Town Hall Meetings & Protecting Kids

On the last two Saturdays in February, I hosted a total of five town hall meetings throughout House District 96. These meetings brought neighbors together as they asked questions and shared their opinions on key issues.

It’s important to me to hear what people in our district think about the issues facing our state. While many different issues were raised, there were several key themes that came up over and over again:

• The state needs to provide a fair funding system for our local public schools so our kids get the best education possible.
• People are frustrated with high utility and insurance rates and want to see these industries be more responsive to their customers.
• People expect there to be transparency and accountability in the way Texas spends the federal stimulus dollars.

I agree with all of these points and will work to make a difference on these and other key issues in the weeks and months ahead.

I am very appreciative of all the people who took time out of their weekends to attend a town hall meeting, including the numerous local and city officials who attended. I look forward to holding additional town hall meetings in the near future.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in Austin, too. Since my last email I have filed nearly a dozen bills and intend to file several more before the March 13th filing deadline.

Yesterday, I filed two bills which focus on protecting children and others from sex offenders. The first will require computer technicians to report the discovery of child pornography on a computer they are working on. Similar laws have been passed in at least eight other states and recently a tip from a member of the Best Buy Geek Squad led to the arrest of a man in Florida.

The second bill will require sex offenders who have no permanent residence to register with the county in which they intend to live no later than seven days after release and every seven days thereafter until they find a permanent residence. According to the Texas Police Chiefs Association, many sex offenders falsely claim to be homeless in order to avoid eviction from homes where they are not legally allowed to reside.

It is critical that we keep our children and communities safe from sexual predators and do all we can to target child pornography whenever possible. We hear horror stories every day about sexual predators and I want to protect our kids and our neighborhoods from these heinous crimes and criminals.