TEXAS LIVING!

Ok! Election time here in Allen, Texas again! Early voting is currently underway for the $119+ million, MILLION in capital letters BTW, for the 2009 Allen Independent School District Bond Proposition. Early voting is now available through May 5th, with the actual election on Saturday, May 9th. Now remember, we voted on and approved a huge school bond package just this past November. It was for $219 million dollars. Recent bond election history shows a 74% approval for the past three bond elections, for $55.5 million, $69 million, and $115 million. The current bond is for three capital projects: a new multipurpose auditorium for $23.3 million, a multipurpose stadium for $59.6 million and a new transportation, maintenance and student nutrition center for $36.5 million. Readers! That is a-heck-of-a lot-of-money in just six months. That is a total of $338 million. Here is my personal rub on this. Recently a huge multi-million dollar bond was approved by residents for the City of Allen for several projects. The one that ‘hit’ home for me was what is being called the City Service Center, with a maintenance facility, training facility and driver practice track, plus other items. When I asked the City about shared resources with other municipalities and local governments, I got a bureaucratic load of bull-shit with no actual answers to my very specific questions. And now when I tried to get info about Allen ISD sharing City maintenance facilities so I could be an informed voter, I got nowhere AGAIN! I also wanted to know why the school district has been leasing portable bleachers for football games at $225,000 a year vs. buying them. Sorry! I can’t support these capital projects without adequate justification. I refuse to be head-in-the-sand voter. But I am excited about the upcoming projects for highway improvements. And yes, they are toll projects, being ‘fast-tracked’ with private funding. What I really like is that I don’t have to use these new facilities unless I choose to. There are other routing options, but I can use the toll projects if I want to pay for the convenience. Weigh that against State and Federal funding options that are becoming more and more obsolete. SW Washington and Oregon legislators are costing the local tax-payers hundreds of millions of dollars by failing to see the options on the I-5 bridge replacement project. It seems to me there is a compromise, but once again, head-in-the-sand attitudes will cost everyone more money! And in today’s economic world, that's unacceptable; and once again, I am happy that I relocated to Texas where transportation officials have more imagination, and the ‘stones’ to act.