Last night council member Alex Villalobos opened what is scheduled to be the first of five virtual web seminars paid for by city taxpayers by saying he wasn’t going to argue either for or against passage of Proposition A, the proposed $37 million bond sale that would finance the construction of a police headquarters building, and then he spent the next 52 minutes explaining why voters should approve the proposition in the Nov. 3 elections.
Did he cross the line and illegally assume the role of a city official campaigning in favor of the passage of a bond proposal? That would be a question only courts court definitely answer. The question that should be asked is whether he said enough to open the door for a litigious segment of the population to seek remedies from the court to prevent the bond sale, should the proposition pass in November.
The one thing I do know for sure — the one take-away I had from last night’s presentation — was that on at least three different occasions I heard the proposition described as “an investment in our community.” That, to me, sounded more like a campaign slogan than an objective statement of fact. It came across like words you would see on a yard sign: “Vote ‘Yes’ on Prop. A — an investment in our community.”
Here is exactly what he said on one of those occasions: “If passed, the funding from the proposed bond would finance the design, construction, equipping the public safety center that would open in 2022 and serve residents for decades to come. This bond is an investment in our community.” Objectively speaking, Villalobos could have stopped after the words “decades to come.” Did he begin campaigning when he added that additional sentence? Is it a question even worth pursuing?
I don’t blame Villalobos for this. “An investment in our community” is obviously one of the scripted talking points the PR company that was hired to “educate” the voting public about the bond proposal wanted to mention at every available opportunity. That’s why, I must assume, I heard those exact words, delivered more dramatically and with greater emphasis than anything else that was said, it at least twice last night by Villalobos and at least once by Sarah O’Brien, the so-called “hostess” of the webcast and a senior account executive with Buie and Company, the Austin-based PR outfit the city hired to “educate and inform” voters about the bond propositions. These webcasts are supposed to have rotating city hosts and while I’m not going to waste my time watching any more of these (c’mon, the NBA playoffs are in progress — I have my priorities), I will be bold in predicting that regardless of who the upcoming hosts are, you will hear them call the bond proposal “an investment in our community.”
Less than two minutes after the above mentioned statement, Villalobos said “The proposed facility would allow the city to increase its public safety services to support our growing population. This is an investment in our community.” There it was again. That’s not an accident. That’s planned. That’s scripted. I don’t know if it was designed to be somewhat subliminal but in reality it had all the subtlety of the freight trains that roll through downtown Kyle daily. The question is: Did objective education end after the word “population” and did campaigning for passage of the proposition begin with the word “This?”
The other problem was the word “community” was the last word he uttered in his formal presentation. After that came the “thank-you’s for tuning in” and the start of the Q&A session.
In describing why it’s a good plan to have other departments co-located inside the proposed facility, Villalobos said “The more we consolidate, the more we become more efficient and the more we have all those particular departments under one roof to be able to respond in an efficient and a timely matter, the better we are equipped to take care of the citizens of Kyle and all of the visitors that come through the city of Kyle.” Is that statement an objective one, or an opinion? Was that a statement made to inform voters or to give them a reason to vote in favor of the proposition? If the answer is the latter, it makes the entire presentation illegal because it is against the law to use taxpayer money to campaign for the passage of a bond proposal, just as it is for an incumbent city council person to use taxpayer funds to finance any part of a re-election campaign.
When he was asked if there was a Plan B in case the bond proposal failed, Villalobos danced around the answer, revealing there are no contingency plans, but then added “At some point we’re going to need a facility to house and utilize a space that consolidates all the resources together for efficiency, to utilize and make our best responses to public safety throughout the city.” That, alone, could be classified as electioneering, but then he added this: “It’s important to understand in law enforcement to have a facility that serves the needs of not only the citizens but also supports the staff that is working there in our city. I think that’s very, very important that they feel supported because I believe that a supported officer with all the resources that they need is going to be important for overall public safety.” Did Villalobos, who, perhaps not coincidentally, is the Democratic nominee for Hays County sheriff, cross the legal line when he went into talking about what he feels are “very, very important” for law enforcement issues? At that point, was he, as that nominee for a law enforcement post, illegally campaigning for funding for a law enforcement facility?
He mentioned the facility would contain an Emergency Operations Center. Which is fine. That’s informative. That’s educational. But Villalobos not only editorialized by calling it “a state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Center,” he went so far as to say “There definitely is a need for the city to expand and to add all the technology that is required to have a state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Center with all of the resources, with all of the technology and all of the space that is necessary for a top-tier EOC.” Is that a statement urging passage of the proposition?
Reasonable people can legitimately argue either answer to that question. The only way we will ever come close to a definitive answer is, if the proposition passes, one or more parties go to court seeking a restraining order to prevent the sale of the bonds and use this webcast as a piece of evidence that the city acted illegally in the bond election process.
That’s a big “if.”
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