Save Muny
It looks like our University's ever-increasing demand for money will soon claim another victim. As funding from the state stagnates under Republican-led mismanagement, our regents are being forced to get creative in seeking newer, steadier income for UT's essential (and non-essential, as the case of the University's private jet may be) spending. According to an extensive article in Sunday's Austin American-Statesman, the latest target appears to be painted on the verdant greens of Lions Municipal Golf Course, or more precisely, on the valuable land on which it has rested for more than 80 years.
"Muny," as the course is affectionately known, currently operates under a $345,000 lease that the city of Austin holds with the University. No one doubts that the land, which is nestled nicely between Lady Bird Lake and the well-to-do Tarrytown neighborhood, could be worth much more if sold or given over to private development. Despite hosting more than 67,000 rounds of golf per year, the course's low greens fees ($18 on weekdays) and excellent discounts for junior and senior citizens means the city (and consequently, the University) makes little money from Lions.
Now a host of Austin developers, including Longhorn golfing legend Tom Kite, want to transform the course into a "fitness-themed" resort featuring a hotel, spa and conference center alongside "development parcels" (read: country club McMansions). Though "cost and other details remain unclear," our university appears to be keenly interested in the possibilities. Last June, the regents commissioned a "master-planning firm" to design two new potential plans for the Brackenridge Tract - land that includes Lions and neighboring student housing and the West Austin Youth Association. The cost for these designs alone could add up to $5.14 million - money the regents (flexing their business muscles) will likely be eager to recoup - with "maximum benefit" for the University and its friends, of course.
But those licking their lips at the thought of a 500-acre Austin snack haven't counted on one thing - you, and the rest of the general public. Already, a grassroots campaign to "Save Muny" has kicked up resistance against development for the course and the surrounding area. Additionally, influential neighbors of the course, including Ben Crenshaw, another Austin-bred PGA champion, have mobilized against the increase of traffic and sprawl that the destruction of West Austin's leafy "lungs" would bring. The public has turned out by the hundreds for meetings about the future of the tract, with most believing the city should simply purchase the course outright from the University in order to save one of the city's remaining untouched jewels.
- Andrew Vickers
No more Christmas for Cornyn
When state Rep. Rick Noriega first announced his run for U.S. Senate last year, it seemed he couldn't hold a candle to the current seat-holder, a man with friends in high places who may never again be known by just his given name: "Big Bad John" Cornyn (also referred to as "Corndog" by President Bush).
Noriega knew from the start that he was up against a formidable cowboy with deep Texas roots. "I'm nobody's Don Quixote," Noriega told The Texas Observer in December. "I'm too old to go off tilting at windmills. But I'm fed up."
Fed up, precisely, with short-sighted, narrow-minded politicians like Bush and Cornyn, who exploit their crafted personas of "Americanness" to gain power and proselytize their extreme and rigid views. Since he was elected in 2002, Cornyn's voted whichever way the Bush wind has blown him: against global warming treaties, reinvestment in our country's railroad system and increased funding for contraceptive education, and in favor of free trade with Oman, the restriction of lawsuits against gun manufacturers and lobbyist gifts to Congress. According to ontheissues.org, which chronicles politicans' votes and stances on major issues, during his tenure Cornyn has been given an "A" rating by the NRA and a rating of 100 percent by the Christian Coalition, indicating his passions for guns and families. Conversely, he scored a 0 percent with the Human Rights Campaign, the environmental action group League of Conservation Voters and Americans United, which works to ensure the separation of church and state.
Before you yawn at Corndog's stereotypically conservative statistical assessment, consider also that he was given a 10 percent rating by the Alliance for Retired Americans and a 27 percent by the National Education Association, making him not only anti-elderly but anti-children. Who is this guy fighting for over on Capitol Hill, exactly?
Cornyn's got a loyal staff behind him, at least, as the blog Burnt Orange Report discovered last week. David Beckwith, the man apparently behind Cornyn's now-infamous "Big Bad John" campaign ads and a senior staffer to Cornyn, commented on the liberal Web site more than 80 times under the pseudonym Buck Smith. In his posts, which started appearing in March, Beckwith derided Noriega, the blog's writers and users and even suggested that Cornyn give him a raise.
Beckwith has vehemently denied that he operated with Buck Smith as his alias, but Burnt Orange Report's editors only discovered the man behind the username when they traced the account's registered e-mail address to Beckwith's profile on a high school reunion Web site.
The Cornyn team, in disjointed damage-control mode, has tried to write off this embarrassment as a joke. When asked for comment on the situation by Burnt Orange Report, Cornyn campaign spokesman Kevin McLaughlin responded: "What?!?! 'Buck Smith' isn't a real person?!?! Are you serious?? People blog under screen names?!?! I am shocked ... next thing I know you'll be saying the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus aren't real either. What kind of world are we living in?!?!"
Apparently Cornyn and his staffers couldn't afford to take the time to provide Burnt Orange Report and the snickering public with a real explanation for this snafu. They're much too busy attending to the most important item on their daily agenda - self-aggrandizement.
- Leah Finnegan
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