Saturday, October 9, 2010
Cobb: 'Now's the time to be frugal and quit raising taxes'
Send your comments and news tips to roundup.editor@gmail.com, to Dr. Cobb at bert.cobb@gmail.com or click on the "comments" button at the bottom of the story
We caught Hays County Judge candidate Dr. Bert Cobb, of San Marcos, Saturday afternoon at the mashed potato cook off in Wimberley. From there, he headed over to the Rainwater Revival in Dripping Springs. The more we see and hear Dr. Cobb, the more we appreciate his plain spoken and direct views on the big issues confronting the county and the taxpayers – he's just not real good at the 'political song n' dance.' We hope to do a follow up in-depth Q&A interview in the coming days. Cobb's opponent is Democrat Jeff Barton, who is currently serving as county commissioner of Pct. 2, representing the Kyle and Buda areas. Maybe we'll catch up with Mr. Barton, too, for an interview.
Election day is barely three weeks away. Early voting starts soon. We agree with Dr. Cobb that the county judge race is one of the most important the voters will decide on election day, Nov. 2.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Is Jeff Barton all bad?
It seems this site has nothing good to say about Barton. No one person is all good or all bad.
Bob, seems that if you want more credibility you need to present the truth about each and every candidate and then let people decide for themselves based on the truth and NOT one-sided articles.
The county's infrastructure is failing. How is the county going to deal with upkeep, forget any new roads/bridges/buildings with the proposed frozen revenues touted by seemingly ALL candidates? The political dreaming of no new revenue (no new taxes) to keep up the infrastructure that the county has a responsibility (legally charged to maintain) is CRAZY, just PLAIN CRAZY. Pass this one off to future generations is not an option unless you're going to die in the near future. GET REAL, you want paved roads, the county cannot currently afford them. When was the last time your county road was even chip sealed? We need to know what each candidate will cut out of the budget before they get elected.
Thanks for the comments, Peter. Truth, as you well know, is elusive and difficult to discern from words alone. We can only go by the actions of candidates and candidates who currently hold office.
The RoundUp tries not to view candidates as "good" or "bad," rather, thru the lens of the "negatives" and "positives" they would bring to a particular office at a particular time. We agree that Barton is not "all bad."
In our view, however, and after many years of observing him in office, we believe Barton carries significant negatives that would not serve the best interests of the whole community in the position of county judge – especially not during a time that will require smart budgeting and management of shrinking revenues. Taxation is not the answer to all problems.
We believe if Barton is elected he will pull the trigger on the 51-cent tax rate authorized in the road bond election, sending our taxes soaring at a time when people can least afford it. No candidate should be rewarded for putting the county in the financial jam in which it now finds itself.
We'd love to accommodate you and present "the truth" about each and every candidate but that would be pert near impossible to accomplish. Not even a prolific writer such as you could accomplish a task like that.
Keep in mind that The RoundUp is an unfunded, independent news service, whose editor and contributing writers also are not paid. We hope to change that situation in the near future, so that we can indeed afford to expand our coverage. Meantime, we are doing our best with what we got.
Obviously, you are correct in that no one can write about "all" the good things and bad about each person; however, it would be easy to show criticism on one issue or action and positive focus on another.
The point I was making, Bob, is that we read here only the negatives and/or positives about an individual, e.g., negatives about Barton and Conley, positives about Ford and Sumter --- yet we all know that each person has positive and negative aspects. I would like to see the RoundUp be more grounded in reality, more balanced.
Heck, maybe I'm the only one who would like to see this, but I believe it would add more credibility to you and the RoundUp. If you write about a negative action by Barton, maybe you need to also throw in something positive he has done. It can't be that hard to do one and one. Become more balanced. To me, that's the art of real journalism.
Let's have a little fun, Peter. Your syndicated columns are famous for the one-sided thrashings they consistently deliver to Rick Perry, his policies, and the Legislature. By your own definition, your own journalistic work would lack credibility and is not well grounded in reality.
It's a tough assignment, but if you can come up with an attributable positive thing or two to say about Gov. Perry, we'll try our darndest to find something positive to say about Commissioners Barton and Conley.
Fair enough, Bob.
In my writings about him I have often given Rick Perry credit for knowing how to work the political system and his special interests. He is one of the best in doing this.
He also is one of the best in getting out there and pushing for a cause. He usually gets whatever he wants, whether a bill through the House and Senate or by intimidating those around him.
While I generally have more negatives to say about him, I always acknowledged Perry for this ability. Love him or hate him, he is one of the best maneuverers in the game.
This interview is astonishing considering Dr. Cobb built a crawfish farm just east of San Marcos and drilled several wells into the aquifer. He sued the well driller when the wells didn't produce enough water for the farm and his crawfish died; this all during the same time period of the infamous catfish farm. Environmentalist? Water Conservationist? Now that's a stretch!
Infrastructure maintenance isn't just about passing new taxes in Hays County. It's also about transparency about why and how projects are prioritized for using our hard-earned tax dollars. The voters need to know why some projects get funded and others don't. Why did Will Conley choose to invest lots of tax dollars into the current asphalting of Flite Acres when it was just chip-sealed less than two years ago and still in fine shape? In these tough economic times it's important to spend taxdollars on "need to have" projects rather than "nice to have" projects. We need our public servants to be transparent about why they choose certain projects and not others!
So the question is "How transparent should transparency be and does the public have the right and need to know transparency in full with every issue?" And, how much does complete transparency hinder movement on and resolution of urgent issues?
Post a Comment