Lions Muny: What Would Colonel Brackenridge Do?

Given that UT's karma issues aren't exactly looking like they'll be turning around anytime soon after firing another football coach, you'd think they'd be celebrating their $25 billion endowment, tipping their cap to the  Save Muny movement, and leaving Austin's historic gem of a green space alone. Or even thinking of ways to make it better?

But the university has not backed down on plans to end the golf course lease in 2019 to build a mixed-use development.

So filmmaker Michael Hovis, in a guest commentator to the Austin-American Statesman, considers the lineage of a property gifted to the university. Shockingly, he doesn't believe Colonel George Washington Brackenridge was thinking mixed retail on the ground level and condos above starting in the low 500s.

Made wealthy by cotton and banking, he brought financial acumen to his 26 year tenure as a UT regent. Yet, he was equally concerned with social issues. Brackenridge supported women’s rights and provided loan funds for women studying medicine, law and architecture. He also fought for the rights of minorities and funded a list of African-American and Mexican-American schools and colleges.

Brackenridge was also a supporter of public golf courses. He donated the property for another historic golf course to the city of San Antonio. Built a few years before Muny, Brackenridge Golf Course remains the centerpiece of public golf in central San Antonio today. The similarities to Muny are hard to ignore.

Oh I'm sure they'll keep trying. Still, if nothing else it's a neat read on a fascinating historical figure in Texas.