The radical Save our Springs (SOS) environemental activist group has managed to get two Propositions on the ballot in tomorrow’s Austin elections (Mayor Will Wynn will also be re-elected tomorrow).

Me and my wife will both be voting NO on Proposition 1 and 2 — both of which would cost Austinites millions of extra dollars in taxes if they were to pass.

If you haven’t been paying attention, and don’t know what Proposition 1 and 2 consist of, News 8 Austin has the complete wording of each Proposition.

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Even the left-leaning Statesman, and the “progressive” weekly rag, The Austin Chronicle, are lining up against these proposals. I share both the Statesman and the Chronicle’s opinions on these Props:

From the Austin Chronicle —

On Prop 1:

Most of us are strongly, several adamantly, opposed to the so-called “open government” Prop. 1 on several grounds, most broadly because it was conceived, written, promoted, and balloted entirely in direct contradiction to the “open government” principles it supposedly celebrates, by a handful of activists bitter over a half-dozen lost battles (some still raging) they want to reverse by fiat.

On Prop 2:

1) attempting to restrict all infrastructure improvements in the watershed, even those necessary for environmental protection; 2) attempting to ban “any and all” incentive programs in a huge land area that includes many long-established neighborhoods; 3) trying to make certain that any company that ever did or does anything that SOS doesn’t approve gets punished financially, in perpetuity; 4) trying to impose broad policy decisions on toll roads only tangentially related to Barton Springs, that may make it harder to stop the roads, in a frankly cynical attempt to enlist support from the toll warriors; 5) rashly inviting lawsuits from property owners whose legal rights would be subject to veto because of other owners in the title chain.

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The Statesman calls Prop 1, “A ridiculous, harmful idea from Big Brother”:

If it were truly about open government, this newspaper, which annually spends thousands of dollars and many hours fighting for public access, would be trumpeting its benefits. But it’s not. Prop. 1 is about shutting down economic development in Austin and concentrating power into the hands of a few radicals who can monitor the Internet all day to see what a city staff member might have said to someone at a wedding, birthday party or happy-hour gathering.

And city taxpayers will pay millions of dollars for the privilege of being continually monitored by the Save Our Springs Alliance.

And on Prop 2:

The extremists who wrote this amendment don’t care about the costs to taxpayers or the likelihood of the city losing a costly court battle. They are eager for Austin to poke a finger in the Legislature’s eye and happy to let taxpayers pay the resulting bills.

Prop. 2 specifically mentions Advanced Micro Devices Inc., but the amendment has no effect at all on AMD, which is already constructing its offices. That complex is one of the most environmentally sound in Texas, and naming the company is nothing more than a hissy fit by environmentalists who don’t like it.

Posted by Robbie Cooper on Friday, May 12th, 2006 | Trackback |