My last post put together a theoretical system that should be able to handle a near "real-time" posting of information in an online format if required. It was meant merely as a basis for discussion; to set the technical parameters of a system so we can break down specifically and in more detail, the functionality of the system in specific situations. In this post, I'll try to highlight and explain exactly how this system *should* work in situations that have been mentioned publicly. But first, a standard disclaimer:

Although I currently work for the City of Austin, I am in no way representing or advocating *any* official position of the City in this matter. I am writing this as a concerned citizen of Austin who would like to see our government as transparent and efficient as possible and I am using information that is publicly available elsewhere to make my points.

With that in mind, this is a theoretical plan so assumptions have been made which could be incorrect. At this time, I am neither for nor against the proposed Charter amendment. My focus with this post is to try and bring a technical solution to the mandated goals of the Charter amendment in which to serve as a base for discussion with the Austin technical community. This opinion is put forward in the hopes it will facilitate discussion and will bring other concerned citizens into the mix and to showcase the alternative technical ways to satisfy the Charter amendment if passed. So please, do not read anything into this post that is not explicitly stated.

I'll first discuss the situations mentioned in the ballot language proposed by the City Council. Here is the language that will be going on the ballot this May (italics are direct quotes; my responses are normal text. Further, I've changed the format of the language to make the points more clear [I don't think anyone can read big, run-on sentences very well]):

City Language

Shall the city charter be amended:

1. to require that all private citizens emails to any public official be placed on the city website in real time, including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, including the library department, police department, city health clinics and city departments handling utility bills and code enforcement, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications;
2. to require that the heads of all city departments, including the police department, parks department, library department, all city manager s staff and all city council members and their staff post online in real time information about all meetings and phone calls with private citizens;
3. prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the city and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk;
4. to require the city to create at taxpayer expense an online electronic data system for most city communications and documents, which for the most part are already available to the public; and
5. to install and permanently operate such a system at an estimated cost of approximately $36 million initially and $12 million annually thereafter if fully implemented, which could require a tax increase equivalent to three cents per $100 valuation or a reduction in city services?

First, let me say that there are those that feel the ballot language is not an accurate portrayal of the amendment's goals. I won't comment publicly my thoughts on the language at this time but I will address the technical concerns of the ballot language in the proposed system.

a) to require that all private citizens emails to any public official be placed on the city website in real time, including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, including the library department, police department, city health clinics and city departments handling utility bills and code enforcement, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications;

Email is already subject to Open Records requests and state document retention policies so the only difference in this clause from a restatement of current policy is the "real time" bit (which I will address). Further, the amendment does not require breaking any existing federal or state laws in its effort for transparency (i.e- City health clinics, police departments and utilities are bound by federal laws like HIPAA and the USA Patriot act which supercede the City Charter's authority for online posting of information.) Privacy laws (whether federal or state) still supercede any authority the city charter may have (an important concept that seems lost within the context of the current ballot language).

The relevant section(s) from the amendment is:

SECTION 2: Privacy Protected. Nothing within this amendment should be interpreted in a manner that would violate an individual’s existing constitutional or common law rights to privacy.

and

(C)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

(1)In order to better preserve written electronic communication for public disclosure, the City must establish a system that automatically archives all incoming and outgoing electronic communication that deals with City business to and from the following people in their official capacity:

1. City Councilmembers and their staff;
2. City Manager and his or her staff;
3. Assistant City Managers and their staff; and
4. all department heads.

The amendment merely calls for an archiving system for the above personnel and does not require "real time" capabilities. The city currently follows all state document retention laws which require email archiving for a period of no less than 2 years.

As it is correct to legally interpret the language of the amendment as broadly as possible, the current ballot language does not recognize that the ultimate authority of "real time" resides with the city council and not with this amendment. Interpreting the amendment as broadly as possible, it is correct to assume that "real time" posting of email would be a goal if that action was practical (that is the keyword from the amendment). The city council is the determining body of the "practicalness" of any issue that falls outside the explicit conditions set by the amendment. Hence, in this limited example of "real time" email, because it falls outside the explicit condition set by the amendment, it should be referred to council for determination of how practical the idea is (the key clause from the amendment is "expeditiously as possible and to the greatest extent practical,"). If the council found it was practical, it would then be up to the council to determine the action to best fit the situation.

Further, the OGO amendment only mentions "real time" in two explicit circumstances; calendars of the city council, city managers, division heads and their staff and written communications between the City and businesses and individuals seeking ecomonic development benefits. Anything outside the scope of the following sections would be referred to council for a practical definition. The amendment *does not* require "real time," online posting of email (even though the press continually miss this point).

SECTION 3: Open Government Online

(A)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY BUSINESS

(4)All public information concerning the matter subject to Section 3(A)(2) must be posted to the website. All written communications between the City and the applicant relating to the matter must be posted online in real time in a manner searchable by the public.

(B)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY CALENDARS

(3)Calendars and logs must be posted online in real time and be accessible to the public.

(I like to think of this situation as the city council's "Mars Mission." Even though a manned mission to Mars is possible, it still is not practical and the council could rule for various reasons [the cost is prohibitively expensive; no one is trained for the mission; the chemical rockets are not powerful enough to make it to Mars, the citizens don't want the extra $.03 per $100 valuation tax increase, etc] that the "Mars Mission" would not take place.)

The proposed system could meet the goal of "real time" posting of email if required by council at a later date. On email reception, the email is "tagged" with an OGO compliant label (the label is contained within the metadata for that message). Retrieval and display of those messages would be a simple ad-hoc query from the Zope application server to the Zimbra MySQL-based metadata store for the appropriate tag (pseudo-SQL: SELECT msg WHERE msg.tag MATCHES "OGO" AND msg.user MATCHES "Council Member"). Dependent on the tags, messages could also be grouped so a query could pull up not just one member's email messages, but a whole group (psuedo-SQL: SELECT msgs WHERE msg.tag MATCHES "OGO" AND msg.group MATCHES "city council" WHERE msg.date MATCHES "last week"). The nice thing about this approach is that by tagging the messages with metadata as they come in, we can do efficient ad-hoc querying from the Zope server to the message store while utilizing a single data repository. Furthering enhancing system performance, Zope will cache any queries on the Zope server so multiple queries for the same data will not need multiple "trips" to the message store.

I am having trouble finding where the council feels that the amendment is " ... limit(ing) the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications;". The closest section I can find is the waiver of rights in section 4(B). That section does not deal with the public-at-large though; it only deals with those individuals and businesses that are seeking economic benefits from the city and does not deal with private citizens email. I'm at a loss for where the council found that clause applicable under the "real time" section.

The next section from the ballot language:

b) to require that the heads of all city departments, including the police department, parks department, library department, all city manager s staff and all city council members and their staff post online in real time information about all meetings and phone calls with private citizens;

And the relevant section(s) from the amendment:

(B)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY CALENDARS

1. For all matters involving City business, the following people must maintain calendars of all meetings and maintain logs of all telephone calls: (a) City Councilmembers and their staff; (b) City Manager and his or her staff; (c) Assistant City Managers and their staff; and (d) all department heads.
2. These calendars and logs must contain the time, date, subject matter, and persons involved in all meetings and telephone calls involving City business. These calendars must be used to schedule and record all past and future meetings that occur after the implementation date of this section.
3. Calendars and logs must be posted online in real time and be accessible to the public.
4. “Meetings” includes all informal and formal meetings including but not limited to telephone conferences, videoconferences, happy hours, and luncheons.
5. This provision must be implemented within six months of approval of this amendment.

In the proposed model, this requirement is already addressed in the current product line. Zimbra has partnered with another open source product, Asterisk to provide VoIP and PBX functionality within the collaboration server. Asterisk is a full-featured, enterprise-class PBX so the logging of calls in or out should be easy and display of those calls should be the same as the calendar view (more information is here and here.)

The next section from the ballot language:

c) prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the city and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk;

There are no technical issues required within this clause but, for completeness, here are the relevant amendment sections:

SECTION 4: Public Information.

The term “public information” means information that is required to be produced under Texas Government Code § 552.021. Public information also includes the following categories that must be produced in response to a public information request:

1. INFORMATION RELATING TO CIVIL LITIGATION. That the City is a party to litigation does not render information relating to that litigation less important; rather it often means the information is a matter of heightened public interest. Therefore, the City must not withhold information relating to civil litigation under Texas Government Code § 552.103, but it may withhold under other Public Information Act exceptions.
2. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INFORMATION. Information relating to economic development assistance or incentives is public information to which the public has a right of access.
   1. The City must require all businesses and individuals seeking to engage in the type of economic development negotiations referenced in Texas Government Code § 552.131 to execute and deliver to the City a waiver of any rights to prevent the public disclosure of all information exchanged with the City. The City is without authority to engage in economic development negotiations with any company that has not first executed a waiver.
   2. The City is without authority to shield economic development offers under Texas Government Code § 552.131(b).
   3. Nothing in section 4(B) prevents a City from withholding documents under Texas Government Code §§ 552.104, 552.105, or 552.108.
3. AGENCY MEMORANDA. Open government in Austin ensures the people have access not only to the final decisions made by government officials but also to the process by which those decisions are made. The City must not use Texas Government Code § 552.111 to withhold information reflecting advice, opinion, and recommendations on policymaking matters, except the City may withhold attorney work product.
4. PERSONNEL FILES. The City of Austin must not maintain an optional personnel file as authorized under Texas Local Government Code § 143.089(g) for employees of the Austin Police Department, nor does the City have authority to enter into any meet and confer or other agreement with any police officer association that requires creation or maintenance of a separate file that is closed to the public.
5. EMAILS RELATED TO CITY BUSINESS. Email or other written electronic communication to or from a public official concerning City business is public information, including communications to or from privately owned email accounts or computers.

I'll address the next two ballot language sections together:

4. to require the city to create at taxpayer expense an online electronic data system for most city communications and documents, which for the most part are already available to the public; and
5. to install and permanently operate such a system at an estimated cost of approximately $36 million initially and $12 million annually thereafter if fully implemented, which could require a tax increase equivalent to three cents per $100 valuation or a reduction in city services?

The proposed model does not require any new systems to be purchased outside of the one's listed in my first post. Jabber serves as a "bridge" to connect the various existing datasources into the display architecture while the "agents" speak the "native" application language to the existing datastores (once again, I'll mention the CAPWin project of Washington, DC.) Some of the cost in the City's official estimate is for software licensing ($6mil alone just for the document management system). As I've stated in my past post, the cost estimate from the city is a good attempt at "herding cats" but until specifics are laid out, noone actually knows how much the initiative will cost.

For example, the model I propose is heavier into programming than software licensing. Most of the products I've used in this model do not have an initial or ongoing software licensing cost (however, service contracts will still need to be procured). So it can be assumed that this model will be less expensive in software licensing than the city's official estimate. I have yet to fully breakdown the initial and ongoing costs for this model (I'm more concerned about the technical issues and not cost; I leave that for people more skilled than I at cost estimation) but a quick rundown of the products listed and their software costs:

Cost estimation
Product	Initial Software Cost	Ongoing Licensing Cost	Service Contract required
Zope	$0	$0	Yes
Plone	$0	$0	Yes
Jabber	$0	$0	Yes
Jabber agents	$Unknown. Based on how many systems need to be tied in.	$0	Yes
Zimbra	$28/user	$0	Yes
OpenOffice.org	$0	$0	Yes

Please keep in mind that the service contracts will cost money as well as hardware would need to be purchased (the city's estimate on server hardware is fair and reflective; the city would not have to replace 1,540 PCs under this model saving an additional $1.2mil). Without delving further into specifics, between just EDIMS licensing and the replacement PC costs, there is a savings of $7.1mil off the projected one-time cost of $24mil and at least $1.1mil off the recurring cost of $11.6mil. (I feel the ballot language is wrong when it states $36mil upfront costs. That figure combines the one-time cost at $24mil and the recurring cost of $11.6mil. The recurring cost would not have an effect on the one-time purchasing cost of the first year. Again, if anyone is interested in fully fleshing the costs of this model out, please email me.)

So, in sum, I hope that the technical model I propose shows the flexibility and expandability sought by the OGO amendment to provide a transparent window into the people's government. I would like to re-emphasize that this model should *not* be taken as a roadmap but merely as a discussion of the salient technical issues the amendment seeks.

The Austin City Council has released the final ballot language for the upcoming propositions including the citizen-initiated Prop 1 and 2. For the first time in Texas history, a municipal council was directed by a court to rewrite ballot language as it was found that the language did not "present a fair measure of the proposed measures [and] chief features" and gave the City Council a deadline to change the language. Since I covered the last, and now found illegal, ballot language, I'll do the same for this final version. But first, the standard disclaimer:

Although I currently work for the City of Austin, I am in no way representing or advocating *any* official position of the City in this matter. I am writing this as a concerned citizen of Austin who would like to see our government as transparent and efficient as possible and I am using information that is publicly available elsewhere to make my points.

At this time, I am neither for nor against the proposed Charter amendment. My focus with this post is to try and bring a non-biased look at the proposed amendment and the ramifications it would bring if enacted. This opinion is put forward in the hopes it will facilitate discussion and will bring other concerned citizens into the issue. So please, do not read anything into this post that is not explicitly stated.

The City Council's final language appears thusly:

Proposition 1:
Shall the City Charter be amended:

1. to provide online access to public information, which for the most part is already available, by creating an online electronic data system for most City communications and documents at taxpayer expense;
2. to require that private citizens' emails to public officials be placed on the City website in "real time," including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications, unless legal exceptions apply;
3. to require that the heads of all City departments, all city manager's staff and all city council members and their staff post online in "real time" information about meetings and phone calls with private citizens; and
4. to prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the City and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk?

So let's again breakdown each section.

1. to provide online access to public information, which for the most part is already available, by creating an online electronic data system for most City communications and documents at taxpayer expense;

This is more representative than the last ballot language which included sections on certain departments possibly releasing private information (Library, Health clinics, Police Department, etc) which Proposition 1 did not call for. "For the most part," this statement is accurate and correct but it does miss a crucial goal of the amendment: efficient access to public information. While it's true that most of this information is available, the Open Records request mechanisms employed by the different departments throughout the city are not efficient. The request can take as much as 10 days before the requestor even knows if the information can be retrieved. The amendment seeks to clarify and accelerate the public's access to this public information by putting online as much public information as possible (and, most importantly, where approved by City Council) to let the public find what it needs without using valuable employee time first. As mentioned elsewhere, APD alone will have to fill 2500+ Open Records requests this year and countless hours of employee time will be used in fulfilling those requests. The amendment's core argument is that it is more efficient for the public to search these records first and then be able to put in specific requests for particular information than the current system.

2. to require that private citizens' emails to public officials be placed on the City website in "real time," including emails or electronic communications between private citizens and public officials in all City departments, and limit the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications, unless legal exceptions apply;

This statement is still misleading. First, the premise that email will be placed on the City website in "real time" is not required by the amendment. The ballot language premise is a very broad interpretation of the clause "expeditiously as possible and to the greatest extent practical" and does not mention to the voters the circumstances that would have had to happen for that situation to become realistic. The City Council is the determining body on the practicalness of any measure that is not explicitly stated within the amendment so this situation would have to be:

1. Sponsored by some department, citizen's initiative, etc., to be placed on the Council's agenda.
2. At that meeting, Council would have to deem that situation practical.
3. If found practical, Council would have to draw up ordinances and resolutions to meet and enforce the requirements of the situation.
4. Council would have to pass the ordinances and resolutions.

So, if "real time" posting of email on the City's website ever does happen, you can lay the blame squarely on the City Council as they would have been the ones who found the situation to be for the public's benefit. Just for argument's sake, other scenarios that could have been used by the Council on the ballot that would have been just as misleading could be the amendment calls for all private citizen's Social Security numbers to be placed on the City website in "real time," or that all victim's records at APD will be placed online in "real time" (I've actually heard people mention that one). The amendment simply does not call for these scenarios nor would the amendment supercede any current state or federal laws in place to do so.

Council Member Brewster McCracken has stated that the email issue had been "[...] litigated and you all lost. ... [T]his language has been upheld as being accurate." At the time, he was talking to the amendment supporters in the Council chambers who rewarded this false statement with an appropriate response (boos and catcalls). As explained in this post, from the judge's own ruling, speaking specifically about the email issue, he stated "I don’t know that there are any city departments that would be excluded but certainly private citizens emails to any public official because there are exceptions that apply." As mentioned by myself and others, and which is validated by the state judge, private citizen's email has exemptions and, for various reasons, may not be put online. The City Council and their supporters *really* need to drop this red herring...

I'm still having a hard time finding the section that the Council is referring to when talking about "limit[ing] the ability of citizens to keep private the details of these communications,". There is nothing in the amendment that limits the citizen's right to privacy when dealing with their government. There is language that makes it harder for the City Council, City Managers, Division heads and their staff to keep their calendars and non-public meetings about City business with others secret. There is language that makes it harder if you are seeking economic benefits from the City to keep those negotiations secret. There is further language that makes it harder to keep the misconduct of police officers secret. But if you are a private citizen, all of the federal, state and local privacy laws on the books are not superceded by this amendment and will remain so. I can't stress this enough.

Finally, I would like to give some credit where it's due. Council Member Jennifer Kim tried to add more descriptive language to the ballot on this point. Specifically, she tried to have the words "consistent with state and federal privacy protection laws" substituted for the phrase "unless legal exceptions apply." Council Member Kim, I commend your attempt and agree that your phrase is much closer to what the judge ruled in his decision and thank you for your attempt at clarification.

When I first read this clause in the original language, I withheld my personal comments through the litigation that followed in the hopes that the Council would change the language and drop this fallacious clause. I'll go out on a limb here... If Proposition 1 is defeated, it will be challenged in court and it will appear on a later ballot because of this clause. Council Members McCracken, Dunkerly, Leffingwell and Mayor Wynn, your steadfastness to this particular language will cost the city more future litigation, the costs associated with it and another dubious legal distinction for this City Council.

3. to require that the heads of all City departments, all city manager's staff and all city council members and their staff post online in "real time" information about meetings and phone calls with private citizens; and

This is another misleading statement about what the amendment calls for. The relevant section from the amendment follows:

(B)OPEN ACCESS TO CITY CALENDARS

1. For all matters involving City business, the following people must maintain calendars of all meetings and maintain logs of all telephone calls:
   1. City Councilmembers and their staff;
   2. City Manager and his or her staff;
   3. Assistant City Managers and their staff; and
   4. all department heads.
2. These calendars and logs must contain the time, date, subject matter, and persons involved in all meetings and telephone calls involving City business. These calendars must be used to schedule and record all past and future meetings that occur after the implementation date of this section.
3. Calendars and logs must be posted online in real time and be accessible to the public.
4. “Meetings” includes all informal and formal meetings including but not limited to telephone conferences, videoconferences, happy hours, and luncheons.
5. This provision must be implemented within six months of approval of this amendment.

I highlighted the relevant sections in that clause. If you are a private citizen and you are speaking to a public official through one of the listed means about City business, then, according to the amendment, that must be noted in the appropriate log. The federal government, proposed by none other than one of the most conservative members of Congress, Newt Gingrich, follows much the same system. It is a way the public can see who their elected officials are talking to and about what subjects. If you are going to call Mayor Wynn and tell him how great or not great he is, there is no need to record the call as that is not City business. Further, if a Council Member calls their doctor, that call is not subject to the documentation clause. Only City business is required to have the notation. Another branch on that limb... This clause will also be seen by a later court to be misrepresentative and misleading and will help to overturn a defeat of the proposition.

4. to prohibit the city from exercising state law protection for information that could expose the City and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk?

This section must be referring to the requirement of the amendment that pertains to public information. Here is that section from the amendment.

SECTION 4: Public Information.

The term “public information” means information that is required to be produced under Texas Government Code § 552.021. Public information also includes the following categories that must be produced in response to a public information request:

1. INFORMATION RELATING TO CIVIL LITIGATION. That the City is a party to litigation does not render information relating to that litigation less important; rather it often means the information is a matter of heightened public interest. Therefore, the City must not withhold information relating to civil litigation under Texas Government Code § 552.103, but it may withhold under other Public Information Act exceptions.

First, the amendment states that the City cannot withhold information under the following Texas Government Code section:

§ 552.103. EXCEPTION: LITIGATION OR SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS INVOLVING THE STATE OR A POLITICAL SUBDIVISION.

1. Information is excepted from the requirements of Section 552.021 if it is information relating to litigation of a civil or criminal nature to which the state or a political subdivision is or may be a party or to which an officer or employee of the state or a political subdivision, as a consequence of the person's office or employment, is or may be a party.
2. For purposes of this section, the state or a political subdivision is considered to be a party to litigation of a criminal nature until the applicable statute of limitations has expired or until the defendant has exhausted all appellate and postconviction remedies in state and federal court.
3. Information relating to litigation involving a governmental body or an officer or employee of a governmental body is excepted from disclosure under Subsection (a) only if the litigation is pending or reasonably anticipated on the date that the requestor applies to the officer for public information for access to or duplication of the information.

Added by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 268, § 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1993. Amended by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 1319, § 6, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.

From this summary, under the “litigation exception,” a governmental body can withhold information about pending or reasonably anticipated civil or criminal litigation. This exception allows the government to hold back otherwise releasable public information because it feels there is or may be some sort of litigation that might include that information. This is an important concept to grasp. The information being sought by the public does not have to be actually involved in litigation; it just has to be deemed by someone in government that it might, at some point in the future, be part of a litigation claim. Further, the entity can keep this information secret until the statute of limitations expires for the whatever the phantom offense this information may be involved in.

As these examples show, this section of the Public Information Act has been abused by government entities in the past. Historically, this exemption in the Texas Public Information Act has been used in 2 ways:

1. a shelter to keep clearly public documents secret that otherwise would not be exempt and
2. as a delay tactic to allow further court motions and "grandfathering" claims to be filed on a dubious ordinance or law.

Proposition 1 still allows the broad and correct exemptions for attorney work product and attorney client privilege that will protect all information related to any litigation the City may be party to. The City does not need this exemption and it's prohibition will not expose the "City and taxpayers to greater financial and legal liability and risk." The City can still use the other numerous, broad and generous Public Information exemptions that protect Public Information through any litigation process. The prohibition in using this one exemption will make it easier for private citizens and watchdog groups to get the public information they already own even if it might cause embarassment or legal problems for some in the government.

So, in summary, I still feel the language on the ballot is misleading. I also feel that even though the City Council has tried their best to stack the deck against this initiative, it will still be a close vote come election day. I guess we'll see how things shake out.

Revision history:

• 4/28/06 - I was mistaken that it was a federal court the city was sued in. It was actually the 345th Judicial District State court and I removed the reference to a federal court from the post.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos. Keep in mind I wrote this for non-Austinites but since it has to do with the upcoming Propositions, I posted it to AustinBloggers as well.

If you go a little over 1 mile southwest from the direct center of downtown Austin, Texas, you'll find yourself at one of the greatest natural sites left in Texas:  Barton Springs pool.  Fed by the endangered Edwards aquifer, the water is a clear and cool 68 degrees year round, making the swimming in the middle of the Texas summer at least bearable until the cool Fall breezes sweep in.  Barton Springs is in the southern part of a 12 mile long greenbelt of undeveloped land that snakes through the western edge of Austin, much of which has been set aside by the citizens of Austin in bonds to protect the green space as well as the sensitive aquifer that resides beneath it.  Most Austinites visit Barton Springs pool a couple of times a month in the summer to roast in the Texas sun and share the natural experience with other Austinites so close to the hustle, sprawl and large, multi-story buildings of downtown.  To most in Austin, Barton Springs isn't merely a swimming hole; it's a generational gift to them from their parents and a prime example of what defines Austin as a city and a culture.

Environmental protection of Barton Springs has gone on since the beginning of the environmental movement but really unified in the late 80's.  Since then, various local ordinances dealing with development over the aquifer have been passed as well as hundreds of millions of dollars for land purchases to protect the sensitive natural area from development.  But, as some would say, there's a new threat to the green space and possible future existence of Barton Springs.  And disturbingly, the threat seems to reside within the very governmental body chartered to protect the springs:  the Austin City Council.

There now exists a palpable disconnect between the Austin City Council and local environmentalists who feel that their government is no longer working for them.  Fueled by this frustration and using history as a guide, the Save Our Springs Alliance drew up and circulated 2 amendments to Austin's City Charter.  The amendments, primarily a response to what the environmentalists felt was a closed door, back-office deal brokered between a developer (Stratus Properties), a client (Advanced Micro Devices), and the City Council, strive for transparency in the land development process as well as seeking to hold local government accountable by using technology to facilitate the opening of information to the public.

Unfortunately, the current situation echoes one from just 16 years ago.  In 1990, a developer (Freeport McMoRan) sought to develop 4,000 acres within the Edwards aquifer and on top of Barton Springs by building hundreds of homes and apartments.  The citizens of Austin quickly banded together in an effort to block the development by lining up to speak against it in front of the City Council.  Over seven hundred speakers signed up to speak in front of the Council against the proposed development that night.  By the end of the epic Council meeting, the development was stopped by a unanimous vote of the Council, 7-0.  This victory essentially started the formal defense of Barton Springs (at the time named the Save Our Springs Coalition) and some much needed local ordinances were drafted to further inhibit development within the sensitive area.

But, after the Council meeting when the draft legislation was released, the lobbyists and developers tried to stop the most damaging parts of the ordinance; the "nondegradation" clauses which prohibited futher polluting within the aquifer.  After nearly a year of redrafting, the Council finally adopted a loophole-ridden version of the original draft.  Some felt this "Composite Draft" did not protect the springs adequately so the Save Our Springs Coalition wrote up a competing draft and set off to collect the required 20,000 signatures needed to put the ordinance on the ballot.

Once the signatures were collected and verified, the City Council delayed the recognition of the citizen-sponsored ordinance to where it could not get on the May 1992 ballot but it eventually made it onto the August 1992 ballot.  But in that time, the developers filed requests for development within the Barton Springs area in the hopes of "grandfathering" if the new ordinance from SOS passed.  Interestingly, it was also during this time that a Chamber of Commerce led campaign against the SOS amendment was undertaken, directed by none other than George W. Bush's right-hand man, Karl Rove.

When the election was finally held and the citizens of Austin finally had their say, the citizen-drafted and citizen-sponsored ordinance passed by nearly 2-1 (65% approval).  The ordinance finally put in place some much needed environmental protections to protect Austin's premier natural treasure.

It's with that history still fresh in the minds of the citizen environmentalists that a new threat to the springs comes forward.  Since the passage of the SOS ordinance in 1992, citizens have asked major employers to not build in the sensitive areas of the Edwards aquifer and to locate in the "Preferred Development Zone;" an area still close to downtown but not located over the aquifer and thus does not affect the water quality of Barton Springs.  That is until recently, in what these citizen environmentalists believe have been back-room deals with the Austin City Council, Advanced Micro Devices' new offices was "grandfathered" within the zone even though they appeared to have no legitimate grandfathering claim.  Worse still, the development would be a monster; a $220mil, 875,000 sq. ft. office pavillion which would serve as a "hub" for other development spurs into the sensitive area.

So, with history as a guide, the SOS Alliance drafted 2 new amendments to the Austin City Charter and went about collecting the 20,000 signatures that each amendment required to gain entry on the voting ballot.  Each amendment attacked what they saw as a problem in their efforts to be included at the discussion table for development within the Edwards aquifer and specifically with the AMD situation.  

The first amendment, now known as Proposition 1 and commonly referred to as the "Open Government Online" amendment, tries to bring tranparency to the local government and its elected officials.  It provides for new accountability and transparency standards for the highest City officials; the City Council, City managers and their staffs, and Division heads.  It requires phone and meeting logs to be posted "real time" to the City's website for those officials as well as defaults the City's Public Information policies towards openness.  It makes it harder to keep the public out of the now-secret negotiations between developers and the City as well as opening up police misconduct records to public scrutiny, bringing Austin inline with 2,000 other law enforcement agencies across the state of Texas.

The second amendment, Proposition 2 or the "Clean Water" amendment, seeks to add protection to Barton Springs and the Edwards aquifer by asking major employers to not locate on the Barton Springs watershed as well as curtailing city tax money for developing toll roads in the environmentally sensitive area.  The amendment would limit the city's authority in "grandfathering" claims that have weaker environmental standards than the 1992 voter-approved ordinances where, over the last 14 years, scores of development projects have been allowed to build in the sensitive area with only voluntary compliance to the 1992 ordinance.

Once the signatures had been collected and verified, the City Council originally drew up blatantly misleading ballot language in what seemed to be an effort to discourage the passage of the amendments.  Some citizens of Austin sued the City in court to rewrite the ballot language to comply with the state standards of fairness for ballot measures and for the first time in Texas history (and you have to think about how corrupt Texas politics can be and this was the first time...), a court found that the ballot language proposed by a municipal council would have to be rewritten.  The language originally approved by the Council was found to not "present a fair measure of the proposed measures [and] chief features" of the amendments.  But instead of trying to follow the direction of the judge (who, jokingly said that the state standard could be met by saying "This one is about open government; this one is about the springs") a few on the Council, led by Council Member Brewster McCracken opted to take out the "offending" passages but still leave enormously misleading language.  But because the Council delayed formulation of the original language and then went to court to defend itself, the final, still misleading language had to be placed on the ballot to meet the Travis County's deadline for getting ballots out to absentee voters.  

At its core, this is about how the citizens of Austin feel their government has failed them.  Austin, the poster child for an environmental town if there ever was one, with its collective of actors, artists, athletes, musicians, writers, geeks, students, Californians, Democrats and yes, even Republicans, pride themselves on just how much the environment is a part of their daily lifestyle.  Just look at any of the "Best places to live" lists and Austin is almost always on it.  And usually, at the top of those lists of the reasons why Austin is such a great place to live, it's noted how much green space is available through park lands, environmentally sensitive planning of developments and natural places like Barton Springs, Hamilton pool or Hippie Hollow.  The last thing that Austinites want is a city that looks, feels, smells and functions like Houston or Dallas.  We are all in love with the unique blend of arts, technology, people, scenery and general quirkiness that makes this city so damn appealing and most residents long to keep it that way for future generations.  This truly is a city of individuals but on one issue, Barton Springs, almost all are on the same side.  

Over the coming days I'll be cross-posting from my personal blog into this diary in an attempt to pull attention to this issue from outside of Austin.  I hope to show you, the national Daily Kos reader, the reasons why this issue is important to you even if you live in South Dakota.  As history has shown, what happens here in Austin is sometimes a national warning if we just listen.

Revision history:

• 4/28/06 - I was mistaken that it was a Federal court. It was actually the 345th Judicial District State Court and removed the Federal references.

So now Prop 1 & 2 have gone down in stinging defeats giving developers and their related industries cause for celebration along with the Austin City Council and Austin Police Department a big sigh of relief. So what caused the defeat of these proposals? Was it the deceptive advertising campaigns and interviews by the propositions opponents? (They were using quotes from the ballot language that had already been found deceptive in state court; 36 million anyone?) Was it a pattern in the media that too easily and too quickly gave a bully pulpit to current and former council members and mayors? (I watched what I would consider a "hit piece" on KVUE the night before the election that left my head shaking in awe at the extremely low quality of reporting that passes for journalism nowadays. I could easily present a case-study of all the current problems of the media with just that one news segment...) In fact, just now (5:06pm, Sun), I witnessed a report on News8 stating that Prop 1 would put all the city's documents online in real time... Geez, a day after the elections and it still isn't being represented correctly.

So there are signs that certainly point to these things being part of the reason why the propositions failed, but the most troubling sign to me would be the voting totals in my own precinct. I live in Precinct 342 (precinct totals are available here) which is the precinct directly to the east of Barton Springs. If any precinct had reason to vote for the amendments, it would be my precinct with its assorted hippies, yuppies, yippies and puppies. But, based on the vote totals, my precinct went 61% against the amendments (averaged). So almost 2 of 3 of my neighbors were either comfortable with seeing Barton Springs get paved over with more office and apartment complexes, restaurants and mini-malls or they were misled by the three-pronged approach of developer supported advertising, council member bully pulpits and misleading paper editorials. On my street, everyone I talked to except for one was in favor of the amendments. Clearly, most of the people I talked to did not have an implementation-level understanding of the propositions and it sometimes took a few minutes to explain to them what the amendments were trying to do, but every last one of them mentioned the $36 million figure which was found to be erroneous by state court and was ordered removed from the ballot language. Councilmembers McCracken, Dunkerly and Mayor Wynn owe the City's CIO an enormous thank-you fruit basket for that estimate...

But what troubles me most is not the deceptive advertising or the lax journalism, but what could be the overarching reason why the amendments didn't pass. Again, using my precinct as a lab, Will Wynn and Brewster McCracken won re-election (82% and 74%, respectively) who are possibly the most pro-growth council members/mayors in recent history. Props 4 (64%) and 5 (75%), which had to do with increasing term limits and increasing campaign contributions, also passed easily. Let's also assume that voters were swayed by the deceptive advertising which was funded almost entirely by developers and their sub-industries PACs. That means, in my precinct, one of the few precincts where Barton Springs actually touches and runs through, it appears that a majority of my neighbors are pro-industry, pro-developer and pro-growth over environmental protection of one of Austin's greatest natural treasures or my exhaustive research into the amendments are completely and utterly wrong. I'm not comfortable with either conclusion...

Now, it's true that my neighbors may not have had the time to go through all the amendments and really understand what they were voting on but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and at least assume that there was a cursory examination. So, in my precinct, located in the 78704 zipcode, the supposed hub of granola-crunching, tree-hugging environmentalism of Austin; Progressivism has died not by kicking and screaming, but by a flat-out majority suffocation. It seems to have been replaced by what I'll call "Closet Conservatism." You might know what I'm talking about here. It's like State Proposition 2 from 2004 which banned gay marriage here in Texas. That was an issue where people were quick to announce their support in front of their friends and family who may be gay but then secretly voted against it in the voting booth. The Barton Springs protection issue seems to be the 2006 version of the gay marriage amendment in my precinct...

I'll be honest. A non-progressive Austin is an Austin that scares me. I come from Dallas and lived there for 17 years and I loathe to see Austin turn into Dallas. I am not one of those people that find Trammell Crow developments on every other street corner attractive. I don't really care to have a Starbuck's within easy driving distance so it doesn't cost me more than that cup of coffee in gas to drive my SUV through the drive-thru. And I certainly don't care to see one of my most cherished things I love about Austin, Barton Springs and the accompanying greenbelt, something I use on nearly a daily basis, get paved over by the Trammell Crows and AMDs of the world. So the question is: What do we do now?

For starters, if my precinct is any measure, the election results should be challenged on the misleading ballot language. As I mentioned before, all that one needs to do is show that news report on News8 the day after the election as evidence in court to show that the ballot language was confusing and was not understood by a majority of the citizens. Also, I can't help but wonder how citizen-sponsored amendments, each of which required 20,000 signatures on a petition, managed to garner just over half of that number in support in the final election. I would think that the same 20,000 people who were motivated enough to sign the petitions should have been motivated enough to go to the ballot box. I know that you will never get 100% of those people out to the voting booth but just over 50% seems a bit low. And finally, we need to really keep a skeptical eye on this city council and it's future actions. As shown in the double-speak of the ballot language of Prop 5, the misrepresentation of Props 1 & 2, the "surprise" announcement of the new Green Water treatment plant location as well as the grandfathering of the AMD property, this council seems to go to great lengths to cloak their intentions. Hopefully, the incoming new council members will not be bullied by other members of the council and they will hold true to their campaign promises.

When I first started blogging about this issue, it wasn't because I was for or against these particular amendments. It was my belief that certain council members were not being honest to their constituents, purposefully muddying the waters to possibly benefit their campaign contributors instead of the people they are supposed to represent. After this election, I'm left with the disappointment that I find myself no longer in a progressive majority or that Austin is moving away from its environmental roots. Neither of those conclusions gives me the warm fuzzies for the coming years...

I've been meaning to comment on this story for quite some time now. Unfortunately, it's taken about 2 weeks to actually find the time to sit and jot the thoughts down. The story, which is split into 2 parts, reports that there is a Prop 2 "resurrection" movement afoot by SOS and the Council to take the best elements of the defeated Prop 2 and try to incorporate those as ordinances. Now, to me, this is certainly a fine idea and I think even the opponents of Props 1 & 2 agreed that something had to be done to protect the Barton Springs area. But, contained in the article is a quote from Council Member Lee Leffingwell (one of the most fervent anti-Proposition opponents) who disagrees with that idea:

"Not so fast, opponents say. On Saturday, 69 percent of voters cast ballots against the measure. So some neighborhood and business leaders say that those ideas have been roundly rejected and that more community input is needed to create a lasting solution to the vexing issue of development in the environmentally sensitive area.

Council Member Lee Leffingwell, who crafted the ordinance, plans to slow the process and allow for a larger community discussion to take place. Input from interested parties as well as the two city bodies now considering the ordinance will provide the springboard for conversation."

Now, some would argue (myself included) that the 69% figure used above is completely misleading. While the propositions may have been defeated by 69% that does not, by association mean that 69% of the people of Austin are against protecting the Barton Springs watershed. Most of the Prop 2 opponents had said that protection of Barton Springs is sorely needed but they just didn't agree with how the propositions sought that protection. The fact that 31% of the people of Austin still voted for the propositions considering the outright misleading ballot language is a strong indicator that the citizens of Austin really do value environmental protection over development in sensitive environmental areas.

So now we come to Council Member Leffingwell's statements. On the one hand:

"These charter amendments were written behind closed doors with no public input, no vetting and no opportunity for changes to correct errors and unintended consequences," says Lee Leffingwell, an Austin City Council member who is former chairman of the city's Environmental Board."

And now the other:

"Will you answer specifically which reforms you support and which you do not?

I AM STILL IN THE DISCUSSION STAGE WITH REGARD TO WRITING THE ORDINANCE, AND SO CAN'T COMMENT ON ANY ASPECT OF YOUR SCORECARD AT THIS TIME."

Pot, may I introduce Kettle... (More on that from a blog post by JS Hatcher).

Also, looking around in Council Member Leffingwell's campaign finance reports, one notices that the only PACs that gave Mr. Leffingwell money during that election cycle all had something to gain by defeat of the propositions (granted, these filings were in the 2005 election cycle and the Open Government/SOS amendment campaigns were ongoing but probably not a campaign issue at the time):

• Austin Apartment Association
• Austin Board of Realtors
• Austin Police Association
• BOMA
• Homebuilders PAC

Now, call me a cynic but a council member whose only PAC contributions came from developers, who is now quoted to want to slow down the environmental protections for Barton Springs and is currently doing what he accused his Proposition opponents of doing, does not instill the greatest confidence in me that he should be the one to lead the effort for protection of one of Austin's most sensitive environmental areas. Anyone else on the Council with a bit more cred care to step up?

Toby Futrell and the "Livable City"

The second part of the article is about a little spat between the City Manager's office and a report released by the City Auditors. In the report, the City Auditors:

"presented an audit that found that Austin does not have an "overarching vision for growth" or anything that ties together a patchwork of smaller city-planning efforts."

To which the City Manager took offense and disagreed with 3 of the 4 study authors by saying:

"In fact, the City has a vision and it is widely recognized. Our vision is for 'Austin to be the most livable city in the country.' "

May I introduce Exhibit A against City Manager Futrell's claim. In the studies cited in the post, Austin ranks as the third highest cost of living in the country. Higher than traditional high cost leaders San Francisco (10th), Boston (9th), Chicago (8th) and Atlanta (4th). Austin has the 4th highest average house cost in Texas (behind Ft. Worth, Dallas and San Antonio) and ranks number 12 nationally for the highest average cost of the typical home in America. These are not exactly the most livable conditions in the country.

Now, does city planning have anything to do with this rise in prices? As cited in this document, my guess is that the 29 now-under-construction-or-planned residential developments and super-condos being built on the shores of Town Lake, throughout downtown and in the ultra-swanky 2nd street area will only further inflate these cost of living indices (most have starting prices in the $200's for a 1/1). One can certainly make the argument that development should take place in downtown (I do support that) but of all the projects listed, from what I can tell, not one project is an affordable housing project.

So I have to agree with City Manager Futrell here. She does have an "overarching vision" of Austin. Under her's and the City Council's leadership, they seek to make Austin unaffordable for most residents. They seek to transform the prime green spaces and park lands of Austin into multi-story, multi-million dollar condominiums, raising the cost of living while attempting to replace the few East Austin parks with nasty infrastructure plants needed to clean the crap out of the water from these lofty, rich residents and the eventual Dallas-like sprawl of SH 130. They seek to keep their vision of Austin planted in future city council elections by raising campaign contributions, creating slush funds and erasing term limits. Yes, Ms. Futrell, you and your Council Member friends have a vision for Austin. Unfortunately, it seeks to replace what some of us have come to believe what Austin is about and replace it with a miserably cloned vision of Dallas.

I came from Dallas after 17 years of living there to Austin for the last 10, with most of that time in the Barton Hills area so I've seen the pace of change downtown under a close lens. I can't help but think that with the most developer friendly City Council in my memory along with the unification of former Council Members and Mayors against environmental protections for Barton Springs, it won't be long before we'll see the 580-ft towers being grandfathered in overlooking Barton Springs Pool.

Or at least that will be the lasting sentiment from this story. And, you know, that's fine with me. I've been *intimately* involved with this particular issue as my wife and I were affected by this personally.

Almost 2 years ago, I learned that Travis County had published our marriage license online, which included our names, addresses, social security numbers, birthplaces and driver's license numbers. For most people, the standard marriage license form doesn't include that information and so it's fit to publish online. What we did different from most people was we filled out a "Declaration of Informal Marriage," a form that legally recognizes a common-law marriage. This was required by my employer (the City of Austin) so I could extend healthcare coverage to my wife.

So when I found out this form was available online and the state required redaction of the social security numbers had not been done, being intimately familiar with this subject (I'm an Information Security Analyst at the City), I called the County Clerk's office and asked to speak to someone who would be able to pull the graphic. Over numerous phone calls to at least a half-dozen different people, I couldn't seem to get a hold of anyone that understood what I was asking for. After about a week of calling and talking to people, the "official" solution (and I'm calling that "official" as this was the highest level person that I could get a hold of even though I asked on numerous occasions to speak directly to Ms. DeBeauvoir herself) was that I would have to file a petition with the court to have the record changed from public information to private (at a cost of at least $300). This was crazy, I explained. Because I do this exact same thing at my day job (look at vendor's applications for weaknesses and re-engineer them to fit the City's security policies), I knew there was some kind of technical disconnect to the person I was talking to. As I kept explaining, I wasn't trying to change the status of the record. I had no problem with it being public. My problem was that this system was publishing records online in violation of the State of Texas' Public Information Act ( § 552.141. CONFIDENTIALITY OF INFORMATION IN APPLICATION FOR MARRIAGE LICENSE) and that Travis County could be held liable for any security breach that could be traced to their website. After all, I wasn't asking to invalidate the record; I was asking for the stupid web application to not publish the one pdf file that contained the information.

So I asked to speak to one of the programmers as I knew I could convey exactly what I was trying to get across to someone technical. I was told I couldn't speak to a programmer as it was an application developed by a vendor and I had no way I could talk to them directly. My concerns would be relayed to them, I was told. So, almost 2 years later and after my wife picked up the phone tag baton, putting multiple 90 day freezes on our credit knowing our information was easily available to any and all, I'm glad to see that the clerk's office is finally doing the right thing. Kudos to you and your staff Ms. DeBeauvoir. I only wish that I could have talked to you directly oh, so many years ago...

But you would think I would end the story there, but I'm not. I'm going to use this as an example of something that is very close to my heart as well as put a few warnings out there. The application that the clerk's office uses, Public Access .NET, is a proprietary application which the clerk's office probably doesn't have rights to access or change the source code. I'm assuming from all my conversations with their staff that no one at the clerk's office has access to the source code of the application much less the right to change the functionality of the application itself (remember, I don't know this for sure; I'm *assuming*).

So I'll offer up this first warning to government officials. Proprietary software and government do not mix well. As Ms. DeBeauvoir states, "I am a strong supporter of open government; however, my obligation as an elected official is to respond to legitimate public concern and to do everything within my authority to protect people now." So, if the public's best interest is the priority, by doing everything in her power, that application should be open and accessible to other programmers outside of the company that developed it. This allows the government entity the option to work on their time schedule and not the agenda of another company. So if a pressing security issue crops up (like publishing social security numbers online), the entity has the option to call a local programmer and immediately address the concern. Like I said before, from my understanding of the application and how these things are put together, this could have been as easy as changing a single field in the database and not a whole rewriting of the application itself. This concept, called open source, is the perfect fit for any government entity who espouses their belief in open government because it practices what it preaches. It allows for the open review of the code by independent 3rd parties and allows changes to the functionality on the government entity's time schedule. I can say that most of the online projects that the City uses have either been developed in-house by our talented programmers or we have access to review the code if needed. We love it from a security standpoint as we can see exactly what is going on and can tailor the app to fit within the City's strict security policies. It's a win for the people's government and a win for the developer.

My second warning goes along with the spirit of the first. The company that developed the application, Hart Intercivic, also developed and programmed the voting machines used in all elections here in Travis County. Hart Intercivic keeps the programming code of these machines as well as the tablulation software proprietary and thus secret. If I could think of any application in the world that needs to be open sourced, it's voting machine software. As shown by the last few election cycles and in numerous other instances, the software has come under scrutiny as irregularities become more prevalent. So, if we value our democracy and if Ms. DeBeauvoir really believes in open government, we need to petition to have a true independent code review of the voting machines we use here (and don't believe the results from the ITA or "Independent Testing Authority" that all these machines must subject themselves to. The ITA is actually just three companies which are paid by the voting machine manufacturers themselves. An article by probably the most prominent voting machine expert, Avi Rubin discusses this "independent" setup). So please, if you value democracy, email or call the Travis County Clerk's office and pressure them to have Hart Intercivic release the code to a true independent party for review. If Hart Intercivic was publishing all my personal information online in direct violation of state law, who knows what the *truly* secret code is doing...