Can You See The Light II
Next Tuesday, June 30th, at 10 a.m. there will be a ribbon cutting for the opening of Wendland Road. The road will be open to traffic immediately following the ceremony. You can go to the ceremony and be on the first people to drive over the new road.
The Wendland Road project signifies the completion of the second of three major projects / improvements in our North Industrial Park. Our first project, a $2 million, 21-acre detention pond - one of the largest in our system - was completed this past April.
The second of these projects now coming to completion is the Wendland Road component. The City has added over a mile of new capacity to Wendland road to handle increasing truck traffic associated with the arrival of Toyota, HEB, and Northland Products. The City has also added another mile’s worth of improvements, including a 12″ water line, an 8″ sewer line, a 4″ force main, and a lift station. The cost is approximately $4 million dollars.
The third component of improvements to the North Industrial Park is the Rail component. We are adding over five miles to our existing rail system, bringing better, improved connection from BNSF mainline to all our customers in the park, including Toyota. The estimated completion date is late fall of 2009 with a cost of approximately $9.5 million.
If you add up the dollars spent on these projects it totals $15.5 million. The question here is how much, if any, of this money went to any businesses owned by Council members? This is relevant because there were many discussions and votes that had to take place long before any bids were solicited or contracts awarded. Monies had to be allocated, incentives had to be formulated, studies had to be done, plans had to be drawn, land had to be purchased, etc. It is my belief that Council members with construction or construction related businesses should have abstained from every single discussion and vote since they, in all likelihood, would have the opportunity to bid on the contracts in one way or another.
Tags: City Charter, Conflict of Interest, Construction contracts, Ethics
July 1st, 2009 at 10:18 pm
I am trying to understand this whole ethics issue. The downside I do really see is that it does really help to have people with construction knowledge making decisions or at least contributing to the discussion in a significant way. I can see that it does lead to conflicts of interest. How far removed must the interest by to not be considered a conflict? If I owned property that would be negatively impacted by ugly metal buildings
should I not vote on an ordinance barring such structures. What if I am just representing the interests of people I like or I want to like me? Is there no conflict there?
Would it be a conflict for me if I were on city council to vote for the Wendland Rd. construction and then bid on part of the construction of the Toyota buildings? My vote for the monies would likely lead to a growth in my market.
It seems that we would all be motivated by some interest. At what point is our agenda suspect? What if it has to do with power rather than greed?
It seems that the smaller the city the more this is a problem because the pool of people willing to put forth the time and effort to serve (thank you btw) is smaller and likely limited to people that have flexible schedules and more resources. These are often business owners.
Nevertheless, Temple is not the first city to address such questions, and it seems like looking at cities of similar size and demographics might be a good starting point. I don’t know what sort of effort it would take to conduct a review of the charter, but if it is not onerous, I don’t see how it could hurt to at the very least clear the air.
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Good questions and thoughts. I will post a response to your first point in the morning.
July 5th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Mr. Robinson although I agree with your premise that having “construction” professionals on the council can be beneficial in some instances, it does not dispose of their ethical and moral responsibility to set aside person financial gain from their service by bidding on city contracts. It’s like being pregnant, there is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant. In the same way, there is no such thing as being removed far enough that you pocket tax payer money while serving on the council.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
I post my thoughts on the “local” issue here