April 3, 2006 20:37 - Exxon and you
Commentary
By Bill Peterson
Next time you roll up to the Tiger Market to pay $2.50 for a gallon of gas, think for a moment about where your money is going.
We hold nothing against ExxonMobile just for making $36.13 billion in 2005, the highest annual profit in the history of American business. After all, $36 billion profit on $339 billion in revenues is a little more than 10 percent profit, business is all about making 10 percent and Exxon made 10 (really 11) percent.
Nor should there be too much groaning about Exxon's refusal to explore alternative sources of energy. Exxon is an oil company and that's what it wants to be. If someone else can develop alternative sources, then may creative destruction in the economy send Exxon to obsolescence.
But ...
Exxon continues in its refusal to pay $4.5 billion in punitive damages to fishermen for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, perhaps the ugliest environmental disaster in the annals of American business. A company that made $36 billion last year alone won't take responsibility for that mess and belly up $4.5 billion?
And can it be more than a coincidence that Exxon increased its profits 43 percent last year, when gasoline prices rose roughly 43 percent? Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson recently told the U.S. Senate that the Irving company's profits accrued to the benefit of two million stockholders, including some in the Senate. But what about the other 250 million of us whose money went straight from our pockets to those of Exxon executives, the top five of whom probably received bonuses exceeding $14 million?
It's not as if these execs performed so well. Oil prices were driven up by Chinese demand and the situation in Iraq, not executive performance.
Did Exxon really twist the IRS to audit Greenpeace? Exxon is a polluter, producing half and again as many CO2 emissions as BP, even though Exxon produces only slightly more gas. Which isn't to even ask what the IRS would find if it audited Exxon.
Anyway, the list goes on. It's just worthwhile to consider, since you need to buy gas anyway, where your money is going.
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April 4, 2006 15:27 - DeLay goes down
Commentary
By Bill Peterson
So, it ends for Tom DeLay. Kind of. DeLay announced today that he's quitting his re-election bid for the U.S. House of Representative because he's worried about the Democrats winning his seat. Democrats are rejoicing, but they shouldn't declare victory.
Here's what DeLay said, with some justification, on FOX News today: "Oh, boy, I tell you, this is a Democrat Party that has no agenda, can't come up with an agenda, has no solution. All they've got is the strategy of personal destruction and character assassination. And it hasn't worked in the past, it's not going to work in the future. They are a permanent minority party."
The correct part of DeLay's remarks points at the Democratic failure to develop and advocate positive legislative ideas. It seems the Democrats are waiting for the turning predicted in the 2001 book by John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, The Emerging Democratic Majority, which says, in essence, that the spread of a postindustrial economy based on ideas is creating a fiscally conservative, social liberal voter in metropolitan areas that increasingly account or larger shares of the population.
Basically, Judis and Teixeira differ from Republican thinkers as to how suburban voters will choose in the coming years. Republicans believe suburbanites in such growing counties, which were rural not so long ago, tend to vote Republican because they wouldn't live in the suburbs if they weren't conservative by nature. Judis and Teixeira believe the postindustrial economy is remaking the suburbs, which are taking on more of the functions of cities, such as in the production of goods.
How Hays County fits into all this is worth a look sometime, especially after listening to Austin economists talk about the lucrative future of bio-medicine and nano-technology companies, which will need the kind of room that only a developing county can supply. But the point here is simply that Democrats seem less worried about generating ideas than in waiting for demographic trends and Republican missteps to leave voters on their porch like the stork.
It doesn't appear DeLay's congressional district in Fort Bend County is short of well-connected Republican suitors. Sugar Land Mayor David G. Wallace said he definitely will run against Democratic nominee Nick Lampson, who was drawn out of his House seat after DeLay pressured the Texas legislature into a 2003 congressional redistricting. Wallace couldn't have more impeccable credentials for a conservative. He goes way back with Margaret Thatcher, who famously expressed the conservatives' guiding metaphysical fallacy that there are no societies, only individuals.
Meanwhile, DeLay is said to be changing his permanent address to Arlington, VA, where he probably will line his pockets as an influence peddler and take up a grudge campaign against Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.
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April 4, 2006 23:26 - Good bye to an old city hall
Commentary
By Bill Peterson
KYLE – The historic City Hall on Kyle's town square isn't one of the great meccas of governance. But the 80-year old building has seen more than its share of thrills and spills while the city has grown from about 200 people when the first city council meetings took place there in 1975 to nearly 20,000 people today.
The Kyle City Council held its final meeting in the former schoolhouse Tuesday night. The city staff already has moved this week into the brand new $1.8 million city administration building at the corner of Front and Center Streets. The first city council meeting in the new chambers will take place on April 19.
The old city hall is such cramped quarters that the city staff moved its offices seven years ago to the old Kyle post office across Center Street. And even that facility is so small that the city doesn't have room for much needed staff, let alone the space to office an existing staff of about two dozen people.
When a hot issue faces the city council, the old chambers can't always accommodate everyone who wants to track the deliberations.
So, the move to the new digs will enable the city government to provide more efficient services simply by providing enough space to office a large enough staff. Indeed, as City Manager Tom Mattis addressed the city council at the end of Tuesday's meeting, he announced that he's looking immediately for an assistant city manager, a director of planning and a communications director – all positions that have been budgeted but left unfilled for lack of space in the old city offices.
"Our goal is to have all boxes out of sight by Friday," Mattis said. "We have room to store them. In the old place, all you see is boxes."
The move will certainly come as a relief to Parks and Recreation Director Kerry Urbanowicz, who also has operated as the de facto assistant city manager for the last two years because the city lacked office space to fill the position. Councilmember Todd Webster led a round of applause for Urbanowicz.
City Secretary Minerva Falcon, who began working for the city in 1975, has helped guide the staff, council and various commissions through about more than 1,000 meetings in the old chambers – about three years of her life.
Those chambers have seen some of the watershed moments in Kyle, often fostered by bickering councils. Among the landmarks to be finalized in that room were the decision to build a pre-release prison facility in Kyle 20 years ago, the enactment of a home rule city charter in 2000 and numerous capital improvements being developed for a city that has grown ten-fold in the last 15 years and 100-fold in the last 30.
"We've had some tough meetings in this room," Mattis said to the council. "But we've had a lot of good meetings, too ... We've made a lot of the most important decisions for the City of Kyle."
The city is holding an open house at the new facility Sunday afternoon. The old city hall will be converted into a senior citizens center.
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