The Keller City Council decided last night to send the library issue to the voters, as per the petition that was submitted.

I’m glad to see this happening, since I thought that the council’s previous approach was a bit high-handed (and had a bit of back-room dealing odor about it).  Now I want to know why the cost seems so high.  I know that construction costs are going up (due to energy costs, higher demand, and exchange rates), but $8.5 million for a 37,000 sq.ft. building seems really excessive to me. 

Here’s what library supporters need to do between now and May 13, 2006 if they want me to even consider supporting a new library:

• Publish the plans for the new library (including all new equipment).
• Explain what is driving the cost (including what other alternatives were considered, and why those alternatives were unsuitable).
• Provide an exact cost for the impact on our tax rate of the bond issuance.
• Provide details on ongoing maintenance and support costs, along with an accurate assessment of the impact on the tax rate.
• Resist the urge to demonize those who have questions and concerns about the library (including those who don’t support a new library).
• Explain why the library has to be in Town Center.  What other sites were considered?  Why weren’t other sites considered, if none?
• Why was expanding the existing library not an option?  (I know that it won’t support a second floor, so I want to hear sound reasons why the library can’t be expanded, other than it would encroach on park land.)
• Provide proof (preferrably in the form of an impartial, third-party study) that the library would drive sales in Town Center.  In lieu of an impartial study, real-world results from another, similar city would be helpful.  But pie-in-the-sky guesstimates are unacceptable, since any shortfall in proposed sales-tax revenues would have to be made up out of our property taxes.

The onus is on the supporters to provide compelling, and factual, reasons for a new/expanded library.  I’ll be watching and waiting.

More info:
Star-Telegram article on last night’s meeting.

Previous posts:
The Arrogance Is Mindboggling
Library ‘O Doom
The Library Thing

As I’ve previously written, the Keller city council has decided to go forward with a plan to issue $8.8 million in bonds to fund a new library.  The latest issue of The Keller Citizen had some interesting quotes from various council members with regards to the reasoning behind their decision to not allow a vote on the issue.  Of all the reasons, though, the following one struck me as the most arrogant.

Councilman Russell Lake said the council has so much information on the library that it would be hard to convey it accurately to the citizens to prepare them to vote.  Also, he said council members work hard to spend city money wisely and keep the tax rate low.

I interpret that as a round-about way of saying that we voters are too stupid to understand the reasons and that we can’t be trusted to be properly “prepare[d]” to give them the desired outcome.

Interestingly, from the ways that bonds are differentiated, it appears that the city council has the authority to issue these without voter approval.  Which seems to me to be a root issue that needs to be addressed.  I don’t think any city should be able to create any significant amount of new debt without voter approval.  Further, there needs to be some level of accountability with regards to the long-term liabilities for operations that will be incurred.  Until I hear definitively that the city can fund staffing and operations for the new fire station, I will remain implacably opposed to a new library.  Books are nice, but they’re not much fun if you’re reading them by [house]firelight…

I received an email from Jim Maine last night.  He’s a local watchdog who runs the ourKeller website.  It seems that the city council voted last night to proceed with plans to issue $8.5 million in bonds for a new library (registration required, has Firefox-circumventing pop-ups).

With a 4-to-1 vote Tuesday night, City Council members said they intend to issue $8.5 million in bonds for the project without asking for voters’ approval. The council will vote again on Dec. 20 to actually issue the library bonds and another $270,000 in non-voter-approved bonds that would pay for new police cars, a dump truck and a street paving machine.

Councilman Mitch Homes voted against the plan saying the decision should be made by voters.

Residents who attended the meeting criticized the council after the vote, also saying the controversial issue should be put to voters. If the council decides in December to issue the bonds, Jim Maine said he will circulate a petition that would force the issue to a public election.

I have written about this topic previously.  I think this is something big enough that it should go to the voters, especially since they have previously rejected plans for a new library. 

Depending on the current budget state of the city, it may be possible to issue bonds and repay them without affecting the tax rate (I recall the city manager saying at one point that some early debt payoff had left room for further bond expansion¹), but I’m skeptical of it.  But aside from the bond issue, there’s the issue of ongoing staffing and support.  This new library will require staff to run it, and it will have ongoing maintenance and operational costs.  At this time we can’t afford to keep the existing library open for extended hours.  How do they think we’re going to pay for these ongoing costs without raising taxes?  Further, we have fire and police positions that are unstaffed (at least they were the last time I checked).  Until we have full fire and police coverage it seems irresponsible to me to be building and staffing a new library.

¹ I’m not sure where I got this from.  The city manager came to the Citizen’s Police Academy one night and gave a presentation on the city budget, but a quick scan of the 2005 city budget doesn’t show anything like this.  Perhaps I was on drugs at the time? 

They don’t call Texas the “Buckle of the Bible Belt” for nothing.  I was not surprised that Proposition 2 (PDF) passed, although I was a little surprised at the margin.

Here is the exact text that was added to the Texas constitution by this vote:

     SECTION 1. Article I, Texas Constitution, is amended by adding Section 32 to read as follows:
     Sec. 32. (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.
     (b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

At a personal level, I did not like this amendment for several reasons.  First, I personally know several gay couples and have a hard time institutionalizing a ban on them formalizing their relationships, regardless of whether we call it marriage or civil unions.  Primarily, though, I thought the addition of subsection (b) was going too far.  If someone wants to “protect marriage,” as the proponents of this amendment were at great pains to hammer into our heads at every opportunity (when they weren’t quoting scripture), they didn’t need the second part.  Further, the phrase “similar to marriage” held great concern, in that it seemed to hold the potential under the right legal challenge with the right judge to perhaps invalidate some private contracts (which are legal documents, after all) which are the only avenue that gay couples have at this time to arrange the logistics of their relationships. 

It turns out that the enabling legislation does address this issue.  However, it does so in a way that does not give the finding the same force as the above amendment.  Here’s the text:

SECTION 2. This state recognizes that through the designation of guardians, the appointment of agents, and the use of private contracts, persons may adequately and properly appoint guardians and arrange rights relating to hospital visitation, property, and the entitlement to proceeds of life insurance policies without the existence of any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding of this is that by including this finding it provides a “judicial hint” should a court have to make a ruling in an area affected by this amendment.  Still, I’m concerned that because it’s phrased as a finding it doesn’t necessarily become law, and we all know that we can’t rely on judges these days to necessarily follow common sense or even the wishes of those who wrote the original law.

I suppose only time and court challenges will tell whether this problem will actually come up.  It also leads me to wonder if this could be a hook to allow SCOTUS to invalidate the amendment, if it could be found that it violates some clause of the U.S. Constitution.  I suspect that it’s not likely, but who knows?

Proponents of gay marriage now have a serious uphill battle ahead of them in Texas, because it will require convincing about 30% of those who voted to change their minds after somehow managing to get a bill through the Texas legislature.  And I don’t think this can strictly be seen as a partisan thing.  To get the kind of margin by which this amendment was passed it appears that this was an issue that crossed party lines.  So simply electing Democrats to replace Republicans won’t be sufficient.  Most Texas Democrats (outside of the big cities) are fairly conservative (and are probably considered raving right-wingnuts by the national Democrat party).

Update:  Dan Morgan (via Stephen Green) says something that I’d been thinking in the back of my mind.  In short, the argument is that this sort of relationship is here to stay and it’s only a matter of time before it gets recognized, mainly for the sake of any children involved.  Perhaps a good area of attack for the gay marriage supporters to change public opinion would be a campaign to show real people and children who are harmed by lack of a formalized relationship mechanism in the law.

Today is election day.  That means that we will have the governor’s election in one year.  On the Republican side Carole Keeton Strayhorn is challenging Gov. Rick Perry for the nomination.  Unfortunately, the fight has already started, with Strayhorn running attack ads on Perry.  Further, there are a couple of Democrats who have already announced, not to mention this guy (and his CMT reality show).

Frankly, I’m not sure what to make of Strayhorn.  She seems like a crap-stirrer, which can sometimes be a good thing, depending on whether the particular crap in question needed stirring.  I guess I’m going to get plenty of opportunities to find out what she wants me to believe over the next year.  I suppose sometime around the end of October next year I’ll actually get around to researching her true views.

I fear this is going to be an especially long and bitter year as “One Tough Grandma” attacks “Gov. Good Hair” at every opportunity.

Apparently this happened a while back, but I just learned that the Confederate Air Force has renamed itself to the Commemorative Air Force.  Bleh.  Not only is it a cowardly thing to do, the new name isn’t very catchy.  Sure, it fits the initials, so they’re still the CAF, but “commemorative” is a word that doesn’t roll off the tongue very well.

Lest anyone think that socialism isn’t festering in the United States, a look at the latest foolishness from Hawaii should rapidly correct that misapprehension.

Hawaii will begin enforcing a cap on the wholesale price of gasoline next week, hoping to curb the sting of the nation’s highest gas costs.

The limit would be the first time a state has capped the price of gasoline – a move critics warn could lead to supply shortages.

Someone give those “critics” a cigar.  We have a winner.  In any situation with a commodity that isn’t unlimited, the market has an automatic control in place to determine who will get that commodity:  price.  Should pointy-headed politicians try to muck with these controls, the market will respond in one form or another.  I expect that we will shortly see long lines at the pumps in Hawaii as gasoline ends up in very short supply.  If the producers are unable to make a profit at wholesale, then they will naturally produce less or even no gasoline for the Hawaii market.  In the above linked article, one expert even predicted that one of the refineries might even be shut down and that companies would leave the market. 

Perhaps that would be a good lesson for the pointy-heads in the Hawaii state legislature.  Let’s see how well the state economy handles having no gasoline at all available.

I’m not sure where along the way I got put into the Zogby survey hopper, but I get email invitations from them to take online polls from time to time.  Today’s subject was the United Nations, its relevance, and the role of the United States.  I found it interesting that the question about the role of the United States didn’t have an option for “Get the U.S. the frack out of the U.N.” (or however they might wish to phrase it).  There was an option about “redefining the role of the U.S.”, but that didn’t seem appropriate.  Fortunately, there was an “Other” option with an entry field for me to enter more info.  However, the rest of the poll was similarly set up.  The option of taking our ball and going home just didn’t occur to them.  They asked various questions about how the UN could strengthen its viability and usefulness, but there really wasn’t any way for me to indicate that the whole crumbling, stinking, dilapidated thing should be razed to the ground and then pushed into the sea.

Sometimes, the most obvious answer is the one people don’t want to see.

On thinking further about DST and the computer situation, I suspect that the astronomy example is probably contrived, as all calculations would likely be done in UCT and then only translated to local if needed.

However, I would expect that there would be cases where it would be necessary to calculate the correct local time of day at some time in the past, which would require that such calculations properly take into account changes in the DST rules over time.

The example that popped into mind had to do with an audit or dispute of the response time for a support call that had been handled in the past.  Consider that some support contracts have limitations on when support is provided and how long the company has to respond with a callback to the caller.  As an example, let’s assume that a contract specifies that a caller has support during normal business hours in their own timezone (e.g. 8:00am-5:00pm in the Central timezone) and is entitled to a callback within 2 business hours.  This means that if the caller opens a problem at 4:00 PM Central, then the company has to respond by 9:00 AM the next business day.  So if a caller comes back at some later time in the future to dispute the call and claim that the contract conditions were not met because the callback was late, it would be necessary to correctly translate the timestamps (problem open time, callback time) from UTC to the local timezone to determine if the contact conditions were actually met or not.  It is often the case that callers misunderstand the contract terms and complain about expectations not being met, which could possibly result in the company giving back revenue if the actual times are not properly calculated.

So it would appear that the meddling fools in Washington have got it into their heads that we could save energy by extending Daylight Savings Time.  I’m not going to get into the issue of whether DST even makes sense anymore (with the mind-and-body-jarring loss of sleep associated with “spring forward”). 

The last time some political pointy-head monkeyed with DST was in 1974, during the Arab oil embargo.  The current boundaries of DST were set by Congress in 1986, which was a time when most computer systems were still adjusted manually for DST by operators. 

Since then, some systems (such as Unix) accounted for DST automatically by using rules based on the legal definitions of DST in the system’s (or user’s) locale.  For example, the POSIX standard defines a TZ variable format that allows for the specification of the starting and ending dates and times of DST in a particular timezone (as well as the offset). This can be a bit complicated, as we can see by looking at the example of the full definition for the Pacific timezone in the United States, which is “PST8PDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2”.  That translates to a timezone known as PST that has an offset of 8 hours from UTC and is known as “PDT” during DST.  The “M” string means that DST starts on the 0th day (Sunday) of the first week (1) of April (4th month) at 2:00am (/2) and ends on the 0th day of the 5th week of the 10th month at 2:00am.  These POSIX strings are pretty messy, but they do allow for full flexibility in determining the current time in the given timezone. 

However, over the years these things have changed in certain areas, so if one is calculating the time in the past it isn’t sufficient to know the current politically-defined time.  Later versions of Unix (and variants like Linux) allow for location timezone settings using strings such as “America/Denver” or “:US/Pacific.”  This references a database that includes historical information in addition to the current political definition of the timezone.

So, given the above, one could conclude that it’s simply a matter of configuration to fix this sort of thing: simply download the new location database or fix the environment variables to include the new start/end dates.  However, things aren’t always this simple.  Consider that on some older systems this could affect time-of-day calculations when working with dates in the past, so you can’t just willy-nilly change these to the current values (Why would you worry about time-of-day in the past?  I could imagine that astronomy applications might have a need for accurate time when calculating things in the past…).

Windows would have a similar problem, in that it automatically adjusts for DST based on the timezone that is chosen at installation.  All Windows systems would require a code update to accomodate the changes to DST start and end.

While Unix and Windows at least have configuration settings, I wouldn’t doubt that there are many systems out there that don’t have any type of configuration.  These systems would either have to be patched or replaced.  Even on the systems where it’s just a configuration setting the issue of the volume of systems is daunting, in that there are millions of them.  If we wanted to ensure an absolutely smooth transition, it would require an effort in the IT industry similar to what we saw for Y2K.  The Y2K effort was estimated at costing $100-billion.

Perhaps this effort would be smaller, but it remains non-trivial.  Many programs would have to be examined to look for timezone-dependent code and to inspect that code to make sure it didn’t have any hard-coded behaviors.  At a minimum, every system would need to be tested, which costs time and money and could tie up the developers and the test environments for those systems, impacting other more productive work.

Update:  More thoughts here.