Hutto police Sergent Chris Kelly was was killed in the line of duty today after being run over by a suspect during a traffic stop. (The suspect is in custody.) Kelly was a USAF veteran, and left behind a wife and two children.
Police work is deeply necessary for civilized society, and occasi0onally very dangerous…
Time for another Texas vs. California update:
Williamson County voting information.
Travis County polling locations.
I hope to live tweet/live blog election results tonight.
Will Franklin of WILLisms put up an interesting link on his Twitter feed: A PDF of Texas relocation data from the Texas Association of Realtors.
There’s lots of interesting information to be gleaned:
The 2014 Texas Relocation Report shows that Texas continues to be a national leader in relocation activity and a sought- after location for households moving out of state.
According to the report, Texas gained more out-of-state residents than any other state in 2013, with 584,034 people moving to Texas from out of state. A majority of these residents originated from California (66,318), followed by Florida (32,619), Oklahoma (29,169), Louisiana (29,042), and Illinois (28,900).
Texas ranked third in the nation for number of residents moving out of state in 2013 (409,977), coming in behind California (581,689) and Florida (423,995) and topping New York (401,440), and Illinois (304,674). Like with incoming residents, a majority of the residents who moved out of state moved to California (32,290), followed by Oklahoma (27,391), Florida (24,226), Colorado (23,490), and Louisiana (21,747).
Overall, Texas had a net gain of out-of-state residents in 2013, with 138,057 more people moving into Texas than Texas residents moving out of state in 2013.
So roughly twice as many people moved from California to Texas as vice versa.
Other nuggets from the report:
What does this mean politically? As Ace of Spades noted in their ginormous .PNG, conservative areas of the state are gaining population, while liberal strongholds are losing ground. The two largest liberal counties (Bexar and Travis) to gain population were outpaced by population growth in conservative Denton County alone.
Conclusion: Despite Democrats talking up demographic shifts, don’t expect Texas to turn blue anytime soon…
The John Bucy III campaign has issued another denial stating that the tax lien issued against 8609 Camelia Ln, Austin, Texas, 78759, was not, in fact, against candidate John H. Bucy III, despite his name being on the lien. But the press release does not go any farther.
However, I have finally received answers from Brent Grady of the John H. Bucy III campaign to questions I sent in yesterday, and he confirms that the lien was against John H. Bucy II, the candidate’s father.
My questions are in italics, and Grady’s answers are in bold:
1. Is it true that John Bucy III is the son of John Bucy II, and works at the latter’s law firm?
John Bucy III is the son of John Bucy II and offices out of 6633 E. Hwy. 290, but John III owns his own company and is not employed by his father.
2. Did John Bucy II live at 8609 Camelia Ln, Austin, Texas, 78759, and was the actual tax lien filed against him?
— Yes.
3. Travis County records show that 8609 Camelia Ln, Austin, Texas, 78759 was sold to John Bucy II on May 30 of this year, and then the lease assigned the same day to “The Jarrett-Simmons Irrevocable Trust,” whose address is the same building that both John Bucy II and John Bucy III show as their respective business offices (6633 Hwy 290
East, Austin, Texas, 78723). Is that correct?
— Unknown. This house does not (and never did) belong to John Bucy III, nor did he ever live there.
4. Does John Bucy II still live at 8609 Camelia Ln?
— Yes.
5. Did the IRS accidentally put the lien as applying to John Bucy III when they meant to apply it to John Bucy II?
The lien was properly applied to John Bucy II. There was just a typo on the form, which put “III” on it, instead of “II,” and we notified the Dale campaign a week ago that it was a typo and not John Bucy III, the candidate.
Thanks to Brent Grady of the John H. Bucy III campaign for helping clear things up. The answers have the virtues of fitting all the facts, and government agencies committing typos are hardly unknown.
Absent any additional information from the Tony Dale campaign that the tax lien is indeed against John H. Bucy III rather than John H. Bucy II, I would consider the matter closed.
Update: Response from the Tony Dale campaign:
“Mr. Bucy’s ‘shocked and appalled’ response to the revelation that the IRS filed a $163,000 tax lien against him for unpaid taxes is misdirected. Mr. Bucy is running for public office and is subject to public scrutiny. The federal government believes he has not paid his taxes. If the IRS is in error, he needs to produce proof in the form of the removal of the lien in his name, not ask the citizens of Williamson County to simply take the word of the Democratic Party Chairman or his dad.” -Corbin Casteel
Update 2: Attached find an IRS document sent by the Bucy campaign, but I hardly find it conclusive…
Given the John H. Bucy III’s campaigns strenuous denials that the $160,000 IRS tax lien was filed against their candidate, I thought I would further research the issue. It may be a case of a son being mistaken for his father, but I can’t say for sure without Bucy or his campaign answering some questions.
Let’s look at the deed history of 8609 Camelia Ln, Austin, Texas, 78759 via the Travis County Central Appraisal District web interface:
# Deed Date Type Description Grantor Grantee Deed Number
1 5/30/2014 WD WARRANTY DEED BUCY JOHN H II JARRETT-SIMMONS IRREVOCABLE TRUST 2014093500TR
2 5/30/2014 WD WARRANTY DEED REES BURKE BUCY JOHN H II 2014093499TR
3 8/29/2008 WD WARRANTY DEED WEST GEORGE MARC REES BURKE 2008165059TR
Some clarifications, given my modest research into the issue:
What all this amounts to:
I can think of a dozen different scenarios which fit the facts in this case, so I don’t want to speculate on which might be the case here.
Yesterday I wrote the John Bucy III campaign, asking for clarification. I still haven’t heard back from them.
But the big question remains: Why was the IRS lean against John H. Bucy III against the house lived in, and later owned, by John H. Bucy II?
Finally, there is this set of court records for John H. Bucy II. I don’t know enough to decode the various charges listed. I merely include it for others to research.
Update: The Bucy campaign claims that the lien is indeed against John Bucy II, not John Bucy III.
What is it with Democrats and their recurring problems with paying their taxes? Certainly they seem more than capable of passing and raising taxes. But paying them on time? Not so much.
Today’s example of a Democrat not paying his taxes comes from House District 136 candidate John H. Bucy, which a press release from his Republican opponent, incumbent Tony Dale‘s campaign (not yet up on his websites) identifies as owing $160,000 in back taxes to the IRS:
John H. Bucy, III, the Democratic nominee for Texas House, District 136 in Williamson County, apparently failed to pay his taxes for at least 4 years and owes over $160,000 to the IRS. According to the IRS tax lien filed with the Travis County Clerk, Mr. Bucy owes personal income taxes dating as far back as 2008 and as recently as 2011. And there could be more.
The Dale campaign also notes that “In addition to the IRS tax lien, Mr. Bucy has problems with the state of Texas as well. Every single business Bucy has registered with state of Texas has forfeited its existence for failure to pay the required taxes and fees, seven total businesses.” To me, this is not only several orders of magnitude less important than the taxes owed the IRS, it’s not necessarily an issue at all, as it could mean Bucy’s business entities are no longer active and he simply let the registration expire.
I emailed the Bucy campaign for comment about an hour ago, but so far have not heard back from them.
Note: Dale is my own state representative, and I endorsed him in 2012.
Update: The Bucy campaign contends that Dale got the wrong John Bucy:
Mr. Lawrence [sic],
The accusations are false, and John has never had a lien filed against him.
We are aware of the document that the Dale campaign claims to possess, and the “John Bucy” referenced in Tony Dale’s press release is NOT John Bucy the candidate. — Not only is John Bucy (the candidate) not the person to whom the lien attaches, he has also never even lived at the address to which the John Bucy in the lien attaches to.
We spoke to the Dale campaign last week and made them aware of this. — The Dale campaign still chose to move forward. — They clearly do not care to be honest with the voters.
To the other point of John’s companies, John has only been affiliated with 3 companies, and we do not know where the count of 7 comes from.
One of the companies is his current company, which is in good standing, and the other two companies have been closed down properly.
None of this information should be published, as it is false, and we are presently exploring all options to stop these false accusations.
-Brent Grady.
Campaign Manager, Bucy for Texas
Update 1: My update on the still murky issue is here.
Update 2: Bucy campaign claims that the lien was against his father, John Bucy II, which fits the facts in the first update above.
It’s primary election day in Texas.
This winter storm is likely to depress voting somewhat, so candidates with the most dedicated voters have an advantage.
Go vote!
Since I live in Williamson and have received a ton of flyers on local judicial races, I should probably get together some semi-coherent thoughts about the race and post them here.
Fortunately, Holly Hansen has already done the heavy lifting.
County Court at Law Judge Doug Arnold has been challenged by GOP newcomer Tallion Taylor (Taylor used to vote Democrat, but recently switched to the Republican party).
Three candidates have filed to replace retiring Williamson County Treasurer Vivian Wood: Leander City Councilwoman Michell Cantwell, Jerri Jones, and Ralph Pruyn. As I’ve previously written, Jones is an alleged Republican who publicly supported a Democrat for District Attorney in 2012.
Indeed, I emailed Taylor to see if he wanted to deny reports of formerly being a Democrat. He never replied.
And now the tl;dr recommendation from Holly:
@BattleSwarmBlog lol. Voting Arnold, Kennon & Matthews in #wilco #GOP judges races.
— Holly Hansen (@hollyshansen) February 22, 2014
Let me also state my skepticism of those who still view the Michael Morton case as a universal “get into office free” card. Yes, it was a miscarriage of justice. No, that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore your past record of supporting Democrats or lack of conservative credentials to vote for you. In fact, from now on I’m going to vote against those using the case in their attack mailers just on general principle. That means you, Ryan Larson.
Yesterday I received a copy of The Link Letter in the mail, touting certain Republican Primary candidates and carrying ads for them. You should take these “endorsements” with several grains of salt, since they are strictly pay for play; candidates pay for ads and get endorsed. Houston has had these paid “list” newsletter endorsements for a while, but this is the first time I’ve seen them in Williamson.
The Link Letter is an advertising flyer, nothing more. Its endorsements should not sway you any more than any other advertisement might (which is to say, little to none).