Trust is out on city council; acrimony, egotism, ignorance is in

For anyone who has been following the current iteration of the Kyle City Council, Monday’s embarrassing council meltdown comes as no surprise. The military can pluck some rube who happens to be a crack marksman from the backwoods of Nowheresville, but he still must complete a vigorous training regimen before that military puts a loaded weapon in that person’s hands. Here in Kyle, we pluck that same ignorant rube from the ranks of the unknown and say “Here are the keys to driving the city. No license required. Try to keep the collisions to a minimum.” When you think about it, the question is not what caused Monday’s multi-fatality head-on, but why did it take this long for the calamity to occur.

For those that missed the sorry spectacle that was on display at City Hall Monday night, the meeting de-evolved into a name-calling session in which council members completely over-stepped their authority, let their egos create havoc, put their collective ignorance on the subject of the function of municipal government on public display and irreversibly soiled much of the reputation many in Kyle have been trying to build as well as possibly dealing a blow to the city's economic future.

And the reason for this horrific show is simple to explain. No one on the Kyle City Council — not one single member — trusts anyone else. What they proved Monday night is that not only do they don’t trust each other, they don’t trust the city staff, they don’t trust the people they appoint to boards and commissions and they certainly don’t trust you and me, those of us who live here. They don’t even trust that small minority who actually take the time to vote in municipal elections. Trust is completely gone from the city council dais. It has been replaced by their own false-impressions of their own self-importance.

Back in August, I wrote these words on this journal: “…too many members of the city council simply don’t have the expertise, the experience, to competently set policy for Kyle and its citizens.” I hate to say it, but the council’s actions Monday proved this beyond any doubt. In that same story, I also wrote “In a rare example of graciousness I am not going to single any of the minor leaguers out by name.” Like I said, that was a “rare example.” I am not going to be that gracious this time around.

But before we get to the really bad, let me toss out a couple of bouquets. They go to Mayor Pro Tem Rick Koch and District 4 council member Ashlee Bradshaw, the only two persons on the City Council who realize that when you don’t have anything of worth to say, it’s preferable not to say anything at all. Bradshaw is rapidly becoming my favorite council member. She seems to know how to act constructively without trying to draw attention to the fact that she knows how to act constructively. Like Koch, and, unlike the other five council members, she knows how to speak effectively, economically and only when it’s necessary.

That’s why it came as such a shock Monday when Koch sharply accused fellow council member Dex Ellison of grandstanding. With the possible additional exception of Mayor Travis Mitchell, the other four members of the council — Ellison, Yvonne Flores-Cale, Robert Rizo and Michael Tobias — spend too much time telling irrelevant stories and talking at length about items of no importance. Their sole aim seems to be not to further the intellectual discussion of the item at hand, but to get their name in the paper or their face on TV. They seem to be aspiring to be media darlings at the expense of being competent in the job they were elected to perform. I have one small piece of advice for them: “Shut the %*#@ up!” The two worst examples of this are Rizo and and Ellison, both of whom are indeed guilty of grandstanding. The length of a city council meeting could be slashed by 50 percent if they just could learn that we don’t want to hear them wax ad-nauseam about every single item on the council agenda, especially when most of the time they are waxing about the proverbial tree while ignoring the forest. Memo to Rizo: We are tired of hearing how “great” you think everything the city council votes on is. Let us make up our own minds what is great and what is simply OK. In fact, to the overwhelming majority of people living in Kyle, the only thing the city does that is truly “great,” is when they fix whatever particular roads local motorists drive on regularly. As for everything else, unless you are about to do something that might “foul” their particular neighborhood,  the locals can take it or leave it. They don’t think every action the council takes is “great.” Just get the job done, don’t waste everyone’s time patting yourself on the back for doing the job you were elected to perform.

Kyle operates under what is called “the council-manager” form of government, which is the preferable method for cities like this one. Basically, this means the city council hires a manager to serve as the CEO of the city and the council is the body that formulates policy, the public-sector equivalent to a company’s board of directors in the private sector. The other popular form of municipal government is the mayor-council form of government, which is preferable only in cities with much larger populations than Kyle (any city with a population under 500,000 should stick to the council-manager form, as should most cities with even more people living in them). In this form, the mayor is the city’s executive branch of the government and the council is the legislative branch. A third form of municipal government found in the United States  — and this type is usually only found in communities with extremely small populations — is what is known as city commission government in which, as the name suggests, the city is run by a commission of between five to seven persons elected at large by a plurality who not only serve as the city’s legislative body but whose individual members are also assigned specific executive functions such as the public works director, the finance director, etc.

It would go a long way if council members knew how the council-manager form of government is supposed to function. District 2 council member Flores-Cale, doesn’t have a clue. But to make matters worse, she revels in her own cluelessness. She, as well as a few other council members, need to absorb the fact that under a council-manager form of government, the council doesn’t run the city, the manager does. The council is the body that establishes the governing policy under which the city operates. But the day-to-day municipal operations are controlled by the city manager and carried out by the city staff. And, fortunately for the citizens of Kyle, the city has a superb city manager and an extremely competent and professional staff.

Proof that Flores-Cale doesn’t get it was on full display again Monday when she decided that she should review every single application for every single board or commission submitted by a Kyle resident and thus told City Manager Scott Sellers he should forward those applications to her when the city receives them. Look, I find it personally embarrassing to discover I know more about council policy than sitting council members, but that could also be the result of something else I find personally embarrassing: that I have witnessed perhaps 100 times more Kyle City Council meetings than Flores-Cale. I find it personally embarrassing for the city I call home that a member of the council is so utterly clueless about events that preceded her tenure (and that citizens, however small that number was, elected someone with so little practical education in city affairs to the council). But the facts are that the council created, debated and ultimately passed a formal procedure for appointing individuals to boards and commissions and this procedure did not involve sending one council member all applications. Second, the city manager is also prohibited from corresponding to one particular council member in this fashion. If Flores-Cale was educated about the council-manager form of government, she would know this. There’s one other major problem with her request. Flores Cale has also proved to the world writ large that she is also absolutely clueless when it comes to the topic of zoning. She can’t grasp the concept of zoning as a land use procedure. Watching her flounder around, debating irrelevant subjects when a zoning issue is being discussed on the council dais, is also embarrassing to witness. The idea of someone with this little knowledge about the zoning process pestering an applicant for the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission is too devastating to contemplate.

What she is trying to do here is politicize a process that should never be politicized. Memo to citizens to Kyle: This is not the time to be applying for positions on Kyle’s boards and commissions.

Memo to council: If Flores Cale is hellbent on politicizing the boards/commission appointment process, the path of least resistance might simply be to completely and enthusiastically embrace the idea. Scrap the current policy of appointing commission members, since it apparently is not going to be followed anyway, and simply have each council member recruit and submit to the council their own personal picks for each board and commission with the mayor having the ability to recruit and name the chair of each. Each board member would serve on their respective board for as long as the person who appointed them remained on the council or until they decided to resign. 

Of course, council members might have problems recruiting citizens to serve on the various city panels,  which brings me back to that overall lack of trust I mentioned earlier. The City Council as a whole — and every single member of the council must share in this blame — doesn’t trust the individuals they appoint to those boards and commissions; or, at the very least, they don’t trust those boards and commissions to perform the duties and functions they should be performing. The Planning and Zoning Commission, to cite just one example, should be renamed the Zoning Commission. The City Council has so emasculated P&Z it has been, for all practical purposes, stripped of any of its planning responsibilities and capabilities. 

A couple of weeks ago, the council unveiled this incoherent, incomprehensible, simply ludicrous document it called a “Citywide Trail Master Plan.” That’s right, the agenda listed it as “Trail,” singular, one trail. Why do you even need a “master plan” for one trail? But that’s not the worst part. The actual name of that master plan for a singular trail that turned out to be more than a single trail was “The Vybe Kyle.” Are you kidding me? What does that even mean? There’s no such word as “vybe” in the English language. “The Vybe Kyle” has “Fajita Street” beat all to hell.

Yet, this was called a “master plan,” and one would think that anything that had the word “plan” attached to it should have been vetted through the Planning & Zoning Commission. And anything remotely involving a trail system should have also passed muster through the Parks Board. Yet, neither of those bodies had any involvement in the formulation of what turned out to be a complete mess, but might not have been if it had been properly vetted in this way. Why were these bodies bypassed in this way on this particular subject? The only logical reason is because the council doesn’t trust these groups to do the jobs they are supposed to be doing.

Instead of being reviewed, edited and rewritten in the proper fashion by the requisite boards and commissions, “The Vybe Kyle” was a product of something the council calls a task force. What is a task force exactly? It’s another product of both the council’s lack of trust in each other and the inflated egos of the various council members who believe that they, they alone, have all the knowledge, that they are smarter than anyone else in the city. I mean, so their thinking goes, if we weren’t smarter than everyone else, why would we even be elected to these positions?

If the council actually had any trust in their board appointments, it would have first set aside the needed funds to accomplish the feat  of creating a first-class Trails (plural) Master Plan in a the annual budget. It would then have assigned the task of actually crafting the first draft of the plan to the Parks Board, which would have visited communities the size of Kyle with trail systems already in place, would have gone out in the community to conduct public hearings (not forced the public to come to City Hall as the egotists on the council require) and would have solicited testimony from those with expertise and experience in developing municipal trail systems.  Then the Parks Board would have discussed and ultimately prepared an initial draft of a master plan. That document would have been sent to the Planning & Zoning Commission, for public hearings and open meetings to decide if it was in complete harmony with the city’s Comprehensive Plan and its long-range land-use plans. Only after the Parks Board and P&Z had signed off on the document, would it be presented to the city council for final adoption.

But because the council doesn’t have that trust in the boards, the commissions or anyone else for that matter, it was going to go along a different route — the secretive, behind-the-scenes route of the task force.

First and foremost, a task force is something this council has created to avoid violating the state’s open-meetings statutes. When four or more of the seven council members gather in the same place at the same time, that is known as a “quorum,” and when there’s a quorum it comes under the jurisdiction of the open meetings statutes, meaning all sorts of requirements must be adhered to. But when there are less than four council members in the same place at the same time, they are not required to adhere to the open meetings statutes. They can call themselves a task force, meet outside public scrutiny and exclude all those other council members in whom they have no trust as well as the rest of the world’s population who are simply not as smart as the task force members from messing things up.

Of course, if you get too many task forces and combine that with that overall lack of trust among council members, the result will be one group of task forces is not going to trust those in the other task forces. And that, ladies and gentlemen, along with deep-seated acrimony among individual council members, is exactly what boiled to the surface during “The Monday Night Meltdown” that resulted in the city council, in a fit of pique, voting to eradicate all task forces in the city. At least, abandon them until such time as a formal task force policy can be adopted; in other words, a formal policy that will allow a trio of council members to meet behind closed doors because they don’t trust other council members, the city’s boards and commissions and the public at large which, undoubtedly, will produce “The Vybe Kyle Part Deux.” And of course, six months after that, a clueless public will elect an equally clueless person to the city council who has absolutely no knowledge of “Vybe Task Force Policy” and will make demands of the city manager that violate the guidelines of the council-manager form of government.

And I have yet to mention when the council was at its absolute lowest point of “The Monday Night Meltdown” — that moment when council members were outright calling each other liars over what happened during a meeting involving Mayor Mitchell, Mayor Pro Tem Koch and former Planning Director Howard Koontz that apparently took place in the City Hall’s second floor, largely glass-walled conference room. I doubt the world will ever know what actually transpired during that meeting. I did ask Koontz, who is now the planning director for Dripping Springs, if he heard about what happened Monday night, and he said “Yes, I have heard about it from several persons. Respectfully, I won’t be reviewing the footage (of the council’s meeting) and I’ll not comment on it.” Personally, I like Koontz. I respect him. And I understand his decision not to get into a mud-wrestling match that could not produce a winner. Because that council brawl Monday night produced only losers.

I hate to keep harping on her, but the truth is, Flores-Cale also initiated this mud wrestling match by placing on the council’s agenda an item captioned “Evaluation of expectations, from city council and city manager, when presenting direction of council, to staff.” Sounds innocuous enough, although it demonstrates once again Flores-Cale’s lack of understanding of the council-manager form of government and only her unbridled desire to nuke any progress this council is trying to pursue on behalf of the city. If she understood it, she would know council does not give direction to the city staff. The council gives direction to the city manager. The city manager gives direction to staff. But what this was really about is the fact that Flores-Cale doesn’t like and doesn’t trust others on the council, particularly Mayor Mitchell and Mayor Pro Tem Koch, and those feelings are reciprocated by Mitchell and Koch. She also doesn’t like and doesn’t trust anyone on the city’s staff. In fact, I’m not sure she likes anything other than the sound of her own voice. And her entire argument was the product of hearsay evidence, testimony that wouldn’t be allowed in a court of law. She was complaining and making accusations about the Koontz-Mitchell-Koch conference I mentioned earlier — a conference of which she was NOT a participant. This was not a debate, it was not a discussion; it was airing dirty laundry in public and, as mentioned earlier, shameful name calling — a public spectacle that only delights that segment of the public that prefers mudslinging to policy making. This was an example of a council member trying to destroy governmental processes, not constructively shaping them.

One other thing bothered me, as well: Flores-Cale’s presentation was not extemporaneous — she was reading from a script. Which made me wonder: Are these really her words or did someone else write this? Is she speaking for herself or is she merely an ax-wielding marionette whose strings are controlled by someone with far more sinister and vitriolic motives?

Memo to Mayor Mitchell: Establish a rule that allows only city staff and the mayor to place items routinely on the council’s meeting agenda and, should one of the six other council members wish to have an item placed on the agenda, that council member must present a form containing a description of the agenda item, a reason for its inclusion on the agenda AND the signatures of two of the other five council members. Now the council members signing the form are not agreeing to support the item by signing the form; they are only agreeing the item is worth being debated during the council’s meeting.

I’m not saying such a procedure would eliminate the lack of trust, the acrimony, the egotism or the ignorance. Unfortunately, those qualities seem systemic. In our body politic, they began and flourished in Washington, D.C. It’s just a shame that those who are supposed to be representing our local interests are emulating those very qualities that has led to the dysfunction in our nation’s capital.

What I fear the most is that dysfunction leading to government paralysis is their goal. And, if that is allowed to continue, this city is headed for a very troubling future. Gone are the days when citizens with noble aspirations of statesmanship, leadership and public service aspired to serve on the city council. They have been replaced by those who only want to erect barriers.

The best position to be in these days would be that of an economic director of a city competing with Kyle for major economic stimuli. If I was recruiting a major business to come to my city and someone from that business told me “You know, Kyle really has a lot to offer,” I would simply show that business a video of Item 24 of the Oct. 3 edition of the Kyle City Council — the “Evaluations of expectations” item — knowing that seeing that video would eliminate Kyle from any consideration.

It’s sad. But it’s true.

City becoming too sophisticated for some council members

Chalk it up to this city simply growing so much too rapidly. To be generous, to be kind, that’s the reason I am going to proffer for the fact that too many members of the city council simply don’t have the expertise, the experience, to competently set policy for Kyle and its citizens. Governing a city the size of which Kyle has become requires far more competency than, say, presiding over a neighborhood PTA meeting, but, unfortunately, by watching our council in action recently I have come to the conclusion that’s the intellectual capacity of many current council members. I hold City Manager Scott Sellers in high esteem. I know, if I was in his place, I would have become so exasperated by some of the actions and some of the questions asked by certain council members, I would have grabbed them by the neck and screamed “Either learn the job or quit right now so we can replace you with someone who does know how to do it.”

And maybe it’s not entirely their fault. It’s perfectly OK if you don’t know how to swim to stand in the deep end of the pool when it’s empty and some of these council members first ventured into the pool when it was empty. But now it’s full, and not knowing how to swim becomes extremely problematic, especially when there are no lifeguards on duty.

This is the second time I’ve realized many members of the council representing the citizens of Kyle were not up to that task. The first time was in August 2018 when the council was debating potential changes to the city’s charter and, during these debates, they simply would not or could not stay on the subject of changes to the charter. What made it so exasperating was that they didn’t even realize their discussions were off the subject. Instead of acting like city council members they came across like kindergarten kids on the playground. I became so exasperated by the experience I simply threw up my hands and this journal went into extended hibernation for almost two years, When I emerged from my self-imposed exile I was hoping things may have gotten better and for a while there I really thought they had. But now I realize the conditions are worse than they were back in the summer of 2018, not because the current council members are any less qualified than those of that time, but because the stakes are so much higher now due to the city’s incredible growth. Simply put, too many members of the Kyle City Council are minor leaguers forced to play and compete in the majors.

In a rare example of graciousness I am not going to single any of the minor leaguers out by name. But for those readers who would like to take the time to identify them, here’s how to do it: Review the videos of the recent council meetings during which the just-passed budget is being addressed. Specifically pay attention when the subject of lobbyists is being discussed. You can identify the sub-pars by those asking the city manager such questions as “What is our lobbyist going to do?” or “Can you outline for us the responsibilities of our state lobbyist?”. Asking those questions should immediately disqualify a person from serving on the city council because not only the ability to set policy for a city like Kyle but also the concept of policy-setting is simply beyond their grasp. As representatives of the people, they get failing grades.

Citizens up to the task of serving on a council representing residents of a city such as Kyle would, instead, be asking this question when it comes to the subject of a state lobbyist: “What, specifically, is the city’s legislative agenda for the 2023 session and, if we haven’t formulated it, why don’t we create a task force immediately to begin putting that agenda together for consideration by the entire council?” Then, when that agenda is completed and receives council approval, the next question becomes “What parts of this agenda do we want our lobbyist to concentrate on?”

The short answer to the question of “What is our lobbyist going to do?” is simply “Whatever you instruct that lobbyist to do.” Any council member qualified to serve on the Kyle City Council should know that the lobbyist works for that council, takes his/her instructions from the council and serves at the whim of the council. The state lobbyist is the council’s voice in the state capitol, the person who carries the city’s water to Austin. The lobbyist is the council’s marionette, and the council controls its strings and provides it with a voice.

And any council member who doesn’t know this or who doesn’t want to step up and control those strings, provide that voice, should resign immediately and turn their seat over to someone who does.

City council approves funds to resurface sections of 15 streets

The City Council has authorized the spending of close to a half million dollars to resurface sections of 15 streets in Kyle.

The item in question was part of the council’s Consent Agenda, which includes a host of items considered to be non-controversial and, thus, non-debatable. That means this article was not singled out for a separate vote, but it’s still worth noting the council approved the Consent Agenda that included this item unanimously.

The council voted to approve a $488,369.01 contract with a Georgetown firm, Viking Construction, Inc., to resurface the following streets:

1. Haupt, between Michaelis Road and Fairway
2. McGarity, between McNaughton and Sampson
3. Camelia Parkway, between Sweet Gum Drive and Hometown Parkway
4. Live Oak Street, between FM 150 and North Burleson Street
5. Blanco Street, between FM 150 and North Front Street
6. West South Street, between Scott Street and South Front Street
7. Nance Street, between West 1st Street and West Schlemmer Street
8. Arbor Knot Drive, Caddis Cove, Kype Cove, and Bobbin Cove, between FM 150 and Bobbin Cove
9. Ferrule Drive and Dropper, between Otono Loop and Dropper
10. Bluestem Street and Primrose Boulevard, between Goldenrod Street and Lehman Road
11. Kym Way, Stephen Court, and Dashelle Run, within Brandi Circle
12. Brent Boulevard, between Brandi Circle and IH-35 northbound frontage road
13. Keystone Loop, within Beau Lane
14. Beau Lane, between Brian Lane and Steeplechase
15. Sheep Trail Drive, between Gina Road and New Country Road

Viking will resurface these roads using a process known as microsurfacing, which consists of the application of a mixture of water, asphalt emulsion, aggregate (very small crushed rock), and chemical additives to an existing asphalt concrete pavement surface. It is typically used on streets that have a lot of shade and streets that have a lot of traffic. Streets chosen for microsurfacing applications would typically be treated every five to seven years. Once placed, microsurfacing needs one to two hours to set or harden before the road is re-opened for traffic.

The actual microsurfacing process will cost $457,535.01, and the remaining $30,844 of the contract is being set aside for striping, where needed, of the newly resurfaced streets.  

A challenge to Kyle City Council members: Persuade the “persuadables”

 I’ve received considerable feedback from readers concerning the article I wrote and published just prior to this one. I can’t say for sure, but I’m going to assume the feedback was negative. I don’t know if it really was because all that feedback was sent anonymously and I never open e-mail sent to me anonymously. But I assume it’s negative because I learned 45 years ago, when, for some reason still beyond my comprehension, a graduate student at Texas A&M decided to make me and my supposed influence on the culture of North Central Texas the subject of her master thesis. Her research showed that overwhelming majority of those who write letters to social critics are those who adamantly oppose and reject the opinions of said critics and are inflamed enough to take the time to author this correspondence. Those who agree, just nod their heads and go on about their lives.

So let me give all those letter writers and potential correspondents a tip: Don’t waste your time! I know I’m right about this. I have the facts, the irrefutable logic and the ethical standards to support my point of view. Nobody’s going to change my mind on this subject. At the same time, I am also well aware I’m not going to change the mind of anyone who supports this ordinance. People need to cling to a sense of security and it makes absolutely no difference if it is, like these ordinances. a false sense of security. These ordinances will do absolutely nothing to make today’s Kyle one bit safer; but so many people need to cling to the idea that it will, nothing is going to dissuade them from that belief, that hope, that desperate need.

In my years as a political consultant, I used to instruct my clients running for public office (and there are those on this city council that have heard me tell them this) that the political universe is divided into three groups: those who agree with you, those who don’t and those you’re not sure of. I would plead with my clients not to waste their time trying to convince those who don’t agree with you. They are never going to admit “You know, I’ve been wrong all these years.” It’s never going to happen so don’t waste your time trying. Just look at all those people who are absolutely convinced Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. No set of facts or no one is going to convince them he didn’t. I also told my clients to occasionally reinforce those who agree with you and make sure they act on those beliefs. But don’t waste all your time just talking to them. To win, you must convince those who, for one reason or another, have not yet formed an opinion. Persuade the “persuadables.”

Which brings me to the challenge I’m about to issue to the members of the Kyle City Council. If you are convinced you are doing the right thing by approving this ordinance, then persuade the “persuadables.” At the very least, have the decency to try. Sit down in the living rooms of those residents living on the streets where those who are in the state’s sex offender database and are desiring to relocate to Kyle will be required to live. Completely explain this ordinance to them and persuade them, or, at the very least, try to persuade them it’s the right thing to do. I don’t even believe the residents of these areas are actually aware of what’s transpiring, the action you’re about to take. Has the city even mailed a postcard to them like they should do if they are planning a zoning change that will affect them? I doubt it. You are passing this ordinance behind their backs. At the very least, show the rest of us you have the courage of your convictions and the common decency any human being should possess to sit down with these people and inform them completely about the action you plan to take. And then, during the discussion period before the vote on the second reading of this ordinance, describe to the rest of us the highlights and the lowlights of the conversations you had with these families. Only in that way will we know you have the leadership qualities we look for in elected officials, that you have the ethical standards that earn you the trust we want to place in our elected officials, that you possess the rock solid belief in your decision-making ability that is needed to correctly and resolutely propel this city into the future.

Going out on The Wire to condemn Kyle’s “Hamsterdams”

To me, HBO’s The Wire is the best television series ever. And when I say “ever,” I really mean it — the best show I have seen in my lifetime and that covers a lot of ground. I vividly remember as a kid growing up in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and my dad coming home with the family’s very first television set. The year was 1948 and the set was a Philco, with what I thought was a magnificent 10-inch black-and-white screen. Some nights gathering around that TV were more special than others. Tuesday nights were always magical. They were reserved for a television show known as The Texaco Star Theater, hosted by Milton Berle. Perhaps some of you reading this might not know that name. That’s OK. But back then, Milton Berle was known as “Mr. Television.” Wednesday nights and Friday nights were set aside for my dad and me to watch the nationally televised boxing matches, the aptly named “Wednesday Night Fights,” sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and Friday’s Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, always originating from Madison Square Garden and featuring, as the TV fight announcer, our nextdoor neighbor and close family friend Don Dunphy. But Saturday nights were the best – three hours of superb prime-time television, beginning with the hour-long Jackie Gleason Show and the hilarious characters he invented and portrayed, including the millionaire Reginald van Gleason III; Joe the Bartender, who was always talking to the never-seen Mr. Dennehy (and who is not to be confused with the reincarnated Joe the Bartender who came along several years later and which became a two-person skit with the wrong-headed addition of “Crazy Guggenheim”), along with the silent and usually grief-stricken Poor Soul. That was followed by the zany and genius-propelled 90-minute Your Show of Shows starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Howard Morris, and Carl Reiner. The final 30 minutes was reserved for Your Hit Parade during which Dorothy Collins, Russell Arms, Snooky Lanson and Gisele MacKenzie sang the top seven hit songs of the week (plus two “Lucky Strike Extras”).

Those were my fondest television memories right up until I saw The Wire. What was so powerful about The Wire was the accuracy with which it portrayed the milieus it explored. Well, at least during the last three seasons: Season 3 which focused on Baltimore’s municipal politics, season 4 which concentrated on public education and season 5 which dealt with the print media. As a former newspaper reporter who covered municipal politics and later went to work for a municipal government as well as someone who taught high school and junior college journalism, it was delightfully painful (I know that seems like an oxymoron, but there you have it) to watch The Wire reveal the bitter truths in all those areas.

But the overall arc of the series concentrated on the local police trying and miserably failing in a war on drugs. In Season 3, Howard “Bunny” Colvin, a police major who is alienated by police bureaucracy and the detrimental effects the anti-drug efforts are causing, comes up with this idea that winds up being called “Hamsterdam,” three geographic zones in his district where low-level users can take drugs without facing punishment and where addicts and dealers can conduct their business under supervision, but without interference. This moves the drug trade into a controlled, uninhabited area to protect the rest of his district. It its patterned after Amsterdam’s liberal drug laws, but when Colvin explains this to one of the dealers, the dealer mispronounces it as “Hamsterdam” and the name sticks.

Last week, the Kyle City Council created its own Hamsterdam. But these zones are not going to be havens for drug dealers. They are going to be refuges for newly arriving residents to Kyle who are listed in the state’s sex offender database.

Now, if you ask anyone on the city council, they will probably scream that is not what they did. But that IS what they did. They just don’t realize it because, as usual, they didn’t look at all of the implications of the the ordinance they are passing. And that’s just one of the reasons I am taking what is unquestionably the unpopular stance of being completely and adamantly opposed to the city’s new sex offender ordinance, which is up for a second reading after being approved 6-1 on its first reading a week ago.

I have many reasons for opposing this ordinance. The first, and perhaps most overriding reason, is faith-based. I am Jewish and the most important teaching and tenet of Judaism is found in the Torah’s book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow as yourself: I am the Lord.” Hillel, a Jewish religious leader, sage and scholar responsible for the development of the Jewish laws and teachings found in the Mishah and the Talmud, was once asked to explain Jewish laws. He replied “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. Everything else is commentary.” I believe Christians have a similar belief, known as The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The city council completely ignored these tenets when it acted on this ordinance and anyone who supports this ordinance likewise rejects these religious teachings.

But, like all Jews, I am also seared by the knowledge of Nazi atrocities — Adolph Hitler and his Nazis who did exactly what the Kyle City Council did; they created specified zones where Jews were required to live before they were shipped off to the concentration camps. And Hitler told the German people exactly what the Kyle City Council members were telling us: “This is absolutely necessary to keep you safe and secure.”

There’s an extremely ugly word for what the council did last Tuesday (well, “ugly” unless you’re a white supremacist). It’s a word that’s used when a certain area is set aside for a certain segment of the population and that population is restricted to living in that area. You might have heard of the word I’m referring to. It’s “segregation.” Yes, folks, our city council wrapped themselves in their swastika emblazoned white robes last week, donned their white hoods and voted to legalize segregation in Kyle. In fact, I’m willing to bet that Kyle is the only city in the United States in which, during this century, a black city council member voted in favor of segregation. That’s quite a legacy. A shameful legacy, to be sure, but a legacy nonetheless.

The vote on this ordinance proved Kyle is distinguishing itself in another way as well. While much of the country, including the federal government itself, is seriously contemplating police reform measures, Kyle is moving in exactly the opposite direction — toward becoming a police state. I’ve always thought that Abraham Maslow had the police in mind when he conceived his “law of the instrument.” If you’re not familiar with Maslow’s law, which he first espoused publicly  in 1966, it goes: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” To the police, the non-uniformed world is a nail, a world populated by two kinds of people — bad guys and potential bad guys. To the police, it’s shoot or press a knee to the neck for 8 minutes and 15 seconds first, and ask questions much, much, much later, if at all. To those promoting police reform laws, words like “treatment,” “rehabilitation,” “compassion,” have replaced police terms like “isolation,” “confession” and “incarceration.” Instead of a world populated by bad guys or potential guys, reformers believe the world is populated by individuals, some of whom indeed do bad things. But those bad things don’t make them bad persons. Yes, the people the city has decided to banish, to segregate, to punish, did what many consider to be bad things; in most cases it was a person classified as an adult who engaged in consensual sex with person under the age of 15. But these people we’re talking about here — the ones the city council want to segregate — have already been tried and convicted for what they did and have served their punishment. But that doesn’t matter to our city council. Kyle doesn’t believe in extending these people a second chance.  It doesn’t believe in developing rehabilitation programs or other treatments that might benefit these individuals. It doesn’t believe in forgiveness. No. Kyle stands for banishment, for segregation, for isolation. It believes only in banishing these people to a form of purgatory and then forgetting about them completely as well as completely ignoring those who will be forced to be their neighbors. But I’ll get back to that in a bit.

So it’s no coincidence that this ordinance was the brainchild of the local police who actually (and I’m not making this up) sold the council on this by telling council members this is what such Texas cities as Leander, Pflugerville, West Lake Hills, Cedar Park, Cibolo, League City, Giddings and Fate are doing. Look, I have nothing against Leander, Pflugerville, West Lake Hills et al — I’m sure they are all fine little burgs inhabited by residents who love living there — but, c’mon! There are many really great cities in this land — there are even a few right here in Texas — so why can’t we aim higher and try to emulate them? The Kyle City Council recently spent two days at a “visioning workshop” in Galveston and now I’m terribly concerned they spent their time trying to find out ways “we can be more like Giddings.” That’s low-hanging fruit. That’s not visioning. That’s not aspirational. That’s settling. We should be setting our sights much higher than that. When he assumed the job of city manager here, Scott Sellers said his goal was to make Kyle a destination city. Personally, I don’t think that goal has been reached, but that doesn’t mean the city should stop looking for ways to reach it. At the same time, I doubt there are many husbands in this country who have said to their wives “Honey, grab the kids, put the bags in the car, we’re off to an exciting vacation in Leander,” or League City, or Fate, or any of the other cities the police department wants Kyle to emulate.

Here’s an idea. Why not try hot try to contact the deputy director of Sex Offender Programs, for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Rehabilitation Programs Division to see if Kyle could import some of its ideas and programs? Here’s the Huntsville number for that office:  (936) 437-2882. Why not emulate that? The Federal Bureau of Prisons also conducts residential and non-residential sex offender treatment programs. Why not emulate those – learn what they are doing that’s successful and import that knowledge into similar programs here? In an article written for the American Psychological Association, Karen Kersting wrote that approaches like the one taken by our city council “disregards key information on the nature of sex offenders — statistics show most are not likely to repeat their crimes  — and on the increasing efficacy of offender treatment, largely due to a modern behavior modification model stressing relapse prevention through recognition and avoidance of criminal impulses.” Why not try something innovative such as a “modern behavior modification model” instead of simply being part of the herd with the other sheep bearing names like Pflugerville, West Lake Hills, League City and the like? Because that would take an intellectual and financial investment on the city’s part and that’s simply beyond the collective comprehension — the intellectual capacity — of the current city council. I’m betting they will, instead, choose the cop-out (pun intended): instead of investing in innovative rehabilitation programs that really might make the entire city safer, they will decide to spend that money on hiring more police officers to enforce their segregation laws.

Which brings me to another reason (the one I said earlier I would get back to in a bit) I so emphatically oppose this ordinance. And, from a public safety perspective, this might be the most important reason of all. When you “treat everything as if it were a nail,” you never consider that family living on Orchard Lane or Keegans Way or Masonwood Drive or Thicket Lane or Alpha or Voss or Voyager Cove or the small handful of other streets where newly arrived residents who are in the state’s sex offender database must be funneled into because of actions taken by a city council that’s been led by the nose by the city’s police department. If you believe that what the council did in passing this ordinance made a large section of Kyle that much safer, than you must also accept as undisputable fact that it made all these other places in Kyle far more dangerous. But not a single council member spoke up in the defense of those living in these sections of the city. What’s going to happen when a child living in a home on Wallops Street is raped and murdered by someone in the state database who was forced by the city council to live in this neighborhood? The lawsuit that will be filed will probably bankrupt the city. Which, I guess, is fitting. If the city has become ethically and morally bankrupt, it is only just that it leads to it becoming financially bankrupt as well.

But the clinching reason why I am so adamantly opposed to the passage of this ordinance is that while the police department provided council members many irrelevant figures to help convince them to pass it, when I asked the department to come up with relevant numbers — the numbers the council should have asked for — the department failed to do so. The only reason I can think of for this failure on the part of the police department is because the numbers would prove this entire exercise was a complete waste of time. Last week I asked for two sets of figures: First, the number of persons arrested in the last decade by the Kyle Police Department whose convictions led them to be placed in the state’s sex offender database and, second, the number of Kyle residents already in the database who were arrested in the last decade for sex-related offenses. When filing the request, I assumed the number for both was zero and that’s why the police department failed to volunteer those numbers in its council presentation. That was confirmed when I received this message from the city: “After talking to our KPD staff, it seems gathering this data will not be accessible by your due date if at all for a number of reasons.” Sure. Fine. Whatever. The reason it will not furnish the numbers is obvious. Because to provide them proves that,  in passing this ordinance, council members are finding a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist. I’m ashamed of every single one of them.

 

The Kyle City Council is a mess

There’s a semi-joke enjoyed by sports afficionados about attending a boxing match when suddenly a hockey game breaks out. I have that same kind of feeling watching the Kyle City Council in action these days.

Ever since the election, accepted rules of decorum for city council meetings — rules generally adhered to by all city councils I have covered — have been completely ignored by this City Council. Council members, especially Yvonne Flores-Cale and often Robert Rizo, don’t wait to be called on before speaking. They just blurt out their comments as though this was a discussion being held in a saloon and not in a government meeting in which procedures should be followed.

I also have a problem with Kyle’s City Council’s voting procedure, and both this and the lack of decorum can be rectified with a modest investment in available technology — technology currently employed by a number of city councils — that enables council members to electronically enter a speaking que and to vote. It is all quite simple. During the specified discussion period of any item, if a council member wishes to speak on that item, he or she simply needs to press a button at his or her seat. A screen at the seat of the meeting’s chair registers the names of the persons wishing to speak in the order in which they were entered and the chair simply recognizes the person at the top of the list after the last person has finished speaking.

This same device is used to vote on items requiring a roll-call vote. This is important because you don’t want one council person’s vote to be swayed by the previous vote of another council person. Each council person gets to make an independent decision. Screens used for visual presentations are strategically placed around the council chambers and it would be easy to project the results of the roll call votes on these screens.

The consent agenda is a tool used to streamline council meeting procedures by collecting and grouping routine, noncontroversial topics into a single agenda item that can be discussed and passed with a single motion and vote. The Kyle City Council abused the concept of the consent agenda last night when Police Chief Jeff Barnett took to the speaker’s podium to discuss two of the consent agenda items and then council member Robert Rizo asked Barnett questions about them. Not that this shouldn’t be allowed, but the accepted procedure for doing that is to remove those items from the consent agenda and discuss and vote on them individually. 

The Kyle City Council is ignoring all accepted rules of decorum for city council meetings and is abusing the intent of the consent agenda. It is a mess and needs to be fixed.

RM 150 is not going to be renamed

US Highway 75 is a comparably long road — 1,239 miles, to be exact — stretching from downtown Dallas northward to the Canadian border at Noyes, Minn. (It used to be longer than that. Before the mis-named Interstate 45 fully came into existence in 1987, US Highway 75 extended all the way southeast to Galveston.) Some 10 miles of those 1,239 — that section running from its southern origin point in downtown Dallas north to the LBJ Freeway — bears the name North Central Expressway, or simply “North Central,” to the locals. There’s a section of that aforementioned should-be-called Intrastate 45 — between downtown Houston and Galveston — that’s called the Gulf Freeway. In fact, it was called the Gulf Freeway when it was still part of US 75.

I mention all of this because of the debate going on about “the renaming of RM 150.” Let’s get one thing straight — the approximately 35-mile-long RM 150 that runs from just south of Dripping Springs to State Highway 21 is not going to be renamed. Just like there’s a small section of US 75 called North Central and a section of I-45 known as the Gulf Freeway, there’s a small (four-mile) section of that 35-mile stretch of RM 150 — between Center Street and Old Stagecoach Road/Jack C. Hays Trail — that used to be called Rebel Drive. When, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter activism earlier this year, Hays High School dropped the last vestiges of its Confederate identification by dropping “The Rebel” as its mascot, the city council decided it should follow suit and come up with a new name for Rebel Drive.

Its first try at renaming the street ended, shall we say, somewhat disastrously. So the council decided to punt. In the guise of “obtaining citizen input” on coming up with a name to replace “Rebel,” it appointed a 15-member committee to make recommendations. I’ll get back to that committee in minute. At the same time the council officially permanently removed the name “Rebel” from that four-mile section of the 35-mile long ranch-to-market road. So, for the time being, it is officially known by its TxDOT-designated name of RM 150 just as many, many miles of US 75 that haven’t been giving an additional local overlay name are officially designated US 75.

And, after the committee makes its recommendations and the council takes final action on a new name, that four-mile stretch will still be RM 150. That’s not going to change. The process the city is currently going through is not a “renaming” but a “designation.”

There also seems to be some confusion concerning a proposed new routing of RM 150, which would depart from its current path just west of Arroyo Road and, six miles later, join I-35 at Yarrington Road. This “bypass,” as some are calling it, is still a long way away — I am doubtful it will become a reality in my lifetime. For one thing, it is still unfunded. For another, although a “corridor” has been designated for the new route, the actual path of the highway has yet to be determined. That’s akin to saying I’m going to store my dinner dishes in the kitchen … somewhere in the kitchen. Of course, no rights-of-way have been acquired, environmental studies need to be completed, utilities will have to relocated. In fact, when I last checked with Hays County, only 15 percent of the road’s schematic design had been completed.

Speaking of Hays County, officials there insist when and if this new routing of FM 150 finally becomes a reality it will “facilitate removing existing FM 150 (Main Street) through the City of Kyle from the State Highway System.” However, those with that State Highway System, namely TxDOT, say something a little different. I’ve talked to a number of planners at the Department of Transportation who have told me on background that the section of what is now FM 150 that will be bypassed will be re-designated as “Business FM 150.” The reason is, they say, there are going to be motorists who will be on RM 150 west of Kyle who ultimately desire to go north on I-35 and the bypass would add an unnecessary 12 to 15 miles to their journey. In fact, these officials predicted, there will be more motorists who will want to go north on I-35 than don’t and thus the total vehicle load going through downtown Kyle will still be greater than those using the bypass. At least, until …

This brings me to the climax of this story. The new routing of RM 150 is designed to be more than what some may refer to as “a road to nowhere.” These same officials who talked to me on background said the ultimate goal is to extend the road east of I-35 at Yarrington as a four-lane controlled-access highway that ultimately intersects with I-10, providing a quicker route between the Texas Hill Country and Houston. This new alignment is not a “Kyle bypass,” but, in reality, is an “Austin bypass.”

One additional point needs to be made. That railroad siding that causes freight trains to stop, thus blocking traffic on Center Street, will be moved long before the FM 150 bypass is constructed. Funds have actually been designed for moving the siding further north and it was those trains blocking the road that was the primary reason officials gave for the bypass (when the real reason, all along, was the Austin bypass). But moving the siding removes some of the pressure from needing to act more quickly on constructing the new FM 150 route.

Now I’m going to keep the promise I made earlier and get back to that committee that is supposed to recommend a new name for the “four-mile stretch.” In an ideal world, I wouldn’t want the committee to report with a single recommended new name (but, if it had to settle on one, I would be pushing for Samantha Dean Blvd.). In an ideal world, I would like see the committee settle on a list of possible new names. Then I would like the city to send a postage-paid postcard to all registered voters in Kyle asking them to check the box next to the name they preferred. If the city deems this exercise in citizen democracy as too expensive, it could accomplish something akin to this by conducting one of those on-line surveys it posts annually to measure city services.

If the council really wants to gain citizen input, then it should really go to the limit to gain citizen input.

City officials laud school board for passing freeport exemption

Led by Mayor Todd Webster, elected officials, city staff representatives and members of the local business community joined in predicting a more viable economic future for Kyle in the wake of the Hays CISD school board’s vote tonight approving a freeport exemption for area businesses, thus thrusting Kyle and Buda into the list of communities known as "triple freeport."

The board voted 6-0, with Sandra Bryant, who is not seeking re-election to the board in May, abstaining, to grant a property tax exemption to non-petroleum related inventory held by a company for less than 175 days. The district joins the City of Kyle and Hays County in granting the exemption, hence the "triple freeport" designation, a label that has proved to be a business-location magnet in other areas of Texas.

"I’m really appreciative, I’m very glad they did it," Mayor Webster said. "It has the potential to be a game-changer for the City of Kyle and our economic development efforts. It’s been a long time coming and I’m very appreciative they decided to do it. I don’t think they are going to regret it for a minute. It’s a wonderful economic development opportunity for the city. What that might mean in additional tax revenue, not only for the city but also for the school district, will more than compensate for whatever is lost through the actual exemptions. And the way the statute is structured, the school district really doesn’t lose anything anyway.

"I’m confident it’s going to work out great," the mayor continued. "It shows that the members who supported it were listening to the facts and that they conducted an appropriate analysis on what this would mean to the community and the district.. Good job by them."

Webster’s sentiments were echoed by Kyle’s Economic Development Director Diana Torres, council member Travis Mitchell and Chamber of Commerce CEO Julie Snyder.

"This is a huge move forward for the whole entire Hays ISD school district area, including the cities of Kyle and Buda," Ms. Torres said. "We all partnered very well together to make this happen and we see some big things in our future."

"I’m proud of the school board," Mitchell said. ‘They were making a sound decision for the future of Kyle and Buda."

"I feel very good," Ms. Snyder said moments after the vote was taken. "I feel great. This means added resources for the district, for the community, new businesses."

During discussion on the issue, board trustee Willie Tenorio said he was compelled to address what he labeled "the elephant in the room."

"I didn’t want to bring this up, but I’ve had some requests from people to talk about it," Tenorio said. "Behind the scenes I was getting a lot of attacks from a small group of gentlemen on the City Council of Kyle, It seems like they were hoping I would stop asking questions. I’ve noticed a lot of Kyle politics has gotten really dirty lately."

Mitchell said he was baffled by Tenorio’s remarks.

"I have no idea what that was about," Mitchell said, without even having to be asked a question about what Tenorio said. "Everything I’ve said on freeport is public. I’ve published on it. I’ve only met with trustee Bryant and trustee (Esperanza) Orosco on the issue."

Webster was more blunt when he learned of Tenorio’s statement.

"Willie is a knucklehead," the mayor said. "And you can quote me on that."

Winfield Inn and surrounding property may get new zoning

 

According to its website, the mansion that currently bears the name Winfield Inn was built on its current 27-acre plot in 1884. No one lives there. It is being used as an outdoor wedding venue and, that same website claims, more than 100 weddings and other outdoor events take place there every year, at prices starting at $3,500 per event. And that does not include catering.

The website lists Leslie Moore as "the proprietor" of the Winfield Inn, but he is more than that. Moore, together with his partner Magdalena Rood are well known, if sometimes controversial, developers in the Austin area. Moore met some resistance in 2009 when he tried to rezone a one-half acre lot at 313 Red Bird Lane (for those familiar with Austin, that’s just north of Stassney Lane and east of South 1^st Street, not that far from the Texas School for the Deaf). Moore and Rood are also listed jointly, as are Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Diane Land, as one of the many Waller Creek Explorers, major donors to the Waller Creek Conservancy, a non-profit formed to create and maintain a series of urban parks around Austin’s Waller Creek. Together, Moore and Rood have formed a limited liability company, aptly named MooreRood Properties, LL.C, and it is that Austin-based limited liability company that owns the 27-acre property that’s home to the Winfield Inn as well as a connecting 4.19-acre plot bordering on Stagecoach Road.

And it’s these two pieces of property that Moore and Rood are seeking to have rezoned from agricultural to retail services. Their application for this rezoning is scheduled to be heard March 14 by the Planning Commission and March 21 by the City Council.

I have reached out to the Winfield Inn to see if I can learn more about the request (I've received the automatic "we'll contact you soon" reply), but one reason for it could simply be a wedding venue might very well be considered a non-conforming use and not that MooreRood has any plans to develop the land into a major retail area. The timing of the request, however, is interesting because, just two days ago, the council, on first reading, rezoned 86 acres just northeast of the MooreRood property for a new subdivision that will contain at least 275 new homes. And a major retail center serving that subdivision along with the new homes that will be going into the Blanco River Ranch development further west could be regarded as a valuable asset. Not only that, MooreRood's Facebook page describes the LLC as a "shopping/retail" company.

On the other hand, a major retail center would destroy the ambiance of the Winfield Inn — and let’ face it, its ambiance provides a major competitive advantage — so it’s rather improbable, if not impossible, to see the outdoor wedding venue co-existing with additional retail development. In other words, it’s likely to be one or the other, but not both.

The reason I’m leaning toward the non-conforming use side of the argument is because of the property’s recent annexation into the City of Kyle, and such annexations require these annexed properties to conform with pre-existing zoning ordinances unless the owners and the city have reached a development agreement that exempts the owners from these restrictions. Before it was annexed, the Winfield Inn did not need to be concerned with its zoning, but now it does and agricultural zoning in Kyle only allows "farming, ranching, pasturage, detached single-family residences and related accessory structures, on a minimum one acre tract." No mention of an outdoor wedding venue there.

And we might not get the answers to that at the Planning Commission or the City Council public hearings on the issue because there is absolutely nothing that requires MooreRood to discuss what, if any, changes it plans to make on the property. On the other hand, applicants usually reveal more than they are required to during this process.

Tenorio must persuade the persuadables

Before I officially retired, I spent 20 years as a partner in a media consulting/crisis communications company and in that line of work I attracted a large number of political clients from all over the country, up to and including clients running for President of the United States. One piece of advice I gave to all these political clients was that their audience could be divided into three sections: (1) those who fervently agree with everything you say and stand for, (2) those who just as fervently disagree with everything you say and stand for and finally, (3) those who haven’t made up their minds one way or another. I argued that addressing just that first group was like preaching to the choir. You want to make sure they stay on your side, but you can’t win by devoting all your attention exclusively to them. I also said trying to talk to the second group was not only a complete waste of time (you’re never going to get them to admit "You know, you’re right and I’ve been wrong all these years" — that’s never going to happen), but sharing the conversation with this group gives them another opportunity to get their grievances aired. The group you need to speak to — the group you need to convince — is that third group. Persuade the persuadables.

This is advice council member Daphne Tenorio needs to follow right now.

I say this because of the publication yesterday evening of Tuesday’s city council agenda, specifically items 9, 10 and 11 on that agenda.

I’m not sure of any of the actual specifics but here’s what I expect to go down at Tuesday’s potentially spirited meeting. During the discussion on Item 9, council member Travis Mitchell, possibly joined by one or more of his council colleagues, will outline discussions held in executive session designed to attract an economic development to Kyle. Either during that discussion, but most likely in the discussion on Item 10, Mitchell, again possibly joined by one or more of his council colleagues who participated in these executive sessions, will allege that Tenorio either (1) failed to disclose her ownership of a business interest that stood to benefit from this economic development and thus failed to recuse herself from the discussions designed to pursue the development or (2) based on the information she gained in these private executive sessions she then purchased ownership of a business interest that would benefit from this economic development.

Then comes Item 11 in which Tenorio apparently plans to speak "about potential, perceived or real conflicts of interests as it relates to all council members."

In other words, she’s going to play her (President) Trump Card. Her message is essentially going to be: "OK, I’m dishonest. I’m a crook. But I thought I could get away with it because all the other council members are just as dishonest and just as crooked as I am." Just like Trump’s blame game, I’m betting that message will play well with her base (in fact anecdotal evidence suggests it already is), but it’s not going to convince anyone else. It won’t persuade the persuadables.

Item 10 on the agenda says "discussion and possible action" regarding whether Tenorio might have committed a felony or simply an ethics violation. The possible actions that could be taken include, I’m guessing, asking the Hays County district attorney’s office to pursue prosecution, turning the matter over to the Texas Rangers for additional investigations, remanding the issue to the city’s Ethics Commission (which contains at least two avowed Tenorio supporters), asking for Tenorio’s resignation, a censure, a reprimand, or taking no action at all. A number of these aforementioned options involve legal proceedings and it’s important to remember that in any legal proceeding there is a presumption of innocence on behalf of the defendant, at least until a final judgment has been rendered.

But there is another court at work here, the Court of Public Opinion, which for someone’s political present and future is just as important as the courts of law. And immediately speaking, the Court of Public Opinion might be even more important in this situation. How Tenorio handles that court will determine her immediate political future.

My advice to council member Tenorio right now would be to bite the bullet and hire a crack crisis communications strategist, one with a record of successes in the world of politics, and then follow that person’s advice on what to say, when to say it, where it should be said, how it should be said, and, equally as important, who should actually be saying it. Lay out a strategic communications course of action. Don’t deviate from it one bit. Don’t go off-script, not for a second.

This is the only way she will have a chance to successfully persuade the persuadables.

City Council offers Sellers 8.5 percent salary increase

The City Council’s proposed three-year contract extension to retain City Manager Scott Sellers offers him an annual salary of $196,503, which is an 8.5 percent increase over his current salary and, according to a comparison table prepared the by City, 69 cents per day more than the average compensation doled out to other city managers in comparable area cities.

In years two and three of the contract, his salary will increase by the same percentage "budgeted for all non-sworn city employees, or sworn employees (whichever is greater)."

In addition to a $9,600 per year car allowance and a $1,200 a year cell phone allowance, "the City agrees to pay the manager’s full contribution to the Texas Municipal Retirement System (this is in lieu of Social Security, which municipal employees are not eligible for), not to exceed 21 percent of manager’s base salary into the system on manager’s behalf, in equal proportionate amounts each pay period, and to transfer ownership to succeeding employers upon manager’s resignation or discharge. In addition, the City will contribute $5,000 each year to the manager’s 457 Plan and such contribution shall be paid in equal installments similar to payroll." The contract also obligates the City to pay 100 percent of the health insurance premiums for Sellers and his qualified dependents, a standard agreement in any contract of this sort. But the contract also stipulates the city "agrees to continue providing these benefits at no cost to the manager and the manager's qualified dependents upon his retirement if manager continues employment with the City as its city manager through at least March 2025 and retires from the City on or after March 2025. The health benefits to the manager and the manager’s qualified dependents will cease upon the manager obtaining other municipal employment with health care or until manager reaches the age of Medicare eligibility."

The total value of Sellers’s proposed contract, which should be a part of the City Council’s Jan. 10 meeting agenda, is $243,515.62. Coincidentally, that package is 1.3 percent more than the total compensation package received by the city manager of Leander, whose population is 1.3 percent smaller than Kyle’s. It might also be noted, however, that Sellers’s total compensation is $19,192.88 less than that received by the city manager in Seguin, which also has a population that’s 11,536 smaller than Kyle’s. But Seguin also has far more city employees than Kyle as the city has its own departments for animal services, a convention and visitors bureau, fire and EMS in-house, a municipally managed golf course and an in-house electric utility department.

You can access the city manager’s proposed contract in its entirety as well as the comparison tables I mentioned above here.

The City Council-P&Z disconnect

I’m not sure the Planning & Zoning Commission gets it. There’s something about handling an assignment from the City Council that simply evades the individual commissioners. Take the Comprehensive Plan, for example. The time had come for a five-year (mid-term) tweak of the plan. The City didn’t want to spend taxpayer funds on the consultant that usually deals with all things involving the Comprehensive Plan so it asked the Planning & Zoning Commission to handle it. The commission took one look at the plan and said, in effect, "Whoa, there! This plan contains a number of items that are just beyond our limited means to handle." So what they did was they drafted a letter (the wording of which will be finalized at P&Z’s May 10 meeting) informing the council of those areas of the Comprehensive Plan a consultant should be hired to address.

I may be way off base here, but I don’t think that letter fulfills the assignment handed the commissioners by the City Council. Neither do I think the Council sought to have the commissioners deal with any part of the plan that was outside their expertise and capabilities. But there was plenty of information in that plan that did fall within those confines, much of that information needs to be changed and the commissioners haven’t done that.

The same thing happened last night, at least to my way of thinking: The Planning & Zoning Commission shirked its responsibility. The City Council has asked the City’s various boards and commissions to vet candidates seeking to serve on the respective boards/commissions. I know that recent council meetings have featured the chair of both the Library and the Parks board appearing before the council with the names of the candidates they had vetted and were recommending as replacements for departing board members. Last night was commissioner Mike Wilson’s last meeting and the names of two possible replacements – Brad Growt and John Atkins — were placed before the commissioners to be considered as Wilson’s successor. However, instead of discussing the merits (or possibly the liabilities) of the two candidates and then voting on which one to recommend, the commissioners, for all practical purposes, just threw up their lands and said "Both are fine with us. Let the City Council decide" and by a 4-2 vote decided not to approve either candidate. Which was exactly what the council was trying to avoid, i.e., the perception that politics interferes with the selection of boards and commission members.

Like I said, I’m just not sure they get it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another oddity from last night’s meeting had to do with the Consent Agenda, which, theoretically, is supposed to contain items that are so routine, so non-controversial, they don’t even need to be discussed. They can simply be passed en-masse with a single motion, a single second and a single vote. Last night’s Planning & Zoning Agenda contained five items and Wilson pulled two of them, which had to do with a proposed residential development on that peninsula nestled in the Plum Creek Golf Course that extends into the pond. (It’s that beige area in the map above). Wilson lives in Plum Creek and after noting that both Fairway, the street that’s closest to the proposed development on the south and Sanders, which borders it on the west, flooded during the Halloween storms and said he was concerned that homes located in this development would be underwater in the case of another 800-year flood event.

However, Tony Spano of Plum Creek Development, tried to assure the commissioners there was no problem here.

"Rest assured Plum Creek is extremely interested in whether or not homes flood," Spano said. "In the past two years we’ve had two major events. One was a 500-year flood and one was an 800-year flood. In both of those situations we didn’t have a single homeowner flood.

"In this particular area, the lowest point of the street itself 762.4, which is three and a half feet above the flood level," Spano said. "And the home itself is two feet above that. So in the worst case condition, the homes in this area will be six feet above flood plain."

Not everyone on the commission was persuaded, however. When it came time to approve the two items involving these homes, they only passed 4-2 (Commissioner Irene Melendez did not attend last night’s meeting). Wilson voted against, but it was impossible to determine where the second nay vote came from. I suspected it was from Commissioner Lori Huey.

It’s not unheard of that items are pulled from a consent agenda. In fact, it happens regularly. But it is somewhat unusual that when those items come to a vote, a third of the voting members are against it.

All three action items on last night’s agenda passed unanimously.

The commissioners approved a conditional use permit for the construction of a veterinarian clinic to be located in the vacant lot pictured above which is one of the last two undeveloped lots in the Goforth Road business park across from Fuentes Elementary School. The clinic will look like all the other buildings in the park, one of which is pictured to the right. For what it’s worth, the clinic will be right across Elmhurst from the local Fox Pizza outlet.

Approved a conditional use permit for the rehabilitation of the building pictured above which is located at 114 S. Front St., next to Pizza Classic. The owners of the 800-square foot structure are hoping to convert it from home, which has been in their family since 1945, into a store where religious artifacts are sold. The commissioners also gave the owners permission to paint the structure purple, although Chairman Mike Rubsam clearly wasn’t overly enthusiastic about that particular color scheme. I have not been inside the building, but a quick look at the place reveals its exterior requires major repair. The owners also said they will make the facility ADA compliant.

Recommended the City Council consider changing the zoning on property on Windy Hill Road where the above-pictured self-storage units are located. The property is currently zoned for agriculture and the owner wants warehouse zoning attached to it. This is another one of those instances in which land was annexed into the city long after the storage units were built. The act of annexation itself does not require the owner of the annexed land make zoning compliant with its use unless changes are planned for it post annexation. Now, however, the owner, Jacob Jisha, said he wants to add 121 more units totaling 14,000 square feet to the property which, he said, is currently "about 30 percent build out."

Developers have pulled truck stop request

Final Update: Tuesday's Kyle City Council agenda has been posted and the truck stop request is not on it.

Second update: I now feel comfortable stating for a fact that PGI Investment, the company seeking to locate a truck stop at Yarrington Road and I-35, has pulled from Tuesday’s City Council agenda its request for a zoning change for those 47.7 acres, a change that would have precipitated the construction of the controversial facility.

I feel comfortable because (1) I saw for myself an item council member Daphne Tenorio posted to the Blanco Vista Neighborhood's Facebook page that said: "I just received an email from the City Manager stating the developer of the truck stop has pulled the item indefinitely," (2) because I also saw a copy of an email from that very same city manager, Scott Sellers, sent to members of the Kyle City Council that said "The applicants for the Warehouse Zoning on I-35/Yarrington (future FM 150) have postponed (emphasis mine) their application indefinitely. This item will be noticed before returning to the City Council for a public hearing.", and (3) because I also received confirmation on the withdrawal from council member Diane Hervol.

Back to original post: I am in the process of reaching out to city officials for confirmation of this, but since I first started hearing these rumors after 5 p.m. today, I’m somewhat leery about receiving a prompt reply.

Earlier Update: According to a source who wishes to remain anonymous, council member Damon Fogley posted on a Facebook page that I don’t have access to: "IH-35/Yarrington Road agenda item for warehouse rezoning (truck stop) has been indefinitely (emphasis mine) postponed by the applicant. It will not be on the City Council agenda for Feb. 2."

Resuming original post: Last Tuesday, in front of an overflow crowd of residents, the overwhelming majority of whom wanted the zoning request denied, the Planning & Zoning Commission voted 5-2 to do just that. It was expected, however, that the City Council would overturn that decision.
 
To be honest, it would not surprise me at all if these rumors are true and PGI has indeed withdrawn its request. Earlier this week, I wrote an article harshly critical of PGI for its abysmal community relations performance in this matter, for not reaching out to surrounding communities to seek a mutually agreeable compromise on this issue. I’m not going to go so far as to say definitely that PGI has decided to do this, but it would make sense. What comes up when I Google PGI Investments, LL.C., is a homebuilder based in Carlsbad, Calif., near San Diego. It doesn’t make sense, to me at least, that this PGI is the same outfit as the truck stop PGI, because I can’t find any history of the Carlsbad PGI getting involved in deals like this. But, if it is indeed the same company, you would think this company with its background would have a certain amount of empathy for homeowners, and thus be more likely to engage in meaningful negotiations with homeowners and other equity holders in the area.

On this same topic, it is worth nothing that San Marcos Mayor Daniel Guerrero crafted a harshly worded, albeit self-serving, letter Tuesday to Kyle Mayor Todd Webster. Guerrero said the City of San Marcos "does not support the proposed change and does not believe a truck stop at that location (on the Kyle-San Marcos border) is the highest and best use for that property. We also do not find it to be conducive to a positive partnership and regional relationship." So its possible, PGI’s actions, if indeed they have taken place, could have been the result of some pressure applied by San Marcos city officials along with the Greater San Marcos Partnership.

I will update this when and if I learn more. As of this writing (5:37 p.m.), an agenda for Tuesday’s Kyle City Council meeting has not been posted.

City Council emasculates Planning & Zoning Commission

Near the end of last Tuesday’s Planning & Zoning Commission, after all the truck stop NIMBYs had cleared the chamber, Planning Director Howard J. Koontz told the commissioners to expect some vacancies on the commission in the very near future and warned that only a few individuals were standing in line to take their places.

I’m not at all surprised. Serving on the Planning & Zoning Commission in Kyle (but not in other cities where I have been involved in city government) is a thankless task. The City Council lacks the courage or the integrity to have any faith in their commission appointees and, as a result, has stripped from the commissioners the authority that would make serving on the committee worthwhile.

I can’t imagine how frustrating members of the Planning & Zoning Commission must be. When the agenda for the upcoming P&Z meeting is posted, usually early Friday evening, I read it very carefully and then on Saturdays and Sundays, armed with my camera and accompanied by my faithful canine companion, I’ll venture out to the properties in question to take a look at the areas myself, even take pictures for later study or possible use on this journal. That’s just me. I can’t begin to imagine all the more work, effort and study the commissioners devote to these same agenda items every single week. And what happens? What is the result of their hard work, effort and study? The City Council will, one week later, overturn the commissioners’ decisions. Really?

This coming council meeting will be a perfect example. Following more than an hour of listening to citizens’ concerns and time spent debating the pros and cons of the issue, not to mention the pre-meeting effort spent reviewing the city’s Comprehensive Plan and other documents, site visits, etc., the commissioners voted 5-2 to deny a proposed zoning change that would have allowed a developer to locate a truck stop in South Kyle. On Tuesday, I’m betting the City Council, on an identical 5-2 vote, approves the zoning request, ignoring the decision of those the council deemed planning experts (If they weren’t, why did the council appoint them in the first place?).

And this won’t be the first time this has happened. It’s routine. Just a couple of weeks ago, the council overturned a P&Z decision that would have allowed the construction of a townhome development in downtown Kyle.

I’m not arguing here which side had the more valid argument in either of these cases. I’m just chagrined at the ease this council has in overturning P&Z decisions and I can understand why no one with any real sense or dedication would want to waste their time and experience the frustration of serving on the Planning & Zoning Commission.

This is an easy fix, however, although I sincerely doubt this City Council has the courage or the integrity to make the fix. But, in an ideal world, Kyle would do what every other city government I have ever worked with does: Change the rules, the ordinances, whatever it is needed, so that it takes four-fifths of the entire council (in Kyle’s case, that would mean six council members) to overturn any decision by its Planning & Zoning Commission, not just a simple majority.

If that change is made, now you have here in Kyle what most other cities have: a Planning & Zoning Commission with real authority to forge a path for the city’s future and you’re far more likely to see a wider and deeper pool of qualified candidates wishing to serve on P&Z. Everybody wins.

However, I’ll bet you my last dollar this City Council lacks both the courage and the integrity to take this necessary step. These folks don’t trust or respect anybody, not even each other, let alone someone serving as one of their appointees on a board or commission.

What a shame! What a disgrace!