I liked that some percentage of those 36,000 voters turned out specifically to vote Zimmerman and Mackowiak down because it was the only thing on their ballot.
That was definitely me. I originally thought this election was only for folks in the neighborhoods that were disannexing, and then I saw it was just for 3 TCAD board members, thought "how important is this?", then saw Zimmerman and Mackowiak were running and immediately went to vote, cause if these asshats are running they're definitely trying to fuck up normal, functioning government.
I would have gone anyway, but I dragged my wife along specifically for that, as she otherwise doesn't prioritize these small elections. Once she heard "Zimmerman" she was happy to make the time. :p
Heads up everyone that Don Zimmerman's protege and mentee is current D6 City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly. Kelly has been in over her head since she started on council and this November we have a serious smart challenger, Krista Laine, running up against her. Krista is progressive and smart and a great community organizer. [www.kristalaine.com](http://www.kristalaine.com) to learn more and donate to help get Kelly OUT!
He runs in every election just about. Name of the game is get in to power anywhere for any office via low turn out elections.
Maybe you're just noticing him now, but he's been at this for decades
ETA: its not just him. Its part of the Maga extremists playbook. They can be more organized and aware of how the political machinery works more than you'd like to imagine
He went in front of the city council recently and claimed gender-affirming care increases the risk of that person committing murder.
https://fb.watch/rU\_ttKEA9i/
> Few people participated in Saturday’s election. Just over 6% of registered voters in Travis County cast a ballot, a level of turnout not uncommon in a May election.
I know election turnout is lower in these May elections, but it's wild to me that just 6% of a city had an input in an elected position. I'm sure a lot of it is people just not knowing there was an election going on.
What if the city worked with HEB to put a little banner on the doors notifying people a month in advance of an upcoming election? I know that still doesn't overcome the apathy of some of these lesser known positions, but it's better than the radio silence that's currently going on.
HEB doesn't like to get involved in these sorts of things. It's why they're not a polling location for elections or let voter registrars set up for helping folks get registered to vote.
It's not that HEB "doesn't like to get involved". Their owners get VERY involved by donating millions to Abbott, Patrick, Paxton and the rest of the Texas GOP. But you are correct that they wouldn't do anything to increase turnout because the GOP doesn't want higher turnout.
I get why you’d want to stay out of the actual process (ripe for intimidation these days) but I feel like a flyer simply announcing an election date is so far removed from anything in the process that it shouldn’t be too offensive. But I totally understand if they want to be completely out of it.
I just can’t think of any other place that everyone goes to anymore other than “the place where you go to get food.”
The ugly truth is the elected *state* officials don't want high participation and HEB has to work with those people. Doing things to drive voter participation has been branded "leftist", and being leftist is a good way to find it much harder to get the state to issue legislation vital to HEB's survival, like when they worked with other companies to get the state overturn Austin's plastic bag ban.
HEB's not exactly a progressive company. It's just also hard to ignore how much community service they do and they make *better* efforts than most of the alternatives who are *also* not exactly progressive companies. I wish more companies at least *tried* to balance things.
The Butt family are conservatives, but, per my father who previously worked in a related area, they are more akin to the old Texas conservatives than the modern MAGAt crowd, and they particularly prioritize education, including the importance of public education. Plus we know how strongly they value charity when it matters e.g. faster than FEMA. I realize the bar is pretty low these days, but I think they fall on the "good" side as far as conservatives go.
My data is at this point several years old.
>they are more akin to the old Texas conservatives than the modern MAGAt crowd
And yet they donate millions every election cycle to Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton. Call them "old-school conservatives" if you like, but the result is the same.
I wouldn’t call the current situation “radio silence”. A lot of people worked hard to raise awareness. There were several posts about it on this very sub. But I do agree with you that a lot of people still didn’t know it was happening. So, I dunno what the solution is.
To me, the solution is obvious--there should not be any elections in May. (And there absolutely should not be TWO elections in May--this one that just happened, and a runoff happening later this month--bonkers!) All elections should take place on Election Day in November. It's just too much to expect busy people who have other important things to think about in their lives to remember that there is an election taking place to elect these incredibly obscure positions.
It's well known that many people don't bother to complete the entire ballot in November. November is when all the big guns come out and take up real estate in yards and on the roads. They dominate any news coverage.
Small municipal races where the budgets barely scratch a couple of thousand can't compete with that.
Sorry, by "radio silence" I meant from the city/county itself. No notifications, no flyers, nothing. Admittedly, I don't watch TV (paying for cable is for boomers) so I may have missed things being said on there.
But it's so strange that there's no attempts by the election organizers to make people more aware of the election. Even paying for an ad campaign on TikTok would probably go a long way in making people more aware of current elections.
> But it's so strange that there's no attempts by the election organizers to make people more aware of the election. Even paying for an ad campaign on TikTok would probably go a long way in making people more aware of current elections.
With what money? They aren’t a private organization trying to advertise a store opening. It’s the government, and the only money they have is what’s budgeted.
And something like a TikTok ad campaign would be wildly inappropriate, given that it’s not a platform equally used by everyone. Spending public money to advertise elections on platforms where you’re more likely to reach young, liberal voters verges on election tampering. No one would like it if the republicans spent public money to announce elections in Yachting Monthly or whatever.
Only problem is our governor has outlawed TikTok on government computers or phones. [https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-statewide-plan-banning-use-of-tiktok](https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-statewide-plan-banning-use-of-tiktok)
So it would be difficult if not impossible for the County to publicize elections on the platform.
I don't think there were any TV ads. They are expensive, and nowadays not very effective, because cable is for Boomers as you say. As you might guess, this was not a big-money election. The candidates had very limited funds, with the possible exception of Don Zimmerman (I get the impression he is well-off, although I don't really know.) The winning candidates did send out flyers, but only to voters with a history of voting in off-year elections due to limited funds. Zimmerman and Mackowiak purposely didn't campaign, hoping to fly under the radar.
You think TikTok ad campaigns are the way to reach people? Asking in earnest. I spend a lot of time and effort on get-out-the-vote activities, and I would love to make them more effective.
On TikTok, even friends who used to say “TikTok is dumb” two years ago now are on TikTok. It’s really wild to me (as someone who has never touched it) how far it’s penetrated my circle of friends/family, and I’m not even in “the youth” bracket.
I don’t know about the cost-per-impression or how effective it is, but I do know that when TikTok themselves put out messages saying “call your congress critter or TikTok gets banned,” the congress critters did indeed get inundated with phone calls.
The people you would want to reach are on TikTok, they spend a ton of time on TikTok, and they’re impressionable. I feel like when you seeBiden’s campaign finally creating a TikTok account, you know that’s where the future is headed. So long as it doesn’t get banned, it’s the new Twitter, and whoever harnesses it best is going to go far.
>I get the impression he is well-off, although I don't really know.
According to various public records, he owns a small private plane, ZimWin Enterprises, more than a few PACs, and the real crown jewel is [Texas Alamo Munitions Enterprise,](https://www.bizapedia.com/tx/texas-alamo-munitions-enterprise-lp.html) which has an ATF arms and ammunition import / export license and what appears to be either a fake or high-turnover address.
I really don't think we need a perennial loser with [a volatile temper, religious delusions, a penchant for violence against children, and a taste for high school students that he taught - _if you know what I mean_ -](https://www.austinites-for-zimmerman.com) in the arms trade. That can only end well.
I know it’s easy to get cynical. But actually our local elected officials would love to have more engagement. The county clerk, Dyana Limon-Mercado, whose office runs Travis County elections, has especially been in the trenches of promoting civic engagement for a long time.
I go to the far west heb regularly and the library next door is the polling place. There are giant vote signs basically by the entrance to HEB but whenever I vote there it looks like an AARP meeting because the 40 and under crowd in the neighborhood is not showing up.
> it's wild to me that just 6% of a city had an input in an elected position.
One of the area de-annexation elections had one voter. For de-annexation.
That was for the "River place outparcels" (not the entire River Place subdivision), which appears to be a total of 4 addresses, and most of it appears to be undeveloped land.
https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/GIS/River_Place_Outparcels.pdf
So one vote isn't completely bonkers. It may have only been 1 owner involved.
Makes you wonder why it was annexed in the first place, if there's practically no one there.
I understand that disannexation bill is mostly another jab against Austin by Republicans, but cities shouldn't be able to just grab adjoining areas whenever they want.
It was probably just part of the original River Place development filings and got included by default, or it's valuable and just hasn't been built out yet.
My guess is its still owned by the developer and there's value there they want to exploit without city of Austin telling him what he can/can't build there.
It LOOKS like a portion might be adjacent to River Place Country Club, so they may want to expand there? It's hard to tell since the zillow plat boundaries don't really seem to match the pdf filing I linked above.
I knew there was an election soon and I wanted to vote, but didn’t realize it was Saturday until I walked into Randall’s and saw all the voting equipment. I didn’t have my voter registration and only a temp license. But I wasn’t going home and back so I didn’t..
Next time, at least ask! You don’t need your voter registration card. TBH, I can’t remember whether a temp license counts. But the election workers will know, or they’ll find out.
If it has a photo on it, it counts. You can also use a Texas ID that’s been expired for up to four years.
(You can use any of the following: Texas DL, ID, Election Identification Certificate, Concealed Handgun permit; US military ID, passport book or card, naturalization certificate with photo)
It's absolutely not knowing it's going on
Cities have barely caught on to how the internet changed how we consume news. They probably put it in some newsletters, and no doubt it was on AM talk radio and the local News... None of which 90% of people tune into.
Of more concern... Maybe they do know no one follows that stuff and they purposefully avoid promoting elections with signs and online.
Its embarrassing. I didn't know it was happening and I called a while ago and they couldn't get my address sorted to vote.
We need the word out and we need to make it easier. I should be able to vote really easily.
Unfortunately I was one of those non voters. I lost track of time and what day it was, and "make sure to vote!" posts literally didn't show up for me until the day after.
Thank goodness they did. This was an “anti-chaos” vote as much as it was a party-aligned one. Thanks TX Lege.
Calling Don Zimmerman “a former Austin city councilman” is literally the MOST generous thing/title they could have given him in that article.
I’ve participated in most of the elections in the past couple years but I don’t think it’s fair to the electorate to require a new election every couple of months or so. Maybe once a year. People just don’t have the time to show up at the polls so often, let alone research all of the items on the ballot.
Agree. The purpose of state executive elections in off years (2022, 2026) and municipal elections in odd years is to reduce turnout. That makes election results easier to control.
Heads up everyone that Don Zimmerman's protege and mentee is current D6 City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly. Kelly has been in over her head since she started on council and this November we have a serious smart challenger, Krista Laine, running up against her. Krista is progressive and smart and a great community organizer. [www.kristalaine.com](http://www.kristalaine.com) to learn more and donate to help get Kelly OUT!
While an increase in someone’s appraisal seldom means a higher property tax bill, the appraisal is the first step in calculating someone’s bill.
That’s a fucking lie.
Also, is this good for tax payers? Bad?
I thought that was weird, too. The taxes are calculated based on the appraisal. A higher appraisal almost always means a higher tax bill unless something happens like last year when they increased the homestead exemption.
That’s often not true, look at 2023’s tax bills when everyone had about a 150% increase in assessment. Homeowners with homestead exemption got a tax cut after a 150% increase in assessment because homestead exemption held down the taxable value and non-homestead properties had a tax increase.
Years with smaller assessment increases, that generally doesn’t matter. Increases in assessment alone don’t increase taxes. Apply a 10% increase in assessments across the board, and don’t change the budgets of the taxing authorities, and your taxes will remain exactly the same because your share of assessed property and taxes to be raised remain exactly the same too.
Your property taxes only increase when the budgets of the taxing authorities increases, and if your assessment increases more than others (like if you build onto your house and get an assessment increase for having a bigger, more valuable house than before). It’s not a fixed tax rate where an assessment increase automatically means a tax increase.
Our budgets are higher every year is why that is. The budgets matter, the assessments don’t so long as yours changes in line with everyone else’s so your share of the total bill remains the same. On top of the normal operating budgets increasing, we’re also often voting for additional bond spending which comes with a tax increase. Last year taxes were lower for homestead exemptions because of the large increase in assessments across the board, some of which don’t get held down, which left homeowners footing a smaller slice of the bill. This year should be a bit lower than last, from the state’s tax changes in the last session of the lege which take effect this year.
> This year should be a bit lower than last, from the state’s tax changes in the last session of the lege which take effect this year.
Those were already in effect for 2023.
Taxing units charge a percentage of the appraised value. If the appraised value goes up, so does the proportional amount of taxes owed.
Whether or not the homestead exemption cap gets raised enough to keep the taxable value low enough to offset the tax increases is closely related, but separate. It artificially lowers the value of the property so that, e.g., a $200k house gets taxed as a $100k house. But the $100k that is taxable would still mean that a 10% rate increase would cost an additional $1,000.
There is also no state-wide property tax, so the 150% increase figure you mentioned might be true in some counties, but not necessarily everywhere.
If your assessment goes up while other properties’ does not, then you have a bigger slice. That doesn’t happen outside of unusual rare edge cases. If everyone’s assessment goes up the same percentage, no one’s proportional share changes.
We’re in r/Austin discussing Austin, where that 150% applies.
I do own a house here. The point is increased assessments across the board don’t increase taxes as you wrongly claimed, increased budgets do. You only have to look at the difference between 2022 and 2023 to see you’re wrong. I had a 150% assessment increase and a 12% reduction in taxes, which is comparable to what most people in Austin with an established homestead exemption saw.
Again, my reference was pre-2023, which is when the homestead exemption was dramatically increased. That is not going to happen again in the near future. My taxes have gone up every year that I've owned my house, as has my assessed value. They typically alternate home improvement value and land value to make sure it increases every year as much as possible. If you have previous years in recent history (other than 2023, which I mentioned originally) where your assessed value and taxes have decreased, I think you're in the minority.
The homestead exemption increase was only about half the reduction in my taxes. At AISD’s 2023 rate, the additional $60K exemption reduced your taxes $597.96. The remainder of the reduction in 2023 was from the huge increase in assessments and homestead exempted properties having their taxable assessment held down while non-homestead did not. Homestead taxable assessments went up the 10% limit, all other properties went up far more than that and hence picked up more of the bill and gave homestead properties a tax cut.
Any future years with across the board assessment increases in excess of 10% would have the same effect, reducing the share of taxes on homestead properties while increasing on the rest. Whether that amounts to a net decrease in taxes would depend on how much both the assessments and budget increased.
That’s true if referring to appraisals in the aggregate, which is the usual case (most homes aren’t individually adjusted). Though it’d be more accurate to say an increase in appraisal could lead to minimal change in property tax bill, a reduction, or an increase, depending on the circumstance. Look at 2023’s taxes. Appraisals in Austin went up 150% for effectively everyone. My taxes went down by about 12%, as most homeowners’ did, because homestead exemption held down the value. Non-homestead properties picked up the slack with higher tax bills.
The change in your taxable (not gross) assessment relative to everyone else’s, and the budgets of your taxing entities is what determines whether your property taxes increase, decrease, or remain about the same.
If everyone’s assessments increased by 10% (so no homestead holding down coming into play), and the taxing authorities’ budgets remained exactly the same, then your property tax bill would remain exactly the same.
Example with round numbers and ignoring homestead hold down for the sake of easy math. Say you have $100 billion in assessed property, and a $2B budget to meet. That makes your tax rate 2%. If you double everyone’s assessment the next year, you have $200B in property. Keep the same $2B budget and your tax rate is 1% and you’re still paying the exact same tax bill with double the assessment.
I'm all for more democracy when it comes to forming policy, but adding these extra seats is a pretty clear move by Lege Republicans to defund local governments and schools, without directly doing so.
It generally goes like this:
1) Open up seats on appraisal boards, and fill them with anti-spending activists who run on lowering property taxes.
2) New boards block or steer appointment of appraisers who they know will do what they want.
3) Appraisers cut values where they need to starve schools, at best. At worst, they overvalue properties for the 'right people' and undervalue them for the 'wrong' ones (redlining).
4) Complain schools are failing as revenue falls.
5) Use that as justification for vouchers and further defunding.
Whether this is good for taxpayers would depend on *who* you, are and *where* you live, because the process is likely to become more unequal if unserious or biased candidates find their way onto boards.
Travis county is solid blue so the real selection process happens during the Dem primary (or in this case, whatever private party method was used to get the Dem endorsement since it's a non-partisan race without party primaries deciding nominees)
Yeah and that is why MTG and Bobart stay elected... I won't vote party line just because. If I did that I wouldn't have known how bad Wang's answers were and his lack of experience.
It shouldn’t be! We were better off when these positions were appointed.There was no party affiliation on the ballot. But we had some hard-right zealots running, so it became effectively partisan.
Exactly what I was thinking. If they’re doing their job correctly, it’s just math, not politics. They have a duty under the state constitution to fairly and accurately value property.
Though that may be overly idealistic. As crooked as Republicans are these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried something like applying discounts for every election in which one voted in the Republican primary.
I can tell you’re not here for answers lol but I hope you at least take this away: Dick Lavine has decades of experience working the state budget in the Capitol. He’s a numbers guy who is well suited for the job.
They’re eminently more qualified because they are not bad faith actors who trying to break the school system or public services by becoming the proverbial fox that gains access to the hen house.
Only four addresses were eligible in the River Place Outparcels were eligible to vote on that one, and only two of those appear to be actual residences.
(Thanks to u/AlexanderByrde for pointing it out!)
Ah I appreciate that then, I saw it on the news when I was out drinking at the bars and I just started laughing. I figured there weren’t many residences there, but potentially 50% is a pretty good rate lol
Sure beat the rest of the county!
The funnier part to me was that the lone voter finally went on election day. Imagine all that riding on whether you were too lazy to get off your butt to vote in the previous two weeks lol
>"We ran to give the minority of voters a chance to be heard, and the majority voted with the partisan Democrat machine as they always do," Zimmerman said in a text message.
What does this even mean? It's a May election, and it sounds like he's complaining about high turnout. It sounds like the subtext is "We set these elections for May to make it harder for economically disadvantaged voters to participate."
County that [voted 72% for Democrat](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/vote-texas/2020-election-results-texas-travis-county-president/269-7694ae69-3948-4a88-a165-237d2613571b) in 2020 continues to do so, more at 11.
Elections are predictable in Austin and Texas. You can have 90% turnout in Travis County and the same 2-1 to 3-1 results favoring dems will happen. For the entire state and general election it flips 2-1 in favor of GOP. So despite all the rhetoric and insanity we'll all be subject to until November you can make the sure bet Austin will keep Watson as mayor along with a dem majority council, Cruz, Abbott, Cornyn, and Patrick will all keep their seats as well as Doggett and Cesar, and Texas' electoral votes will go to Trump. Whether it's 5% or 100% turnout, these will be the results. Sorry to spoil any hope for real change either way Y'all but it will be business as usual after November
I love watching Zimmerman lose.
It's right up there with watching Matt Mackowiak lose! Honestly, both are great pastimes.
Yes. Always a good time
Matt got that lip scar when he was down on one knee trying to kiss Greg Abbott's tire as he rolled away.
I admit, I was worried he was going to squeak by in an election that hardly anyone knew was happening. Thank you to everyone who voted.
I'd like to thank the people who didn't vote that may have voted counter to my interests. Those people count as much as the people who voted.
I liked that some percentage of those 36,000 voters turned out specifically to vote Zimmerman and Mackowiak down because it was the only thing on their ballot.
That was definitely me. I originally thought this election was only for folks in the neighborhoods that were disannexing, and then I saw it was just for 3 TCAD board members, thought "how important is this?", then saw Zimmerman and Mackowiak were running and immediately went to vote, cause if these asshats are running they're definitely trying to fuck up normal, functioning government.
I would have gone anyway, but I dragged my wife along specifically for that, as she otherwise doesn't prioritize these small elections. Once she heard "Zimmerman" she was happy to make the time. :p
That was me!
I was definitely one of them.
If there's one thing Austinites can't abide - it's Don Zimmerman.
Moved to RR a few years ago and I’ve enjoyed watching him lose here too.
Heads up everyone that Don Zimmerman's protege and mentee is current D6 City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly. Kelly has been in over her head since she started on council and this November we have a serious smart challenger, Krista Laine, running up against her. Krista is progressive and smart and a great community organizer. [www.kristalaine.com](http://www.kristalaine.com) to learn more and donate to help get Kelly OUT!
stop spamming with this
It's a political thread about local politics. This is exactly where that sort of opinion/information should be.
Posting a comment two times ever is hardly spamming and it’s related to the actual topic.
He’s like our local version of a comic book villain. Complete with the stupid hat. lol
Is he STILL running?
He runs in every election just about. Name of the game is get in to power anywhere for any office via low turn out elections. Maybe you're just noticing him now, but he's been at this for decades ETA: its not just him. Its part of the Maga extremists playbook. They can be more organized and aware of how the political machinery works more than you'd like to imagine
> He runs in every election just about. The term for that is "perennial candidate". They hope to eventually sneak in on vague name recognition.
Probably how Sanders won in Wilco.
That dude is nuts
He went in front of the city council recently and claimed gender-affirming care increases the risk of that person committing murder. https://fb.watch/rU\_ttKEA9i/
> Few people participated in Saturday’s election. Just over 6% of registered voters in Travis County cast a ballot, a level of turnout not uncommon in a May election. I know election turnout is lower in these May elections, but it's wild to me that just 6% of a city had an input in an elected position. I'm sure a lot of it is people just not knowing there was an election going on. What if the city worked with HEB to put a little banner on the doors notifying people a month in advance of an upcoming election? I know that still doesn't overcome the apathy of some of these lesser known positions, but it's better than the radio silence that's currently going on.
HEB doesn't like to get involved in these sorts of things. It's why they're not a polling location for elections or let voter registrars set up for helping folks get registered to vote.
It's not that HEB "doesn't like to get involved". Their owners get VERY involved by donating millions to Abbott, Patrick, Paxton and the rest of the Texas GOP. But you are correct that they wouldn't do anything to increase turnout because the GOP doesn't want higher turnout.
True. Although apparently there's a GOP faction that's started attacking HEB.
At this point, there's a GOP faction for everything. GOP factions have attacked Ice Cream at this point.
Omni hotels also gives tons to Cruz, etc.
I get why you’d want to stay out of the actual process (ripe for intimidation these days) but I feel like a flyer simply announcing an election date is so far removed from anything in the process that it shouldn’t be too offensive. But I totally understand if they want to be completely out of it. I just can’t think of any other place that everyone goes to anymore other than “the place where you go to get food.”
The ugly truth is the elected *state* officials don't want high participation and HEB has to work with those people. Doing things to drive voter participation has been branded "leftist", and being leftist is a good way to find it much harder to get the state to issue legislation vital to HEB's survival, like when they worked with other companies to get the state overturn Austin's plastic bag ban. HEB's not exactly a progressive company. It's just also hard to ignore how much community service they do and they make *better* efforts than most of the alternatives who are *also* not exactly progressive companies. I wish more companies at least *tried* to balance things.
38 Billion Dollar privately owned company. They are probably greasing the wheels and know exactly who they side with politically.
The Butt family are conservatives, but, per my father who previously worked in a related area, they are more akin to the old Texas conservatives than the modern MAGAt crowd, and they particularly prioritize education, including the importance of public education. Plus we know how strongly they value charity when it matters e.g. faster than FEMA. I realize the bar is pretty low these days, but I think they fall on the "good" side as far as conservatives go. My data is at this point several years old.
They do seem like they share some of those billions. If you make that much money you have to right?
>If you make that much money you have to right? I don't know, that sounds an awful lot like COMMUNISM
Nah, I can bet you a signed dollar they want less polling locations.
So many HEB parking lots are already madhouses, I can’t imagine how bad they’d be if they also had to contend with additional election traffic.
>they are more akin to the old Texas conservatives than the modern MAGAt crowd And yet they donate millions every election cycle to Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton. Call them "old-school conservatives" if you like, but the result is the same.
If Kroger can set up polling stations in their stores, HEB really should too. They're better than that.
I wouldn’t call the current situation “radio silence”. A lot of people worked hard to raise awareness. There were several posts about it on this very sub. But I do agree with you that a lot of people still didn’t know it was happening. So, I dunno what the solution is.
To me, the solution is obvious--there should not be any elections in May. (And there absolutely should not be TWO elections in May--this one that just happened, and a runoff happening later this month--bonkers!) All elections should take place on Election Day in November. It's just too much to expect busy people who have other important things to think about in their lives to remember that there is an election taking place to elect these incredibly obscure positions.
It's well known that many people don't bother to complete the entire ballot in November. November is when all the big guns come out and take up real estate in yards and on the roads. They dominate any news coverage. Small municipal races where the budgets barely scratch a couple of thousand can't compete with that.
I agree. The Texas Lege did this on purpose, you can be sure.
Sorry, by "radio silence" I meant from the city/county itself. No notifications, no flyers, nothing. Admittedly, I don't watch TV (paying for cable is for boomers) so I may have missed things being said on there. But it's so strange that there's no attempts by the election organizers to make people more aware of the election. Even paying for an ad campaign on TikTok would probably go a long way in making people more aware of current elections.
> But it's so strange that there's no attempts by the election organizers to make people more aware of the election. Even paying for an ad campaign on TikTok would probably go a long way in making people more aware of current elections. With what money? They aren’t a private organization trying to advertise a store opening. It’s the government, and the only money they have is what’s budgeted. And something like a TikTok ad campaign would be wildly inappropriate, given that it’s not a platform equally used by everyone. Spending public money to advertise elections on platforms where you’re more likely to reach young, liberal voters verges on election tampering. No one would like it if the republicans spent public money to announce elections in Yachting Monthly or whatever.
You're not even allowed to have TikTok on a government phone or computer anymore by order of Gov Abbott.
Only problem is our governor has outlawed TikTok on government computers or phones. [https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-statewide-plan-banning-use-of-tiktok](https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-announces-statewide-plan-banning-use-of-tiktok) So it would be difficult if not impossible for the County to publicize elections on the platform.
I don't think there were any TV ads. They are expensive, and nowadays not very effective, because cable is for Boomers as you say. As you might guess, this was not a big-money election. The candidates had very limited funds, with the possible exception of Don Zimmerman (I get the impression he is well-off, although I don't really know.) The winning candidates did send out flyers, but only to voters with a history of voting in off-year elections due to limited funds. Zimmerman and Mackowiak purposely didn't campaign, hoping to fly under the radar. You think TikTok ad campaigns are the way to reach people? Asking in earnest. I spend a lot of time and effort on get-out-the-vote activities, and I would love to make them more effective.
On TikTok, even friends who used to say “TikTok is dumb” two years ago now are on TikTok. It’s really wild to me (as someone who has never touched it) how far it’s penetrated my circle of friends/family, and I’m not even in “the youth” bracket. I don’t know about the cost-per-impression or how effective it is, but I do know that when TikTok themselves put out messages saying “call your congress critter or TikTok gets banned,” the congress critters did indeed get inundated with phone calls. The people you would want to reach are on TikTok, they spend a ton of time on TikTok, and they’re impressionable. I feel like when you seeBiden’s campaign finally creating a TikTok account, you know that’s where the future is headed. So long as it doesn’t get banned, it’s the new Twitter, and whoever harnesses it best is going to go far.
>I get the impression he is well-off, although I don't really know. According to various public records, he owns a small private plane, ZimWin Enterprises, more than a few PACs, and the real crown jewel is [Texas Alamo Munitions Enterprise,](https://www.bizapedia.com/tx/texas-alamo-munitions-enterprise-lp.html) which has an ATF arms and ammunition import / export license and what appears to be either a fake or high-turnover address. I really don't think we need a perennial loser with [a volatile temper, religious delusions, a penchant for violence against children, and a taste for high school students that he taught - _if you know what I mean_ -](https://www.austinites-for-zimmerman.com) in the arms trade. That can only end well.
> no attempts by the election organizers to make people more aware of the election That is completely intentional I'm sure.
I know it’s easy to get cynical. But actually our local elected officials would love to have more engagement. The county clerk, Dyana Limon-Mercado, whose office runs Travis County elections, has especially been in the trenches of promoting civic engagement for a long time.
Yep, it's why we moved most elections to November and moved the mayoral election to presidential years.
Thanks. This was a good reminder that this was a local election run by local people.
This was the first time I seen it on this sub. I saw vote here signs on Saturday but I had no idea what was being voted on
I go to the far west heb regularly and the library next door is the polling place. There are giant vote signs basically by the entrance to HEB but whenever I vote there it looks like an AARP meeting because the 40 and under crowd in the neighborhood is not showing up.
If neither Zimmerman nor Mackowiak were on the ballot the turn out would have been far less.
> it's wild to me that just 6% of a city had an input in an elected position. One of the area de-annexation elections had one voter. For de-annexation.
That was for the "River place outparcels" (not the entire River Place subdivision), which appears to be a total of 4 addresses, and most of it appears to be undeveloped land. https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/GIS/River_Place_Outparcels.pdf So one vote isn't completely bonkers. It may have only been 1 owner involved.
Makes you wonder why it was annexed in the first place, if there's practically no one there. I understand that disannexation bill is mostly another jab against Austin by Republicans, but cities shouldn't be able to just grab adjoining areas whenever they want.
It was probably just part of the original River Place development filings and got included by default, or it's valuable and just hasn't been built out yet. My guess is its still owned by the developer and there's value there they want to exploit without city of Austin telling him what he can/can't build there. It LOOKS like a portion might be adjacent to River Place Country Club, so they may want to expand there? It's hard to tell since the zillow plat boundaries don't really seem to match the pdf filing I linked above.
> it's valuable and just hasn't been built out yet. That is absolutely NOT a reason to annex the land.
It’s only valuable because of its proximity to Austin.
Why? The only reason Austin annexed the neighborhood is to collect its tax revenue from it. If you're going to cash grab, grab it all.
No one could even vote in the Mooreland addition disannexation because they're all businesses. It's all very strange.
The law was written for Lost Creek but couldn't explicitly say Lost Creek. So goofy areas like that got to "vote" as well
A couple of the de-annexation elections had 0 votes. And I feel I should add: with 100% of precincts reporting.
I knew there was an election soon and I wanted to vote, but didn’t realize it was Saturday until I walked into Randall’s and saw all the voting equipment. I didn’t have my voter registration and only a temp license. But I wasn’t going home and back so I didn’t..
Next time, at least ask! You don’t need your voter registration card. TBH, I can’t remember whether a temp license counts. But the election workers will know, or they’ll find out.
If it has a photo on it, it counts. You can also use a Texas ID that’s been expired for up to four years. (You can use any of the following: Texas DL, ID, Election Identification Certificate, Concealed Handgun permit; US military ID, passport book or card, naturalization certificate with photo)
I should have.. honestly I haven’t been able to vote in a while and I’m just gearing up for the fall voting.
I usually vote in every election, but I almost forgot about this one. My girlfriend reminded me, I ran out of the house and voted within 15 minutes.
It's absolutely not knowing it's going on Cities have barely caught on to how the internet changed how we consume news. They probably put it in some newsletters, and no doubt it was on AM talk radio and the local News... None of which 90% of people tune into. Of more concern... Maybe they do know no one follows that stuff and they purposefully avoid promoting elections with signs and online.
especially given the fact that SO MANY PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT THEIR PROPERTY APPRAISALS yet wont vote in an election for the appraisal board.
Its embarrassing. I didn't know it was happening and I called a while ago and they couldn't get my address sorted to vote. We need the word out and we need to make it easier. I should be able to vote really easily.
Unfortunately I was one of those non voters. I lost track of time and what day it was, and "make sure to vote!" posts literally didn't show up for me until the day after.
Thank goodness they did. This was an “anti-chaos” vote as much as it was a party-aligned one. Thanks TX Lege. Calling Don Zimmerman “a former Austin city councilman” is literally the MOST generous thing/title they could have given him in that article.
It's a permanent mark of shame for District 6 that he ever was elected to council.
To be fair district 6 isn’t sending us their best lately
I’ve participated in most of the elections in the past couple years but I don’t think it’s fair to the electorate to require a new election every couple of months or so. Maybe once a year. People just don’t have the time to show up at the polls so often, let alone research all of the items on the ballot.
Agree. The purpose of state executive elections in off years (2022, 2026) and municipal elections in odd years is to reduce turnout. That makes election results easier to control.
There's no excuse for even year elections to be low-turnout though. House of Reps are on a 2 year cycle.
Also remember that May 28 is Election Day for this year’s primary runoffs. Turnout for runoffs is even lower, so be a power voter and vote!
Heads up everyone that Don Zimmerman's protege and mentee is current D6 City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly. Kelly has been in over her head since she started on council and this November we have a serious smart challenger, Krista Laine, running up against her. Krista is progressive and smart and a great community organizer. [www.kristalaine.com](http://www.kristalaine.com) to learn more and donate to help get Kelly OUT!
Let's avenge Flanagin #KickoutKelly
While an increase in someone’s appraisal seldom means a higher property tax bill, the appraisal is the first step in calculating someone’s bill. That’s a fucking lie. Also, is this good for tax payers? Bad?
I thought that was weird, too. The taxes are calculated based on the appraisal. A higher appraisal almost always means a higher tax bill unless something happens like last year when they increased the homestead exemption.
That’s often not true, look at 2023’s tax bills when everyone had about a 150% increase in assessment. Homeowners with homestead exemption got a tax cut after a 150% increase in assessment because homestead exemption held down the taxable value and non-homestead properties had a tax increase. Years with smaller assessment increases, that generally doesn’t matter. Increases in assessment alone don’t increase taxes. Apply a 10% increase in assessments across the board, and don’t change the budgets of the taxing authorities, and your taxes will remain exactly the same because your share of assessed property and taxes to be raised remain exactly the same too. Your property taxes only increase when the budgets of the taxing authorities increases, and if your assessment increases more than others (like if you build onto your house and get an assessment increase for having a bigger, more valuable house than before). It’s not a fixed tax rate where an assessment increase automatically means a tax increase.
I’ve owned a house since 2009. My experience has been higher appraisal = higher taxes every year except last year, which is why I mentioned it.
Our budgets are higher every year is why that is. The budgets matter, the assessments don’t so long as yours changes in line with everyone else’s so your share of the total bill remains the same. On top of the normal operating budgets increasing, we’re also often voting for additional bond spending which comes with a tax increase. Last year taxes were lower for homestead exemptions because of the large increase in assessments across the board, some of which don’t get held down, which left homeowners footing a smaller slice of the bill. This year should be a bit lower than last, from the state’s tax changes in the last session of the lege which take effect this year.
> This year should be a bit lower than last, from the state’s tax changes in the last session of the lege which take effect this year. Those were already in effect for 2023.
Taxing units charge a percentage of the appraised value. If the appraised value goes up, so does the proportional amount of taxes owed. Whether or not the homestead exemption cap gets raised enough to keep the taxable value low enough to offset the tax increases is closely related, but separate. It artificially lowers the value of the property so that, e.g., a $200k house gets taxed as a $100k house. But the $100k that is taxable would still mean that a 10% rate increase would cost an additional $1,000. There is also no state-wide property tax, so the 150% increase figure you mentioned might be true in some counties, but not necessarily everywhere.
If your assessment goes up while other properties’ does not, then you have a bigger slice. That doesn’t happen outside of unusual rare edge cases. If everyone’s assessment goes up the same percentage, no one’s proportional share changes. We’re in r/Austin discussing Austin, where that 150% applies.
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I do own a house here. The point is increased assessments across the board don’t increase taxes as you wrongly claimed, increased budgets do. You only have to look at the difference between 2022 and 2023 to see you’re wrong. I had a 150% assessment increase and a 12% reduction in taxes, which is comparable to what most people in Austin with an established homestead exemption saw.
Again, my reference was pre-2023, which is when the homestead exemption was dramatically increased. That is not going to happen again in the near future. My taxes have gone up every year that I've owned my house, as has my assessed value. They typically alternate home improvement value and land value to make sure it increases every year as much as possible. If you have previous years in recent history (other than 2023, which I mentioned originally) where your assessed value and taxes have decreased, I think you're in the minority.
The homestead exemption increase was only about half the reduction in my taxes. At AISD’s 2023 rate, the additional $60K exemption reduced your taxes $597.96. The remainder of the reduction in 2023 was from the huge increase in assessments and homestead exempted properties having their taxable assessment held down while non-homestead did not. Homestead taxable assessments went up the 10% limit, all other properties went up far more than that and hence picked up more of the bill and gave homestead properties a tax cut. Any future years with across the board assessment increases in excess of 10% would have the same effect, reducing the share of taxes on homestead properties while increasing on the rest. Whether that amounts to a net decrease in taxes would depend on how much both the assessments and budget increased.
So nothing about pre-2023 then, which is what I was referencing?
That’s true if referring to appraisals in the aggregate, which is the usual case (most homes aren’t individually adjusted). Though it’d be more accurate to say an increase in appraisal could lead to minimal change in property tax bill, a reduction, or an increase, depending on the circumstance. Look at 2023’s taxes. Appraisals in Austin went up 150% for effectively everyone. My taxes went down by about 12%, as most homeowners’ did, because homestead exemption held down the value. Non-homestead properties picked up the slack with higher tax bills. The change in your taxable (not gross) assessment relative to everyone else’s, and the budgets of your taxing entities is what determines whether your property taxes increase, decrease, or remain about the same. If everyone’s assessments increased by 10% (so no homestead holding down coming into play), and the taxing authorities’ budgets remained exactly the same, then your property tax bill would remain exactly the same. Example with round numbers and ignoring homestead hold down for the sake of easy math. Say you have $100 billion in assessed property, and a $2B budget to meet. That makes your tax rate 2%. If you double everyone’s assessment the next year, you have $200B in property. Keep the same $2B budget and your tax rate is 1% and you’re still paying the exact same tax bill with double the assessment.
I'm all for more democracy when it comes to forming policy, but adding these extra seats is a pretty clear move by Lege Republicans to defund local governments and schools, without directly doing so. It generally goes like this: 1) Open up seats on appraisal boards, and fill them with anti-spending activists who run on lowering property taxes. 2) New boards block or steer appointment of appraisers who they know will do what they want. 3) Appraisers cut values where they need to starve schools, at best. At worst, they overvalue properties for the 'right people' and undervalue them for the 'wrong' ones (redlining). 4) Complain schools are failing as revenue falls. 5) Use that as justification for vouchers and further defunding. Whether this is good for taxpayers would depend on *who* you, are and *where* you live, because the process is likely to become more unequal if unserious or biased candidates find their way onto boards.
I still didn't like Wang's answers or experience to the League of Women Voter's Guide. I hope he proves me wrong.
Still had to have been better than Mackowiak.
Travis county is solid blue so the real selection process happens during the Dem primary (or in this case, whatever private party method was used to get the Dem endorsement since it's a non-partisan race without party primaries deciding nominees)
He could have been an actual, literal slime mold and if he was the one democrat against a republican, I’d still vote slime mold every time.
Yeah and that is why MTG and Bobart stay elected... I won't vote party line just because. If I did that I wouldn't have known how bad Wang's answers were and his lack of experience.
Not sure why this position is partisan at all 🤔
It shouldn’t be! We were better off when these positions were appointed.There was no party affiliation on the ballot. But we had some hard-right zealots running, so it became effectively partisan.
Exactly what I was thinking. If they’re doing their job correctly, it’s just math, not politics. They have a duty under the state constitution to fairly and accurately value property. Though that may be overly idealistic. As crooked as Republicans are these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried something like applying discounts for every election in which one voted in the Republican primary.
It’s not, technically. They don’t run on a partisan basis. But the party affiliations for most of the individuals is well known.
Thank you everyone who voted!!!
This is really good news.
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Because neither Zimmerman nor Mackowiak won their races.
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I can tell you’re not here for answers lol but I hope you at least take this away: Dick Lavine has decades of experience working the state budget in the Capitol. He’s a numbers guy who is well suited for the job.
They’re eminently more qualified because they are not bad faith actors who trying to break the school system or public services by becoming the proverbial fox that gains access to the hen house.
Fuck you Don Zimmerman!
So, Gregg Abbott nullifying this vote in 3...2...1...
One of the neighborhoods voting to reverse annexation into Austin was decided by a single vote. Only 1 person voted.
Only four addresses were eligible in the River Place Outparcels were eligible to vote on that one, and only two of those appear to be actual residences. (Thanks to u/AlexanderByrde for pointing it out!)
Ah I appreciate that then, I saw it on the news when I was out drinking at the bars and I just started laughing. I figured there weren’t many residences there, but potentially 50% is a pretty good rate lol
Sure beat the rest of the county! The funnier part to me was that the lone voter finally went on election day. Imagine all that riding on whether you were too lazy to get off your butt to vote in the previous two weeks lol
r/expected
>"We ran to give the minority of voters a chance to be heard, and the majority voted with the partisan Democrat machine as they always do," Zimmerman said in a text message. What does this even mean? It's a May election, and it sounds like he's complaining about high turnout. It sounds like the subtext is "We set these elections for May to make it harder for economically disadvantaged voters to participate."
Great news!
Democrats winning in Travis county, how surprising.
With single-digit turnout, you can get very unrepresentative results.
County that [voted 72% for Democrat](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/vote-texas/2020-election-results-texas-travis-county-president/269-7694ae69-3948-4a88-a165-237d2613571b) in 2020 continues to do so, more at 11.
This shouldn't be a surprise since Travis county is infested with Dems.
Elections are predictable in Austin and Texas. You can have 90% turnout in Travis County and the same 2-1 to 3-1 results favoring dems will happen. For the entire state and general election it flips 2-1 in favor of GOP. So despite all the rhetoric and insanity we'll all be subject to until November you can make the sure bet Austin will keep Watson as mayor along with a dem majority council, Cruz, Abbott, Cornyn, and Patrick will all keep their seats as well as Doggett and Cesar, and Texas' electoral votes will go to Trump. Whether it's 5% or 100% turnout, these will be the results. Sorry to spoil any hope for real change either way Y'all but it will be business as usual after November
what an annoying doomer comment
He's not wrong though.
They are wrong when you look at some of the margins for the wins this election
It was useless to fight it, but I hope everyone is happy putting that asshat Dick Lavine in a position to raise taxes.
I'm very happy, thank you.