tony jeter dot com

In my first post about Why I Don’t Read The Telegram I lamented the fact that it was “not even slightly interesting, relevant or educational to me.” I went on to express my frustration about their lack of coverage on the Council’s on-going conflict of interest discussions. I was taken to the proverbial woodshed by many readers concerning naive expectations concerning the Telegram. One Sunday afternoon at HEB a reader jokingly asked me if I was smoking crack when asking me about the post. At least I think he was joking.

All of this is neither here nor there except for the fact that the Telegram once again is guilty of journalistic negligence. Click here to read the article about the Council’s Miller Park trails project. Did reading it give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside? I bet you wondered if we all hugged after the 3 - 2 vote. The article mistakenly made everything appear so benign and non-controversial.

Now click here to watch a video clip of the actual discussion. Pop some popcorn and kick your shoes off because the video clip is 28 minutes long. A tad long but worth the time.

Now that you’ve seen it do you still think that it was one big love fest? How the Telegram could be so far off the mark is a mystery to me. Could it be that the anything even remotely related to my conflict of interest beef with Councilmember Schneider is being spiked? Hmmm, makes you wonder.

My Dear Boris post proved to be a good stimulus for calls, cards, emails and text messages. I recently received the following comment.

“Your Dear Boris post was both entertaining and informational. How long are you willing to work to accomplish your stated objective?”

Here’s my response

Dear Natasha (an alias)

Now that’s more like it. You got right to the point and buttered me up with a compliment. What self-respecting amateur blogger doesn’t dig all forms of flattery? I need to get you and Boris together so you can rub off on his interpersonal skills!

I have been asked the how long question a whole lot lately. It seems that some folks are betting I will run out of steam before my cause picks up any real traction. I hear there are folks wagering that the Telegram will continue to avoid the story like the plague and that my readership will decline due to fatigue. Others are wondering when my ADD will kick in and pull my focus away to more weighty issues like whether or not I remembered to lock my truck, front door or barge. BTW, who doesn’t forget to lock their truck, front door or barge? But I digress…

While I may not accomplish my stated goal, it won’t be for lack of tenacity. I continue to walk away from Council meetings amazed at the boldness of how close to the line some choose to go. I never get tired of watching bugs fly around mosquito zappers, anticipating the inevitable. This amazement in turn recharges and rekindles my passion for what I believe to be wrong with the status quo. I am as energized now as I was few months ago when I started this crusade. On my way home from the last meeting a quote from Abraham Lincoln came to mind. “I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.” I am leaning really hard towards the “do more” side right now so those wagering against me should be advised and bet at their own risk.

Thanks much for your comments.

P.S. I will be expounding about what stoked my ire in the last Council meeting in next few days.

I am taking a brief blogging sabbatical, thus I won’t be writing any posts for the next week. My company, RVOS Insurance, is hosting our annual Agent Round Up this week and my plate is full preparing for and hosting this event.  Don’t attribute my lack of discourse to anything else other than I am hard at work temporarily increasing our Czech population by about 200 – 300 this week.

Please note my occasional proofreader had to read the following post three times before it made sense to them. I have not decided if this reflects poorly on them or me. You be the judge.

“I read your stuff. It’s pretty good. What do you hope to accomplish?” is a brief excerpt from an email I received earlier in the week. Following is my response.

Dear Boris (name changed to protect the innocent)

Thanks for your comments. I’m glad you read and liked my stuff. I do think I am doing a tad bit better than “pretty good” though. C’mon man this blogging stuff is hard work. It often takes hours to write one post. I would be forever grateful if you would consider changing your description to “provocatively witty” or “sharp and clever.”

In response to your question: “What do I hope to accomplish?” I would say not too much. Really it boils down to one of two things. Either Council-member Schneider resigns from the Council or he quits bidding on construction projects for the City. Think about it for a second. What dirt pusher wouldn’t dig this gig? He gets the skinny on projects coming to town months before his competition. He is one of five people that decide what goes where and how much to spend. And Boris, we’re not just talking roads here. We’re talking detention and drainage projects and rail and road projects. We’re talking lots and lots of dirt being pushed around!

“But the bids are sealed!” you might say. “This is true” would be my response. The rub, Boris, comes before the bids (refer to above paragraph for reference) and after the bids. Let’s say he is the low bidder and he is awarded the project. He must then take off his Councilman’s hat and put on his contractor’s hat. This means he is not really on the Council while he is driving his tractor but he is on the Council the rest of the time. So if he is in City Hall on dirt business he is NOT on the Council but if he is in City Hall on any other business he IS on the Council. Now any self respecting bidness man will always work to lower both their carbon footprint and their gas bill. So what happens when he brings both hats to City Hall? Do you think it might possibly confuse our employees? Say, he has concerns about a project he picked up a bid package for. He wants to talk about the materials specified in the bid. He thinks they are too expensive and he wants them changed to a more cost effective material like concrete. He also expresses concerns about the durability of that “new fangled” stuff. Which hat would he be wearing Boris? I think the situation might could be downright confusing. Which hat was it that influenced the decision to change the specifications from the new fangled stuff to concrete?

Clear as mud? I hope not. Thanks for reading my blog. Please email me again any time.

Last Wednesday, June 4, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced the designation of 24 trails across the country as new National Recreation Trails. Temple’s Lions Park was among the list of honored designees. It is one of only two trails in the state of Texas to be recognized this year.

To become a National Recreation Trail, the Lions Park Trail needed to meet the following criteria:

• Be of state-of-the-art design (variety of users, art, compliments space….etc)
• Agree to open for public use at least 10 years after being designated as an NRT
• Be compliant with applicable environmental and land use plans and laws
• Be maintained and constructed with best management practices for the trail type and use

Parks Planner Kim Mettenbrink was responsible for designing trail improvements to Lions Park.

Click here to read the press release from Interior Department.

Mark Twain once wrote “Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.” Mr. Twain sure had some good thoughts”.

“So why now?” I’ve been asked many times. “Isn’t it a little late to be bringing up this conflict of interest issue? Councilmember Schneider has been on the Council since 2004″ They go on. The construction community and other Schneider advocates are spinning my objections as being personally motivated. They say I am attacking him because I am trying to force him off the Council.

A brief history lesson is necessary to address the conspiracy theorists theories. Councilmember Schneider was elected in on May 15, 2004. The first bid he was awarded while on the Council was on June 25th, 2005. The project was the Cottonwood Lane Extension. The amount of the contract was for $424,742. I voted to award him this contract so needless to say I did not have any heartburn at that point. In retrospect I should have been concerned about his active role in Council discussions concerning this project, and other street projects, but I wasn’t. I didn’t follow the bid tabulations very closely i.e. I did not make it a practice to study the list of losing bids. Had I been checking out this list I would have seen that he was bidding on just about every project that was coming down the pipe. We all know what they say about hindsight being 20/20.

The second bid he was awarded was for a significantly greater amount. On October 25th, 2007 he was awarded the bid for Airport Business Park Improvements for $2,221,642. It was this project that I started to have real issues about this conflict of interest stuff. I was concerned about his active involvement prior to bids being solicited as well as his company being awarded the job. In September 2007 I expressed my concerns to both the City Manager and Councilmember Schneider himself. I was told that the Charter allowed this practice and that I should not be concerned. Regretfully, I fell in line and voted to award RT Schneider Construction the contract.

This brings us to the present. Those of you that have been following Council news and/or reading my blog will know that my discomfort with the whole situation has escalated significantly. I have written many posts on this blog about this topic. My first and last entries will give you a good snapshot of what I think about this issue. So where does that leave us? While I may be a day late I don’t think I’m a dollar short. The bad judgment I showed back in October 07 has helped me to understand that I was actually right back then and I am right now. From this point on I won’t be going along to get along.

It seems cut and dried to me. You shouldn’t discuss or vote on any issue that could potentially benefit your business. I just don’t get how some people don’t see it. It may be legal but it sure ain’t pretty. Case in point: At the last Council meeting we voted on an agenda item involving the intent to issue $14,000,000 in Certificates of Obligation. Click here to see a PDF of the agenda item. Notice the large road and rail projects in the description. Of the $14 million, $10.4 million will go towards those projects. How is it kosher to vote for this item if you are a councilmember with a construction company that will be bidding on these projects. Click here to view the minutes from the meeting on this particular item and you will see that Councilmember Schneider did just that. By seconding the motion and then voting in the affirmative he helped to assure himself of more construction projects to bid on.

So here’s the simple equation:
Tax dollars + more road projects = more opportunity

To be clear, the proposed projects are important — which is why I voted for the item. I just think it’s unfortunate that we are continually functioning in this legal yet gray zone that calls into question the integrity of the Council as a whole.