UPDATE: So after reading and talking to people I’ve decided I’ll vote for Galindo. Morrison is too much in the neighborhood associations pocket, and one thing we don’t need are a few neighborhood associations deciding what’s best for Austin as a whole. Not that anyone votes based on my opinion. But just thought I’d put it out there. Still pissed off about so many people’s reaction to the “visibility” and “green home tax” issues.

We just got a mailer for Cid Galindo. It has me irritated. Especially to be sending it out in Austin. It basically says that his opponent – Laura Morrison is for the “Green Home Tax”. This refers to a proposed idea to have homes be required to brought up to current energy efficient standards when they are sold. The group working on a proposal to bring before city council has not indicated whether this would be paid for by the seller or buyer. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the Austin Board of Realtors and talk radio from deciding that it would be the seller and making political hay.

If the buyer pays it’s an inconvenience, and realtors won’t like it since it might lead to lower home prices once the price of repairs is factored in. But if you’re a buyer buying a house from 1980, chances are that you already knew you were going to have to get a new AC, and rolling it into your mortgage wouldn’t be too bad a way to go.

Of course if the seller has to pay that would be a lot of money out of a seller’s pocket before they could put their home on the market. A lot of people couldn’t do it easily. Of course, more than likely the city would have Austin Energy provide more of their 0% interest loans for energy upgrades to make this simple to do without out of pocket expenses for the seller, but this isn’t keeping the issue off of talk radio.

And really I don’t care which side has to pay. Everyone in town says they want a green city, but no one seems to want to make the changes or pay for it. Pisses me off. If you can afford a 180k+ house (which is median in this city), you can afford to get your AC fixed so that it’s not screwing up the atmosphere and wasting huge amounts of energy.

And I’m not voting for Cid anymore, from point 2 of his Building the Greenest City in America plan:

2. Energy consumption matters. Per capita energy consumption should be at the heart of every major policy decision that we make as a city, from the light bulbs we use, to the grass that we grow, to the cars that we drive.

Austin – we want to be the greenest city, as long as we don’t have to sacrifice to get there.