San Marcos Population Since 1973

2009-06-05T16:05:00.006-05:00

About an 45% increase in population in the past 9 years, and a 75% increase over the past 19 years.

Compared to just a 15% increase in the 17 years from 1973 to 1990.

Newstreamz Discussion with "Quiet Guy"

2009-04-14T11:31:00.002-05:00

This is a potentially ongoing discussion/debate on Newstreamz between me and "QuietGuy" whos comments on the TEA Party speak form themselves. I have not edited anything or included other earlier and later comments, so it may not be easy to understand some of the things we refer to.

Quiet Guy around the corner on April 14, 2009 6:47 am

I still want to know where these tea party folks were 6-8 months ago. That psycho tin-foil hat Glenn Beck is supposed to be in San Antonio for one in about a week. Maybe instead of spending time complaining and protesting, you should be working on finding individuals to vote in to replace these Congresspeople that have mismanaged your tax dollars.

I’m sorry, but these “tea party” protests come off as hokey and unsophisticated, and unlikely to get the desired results. Spend your energy finding a replacement for Lamar Smith, Lloyd Doggett, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison. All four of them have been involved in pushing through the various bailouts and/or have contributed through policy votes to our current economic situation. Oh? You’re not willing to vote any of them out? After all, they’ve each done an admirable job of “bringing home the bacon.” Then I guess you don’t care THAT much.

And given the turnout at these protests in other cities (San Antonio expecting 9,000, so I would expect around 700-800 at the Hays Courthouse), Hays County can require a parade/assembly permit for a protest to ensure safety and that the rights of others are not infringed upon during the protest. They need to make sure sufficient resources are in place for public safety. It’s administrative, not some attempt to oppress. I’ve filled out those forms before and it took me maybe 10 minutes. Texas State does the same thing with its free speech area in the quad. Virtually anyone can use it for virtually any purpose, but the university wants to know in advance for logistical purposes. And I don’t know where Linda is coming from with accusing the Hays Commissioners Court of racism. That court may be a lot of things, but racist is not one of them.

My Responce, written "on the fly"

Griffin Spell on April 14, 2009 10:30 am

6-8 months ago, NotSoQuietGuy, we where protesting the Bush bailots. I remember celebrating when they rejected the 2008 bailout on the first vote and Doggett voted against it. IIRC, he voted against it the second time too, although he may have waited until it has passed and then voted no to appease the party bosses and his constituants.

The problem back then was that everyone of “media signifigance” was supporting it. Bush, Obama, McCain, Bernanke, Paulson, Cheney, the self-professed and Fox/MSNBC annointed economic pros where all preaching doom and gloom if it failed. It was spun so much and so fast you’d get vertigo just looking at it. There was a Congresswoman from California who started her speech by saying her consituants where strongly opposed, but finished by saying the only sane vote was yes.

The problem is gerrymandering-practically every district in this county is gerrymandered one way or the other. Hays County leans every so slightly blue but we’re clumped in with 3-1 Strongly Democratic South Travis who outvote us by over a hundred thousand. Doggett only needed about 140,000 votes to keep his seat. He got almost 130,000 just by being the Democrat on the ballot in south Travis. You could literally take his name off the ballot in Hays County and he would have still won easialy.

Cornyn/Noriaga wasn’t really an option, they both supported the bailout/stimulus/smile time happy fun money. And in a state (well, really a country) where the party leaders (on both sides) preach “All R/D’s are bad. All D/R’s are good.” and visa versa it’s hard to get the message across that, just because so-and-so is a Democrat (or Republican), just like you, doesn’t mean he best represents you. On campus we had the College Democrats telling people left and left to just to go in, vote straight Democrat, and leave. They said it was easier for everyone and people didn’t really need know anything about the candidates other than the letter next to their name.

I’ll close by saying this. This Liberty, “Tea Party” whatever movement isn’t just something that came out of thin air to oppose Obama. It’s been building up for, well at least the past two years. We’ve got good candidates running for everything from City Hall to D.C. If you haven’t found them yet feel free to take a look around or talk to me, but don’t go spouting around like you’ve got everything figured out because it doesn’t look like you’ve done any research.

Of course I'll be keeping this updated if QuietGuy responds or if anyone else comments on my responce.

San Marcos School Board Predictions

2009-04-12T16:31:00.000-05:00

Nobody votes for school board elections. It's a fact of life for anyone who is on or wants to be on a school board; the turnout is so low it's all about who has the most friends and who can GOTV (get out the vote) on election day. No serious press or coverage, it's the most basic and straightforward of any election; get your friends to get their friends to get their friends to go out and vote for you. You don't need signs or advertising, just some blockwalking and a few phone calls.

For this reason it's hard to accurately predict these elections, because unless you're close with all the candidates you don't have much of a clue how well connected they are. But I'm personally expecting Judy Allen to keep her seat, mainly because she's been elected before and knows how it works, and hers are the only signs I've seen sofar. I haven't heard of any mishaps or scandals or contraversies on the school board, so most likely noone else has either. Out of the three remaining candidates, David Chiu, former mayor of San Marcos seems the strongest for that very reason. Average Joe who goes to the polls (although most people who go to the School Board elections already know who they will support) is most likely to remember Chiu, and most of the feedback I've heard about when he was mayor is positive. Out of the other two candidates, Chris North seems the most likely to upset either of these two, mainly due to her community connections and name-recognition generating posts on Newstreamz.

Of course, these arn't endorsements, since I don't have much knowledge of where all the candidates stand on the issues (or even what the issues are). Just a pair of predictions and I guess we'll see how they hold.

Hopefully next post I'll have a spellchecker.

San Marcos and Hays County Liberty Politics

San Marcos Population Since 1973

Newstreamz Discussion with "Quiet Guy"

San Marcos School Board Predictions