ZacCast

On Tuesday, March 2, Texas Governor Abbott has declared an end to state mask mandates and a near-complete reopening of Texas business. We discuss whether this makes sense at this time, and the impact it might have on local governments. Texas governor lifts mask mandate and allows businesses to open at 100% capacity, despite health officials' warnings NYT Daily: Odessa, Part 1

After a brief podcasting break, Patrick and Chad return for a semi-random discussion about whatever was on our mind. Topics include property tax analytics, the upcoming legislative session, lawsuits about the Oxford comma, daily news podcasts, Ted Lasso, and Pokemon cards. Student Sells $80k Pokémon Card Collection To Pay For University

After a brief hiatus, we're back with a somewhat meandering sales tax gameday. Join us as we dig into February sales tax allocations across the state of Texas and a whole lot more. Time Codes 01:47 Statewide overview 07:25 DFW area 08:45 Houston area 10:42 San Antonio area 12:22 Mcallen area 13:25 Midland/Odessa 17:30 Corpus Christi area 18:10 El Paso area 18:48 Amarillo area 19:47 Lubbock area 22...

Texas Governor Greg Abbott wants to take over policing of downtown Austin. We talk about Texas' continuing shift away from limited government/local control and what it means for Texas cities. Plus an extended Christmas discussion, including Hallmark movies, home video, and we revisit Elf on the Shelf. Gov. Greg Abbott tells supporters he's considering placing law enforcement for central Austin und...

In a special, barely-related-to-city-government episode, Cody Janicek joins us from Prague to talk Covid, living in Europe as an American, growing up with Chad, and college rivalries.

Google announces a "No-Meetings Week", and CityLab discusses the downsides of open floor plans. TeePublic Google's 3-Word Plan to Help Employees Avoid Burnout Is So Simple You Should Steal It Death to the open floor plan

Be sure to join us at www.salestaxgameday.com for your chance to play and possibly win some swag predicting sales tax collections for December 2020.  00:00 - Intro and Sales Tax Gameday winner 04:25  - DFW 09:15 - Houston area 14:10 - San Antonio area 16:00 - McAllen area 16:30 - Corpus Christi area 17:50 - El Paso area 19:45 - Midland/Odessa area 21:10 - Amarillo area 22:05 - Lubbock area 22:43 -...

In what might be our nerdiest episode yet, we talk about the recent surges of Covid-19 and street grids, a software engineer who hacked McDonald's to find out which ice cream machines are broken, a French protest via murder hornets, and more. Texas is on the cusp of another COVID-19 surge. Is the state better prepared to handle it? How Pandemics Spurred Cities to Make More Green Space for People T...

00:25 - TeamZac Projections 07:42 - DFW Metroplex 12:42 - Midland/Odessa 13:55 - Corpus Christi 15:35 - Houston Area 19:20 - San Antonio 21:14 - Austin 25:56 - East Texas 27:08 - Amarillo 28:20 - El Paso 29:26 - McAllen/Edinburg 30:50 - Lubbock 31:32 - Victoria/Port Lavaca 32:12 - Brownsville 34:04 - Kerrville/Fredericksburg 34:45 - Bryan/College Station 36:55 - Waco 37:25 - San Angelo 38:00 - She...

Signup for our free monthly newsletter, the ZacTax Roundup 0:43 - AirBNB pilots a new City Portal Airbnb’s Data ‘Portal’ Promises a Better Relationship With Cities 08:06 - Did cities defund the police in FY21? ‘We Have Not Defunded Anything’: Big Cities Boost Police Budgets August 2020 ZacTax Roundup 15:06 - Weekly Covid tests for San Antonio schools San Antonio billionaire wants to test every stu...

02:48 - DFW 06:54 - Houston 10:45 - San Antonio 13:26 - McAllen area 13:35 - Corpus Christi area 15:13 - Austin Area 18:06 - Bryan/College Station 20:52 - Waco 22:18 - Abilene 23:16 - San Angelo 23:25 - Midland/Odessa 25:52 - Lubbock 26:40 - Amarillo 27:35 - El Paso 28:11 - Brownsville 29:10 - East Texas 30:04 - Sherman/Denison 31:00 - Removal of internet sales tax 33:30 - Wrap up Internet Tax Fre...

The Last Dance (Netflix) Drum Corps Endurance Study (YouTube) Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Amazon) Nick Saban on team chemistry  

Show me the Numbers by Stephen Few Preattentive Visual Properties and How to Use Them in Information Visualization Quick wins for your data visualizations (ZacTax Blog) Design Concepts for Better Power BI Reports - Part 2: Preattentive Attributes (Data Savvy)

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Kevin Shepherd, founder and CEO of Verdunity, joins us to talk about the sustainability gap most cities don't even know they have. Verdunity Go Cultivate! Blog Go Cultivate! Podcast ( Apple , Spotify , Stitcher , Google , TuneIn )

OK, so maybe the title is a bit hyperbolic. But everyone's been there: stuck in council chambers, time ticking away, missing your favorite show or maybe even Thursday night football. Meanwhile, nothing productive is happening in your city council meeting. In this episode, Patrick and Chad offer a few tips for fostering productive city council meetings.

In this episode, we talk about Proptech and how the Covid closures have impacted sales tax collections across Texas. Why local governments should nurture the growth of Proptech Miami zoning map

Why can't DoorDash, GrubHub, UberEats, etc, ever seem to make a profit? Or even play nicely with their restaurant partners and drivers? In this episode, we argue that a big reason is the distortionary effects of venture capital. In exchange for rapid growth, VC has subsidized both the product and some very poor business decisions by removing something all functioning markets need: price signals. C...

It's May 1st, and Texas is officially reopened. Pat and Chad discuss Governor Abbott's order to reopen the state, whether the general public will jump at the chance to get back to normal, and how localities will be impacted by the enforcement mechanisms of Abbott's plan. Texas coronavirus deaths hit one-day high ahead of reopening (The Hill) Texas restaurants, retailers and other businesses can re...

We chat with Kyle Lester, finance director for the City of Colleyville, Texas, about budgeting in uncertain times. How is the COVID-19 response impacting budget plans? How can finance professionals help keep cities moving forward when so much is unknown? And a detailed discussion of how we would handle managing Leslie Knope, the overzealous deputy director of Parks and Recreation for the City of P...

We talk about the future of SCADA systems, a very unfortunate error in a Utah appraisal district, and differing movie-time-travel rules. 

James Earp, assistant city manager for the city of Kyle, Texas, joins us to talk emergency response, continuity of government, and keeping your staff healthy so they can serve the public in the midst of COVID-19. James Earp at the City of Kyle What is “Flatten the Curve”?

Brittney Huff, director of operations for the City of Hudson Oaks, joins us to talk about some things you don't learn in grad school. Also introducing a new segment: I Literally Can't Even. - What's missing from the academic discussions of economic development?  - Wearing multiple hats as an assistant-to-the-city-manager in a small town.  - Learning how to make decisions.  - How do you handle mana...

In this episode, Chad and Patrick talk about attending the Safe-D conference in Galveston, technological miscues at the Iowa Caucus, the end of Internet Explorer, and why Chad's least favorite Disney princess. Safe-D How the Iowa Caucuses Became an Epic Fiasco for Democrats Meet the people behind Shadow, Inc The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser Parkinson's Law of Trivialit...

In this episode of ZacCast, we talk about the future of ZacTax and our company, Eight20 Consulting. We also talk about software spying and why we wanted to remove third-party tracking software from ZacTax. And we wrap up with a discussion about the ever controversial "zipper merge." Links ZacTax Avast is tracking you Ring is tracking you Zipper merging is awesome