Ted Siff Interview, Part 1 of 3

DT: My name is David Todd. I'm here in Austin, Texas at the home of Ted Siff and Janelle Buchanan. And it's January 20th, 2007. I'm here for the Conservation History Association of Texas to interview Ted who has had a diverse career working with a bird tour outfit called Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, well-known in the field, as well as the Trust for Public Land, as well as the Austin Parks Foundation. And he's been involved in many political efforts to get bond issues passed, and many and sundry things that we'll get into in the next few moments. But with that, I wanted to welcome you and thank you.

00:02:26 - 2382 TS: Pleasure to be here with you.(misc.)

DT: Ted, we often start these interviews with a question about your childhood. I'm thinking that might be a starting point for your interest in conservation. I was wondering if you could tell us if there was a friend, a neighbor, a family member, that might have introduced you to the outdoors or to a concern about the environment in general. Anything you can talk to us about?

00:03:00 - 2382

TS: Well, actually two. I was in Boy Scouts. And Bud Williams, our scoutmaster, a retired military and Texas A&M graduate, very knowledgeable about the outdoors, t-took our rabble-rousing group of twenty or thirty on-on a series of campouts over a three or four-year period from age, I think eight, to eleven, or nine to twelve. And I-I know I got my interest in the out of doors, at least in large part, from Boy Scouts.

Second, though, w-our family moved from inner city-near the center of Houston to the suburbs along Buffalo Bayou when I was eight. And in our little suburban subdivision, our house, though it was not-it was just a block off of Memorial Drive, w-the backyard

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was what we called "the woods". There-there wasn't any development beyond our house for at least a couple of years. And so from at least years of age eight, nine, ten, my brother and I would explore the woods. That was our after-school activity. And-and it-un-unsupervised, and it-it gave me an exposure that I'm sure led to my longer and deeper interest in the environment. (misc.)

DT: You said that you were in a Boy Scout troop.

00:05:25 - 2382 TS: Right.

DT: I was curious if you could tell about any camping trips that stand out in your mind as being fun or memorable in that sort of melodramatic way that some trips can have.

00:05:20 - 2382

TS: There isn't one-big event. But I guess the macro-memory is of nights where the adult men would get us around the campfire and-and inevitably they would tell scary stories. And-and the-that's my memory of those-those nights.

DT: And I guess these outings in your backyard were with your twin.

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TS: Right.

DT: Do you remember any of these outings with Joe?

00:06:08 - 2382

TS: Oh, sure. I-as far as w-exploring the woods...

DT: Yeah.

00:06:13 - 2382

TS: ...my-my teammate for life is my identical twin brother, and there are no other siblings. So we-I think in large part because there were two of us, our parents felt comfortable to let us go together. Not as single people, but as a pair, in-into the woods. And we actually went what is probably a half-mile or so into the woods to find Buffalo Bayou like the first discoverers of it. And on the other side of Buffalo Bayou that we crossed only through fallen trees, we found an old log cabin that, of course, we thought we had-were the first people to ever see it at age eight or s-so. So it was really quite

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a-a ed-wonderful set of adventures that we had, aside from what would be probably s-experienced by other folks. Today we do Christmas recycling, and-Christmas tree recycling. In our neighborhood, Joe and I did the Christmas tree recycling by gathering up our neighbors' Christmas trees to build Christmas tree forts in the woods, and I guess they eventually went back to nature that way. But there were-the-those were great mem-those are great memories, and they were great times.

DT: Have you read this book that's come out recently called Last Child in the Woods?

00:07:42 - 2382

TS: I haven't.

DT: Do you feel though, I think that the thesis of the book is that this exposure at an early age makes a difference throughout a kid's, and then a grown-up's life. That they have a different outlook on life on the planet.

00:08:00 - 2382

TS: Yeah. Yeah.

DT: Do you think it helped in the case with you?

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TS: Well, I-I-I know my own experience that I just described has effected me, and I don't know that it needs to be an exploration of the woods the way I've just described was my experience, but when I was director of the Austin Parks Foundation, I would open board retreats by asking all board members to describe their first exper-their first conservation-related, or open space-related experience. And to a person, they each had one, whether it was a neighborhood park, or a family member's ranch or farm, or s-or something in between. I th-I think people are more prone to be conservation or

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environmental protectors, activists, or even just appreciators towards if they have that early experience, and it is one of the core reasons why I think we should all do what we can to expose every child to that kind of open-space experience.

DT: I guess as much as we're a child of where we grew up, it's also maybe the case where a child, or the times that he grew up. And I understand that you went to Harvard in the late '60s and studied American Government while you were there, along with urban studies.

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TS: Right.

DT: And it seems like a time of great ferment, you know, where there were terrible problems with civil rights and the Vietnam War. At the same time, there was the development of a whole sort of alternative, progressive culture. And I was wondering if you could give sort of a ringside view to that, what the experience was like for you at that time?

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TS: Well, you know, Dickens said they were "the best of times and the worst of times." And-and the-from '66 to '70, on colleges ca-I think all American college campuses had some of this, and Harvard was clearly one of them, where students were upset about the Vietnam War. They were upset about r-inequities with regard to race and-and social opportunity, economic opportunity, and-and protested that in ways that hadn't been proset-tested ever, I don't think, on American college campuses by ultimately taking over buildings and burning things down, and doing at least w-what were called at the time radical activities.

The-the plus side of that was that whether it was politicians like, first John, and then Bobby Kennedy, or other elected leaders or aspirants to elective office, there were-people were also looking to the heavens. We

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landed on the moon in '69. And-so there was a lot of dreaming, as well as sort of fighting going on.

I don't think much p-productive outcome happened before the early '70s of that tumult, but just any-any objective recorder of events would see that in the early '70s, whether it was in the environment, or in general public policy, there's this huge blossoming of new nonprofit organizations. The Environmental Defense, or Common Cause, or ultimately Public Citizen, they were a different kind of public policy advocacy-creating organisms than were their predecessors.

You know, the earlier public

00:12:28 - 2382 policy advocacy model organization might have been Consumer's Union, or even The League of Women Voters. Or Audubon, or Sierra, which was more of an advocate. But there was a h-it was a sea change in the kind of-within the law, public policy advocacy activity that happened, really starting right at the beginning of the '70s, and I think that was in larger part a result of that tumult in the '60s, and us, as a country getting out of Vietnam.

DT: After you left Harvard you came to the University of Texas and went to the School of Law, and shortly after that, went to work for Ralph Nader and Public Citizen in some of its early years. And I was curious if you could tell us about that experience of working for Nader's Raiders.

00:13:35 - 2382 TS: Right. That was a media term for-the Nader's Raiders term f-was created by a reporter for summer interns that were all law school students who got accepted through an application process applying to work for an organization called The Center for the Study of Responsive Law. Sounds less flashy than Nader's Raiders, but Ralph Nader, through money that he got actually as a settlement from a lawsuit that he filed against General Motors for defamation of his character when he wrote his first book Unsafe at Any Speed, he used that quarter of a million dollars, or something in-around that amount of money, to create a nonprofit called The Center for the Study of Responsive

00:14:33 - 2382 Law. And he hired a few colleagues, and-less than a half dozen fulltime employees, then he got summer interns. Well, those-that-that Center that Ralph Nader created, I would argue has had more impact, or the-that-that seed that he planted through creating that organization and the summer interns that it hired has had at least as much, if not more impact than any other public policy effort in the last thirty years. I-the-the first year I was involved, the summer of '71, was maybe its fifth year of operation, and there were a total of a dozen people.

And I did study for a man named Harrison Wellford

00:15:29 - 2382 on some of the policies of the Federal Trade Commission. Well, it-in the next summer there were t-teams of interns hired to do studies of various other agencies, and ultimately, about a hundred interns hired still in that summer of '72 to create an organization called Congress Watch, which evolved into what is now Public Citizen.

But those-and I know I'm going on a bit, but thi-those teams of other interns, in '72, but also in the summers of 1970 and '69, did studies of the operations of different regulatory agencies-federal regulatory agencies. Federal Communications Commission, Federal

00:16:26 - 2382 Trade Commission, the-etc. And al-almost to a task group, to a team of interns, there are now nonprofit organizations that are monitors to the policies that those agencies make, whether it be Clean Water Action, which was founded by David Zwick, one of those first staff members of the Centers for the Study of Responsive Law, or-or many others. They-the-they permeate the public policy landscape now. And where-where there were the-a dozen, now there are tens of thousands. (misc.)

DT: Well, we were talking earlier about the Center for Responsive Law, and Congress Watch that evolved into Public Citizen. I'm curious how these groups intervened in the whole political process, and the policy making process. Do they write reports? Do they file lawsuits? Did they do public organizing? What was their modus operandi?

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TS: You really just described it in large part. As opposed to street action, or even, you know, rallies or protests, which were the sort of modus operandi of the-of the late '60s, and I'm not saying that doesn't have a place, it absolutely does, but what the Center for Study of Responsive Law did was study the law as it currently existed, study the process by which new law was made, and then intervene with-in the way lobbyists for private interests do on a regular basis with suggested changes in the proposed new law. So car safety, just to pick. There are seat belts now because of that. DDT, it doesn't e-ex-it's not permitted to be used because of that. There-nuclear power plant safety exists because of the things that different parts of the Center for Study of Responsive Law Internship Program, Nader's Raiders, did. And-does that answer what you wanted to see?

DT: Yeah. I guess as part of that whole effort, you wrote a book called Ruling Congress, which I guess gets into the nitty-gritty of how the Congress, with its various rules and ways of operating, passes bills, as I understand it.

00:19:40 - 2382 TS: Right.

DT: And some of it is sort of opaque to the public. I was curious what you found when you started digging in that area and what sort of differences and improvements that that exposure might have.

00:19:55 - 2382 TS: Well, one of the things that Congress Watch did was divide up into teams to study different Congressional-to-to discuss, or research Congress divided by its different committees. The committees of Congress in-include on the House and the Senate side a rules committee. So the team that I was responsible for, and ultimately, as I was co-author of this book with that team, studied how a bill becomes a law whatever subject matter the-the law might have. And what is-is not all that well-known by the average

00:20:43 - 2382 citizen is that when Congress comes into session every two years, it adopts its own rules of the game, if you will. And that is how a bill becomes a law is the rules that are adopted by the House and the Senate each time they meet. And some of those rules are formal and adopted in writing, some of them are the culture of both bodies. Seniority for example, is not written anywhere in a-in black on-on white and on paper-you know, electronically or anywhere. Seniority is a-a-is-is the rule, informal though it is, that says how a committee member of a House or Senate committee becomes chair of that committee. And it's the longest serving member on the majority party becomes chair of

00:21:48 - 2382 the committee. Well, that-that's-that's n-not an absolute rule, but it's been a-the-there been exceptions to it, but that's the way a House member or Senate member becomes a chair of the committee most of the time, and that means that you have to be in Congress for decades before you have real power. A-a pretty important rule, though you'd never read it anywhere except maybe in books like the one our team wrote. So other than the substantive arguments you could make about a particular policy, people in Congress who know the rules, or peop-public interest advocates who know those rules,

00:22:38 - 2382 will get their legislation passed, and the ones who don't won't, no matter what the merit of their substantive argument is. And that-that's why we wrote the book, but more importantly, what the whole process that Ralph Nader and the various advocacy groups that were spawned out of his effort understood and-and-and work with every day.

DT: Can you give any examples of bills that might have succeeded or failed because the rules were understood or were not understood?

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TS: Well, it's-it's-it's har-it's hard to mention one particular case study, but what-what-what happens when a bill is going through the process is that the-those who are against it might add an amendment to it that is not germane. Well, knowing that it's not an amendment that would have an m-a majority against the whole bill just because that amendment was attached, but it might be-not sufficiently of the same subject matter of the bill itself to be permitted as a-a-as an amendment. And so rather than having a vote on the amendment s-substance, a person could raise the question as to its germaneness, and the parliamentarian of the House or Senate could rule whether or

00:24:17 - 2382 not it's germane. On one level, just knowing that could pass-could help a bill pass or fail. On a different level, being able to raise those kinds of questions could delay the process enough to have a bill pass-delay or not delay the process to have a bill pass or-or fail. So I guess the-the main thing I'm simply trying to suggest is that in-in getting public policy passed, it's-it's as important to know the-the rules of how that game is-is played than it is to know the rightness or wrongness of what you're advocating.

DT: Let's talk just a little bit more about the whole experience of working with Ralph Nader and that culture of the nonprofit organizations. I think you said earlier, before we were on tape, that at one point you thought you might go into elected office and that kind of a career. And that there was some turning point, some fork in the road, about this time, in I guess the early to mid '70s where you decided, no, there's a legitimate role to play in the political process of going outside as a citizen. Can you tell me how that changed your mind and what that's meant to you?

00:25:58 - 2382 TS: Sure. The-I, when I was in my first year of law school, met a few folks who had been interns the summer prior at the Center for Study of Responsive Law, and they encouraged me to apply. At that point in my life, I successfully graduated from Harvard and was an Eagle Scout and thought I was, you know, fully qualified to think about ultimately running-running for office, and it seemed like since I'd been, you know, class president and fire chief or whatever, I might have a-a chance of-of doing that. And hopefully what motivated wa-me was having some positive impact by being elected to something. Well, I-I got accepted into the internship program. I became a

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Nader's Raider, per se. And what I learned through that summer of '71 in Washington working for Harrison Wellford who was doing a study of the Federal Trade Commission's policies was that you can-I at least began to learn it then-you can have as much impact on public policy by being involved in public interest work in a totally non-elected capacity as perhaps you could by being the senator, or the member of the House of Representatives, or the mayor, or whatever. In fact, maybe even more, because

00:27:50 - 2382

if you-if you dig-drill down into the rules and regs of a c-commission like the Federal Trade Commission and understand the data that's involved in what one particular pesticide may be doing to the health and safety of our populous, you can make that argument in writing or in testimony, or in other ways get the message up through the staff and to the Federal Trade Commissioners and have an impact, change that law. And that might have an effect over millions of people in a way that you may not even ever have a chance to by being elected. So I was-I-obviously-I think it's obvious just-just

00:28:50 - 2382 riveted by that experience. And the next summer, and for a couple years then after that, doing that kind of work in Washington with not one person or a half dozen people, but with hundreds of people through Congress Watch, I became fully committed to being active in public policy in a non-elective way because I thought it was at least as effective and-and also fun.

DT: (Inaudible) And helped see groups of hundreds of thousands of members started.

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TS: Yeah.

DT: I mean it's an incredible time. But you know, maybe we ought to go on. I wanted to ask you about The Quorum Report.

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TS: Okay. Yeah.

DT: Ted, we talked a little bit about your experience in Washington in the early and the mid '70s. And I thought maybe we could pull the clock forward a few years and bring you back to Austin. And I understood from '83 to '87 you published a document called The Quorum Report, which I think tried to monitor what was going on in the political world here in Austin at I guess the state level largely.

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TS: Right.

DT: And I was curious if you could sort of give us some sort of understanding of what the Quorum Report did and how it taught you the differences and similarities between federal politics that you've seen at Congress Watch, and in state politics, and any other things that come to mind.

00:30:42 - 2382

TS: Yeah. Well, The-The Quorum Report was a-a weekly report that-that was actually founded by a dozen or so Texans who were s-interested in-in monitoring state-state law and the Legislature. There-there were other publications, but not what-didn't-didn't get into as much nitty-gritty as The Quorum Report hoped to.

00:31:16 - 2382

Those original founders wanted to sell it. I had, for the prior decade or so, been involved with Texas Monthly Magazine from almost its very beginning. And I w-ended up buying The Quorum Report and being its publisher for four years. What we learned through Tim Richardson, our editor at that time, and myself is-is that there are lots of similarities between Texas and national legislative process. It's on a big scale in Texas, not as big as national, but m-m-many of the same-not-that-visible processes happen.

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There's a huge private sector lobby that is embedded, entrenched, and-and well-remunerated for getting public policy passed. And without that the state legislature that meets constitutionally under-only a hundred and forty days every two years, w-w-without that private sector lobby there-there would be many senators and House members who wouldn't know what to do. They're very educated by the private sector lobby in a-in a technical way and a substantive way. And The Quorum Report re-reported on that. It-the publication, I might add, is very much a-a force today in state

00:33:10 - 2382 public policy making. It was bought ultimately by Harvey Kronberg, turned into an electronic media, and it's a online, twenty-four/seven resource for people interested in public policy today. I say that as a dutiful subscriber.

DT: Well, did your exposure to the inner workings of the Legislature give you some pause about the influence of lobbyists and campaign finance? Or was it just something that you learned to accept rather than try to stop and change?

00:33:56 - 2382

TS: Well, you-I th-I think private interests are going to be represented in the legislative process. I'm for campaign finance, and-and cer-certainly, restrictions on-on-on how that influence is peddled, if you will. But to think that p-a private interest will never be represented or shouldn't be represented, I think is-is naïve. What-what our representative democracy allows, in fact, and requires, is that every-every person should t-think out and seek out how to get their own-own interest or view expressed. And so I guess one sort of through-line, if you will, of-of my adult life

00:34:57 - 2382 is-is trying to do that, for myself and for others for what I think are public interests that when I-and my definition of public interest is simply one that is n-an interest that isn't driven by a-a profit and loss, a dollar and cents profit and loss statement, but one-an interest that would be more-more a-a b-a benefit to the public at large.

DT: Maybe we could go back just a few years and talk about your experience, not sort of commenting or reporting on what was going on in government, but being part of the apparatus yourself. I understood that from '74 through '75 during some of the height of the OPEC controversy, you were the staff director for the legal and regulatory policy committee, the Governor's Energy Advisory Council. Considering that in this state oil and gas is a major player, a major issue, what was going on then? What was your experience?

00:36:16 - 2382

TS: Well, the governor, Dolph Briscoe, had created this c-council made up of leading private sector in large part, in fact maybe solely, private sector representatives of the Texas energy industry. The Texas indus-ener-energy industry was really the national energy industry in many ways, since most of the major energy-producing companies had major, and still do have major operations in Texas. Dolph Briscoe asked the then-attorney general, John Hill, to develop the staff for this advisory

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council. The Advisory Council was really set up to, without remembering it verbatim, its-its charge or its mission was to study the energy crisis that we were in at that time basically because OPEC, the coalition of those nations had gained control of the supply, and therefore the price of-of oil. And so the charge of the Governor's Energy Advisory Council was to try to figure out how that affected Texas, its economy and its energy industry. It-to-to think of it now over thirty years later, we-we-that-that staff work clearly documented that-the Texas dominance of decades past in oil and gas

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was-had peaked, and-and was not ever going to return because the supply of oil in Texas, even including offshore, was diminishing, and therefore wouldn't play as large a role as-as other-other sources.

One of the outcomes of-of that was to do, I think early if not initial research on alternative fuels, and wind and solar were identified by that staff work as major resources-energy resources that Texas had, that it should-as well as geothermal, actually, that-that-that should be exploited and explored and promoted. Obviously, that's happening to some extent now, but it-it was-the clarion call to get started on it was made in the early '70s, and that clarion call didn't-didn't hit any pub-any-an-didn't result in any public policy for I guess at least two decades.

DT: I'm curious. You said that the council was made up of largely the oil and gas industry. Did these companies sort of bridle at the suggestion of alternative energy as being a threat, or did they see that that as something complimentary to take this for because they had experience in energy markets, and that would be a good next step for them?

00:39:42 - 2382 TS: Interestingly, wr-thinking back on it, there-there wer-it was not viewed at all as a threat. The staff-generated reports and recommendations, as best I can remember, were fully adopted by the formal Governor's Energy Advisory Council. What didn't happen was any f-any follow-up in-in any significant and immediate way.

[Ava Siff speaking]

DT: Let me go on just a little bit and talk about another role you played in trying to, I guess, guide the interests of business to consider alternatives, if that's a fair way to put it. From '85 to '87 you served on the Transportation Council for the Austin Chamber. And I'm sort of curious, you know, this is before this latest round of growth we've had here, but it was during a previous round of growth where there must have been a lot of pressures and concerns about how are you going to handle a lot of new visitors and residents in Austin, they're all going to need transportation. What was some of the talk that you remember from back then?

00:41:22 - 2382

TS: Well, it-as folks who've been in Austin as long as I have actually I'm sure do remember, but most folks were not-here not were not there in-in the '80s-here in the '80s. Austin's population grew in four years forty percent. From 1980 to 1984, Austin increased its population forty percent. It's-it sincerely sounds unbelievable, but-but I-the statistics will support me on this. So the Chamber-the-there weren't many other voices-public voices talking about public policy in Austin, but the Chamber had a transportation committee, and-and it-it was trying to help the city do some planning.

00:42:19 - 2382 This is pre-Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, CAMPO, which is now the Regional Transportation Planning Authority. And our-our little committee, you know, recommended more roads. There wasn't anything very creative about our-our effort, but I guess just that dot on my resume s-s-is-is a-important for me to keep on there just because I've-how we get around is-is-is one of the most important aspects in land planning.

DT: Have you considered some of the alternatives that have been knocked around for the last twenty years, and since then, of trying to get people from here to there, light rail and other mass-transit suggestions? Can you recount some of the things that you think are offensive or productive or, you know, wouldn't make a difference?

00:43:33 - 2382

TS: Well, on a-on a micro-level, what-what I've been involved in i-is a way that sort of integrates my interest in environment and transportation. In the early '90s, with others I helped create the Austin Metropolitan Trails Council, which is now called Austin Metro Trails and Greenways. And it's advocated for a system of inter-connected hike-and-bike trails throughout the at least three-county region, and has gone from the-the-the region has gone from having a few tens of miles of trails to a couple hundred miles of trails now. And more and more folks in their neighborhoods are getting around by using

00:44:31 - 2382 those off-street, mainly creek-based, hike-and-bike trails for recreation. Not much for commuting, but a tiny bit for commuting, and for-for personal trips. Not home-to-work trips so much, but home to the convenience store, or home to the neighborhood playground trips.

On a bigger scale, I don't think toll roads are-are the answer. I think they're the-actually, the private eg-privatization-leading to the privatization of our whole public road system, and I think it's a terrible direction we're going in. It's mainly

00:45:23 - 2382 the result of the Legislature not being willing to add a penny or two to our gas tax, which is our major source of revenue that pays for roads in the state. And for more than a decade, almost two, the gas tax that's collected to pay for s-s-state highways hasn't been raised, and that's why we're in the funding crisis to build public roads we're in. It's a-

00:45:51 - 2382 it's total collapse and failure of legislative and gubernatorial leadership. It goes across party. So that could be ameliorated, not fixed. But at least somewhat ameliorated in this session of the Legislature, because there are couple proposals to index that tax and-and-and increase it some. It needs to increase a lot more than it's being proposed to get enough revenue to reduce or eliminate the need for toll roads. But it could be done. It just would take political willpower.

There are lots of m-other multimodal solutions, or ar-alternative-mode solutions, some of which have a foothold in Austin, and-and those

00:46:45 - 2382 are exciting to me. Commuter rail and lo-and-and a downtown trolley or s-some sort of fixed-rail trolley system are both proposals that I think will become realities within the next five to ten years. So it's a m-it's a mish-mash, and we're way behind, and our city is less good because we haven't done stuff, and it'll be less good in the future if we don't do a whole bunch more soon.

DT: I guess one of the other ways that you maybe have addressed this whole transportation dilemma is your interest in investment in downtown Austin. I mean here we are sitting in a house that's within blocks of the central business district. And I know you've also been a real advocate, and I think that the Austin Chronicle was talking about "the Original Austin Neighborhood Association, a.k.a. Ted Siff", if you read that last issue. But you've often been associated with this part of town and the idea of trying to live close to where people work. Is that something that you think is a viable way to go?

00:48:06 - 2382 TS: Well, I do. I don't think everybody needs to live downtown for that to work, but I think people need to be able to live in neighborhoods where they can walk to their-the-to the m-most things that are important in their lives. And s-the-real estate development isn't currently configured to have that result most of the time. New communities that major homebuilders are building presume the car is the sole, not just-or at least the pri-way-far in front of any other way to get around. There are exceptions. The whole New Urbanism movement and architecture promotes pedestrian-

00:49:01 - 2382

friendly walk-ability-wa-walk-able neighborhood kind of construction, and-or land development, and-and that exists in-in the Austin area. But what-the c-city can do about that is limited because it only has land planning authority within its g-within its territorial jurisdiction, and most new development of a large scale happens outside the city's control. Counties have much more limited land-planning authority. And so-I don't know that I answered your-there is-there isn't an easy answer to that question.

DT: So in a sense, it's a kind of a question of scale, that most large developments happen outside the city, in the county, in the hinterlands, and that to get that kind of investment of money and square footage, and that may people is difficult to do in the compact city forum.

00:50:18 - 2382

TS: Well, t-take your typical new community subdivision right now, of five hundred acres or more. While that smart developer would probably allow, within his infrastructure, land for an elementary school, and probably some park land, there may or may not be any light retail, you know, convenience store kind of allocation within that s-subdivision. There may or may-there probably wouldn't be a public library or other things that-that people would normally go to. If-to the extent that a library or a neighborhood park, or definitely an elementary school, maybe a health clinic were all with-within that five hundred acre subdivision, all of those nodes of activity would be

00:51:24 - 2382 within walking distance of every home in that subdivision. And that's-that's simply what I'm saying, that the general way in that private sector land development occurs, it's-it's hard to require that. And since they're just down the major highway from most of these subdivisions, most developers don't integrate them into the neighborhoods.

The-the-the city's role could be and has been in some-some cases s-the St. John's neighborhood in Austin is an example, where the city and the school district went together to create a-a new elementary school that had a public library component to it,

00:52:12 - 2382 and a health clinic component, and a neighborhood park all in one area. And now, what was an old neighborhood is being revitalized and there's new housing being built in that general vicinity because of-because of the public complex of facilities that were built there.(misc.)

DT: ...stuff you want to touch on that's conservation-related? That was the (?).(misc.)

00:52:43 - 2382

TS: ...public policy, which it did in its relevant years. As Janelle calls it, I was there during the relevant years of Texas Monthly...(misc.)

DT: Why don't we talk about the muck-raking role that it had. Would that be OK?

TS: Sure.

DT: Ted, from '76 through '87 I believe, you helped lead the Texas Monthly Press, which got the award-winning Texas Monthly Magazine that quickly gained a reputation for investigative reporting. I was curious about what drew you first to work for the Press, and then to try and orient the Press in that direction?

00:53:26 - 2382

TS: Well, I was-I was in-invited to work for Texas Monthly by a law school classmate, Mike Levy. And th-though I didn't have any direct involvement in the editorial, in-in-indirect or direct involvement in the editorial, I was also knowledgeable of and friends with Bill Broyles, the founding editor of Texas Monthly through his work in Houston school politics before-before he became editor. And so I was-I was attracted to the magazine first, and then to the book publishing aspect of the

00:54:09 - 2382 company because I knew that Bill, it's fou-its editor, would be involved in some public policy stuff. And as it turned out, certainly from those-those years that I was there, a-as well as now, the-the initial stories on big Houston law firms and the life of-of-of an employee of those big Houston law firms, to the best and worst Legislature stories that started as soon as the magazine started, I think if it make-have-have had a significant impact on the way legislation is made in Texas, and who makes it. And a-i-in large part through educating a-a Texas readership that's willing-willing to-to read. Today

00:55:11 - 2382 as opposed to thirty-five years ago-thirty and thirty-five years ago, there are so many alternatives that-or there are so many additional resources beyond Texas Monthly, or in addition to Texas Monthly to learn about, to be-Texas public policy that it-it plays a different role than it did in-in that decade or so that I was involved.

DT: Maybe you can think of one other aspect of your experience with the media. The last year or so as I understand it, you've worked with the Texas School Administrative Legal Digest. And while this probably doesn't have a large conservation aspect, I'm curious since the location and investments in schools drive so much of development where it happens, the pace it happens, that if you have any discussions about that when you visit with principals and administrations that are involved in the schools?

00:56:19 - 2382

TS: Actually, I don't think that is relevant. I mean I'm-there's nothing to hide there, I just don't have those kind of meetings with principals. I'm sorry.

DT: Sure. Sure. Yeah.