To recall or not to recall: That is the question

During the public comments portion of last week’s special city council meeting, one person stood up and announced he would be generating a petition to recall Mayor Todd Webster. Personally, I do not and will not support any effort to recall da mayor. If asked, I will not sign a petition designed to force a recall election. As any steady reader of this journal can testify, I disagree with da mayor on any number of issues. But those disagreements are strictly political. Those disagreements can be best summed up like this: I am pro the individual resident of and visitor to Kyle; da mayor is pro developer. To say I want him recalled because he doesn’t agree with my political views is tantamount to my saying "Unless you play the game my way, I’m going to throw a temper tantrum, pick up my marbles and go home." Besides, he’s lived here far longer than I, so I am going to grant him some squatter’s rights. What I will say is this: If da mayor seeks re-election, there’s a real good chance I won’t vote for him. That’s how the political process works.

I could support a recall of an elected official if I was shown irrefutable evidence that official committed a criminal act or committed a serious violation of the Code of Ethics. I have seen absolutely nothing to indicate that either one of these transgressions applies to Webster.

Not only that, my problems with da mayor extend to others on the council as well. Da mayor did not act alone in muzzling democratic discourse at the last city council meeting. That is definitely an action that could precipitate a recall election, in my opinion. But what’s a citizen to do? Recall the whole lot of ‘em? There is a time for a recall and that time is called Election Day

Most of those problems I have with the city’s elected leadership stem from the fact that their service on the city council is a part time job. They soak up the information they are force-fed but they are either too lazy or simply don’t have the time to conduct independent research to determine for themselves the accuracy of this information they are fed. At no time was this more apparent than when the liars who sold them a bill of goods about PIDs (and subsequently were rewarded for their lying ways by being put in charge of all PIDs in the city) stood before the council and said PIDs could only be used for new developments and that it was impossible to use them for existing projects. Not one member of the council stood up and said this wasn't true, but I'm blaming this on council stupidity/laziness, not duplicity. Just a little bit of independent research by any member of the council would have exposed these lies. But such an exposure would have put these council members on the side of the individual residents of Kyle and, for the most part, our council is just as pro-developer/anti-resident as da mayor.

And their misinterpretations of the city charter are becoming legendary. My favorite came when one council member argued against adding more council meetings to the schedule because the charter specifically says when the council is supposed to meet.

However, I can’t mount a successful argument that stupidity is grounds for recall.

What’s more, the citizens of this city permit 5 percent of the registered voters to decide who will set policy for everyone who lives here. If you don’t like the way the cake tastes, then make sure the next time you choose the ingredients.

I must also admit that city council stupidity is not confined to our fair city. Dallas, where I moved from, has full-time city council members but that does not make them immune to having elected officials acting like idiots. I’ll never forget during one Dallas City Council meeting when an airport agenda item came up, one council member went on about a 20-minute tirade about operations at the airport. When he was finished, the other 14 members of the council just sat there with stunned looks until one of them broke the silence to tell the angry council member the agenda item in question concerned a completely different airport. (The city of Dallas has jurisdiction over three airfields that are located within its city limits, although only two of them, Love Field and Executive Airport, actually have planes landing and taking off from them.)

Finally, I believe it would be duplicitous on my part to criticize da mayor and others for tacking on expenditures to the current budget that could have waited a year, thus driving up the tax rate more than it needed to be, and then advocating actions like a recall for which the city would have to shell out the money to pay for an extra unnecessary election.