It was a week of welcoming at 1303 San Antonio Street. Four summer interns were hired this week and everyone is excited to to have them on board, particularly me as it gets pretty quiet in this place when there aren’t interns running around and being told what to do, or is it just me that gets pretty quiet? No matter, now onto introductions:
Emily Cross comes to us from Rice University where our beloved Citizen Sarah graduated from. Emily will be working with Andy Wilson on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality sunset review. She’ll be working at P. Terry’s this summer so we expect lots of free lunches until fall.
Ramon Sanchez hails from El Paso and is attending UT Austin. He’s more than good at math and will be crunching numbers with our resident solar guy, David Power on how to get solar power in West Texas. Interesting bit about him, he walked in one day with resume in hand and said “I want to help in any way I can” and now he is. Take notes kids, initiative counts.
Ali Rawaf is back for the summer, he interned with us last fall and we’re all so freaking excited that he’s back! He’ll be working on media and with Andy and Emily. On that note Patrick Reck will be back as well working on a “How does electricity work or not work?” in Texas with David Power. Be on the look out for that video series this summer.
Tami Ryan is a native Austinite and will be working with Ryan “No Coal!” Rittenhouse and Matt “More Efficiency!” Johnson. She has her own Urban Gardening & Sustainability blog and developed a television pilot “Home Cooking from Around the World.” Have a gander and learn how to garden and cook good-for-you food.
Andy Wilson had a brainstorming session on redesigning the Clean Elections Texas website and has a Memorial Day Weekend movie recommendation: go watch Casino Jack and the United States of Money and learn about how Jack Abramoff became a corrupt super-lobbyist. A docudrama will be released this October where Kevin Spacey plays the title role and Jon Lovitz should be positively detestable as Abramoff’s business associate Adam Kidan.
Matt Johnson attended a Cap Metro sunset review hearing and submitted written comments. Get all the details on the public flogging that didn’t happen from his blog post earlier this week here.
David Power and Tom “Smitty” Smith both testified before the Texas Sunset Committee hearings. Smitty on the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) and David Power covered the ERCOT board of directors long needed restructuring.
Ryan Rittenhouse was, as usual, fighting the good fight on the road. Our resident touring organizer was in Abilene for a town hall meeting on the proposed Tenaska coal plant and found time to participate on a panel at Abilene Christian University along with Dr. Neil Carman of Sierra Club and Dr. Jim Cooke.
No mas folks, have a great Memorial Day weekend and see you Tuesday!
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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.
