tony jeter dot com

Click here to view a PDF of last week’s building permits.

I have been blogging about City stuff for six months now. So how we doing so far?

Let’s see…
The taxpayers dodged a $2.7 million bullet that would have provided no bang for their buck. We’ll call this a win!

I’m sad to say that the taxpayers will see an increase in their solid waste rates while at the same time we will see more trash on the streets for longer periods of time. The vote was 4 to 1. Can you guess who the loser was?  My only consolation is that the trash will only be out on the streets a maximum of 9 days instead of 14+ days. Since it didn’t turn out as bad as it could have we’ll call this a draw.

The conflict of interest issues that caused me to launch this blog are still hanging out there for all to see. All that is needed to put this issue to bed is a Charter Review.

If a truly independent group of citizens serving on a Charter Review committee were to bless the current, and unprecedented, practice of awarding multi-million dollar construction contracts to a sitting Councilman I would be more than happy to turn loose of this albatross. So far I am on the losing end of this stick.

Finally, It would appear that I have, for the moment, lost in my quest to curb the practice of perpetual reappointments of the same people year after year to City boards. I have been adamant since my first day on the Council that we need to continually be appointing new people to these boards. It is ironic when you think about the fact that the handful of folks that want to serve in perpetuity were once newbies themselves.

If you are new to this blog please don’t assume that I only write about the stuff that I don’t like. I have spent considerable time writing about a lot of the great things going on in our community. I think this is important too since our local media’s glass can tend to be half empty a lot of the time.

1 win, 2 losses and a draw. I’m kinda sorta, almost batting 500.  Don’t worry I have 18 months left.

Click here to view a PDF of last week’s building permits.

I received half a dozen phone calls at home last week about various City related issues.  Even though my cell number is posted on the City’s website and on my City business cards people most often prefer to call me at home. Nine out of ten callers leave messages during the day.  My goal is to return most calls within a day or two although it can take a good bit longer when I am out of town.  I generally try to return calls in the evenings after I get my kids to bed.  Interestingly, most people actually apologize for calling me at home and some go as far as to remind me that I have young kids to tend to and not to neglect them for City business.  I think it is entirely appropriate to call an elected person at home. In fact I think it is appropriate to call ‘em whenever and wherever you can find ‘em.  I think that the biggest part of the job is being available to the voters. Now I must admit, I don’t like taking a whipping on the phone but it goes with the territory. Some folks just want to vent for a while, others want to bring something to my attention. Either way, just about every call generally ends on a positive note and that’s a good thing.  For the record, there is no Council policy on posting home phone numbers on the website. Two different callers last week asked me for other Councilmember’s home phone numbers saying that they were not on the website and were unlisted in the phone book. They wanted to know what the policy was on this issue. It is up to each individual Councilmember whether to make their home phone numbers available to the public.  As for me, feel free to call me whenever and wherever you like and I will do my best to get back with you as soon as possible.

One last thing, on occasion messages have been inadvertently misplaced or lost in the Jeter house.  On one occasion our answering machine died taking with it who knows how many calls to the eternal depths of voicemail hell.  If you don’t get a timely call back please don’t assume the worst. Your message could have just fell victim to one of many hurdles in my household three of which are my kids.  Just give me another call and the benefit of the doubt.

Click here to view a PDF of last week’s building permits.

Maybe my take on people dumping trash in their front yard is all wrong. Until today I saw it as a step huge backwards in our approach to building and protecting the image of our community and neighborhoods. I kept thinking about all of the energy that has been expended towards this goal over the last six years.  Things like Keep Temple Beautiful’s efforts, our newly acquired Tree City designation and the formulations of neighborhood enforcement groups and strategic investment zones, recently enacted masonry and fence ordinances… It was just mind boggling to me that we would spend so much time, energy and dollars on these efforts and then make a decision to allow trash to collect on the curb for up to nine days.  But then it hit me - my glass was half empty and it should have been half full. As I was driving down 5th Street (District 3) yesterday I saw the stuff piled up by the curb in the picture below.  The old saying “someone’s trash is another man’s treasure” came to mind.  I thought of the old TV and mattresses from last week’s posts and came to the conclusion that we could really run with this. We could run radio ads encouraging people to visit Temple to check out all our trash.  “Need some furniture, tires, mattresses? Choose Temple!” could be our slogan. This could really drive tourism!  I must admit it was really shortsighted of me to get bent out of shape on this issue and I commend my fellow Councilmembers on having the foresight to tackle this potentially lucrative issue.  From now on my mantra is “the more trash the better!”

The past publicity concerning Council expenses brought about two positive and necessary changes.  First, all expenses now require the approval of two Councilmembers prior to reimbursement.  Second, we review all Council expenses each quarter.

At the last Council workshop we reviewed Council expenses for the 3rd quarter of our fiscal year.  Click here to view the summary as well as supporting documentation.

Detailed building permit information has not been available in the newspaper for some time.  I believe it can be a useful economic indicator for discerning the condition of our local economy.  From now on I will post each week’s permits for your viewing pleasure.

Click here to view the permits for the week of September 1, 2008.

I am pleased to announce that the two piles of garbage were picked up sometime between 4:00 and 6:00 this afternoon. The good thing is that it got picked up.  The bad thing is that it took 7 days to get it picked up. I wonder what the neighbors thought about the mess.  What about the homes that are for sale?   What about the kids that ride their bikes on the sidewalk? For the record, I have no problem with leaving brush out for 7+ days. My problem is leaving trash out for 7+ days.

The picture below was taken Wednesday morning by my lovely wife.  Thank goodness some civic-minded individual reassembled the mattress sculpture. Looking good don’t you think?  Up to nine days is an awful long time to enjoy displays of this type.