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VOTE NO - $925MM Bond Election

4,368 Views | 37 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by stardustag
rather be fishing
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Passage of record-high $925 million bond in November is Austin's top priority, mayor says

Getting tired of damn near one billion dollar bond elections every year.
chipotle
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Quote:

"Give a little, get a lot," Siff said


Furlock Bones
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will definitely be voting no.
Furlock Bones
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this will actually be broken down into separate parts. it's not an all or nothing bond vote. at least that's good.
BenFiasco14
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This is Austin. It will pass. One day I'll move out of the city limits and out of Travis county...
CNN is an enemy of the state and should be treated as such.
evan_aggie
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Where did you see those details?
Furlock Bones
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Quote:

On November's ballot, voters will see the $925 million broken down into seven separate packages: $250 for affordable housing; $160 million for transportation maintenance; $128 million for cultural spaces and libraries; $149 million for parks and recreation; $184 million for flood protection; $16 million for health and human service programs; and $38 million for public safety.

http://www.austintexas.gov/2018bond
Quote:


tamc93
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I did not think they were going to break it out. The question is if voters were to approve some of them, would Austin try to move the money to the ones that failed (directly or indirectly through future budgets).
FJB, FPA, and FAZ
PabloSerna
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I remember when former Police Chief Art Acevedo would say, "People keep thinking Austin is a small town." He knew what we all now know - Austin is a big city and big Cities need a big budget. I'd like to see how this compares with other cities like Austin?
rather be fishing
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I have not pulled up the sample ballot yet. Is the vote going to be broken down to where you can vote for or against each item? There are some that I would be in favor of if that's the case, but others that sound like a huge waste of money.
evan_aggie
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Furlock shows the props separated above but color me surprised. Can't believe Socialist Greg Casar would allows affordable housing to be separated out.

People don't realize: their $250m ask is just a stepping stone to a larger vision: many on the council truly believe that we *need* 50,000 affordable housing units of some sort, and that literally has been quoted as a $10b-$11b Estimate. There are 750,000 house holds In Austin, so Greg wants 1 in 15 government assisted. $800-$1400/yr in taxes for most of us over 30 years....

Senator Blutarski
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Yeah, I think I'll be voting NO to everything. The transportation infrastructure proposal should be renamed "sidewalks and trails" and I kind of like the Emmett Shelton bridge the way it is. Thank you for providing the links.
Aust Ag
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Geez, do we really need more libraries? My 16 year old, Honor Roll, doesn't read a damn thing unless it's on her phone. Books have gone unread since she was a small kid.

Come to think of it, can't remember the last "physical" book I read, not on a tablet.
Martin Q. Blank
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Aust Ag said:

Geez, do we really need more libraries? My 16 year old, Honor Roll, doesn't read a damn thing unless it's on her phone. Books have gone unread since she was a small kid.

Come to think of it, can't remember the last "physical" book I read, not on a tablet.
How will the homeless get their email without libraries?
O'Doyle Rules
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Aust Ag said:

Geez, do we really need more libraries? My 16 year old, Honor Roll, doesn't read a damn thing unless it's on her phone. Books have gone unread since she was a small kid.

Come to think of it, can't remember the last "physical" book I read, not on a tablet.


Please stop with all that practical sense.
Cobra Kai
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I hope the external audit passes, especially as at least some of these will pass.

https://www.newsradioklbj.com/news/austin-local-news/proposition-k-could-lead-complete-audit-austin-city-government
MouthBQ98
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Subsidized housing = taxpayers paying wealthy land and real estate investors off by sustaining artificially elevated demand and therefore inflation of market rates in real estate via these subsidies. Some wealthy libs are cashing in, have no doubt.
deddog
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Vote yes on Prop K and J.

No on all of the bonds.
No details or specifics on how any of these will be spent.
250mil on "affordable" housing? What a joke.
Most of it will be going to the pockets of Adler , Casar and their cronies
Btron
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Can someone give me the nickel and dime tour of prop j and k?
tamc93
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good summary here.


http://www.kut.org/post/what-are-propositions-austin-voters-will-decide-november-its-alphabet-soup
FJB, FPA, and FAZ
BiochemAg97
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Wow, that language on Prop K. I like the idea of telling voters what the costs of a proposition are going to be, but I somehow doubt the city would include costs in the language for something they wanted to pass.
rather be fishing
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Comical's take on everything: https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2018-10-19/chronicle-endorsements-city-propositions/

Quote:

Proposition K: No

Although Prop K nominally a call for greater city fiscal "efficiency" through an independent external audit purports to be about public "transparency," the campaign of its supporters has been anything but transparent. They hid their initial funders (likely because they directly trace to right-wing, anti-city sources), and once they achieved the ballot, they made it clear (through their backers at the Texas Public Policy Foundation) that win or lose, they intend to carry their campaign against local control to next year's Legislature, hoping to impose on all cities even more tax-cutting austerity from above. They want to ignore and override Austin's own auditor and auditing processes, and hand the job to an outside contractor whose only standard would be "efficiency": not equity, not quality of civic life, not even the actual effectiveness of major programs. Moreover, it's not even clear whether the referendum is legal under the City Charter, which explicitly forbids initiatives "appropriating money" (Article IV, Sec. 1) meaning Austinites would be buying a lawsuit, or nothing at all. Voters should reject the Trojan horse that is Prop K.
BiochemAg97
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rather be fishing said:

Comical's take on everything: https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2018-10-19/chronicle-endorsements-city-propositions/

Quote:

Proposition K: No

Although Prop K nominally a call for greater city fiscal "efficiency" through an independent external audit purports to be about public "transparency," the campaign of its supporters has been anything but transparent. They hid their initial funders (likely because they directly trace to right-wing, anti-city sources), and once they achieved the ballot, they made it clear (through their backers at the Texas Public Policy Foundation) that win or lose, they intend to carry their campaign against local control to next year's Legislature, hoping to impose on all cities even more tax-cutting austerity from above. They want to ignore and override Austin's own auditor and auditing processes, and hand the job to an outside contractor whose only standard would be "efficiency": not equity, not quality of civic life, not even the actual effectiveness of major programs. Moreover, it's not even clear whether the referendum is legal under the City Charter, which explicitly forbids initiatives "appropriating money" (Article IV, Sec. 1) meaning Austinites would be buying a lawsuit, or nothing at all. Voters should reject the Trojan horse that is Prop K.



If it isn't legal... then does it matter if it passes. It needs to pass so we can find out what is in it... so I seem to remember someone telling me once.

Furlock Bones
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i did my part. voted no on all of the BS spending bonds.
Btron
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I can never remember, but what is needed to vote. I'm registered to vote, I have my voter registration card...somewhere. Do I need to bring the card to the polls or just DL?
BQ92
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Aust Ag said:

Geez, do we really need more libraries? My 16 year old, Honor Roll, doesn't read a damn thing unless it's on her phone. Books have gone unread since she was a small kid.

Come to think of it, can't remember the last "physical" book I read, not on a tablet.

Slightly different perception(I used to share your opinion)... this spring when I was between jobs, I would go into the libraries during the day to use office area (WiFi, desk, printer, etc). I was SHOCKED how busy they were. Rarely did I see "the homeless " on computers as mentioned below.


I found them to be a huge benefit.
tailgatetimer10
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DL is fine in TX
astros4545
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Just a friendly reminder to all that taxation is theft
tailgatetimer10
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Surprise. All passed except k
rather be fishing
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tailgatetimer10 said:

Surprise. All passed except k
yay

only one that was voted down was the one that would put a magnifying glass on absurd spending
tailgatetimer10
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Honestly I have no clue how that happens. Oh well
kag00
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tailgatetimer10 said:

Surprise. All passed except k


Damn. Hoping for better. At a minimum I hope we can keep the District 8 council seat from flipping liberal and getting a lockstep council. Ward is the only hope there if he can make a runoff.
Aust Ag
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tailgatetimer10 said:

Honestly I have no clue how that happens. Oh well
Liberal/Weird Austin, plus thousands and thousands of new Cali's coming in , and there you go.
tamc93
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Spilled over into the suburban areas as well and lost a couple of conservative incumbents in the House.

FJB, FPA, and FAZ
rather be fishing
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The mentality of the people moving in from the coasts is to just spend money on whatever bond comes out. If it makes it to a vote, it must be for the betterment of the people.

If they stick around more than a couple of election cycles, maybe they'll figure out how grabby the city is with their bond packages.

It's very telling that the one prop that would have been less than a drop in the tax bucket is the one that failed.
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