Note of the Living Deb

This information applies to Travis County, Texas, but much applies to the entire state and some to the entire country. It's all subject to change. Check out Travis County's Ballot By Mail page for the latest.

You Must Apply

Before you can vote, you must register to vote and you must apply for a "ballot by mail." If you've already registered, check that you are still registered. (VUID = Voter's Unique ID#; TDL = Texas Driver License#.) If you have moved, you will need to update your address. If you've moved to another county, you will need to re-register in your new county.

Every year you must reapply to vote by mail. If you can check the "annual" box, you will need to apply only once per year, otherwise check the election you need (the "November election" is the only one left this year). Also check the "Any Resulting Runoff" box if you want to get ballots for runoffs.

Ancient Tech

You can get your ballot-by-mail application online and can even fax or e-mail it, but then you must also send it via snail mail. There are no drop-boxes.

The application is a PDF of a document meant to be printed on the front and back of cardstock with perforated adhesive tabs. When you print it on normal paper, the directions (about not removing perforated tabs and moistening to seal) make no sense. You can just put the form page in a normal envelope and mail it. Or you can print the second page, too, and just fold the whole thing in half and tape it shut to make its own envelope. If you have the state version rather than the county version I linked to, you'll have to fill in the address for your county (for Travis County, it's: Early Voting Clerk, Dana DeBeauvoir, Travis County Clerk, Elections Devision, PO Box 149325, Austin, Texas 78714-9325).

(Please remember that the form then has to be accessed by humans so they can enter your information into the system. You do not need to glue it or staple it or tape the entire edge from corner to corner with no gap for a letter opener.)

Your ballot must also be mailed.

If snail mail is ancient history to you, you may not have envelopes or stamps or even know how to deal with an envelope. It is a pain to get just one envelope or just one stamp--I recommend asking a neighbor. The side of the envelope without the flap is where you put the address, front and center. The stamp goes in the upper right corner.

I recommend including a return address (put your name and address in the upper left corner). This is optional, but the redundancy can be very helpful in case things go wrong, like partial destruction or missing postage.

Postage

Don't forget to add postage if necessary (some states pay it). With a general election, the ballot may be so thick that you need more than just a forever stamp. But don't sweat it too much because your mail-in ballot will be sent regardless if it has the right postage (the board of elections will have to pay). (FYI, I have heard of income tax returns sent back for not enough postage, so don't assume the US Postal Service is always cool with things that have important government deadlines, but in this case they are.)

Pandemic

In Texas, only certain categories of people can vote by mail, and these categories do not specifically include people in pandemics. However, you can vote by mail if you have a disability which is defined as a "sickness or physical condition" that prevents a voter from appearing in person without the risk of "injuring the voter’s health."

Although the case could still be brought to the US Supreme Court, the latest Texas Supreme Court ruling currently stands. That ruling says that:
a) not yet being immune to covid-19 doesn't count as a disability
b) the voter decides what constitutes a disability
c) "We agree, of course, that a voter can take into consideration aspects of his health and his health history that are physical conditions in deciding whether, under the circumstances, to apply to vote by mail because of disability."

So, maybe you can and maybe you can't. One thing I do know is that if you check the "disability" box, that counts. Do not write any extra information about that disability. Last I heard, if you do write something about the pandemic, they have to reject your application. Edited 9/24/20 to add: Not true, but there's still no need to explain or justify your disability.

I do not know if there will be people investigating voters who have checked the disability box for the first time this year. I have never heard of such a thing before, but who knows what can happen? It looks like having pre-existing conditions is legally defensible. (If one of your conditions that makes you at risk is being 65 or older, just check that box.)

Security

You can send multiple applications within one envelope, but not multiple ballots. Each voter mails their own ballot separately.

Your ballot will probably arrive folded roughly--but not exactly--in fourths so that the folds don't cross the black boxes on the edges that are used by the automated ballot reader. Fight your inner perfectionist and just re-fold it the same way before you send it.

The ballot comes with an envelope for you to use. You must use the included envelope which has your voter information on it (the ballot does not, because it's a secret ballot). They use the envelope to decide whether to count your vote, the same way they check your ID in person to decide whether to let you vote.

Also, you must sign across the flap of the envelope. They do not give you much room to do that what with all the writing around that area. But if there is no signature at all, or if it's clearly not the same as the signature you used on your application, your ballot may not be accepted.

When your ballot is received, they check if you have already voted in person. If so, your ballot is discarded. If not, your ballot is checked in. Then if you try to vote in person after your ballot has been checked in, you will be turned away. Edited 9/24/20 to add: Actually, I don't know what they do; I just know that when you try to check in to vote in person, a flag will appear.

Mistakes

(Edited 9/10/20 to add this section.)

Ballot Request Form

Extra contact information is optional on your ballot request form, but if you include a phone number and/or e-mail address, it's easier for elections staff to contact you in a timely manner about any mistakes they may find. Including your voter ID # and birthday are also optional, but can help workers be sure they know who you are and send you the right ballot. If your handwriting is messy, even just having a printed return-address label on the envelope can help.

If you are voting by mail because you will be out of the county, you must provide an address that is out of the county or the application will be rejected (by law in Texas). This sounds easy, but some people have a local PO address that forwards their mail, or they don't know which address to provide because they will be several places during the voting period. You may have a trusted friend outside the county to whom you can have your ballot mailed, and they can forward it to you. Edited 9/24/20 to add: The Post Office is not allowed to forward ballots!

You must choose one of the reasons shown. (Unless they can tell that you are over 65 or your mail-to address is outside the county.) Any extra boxes you create yourself will be rejected. Extra writing will not help your case; just check the appropriate box (multiple boxes are okay).

FYI, the main reason applications are rejected is when a voter already has an application on file that is still in effect, so the new one is a duplicate. "Annual" applications include all elections for the entire year. Edited 9/24/20 to add that other reasons include:
* The application is not signed (they will compare your signature on the envelope holding your ballot to the signature on your application).
* You have not selected one of the supplied reasons for voting by mail (and have not provided a birthday indicating that you will be 65+ on election day and have not provided and out-of-county mailing address)
* You are not registered to vote, or your voter registration is not current.
* The post office has lost your application or damaged it so thoroughly that there is not enough information left. (When possible, you will be contacted.)

And if your address has changed, you will be required to fill out a change of address form (called a "Statement of Residence" or SOR) and submit it with your ballot.

Ballot

The ballot must be received on time--send it asap. You must use the envelope provided, so elections staff knows who is voting (your name is not on your secret ballot). The envelope must be signed across the back over the seal of the envelope flap. Use your usual signature--now is not the time for creativity (like airports are not the place for certain kinds of humor).

Timing

The ballot must be received by election day OR postmarked by election day and received by the following day. (Voters outside the country have a bit more time.) So this is not like your taxes where they care only about the postmark. They need an official count by a certain day, so they need to have received your ballot by a certain day.

Working at the last election, I noticed the following things:
1) Mail is not always delivered in a timely fashion.
2) Mail is not always delivered undamaged (though this was more a problem for the applications than for the ballots).
3) Not all mail is postmarked, especially when the postal workers are rushing to deliver ballots (which are in distinctive envelopes). (In our county, a determination was made that any mail received in the morning mail the day after the election could not have been sent after election day and therefore could be considered valid, even if there was no postmark. We had to ask them to do this.)

The post office recommends you mail your ballot at least one week before the deadline (see How long will it take for your mail-in ballot to be delivered on time? We tested it).

Craziness

Of course voting in person during a pandemic is a bit crazy. But in this last election, there was social distancing, mask wearing, ways for you to scan your own ID so no one else touches it, and plexiglass between voters and poll workers. So early voting may not be that crazy for those who can do it.

Voting by mail will also be crazy. A lot more people than usual are going to do it (our last primary runoff broke some records, so a full general election may stress the system).

In addition our president and many of his supporters do not want us to vote by mail, even though they do so themselves. Eliminating overtime pay in the US Postal Service has led to delays (see House Panel Calls New Postal Chief to Explain Mail Delays).

So give everything as much time as you can. You can register right now and you can apply for a ballot right now (and as early as January 1 each year).

Running out of time?

If you don't even get your ballot in time to mail it back in a timely fashion, you have options:

1) Vote in person. Bring your ballot with you if possible so you can "surrender" it (and they can cancel it). If you don't have it yet, there will be paperwork.

2) Or bring your ballot by hand to the post office that delivers directly to the county's elections office (for Travis County, that's the one at 8225 Cross Park Drive, Austin, TX 78710-9998). This will save at least one day of processing as all elections mail goes through that post office.

3) Or you can deliver your signed, sealed ballot in person to the elections office. The building is locked, so you'll talk to someone at the front door and either wait in line outside or ask for curbside service and they will tell you where to park. This will require additional paperwork as well, but the elections staff will have everything needed. Previously, you could do this only on the day of the election (7 am to 7 pm). But per the governor's 7/27/20 proclamation, such delivery is now also allowed "prior to as well as on Election Day." No clue how much prior or whether they will be accepted outside an 8-5 time window. But I will reiterate, there are no drop boxes.

Updated 8/20/20 to add that per The Elections Clerk, in addition to that election day drop-off option, there will be three drive-through locations (yet to be determined, but in downtown because by law they have to be in places where the election clerk's business offices are located). See Travis County's list of locations and times. These will be available any time after you receive your ballot, Monday - Friday from 8 am to 5 pm, even if early voting hasn't started. Once early voting starts (October 13), those hours will be extended to Monday - Saturday, 7 am to 7 pm Sunday 12 noon to 6 pm. It's still 7 - 7 on election day. You will still need your ID and to sign a form and to drop your ballot (in its envelope) into a provided ballot box.

Also updated 8/20/20 to add that drop boxes for elections are illegal in Texas. Apparently if you put your ballot in some other drop box (like for property taxes), your ballot must be rejected by law.

Per How long will it take for your mail-in ballot to be delivered on time? We tested it), 3% of ballots received in the last election arrived too late to be counted. That is horrifying, but I suspect that some of those people got worried and voted in person as well and so were not disenfranchised.

I just learned from NBC's State-by-State Voting Guide that Texans can track their ballots, so it looks like you don't need to wonder if it got there in time. If it looks like it's taking too long, you have the option to vote in person. Updated 9/24/20 to say that's only for uniformed service members. Yeesh.

I'll be doing early voting, which was extended by the governor's 7/27/20 proclamation so that it starts on Tuesday, October 13 (instead of October 19). I've heard that the busiest days of early voting are the first day and the last two days, so if you can, try a different day.

Edited to add US Representative Lloyd Doggett's Guide to Voting Safely in Central Texas.

Edited to add: See also my post Voting in Person When You've Applied to Vote By Mail.

Edited to add The Atlantic's The Election That Could Break America. Terrifying, but here's what they recommend: "If you are a voter, think about voting in person after all. More than half a million postal votes were rejected in this year’s primaries, even without Trump trying to suppress them. If you are at relatively low risk for COVID-19, volunteer to work at the polls. If you know people who are open to reason, spread word that it is normal for the results to keep changing after Election Night. If you manage news coverage, anticipate extra­constitutional measures, and position reporters and crews to respond to them. If you are an election administrator, plan for contingencies you never had to imagine before. If you are a mayor, consider how to deploy your police to ward off interlopers with bad intent. If you are a law-enforcement officer, protect the freedom to vote. If you are a legislator, choose not to participate in chicanery. If you are a judge on the bench in a battleground state, refresh your acquaintance with election case law. If you have a place in the military chain of command, remember your duty to turn aside unlawful orders. If you are a civil servant, know that your country needs you more than ever to do the right thing when you’re asked to do otherwise."

I just found out that my city is proposing that insect screens be required on all windows and doors.

The proposal

The proposal is based on the current language found in the International Property Maintenance Code:

"From [date] to [date], every door, window and other outside opening required for ventilation of habitable rooms, food preparation areas, food service areas or any areas where products to be included or utilized in food for human consumption are processed, manufactured, packaged or stored shall be supplied with approved tightly fitting screens of minimum 16 mesh per inch (16 mesh per 25 mm), and every screen door used for insect control shall have a self-closing device in good working condition. Exception: Screens shall not be required where other approved means, such as air curtains or insect repellent fans, are employed."

Public comments are being accepted until June 30.

The reasoning

They don't say why this is being proposed other than that it is part of the International Property Maintenance Code. However, they do list some benefits. Although they are called insect screens, all of the following are listed as benefits:
1) Protect against mosquitoes
2) Protect against insects
3) Protect for solar radiation
4) Reduce energy costs
5) Provide privacy

Reasons #1 and 2 make sense to me, and also protection against insect-borne diseases. Reasons #3 and 4 sound like benefits of solar screens, which look like insect screens, but are they? Reason #5 is a little wacky; pretty much any other window treatment would be better.

My windows

My windows are a mess that needs to be cleaned up.

My windows mostly do not open anymore. They are casement windows--only one of the panels in each window is meant to open, and someone thought it would be a good idea to make the crank mechanism out of aluminum, which is a very soft metal and has worn down to nothing in many of my windows. The cranks are also not any of the sizes found in my local home improvement store.

In addition, most of my windows are behind furniture and very hard to reach. Finally, we rarely want to open the windows anyway--certainly never in summer when the temperature generally remains above the high 70s even at night.

I do have solar screens installed over most (all?) of my windows. I was horrified to learn that these had basically been screwed to the window frames so that the windows can no longer be opened anyway. Also, English ivy loves to grow on them.

Something that I do not consider part of the mess is that I have window film on most of my west-facing windows (I have no south-facing windows). This feels like shade compared to not having window film. Yet I can still see out perfectly. I love this stuff.

Also wondering: It sounds like my attic vents don't count as openings for the purpose of this proposal (because my attic is not habitable, especially not in summer--they count closets and halls as not habitable, and my attic is even less so).

My doors

I have two exterior doors. Both open outwards. I have heard that this is extremely poor design because bad guys can just pop out the hinges, pull the doors off, and waltz right in. I oppose poor design.

Except--if the doors opened inwards, where would they go? The front door would probably hit the piano. The back door would hit the bookshelf.

So, um, assuming we keep the doors opening outwards, how do you add a screen door? I don't think I've ever seen such a set up.

Also, there's a thing called storm doors. That would be even more protective, right? I don't exactly know what those are. I have a vague idea that screens can be part of them, though.

Insects

We do have plenty of insects, especially in the spring. We even have a bug zapper in the house.

My city

I'm going to say that I'm against regulation that is not strongly for the public good. And this sounds exactly like the kind of thing that's a good idea but that people should have free will about.

Unfortunately, with the encroachment of the zika virus, maybe this would be important for the public good. However, how effective is it? I think draining swamps, etc., is probably the most effective defense. But would this also make a real difference?

If so, should it be required only on public buildings like schools? Or also rented buildings like apartments? Or every single building as proposed? What if people have bug nets over their beds already? (Okay, I guess that applies to virtually nobody around here.) Why was it added to that international code?

Are all the home improvement stores and/or window companies lobbying to pass this? I don't know.

Any opinions on any of this?


Very Silly Link of the Day - Sailor J's Contouring 101 - Part social commentary, part silliness, part craziness, part fun accent, all dressed up in a how-to video on make up. (Warning: swear words.) So many fun quotes:

"If the men find out we can shapeshift, they’re going to tell the church."

"Men don’t like nostrils. You want to look like a pterodactyl. Men love pterodactyls. [Screech!]"

"Beautiful women don’t have foreheads. Just darken it up. ... If you have too big of a brain, it means you have ugly things, like opinions and thoughts of your own. Equality? Not for us! Equal pay? I don’t think so."

"She is above her peers; she doesn’t need oxygen."

"It is a sponge ... drenched with the power of Satan."

"I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

My city is proposing a new zoning code that is supposed to change the way our city works so that it becomes more bikeable and walkable and more affordable. Oh, and also to update and simplify the code. We're currently on the second draft, which is over 1300 pages, so it sounds like they're failing on the simplification goal.

My previous post is a shorter summary of some of the issues and my conclusions. This post addresses everything I heard at a panel discussion on CodeNext that I went to in order to find out more. The organizers of this discussion were against it, so this was not a well-rounded panel. However, they did have experts from many fields which they felt the city should have consulted. Here's what I got from what they said.

Ed Wendler, real estate developer

Wendler was introduced as the "good" kind of developer. He said developers negotiate, and they hire lobbyists and lawyers to help them negotiate, for the right to build what the people want built, where they want it built. He may claim to do that himself, but in general I think we can count on developers to build where the developers want to build. Also, they are looking only at potential buyers, not at current residents.

He felt that the city was using what he called "Popeil Pocket Fisherman" tactics such as presenting an artificial deadline and building unrealistic expectations.

He said that we are losing residents with household incomes of less than $35K and gaining them for higher incomes, so that's why it makes sense for developers to build more expensive things. But again, I think it's not just new residents we need to look at. As current residents are priced out of their houses, they are going to be looking for lower-cost places to live and leaving available the higher-cost places for newcomers. Also, he assumes that everyone should or will live in the most expensive place they can afford and I think people should be able to live in the least expensive place that makes them happy if possible. I sure do not want to spend the most I can afford on housing if I have that option.

He said that the phrase "missing middle" is a PR term that implies it's for the middle class, but it's at best for the upper middle class. The missing middle refers to residences that are between apartment complexes and single-family homes: duplexes, fourplexes, garage apartments, row houses, etc. He said the current median family income is in the $50K-$75K bracket and they can afford houses that cost $253K or afford rent of $1,562. And then he showed some sample comparison prices of houses versus their associated garage apartment: $569K vs 424K, $474K vs 374K. He found cottages (very small houses) for $429K to $579K, and the new row houses at Mueller are going for $449. So, they may be more affordable than single-family homes, but they are still above the maximum budget for the median Austin family.

Finally he gave a bunch of correlations with housing prices:
* population size: +0.46
* population density: +0.64
* share of creative class workers: +0.46
* share of college graduates: +0.58
* share of high tech workers: +0.54
* share of blu-collar workers: -0.5
I'm not exactly sure what his point was. But if he's trying to say that Austin's plan of attracting better-paying employers and of increasing housing density won't work, I would have to counter that correlation is not causality. In fact, I can't imagine that increasing density of houses increases housing costs--more supply should lower the cost. But it does make sense that when things are expensive, then you start increasing density.

Fred McGhee, urban anthropologist

McGhee talked about Imagine Austin, the plan for Austin on which CodeNext is supposed to be based. He discussed two basic problems. First is that there is no discussion of gentrification or the actual history of our city which includes racism and classism--it's just PR. He insists "Gentrification is a fundamental violation of human rights." This did not make sense to me at first. He says it puts profits over housing. It pits organized money over organized people. It sounds like that the problem is that when you change the code to allow outsiders to build more things, this helps the developers and the new people, but it hurts the current residents often driving them out of their homes. And to the extent that this is done only in lower-cost and/or minority neighborhoods, that leads to results that feel classist and racist. In the question/answer period, someone said, "You don't have to ask which parts of Austin are not changed in CodeNext." But some people did ask. And some people shouted "Hyde Park" and "Tarrytown", two fairly central, very rich neighborhoods. And it's not like they already have way more density and mixed-use areas than other typical neighborhoods.

He also said we have the oldest public housing in America (that seems unlikely!), implying that we also have good history. (Internet searching makes it appear that Austin started public housing soon after new regulations encouraged it in the 1930s, but so did a lot of other places.)

Carmen Llanes Pulido, public health advocate

Pulido said that "Texas diversity" is considered to be 30-30-30. My best guess is that's Anglo-Hispanic-Other. She says my neighborhood used to be the only integrated part of East Austin. (This implies there were some integrated parts of West Austin; I can't imagine what those would be.) She also mentioned a fun map called Judgemental Austin where her neighborhood is labled "house flippers." [Mine is labelled Target Lovers; interestingly that Target location was a two-story Montgomery Wards when I moved here. I find myself curious about the retired state employee section--I think my sister used to live there. Most of my friends live outside the boundaries of this map.]

Pulido dislikes CodeNext because it incentivizes demolition, and this leads to larger, more expensive houses and increased flooding. It's clear to me that CodeNext incentivizes smaller, less expensive housing. It does let us build bigger buildings, but also lets them be divided into more units.

She does have a good point on the flooding though. She says most of our water runs from west to east, so most of our flooding is on the east side. However, you don't just have to be careful with losing ground cover in the east; losing ground cover in the west also increases flooding in the east.

Pulido says community planning via zoning is a terrible idea. "What Austin desperately needs is community planning." First work with stakeholders in the community, and then build the zoning from that.

Supposedly they are building the zoning from "Imagine Austin," but she thinks of that plan as "Imagine Austin Poor." She says we have a long history of institutionalized racism and we have plenty of housing where people can't afford it.

Bobby Levinski, attorney and policy advisor

Levinski said that many neighborhoods have already developed their own neighborhood plans. (And that mine is one of them--Windsor Park and University Hills have a joint neighborhood plan. Interesting.) He doesn't see our current zoning code as ancient code from the '80s patched and re-patched to keep up with the times and now needing overhauling, but as a collection of carefully negotiated agreements that are just being thrown out. He says that relying on market principles too much doesn't take into account existing residents. He says a lot of affordable housing is multi-family units. And he says that both AISD demographers and city demographsers ahve warned the city about the uninetneded consequences of planning for too much growth. (I think he's talking about gentrification again.)

Laura Morrison, former City Council member

Morrison says that making Austin "compact and connected" was supposed to be magical. I say we haven't done it, so of course we haven't seen the magic.

She says CodeNext ignores the Imagine Austin p. 207 directives. Neighborhood plans include "stability areas" with single-family housing (and some deed restrictions disallow duplexes, which I'm guessing would supersede any code changes). She also says that allowing density leads to demolition and rising costs. This code adds residential to business districts, even in communities that have already said no to this. She also talked about a change in "compatibility standards." Before you could only add an extra story or two beyond what was allowed in the areas next door, but the new code allows for abrupt changes: 8-story buildings across the street (e.g., Cameron Road) from single-story dwellings. CodeNext also allows bars and nightclubs in most commercial zones and personal services (such as hourly rental hot tubs) are also allowed pervasively. Not to mention drive-throughs, which actually discourage walking. This code could lead to a complete replacement of who lives here and who the city serves.

She said the new code increases entitlements (allowances for more height, more square footage, more units, vertical mixed-use) without enough affordability (the current requrirement for 10% affordable units is being reduced or removed from many areas). (I think the 10% has to be affordable for households with less than a certain percentage of the mean household income. Obviously, all houses are going to be affordable to somebody.)

Also, the new code is not simplified or streamlined.

Ana Aguirre, flood mitigation task force

Aguirre reminds us that flooding is not just an inconvenience, it leads to deaths and homelessness. Austin is known as Flash Flood Alley, so we don't have the kind of slow flooding that Houston has where there is time to escape.

She also said that Austin has 68 watersheds. (I would think so many watersheds would prevent overbuilding in one area from increasing flooding in another area.) But the fact is, floods have become more frequent and flood plains have expanded. Our city's current solution is buy-outs. Many of the people who were bought out ended up moving out of Austin because they couldn't afford to stay. Yet buy-outs are expensive anyway. We have too many creek variances (variance is exceptions to the rules). Expanding drainage pipes is also expensive.

Robin Rather, sustainability strategist

Rather said that many Austinites have been displaced. We don't even know what has happened to them. Austin needs to focus on people not money (we should not be treated like a big ATM). "CodeNext is the worst thing that' ever happened to Austin." Nicknames include CodeWho'sNext and CodeYou'reNext.

In any deal, it's good look at who gives and who gets. She says with CodeNext, developers win. There's a huge up-zoning of eveyr district in our city. The city also wins with more property taxes. Current residents are the losers.

I'm not sure I'm a loser. I would really love to have more mixed use areas and thus more walkability and eventually better mass transit. More density should mean lots more things are close to us. Like in Europe.

Her next question is: what problem is this solving? Our biggest problem is affordability. Median house prices have gone up:
* [I happen to know: 1996 - 100K]
* 2001 - $149K
* 2007 - $183K
* 2016 - $280K
* 2018 expected - $320K
Currently, 70% of us make less than 100K and thus can't afford a median priced house.

She also says CodeNext is divisive, upzoning the whole city for money. So-called "smart growth" leads to displaceent. She thought we would build in empty areas but instead we have gone for gentrification.

She thinks there should be property tax caps for people over the age of 55 or making less than $100K. I disagree on this, especially on the latter, which would do wacky things like make some raises lead to less income. Also, all of these people need roads and an educated public, etc.

She says our new code should be getting rid of systematic racism and economic segregation and fighting our fossil fuel addiction.

Question-and-Answer

I learned that most new appartments are 80% 1-1's and efficiencies. But that's who's moving here. (But aren't many of the people moving here going to later want to be in bigger families? And are the people who are already here changing more toward wanting smaller or larger units?)

Zoning in Germany is done at the federal level. They just pass laws about civil rights and environmental protection that all areas have to follow.

The League of Women voters has concerns. I looked that up and wow! For elections, they never pick a side, they only dole out three pro and three con arguments on each issue (unless they can't find three). They have a document much like this post only about a forum with different speakers. And a lot shorter, too! But with links to the presentation PDFs. Their recommendations, however, are only about process, not content.

Subsidized public housing leads to affordability.

The average annual household income in Austin is $57K.

Property taxes have grown higher than the mortgage for some people. (I can see this. My P&I was $505, my taxes are $400/month, and I bought my house in 1996. If I had kept my 30-year fixed mortgage (which had a slightly lower P&I) and made the minimum payments, I would still have 9 more years, and that would be happening to me soon.)

The new code is switching from talking about "use" (such as retail) to talking about "structure" (such as number of stories). I think both codes talk about both; maybe the emphasis is changing.

Most people do agree that we need more retail, but not crap retail.

Gentrification can lead to overuse of code enforcement to push people out.

The code is changing for almost the entire city without enough negotiations, with consultants who are too incompetent, and with too many developers on the committee.

Today I had jury duty. There were about 25 of us from which they would have chosen six had they needed a jury trial.

When the judge came to talk to us, he said unlike most states, Texas allows for jury trials even for the lowest-level crimes. That's pretty cool. But then he said that although it sounds romantic to request a jury trial, often when the time comes and the people involved actually see us prospective jurists there, they often decide they'd rather make a deal.

Thus, I have no choice but to conclude that I am one scary gal.

I have never yet served on a jury or even been questioned as part of choosing a jury, but I (think I) would like to serve. Maybe someday.

My favorite part was when the clerk (who was awesomely clear and helpful even though her job is probably super repetitive) exclaimed "Your ring tone matches your hat!" One guy had a train-whistle ring tone and a train engineer hat.

Also, on the way there, I helped some Vietnamese tourists choose the best bus stop for getting to UT (and talked them out of transferring to the 10 or 7 like they had planned because our bus took us right onto campus). So that was good, too.

Today I read an article in the college paper mentioning two people I've met. The article was about a country and western dance club (or maybe it's supposed to be called "country western" now) on campus which was started by these guys. My favorite quote: "I'm not your average cowboy. I'm Asian and I hate country music, but this is my passion." I'm thinking we need to make a CD of good country songs to give him.

**

I also read an editorial against subsidizing retail. The author explained that the city is giving The Domain tax breaks, but that this deal was based on wrong information and that a lost law suit resulted in the city no longer being tied to these tax incentives. However, city council wants to pay them anyway to honor the agreement. The agreement was apparently passed in a single week, not allowing for much voter input. Normally I would think it's too late and there's nothing we can do, just like with the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac buyout fiasco, but I would be wrong.

A group formed to create an amendment to the city charter and got enough signatures to get it on November's ballot. You can read the language of the Amendment and ballot. It prohibits subsidizing any development that includes retail uses. There is some disagreement on whether this language means it would also affect mixed-use development like that at the old airport which people seem to like more because it includes supposedly affordable housing. It definitely prohibits future payments even on deals that have already been made, which sounds bad unless they are all brother-in-law deals anyway. And it definitely still allows for manufacturing development.

This is an area where I don't particularly trust my city. Based on what I currently know, I'm voting for the amendment against retail subsidies.

**

It really is too late to do anything about the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac thing, right? (Don't you love how CEOs who are ousted because they run a company into the ground get huge severance packages whereas regular people who screw up are fired or at best laid off and thus qualify for unemployment benefits?) I don't suppose there's any reasonable way to prohibit companies from getting so big that they cannot be allowed to fail, is there?

All those classes in government and I really have no clue about how to be a proper citizen besides voting. And I have very few clues about that.