CONSERVE WATER AUSTIN...Why wait so long?

  It is imperative that we conserve out water resources!  I could not agree more with what the Editorial Board is saying here (Conserve Water), I just don't know why it took so long for us to go to Stage 2 water restrictions.  As I stated in my last post and my class presentation, if we conserve water the only people who will have to pay more are the ones who abuse and waste it. 


  Before the city of Austin went into Stage 2 water restrictions, there were less than 100 fines written or warnings cited.  Since September 6th, when Stage 2 began, there have been 675 water waste complaints received.  I am not sure how many fines that adds up to, but at least people are reporting those who are abusing this finite resource.  Contrary to a lot of popular belief CONSERVATION does work!  All we have to do is get the word out and hold people accountable for their actions.  For example, and I am not saying we can do this, but in the military when water is becoming low in supply they will mandate water hours.  Water hours is a simple way of conserving water.  You shower during your allotted time, maybe once a week, and you only use water for drinking and cooking.

  I would not expect Austin to do anything that drastic but just look at how much water we saved in the first week of stage 2 restrictions, over 100 million less gallons of water were used in the very first week alone.  I agree with this writer, if your make conservation a daily habit, it will eventually become routine. Check out the article for yourself.  The link is just below.

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/water-conservation-a-habit-we-must-keep-1878937.html

A comment about why Gov. Perry calls himself a Republican

I did not write this, it is from Statesman.com and even though I don't agree with it at all, it does pose some interesting points.

I would like to know why Rick Perry has a Republican Membership card when he speaks of Texas secession from the Federal Government. Wisconsin and illinois were the center of the press with the Lincoln and Douglas debates. Frederick Douglass was a non-citizend when he followed Lincoln and S.A. Douglas during the debates of keeping this Union together free or with slavery. From these debates secession was the next move when Lincoln was lected President 1860. Texas would not accept the leadership of the “Black Republican President Abraham Lincoln because of fear. This fear was the right to own human beings taken away as a state right to own human flesh as private property. Frederick Douglass did not like the direction the Republican Party was going and he wanted his people free and enfranchised with equal rights. Texas named Wisconsin the home of the Republican Party a belligerent because of the fugitive slave law not being enforced and the Radical Republicans. Frederick Douglass worked with Lincoln during some very tough times while his brothers were in the chains of slavery and the black Union soldiers captured returned to slavery. Frederick Douglass and the late president Abrham Lincoln became two of the utmost great Americans making the Constitution a real document of freedom for all Americans. These men were at the forefront of the formation of the Republican party and restoring common sense about the Constitution being a document to forever make Americans free. It was not a document for the lobbyist or corporate donors but a document Americans would have the right to decide our freedoms at the ballot box. The Republican Party along with Republican Frederick Douglass made the Constitution about individual rights and not a document of corporate America. We have turned into a document of campaign donations, political pacts, bought and purchased elected political leaders. (State and Federal) How does Lincoln fit in Perry’s election to be President as the Party that restored the constitution a document for the people and by the people. I don’t think all these men died to make it a document of corporate America. The Tea Party Express and so called would-be Republicans with the support of the U. S. Supreme Court and State Suprme Courts make it adocument for coporate America and that is a Socialist Capitalist document for corporations. Usurping the vote of the citizen at the ballot box.

And the winner is...The City of Austin! Resisdents loose the fight and have to dish out more money

As a follow up to my assignment, here is the outcome of the article I wrote about yesterday.  I will spare you my witty humor and disdain this morning and allow you to read the article for yourself.

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/austin-residents-face-higher-tax-bills-utility-fees-1849697.html

Sometimes I wonder why we even bother trying to figure it out...

Keeping in mind I am writing this only minutes or (days) before the outcome will be released based on the amount of political jockeying or debate.  The article or issue I am referring to is the Austin City Council's vote on the new budget.  The proposed budget for 2011-2012 is 2.8 billion (not million, billion for the city of Austin), I for one would not have seen that, but again I live in Round Rock.  A couple of things of note, the average Austinite would pay $267 more in taxes and utility bills and if you are an ex-offender of any sort you may qualify for city funded job training.  Yep, you read it correctly, you could possibly pay more in taxes to help fund a program to give ex-offenders job training!  Heck, let me go commit a crime today so I can qualify for that program.  Seriously, you can read the article for yourself and I may have over-embellished a tad bit but; how about fining more people (I don't know how many have been fined in Austin, but in Round Rock less than 100 fines have been issued by RRPD) who are watering their lawns on non-designated days as a way to increase the city's revenue without over taxing yet again.  Come on, $6 to each person's water bill for water conservation, when I already obey the water conservation regulations!

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/as-austin-city-council-prepares-to-vote-on-1844086.html