The District aims to connect San Antonio to Georgetown, with points in between and points beyond. Passenger rail seems to be on everybody’s wish-list in Georgetown, and it’s an obvious necessity for a sustainable future with lighter energy consumption.

But it’s also in some jeopardy. The District came under a vicious attack from three members of the council during the fierce late-night budget deliberations in the August/September meetings, and five years of work and investment were almost destroyed by the stroke of a pen. So it’s important to show support and learn more about this long-range, hugely successful to-date project.

Please show up to show support and interest, and to get the full story on the Lone Star Rail District on Tuesday. The workshop is open to the public and will be held at Council Chambers, on the northeast corner of the Square at 7th & Main. We will be able to ask the District officers questions after the workshop is over, when the City Council leaves the dais and goes into Executive Session.

Take a look through the presentation below and get your questions ready.

See you there!

Lone Star Rail Dec 2011

If you want to help change this join us at Council Council Chambers tomorrow evening, Tuesday, June 14th, at 6 pm. That’s on the corner of Seventh and Main Streets.

The mulching and composting prohibitons come from our city’s current Code of Ordinances, Sections 13.12.030 and 13.12.060. It’s a careless piece of legal drafting that just came to light because it’s about to be amended – but NOT in order to make things better.

Tomorrow’s city council meeting will conduct the second reading of proposed amendments to these sections in order to clamp down on people leaving trash at the curbside for too long, dumping waste on empty lots, and such. You may have read about this in the weekend Sun.

But although citizen input has been presented to city staff about this prohibition on mulching and composting, it’s been ignored. So now it falls to Council to make this right.

This is not a storm in a teacup, it’s a very badly written law that is about to get worse. The proposed amendments will place absentee owners in some jeopardy from vandalism beyond their control. Penalties and liabilities are being tightened. Organic refuse can be subject to a fine of $2,000 per day. Rocks and minerals after 7 days can be deemed organic refuse.

You get the drift? The law stinks – this law should be fined $2,000 per day, not us.

And it will only take a few paragraphs of common sense to sweeten this law and make it useful to the community. Along with a few other standard provisos, we simply need to exclude intential soil enriching and amending from the category of trash dumping.

Ironically, tomorrow evening marks councilwoman Rachael Jonrowe’s introduction of a conversation about urban farming. She wants to make sure there are no roadblocks in the way of homeowners trying to garden organically, and trying to keep their soil nutrients in their soil, instead of being sent to the landfill.

Tomorrow’s agenda is at the city website here:
http://agendas.georgetown.org/MeetingAgenda.aspx?meetingid=197
Rachel’s on at Item P and we follow shortly after at Item S.

You can find the proposed amendments and the existing language from the link at Item S, or below:

ORDINANCE – Garbage Collection Amendment

There are also two different geographic views: regard the Old Town Overlay District as a distinct area to be treated separately, OR treat it just like the rest of the town.

After several months’ worth of task-force discussion these two sides remain opposed. Council must decide, and if you care you should attend. Speak if possible, and email all Council members.

Note that if you address Council either in person or by email on this matter – if you favor the Old Town Overlay District being treated separately and being granted regulations to protect neighborhoods, refer to the option you’re supporting as “Section 5.03.020.F – Option 4.”

Home Based Businesses

The current ordinance relating to home-based occupations forbids “on-site retail sales or services.” This essentially prohibits visits from clients and customers.

The proposed amendment will liberalize the existing UDC and allow customer visits to home-based businesses.

Lines are largely drawn between two main camps – those who wish to allow customer visits with very little or no regulation, and those who are willing to allow customer visits with appropriate safeguards and regulations crafted into the law.

The proposed changes are complicated, with alternatives available at each sub-section.

But in general there are two main options.

1. One is to apply the proposed amendment across the whole city INCLUDING Old Town – this is the currently recommended option.
2. The other is to apply the proposed amendment to the rest of the city and a special set of regulations to the Old Town Overlay District.

The Planning & Zoning Commission in its review of the proposals DECLINED to treat the Old Town Overlay District as a distinct area with unique requirements. So if you think it can be taken for granted with our city boards and commissions that Old Town is worthy of unique consideration, think again, and be warned.

Here are some reasons why Old Town is different from the rest of the city.

• Old Town has a very diverse mix of housing, from very small modest homes to large Victorian ones, and includes a lot of rental property.
• Old Town has 100-year old utility lines.
• Old Town has narrow streets – in some areas when cars are parked both sides fire trucks cannot get down them.
• Old Town has no homeowners association, nor deed restrictions such as many of the city’s more modern communities enjoy. Old Town is completely dependent on the zoning ordinances to protect its neighborhoods.

The Old Town Overlay District Option

Of the two main sets of options being brought to Council, the regulations proposed for the Old Town Overlay District sets limits on the area being used for the business, the number of customer/client visits per day, hours of operation, parking, the number of customers in the home at one time, and the proximity to other home-based businesses, and forbids signage.

The Old Town Overlay District option prohibits retail sales and excludes certain types of business known to generate high traffic or noise. It requires businesses to obtain a permit in order to receive customer visits to the home, and the permit process would notify neighbors within 200 feet of a public hearing at the Planning and Zoning Commission. You should refer to this option formally as “Section 5.03.020.F – Option 4.”

The Whole-Town Option

The recommended option allows signage, and places no limits on the area being used for the business nor the the number of visits received in a day. Parking is restricted only to the extent of the property line, and retail sales and services are unlimited except by a list of prohibited business types. No permits or notifications are required.

This option is proposed for all of Georgetown INCLUDING the Old Town Overlay District. The Old Town Overlay District is a defined historical area of Old Town, and includes most but not all of Old Town. Adoption of the Old Town Overlay District option would offer its safeguards to the Overlay District at least.

The whole-town option has been recommended by staff, and is now recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission. So the idea that Old Town is different has so far NOT been supported.

Is Old Town different? The answer seems to be up to us.

To email Council members including the Mayor use these addresses:
mayor@georgetown.org
district1@georgetown.org
district2@georgetown.org
district3@georgetown.org
district4@georgetown.org
district5@georgetown.org
district6@georgetown.org
district7@georgetown.org

The agenda is here. It’s Item H, the first in the regular agenda, so it’ll happen fairly quickly from 6 pm.

Here’s the staff report to Council:

5th Round UDC Reading – Staff Report

Exhibit 5 is shown below:

Exhibit 5 – Home-Based Business

Old Town Overlay District Limitations on Residential Additions and Infill.

Currently in the Overlay the only restrictions on additions and infills to residential buildings and the lots on which they stand come from the general building standards in the Unified Development Code (UDC) as applied to the whole city.

As a result in our historic area there are many examples of inappropriate housing sizes and styles. We have seen the removal of historic value by inappropriate additions to historic structures. And we’ve seen overly large additions or new constructions – the McMansion syndrome that many other cities have battled against.

This amendment to the UDC sets additional limits and standards subject to HARC approval – a good step forward.

The agenda for Tuesday’s hearing is here and Exhibit 2 is shown below:

Exhibit 2 – Additions and Infill

Certificate of Design Compliance for Demolitions.

Currently any historic structure may be moved or demolished 175 days after the Historic and Architectural Review Commission has denied approval for this to happen. Our current law provides for a “cooling off” period only. HARC can disapprove a petition to move or demolish a historic building but the applicant can return after 175 days with the same request, and HARC is forced then to approve it.

The proposed amendment to the ordinance requires applicants to present evidence why a building should be demolished or removed. It requires longer delay periods depending on the historic priorities of the structures. It ultimately allows HARC to refuse permission if necessary. The applicant then may appeal directly to the City Council.

This amendment provides a protection for our historic buildings that Georgetown has always lacked. Since 1984 when the first historic survey was done we have lost approximately 162 structures. Of these, 32 were High Priority and 48 were Medium Priority.

This is probably our only chance to give our remaining significant structures a real protection that will allow the historic feel of the town to survive.

The agenda for Tuesday’s meeting is here and Exhibit 3 is shown below:

Exhibit 3 – Historic Demolition

Some people may still be thinking that the only media fit to carry the news are newsprint and its new-fangled rival, the television screen. We know better at Old Towners of course – we know the Web carries the best journalism, and the best journalists publish on the Web because their corporate bosses aren’t supportive of journalism anymore (if they ever were).

So it’s an exciting time actually, not at all a dispiriting one, to see the fragmentation of the old media as publishers scurry around looking for ways to sell what’s left of their ethics for what’s left of the old-media advertising revenues.

Enough of my opinions. Ken Martin has plenty of his own, especially about the new media, and the old-school journalism, good as it ever was.

Several weeks ago Ken wrote a letter to Ben Trollinger, editor of the Williamson County Sun. It was never published, perhaps because it’s a “think piece,” perhaps because it cuts too close to the bone for the Sun. Who can say, but here it is for you to read. It’s been updated by several more of Ken’s scoops since this – but you know all about that because you subscribe to his Alert List, right?
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Dear Ben,

Thank you your July 11 report on Georgetown City Attorney Mark Sokolow, focusing mainly on the legal status of his employment agreement as Georgetown city attorney. Since Mark Sokolow never grants interviews for my reporting in The Austin Bulldog, it’s always interesting to see what he’s quoted as saying in the Sun. The questions you asked Sokolow about his view of public records, and his evasive answers, were particularly insightful.

In this letter, I want to focus on and respond to the fact that, according to your report, Sokolow doesn’t view The Austin Bulldog as “press.”

Well, he brings up a good point. How does one think about the new forms of journalism, published exclusively online, vis-a-vis the traditional press that smashes ink on dead trees?

Speaking only for myself, I think one should look to the qualifications of the journalist who produces the material in question. In my case, I have been a professional journalist since 1981. I have won a couple of first-place national awards for investigative reporting. The first of those was for a series of articles published in the Sun in October 1988 that resulted in the defeat, indictment on two felony counts, and conviction of a county commissioner. The second award was for articles about a con man who was ultimately indicted in both Williamson and Travis counties, jailed and fined for the offenses I exposed.

Mark Sokolow might also want to consider that the Sun article of May 12, about the illegal payment to Council Member Pat Berryman, which was facilitated by Sokolow, was based on The Austin Bulldog’s investigative report of April 28.

The Sun’s story of July 11 about the legal status of Sokolow’s contract was based on The Austin Bulldog’s investigative reports of April 28 and June 14.

Finally, he might want to read my latest investigative report of July 11, which reports how he violated the Georgetown City Charter by hiring an assistant city attorney without obtaining the approval of the city council, as required by Section 5.06 of the charter. Not to mention that the person he hired has no municipal legal experience, as required in the job posting for the position, and seems to have been hired on the basis of being a close neighbor of Council Member Pat Berryman.

If one wants to dodge the journalist, as Sokolow does, and attempt to demean the form of publication, as he has regarding The Austin Bulldog, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on investigative journalism in the public interest, consider these facts:

• The Austin Bulldog won a $25,000 New Voices startup grant funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation .

• Fewer than 4 percent of the 1245 applicants who applied in the five-year period, 2005-2009, were awarded a New Voices grant, and about half of the grantees were associated with major universities.

• The Austin Bulldog is a proud member of the national Investigative News Network, a collaborative network of nonprofit organizations doing public service journalism.

I look forward to continuing the coverage offered by The Austin Bulldog and the Sun to help inform the citizens of Georgetown and arouse public interest in their city government.

Ken Martin
Founder, Editor & Publisher
The Austin Bulldog

The Community Impact local newspaper has scooped everybody (after oldtowners.com of course) with the first media report of Tuesday’s council meeting.

The story appears on their website here:
http://impactnews.com/georgetown-hutto-taylor/257-recent-news/9081-georgetown-residents-call-for-greater-transparency-in-dealings-with-city-officials

We make no secret that we eagerly await the Williamson County Sun’s take on all this on Saturday, but credit where credit is due – the people with blogs and websites have scooped the newsprint people yet again. If only Mr. Sokolow would understand that being a blog doesn’t make it wrong if you’re telling the truth; and being a lawyer doesn’t make you right if you’re not.

Well, friends, we went down to the council meeting, and we won a major success. We walked out of there with the greatest sense of triumph I’ve felt in several years.

It was a historic night, a grand watershed event. It was a decisive battle in the campaign to restore Georgetown to open government.

I could describe what happened but all the media were there: Ken Martin from the Austin Bulldog; the Austin-American Statesman; the editor and publishers of the Williamson County Sun – even the Community Impact newspaper was present. So you can read about it.

I am so enormously proud of everyone who spoke. This is why I love this town so much – for the decent people who come out of their homes just to speak a simple truth in favor of honesty and honor. The bright intelligence of the people speaking was a stunning contrast to the shame-faced body language and bowed heads of the six members of the council who last night sealed their own doom as public servants.

Council member Patty Eason stood alone, forceful and unrelenting, against the rest of the council as they tried to shut her down and silence the voices of public comment. And but for the passionate outrage at the decisive moment of former mayor Mary Ellen Kersch who sat behind me in the audience, they might have succeeded. There was a moment of holding breath, and then the will of the council collapsed under its own cowardice, and Councilwoman Eason’s agenda item was allowed to go forward, and we spoke.

If you weren’t there you wish you had been.

And if you weren’t there it may be time to ask yourselves why you weren’t there. As I told the council last night, INACTION in this matter will speak quite as loudly as action.

But now we move on with the hunt, and I believe the media is starting to smell blood. As I warned the council last night also, I truly don’t believe the people of this town will tolerate the loss of open government.

Watch the TV show, read the press reports, stay tuned to OldTowners.com and sign up for our email alert – and get ready for the victory battles yet to come.

Council is tomorrow, about 24 hours away, and I’m inviting you to attend the session.

If you haven’t read the weekend Sun you should pick up a copy anywhere you can and get an exhaustive overview of the numerous allegations made lately against our city attorney, along with comments from most of the council members and the attorney himself, Mark Sokolow.

These allegations have been made principally by Ken Martin at the Austin Bulldog, and if you’re not on his alert list you won’t know that he published another story last night, with new allegations, along with a great summary of what’s been published so far and what we hope to happen at council tomorrow.

You can read his story here:
http://www.theaustinbulldog.org

I will be appearing before the council tomorrow, speaking quite soon after session opens at 6 pm. I’m on the agenda with my long-standing political fight-partner Rick Williamson to ask the council for an investigation into all the allegations that have appeared in the press.

The whole town is talking about all these allegations of incompetence and impropriety, yet not one word has come from the council about any of it in open session. Everything so far has happened in closed session, and it comes time now to drag this nonsense into the light of day.

But there’s way more than my little speech happening tomorrow. Later in the proceedings when we come to item Q of the Legislative Regular Agenda we get our chance to pay honor and respect to council member Patty Eason for forging ahead against much adversity and creating a formal invitation from the council for the public to speak.

This is what you should come down for. It’s okay to sit and watch – I’ve told you many times that the headcount is what these politicians are swayed by, nothing else. And people really value having supporters around them as they get up to speak. But if YOU are willing to speak, you can simply and briefly make the request for an official investigation into these allegations you’ve read about in the press. That will be completely sufficient.

Remember this is not really about the attorney, that fiasco is just a by-product of the council’s own incompetence and its fears of being found out. This is about the open government we used to have, and the good governance that this council destroyed. We’ll only get it back if we grab these scoundrels by their jaws and prise them open and make them speak to us.

So we start at 6 pm in Council Chambers, at Seventh and Main. Shortly into the proceedings I’ll get my chance to speak. Then we have to wait while the folks from Shady Oaks do their part for democracy regarding an annexation that’s earlier on the agenda. This may not take very long, but we won’t know until we’re there. Soon after that will come your chance to address the council if you so wish, or to lend the rest of us your silent support as we do. Rick and I believe we are allowed to speak again, and we’ll sign up for that one for sure.

Join us.

Council beat reporter Jamaal E. O’Neal on page 3 wrote up the forthcoming session scheduled for Tuesday, July 13, in a piece announcing council member Patti Eason’s agenda item inviting public input on recent press reports about the city attorney and related improprieties.

But star performer starting on page 1 was editor Ben Trollinger, who led us through an exhaustive recap of allegations made largely by investigative reporter Ken Martin, whose work you have only to scroll down here to see. The Sun contributed a nice piece of live transcript from a phone conversation with the city attorney, Mark Sokolow, that showed him in a clearly evasive mode.

Then came the editorial, which I assume was written by publisher Clark Thurmond. The editorial called for citizen input and outcry before the dais on Tuesday. Or rather, it foreshadowed that such events might occur, and should occur.

They may.

People are hard at work, and it’s hard to get them to turn out from a belief that council can be UN-corrupted just from their voices.

I personally believe that council can be led back to a course of open government, and out of its recent bunker mentality, but of course it’ll take muscle, and time. As to all this, we shall see.

In any event, it was good to have the Sun back in the field of struggle, like the old days: bearing witness, rooting around, looking for improprieties. This alone makes the difference to our struggle, we the citizens.

This nation was founded in the close company of a strong free press. When the press is strong we have open government, and good governance can only come from open government.

Georgetown until recently was famous for its open government and the quality of its governance. I have the belief that the people of this town will not tolerate mediocrity in government for very much longer.