The two most newsworthy events at last night’s city council meeting came (1) after the meeting adjourned — when council member Damon Fogley informed me he did not plan on seeking a second term — and (2) really before the meeting got down to dealing with action items — when council member Daphne Tenorio took advantage of the citizens comments period to announce a mammoth (at least for this neck of the woods) food distribution day Saturday Aug. 18. Sandwiched between these two items was a lot of bickering, petty sniping and council members generally making fools of themselves as they danced around a bonfire of flaming proposed charter amendments.
Fogley said his decision not to run again was based solely on the fact that amount of time he needs to devote to running his business is far greater than it was three years when, in fact, he wasn’t a business owner at all.
"One of the main reasons I originally wanted to run for council is because I wanted to go into government, I wanted to eventually become a city manager," Fogley said. "But I took a turn another way when I became a business owner and I really like being a business owner."
Fogley confided he is seriously considering returning to college to seek one or more business degrees.
"I like what I do — it’s a very diverse business," Fogley said. "I have 10 employees now. We’re growing. "We’ve got some huger opportunities coming up."
Fogley said it appears he will be on the cover of a business magazine that will come out next month and "we have a reality show that also might be coming through. So there have been some big doors that have opened up with that.
"I’m just tapped out on time right now," he stated. "I’m still a full-time. paramedic, still heavily involved with the VFW. I really enjoyed serving on the council and I was really on the fence about (seeking re-election) until a couple of weeks ago. But the reason I’m not running is a time thing and I’m at the point now where it’s really jeopardizing opportunities for my business."
Fogley pledged to give 100 percent of his energy to the job of councilman right until his last day on the dais "and I want to make sure whoever comes up here and takes my seat is the right person for the job."
Fogley said he is also considering moving his residence to an area where he is trying to develop his business."It’s a franchise that I own," he explained. "I own three territories and I have an opportunity to purchase another region."
Fogley said he has no one in mind to succeed him. "I’ve only talked to three people, but I’m sure now more people are going to come out."
I mentioned Robert Rizzo, who filed to run in District 2 a year ago but was ruled ineligible because of a residency issue, who just this week filed to run for Fogley’s District 5 seat. "I’ve never met him," Fogley told me. "I don’t know anything about him. I don’t have anyone specifically in mind but if anyone is thinking about running I would like them to at least approach me and I’d like to know why they are running." He said he would welcome meeting Rizzo face-to-face "so I could learn what his motives are for running because I may support him depending on who he is running against."
The food giveaway Tenorio announced is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Aug. 18 on the Lehman High School parking lot and will be open to anyone with a drive able vehicle in which groceries, perishables as well as canned goods, can be loaded. Tenorio said groceries packed into six 18-wheelers are planned to be distributed during the event.
"Everyone is welcome to participate," she said. "No one has to qualify. It’s completely done by a drive-through. A family comes to the first stop, registers, a sticker is put on their window signifying how many members are in their family, goes to the next stop where canned food is placed in their trunk and then it goes from canned foods to dairies, to produce to meats."
The plans, as she outlined them, call for 100 church volunteers to on hand to aid in the distribution and "I’ve reached out to the Rotary Club and other non-profit groups for assistance."
"This will be the biggest distribution the Capital Food Bank has done and we’re real excited to be able to do this for our citizens," Tenorio said. "I think this a great opportunity to stock family food pantries right before school starts."
And those two events ended the statesmanship part of last night’s council meeting. Most of the rest of the time was consumed by seeing which council member could score the most points on the proposed charter amendment Wackometer. Warning to sitting council members: I would strongly advise you to never, ever watch a video recording of this meeting. It would be akin to watching a recording of a show-and-tell presentation you made in the first or second grade. "Holy cow!! I can’t believe I was ever that bad, that immature, that stupid sounding. Now I see why all the other kids were laughing at me."
Take all the discussions about the way in which the charter calls for council members to be compensated for their services. The argument was between one side on the council that argued people should not be dis-incentivized for running for a seat on the council and the other who argued people should view council service as a noble calling without regard to compensation and even another side that yelled Joe Average Citizen needed a voice in the matter (completely ignoring the obvious which was that this was supposed to be a discussion on whether Joe Average Citizen would have a voice on the matter in November at the voting booth). However, no one (except, to his credit, Mayor Travis Mitchell every so often, but no one else), dealt with the elephant in the room, the central, overriding issue which is the current charter language is a mess, it’s meaningless and it must be changed in some form or another.
The charter, in its current form, says (Section 3.09) "The mayor shall be paid two hundred dollars per month and each other member of the council shall be paid one hundred dollars per month." All well and good so far. You could argue whether that’s too much or too little, but that’s an argument for another day. Yet, that is exactly the argument that council became embroiled in last night, completely ignoring the real problem which is simply this: The most recent charter review commission completely botched this section of the charter by adding (and, admittedly, a majority of the voters didn’t help either) the following: "The council may appoint a citizen committee not more often than every three years to review the monthly compensation and the committee may recommend the council approve a reasonable adjustment to the monthly compensation of members of the council." Absolutely worthless. Regardless of whether such a committee is ever formed and regardless of what "a reasonable adjustment to the monthly compensation of members of the council" it might recommend, the council would be completely powerless to follow the recommendation because the charter will still say ""The mayor shall be paid two hundred dollars per month and each other member of the council shall be paid one hundred dollars per month." And as long as those words are part of the charter, that’s the law of the land. So the subject of the debate is not how much council members should be paid but whether the council should rid the charter of the idiot language and change it into something meaningful.
In the interest of mediation, I would like to offer the following as a template for a compromise solution and possible charter/ordinance language on the issue. I believe it is a more comprehensive approach than those that have previously been discussed. It not only encompasses but broadens the notion of two public meetings Mayor Travis Mitchell desired to have before city council on any proposed compensation change and it preserves the notion of an independent committee, which many on the council appeared to favor. In fact, it really doesn’t deviate all that much from the intent of the current language. This change would have to take place at two different times and it would go along these lines:
Section 3.09: "Not more than once every three years, the council may appoint a Compensation Audit and Review Committee which may recommend the council approve an adjustment to the monthly compensation of the members of the council. Until such time as the first compensation adjustment is approved by an affirmative vote of at least five council members, the mayor shall be paid two hundred dollars per month and each other member of the council shall be paid one hundred dollars per month. No adjustment of $1,000 (this number is negotiable) per month or greater may take effect until 60 days after an affirmative vote by a majority of voters casting ballots on the proposed adjustment during the next available General Election."
The following language — or words that convey the same thing — should be included in an ordinance, but not embedded in the charter, to enable the council to create and outline the basic parameters and scope of the Compensation Audit and Review Committee. "The Compensation Audit and Review Committee must include at least one Certified Public Accountant, at least one active member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) or the National Human Resources Association (NHRA) and at least five residents of Kyle who are registered voters. (If someone wants to argue these five need not be registered voters, I could live with that). This committee is required, as part of its review and its recommendation process, to collect data on the compensation package offered to municipally elected officials in at least 10 other Texas cities with a population comparable to Kyle’s and to include that data as part of its recommendations. In addition, it must solicit and record for the record public input on any and all recommendations and this public input should include, but not be limited to, public hearings, at least one of which must be conducted at a location within the city limits west of Interstate 35 and at least one which must be conducted at a location within the city limits east of Interstate 35."
I said earlier there needed to be two language changes to this section of the charter. The second one, I hope is obvious. Following the first successful compensation alteration, the charter language should be amended to delete the reference to the $200 a month to the mayor and the $100 monthly stipend to other council members.
Now to the issue of where the city manager should live. As faithful readers might already surmise from my earlier rants on this issue, I think any city employee, any member of the city staff, regardless of his or her position, should enjoy the basic freedom of choice when it comes to deciding where they want their family residence to be located. For the sake of peace, harmony and good sense, I am willing to compromise on this issue and now let’s see if anyone else is willing to do the same.
I now agree with the notion there should be a requirement that the city manager live within the city limits of Kyle. However, I don’t believe this requirement should be embedded in the city’s constitution but, instead, this requirement language should be a part of any and all employment contracts the city extends to any potential city manager candidate. This gives the city council wiggle room. It give council members the space and the ability to make decisions and, if they so desire, to negotiate.
Let me tell you just how ridiculous, just how stupid, the debate on this issue became last night. The council members who opposed any change were arguing from the hypothesis that no potential city manager would ever want to live in Kyle. If you ask them, they will be too stubborn, too blinded, to actually admit, to actually see from what direction they were coming from, but that was it. They began from the assumption that by removing this requirement from the charter, no city manager would ever live in Kyle. And there is absolutely no foundation that could support that point of view. None. Nada.
In fact, I would argue that quite the opposite would be true. I’d be willing to bet that 99 times out of 100, such a clause in an employment contract would not even be an issue, The proposed candidate would accept that language as written, and if everything else met their approval, he or she would soon ensconce himself and his family somewhere within the city limits.
But what about that one in a hundred chance when the candidate says that requirement is a deal-killer? That’s the beauty of this recommendation because it is not a mandate, it is not an ultimatum, — it offers the council the opportunity to consider a number of different options. Option one: The council could decide "We all agree there was not that much separating Candidate A from Candidate B. Candidate A says the residency requirement is a deal killer for him, so lets rescind our offer to Candidate A and extend it to Candidate B." Or the council could decide to go to an Option two: "We really like Candidate A. He is obviously the best choice for the job. Let’s see if we can get Candidate A to agree to concessions in other areas of the contract in return for us removing that residency requirement." And there are many more possible options, and those key words — "many more possible options" — are the important ones, the ones to remember. This doesn’t place the council in an untenable take-it-or-leave-it situation that may very easily wind up forcing them to make a decision that’s not in the overall bests interests of the city and its future.
At any rate, these are the subjects, if not the actual language, the council should be discussing — not the off-topic areas and the false hypotheses that rained down last night. That, to say the least, was embarrassing. That was depressing.
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