Comments on: Recommendations: Texas Consitutional Amendments Election

By: Hope Crabtree

Hope Crabtree — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:08:52 +0000

True Texans don’t leave.

By: patrick

patrick — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:50:50 +0000

Good writeup, Robbie. I think I’n in 100% agreement with you.

By: Steven

Steven — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:49:38 +0000

A lot of misinformation regarding Prop 3

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/6685708.html

By: Carol Johnson

Carol Johnson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:41:12 +0000

Regarding Prop 4. Vote YES on Prop 4.

I disagree. If the private market was adequately supporting research funding, there would be more Tier I schools in Texas. I think it is terrible that the DFW metro area doesn’t have even one Tier I University. Prop 4 will help schools throughout the state toward attaining Tier I status and having more Tier I Universities in Texas will help the overall economy of the State and will help develop a more competitive workforce. If we want to keep our best students in the state, we need to develop more Tier I schools.

By: smp

smp — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:33:21 +0000

General Land Commissioner Patterson is not telling the public the truth!!! He tends to mislead many as to the facts regarding the Open Beaches Act & places immense fear into the publics mind. The Beaches of Texas are open yet, they are also restricted INCLUDING STATE OWNED and City Beaches. Yes, in the off season they lock the gates which restricts access in addition to, lifeguards aren’t on towers year round. It’s very difficult to have access to State owned and City beaches. Also, Patterson misleads you to the thought of developers and lawyers ruining the beaches due to buildings and new structures. The truth is difficult for Patterson to share. The State desires to acquire all beaches and by asking you to approve their proposition it gives them MORE power and control to bully/steal from property owners, to obtain property themselves for monetary gain and once the State obtains these Gulf Coast properties it’s the state who leases the property to concessionaires, individuals, other businesses and/or development companies which in return give them more income cheating the property owner. In Texas, this is called stealing!!!! Do you know what they do with this income? Not what you think! So please, don’t fall for these lies again. His comment the Open Beaches Act serving the State well; it’s a complete contradiction and fallacy as there have been so many lawsuits specifically directed towards the mistakes and errors the State General Land Office made in repeatedly amending an ACT designed 50 years ago only for the publics right of access NOT for what the General Land Office is abusing the ACT for IE draining tax payers for bonds, stealing land, producing erroneous data and facts, obtaining money from Federal Governemnt and many other funds dispersed for uses other than what they are intended. Please, look at Patterson’s motives for Proposition #9, I assure you that it’s not what he’s advertising. The public has the right to the beaches which most beach property owners agree with and NO ONE has or is keeping them out of the beach just out of their homes or businesses. When patterson uses scare tactics indicating the public is ignorant is WRONG and a disgrace to Texans intelligence! Don’t give them anymore reasons to abuse power or steal Texans hard earned dollars!

By: MJ Samuelson

MJ Samuelson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:32:53 +0000

Continuing:

It is not beyond reasonable to assume that in order to attract the funding in the first place, tuition costs will have to increase (that is always the argument used – Bill Powers at UT, and the student body presidents at Texas Tech and UT-Arlington, have said before that tuition costs must go up so schools can be “competitive”).

By: MJ Samuelson

MJ Samuelson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:31:00 +0000

Thanks for the shout-out!!

More on Prop 4:

Our public universities are not subject to external audits, sunset review, or an elected accountability process, and are raising tuition much faster than the rate of population and inflation. Creating a process by which fewer schools benefit from constitutionally dedicated funds complicates all of those problems. The Higher Ed Fund was created to be the mechanism by which schools that don’t benefit from the Permanent University Fund could still receive dedicated state funding.
Transferring the Higher Ed. Fund to Tier One use means that the HEF money will only be available to certain schools, instead of all public universities in Texas. Public universities are already clamoring, every session, for more state funding – taking that fund away from them guarantees that the legislature will have to compensate for it, with tax dollars. All of our schools already have the ability to compete for private research grants – Prop. 4 even assumes, as Senator Patrick states, that those private endowments must be achieved before the NRUF could benefit those schools. It is not beyond reasonable to assume that in order to attract the funding in the first place, tuition costs

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:01:36 +0000

Ooh–thanks for posting this Robbie! It was on my radar for a split second but I’d already freaking forgotten about it . . .

Tom

By: J Hooton

J Hooton — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:43:18 +0000

agree w/you on all but props 4 and 9.there is $500 million in taxpayers $ sitting in the higher ed fund that can’t be spent on anything w/o changing const. only people benefitting are fund mgrs from commissions. really stupid to leave these $ locked up.

prop 9 won’t change anything b/c property vs public beach issues still decided in the 3 branches of state govt under Open beaches Act, but places in const a fact of common law in Tx since Spanish times. enshrining common law in a const usually a good conservative principal.