During my tenure on the Freedom of Information of Texas Foundation Board, the City of Lubbock had a reputation for taking steps to keep information away from its citizens, one time even telling a group of college students that their request for information would cost upwards of $350,000!
It looks now as if the county has been taking lessons and is withholding budget information that is blatantly public.
In today’s Avalanche-Journal, reporter Logan G. Carver, in a story about the county’s budget, writes, “The Avalanche-Journal was unable to thoroughly analyze (County Clerk Kelly) Pinion’s budget because Donna Clarke with the Civil District Attorney’s Office refused to turn over the documents—which were discussed in a public meeting, in an acceptable time frame—despite a formal open records request.”
This time of the year is a lot of fun for folks who enjoy following local politics and seeing how our elected officials struggle to explain why their entity needs more funding in order to operate.
Today, the Lubbock City Council will get its first look at its growing budget for next year that will most likely include small raises for its employees.
While many in our community are no longer employed or have seen their salaries and benefits decline due to an economy that has lost its luster, the public sector has not come close to feeling our pain.
The county commissioners are hearing requests for additional employees and increased salaries. The commissioners will turn down some of the requests in order to look “tough,” but most of the requests will be granted.
At City Hall, LP&L ratepayers will provide additional money to help our City Manager balance her budget. After the administrators who reside on the second floor get their hefty increases, ostensibly because they could make more money in the private sector (yeah sure), the police department and other city employees will be tossed a small increase.
When the Lubbock Independent School District and the other taxing entities finish their budgets, every taxpayer in Lubbock will feel it in their pocketbooks through additional fees, rates and/or taxes.
Adding in all of our national, state, regional and local taxes are breaking the backs of hard-working citizens. It’s time they got some relief.
Last week a jury in Hale County, just north of Lubbock, convicted County Commissioner Gary Koelder of theft after it was determined that he used county funds to purchase items for his personal vehicles.
As I watched NewsChannel 11 report the story Monday night, I found myself laughing at diminutive criminal defense attorney Rob Hobson, who came up with the goofiest quote I think I’ve ever heard from an attorney in defense of his client’s actions.
Here is what Hobson told the NewsChannel 11 viewers: “Gary’s made some contributions to Hale County, some property contributions well over what it was that he took. I mean he got them an air compressor and he’s giving them some trailers and I mean Gary’s done a lot for Hale County.”
I’ve known Hobson for quite some time and have never thought he was too smart, but this comment makes me want to lower my opinion even more.
http://www.kcbd.com/global/story.asp?s=12835154
A group of folks, headed by former Mayor Alan Henry, has been working on proposing changes to Lubbock’s decades-old City Charter since January and finally has come up with a proposal to make to the Lubbock City Council.
Many of the recommendations that the group will ask the City Council to present to voters for their approval are pretty routine and amount basically to updating our current Charter.
Two of the group’s ideas are substantial—how to regulate Lubbock Power & Light and allowing the city to issue debt for economic development.
In the opinion of this observer, it’s the economic development issue that kills the charter issue.
Most voters could be expected to support the LP&L issue once they get the facts about how the utility needs to be protected from greedy Councils and City Managers, including this council and manager.
But Lubbock citizens never have had much faith in the folks that do economic development in our community. It would be hard to prove to the voters that the millions of tax dollars that have been given to the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance over the years have done much good other than pad the wallet of LEDA’s executive director/president.
Sure, proponents of the Charter change could accurately point out that before debt could be issued the voters would have to give it the thumbs up, just as they do for roads and other projects. They won’t buy it.
In the overwhelming majority of the bond proposals that the citizens have approved, the City has spent the money exactly as it has said it would. But it is the few times that the Council has taken advantage of the wording on the ballot proposal to move the money to something else that the public remembers and ultimately will bring down this proposed new Charter.
The group that worked on the Charter put in lots of hours and deserves to be thanked for the work. However, because LP&L needs to be protected, I hope the Council will cut the economic development issue out of any proposal it sends to the voters.
For many years Lubbock has gotten a bad rap in the media for “leading” the nation or state in so many different areas–from crime to drunkenness to teen pregnancies to STDs to younameit.
It seems that in today’s world folks pushing an agenda can come up with numbers to support their particular position. It’s been no secret that for decades the FBI Crime Statistics have been used by local governments to help push their agendas.
For example, city officials who want to get more federal aid or tax dollars might report every little incident that it can to the FBI for its annual report. On the other hand, cities that want to present a “clean” image will underreport in order to attract economic development.
Don’t believe me? How else can you explain that El Paso, within view of Juarez, where hundreds of people are killed every year, is considered one of the safest cities in the nation, but Phoenix, in the eye of the immigration storm and a couple of hundred miles from Mexico, is one of the “kidnap capitals” of the world.
I am a conservative and a Fox News viewer, but I’m also sort of interested in the facts being reported as honestly as possible. Here’s a link to a well-known liberal website that presents a different view of what’s happening in Phoenix from what you’ll see on Fox: http://mediamatters.org/research/201007020014
When I was a youngster and had a dollar or two in my jeans from mowing lawns or some other chores, I couldn’t wait to spend it. My mother would ask me to turn my pockets inside out because she wanted to make sure that the money hadn’t “burned a hole in your pocket.”
After reading Monday’s Avalanche-Journal, it would appear that when it comes to Lubbock Power and Light, many members of our City Council are behaving in that same childish manner. http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2010-07-12/budget-forces-lpl-financial-debate
Less than a decade ago, thanks to rising fuel costs to generate electricity and a city staff (with the approval of the City Council) raiding the utility’s coffers, Lubbock citizens learned that their locally owned utility was close to bankruptcy and in danger of taking the whole city down with it.
After some painful cutbacks where dozens of city employees lost their jobs and a vote by citizens to place LP&L under a council-appointed board, the utility has made a dramatic comeback—so dramatic that it is planning to acquire the retail customers of its privately owned competitor.
Now that LP&L is back on its feet, the Council (with pressure from the City Manager and other staff members, no doubt) wants to resume its old ways in order to give raises to city employees and acquire doodads for their districts.
One way it plans on raising money is to require LP&L to provide the city’s streetlights at no cost.
This is nothing but a shell game. LP&L should be run exactly like a private business and should be reimbursed for the power for the streetlights and any other costs associated with the lights.
At the same time, a formula needs to be developed (if it already hasn’t) that will require LP&L to transfer funds from its coffers to the city based on the utility’s profits.
If something is not done quickly to stop the Council’s raiding of LP&L, it won’t be too long before LP&L will be nearing bankruptcy again.
My favorite newspaper had an article Sunday morning (http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2010-07-11/decade-works-lubbock-county-jail-ready-business) that still has me scratching my head and wondering who to be upset with—the newspaper or Lubbock County.
In 2002 Lubbock voters, with the strong encouragement of The A-J’s editorial department, overwhelmingly approved an $82 million bond proposal to construct a new county jail near the airport to replace our aged and dilapidated downtown jail.
According to the newspaper on Sunday, the new jail will end up costing just under $100 million, $18 million more than was approved in 2002. But, according to Lubbock County Commissioner Bill McCay, the jail is coming in $6 million under budget?!?
Further reading the story in The A-J, I learned that commissioners approved an additional $12.5 million bond in 2006 to add to the $82 million bond approved by the voters.
So now we have a voter-approved $82 million bond added to a commissioners-approved $12.5 million bond for a total construction project of $94.5 million. So how can a jail that is costing $100 million be $6 million under budget?
Another number that puzzled me about the newspaper story was that someone, either McCay or the writer (it’s hard to determine from the story), reported that when the new jail accepts its first inmate in a couple of weeks, the delay in opening the jail will be nine months.
A few sentences later the story indicates that the jail was originally scheduled to open in December 2008—18 months ago!
After scratching my head trying to understand how the county was able to come up with these goofy numbers, I found myself laughing at this quote by our new sheriff: “With the exception of the delays, it’s been a model project.”
I hate to be the one to break the news to the sheriff, but the year-and-a-half long delay prevents the jail from being a model project.
There was no doubt that Lubbock County needed a new jail, but the manner in which the county has gone about manipulating the numbers in order to claim that a project has come in $18 million over what citizens approved and claim it is $6 million under budget indicates to me that the commissioners are playing the voters for fools.
A couple of other jail items
When the new jail was first being discussed by the county, it was pointed out that the old jail would be renovated to house inmates who were on trial at the downtown courthouse. Now the commissioners are planning to spend $1 million to house inmates in the courthouse basement!
Eight years ago while drumming up support for the jail, Commissioners Kenny Maines and James Kitten (both conveniently not around anymore) said the jail would add seven cents to our county’s tax rate, which at the time was 19 cents per $100 valuation. The 2009 tax rate, at 32.9 cents, is significantly higher.
For those who enjoy watching how some governmental identities try to control their message, July 8, 2010, was an interesting day.
Around 4 p.m. or so, KCBD/NewsChannel11 posted a story on its website reporting that the Lubbock Independent School District was going to propose a $220 million bond election for November (http://www.kcbd.com/global/story.asp?s=12776408) that would combine two elementary schools, Haynes and Murfee, into one top-of-the-line technological facility.
In addition, KCBD/NewsChannel11 also reported that projects in the bond proposal would “touch” virtually every school in the district and, because the district had been diligent in reducing its debt, there would be no need for a tax increase to underwrite the package.
With word of the enormous bond package racing through the internet and the Lubbock community, LISD swiftly called a news conference for 4 p.m. to talk in generalities about its plans, but said that it would not talk about how much it would cost!
Come on, guys and gals!
With a committee of 21 Lubbock citizens working on the proposal and following Wednesday and Thursday meetings with parents and other interested parties obviously being told the financial cost, you don’t feel it’s relevant to tell the rest of the 200,000 residents of the district how much you expect the projects to cost them?
School districts throughout Texas are notorious for withholding information from its citizens (projected bond proposals, changes in bond packages after passage, misbehaving employees, etc.) until they can control the situation.
Here’s a little unsolicited advice for the school district and others from an old newspaper editor about how to control your message:
Don’t tell some people in private your plans without telling the rest of your stakeholders (taxpayers) at the same time!
(P.S: The timing of the proposal also may have been to beat the City of Lubbock to the punch on its own bond package that will include a new or remodeled multi-million dollar Lubbock Police Department headquarters. Because of the potential “sticker shock” on the school’s proposal, the city will probably postpone its bond package until May or, most likely, November 2011.)
With an oil pipeline developing a leak upstream, the woes of Lake Alan Henry, a proposed future water source for the City of Lubbock, continues.
I say proposed because the city has been working for approximately three decades to turn a hardscrabble area of land in Garza County into a lake that will provide water for its residents. Other than spending millions upon millions of citizens’ dollars to create a lake for housing developers, not one drop of water has yet reached the county line.
The saga began many, many years ago when a bunch of Garza ranchers saw the city-slicker legal team as the suckers they were and convinced the city that the mesquite-covered rough land they owned was worth hundreds of thousands of dollar more than it actually was.
Then, the city’s expert legal team learned that they did not purchase the mineral rights to the lake, creating a several-year delay in flooding the area until Mayor Windy Sitton could finalize the deal with the Dallas oilman.
As the lake was being developed, real estate folks from Garza began selling land surrounding the lake and telling potential buyers that they could have lake access, although the city contended that boat docks were highly restricted. Wrong again. Several homeowners, using their friendship with a former Lubbock mayor, were able to succeed in a lawsuit that resulted in their building additional docks.
The saga continued as the Council hired a former mayor to acquire property rights from Garza to Lubbock for the pipeline that the city contends eventually will bring water from the lake to city faucets. Garza officials, seeing an opportunity to skin the city again, required a financial reward for allowing the pipeline the cross some of its county roads—the first time it had ever charged for this access—and our nutty city fathers ponied up the money.
Now, following heavy rains in West Texas, a leak in a pipeline upstream from the lake has closed the lake and, although the city is pooh-poohing the news, the prospect of being able to ever drink the water may be in doubt.
A decade ago I was asked about the possibility of the city ever getting water from Lake Alan Henry and I replied that I thought it would never happen.
With the progress that had been made at the lake since then, I about had decided I was wrong in that prediction. I still hope that I was, but this latest development doesn’t make me feel very confident.
One of the traits of a good blogger, if there is such a thing, is being disciplined enough to blog on a regular schedule so that the audience will become accustomed to looking at the blogger’s website and an audience can be built.
Looking at my last posting, written more than a month ago, certainly indicate that I’m not very disciplined. That comes as no surprise to those who know me.
As a sort-of retired guy, I can always find something else to do rather than bang out a few words for my loyal readers. To that mass audience, I apologize for slacking off last month and will try to do better.
So, let’s catch up on some of the news in the Hub City with my special and biased slant:
Electric rates—I saw in the newspaper that Xcel Electric Company was going to increase the rates in Lubbock by $7 per month because of some sort of natural gas pass-through. I really don’t understand that, but it’s something that the power company can do. It doesn’t have to, but it can. When I read about that I immediately thought, “Wow, I’m glad I’m on LP&L because this will give the city-owned utility a chance to show that the decision to buy Xcel’s assets in Lubbock was a good one that will save ratepayers and taxpayers a lot of money.” How wrong could I have been! Just a few days after Xcel’s announcement, LP&L followed suit. Note to utility board—Bypassing this charge would have been a great way to silence the naysayers who are opposed to your acquiring Xcel. Now you are going to be hard-pressed to convince anyone that this purchase will save me money. I was for the takeover at the time it was announced, but now I’m having second thoughts.
New County Jail—When the county began talking about building its new jail near the airport, officials pointed out that inmates who were on trial at the courthouse would be held at the current jail directly across the street from the courthouse. Now, though, the county is planning on building a holding area in the basement of the courthouse at a cost of almost $1 million! When I was editor of The Avalanche-Journal, we editorially supported the bond proposal to build the new jail, and I personally wrote in support of it. Now that it is coming in millions of dollars over what the voters approved, I’ve given up. Our county commissioners have lied about this project for more than a year. I will never vote for a county bond proposal again…the commissioners simply can’t be trusted.
Estacado High School—Lubbock Independent School District officials have been singing the praises of the test scores this year for the students at Estacado High School. Last year, EHS was declared a low-performing school and the federal government has basically taken it over, requiring that most of the staff be changed. Now the school district is pointing out how much the scores have improved! Sorry to say, but I don’t believe it. Somebody is playing with the numbers.
LISD Dress Code—The Lubbock school board has approved a new dress code that will allow for ear piercings for males and all types of hairstyles, provided it doesn’t interfere with the academic environment. In other words, anything goes. Sorry, but I’m not on board with this either. Students need some discipline in their lives and parents need some support from the school. Are schools no longer concerned with preparing students for the business world?
Fourth on Broadway—Now beer is going to be sold at the annual Fourth on Broadway. Sorry, but beer and a family event don’t go together. I’ve heard that the organizers are allowing the beer sales so they can make more money. If that’s the case, give me a call and I’ll tell you about some other non-family-friendly activities that will really increase your coffers.
Linda DeLeon—She’s off the City Council and says she is moving out of town. Thank goodness.
That’s enough for now. I’ll try to be more diligent in the future. Thanks for reading!
