“Eat up, we gotta pay for those escalators at the Pavilion somehow.”

Today I had the pleasure of being Dr. Staggers lunch guest at his Kiwanis club meeting. Today’s speaker was mayor Huether. I asked him now that the entertainment tax will be paying off all of the bonds if the money can be used for maintenance on city owned (entertainment) buildings.

He did not know the answer but told me that finance director Tracy Turbak would get back to me with an answer. Tracy called me promptly about an hour ago to say YES, the monies can be used for maintenance.

This means any further maintenance or upgrades to the buildings will come from that tax instead of the CIP. It is a good milestone for the city.

And kudos to Huether and Turbak for getting back to me so quickly.

See, I’m not always a Debbie Downer.

As you can see the city now is down -4.1% from last year. I suspect that number may rise a little in December because of Christmas sales, but not much.

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And as you can see, taxpayers have put in over 8x more to the arterial road fund then developers have. I found out Monday why this is. Developers used a loophole in platting fee collection. They called their plats ‘Minor’ plats instead of ‘Major’ plats. There should be more about the platting fee story in the SF MSM over the weekend, keep your eyes peeled.

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Governor Rick Perry, “Hey, at least I wasn’t executing retards.”

I saw this story last night on the Rachel Maddow show;

(ChattahBox)—The 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of arson and the deaths of his three little girls, continues to haunt Gov. Rick Perry, the prosecutors and investigators responsible for Willingham’s conviction, because many national arson experts are convinced he was wrongly convicted. That means that the State of Texas, under the authority of Gov. Perry, may have executed an innocent man.

Now, Gov. Perry is under fire for allegedly attempting to block any further investigation into the Willingham case by a state commission, by firing the head of the commission right before the hearing was to take place.

Besides the fact that an innocent man may have been executed (Texas is famous for this), I have often been against capital punishment because many people put to the death haven’t been given the opportunity to prove their innocence. Trust me, if you are caught with the bloody candlestick in the billard room, you are screwed, but Mr. Willingham’s story is a prime example of a failed justice system. This story will get more interesting as it unfolds. It’s one thing to execute an innocent man, but when you know he may be innocent then try to cover it up you are a pretty freaking disgusting human being, of course this is the same governor that wants Texas to secede. Good Riddance.