for that prime property has forced them to look elsewhere? They go into the adjoining neighborhoods, like Clarksville and Barton Hills, and drive up the price of the current properties due to the demand and not down by supply as M1EK surmises. Generally speaking, Austin is being influxed with new residents from places other than Austin. These residents, usually coming from places that have higher property prices, don't balk at a $300k downtown condo like some of us long-time Austin residents. I think we'll find that most people who are moving downtown into the luxury condos will generally fall into three groups:

• Professionals from outside of Austin who don't currently own any Austin property
• Professionals that bought the condo for a 2nd property (I would argue that this figure will probably be a bit higher than the national average in this case as we're primarily talking about condominiums in a now cosmopolitan and hip city, further increasing the demand)
• M1EK's scenario of upwardly mobile Austin residents

So while there is some merit to M1EK's premise, I feel it's not the driving factor for greater affordability throughout Austin.

Here's another example. M1EK's premise depends on the total number of available properties in Austin to gain eventual affordability. But just like with Ferraris, unless you add tens of thousands to the supply, they will have a minimal impact on the prices of the rest of the cars on the market. And this exactly what we have here. The developers are adding more Ferraris and relatively few Camrys. Sure, the price will fluctuate a bit for the Ferraris in their own luxury segment (due to demand, exclusivity, etc) but this price will be unaffected by the supply of Camrys as the target consumers are not the same. If the market was suddenly flooded with Camrys (affordable housing), there would have to be a helluva lot of them to have any impact on the Ferrari prices (luxury units) as the buyers of Camrys and Ferraris are in different market segments. People who can afford to live in a $300k condo, generally speaking, are not looking for $150k Clarksville condos or Barton Hills duplexes unless that's all the market has to offer.

M1EK's example may have happened twice (once by his anecdotal evidence of talking to his neighbors and I'll give him another one just because) but, generally speaking, that is not what is going on. If things really did work the way M1EK thought, we'd all just start out living on the periphery of downtown and with no further increase of income, over successive moves inward, we'd have the ability to keep moving centrally until we got to dead-center of town where only the super-rich dwell (as remember, his premise is that by building properties downtown, expanding the total supply, the surrounding properties will fall in price). It's the market in reverse and I just can't see the market working this way. Generally speaking, the market works the opposite way where property values increase dramatically downtown and the property prices increasingly ripple out into the surrounding neighborhoods. In this scenario, no matter how many luxury condominiums you build, it doesn't decrease the affordability of the surrounding areas (Ferraris and Camrys).

Additional Factors

Now, in addition to what I've outlined above, there are other factors which will drive the price of these properties up and in my opinion, will do so even more than the demand. One of those factors, gentrification, would also contribute heavily to an increase in outlying property prices. As I mentioned in my post:

"Yes, M1EK, I did *a lot* of research into your property value claim (the same lame "my Clarksville condo" rant I've now seen on no less than 2 other blogs). Over the last few weeks I've read numerous density articles, affordable housing scenarios, case studies (Portland, Seattle and New York), blogs and comment threads and even the city's development plans (like the City Auditors, I wasn't impressed). I even went so far to talk to 2 MBA's (one in real estate). I couldn't find a *single* sentence or person that supported your "trickle down" assertion (building luxury condos leads to increased supply which leads to more affordable housing citywide). The overwhelming theme I gleaned from those articles and my research is that there is no direct link between building downtown luxury condos and the lowering of property values from previously higher priced properties in outlying areas. In fact, I saw more examples of the opposite; the building of luxury condos downtown increased the housing prices nearby and displaced traditional residential neighborhoods. As shown by this article and from here:

"Gentrification usually increases the property value of an area. This is a positive development for city officials (by raising tax revenue, which is often dependent on property values), the middle class, as well as existing resident owner-occupiers. Unfortunately this same rise in property value can be devastating to those in lower income groups, when children of such residents find they can no longer afford to live in certain neighborhoods. As a result, there tend to be very strongly opposed views on gentrification, with some seeing it leading to healthier, more vibrant cities, and others seeing it as destroying poor communities. Both views would seem to be correct."

What I see happening downtown is an economic segmentation of the super-haves (i.e. - Congress, 2nd street and the new high-rises), the haves (like M1EK and myself; our outlying areas) and the have-nots (the East Austinites that are soon going to be priced out of their neighborhoods through higher property taxes and moved out through infrastructure placement and building). I believe this is counter to Austin's traditional blending of cultures and income levels throughout their neighborhoods. So in the anecdotal spirit M1EK is fond of, I'll use where I live as an example of the "traditional" neighborhood. I live in a duplex in Barton Hills. The surrounding houses in this neighborhood roughly start in the $300's and go up. I couldn't afford to live in this neighborhood otherwise (I live on a city worker salary, for pete's sake!) but because there is "worker affordable" housing in this area, I can enjoy the benefits of living in this neighborhood (the key one being I can ride my mountain bike to work safely on the greenbelt :). What's key to greater affordablity is a supply of housing within the segments that people can generally afford. That's why I've been posting that we need more "affordable housing," and not just addtional inventory in the luxury segment.

While I'm at it, I guess I should define what I mean by "affordable housing." When I talk about "affordable housing," I'm not talking about the traditional political definition of the term. I'm not talking about putting government subsidized housing on 2nd street or the like. What I am talking about is "worker affordable housing," which is generally set at about 70% median income (roughly $1,400/mo rent) versus "affordable housing" which is 50% and below median income (about $700/mo and below) **. As far as my research has been able to produce, there's only one property being built downtown that could fall into that "worker affordable housing" range as their rentals will be starting at $1,400/mo: Red River Flats.

So for me, a long time (11 yrs) Austin resident, it concerns me to see the current pattern of development that excludes the types of developments which will lead to the "unblending" of what I feel is one of the defining characteristics of Austin. Economic segmentation is how places like Dallas developed and I have a bit of firsthand knowledge there as well. I lived in the McKinney Ave. area just before the big redevelopment boom and moved to Austin about 3/4 of the way through it's completed development. I saw the moderately priced area where I lived soar to unaffordable in a mere few years which benefitted the property owners (like my father who owned a few of those condos) but didn't do anything to bring middle-income families to the area (seemingly, the "rocket shot" of property prices hit just after the completion of the driving range. Go figure...). I saw the residents of the low income side (east of Central) displaced in fairly short order as the property values skyrocketed and they were left looking for affordable housing elsewhere. (But give credit where it's due... At least Dallas had the foresight to put in a good mass transit system so at least for those that can't afford to live downtown but need to work there, an inexpensive and efficient people moving system is in place.) In my opinion, Austin needs to stop this segmentation or we risk losing what makes this city so great. We can do this by building (and the City supporting) affordable housing initiatives (like inclusionary zoning) and the building of more "worker affordable" housing like Red River Flats downtown. This really will bring diversity to downtown and will speed the migration of middle-income families to the downtown and surrounding areas.

Finally, I see gentrification being the larger threat to long-term property values and see little merit to M1EK's "trickle down" scenario to stem the upward trending property values. We currently have a very developer friendly City Council and Mayor, seemingly offering tax breaks and incentives to any of their PAC supporters that come within breathing distance (see the above mentioned post for some details). I suppose time will tell if gentrification is truly going on downtown as the growth starts to spread eastward but the seeds certainly seem to have been planted. I'm all in support of development downtown and certainly support NuPro's ideas for new urbanization (I hope she'll post about the importance of bringing middle-income families to downtown) but I feel there must be greater support from our City Council to provide affordable as well as luxury housing downtown with a coherent development plan if they truly want to meet their goal of 20,000 people living downtown while preserving cultural and economic diversity that is so much a part of Austin.

** - Ed. note -- Argh, lost my link here. Will post it when I find it in my history file...

Addendum: Since I'm no longer allowing M1EK to comment on my entries (and I will remove them if you do comment, M1EK), I will, however, give him the space to put a complete response. I will post his entry unchanged and unedited and will leave open the comments for responses. I know I don't have to do it but someone has to be the bigger person here and I'm genuinely interested in his response. I will put no qualifiers on the post for publishing other than any points made must be backed using facts and linked to the authorative data provider (which means you can put as much bile in the post as you want).

Update: In M1EK's reply on his site, he mischaracterizes the above addendum as a "demand," which it was not meant to be. Since I was using one of his comments as the basis of my entry, I was merely offering M1EK the opportunity to post a reply in the same forum if he felt the need. I'd like to make clear that nowhere in my post did I ask for a response or at at any time thereafter was I looking for a response from M1EK. I would be just as happy if he didn't want to post about the subject. I'd also like to add that the post was not supposed to be a "hit piece" or anything of the sort on M1EK. I just thought that he said something interesting and simply used that as a basis for a post.

Now, for a quick response to his... First off, I can see that the bile started right from the title (why so defensive?). His example of a "typical comment" is misleading. What he quoted is just a portion of a comment, not the full comment and not representative of what he left on my blog. I still have the comments he left on my blog; I just didn't make them visible. I won't say that they are the worst comments I've ever seen nor is there any abusive language contained within them. But, much like many of his blog entries and comments on other sites, they are condescending to those who don't agree with his view. There were no links, citations nor quotations contained within them. Just pure opinion. And while M1EK is entitled to his opinion, because I felt he was moderating out comments on his blog that he didn't like, I did the same on mine (another person also submitted a comment to his blog post that did not get posted as well to which M1EK responded back with the same "the software ate the comment" reply (which could very well be true). In my experience with MT (I used it before CoreBlog) and leaving numerous other comments on MT-based sites (some moderated), the comment I left on his blog post seems to be the first I've seen "lost." No biggie, I'll move on..

Also, it appears that I don't have a complete misunderstanding of economics because he at least afforded me one point:

"Well, his first assertion is true - the markets are 'segmented', but individual complexes can, and do, migrate from luxury to moderate segments."

So the premise I took in my post may not be what's going on but at least it's not a "complete" misunderstanding of economics.

Finally, someone else did take the time to look into the issue and sent me a great link (h/t Jen). This link to the National Housing Council shows how much money it takes to "survive" in various cities using 63 jobs as a metric. In Austin, just to "get by," it takes $61,840 / yr with a median priced home at $195,000. Looking at the 5 pre-selected jobs (School Teacher, Nurse, Police Officer, Retail Sales Rep and Janitor), none of them make enough money to "afford" to live in Austin (which goes along with this editorial that shows that most Austin police officers and fire fighters live outside of Austin). The type of "affordable housing" I'm talking about would allow people in these jobs to live in the city where they serve. That just seems like the right thing to do.

Update II: Whilst searching my history for the lost "worker affordable housing" classification link, I found this great comment attached to this article:

[...] As someone once said, the notion that all growth is intrinsically good is the mindset of a cancer cell.

Well, I figured I'd try a new thing on the blog and try to add something regular so I came up with Friday Bike Trail Blogging. Every Friday, I'll post some pictures of some of the more untraveled and hidden places on the various Austin bike trails that I'm privileged to commute to work on.

My aim is to try and show some of the reasons why some of us love this city. The greenbelt trail system seems to be pretty overlooked by most who live here as it requires people to actually get out of their cars and walk out in the heat a bit. Compared to Dallas where, for the most part, the "nature trail" system downtown is basically White Rock Lake and the associated paved "trails," Austin's greenbelt is truly a rarity in urban, downtown areas. There are some really great nature areas on the trail system but I figured I would start with one of the smaller and possibly, most overlooked and maligned areas on the trail. It's a tiny bit of nature dead-smack in the middle of downtown Austin and one that I've seen quite a bit of wildlife running around.

Since I mentioned this area in my previous post, I figured the kickoff entry would be this quick look north up Waller Creek just under the 8th Street Bridge (right next to the Stubb's outdoor stage). Sorry that I only took this one snap but I was running late getting out of work and I had other places to get to (you can see my parking garage in the upper right of the photo) but in the next installment, I'll take some more detailed and (hopefully) artistic photos. This is a nice little area for assorted wildlife as I've seen both Great Blue Herons as well as, I think, their white morphs hanging out in the small pool fishing for the various shad above the small breakwater as well as turtles and various snakes. This area is just downstream from the old Reddy Ice brownsite that is now the new home of the Red River Flats development. For those that have read some of my development screeds, you'll know that I'm a big fan of the Red River Flats development as it seems to be the only "worker affordable" development being built downtown (with rents starting at $1400/mo). This is also part of the area that some on the City Council (Brewster McCracken and his ilk) are wanting to teardown and put in an Austin clone of San Antonio's Riverwalk (do these guys have any original ideas or do they only talk to Trammell Crow?).

Anyway, next week I'll have some more photos from a different area on the bike trail.

First, I'd like to say "Welcome!" to my new domain/website, PoliticalSuicide.org. It was born out of my frustration with most of the current political websites pretty much covering just one extreme side or the other of the political issues of the day. I've got some pretty good ideas that I hope to launch here for furthering the political discussion (and to keep me out of trouble... :) so please bear with me as I hope to start launching the new features as soon as I complete them (I'm teaching myself Python along the way)...

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I went out on a limb and against conventional wisdom to explain why I felt the "trickle down" theory just wasn't going to help with lowering property prices in Austin anytime soon. The background of my post in a nutshell (as I heard from more than a few people that it was a bit on the long side... Glenn Greenwald is my h-e-e-r-o... ;) would be that a commenter left a comment on my blog saying that "trickle down" worked "like gangbusters" in the real estate market, to which I felt the statement was a bit odd. After reading articles, opinions, comments and talking to friends I trusted and people in the business, I put forth the following thesis:

"The vehicle that M1EK is using for this argument is now called supply-side economics. In his example, by adding more supply to the market, no matter what the price, it will eventually bring lower prices long-term to the whole market, not just the luxury segment where the current supply is being increased. While that may be true in general terms, I'll put forth that the supply isn't the greatest determining factor in this "affordable housing" scenario; I feel the demand in this limited market segment will be the more important quality as that will drive up the existing outlying property prices and will not, as M1EK asserts, increase affordability for the general public. Below, I hope to show that while in theory, M1EK's premise is generally correct for most things, there's not enough places (or plans) to build the sheer number of condominiums needed to make his assertion true in this case."

I then followed that thesis with a few examples (a parking lot and a Ferrari / Camry metaphor) and links to authoritative sources to explain how I got there.

So, a few days ago, a reader emails me the following article from the Austin Business Journal (h/t Clayton) in which Austin's current downtown city planner, Michael Knox, makes a statement that nearly perfectly matches what I wrote in my post:

"But with so little space left, demand may end up forcing development into adjoining areas, perhaps along Shoal Creek on the west side or along Waller Creek to the east.

"That's going to cause a lot of friction when you start talking to these abutting neighborhoods," he says."

Now I know that Mr. Knox is talking about demand for developable property and not the demand for actual completed residential units but the demand for land is complimentary to and actually bolsters my thesis by bringing yet another "X-factor" to the housing supply market that will increase prices. Currently, the Mayor and Council want to move 20,000 more people into the downtown area over the next few years. But as I mentioned in my post, there aren't currently enough places for these people to move so demand will force these people into looking for the most desirable property left on the market. If these more affluent buyers don't want to live in the "Hills" on the periphery of town or out at the lake (as they are looking for properties $300k+), they will undoubtably will be looking in the adjoining neighborhoods (Barton Hills, Clarksville, etc), which increases the demand for the available homes on the market. From the Austin Real Estate Blog (my emphasis):

Austin Residential Home Sales continue to be very strong. The number of homes sold increased 21% from 2,462 last June to 2,980 June 2006. At the same time, the number of active listings fell 2% from 8,637 to 8,477. The number of Pending Sales in June is up 31% from a year ago, from 2,506 to 3,286. This continued increase in demand along with reduced inventory is driving healthy value appreciation despite rising interest rates.

Average Sales Price is up 12% from a year ago, from $219,196 in June 2005 to $245,655 June 2006.
Median Sales Price is up 8% from a year ago from $168,500 to $182,000 (a new Austin record high)
note: the graph below has the wrong median amount on the chart, it’s $168,500 not $165,800.

Now, maybe M1EK can see the "depressing influence on the rent I can get for it [his Clarksville condo] thanks to the indirect influence of those downtown units," but I'm not seeing that "trickle down" effect from those downtown condos in these numbers... Maybe I'm not squinting hard enough...

Now add the "X-factor" of developers looking to "spill out" into the peripheral neighborhoods where they will be competing for the more affordable tracts of land (with homes or not already on them) as well as the resulting rise in property values as the downtown luxury units are completed. This scenario is much like the Turtle Creek area of Dallas (hehe, where I also lived in an 24-story condo tower for awhile. But I'll save those stories for another time [I can hear that sigh of relief from here...] :)

In Mr. Knox's statement about needing more residential space downtown, he said there wasn't going to be enough property that could be developed to house all those future residents and the demand for that property would have to spread into the outlying neighborhoods to accomodate the Mayor's goal. So, in that scenario, we now have 2 sources of demand in the adjoining neighborhoods:

• demand from developers for the limited developable land in the adjoining neighborhoods (see quote above)
• the influx of residents (both from Austin and recently arrived) that would like to live downtown but there are no units available downtown because of the high demand

  "It's clear that demand is high for units. One need only look at projects like The Shore, a 22-story residential tower that recently broke ground with 80 percent of its units already committed. And more than a dozen other projects are already in the works."

So, as M1EK would be quick to point out, basic market-driven economics states where there's demand there's... what...? Wait for it... Wait for it... Everybody now! Higher prices... *Applause* It seems someone wasn't so far off in their assessment even if they do possess a "complete misunderstanding of economics." :)

(BTW, I'm still waiting for anyone to send me an article, link, or informed opinion that shows building these downtown luxury condos will lower general housing prices across the city. I've seen a few comments that have said "I agree w/M1EK..." but no links to something that actually shows a correlation. All I've seen so far has been opinion (and I've *really* looked over the last month). I've never been one to agree with conventional wisdom just because someone says it's so; I've always needed the facts to back the contention (that's why I was such a lousy Catholic...). This "trickle down" scenario just seems too damn convenient, dumbed-down, buzz-wordy and Reagan-esque to me to explain such a complex situation. And, in what I've seen so far, just about every economic incarnation of "trickle down" seems to have failed pretty miserably as a guiding philosophy as the markets are just too complex to say "add more something = prices go down." As John Kenneth Galbraith said about this concept, "if you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows."

And I don't think I need to mention that all bets are off if the housing market busts or some unforeseen catastrophe hits. There certainly seems to be some interesting things happening economically (interest rates creeping up, general malaise and waivering confidence in the overall economy, etc) which might quell demand enough that could lead to more affordable housing in the near-term (next few years) but I guess we'll just have to see...)

Photograph: It's the sign facing the Town Lake Hike/Bike trail at the Milago luxury condominiums. I think the graffiti artist captured a sentiment held by many others here in Austin.

Correction: Wikipedia's John Kenneth Galbraith's quote for trickle down is incorrect so I updated it (I had "If you feed enough oats to the horse, the sparrow will survive on the highway." and replaced it with "if you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through to feed the sparrows."). It's the only link I can find that actually cites the book.