Bill Baumbach
Joined March 31, 2007
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About
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Wylie, TX
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website
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male
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in a relationship
Profession
- The Collin County Observer
High School
- Bryan Adams, Dallas
College
- UTD
Comments
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1 year, 5 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Dallas Morning News exiles columnist to Collin County
rjkkhoury,
Is Collin County closer than Afghanistan for the DMN?
Bill
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2 years, 9 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Indicted Collin County Clerk employees enter pleas, face speedy trials
Errata:
My 3:00 AM typing skills are faltering, so I must confess to an error in the above article.
The name of the First Assistant DA prosecuting these cases is Greg Davis, not Greg Dixon.
I apologize for the error.
Bill Baumbach
The Collin County Observer
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2 years, 9 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Indicted Collin County employees still reporting for work
drgoodloe,
What more grounds do you need?
That they are supervising the whistle blowers who turned them in, and will testify against them?
That they are custodians of their own case files?
That they are collecting money for the courts while being charged with "Theft by a Public Servant"?
Bill
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2 years, 9 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Indicted Collin County employees still reporting for work
Jason,
Is requiring them to take a leave of absence, trying and convicting them?
I stand by what I said, "Accused criminals are running the shop".
Thanks for reading.
Bill
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3 years, 4 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Collin County officials stay home for the holidays
John,
No raises this year.
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3 years, 7 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Is mass transit sinking in Collin County?
Scott,
Harsh?
Not
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3 years, 8 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Comprehensive development agreement for LBJ-635 expansion executed
...and you just thought tolls were high. Wait till this sucker gets built.
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3 years, 9 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Collin County fined for selling McKinney courthouse
My guess is that the Historical Commission wasn't too awfully gung-ho about Brutalism , but they did want to make their point.
A $50 minimum fine for 6 months is over $9,000. I suppose the commission and county simply negotiated and plea bargained down. Since it is a civil (administrative) penalty, no judge is required to sign off on the deal.
Bill Baumbach
The Collin County Observer
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3 years, 9 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Collin County officials may not understand concept of vote centers
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UPDATE 10:30 AM, August 10
The Commissioners Court just voted to require that the Site Selection Committee limit the number of polling places to 57.
UPDATE 12:00 AM, August 10
The Site Selection Committee, citing the impossibility of adequately evaluating poll sites in the two weeks permitted it, voted 5-3 to recommend all 63 locations as vote centers in the 209 Constitutional Amendments election. It is now up to the county commissioners to decide what they will do next, since they voted to require that the committee recommend no more than 57 locations.
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3 years, 10 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Collin County Judge Keith Self puts campaign donor list online
Correction:
When researching this article, I made 2 serious errors.
First, the $2,500 donation was from Plano lawyer David McCall, not his brother State Representative Brian McCall. I sincerely regret the error.
Second, I only noticed the first page of Self's report, which was actually 4 pages long. With my apologies, I list below the corrected totals and major donors as of July 1, 2009.
Judge Self reported 179 donations (a few are multiple donations from the same donor) for a total raised of $67,923.
The largest donation was $5,000 from Jim & Jennie Daley of Plano. John & Leahray Wroten of Fairview donated $3,273 Mark & Sherry Tucker David of McKinney contributed $3,000 David McCall and HR Perot, both of Plano each donated $2,500 Paul & Judy Pogue of McKinney, Ross Perot, Jr. of Plano and Bob & June Petitt of Frisco each gave $2,000 Paul & Jennie May of McKinney donated $1,500
$1,000 donations were made by Jerry & Judy Gallagher, Rex & Sherese Glendenning, Ray & Ann Huffines, John & Diann Jones, Dr. Paul & Joy Flavill, Gene Phillips, and Susan & Patrick Fallon.
Bill
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3 years, 10 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
NTTA responds to toll jumpers story
Scott,
You wrote, "TxDOT effectively employs them"
You couldn't be more wrong.
NTTA like DART is run by a board of directors. That board sets tolls and policy (hopefully consistent with state law).
There are 9 members of the NTTA board of directors. Each of the 4 counties in NTTAs service region appoints 2 and the governor appoints 1.
A listing of board members can be found at http://www.ntta.org/AboutUs/Board/
NTTA, is one of many 'alphabet soup' entities that levy fees, taxes and fines on citizens who are never given an opportunity to vote for these boards members.
There's a lot wrong with the way NTTA is set up, but being under the control of TXDOT is not one of them.
Bill
The Collin County Observer
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3 years, 10 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
What is going with the North Texas Fusion Center contract?
Travis,
They're about as scary as all get go. Fusion Centers engage in little more than domestic espionage on American citizens.
We've now got all these local spy shops all over the country, and no one is watching the watchers.
No professional intelligence oversight is required.
No citizen's review or input.
Abuse is inevitable.
Bill
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3 years, 11 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
When content partners collide: McKinneyNews.net interviews Bill Baumbach of the Collin County Observer
Poet,
Thanks for your comments. Brett can be a little of the scale for me, but consenting to an interview is a far cry from creating a political alliance.
Did you also think that Howard Cosell was confused with a Muslim because he interviewed Muhammad Ali? Or more correctly, was Ali confused with a middle aged white Democrat because Cosell interviewed him?
I'm grateful that my friends aren't careful about the company they keep - or I wouldn't have any friends.
Bill
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3 years, 11 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Collin County Commissioners to consider Outer Loop path
The Collin County Toll Road Authority has "assumed" responsibility for constructing and operating the Collin portion of Loop 9.
Your comment hints at the underlying contradiction, because the road is, in fact, a regional highway - not a local county road.
Just don't tell that to our commissioners.
Bill Baumbach
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4 years agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Pegasus News content partner interview: The Collin County Observer
Travis,
Is it surprising that she never responded to my offer?
Bill
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4 years, 2 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Possibly faulty voting machines still used by Collin County
Wow, heck of a story.
So after all I've done to give Diebold hell, their machine still made you vote for me?
Bill
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4 years, 2 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
The Keith Self side show
tallscot,
Wrong.
The whole point is to allow the citizens the right to raise their own taxes.
- period
Bill Baumbach The Collin County Observer
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4 years, 2 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Rep. Allen Vaught and Sen. John Carona file bills in support of rape victims
The police put a note in a person's file. It can not be challenged; there is no defense.
I find this idea troubling. It kind of says that as long as you have a DNA match, there is no need for a trial. That's a really scary perspective.
While I really do understand the motives are to protect the victims, guilt and its consequences should only be assumed after a guilty plea, or an adversarial trial.
We are Americans, that's how we do things in this country.
Bill
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4 years, 3 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Dallas International Street Church under fire
Did you read about the fire in a Paris, Texas homeless shelter last month that killed 5 people? ( http://cbs11tv.com/local/Paris.Homele... )
Is the Fire Dept is acting because of political pressure or out of a genuine safety concern?
Bill
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4 years, 3 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Ousted Collin County judge back as "visiting judge"
I wrote this article after receiving credible information that Charles Sandoval had been appointed to serve as a visiting judge by administrative judge John Berry of the Collin County County Court at Law #3.
After publishing it, I received several emails questioning whether, in fact, Sandoval had taken the bench. I immediately pulled the article and started a round of fact checking.
This is what I learned:
Judge Sandoval was appointed a visiting judge by Judge Berry, but that appointment was rescinded at the last moment. Several sources have told me that the appointment was rescinded after a "higher authority" intervened.
Please see my recent post "Sandoval wants a job" for some insight into the maneuvering by Judge Sandoval and the Collin County district judges.
I sincerely regret my error.
Bill Baumbach The Collin county Observer
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4 years, 5 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
North Texas Regional Transportation Council approves Rail North Texas plan
It's not THAT unified. Ask the Collin County Commissioners.
They're not buying it.
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4 years, 5 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Judge alleges election fraud in Richardson
Yup, sounds like the folks that elected Bush to two terms!
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4 years, 6 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Who gains from Collin County's suit against its auditor?
=>Uh, why doesn't every taxpayer have access to all the financial data of their government?
They do.
Federal issues - Freedom of Information Act
Texas and Local - Open Records Act
Bill
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4 years, 6 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Collin County voting records debunks "Limbaugh effect"
Rodom, You are right and I did correct my factual error on what Limbaugh called for. In a correction I published this afternoon, I wrote "A number of local Republicans, at a loss to explain the large Democratic primary turnout, cite Rush Limbaugh's appeal to conservatives to vote in the Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton, because ol' Rush thought that Clinton would "bloody up" Obama."
The error was mine, but it doesn't change the numbers.
Bill Baumbach
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4 years, 8 months agoBill Baumbach's comment on:
Collin County prosecutors get pay raises
You've got this one wrong guys. (So did the local McKinney newspaper and one other online news site.)
The commissioners approved the prosecutors' "supplemental pay". They do that every year. You see, some of the prosecutors pay comes out of court fees instead of the general fund.
At their previous meeting (2 weeks ago) the commissioners court DID approve a 7% average pay hike for prosecutors.
The 7% will be more or less per individual depending on performance evaluations...but overall, 7% was budgeted. The rest of the county employees got 3.5% - 5%
See Collin County news release below:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, Sept. 26, 2008
Prosecutor pay-raise news reports inaccurate
(McKINNEY, Texas) – Media reports today of a flat, $13,000 pay raise for Collin County prosecutors in the coming fiscal year are incorrect. On Sept. 8, 2008, the Collin County Commissioners Court approved a seven percent salary budget increase for attorneys in the Criminal District Attorney’s office for the coming fiscal year. Actual increases for each individual attorney may vary, since individual raise percentages are determined by the District Attorney’s office performance reviews. An across-the-board, lump-sum raise for assistant district attorneys was not requested of nor approved by Collin County Commissioners. No raises will go into effect until Fiscal Year 2009 begins on Oct. 1, 2008.
Bill Baumbach The Collin County Observer
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