So, the Officer said “you can mitigate this stop by taking a Drivers Safety Course and having this speeding ticket expunged from your record.” Or something to that effect, if he’d spoken longhand English.

And so I decided that would be the best course of action. Now, 30-days later I’m still not able to proceed and this is your warning not to get caught in the same Texas DPS license record downward spiral. In order to have a moving violation, in my case speeding removed from your record you need to get a “Certified List of All Accidents and Violations in Record (Type 3A)” from the Texas DPS.

Now, you can bet they’ve got a new automated, online system. It’s here. Only when I tried to use it I (un)helpfully told “The data you submitted does not match data on the Driver License Record or you are ineligible to use this online service. Please verify and correct the required information and resubmit your request.”

Only all the information was correct and re-submission did nothing to, err, mitigate the error. So I called, and I called, and I called… just a busy signal. Eventually I gave up, searched around on the website and submitted a help request via email. 3-days later I received a call. No they can’t tell me why I’m “ineligible” and unfortunately, the day the call came was the last day you could get this record “in-person”, which of course the web site never said was an option. I was handily informed by the operative calling me that “they’d had real problems with the new system” and there were “only 35-operators handling telephone calls for all of Texas”, and that the only way to proceed was to apply in writing using the form on the website here.

The only problem with this is it takes 7-10 days, which takes me over the 90-day limit. Sigh. So, just on the off chance I’m not the only person in this mess, let this be your lesson, don’t delay start today, check your eligibility at the above website.

Some consider graffiti to be art, others vandalism, either way, there has been a definate increase in south central Austin over the past year or so. Some of it, it has to be said is on permission walls, where the owner had approved the work.

One such was on the side of Sinsations on 1st, where a 75ft mural had been painted. It wasn’t a thing of beauty but a lot of time and effort had gone into it, not to mention, a lot of paint. I went back to take a picture a few days after I noticed it, and it had been painted over. When I asked why, apparently they’d painted the wrong wall. Whoops.

What I don’t get, no matter how “artfully” painted, and many are little more than mere scribble, is the 70’s style resurgance of tagging. Little or no thought goes into this, and it is a sometime gang-style marking of territory, doing little or nothing to enhance the area, and taken overall actually makes things worse. atxgraffiti.com documents some of the best and worse examples, sadly more bad than good in my opinion and much of it will cost the city to clean-up, never a good thing in a downturn.

I went looking for pictures of graffiti on flickr.com in Austin and was mildly amused that same of the very people who feel it’s ok for graffiti to be painted on other peoples property, without their permission. Have asked that their second hand “art” pictures of graffiti, is published all rights reserved, no reporduction or unauthorized use. Ironic eh? Even more ironic is this one, by UK Artist Banksy, which the flickr account owner has posted all rights reserved.

I guess ownership too is in the eye of the beholder. I have three of Banksy’s pictures on blocks hanging in my hall. Keep your coins, I want real change!

Art or vandalism?

The cities website lists the latest set of Red Light cameras that are going to be activated and they include:

• o Wells Branch Parkway and Loop 1 (MoPac) eastbound on the northbound frontage road.
• o IH 35 and 11th Street eastbound on the northbound frontage road.
• o Ben White and Lamar boulevards eastbound at the southeast intersection.
• o Ben White and Lamar westbound at the northwest intersection.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against discouraging or stopping red light runners, especially as I was driving a car where the passenger was seriously hurt and could have been killed by a Dr jumping a red light; he was prosecuted using mobile phone data. It is though worth being mindful of who has access to the data, how long it is kept, and what other uses it can be put to. You have been warned, don’t be a star of CCTV!

This simple free-form work in the spray-paint medium makes ingenious use of the existing element of the eye in the neighborhood watch sign. We have here the violation of a City ordinance committed in the very presence of a sign intended as a form of deterrence. I think I saw this at the southwest corner of an intersection with South Congress, but I was coming from the dentist and I barely know my own name after one of those visits.

There will be a candidate forum on Thursday, May 1, from 6:30 to 8 pm at the city council chambers (301 West Second). Those running for seats on the city council have been invited. Major issues are disparities in patrols and other APD staff coverage. Based on City response to a public information (what we once knew as “open records”) request, a presentation (by public-spirited citizens Linda Yeatts and Lori Renteria) is available analyzing assignment of police officers and concluding that APD staffing is not adequate and is not distributed proportionately and fairly in accordance with such factors as population density, volume of calls to the dispatchers, or per-capita incidence of violent crime. Another conclusion that some have drawn is that police coverage (along with proposed alterations in public transportation coverage) is biased toward downtown business and tourism interests. Early voting has begun, but there’s still plenty of time to mull things over before the May 10 election. The League of Women Voters non-partisan guide is now available, but this forum on public safety is especially important for decision-making since we have a new police chief in town. If you want to know exactly what areas are covered by which of the area commands, good luck! The most recent on-line information about district or area commands does not appear to have been updated. If you find current information on the APD site, please do let the rest of know.

I tried to stop at P. Terry’s on Friday after work to pick up dinner for the kids and I, but was thwarted by APD and crime scene tape. Josephine St. was blocked off at Barton Springs Rd. and Butler Rd. was blocked off at Lamar Blvd. along with tape all around the perimeter of P. Terry’s. I could see a couple of employees inside the burger stand and several standing around in the parking lot. I checked the Statesman for the last two days and didn’t see anything. Does anybody know what happened? 

I was really annoyed that they weren’t open as I had my heart set on one of their burgers with jalapenos. I hope no one was hurt.

I got even more annoyed when I got to South Congress at Riverside. I started to turn south to find an alternative to P. Terry’s only to run into a mass of stopped traffic because of the hot rod rally. I ended up hooking into the parking lot of Freebird’s to get back to Riverside and head east to avoid the traffic problems. Speaking of the hot rod shenanigans, The Statesman ran a nice article on Steve Wertheimer and the Continental Club on Saturday.

A police sting operation to catch purse snatchers was foiled when helpful Austinites kept warning the undercover policewoman that her purse was left unguarded. This from the meeting notes of the South West Area Command, Commander’s Forum on January 28, 2008.

“A purse snatching initiative was tried by the command, but happily, concerned folks kept warning the undercover officer that her purse was open, unattended and watched out for her when she walked away and warned her of the error. No arrests were made.”

This started out as a rant about squeegee guys, but I decided to make an overall crime post. First, the squeegee rant, does anyone else feel like they’re living in NYC circa 1989 all of a sudden?

On my way to take the kids to day camp, I stopped on the northbound frontage of I-35 at Riverside. An aging bearded guy in a Guero’s shirt came up to my car with a squeegee and a wet rag. I immediately rolled down my window, told him that I didn’t have any cash or change (which was 100% true) and asked him not to clean the windshield. He proceeded to do it anyway, which stunned me. He said something about having kids in the car, so I suppose it turned into a good deed in his mind. However, I think cleaning the windshield when told not to do it is crossing the line, even if he didn’t demand money for it. Anybody else think that?

On my way home, I passed the southbound frontage of I-35 and Oltorf and found a second guy with a squeegee. I also passed the guy from the morning who was still in the same area, but on the southbound frontage.

In other crime news, last night was National Night Out. Our neighborhood had a small gathering of roughly 20-30 people with reps from APD, Fire and EMS. We feel we’ve been experiencing a spike in crime over the last year or so, but I’ve heard things from those living in Hyde Park and there was a story about a Rundberg neighborhood getting fed up with crime this past week. What about you? Do you feel crime is on the rise in Austin?

Last, the new police chief, Art Acevedo, seems to be busy making changes at APD. He’s in his third week on the job and there’s been at least one or two news stories a week on what he’s been up to, just search his name on Statesman or News8Austin. A local blog reports that at a talk last week Acevedo said that Austin is a major metropolitan center and we can’t run the police department like we’re a college town with a few thousand students. It’s early to tell, but it appears that he might make a difference.

There’s a lot of local and national coverage of the beating death of David Morales, passenger in a car that apparently hit a 2-year-old yesterday. The child was described as having non-serious or non-life threatening injuries.

Initial coverage, including the APD press release seemed to imply that there was a huge mob of 1,000 or more involved. It now appears that there were only 20 people in the immediate area and only 5 or fewer were involved. A larger crowd from a nearby Juneteenth celebration may have formed after the incident and were merely spectators to the aftermath, but the updated APD press release is very careful not to associate the incident with the Juneteenth festivities at least 2 blocks away.

The News8Austin story says that our incoming new police chief pushed for the more moderate update of the press release. This is the last thing APD needs given recent events and their current reputation in the community, especially East Austin. The city has been making a big deal about the selection of the new police chief, Art Acevedo. It looks like he’s got his work cut out for him.

I caught this in the Chronicle. The first session just started at the Federal Building downtown. There’s another session this Saturday and then three more after that.

FREE VIN ETCHING Preventing crime is always preferable to reacting to it after the fact, so Austin Police Department is hosting several workshops this summer in which you can have your vehicle identification number etched on your windshield. Doing so will make your car more easily identifiable and therefore less likely to be stolen.

• Thu., June 21, 10am-1pm: Federal Building, 300 E. Ninth.
• Sat., June 23, 10am-1pm: Target, 11220 FM 2222.
• Thu., June 28, 5-8pm: St. James Baptist Church, 3417 E. MLK.
• Wed., July 11, 10am-1pm: Wal-Mart, 9300 S. I-35.
• Sat., July 21, 10am-2pm: Dolores Catholic Church, 1111 Montopolis. 974-5017.