ustxtxb_obs_1974_08_09_50_00022-00000_000.pdf

Houston street corner newsracks in need of a little loving care and attention The Observer needs a friend in Houston who would be willing to attend to the newsrack route for a commission based on sales. The job involves making the rounds of the 17 racks every two weeks to stock the new issue and collect the money, plus occasional mechanical adjustments to ‘ the racks and, whenever appropriate, relocating some of the racks to more profitable corners. If you think you might be willing to help out, please call Ed Burton in Houston 523-6200 for additional information. Ph00111XN ARIZONA The west’s most scenic spot where the sun spends the winter. Golf, swim, horseback ride, cook-outs in resort splendor. Season: Mid-December to May V/rite for rates. JOKAKE INN PARADISE INN 6000 E. Camelback Road PHOENIX The Outpost Austin’s nest Barbecue 11:30-7:30 Daily, Except Sunday David and Marion Moss 345-9045 Highway 183 North GOLF sun-fun ranch style cook-outs if we are one step closer to actually taking any gas? I further know that the crisis facing us this winter consists of two clearly separable problems with clearly separable solutions gas availability and gas price. Obviously, availability must be settled first. On availability it seems there has been some lack of understanding about just how much gas is a lot of gas. Of course it is ridiculous to think that state gas royalties could ever meet the needs of the shortage areas: Nobody was talking about that, to my knowledge. Further I can say that I certainly wasn’t talking about state gas even making up the full margin of shortage Central Texas is suffering at the hands of Lo-Vaca. The point is that when you’re cold, even 15 or 25 percent of your needs looks good when Lo-Vaca threatens a 50 or 100 percent curtailment. Volume-wise, the utility people tell me that a “package” of 5 to 10 million cubic feet is worth going after. How much is 5 to 10 million cubic feet? Well, they tell me that the state’s share of a lease near Galveston would have been 16 million cubic feet but that we let the lease buyer keep it \(and took cash the buyer’s “previous commitments!” That’s hanging in there. The solution to the price problem is more subjective. True, oil and gas royalties go to the school and university funds and any tampering with that just may raise the roof with what you called the educational lobby. Well, dammit, for once what about the people lobby? Where in the hell are the school kids going to be when the school is shut down for lack of lights and heat? In the same vein, doesn’t it seem an absolute farce that conceivably a state lease sale next winter would have to be cancelled because the capitol complex is closed as the university was last winter? In the first place, jacking up the state’s royalty from 1/6 to 1/5 is already promising the state a financial windfall which is long overdue. This goes to the schools. Secondly, , if you’re honest about it, there is a vast difference between giveaway prices and reasonable prices and then there are the robber baron prices we’re paying now. Finally, just what in the hell is the purpose of government? Must we always be saddled with a rightwing philosophy that you can make money running the fire department or the city buses or the post office? Lord, where is Horace Mann when we need him? Jim Hogg and John Reagan must be turning in their graves! I am not arguing the case. I simply offered the idea as a suggestion in keeping with the spirit of Governor Briscoe’s 22 The Texas Observer request that anyone with any possible solutions come forth and tell the legislative committees working on the problem. I don’t believe that to date the committees have exactly been overrun with fertile thoughts from other quarters. Of course, as the nominee for comptroller I am concerned about possible effects on state revenue but I will not apologize if I have gone beyond that limited scope of concern. It seems to me that our state government has far too long been hogtied by people who hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil just because it doesn’t concern their entrenched position. Bob Bullock, P.O. Box 12787, Capitol Station, Austin, Tex. 78711. IDialogue Exceptions Your article on water in Texas \(see Obs., and was, so far as I know, accurate, with some exceptions, as noted in this letter. What goes into the Frio River doesn’t arrive in San Antonio a week later, but the pressure wave from that water inflow does. The result is roughly the same in terms of the availability of water, but the water is not physically transported over that long distance nearly so fast. Ranch Town is not currently being constructed. True, the judge of the federal district court in San Antonio ruled against the contention of our \(the citizens’ Court of Appeals has not yet ruled. Plaintiffs in the suit are: Sierra Club, League of Women Voters, American Association of University Women, Citizens for a Better Environment, Bexar County and the Edwards Underground Water District. We have not lost our battle in court, and what is probably more important, we have brought to public attention the serious problems ‘associated with urbanizing the aquifer recharge zone in Bexar County. Judge Spears, who heard the case in San Antonio, cited the role of the citizens’ groups in bringing the seriousness of the issue to the public’s eye. Of more immediate real danger to the aquifer at present is the planned development by Lloyd Denton of large acreage near the intersection of FM1604 and US 281 in northern Bexar County. This issue is not yet settled, and citizens’ groups are carefully watching what occurs so that we may decide what citizens’ action to take, if any. The involvement of the TWQB deserves special mention. Never have we seen an agency charged with the public trust work