While we've been out pursuing other investigations, the regional press has been following and building on our work.
The latest recognition comes courtesy of The Austin Chronicle. Check out the May 28 Chronicle cover story, "Environmental Cage Match" by Katherine Gregor.
Gregor cites our article by Gregory M. Schwartz several times in the course of her piece. published when we launched The Austin Bulldog on April 1, "Who Protects the Texas Environment? Hint: It Isn't the State Agency That's Supposed To."
We can only do this kind of work with the generous support of our community contributors. Why not make your tax-deductible contribution now and help sustain the kind of journalism that makes a difference in our community?
--Ken Martin
Are Boom-Bust Cycles In Austin's DNA?
In just three decades Austin has enjoyed three giddy economic peaks followed by three economic hangovers. Is this any way to build lasting prosperity?
A quick history lesson: A large room was packed with lawyers, real estate investors, and bankers, and all eyes were on U.S. Representative J.J. "Jake" Pickle. It was early 1990. Austin's economy had been brought to its knees
Georgetown Resident Files Complaint with Travis County District Attorney
Complaint Names District Attorney, City Attorney, and Council Member by Ken Martin
On July 13, eight citizens told the Georgetown City Council they wanted an investigation into numerous matters reported by The Austin Bulldog and the Williamson County Sun.
As reported by The Austin BulldogJuly 18, the matters of concern include a $13,600 payment made to Council Member Pat Berryman that was facilitated by City Attorney Mark Sokolow; Sokolow’s hiring as the city attorney involving a violation of the Open Meetings Act and working under a contract that was never legally executed; Sokolow’s violation of the Georgetown City Charter by hiring of an assistant city attorney without getting city council approval; and the city’s ongoing resistance to releasing public records requested by the media.
At that meeting, Georgetown Council Member Patty Eason’s motion for such an investigation was not even discussed by the council, because no other council member would second the motion.
John BradleyJohn Bradley, the Williamson County district attorney, looked into a request for an investigation—filed by The Austin Bulldog May 11—concerning the payment made to Council Member Berryman. Bradley dismissed the matter without prosecution, as reported by the Williamson County Sun July 18.
But, like the famous baseball player and manager Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”
Georgetown City Council Gets an Earful from Concerned Citizens by Ken Martin
Last Tuesday night’s meeting of the Georgetown City Council had its tense moments, as several motions died aborning, without even winning the second needed to open a discussion.
Patty EasonCouncil Member Patty Eason’s Agenda Item Q drew about a dozen citizens to the meeting:
“Discussion regarding public concerns relating to press reports about improprieties in the conduct of certain city business over which the Council exercises authority and for which Council is responsible.”
Early in the meeting, under action from the council’s executive session discussions, Eason offered a motion to direct city staff to hire independent counsel to research City Attorney Mark Sokolow’s employment agreement to determine its validity, who wrote the agreement, and the timeline and sequence of events leading up to its execution.
Eason’s motion would have further tasked the independent counsel to investigate the hiring of Assistant City Attorney Bridget Chapman.
City Attorney Sokolow Ignores City Charter, Waives Requirement for Assistant City Attorney to Have Municipal Experience
Is Hiring Council Member Pat Berryman’s Friend That Important? Investigative Report by Ken Martin
When it comes to hiring attorneys, the City of Georgetown just can’t seem to get it right.
First it violated the Texas Open Meetings Act in hiring City Attorney Mark Sokolow and failed to legally execute his contract.
Mark SokolowSokolow himself violated the Georgetown City Charter by hiring Assistant City Attorney Bridget Chapman without the City Council’s approval.
Section 5.06 of the Georgetown City Charter states that both the city attorney and assistant city attorney serve at the will of the council. The charter authorizes the city attorney to appoint his assistant but requires the City Council’s approval.
Chapman was hired effective April 19, 2010, at an annual salary of $76,907, according to the Personnel Action Form obtained by The Austin Bulldog through an open records request filed under the Texas Public Information Act.
City Attorney Sokolow did not respond to two messages left with his office on Friday, requesting an interview about this matter.
Sarah WeddingtonIn your trailblazing career you have been an attorney, state legislator, women’s rights activist, general counsel to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, adviser to President Jimmy Carter, and a sought-after speaker and writer. In addition, you teach at the University of Texas and mentor promising students. But you will always be best known as the attorney who successfully argued Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court at age 27.
Q. This landmark decision, which legalized abortion, has been controversial since it became law 37 years ago. These days opponents seem to be gaining ground as more and more states pass laws that restrict or regulate abortions. The latest Gallup Poll, meanwhile, shows 47 percent of adult Americans are anti-abortion while 45 percent support a woman’s right to choose this procedure. What do you think of these developments? Is Roe v. Wade in serious trouble?
A. First I’ve written several press reports and newsletter documents indicating that one poll you’re citing was not accurate and was a misrepresentation. More people have always said a woman should have the right to choose. But if you get down to asking, “Should she have to consult somebody?” or “Should she have to do it before a certain period?” then you get some real variety.
Luisa Handem PietteThe long-awaited broadband map of Texas was released to the public on June 16—well over a year since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Stimulus Package) was signed into law, with $7.2 billion in funds earmarked for broadband expansion. The map boasts the use of new interactive broadband mapping platform, BroadbandStat, which allows a street-level view of broadband availability. It also provides the ability to continually enhance and upgrade the data, and gives users the ability to search by address and see the type of technologies used in their service areas, as well as their choice of providers and costs.
The Texas broadband map was created by Connected Texas, a subsidiary of Connected Nation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that was hired a year ago by the Texas Department of Agriculture and the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
A fundamental requirement for the distribution of stimulus funds has been the determination of need and the geographical location of those who lack broadband access, particularly in rural and remote communities. Connected Texas says that the Texas broadband map—which includes data from 123 state providers—indicates that 3.5 percent of Texas households, approximately 257,000 residences, mostly in rural regions, do not have access to home broadband service. This, says Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, hinders opportunities for business development and access to telemedicine, higher education and e-government.
Broadband mapping errors
The much-anticipated findings are, at best, inaccurate and, in the worst case scenario, may be deceptive, due to multiple errors. One of the problems the map presents is that, in some instances, it shows coverage where there is none, and lack of coverage where there has been broadband presence for quite some time. Another difficulty the map presents is that it indicates wireless presence where there has never been any known provider, as is the case in Hood and Somervell counties.
Mark SokolowThe municipal legal career of Mark Sokolow has seen its ups and downs:
Up: In 1991, Sokolow was hired by the City of League City, Texas.
Down: In February 1996 he was fired as city attorney of League City; he returned the favor by suing the city.
Up: Despite getting canned by League City, he was hired the very next month as city attorney for the City of Port Arthur; a council member in Port Arthur when Sokolow was hired said the council wasn’t aware of what had happened in League City.
Down: Sokolow's lawsuit against League City was so flimsy it was dismissed without getting a trial.
Up: When Sokolow resigned last October to take the job of Georgetown’s city attorney, the Port Arthur city council handed him a hefty bonus.
Up: Sokolow was hired by the City of Georgetown and started work last October 19 for $125,000 a year.
Down: He is working for the City of Georgetown under a contract that was never legally executed.
Down:The Austin Bulldog reported on May 4 how Sokolow facilitated the illegal payment of $13,600 for Georgetown Council Member Pat Berryman last December.
Down: He screwed up a deal to buy property for city facilities, hacked off the school district and embarrassed the city he represents.
Up: After six months on the job the city council evaluated his performance and gave him a $5,000 raise.
Down: He has alienated numerous colleagues. Examples abound, as detailed below.
Down: City staff is rooting for his ouster, though they fear being fired if they speak up.
The defense rests: Sokolow declined to be interviewed for this story.
Hardball tactics blow up in his face
The city wanted to acquire land where it could build a new fire station, police station and storage yard. The most critical element was the new fire station, which was needed to meet response times on fire alarms on the west side of I-35.
The negotiation process for the targeted site had been underway for almost a year when Sokolow got involved. It had taken that long because of the necessity to coordinate the location of the city’s new fire station with an Emergency Services District, which provides fire protection outside the city limits. Settling the terms of a purchase agreement for the city’s tract was to be the final step in closing the deal.
A Perfect Storm for Austin Transportation? Commentary by Roger Baker
Roger BakerThe announcement that Capital Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) Executive Director Joe Cantalupo is leaving to go back to his old private consulting firm after only two years may be a telling sign. This comes only a few months after Senator Kirk Watson (D-Austin), a smart and persuasive politician who supported many toll roads, stepped down as chairman of CAMPO and was succeeded by Travis County Judge Sam Biscoe.
Depending on how you might define a perfect storm, when you look over the recent news and transportation funding situation, it is getting hard to find grounds for optimism. It seems wherever you look—federal, state or local—the Austin area is facing worsening transportation funding troubles. Let us count the ways.
TxDOT is almost broke
Funding prospects look bleak for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). State Senator John Carona (R-Dallas), chairman of the Texas Senate Transportation Committee, and
Bad Planning or Magnificent Deceit? Commentary by Bruce Melton
Bruce MeltonCAMPO, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization that coordinates regional transportation planning for Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson Counties, has committed our region to a transportation development plan that, for the second time in ten years, assumes excessively aggressive traffic growth.
How do we know that CAMPO was overly optimistic with its projections for the 2030 and 2035 plans? The 2035 Plan projects future growth in traffic almost identically to the 2030 Plan. But actual traffic counts and total miles traveled, on average, are flat or actually falling. (See accompanying chart, “TxDOT Traffic Counts.”)
Why have trends changed?
Data from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), indicates that traffic volume has not increased since the turn of the 21st century. This has occurred even in the face of significant
Pat BerrymanPat Berryman, who is serving in her second term as a member of the Georgetown City Council, was paid a lump sum of $13,600 by the City of Georgetown in an apparent violation of the Texas Constitution.
The payment was requested by Berryman as reimbursement of expenses from July 2008 through December 2009.
The payment is reflected in a copy of Council Member Berryman’s city payroll record obtained from the City of Georgetown using the Texas Public Information Act.
During the entire period for which Berryman claimed reimbursement, she was a state employee working for State Senator Steve Ogden (R-Bryan), according to state payroll records obtained from the Secretary of the Texas Senate through an open records request.
Section 40(b) of the Texas Constitution prohibits a state employee who is a member of a governing body from drawing a salary. A state employee serving as a council member may be reimbursed for actual expenses but must prove that the expenses equal or exceed the amount reimbursed.
Council Member Berryman has not met that requirement.
How it happened
Mark-SokolowIn a December 15, 2009, e-mail to Georgetown City Attorney Mark Sokolow, Berryman requested reimbursement of expenses from July 2008 through December 2009.
The $13,600 she was paid represents 17 months at $800 a month.
Berryman’s e-mail to Sokolow lists 16 items, or types of expenses. The e-mail provides no indication of the amount of expenses incurred for any or all of these items. Berryman provided no receipts for the stated expenses.
Reimbursement previously refused
According to the minutes of the Georgetown City Council Meeting of April 8, 2008, under Agenda Item T, the council voted 7-0 to approve a change to the compensation schedule for the mayor and council members.
The new schedule was based on recommendations of a compensation committee appointed by the council to study the matter.
The compensation schedule authorized:
• “Base compensation” of $450 a month for the mayor and $300 a month for each of the seven council members.
• An “optional stipend” of $800 a month for the mayor and council members.
The minutes of that council meeting do not fully explain the compensation, but the minutes specify—as the compensation committee recommended—that the mayor and council members “would not be required to explain their reason for accepting the stipend.”
To facilitate these payments, the city devised a form that provided boxes to be checked, to either accept or decline each form of compensation
Georgetown City Attorney Hired In Secret Investigative Report by Ken Martin
The City of Georgetown has legal problems.
On September 8, 2009, the Georgetown City Council made the decision to hire a new, in-house city attorney, Mark Sokolow, in a closed-door executive session. That appears to be a violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act.
James HemphillAttorney Jim Hemphill of the Austin law firm Graves Dougherty Hearon and Moody, serving as a volunteer attorney on behalf of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, described the nature of such a violation.
“While the Open Meetings Act allows deliberation of personnel matters to be held in executive session, it does not have any provision authorizing hiring decisions to be made in executive session,” Hemphill said.
“Although deliberation may take place in an executive session, the board may take action to hire an employee only in an open session properly noticed in accordance with section 3A of the Open Meetings Act.”
Strike two
A possible second violation of the Open Meetings Act is also connected to the hiring of Mark Sokolow. This one relates to the description of an agenda item for the executive session. The notice did not adequately describe what the city council was to discuss behind closed doors. The posting for the 6pm session of the September 8, 2009, agenda stated for Item BB:
“Sec. 551.074 Personnel Matters — City attorney.”
Patricia CarlsPatricia “Trish” Carls of the Austin law firm Carls, McDonald and Dalrymple had served as Georgetown’s city attorney for years. She was present and acted in that capacity at the September 8 council meeting. (It is common practice for small cities to contract with outside law firms for legal services rather than hire the staff necessary to provide such services.)
The wording of the agenda item for the executive session is unclear. It could be construed by the public to mean that a discussion of Carls would be undertaken.
“Motion by (Council Member Pat) Berryman, second by (Council Member Gabe) Sansing that the Human Resources (sic) have the authority to continue his discussions with the
Terri BurkeQ. You have tackled many controversial issues during your two and a half years as chief executive of the Texas ACLU. Your ongoing efforts to protect the rights of immigrants and to guarantee religious freedom for all seem to stir up the most debates. How do you explain your stand on these contentious issues to your supporters and to your detractors?
A. One of the first things I stress is that we are talking about immigrant rights, we are not talking about immigration reform. The Constitution doesn’t have those words in it. The Constitution talks about people; it doesn’t talk about citizens. The way we treat our immigrants is a reflection of who we are as a people and whether they’re here legally or illegally, whether they’ve broken the law or not, they deserve the due process that everybody in this country gets according to the Constitution. I don’t ask you to believe that immigration policy should be changed. I don’t ask you to believe that 12 million people ought to be thrown out of the country or 12 million people ought to be let in. I just ask you to think about who we are as a people and what are our very most fundamental American values. When we don’t afford these folks the basic constitutional rights they are entitled to, we diminish ourselves as Americans.
Q. How do you respond when people say you are defending criminals when you defend the rights of illegal immigrants?
A. I say it’s no different when you have an American accused of committing a burglary. In this country we believe that every person is entitled to an attorney and a trial and a jury of his or her peers. Am I coddling a criminal when I say that? Maybe you think I am. I think it’s about basic rights. My answer is, “What part of the Constitution is it that you don’t like?”
Who Protects the Texas Environment? Hint: It Isn’t the State Agency That’s Supposed To
Investigative Report by Greg M. Schwartz
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s mission statement says the agency “strives to protect our state’s human and natural resources consistent with sustainable economic development. Our goal is clean air, clean water, and the safe management of waste.” But the agency’s numerous critics charge that the environmental protection of Texas is repeatedly trumped by politically motivated management decisions concerned only with the economic development part of the equation.
Neil Carman“There is so much dirt on the agency and most of it has never been investigated,” says Neil Carman, clean air director for the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter, based in Austin. From 1980 to 1992, Carman worked as an investigator and inspector for the Texas Air Control Board, a predecessor agency that was merged into what is now the TCEQ. Carman says he has a list of criminal cases against the TCEQ that have never been pursued, compiled from trading war stories with other investigators around the state. One of the primary areas of malfeasance Carman cites is the TCEQ’s air permitting system.
“TCEQ issued more than 150 state flexible air permits from 1995-2009 to major industrial plants by using an illegal permitting program that circumvented the Clean Air Act,” Carman says. These plants include many large industrial sources of toxic air pollutants, particulate matter, ozone-forming compounds, acid rain-producing gases, and haze-forming chemicals. The U.S. EPA Region 6 headquarters listed 142 plants in Texas in a September 25, 2007, letter that was sent to companies. The letter indicated the need for grandfathered, industrial plants that hold so-called “Flexible Permits” to reduce pollution and comply with the Clean Air Act.
Carman authored a 1999 report on behalf of the Sierra Club and the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention. The report identified about 1,070 Texas plants partly or totally grandfathered under the state law known as the Texas Clean Air Act.
“We have a permitting system that creates enforcement nightmares,” Carman says. He said the TCEQ has issued somewhere around 86,000 permits for industrial plants and facilities since 1971, and only denied about 15. Eighty-six thousand permits over 40 years averages out to 2,150 a year—more than eight every single day. Carman says the incredulous number comes directly from the permit numbers assigned by the TCEQ.
“People are shocked when they hear about all the air permits being more than 86,000—and that is a dated total. But that is good for ‘bidness’ in Texas. They issue this stuff like candy, every day, state
Extreme Summer Heat and Irreversible Ecosystem Demise Commentary by Bruce Melton
Bruce MeltonThe U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates federal research on environmental changes and their implications for society. The program began as a presidential initiative in 1989 during the Reagan–Bush era and called for “a comprehensive and integrated United States research program that will assist the nation and the world in the understanding, assessment, prediction and response to human-induced and natural processes of global change.”
The implications of this report are beyond extreme. Austin (Central Texas) normally has 12 days of 100-degree-plus heat per summer based on temperature records that go back to 1854. In the next 80 to 90 years, Austin is projected to average between 90 and 120 days of 100-degree plus heat every year. (See accompanying chart, Number of Days Over 1000F.) The Sonoran Desert Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, only averages 87 days over 100 degrees.
The Sonoran Desert is a traditional thorn and gravel desert with little to no water, blistering temperatures and, except for the natural inhabitants of the desert, is totally inhospitable to life. Austin's summers will be a third more extreme than those of the Sonoran Desert and about ten times more extreme than the normal Texas Hill Country summers.
Most life, as we know it in the Hill Country, will be dead by mid century. The transition to a thorn and gravel desert will be well underway. Today the changes have already begun.
Two things complicate the issue. There is a simple scientific concept that says scientists are conservative in their work. This is the “publish or perish” concept. Simply put, a scientist must be absolutely certain about the results of his or her discoveries or they will not be able to publish their papers in the academic journals. If a scientist is found to be wrong after their results are published, the journals will be much more cautious about publishing that scientist’s work in the future. A scientist’s work is therefore conservative to minimize the risk of being wrong.
The second complicating factor is that the rate of change has increased. Not long after the turn of the century, impacts of warming started increasing faster. A quote from the USGCRP Report states the obvious “Some of the changes have been faster than previous assessments have projected.”
The next graphic shows the atmospheric load of carbon dioxide (as carbon) in gigatons, from the USGCRP Report. The colored lines are the computer model’s projections. The black line with the circles shows actual
Roger BakerThe Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) recently unveiled its new 2035 long-range draft transportation plan, “People, Planning and Preparing for the Future: Your 25 Year Transportation Plan,” plus a separate appendix with important details. The comment form to accept your feedback on the plan will be open until 5pm April 13.
This long range plan is the result of a federally mandated planning process required of all large U.S. metropolitan areas. The federal rules mandate that CAMPO's long range plan must be updated every five years.
On the federal funding level, the fate of the big new federal transportation funding bill, the successor to the current “SAFETEA-LU” legislation, is bogged down in Congress. The current legislation is being kept in force with periodic emergency extensions. Federal Rescissions, or take-backs of previously promised funds, has stalled many state projects, even while a roughly equal amount of federal stimulus funding has been added.
In the absence of more fuel-tax revenues, the current federal stimulus spending for roads is unlikely to be sustainable for long because it is based on a troubling level of debt in competition with entitlements. Further,the U.S. Treasury at some point will face higher interest rates as the price for continuing deficit spending.
Nobody can accurately predictfederal transportation funding, and how that might affect the CAMPO plan. The long-range vision of the CAMPO plan is based on speculation about federal funding decades from now, whereas the reality is that we can't even predict it for next year.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is claiming it will be broke in a year or so, its options are limited to building no more new big roads at all. State Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas), who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, explains why. Carona said, “Today, the state's transportation revenue is almost equal to the maintenance costs for our current system. Texas can barely maintain the roads it has, let alone build new ones.”
TxDOT is running out of money because its motor-fuels tax revenue—which netted the agency more than $2.2 billion in the fiscal year that ended August 31, 2009—is declining rapidly with overall driving. This mirrors the sharp drop in national driving over the last few years. As if this were not enough, the Texas
The implications of this report are beyond extreme. Austin (Central Texas) normally has 12 days of 100-degree-plus heat per summer based on temperature records that go back to 1854. In the next 80 to 90 years, Austin is projected to average between 90 and 120 days of 100-degree plus heat every year. (See accompanying chart, Number of Days Over 1000F.) The Sonoran Desert Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, only averages 87 days over 100 degrees.