Category: Uncategorized

Group Solutions RJW presented its recommendations resulting from meetings concerning African American quality of life in Austin to the Austin City Council during its Thursday, May 26, 2005 meeting.

The report will serve as a framework for an action plan to address quality of life issues that were raised during the meetings and in the City’s “African American Community Scorecard,” which identified disparities between African Americans when compared to other ethnic groups.

Six forums were conducted in April as a follow-up to that scorecard report. More than 700 individuals attended the public forums. Group Solutions’ recommendation also are based on hundreds of written comments received from the public last month.

Link to City of Austin website.

But Project Manager Still Predicts Jan. Rollout

By Greg Moses

A project to develop a statewide database for voter registration is running behind schedule, but the state’s manager of the project predicts it will be completed in time to meet a federal deadline of Jan. 1.

“It has taken a little while to get the project on its feet,” says Bob Futrell, who oversees the project for the Texas Secretary of State, “but it’s okay now.”

A mandate to create the Texas Voter Registration/Election Management System (TEAMS) originates in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 which requires all states to have centralized databases by Jan. 1.

“Meeting the January deadline will be a challenge,” said Futrell, speaking by telephone Thursday from his Austin office, “but in my experience these things are always a challenge up front.” Futrell is an expert in the management of software development, holding academic positions at the University of Texas and at Austin Community College. He has also co-authored a textbook in the field.

With an estimated 36,000 hours of work going into the project at an initial cost of $9.5 million, winning bidders IBM and Hart InterCivic promise to deliver a statewide voter registration database, election management, ballot definition, election night reporting, and a jury management system, too.

According to a thick contract that we reviewed earlier this week at the capitol, the state will also pay at least $600,000 per year in Annual Maintenance Fees for five years.

“I can’t stress enough how different this is from an election system,” advised a well-placed source who answered questions about the contract earlier in the week. One way to understand the difference between election system and election management in a Texas context is to contrast the role of the County Clerk who runs the election and the Tax Assessor who manages the voter database.

Hart InterCivic is well known to election activists as the manufacturer of the proprietary eSlate voting terminal and the election system software that goes with it. Election systems take the votes from voters and tabulate them.

The statewide election management system for Texas also begins with proprietary software from Hart InterCivic known as eRegistry. Of the $9.5 million that the state is paying in startup costs for the project, $4.0 million is dedicated to license fees for eRegistry.

“At the time the project began, the Hart software was not fully developed,” says project manager Futrell. “On the one hand, that means there were really a lot of unknowns; on the other hand, we get to shape it.”

A list of about 2,800 detailed requirements for the TEAMS project are nearly ready for approval by the state, says Futrell. That part of the project had been scheduled for approval Feb. 3.

Another significant milestone — a software release known as “Hart One” — is also pending approval. Original plans called for Hart One to be completed by March 15. Futrell says that was the day when Hart provided a URL to access the software, followed in the next several days by a CD, source code to be escrowed, and user manuals. Hart will be paid $975,000 for Hart One when it is finally accepted by the state.

Futrell says the project is still in the first phase or “Prepare Phase” and that the whole project team has recently completed a two-day review of the project. According to early plans, Prepare Phase was scheduled for completion in late January or early February. But Futrell says “unfortunate timing” plays a role in the delays.

In one “unfortunate” conflict, the state had originally scheduled normal work during the November elections of 2004. In another, training of statewide users will fall during the holiday season of 2005.

Futrell predicts the state will close the gap in deadlines during the next two phases of the project, known as “Design” and “Configure” phases. The Design Phase originally scheduled to be completed on April 8 will be pushed back to June 27. But the Configure Phase originally scheduled for completion in mid-December will only be pushed back about a week.

“We still believe that we will have the voter registration part completed in time for the HAVA deadline,” says Futrell. Some of the other election management features may come later.

For some time, the Secretary of State has already been managing voter rolls for 164 counties, says another source with the Secretary of State. HAVA will allow the remaining 90 counties to maintain their own systems, so long as they upload data to the statewide database on a timely basis. The Secretary of State will try to build a system so impressive that all counties will sign up for “real time” service, eliminating themselves as middle managers.

A two-page brochure posted at the Hart website says that eRegistry’s functionality includes:

Voter Registration: Complete Registration Functionality; Validation against Agency Data; Voter Address, Event and Voting Histories; Suppression of Confidential Voter Information; Automated Mass Voter Updates and Mailings; Voter Address; District and Precinct Maintenance; and Redistricting.

Comprehensive Reporting: NVRA reporting; Standard, Ad Hoc, Statistical and Performance-based Reporting.

Election Management: Absentee Balloting n Early Voting; Poll Worker Recruitment, Assignment and Training; Polling Place Management; Poll Book Printing; Candidate Filing; Petition Management; Canvass; Election Results Reporting; Ballot Generation / Definition Capabilities; Public Information Generation, Tracking and Billing.

Imports/Exports in XML Format: Imports agency data and exports voter registration information to other states in XML format for standardized election data exchange.

Imaging: Voter signatures, applications and correspondence; petition pages; poll book pages; voter IDs; provisional ballot applications. Utilizes off-the-shelf scanners.

Automated Processing: Bar Codes for voter correspondence, voting history, updates from poll books, absentee ballot returns, voter sign-in, precinct equipment, supplies, ballot boxes, OCR/ICR for voter application processing

Great care is taken in the Hart portion of the contract to maintain Hart’s ownership, control, and confidentiality over this powerful and comprehensive software technology. The state of Texas, says the contract, “agrees to treat the Source Code and other deposit materials as exceptionally valuable trade secrets.”

For example, the contract prohibits, “adaptation, conversion, reverse engineering, disassembly or de-compilation” of the eRegistry software without Hart’s permission. The state is not even allowed to publish “results of benchmark tests run on the Software” without Hart’s approval. And in the event that Hart determines such results “contain confidential or proprietary information” the contract binds the state to “seek confidential treatment” of the information.

Hart’s intellectual property will include improvements and upgrades made to eRegistry during the contract, but the state has a fifth-year option to buy the whole package “as is” at fair market value.

Part of the complexity of the TEAMS project, says project manager Futrell, is determining which of the 2,800 required functions are already part of the Hart software and which will require customization. Then designers will have to figure out how to “wrap” the custom features around the existing Hart core.

Note: First version posted Mar. 30 with substantial updates following the Futrell interview Mar. 31. The Texas Civil Rights Review has scheduled another contract viewing for the week of Apr. 4.

* * *

Note: following careful review of project documents, this story was corrected on Apr. 17 to reflect that the Hart product of Mar
ch 15 is called “Hart One.”

Please notice in the following rant how the writer takes the ‘white usage’ of racism and runs with it. There is no evidence in the email that the writer bothered to consider the ‘black usage’ for racism suggested by the article under fire. No doubt, experience with this sort of Cape Codder is what motivates Mr. Gonsalves to advise his black readers not to use the r-word in white company.

Dear Sir,

Read your article on Cape Cod “racism” problem.What a pathetic example of race baiting jibberish and unmitigated BS.

I happen to live in the area and if you knew what you were talking about you would know that Cape Cod is well represented by many black people of good character who are treated with dignity and respect. The town of Onset Mass has and has had a very large, possibly majority, black population, mostly Cape Verdeans, one of whom I would bet is Mr.Gonsalves. These people are hard working good citizens who have always enjoyed the acceptence of the rest of the population in the area. It has always been a given that with minor exceptions people are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin or the movies that they prefer.

Until now I was not aware that there were “black”movies or”white” movies although I have seen “black and white” movies in the past. You have the distinction of trying to popularise a newly perceived or concocted schism between blacks and whites, for what purpose I can’t imagine, maybe just to stir up some conflict where it doesn’t exist. Would it be your purpose to force theater owners to show predominantly unpopular movies to empty theaters for the sake of political correctness or reparitions for slavery? I would like to know how you derived your assessment of the theater owners “intent”as other than making a living by selling tickets.

One of the most significant factors in keeping any dissention going between black and white is people like you and your absurd contentions continually harping on their differences real or as in this case imagined. This article is really a stretch in an attempt to do so and you do a disservice to your fellow blacks. This article has “pity poor me I’m black and everyone shares my self loathing” in every line,except where Mr Gonsalves is quoted.

Previous to the Civil rights Act of 1963 if you referred to a Cape Verdean as Black they would be very quick to correct you and insist that they were Cape Verdean and not black or negro (an acceptable term then). Now everybody is black and proud and taking their place at the front of the line for set asides and affirmative action preference. That is affirmative action at work.

Cape Verdeans (blacks) are now a protected class where before they were just like everyone else in town, a person. I guess they signed on to your philosophy of “Whitey” owes me. Where before they were just “folks”as you so quaintly label them now the citizens of Cape Cod are “black folks” and “white folks”and “Whitey won’t give them the movies they want. None of them would ever think or believe that they were getting the short end of the movie biz if you didn’t concoct this pathetic exercise in race baiting.You should be ashamed.

I have an idea that most proud Cape Cod blacks would agree with me and disavow your racist screed about such a pathetic issue as what movies are being shown. You see racism everywhere and if it stopped you would just be like everyone else.Heaven forbid that racism is eliminated and you lose your “special” victimhood status. Not much chance of that happening with an outlook like yours. You are part of the problem not the soloution.Smarten up.

With lowest of regards,

PS. No need to reply you don’t have anything to say that will redeem yourself from this slur on the good people of Cape Codfish.

Honestly, I think the reader above did not take much time to think about the article. Not only does he (she?) neglect the article’s attention to two quite different meanings of racism, but he also seems not to have read the phrase “existential courage” (something quite different from “pity me”).

But quite aside from ideas that were explicitly treated in the article, the writer above plays innocent on the question of audience demographics. He would blame me first for practices that have long been embedded in the funding, marketing, and casting decisions of motion pictures in the USA.

Affirmative action? Oh no. There’s that, too? Yes, and a classic case of defacto segregation to go right along with it.

On the other hand, here is a reader who found in the Cape Cod article a new way to think about the difficulties of our common lives.

Sir:

An excellent, delicate elucidation of a problem that many might well not even see exists; I didn’t really grasp it myself until I read your article. I sensed that there was a dichotomy between the views of whites and people of color I know, but your essay clarified for me the precise nature of that difference.

How fatiguing it is to be always thinking of skin color. Your article brought that home to me as well. We need explanations such as yours, yet I can’t help wishing people would simply grow up and forget about it. But then I’m so mixed (1/4 Native American, 1/4 Creole, 1/4 Welsh, 1/16 African American, 1/16 French) I hardly even know where I fit on your continuum of “intent” versus “effect”, though I recognize the existence and influence of both.

At any rate, this is one of the most useful things I’ve read in a long time. You expanded my thinking and I value that above everything.

Most sincerely,

Note to pissed off Cape Codders: readers who find the article useful do not blame Cape Codders first.–gm

Notes on Misplaced Autonomy

By Greg Moses

CounterPunch / Global Resistance Network /
Dissident Voice

SouthWest Border Vigilantes say gringos should drop everything they are doing and go stand shoulder to shoulder at the Mexican border to prevent anybody from walking North.

In response, I’m not saying gringo vigilantes are altogether stupid people, because there are most likely many areas of life where they display dignity and intelligence. The sooner they return to those areas the better.

Yet suppose for the sake of peacemaking that we find common ground with vigilantes in their pure anxiety about the border. What they are worried about is a swamped labor market where more people share fewer jobs and declining pay. That anxiety has some basis in reality.

But it is misleading to see the chief cause of the labor problem along an imaginary line that separates the USA from Mexico. Blame America’s problems on Mexicans? The battle cry of the border vigilante is evidence that we live in desperate and confused times.

Where border vigilantes should look is toward the tallest skyscrapers of their hometown cities, up to the penthouses where business plans are being hatched to pay ever fewer American workers ever smaller paychecks. There is where the vigilantes should stand shoulder to shoulder not letting anyone down the elevators until a national labor plan is laser printed and signed by each and every penthouse occupant and posted on the internet in pdf format.

Not only will a national labor plan manage existing American workers toward peak participation, but it will also show how immigrant workers will continue to be integrated (or re-integrated) into an expanding labor market.

America has always been able to do this for gringo immigrants — work them in. And so the sons and daughters of gringo immigrants should demand a plan to “work in” immigrants yet to come. Do unto others, etc.

It is just plain sick to see gringos standing at the Mexican border as if their own gringo forefathers walked the Bering straits or paddled the great oceans to get here 10,000 years ago, got to know all the plants and animals, bred corn and tapped pulque, discovered tomatoes and tortillas. Inhospitality however is a gringo specialty and the sickness we are quite used to seeing, even when they have their mouths stuffed with fajita enchilada specials. For shame.

We must remind border vigilantes that unemployment was nowhere to be found in America prior to gringo arrival which means essentially that gringos have to figure out how they are going to take responsibility for solving at least one problem they carry with them everywhere they go. Because now that everyone has adopted the advanced gringo economic scheme that is never offered as an option, unemployment has spread like smallpox.

Blaming Mexicans for the effects of a poorly managed USA labor policy is a sign of intellectual and moral weakness, as if the leading question asked by the vigilantes is not who is most responsible for this mess but who can we most easily pick on.

But those are the easy truths to face, because they are all rooted in the past. More difficult truths of labor anxiety reach into the future, because gringo nation for the first time in history is about to get old. This is the truth of the social security crisis.

As gringo nation prepares for old age, it will have more to figure out than where to get its retirement checks from. Because retirement checks must be spent. And in order for there to actually be an economy in which to spend the retirement checks, old gringo nation is going to have to figure out how to get some youth into its economy — youth that gringo nation cannot itself provide.

Nor will the cure be found in proposals to deport lower paid immigrants in a dim-witted attempt to raise the average taxable income of an aging nation. Gringos who offer this plan seem not to be aware that where there are no lower paid workers there cannot be any higher paid ones. This systematic failure of their economic comprehension arises most naturally from gringo assumptions that wealthy people make themselves rich.

And yet, we have to sympathize a little with gringo illiteracy in economic theory, because they are just repeating what they are taught in schools. They are taught for instance that gringos themselves made gringo nation rich. And so they assume that gringo nation will be richer without lower paid Mexicans. The logic is as deluded as it is explainable once you see what gringo nation really means by excellence in education.

Now you could unionize the lower paid immigrants and get their paychecks raised up to a living wage. But if you do away with the labor that lower paid workers provide you would have what Douglas Turner Ward called a “Day of Absence” (1965) more recently dramatized in “A Day without a Mexican” (2004). What gringo ideologues tend to forget is that so-called menial labor gets done because without it no fortunes can be built. If you deport all the immigrants who do that work, someone will have to be found to take their places. If it’s a higher average income that you want, why not raise the wages?

So when gazing across the economy from penthouses high atop the USA, planners will have to tell us, are they capable of solving this problem of working in immigrants as usual — just like they did for their own gringo selves — or not? If not, then gringo vigilantes will have found a proper place to lose their tempers.

Where planners won’t do their planning, that’s where activism is needed, autonomously creating the economy that planners have abandoned.

But for the time being, it turns out to be a very handy exercise to have gringo vigilantes standing at the borderlands where they can look around. Because just to their South bubbles the fountain of youth that their aging economy needs. It will come as a gift if they let it in.

As they stand there looking around at the great crossing grounds that is their last best hope for a grateful old age, they can ask, what do we need to build here as welcoming mats?

And I have no doubt about it, as soon as the gringo vigilantes begin to work out answers to the “welcome mat” problem, we’ll see how intelligent and creative they can be. They will still be gringos, God bless them, but they won’t be vigilantes anymore.

* * *

Note: by way of full disclosure, the author is a recovering gringo.