The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - October 21, 2022

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Want to support reporting on Texas politics that doesn’t include the spin? Subscribe at https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ Or get a FREE “Fake News Stops Here” mug when you buy an annual subscription: https://go.thetexan.news/mug-fake-news-stops-here-2022/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=weekly_roundupThe Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review!Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s Weekly Roundup, the team discusses: The debate between Austin’s mayoral candidates over the homeless, police, and more A pro-casino PAC donating over $100,000 to Republicans and Democrats alikeComptroller Hegar calling for stronger laws against children attending sexualized eventsFederal prison sentences for drug traffickers, one of whom was a Mexican government officialAn audit of Brownsville’s proposed power plant revealing false pretenses for rate hikesA former Texas school principal being found not guilty on charges of official oppression and evidence tampering   Brazos County commissioners taking a page of out Harris County’s book with a quorum bustHow local officials throughout Texas enforce gambling laws differently regarding game roomsCorpus Christi’s new wildlife rescue center adjacent to the Texas State AquariumThe admonishment of a Texas judge for referring to COVID-19 as the “China virus”

Happy, happy Friday, folks. Senior Editor Mackenzie Taylor here on the Texans Weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team discusses the debate between Austin's mayoral candidates over the homeless, police, and more. A pro-casino PAC donating over $100,000 to Republicans and Democrats alike. Comptroller Hager calling for stronger laws against children attending sexualized events. Federal prison sentences for drug traffickers, one of whom was a Mexican government official. An audit of Brownsville's proposed power plant revealing false pretenses for rate hikes. A former Texas school principal being found not guilty on charges of official oppression and evidence tampering. Brazos County commissioners taking

a page out of Harris County's book with a quorum bust. How local officials throughout Texas enforce gambling laws differently regarding game rooms. Corpus Christi's new wildlife rescue center adjacent to the Texas State Aquarium. And the admonishment of a Texas judge for referring to COVID-19 as the China virus. As always, if you have questions for our team, DM us on Twitter or email us at editor at the texan.news. We'd love to answer your questions on a future podcast. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie here with Brad and Hayden and Matthew. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me. Brad, you've seen Turnpike Troubadours, right?badours right yeah in concert indeed which was a very big deal as they came back after years of not having toured yeah because the head singer was an alcoholic i think yeah he had to go to rehab

it was really sad but he's better now yes which is awesome so they're back out and i know it made big waves in like tech on the texas country music scene i'm seeing them tonight. Oh. I'm so excited. Where at? New Braunfels, like the Whitewater Amphitheater. Oh, cool. Now, I also forgot that this concert was happening until last night. But we remembered

and now we're going. Well, that's a good thing to have remembered. You know, like, instead of remembering that you left your car keys somewhere else that you can't find.

Yes. You know, you now have the surprise trip to New Braunfels to see Turnpike Troubadours. Yes. Yeah. It'll be great. I'm very excited. Have you seen Flatland Calvary? No.

Okay. I saw Robert Earl Keene with Turnpike. That's so fun. Yeah. It was a good concert. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Well, that sounds delightful. And I will report back with you about how it was and how it went and all those things.

I'm pretty pumped. As you should be. Okay, folks. Well, let's jump right into the news. Brad, let's start with the city of Austin. You watched a debate between the mayoral candidates this week. Give us a brief review of what went down. So six candidates were on stage for the debate, including frontrunners Kirk Watson, Celia Israel, and Jennifer Verdon. They discussed issues

like homelessness, the city's relationship with the Austin Police Department, and the department's staffing problems, housing, transportation, Project Connect, and property taxes, along with some others. Which a lot of those connect in a lot of ways yeah i mean really the the big theme of this was uh coping with the city's massive growth and really that is at root of all of these issues it can be tied to quite literally every single one some it is the entire thing like housing like how do we deal with you know i think the number is like 180 people moving here every day um and then there's uh transportation you know what uh road traffic's really bad um although it's still in my opinion it's not as bad as it was before the pandemic um you know there's Connect, the massive light rail plan

that is now costing even more money than it was originally projected to. And so all of these issues kind of dovetail into the population growth that Austin is seeing. And with that, the rising cost of living and purchasing housing and everything like that. So those were the big the big issues um watson seemed to take the most arrows of any candidate um he is widely seen as the frontrunner

and he didn't really return fire much he would interject and say i'd like to respond to that but he never really attacked either israel or verdon um interesting yeah yeah um like i said he responded to them but never went at them whereas the other two really went at uh watson especially um but the the two women in that in that race israel and verdon both went at each other too. So it was pretty contentious. There were three candidates that are kind of backbenchers, both literally and figuratively, because they were in the backbench of the platform that the TV station had set up. And so really most consider the campaign a two-horse race between Watson and Israel.

Verdon is much more conservative than either of the other candidates. And I mean, if we're being honest, she's probably much more conservative than the Austin electorate. Now that doesn't mean she doesn't share priorities like the reinstatement of the camping ban in 20 uh 2021 i think that's when that happened it's all running together now um yeah that uh she was very much in favor of that

and so it's not like she doesn't share anything with with austin voters it's not like you know she's the most conservative member of the texas legislature that you find that really wouldn't have any shot right um but she definitely is is not as likely to win as the other two um watson also has cash on hand advantage he's raised over a million dollars and he's been in office for a very long time or he was in office for a very long time he also previously served as mayor so state senator ran for attorney general um oh my gosh i forgot about that yeah and so if no candidate eclipses 50 next month there will be a runoff and the ultimate winner will be on the ballot again in 24 all of which said they would seek re-election if they'd won in 24. And the reason that is, normally it's a four-year term,

but because of redistricting last year, or that happened, yeah, last year, 21, they will be on the ballot again. It's kind of similar to what they do in the state senate, I think, where everyone's up. Although with this, it's just the mayor, because there are also some council members that are not up. So that is the reason.

And at that point, they'll be running for a four year term. So, yeah, you can read the article for all the different policy positions that they took. Yeah, go to the Texan news. Check it out. Any final observations? Yeah. So housing has really become the biggest issue in this race I would say for the reason I talked about with

population growth and how do we fit all these people. But it really highlights this odd dichotomy in Austin where it's very progressive and progressives typically do not like strict zoning codes.

And this gets really deep in the weeds. It's not something a lot of people understand because it is so dense and difficult to understand, just basically. But then you also have Austin's affluence, which when you have that, you're not single family unit neighborhoods. What we think of as neighborhoods with houses they are

typically loathe to have you know like apartment buildings uh built in their neighborhood um most especially because it coincides with crime um it doesn't mean every apartment complex is going to be ridden with crime but it does introduce a more people and be, uh, people lower on the socioeconomic status and that correlates with crime. Um, and so you have this, this, um, you know, fight internal fight between, do we embrace the progressiveness of, um, you know, what typical doctrine holds as the right policy on this kind of thing on zoning or do we embrace the fact that we don't you know want all this crime or the prospect of crime in our neighborhoods and so it's really um they're really at loggerheads here and it it really brings out a lot of vitriol and that is playing out in the mayor's race absolutely well bradley bradley thank you for watching that for us and so we don't have to and reading are writing all about it and folks go read it at

the texan.news to get all the details hayden what is texas sands and why do they have their sights set on the Texas legislature? This year, there have been, there's been a lot of money going into the campaigns of party or lawmakers in both parties from the casino gambling industry. As Texas is one of the largest states that do not allow, that does not allow casino gambling. And Texas Sands is a political action committee here in Texas that is funded by Dr. Miriam Adelson, who is the widow of Sheldon Adelson, a prominent Trump supporter, and she is one of the wealthiest people in the world and the majority shareholder of Las Vegas Sands, which is the leader in the casino gambling industry. The PAC was set up specifically to advocate for commercial casino legalization here in Texas and to persuade lawmakers to propose a constitutional amendment in November to lift the state's casino ban and allow a limited number of casinos and set up a state

gaming commission that would license the industry, license commercial casinos, and regulate the industry. So Texas Sands is more or less an arm of a Nevada-based corporation that is seeking to enact a significant policy change here at the Capitol. Yeah. So give us an overview of their financial involvement in this year's elections. More than $1.5 million has gone to Republican and Democratic candidates, most of whom are incumbents, in this year's election cycle before the primary, before the runoff this summer. And then last month, there was a new round of contributions to incumbents in the Texas legislature. Most of that cash came from, or all of that cash came from

the Adelson family, the Adelson fortune. And we've talked about this before on this podcast, but just to give an idea of the scope of their influence, they own the Las Vegas Review Journal, which is the main newspaper in Las Vegas. So they have a lot of burners on the stove. And I'm not sure if I'm using that expression correctly, but they have a lot of irons in the fire and their influence reaches a long way. And most of the candidates they backed during the primaries won their elections. And they are seemingly playing it safe and backing candidates that are likely to win in the general election as well. What is notable about the recent list of names who received campaign cash? The contributions that were made in September to Texas lawmakers were relatively modest. They were between $3,000 and

$5,000, but they did cut a $50,000 check to Governor Abbott's re-election bid, which is a little bit ironic considering Abbott has been in opposition to casinos in the past, and he has led efforts to keep the federally recognized Native American tribes here in Texas from expanding their gambling operations. They have at times pushed the gray areas in state law and in federal statutes that permit them to engage in activities that would be illegal for other companies or the general public, and Abbott has supported pushing back on that and asserting the state's right to regulate that activity and to prohibit certain gambling activities. Abbott has, in other words, not been a friend of the pro-casino efforts, but he received a $50,000 check for his re-election campaign.

Beto O'Rourke has said that he supports casinos and would be in favor of letting Texas voters decide that question on a statewide ballot, but he did not receive a check from Texas Sands, and that could be viewed as a strategic choice on their part because, of course, the polling does favor Governor Abbott in next month's election, and it probably wouldn't be a smart move for them to upset his camp or to do something that might rub him the wrong way. But the lieutenant governor's race has also received attention financially from Texas Sands. Dan Patrick received $150,000 and so did Speaker Phelan, but neither of those men received another contribution on the latest report. They did receive contributions earlier this year.

Mike Collier, Patrick's opponent, also did not receive a contribution. So while Patrick did not get a donation this time, neither did his opponent, but he has been supported by this group in the past. There you go. Hayden, thank you for following all of that for us. Bradley, after a lengthy back and forth over businesses hosting drag events with children in attendance, comptroller Glenn Hager came out with a call to action. What did he say? So for much of the summer, Hager's office has been evaluating whether it can charge a Dallas gay bar backdated fees associated with sexually oriented businesses after it hosted a drag event

at which children were present so he came out this week indicating he did not have the authority to find that business mr mr in dallas and nor did he have the authority to find others for similar events due to recent court decisions that have broadly defined clothed in statute um so much so that something like spray-on latex even counts as clothed. And so that severely limits the scope of what you can qualify as violating this or exceeding this threshold in code and so the fine itself is um i think a five dollar fee per entrant and so however many people there were at this event would be taxed you know five dollars ahead basically the business would be taxed five dollars ahead and they'd have to

pay that if hager had had decided that he could move forward with this action. But he didn't. And then he called on the legislature to more clearly define in code what constitutes clothed. That way this court decision would basically be nullified after a new law passed by the legislature. Or he called on them to come up with some other way to clamp down on businesses doing these things. State code already prohibits children from entering sexually-oriented businesses like a strip club or something like that. Now that this is a bar and so it is not typically the business uh that that meets that standard which is why this debate is happening

um but the comptroller found that as currently constituted this instance at mr mr did not meet that qualification and therefore they're now in this quandary. What do we do about this? So then how was this perceived by conservative activist groups that have been drawing attention to the situation? I mean, this is a huge issue that Hager surprisingly has been facing a lot of pressure on behalf. The comptroller is not usually the elected official facing controversy on these kinds of social issues. Right. He's just a you know a fiscal manager essentially um but he does have some authority to enforce laws that are already in place um and this one happens to pertain to the situation yes yes and so chris hopper of the texas family project said after hager statement

came out today's statement from glenn Hager is a win for conservatives. We disagree with Hager's decision not to find Mr. Mister and have always believed that current state law is far from adequate and that all of the other drag shows in Texas are sadly legal until the legislature takes action. So Hopper's group, along with the American Principles Project, have criticized Hager on this issue quite a bit over the summer for what they see as quote dragging his feet on the investigation but they agree with the contention about code and just disagree that it that Mr. Mister

the situation there did not meet the qualifications for a sexually oriented business and the reason is that without going into too much graphic detail, what separates this event and the others is how covered up the rear end of one of the performers was. And if you really want to see it, it's all over Twitter. You can see the videos, judge for yourself. I link to them in this article in the previous one i wrote um but that is um that is what separates in in hopper's mind this issue from the others and in in hager's um that's the reason that this one was singled out more than any other for evaluation he

just disagrees with um the the activist's assessment that it meets this qualification so this appears likely to be a theme once the legislature reconvenes next year that along with a number of other uh related issues such as like gender mod or um uh you or topics like this being discussed in school, sexual topics in schools. It's kind of going to be an umbrella issue that we're going to see a lot of specific pieces of legislation try and make its way through. Absolutely. And it'll be very fascinating to watch which legislators are the ones heading up that. Yeah.

Which ones file the bills yeah which ones file the bills which ones you know fight the fight on the floor you know brian slayton will be one of them yes who else will join the fight very interesting and how um you know how big of an issue it becomes during session will also be interesting from the democrat side of okay how hard are we going to fight against this and which ones do they fight against which ones do they say just throw up their hands right you know so and which leaders throw away wait behind how much teeth do they have it'll be fascinating to see well radley thank you for that we'll talk a little bit more about this issue later on in the podcast matthew we are coming to you federal authorities in south texas handed down

prison sentences and a number of federal or excuse me drug trafficking cases including one instance where the trafficker was not only an illegal alien but a former high-ranking official in the mexican government some spicy stuff there can you give us the details of what happened testing testing testing can you hear this uh hear me through this fancy new microphone that my bosses got me whoa look at that you that. You sound great, Matt. Yes, I love it. Let's see here. So this was an interesting story. Federal authorities had a number of undercover law enforcement operations where they caught

drug traffickers in a couple of different instances. With the former Mexican government official, what happened here was the trafficker in question used to be an attorney in the Mexican government office of the attorney general for some 30 years. And during the undercover operation, he met with undercover law enforcement officers where they managed to buy a kilo of cocaine from him. And he told them that he had more product based on that buy. They went, secured a search warrant, went and raided his house where they found 30 kilos of cocaine with an estimated street value of $800,000. After he was convicted and sentenced for his drug smuggling crimes, the judge pointed out, you know, that as a 30-year attorney, he knew better. And that's why they handed him a pretty stiff sentence in that case.

In the second case, three traffickers were caught planning to smuggle narcotics into the country during another undercover operation, notably called Operation Dark Monkey. Why it was called Operation Dark Monkey, we have no idea, but I guess you have to name your undercover operation something. Was it a misspelling of dark money? Someone added a K? And you're saying dart, like a blow dart. Yeah, like a dart board and a monkey. Oh, not dark.

Yeah. Okay. like a dartboard and a monkey not dark I don't know what else to compare imagine being the person that gets to come up with these operation dart monkey darted themselves a I'm trying to think of a good analogy here to keep it going darted themselves a monkey, I guess, with three monkeys in this case.

The smugglers with one had a known connections to narcotics operations out of Mexico where he was getting his sources of narcotics. And I guess as part of the operation, they figured out that he was going to smuggle this stuff up and had enough to get them all on the conspiracy aspect of things. So well done federal law enforcement in that case. They handed down numerous lengthy sentences in all of these different instances. And it's a great story you can check out on thetexan.news. Ooh, I love the plug. Speaking of plugs. Hey, listeners, if you enjoy our podcast each week, subscribe to The Texan. We're not funded by corporate interests or big donors, so we rely on the subscriptions of everyday Texans to keep churning out news. When you subscribe to the Texan, you'll get access to stories like all the ones we've been discussing on this podcast

as soon as they're published so that you can stay informed, up to speed, and ready to vote at the ballot box. A subscription is $9 monthly, but you can save by purchasing an annual subscription for $90, which comes out to just $7.50 per month. And we just brought back a fan favorite merch item. New subscribers will now get a free fake news stops here mug, by far our most popular merch item of all time. For more details, visit the texan.news forward slash subscribe, or click the URL in the description of this podcast. Now let's jump back to chatting about some stories. Bradley, we're coming right back to you.

There is a scandalous situation occurring down in the Rio Grande Valley. Give us the lowdown. So an audit was released that details the events, actions, and statements surrounding a power plant in Brownsville that was never built, but for which fees increase fee increases, um, were levied on tax rate payers. And so overall about $118 million in extra fees were paid by Brownsville public utilities board rate payers over the course of, uh, four or five years. And this occurred, um, in midway through the last decade. It started in 2013 and concluded the last one stopped in 2016, 2017. So that's the lifespan of the fee increases. The power plant was never built. And even though all the negotiations occurred and the corresponding rate hike to help pay for it went in place. And so after these negotiations, they tried to move forward with this.

But the problem was, as this audit found and listed out, the load and population forecast used to justify the plant were outdated if not outright contrived and so there's a lot of detail to it i go to into it in the article so i recommend you read that to hear all of the different things that were lied about or misled or just masked to the the public utilities board members and the public at large. And so another part of this includes a former Enron executive that was paid $35,000 per month indefinitely, meaning there was no cap on the contract length or amount of money spent, to consult on the project, which the auditors found to be a conflict of interest and so overall there's just is one of the most one of the wildest things i've ever read

especially something so usually so boring well until a year ago usually so boring as a power plant and electricity, but, um, there's a lot of backroom dealing and, uh, masking of, of the situation overall misleading, um, by especially the, the CEO of the Brownsville public utility board, um, and other, other consultants that were involved in the process. And so including the, um um the former mayor tony martinez and so it's just kind of a shocking read and i linked to the the whole thing in the article if you want to read it or the executive summary or you can just read the article but it really is something so what have the reactions been to this so cameron county is ablaze with the story right now and rightfully so you know it reeks of poor management at best and corruption at worst it's being used in the cameron county

judge race between democrat eddie trevino and republican carlos cascos cascos is a former texas secretary of state um trevino's firm was among the team of lawyers paid by Brownsville Public Utility Board during this the audit found no evidence of fraud associated with the payments to him or to any of the other legal

firms that provided advice or any of the other outside vendors that assisted with this um but trevino made 1.3 million dollars in legal fees and so um his involvement right there has made it an issue in that race for its part brownsville public utility board put out a statement saying there are factual errors in the report, but did not specify any at the time. They said that they'll conduct a review of it and in time put their own counterfactuals out.

And they said that they wanted to allow the individuals mentioned in this in the audit time to respond themselves to the allegations that made in this but right now they're just kind of saying no this is not true and leaving it at that not providing any more details so um it is it is catching the eyes of many people down in the rio grande valley and uh this And the fallout from this, I think, is going to continue for a while and may catch up some officials down there. Certainly. Well, folks, it's definitely worth a read, so make sure to go to the Texan and read all about it. Hayden, we're coming to you.

An East Texas school principal was vindicated by a jury of her peers last week. What was Kimberlyn Snyder accused of? Kimberlyn Snyder is the principal of Natchez Elementary School out in Anderson County. I say is, I should say she is on administrative leave after she was indicted in January of 2021 on multiple charges, one of which was a felony count of tampering or fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair. And she also had five misdemeanor charges of official oppression. If she had been convicted of all of those counts, she could have been incarcerated for more than a decade. But the jury returned verdicts of not guilty on each of those charges.

They were connected to an investigation into a sexual assault the prosecutor said she inhibited, but they originally accused her of hampering an investigation into the sex abuse of a child that had been suspected. But the day before the case went to the jury, the state reportedly conceded that the investigation in question did not involve a child, so they had to correct the indictment to reflect the fact that there were no children involved in the suspected sex abuse that she was accused of inhibiting the investigation of. So that was a mark against the state heading into the verdict, but those charges, as I mentioned, one of which was a felony, could have put her away for a long time. I'm sure she's breathing a sigh of relief after she was acquitted completely and is now free and no longer under criminal indictment. Yeah, absolutely. What was the reaction to the verdict? Of course, there were people who were disappointed with the outcome,

not the least of which was a group called Changes for Neches, which is an interest group there locally that has opposed her for years and has sought to spotlight some of the accusations of misconduct against her. There were children who testified against her in this trial, and Caitlin Scroggins, who is the leader of the group and now running for an HSISD school board, put out a statement. She said, and part of that statement was, quote, the faces of these girls and their parents, as the verdict was read, was heart-wrenching. They did their part and thought justice would be served. So many people that had been victimized by her over decades, and they thought finally something would be done. We mourn for them and send strength, end quote.

And the trial had originally been scheduled to be completed in March, but her attorney had a medical emergency and it was repeatedly postponed. the jury to vindicate her. And they were not surprised by the verdict because after viewing the evidence, he believed that once a jury received the case, that she would be acquitted. Of course, he had the benefit of hindsight and he had just won the victory. So it's arguably easy to say, you know, we won and I always knew we were going to win. But that was a victory lap he, I'm sure, was enjoying right after the trial. And interestingly enough, I emailed him for a statement in the summer and he never got back to me. But right after, I think the day after the jury verdict was handed down, he replied to my email and said she was just found not guilty. And so I thought, well, that would have been

interesting. I wish I had heard the prediction before the verdict. That would have been a lot more fun. But he did get back with me and let me know that she had been acquitted. There you go. Well, the million-dollar question, could she be reinstated as school principal? Part of the controversy in this case was her husband was the superintendent of the school district and was accused of shielding her from some of this scrutiny. And he made the decision to keep her on administrative, paid administrative leave throughout these court proceedings. And though Snyder's attorney told me he has no idea

whether she's going to be reinstated, he did indicate to me that the school board could consider it as early as Monday. And she is an employee of the school district. So not only has she been free from the specter of prison, but she might even get her career back. And I'm sure that is something that many of her opponents and those who have accused her of misconduct in the school district are not too excited about. And there's always the point that even if what she was accused of was not criminal, there are possible ethics violations that may have been committed. I don't know what those might be, but she has been found not guilty and could be resuming her career very soon. I think the stories that often get the most attention on our site are, you know, we love a good story about Ken Paxton or Greg Abbott or the legislature doing something crazy,

but I love these local stories that are so just dense with drama. They really are so fascinating and have great consequence to the people in these communities and so worth reading so and where everybody knows each other because these statewide things you know people don't necessarily know all the players involved but i doubt there's anybody who has a child in that school district who does not have an opinion about kimberlyn snyder yeah and who is not aware of what some of the local media has been reporting in terms of what she could have done or might have done. And these reports go back years.

When I was originally researching the story, one of the reports I saw was back in 2014, 2015, of her possibly intimidating people or even bullying elementary school students at the school and just being overbearing. And that's why she's unpopular with a lot of people and has this interest group that is virtually dedicated to opposing her is because of some of the opponents she has accumulated over the years in the school district that culminated in the local DA wanting to charge her with a crime. Having said that, we hear we always, in our reporting, presume innocence before the trial. And now we presume innocence after the trial because the jury was clear that the state didn't prove she did anything illegal. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Hayden, thank you for shining a spotlight on what's going on in this case. We appreciate it so much. Bradley, we're coming back to you. Two Brazos

County commissioners are imitating the situation out in Harris County right now that specifically relates to breaking quorum to prevent a property tax increase. What's going on? So Commissioner Steve Aldrich and Russ Ford are amidst a week's long bout of playing hooky avoiding a quorum to set a tax rate in code local governments must have a quorum to pass a tax increase if no quorum exists the no new revenue rate is automatically adopted because they're few in number county commissions must have four of five members present to establish a quorum, and thus only two can prevent one. So that makes counties much more susceptible to this maneuver. If you're on a city council with ten members, you need more people than just two to band together to do this. And so that's why we're seeing this really happen at the county level and nowhere else that I've heard.

So if no rate is passed, no quorum established by October 22nd, which by the time this goes out will be the very next day, Saturday, Then the no new revenue rate will automatically be adopted. The point of contention is over this pot of money that is, I think, like $7 million that is set to go into a capital contingency fund that the county judge wants to use to finance small capital expenditures down the road rather

than setting a bond election to borrow more money use the money it's already there but the two commissioners aldrich and ford contend that they don't want to raise taxes when the county doesn't need it they will be fine missing out on this this windfall that the county judge wants to ensure comes in. You know, roads being repaired and whatnot, projects like that, you know, gutters and county facilities not being fixed. It's just it's not accurate that the county will still be able to finance those things. So that's where the lines come down on. How did this get to this point? So County Judge Dwayne Peters originally proposed a rate that would amount to roughly an $83 increase in the county portion of their tax bill for a homeowner with a standard exemption. Now, whenever we discuss these things,

homeowners are not the only ones that pay property taxes. And so, you know, they get preferential treatment from state code because it, you know, frankly, it's a feel good thing. You know, you don't want to be taxed out of your home. And so there's a lot of homestead exemptions and increases in those that are granted by the legislature. And so you can understand that. That's a fact and you can understand why they do it. But businesses pay property taxes. And so I put that number in there, $83, because it's a way for an average person that may be not a business owner or more people own homes pay these property taxes than own a business. So it's easier to conceptualize the effect of these different

rates on it. But the standard business owner is going to pay more than an $83 property tax increase if the originally proposed rate would have been adopted. Now that's no longer on the table. Aldrich and Ford proposed a rate that was higher than the no new revenue rate that would yield a roughly $5 decrease as of my calculation. Now they picked that as the point at which the median homeowner would not see a any change in their property tax bill it depends the reason the calculation varies is based on which um which uh housing price you set as the median level i used someone that was like i think it was red fin they probably used

the appraisal district which was not immediately So regardless, it'll be about the same. But then Peters, the county judge, returned with a proposal that would yield a $39 increase roughly. Both sides are standing pat on those proposals, and the clock seems primed to run out before Saturday. At which point, the county judge gets an even lower rate than what those two commissioners have proposed and said they will compromise on. as Peter's why. He said he didn't want to be a part of running the rate down lower than he already has compromised on at that roughly $39 option and didn't really go into more of why he would take, from his point of view, the lesser of the bad options of their proposal and the no new revenue rate. Instead, he's going to, I guess, just suck it up and deal with the NNR. And so take that for what you will. Brazos County is enveloped in this growing trend of commissioners breaking quorum in order to prevent a property tax increase. First instance I saw this happen was lupic in 2019 harris county commissioners immediately did it right after

shortly after that and two commissioners in harris county um kegel and is it ramsey now yes um they're in the midst of their own quorum break for this property tax thing so holly's covering for us down in harris so holly's covering for us down in harris county holly's written a lot on this um and there's a lot more going on in harris county involving the tax rate and like you know the the police budget and all this stuff so i recommend you check that out check out her coverage but this is an interesting dynamic here um it's not republicans revolting against democrats this is republicans revolting against republicans and so um just as occurred out in lubbock in 2019 so um it's an interesting case

and we might see more and more examples of this as the years go by certainly thank you bradley matthew we are coming back to you and your fancy microphone. Game rooms featuring casino-style eight-liner slot machines have popped up in Texas cities across the state. Problem is, gambling is generally regarded as illegal in Texas. Explain to us the loopholes in Texas law that have allowed these game rooms to flourish in some local jurisdictions and face prosecution. Well, hello again, Mackenzie. I'd be glad to tell you about this story. It's kind of a fun thing. You know, we have this other story about Las Vegas Sands wanting to come in with big time gambling and all the little guys seem to have figured out a loophole to set it, go ahead and set up shop, at least in a lot of different jurisdictions, because we're having a

lot of different enforcement policies in different jurisdictions. So here's the deal, which is a great analogy. Game rooms featuring casino-style eight-liner slot machines. So you put the coin in, pull the lever, the little cherries pop up and you win something. It popped up in Texas cities all across the state. And we spoke with a number of different officials about what they're seeing across there, in particular, Odessa Mayor Javier Hoven. Now, Javier Hoven just led a charge in the city of Odessa to crack down on the game rooms. And he told us that, one, he just wanted to outright ban them because in his view, Texas law prohibits gambling, no exceptions. But he ended up getting

some pushback from other local officials who are above him. And so they ended up having to find a way to phase them out via a regulatory process. Now, according to Mayor Hoeven, he said that Texas law, the loopholes that have allowed them to set up shop, there's two different ones. One, they have this provision in the penal code that was added there in the 90s called the fuzzy animal exception. And what that says is that there's essentially a defense to prosecution, to having an illegal gambling machine, that sort of thing, as long as non-cash prizes under $5 in value are awarded, which is typically thought of as like the little adorable teddy bears that you win at the state fair or at Chuck E. Cheese.

And I think that was the purpose of the legislature, adding that exception in there so that, you know, the goers to Chuck E. Cheese and those different places weren't criminalized under our very stringent gambling rules. The other exception is that counties and cities started issuing licenses for game rooms. And they figured out that we can raise a bunch of money, revenue with that. And so you see in these jurisdictions that are licensing, you know, charging a thousand dollars for an application and several hundred dollars per machine and raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees, depending on the different jurisdiction. And these game rooms are supposedly supposed to be operating under this furry animal exception, you know, non-cash prices, but they can afford these exorbitant licensing fees. So we ended up talking, reaching out across the state

and talking to a number of different district attorneys, including a Dexter County district attorney, Dusty Gallivan, whose jurisdiction includes the city of Odessa. And he says that the laws regarding whether or not they can just crack down and stop these game rooms from operating from even having these eight liner machines and all this sort of stuff. It's just, it's just not clear enough. And that either the Texas Supreme court or the Texas legislature needs to come in. And I think he described it as, as none of this middle of the road stuff, you know, let's, let's, let's, let's either make it legal or illegal and clearly define the law. On the flip side, we spoke with Smith County District Attorney Jacob Putman, whose jurisdiction includes the city of Tyler.

And he described how a number of years ago these game rooms started popping up all over their city. And they took a look at the law and they said, yeah, no, this is illegal. So they sent them all cease and desist letters and said, you have so much time to shut down. Otherwise, you know, you could be charged and your machines seized. Most complied with the letter. There were a few who didn't and they made good on their threat and charged some of them and seized their machines. And according to him, those convictions stuck. So in his view, there's not too much ambiguity in the law. Like he feels that it's still pretty clear and that, you up across the city and the game room suit challenging the constitutionality of the furry animal exception and whether or not the legislature even has the authority under the mandate that the Texas Constitution places on the Texas legislature to prohibit gambling.

And a number of these other questions where these kind of this kind of gray area of the law has arisen. Ultimately, the city of Fort Worth prevailed at the second court of appeals, and the game room owners have filed two extension of time notices with the Texas Supreme Court saying, we plan to appeal to the Supreme Court. Our attorneys are just busy with other cases. And so the latest one asked for an extension of time till November the 4th to appeal. And so we'll see if they managed to get their appeal in and whether or not the Texas Supreme court picks up the case and provide some better clarity on

these laws. Well, Matt, it's a wonderful piece folks make sure to go read it we appreciate your coverage bradley you wrote a piece this week about a new wildlife rescue center down in corpus christi a little different from your usual beats here tell us about it so i had the pleasure of going down to an event at the texas state aquarium on on Friday. And it was a fundraiser for this new wildlife rescue center. Really cool event. If you've never been to the

aquarium itself, it's awesome. I recommend you go. It's down in Corpus Christi. But the fundraiser was for operations expenses for this new wildlife rescue center. And it's being built literally adjacent on the same property to the aquarium.

You can see it. If you go there, you can see the construction going on right now. And it's a $15 million expenditure. And it's an interesting medley of financing. You've got a couple million from the port of corpus christi um you've got a couple million from a local bond that was passed in 2020 in court in the city of corpus and then you've got money from the texas department of texas wildlife parks and wildlife department i can never get that acronym correct uh the state

itself um i think exxon mobil was a significant donor to this a couple other oil and gas companies with lower but still pretty large contributions individual donors um it's an interesting array of financing that they've got for this thing, but it's intended to expand the aquarium's capacity for dealing with injured species. like loggerhead turtles which oddly enough i found out during this are just kind of randomly and we don't really know why just washing ashore now they're not like uh all dying some of them are but um they're just washing ashore and we haven't figured out why and so uh there's a lot of there's there's many loggerhead turtles at the aquarium right now and will be housed and rehabbed at this new center. And animals like dolphins, otters, birds, all kinds of different species that are native to that area that will just naturally need, um, you know, rehab here and there, um, for various,

various injuries that they, that they succumb to. Um, and so, uh, it's a, it's a really interesting project. Um,

I recommend you read the piece, but they said they will open on March 2nd at full capacity. And so, um, already they've got more than enough to work with. Wow. Well, Bradley, thank you for that. Matthew, we are coming back to you as our final story for this podcast. A state district judge in Odessa received a public admonishment from the State Judicial Conduct Commission over his referring to COVID as the China virus. Tell us what's going on here. That's right, Mackenzie. So a state district judge based in Odessa or Ector County received a public admonishment from the State Judicial Conduct Commission

because during the course of the early phases of a trial, He referenced the COVID-19 virus as, quote, the China virus, which reportedly made an Asian juror candidate feel uncomfortable. And whenever the judge's behavior was encouraged by applause from the rest of the jurors, it made her feel even more uncomfortable. And so from that, a complaint was filed with the Conduct Commission, which ultimately resulted in him receiving the public admonishment and an order to receive an hour of continuing education. Got it. Well, that is pretty spicy there. Thank you for covering that for us. And it's definitely worth a read at the text and dot newsnews gentlemen real fast before we wrap up this podcast we had a lot to talk about today we are going to go into the tweetery section here

brad what's let's start with you what did you find on twitter this week so i saw this tweet from gianluca grimaldi i like your uh accent yeah that was pretty good i channeled my uh even though this is a this dude's italian i channeled my high school spanish to pronounce that you use some of the same mechanics oh yeah yeah for sure it's related um he is a environmental scientist it looks like and there's a picture of him and five or six other individuals. They are protesting at Volkswagen, protesting in a new Porsche showroom, I guess protesting fossil fuels and whatnot. But they have glued their hands to the floor.

Now, one thing they did not account for of this 24 hour or more protest that they were about to undertake was that some of them would have to go to the bathroom. Or maybe eat. Or both. And they did not

account for that. And so this Mr. Grimaldi tweeted, Volkswagen told us that they supported our right to protest, but they refused our request to provide us with a bowl to urinate and defecate in a decent manner while we are glued and have turned off the heating. People in support

can't get out of the building. Just seems like it's their own dang fault. You know, like I thought that one through all the way. Yeah, you'd think if you were prepared you would

plan to bring a bucket. I don't know. It seems like a natural thinking. That's right. But instead they're going to complain about it on Twitter. Yeah. I'm sure the company but instead they're going to complain about it on twitter yeah i'm sure the uh the company whose property they're invading is uh real you know real um sympathetic to their trials and travails going on right now so yeah there's that it's pretty spicy bradley okay well i don't

know who can top that but hayden we're gonna to come to you and try and make you top that delightful little Twitter story. Governor Abbott tweeted a New York Post story. Emphasis on New York Post story. Take it with a grain of salt. that Chris Magnus, the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, was falling asleep during meetings and dozing off and then waking up and talking about things that were not pertinent to what had been discussed in the meeting. And he is saying that it's because of his multiple sclerosis and medication that he's taking. But I think it's interesting that Abbott is highlighting this, especially given he is going to be on the ballot next month and every little bit of jabs that he can make at the Biden White House and the people he has hired counts this close to the election. Yeah. I am glad that nobody watches whether or not i fall asleep during

things like the podcast like the i'm just snoozing on the job all the time here yeah but i mean i fall asleep during movies all the time like i just i don't know the lull of of a movie i just conk out right away like there's a difference between falling asleep at a movie and falling asleep at some i think so or like a law enforcement officer's funeral oh yes yeah or anyone's funeral i didn't mention anyone's funeral yeah 100 one of the uh the backbencher candidates uh during the mayoral debate criticized adler for falling asleep at the funeral but that was a theme that I left out. Pretty spicy stuff.

Matthew, what do you got? I have all kinds of fun stuff. One thing that actually came my way while we were recording the podcast, some breaking news out of Midland, the, the West Texas spokesperson slash public information officer for the Department of Transportation, TxDOT, has been arrested by the Department of Public Safety and Midland Sheriff's Office in a prostitution sting. I'm also being told that he was arrested in previous years as part of the infamous Healing Touch prostitution sting and Odessa being one of the johns there.

So that's a story that just came our way and I'll be looking at it and we might potentially write something on it. But I thought that was some interesting breaking news that came through. One fun tweeter-y thing that i saw was the british prime minister liz truss lasted only 45 days in her office um one fun fact about it is after her 45 days of service she will be getting 115 000 british pounds for life salary which is equivalent to $129,319 American bucks. How do I get that gig? Mackenzie, can you fire me and just give me the salary for the rest of my life?

Sure. Oh, cool. Great. And the last fun thing that I saw about this was a former White House spokesperson, Anthony Sacramucci, tweeted out that her term in service lasted 4.1 Sacramucci's. You mean Scaramucci's? Scaramucci's. Eden's little eyebrows went...

Scaramucci's, there you go. Well, that's pretty spicy stuff. Thank you, Matthew. I think that's what I'm... Okay, the next angry email I get from a listener is going to be not about good stuff. It's going to be about me saying spicy. Just watch. Now you're putting it in their minds. And now you're definitely going to...

Or maybe I'm mitigating it and showing them that I'm self-aware. Okay. If you squint really hard, maybe that's what it could be construed as. On Twitter this week, saw sarah gonzalez she's a blaze tv host um host of the news and why it matters um she was on tucker carlson this week here's her tweet i'm proud to announce a new venture of mine defend our kids texas where we were where we will be working overtime to get drag shows for kids shut down for good. And Texas is only the beginning. Now, she's based out of Texas, but her show was, you know, the Blaze broadcast nationally.

Interesting to watch this kind of break into the mainstream outside of Texas in some ways. And interesting that the legislative session starts in T-min two months here three months um and she directly spoke about comptroller glenn hager in some of her media appearances as well as she was announcing this new initiative so we'll see what happens there but more pressure being mounted on texas state officials to address this problem she's also been quite involved in texas politics this year like you said she's a national pundit, talks about national politics. But she lives in Texas, so obviously it pertains to her. And I remember she was at a Beto event earlier this year and ended up getting kicked out. She was just recording, at least as far as the video that I watched, she was recording and trying to ask a question. Obviously a very pointed question because she's no fan of Beto O'Rourke.

But got kicked out of there and that kind of caused a hubbub. But it seems like she's been increasingly involved in state politics. When she didn't just get kicked out, the cop tried to physically remove her. And then another cop came and I don't know exactly what the exchange was, but the second officer was much less confrontational and they had a conversation as opposed to this other one who approached her and barely said anything and just tried to whisk her away. Yeah. My gosh.

So that's certainly something to keep an eye on. And again, I think it shows a lot about this. This policy argument is not a trend in conservative circles um and democrats certainly are still talking about it as well so be interesting to see what happens during the legislative session um there you go okay real fast gentlemen i want to talk about a fun topic we have a few minutes here so we have time and i was not sure whether or not we would we do i was hoping that we were out of time i hate its face when i said that was very disappointed um okay worst job what is i'll start while y'all can noodle the worst job we've ever had i don't

really have anything that's that spicy or crazy i worked at a coffee shop, like a drive-through coffee stand for a lot of my high school and collegiate years. And it was sweet little wine country in Washington. In Washington, they have a lot of coffee shops where the baristas are not fully clothed. And so creepy people would drive up to the stand and expect something that was absolutely not happening. And the owner of the shop for there were like three owners that changed hands three different times the first owner i

worked for would accuse me and a friend of mine who also worked there of stealing not money but the cups that you'd put the hot coffee in and we'd be like no we're not stealing so what you're just running a styrofoam coffee literally out of your job she was so paranoid and she would literally accuse us of stealing yeah styrofoam cardboard cups which was insane it was like no you're we had customers come through and they bought coffee and we put the coffee in a cup and we believe that you had customers i was like you can look at the receipts, like our revenue each day. The cash is in there. Literally.

And also, we were like very goody two-shoe homeschool girl. We were not going to be the ones stealing anything, much less cups from the coffee stand. Anyways. I have one. Bring it on, Matt. So growing up, I worked in my family's jewelry store. My parents own a jewelry store. And so from the very early parts of me working there, you know, I had to do all of the grunt work um terrible jobs around the store you know sweeping the floor and this and that and uh the one oddball aspect of my job

that i i didn't like the worst was um at the time gold had really spiked the price of gold and people were bringing in all kinds of broken rings and chains and things like that to sell and um the price had gone up so much that um i don't know where it was coming from i is just gross but um teeth with gold in it whoa and of course to melt down, you have to get the tooth out of the gold. And so my dad would come to me with a bag of teeth and a hammer. Oh, my goodness. And my job was to bust the teeth out of the gold and get it ready to melt. And it was just so gross. That's way better.

Way, way better than my story. Which is kind of a great pre-Halloween story. It's very true. Great pre-Halloween story. Hayden, what about you? I worked at a department store. And if you have never worked at a department store, I will say this. It is not a fun job. It is one that you're happy when you give your notice. Yeah. But I will say, once you have seen a 50-year-old adult throw a full-blown temper tantrum over a 15% off coupon, Oh my gosh. it really changes your perspective of life

and makes you care a lot less what other people think. Oh my gosh. There's a lesson in that for all of us, is there not? Oh my gosh. We specifically have this topic today because when we started the pod, we did a soundcheck. Hayden, as his soundcheck said, what did you say, Hayden? I said, the store will be closing in 30 minutes. Please make your final purchases.

And I was like, dang, that came out so easily. He goes, yeah, I worked at a department store. Bradley, what about you? Well, I have worked at a cemetery cutting grass. I forgot about that. And weed whacking, which was no fun. I've worked at a movie theater, and that wasn't very fun. But by far, the worst job I've had was a dishwasher at Red Lobster.

Oh, Brad. It was terrible. I was wondering when you were gonna bring up red lobster yeah yeah um did you get a lot of those biscuits though oh yeah that was like the only perk you could eat as many biscuits as you want so good i stuffed myself silly with those things but i had to in order to cope with the the damage i was doing to myself how old were you uh this was in high school how old were you at yours, Hayden? 18, 19.

Yeah, okay. And so they have this massive dishwasher, which of course you have to because you have so many dishes to go through. You can't do it all by hand. But it's scathing hot and you have to shove the tray with all the dishes stacked in there and they come out incredibly hot.

But you got to get dishes to the stations immediately because they're running out of dishes and so i'm carrying this massive pile of uh incredibly hot steaming dishes that's burning my hands did you ever drop them no i never dropped any dishes thank god that's awesome but then the worst part was you'd have these tubs of solution that was supposed to like dissolve or loosen up the food that was like crusted to these dishes. And the waitstaff would just throw them in. And so I'd get splashed in the face with these chemicals and pieces of food and crap like that. And it was not fun so that was another instance where i really enjoyed the moment of putting in my two weeks it was fantastic so that's really gross yeah well boys you really uh that's not disappointing

thank you all i'm glad that that we got a five-star rating. For my personal amusement. And our worst job descriptions. 100%. Well, folks, we so appreciate you listening to us each and every week, and we'll catch you next time. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics

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