Plan to attract business, retain character of East Austin?
Sadly, new East Austin homeowner's and even East Austin residents that have been here for years may be pushed out by big corporate dollars being spent in East Austin; and driving up our taxes. Some aspects of "cleaning up" may be a good thing for East Austin, this part of town has been in an eternal struggle for a fair shake at things. The news story below broke today, by News 8 Austin. Before you read it, read this, and then take a look at just some of the many struggles East Austin has faced and is still fighting for an equal piece of the pie.

What the hell is happening to Austin? We have heard about the invasion of the techies and the fleeing of culture. Pick your media source and read, hear or watch about something new that has come or gone. Indy or mainstream it has all been the same. The information about a loss of local flavor is either presented with deep cynicism,pessimism or optimism. The reflection of the past, the bygone years of hippie cool, is a frequent occurrence in these times of change. Much can be learned through reflection of days gone by, but they must be seen as days gone by nonetheless. We must reach acceptance and move on.I have heard much arguing and preaching, but I haven’t heard many solutions. What can we do in these times of growth and expansion?Our actions this day, this very minute are accountable. We must be accountable. We must remember that we do have a choice. We are a powerful! We can prevent the loss of culture to the extent that we choose to mobilize and keep it alive.This is a movement friends. It does not involve picketing (though it can) or naked marches (though it should).You can all join in the take-back of our city.One of the ways that the starbuckization thing is going down here is because of convenience.We are losing our culture in a battle with convenience. Which would you rather have?We need to gather together and form a safety net around the businesses that are at risk. If we patronize the MoM & PoP’s in this town, than we send a message to the intruders that says we don’t want to be anyplace, USA. We want to be Austin!I wanted to write a piece about the struggles my friends at local businesses are involved in to try and stay afloat. I must have started the piece six or seven times. Each time I would find myself blaming this or that. There are countless culprits that can be exploited, but what good does that do? It just points outmore problems. I would rather offer a solution instead. If you love Austin, please take that extra step to visit and support a local venue. Remember, things can only disappear or fade, if we collectively choose to turn our backs.Word of mouth is powerful. Let your voices be heard.
Now here is the News 8 Austin Story- as you read this, please don't leave it up to city council to decide what's best for us in East Austin. WE NEED TO HAVE A SAY, WE ALL NEED TO SPEAK UP, AND WE ALL NEED TO HAVE A PART IN IT!


A revitalized East 11th Street
by: Allie Rasmus, News 8 Austin)

City leaders have a new plan to help close what they call the "prosperity gap" between East Austin and the rest of the city. Austin City Council members Raul Alvarez and Danny Thomas introduced the Community Preservation and Revitalization Zone. It would provide a property tax rebate for businesses based on the level of commercial development in the area.
City leaders say it's the best way to lower poverty and unemployment rates in East Austin. The goal is to keep business growing without shutting out the people who give East Austin its identity.
"[The city] would like to as much as they can help some of the local business owners, but also try to attract some of the commercial businesses that are lacking," Alvarez said.
Longtime East Austin residents such as Eva Lindsey want to be sure any urban development project is done properly. Lindsey now manages the historic Victory Grill on 11th and Waller, in the heart of East Austin.
She lived through the revitalization of this neighborhood before, almost 40 years ago.
"I grew up in East Austin and my parents' home were part of the urban renewal. It was called urban renewal at that time, but it's basically the same thing - when development comes through," she said.
Lindsey wants to make sure any new buildings reflect the neighborhood's culture.
"I want to make sure the integrity of what I'm trying to do fits in with the neighborhood," she said. The revitalization plan is in its early stages. Alvarez and Thomas will present their plan to the rest of the council within the next three months.
Critics of revitalization projects say one of the negative side effects is that property taxes will rise.
Under the plan, developers would have to contribute part of their property tax to a city fund. Some of the money would go to longtime homeowners to make sure they can afford to stay in the neighborhood.
Leaders say East Austin is growing, but the poverty rate currently stands at twice the level compared to the rest of the city.
Are They Really Helping Us?

Take a look at former stories and comments about East Austin:


In January 2004, the Austin American Statesman published a comprehensive study of “use of force” reports from Austin police officers over the past six years. The result – blacks are twice as likely as whites to have force used against them, while Latinos are 25% more likely to experience police use of force. The series relied on documents first deemed public records when the Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of the San Antonio Express News, making possible a similar story by that paper in April 2002.
See the entire Statesman series at http://www.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/useofforce/index.html

Blacks bear the brunt when police use force




By Erik Rodriguez and Andy Alford
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, January 25, 2004
Austin police used force against African Americans and Hispanics at significantly higher rates than they did against whites during the past six years, according to an Austin American-Statesman analysis of police statistics.
For Hispanics, the likelihood was 25 percent greater. For African Americans, it was 100 percent.
The difference in police treatment defies easy explanation. Records of police calls indicate that minorities were 40 percent more likely to be involved in reports of violent crimes than whites. But police used force against African Americans at even higher rates.
The unequal treatment occurred throughout Austin, although it was more pronounced in the neighborhoods east of Interstate 35. And it has a grim parallel: Eleven people died after violent encounters with police during the period. All but one were minorities. Two were wielding guns.
The yawning divide between the way Austin police and east side residents view these deaths has prompted lawsuits and calls for independent investigations. Some community activists and residents say it has dampened faith in the police. In recent years, suspicion erupted into rage after police fatally shot two black people — Sophia King and Jesse Lee Owens — both in East Austin.
"There are good cops out there," said Jeffrey Thornton, 23, an East Austin resident injured during an encounter with police in 2002. "Most of them do their job, to serve and protect. But some of them injure and hurt."
Experts say the newspaper's analysis is rare in its approach, detail and comprehensiveness but that the racial disparity it reveals is evident in police departments across the country. The analysis offers Austin residents, city and law enforcement leaders insight into the way their police department works and an opportunity to engage in an informed discussion about what should happen next.
In an interview Thursday, Austin police Chief Stan Knee said he would have analyzed use of force rates differently than the newspaper did, but that he would not contest the findings.
"It's disappointing. I wish it weren't so," he said. "We look at things using a different base, but it doesn't matter. The end result, these numbers and the numbers that we look at, is that we need to do a better job giving our people better training and better equipment in order to decrease the likelihood that use of force will be employed."
Police officials consulted Samuel Walker, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska-Omaha in July, after the Owens shooting, to help the department improve its system for identifying problem officers. Walker is being paid through a Department of Justice grant. The American-Statesman contacted him independently earlier this month.
"The fact is that in Austin, as in Omaha and in other cities in this country, there are racial tensions," he said. "There is a problem. In any enterprise, whether a police department, a hospital or an airline, you should pay attention to those problems and try and solve them."
The newspaper also contacted Alejandro del Carmen, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Texas-Arlington, who specializes in racial profiling. He reviewed the methodology and findings of the American-Statesman's analysis and said the disparity in use of force shows that Austin has a problem.
"This is basically a reflection of poor training and a culture in a particular police department that does not take seriously the issue of racial sensitivity," he said.
The findings
In the past six years, more than 99 percent of police incidents here ended without a violent physical confrontation. In 4,280 incidents, however, officers reported using force, ranging from punches and kicks to gunshots, as they attempted to arrest suspects.
Each Austin police officer who uses violence against a suspect must file a document called a use of force report detailing what occurred during the incident. The American-Statesman analyzed the 6,447 reports filed from October 1998, when the department began requiring the documents, to May 2003.
The paper also analyzed more than 1.3 million records in crime databases, court testimony, surveillance video, 911 tapes and police reports. Findings are also based on interviews with police officials, people who have clashed with police and the families of those killed.
Among the findings:
• Whites were met with police force 3.7 of every 1,000 times they came into contact with police. The rate for Hispanics was 4.6 of 1,000 contacts and for blacks, 7.4 of every 1,000 contacts.
• Blacks were more likely than whites to meet force in the area west of I-35, even though rates of force west of the highway are lower overall.
• Whites in Austin were involved in 22 violent crimes for every 1,000 reported crimes, compared with 31 for Hispanics and 31 for blacks, according to records of police calls.
• Downtown — the most likely place for anyone, regardless of race, to become involved in a violent encounter with police — officers used force against one of about every 14 blacks involved in an incident. That is based on a rate of 72.6 violent encounters for every 1,000 blacks involved in an incident. For whites, the rate was 34.6 per 1,000, about one in 29; for Hispanics, 43.7, or about one in 23.
• Police who use force face few questions from supervisors. In only one out of 6,447 use of force reports did a supervisor suggest that an officer failed to follow procedure. Eight officers received additional training after filing reports. Police officials said supervisors counseled 14 additional officers about their use of force, but they don't know if the officers received additional training. In 1999, the latest year for which the national statistics are available, Justice Department statistics showed that the national use of force rate was 11.5 for every 1,000 police contacts. Austin's rate that year was 2.1 per thousand. Overall in the past six years, the Austin rate was 4.9 per thousand.
David Klinger, a former police officer who is a criminologist and associate professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said that's proof Austin police are behaving well.
"I think it would behoove the citizens of Austin to try to reframe their understanding of the Police Department and say, wait a minute, we have a low rate of force," he said. "Officer-involved shootings are rare. Are there some officers that are doing the wrong thing? Probably, but that's a different thing. That's an anomaly."
In response to community concerns, law enforcement and city officials are discussing ways to ease relations with minority groups. Police also want more officers and better technology, higher pay to attract more experienced candidates and a revamp of the police union contract that helped create the independent police monitor's office. The contract expires in March.
Knee said officers are getting cultural diversity training, including training videos to help them better understand Hispanic culture. He said the next step is to reach out to African Americans.
"There remains, I think, a gap between us and the African American community," Knee said. "Prior to the recent shootings, I was very comfortable about the progress we were making. . . . The (Owens) shooting was a setback."
Community outrage
Residents in East Austin say they're angry, frustrated and tired of explanations. Their voices grew louder last year after two officer-involved shootings. Both cases involved white officers who shot black men.
Officer Scott Glasgow shot and killed Owens in June as Owens tried to drive away from him in East Austin. The following month, Sgt. Gregory Truitt, a Travis County sheriff's deputy, shot and killed Lennon Johnson after Johnson pulled him into his car in Southeast Austin and threatened to drive into a concrete embankment.
Charges of criminally negligent homicide against Glasgow were dismissed earlier this month, and last month a grand jury declined to indict Truitt. Officials have defended both officers, saying their lives were in immediate danger.
The deaths reignited smoldering anger over the way city officials handled the fatal June 2002 shooting of King, a woman with a history of mental illness. Officer John Coffey shot and killed King at an Austin Housing Authority apartment complex after police say she threatened her apartment manager with a knife. A grand jury cleared Coffey of any wrongdoing two weeks later.
City officials hired a Dallas law firm to conduct an investigation but withheld the report it produced because of the union contract. That contract gives the police monitor authority to review confidential internal investigations, but it prevents the city from releasing summaries to the public unless the officer is disciplined.
Since January 1998, nine other people have died following incidents of Austin police force, including five from gunshot wounds inflicted by police and four from apparent overdoses.
The deaths have led many East Austin residents to believe they are a target for police, said Thornton, who is black.
"That's the tunnel vision they have about African Americans," he said. "That if you see more than one of them, they're in a gang or somewhat. That we're all troublemakers. And that's not true."
On June 20, 2002, Thornton said, he stood in a crowd outside the Rehab Lounge on Sixth Street, watching a fight break out just after 2 a.m. He told a friend that he thought one officer was being too rough. Then, Officer Michael Olsen came toward him and told him he would get a ticket for standing in the road.
Instead of issuing the ticket, Thornton said, Olsen slammed him onto the hood of a nearby patrol car twice. He remembered the heat of the car's engine burning his face. He said he tried to get up to call for help, but Olsen threw him onto the pavement head first, knocking him unconscious.
When Thornton awoke, he was lying on the street with a raised welt on his head and blood streaming into his eyes. He remembered being placed in an ambulance only to have police remove him. He said Olsen told him he was faking his injuries. Instead of going to the hospital, he was taken to jail, where he was booked and released the next day.
Olsen's account, documented in a police report shortly after the incident, tells a different story.
Olsen said Thornton followed him on the street, harassing him and making references to "racist cops." Olsen said that he wanted to give Thornton a ticket but that Thornton repeatedly tried to resist a search.
"I started to check his front waist band, but before I could start he brought his left arm back," Olsen wrote. "He then reached for his front left pants pocket, where I had observed a lump already. . . . I swung him around to take him to the ground for handcuffing.
"As we went toward the ground I could tell that his head might hit the ground. I twisted my body around to try to take most of the fall myself. We hit the ground together."
In the minutes that followed, Olsen reported, paramedics placed Thornton into an ambulance. In the report, officers said they removed Thornton from the ambulance unhurt.
"As there was nothing medically wrong with the male, he was taken out of the EMS unit and walked to . . . Olsen's patrol unit," Officer Michael Morgovnik wrote.
Olsen described it this way: "EMS checked him and he refused transport."
Police later charged Thornton with resisting a search and interfering with police duties.
While the two accounts are in conflict, a video recorder documented the incident and would later shed further light.
Police face challenges
When police use force it is usually at night, peaking after 2 a.m. and near Sixth Street. The single-highest number of force incidents recorded occurred at Sixth and Trinity streets, where police have a weekend command post, according to the analysis.
The 1,830 reports filed in downtown incidents account for nearly 30 percent of all use of force reports filed. In about 41.1 of every 1,000 times citizens had contact with police downtown, police used force. That rate is nearly nine times higher than the citywide average.
Thornton's case notwithstanding, targets of police force are rarely bystanders. Police reports suggest that people involved in use of force incidents committed myriad crimes, from burglary to aggravated assault — an average of 2.6 crimes for every person, based on dispatcher calls.
Some cases underline the potentially life-threatening situations officers face. In March, three officers went to a home near U.S. 290 and U.S. 183 to question a man whose brother they were searching for. One of the occupants, Daniel Dush, who is black, tried to escape, swinging his fists and running into a yard as police tried to arrest him.
During the chase, Dush pushed officers John Buell and Kelly Davenport into a tree, knocking them to the ground. He assaulted another officer, Kurt Thomas, and punched Davenport in the face, fracturing her jaw. At that point, officers said, they began kicking him to make him stop. He continued to throw elbow punches after he had been handcuffed, they said. Police charged Dush with resisting arrest, two counts of aggravated assault on a public servant and one count of assault on a public servant. In interviews with police, Dush acknowledged he resisted arrest but said he did not assault the officers.
"I felt Daniel was a danger to us, and really wanted to hurt us and not just get away from being arrested," Buell later wrote in a police report.
Davenport went to St. David's Medical Center for her jaw injury and returned a day later for treatment of a herniated disk.
Each of the officers filed a use of force report shortly after the incident, writing that they used kicks and "knee strikes to the chest and arms" to subdue Dush. Each said Dush was an aggressor. Thomas noted that Dush had received minor injuries and had back pain. Davenport reported that Dush complained of an injury but did not appear to be hurt.
Sometimes, a single incident can threaten dozens of officers at once. In February 2001, several officers were injured during a riot on Sixth Street following a Mardi Gras celebration. Police tried to break up a fight only to have a growing and increasingly belligerent crowd hurl bottles and rocks at them.
Police arrested 35 people and filed 43 use of force reports.
"Some of the patrolmen felt at times as if they were losing," Knee told the American-Statesman shortly after the incident. "The officers I talked to, many of them were scared. It was a very, very tumultuous time."
Fear lingers
In both the Thornton and Dush cases, police supervisors did not question their officers' actions, according to reports.
Three days after his incident, Thornton filed a police internal affairs complaint against Olsen. He learned a surveillance camera at the Texas Lottery Commission headquarters nearby had caught the incident on tape. A camera was installed inside the cruiser but it had been turned off, police records show.
A copy of the lottery commission video, obtained under the Texas Public Information Act, shows Thornton lying on the ground as an ambulance arrives. It does not show the struggle with police, but it shows Olsen walking past Thornton into a crowd. Moments later, Olsen emerges from the crowd and walks directly toward Thornton. Those acts are inconsistent with what Olsen wrote in his report — that Thornton followed him.
In December 2002, Olsen was suspended for 60 days for using profanity and excessive force and making false statements on his police report and in interviews with investigators. Knee said Thursday that the lottery commission tape was used in the internal investigation, but would not elaborate.
"Officer Olsen used inappropriate force against Mr. Thornton which caused Mr. Thornton to hit the ground and injure his head," Knee wrote in a memo outlining the suspension. "Officer Olsen's actions enraged the crowd which became hostile toward the police and EMS personnel."
Knee also mandated additional training for Olsen and other conditions expunged from the memo. Officials dropped the charges against Thornton.
In July, a grand jury indicted Olsen on three felony counts of tampering with a governmental record. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle dropped the charges shortly before Christmas because there wasn't enough evidence to determine whether Olsen was trying to be deceptive, he said.
Meanwhile, life has changed for Thornton.
A city sanitation worker, he was reprimanded for missing work the Friday morning he was in jail. He said that if he has another unexcused absence from work he might lose his job. He worries about going out at night.
Thornton says that people in his East Austin neighborhood routinely drive away from passing police cars to avoid confrontation. And he thinks officers are only too quick to single out African Americans.
Thornton has filed a $100,000 lawsuit against the city and Olsen, alleging his constitutional rights were violated. It could be at least a year before the case is resolved.
Others have filed lawsuits, too, including the relatives of Sophia King, the family of Joel Hernandez, who died in August 2001 after police restrained him, and relatives of Steven Bernard Scott, who died in a 1999 after a violent encounter with police. In October, Laura Tansey Rey-Sanchez, a North Austin homeowner, sued after she said a police officer used excessive force against her when she called to report a mentally ill man at her front door.
Thornton figures that the surveillance video helped him once, and that it might again.
"Everything was in my favor when that camera was on," he said. "If it wasn't there, I don't know what would have happened."


Sunday, September 26, 2004

For Austin to really understand how the Eastside works, and how it could work better, and how it can help the rest of town work better, it's the people of East Austin, not the properties, that need to increase in value. So, it's official: East Austin is either being "revitalized" (if you approve of it) or "gentrified" (if you don't). The Statesman says so. As you may remember, the daily informed us last month that East Austin property values have gone up at "twice the countywide average." You don't say. The Statesman based this front-page news on Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD) data, which is, to say the least, an imperfect indicator of what's happening on the ground. Home sales on the Eastside, while unquestionably more common than they were five years ago, are still quite rare compared to other parts of town. But each of those few sales can affect the appraised value of every home in its neighborhood, which generally spawns a spate of protests to TCAD by current homeowners. When those protests are resolved, the East Austin appreciation rate may be more "in line" with the countywide average.Of course, properties on the Eastside have been so consistently redlined and undervalued that an appreciation rate of four or five times the countywide average would be required to bring them near the value of the mythical "average Austin home." (My own house, when I bought it, was appraised for one-fourth of the seller's asking price, which was still well below the median home value back in 1993.) The average single-family home appraisal in the 78702 ZIP code - less than $40,000, according to the daily's own report - is still the lowest in the county. (This ZIP is second-to-last, trailed only by neighboring 78721, in the more germane, to real estate folks, figure of appraised value per square foot.)An altogether more interesting fact was buried in the jump of that front-page story: "In some areas, such as the Stonegate neighborhood and... the homes near the East 11th and 12th Streets redevelopment, values did not change from 1997 to 1998." Presumably, these examples were not picked at random; Stonegate was at the center of the Tannehill Apartments imbroglio last fall, and the "East 11th and 12th Streets redevelopment" is better known to y'all as the always-interesting Austin Revitalization Authority. Apparently, TCAD does not see the same rapid, wholesale "gentrification" of the inner Eastside that has been identified, and laid at the Central East Austin neighborhoods' feet, by many supposed Eastside "leaders."What's happened instead, one thinks, is that the Statesman and other local opinion-makers have finally noticed that East Austin is actually a pretty nice place to live. And the thought that a low-income neighborhood is not, by definition, a blighted slum causes them too much cognitive dissonance. So, to resolve this discord, we're being "informed" of an economic trend that really doesn't exist, and in turn being denied the true story.Eastside Discovery?There is apparently a policy at the Statesman against referring to these inner Eastside neighborhoods by name - such as Guadalupe, Blackshear, Chestnut, or Swede Hill, the last being my own neighborhood. (The May 28 piece does, however, refer to "Tarrytown.") Ten days later, Rich Oppel added his two cents to the daily's East Austin yahoo-fest with an editorial in which he also refers specifically to Guadalupe and Swede Hill, but mentions neither by name. We are, instead, a "site" where ARA director Byron Marshall speculates the authority could direct the first phase of its $9 million publicly funded renewal project, along I-35 toward MLK.Oppel quotes one developer as saying "the people who take advantage of [Eastside renewal] now will truly be the pioneers and the settlers, and they will be pleased by their choice." No word on what the people who've already made that choice - and who've for their trouble been castigated as racists, gentrifiers, interlopers, obstructionists, and in my neighborhood's case (a personal favorite) "white devils" - are supposed to do to welcome these new "pioneers." Get out of the way, one supposes.This should gall you as much as it galls me, since in my years living in, and fighting for, exactly what Oppel now touts as the Eastside's bright future - a centrally located, affordable, historic, and culturally diverse mixed-use inner-city neighborhood - among our most formidable foes has been the Austin American-Statesman. Apparently, the vitality that Oppel has so recently discovered on the Eastside is now mentionable because the daily can pretend that people like Marshall are responsible for creating it. News flash, Rich: Had you hopped in a cab the very first day you arrived in Austin and hopped out on the inner Eastside, you would have seen exactly the same signs of "renewal."Because the people who are renewing the Eastside are, of course, the people who live there, and the people who work and attend school and (significantly) go to church there, not the ARA or any developer-come-lately. They are not all Anglo, as is often advanced by those who decry "gentrification" or even those who applaud it. In his piece, Oppel quotes local star architect Juan Cotera as lauding "Anglos who've come in and fixed up houses" in the Guadalupe neighborhood. Said houses, according to Guadalupe neighborhood leaders, are actually owned by Hispanics. (To his credit, though, Oppel does describe the inner Eastside as "ethnically mixed," a truth that has long evaded many ARA supporters.)Whoever we are, black, brown, and white, we are the same people who have been slapped around repeatedly by the daily, and by the Eric Mitchell Mafia, for holding the silly notion that, since we are responsible for the current (and not insignificant) vitality of East Austin, we deserve some sort of authority in affairs affecting our neighborhoods, and most specifically within the ARA. We now have that voice, of course, much to the chagrin of most of the original ARA board members, who seem to have responded by not showing up at board and community meetings. (This as reported by several new ARA board members.) As a consequence, the vision of the ARA has changed profoundly in a few short months. Gone (for now) is the talk about a regional shopping mall, or a strip of chain stores and downtown-spillover office space.Instead, we now hear talk of 11th and 12th Streets being a bona fide mixed-use "urban village" designed to meet the needs of people who actually live in East Austin, now and in the future. Which is what the neighborhoods have been advocating for years - not just in word but in deed - and which is what the Eastside used to be in its glory days, the memory of which is supposedly the touchstone of the whole ARA effort. In fact, it's what much of the inner Eastside is now, which is easier to see if you don't focus your attention entirely on the more derelict reaches of 11th Street.We have corner stores, places to eat, parks and libraries, small businesses, civic institutions and churches by the score, all intermixed with residential neighborhoods that, if they could be better, could also be a whole lot worse. (Interestingly, the African-American "community leaders" who orate about their Eastside ventures being altruistic, about wanting to "give back to the community," have little evident interest in "revitalizing" some of Austin's real slums and slums-in-waiting, like Colony Park or St. John's.) If "vitality" is to be our benchmark for neighborhood worthiness, then much of East Austin is a whole lot better off than many nice, white subdivisions north of Hwy290, where public life is nonexistent and the streets empty out during the workday.What's in a Word?Yeah, yeah, you know. Many will read these words as the excuses of "gentrifiers" who want the Eastside to remain "charming" and derelict so that their money will go farther and longer, so they can buy up more homes. The notion that there is much on the Eastside that is good, and worth saving, and that can serve as a model to other neighborhoods and future "renewal" efforts - that is, the notion that poor or working-class people can create and enjoy quality lives - is curiously hard to sell to many Austinites. For whatever political or social reasons, they prefer that the Eastside remain a problem that can only be solved by the local political equivalent of martial law.Which brings us to the nubbin of Eastside dialogue, the reason anybody cares about our relative appraised home values. Nobody (except some of the people who live in these places) seems to give a rip about the wholesale "gentrification" of West Campus, or Hyde Park, or much of South Austin, or even (at this late date) of Clarksville, since the history of the original black settlement by that name is generally misunderstood if not completely forgotten. And what about places like Oak Hill, which used to be kinda working-class until swamped by luxury suburban sprawl? The real "gentrification" - if we understand the term in its economic sense, the destruction of class diversity and affordability - is happening in Hays and Williamson Counties, not in East Austin.But the whole city seems to have an opinion about the "gentrification" of East Austin, an opinion that's usually premised on one, or both, of two intentional misreadings of the term. The first is that "gentrification" is something that only white people do. This is a tired old canard, but the Mitchell Mafia, and its ideological soulmates in Latino neighborhoods south of 11th Street, seem to believe it in earnest. (Although they violently reject the corollary, as well they should, that upper-class persons of color, solely by dint of their ethnicity, are "ghettoizing" Cat Mountain and Oak Hill.)Just for the record, while Anglos do form a minority of residents in the 78702 ZIP code, they do not - according to 1990 census data - constitute a generally wealthier segment of the area's population. The notion that African-American or Hispanic developers building, or aiming to build, properties that cost far more than those already standing nearby, owned, or occupied by working-class Anglos, are "gentrifiying" those neighborhoods - often while enjoying one or another subsidy for "affordable" housing - is too weird to have been acknowledged in most of Austin's public discourse in the 1990s.The other fallacy is that only residential property contributes to, or is subject to, "gentrification." If a family, of any race, buys a home, fixes it up (if necessary), and lives in it, they're "gentrifying" the neighborhood. If a law firm comes in, buys the same home, fixes it up, and offices in it, the effect goes unnoticed. This is what happened to the inner west side, the downtown blocks around Austin Community College, where homes identical to those east of I-35, in the same condition, and at the same distance from the Capitol and Congress Avenue, have become completely unaffordable for residential or even neighborhood-retail uses.This dynamic, of course, gets sped along when big new commercial projects, such as what was formerly envisioned by the ARA, get plunked down next to existing homes. (Or even at some distance from them, a concern of many Eastsiders as they follow the proposed redevelopment of Mueller Airport.) If the ARA, or other developers before and since, had succeeded in turning 11th and 12th Streets into a large-scale, completely commercial district - Mitchell's vision from the get-go - it's likely that, within a generation, the surrounding neighborhoods would become predominantly commercial (or multi-family), and homeowners could not afford to buy there. And future city leaders would scratch their heads and wonder what happened to all the downtown housing.The Future Is NowWhich is yet another cause for concern when reading Rich Oppel's vision of East Austin - which, in fairness, is not just his vision, but a good distillation of macro Austin opinion. Perhaps it's good that mainstream public opinion has abandoned the pretense that the Eastside is a slum (and, particularly, a slum of color) in need of redevelopment. What has replaced it, though, is a call to the marketplace to buy up East Austin while it's still cheap. Oppel closes his column with a fake ad for luxury condos occupied by "young professionals" - his illustration of the thesis that "East Austin will become desirable."Well, Rich, for thousands of people who live here, East Austin is already desirable. And it's because of us that you can see the signs of vitality that so impressed you - vitality that exists even though it's a working-class neighborhood, your paper's spurious reading of the tax rolls notwithstanding. For Austin to really understand how the Eastside works, and how it could work better, and how it can help the rest of town work better, it's the people of East Austin, not the properties, that need to increase in value.(by Mike Clark-Madison, of the Austin Chronicle)

Austin's School District Still Has Much Work to Do
By Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander
I proudly stood at Oak Springs Elementary School in East Austin, not with critics of Austin Independent School District, but with community leaders who deeply care about our children.
Community leaders-Mayor Gus Garcia; Charlie Betts, Downtown Austin Alliance; Larry Jackson, City of Austin's East Side Story Foundation; and Rev. Sterling Lands, Greater Calvary Missionary Baptist Church-agree that AISD is failing our inner-city children. They care passionately about the quality of the education provided by this district, and so do I.
Yes, the district has decreased its number of low-performing schools from 16 to five-all in East Austin. Yes, the district is in the process of adopting 96 percent of my Texas School Performance Review's recommendations, but not the major cost-savings. Yes, I did commend the district for having made progress.
But, has enough been done? The answer is a resounding NO.
I never recommended closing Reagan High School. I did recommend enhancing Reagan's program by creating a world-class magnet program there.
I also recommended moving the district's central administration there. Its campus is spacious with easy access and adequate parking yet it is highly underused-enrollment peaked in 1973-74 with 2,694 students; today's enrollment has dropped to 1,387. This goes along with my key recommendation to sell Carruth Administration Center. By Superintendent Pat Forgione's own admission, this Taj Mahal has been appraised as recently as spring 2001 at $19.5 million, a good $6.5 million more than my Texas School Performance Review (TSPR) report estimated and only $3.5 million less than what H.C. Carter, who built the building, says it is worth today.
Where the Superintendent and I disagree is on the moving expenses. He feels the need to spend $13.5 million to rebuild another Taj Mahal. I believe there is more than enough room at Reagan High School for both a world-class magnet program and the administration. If it is good enough for our students as it is, it is good enough for our administrators.
And, I understand the need for temporary portable facilities in the event of emergency repairs, such as mold in our schools. I do not, however, understand the need for 12 elementary schools' worth of portable facilities.
I recognize that Superintendent Forgione came on board a sinking ship when he joined AISD. But simply plugging holes will not float the boat. Leaving hard dollars on the table, conservatively $38 million, while the district holds out its hand to taxpayers for more dollars and continues to mask the performance of neighborhood schools within magnet programs by refusing to publicly report that data, for fear of having more low-performing schools, is unconscionable. We cannot fix our problems if we refuse to recognize them.
Of the eight large urban districts in Texas, AISD is last in the amount of each education dollar going into classroom instruction. By comparison, San Antonio Independent School District is spending above the
state average directly on classroom instruction. What's more, they are on track to realize 40 percent more savings than my original TSPR report recommended. AISD is on track to realize two-thirds less than recommended. Ysleta ISD, an El Paso urban district with far less advantages than Austin, is number one in putting more of each dollar directly into the classroom and they have no low-performing schools.
Holding children hostage in schools that have been low-performing for three of the past five years is unacceptable. AISD must cut unnecessary costs so that dollars can be reinvested into our East Austin schools. I would challenge the Superintendent or any board member to put their child or their grandchild in the worst school in this district for one year and then we'll debate this issue.
Nothing is more important than education. As a former teacher and school board president of AISD, but most importantly as a mother and grandmother, I have a deep and abiding interest in educational excellence for all Texas children. If the Austin American-Statesman editorial page writers think I released this report with anything other than our children in mind, they have failed to understand my heart. I love Austin. I love AISD. I graduated from AISD. My sons graduated from AISD and received outstanding educations. Now my granddaughters attend AISD and are getting an exemplary education. All children in our Capital City must have those same opportunities.
AISD should move swiftly to implement the significant cost-saving measures they have ignored, in order to refocus on our most precious resource-our children.

Austin natural gas pipeline quietly goes online
Line is set to feed Sand Hill Power Plant (IN EAST AUSTIN)
By Erik Rodriguez
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, July 6, 2004
With little controversy or fanfare, a converted crude oil pipeline running through South Austin has gone online and is
ready to send natural gas to fuel a planned 300-megawatt expansion of the Sand Hill Power Plant.
It’s the latest development for the 172-mile stretch of the Rancho pipeline, which includes a 6-mile spur to Sand Hill in
East Austin.
In the past six months, Houston-based Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP acquired the 51-year-old line, built the spur,
ran tests and agreed to subject the line to an environmental review by city-hired contractors.
The environmental report, released in June, gave the pipeline a clean bill of health and silenced many critics who said
the line was too dangerous. But some are still skeptical, pointing to findings in the report they say make the pipeline a
concern.
City officials, meanwhile, say those same findings prove that the line is safe.
“The consultant’s conclusion was that this pipeline, based on the inspection data and test data, is in very good
condition,” said Chuck Lesniak, city environmental program coordinator. “If it’s well-maintained, it should continue to
stay in good condition.”
Austin commissioned the report earlier this year at a cost of $54,000 after the city’s environmental board requested one
in response to citizen concerns.
Authored by consultants H. Noel Duckworth and Robert Eiber, the study mentions three potential consequences should
the pipelines fail:
* More than 1,000 houses and apartments lie within 431 feet of the pipeline in Austin, a calculated distance that
measures fire risk in the event of a gas leak or rupture. About 100 homes lie within 50 feet of the line.
* A line rupture could create problems for three adjacent underground pipelines that run parallel to the Rancho Line.
* It’s possible, though unlikely, that if gas escaped from the line it could travel in crevices underground, called voids,
and downward toward caverns such as the Edwards Aquifer. Natural gas mixed with air in a confined space could
explode if ignited, the report said, but gas typically rises in the air.
Each of the scenarios would require unusual circumstances, Duckworth and Eiber wrote. But that doesn’t rule out the
risk that problems might occur, said Stefan Wray, co-director of Iconmedia, a documentary group that has been openly
critical of the Rancho line.
“They answered the environmental questions fairly cursorily,” Wray said of the 47-page report. “What if (natural gas)
fills a void or comes out somewhere else?”
Lesniak said that city officials were satisfied with the study and that the Kinder Morgan pipeline passed vigorous safety
and integrity tests that went well beyond the demands that will be made of it.
“There’s never zero risk from these sorts of things,” Lesniak said. “Is it as safe as can be reasonably expected? I think
the opinion was yes.”
Kinder Morgan spent $30 million to acquire the line, which runs from Katy to about 20 miles west of Austin, from
TEPPCO Partners LP. The line is capable of providing 170 million cubic feet of natural gas a day to Sand Hill, which
will bring new generators online later this month.
It also provides a second supply option for Sand Hill, which already receives gas from an existing TXU Lone Star
pipeline, said Ed Clark, an Austin Energy spokesman.
“Having one pipeline created some supply difficulties,” Clark said. “You need to have some options.”
With the expansion at Sand till, capacity will go from 180 megawatts to 480 megawatts, enough to power as many as
360,000 homes. Unlike the current generators at the plant, which provide energy only at peak times, the new units will
provide power to the grid continuously, Clark said.
The expansion also will allow the city to take two generators of the Holly Power Plant offline by 2005. Even though the
gas- powered plant is one of the cleanest-burning in the state, it still spews pollutants and burns fuels that can lead to
fires.
In December, the City Council voted to close the entire Holly plant by the end of 2007. Since 1960, four fires have
broken out at the plant, located in an East Austin residential neighborhood. Residents also have long complained about
noise, pollution and fear of evacuating their homes if a disaster occurred.
Other pipeline projects have been more controversial.
The Longhorn pipeline, which runs parallel to the Kinder Morgan line through Austin, has been plagued with delays and
lawsuits by landowners and the City of Austin since the project surfaced in 1998. Longhorn, a former crude oil
pipeline, was converted to send gasoline and refined petroleum products from Houston to El Paso.
Longhorn’s owner, Longhorn Partners Pipeline LP, ultimately prevailed in the lawsuits and expects to begin operating
the pipeline in the next month, company officials said. The city has appealed its case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
City officials have been involved much more closely with Kinder Morgan to make sure the line is safe, Lesniak said.
“These sorts of questions aren’t typically asked by municipal governments,” Lesniak said. “I hope people understand
the level of commitment that shows on the part of the city. I think that’s a good thing.”

FCC Strikes Again
Lloyd Perry led his third raid in the federal and corporate crusade against Free Speech and local microradio station Free Radio Austin 97.1. Around noon the FCC arrived at the 3200 block of Marrie Lane armed with a phalanx of federal and local law enforcement. One woman sat down in the road as an act of peaceful protest for which she was arrested. Another lady was taken to the hospital after being struck by a police vehicle attempting to make their getaway after the raid. I find this situation disturbing. Is the Federal Communications Commission a part of the same federal body that broadcasts anti-Castro propaganda into Cuba? Is this Federal body telling me and other citizens of East Austin that we are not allowed to broadcast community news and music to our neighbors? How does the broadcast of information become illegal for East Austin residents who have broken no state or local laws?And one more thing, what was the Austin Police Dept. doing taking orders from the feds, anyhow?
For the third time in one month, Lloyd Perry and friends (APD, US Marshalls, FBI) have been photographed and videotaped committing larceny. Together they have stolen CD players, record players and transmitters from both RadioOne and FRA. These stations gave freely of it's resources to empower their communities through the free exchange of ideas. It is our tax dollars that are paying for these government thugs to take away our First Amendment rights and State Rights.
I guess I took a wrong turn in Albuquerque but I thought this was Texas. A place where freedom of speech is protected. And in Texas when one is threatened by an invading army, we have public servants to protect us. At least I thought we did. (Does anybody remember the "Come and Take IT" flag that flew during the last Texas Revolution? I do. I guess APD needs to go back to 7th grade Texas history class.)
I asked one witness what he thought of the raid. He said, "This is bullshit, man! I thought fascists lived in Cambodia and W.W.II Europe... I was wrong."

"Who controls the media?" - Lower class brats"
It ain't me... I ain't no fortunate son." - Creedence Clearwater Revival
"you have the right to remain silent... FUCK THAT RIGHT!" - Ice T

FREE RADIO AUSTIN COMMUNIQUÉ' OCTOBER 2000
We are the collective for Free Radio Austin (FRA), a micro community radio station serving East and Central Austin at 97.1 FM. We are one of the thousands of low power stations in the U.S. reclaiming the airwaves in the name of the people and free speech.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 legalized the corporate takeover of all U.S. media outlets including radio. As a result, media giants like CBS/Viacom and Clear Channel have monopolized the spectrum to a point where the FM bandwidth no longer represents the voice of people. Therefore, we continue to broadcast in civil disobedience to the current laws that prevent any individual or group to operate at less than 100 watts on the FM dial; there is no license of any sort offered to low power broadcasters.
Then 1934 Telecommunications Act left the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with the roll of regulating the airwaves in the "public's interest, necessity, and convenience." Since then, commercial voices and business interest have been served, while the interests of the people go on being ignored. Consequently, corporate radio stations have reduced their listeners into passive consumers for their demographic markets.
The mainstream media represents FRA as illegal and pirate radio, though we have broken no state or local laws. We feel that the FCC is the pirate and the one responsible for selling off the airwaves to the highest bidder supposedly in the name of public interest. As the FCC continues to shut down micro community radio stations like FRA, they end up taking away our rights to communicate and freedom of speech.
Free Radio Austin does not interfere with any legal or other illegal broadcasts, nor do we represent only one group's viewpoint. The one point we all do agree on is that it is our duty to reclaim communications for the people so that they can discuss, educate, and entertain themselves with news, issues, and music no covered by commercial programming. We serve the grassroots, diverse, and noncommercial interests of the community. Along with our listeners, we feel that this type of public forum is needed to give and receive critical and truthful information. FRA is a space where ordinary folks can speak their minds; anyone can be a programmer.
At about 10 am on October 10, 2000, the FRA station at 939 E. 14th was legally (by Federal search warrant) raided by one FCC agent named Lloyd Perry, one individual who refused to identify himself, two Austin Police officers, and a U.S. Marshall to serve the papers. They hired a private tower crew to disassemble our 68-foot tower and antennae piece by piece. While these tower workers were paid by your tax dollars, the raid was performed under the guise of public interest.
Since the officers were unable to gain entrance into the FRA studio, they shut its power off and let the programmers inside know that they had a search warrant. After they gained entry, Reckless, a resident at the house, was handed a copy of the search warrant. The U.S. Marshall and the FCC agent did a quick search of the house and then proceeded to take our equipment out of the studio; eventually loading it all up into a U-haul.
Having heard information about a raid, FRA programmers started contacting each other and the local media to show our opposition to the raid. After stealing our equipment from the studio: mixing board, 2 CD players, two tape decks, microphones, two broken turntables, cross fader, limiter, power supply, and cables, Lloyd Perry was having a difficult time locating the actual transmitter which was part of the arrested property. Since FRA had buried the transmitter four to five feet into the ground, he took one of our shovels and began to dig in the mud for it. And while he spent up to forty-five minute digging, FRA programmers, supporters, neighbors, and the local press surrounded him and chanted, "Congress shall make no law abridging the right to freedom of speech!" However, after succeeding in getting his hands on the transmitter, he cut its wires and placed his foot atop of it so that the unnamed men could take his picture.
Because of unlawful tactics and unfair regulations exercised by the FCC, what used to be called society is now considered to be civil disobedience. Therefore, we encourage others to join in solidarity in this fight by building their own micro community radio stations. We realize that we can not be and are not the only voice of the people in Austin, Texas.

Prospective Homebuyer's Need To Be Aware Of The Problems In Richard Huffman's East Austin Development Known As Heritage Village
Due To the Ongoing Problems In Heritage Village, Voice of The Austin Majority has chosen to publish an anonymous letter that is being forwarded to Section 8 authorities in Travis County.After this letter, you will find the original posting regarding Heritage Village that was published on Sept. 21 2004.
TO:Section 8This Letter Is To Remain Anonymous and the authors of this letter do not wish to be disclosed to either the owner of the Section 8 properties, the tenants of the properties, or the HOA president Richard Huffman. Please mail a written confirmation of this agreement from you to us before this letter is shared with any other party.
FROM:Homeowners,Heritage Village DriveAustin, Texas 78724
This letter is being regretfully written. Why regret? I regret that the Owner or Owners of the Section 8 rental homes were ever allowed to be placed in my community, of which, is a Homeowners Association and, the President of the HOA, Richard Huffman should have consulted with property owners in the area about what was coming to the neighborhood.Instead, we were all mislead about the vision of this community; supposedly a neighborhood of "family values and pride of home ownership in the City Limits of Austin..."This community, almost overnight; after the homes were constructed and have been rented to Section 8 tenants has already turned into a community where violence, drug activity, gang activity and beyond is blossoming in an already disgusting area of the city, known as East Austin.East Austin would not have been our first choice... it’s not exactly glamorous or a nice community, but we were enticed by a down-payment assistance loan from Austin Housing, and a low interest rate, with the almost certain idea that buying a home here would be a great investment and a step up in the world. Frankly, due to the above referenced properties, has been a significant step down and an extremely horrible investment. Our home will almost surely sit on the market for a long while if the current situations are not remedied. Will we be satisfied if the current problem neighbors are evicted? NO. Yes, we would like to see them move out of the home, but what confidence can we have in Section 8 and Richard Huffman not to let this happen again?So many problems have occurred with Section 8 neighbors that it will be impossible to list them all. One chief complaint is the yelling and screaming fits and fights that occur on an almost daily basis. The Austin Police Department has been awful in dealing with the problems. When called, we have been told that we were to contact the HOA president and Section 8 to file complaints, and that the police could only do so much. However, when taking the advice of the police, little to nothing has been done by the HOA president, and Section 8 has been responsive, but the problems here have gone on longer than we wish our hard-earned tax dollars to support.To give you an example of a typical day, when gardening, one homeowner carries a knife in the likely event that self defense should become necessary. Are we afraid of our safety due to this? YES. We can not even stand on our front lawn without being harassed for money, beer, or cigarettes- or rides to the store or use of our phone... What kind of a "Hyde Park Style Neighborhood" (as the Huffman website suggests) is this?The other day upon coming home, we observed a man yelling and tearing the screens off of the windows and screaming obscenities for all to hear. To top this off, the woman that lives inside the house yelled for the "white guy" to do something. Why should this be our responsibility?We don’t just want these tenants evicted. Other tenants in the Section 8 homes have also become problems. Even the one woman who seems to keep to herself speeds through the neighborhood in her red VW Bug. Just today problems have started with another of the Section 8 tenants playing music with curse words at such a high volume level that even though all of the windows and doors were closed on our home, and the AC and TV were on, the house still vibrated and pounded. This is incredibly dis-respectful, at any hour of the day, and will not be tolerated. We have observed and smelled illegal drugs (possibly crack cocaine) like marijuana from the neighbors who have the nerve to smoke them on their front porch! Problems started immediately with them after they moved in, and have only grown worse. The neighborhood has had a severe problem with flies because for a long while because your tenants did not have trash service and when complaints were filed with Richard Huffman it took several days to get the trash removed.It is sad when you can not relax in your own home. We have noticed that many of the people you rent too do not hold jobs, and cars come and go all day long. They pull into the driveway and honk the horn and someone runs out to the car window and the car leaves shortly after this. What does this suggest to you? A Christian outreach program? We think not. Even after repeated conversations with one neighbor who has schizophrenia to please not pound on our door and ring the doorbell for several minutes at the time... this was a common occurance. Privacy has been invaded on several occasions when this individual came over and asked questions as to how much our Lexus and PT Cruiser cost and how much the stereos are worth that are inside of these higher-end cars. This, we believe is not an innocent question- due to the fact that it has been reported to us that a Hispanic young male that visits the Section 8 neighbors had broken into several cars in the community.As you can see by reading this essay, we are very upset with both Richard Huffman and the Section 8 program for allowing our neighborhood to become an unsafe, drug and crime infested area in which you do not feel safe in your own home.Our prediction is that if Section 8 tenants continue to inhabit Heritage Village that we will have continued problems. This is not to say that Section 8 is a bad program, we understand that it is a useful form of Social Housing- for the disabled and elderly, the sick and the oppressed- however, the majority of your tenants in this community are milking the system and causing problems, and this will not be tolerated nor overlooked.Please do not think you will make us happy by simply evicting the one family in question. Yes, this will be a temporary Band- Aid solution to problems. Sure, we’ll sleep easier knowing that they are gone, but we believe that the problems will not stop unless both the HOA President is removed from his position and the Landlords that collect Section 8 rent monies in this neighborhood are suspended of the ability to be part of the Section 8 program.Regards,Two Homeowners that live in Heritage VillageORIGINAL POSTING:I am one pissed-off homeowner. I live in Heritage Village, (east Austin), a new community of homeowners that have been taken advantage of!I have "anonymously" circulated the following letter to all of the homeowner's in the Heritage Village HOA. I will also be mailing copies to the Austin City Council, the HOA President, KVUE News, and Austin Area Radio Stations, not to mention The Austin American- Statesman.DON"T GET SCAMMED BY THE FAST TALKING REPUBLICAN HOA PRESIDENT!Were You told when you bought your home here in Heritage Village that section 8 housing would be your neighbor?Overwhelmingly, the answer is no.We were taken advantage of as new home buyers with middle class incomes.We were offered incentives to own our homes in East Austin. We were promised a "Hyde Park style community"- WE DID NOT GET THIS!Do you wonder why homes are not selling as fast as when you bought your house?If you have lived here any length of time, you have seen a nice little community turn into an East Austin nice-looking slum.Who is to blame for this?Have you had to call the police lately? Most of us have. Some of the Government Subsidized Rentals here have been causing violence, noise disturbance, harassment, car break- ins, and drug activity.Have you complained to our President Richard Huffman?Has anything really been done?Where has your $$$$$ gone that you have paid to the Home Owners Association?Are the roads kept clean? Or are there non- running automobiles sitting in front of homes and in yards?Has anybody knocked on your door lately begging for money or alchohol?Have you complained and it still happens?Can you honestly say you are PROUD to live in Heritage Village?Is it everything you were promised?Would have bought here if you knew there were going to be Section 8 Rentals?We were promised a community that would be professionally managed.Are you getting your money’s worth?Call Richard Huffman today and DEMAND he turn over his Presidency of the Home Owner’s Association to a PROFESSIONAL firm. Call the REALTOR that sold you the home and DEMAND their backing!After all, if they clean up the problems in this new community, they will be able to sell their homes and we will have decent neighbors. Our property will go up in value in the community is well- maintained. We will be able to walk our streets and in our yards without the fear of gang and drug activity.Don’t think there is any gang or drug activity going on here? Knock door to door and ask your neighbor what they have seen!Let’s work together to make this neighborhood the safe neighborhood in East Austin.Section 8 Tax Credits are a program of the Internal Revenue Service, where landlords obtain tax benefits for renting to low income households.If you are aware of fraud, waste, and abuse in SECTION 8 HUD programs and operations, report it to HUD's Inspector General Hotline!(Don’t know what what homes are Section 8 in Heritage Village?- Call Heritage Village HOA President Richard Huffmann.)What kinds of things should you report? Mismanagement or violations of law, rules, or regulations by HUD employees or program participants.Your complaint will be kept confidential if it is received on the phone, through the mail, or in person. We cannot guarantee confidentiality if you send your complaint by e-mail.Laws protect you from reprisals (any action taken against you because you filed this complaint).You can submit your complaint one of 4 ways:Online, through e-mail. Remember: if you submit your complaint online (through e-mail), it is possible - though unlikely - that others could read it since the internet is not secure.By Phone:Call toll free: 1-800-347-3735TDD: 202- 708-2451By Fax: 202- 708-4829By Mail:Department of Housing & Urban DevelopmentOffice of Inspector General HotlineAssistant Inspector General for Investigations451 7th Street, S.W., Room 8270,Washington, DC 20410posted by Joshua P. Angell at 21.9.04

posted by Joshua P. Angell  @ 5.10.04

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