All right. So I am, uh—Chad, it's good to see you through the screen.

Just... Are you just jumping in?

I'm just jumping in.

All right.

Uh, before we do the intro, 'cause it seemed to have worked out for our last one. I'm real excited about talking... Specifically, I'm excited about talking about this article on Governor Abbott, 'cause I, I find this just to be amusing. I've, I, it, I literally laughed out loud when I read this article.

Man, I feel like we're just jumping right into a conversation.

We-

Like, no guardrails. It's just-

Just-

... bam.

We're just gonna, we're just gonna go in. Well, hey guys, welcome to ZacCast. I'm Patrick, and I've got Chad with me today, and we're gonna talk kinda all over the map. We have not had a chance to do a podcast in December yet, so we're gonna jump around a little bit. We're gonna talk about sales tax numbers that came out last week. Uh, and then we're also gonna talk about this article that I was joking about at the beginning, if, if we don't cut that out beforehand, um, about Governor Abbott is considering putting the state police in Austin for, uh, law enforcement, state control of law enforcement around the central Austin area. So, portions of downtown around the state capital, which, to be fair, they, they do anyways, and, uh, the University of Texas campus, which I believe he is an alum of and has, uh, has done a fantastic job of keeping it together over there, both from a presidency standpoint and a football team standpoint. So with that, Chad, why don't you jump into some of our sales tax numbers? I- we're gonna go through this real quick. It's not gonna be like a game day episode. Uh, we're just gonna talk generally statewide how everybody performed and what we saw. So what do you got, Chad?

Yeah. So unfortunately, the comptroller came out with their public data quite a bit late last week, and our timing just couldn't quite work, so no game day episode this month. But, uh, sales tax for December was down 2.5%, so kind of a coming back to Earth after, uh, like, 6% growth in November. Uh, just looking through some of the top cities, I mean, everybody was down. Uh, Houston down 12, San Antonio basically flat, but down a little bit, Dallas down eight, Austin down three, Fort Worth down about 1.6. Uh, Arlington, the first big city that's up, up about 5%. El Paso slightly down at, uh, half a percent. Frisco actually was up almost 6%. Uh, Round Rock, Plano, Corpus down. I mean, you look at this first, like, top 25 cities, it, it's very red. So kind of, you know, back to, uh, back to that slower trend, the, uh, s- the slightly decreasing that we saw for a few months. We had that anomaly last month, which we, uh, you know, raised concerns about whether that was a fluke, whether it was a sort of a rebound or, or what. It looks like it was just kind of a fluke at this point.

Yeah. I mean, I, I think, you know, overall the numbers were significantly flatter, but that's... I- if you think about the time of year that it is, it'd be October sales, um, you know, generally you don't see big ebbs and flows in October. Uh, you know, you start to see that in your, your obviously your January data as you start to report, uh, November sales for the holidays. I think really January and February are gonna tell us a lot. I have a question, though. If anybody was watching our LinkedIn page the day that sales tax came out, they would've noticed that Chad posted a, a GIF of, you know, us hitting the reload, uh, button on the keyboard. Did somebody fall asleep at the comptroller's office, Chad? It was like w- it was like 2:00 before data came in, right?

Uh, it was, it was around noon.

Okay.

It was about three hours late. Yeah.

It's usually about 9:15, 9:30 in the morning. So, I mean-

This is holiday season, man.

Maybe Chaz had a late night.

Some, someone had some eggnog. I might have had one.

Someone had some eggnog. Maybe there was a holiday party. You know, who knows? But, uh, yeah, we were waiting around for, uh, for sales tax data a little bit longer than we, we normally do. And, uh, you know, so we weren't able to get that episode out. But overall, eh, you know, I wouldn't say a terrible month.

Kind of a meh way to end the year.

Yeah, it's kind of eh. But, uh, you know, a lot of our cities saw positive gain numbers even throughout their fiscal year, which was, uh, interesting with COVID. Uh, and, you know-

Yeah. On, on the bright side, for the entire year of 2020, um, all cities across the state were up .36%. So all things considered, it could've been a lot worse.

Not bad for the COVID economic collapse that we saw of 2020.

Okay. So let's talk about something that is equally disgusting. So you kinda hinted at it.

Correct.

Why don't you kinda go back through what happened in Austin, and then how the, how the governor is continuing to respond to this.

Okay, so this, this will be in the show notes. Uh, there's an article from the Texas Tribune from December 3rd. Uh, it... Basically, Governor Abbott was at a campaign event, and at his campaign event, he told his supporters that he is considering placing law enforcement, uh, for central Austin under state control. Um, he floated the idea in a, it was actually a tele-town hall. Uh, and it was in response to a defund the police conversation. And this continues to be in response to Austin reallocating about a third of its budget to non, um, other departments that are outside of police. Some of them have to do, or are the same functions, just being done by different departments now. Some of it is budget cut. We have a whole conversation on that in another podcast. And so-

And then we wrote, we wrote about that in a newsletter-

You know-

... a couple, couple months ago.

Couple months ago we wrote about it in newsletter, so you can catch up on that as well. Uh, Chad can link that in the show notes as well, so if you really wanna catch up on what that, what Austin actually did that's they're did, uh, you know, you can catch up on that. So all that being said, I find it amusing, laugh out loud hysterical. When I sent this to Chad, I think I sent it to you, like, on December 4th, but when I sent this to Chad, I was literally laughing out loud, because-The govern- is the state really gonna take over law enforcement control? Uh, uh, 'cause I feel like cities are already paying a huge, substantial burden of law enforcement. Um, and the state does very little. They do some for small cities, right? Like, if you have a major crime in a small city or you have a bad accident on an interstate, DPS and the Texas Rangers are get- there, and they're excellent support, and they're fantastic in the state of Texas for that. But at the end of the day, um, if I was Austin, I'd be like, "Oh, so you wanna take over policing in downtown? That's gonna save me, like, I don't know, $200 million a year." It's just a amusing conversation to me from that standpoint, let alone the whole local control argument that I know is gonna come up in about, I don't know, T minus five seconds. What do you got, Chad?

I mean, that's an interesting take. I hadn't really approached it from that angle, that like, "LOL, we can just cut our budget, and then the state's gonna fill that gap." Um, I, I, I wouldn't suspect that you would see that in, say, Dallas or Houston. I mean, the reason that this is being proposed is because he works downtown, right? That- that's where... It, it's-- He's calling it a, at least... This is all just conjecture, right?

Yeah.

He doesn't... There's nothing formal that's being proposed, but, uh, he was talking about something like a capital zone area. Um, and the funny thing that I s- like, what made me laugh or giggle was when he said that they would just use City of Austin police officers to, to, to do this.

Yeah, so-

Like, are you literally just gonna try to fill, fill this gap that, uh, the City of Austin, uh, you know, approved in their budget? Which, again, you can, you can agree or disagree on the merits. That's not my point. But there is a sizable chunk of this, quote, "budget cut" is literally just reallocating the same functions outside of the police department silo. So they're still doing the same things. They're just paying for it somewhere else, and someone else is managing it. So, like, what are we really even talking about here? And this is the kind of budget discussion that is really frustrating for someone who's actually worked in budget because, like, at the time, you saw there, there was a lot of, uh, public hand-wringing about how people are, you know, people are gonna die, and, like, the City of Austin's gonna become a state of anarchy because of this. And if you actually look at the proposal, again, whether or not you agree with it, a large portion of it was literally just pushing paper. It was just moving from this line item to that line item and making the budget for the police department technically smaller, but largely, the functions are still in place. Um, what-- Like, I think the second episode, the first episode that we ever did of this podcast that wasn't just really about us was about the Bonnen tapes, um, which brought up this whole issue of local control. And at the time, the speaker of the Texas House had been surreptitiously, surreptitiously recorded talking about how his goal was basically to make life for cities a living hell in the, the most recent legislative session. I have a feeling that this upcoming session is going to be very similar. But at some point, we have to just let cities run themselves, right?

I, I, I think at some point we have to realize that it's a conservative principle for local control.

Which is-

And where, where have we lost our way from a standpoint of, like... At, at the state, I mean, A- Abbott, Abbott thought about this enough on his call to actually give the boundaries of the zone.

Yeah. Well, so I've actually also found a Texas Tribune article back from September where this is kind of hinted at so-

Uh-huh

... that's like three months where he's been kinda thinking about this, stewing over it, laying the groundwork. Again, nothing is formal. Nothing's formally proposed, but-

I just-

... he's out there talking about it

... I just wanna remind legislators out there the, the heartburn and the backlash that they have gotten from constituents over the last time that Abbott got upset, which was when the City of Austin told him he couldn't cut his tree down. And so they went and changed all of state statutes statewide over tree preservation requirements, and now cities are not allowed... There are certain provisions, cities are not allowed to protect trees, heritage trees, things like that. They can only really protect a tree if it's over 10 caliper inches. Um, but what happened then is, 'cause it happened in Parker County, where we're at, in a city next door, where a developer went in and clear-cut property, and everybody in, in the political realm got lit up 'cause everybody was like, "Those are beautiful oak trees. Why did they all get torn down?" Nothing got built there. St- till to this day, nothing is built on that property. But they took out hundreds and hundreds of, of oak trees, um, from that property, and that was all in response to Governor Abbott being told he couldn't cut down a tree in his own, on his own property.

Well, you remember when, when Austin first started talking about this, the original punishment that, uh, Father Abbott was going to- ... lay out on his children's city may- you know-

Yes

... mayors and city managers-

Uh-huh

... was he was going to actually do a punitive, a, an, a, an openly punitive property tax freeze-

Yes

... for cities who defunded their police or perhaps even just reduce the funding by a dollar, who knows. But, so, you know, for, for years, we've been told that the property tax, quote, "reforms" are, uh, they're really just about fiscal prudency and, and fiscal conservatism. Um, so it was at least nice to see one person openly admitting that they're actually punitive and they're actually intended to, uh, to cause cities, uh, you know, disruption. Um-

I, I mean, look, I, there's a lot of things that the city of Austin does that I don't like, okay? I mean, personally, that I don't like. But we cannot, with such a broad brush across the state, act like the city of Austin's problems are the same as every other city in the state.

The, I think the big problem here is y- th- this is just sort of like a microcosm of a broader political issue in Texas, which is there, this has been a stronghold of, uh, Republican conservative politics, and it's changing. Like, things are changing. Um, and whether or not that means Texas is going to, you know, go blue in two years or whatever, um, is kind of beside the point, but there's this struggle between, uh, between urban areas and cities and more rural areas, and even suburbs, and all of those demographics are changing across the whole country. And the, the biggest problem is that we have taken all of these national political issues, and we have just put them on top of local issues, to the point where the, like, local issues almost don't even really exist anymore. It's all just viewed in the lens of national politics. And that's, that's a problem for cities, because it doesn't allow them the flexibility or the freedom to, to actually function.

Can we just get back to the conversation of why we put a sidewalk in front of Mary and Steve's house so they can walk to school? Like, uh, I mean, literally, we, we have... The conversations that we would normally have at a local level about improving the quality of life of our residents, right?

Right.

Has-- You're 100% correct on that, Chad. I mean, it, it is populism has ruled the day. I don't think it's a Republican or a Democratic or a conservative-

It's not

... or a liberal principle. It's populism. It's a, "I need as much Twitter splash as I can get in any given day, because I wanna rally up as many people as I can," 'cause that's how the electorate gets out today. A-and, and that's, that's what our politicians have been doing. And the reasonable voices are hard to come by. They're still there. I know a lot of them. I, I respect a lot of them. But when stuff like this comes out, when Abbott makes a statement like this, where is everybody saying, "Really?" Like, like, "Governor, are you really thinking this?" I mean, I just, I don't under... I laughed because it looked like such a, a campaign ploy, right? On one end, he's getting criticized because he's used executive authority without calling a special session, right? On the other end-

The election issue for the-

Yeah

... the, the m- drop-in ballots?

Well, yeah, n-no. I d- I don't think it's that. I think it's, uh, he's-

Or just generally.

No, he's being criticized. I mean, Abbott is being criticized. If y- if you're watching the, uh, the Shelley Luther, Drew Springer campaign, SD 30, right? Um, Shelley is, is running from the far right, and she is heavily critical of Abbott in any campaign event. And, and the reason I know this, guys, I, I moderated one of these debates between these two candidates, and so, um... But she is, uh, basically going after Abbott and, and calling him a tyrant because he has dictated everything we have to do during COVID from, like, his, his ruler's chair, right? And he didn't call a special session. Now, here's the thing. I agree with some of that. I, I think it is crazy in the state of Texas that a governor is able to say, basically by executive order or by emergency declaration, and then just write the rules, and there's not a requirement to call the legislature in 7 to 14 days after or a month after, whatever it may be, to basically say, "Okay, Governor, we sign off on that." Because if you do it in the city or you do it in the county, you have to have a county commissioner's court or a city council within seven days by statute basically say, "We're gonna continue that," or else it goes away. They, they only have that leeway for seven days, and we don't have that at a state level. So I understand the argument there. But that's one argument of the party, and he is, he is basically going to that same element of the party, and he's saying, "Oh, but wait, I will, like, nationalize," I don't know, statalize, I don't even know what you would call it, the, the Austin Police Department in downtown Austin. So I'm too powerful on one hand, but on the other hand, we don't like what Austin does, so we're just gonna, we're just gonna become all powerful and, and do what we wanna do. It's just nothing makes sense. Like, there's no logic to the politics. It's just populism.

It's just what feels good.

It's exactly that.

Yeah. So, uh, we're recording this, what, the day after the Electoral College voted?

Yes, this is the day after.

Right.

Yep.

So I think the understatement of the year is probably that we are somewhat polarized in this country. I'm trying to be delicate here, so-

Yeah, absolutely

... give me, give me just a second. We're, we're polarized. There are a lot of reasons for that. We've talked about some of them, um, in terms of the, you know, the, like, the social media aspects of, um, groupthink and how we're sort of isolating ourselves into thought bubbles and, and that has a tendency to, to radicalize us. But I think at the end of the day, we're gonna have to either get to a point where we can just live and let live on a lot of things, or this is just gonna get worse. I mean, our entire system is built around having control of a lot of these issues at a lo- more local level. And if we're just gonna push all of these things higher and higher and let someone else exert, exert their control when, when they deem it necessary, uh, then that just makes it that much more important who the governor is, who the president is, right? So, like, all of a sudden now, local issues, it matters who the president is. Why?Why does it matter who the president is or largely who the governor is when you're talking about things that you're, uh, you're, you're talking about where are we gonna put sidewalks in? How can we make the streets safer as our kids are walking to the school bus? How can we provide quality of life enhancements to our residents? Like, these issues are local issues, but the trend that we're on is making them more ... It's making all of these, this outside noise that much more important and kind of drowning out these actual things that cities are supposed to be focusing on.

Yeah, I-

And all I can say is that I, while I loved being in city management, there's a big part of me that is thankful that I'm not having to answer those questions in this environment that we're in right now.

I, I would agree with it 'cause, you know, I, I think it would be difficult for me to, to respond to the national political rhetoric that has entered local city halls.

What, what are you supposed to do?

Exactly.

You're running for, you're running for city council on a platform, and the truth is this is ... So you're running for city council on a, on a basically like a national politics platform.

Mm-hmm.

We had people running for Congress on platforms that sounded like they should be running for mayor.

Mm-hmm.

Like, "I'm running for the United States House, and the reason is because the city in which I live has fallen apart."

I've heard ... Yeah.

"And we need, you know, we need, uh, X and Y and Z." Well, why are you running for, for the House? Why aren't you running as a mayor or a city council member?

Well, the, the better one that I heard was, uh, I, I actually heard this at a debate recently with the SD 30 debate. I, I'm running for state senate because I don't think your kids should have to read that book in school. Okay, I, I understand that, but hold on, hold on. Wait, wait.

See, and I think that-

So why not run, why not run for school board?

I ... Yeah. No. W- why not just try to be the secretary of education? Right?

There you go. Yeah.

And then no one in the whole country can read that book.

So, I, I mean, I-

Like, where does it end?

I, I think it's very, it's become very interesting that, um, the movement to the national political realm, the ... And, and really I think politicians at the, at the national or state level have, have really tried to localize their issues even though they can't solve for them, right? They really can't solve for them. They've tried to localize the issues because that's what hits the pulse, right? And along the way, they are throwing under the bus every future national politician who's making their way up the food chain by being a city council member, mayor, school board member, or any other locally elected official, county commissioner, that would eventually make their way to state office or to federal office. They ... And, and, and you see it within, within your own party. You see it with, uh, with the presidential election, with all of the Republicanly elected, uh, state officials in Georgia just getting absolutely decimated nationally, right? I mean, and, and it happens on the Democratic side as well. I, I'm not, I'm not ruling out that it's, it's only happening on one side of the party or one party itself. It's, it's happening all over, and at some point we have to understand that most ideas are best when they're created locally. I mean, a national policy just doesn't fit everybody.

No, and if it's a really good policy, then other cities will implement it-

Yeah

... in a way that works for their environment because every city is different, right?

Correct.

You don't need national ... Like, if an idea is really that good, it doesn't need to be mandated at the state level or at the federal level. People will adopt it. Uh, they will adapt it to their needs and adopt it themselves.

A- absolutely, and, and we talked specifically about that, uh, in, in the city management realm, right? As city managers, a lot of city managers can create their own policies, but the reality is, is we just cheat off of somebody else, and we steal their policy, and we just try to make it a little better or form it towards us. I, I mean, if it's good, people are gonna take it and, and make it their own, but you can't just have one set policy at the national level and make that everybody's. It's just not gonna work. Austin's such a different place, very different by the way, like weirdly different than the rest of the state of Texas. And I, I just ... I, I don't know. I don't know when Abbott's gonna get off of this bus. Uh, I'm not sure he's ever going to get off of this bus. But it's, it's starting to become-

Well-

It's starting to become just funny to me.

The, the problem is I don't see a real solution, at least in the short term because what you've said is, I think, true. A lot of people run for, say, city council, county commissioner, sort of as a farm system, right? Like, their goal, like, I mean, their, their goal is to move up, right? So they're already sort of eyeing that next seat when they're a city council member or mayor, and their sort of politics and the things that they advocate for are in some cases geared towards that next, that next office. So how do you get people into, say, state level government who actually do care about local control and cities having the flexibility and the freedom to operate in a manner that suits their needs?

Such a hard discussion because I think what ... In, in my opinion, I believe what is steering politics specifically in Texas is money, right? Ultimately, we're seeing a lot of, of money that has a very specific policy angle that steers local politicians. Um, I think there's a big lack of knowledge in there as well. I think we have a lot of politicians that have run for office recently that did not come up the standard food chain, so they don't understand local issues.Uh, I, it's always humorous to me when somebody tries to tell a school board member how their funding is actually, uh, generated through the state of Texas, and they act like it's, it's not a statewide property tax. Um, and that's just not true. I mean, if you look at the way state funding is done, all property taxes throughout the state that are collected on schools are somewhat a state tax. Um, I, I, I think it's just difficult to deal with. But I wanna make this point before we wrap up on this, 'cause I think it's important to actually look at the facts of some of these statements. Abbott says, "Something else that I'm thinking about doing, and that is because we have people coming across the world and across the country into our capital city, as well as to the university," that university that's called Texas University.

Hook 'em.

"We can't make our fellow Texans be victims of crime because of the city of Austin leadership," Abbott said. "And so what I think we need to do is have a capital zone area that the state will be in charge of policing, and we can use the city of Austin police officers for this." Here's the problem. Crime in downtown Austin is down. The actual numbers don't reflect the populous message that Abbott is putting across.

The only violent crime that's up is homicide.

Which is-

That has been-

Yeah.

But that has... It's... Austin is still one of the safer largest cities.

Correct.

And that trend did not start October 1st when the new budget took effect. That's something that has been ha- been happening for the entire year. And Austin is not the only city that's dealing with that. Fort Worth is dealing with it. Lots of cities across the country are dealing with increased homicides this year.

Correct. And a lot of that has to do with COVID, a lot of it has to do with the mental health aspects that are there. And the Austin police chief has actually given some good statements on that if you wanna Google some of that and, and look at that. But ultimately, guys, crime in Austin is actually down, and it was already the safest city before crime was down. And the governor's bringing something up that's there. Now, I have my own personal issues with some of what Austin does. I, I'm not a big fan of how Austin handles homelessness. Uh, I felt like we did a much better job with homelessness in Fort Worth.

Mm.

I know, Chad, you had a, you dealt with that a lot. Um, you know, there are some things in Austin that I look at and I'm like, "Well, I just don't like the way Austin does that." But guess what? I'm not a resident of Austin.

You don't live there.

Nor do I live there, nor do I pay taxes there, so why do I care?

Exactly.

So just, you know, look.

Has, like, just a bunch of, uh, uh, Gladys Kravitzes, like, peering through the windows at what Samantha is doing when she wrinkles her nose. It's like, just mind your own business. If you don't like it, don't live there. Seriously. But my biggest problem is, with the quote that you just read, is what is the limiting principle? We don't, we don't want, uh, you know, foreign visitors and out-of-state visitors who come to our great capital city to be victims of crime, and we disagree with Austin's policies. Well, what if you also want them to have fantastic parks and you don't think that Austin's parks system is enough? Or great libraries, right? 'Cause we talked about how their libraries have had issues recently. Or, like, anything. Like, what's to stop the governor from just unilaterally going in, or I guess creating legislation, 'cause that, perhaps that's what his proposal is, to basically take over a portion of any city across the whole state if he just disagrees with it? Like, public safety is not, uh, it's not something that is so sacred that it is the only thing that could be, quote, you know, statized or whatever, however you refer to it. So I, I just don't see where this stops.

I, I just have all the... For me, it just comes down to whatever happened to individual responsibility, whatever happened to local control. I mean, I live in a great city with a fantastic police department, but I still don't depend on that police department for my safety 100% of the time, right? Like, I prepare myself, my own individual self, to be safe. And I just... Man, I have a real hard problem of Abbott at the same time taking care of all, all these people who come to Austin, we have to protect them, and at the same time, just... I don't know, man, I just, at some, uh, it just, there's no logic to it. I can't follow a path of where we're currently going as a state.

No. And it's, it's, it's largely emotional. And you talked about populists, and-

Mm-hmm

... you know, pop- populism is, it's a form of politics that is geared towards emotional responses and reactionary responses, and reactionism does not make for good policy.

I mean, how long are we gonna allow Twitter to control our political atmosphere? That's the question, right?

That's almost, that's, that's almost a perfect question.

Yeah. I mean-

That's essentially what we're doing. We're letting, like, the handful of people who lose their minds on Twitter, uh, dictate our national discourse.

Yep.

Like, I did a deep dive on a certain part of Twitter last night and it frightened me. But the, the other part is, like, you don't know how many of those people are just sort of, like, pushing it. You know, they're just sort of playing a role in how many of those people actually believe it. But that being the case, it makes it even more dangerous to essentially use that as your public opinion polling, you know, for, for the policies that you're going to enact.

Finding a source of truth in today's world is extremely difficult. And I-

God, it's almost impossible.

Yeah. And I, I'm not saying that you, there is a certain, um, there's a certain area or medium for you to go get that source of truth. But what I'm saying is, is that we should try to stay away from the edges when in search for that truth, right? Those edges being that deep dive in Twitter.

Yeah, stay off Twitter.

Stay off Twitter.

So, um, this is probably, since you're gonna be on vacation next week, this is probably the only episode we'll do in December.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and, A, I would be remiss if we didn't talk about some holiday-related themes. So I know that you have not seen this movie because I don't think that you and your wife care that much about Hallmark Christmas movies, but my wife is an absolute fanatic. There was an, a movie called A Christmas Tree Grows in Colorado. It was new to 2020, and we watched it a few days ago. And I just have to say... So you know how, uh, if you're watching a show, say, about a teacher or, you know, education, does your wife ever say to you like, "That's not realistic," like, "That's stupid"-

Oh, absolutely

... "That would never happen." Okay, and so-

Yeah, 100%.

When we watch shows about lawyers, with the exception for some reason of Drop Dead Diva, which is the worst show ever, but, uh, my wife will always... She, she gave that episode, that show a pass, but ev- uh, every other show she's like, "That would never happen. Come on. That's just, that's ridiculous." Anytime there's a, a show that's about city government, that's, that's my role, right? Like Parks and Rec was great for the first couple seasons and then, uh, Leslie Knope started to like run for city council while she was the deputy director of the parks department, and it was like, come on. It's ridiculous.

First, first off, the, the most, uh... The character on that show that was most like a city government employee, who would it be?

It would be probably April. I know, I know what you're gonna say, which is Tom.

No, I'm not gonna say Tom.

Who are you gonna say?

Tom was the big dude, right?

No, Tom was, uh... He was Leslie's assistant who would always try to run scams underneath.

That's right. Okay.

Right? Like he had-

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

... like...

Okay. So no, I would say, I would say, uh, Ron.

You think R- no, I don't. I, uh, I don't know.

You don't think-

I, I th-

You don't think Ron Swanson was... That every city has a Ron Swanson? I, 100%-

I'm sure, yeah. Oh, yeah, I believe that every city has a Ron Swanson.

Yeah.

But every city also, especially in the parks department-

We had a Ron, we had a Ron Swanson in, in Hudson Oaks.

We did.

Yeah.

Um, but a lot of-

He's probably one of my, one of my favorite employees. It just, it's so fun to watch

It's not s- it's not super often that a Ron Swanson gets to a directorship, right, of a department.

That's, that's true, yeah.

That, that's why I say April-

Okay

... is, is perhaps more represented, 'cause she's at the lower level. But anyway.

You know, well, you know what I say about that? I don't really care.

No. Yeah. Okay, so A Christmas Tree Grows in Colorado. Here is the premise.

Okay.

There's this town in Colorado, and they always have this Christmas fair with a huge Christmas tree, and at the very last minute, the Christmas tree that they had planned for, something went wrong with it. You have to pay attention at the beginning of these movies, otherwise the other hour and 45 minutes, like you don't really know who the characters are or what's happening. But-

Because the movie could be like 15 minutes, yet it goes an hour and 45?

Yes.

Okay.

Essentially, yes. But, so the, the main character of this, uh, movie was the director of community development for the city. Her father was the mayor in, in apparently a strong mayor form of government. Um, but she happened across a, uh, like across the street from her friend's house, there was this humongous Christmas tree in a, in a front yard, uh, which she immediately decided that that had to be the Christmas tree that they used. Well, unfortunately, a firefighter lived there. And so at one point, a fi- the firefighter was... It seemed as if he was going to be using the Christmas tree as leverage in budget negotiations because the, her dad, the mayor, had recently cut the fire department budget. And it's like, you're just a firefighter. Like- ... you're like, y- you're not... Like there's, ob- obviously there's nothing wrong with being a firefighter, but like you're in the front lines, right? You're not in the budget negotiations. And then to u- use your private property for budget negotiations is interest- it's an interesting tactic. Um, but he also happened to be an expert in every single fire code, uh, that, uh, the city had. And he looked at their plans for the Christmas festival, and he found, you know, 45 different fire code violations and things like that. So, uh, so that was a sticking point as well. But the best part is that there was an intern at the city, and without the mayor's knowledge, uh, apparently just at the whim of his, his self, he managed to seize that tree through eminent domain. It was the most amazing-

Wow.

Yeah, the most, the most amazing sequence of events in a Christmas movie that I could remember.

So does the firefighter fall in love with the lady that-

I'm sure they did, yeah.

Okay, and then they waived all the, the 45 requirements they had to meet?

Well, so the problem is-

So the fire codes, fire code went out the window once they fell in love?

No, so he f- he helped them fix all the fire code issues.

Okay.

They started to fall in love.

Okay.

And then of course there's always a hitch, right? So the hitch was he thought she was involved in the eminent domain.

Oh.

Turns out she wasn't.

Okay.

You know, spoiler alert. But anyway, uh-

And then when he, when he found that out, he met her at the airport and made sure she didn't fly away?

Yeah, it was-

And it was all at the last minute?

Yeah, the, the whole story resolves in the final minute of the two-hour movie.

Okay.

But anyway, all that to say, excellent Christmas movie. If you are, uh... If you want to watch a, one of those terrible Christmas movies and also be frustrated at the portrayal of city government, I highly recommend A Christmas Tree Grows in Colorado.

Nice. Okay, so, uh, let's, let's talk real quick about Christmas traditions before we get out of here.

Okay.

Are you doing Elf on the Shelf this year? We talked about this last year as well, so I gotta bring it up.

Or yeah, so-

... elf on the shelf

... so we have two elves, because our, our daughter is now two, and she kind of understands it. Um, I am still of the belief, at least there's like a small part of me, that, that views Elf on a Shelf as a sort of a police state training kit. Like a con- conditioning tool-

Okay

... to help people, to help kids, uh, become accustomed to constant surveillance. The truth is that the things that we say about Santa are similar anyway, but, you know, Santa isn't, like, living in your house all day, reporting to himself every day like the elves are.

Throw- throwback to the conversation we had with your brother a couple weeks ago. Where is your tinfoil hat?

I'm not saying it's a grand conspiracy. I'm just saying that there is an element of Elf on the Shelf that does kind of bother me because of that. Uh, but yeah, we have two now, and we're gonna have three in a couple of years, and I assume we'll have four after that so.

What we did learn today, though, is that if you're looking for an Elf on the Shelf to purchase, like, today, you're not gonna get it.

You're not gonna get one today.

You're not gonna get one.

You have to buy those well before Thanksgiving-

Uh-huh

... 'cause they're just gone.

Yeah.

Uh, but yeah. So I have, uh, uh, we just did the HOA voting on our Christmas tree lights last night.

Did you win?

No.

Seriously?

More politics. We got second place this year.

D- what did you get last year?

Uh, last year we pulled ourselves out of the race. We, we, we withdrew from consideration.

Okay. But did you lose to the house that you thought you would lose to, 'cause they do a good job on decorations?

Uh, we lost to a house that while they, I mean, they do a fine job, it's just the same thing. They have a lot of trees in the front yard, and they just wrap-

Okay

... all the trees, so. It's cool looking, but-

For-

... it's, that's it.

As somebody who has seen your Christmas lights, which literally probably could get you on The Christmas Light Fight, like the television show. I don't know if anybody's families watch that, but we do. It's cheesy, but it's fun. Um, you pretty much could be on that show. I, I really don't understand how you didn't win.

Well so- So I was talking to someone last night, and they were asking me, um, w- you know, we've had some turnover in our HOA, so the people who loathe us are no longer on the board. But I think there's still some residual resentment over some, you know, past dramas.

Just, just a little bit of background here. To be fair, you guys had against deed restrictions. Y'all had some people that put up windmills.

It w- it was questionable whether or not, uh, whether or not the HOA rules and the deed restrictions-

Yeah

... allowed for that, yeah.

Yeah. And, and prior to all of this going down in Hudson Oaks, we reviewed windmills, and we decided against them because they, they literally make a whirling sound. They make like a-

Yeah, I can, I can hear it in my bedroom at night.

Yeah, correct. So sorry, go ahead.

So, uh, anyways so they asked, this person asked, "Well, why don't you just run for the HOA board?" And my response was, "Well, I can't be a recluse if I'm running for the HOA board and I get to know all my neighbors." Uh, so, uh, but yeah, this... I don't know.

Did they think that was funny, or... Because you were actually serious about that statement.

I was serious, yes.

Yeah.

Uh, at the end of the day, all that really matters is that since we started putting up our Clark Griswold Christmas decorations-

Mm-hmm

... our neighborhood has really stepped up its game. We have probably 10 houses that, I wouldn't say they go all out, but they do a, a lot more than they used to. So if, you know, we're increasing the overall Christmas cheer of our neighborhood, I'll just take that as a consolation prize.

That's good. It's like the movie Elf when they're trying to get Santa back off the ground.

Yeah, and the elf-

And he needs the s- he needs the song-

... and Santa Claus

... and the Christmas cheer.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's good. I've watched that movie. My kids love Elf. It's, it's killing me. Uh, also, last but not least, Christmas morning or Christmas Eve? Like, when do y'all open presents? When does Santa come to y'all's house?

Oh, that was a really strange way of phrasing that question. Uh, we open presents on Christmas morning.

Okay.

But here, so here's an interesting thing. Well, it's probably not that interesting, but whatever. So, uh, in my family, we would always get up super early, like 4:30, 5:00. Like, me and my brothers would just wake up r- uh, really early on Christmas morning, and we would go open presents. My wife's family, she was an only child, and she would get up like 9:30 on Christmas morning, like just no rush to open presents.

Uh-huh.

So that was always this tr-

She had everything she needed already.

S- n- I don't... I'm sure she did pretty well on Christmas, but-

Yeah

... it was just never a, I have to, uh, you know, I have to wake up super early for this type of event. So now that we have kids and they both get up super early, she's having a, she's having a world of hurt-

Do you start the coffee pot-

... in terms of changing-

... like super early? 'Cause Starbucks-

Well-

... is not open on Christmas morning, so you've gotta like-

That's true

... make your own pot of coffee.

I got-

Yeah

... put that Ke cup in there.

That's true.

Get that carafe going.

So-

Do you, uh, do you videotape your kids open, or I, uh, videotape, that's like dating me, but, like, do you record video of, uh, Christmas morning?

A little bit. Like, I don't do much. I take pictures. Um-

Did your parents used to do that?

They used to videotape us, and I'm not sure whatever happened to some of those tapes, but, uh, we have pictures of, of, like, us being kids, and like, you know, we got a new bike, so we go outside and ride a bike. Um-

I wonder if that was just a weird moment in time for the generation that we were in growing up, like when video cameras became a bit more ubiquitous.

Yeah.

Did you ever go back and watch a video of you opening-

No

... presents?

No, that's actually why I-

I know we didn't.

Yeah, that's why I take still photos, right, of most things. Because I actually do, especially with Apple, 'cause they do a good job of like, you know, every month giving you like a slideshow of what happened the previous five years or 10 years. Um, I, I take a lot of still pictures, and I usually go back and look at them, and we do these family scrapbooks every year... that Jennifer does in the middle of summer, and she goes and gets all the photos off of both of our phones, and it's kind of a cool thing. But no, we don't do ... I mean, I do videos of, like, my kids playing sports. That's, that's about it.

I have, I have one 20-second video of my oldest opening his Santa presents at, like, two. And the only reason that I, we ever watch it is because, uh, he saw an octopus, and he, he looked at ... He grabbed it, and he looked at us, and he goes, "Octopus." We didn't know he knew what an octopus was.

Yeah.

So it was kind of funny. Uh, but yeah, otherwise we, we don't go back and watch those videos.

That's an advertisement for Zoo School, 'cause I know he's a big Zoo School kid.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

If you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, highly recommend the Fort Worth Zoo School.

You know, first off, the Fort Worth Zoo is an amazing zoo, if you've never been. It's, like, one of the best in the world now, right? I think they've moved up since they've opened the whole giraffe exhibit where you can see the giraffe.

Yeah, they used to have ... Oh, that's a pretty cool little thing.

That's awesome. Yeah.

But they used to have this big billboard on the way home from Hudson Oaks that was, like, "Number four zoo in America," or something like that.

I think it's, like, number two or one now. I think they've moved up quite a bit since they've opened, like, the whole Sahara exhibit that they've got now. It ... I mean, it's, like, twice the s- the zoo's, like, almost double the size as what it was before, right? It's, like-

It's pretty big

... that whole, that whole new exhibit area is incredible.

The only problem I have with the Fort Worth Zoo is it's just long. So, like, to walk from one end to the other just takes a while. But we went to the San Diego Zoo a few years ago, and it was nice, but it w- I, if I remember correctly, it was really hilly.

Were you on, uh, were you on budget staff at Fort Worth when they privatized the zoo? Were you part of the Grinch team?

No.

No? Okay. That was before you?

Yes.

Okay. 'Cause they privatized the zoo. I think they privatized the Fort Worth Herd, too.

Uh, the Herd was, was with the city when I was there.

Okay. So, and then, uh, they were trying to do it with the golf courses, but they could just never get them profitable to do it. So- But just, I like the golf courses, though. Don't take those away. I play them as often as I can get over there. But-

We were looking at, not to name names, but we were looking at a city recently, a couple days ago, and they were losing two and a half million dollars on their golf courses. Is that right?

Yeah. They were also losing almost two and a half million dollars in their utility funds, which I, I don't think I've ever seen that.

No.

That's a-

We, we need to bookmark or, uh, jot down in our notes a discussion about subsidies in a future episode.

You're correct. It was a pretty sub- I, I think I went down, like, this rabbit. I was looking into some things, and it, anyways, it led me to a city's website, and it led me to that city's CAFR, and it led me to page 64 of the CAFR. And I saw it, I think I took a screenshot of it, and I sent it out to all, all, like, our governmental nerd friends. I didn't just send it to our Zach folks. I actually sent it out to a couple city managers as well. And, uh, the first response I got was, uh, "I don't think I've ever seen a utility fund that far in the red."

I tell you what we need, is we need Greg Abbott to come in and fix that.

Yeah, Greg Abbott needs to step up and get that fixed. And folks-

Attention, Mr. Governor, if you're listening.

And folks, we're, we're gonna end with that one. But, um, hey, from, from Chad and I to y'all's family, it's the holiday season. We know it's COVID. Great news is we're gonna get past this. Uh, but happy holidays, you know, merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, uh, and happy New Year. So, uh, real happy to have you guys on ZacCast and, uh, it was a pleasure. Thanks, Chad.

Hey, but, hey, and when we get back on our next episode, you get to tell us all about how Disney World is-

Oh, that's true

... during a pandemic at Christmas.

Yeah. Hey, 35% capacity with no lines over an hour, I'm gonna take it all day. We'll see how that goes. So, but yeah, we'll, we'll jump on that in the next episode. All right, we'll see y'all later. Boom. Do I stop recording?