$68,817 at the Headliners Club.
$43,560 in memberships.
$22,582 in food.
Charged to the City Manager’s Office.
But for the love of God, don’t you dare ask for an independent audit, you plebs.
Aye on Prop I.
The city of Austin has spent $68,817 at the Headliners Club, an invitation-only private club on the 21st floor of a downtown tower.
- $43,560 for memberships
- $22,582 for food, including "emergency food"
- $2,664 for "other services"
- $11 for parking
At least one membership payment was charged straight to the City Manager's Office.
Last year, the Austin American-Statesman reported that the city was paying the club. This was the same report showing that City Manager T.C. Broadnax had expensed about 150 Sweetgreen lunches. (He then promised to pay the city back.)
The Headliners payments kept coming though. In March, the city sent the club another $5,028 for memberships.
Thanks for nothing, Vanessa.
With everything happening in Austin, @VanessaForATX is worried about....
Police escorts for F1. These were done by Travis County sheriff's office. What a dumb thing to grandstand about.
Jeff B. 🥩 retweeted
My biggest concern is that if there is a clean sweep by Democrats of the House, Senate and Presidency in 2028, they will:
1. Make DC and Puerto Rico states to gain a strong majority in the Senate.
2. Open the borders and legalize everyone living in America illegally to cement a permanent majority.
3. Increase the size of the Supreme Court to gain an immediate majority.
This would result in America becoming a permanent one-party state and the end of democracy in any meaningful sense of the word.
All that is needed to ensure this doesn’t happen is 51 Republican senators in 2029. That is why you should vote for Republican senators this election. Other reasons are irrelevant compared to this one.
Meanwhile, Austin…
I asked Governor Greg Abbott why big cities in Texas don’t look like California
His answer: ‘We BANNED Homeless Encampments’
Texas passed a law banning homeless tent cities and will withhold funding from any city that fails to comply.
The state overrides local governments — Texas is a rule of law state that won’t allow their cities to fall into third world conditions like California.
Decline is a choice.
True leadership, @GregAbbott_TX
1/5 🧵
Austin voters: early voting ends Fri 10/30.
Election Day is Tue 11/3, 7am–7pm at any Travis County vote center.
Here's a no-spin rundown of the 10 city props (A–J). What YES and NO do 👇
4/5
C: redistricting commission updates
D: drop weekly-meeting rule
E: council sets own rules w/o ordinance
F: campaign limits reset Jan 1
G: petition votes only in even-year Novembers
H: council hires/fires City Attorney
J: typo cleanup
5/5
See your exact ballot at votetravis.gov. Bring a photo ID.
Questions? Reply and I'll point you to the source.
Share with an Austin neighbor 🔁
Been pushing my @Grok @Bot fleet past chat this week and having it build actual local web pages, dashboards, and small apps on my home network.
Instead of reading walls of chat text every morning, the bots now update a local Command Hub and a few purpose-built tools:
1. Command Hub + Open Questions Queue
When an overnight backlog sprint hits a fork in the road, it doesn't stall or spam me. It drops a multiple-choice card into an Open Questions tab on the hub. I click an option pill over coffee, add a quick note if needed, and send the answers back in one batch.
2. Second-Brain & Bookmark Radar
A nightly local script links my X bookmarks with my Obsidian vault. It surfaces "Forgotten Gems" from older notes with a 1-click button to send the best ones into my Notion Wisdom Journal, and tracks which saved prompts are already live in the fleet so I stop hoarding links I never use.
3. 989-API Public APIs Explorer + Roulette
A local browser for 989 free no-key APIs with a live test runner and a "Pick Random API" button. When I find one worth building with, an in-page modal lets me jot down a project idea and emails my agent to drop a scoped task straight into the Notion backlog.
4. Zero-Token LAN Scorecard + Board Game Night Picker
We moved routine health checks and Pi-hole DNS stats onto local OS timers ($0 in LLM tokens) that compile a static HTML scorecard. And for fun, it built a retro cassette-deck web app synced to our board game shelf that picks tonight's game by player count, time, and mood, weighted toward our "Shelf of Shame" (games we own and still haven't played).
We also set up a Friday "Surprise Project" routine where the bot checks my bookmarks and notes, picks one small useful thing on its own, and ships it before I wake up.
Having agents that can spin up real, persistent UIs on your own hardware changes how you actually use them day to day. 👍
Jeff B. 🥩 retweeted
Where does Austin’s tax money disappear to? A quick look at local fiscal mismanagement:
1️⃣ $100M/yr to consultants with minimal deliverable audits.
2️⃣ $4k/mo per bed for temporary shelter overhead.
3️⃣ 15M–60M+ in utility software contract extensions after system glitches.
4️⃣ Millions in EVs sitting idle in city lots waiting on delayed charging stations, unused.
What else is hiding, out of plain sight?
Taxpayers deserve accountability; the vulnerability deserve care. Vote “aye” on “Prop i” this fall.
Time for another installment of..,
🤖 Made with AI
Violent, random, bloody beating on the packed 801.
Redditors in the comments insisting everything is fine and that this is “very rare.”
These incidents are increasingly common on public transit and at public transit stations — and those trying to wish them away are culpable.
Violent individuals like this belong in jail or in institutional care.
Not on the streets. Not on the busses.
Jeff B. 🥩 retweeted
Follow the money, Austin, and you’ll find an alarming trend in how the city manages non-profit and social service contracts
-Over 44% of targeted service goals were missed.
-Fewer than 25% of the organizations met all expectations.
Yet ATX still paid them 100% in full, with no consequences for underperformance.
Compassionate governance shouldn't just mean writing checks and draining taxpayers of their lifeforce —it means demanding results. Time for stricter fiscal oversight in Austin City Hall.
👇
Vote “aye” on “Prop i” this fall.
#AustinPolitics #LocalGovernment #Transparency
City says the Prop I audit will cost $9.4 million.
Houston's efficiency audit came in under $600,000.
I would ask Austin to show that math but, if they could do that, the audit wouldn’t be necessary.
In councilman Siegel’s newsletter again the city is pushing an estimated $9.4 million cost for the prop I efficiency audit
@KirkPWatson the voters deserve to know how the city came to that number, can you please publish details?
the Houston E&Y efficiency audit was < $600k
Jeff B. 🥩 retweeted
Austin paid more than $5 million to Workers Defense Project, an immigrant-rights group that also runs a political operation to get city officials elected.
In 2020, the group campaigned for Austin's Project Connect transit tax, which included $300 million for "anti-displacement."
Then it got $2 million of that money for "tenant and worker power."
Its PACs helped elect Council Members Fuentes, Velásquez and Siegel. Mayor Pro Tem Chito Vela used to chair its board.
DA José Garza used to run the group and drew a salary from it. The group's PAC backed Garza's 2020 campaign for DA.
So the group that helped put Austin's top prosecutor in office is the same group he used to run, and it's also collecting millions from the city.
Campaign for the tax, collect from the tax, elect your own people to spend it!
Jeff B. 🥩 retweeted
Austin Energy employees stole nearly a million dollars from taxpayers. And that’s just what we caught. What else is going on? What else are they taking? Return transparency to the taxpayers, and vote aye on “Prop i” this election cycle.
$2.34 million ad campaign. $520,000 of it to the three newsrooms that cover City Hall.
KVUE. KXAN. The Statesman.
Nothing says hard-hitting, deep-probing, speak truth-to-power coverage like your subject paying the bills.
Austin City Hall is about to send up to $520,000 to three newsrooms that cover Austin City Hall.
On Thursday, the City Council will vote on a $2.34 million ad campaign that includes three local newsrooms:
KVUE: $175,000
KXAN: $175,000
Austin American-Statesman: $170,000
Nearly all of the newsroom money comes from a federal EPA program meant to cut car pollution -- basically to convince people to drive less and take the bus or bike or carpool.
The city doesn't have to take bids, because TX law exempts advertising from competitive bidding. City Hall gets to choose which outlets get paid and how much.
It's on the consent agenda, so it passes without discussion unless a council member pulls it.
Another senseless death made possible by the Austin DA’s office.
UPDATE: Alonzo Mabry is dead.
In March, the 62-year-old was using a computer at Austin's Central Library when the man next to him, Daniel Vasquez, stood up, hit him in the head, and stomped on his skull while he lay unconscious. Then Vasquez went back to his computer.
Mabry died in hospice and Vasquez was charged with murder last week.
Before the library, Vasquez had punched a CapMetro bus driver in the mouth. That was dismissed by prosecutors.
He also punched a mother in the face in front of her 11-year-old son, then punched the woman who tried to stop him. Those were also dismissed.
DA Jose Garza's office sent him to a six-month rehab program instead. He finished in June 2025 and every charge was wiped and he went back to the street.
RT @austinreforms: The current auditing measures Austin has in place can be cancelled at any time
Right now, the Austin comms/marketing de…