Maybe We Will Get A Charter That Will Let The Citizens Rule Again

December 17, 2009 – 7:08 AM

When the Lubbock City Charter was adopted by the citizens 92 years ago, our community was a different place.

Our town only last spring celebrated its 100th birthday.  When our town was founded, there were fewer than 2,000 souls living here.  I would imagine that it was pretty easy to govern…just go to a couple of church meetings and the mayor would know the feelings of virtually all of the citizens.

But, as the city grew to more to more than 4,000 in its first decade, the residents realized there needed to be a little more structure to the city government in order to provide some semblance of order.  So, our city fathers set out to establish a charter that would determine how we were to be governed.

Because of the municipal government scandals of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, many American citizens were suspicious of elected officials (has that changed?) and citizens across the land began to opt for so-called professional administrators to run their cities with oversight from a paid mayor and city council.

In the mid-1910s, when the Lubbock charter was adopted, the decision was made to pay the mayor $75 a month and the council members $25.  Not bad pay, at that time.  The $25 check might have made a mortgage or car payment (if that had been the way folks bought things back in those days); today $25 won’t buy an inexpensive dinner for a two people.

There never has been much attempt to raise those salaries in the 40 years I’ve lived here.  It seems as if our citizens don’t mind paying some bureaucrat they never see upwards of $150,000 a year and more, but they won’t trust their councilmember, who they may even see every Sunday at church, with a $100 a week stipend!

Now, for the first time in maybe two decades, our city council has decided to take a real look at the charter with the possibility of making some significant changes.

I don’t know what is on the table to be considered other than to try to remove some antiquated rules and to take steps to keep the bureaucrats from reaching into the LP&L cookie jar, but I hope something will be done to loosen the stranglehold that a few city bureaucrats have on our city and create a document that will allow those people we elect to run the town.

By Randy Sanders | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

This Needs To Get Done

December 11, 2009 – 11:01 AM

Normally when we go to the ballot box to cast votes for candidates for the school board, city council, state legislature, Congress, the White House, or whatever office is being contested, we expect the winner to have an impact and possibly make needed changes in the entity’s bureaucracy.

Oh, if that were only the case in the structure of the City of Lubbock. 

Because our City Charter, writen almost 100 years ago, established that the city would be governed by what is known as the “council-manager” form of government citizens are powerless.  Under a council-manager government, the mayor is a first among equals on the city council, analogous to a head of state for the city. The mayor and city council serve part-time, with day-to-day administration in the hands of a manager. 

This system is popular in rural areas because at the time cities were being created local folks were busy trying to build their businesses and city government was small.  Even today in some West Texas communities operating under the council-manager form, the city manager runs the city and may even drive the garbage truck.

That scenario is similar to how it was when Lubbock was formed.  We were a small community trying to get on our feet; we didn’t really need a lot of government.  A few police officers, firefighters and clerks were all that we needed to make our city run.

When our charter was written, Lubbock was a smaller place.  And the city fathers really didn’t want to run the town.  That’s why they set up a structure that resulted in giving all the power of the citizens to one lone city manager who only had to keep a simple majority of the council happy in order to keep the job.

Today, though, look at what we have–a city bureaucracy with the number of employees that rivals the city’s largest private businesses and may be among the top five largest employers in the county.  And, the manager is accountable to only four citizens (and, because of the wily politics of city managers, those four change every day)!

Now comes John Leonard, a city council member from the southwest-south portion of Lubbock, who has become extremely frustrated by the fact that he was elected to serve his district, but his hands are tied by the bureaucracy. 

He has learned what veteran council members also learned after being elected:  Making changes in City Hall when you have key city staff that care only about their jobs and not the citizens is impossible.  For example, say some particular department, maybe the water department, isn’t doing its job and the leader of the water department is not being truthful about the city’s water resources (maybe even lying to the council).  (Editor’s note:  Using the water department and its leadership is only an example and nothing should be read between the lines).

So now council has a department manager lying to it, but, because the water manager is a special “pet” for the city manager nothing ever gets done and the city runs out of water (just saying, as an example).  Who’s to blame?  And, what could have been done?

As long as the appointed city manager is able to dole out projects to enough council members, nothing could have been done, even if an elected official knew a screwup was happening.  Remember, under the Lubbock form of government, elected officials can not do a damn thing about City Hall and the folks that run it unless they have the support of a council majority.

Leonard now wants to go back and look at the City Charter that was written and approved by the voters more than 90 years ago.

Leonard wants to remove some of the antiquated rules about free trolley rides and movie tickets for city employees and also take a look at how the charter requires governance of Lubbock Power and Light.  This LP&L issue, since it is in the process of acquiring SPS customers through a buyout, is critical to ensure that bureaucrats and elected officials don’t bankrupt the utility and community like they almost did a decade ago.

I say, good for Leonard.  But let’s go ever farther down the road and give the citizens of our fair city the opportunity to vote on dumping our council-manager form of government for a system that will allow the citizens to run our town instead of bureaucrats from elsewhere who are here only to pickup their check.

From Wednesday’s KCBD newscast http://www.kcbd.com/Global/story.asp?S=11652651

From Friday’s Avalanche-Journal http://lubbockonline.com/stories/121109/loc_534414232.shtml

By Randy Sanders | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Good Use Of Our Tax Money?

December 10, 2009 – 3:05 AM

My apologies to my readers for not posting anything the last few days–I just could not seem to get into the mood.

However, last night while watching KCBD, I saw a story about Vertical Turbine Specialists Inc. that seemed to raise a flag about the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance’s incentives in 2008.

Here is a link to the story that I remembered: http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/031808/bus_258895751.shtml

And here is the story that KCBD had: http://www.kcbd.com/Global/story.asp?S=11651554

You decide if it was a good use of our tax dollars.

By Randy Sanders | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Nothing But Window Dressing

December 3, 2009 – 8:47 AM

              You’ve got to love our Lubbock City Council.  If there is a chance for grandstanding, you can bet there will be a parade to garner attention.

              Here’s some background:

                In 1999, Lubbock voters approved $37.4 million in bond projects, and, in 2004, they approved $30 million.  But, because the city said it would not increase the tax rate to underwrite the bonds, the money for the projects trickled out over a long time period.

                Because the knuckleheads who have been running City Hall for the past four or five years were too busy spending their time trying to run local businesses out of town and a so-called Christian mayor with a vendetta who provided phony “servant” leadership while stabbing people in the back apparently were too preoccupied to remind the citizens how those bond programs had been set up, Lubbock citizens became suspicious of the council and its motives.

                This past summer when a citizens advisory committee proposed a bond election, some on the committee tied to the previous mayor and his lackeys on the current council proposed that a special citizens committee be established to keep an eye on the approximately $50 million that the voters approved in November to ensure that the money is spent as planned.

                So, yesterday, at the urging of Councilman Todd Klein, who has his eye on either replacing Patti Jones as a Lubbock County commissioner or Tom Head as Lubbock County judge, the council created (on a 6 to 1 vote with Paul Beane voting no) a straw man committee that will “watch out” for the best interests of the citizens.

                The reason it’s a “straw man” committee, in my opinion, is that this council has already approved spending most of the bond money on the improvements to part of 34th Street and other areas before the committee was appointed, leaving it with little to do.  But, even with little to do, the forming of the committee will make those who want to embarrass some of on the council feel like they have accomplished their goal.

By Randy Sanders | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Former Lt Governor Says, “Don’t Mess With Open Meetings Act”

November 28, 2009 – 9:16 AM

 http://www.weatherforddemocrat.com/opinion/local_story_331085323.html?keyword=secondarystory

Weatherford DemocratPublished: November 27, 2009 07:52 am

The Open Meetings Act

By Bill Hobby, Guest Columnist

In Texas the law is clear. Governing bodies must conduct the people’s business in public or else face some serious penalties. This statute has protected the public and elected representatives alike for the past 42 years with a basic premise: public bodies should deliberate in public.

The days of making backroom good ol’ boy deals in private are a thing of the past because the Texas Legislature outlawed it by passing the Open Meetings Act in 1967, and strengthening it in 1973 after the infamous “Sharpstown Scandal.”

Yet, there are some serious and troubling attempts underway that could open the door for that very thing to occur. At least three Texas cities and the Texas Municipal League are endorsing a legal challenge in the courts that will render Texas’ Open Meetings laws ineffective. TML, which is supported by your tax money in the form of membership fees, is urging more than 1,100 Texas cities to sign on to a federal lawsuit.

The details of the challenge are stated simply: These public officials claim the Texas Open Meetings Act unconstitutionally restricts their right of free speech under the First Amendment. Of course, they are free to say anything they wish to anyone they wish at any time they wish. However, when they are meeting as a quorum of a governmental body, they must say it in front of the public at an open meeting.

Even more importantly, the First Amendment cannot be a shield to prevent accountability of public officials, but guarantees access to the workings of these governmental bodies just like it does to our courts.

TML wants criminal penalties such as jail time stripped from the law that has protected the public for more than four decades. They believe the current language is too punitive and argue “… less restrictive penalties would not only continue to preserve the integrity of the Texas Open Meetings Act but would also recognize the fundamental right of city officials to free speech.”

In other words, if public officials break the law in the future by conducting business in secret — i.e., exercising their rights to “free speech” behind closed doors, a slap on the wrist should be punishment enough.

It simply defies logic and apparently not all of TML’s own members agree with this position. As reported in The Brownsville Herald, Nov. 21, 2009, TML board member and Mercedes Mayor Joel Quintanilla said, “Either I misunderstood the entire meeting or something is happening. The way I understood it, we all (board members) voted in favor of keeping the restrictive penalties, not lessening them.” Quintanilla went on to say, “We didn’t want elected officials to get comfortable.”

He’s not the only one apparently confused by TML’s action. Mercedes Commissioner Ruben Guajardo is also quoted as saying, “The consensus (of the TML Resolutions Committee) was that things were fine the way they were (with the Texas Open Meetings Act) and that trying to reinvent the wheel was not in the best interest of everyone involved … We (the resolutions committee) felt that to change something (in the meetings act) was just not correct. It really wasn’t right. The consensus was to leave the Texas Meetings Act the way it is.”

I couldn’t agree with Commissioner Guajardo or Mayor Quintanilla more. As a member of the public, I am left confused by what is happening, and why. But I do know this. I don’t want elected officials to get too comfortable either because I have seen firsthand what can happen if they do.

I hope you will join me in supporting the idea that the Open Meetings Act should be left intact and open government, without any strings attached, should continue to be the law in Texas. I also urge you to contact your city leaders and encourage them not to join in this effort that could weaken the Texas Open meetings laws.

If clarifications are needed to address modern day changes such as electronic and digital communications, then they should be made at the statehouse — not city hall. And, at a minimum, you should point out to your public servants that any discussion on this or any other issue involving “free speech” should be debated in a public meeting instead of a rubber-stamp style vote to please Austin lobbyists.

Bill Hobby served as Texas lieutenant governor from 1973-91.


By Randy Sanders | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Impenetrable Security

November 27, 2009 – 8:40 AM

    They haven’t received much publicity here, but Tareq and Michaele Salahi have the gossipmongers on the East Coast chattering and the U.S. Secret Service reeling from one of the biggest security breaches at the White House that has ever been made public. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/26/AR2009112601514.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009112601518)

    The Salahis, he a slightly overweight gentleman and she a stunning blonde, became possibly the biggest gate crashers in history when they were able to finagle their way inside the White House earlier this week without an invitation for President Obama’s first-ever state dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

    Michaele, who claims to be a former Washington Redskins cheerleader, even has pictures on her Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michaele-Salahi/101907941877?ref=ts) of the event. She, and sometimes her husband, can be seen in photographs being embraced by Vice President Biden, Katie Couric, Rahm Emanuel and others. I guess the pictures could have been Photoshopped, but it seems unlikely.

   The Secret Service has said it is looking into how the couple could have got inside the White House without an invitation. There are lots of theories running around, but the fact is someone fell down on the job.

   Fortunately, this was a couple that presented no threat to the president or others at the dinner, but what if they had been terrorists?    

   Here’s what worries me:  In the near future, our government is going to put five suspected (confessed) terrorists, including the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks on trial in federal district court in New York City. The U.S. Attorney General has promised that security will be excellent!

   If the government can’t protect the White House and the president any better than this, why should we expect them to protect the people of New York?

    The terrorists are going to have a field day!

By Randy Sanders | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Do What The Cop Says

November 24, 2009 – 6:58 PM

    When I was a young buck with raging hormones, I spent most of my spare time looking for trouble.

    My dad, a Marine during World War II, would let me have my head most of the time, but always with the caveat that if I ever got in trouble to “do what the police tell you.”

    That’s why I find it so difficult to comprehend the abuse that some of my motorcycle officers tell me that endure from the general public. Some drivers, believe it or not, will cuss a police officer with words that would make a sailor blush.

    I would never, ever think of backtalking a police officer. Remember, they carry weapons.

    Why in the hell someone would challenge a lawman is beyond me.

Now come news reports from television (http://www.kcbd.com/global/Story.asp?s=11568428) and the Avalanche-Journal (http://lubbockonline.com/stories/112409/loc_528543612.shtml) that a young smart-alec student, who acknowledges mouthing off to the Texas Tech University chief of police, is accusing the chief of running him down while he was illegally riding his skateboard on a campus street.

    I doubt we’ll ever know what really happened, but you can bet that the chief will be catching hell from the students about his perceived actions. If the chief did what he is being accused of, he should be fired.

    The student, though, needs to have his mouth washed out with soap by his mother and be thankful that falling off the skateboard was the worst thing that happened to him.

By Randy Sanders | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Where Were You?

November 20, 2009 – 8:57 AM

    This Sunday marks the 46th year since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, in downtown Dallas. It was a day that marked the end of the mostly tranquil American lifestyle of the post-Korean War.

    If you are a Baby Boomer, it is one of those days, along with Sept. 11, 2001, that will always be remembered.

    I was a 16-year-old junior on the Friday afternoon and was sitting in English class having just returned from lunch break when someone in the hallway said that President Kennedy had been shot.

    As my classmates murmured about the report, Mrs. Abbey, our English teacher, who did not believe what she had heard, said, “This is nothing to joke about.”

    About 15 minutes later, our principal, H.C. Morehead, announced over the school’s intercom that the president had been shot and killed. There was a complete silence in the room.

    Minutes later, word came quietly that classes were to be dismissed, all extracurricular activities (including our football game that evening against our traditional rival Austin High) would be cancelled and students were to go home.

    As the events unfolded over the weekend, with the killing of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Department, young teen-age Americans began to lose their innocence.

    Where were you when this all happened?

    By the way, I think Oswald was a lone gunman who had been hired by the mob to kill Kennedy because JFK had been messing around with Marilyn Monroe.

By Randy Sanders | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)

He Certainly Makes Good Copy

November 18, 2009 – 9:57 AM

    For those in the news business, Kevin Overstreet is nothing short of a godsend. This guy has it out for almost everyone at City Hall and goes looking for a camera!

    Overstreet and his wife, who sued a district court judge a couple of years ago for creating a hostile work environment, may be the most litigious government couple in Lubbock’s history. The pistol-packing dog catcher has been whining to anyone who will listen about his mistreatment for more than a year now.

A mistreatment that, it should be noted, includes a pretty steep salary, approaching six figures, with little oversight from his superiors.

    Overstreet has an interesting history and a rapid fall from grace.

    Before his recent firing as animal services director, Overstreet served as the head dude for emergency management in Lubbock. During the hurricane evacuations of three or four years ago, he was in the forefront of preparing the city for the thousands of evacuees who never came.

    Although these positions are several organizational steps away from the City Manager (in fact, his offices were not even in City Hall), Overstreet claims to have very close knowledge of the goings on inside the second-floor executive suites.

    It was his actions that have brought a great deal of controversy to our city. If half of what he claims were true, the FBI would have many of our current and former elected officials in jail. The problem, though, is that he was simply a mouthpiece for the City Manager during her reign of terror from May 2006 until May 2008.

    When the council changed its makeup in 2008, Kevin Overstreet, who had been her little pup, was immediately thrown under the bus. His “he said, she said” allegations, which he could have had absolutely no personal knowledge (except for the soft whisperings in his ear by City Manager Lee Ann Dumbauld), still have not resulted in any charges by the federal government.

    Overstreet has raised so-far unfounded allegations of corruption at City Hall, has formed an employee organization without any members to lobby for better benefits and salaries, has sought the personal text messages of the City Council and has called for the resignations of two of his supervisors (he’s actually correct on this last issue).

    How long would this guy last in private business? Only in the government can someone with his work record continue on the payroll.

    But, as I said at the beginning, for reporters he is a godsend.

    Here are a couple of links about this never-ending story http://lubbockonline.com/stories/111809/loc_521731540.shtml
http://www.kcbd.com/Global/story.asp?S=11517026 (As an aside, some of the comments under the AJ’s story seemed to indicate he was doing a pretty lousy job as the “head dog catcher.”

By Randy Sanders | Posted in City of Lubbock, Kevin Overstreet, Lee Ann Dumbauld, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Just A Couple Of Quick Notes About The Weekend

November 16, 2009 – 8:54 AM

    Activity was pretty slow in Lubbock this past weekend, without a whole lot going on.

    The Lubbock Chamber of Commerce is to be commended for conducting its first-ever candidate seminar intended for those who are thinking about running for office and/or those who want to help candidates.

    Morris Wilkes of the Wilkes Co. and Dr. Cindy Rugeley led the six-hour course and provided those in attendance, about two dozen folks, with some information about what potential candidates need to consider before making their political decisions.

    The lunch speakers were former Lubbock Mayor David Langston and former Lubbock County Judge Don McBeath. Both men shed light on the aspects of winning and losing races.

    Mike Stephens, a well known pollster and an owner of Action Printing in Lubbock, explained the ins and outs of polling and how candidates can focus their campaigns in such a way as to get the biggest bang for their money.

    All in all it was an enlightening and well spent afternoon.

    In the sports world, the Harley Honey and I attended the Texas Tech basketball game where the Raiders defeated Oregon State 64-60. The interesting thing to come out of that is how the men’s basketball team is going to count attendance.

    Under Bob Knight, the Raiders only counted actual people in the stands for their official attendance. Now, though, it appears that the men’s team is going to count attendance just like the women’s team does—tickets sold, not butts in seats.

    I say that because, while there were fewer than 1,000 (maybe even 500) people in the arena yesterday, the AJ reported attendance at 7,860 people at the game!

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