Red, White AND Blue. Too Rich for Brown Water.

Texas woke up this morning to a Democratic governor-elect and a Democratic U.S. senator-elect, and half my feed thinks the world just ended while the other half thinks it was just saved. The results are still unofficial, but Gov. Greg Abbott has already conceded.^[1][2]

I'm not going to tell you which half is right. I have a different question, one both halves can answer: why does a state that finished each of its last two budgets with more than $36 billion left over still have towns where brown water comes out of the tap? Asking it starts a lot closer to home than Austin. Your city council meets every month at your local city hall, and that's where you can ask how your city's money is spent and whether anyone is asking the state for help.

While most of us have been busy arguing red against blue, small towns across Texas have been falling behind. The cost of providing the basics, clean water, working sewers and patched streets, climbs every year, and the budgets that pay for them keep getting tighter. A state with this much money left over shouldn't be watching that happen from the sidelines.

We're Still One Flag

This country is red, white and blue. All three colors, on one flag, at the same time. People fought and died so that we could argue with each other, vote each other out, and find a way forward together, instead of taking whatever a king decided to hand us. Yesterday's election was that system working. Some of you won, some of you lost, and every one of you still has a say in what happens next.

The part I worry about is where all that energy goes now. Most of it is going into comment sections about Austin. I'd like to see some of it go somewhere it can actually do some good: questions about the money behind the pipes under your own street.

What I See From the Back of the Room

I spend my weeks in small-town council meetings and reading city budgets. Every budget in every city I cover is tight. Some of those cities dug their own holes. Trinidad's own posted audits, going back to fiscal 2018, flag the same problems year after year, and its newest audit still isn't done.^[3] Other cities have done just about everything right and are struggling anyway, squeezed by inflation and costs they don't control.

Some of what I see comes straight out of the tap. In Trinidad, residents have posted photos of brown water from their homes, and the City's contracted water operator confirmed on a public thread that the town's old cast iron pipes have built-up scale breaking off into people's lines.^[4] In Italy, a resident reported brown water from her tap.^[5] Some cities, like Italy, treat their water so heavily to make it safe to drink that it can discolor your clothes in the wash.

Meanwhile, the State of Texas keeps finishing its budgets with money left over. Texas budgets two years at a time, and the comptroller certifies what's left at the end of each cycle. The 2022-23 budget ended with $39.24 billion.^[6] The 2024-25 budget ended with $36.18 billion.^[7] Split evenly across each budget's two years, that's roughly $18 billion to $20 billion left over every year since 2022.

I can't make those two pictures fit together. Small towns are deciding between fixing a water line and keeping a police officer, while the state sits on tens of billions of dollars. At the same time, school boards, city councils and county commissioners across Texas keep approving tax abatements for data centers and solar farms, and the residents who live next to them keep watching their own property tax bills climb. Put that next to a surplus this size, and it makes no sense to me. Texas is too rich for any of its towns to be living with brown water. My own read of Texas finances is that they lean toward business and away from the cities and the people who live in them.

That's my opinion. It doesn't belong to either party. I'd ask a Republican legislator and a Democratic one the same question: why does a state with this kind of surplus leave its small towns to fend for themselves?

Both Sides Sell You One Issue

Both parties are good at getting us to fight over a single issue. Take the border off the table for a minute. Take marijuana off the table. Forget what's happening in Austin.

The bigger picture is complicated, and complicated doesn't fit in a campaign ad. Most people don't have time to dig through a budget, so they trust what their leaders tell them. I understand that. I just don't think it's working for us.

Questions Worth Asking This Week

So here's what I'd ask anyone who has spent the last 24 hours arguing about the election:

• Have you ever read your city's budget, or sat in on a council meeting where it was discussed?
• Do you know how old the pipes are that bring water to your house, what they're made of, and when they're due to be replaced?
• Do you know how much of your money goes to contracts nobody else got a chance to bid on, or to repairs nobody can explain?
• Has your city looked into state help for its water system, like the loans and grants the Texas Water Development Board offers, and has it applied?^[8]
• Have your council members asked your state representative and state senator for help, and what did they hear back?

Those pipes aren't a hypothetical. In Trinidad, Jerry Bannister said during a Planning and Zoning meeting that at least one asbestos pipe is still in the ground.^[9] Your city could be in the same spot, and the only way to know is to ask.

None of that is meant to scare anyone. Those are the questions that decide whether your water is safe, whether your streets get fixed, and whether your tax bill goes up next year. Every one of them gets answered a few blocks from your house, usually in a half-empty room on a weeknight.

Take It Home

You can yell about the state online all you want, and I doubt it will change a thing. A question asked at your city council meeting goes on the record. Ask where the money is going. Ask what help the state offers and whether your city has gone after it. Ask your council members whether they've called your state representative. A council of five people notices when twenty residents walk in with the same question, and a state representative notices when a council calls asking for help.

If you knew what I've learned about Texas local government this year, I think you'd already be there, sitting next to the rest of us watchdogs. The problems we've found are a lot bigger than any one city hall. Some of the answers sit in Austin, and the people with the best shot at getting them are your own council members, if you ask them to try.

Red or blue, we all drink the same water. We disagreed at the ballot box yesterday. Can we agree to show up at the next council meeting with some questions?