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U.S. democracy is at an inflection point, and how we administer and verify our elections is more important than ever. From hanging chads to glitchy touchscreens to partisan disinformation, too many Americans worry that their votes won't count and that election results aren't trustworthy. It's crucial that citizens have well-justified confidence in this pillar of our republic.
Technology can provide answers - but that doesn't mean moving elections online. As president and CEO of the nonpartisan nonprofit Verified Voting, Pamela Smith helps lead the national fight to balance ballot accessibility with ballot security by advocating for paper trails, audits, and transparency wherever and however Americans cast votes.
On this episode of How to Fix the Internet, Pamela Smith joins EFF's Cindy Cohn and Danny O'Brien to discuss hope for the future of democracy and the technology and best practices that will get us there.
This episode is also available on the Internet Archive and on YouTube.
In this episode you'll learn about:
- Why voting online can never be like banking or shopping online
- What a "risk-limiting audit" is, and why no election should lack it
- Whether open-source software could be part of securing our votes
- Where to find reliable information about how your elections are conducted
Pamela Smith, President & CEO of Verified Voting, plays a national leadership role in safeguarding elections and building working alliances between advocates, election officials, and other stakeholders. Pam joined Verified Voting in 2004, and previously served as President from 2007-2017. She is a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises, a diverse cross-partisan group of more than 50 experts whose mission is to prevent and mitigate election crises by urging critical reforms. She provides information and public testimony on election security issues across the nation, including to Congress. Before her work in elections, she was a nonprofit executive for a Hispanic educational organization working on first language literacy and adult learning, and a small business and marketing consultant.
Music for How to Fix the Internet was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower.
This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes the following music licensed Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by their creators:
- Klaus by Skill_Borrower
http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Skill_Borrower/41751 - commonGround by airtone
http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/58703 - Chrome Cactus by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)
Voting Security:
- The Verifier, Verified Voting
- Election Security
- If It Doesn't Have Paper Backups and Automatic Audits, It's Not an Election Security Bill
- What to Do When Voting Machines Fail
- E-Voting Machines Need Paper Audits to be Trustworthy
- NSW's online gamble: why internet and phone voting is too risky, The Conversation
- No to Online Voting in Virginia
- Election Security Is a Matter of National Security, Scientific American
- Elections Are Partisan Affairs. Election Security Isn't
- Voter Privacy: What You Need to Know About Your Digital Trail During the 2016 Election, EFF
- Hacking the D.C. Internet Voting Pilot, Freedom to Tinker
Security Through Obscurity
- Code Review Isn't Evil. Security Through Obscurity Is
- Podcast Episode: Making Hope, with Adam Savage
Pam: It's not like banking and shopping, and it's not like banking and shopping online and other things that don't require secrecy and disassociating the identity of the person doing the transaction from the content of the transaction. And that's why internet voting is so challenging. If you were to send in your ballot from remotely and then call the election official and say, "Hey, it's Pam. I sent my ballot, I voted for candidate A, is that what you've got?" That's not how elections work first of all. But if it were, why not just do that and not do the send. Just say, "Hey, I want to vote for candidate A, could you mark that down for me?" That would actually be safer. It wouldn't be private, but neither is internet voting.
Cindy: That's our guest, Pam Smith. She's the CEO of Verified Voting. And today she's going to be joining us to explain how digital technologies can help secure elections but we are also going to talk about how we need to keep a clear separation between our actual votes and the internet.
Danny: Pam's going to spread some light and tell us how we can protect the entire process, from voter registration to vote verification through to a risk limiting audit. She'll tell us how to build a system that lets everyone feel comfortable that the candidate with the most votes was actually the one chosen.
Cindy: I'm Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Danny: And I'm Danny O'Brien, special advisor to the EFF. Welcome to How to Fix the Internet, the podcast where we explain some of the biggest problems in tech policy and examine the solutions that'll make our lives better.
Cindy: Hi, Pam. You and I go way back and I currently serve on the board of advisors of Verified Voting. And I'm so excited to have you here today so we can dig into these things.
Pam: It's great to be with you again.
Cindy: So we find ourselves in a very strange situation, you and me and others who care about election integrity, where some of the arguments that we have been using for many, many years to try to make our elections more secure are being picked up and used by people who I would say don't have that same goal.
Pam: Well I think people legitimately want to know that elections are righteous, why wouldn't they? But I think the undermining of the public's ability to trust and to know how to trust in elections is really one of the more severe dangers to democracy today. As long as there have been elections, there have been problems, issues, challenges, and even tampering with elections, that's not new. Those issues are different at different points in history. Starts out with who gets the vote and who doesn't. But also back in the day, communities used hand count votes with the whole public watching. And it was very transparent, it was low tech, no problems, but it was also not private, not secret, and there were very few voters.
Now elections are carried out with software and computerized systems in most aspects of elections and things can be hacked and tampered with and can have failures and bugs and glitches. People need to understand technology touches their elections in many places. How do we know that it's secure? So what we do is look at what are the basics in securing elections. It's the same as securing anything computerized, it's keeping systems up and running, it's protecting data from both malfeasance and malfunction, and it's being able to recover when something goes wrong, having that resilience.
Cindy: Could you give us an example of one of the things that people were very worried about, that election officials could easily explain?
Pam: Well, probably the biggest one, and this was anticipated, was the fact that not all the votes are going to be done being counted on election night, they're just not. And especially in 2020, where you add one more layer of complexity called a pandemic. So it made a lot of things different. When the ballots come in, if they came in before election day, my county prepares them for counting and runs a tally. First thing after the polls are closed, they can report out those absentee ballots. But those are just the ones they've already gotten in, that's not the polling place ballots, that's not the ones we allow to arrive late as long as they were postmarked on time.
So there's many more ballots to be added into that count, that's just the initial count. I think people don't know that the initial count is not the official count, and that's important to know. It takes a while for all of the ballots to be processed and counted, even to make sure that they were legitimate ballots and included properly in the count. And that end part is called certification of the election. When we certify in each jurisdiction, that's the final count.
Cindy: And this is the difference between elections in the United States in elections in a lot of places around the world, we vote on a lot of things.
Danny: It's true.
Cindy: And we have complicated ballots that might change across the street depending on what precinct or whatever that you're in. Even in a place where people live very close together, there are different kinds of ballots because people are voting for their very local representative as well as all the way up to the federal level. And elections are generally governed as a legal matter locally as well. So the US constitution guarantees your right to vote, but how that happens varies a lot. One of the things that Verified Voting created a long time ago, but which I still think is a tremendously useful tool, is something called The Verifier, which is a website that you can go to and type in where you live and it will tell you exactly what counting technologies are used.
Danny: And I think this touches on the key point here, how technology can complicate or even undermine people's trust in what is already a very complicated system. Again, a lot of the conversations in the last election were about, has this been hacked? And how do we prove whether it has or it hasn't been hacked? I know Verified Voting and EFF were very involved in the early effort to require paper records, a paper trail of digital voting technology, what we call voter verified paper records back in the 2000s. So can you just talk a little bit about where the role paper, of all things, plays in a more high tech voting system?
Pam: It's interesting to note when we got started back in 2004, there were only about eight states with a requirement to use paper and only about three had a requirement to check the paper later with an audit.
Danny: And when you say paper here, it's literally a printout. You vote and then there's a paper record somewhere that you voted in a certain way.
Pam: It's a physical record that you get to check to make sure it was marked the way you intended it.
Danny: Got it.
Pam: You may be using an interface, a machine that prints that out, but you may be marking a physical ballot by hand as well. And it's that physical record of your intent that is the evidence for the election.
So here's the thing about paper, you need to know that you can cast an effective ballot and that means you're getting the right ballot, that it's complete, there's no missing candidates or contests on it, it's feasible to mark. If you have to use an interface, that that interface is working, up and running, and that you have a way to check that physical ballot and cast it safely and privately. Then that ballot gets counted along with all the other ballots and you need a way to know it was counted correctly.
And that you can demonstrate that fact to the public to the satisfaction of those who are on the side of the losing candidate or issue, and that's the key. If you have that... This is what was said about the 2020 elections, Chris Kreb, who was at the cybersecurity agency at DHS on elections and he called the 2020 election the most secure in American history. The leg he had to stand on for that was the fact that almost all jurisdictions were using paper, that almost all jurisdictions were doing some audit to check after fact. And that's why it matters, you have to have that record.
Danny: I know that some of the work that's come out of what you've been doing then has been this idea of risk limiting audits. I'm addressing this to both of you, because I know you both worked on this, but the risk limiting audits and how they work.
Pam: Audits get done in a variety of industries, there are audits in banking, there's all kinds of audits, the IRS might audit you. It's not always seen as such an attractive word. But in elections, it's really important. What it means is you are counting, you're doing a hand to eye count, you're visually looking at those paper ballots and doing a comparison of a count of a portion of those ballots with the machine count. So software can go wrong, it can be badly programmed, it could have been tampered with. But if you have that physical record that you can then count a portion of and check and make sure it's matching up, and if it's not figure out where the problem is. That's what makes the system resilient.
A risk limiting audit is one that relies on the margin of victory to determine how much you have to count in order to have a strong sense of confidence that you're not seating the wrong person in office. So it's a little bit like polling. If you poll on a particular topic, you want to know how the public feels about something, you don't have to ask every single person, you just ask a percentage of them. You make sure it's a good cross section, you make sure it's a well randomized sample. And all other things being equal, you're going to know how people feel about that topic without having to ask every single person. And with risk limiting audits, it's the same kind of science, it's using a statistical method to determine how much to count.
Cindy: We worked really hard to try to make sure that there was paper. And then we realized that we had to work really hard to make sure that the paper played the role that it needed to play when there are concerns. If you only do this when you're worried that there's a problem, you're really not fixing the situation. It needs to be something that happens every time so people can build their trust in the things.
But also it needed to be lightweight enough that you could do it every single time and you don't end up with these crazy debacles, like we saw in Arizona. Can you give us an update? How's it going trying to get risk limiting audits regularized in the law? I know this is an area where you guys do a lot of work.
Pam: Well, this extremely geeky term, risk limiting audits, is actually getting wide traction. So it's good news.
Danny: Good.
Pam: People I think are understanding it. And one of the things that we do is support election officials through the process. So maybe their state passes a law that says you'll do risk limiting audits, we help them understand how to do it and answer all the questions that might come up when they're doing it. They then use that to demonstrate to the public that it's working right and it's a tool that they are really adapting to and adopting well. There's more to do. And I think what's important to know is that really any audit is going to have some utility in telling you how your equipment's working. Risk limiting audits are a more robust form of auditing. And they will let you not do as much work if the margin is wide and they will call for more work if the margin is very narrow, but you want that anyway. You might go to a full recount in a very tight margin, talking about Florida 2000, that margin would probably necessitate that full hand recount anyway. But doing a risk limiting audit, you can get to that kind of confidence.
Danny: "How to Fix the Internet" is supported by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Public Understanding of Science. Enriching people's lives through a keener appreciation of our increasingly technological world and portraying the complex humanity of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.
Cindy: Let me flip to where I love to go, which is so What does it look like if we get this right? What are the values? What does it look like if we have a world in which we have technology in the right places, in our systems, but also that we can trust it.
Pam: I think that getting it right means that voters know the election was fair because it was conducted securely. And they know how to know that. That they know where the ground truth is and how to figure it out, that they're participating actively in watching, that they're not being hindered by failed technology at whatever point that intersects with the election. Whether it's registration or checking into the polling place or actually using a device to mark your ballot or the counting process, that nowhere along on the path they're being hindered in that process. And that means more people can participate who want to participate. This doesn't address things like voter suppression, that's a separate different issue. And it's an issue about security because elections really are only secure if everybody who wants to gets to participate and can cast an effective ballot.
Cindy: Could you explain why we want to fix the internet, we want to make the world better, and why voting over the internet isn't on the list of things that we think would make a better world?
Pam: One of the things that we talked about is the importance of the paper. That the voter gets to check at the time they're voting and make sure it represents what they meant to vote for. When you use the internet to transmit votes, you lose that. What arrives at the election's office, if it arrives at the election's office, may or may not represent what the voter thought they intended to vote for. And there's no real way to control for of that right now. Maybe in some future on a different internet that was designed for security and not just for open communication, it's possible to do. But you have all kinds of issues with internet voting that include things like voter authentication attacks, malware on the voter's devices, not just in the election's office, a denial of service attack, server penetration, spoofing, all kinds of things can go wrong.
Cindy: And ballot privacy is tremendously important if you really want to make sure that people can vote freely for who they want. You don't want them subjected to either their boss or the other people who live with them or their community, being able to see how they vote. That's not a free vote, that can often be a coerced vote. So a secret ballot is just a piece of how elections work, not just in the US but in most places of the world for really good reason.
Pam: The internet has other ways in which it's hazardous to elections health. It can be used for attacks on election officials, which we're seeing a lot these days, attacks on votes, attacks on voters' registration. We saw in 2016 state databases being tampered with from afar. And other kinds of information hacks. Just really by way of disinformation, attacks on democracy and understanding how to know what you need to know. If we're thinking of about what would the world look like if we got it right, election officials are protected, votes are secure, and voter registration is secure and there's ways for people to check and make sure of that. And fail safes in case something happens last minute. So all of those kinds of things are really important. Fighting disinformation is probably as important as the rest.
Danny: I thought it was very fascinating in the last couple of elections in the US, I was talking to the cybersecurity side of all of this, it's very difficult to get to the bottom of these things. But one thing really stuck with me, which is that the officials I was talking to said, "Well, look, most people's model of this is someone is hacking to change the results to favor a particular person. But in fact, if you want to introduce instability into a country, the best thing you can do is just undermine faith in the system itself. You don't actually have to achieve a result, you just have to inject a sufficient amount of ambiguity into the result. Because once that trust is gone, then it doesn't matter what the result is because the other side is going to assume something happened behind the scenes. So is part of this to make the whole system transparent in a way that the average person can understand what's going on?
Pam: We don't expect voters to have confidence, our mission has never been make voters feel confident, it's not about that. It's about giving them justified confidence that the outcome was right. And that's different.
Cindy: But let's just say I hear that there's a problem in a critical place. What do I ask myself? And what do I look for to be able to tell whether this is a real problem or perhaps not a real problem that's being overblown or just misunderstood?
Pam: Well, I think you want to know what the election official says. There are rare exceptions, but nearly all the election officials I know they're simply heroes frankly. They're working with minimal budgets and doing very long hours on very tight deadlines that are unforgiving. But what they do is really to address problems, anticipate problems, avoid them, and if they come up, address them. So you need to know what the election official is saying. If it's observable, go observe. If there's a count happening that you can watch, go watch that count. But you can't get your information, from somebody's cousin on Facebook.
Cindy: Give us an example of where there was a concern and we were able to put it to rest or there was a concern and it went forward.
Pam: One of the things we'd hear on election day at election protection was we'd get a call from somewhere and they'd say, "I've marked my ballot and I wanted to go cast it in this scanner like I usually do. But they told me not to and they put it in a separate bin." Why did they do that? Are they taking those ballots away? Are those not going to be counted? What's happening there? And we are able to tell them that there is actually a legit reason for that. What happens sometimes in a ballot scanner is that the bin gets full, that the ballots don't fall in a straight line, and it may be jammed. And if it's jammed, you don't want the ballots to get destroyed by trying to keep feeding more and more in. That bin has actually got a name, it's the auxiliary bin, it's the extra bin for when this happens. And it is attached to the ballot box. And what happens is once they clear that jam, which they may not be able to do in the middle of the busiest time of voting, is to feed those through.
Danny: All right.
Pam: That actually is a real simple problem with a simple resolution. But when you can tell people, "This is how that works" it puts their mind at rest.
Danny: Which brings me, I think, to something else that people often, both on the left and right, worry about, which is the companies behind these machines. How can we reassure people that there isn't something being underhand in the very design of the technologies?
Pam: We used to say that it shouldn't matter if the devil himself designed your voting system, as long as there's paper and you're doing a robust check on the paper, you should be able to solve for that. That's what makes it resilient and that's why we want to make sure every voter, not just 90% or more, but all of the voters are living in a jurisdiction where that paper record is there for them to check
Cindy: I just think overall, this is technology, it needs to be subjected to the same things we do in other technology to try to continue to make it better. And that includes a funding stream so that when new technology is available, local election officials can actually get it.
Pam: Elections are woefully underfunded. And there's a conference that happens in California every year that's called New Laws. This is a conference that election officials hold so that they can examine all the new laws that have been passed that affect how they run elections. It happens every year. So they are constantly and continuously having to update what they do and make changes to what they do. Oftentimes there are unfunded mandates that have to do with what they do. Asking them to do additional things is hard, especially if you're not going to pay for it. So it's really important that there is federal funding for elections that gets down through to the states and to the counties to support good technology. But with things like internet voting, the most dangerous form of voting, that doesn't have to go through any certification because no one's been able quite yet to write standards for how you would do this securely.
Cindy: Because you can't right now.
Pam: Because you can't.
Cindy: With our current internet.
Pam: Not that we don't want to, you just can't.
Danny: I have one more thing to throw in which people often, often say, "Oh, we should do it like this." I'd love to know your opinion on it because our community is often like, "Well, we need an open source voting machine or a voting system. And that would fix a set of problems." Certainly the idea is that would be more transparent and you would feel more confident about it. Do you think that's an answer or part of the answer?
Pam: I think it's a very good thing. It's what some people might call necessary but not sufficient. You still are going to need to do audits, you're still are going to need paper, you still need a resilient system. But open source helps make sure that you can anticipate some of the issues right away because there are lots of eyes on the problem. With voting technology though, it gets tricky. It's not quite the same as other kinds of open source because who's responsible for what's the most current iteration? This isn't something that people can just keep applying fixes to randomly, there has to be a known version that's being used in a particular election. So there has to be an organization or entity that governs how that's being used.
Cindy: Understanding how this technology works is tremendously important for all of our security. And it's the classic security through obscurity doesn't work, that our friend, Adam Savage just reminded us of this. This is a whole other wing of secure elections, but the only way you know something is secure is that a bunch of smart people have tried to break it and they can't.
Pam: Don't leave weak spots if you can help it because if somebody's looking to tamper, they're going to find the weakest point. So it really is crucial to try and secure all parts of our elections.
Danny: What's the end game here? You're clearly deeply in the trenches trying to incrementally improve these systems. But do you ever have a dream where you envisage a world where maybe we do have a solution to voting on the internet or we do use a new technology to make things better?
Pam: Moving towards those options includes things like if you need to vote by mail, you can vote by mail. If you want to vote in person in a polling place, that's available to you. If you need an accessible device, one that's really, really accessible and usable, it's available to you. And it works and it was set up before you got there so it's readily available. I think knowing that every jurisdiction is using a system that's resilient to any kind of failure, hurricane, power outage, anything, that there's a physical ballot to mark, that it's easy to check, it's a usable ballot not confusing, so that you end up missing contest or anything like that. It's designed well, ballot design is really important. All of those small pieces are only possible if there's enough funding for elections. If we believe in our democracy and we believe in having good elections, then that means having good voting systems, good practices, and the resources to carry those out.
Right now, election officials really struggle to recruit enough poll workers for every election. Of course, that got a little harder with the pandemic going on. Many poll workers are of an older age cohort, so we need younger poll workers. And a lot of really smart programs have led to recruiting high school students to be poll workers and it's been magical. So I think really getting everyone engaged, getting everyone to understand where they can find the ground truth about elections, and feeling the confidence that they need to really happily participate and celebrate being part of this democracy, that's the most important thing. And that's what I envision for our future.
Cindy: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. This has been a fascinating conversation. There's so much talk about elections and election integrity right now. And it's great to have a sane, stable voice that's been here for a long time, which is you and Verified Voting on the case. So thanks.
Pam: Thank you, Cindy. And thank you, Danny. Thanks for doing this.
Danny: It's always good to talk to somebody like Pam, who has years of experience, especially when a topic is suddenly as controversial or in the public eye as election integrity. I did think given how controversial it is these days, Pam was reassuringly genial. She established that we need to get to a ground truth that everyone can agree on and we need to find ways, technological or not, to reassure voters that whatever the result, the rules were followed.
Cindy: I especially appreciated the conversation about risk limiting audits as one of the tools that help us feel assured that the right person won the election, the right issue won the election. Especially that these need to be regularized. EFF is audited, lots of organizations are audited. That this is just somewhat built into the way we do elections so that the trust comes from the idea that we're not doing anything special here, we always do audits and we scale them up depending on how close the election is. And that's just one of the pieces of building trust that I think Verified Voting has really spearheaded.
The other thing I really liked was the ways that she helped us think about what we need to do when we hear those rumors of terrible things happening in elections far away. I appreciated that you start with the people who are there. Look for the election officials and the organizations who are actually on the ground in the place where you hear the rumors about looking to them first, but also looking to the election protection orgs, of which Verified Voting is one but not nearly the only one, that are really working year round and working in a nonpartisan way around election integrity.
Danny: And another leg of the stool is transparency throughout all of this process. It's key for resolving the ambiguity of it. I do appreciate that she pointed out that while open source code is great for giving some element of transparency, it's necessary but not sufficient. You have to wrap it around a trusted system. You can't just solve this by waving the free software license wand all over it.
Cindy: I also appreciate Pam lifting up the two sides of thinking about the Internet's involvement in our elections. First of all, the things that it's good at, delivering information, making sure ballots get to people. But also what it's not good for, which is actual voting and the fact that we can't get ground truth in internet voting right now. And that part of the reason we can't and what makes this different than doing your banking online is the need for ballot secrecy that has a tremendously long and important role in our elections.
Danny: But that said, I do think that ultimately there was a positive thread going through all of this. That many things in this area, in the United States have got better. We have better machines, we have newer machines, we have less secrecy and proprietary barriers around those machines. Often people when we ask them about what their vision of the future is, they get a little bit thrown because it is hard to describe the positive side. But Pam was pretty specific but also pointed out perhaps why it's such a challenge. Because she highlighted that what we want in our future is a diversity of solutions. And of course, that you need the correct financial and social support in the rest of society to make that vision happen.
Cindy: Thanks so much to Pam Smith for joining us and giving us so much honestly hope for the future of our democracy and our voting systems.
Danny: If you like what you heard, follow us on your favorite podcast player and check out our back catalog for more conversations on how to fix the internet. Music for the show was created for us by Reed Mathis and Nat Keefe of BeatMower. This podcast is licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, and includes music licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported licensed by their creators. You can find those creators names and links to the music in our episode notes or on our website at eff.org/podcast. How to Fix The Internet is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's program in public understanding of science and technology. I'm Danny O'Brien
Cindy: And I'm Cindy Cohn. Thank you so much for joining us.


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The New England Chapter brings together members of the professional design, architecture, preservation, and real estate development communities; academics; and interested lay persons committed to bringing the extremely broad knowledge base of its diverse membership to bear on our understanding and appreciation of both the canonical and "hidden" works of the modern movement. They cooperate to publicize, register, and, when needed, advocate for the rich legacy of the modern movement in a region that contains works by famed pioneers (Aalto, Gropius, Le Corbusier, Wright and others) and postwar architectural and landscape designers such as Louis Kahn, Dan Kiley, I.M Pei and Paul Rudolph, as well as by a growing list of previously unrecognized practitioners of interwar "invisible modernism." It works closely with museums, universities, architecture schools, local preservation organizations, regulatory agencies and historical commissions on education and advocacy; serves as a primary information source for owners of modernist properties; and organizes public lectures and tours for both specialists and nonspecialist audiences. Massachusetts-based since its foundation in 1997, it is eager to collaborate with interested individuals, agencies and institutions throughout the entire region.
Docomomo New England elected a new board over the summer. It will be assisted in its work by the Senior Advisory Board, consisting of former board members.

subset: commoncrawl


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The second focus is on the child and his future. Sullivan counsels them from his own experience on how to get on the right path and be successful in life. Sullivan also draws upon the experiences of some of his adult and juvenile clients who did not heed his counsel and are now either in prison or deceased.
James Sullivan chose to become a juvenile defense lawyer. It was not by accident. Fighting the government and defending people come natural to him—he was born into a diverse, dynamic family of conservative Christians and liberal social activists. Because of his own difficult teen years, Sullivan connects with teenagers in ways that other attorneys simply cannot and has been instrumental in leading juveniles to have a successful future. As one client wrote in a review,
Sullivan connected with our son immediately. It was apparent he cared about him as a whole person, not just the kid who suddenly found himself in trouble. He was more than just a lawyer to my son. He shared his own experiences and his positive attitude about life and relationships. Sullivan is not only a good lawyer but a good role model for our children.
Gerry Spence and James Sullivan in 2012 |
At the Trial Lawyers College, Sullivan shared his life story with Gerry Spence. Sullivan's path through life has given him a unique understanding of the injustices that happen to many juveniles, many of which are far beyond their control. Spence himself also experienced tragedy during his formative years, yet went on to become America's most celebrated and winningest trial lawyer. Spence shared his own wisdom on this transformation from suffering to success—those who have overcome great pain and suffering have the heart to help others. And those words of wisdom sum up Sullivan's life story and vocation. Sullivan is passionate and zealous in defending his clients in court and in guiding them to a successful future.In 1990, James Sullivan graduated from Baylor University with honors. In 1993, Sullivan earned his law degree from South Texas College of Law. Sullivan also graduated from Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College, the most selective and prestigious trial advocacy program in America.
Sullivan was also interviewed by The Trial Lawyers College for their blog regarding a juvenile jury trial win on a felony case of deadly conduct, his experiences learning their methods and his unique insight into juvenile defenses.
Contact James Sullivan to consult with a board certified Harris County Juvenile Attorney at (281) 546-6428.
How much do you charge?
Attorney fees are an important factor in selecting a juvenile defense attorney, but do you really want the cheapest lawyer when your child's rights, freedom and future are on the line? The old saying that you get what you pay for is definitely true when it comes to hiring a defense lawyer. Exceptional representation is what your child deserves, but that level of representation should come at a fair price.
James G. Sullivan and Associates strive to provide each juvenile client with exceptional representation at a reasonable cost. Unlike many of their colleagues, they charge separate trial and non-trial fees. They do not believe it is reasonable to charge a trial fee unless the case is actually prepared and set for trial. Sullivan, however, is not a pro bono lawyer, i.e. he does not represent people for free. If you cannot afford to hire an attorney, you should ask the judge to appoint an attorney to represent you.
Does my child really have to have a lawyer?
Yes. The law requires that children in juvenile court must be represented by an attorney during most proceedings. In some circumstances, the judge may appoint an attorney to represent the child and require the parents to reimburse the county for the court-appointed lawyer however this process has been heavily criticized by the local press, specifically that judges hire bad lawyers and ban the good ones. This system was first described in 1999 in an article in the Houston Press.
About 75 percent of juveniles are represented by court-appointed lawyers who receive appointments because of their financial support of judges' election campaigns. Because these lawyers represent large numbers of juveniles each year, they may only spend a few minutes with each client before court.
Attorney James Sullivan is a reputable trial lawyer and defends his client's constitutional right to a trial by jury. Unlike court-appointed lawyers, Sullivan only tries cases to a jury in juvenile court. In 2013, Sullivan tried and won an aggravated sexual assault of a child case where the State was seeking a determinate sentence. The day after the trial a juror sent Sullivan a kind note–
Hi Jim, I was on the jury panel for the defendant on March 19 & 20, 2013 [in Juvenile Court]. My congratulations on winning the case. I believe justice was served. The harsh treatment you received from the court was NOT a factor in deciding the case but it WAS noticed and mentioned during deliberations by all the jury members. Glad to see you took the higher ground. Your closing statement was very well prepared and was helpful in our decision making process. Best of Luck, it was an honor to be there.
What else might the State or Judge consider in my child's case?
A representative of the juvenile probation department will contact you to gather information to prepare a probation report. These reports are prepared on all juvenile cases where charges have been filed and most of the information that is in the report comes from this interview. Obviously, the character, behavior and personality of the child described in the report carries great weight in decisions regarding release as well as final disposition (i.e. sentencing). Many parents make the mistake of not providing positive information about their child that may not be directly asked about, such as major improvements in behavior since the charge was filed, volunteer work in the community, attendance and participation at their place of worship (if any), etc. Furthermore, if the child uses social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), the government may want to log in to their accounts to check for evidence of inappropriate behavior, postings or "friends". Such information could also be used against the child in a release decision or recommendation as to disposition.
What is the difference between juvenile court and adult criminal court?
In Texas, children from 10 to 16 years of age are charged in juvenile court. In Harris County, the children are tried in Juvenile District Courts, whereas in other counties they may be charged in juvenile district or county courts. Juvenile court is considered a civil court, although certain sections of criminal law are applicable. In the juvenile system, a child is charged with a "delinquency" by way of petition whether than with a "crime" by way of complaint or indictment. At trial, a jury or judge returns a verdict of "true" or "not true" instead of "guilty" or "not guilty". Also, unless a juvenile is certified to stand trial as an adult and transferred to criminal court, juveniles are not released on "bond" but are released or detained depending upon the circumstances of their. Finally, the juvenile system primarily focuses on rehabilitation. Instead of a "punishment" hearing, if a juvenile is found to have engaged in delinquent conduct, the juvenile then has a "disposition" hearing where the consequences for his behavior are based upon guidelines and levels, not necessarily upon the offense as in criminal court.
Because juvenile law proceedings are hybrid in that they involve both civil and criminal law, you should retain an attorney that specializes in this unique area of law. The Houston defense attorneys at James G. Sullivan and Associates devote a significant portion of their practice to defending juveniles and have significant trial experience in both juvenile and criminal courts.
At what age is a teenager charged and tried as an adult?
17. Texas is one of only 10 states where 17 year olds are tried and sentenced as adults. Because of this, it is extremely important that a juvenile mature quickly before his wayward path takes him into the adult system. For many children, the juvenile system becomes a pipeline to adult prison.
What happens in court?
The first court setting of your child is referred to as the arraignment setting. If your attorney did not make an appointment to review the District Attorney's file prior to court, then this is an opportunity for him to do so. Your attorney may also make a written request for a copy of the police report. The District Attorney also may offer a "plea deal" on this first setting to avoid a trial, however before any possible resolution can be considered your attorney must first exhaust all possible defenses. Sullivan considers a plea deal to be the last resort.
At this setting, your attorney may also receive and review a copy of the juvenile probation report. Prior to court, a representative of the probation report will call you to ask about your child's behavior at home and in school. The representative will also contact your child's school to get his grades, attendance and disciplinary records. As the probation report will be relied upon by the court for case disposition purposes, it is important that the information be accurate. It is a good idea to hire an experienced juvenile lawyer right after your child is arrested so that he can advise you on these important matters in advance.
It is possible to resolve a juvenile case on the first court setting if your attorney has investigated the case, reviewed the District Attorney's file, researched the applicable law and tested the prosecutor's evidence in advance. This is only possible if your attorney is hired early on, signs on in court as attorney of record and then off dockets your child's case to a later date to get more time to prepare. Sullivan frequently does this on juvenile cases so that his juvenile client and his parents do not have to needlessly miss work or school.
Sometimes, the initial court setting will result in a reset of the case to a future date for reasons beyond the defense attorney's control. For example, in every case involving a complainant, the prosecutor is required to contact the complainant to gather information regarding any restitution amount, any injuries sustained and his feelings on punishment. It is not uncommon for a prosecutor to not be able to reach a complainant prior to court.
At James G. Sullivan and Associates, the Houston juvenile attorneys will strive to complete your child's case with as few court settings as necessary, without compromising your child's rights, freedom and future.
What happens if my child is found guilty?
Juveniles cannot be found "guilty" because the juvenile court is considered civil, not criminal. Instead, a juvenile could be found to have "engaged in delinquent conduct" if the jury or judge finds beyond a reasonable doubt that the juvenile committed the offense. Of course, an experienced juvenile defense attorney will work hard to avoid a finding of delinquency, preferably by persuading the prosecutor to dismiss the charge or the jury or the judge to acquit his client at trial.
If a juvenile did commit the offense, your defense attorney may be able to avoid a finding of delinquency by persuading the prosecutor or the judge to grant a deferred prosecution. This is a contract between the juvenile and the District Attorney whereby if the juvenile follows the rules of probation for six months then the District Attorney dismisses the case. The prosecutor cannot agree to a deferred prosecution for certain misdemeanor offenses and all felony offenses, however James Sullivan has been successful in persuading judges to grant deferred prosecution in many such cases anyway.
When a juvenile is found to have engaged in delinquent conduct, the court judgment following a disposition hearing can range from (1) a probation where the child is left in the custody of his parents (or guardians), (2) a probation where the child is removed from the home and placed in a local juvenile facility, or (3) the child in felony cases may be committed to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (formerly known as the Texas Youth Commission). In serious felony cases, depending on the circumstances, the juvenile may face certification or transfer to criminal district court to stand trial as an adult.
Can my child's juvenile records be sealed?
Depending on the circumstances, your child's juvenile records may be sealed.
In a misdemeanor case with a finding of delinquent conduct, the juvenile must wait two years and have no other convictions or adjudications before the records can be sealed.
In a felony case, the juvenile must wait until he is at least 19 years of age and have no other convictions or adjudications before the records may be sealed. The judge has the discretion whether or not to seal the records. In cases where there was a "determinate sentence", the records can never be sealed.
When a case results in a dismissal such as when a juvenile successfully completes a deferred prosecution, the juvenile can get his records sealed immediately. The juvenile does not have to wait two years or until age 19.
Can I post a bond to get my child out of detention?
No. Juveniles cannot be released on "bond". They are either detained or released depending upon the circumstances of their case.
The police arrested my child for a delinquency. What is going to happen?
The police often take juveniles into custody. Sometimes, the child is released by the police to parents (or guardians). When this occurs, the parents can take their child home but they are told that their child is still being charged. The police then send their information to the District Attorney over the next few days or weeks. If the District Attorney accepts charges, a petition is filed with the juvenile courts. In Harris County, the case is then randomly assigned to one of the three Juvenile District Courts. A Deputy Constable usually will then come to your home and "serve" or deliver the petition to you and your child. The paperwork tell you what your child is accused or and will direct you and your child to appear at a specific court on a particular day.
At the same time, the juvenile probation department begins to gather information about your family and your child to prepare a report for the court. In addition to requesting records from your child's school, a probation officer will contact you to gather information. Before speaking with the probation officer, it is important that you and your child talk with a juvenile defense lawyer in order to protect your child's rights. While you want to appear cooperative with the probation department, you must also keep in mind that information provided to the probation officer will be put in the report that is given to the court and the prosecutor for consideration.
Do you have experience defending children with mental health and substance abuse disorders?
Yes. James Sullivan is very knowledgeable in various mental health and substance disorders and how they impact a juvenile. Behavior, mood, anxiety and substance disorders are common with children brought into the juvenile system. These children often have more than one disorder; substance abuse is the most common "co-occurence" with a mental illness.These disorders frequently put children at risk for risky behavior and delinquent acts.
Behavioral disorders are characterized by actions that harm or disturb others and that cause distress or disability. Typical behavioral disorders are ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and conduct disorders.
Emotional disorders occur when a child's ability to function is impaired by depression or anxiety. The occurrence of depression is significantly higher among juvenile offenders than among other young people.
Many juvenile offenders have a history of substance abuse. Studies also have shown that up two-thirds of juveniles in the justice system with a mental health diagnosis had dual disorders, most often including substance abuse.
According to the National Mental Health Association, between 30 and 50 percent of juvenile in the justice system have disruptive behavior disorders.
Anxiety disorders and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) are also prevalent among juvenile offenders, especially girls. Asperger's syndrome and higher levels of Autism spectrum disorder are less common in juvenile offenders. Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, however, are rare in juveniles in the justice system.
According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), children aged 3-17 years have:
Adolescents aged 12–17 years have:
Approximately 65 to 70 percent of the 2 million children and adolescents arrested each year in the United States have a mental health disorder. Approximately one in four suffers from a mental illness so severe that it impairs his or her ability to function as a young person and grow into a responsible adult. Without treatment, the child may continue on a path of delinquency and eventually adult crime.
What can I do to get my child released from detention?
Call a juvenile lawyer who has experience in getting their clients released in detention hearings. An experienced juvenile lawyer should be able to explain the legal process to you and to guide you on how to best prepare for the detention hearing. It is important for you to attend the detention hearing while your child's lawyer argues the many reasons why the judge should release your child.
What does the Judge consider when deciding whether or not to release my child?
At the hearing, the judge considers five factors in determining whether to hold your child in the detention center pending a resolution of the case in court or to release your child to a parent or guardian: (1) whether the child is likely to abscond or be removed from the jurisdiction of the court, (2) whether a parent or guardian can provide suitable supervision, care, and protection for the child, (3) whether the child has a parent or guardian who is able to return him to court when required, (4) whether the child may be a danger to himself or others if released, and (5) whether the child has previously been found to have engaged in delinquent conduct and is likely to commit a new offense if released.
Defending Texans Since 1994
Defending juveniles from all Harris County cities and communities including Houston, Katy, Cypress, Humble, Baytown, Tomball, Pasadena, Pearland, La Porte, Bellaire, Webster, League City, Seabrook, Deer Park, Galena Park, Jersey Village, South Houston, West University Place, Nassau Bay, Jacinto City, Spring Valley, Hunters Creek Village, Hedwig Village, Bunker Hill Village, Piney Point Village and Hilshire Village.
Defending juveniles from all Harris County independent school districts (ISDs) including Aldine, Alief, Channelview, Clear Creek, Crosby, Cypress-Fairbanks (Cy-Fair), Deer Park, Galena Park, Goose Creek, Houston, Huffman, Humble, Katy, Klein, LaPorte, North Forest, Pasadena, Sheldon, Spring, Spring Branch, Tomball and Waller.
Contact James Sullivan to consult with an experienced Houston Juvenile Lawyer at (281) 546-6428.


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Clearance Certificates
Thank you for your request. Our sales team will get back to you soon.
The images and other details herein are only indicative. The Developer / Owner reserves the right to change any or all of these in the interest of the development, as per provision of law. Artist's impressions are used to illustrate amenities, specications, images and other details. Tolerance of +/- 3% is possible in the unit areas on account of design and construction variances. All brands stated are subject tonal decision of the project architect. This electronic / printed material does not constitute an offer and/or contract of any type between the Developer / Owner and the recipient. No booking or allotment shall bedeemed to have been made on the basis of this electronic / printed material. Any Purchaser / Lessee of this development shall be governed by the terms and conditions of the agreement for sale / lease enterednto between the parties, and no details mentioned in this electronic / printed material shall in any way govern such transactions unless as may be otherwise expressly provided in the agreement for sale/lease by the Developer / Owner. The Developer / Owner does not warrant or assume any liability or responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any information contained herein. Project presently nanced by ICICI Bank Ltd. and NOC / permission of ICICI Bank Ltd. will be obtained for sale of property, if required. This electronic / printed material has been created keeping in mind the provisions of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) applicable for projects in Maharashtra. You are required to verify all the details, including area, amenities, services, terms of sales and payments and other relevant terms independently with the Developer sales team only, by physically visiting the project site and the authorised website of RERA. You are requested NOT to visit any unauthorized or unveried website/broker (online / ofline) to receive any information about any projects of the Developer and/or its sister concerns.


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Modern Salon December 2012
Modern Salon
Wednesday December 12th, 2012
Androge: Cosmetologists Chicago
Hair: Cosmetologists Chicago 2012-13 Photo Trend Team
Directors: Karen Gordon and Amy Abramite
Photography: Akin Girav
Make-up: Chrisondra Boyd/Ford
Fashion Styling: Sam Ng
Boy meets girl. Gender bending. Sexual ambiguity. All were inspiration for the Cosmetologists Chicago 2012-13 Photo Trend Team as they created the Androge collection for 2013.
"Nothing shows off an androgynous look better than black and white photography," says Karen Gordon, co-director of the team, treasurer of Cosmetologists Chicago and co-owner of Chicago's J. Gordon Designs salon. "The starkness of black and white emphasizes the lines of the hair cut as well as the strength of the make-up and gender-bending fashion."
These androgynous looks are a marriage of the latest fashion with the most current trends in cutting, hair coloring and styling.


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File size: 301.32 KB
Created: 10-12-2020
Updated: 10-12-2020
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Contact Us
2 Civic Court
Balnarring, Vic, 3926
PO Box 113
Balnarring, Vic, 3926
Phone: (03) 5983 5803
Acknowledgement: Balnarring Pre-School acknowledges that our children and families play and learn on Boon Wurrung Country. We acknowledge the Boon Wurrung of the Kulin Nations as the First Peoples of this land. We thank them for caring for the land and the waterways and value the sharing of their knowledge and stories. We pay respects to their Elders: past and present.


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I'm fascinated to read of the excuse used by a young lady pulled over for drunk driving.
They say a lover's kiss can be intoxicating.
Gianna Vigliotti, who was pulled over by police as she swerved in and out of her lane on Northern Boulevard in Manhasset Friday night, said that's exactly what happened to her, according to court documents.
After the 17-year-old from Glen Cove recorded a .15 percent blood-alcohol level in a portable breath test - nearly the twice the legal limit of .08 percent - she told the officer who pulled her over, "I didn't drink! I was kissing a boy who was drunk," according to the police report.
It made no difference to Officer Michael Pallazzo whether Vigliotti's speech was slurred from smooching or from swigging. When he found four full beer bottles under the passenger seat of her Volkswagen and an empty beer can in her purse, he placed her under arrest, court documents said.
She pleaded not guilty the following day, and was released to probation without bail. She is next due in court June 18.
You know, to get enough alcohol from a kiss to give her a blood-alcohol content of 0.15%, I daresay it'd have to be just about the deepest kiss ever invented - deep enough, in fact, to suction the alcohol out of the kisser's stomach!
Somehow I don't think the court's going to buy this excuse . . .


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Weekly merger, acquisition, deal update: November 30
This week Morrissey Goodale tracked one domestic deal and four international transactions. This brings the total year-to-date deal count in the United States to 163, down slightly from the 165 domestic deals tracked through the same period in 2011. Including the U.S., the total global deal count is now 290, down 7% from the 312 global deals tracked through the same period last year.
This week Morrissey Goodale tracked one domestic deal and four international transactions. This brings the total year-to-date deal count in the United States to 163, down slightly from the 165 domestic deals tracked through the same period in 2011. Including the U.S., the total global deal count is now 290, down 7% from the 312 global deals tracked through the same period last year.
M&A Transactions
In a move to diversify its geographic coverage and expand its civil engineering, water and wastewater services, full-service architectural, engineering and planning firm Capital Consultants Architecture and Engineering (C2AE) (Lansing, MI) merged with municipal engineering, infrastructure planning and environmental management services firm Burley-Guminiak & Associates (Canton, NY). C2AE provides civil, mechanical, electrical, and structural engineering, architectural design, surveying, landscape architecture, interior design, construction administration, and other professional design services to local, state and federal governmental agencies, as well as education and health care institutions, industrial businesses, and others within the private sector. Link to details
Global engineering, construction and project management contractor and power equipment supplier Foster Wheeler (Geneva, Switzerland) acquired Three Streams Engineering (TSE) (Calgary, Canada), a multi-discipline and full-service engineering, procurement and construction management organization serving the heavy oil and conventional oil and gas sectors. Three Streams Engineering features a portfolio of both upstream and downstream projects including a variety of Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), pipeline and facility designs within Western Canada. Link to details
Turnkey provider of engineering, procurement and construction services to the upstream oil and gas industry Aker Solutions (Oslo, Norway) announced its intention to acquire Thrum Energy (St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada), an asset integrity management (AIM) company providing a wide portfolio of services to both onshore and offshore assets in Canada, including quality management systems (QMS) consulting, integrity management system (IMS) consulting, field level QA/QC support, in-service inspections, and supplier quality surveillance. The acquisition is in alignment with Aker Solution's growth plans in North America, and in St. Johns and Atlantic Canada in particular, as well as its growth plans for its AIM portfolio. Aker Solutions views AIM to include maintenance engineering, integrity management and advanced inspection and monitoring solutions, spanning from early design throughout the lifetime of an asset. Link to details
Multi-disciplined MEP engineering contracting company Jones Engineering Group (Dublin, Ireland) acquired Qatar Entities (Doha, Qatar), a former business line of Australian MEP contractor Hastie Group, which was placed into administration in May, 2012. The acquisition expands Jones Engineering's international footprint and furthers its penetration in the Middle East, and in particular Qatar, where it has recently provided MEP services related to the new light rail system and Doha International Airport. Link to details
nternational construction, infrastructure and environmental engineering and project management consultancy The Artelia Group (Lyon, France) acquired Haskoning France (Villeneuve d'Ascq, France), the French subsidiary of leading European project management and engineering consultancy Royal HaskoningDHV (Amersfoot, The Netherlands). With operations in France and West Africa, Haskoning France specializes in the fields of soil remediation, industrial risks and sustainable management of natural resources. Link to details
In a noteworthy initiative (though not considered a deal for the purposes of this update), Hotelier Holding Limited (Foshan, China), a leading hospitality design build company operating throughout the Middle East, South Asia, Africa and Europe announced a partnership with architectural and interior design firm J/Brice Design International (Boston, MA). Under the agreement, Hotelier Holding Limited and J/Brice Design will jointly pursue hospitality and development service projects in the high-end, luxury sector of the hospitality industry on a global basis. Link to details
In another noteworthy initiative (also not considered a deal for the purposes of this update), Indonesian state-owned oil and natural gas company Pertamina (Jakarta, Indonesia) is expected to complete an acquisition by the end of the year of state engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) firm Rekayasa Industri (Rekin) (Jakarta, Indonesia). Link to details
Do you have experience and expertise with the topics mentioned in this content? You should consider contributing to our WTWH Media editorial team and getting the recognition you and your company deserve. Click here to start this process.


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In recent weeks, developers have announced plans to build a fortress mall in New Jersey, a large mixed-use center in Boston and dozens of smaller grocery-anchored centers, among other projects.
With retail sales improving and demand for space firming up, is the market for development beginning to heat up?
Not exactly.
Since the turnaround time for new projects is usually 18 months or longer, many of the developers announcing projects today are reviving centers that were on the drawing board prior to the downturn. Those projects have been put on the backburner in 2009 and 2010 to allow time for retail vacancies to stabilize.
The new announcements come at a time when retail deliveries remain at all-time lows. In 2010, the industry delivered 45 million square feet of space, according to research compiled by Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services, an Encino, Calif.-based brokerage firm. In compiling its statistics, Marcus & Millichap combines its own data with that supplied by research firms CoStar Group Inc., Reis Inc. and TWR. Its construction numbers cover retail properties of 10,000 square feet and larger.
According to the CoStar Group, a Washington, D.C.-based research firm, last year's retail delivery pipeline represents the lowest figure the firm has on record for the industry going back to 1958.
Moreover, retail construction starts in 2010 totaled approximately 23 million square feet—one of the lowest years on record and the fourth straight year the figure fell. In fact, the full year figure for construction starts in 2010 was lower than in any single quarter in 2006 or 2007. Even with the seeming burst of new announcements in early 2011, experts predict the high unemployment rate and stringent lending criteria will continue to give most developers pause.
As a result, as 2011 unfolds, the number of new starts will likely end up being the same or lower than in 2010, says Chris Macke, senior real estate strategist with CoStar. And the amount of retail space delivered—including single-tenant construction—will be about 50 million square feet, according to Marcus & Millichap.
"There is still a lot of retail vacancy out there and the retailers themselves are still gathering" strength, says Alan N. Pontius, national director of commercial leased investment properties with the firm. "So I would expect [this] to be a similar year to 2010."
Deliveries versus starts
When it comes to the development pipeline, timing is an important question. There's a difference between supply hitting the market today—when vacancies remain perilously close to all-time highs—and projects being announced that will open after the industry has had time to heal.
In assessing the existing pipeline, Marcus & Millichap estimates that in 2011, most of the space delivered will be in the form of larger multi-tenant properties, accounting for 27 million square feet. Developers will also deliver 13 million square feet of neighborhood and community shopping centers and 10 million square feet of single-tenant retail.
For its part, Reis Inc., a New York City-based research firm, estimates that the retail industry will see 14.6 million square in neighborhood shopping center and community center space come on line this year (the firm doesn't track construction statistics for other retail formats), after a record low of 4.1 million square feet in 2010. Even with the constrained amount of new supply, many of the new centers have been struggling to secure tenants, notes Victor Calanog, vice president of research and economics with Reis. Reis tracks properties that are 5,000 square feet or larger.
Future output
In terms of projects being announced today, many developers have started to look to outlet centers as an avenue for growth, while lifestyle centers have fallen out of favor after some struggled during the downturn.
"I expect the outlet centers are going to be playing a larger role because people have discovered that you can build them closer to the main area," Macke says. "And you are starting to have a blending between outlet centers and power centers, which have discount retailers. I call them inlet centers—it's an outlet center, but it's in the traditional trade area. I think you are going to see more of that."
Another popular project type going forward will be centers anchored by large discount tenants such as Dollar Tree, Big Lots and Burlington Coat Factory, Macke adds. Surprisingly, there may even be enclosed regional malls in the development mix, according to Calanog. But opportunities will be limited for those kinds of projects because there aren't a lot of areas that can support fortresses that contain 1 million square feet or more.
When it comes to power centers, there was little speculative building during the most recent boom. Going forward, both retailers and landlords will likely stick to planning stores in markets that meet return hurdles from day one.
According to Brian Smith, president of Regency Centers Corp., a Jacksonville, Fla.-based REIT that runs a 53.1-million-square-foot retail portfolio, approximately 15 percent of it in power and community centers, before Regency embarks on a new project it opts to pre-lease 100 percent of its anchor space. The firm also builds a small amount of in-line shop space—under 20,000 square feet—to make sure that it could easily find smaller tenants.
"I think a lot of mistakes were made over the last couple of years, including on our part," Smith says. "I think what you'll see today is that both the developers and the retailers will go where they can be successful. And that means higher incomes, denser populations, areas that are harder to enter into. It's good for the retailers because they'll be able to generate more sales and good for the landlords because they can get higher rents."
Currently, power center development remains at a trickle. The amount of power center space under construction dropped from a peak of 33.92 million square feet of space in the third quarter of 2007 to just 1.68 million square feet as of the fourth quarter of 2010. In addition, the amount of space delivered in 2010 was just 3.56 million square feet—about one-tenth the amount delivered in 2008, when the industry constructed 33.4 million square feet of power center space. The lack of new supply helped the sector recover over the past year. But with demand still not anywhere near pre-recession levels, the ramp-up in new power center projects be gradual.
What's in store
Developers will be wary of putting new centers on the drawing board as long as the unemployment rate stays in the high single digits, the experts say. (The national unemployment rate stood at 9 percent in January.) Meanwhile, it also remains difficult to secure financing for all but the most solid retail developments, notes Calanog. The banks might have more money to lend than they did in the past two years, but they still want to see great demographics and low loan to value (LTV) ratios before agreeing to fund new construction.
In addition, lenders normally insist that at least 75 percent of the project be pre-leased and that it should have committed anchor tenants, says Pontius.
"We've had six quarters of positive leasing absorption in retail, so we are heading in the right direction," says Macke. "But it's the rate at which corporations hire that will determine the rate at which new retail will be built. Otherwise, you don't have the increased demand to justify new retail.


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Tempe, AZ – The TCU Horned Frogs and the Michigan State Spartans are set to clash in the postseason on Dec. 29 at Sun Devil Stadium in Tucson, Arizona in what is now known as the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl.
Formerly the Insight Bowl and the Copper Bowl, this event has pitted many a team from the Big Ten Conference against a school representing the Big 12. This year, the team coming out of the latter league is the TCU Horned Frogs, led by head coach Gary Patterson who figured to have his hands full with the transition from the Mountain West Conference to one of the BCS groups that has long been established as a hotbed for college football supremacy.
The Frogs started off the 2012 campaign with four straight wins and victories in five of the first six contests, but then problems off the field forced coach Patterson to go with an unproven commodity at quarterback in Trevone Boykin, and the struggles began midway through the month of October.
TCU ended up losing four of its final six games, beating only West Virginia and Texas, both on the road, by a combined eight points. At 7-5, the Horned Frogs had the required victory total to be considered for the postseason, although their 4-5 mark in league play was less than spectacular.
"It has been a long season," coach Patterson says of the disappointing 2012 campaign. "Like I have said before, it has been a tough season what these kids have gone through and had to put up with. A lot of that is not their fault."
As for the Spartans, they began the season with a bang, taking down nationally-ranked Boise State at home in a 17-13 final, the first of three wins in the first four contests, but like the Horned Frogs, MSU and head coach Mark Dantonio also made a wrong turn in October and subsequently dropped four of their final six decisions. On Nov. 24, the Spartans took out Minnesota in the Big Ten finale, 26-10, in order to earn the all-important sixth win of the campaign. Needless to say, finishing 3-5 in league play was not what the Spartans set out for in late August.
TCU, which first appeared in a postseason affair back in 1921 in the Fort Worth Dixie Classic, has a record of 13-14-1 in bowls heading into this meeting with MSU. The Horned Frogs have won back-to-back bowl games against Wisconsin (21-19) in the Rose Bowl two years ago, and Louisiana Tech (31-24) in last year's Poinsettia Bowl. The squad has rattled off six wins in the last seven postseason opportunities, the lone setback coming against Boise State (17-10) in the 2010 Fiesta Bowl.
As for the Spartans, they too have a long and storied past in the postseason, dating back to a 6-0 loss to Auburn in the 1938 Orange Bowl. More recently, the team clashed with Georgia in an epic Outback Bowl last year, making it through three overtime periods in order to claim a 33-30 victory over the Bulldogs.
For Michigan State, the win over Georgia was the first in postseason action since a 44-35 triumph versus Fresno State in the 2001 Silicon Valley Bowl. In between, the Spartans had dropped five straight postseason bids, which is why the program currently shows an 8-14 record in such contests all-time.
This game marks just the second meeting between the programs, with MSU posting a 26-19 victory in the first battle at Spartan Stadium way back in 1953.
With one of the least experienced rosters in college football this season, the Horned Frogs did the best with what they had, mostly against a new set of opponents as well. The top performer for the squad had to be Devonte Fields who was not only named the AP Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, but also a unanimous selection by the coaches as the Defensive Freshman of the Year in the conference.
Fields appeared in all 12 games for the Frogs, registering 49 total stops, but what made him so special was where many of those tackles took place as he recorded team highs with 17.5 tackles for loss and 9 sacks. The youngster also caused a couple of fumbles for a group that finished tied for 38th in the nation and third in the Big 12 in turnover margin (plus-0.42 per contest).
Other notable performers on that side of the ball for TCU are Elisha Olabode, third on the team in total tackles (66) and tied for second in interceptions (4), while Jason Verrett was seemingly always around the ball when it was in the air, resulting in 6 picks and 20 passes defended. Also one to keep an eye on is linebacker Kenny Cain, who was named First-Team All-Big 12 for his effort.
On the offense, the loss of quarterback Casey Pachall was devastating because he started out so well after a strong 2011 campaign. Coach Patterson brought in Boykin to save the day and while there were plenty of rough patches, the youngster survived by hitting 58.6 percent of his pass attempts for 15 touchdowns, but also 9 interceptions. Boykin is also the third-leading rusher for the group with 380 net yards, but the pressure in the pocket brought with it plenty of negative-yardage plays as well.
Josh Boyce and Brandon Carter stand as the most productive receivers for the group with a combined 95 grabs for close to 1,400 yards and 13 scores.
If the overall season stats for the MSU defense are any indication, Boyce, Carter and Boykin will be hard-pressed to come up with significant yardage in this meeting. The pass defense for the Spartans was third-best in the Big Ten, and ninth in the country overall, allowing just 173.7 ypg, and because of that the group permitted just 273.3 ypg of total offense (fourth in the country) and a mere 16.3 ppg (10th nationally).
Doing a considerable amount of damage for the MSU defense was linebacker Max Bullough who led the team in tackles (102) and tied for the lead in TFL (12), as he was named a semifinalist for the Butkus Award and a First-Team All-Big Ten performer by the league's coaches. Williams Gholston has less than half the total tackle number (50) as Bullough, yet had the same number of TFL.
At running back, the Spartans feature not only one of the top performers in the conference but in the nation, as Le'Veon Bell averaged 137.3 ypg to rank third in the country. With more than half of his 1,648 yards generated after contact, Bell is not someone who goes down easy and will need to have several TCU defenders swarm to him when he has the ball. Averaging close to five yards per carry, Bell scored all but one of the team's 12 rushing TDs.
Michigan State quarterback Andrew Maxwell is capable of managing games from the standpoint that he is more likely to play conservatively than he is to take chances with his passes down the field. In fact, in four of the final six games of the regular season the signal-caller threw for fewer than 200 yards.
Bennie Fowler and Keith Mumphery both caught 41 passes, the former turning his into 524 yards and a team-best 4 TDs, and the latter accounting for 511 yards and landing in the end zone just once for an offense that ranked ninth in the conference in total yards (370.3 ypg), and 107th nationally in scoring (20.3 ppg).
"You're going to play an opponent that is really well-matched with you and is a big-time opponent," MSU's Maxwell said of this matchup. "If this game was in September or October, I think people would circle it on the calendar and look toward it. Bowl games are a big opportunity for everyone involved."


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Steve Jobs
Five years ago Steve Jobs passed away, I want to remember him with Richard Stallman's words:
Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died. As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing. Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.