Bill Baumbach

Scott,

Harsh?

Not

...and you just thought tolls were high. Wait till this sucker gets built.

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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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.

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

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

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

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

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

Travis,

Is it surprising that she never responded to my offer?

Bill

Wow, heck of a story.

So after all I've done to give Diebold hell, their machine still made you vote for me?

Bill

tallscot,

Wrong.

The whole point is to allow the citizens the right to raise their own taxes.

• period

Bill Baumbach The Collin County Observer

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

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

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

It's not THAT unified. Ask the Collin County Commissioners.

They're not buying it.

Yup, sounds like the folks that elected Bush to two terms!

=>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

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

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

www.collincountyobserver.com

Actually, Mr. Young is a soft spoken moderate conservative businessman. I believe his desire to teach comes from a genuine love of children.

His voice on the council has been one of reason and compassion. His downfall brings me no joy.

Whatever my opinion of Merrill Young, no school district can tolerate a teacher with fake credentials. I believe the school district has no choice but to fire him. Any less is unacceptable in that it makes for bad precedent and leaves the students with a double standard on honesty.

In the same vein, I can't see how he can remain on the Wylie City Council.

Bill The Collin County Observer

The redacted "private citizen" money is mostly forwards of child support payments. Those should be protected.

I'd be more concerned as to why they feel they need to redact employee payroll and expense checks, since that is all public information.

The signal to noise is somewhat mitigated by the form on the site inviting open records requests on any check(s).

I'm not pleased about the list being a non-searchable pdf, but I've been told that will be upgraded. I think they hurried to get something online because it's an election year and both commissioners have opponents.

Bill Baumbach The Collin County Observer www.collincountyobsrver.com

Collin County deserves its own State Senator. If Boone Pickens wants to buy a senator, let him buy one from the panhandle.

Bill Baumbach The Collin County Observer www.collincountyobserver.com

In Texas, there are no run off elections for ISD trustees posts.

These races are decided by a plurality.

In Collin County, there are, however, 3 municipal run off races:

Allen: City Council, Pl 3 - Joey Herald vs. Richard Buchanan

Frisco: City Council, Pl 5 - Tim Nelson vs. Bart Crowder

McKinney: City Council (at-large) - Pete Huff vs. Sherry Tucker David

Bill Baumbach The Collin County Observer www.collincountyobserver.com