Austin Real Estate Blog

Austin Energy has committed $17 million of your tax dollars for an unnecessary upgrade to the city’s 290,000 electric meters. Wow, could this news be more timely with yesterday’s rant about the $20.6 million dollar budget deficit.

Sure, these meters supplied by Cellnet are nice, advanced pieces of technology that will supposedly improve the customer experience and “allow for better analysis of energy consumption”, but in a city with a projected $20.6 million budget deficit, it is not a good business decision to waste money like this!!

Accoding to The Stateman article, the cost will not be offset by a reduction in the contract workforce that currently reads the meters because those same contractors also read the water meters. From Cellnet’s website, the only cost savings associated with these meters are said to be efficiencies gained from eliminating meter readers. As far as this blogger can tell, there is no payback on the $17 million “investment”.

This is just another example of one the mayor’s “I wanna be governor someday” projects. It’s also interesting that the Vice President of Marketing and Sales of Cellnet, Gary High, was a classmate of  Mayor Wynn at Texas A&M in the early ’80s.  A&M is a big university - probably just a coincidence.

I’m not privy to all the details, but on the surface this smells. It’s unfair to the Austin tax payers and utility customers. The project should have been, at the very least deferred, until this city is in better financial condition. Why not replace meters as needed?

Let’s face it - this a project that was probably justified and funded under the “Green” umbrella even though I doubt there will be any green benefits. Austin Energy is a City of Austin department and should not be sheltered from the budget crisis because being green is the cause du jour. Don’t get me wrong being green is the right thing to do, but let’s not get duped by snake oil salesmen claiming benefits that don’t exist.

Wake up Austinites. This should not be happening in a city with the political awareness of Austin.

Does it surprise anyone that the 2008 Austin real estate appraisals have increased 12.5% on average? The City of Austin is predicting a budget deficit of $20.6 million for fiscal 2009, and city hall is scrambling to find money (probably yours) to fill the gap. The dramatic increase in appraisals is more than likely a mandate from high within city hall to get the most out of imminent property tax increases. The city receives about 1/3 of its revenue from property taxes and about another 1/3 from sales taxes, and with the economic downturn, city hall is predicting less revenue from sales taxes. Since the city probably won’t increase the sales tax rate, look out property taxes.

I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but… (lights dim)

Shouldn’t the City of Austin eliminate wasteful spending and squeeze the $20.6 million out of existing budgets, similar to what real world business would do when revenues are down? Is that absurd for me to question this? Yes, of course it is, where talking about bureaucrats here. Words yet to be uttered within the walls of Austin City Hall: attrition, early retirement, hiring freeze, travel restrictions, reduction in contracted services (probably the most expensive city contracts are the ones making the recommendations on how to close the budget gap), reduction in capital projects and expenditures, overtime restrictions, reduction in force, deferred maintenance, mandatory vacations, etc.

The fine citizens of Austin shouldn’t be burdened with more taxes. The City of Austin could run efficiently with fewer employees, fewer departments, less capital expenditures, fewer facilities, fewer consultants, fewer “I wanna be governor someday” projects, etc.

Avon restaurant and wine bar, Vin48, is looking to expand in Austin. The eclectic, euro-inspired bistro is looking for spaces in the downtown Austin and south Congress areas. Vin48 is one of my favorite places to dine and hang out while in the Vail Valley. I chatted with an owner on my last trip to Beaver Creek, and he seemed interested in opening a location in Texas since some of the ownership has roots in the Austin area. Who can blame them, Austin is great. He looked me up last week while in Austin and I showed him several potential locations. I hope that we can find the perfect property and make the second locale a reality.

Austin home search will never be the same with the launch of HomeToAustin.com 1.0 powered by Realzi. The updated site launching later this month will feature a custom front-end CMS specifically tailored to meet the needs of Realtors® and a custom RETS client that allow greater flexibility and search engine relevance for property pages. Say goodbye to custom IDX, RETS is the future. During beta testing on our sister site, HomeToVail.com, Vail Realtor® Daniel Estrada was “amazed” how well the site performed. ABOR has hit a home run by introducing RETS compatibility for the Austin home search market.