Cactus Pryor, humorist and long-time Austin radio and television personality.
Archive for August 30th, 2011
Obit watch: August 30, 2011.
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011TMQ watch: August 30, 2011.
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011We are still a little worn out from the weekend, and can’t come up with anything clever to say. So let’s just jump right into this week’s TMQ after the jump…
Interlude.
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011The TMQ Watch for this week will probably be up early this evening.
In the meantime, we bring you something we picked up from the Onion A/V Club. No, it isn’t curable with penicillin.
Wire Inspire. Motivational posters based on “The Wire”.
Since we found this over the weekend, we find ourselves asking this question:
Civic corruption update.
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011A while back, I read Ian Flemming’s book Thrilling Cities. It occurs to me that someone could write a book called Crooked Cities, possibly without ever leaving California.
First up: the state Senate has rejected a bill that would have disincorporated the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon. This isn’t the end of the line: the city has agreed to some reforms, and is currently under investigation by the IRS. But it is a major setback for those of us who were hoping for a good disincorporation.
Meanwhile, back in Bell, former fiefdom of Robert “Ratso” Rizzo, it seems that the city issued $50 million in bonds a few years back. (I can’t tell if it was 2003 or 2004 from the LAT article.) The bonds were intended to pay for
Anyone want to take a guess on what’s happened?
Here’s the punchline: even though nothing was built, the money’s gone, and the city’s broke, the new city government still has to go through with the tax increases that were put into place to pay off the bonds.
Of course, the tax increase money is going to the bond holders, not into the general city government fund. And the city residents are upset that their taxes are being increased. But what’s the alternative, guys? Defaulting on the bonds, even if they were issued by a bunch of crooks, is just going to hurt you in the long run. Bell’s best bet at this point seems to be to return the unspent funds (about $20 million, per the LAT), and try to squeeze whatever they can out of Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and his cronies.